Bill Browder

“Russia is really a sort of a nonentity when it comes to - the economy is the size of the state of New York. Their military budget is 5 percent of the U.S. military budget. We shouldn't even be thinking about Russia other than the fact that they're sort of putting their nose into every bit of terrible activity all over the world.”

“Russia is an interesting place because they're extremely evil but they're not that good at implementing their evil.”

“If you put tariffs in place, it creates inflation. If you put inflation in place, you have to raise interest rates. You raise interest rates, and stock markets shouldn't be so high.”

“The story started over a decade ago when I ran Hermitage Capital Management, the largest investment firm in Russia. I was very successful, but when I started to complain publicly about corruption at the companies in which my fund invested, President Vladimir Putin had me expelled from the country and declared a threat to national security.”

“I know many businesspeople in Russia who have knowingly signed up to effectively compromise their values for their own profit motive to become part of this criminal apparatus in Russia.”

“And most worryingly, it wouldn't surprise me if Putin ends up starting a major military conflict with the West at some point in the future to save his own skin as head of state in Russia.”

“The one report I will believe will be the report of Robert Mueller. He's a totally impartial law enforcement investigator who will come to the truth, whether it was collusion or it wasn't collusion. But when a partisan group puts together a report, it doesn't really hold much credibility for me.”

“My grandfather was an American Communist, and he married my grandmother, who was a Russian Communist. During the 1950s, the McCarthy era, my family was viciously persecuted.”

“A Global Magnitsky Bill, which broadens the scope of the US Magnitsky Act to human rights abusers around the world was passed in December 2016. Estonia adopted Magnitsky legislation in December 2016, and the UK followed in April 2017. These are great successes, but my fight for justice continues.”

“While most people in the world probably haven't heard my name, Vladimir Putin thinks about my name on a very regular basis. He really dislikes me because I'm the guy responsible for the Magnitsky Act.”

“If you want to go after Putin, go after his money and if you want to go after his money go after the oligarchs.”

“Our top targets are the people who tortured and killed Sergei Magnitsky. But our secondary targets are those people who profited from the crime that he was killed over or facilitated the money laundering for those people.”

“One thing I can tell you: with the threat of death hanging over you, you live life to the fullest.”

“Well, what I can say about Denmark... Every law firm in town has some business with Danske Bank.”

“Ever since Barack Obama had become president, the main policy of the U.S. government toward Russia had been one of appeasement.”

“Russia has a well-known reputation for corruption; unfortunately, I discovered that it was far worse than many had thought. While working in Moscow I learned that Russian oligarchs stole from shareholders, which included the fund I advised.”

“I've never made a political donation to Hillary Clinton or any other political candidate.”

“The Russian government doesn't like me; Vladimir Putin doesn't like me.”

“I work with so many levels of British law enforcement, I never know who is working for whom.”

“Sergei Magnitsky was an incredibly intelligent, principled and idealistic man who was this sort of positive face of the new Russia. He was in jail, really, as my proxy, and so it was impossible for me to sleep. I felt guilty taking a shower because I knew he couldn't.”