Jack - Bezos Exposes Pecker (feat. Andrew Torrez)

Episode Date: February 11, 2019

S3E6 - Joining us this week is Andrew Torrez from Opening Arguments! Plus, Jaleesa is going to be covering a crazy interview with Senator Burr, Jordan has the story of the Buzzfeed document dump of the Trump Tower Moscow timeline, and AG covers investigations in the House and how they connect to Mueller. Enjoy! 

Hey, it's Kimberly Host of The Start Me Up Podcast. If you like your politics with some loose talk and salty language, you're going to love my show. I interview the coolest people like Mary Trump, Kathy Griffin, and DNC Chair Jamie Harrison. The Start Me Up Podcast has an easygoing, casual style and a strong emphasis on left-leaning politics. We also have Frank discussions about sex and more than a few spirited rants. Just visit patreon.com slash start me up or wherever you get your podcast and start listening today. Molar She Wrote is brought to you by Murder Book, a new True Crime podcast hosted by bestselling author Michael Connelly available on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Also, be sure to check out Dark Sacred Night, Michael Connelly's number one best-seller featuring detectives Harry Bosch and Renee Ballard.

And thanks to Skillshare for supporting Muller Sheer Road. Join the millions of students already learning on Skillshare today, with a special offer just for our listeners. Get two months of Skillshare for free! That's right, Skillshare is offering Muller Sheer Road listeners two months of unlimited access to over 25,000 classes for free. Just head to Skillshare.com slash AG for your two months free. That's Skillshare.com slash AG to start something big.

Again, that's Skillshare.com slash AG. You'll be glad you did. And thanks to Beta Brand for supporting Mullah She wrote, who says comfy can't be work-appropriate. Beta Brand wants you to look good and feel good even at the office, so go to betabrand.com slash AG and get 20% off your dress pant yoga pants today. So to be clear Mr. Trump has no financial relationships with any Russian oligarchs. That's what he said. That's what I said. That's obviously what the opposition is. I'm not aware of any of those activities.

I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I didn't have, and I have communications with the Russians. What do I have to get involved with Putin for? I have nothing to do with Putin. I've never spoken to him. I don't know anything about a mother than he will respect me. Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.

So, it is political. You're a communist. No, Mr. Green. Communism is just a red herring. Like all members of the oldest profession I'm professional capitalist. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Hello and welcome to Muller She Wrote. I'm your host, A.G. and with me, as always, is Jolissa Johnson. Hello. And Jordan Coburn. Hello. First, let's get to those corrections, because we had a few this week. I had said that Roger Stone's lawyer was one of the guys who ripped NWA back in the day, but

it was actually two live crew. In either case, it was definitely someone of Virginia Polychition dressed up as in black face in the 80s. Also I asked if the State of the Union was the only event we have a designated survivor for, and no, we also have one for the inauguration. For this State of the Union, it was Rick Perry. Look. Oh, was it really?

Yeah, when I heard that I thought it was a joke. No, that's so funny. It was. Who picks? I don't know. Maybe they draw straws or something. That's that goosey stuff. I know.

It's whoever got the furthest in dancing with the stars. Oh, that explains it, yeah. Yeah. Did he do dancing with the stars? Oh, yeah. That's real, yeah. Oh, my God. How yeah. Yeah. He did dancing with the stars? Oh, yeah. That's real, yeah. Oh my God. How did I miss that?

Look up that video. Oh my God, him skipping full arm down onto the stage. We're in a little stripey. Oh my God. Yeah, yeah. I got to commend his not giving a fuck. That's hilarious.

Yeah. From Jesus. Truly, truly amazing. Maybe they picked him because they thought in the event that someone tries to assassinate the soul survivor because he can dance his way out of it. Yes. Oh, dodge the bullets with his smooth moves. Yeah. Yeah. Dance. Motherfucker dance. Just moon walks out of there. Also, there was a little confusion about who reported that Mitch McConnell was

taking Russian money first. And we used a source from the Dallas Morning News from May of 2017. And I know that the Dumb Coalition was also investigating this well before that. And the author of the Dallas Morning News article, which we cited, her name is Ruth May, she said it was republished in May from her original piece in August of 2017. So I just wanted to get that out there on the record. Also, it seemed as though a reporting on Virginia Lieutenant Governor Fairfax's sexual assault

was incomplete in this midweek episode. And the reason it was incomplete is we did not have the full statement from the victim at the time we recorded the midweek episode. Sexual assault trigger warning here. We did not yet know that Fairfax hadn't only just pushed her head towards his crotch but that he actually forced her to have oral sex according to her statement. So please know if we had known that, if we had that piece of information, the discussion would have been very different. Right, that was your question actually. You were wondering how it went down like the details and we didn't have it at the moment, but it changes a lot of that, yeah.

Yeah, it sure does. So, just wanted to let you know that. And now that there's a second accuser, we, at least, I don't want to speak for everybody here, but I think you should resign. Oh, totally, yeah. And these are corroborated stories so far. There should at least be an investigation.

He needs to resign. Yeah, I agree. And here's what I think, I think, Northam. be an investigation, he needs to resign. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I agree. And here's what I think. I think Northam, so Fairfax should resign. Northam should appoint a female or a woman as Lieutenant Governor, and then Northam should resign, and then she can take over the state.

That's what I think should go down to. That's my two cents. I think it's a good idea. And finally, friend of the pod and patron, Robert Fisher, has passed the second phase of his FBI application. So now he just has the SF86 background check left. But don't worry Robert, I hear the guy in personnel will hand out security clearances to just

about anyone. So I think you're a shoe in. Anyway, with all that out of the way, how was your week, you guys? Good. Yeah. Yeah, it was good. Did shows and stuff. I did the longest spot I've ever done stand up wise. Yeah, it was good. Did it uh, did shows and stuff. I did a the longest spot I've ever done stand-up wise. Oh, how long? How long?

How long? 25 minutes. Very nice. I put the baby sapling in stand-up so that was a long time for me. Baby sapling. It is. It's hard to stress 25. All right, so we are working hard on developing a daily news show going forward called Daily Beans. Daily Beans, and we just need about 1500 more patrons to be able to start rocking that out. Anybody who becomes a Mollershi wrote patron will automatically be a Daily Beans patron. So, and we also have some live shows coming up. And the DC and Brooklyn shows are about to sell out.

So hurry up and grab your tickets. If you wanna come to the hour-long VIP cocktail meet and greet before the show, the DC show has a ticket that includes general admission and the meet and greet, but the Brooklyn show, you have to buy the tickets separately, one for the general admission, one for the meet and greet, and patrons, you get a discount on that VIP ticket. So just listen to the midweek episode or check your premium newsletter for that discount code.

And if you want to upgrade your DC ticket from general admission to VIP, you should be getting an email soon so that you can do that or we'll mail out a link to your patron email, your Patreon email. So make sure you check your junk and you spam, because we're junky spam sometimes. Check your junk. Check your junk. And we have confirmed we're coming to Los Angeles to the Largo on April 18th with special guest Elizabeth Cronice McLaughlin from the resistance and pre-sale tickets for patrons only go on sale Monday

but only for Monday. And we will post that code on the Patreon page and the closed Facebook group. Regular tickets go on sale for everyone Tuesday. And these will sell out. So if your patron grab a Monday before they go on wide sale and look for the code on your patron page, you can become a patron at patreon.com slash mullershi wrote its Toats worth it. That's gonna be fun.

Yeah, so excited for that. The LARGO is awesome. Also, we have a new FAQ page at mullershiwrote.com. So check that out if you have any tech or beans questions. I think we answered them all in there. Yeah, the most common questions we get is, I'm not getting my newsletter. And, what is my shipment? And what about the keep talking about? What are you talking about beans?

Yeah, number one question. What are the beans? Yeah, so yeah, if you have any of those questions, definitely check out the FAQ because the answers are there. All right, and finally, tons of folks are asking me about appearing live and protecting my anonymity. I use a pseudonym and don't discuss my job to avoid violating the Hatch Act only. And there's nothing in a Hatch Act that says I can't show them a face. If I wanted to protect my anonymity, I'd have taken more measures to do so because as it is, it's not hard to find out who I am, so you're welcome. All right, this week we have special guest, Andrew Torres, a real-life lawyer and he's

the co-host of the opening arguments pod. That's at the end of the show, full interview with him. And we have a new app now that we're recording with so the sound quality is much better and more popping. So thanks for, first of all, for the feedback and thanks for bearing with us as we improve. You know, it's been a year plus, we should have done this a while ago.

Sorry. We're upgrading better late than never. Always, always, never stop improving. Julie, so you're going to be covering a crazy interview with Senator Burr. And Jordan, you have a story of the Buzzfeed document dump of the Trump Tower Moscow timeline, which is crazy. I'll be covering investigations in the house

and how they connect to Mueller. But first, let's see what else happened this week with just the facts. All right, Monday, three different stories dropped about Deutsche Bank. First was a New York Times lead that said Trump sought alone during the 2016 campaign and Deutsche Bank said, no, does he? Deutsche Deutsche Bank said, no, would Deutsche want alone? Deutsche.

That should be there slowly. Hell yeah. Don't you want a loan? Well, you bet your ass for cream. That makes sense because you don't want to lend money to a potential president, right? Jordan, you went over this. Why wouldn't you lend money to a candidate?

Yeah, well, I mean, first of all. Besides that he's an asshole. Yeah, besides it being an asshole, they would either have to choose to basically one, not collect the debt on a president if he didn't pay it and which is, you know, maybe a likely outcome. And alternatively, they don't want to have to seize the assets of a sitting president because that's messy and weird. So that's pretty much it. But also apparently they said that Trump says so many divisive things. They didn't want to be involved in any sort of super sketchy divisive dramas. Shit. Because they're already in the mud and lunged.

The mud and lunged during the bank of the world doesn't want to get involved in sketchy shit. That's how fucking sketchy Trump is. And I had two little two late basically, but yes. Yeah. All right. The other story, another story about Dwayne Chabank. Dwayne, do I keep doing it?

Dwayne alone. It's not that easy as worried. I don't blame you. And up, but I speak German. All right. Another story came out in the Wall Street Journal saying that they sought to about Deutsche Bank. Do I do keep doing it? Do you want to loan? It's not the easiest word. I don't blame you. And I speak German. All right. Another story came out in the Wall Street Journal saying that they sought to shed a loan that they made to Russian bank VTB in late 2016.

They pretty much wanted to distance themselves, apparently from Trump and the Russians in 2016. I can't imagine why. So they sold half of that $600,000 loan to alpha bank because that's better. They say they were reducing their exposure to Russian entities. They weren't fucking beating around the bush about it. And they also said they were trying to boost their cash position. I don't know if selling debt is how you make money, BT Dubs, unless you're getting some massive interest rate break, but whatever.

This, by the way, is the bank that let money to Trump and got caught laundering billions of dollars. So I'm not sure why I'd expect them to be awesome. Also early in the week, Trump won on CBS and had another interview. There wasn't much that came out of it. Jordan, you covered this in the midweek episode. If you wanna hear like a full-throated version of this, check out the midweek episode.

Jordan's laughing at me because I said full-throated. So that's what I'm gonna do. That's what I'm gonna do. Full-throated is not what you think it means in this context. Was there anything that stood out in that interview was kind of the same old shit other than he was kind of, he was sort of chill. Yeah, he was pretty chill. It was not one of his worst interviews, that's for sure. Only on account of him saying the same crazy shit he always says, but when they talked about any of the molar investigation stuff, for example, he said the exact same talking points he always takes It's a witch hunt love the blah. They talked a decent amount on foreign policy. So Afghanistan, I rack a ran getting out of those wars

Said that when he took over Syria was infested with ISIS and now he says very little ISIS So that's bad easy ice, please So that's bad. Easy ice, please. Lime. Yeah, but I wouldn't watch it. They talk about football for a while, which is like stupid. Um, stupid. Yeah.

Well, he has to walk back his whole damnation of the whole league when he was all pissed over the cavernic stuff. Oh, that's right. Yeah. He tried to skate over that. Yeah, he's like, well, you know, I still think people should stand for the pledge, but me and good other friends whenever. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wow. What did the fuck he said? What if something stupid? Yeah. Yeah. So not, not anything we haven't

heard already. Just the only thing that it's really stood out to me is that he wasn't yelling. That's what I mean by chill. And then his policies aren't chill. It was just his voice. It was a little less yelling than normal. Saying all the same stuff. Then we learn that space beans are real. There's a company called Space Roasters that's planning to use the heat of reentry into our atmosphere to roast coffee beans.

I wish they were called the great space roaster or maybe super space beans, but I admire their verb. Ha ha ha. You have a lot of verb. Verb? The only downside of space beans is the cost. Apparently, the overheads are high when you have to launch beans into space and bring them back to earth. But if anybody buys us some, I'll drink that shit.

Oh, hell yeah. I'm just going to sell beans and say their space beans. I think that's the obvious takeaway from this story. Yeah, like Roger Stones. Exactly. Yeah. I like it. Yeah. We should come and. Yeah, like Roger Stones. Exactly. Yeah. I like it. Yeah. We should pair up with a coffee company.

Yeah. I mean, everyone's defrauding people nowadays. So, ma'am, we'll get in while they go on top. You know? I like that. Get in while it's hot. Yeah, it's your whole coffee. Oh.

Bring it. Defrotting you with coffee. Get it while it's hot. Don't you want a loin? No? Do I do what you want alone? See, I can't even do it. Loin? Don't you want a loin? What's going on in my head today? Too much coffee. Too much cafe-fae. Then Monday, some huge, huge news dropped. And this is big enough to be its own episode. So I'll try to keep it brief. This is potentially more consequential

than even the Mueller investigation. Don't hate me for saying that. Though this investigation originated from Mueller's probe, so it came from there. The Southern District of New York issued a broad subpoena for the Trump inaugural committee, and we've been following this story for a really long time since we found out Trump's inaugural cost twice as much as Obama's apparently, but was like one-tenth as cool. They had a bunch of high school marching bands and like some DJ drums, cool drums, or something. Just like DJ cool drums. Something like that.

