Bill Browder

Bill Browder is the force behind the Magnitsky Act and author of Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice. He was mentioned by name by Russian President Vladimir Putin in the July 2018 press conference with Donald Trump in Helsinki.

From his Q&A with Slate's Jacob Weisberg:

Jacob Weisberg: The press conference was an extraordinary spectacle. There was a piece Masha Gessen has up in the New Yorker describing it, and she was comparing Putin and Trump and their styles as liars. Putin lies in this “dull, bureaucratic tone,” the sort of boring, authoritative way, which is very different from the way Trump lies, which is like this paranoid, hysterical tone. Weirdly, when you put those two things side by side, Putin is the one who looks more dignified.

Bill Browder: I wouldn’t call Putin a credible liar because once you’ve lied a certain number of times, then everybody assumes you’re lying. But it’s to the extent that you don’t know. It all sounds, as you say, very boring and credible, because why would he say anything otherwise? The only way that you know Putin is such an incredible, bald-faced liar is by looking at his history. For example, he lied about the Russian troops in Crimea when everybody saw these troops.

He lied about the Russian missile shooting down MH17 when you have Russian troops talking on the radio about, “Oops. We shot down a passenger plane.” He lied about the doping in the Olympics when the evidence was incontrovertible. He lies about everything. So basically, no matter what his style of lying is, he’s a bald-faced liar, and...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue