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Sergei Magnitsky was a tax lawyer who worked on a case involved theft of companies from citizens and then theft of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax money from the Russian Treasury. How it worked was during a police raid, the corporate origination documents and seals were stolen from a company. These were used to hijack the company to new owners who forged a Billion dollars in fake contracts to shell companies who then sued the hijacked company. The new company was now owned by a convicted murderer and based about 500 miles east of Moscow. The lawyers hired by fraudsters plead guilty to the lawsuits and now had a debt of about a Billion dollars on their books. They used this debt to claim a refund on the taxes they paid. This refund for $230 million, the largest in Russia history was approved in record time, in just one day on Christmas eve. Obviously the police and tax officials were working together on this scam possibly with judges.
Magnitsky was such a sharp tax lawyer, he was actually able to unwind the next of shell companies and found the tiny bank where they deposited the $230 million dollars and he went on to testify against the police and tax officials. For this he was arrested and beaten in jail and died after a year in custody. What he may not have known was that he stumbled upon a major money laundering scheme run by top officials in Putin's government. Money from this scam has been traced by anti-corruption organizations, some of this money was invested in NY real estate. You can read more about the largest money laundering scheme in Eastern Europe in the Russian Laundromat series here
https://www.occrp.org/en/laundromat/about-the-project/
Putin hates the Magnitsky Act because it limits what his people can do, where they can travel and where they can hide their money and it led other to discover the Russian Laundromat and it's not the just the US, many other countries are passing versions of this law. This law was the subject of the meeting with Trump campaign in Trump tower.
However the Global Magntisky Act of 2016 is not about a specific crime, but about human rights abuses worldwide. It was incorporated into National Defense Authorization and sign on Dec 23, 2016.
The Executive Order that you link is to is about enforcing the Global Magnisky Act. The limited National Emergency that I referred to is needed because that is what gives the President the authority to sanction individuals. If you notice that executive order refers back to several laws.
including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.) (NEA), the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act (Public Law 114-328) (the “Act”), section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (8 U.S.C. 1182(f)) (INA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code
The International Emergency Economic Powers Act
authorizes the President to regulate commerce after declaring a national emergency in response to any unusual and extraordinary threat to the United States which has a foreign source.
Why do I say Limited National Emergency? Because of the laws that gives him the authority limits what powers a president invoke
It was due in part to concern that a declaration of "emergency" for one purpose should not invoke every possible executive emergency power, that Congress in 1976 passed the National Emergencies Act.
Since the Global Magnitsky Act only applies to non-American persons, Americans don't have to worry about and since the National Emergencies Act limits what powers a president can invoke, it cannot be used to justify a banana-republic-like illegal power grab.
The US government was quite clear that the executive order of December 2017 was about the implementation of the Global Magnitsky Act which was passed before Trump became President.
Background Briefing on the Rollout of the Global Magnitsky Sanctions December 21, 2017
MODERATOR: All right. Thank you so much, sir. Thank you, everyone. Good morning and thanks for joining us for today’s background call on the rollout of the first iteration of the sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act. .....
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Great. Thank you so much, and thank you very much, everybody, for joining the call this morning. As the [Moderator] had mentioned, today we would like to discuss the Trump administration’s implementation of the 2016 Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which, as many of you know, was passed in December of 2016. We’ve worked very hard over the last year to establish this new program and look forward to discussing it with you today.
Trump doesn't get to pick who is sanctioned. Congress, the State Department and Treasury work together to determine and vet the list.
The language of the AUMF was that it didn't supercede the War Powers Act. Which means it would be in effect.
You cannot utilize the War Powers Act without declaring war. It's a given.
GW Bush used the War on Terror combined with the resistance of Saddam to UN inspectors to the tenets of the ceasefire and claims that Saddam was supporting terrorism to re-engage in Iraq.
Obama also used the War on Terror to justify allegedly targetting ISIS in Syria, then invading. This turned into our involvement in the Syrian Civil War, which was never approved by Congress.
Our troops were required to work with Al Queda terrorists which made no sense as Al Queda was tied to 9-11. There are numerous photos of our troops protesting the arrangment. Every NATO country involved in Syria were partnered with 1 or more terrorist factions.
You are pulling the distraction game with the Global Magnitsky Act. The Executive Order National Emergency wasn't about foreigners. It was about Human Rights abuses involving Human Trafficking and seizing assets involved in that. The Magnitsky reference was to address precedence as the 2016 Congressional global version extended it's use to ANYWHERE in the world, which would include the US. If you reread the Act, it pertains to "Foreign Persons" and "United States Persons". The actions pertaining only to Foreign Persons would only apply to them.