It was like one of those sick bro guys, you know? Like playing a bunch of drums and being a DJ. I was the dumbest. You saved money when they played multiple instruments. Yeah. You're doing okay. I guess. So what's amazing about this subpoena, you guys, is the sheer scope of it.

It requires Trump inaugural officials to hand over documents about donors, finances, activities, spending, any guests, any benefits they handed out, including tickets and photo ops with the president, federal disclosure filings, vendors, contractors, contractor lists, pretty much everything they have. It could take months to comply with this subpoena. They want to know all the benefits provided to guests and donors and donations because the inaugural has to

disclose these to the FEC. Any falsification or omission is a crime because the disclosure form is signed under penalty of perjury. And this one was signed by a guy named Doug Ammerman. So you might want to throw him on your fantasy draft. Doug Ammerman. Squirrel. Prosecutors want to know if any foreigners illegally donated as well as whether committee staff members knew that such donations were illegal or if money was just being paid directly to vendors instead of going through the inaugural like

it's supposed to so that they didn't have to report it. For tax, well, it's a non-profit, so it's not a tax dodge. It's more of a, we don't want you to know where this money came from, Dodge. Right. And that bit is important because accepting foreign contributions is only a crime if it's done with knowledge that the donations were illegal. And it also says to me that there is indeed evidence of foreign contributions and the Southern District of New York is building a case for criminal

charges, beans. They asked for documents laying out a inaugural policy for accepting donations because federal law prohibits foreign contributions to federal campaigns, packs, and inaugural funds. So if the Trump org has these documents that lay out a policy that says we can't accept foreign donations, then that means they knew. And that, therefore it's a crime, right? Jim Shuto, CNN said that the prosecutors are investigating a giant list of potential crimes, including conspiracy against the United States, false statements, male fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, inaugural committee disclosure violations, and violations of laws

prohibiting contributions made by foreign nations and contributions made in the name of another person known as straw donors, or if you hear us say cut out, that's what that is. Okay. And we already know Mueller and Dited Sam Patton for using a straw donor to funnel money into the inaugural when he bought four tickets to the party for $50,000 that was recouped from a Putin-backed Ukrainian oligarch. In fact, it was Mueller's interest in Russian-Squid Pro-Crow that launched this investigation

in the Southern District in the first place. Go, Mueller. The ultimate owner of this fund is Trump himself as a person. I don't know. I don't know who the ultimate owner is. The Trump inaugural. It's an entity. It's a nonprofit.

Is that to protect themselves? Like basically from legal liability? No, I think it's just, do you have to set it up as a 501C, three or C4? Okay. Force is five, something. So you don't think there's one individual

who the liability falls on. It's just everyone that was involved in any sort of passing those payments along. Well, the executives could be like, like take the Trump org, for example, you can indict the Trump org or you can indict the executives of the Trump org separately. Right. Just like AMI, you can indict AMI, or you can indict Pecker or Dylan. Right. Separately, Dylan Howard. For this, the two people in charge were Tom Barrick and Rick Gates.

Okay. So, and you know, they keep postponing the sentencing of Rick Gates, right? Yeah. So it seems like if he were assisting the Southern District in this investigation, it would make sense to postpone his sentencing so he can get credit for helping. Yeah. Although you can get credit for helping up to being in jail for a year, but he hasn't even been sentenced yet. We don't even know what kind of time he's facing and an additional help could make him

avoid jail altogether if he wasn't already. He was the deputy director of the inaugural fund. Second to Tom Barak, who I mentioned before. He's the guy who helped Manifort get the job with Trump in the first place. He's the one under investigation for his shady real estate dealings with the Qatar Investment Authority.

And in a pro-publica report, we know that Barak was seeking to personally profit from connections to the Trump administration, according to a confidential memo obtained by WNYC. The memo outlines how Baruch's company called colony sought to benefit financially from its ties to Trump on a bashfully white men colonists. This memo says, quote, the key is to strategically cultivate domestic and international relations, while avoiding any appearance of lobbying. The key is to strategically cultivate domestic and international relations while avoiding any appearance of lobbying. The appearance, yeah.

Yeah, don't want to look like you're lobbying. Otherwise, we have to register as foreign lobbyists and no one wants to do that. It's just not cool this year, 2016. And oddly, the only guy mentioned in the subpoena is Amad Zabari. He was in Trump Tower around the same time. Al Rumei, he was there from the Cutter Investment Authority, meeting with Flynn, Jr. and Cohen. More. Probably to discuss the Ross Neft commission,

sell off, super beans though, that's beans. And according to Renato Mariotti, friend of the pod and host of the on topic podcast, this subpoena indicates that the investigation is in its early stages. And the massive scope of the subpoena, as I said, could take months to comply with. And the inaugural has said it will fully cooperate.

So they're gonna start digging. All right, I just hope his being trumped, his signature is on there somewhere that's all I'm hoping for. It's probably not, it's probably mostly. Dammit. Barric and Gates. Anyway, for more on this story, we'll be releasing the full unedited

interview with Andrew Torres of opening arguments podcast for patrons only. So check that out. He and I talk about that for a good 20 minutes, 20, 30 minutes after the interview that you'll hear at the end of the show. Also, Monday, we learned a lobbyist at the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting received half a million dollars in suspicious payments. That lobbyist is Renat Akmenschen. According to BuzzFeed News, he deposited large, round number amounts of cash in the months preceding and the months following the meeting. He also got a large payment from Dennis Katzif that was flagged by the bank.

If Katzif sounds familiar, it should. He's the guy who owns Prevazon Holdings, who was accused by the Justice Department for laundering the proceeds of a $230 million Russian tax fraud scheme that was uncovered by Magnitsky. That money laundering case is the one vessel Nitskaya, who was also at the Trump Tower meeting, was indicted for recently. She declined to comment saying, quote, don't bother with questions your article is paid for and you have your text already. Don't be distracted from what you consider the meaning of life. Damn. She went Jordan on that one. Then Tuesday the New York Times reported that three firms recruited by Paul Manafort have been questioned about foreign payments in recent weeks

including the Podesta Group with Tony Podesta, the Mercury Law Group and Scadden, ARP, Slate, Mergen, Flom. I'm gonna get that tattoo, to just love it so much. The Mercury Group should sound familiar because that's the lobbying firm that Lanza worked out of, and he was trying to lobby successfully, lobby the Treasury and Congress to allow Darapasketa

sell off shares of his aluminum company and have sanctions lifted off of him. And as we know, he sold those shares to his family and the Kremlin, and we lifted the sanctions, relieving him of hundreds of millions in debt. Then there's good old scat and arp, slate, mar, and flomb. That sounds familiar because I love saying it. And two, they're the firm that cooked the report

for Rorobacher Gates and Manafort on behalf of Yana Kovitch, who was trying to make his opponent, Tomaschenko looked like a criminal criminal so they could justify locking her up. Vanderswan was involved in that as well as Skatten, and he was indicted by Mueller and went to prison, and we've deported him. So nothing weird going on there. We knew this was coming because we'd reported several months ago that prosecutors were weighing charges against Democrat lobbyists, Vin Weber, Greg Craig, and Tony Podesta, and we'll keep you posted on this as the story develops. I say if a Democrat broke the law, put them away.

