Posted on 01/26/2016 4:49:36 AM PST by elhombrelibre
U.S. Treasury official said the United States considers Russian President Vladimir Putin to be corrupt and that it has known this for "many, many years," the BBC reported on Monday.
Adam Szubin, acting Treasury secretary for terrorism and financial crimes, said in an interview with BBC Panorama that the Russian president has been amassing secret wealth.
"We've seen him enriching his friends, his close allies and marginalizing those who he doesn't view as friends using state assets. Whether that's Russia's energy wealth, whether it's other state contracts, he directs those to whom he believes will serve him and excludes those who don't. To me, that is a picture of corruption," Szubin was quoted as saying.
The BBC report said Szubin declined to comment on a 2007 Central Intelligence Agency report that estimated Putin's wealth at $40 billion, but he said the Russian leader's stated wealth is an underestimation.
"He supposedly draws a state salary of something like $110,000 a year," Szubin said. "That is not an accurate statement of the man's wealth, and he has longtime training and practices in terms of how to mask his actual wealth."
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Can’t sneak anything past those Treasury officials!
I’m a lot more concerned about domestic corruption.
I understand. However, the effects of corruption in Russia do harm to the rest of the world, too. Had Russia stayed on a normal path with real Democracy and not gone off the deep end with Russian chauvinism, militarism, and an authoritarian crank at the helm, the threats to NATO would not exist. The threats to NATO are going to drive up defense spending. Why is Putin corrupt? He’s corrupt because he must be to stay in power. If he were to lose power, he’d end up like Mussolini or Milosevic, and he may still suffer their fate or sentenced to prison for murder. In the meantime, he’s a dangerous loon threatening peaceful European nations and waging and undeclared war against a peaceful neighbor in Ukraine.
All mafia leaders are corrupt. He even orders ‘hits’ on his rivals.
Pot, kettle, black.
tell me how honest, free of corruption and above board our IRS is?? Oh my! The silence is deafening.
At best you’re saying that two wrongs make it okay or right. I never understand that type of Putin apologia. Why don’t you just say you admire a leader who steals from his own people?
Putin’s a piker compared to Obama
I am in agreement with the writer. What I am saying is that our hands are not clean either.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-aB2GihE1k
Given how corrupt obama and everyone around him is, I'm guessing we're going to need a logarithmic scale to have any kind of meaningful comparison.
“Exactly. Someone in the obama administration calling other politicians corrupt? Wow... So tell me Mr. Szubin, on a scale of zero to obama, just how corrupt is Mr. Putin? “
I’d love to see Putin drop some of the deleted contents of Hillary’s email server on Snowden as a warning shot.
When you sell your bonds to your own central bank in exchange for fiat currency backed by nothing and call it “money” are you corrupting the money supply?
“Treasury official calls Russia’s Putin corrupt: BBC”
At least he didn’t call him a poopy head. We don’t need another war.
You did us a service by posting this documentary that Trump tried to ban.
He’s the Republican version of Clinton, greasing palms, glad handing, ingratiating, bullshitting, spinning lies to do anything for The Art of The Deal.
If he gets in as president, to “Make things terrific”, you can guarantee that he’ll never level with the American people on any matters make him look bad, just as was the case of his lying his ass off to authorities and the press during the 1980’s & 90’s.
Trump is a dishonest attention whore.
The documentary Trump banned
This is the ugly side of US corruption and explains a lot of the admirations of late.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-aB2GihE1k
Kleptocracy, that’s what it is called.
The thing is, Russia has an aging infrastructure but it is a sort of a hierarchy, the rich get richer, those below, get stuck in the cold.
Putin is worth $70 billion, not bad for a KGB agent, he made billions off of the Olympics, Russia is corrupt like Mexico and oppressive like North Korea.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-aB2GihE1k
And here is another one. In his own words, we see he is in no way one of us. He's got a great endorsement of Hillary, though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qu8VippicnA
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