It's actually multi-faceted. Since the EO about 13,000 pedophiles have been arrested, their rings shut down, property and moneirs seized, and numerous children rescued. Most recently in Detroit, Michigan where 123 children were taken from their captors.
Some of the Human Trafficking involved the movement of captive persons in both directions across our boarders; Children brought into the the country by adults falsely claiming to be their parents, and American citizens taken captive bound for the South American slave trade.
Yes, I know we have fought a bunch since 2001. No we have not declared war. I cited the official authority on that, the Congressional Research Service. I have nothing more to say.
You are pulling the distraction game with the Global Magnitsky Act.
No. I am laying out the facts and correcting your misunderstanding.
The Executive Order National Emergency wasn't about foreigners.
The executive order is the about implementing the Global Magntisky Act and that only applies to non US persons. When the EO was issues Treasury sanctioned 13 foreginers along with 39 associated people/entities.
December 21, 2017
New Executive Order Implements Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act,
Provides for Treasury Sanctions Against Malign Actors Worldwide
So now that it's clear that this executive order is about implementing the Global Magnitsky Act, how do I know it only applies to foreigners? It's directly from the law itself. Here's the entire definition of what this Act is
The part of the law giving the Presiden the authority to issue sanction only mentions "foreign person."
AUTHORIZATION OF IMPOSITION OF SANCTIONS.
(a) In General.—The President may impose the sanctions described in subsection (b) with respect to any foreign person....
This law does not apply to US persons. Why? It's because the law is intended for folks outside the reach of American Justice, for US persons, they could just be arrested and tried for their actual crimes in civilian courts and asset forfeiture is already part of the civilian courts if you can show the assets are the results of the crime like seizing a drug dealer's house.
If you reread the Act, it pertains to "Foreign Persons" and "United States Persons". The actions pertaining only to Foreign Persons would only apply to them.
No you may want to reread it. United States Person is mentioned four times. Three times is defining US or foreign persons and here where they detail the blocking all property and interests in property of a foreign person.
BLOCKING OF PROPERTY.—
(A) IN GENERAL.—The blocking, in accordance with the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.), of all transactions in all property and interests in property of a foreign person if such property and interests in property are in the United States, come within the United States, or are or come within the possession or control of a United States person.
The sanction only applies to foreign people and the property can be blocked if
A. The property is in the US. You own a ranch in Montana and an oil company in South Dakota
B. The property comes into the United States: You ship your Piccasso to a bank vault in Miami
C. The property comes into the possession on control of a United States Person. You put your Picassos in the bank vault of an American Bank in the Dominican Republic.
The Executive Order National Emergency wasn't about foreigners. It was about Human Rights abuses involving Human Trafficking and seizing assets involved in that.
It's not about Human Trafficking at all. The Executive Order never mentions this and the Global Magnitsky act doesn't mention this. There was a later executive order about human trafficking and I think folks get them confused.
Here are the crimes mentioned
(1) is responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, or other gross violations of internationally recognized human rights committed against individuals in any foreign country who seek—
(A) to expose illegal activity carried out by government officials; or
(B) to obtain, exercise, defend, or promote internationally recognized human rights and freedoms, such as the freedoms of religion, expression, association, and assembly, and the rights to a fair trial and democratic elections;
(2) acted as an agent of or on behalf of a foreign person in a matter relating to an activity described in paragraph (1);
(3) is a government official, or a senior associate of such an official, that is responsible for, or complicit in, ordering, controlling, or otherwise directing, acts of significant corruption, including the expropriation of private or public assets for personal gain, corruption related to government contracts or the extraction of natural resources, bribery, or the facilitation or transfer of the proceeds of corruption to foreign jurisdictions; or
(4) has materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services in support of, an activity described in paragraph
I actually don't think human trafficking is covered by this. I'm not a lawyer, but based on what I read "gross violations of internationally recognized human rights" has a very specific legal meaning covering in another law that is decades old.
It's actually multi-faceted. Since the EO about 13,000 pedophiles have been arrested, their rings shut down, property and moneirs seized, and numerous children rescued. Most recently in Detroit, Michigan where 123 children were taken from their captors.
I very much doubt your numbers and the case of the 123 is most definitely wrong, but you are wrong on your larger point, not a single one of these cases relied on the executive order. Most of these came from long standing multi agency stings using federal and local law enforcement and laws that have been on the books for years. Many of these operations happen year after year. You need to back up your claim that properties and monies were seized and that that had to do with the executive order.
The 123 children in Detroit was not a case of 123 victims of sex trafficking. It was about 123 missing kids. One kid was homeless and living in an abandoned building.