Oh, yeah, totally. Lobbyists. Good old case, street. Anyway, we'll be right back. Hey, Mueller junkies. Thanks to Murderbook, the new True Crime podcast hosted by Best Selling Author, Michael Connolly, for supporting Mueller, she wrote. Returning to his roots as a journalist, Best Selling Author, Michael Connelly, for supporting Muller She wrote. Returning to his roots as a journalist, Best Selling Author, Michael Connelly now presents

the True Crime Podcast Murder Book, working with the very detectives from his novels and his hit television show Bosh. The podcast explores real homicide cases not covered by mainstream media. Murder Book Season 1 is the Telltale Bullet, and it dives into a 30-year-old Hollywood carjacking gone wrong that tests the limits of the American criminal justice system. Sounds familiar? Also, from Michael Connolly, Dark Sacred Knight, his latest number one bestseller featuring detectives Harry Bosch and Renee Ballard.

You can find Dark Sacred Knight wherever books are sold. Personally, I absolutely love the way Connolly tells the story. He makes it relatable in a way that makes me feel like I have skin in the game. And aside from being a Mueller junkie, I am a true crime junkie. Though I guess the Mueller investigation could be considered true crime. But I read Connolly's book and I listen to the podcast and it's riveting you guys. So be sure to check out Michael Connolly's new Murder Book Podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Or you can check out Murderbookpodcast.com. Again, that's murderbookpodcast.com. You'll be glad you did. Hey guys, welcome back. We are on to Wednesday, home day. When we mic, mic, mic. I love that commercial so much. When we learned, okay, so Wednesday,

when we learned Senate Judiciary Committee Republican member Ben Sass has opened an investigation to allegations that department attorneys may have committed professional misconduct in the manner in which Jeffrey Epstein's criminal matter was resolved. This is a Republican doing, this is Ben Sass. We reported on this in the past that Petter Rast and Rapist,

Jeffrey Epstein, was given a sweetheart deal in Florida by the Attorney General there, Acosta, pretty much letting him and all of his accomplices off the hook. Acosta is now oddly Trump's labor secretary. I'm pretty sure, and these are beans, I have no proof, that Trump supplied underage models for Jeffrey Epstein's parties, and Trump's immunity was part of that deal that Kosta offered, and that's why he's the labor secretary now. Beans. You've been saying those beans for a while. I have. Now there's going to be investigated.

I'm so excited. You can also look for Bill Clinton, probably to be wrapped up in these parties. It's of note that last week Trump officially changed the definition of sexual assault and domestic violence to mean only felony violent crimes. So more beans on himself trying to protect his own ass under that update when this gets investigated. That's a good point. When I heard that news about him making that change, I didn't even think about like how that could help him in the future. I was just like what a piece of shit, but he may be, you know, looking into something

that's coming up. Yeah. Right in his Supreme Court picks that are on the docket. Okay. looking into something that's coming up. Yeah. Right if his Supreme Court picks that are on the docket. Okay, all right. Then Wednesday, the House Intelligence Committee post-poned Michael Cohen's closed door testimony from February 8th to February 28th, citing the delay is, quote, in the interest of the investigation. The reason that this is totally cool with Schiff is because it's not Cohen that's asking

for this delay. And this is conjecture, but my guess is Mueller doesn't want to risk a leak before he and Dite's others for lying to Congress about Trump Tower Moscow. Plus, the other ongoing investigations Cohen could be cooperating with. And I imagine Schiff and Mueller had a chat, and Mueller was like, well, you know, hey, could you hang on asking Cohen about Trump to our Moscow to land tight these other motherfuckers and shift was like, sure, a motherfucker, how much mother fucking time do you need? And Mueller was like, give him a little motherfuckin' February 28th.

And he was like, cool. He became Samuel L. Jackson. They speak English and what? So put some beans on what happens between now and February 28th. Also, Wednesday, Paul Erickson was indicted, and we'll go over that in the fantasy and diamond league. Later in the show. Still Wednesday, we got an update on a report from CNN that New York federal prosecutors are seeking interviews with Trump or execs. CNN is the only one reporting this.

It has not been substantiated by any other news organization. No one else has sourced it. But they say that federal prosecutors in New York have requested interviews in recent weeks with Trump organization executives according to two-paper, paper, familiar with his sheet. According to two people familiar with that shit. That's all we know, we'll keep you posted.

Cool, we don't know any names. Nope, but there are only three Trump organization executives. Four, five. That is, yeah. Ivanka, Eric, and Junior, and Weiselberg. All right. Yeah, definitely an air also down. Yeah.

A little bit. So Weiselman or Weiselberg? Let's get them confused. I think it's Weiselberg. The immunity guy. Right, right. Immunity guy. He's got like a cape.

I have immunity. We're super hero ever. We're super hero ever. I was a criminal. Now I'm a hero. But I're super hero ever. I was a criminal now on my hero, but I'm still a criminal, hey. Yeah, you think you really get the best of both worlds there, don't they?

Like, go into, just get the fucking be rich as fuck your whole life and then also be a hero. Yeah, crazy. And don't have to pay bail. Then Thursday, as we predicted, bar was not confirmed. He wasn't unconfirmed or anything, but they postponed his vote.

So Matthew Fucking Whitaker had to answer questions Friday from Jerry Nadler and the Dumbled Judiciary Committee. I don't think we learned anything new other than Big Dick Toilet Guy has now lied to Congress because he told them he never talked to Trump about Mueller. And we know Trump interviewed him to be his Mueller lawyer. So you're telling me Mueller never came up. Okay. He was smug. Whitaker, Matthew fucking Whitaker, smug AF. He was an asshole. And Nadler wasn't satisfied with his answers. So they're likely going to bring him back behind closed doors and compel

him to tell them what they want to know. One of the most stunning moments of the hearing came in a back and forth between Nadler and Whitaker. Let's take a listen. Now, in your capacity is acting attorney general, have you ever been asked to approve any request or action to be taken by the special counsel? Mr. Chairman, I see that you're five minutes is off and so I'm... One thing that I thought that was important that came out of this hearing is when Whitaker was asked who was in the room when he was briefed on the Mueller investigation. And he danced around the answer and finally came out with it. Greg Scott.

