The Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative Foundation (HRAGI or HRAGIF) is a Washington, D.C.-based lobby group, nominally focused on restoring American adoption of Russian children. [1] [2] [3] It is being investigated as part of the 2017 Special Counsel investigation. [1] [2] It is reportedly defunct. [4]
The organization was registered in Wilmington, Delaware on February 16, 2016, with two nominal employees. [4] [5] The organization rented the Newseum to screen Andrei Nekrasov's The Magnitsky Act – Behind the Scenes , a film aimed at discrediting Sergei Magnitsky. [6] [7]
The nominal purpose of the HRAGI is “to help restart American adoption of Russian children”, though news organizations have reported that its primary purpose was to serve as a vehicle to lobby against international sanctions on Russia. [1] [5]
The foundation has received over $500,000 in financing, mostly from Russian politician Petr Katsyv who is the father of Denis Katsyv. [1] [8] Other major donors include Russian businessmen Mikhail Ponomarev and Albert Nasibulin, and $100,000 from a German company called Berryle Trading Inc. [1]
The organization was founded by Natalia Veselnitskaya. [9] The HRAGI hired lobbyists, including former Representative Ron Dellums, to lobby against the Magnitsky Act. [1] [10] Dellums denied involvement with the group. [11]
Anatoly Samochornov (Russian : Анатолий Самочорнов), who is a Russian-born professional interpreter, is another lobbyist and is a projectmanager for the US State Department. [3] [12]
Robert Arakelian was the listed as the President, treasurer, secretary, and director of the Foundation. [13] Though Arakelian is listed as the incorporator of the foundation, he told the FBI that Ed Lieberman and BakerHostetler actually oversaw the incorporation on February 18, 2016. [3] [13]
Open Society Foundations (OSF), formerly the Open Society Institute, is a US-based grantmaking network founded by business magnate George Soros. Open Society Foundations financially supports civil society groups around the world, with the stated aim of advancing justice, education, public health and independent media. The group's name was inspired by Karl Popper's 1945 book The Open Society and Its Enemies.
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William Felix Browder is an American-born English financier and political activist. He is the CEO and co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management, the investment advisor to the Hermitage Fund, which at a time was the largest foreign portfolio investor in Russia. The Hermitage Fund was founded in partnership with Republic National Bank, with $25 million in seed capital. The fund, and associated accounts, eventually grew to $4.5 billion of assets under management. In 1997, the Hermitage Fund was the best-performing fund in the world, up by 238%. Browder's primary investment strategy was shareholder rights activism. Browder took on large Russian companies such as Gazprom, Surgutneftegaz, Unified Energy Systems, and Sidanco. In retaliation, on 13 November 2005, Browder was refused entry to Russia, deported to the UK, and declared a threat to Russian national security.
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Sergei Leonidovich Magnitsky was a Russian lawyer and tax advisor responsible for exposing corruption and misconduct by Russian government officials while representing client Hermitage Capital Management. His arrest in 2008 and subsequent death after eleven months in police custody generated international attention and triggered both official and unofficial inquiries into allegations of fraud, theft and human rights violations in Russia. His posthumous trial was the first in the Russian Federation.
The Magnitsky Act, formally known as the Russia and Moldova Jackson–Vanik Repeal and Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012, is a bipartisan bill passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Barack Obama in December 2012, intending to punish Russian officials responsible for the death of Russian tax lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in a Moscow prison in 2009 and also to grant permanent normal trade relations status to Russia.
Jamison Reed Firestone is an American attorney. Firestone graduated from Tulane University in 1988 and Tulane Law School in 1991. In August 1991, shortly before the fall of the Soviet Union, he moved to Moscow, Russia and co-founded the law firm Firestone Duncan. He fled Russia in August 2009 following the arrest of his employee Sergei Magnitsky, who died in prison, after eleven months' incarceration without trial.
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This is a timeline of events related to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections.
Natalia Vladimirovna Veselnitskaya is a Russian lawyer. Her clients include Pyotr Katsyv, an official in the state-owned Russian Railways, and his son Denis Katsyv, whom she defended against a money laundering charge in New York. On 8 January 2019, Veselnitskaya was indicted in the United States with obstruction of justice charges for allegedly having attempted to thwart the Justice Department investigation into the money laundering charges against Katsyv.
A meeting took place at Trump Tower in New York City on June 9, 2016, between three senior members of the 2016 Trump campaign – Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort – four other U.S. citizens, and Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya. The meeting was arranged by publicist and long-time Trump acquaintance Rob Goldstone on behalf of his client, Russian singer-songwriter Emin Agalarov. The meeting was first disclosed to U.S. government officials in April 2017, when Kushner filed a revised version of his security clearance form.
