U.S. belatedly balks at bid to grill Americans
Trump ‘disagrees’ with Putin request to question 11 citizens
Almost from the day he arrived in Moscow as the U.S. ambassador in 2012, Michael McFaul and his family were subjected to a campaign of surveillance and harassment.
According to McFaul’s book, “From Cold War to Hot Peace,” Russian authorities followed him to his son’s soccer games and outings to McDonald’s. They trailed his children’s bus to school, and sat behind the family at church. They slashed the tires of an embassy staffer’s car and broke into the homes of other employees.
Embassy security officials advised McFaul that there was only one secure room at the embassy that he and his wife should use if they ever quarreled, because everywhere else was monitored by the Russian government.
Now, McFaul is one of 11 U.S. citizens a Russian prosecutor wants to question in connection with an investigation that many U.S. officials say is bogus. The list is believed to include at least two other former diplomats, a congressional staffer, a CIA agent, a staffer for the National Security Council and two special agents at the Department of Homeland Security.
One common denominator among the people on the list is that many were involved with the Magnitsky Act, a 2012 U.S. law that has imposed stiff sanctions against Russia for human rights abuses, or have been harsh critics of human rights abuses in Russia under President Vladimir Putin.
The State Department has called the request for the Americans “absolutely absurd,” and the White House said Thursday that Trump “disagrees” with the the idea after initially declining to rule it out. It is unclear under what authority the U.S. government could compel private citizens to submit to questioning by Russian authorities, since there is no extradition treaty.
But the request, which was raised to some unknown degree when Putin met with President Donald Trump in Finland this week, has provoked outrage among current and former diplomats.
“It’s flabbergasting why the White House did not shut this down immediately,” said Nicholas Burns, a former under secretary of state for political affairs. “The president should have said at the press conference that he would not go along with this.”
The Magnitsky Act has brought sanctions against many officials who are part of Putin’s clique, and the Russian government stopped U.S. adoptions of Russian children after it was signed into law.
For years, the Russian government has criticized and harassed Bill Browder, a wealthy U.S.-born financier who lives overseas. In 2009, his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in prison after alleging a massive fraud involving senior Russian officials. Browder lobbied Congress for the Magnitsky Act, which brought sanctions against many officials close to Putin. Former Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul is one of those Russia sought to question.
The Russian government has accused Browder of being a criminal, and repeatedly placed his name on an Interpol wanted list, putting countries on notice to arrest him when he passes their borders.
McFaul and others on the list have raised concerns that Russia will add their names to the Interpol wanted list as well. But they remain defiant.
“I am very proud to have played a supporting role with Bill Browder in advocating for the Magnitsky legislation, and would do it again, particularly given the appalling human rights situation in Putin’s Russia,” said David Kramer, who as president of Freedom House advocated for the law’s passage. A former assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor, Kramer is among the Americans who have been named on a list compiled by Russia’s state-run media.
Speaking over Skype to the Atlantic Council, Browder said he was “aghast” by White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’ remark that the president was considering the Russian request.
“Most of the people on the list of Americans are people ... trying to protect the United States against Russian malfeasance,” he said, adding that “effectively Trump is considering handing them over to an enemy state.”
The Russians also want to question Jonathan Winer, a former adviser to Secretary of State John Kerry who was active in developing the Magnitsky sanctions.
Winer said that the White House review of the Kremlin interrogation request could undermine basic elements of the American system.
“It raises the question of whether Trump is willing to break with our rule of law system,” he said, adding, “It is a challenge to the fundamental way our system is supposed to work. I have no reason to believe this country will tolerate it.”