The boy was discovered in the house during a Sept. 26 missing kids sweep initiated by state police, who identified 301 missing child cases in Wayne County to investigate. Two-officer teams from more than 20 police departments were deployed to find the children, all under age 17, Krebs said.
During the eight-hour operation, police located 107 of the kids on the list. All but four of them were found safe with their parents or guardians, Krebs said.
103 kids were listed as missing, but were not. There probably were missing for a bit, but returned home and the official channels were never notified.
There's possibly three and possibly zero kids involved in sex trafficking.
Police were concerned three of the missing kids had been used by sex traffickers, although Krebs said it's not yet been determined if that's true, and FBI agents continue questioning them.
All the kids who were found were asked whether anyone had tried to traffic them for sex, Krebs said.
"Sometimes kids will run away from home and then they don't tell anyone (they'd been used for sex trafficking)," she said. "So we question each of them individually."
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[–] Are_we__sure ago (edited ago)
Which they did not do
They didn't invoke it, they referred to it while NOT declaring war. See section 2, b, 2
Here's a list of actual declared times of war https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL31133.pdf
No they are two separate laws. The Magnitsky Act of 2012 deals with the case of the dead Russian. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnitsky_Act
Sergei Magnitsky was a tax lawyer who worked on a case involved theft of companies from citizens and then theft of hundreds of millions of dollars in tax money from the Russian Treasury. How it worked was during a police raid, the corporate origination documents and seals were stolen from a company. These were used to hijack the company to new owners who forged a Billion dollars in fake contracts to shell companies who then sued the hijacked company. The new company was now owned by a convicted murderer and based about 500 miles east of Moscow. The lawyers hired by fraudsters plead guilty to the lawsuits and now had a debt of about a Billion dollars on their books. They used this debt to claim a refund on the taxes they paid. This refund for $230 million, the largest in Russia history was approved in record time, in just one day on Christmas eve. Obviously the police and tax officials were working together on this scam possibly with judges.
Magnitsky was such a sharp tax lawyer, he was actually able to unwind the next of shell companies and found the tiny bank where they deposited the $230 million dollars and he went on to testify against the police and tax officials. For this he was arrested and beaten in jail and died after a year in custody. What he may not have known was that he stumbled upon a major money laundering scheme run by top officials in Putin's government. Money from this scam has been traced by anti-corruption organizations, some of this money was invested in NY real estate. You can read more about the largest money laundering scheme in Eastern Europe in the Russian Laundromat series here https://www.occrp.org/en/laundromat/about-the-project/
Putin hates the Magnitsky Act because it limits what his people can do, where they can travel and where they can hide their money and it led other to discover the Russian Laundromat and it's not the just the US, many other countries are passing versions of this law. This law was the subject of the meeting with Trump campaign in Trump tower.
However the Global Magntisky Act of 2016 is not about a specific crime, but about human rights abuses worldwide. It was incorporated into National Defense Authorization and sign on Dec 23, 2016.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/s284/text
The Executive Order that you link is to is about enforcing the Global Magnisky Act. The limited National Emergency that I referred to is needed because that is what gives the President the authority to sanction individuals. If you notice that executive order refers back to several laws.
The International Emergency Economic Powers Act
Why do I say Limited National Emergency? Because of the laws that gives him the authority limits what powers a president invoke
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Emergency_Economic_Powers_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Emergencies_Act
Since the Global Magnitsky Act only applies to non-American persons, Americans don't have to worry about and since the National Emergencies Act limits what powers a president can invoke, it cannot be used to justify a banana-republic-like illegal power grab.
The US government was quite clear that the executive order of December 2017 was about the implementation of the Global Magnitsky Act which was passed before Trump became President.
https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2017/12/276734.htm
https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm0243
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL ONE: Great. Thank you so much, and thank you very much, everybody, for joining the call this morning. As the [Moderator] had mentioned, today we would like to discuss the Trump administration’s implementation of the 2016 Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, which, as many of you know, was passed in December of 2016. We’ve worked very hard over the last year to establish this new program and look forward to discussing it with you today.
Trump doesn't get to pick who is sanctioned. Congress, the State Department and Treasury work together to determine and vet the list.
[–] Rocky_Bindhamer ago (edited ago)
The language of the AUMF was that it didn't supercede the War Powers Act. Which means it would be in effect.
You cannot utilize the War Powers Act without declaring war. It's a given.
GW Bush used the War on Terror combined with the resistance of Saddam to UN inspectors to the tenets of the ceasefire and claims that Saddam was supporting terrorism to re-engage in Iraq.