Greg Scott is the US attorney for the Eastern District of California which covers Fresno, which is where Devon Nunez is from. So when asked if any of that shit got back to Trump and he said no, he lied because we know Greg's got told newness and newness told Trump We don't know that those are beans. So why was it? Why would he lie and under oath are they like convinced that I won't come back to him for some reason like it's such a Weird thing they keep doing I don't know but I'd be so scared they kept getting at it Like did you tell any associates were there any associates? Were there any Trump associates were there any new Nez associate did anyone possibly ever go back to trump with what you said whether you asked him or not and he's like oh

As I sit here Big dick toilets. He didn't sweat too much this time. No, he had drank 800 bottles of water. Oh, there you go He must have had a little fan right underneath it like in his lap Just blowing right on him the whole time because he did not sweat. Yeah, he was smug as fuck. It was the most ridiculous. Like it was annoying to watch, but it was also very satisfying to watch a proceeding in the house where the Democrats were in charge. Because anytime a Republican tried to bring up a point of order, now there's like, fuck you. Let's table it, motion to table it, table

it. Bye. Right. You know, they just like shut up. We're going to ask you whatever about whatever we feel like asking you. And it was nice to see them in control. It really was. That made me a little, I got a little justice horn at this point. Spunkness almost doesn't even bother me anymore like he used to because I just see as the transparent thing that it is just insecure little boys. Yeah. Yeah. It is annoying though when they are running things. That does add to the frustration. It is and that you can't make anyone else see it who refuses to see it. You're like, oh my god, I can't even believe it. This is not so fucking obvious to you. Right. But they are slowly losing power. Right. That's the idea is that it's like slowly being taken away from me.

It's nice. And I can't wait until we take over the senate in the white house too uh... let's see so Matthew fucking widaker says he's not obstructed the muller probe in any way the good news is whether or not you believe him we will find out because the law provides any block on any behalf of the acting a g has to be reported to congress when the muller report comes out or when the muller investigation ends like if he's fired. Right. On Thursday, we got the transcripts of Manafort's court hearing that took place on Monday, and they were redacted a lot,

but we did learn that Manafort kept working in Ukraine, even after he was indicted by Mueller. And that prosecutors think Manafort may have told one lie, a specific lie to increase his chances for a pardon. Wow. But we don't know what Ly that was. It was redacted. Yeah.

I think. No, it was about Kalimnik. Oh. I think. I'd have to go back and look at it. It's precisely what it is. I think it was the one about Kalimnik. There was a lot of stuff about Kalimnik in there.

It alludes to an August second meeting between Kalimnik and Manafort. And during that meeting, they discussed a back door, a lot of back channels and back doors going on. A lot of butt stuff in the GOP. The prosecutor said that meeting goes to the larger view of what the motive is in this whole case and quote, it goes very much to the heart of what the special counsel, special counsel's office, is investigating. Unquote. And I know Seth Abramson will find this interesting because this meeting happened the day before the August 3rd Trump Tower meeting, which he says was the biggest

news of 2018 in our final episode of 2018. That meeting included Prince, Nader, Jr., and social media specialist Joe Zamol. And if Trump won, or sorry, after Trump won, if Trump won, after he won, if you remember Nader paid Zamol, like $2 million. And Zamol came up earlier with all these different social media cheating ideas and presentations and then they did it and then but they said they didn't do it but then he got two million dollars for doing nothing I guess. So that's huge. And in other Manafort news, the Hill reported Friday that Mueller is looking into a one million dollar loan to Manafort after the FBI raided his house. Manafort secured a loan from a Nevada based company called Woodlawn, LLC, through his

interest in a condo in Manhattan that prosecutors are trying to seize, which leaves Woodlawn wanting to stake a claim on the New York condo so it can collect on the debt. I'm sorry, Woodlawn. Woodlawn. Is that like the chips of Wood? I don't know. Or is it actual grass? I don't know.

There's a really bad name. There's a lot of places called Woodlawn. But I don't like. Or is it actual grass? I don't know. There's a really bad name. There's a lot of places called wood lawn But I don't like little town ships. Yeah, that makes sense. It's a cute name, but as a landscaping company. No, thank you This little contradictory isn't it wood lawn? What the hell? How do you know a wood lawn? Very carefully. I don't know with levers So anyway, I watched for those superseding maniporton indictments guys. I've been talking about them for over a year, put some beans on it.

It's like my number. I have like two of my biggest beans predictions. Are the cutter investment authority and superseding maniporton indictments. I've been on this for a long time. So it's going to be interesting when those drop. Yeah, they're going to be big too. Huge.

Yeah, because they're just amassing all of them right now. They're trying to give him the chance to cooperate. And he just fucked him in the face. Sorry, that was very graphic at all. I think he did that because I think he did that. So he could get a pardon. Honestly, fucked him in the face for a pardon. It should be a t-shirt.

Roger Stone did nothing wrong. I fucked him in the face for a pardon. Thursday and Friday, guys, we got five more sealed indictments on the DC docket. We do not know if they're from Mueller, but they're tagged with the code CR, Martin, Thursday and Friday, guys, we got five more sealed indictments on the DC docket. We do not know if they're from Muller, but they're tagged with the code CR, which indicates a likely indictment. And then we found a court filing showing that Jerome Corsi is suing Roger Stone for smaring

him, for intimidating him, for coercion and threats against him. Stop fighting, boys. I'm just glad he's standing up for himself. I think we'll see a plea agreement from him sooner. Yeah. Or later, if Mueller will still offer him one, he had that one and then he released it to the public and he's like, oh, no, no, go quietly or whatever. Stupid face said, in other stone news, in a hearing this week, Roger Stone argued against the gag order judge Amy Berman Jackson was weighing, saying he's no Kim Kardashian, meaning he's not much of a celebrity. The only problem is that Roger Stone has argued in previous hearings that it's impossible for him to get

a fair trial because he's so famous. And then he attacked Judge Jackson, implying she's biased because she was appointed by Obama. And then Stone argued that it was wrong that his case be considered related to the Russian indictments in a prosecutor's court filing. Even though when he was named in the Russian indictment, he came out all over social media going, it's me, look, that's me, they're talking about me! And now he's trying to say, I shouldn't be related to the Russian indictment. What is his reasoning for why he should not be related to the Russian indictment? I don't know.

I would love to hear him lay that out. Because I had nothing to do with it. Probably is a state, I don't know why I would love to hear him lay that out. Because I had nothing to do with it, probably. Is this thing? I don't know. I'm even related. Because it says in the top left corner of his indictment related to 19CR of 35 or whatever,

which is the Russian indictment or 17CR of 70. I can't remember. A number. But he's surprised to do that. It's very nerdy. You have to know that. But he's like, I'm not related to this. You can't say I'm related to this.

It taints my case. It makes me look like a bad guy. But when the Russians were indicted and he's like, you can't, I'm not related to this, you can't say I'm related to this, this, you know, it taints my case, it makes me look like a bad guy, but when that Russians were indicted and he was mentioning the indictment, he's like, everybody on Instagram, check it out, I'm metz me. Exactly, he's trying to have it both ways. He's doing that, and on the famous thing too,

he's like, I'm, like, released a gag order on me, I'm not famous enough, I'm not like Kim Kardashian, I'm not famous, but like this whole, his whole life, he's like, look how famous I am, whatever. If you have two cases, it doubles your chances of winning one, right? You know what I'm not like Kim Kardashian, I'm not famous, but like this whole his whole life. He's like look how famous I am whatever if you have two cases It doubles your chances of winning one right? I mean he is very That's true He could be logic letter Roger Stone I gotta get me two cases like that man afford

Double down it may All in, all in. He is kind of like Concordia Sheen, and that he experiences a drastically undeserved level of fame. Oh yes, that is something that is infinite. Yeah, anyway, I'm gonna put it. Both did point to, right? It's that way.