Rinat Rafkatovitch Akhmetshin is a Russian-American lobbyist and a former Soviet counterintelligence officer. Bill Browder alleges that Akhmetshin represents Russian intelligence interests. He came to the American media's attention in July 2017 as a registered lobbyist for an organization run by Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, who, along with him, had a meeting with Donald Trump's election campaign officials in June 2016.
Denis Katsyv is a Ukrainian, Russian and Israeli businessman based in Moscow and owner of Prevezon Holdings Limited. He was linked in a civil forfeiture case to money laundering through real estate investments in the United States, in violation of the Magnitsky Act of 2012; the case was settled in 2017 with the United States Justice Department by Prevezon agreeing to pay $5.9 million.
The Parties agree that the Complaints do not allege that any of the Defendants, Claimants, or Denis Katsyv, Alexander Litvak, or Timofey Krit, is responsible, directly or indirectly, for the arrest, detention, or death of Sergei Magnitsky, or that they have acted as an agent of, on behalf of or in agreement with a person in a matter relating to the arrest, detention, or death of Sergei Magnitsky.
The Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights (RWCHR) is a Canadian non-governmental organization dedicated to pursuing justice through the protection and promotion of human rights. The RWCHR's name and mission is inspired by Raoul Wallenberg's humanitarian legacy.
This is a timeline of events in the first half of 2019 related to investigations into the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies relating to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, both before and after July 2016, until November 8, 2016, the transition, the first and second halves of 2017, the first and second halves of 2018, and followed by the second half of 2019, 2020, and 2021.
This is a timeline of major events in the second half of 2017 related to the investigations into the many suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials and spies relating to the Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. It follows the timeline of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections before and after July 2016 up until election day November 8, the post-election transition, and the first half of 2017. The investigations continued in the first and second halves of 2018, the first and second halves of 2019, 2020, and 2021.
Magnitsky legislation refers to laws providing for governmental sanctions against foreign individuals who have committed human rights abuses or been involved in significant corruption. They originated with the United States which passed the first Magnitsky legislation in 2012, following the torture and death of Sergei Magnitsky in Russia in 2009. Since then, a number of countries have passed similar legislation such as Canada, the United Kingdom and the European Union.
Michael Breen, President & CEO of Human Rights First since 2018, is an American human rights leader, attorney, and military veteran. He has been listed among influential policy experts and advocates in Washington, DC, and interviewed by major media outlets.
Her first step was to set up a fake NGO that would ostensibly promote Russian adoptions, although it quickly became clear that the NGO's sole purpose was to repeal the Magnitsky Act. This NGO was called the Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative Foundation (HRAGI). It was registered as a corporation in Delaware with two employees on February 18, 2016. HRAGI was used to pay Washington lobbyists and other agents for the anti-Magnitsky campaign. (HRAGI now seems to be defunct, with taxes due.)
Veselnitskaya is also the founder of a nonprofit called the Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative Foundation, a nongovernmental organization dedicated to restoring American adoptions of Russian orphans. In June 2016 at the Newseum in Washington, her group helped fund a controversial screening of a film aimed at discrediting Magnitsky.
The foundation was financed by $500,000 in undisclosed donations primarily from rich Russians linked to a high-profile prosecutor as well as a Russian Railways deputy director Petr Katsvy.
Veselnitskaya is the founder of a non-governmental organization called the Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative Foundation.
Veselnitskaya, the lawyer in the meeting, has been deeply involved in the anti-Magnitsky Act effort in the U.S. as part of a group called the Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative Foundation that has lobbied in Congress against the legislation [...] Akhmetshin, who is currently in Europe, said in an email that there was one instance involving Behrends walking with former Democratic Congressman Ron Dellums, who was also part of the lobbying effort, to the office of the ranking Democrat on Rohrabacher's subcommittee.
The group is a six-month-old Delaware corporation called the Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative Foundation, and the new lobbyist is Rinat Akhmetshin, who appears occasionally in lobbying records but is known in foreign policy circles as a key pro-Russian operator. He was seen in House offices this summer accompanied by former Rep. Ron Dellums (D-Calif.), who also registered for the mysterious adoption advocacy group. Dellums, reached by phone, denied involvement with the group.
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: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Robert Arakelian was the listed president of the non-profit, the Human Rights Accountability Global Initiative Foundation. [...] Though his position is redacted in the interview summary, Arakelian was listed on Delaware state records as the president, treasurer, secretary, and director of the foundation. [...] The foundation was officially created in February 2016, according to Delaware state records, and Arakelian is listed as the incorporator. But Arakelian told the FBI he "was not involved in the incorporation" and that it was actually Lieberman and the law firm BakerHostetler who "conducted" it.