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 ...
Pot calling kettle black.
Yeah, right, Putin is worth 7 or 8 times what Donald Trump is.
I’m with you. For years we made a big deal of corruption in other countries and pretended it didn’t exist here, never bothering to wonder how someone who made $130,000 to $174,000 could become a multi-millionaire after a relatively short time in Congress. Shrewd investing, I’m sure...
Regarding my post above, here’s one example: http://news.muckety.com/2014/03/06/the-lucrative-post-election-career-of-dick-gephardt/46151
Big pot talks about little kettle.
And U.S. politicians are not corrupt? And what about their propaganda machine—the mainstream news media; does anybody thing that’s not corrupt?
Beast, scale must also be counted! Putin’s mafia state is on thousand times the scale that the very real problems you see in your neighborhood. Doesn’t mean everything else is fine, but a bullet to your head is not the same as dust to your eye, even though both are unpleasant.
I don’t think the corruption of one cancels out the corruption of the other. I remember well the Liberals who used to tell us that we - the USA - were no better than the USSR. They drew moral equivalencies when there were none. Now, in the age when a phony conservative like Trump can claim with cant and claptrap that he’s one of us - we have “conservatives” that see the USA as no better than Putin’s Russia. It’s too bad that you’re unable to appreciate what is great about our country. We will overcome our problems, but it won’t be because we succumb to the despair of believing the USA is just as corrupt as Russia.
Your comment, even as a metaphor, makes no sense.
..Putin is amazing great wealth?.
..enriching his friends?.....
never heard of that....NOT!
at least Putin stands up for his country....at least he's not inviting armed animal muzzies to come in and kill his fellow Russians...
Putin’s a pedophile scumbag.
Russia’s a toilet, 500,000 Russians have split to China. That shows how bad it is.
What a revelation. Is this guy going to discover steam next?
The vast majority of U.S. politicians, "news reporters", university professors, and those who support them are dishonest and corrupt. To make this observation does not disparage the greatness of America, to the contrary, but it does identify something that is terribly wrong and must be corrected and not allowed to get worse.
It is the American people themselves who are responsible for this corruption. It is their fault for tolerating it; they have tolerated it too long; and they must reject and remedy it now.
Not to call attention to it will do no good.
To call attention to it provides a pathway for remedial action.
I'm sure you agree.
To observe that U.S. politicians are as corrupt as those of other nations underscores the problem. Some U.S. politicians are extremely and dangerously corrupt. The American people must be aware of this and of its threat.
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