Corruption: In the most direct charge ever from the U.S., a Treasury official accused Russia's President Vladimir Putin of corruption. It was an unusual display of courage from an unexpected corner of the federal bureaucracy. And it hits Russia's autocrat where it hurts.
As director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control, Treasury Undersecretary Adam Szubin is the scourge of the world's corrupt kleptocrats seeking to hide their assets in the U.S. It was his office that placed Venezuela's corrupt, drug-dealing Cabinet officials under sanctions, even as the White House was making nice with its ally, Cuba's Castro. Szubin was also the first to warn last September that Iran would likely continue to finance terrorism, even if sanctions were dropped. And Szubin's office just two weeks ago initiated tough new regulations to keep kleptocrats from laundering money in Manhattan and Miami real estate.
But until now, Putin has remained untouched by the White House, even though it leveled sanctions against mid-level Kremlin officials and the banks they control as a result of Russia's military actions in Ukraine.
"We've seen (Putin) enriching his friends, his close allies, and marginalizing those who he doesn't view as friends, using state assets," Szubin told BBC. "To me, that is a picture of corruption."
The fact is, Putin has enriched his own in a way that tops even the thieves who looted Russia and left it a hollow husk of financial rubble the late 1990s. It's repeatedly documented in books such as Steven Lee Myers' "The New Tsar," it's on Russian blogs, and it's in official reports.
Unlike the Chechen gangsters and oligarchs who robbed the country blind in the late 1990s, Putin has had little interference from a free press, independent businesses or a political opposition, as Garry Kasparov noted in his 2015 book, "Winter Is Coming." Politician Boris Nemtsov -- who revealed how Putin's family and business associates enriched themselves to the tune of billions of dollars -- was shot dead, contract-style, in broad daylight at the center of the Kremlin last February. Blogger and Putin critic Alexey Navalny is subject to nonstop state harassment and house arrest. Just weeks ago, his brother was thrown into the Gulag on trumped up charges. Another campaigner for rule of law, Hermitage Capital's Bill Browder, was chased out of the country in 2005 and tweeted Monday that the Putin regime has threatened to kill him.
Treasury estimates Putin's personal fortune at $40 billion. Browder estimates Putin's personal fortune at about $200 billion. Just a few weeks ago, Reuters exposed how Putin's daughter Yekaterina, 29, was married to a Putin crony who -- surprise! -- became a billionaire.
Szubin's charges come at a bad time for Putin and his regime. Russia's citizens are feeling the bite of falling oil prices and a slow economy. They are also feeling the inflation that comes from a falling ruble, as well as the pain of sanctions. For a U.S. official to point the finger at Putin himself for corruption is comparable to Reagan speaking of an "evil empire" -- words that gave strength to Russia's political prisoners and dissidents. With Treasury telling it like it is, Putin will have a tough time placating Russian citizens.