Obama also used the War on Terror to justify allegedly targetting ISIS in Syria, then invading. This turned into our involvement in the Syrian Civil War, which was never approved by Congress.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_the_Use_of_Military_Force_Against_the_Government_of_Syria_to_Respond_to_Use_of_Chemical_Weapons
Our troops were required to work with Al Queda terrorists which made no sense as Al Queda was tied to 9-11. There are numerous photos of our troops protesting the arrangment. Every NATO country involved in Syria were partnered with 1 or more terrorist factions.
When the War on Terror was declared, there was some opposition to it (Barbara Lee https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_Against_Terrorists) as it was too inspecific and could be used for actions virtually anywhere.
You are pulling the distraction game with the Global Magnitsky Act. The Executive Order National Emergency wasn't about foreigners. It was about Human Rights abuses involving Human Trafficking and seizing assets involved in that. The Magnitsky reference was to address precedence as the 2016 Congressional global version extended it's use to ANYWHERE in the world, which would include the US. If you reread the Act, it pertains to "Foreign Persons" and "United States Persons". The actions pertaining only to Foreign Persons would only apply to them.
It's actually multi-faceted. Since the EO about 13,000 pedophiles have been arrested, their rings shut down, property and moneirs seized, and numerous children rescued. Most recently in Detroit, Michigan where 123 children were taken from their captors.
Some of the Human Trafficking involved the movement of captive persons in both directions across our boarders; Children brought into the the country by adults falsely claiming to be their parents, and American citizens taken captive bound for the South American slave trade.
[–] Are_we__sure ago
Yes, I know we have fought a bunch since 2001. No we have not declared war. I cited the official authority on that, the Congressional Research Service. I have nothing more to say.
No. I am laying out the facts and correcting your misunderstanding.
The executive order is the about implementing the Global Magntisky Act and that only applies to non US persons. When the EO was issues Treasury sanctioned 13 foreginers along with 39 associated people/entities.
How do I know the executive order is about implementing the Global Magnitsky act? Because the Trump admistration told us several times. The web page on the Treasury site is called "Issuance of Global Magnitsky Executive Order" https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/OFAC-Enforcement/Pages/20171221.aspx
It's the first thing after the date in the Press Release. https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm0243
It's the Title of the FAQ
And mentioned in the first answer
So now that it's clear that this executive order is about implementing the Global Magnitsky Act, how do I know it only applies to foreigners? It's directly from the law itself. Here's the entire definition of what this Act is
The part of the law giving the Presiden the authority to issue sanction only mentions "foreign person."
This law does not apply to US persons. Why? It's because the law is intended for folks outside the reach of American Justice, for US persons, they could just be arrested and tried for their actual crimes in civilian courts and asset forfeiture is already part of the civilian courts if you can show the assets are the results of the crime like seizing a drug dealer's house.
No you may want to reread it. United States Person is mentioned four times. Three times is defining US or foreign persons and here where they detail the blocking all property and interests in property of a foreign person.
(A) IN GENERAL.—The blocking, in accordance with the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.), of all transactions in all property and interests in property of a foreign person if such property and interests in property are in the United States, come within the United States, or are or come within the possession or control of a United States person.
The sanction only applies to foreign people and the property can be blocked if
A. The property is in the US. You own a ranch in Montana and an oil company in South Dakota B. The property comes into the United States: You ship your Piccasso to a bank vault in Miami C. The property comes into the possession on control of a United States Person. You put your Picassos in the bank vault of an American Bank in the Dominican Republic.
It's not about Human Trafficking at all. The Executive Order never mentions this and the Global Magnitsky act doesn't mention this. There was a later executive order about human trafficking and I think folks get them confused.
Here are the crimes mentioned
Human trafficking is never mentioned. Here's the list of the original 52 people/entities sanctioned. None are sanctioned for human trafficking. https://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/OFAC-Enforcement/Pages/20171221.aspx
One person is sanctioned for Organ trafficking.
I actually don't think human trafficking is covered by this. I'm not a lawyer, but based on what I read "gross violations of internationally recognized human rights" has a very specific legal meaning covering in another law that is decades old.
I very much doubt your numbers and the case of the 123 is most definitely wrong, but you are wrong on your larger point, not a single one of these cases relied on the executive order. Most of these came from long standing multi agency stings using federal and local law enforcement and laws that have been on the books for years. Many of these operations happen year after year. You need to back up your claim that properties and monies were seized and that that had to do with the executive order.
The 123 children in Detroit was not a case of 123 victims of sex trafficking. It was about 123 missing kids. One kid was homeless and living in an abandoned building.
103 kids were listed as missing, but were not. There probably were missing for a bit, but returned home and the official channels were never notified.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/wayne-county/2018/10/09/boy-found-squatting-abandoned-detroit-house/1584201002/
There's possibly three and possibly zero kids involved in sex trafficking.