I got your tone. I got your tone. No, he did. Okay, he was a swinger, I guess I associate that with. Yeah, he used to let men of color have sex with those Why don't you watch? Yeah, but not like sold for money. You're right. You're right. I sold for money. I Guess what anyone pay for I people buy stones. I guess that's true by his stones Anyway, I'm gonna put beans on him losing this court battle and his case

That's not really hard beans to lay down Then we found out that Mueller placed a sealed indictment in the vault on Cohen, another one in the vault. On the same day that they delayed Cohen's congressional testimony. This is the second time, as I said, we've heard a document about Cohen going into the vault. It's not clear what the document contains, but it's definitely from Mueller and not from the Southern District. So I would posit that it's related to Trump Tower Moscow or some other superseding indictment we haven't seen.

So put some beans on that. Then we found out Maria Boutina sentencing has been delayed from February 12 to February 26. Huh, another sentencing delayed to the end of February. Hmm, hmm, that to me says big shit's coming before the end of February. Yeah, also, well, so her indictments weren't they not technically, like we gave them points in the fantasy indictment leak, but were her charges weren't they not, oh wait, no, I'm sorry.

They were separate from Mueller investigation because they went way back in time. Right, okay. Yes, so then superseding indictments for Erickson probably, and also probably for her merging the two love birds together once again. Oh, in jail. Beauty.

Yeah, it's kind of beautiful on a weird, treasonous way. These are my beans. We also learned Thursday there is now a joint congressional inquiry demanding that the NRA, Vice President Wain Loppier, handover documents showing whether the NRA made illegal, excessive or unreported in kind donations to Donald Trump and several GOP Senate candidates. Yes, the answer is yes. And yes, I'm excited there.

I'm so glad you guys that the DEMs are in charge of the House. And finally, Trump is now technically in violation of the Magnets GACT. If you remember a bipartisan group of senators invoked the Global Magnets GACT back in October after the murder of Washington Post reporter reporter Jamal Koshoggi. And that triggered a 120-day clock for Trump to report back to Congress on the murder and say what he was going to do. That deadline was Friday and Trump has refused to report back. We caught it!

We caught it! That's crazy how that's like a minor headline and all of this. Like there's so much crazy shit going on that him breaking that law. It's like just another thing. That's huge. Totally. And I know, I know everyone's feeling really exasperated right now about all these crimes and you're thinking, well, do we just throw that on the pile?

No one cares. it doesn't matter. But guys, the pile is important. And here's why. Because if we're going to impeach this guy, which I think is what we're going towards, we need a full on solid bulletproof case for impeachment. Because if we go at it half-assed without the Mueller report or if we don't have all this, you know,

giant stack of impeachable offenses and we get them impeached in the house because that'll be easy because the house is democratic. But he has to be removed by the Senate. Otherwise he stays and he could actually get a boost like Clinton did when he was impeached but not removed. Right. Reinforced. So you just have to be patient.

We have to wait until we have all the dirt including the molar report. And I know if he was like, start it now, start it now. But if you don't have that full on, full-throwed it, I'm going to use that a couple times because I like your face when I say it. If you don't have that, you could, you run the risk of losing. And that's why the molar investigation is taking so long. It's because if you don't put together a solid case that they can't knock down, you run the risk of losing the case. Right. What you just said about thinking that he's going to be impeached, that's kind of new.

Because last time we talked about the roadmap for his removal, it was just not voting him back into the second term. Well, I mean, honestly, what I think is that they'll offer him a like a Spiro Agnew deal, keep your businesses, keep your money, resign. No, okay. Anything he'll take it. Yeah, I think he will. He should, if he doesn't, he's stupid.

If he knows, it's good to find. Well, we know that's true. So, an impeachment could take long enough to lead us right up to the election, but, you know, I mean, we have to do, it's our, we have to do what we have to do. Totally. Yeah, if he has impeachable offenses,

he should be impeached, which he definitely does. 1000% yes, although he's still, I've set like, for example, with his inaugural fund, right? If his name isn't actually on that and his name isn't technically on these other things, do you think he could just literally be the last man standing while everyone else, literally everyone else around him is just in jail? Well, the thing about impeachment is they don't have to be crimes on the books. Right. Like lying to the public is an impeachable offense.

Yeah. Oh, my public is begun. Yeah. Uh, misusing your, abusing your power, like using a pardon or having the IRS go after you or trying to double the Amazon cost at the by pressuring the postmaster general. All these things are impeachable offenses. Right. They have to make the strongest case for Republicans to also impeach him.

That's going to be tough. Yeah, Republicans in the senator are going to have to be on board. And so you want everything. You want to come out in with every single thing that we can, and that Mueller report is going to be key to that. And you know, a lot of these other things that we need to wait, like just add it to the pile, oh, nothing's ever going to happen, things will happen. Just not as soon as you wish.

Right. I'm sorry. It's true. Don't be mad at me. Anyway, we'll be right back. Hey, my other junkies. Skillshare is an online learning community for creators with more than 25,000 classes in design, business, and more.

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skills, especially in this extremely fast-paced media market. I've taken classes on production and time management through Skillshare, and I've learned so much that I apply them to this podcast, and I can't thank Skillshare enough for that. What have you guys done? Yeah, I was looking at the creative short documentary video portrait class, and basically they have someone who's experienced in that area, just break down all the different steps that they would take to create their project. So it's very personal, it's very practical. You can actually see them do it in the video, so you just put yourself in their place. And I like to follow along, it's really easy to follow. Yeah, I never took any econ classes and they have a really cool class called investing

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So, but I'm curious and they have a lot of different subjects. You know, you just want to learn something, go there, and learn. Yeah, curiosity is really important, you guys. So join the millions of lifelong learners already on Skillshare today with a special offer just for Mueller junkies. Get two months of Skillshare for free.

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Tower Russia. But first, Jolissa, you have an interview between Republican Senator Burr and CBS. Yes. So, the Senate's investigation into Russian collusion and intelligence turned two years old last month. And the chairman of that committee, Richard, for gave a rare interview this week with CBS News describing his committee's cooperation with the Mueller investigation, plans for their own final report, and he gave hints at what kinds of questions might remain unanswered from the report.

So since Berzer a Republican heading a Russian investigation, a lot of people were speculating that this probably wouldn't be a bipartisan effort, but two years later he actually proved that he seems more motivated by facts than politics. He said the biggest compliment he's received from witnesses is that they can't tell which interviewers are Republicans and which ones are Democrats, and he said that's the way it should be. And then Seth Abramson also pointed out that the committee has decided to keep powering on with the investigation despite pressure from other Republicans that want to wrap it up. He also made a note of the fact that the information gathered from this investigation will help the Senate study Russian intelligence for decades and

that the GOP-led committee actually has a murder board in their office. So they have like this legit like you know board with all the information they've been gathering and set the saying that they're gonna actually burst at this. They're gonna use this information for a long time. And in regards to the scope of the investigation burst said, I don't think we've got any rock that we haven't turned over. He also said their final report will show that the investigation goes far beyond the 2016 election and that this wasn't just Russia saying, quote, let's go screw with Americans in 2016. So he's talking about how broad it is. He also assured that one of the committee's core purposes is to explain as much to the public as they possibly can.

