In today’s Times main section.<\/p>\n
Especially since I have endless admiration for Aleksei Navalny,<\/a> the leader of anti-Putin protests, I tend to notice pieces like this, written by Andrew Higgins.<\/a><\/p>\n I knew Navalny had been arrested and imprisoned, and then taken to a hospital for what his physician said was probably poisoning — Putin’s fave way of silencing opposition when the opposition won’t shut up.<\/p>\n Then I blinked as I read the first couple of paragraphs. So you can blink, too, here they are:<\/p>\n MOSCOW \u2014 As thousands of riot police flooded central Moscow on Saturday to curb protests calling for fair elections, the Russian authorities announced they had opened a criminal money-laundering investigation against an anticorruption organization led by Russia\u2019s most prominent opposition activist.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The case against Aleksei A. Navalny\u2019s organization, the Anti-Corruption Foundation, was opened by the Investigative Committee, Russia\u2019s version of the F.B.I.<\/strong>, the state news agency Tass reported. It involved funding for the anticorruption group\u2019s work of 1 billion rubles (around $15 million) in \u201cmoney obtained by criminal means.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n The money-laundering case is a sharp escalation in the Kremlin\u2019s drive to silence Mr. Navalny, the driving force behind a surge of public dissent in recent weeks, and to snuff out opposition to President Vladimir V. Putin, whose popularity has slumped as Russia\u2019s economy continues to stagnate.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n What does this remind you of? Are you thinking about William Barr, his Department of Justice, and his investigations of the investigators whose work contributed hugely to the Mueller Report?<\/a><\/p>\n Yeah. That’s what I’m thinking, too. Trump’s “justice department” is utilizing Putin’s thuggish methods and pathology against his<\/em> opponents.<\/p>\n Did Putin send Trump the Kremlin’s SOP? It certainly reads like it. “If you’re lawless and stealing a shitload of money from your country’s coffers, accuse the people who are exposing what you’re doing of doing what you’re<\/em> doing, and persecute ’em.”<\/p>\n So many people in Trump’s corrupt, crooked kleptocracy to investigate, to charge, to impeach.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In today’s Times main section. Especially since I have endless admiration for Aleksei Navalny, the leader of anti-Putin protests, I tend to notice pieces like this, written by Andrew Higgins. I knew Navalny had been arrested and imprisoned, and then … Continue reading