Russian thrown out window before he could testify for Putin’s nemesis; Donald Trump connected

| 6:20 pm EDT March 21, 2017
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Russian attorney Nikolai Gorokhov was thrown out of the window of his fourth floor apartment in Moscow today, just before he was set to testify on behalf of Vladimir Putin’s longtime foe Sergei Magnitsky tomorrow. Magnitsky was murdered eight years ago but Putin has him posthumously on trial anyway, in an apparent attempt at sabotaging the “Magnitsky Act” which was named after him. And as it turns out, the Magnitsky Act has direct ties to Mar-a-Lago and Donald Trump.

Nikolai Gorokhov has somehow survived his steep fall today, and is currently in intensive care. As we reported an hour ago, Gorokhov was a key witness in the New York based investigation into Russian financial crimes led by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who was summarily fired by Donald Trump just days ago. But the Kremlin’s primary motivation for wanting Gorokhov dead may be more directly tied to the Magnitsky Act.

Sergei Magnitsky’s murder in 2009 led to the passing of the Magnitsky Act in the United States in 2012, which placed automatic sanctions on any Russian officials who killed any Russian citizen for political reasons. Those sanctions have gone on to cost Vladimir Putin and his allies as much as $80 billion per year (source: Defend Democracy). If Donald Trump gets the Magnitsky Act repealed, the Kremlin will be able to cash in immediately. As such, the current posthumous criminal trial against Magnitsky appears to be an attempt at smearing his legacy and laying the groundwork for making the Magnitsky Act more easily repealed by Trump. But Trump has a much more direct personal connection to the Magnitsky Act.

Russia hired former Ronald Reagan aide Ken Duberstein to lobby against the passing of the Magnitsky Act in the United States (source: government filing). And it turns out Duberstein is a longtime member of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in West Palm Beach (NY Times). So even as the Kremlin has apparently thrown Nikolai Gorokhov out of a window today to prevent him from testifying in defense of Sergei Magnitsky, in a trial whose purpose is to give Trump cover for repealing the Magnitsky Act, the Kremlin’s original lobbyist against the act already has close personal to ties to Trump. Contribute to Palmer Report