However, some of the details in the final report are so classified that much of it could still be redacted. Something else really interesting that he said was that he doesn't think it's, or he said, I think it's safe to say we've interviewed people that I don't even know if the special council knows about yet, but you've got to remember that we're on a totally separate path in what they are. So he's saying with over the 200 plus witnesses they've interviewed that a lot of them are probably not even in Mueller's list.

So we also learned that it's taking so long, this in an investigation because for each witness it's added like three weeks to the process. So for 200 witnesses, they've had to spend three weeks on each person, not to mention the over 30,000 documents. So they've done a lot of research, not to mention some people are just hard to track down or refuse to talk. Apparently some people even requested to be subpoenaed so it would look like they had no choice but to talk.

Yeah. Yeah, like, hey, could you subpoena me so it would look like they had no choice but to talk. Yeah. Yeah, like, hey, could you subpoena me so that... Putin isn't kill me, basically? Yeah, I'm not sure. Or Trump's that mad. Yeah, yeah. It's really weird. Burst said, if I can finish tomorrow, I would finish tomorrow.

We know we're getting to the bottom of the barrel because there's not new questions that we're searching for answers to. All right, I think that's bullshit. Well, it sounds promising. I feel like there's the whole thing just the last time. Right. Right. There's never going to be like an end to the investigation, I think, in terms of all the collusion and, you know, back-deal plans. But as far as what the sentence investigating and considering they're going in a different direction from Mueller, they're saying their particular path is about to wind down. Yeah. And that Mueller could have gone a different way that requires longer. But I think that's

interesting. At least they're admitting that there are some things that muller will answer and some things they'll answer. They're not really mentioning much in the collusion part, though. They're saying that that one's to be determined or it's up in the air. So that's kind of bullshit. Yeah. That just seems like a weird thing to say before an investigation is concluded that he doesn't think there are any rocks that haven't been turned over. Right. What, how are you in a place to say that yet? Exactly. While also admitting that Mueller will do different things differently, it's like maybe, I don't

know, they might have like a really particular focus that's so different from Mueller's that they knew that their individual is just like kind of a densey, but it is kind of a big thing to say about that. It's also terrifying that he's like, this Russia 2016 thing is just a small part of a giant problem. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, yeah is just a small part of a giant problem. Yeah. Yeah, but no more stones. Right.

No more rocks. If the Russian investigation is like a tree, their branch is about to be done, but he's like, yeah, but the tree's still on fire. So that's tough. All right. Well, thanks, Lisa. Yeah, no problem. And if you get a chance, take a listen to that interview.

It's pretty good. Jordan, what do you got on Buzzfeed? Yes. So again, for our patrons, what do you got on Buzzfeed? Yes. So, again, for our patrons, I covered this in our midweek episode. So you can, yeah, earmuffs, as I say. So basically, Buzzfeed, as I'm sure a lot of you have heard, got a hold of a bunch of Trump work documents that really just established a super graphic timeline that outlined the connections between talks of Trump to our Moscow and Trump's excessive praise of Putin that he was putting out publicly.

And even better, these documents outlined the negotiating that was happening after Cohen said the negotiating stopped, essentially confirming all suspicions that Trump and his team were trying to secure a Trump tower deal in Moscow by using the stage of Trump's campaign to establish a network of support within the Kremlin and with Putin himself. So while these documents were technically non-binding, as you hear them say, they were just letters of intent, you'll find out once you read this timeline that they're still way more detailed than anything anyone on Trump's team or Trump himself is trying to suggest.

Yeah, and the thing that makes me crazy is they're non-binding, right? And that makes Trump sad. Trump wanted a binding agreement. Trump wanted to make money on these. And Putin just refused. Well, that's what the Russians do. We've talked about this before. When they find a Patsy, when they find somebody who's just easily turnable, they get a bunch of compromising shit on them p-tap. And then they dangle great stuff in front of them.

And because this happened in Russian roulette with Carter Page, when the Russians literally said, well, we promise him things, then he gives us what we want, then we don't have to go fuck himself. And that's what they did with Trump Tower. And that's why Fusion GPS was asking Christopher Steele to find out why so many deals started in Russia,

but never finished. Because that is a sign of somebody being used. Yeah, definitely. And I think what really stands out to me about all that too is one of the biggest things they were flashing is the Russians were flashing is you're not going to be able to get this deal done unless you have Putin's direct blessing. And they said that over and over again and they were trying to coordinate in person meetings as you'll find out Trump literally flying over to Russia kind of meetings.

Yeah, and how do you get Putin's blessing? Maybe off from a $50 million condo at the top of it? Yeah, or let him break the Magnitski Act maybe? Like there's so many little ad news. Condo, like a $50 million condo. Condo is probably not the right word. And House, I don't know. Yeah.

Even just like, you know, praising him constantly all the time on Twitter and shit, because that's all part of their campaigns, their viral social media campaigns that just completely just give him good publicity, right? Exactly. Yeah, that's such a big part of how they operate and how Trump operates and it's disgusting. So Buzzfeed again, it's incredible the stuff they got. The documents they have, they have screenshots of text messages, of actual emails. It is for anyone, if you have any of those friends that are like, I don't know about this investigation, you know. There's no collusion. I haven't seen any of this in a few years. Yeah, fucking show them this article. It's kind of insane.

So I'm just gonna go over some of the key dates that there's a lot of them, but it's just such a, it's a magnificent, a magnificent, I mean, in fairness, that's how that word should be said. Gippon, yeah, I agree, magnificent. It's magnificent tale and it would read like a great story if it weren't so real and said. So starting all the way back in June of 2015 on the 17th,

this is the day after Trump announces his run for the president. We see Trump appear on O'Reilly. Uh, I'm in talking. And he's talking about how he wants to push for friendly relations with Putin. So this is one of the first days that he goes really on the map saying that. Then in September of 25th of 2015, Cohen,

who at the time is acting EVP of Trump work and obviously Council to Trump, he forwards to Felix Sater, who at the time was Senior Advisor to Trump. He forwards him these architectural renderings for Trump Tower Moscow, that were so much more detailed than any of them would lead you to believe.

And I have the pictures in the article. So please go look, about an hour later he sends the same renderings to a dude named Andre Roseff, who is a real estate developer from Russia at a company called ICExpert. His name comes up a lot. A few days later, Roseff's financial advisor Ford's letter to Seder that also went to Cohen, expressing the developer's excitement about the project. Trump is saying shit still around this time, like quote, I think in terms of leadership, Putin's getting an A, just totally.

Yeah. He's completely praising his ass. Just, it's like you're trying a little too hard, bro. In NRA. That was really dumb. No, that's great. I do realize half of our more like 70% of our humor is like puns and wordplay. Yeah.

