The mayor is completely “not guilty”

Hi, this is Navalny. And today we have

a story about how Rafik is once again completely

innocent. First of all,

Rafik is guilty of absolutely nothing. This time,

the eternally innocent Rafik is the mayor

of Nizhny Novgorod, United Russia party member Ivan

Kornilin. Quite recently, I think,

many of you will remember, we found that

this figure owned as many as two apartments in Miami

worth 130 million rubles. The apartments

are registered in the names of his wife and daughter. And of course

the mayor of Nizhny Novgorod did not

list them in his disclosure statement. And because of

that, if the law were applied strictly,

the mayor should have been immediately removed

from office. For our part,

we filed all the necessary complaints,

attached the apartment documents,

and attached an interview with the mayor in which he

boasts about his strong family at a time

when he already owned

real estate in the United States. We needed that

because Kornilin, while

not really denying the fact that the property

in America had been purchased, claimed that it

all belonged to his wife, from whom he

had recently divorced. Did you divorce your wife

so you wouldn't have to declare the property? No.

Well, it's a standard trick, but his own

interviews confirm the effectiveness

of this divorce. We

proved that Ivan

Kornilin's legal income over all his years of work

would not even come close to being enough to acquire

assets like these. In other words, we at the FBK (Anti-Corruption Foundation)

completely exposed this

wonderful Putin-style patriot and

basically handed him over to the investigative authorities

and the prosecutor's office on a silver platter

(a Russian idiom meaning everything was made easy for them). And then a reply comes from

the prosecutor's office saying that the mayor

of Nizhny Novgorod is completely

innocent. I'd like to note that

nevertheless, Rafik is guilty of absolutely nothing.

And none of our arguments find even the

slightest confirmation. Therefore,

there are currently no grounds for prosecutorial

action

at this time. And that raises a question for me:

what exactly does it take

to get a United Russia politician caught lying

and committing fraud finally kicked out of

office? Here is the man, here is the

property, here are the documents—what else am I

supposed to find? Or does the prosecutor's office want

to be given video footage of

the mayor pulling stacks of dollars out of a briefcase

and using them to buy an apartment in America?

It feels like even that

wouldn't be enough. You know, I'm

starting to think that if tomorrow I

publish a video showing members

of United Russia, I don't know, eating

children, then the prosecutor's office and the Investigative

Committee would write back saying there is no need

for an investigation because I failed

to provide the birth certificate

of the person being eaten. And therefore it is impossible

to establish whether he really is

a child. And one more thing. I look at this

reply from the prosecutor's office and remember

a pensioner from Ivanovo Region,

who was recently put on trial because

she, simply because she was hungry, stole

630 rubles' worth of food. In August, the woman

stole ketchup and a little

sugar worth 70 rubles from a kitchen. In early December, two

cans of stewed meat, a pack of pasta, sugar,

cookies, and 17 tea bags. Her

pension simply wasn't enough to buy food.

And in that case, you know, the prosecutor's office

was extremely active. The stated

crimes of which the defendant

is accused are classified by law

as serious offenses against

property. 630 rubles and 17 tea bags.

And this crime of the century

is investigated very seriously: investigation,

criminal case files, indictment,

court, prosecutor, protocol,

verdict. If only even one-third of that

effort were directed toward checking

what money the mayor of Nizhny Novgorod used

to buy himself apartments in Miami. So please,

think about it yourselves and tell

me which poses the greater

public danger to the country as a whole

and to you personally. On the one hand, a destitute

pensioner who stole 630 rubles' worth of food. And

on the other, an official, the mayor of a major

city, who secretly bought foreign

real estate worth 130 million rubles with money obtained

from who knows where and, most likely,

as we suspect, from corrupt

activities. Personally, in this situation

my vote is this: let the state's efforts

be directed first toward

dealing with mayors like this, and only then

go after pensioners. You see, I've even

come up with a little poem

there, apparently just out of

outrage. But the current authorities, in the form of

the prosecutor's office, as you can see,

see it differently. They see their task

as protecting corrupt

millionaire officials, while directing all their

investigative zeal

toward political cases or toward people like

this poor pensioner. That is exactly

why in the previous video I said:

"Support my presidential run,

and I'll knock some sense into all of them there." Because

they really do need to be brought to their senses

so they start doing their jobs properly instead of

engaging in nonsense. I really will

do it: I'll get rid of all these

idlers and organize a proper

effective fight against corruption. But for that

For that, the first thing I need right now is your

support. Sign in support of my

nomination—the link is in the description. And

that will be an excellent personal signal from you

to the authorities that you want

a proper fight against corruption. And also

subscribe to our channel. Here

they tell the truth.