An Israeli journalist indicated Pavel Borodin was of interest.
Yeltsin's bagman was jailed in New York, extradited to Switzerland, bailed by Putin.
Borodin didn't make it to George W. Bush's innaugural, but was arrested en route.
After an administration which gave Russia the run of the State Department to plant bugs and steal dispatches off Madeliene Albright's very desk.
After an administration wherein the Vice President was cheek by jowl with Chernomyrdin, certified corrupt by the CIA.
After an administration whose Deputy Secretary of State for Russia (Strobe Talbott) foresaw the end of the nation-state.
We have Borodin paid by a bank with a branch in Safra's building, a bank the Israeli said did for Republic what it was too fastidious to do for itself.
What would such a bank do?
Borodin was too valuable to Putin to leave languishing.
Now Borodin rides the crest of Russia's Eurasian movement:
From Russia Reform Monitor No. 997:
EURASIANISM GETS A NEW LEASE ON LIFE. The leadership of the new "Eurasian Party-Union of Patriots of Russia," which was registered by the Russian Justice Ministry on December 15th, has held an expanded meeting, Rossiiskaya Gazeta reports. According to the newspaper, representatives from more than 70 Russian regions "declared their allegiance to the ideology of Eurasianness." Pavel Borodin, head of the party's Oversight Council, said "Eurasianness" was "a rare case for our country, being founded not on confrontation, negation, or intolerance, but on the unification of people of different nationalities, different social circumstances, and different wealth and religious belief." State Duma Deputy Abdul-Vakhed Niyazov, who chairs the party's Political Council, described its political orientation as "center-left" party and said it would have to form alliances with like-minded groups in order to win representation in the Duma.
[Editor's Note: Both of the main players in the new "Eurasia" party have significant political histories. Niyazov is the leader of the Muslim movement Refakh and former head of the Union of Muslims of Russia. Pavel Borodin, a close associate of former President Boris Yeltsin, headed the scandal-ridden Kremlin property department and spent nearly three months in a New York jail in early 2001 after being detained on a Swiss arrest warrant charging him with money laundering.]
Monaco police questioned two men of Middle Eastern descent in the parking garage under Safra's penthouse--and Borodin's cash cow Banco del Gottardo--but released them.
Then there is the Harvard econ faculty, fingered by Anne Williamson as co-beneficiaries of the Russian laundering of IMF loans along with the Clintons, Rubin, Summers, and a half dozen Russian reformers.
Now we have Harvard in the news, but its Econ faculty is not bringing glory but criminal charges:
Again, Russia Reform Monitor No. 997:
December 18:
U.S. MOVES AGAINST PARTIES IN HARVARD SCANDAL. The U.S. government says that two former employees of the now-defunct Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID) who allegedly engaged in insider trading while working on U.S. Agency for International Development-funded projects in Russia damaged U.S.-Russian relations and undermined Russia's transition to capitalism. The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking $102 million in damages from Harvard University for alleged conflict of interest violations committed by Harvard economics professor Andrei Shleifer and his former deputy, Jonathan Hay, between 1994 and 1997. According to the Associated Press, Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Bloom wrote in a court filing that while Shleifer and Hay were supposed "to teach the establishment of the rule of law and fair and open markets" in Russia, their "disregard for ethics" taught "the exact opposite" lesson.
What a world: Borodin receives kickbacks in an illegal money laundering scheme yet has a powerful patron to bail him from Swiss jail for the substantial sum of three million--no doubt three million which came from U.S. taxpayers via IMF loans never repaid.
While an innocent American veteran remains in the most appalling conditions of sleep-deprivation, held incommunicado into a fourth year, as Washington dwells on birthday gaffes.
Bump for Ted Maher to be freely and graciously returned in health and safety to his loving family and country.
......In Jesus' Precious Name, Amen.