PUTIN’S RESET

The media outlets that Lesin had created or directed reported on the autopsy
results, but cast doubt on any Russian involvement. Some hinted that the U.S.
government murdered Putin’s former confidant, saying that “conspiracy” stories about
a hidden Russian hand were a deliberate “false lead.” RT quoted a writer for the
Executive Intelligence Review as an authority floating the “false lead” story, implying
that the publication was somehow connected to the U.S. intelligence community
when it is in fact a discredited journal published by the fringe Lyndon LaRouche
organization.
In its unfashionable 1950s glass-and-yellow-brick curved building, the Dupont
Circle Hotel is updated and trendy, but considered “relatively downscale” and a far cry
from the lifestyle of high-flying Russians. It would be an odd place for Lesin to have
preferred to stay. The hotel’s rates, though, are within the ossified per diem structure
of the FBI, with its limited funds to support defectors from abroad. Lesin may have
been talking to the FBI to prevent his prosecution and to be allowed to remain in the
U.S.
Was Lesin indeed murdered as it appears? If so, by whom? There is no clear
answer. The Washington, D.C. police stated in 2016 that “the incident remains an
active Metropolitan Police Department investigation.” RT continued to discount any
foul play. The Russian Embassy added nothing to its complaint alleging a lack of
information.
The silence indicates that someone at the top of the Kremlin told the
controlled media not to make a big deal about Lesin’s death, leaving them to the
predictable default position of implying that the Americans might have done it.
Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle might have termed the silence a most
“curious incident.” In his 1892 mystery “Silver Blaze” about a stolen race horse and
murder of its trainer (also from blunt force trauma to the skull), Holmes deduced the
perpetrator by what did not happen: the guard dog that didn’t bark. In solving the
mystery, Holmes mentioned “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.” But,
responded another detective, “The dog did nothing in the night-time.”
“That was the curious incident,” said Holmes. “Obviously the midnight visitor
was someone whom the dog knew well.”
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