The Investigative Committee has now completely turned into something halfway between Goebbels’s infernal propaganda machine and the NTV channel (a Russian state-aligned TV network). First they put out teasers—or whatever you call them:
Like, don’t touch that dial and stay with us. And then comes the shocking news:
http://www.sledcom.ru/actual/283997/ Apparently, Generals Markin and Bastrykin prepared this hard-hitting press release yesterday, and they were so eager to put it out that they couldn’t wait and posted it two hours earlier than they were supposed to. I’m*** actually at home right now and could not possibly have been “questioned” or “refused to appear.” The*** Investigative Committee summoned me for 12:00 today. And the last time I was questioned in any of the cases opened by the Investigative Committee was at least a month ago.*** Maybe even longer. Has Mr. Bastrykin invented a time machine? I haven’t even left the house yet, and he’s already churning out press releases. As for the substance of it: In fact, this press release simply repeats word for word the latest “findings” of that same NTV channel and that same program, “Emergency Incident,” (the very people who put out “Anatomy of Protest”), which aired 2 days ago. And the text of the NTV program, in turn, repeats word for word a post by a nashi idiot by the name of Goloskokov. For years now, he’s been getting paid for “exposing” Navalny. Here’s the most famous one—you probably remember it. As for the substance of these “exposés,” I’ve been telling both the Nashi people (members of a pro-Kremlin youth movement) and the “investigators” the same thing for a year now: you’ve already checked everything inside and out. You seized every document you could —so go complain to the bar association. That’s the body that can actually “establish” something and strip me of my status, not Bastrykin’s epaulettes. The first time, “Nashi” demanded that I be stripped of my status as far back as November 16, 2011. So far, all such complaints have failed, because they’re full of complete nonsense that falls apart the moment anyone examines it critically. They didn’t mention that in the press release. For some reason. Update. By the time I got to the Investigative Committee, their story had changed. Now they claim that “the questioning took place earlier.” No one questioned me. The investigator put on an extremely surprised face and said he knew absolutely nothing about any press release. Together with my lawyers, we started trying to remember which of the “earlier questionings” the Investigative Committee statement could possibly have meant. It turned out they were most likely referring to questioning that took place in August 2012. ***This is magnificent. PS The only plausible explanation for what happened was offered by my lawyers: the Investigative Committee’s talking head, General Markin, started a Twitter account yesterday and needed a scandalous news item to promote it.