| Note: we don't usually link to blog posts. In this case Publius Pundit has pulled together links to sources on an important issue flying under the radar: a quiet coup by Putin in which elected officials and lawyers are being removed from office and in some cases removed period. Click on the link for Publius' full article and follow his links for the details. Chilling and important stuff. |
On June 8th, Andrei Smirnov of the Jamestown Foundation reported that " Russia continues to be rocked by purges of the Federation Council, the upper house of the Russian parliament, where deputies (often called "senators") represent regional governments. On May 14, Sergei Mironov, speaker of the Federation Council, dismissed four members of the Council." Mironov is a Kremlin sycophant, who has called for altering the Russian Constitution to allow "President" Putin to remain in power. Two weeks later, a fifth senator was history. Smirnov writes: "On June 2, Senator Levon Chakhmakhchyan was arrested by officers of the Federal Security Service (FSB) on charges of bribery. Chakhmakhchyan represents Kalmykia, a region in southern Russia is and vice-president of the Association for Russian-Armenian Business Cooperation."
On July 19th, attorney Robert Amsterdam reported:
Today's news that the highly regarded lawyer Boris Kuznetsov is fleeing Russia after an absurdly baseless order for his arrest under the allegation of "revealing state secrets" represents yet another outrageous example of the state's abuse of the legal system ...