WASHINGTON -- British-American investor William Browder, whom Russia has accused of financial crimes, said reversing the 2012 Magnitsky Act is President Vladimir Putin’s “single most important foreign policy goal.”
Browder made the comments on July 27 in testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, one of several congressional panels looking into Russia's alleged interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.
The hearing examined a Washington public relations firm called Fusion GPS and whether it may have violated U.S. law regulating individuals who work on behalf of foreign governments.
Fusion has been linked to the compilation of scandalous and uncorroborated reports about President Donald Trump known as the Steele dossier.
It also has been linked to a shady lobbying campaign to undermine the Magnitsky Act, which sanctions Russians for alleged human rights abuses.
Browder had been Russia’s largest portfolio investor until he fled the country in 2005, accused of financial crimes.
His lawyer Sergei Magnitsky helped uncover a massive tax-fraud scheme in Russia but was arrested by authorities and died in a Moscow jail.