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The conventional account of what’s happening in U.S.-Russian relations these days goes something like this: Some Americans, notably Maryland’s Democratic Senator Benjamin Cardin, were outraged when a Russian lawyer named Sergei Magnitsky was arrested on what appeared to be trumped up charges and then died in police custody. It seemed to be all too typical of Russian human rights abuses, and Cardin pushed for legislation to sanction Russians involved in such abuses by denying them entrance to the United States and use of its banking system.