Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Justice for Sergei Magnitsky Act of 2010. As Chairman of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, I first learned about Sergei Magnitsky at a hearing I held on Russia in June 2009. Sergei Magnitsky was a young Russian anti-corruption lawyer employed by a prominent American law firm in Moscow who blew the whistle on the largest known tax rebate fraud in Russian history perpetrated by high level Russian officials. After discovering this complex and brazen corruption scheme, Sergei Magnitsky dutifully testified to the authorities detailing the conspiracy to defraud the Russian people of approximately $230 million and naming the names of those officials. Shortly after his testimony, Sergei was arrested by subordinates of the very law enforcement officers he had implicated in this crime. He was held in detention for nearly a year without trial under torturous conditions and died in an isolation cell while prison doctors waited outside his door on November 16, 2009. In April of this year I sent a letter to our Secretary of State urging a visa ban for Russian officials connected to the death of Sergei Magnitsky. I also released a list of 60 senior officials from the Russian Interior Ministry, Federal Security Service, Federal Tax Service, Regional Courts, General Prosecutor's Office, and Federal Prison Service, along with detailed descriptions of their involvement in this matter.…”