Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath

by Bill Browder

During the gala dinner on the last night of the G20 Summit in Germany, Trump abandoned his assigned seat next to the wife of the Japanese prime minister to join his own wife, Melania, who happened to be seated next to Vladimir Putin. Trump, accompanied by no staff or translators, spoke to Putin for about an hour. When the Times asked what they discussed, Trump said, “Actually, it was very interesting, we talked about adoption.” Trump Jr. would make the exact same claim about his meeting with Veselnitskaya the next day. None of this was coincidental. At the end of July, it was reported that President Trump had dictated Trump Jr.’s initial statement to the press as the president flew home from Germany on Air Force One. Most people barely noticed this admission, but it was extraordinary. President Trump and his son both knew that “adoption” was an innocuous-sounding code for the Magnitsky Act, and now both men were trying very hard to make the Trump Tower meeting sound a lot less sinister than it had been. My upcoming testimony at the Senate Judiciary Committee would be my opportunity to tie everything together. It would show that the Magnitsky Act was not only the driving force behind Putin’s official policy toward the West, but was also behind his audacious intervention in the US political process. It truly would be the chance of a lifetime.