Sergei Magnitsky was a Russian lawyer who stumbled upon a massive money laundering and tax fraud operation with Russian oligarchs (read: wealthy Russians with political ties) and the United States. They were investigating Prevezon, a money holding company with ties between New York real estate businesses and Russia. Sergei Magnitsky was arrested in Russia for blowing the whistle on this, held for a year in prison, beaten, and killed (Putin does that stuff all the time). In response, Congress and Obama passed the Magnitsky Act, which prohibits a number of these Russian Oligarchs from entering the US and using our banking system. These oligarchs represent a ton of Putin’s money, and this act put a decent amount of that money in jeopardy of being seized by the FBI. So Putin, in response, banned the US from adopting Russian children.
Why is this so important? Because to Putin, his meddling in our election was as much about ‘disrupting our democracy’ as it was about his massive amount of inaccessible wealth over here. The theory is that Trump businesses have been acting as an intermediary between Russian oligarchs and Putin’s money, as a form of money laundering. After Trump’s 4th bankruptcy, no one would loan him money, so he turned to Russia to restart his real estate business. Trump in 2008: “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.”
Putin has a strong hold on Trump because of their money laundering (called Kompromat in Russia, or compromising material that’d be damaging if released). Putin knew that if he could get his guy elected, he could reverse the Magnitsky Act, drop the Prevezon case, and salvage some his money. You know that meeting between Don Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort? That was about the Magnitsky Act and the Prevezon case (that’s what they mean when they say “adoption”). The “Russian Lawyer” they keep referencing had one main goal of her own: get the Prevezon case dropped. They negotiated by dangling the release of Hillary’s emails. The first of Hillary’s emails were released merely a few days later.
Two months into Trump’s Presidency, as the US attorney (Preet Bharara) was carefully preparing to go to court for the Prevezon case, he was suddenly fired and the case was immediately dropped, catching everyone by surprise with no explanation to date. Literally the court was about to go into session when this was dropped. (Remember Jeff Sessions, the US Attorney General appointed by Trump has met privately with the Russian Ambassador multiple times without disclosing them).
When Trump sat next to Putin for an hour at the G20 dinner a few weeks ago, he admitted that they spoke about “adoptions” again. This is why Trump has never released his tax returns and the reason why he will likely fire the special prosecutor (Mueller) who is investigating him, because the FBI and Mueller are getting near these financial records that could bring the entire Trump Empire to the ground.
Remember this: Trump doesn’t really care about the Presidency. He never thought he’d win. He only cares about himself and his money. He’s not tweeting about pardoning himself because he’s worried about being impeached, he’s tweeting it because he’s afraid he’s going to lose his money too. By firing the prosecutor, pardoning his entire family including himself, he will be putting himself at extreme risk of being impeached and removed from office, but to him, at least he has his money.