Which some would say is a low-sform, a common sense. No, it's the highest form. Revity is the soul of wit. Okay. God damn it. And don't let anybody outside of Mensa tell you anything differently. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Welcome. Because words are magnificent. So. I appreciate that. Welcome. Because words are magnificent. So, nice word, usement. So, I stole that from Steve Martin. Sorry. I have to give credit where credits do. Oh, totally. Steve, I know you're listening.

We're good people here. Then in October 5, Cohen Ford's letter of intent for Trump Tower mask out that describes the development in detail. And the next day, Trump says, the whole thing about me and Putin would get along very well. So there's just every time some big move happens, it seems in this timeline, there's also some grand statement from Trump about how much he wants to get along with Putin and how well things are and how good he is. Yeah, because again, he's trying to get his ultimate direct blessing on this.

So then on the 12th of October, Sator emails Cohen about the TB bank, maybe being willing to finance the whole development. Now he says, quote, now all we need is Putin. End quote. The email says that a meeting with Putin and one of the his top deputies is set for the 14th and he says, quote, see buddy, this quote's crazy. I can not only get Ivanka to spin in Putin's Kremlin office chair on 30 minutes notice, I can also get a full meeting." And quote, oh snap, yeah, that's just so deliberate. And so detailed.

And so not just a letter of intent you fuck right so then on the the next day a Second version of that letter of intent goes and gets Goes and gets on its own yes, and it goes to Rose off and it gets a signature right satire says the deal could quote This is rich help world peace and make a lot of money because those two always go hand in hand. Those guys go to a lot of pagents together. You know what I mean? And world peace. Yeah. Okay, Coney 2012.

I was thinking of Miss Congeniality. Oh yeah, that would be stricter punishment for parole violators Stan. Yeah. And world peace. Her favorite date or her perfect date. Yeah. I would say April 25th. It's not too date or her perfect date. Yeah. I would say April 25th.

It's not too hot and it's not too cold. All you need is a light jacket. God, I love that movie. So good. Yeah, I don't know where my memory comes from, but there you go. Oh, yeah. That's a great movie. A few days later, Trump tweets out a Washington Examiner article that says Putin loves Donald

Trump. Again, try hard, Trump. Then on the 21st of October, the Trump work makes another round of edits to the letter of intent. They edit, one of the edits they make, for example, is the first installment up front fee. It's not going to be 100K. It's actually going to be 900K. She just under a million. Yep. How weird. Hey, wait, didn't, uh, didn't that guy, Zubari, who was mentioned in the indictment, uh, or the subpoena for the Trump inaugural donate $900,000. Exactly. $900,000.

Oh, the Trump campaign. I don't know. I don't remember. And he's mentioned in that subpoena. Yeah. Yeah, it was 900,000, uh, uh, uh, Andertora and I, uh, picked out a part. I didn't know that there was a 900,000 dollar, it might not be the same, 900,000. 900,000 is probably a real common amount when you're stealing. Like a 999 kind of thing. Right, yeah.

Because it gets flagged at a certain level. But that's interesting, 900,000. That is interesting. Yeah. Because that was Trump Tower Moscow and then a 900,000 dollar donation to the Trump inaugural? Hmm. Weird, weird, weird.

Because he was supposed to get a million bucks roughly for putting his name on the building, like an upfront. Yeah, I mean, and I'm assuming that this is the number that makes it through to the final letter that gets sent as well, because they didn't say it changed in the reporting. Yeah.

Yep, and then also with that edit comes in, edit that makes it so Trump is allowed to speak about the deal publicly. So interesting that they would push for that. Obviously the Russians didn't. I wouldn't think so, or maybe no. Yeah, so then, right, because then they have the leverage.

Right, yeah. And then, that's my new thing. I must have made that noise nine, 900 hundred thousand times while looking through that timeline. Maybe that's just like the number 23 or something. And everyone's innocent. Oh, twenty-three. Oh yeah. Then a week later, a final version of the letter is signed by Andrei Rosov of the IC expert,

the real estate guy. Yeah, remember that dude. And also signed by Donald Trump himself. This is also the day of the third Republican primary debate. Then in November of 2015, Ivanka receives an email from the wife of this guy, Demetri Kolokov, who is a waitlifter because everyone here is either like a boxer slash pop star and also a criminal. It's such an interesting. Yeah, even Trump, he's like, you know, he's got an IDM, BPage, or whatever is called. Yeah.

Our celebrities need to step it up. Kanye, fucking, start committing some shit, man. He's a representor, remember? So we do have ice cube is wrapped up in this, but I mean, these are guys, these are witnesses against. Right. I mean, I want people that are actively trying to, you know, interfere in foreign governments.

That's the kind of crime I'm going to pull. Oh, I see, I see. Okay, good's a kind of crime. Oh, I see. I see. Okay. Good point. So, so this guy, Demetri Kloakov, they put this guy in touch with Cohen and he tells Cohen that he can arrange a meeting between Trump and Putin to expedite the tower deal. Oh, hmm.

Hey, I'm sorry to interrupt. I wanted to ask you, but going back to the IC expert thing, we reported an episode 65, which is what, two episodes ago. Yeah. That Scott Stedman put out a media article saying the developer of the Trump Tower Moscow deal, IC expert, had about $90 million gone missing. Two weeks after the agreement with Trump

to build the tower, IC expert received a loan from Spurmbank, member, Spurbank. Document show there's a $90 million discrepancy between the amount of the loan and the actual amount of the capital that Spurmbank extended. Yeah, I remember that. Yeah. I didn't even think about that when I was reading this. And IC Expert is owned by three Cypriot companies.

Okay. Comprise the ownership of IC Expert. All right then. We know that. Mr. Renniefort notebook. It says here it's important that there's no evidence that any missing money flowed between anyone, associated with Trump and IC expert, and Ross off to Michael Cohen. There was a letter in September 2015 outlining a plan to use a company in the United States to handle matters related to Trump Tower of Moscow and feel like

Sator acted as a go between Cohen and Ross off. So that's in there. Yeah. Anyway, yeah. Good to know. Very interesting. So then, so on the second of November, Cohen sends a final letter of intent to say to her and I see experts saying we are truly looking forward to this wonderful opportunity and project. And then the next day Trump says to press conference some more shit about Putin. I believe we will have a very good relationship with Russia. I believe that I will have a very good relationship with Putin. So it's so crazy looking at this timeline. And again, like I can't iterate this, reiterate this enough. It's literally the day after these huge milestones and these negotiations are happening that he comes out and says that. It's not even like it's around the same time. It's like the same day or the day after.

So I think with the, I hope you're able to find 30,000 emails, that also is like the same day. Like, out, it's crazy. It's so insane to me. If you two dumb to like wait a little longer, like the three day rule for committing crimes, like you just have to eat here. You gotta wait two days before you call her back. You're crying. But yeah, that's, it's completely,

and that's why I think it's so important that we have this curatorial journalism that Seth Abramsen talks about, so that all these things are put in context. Like my favorite history teacher I've talked about her before, Mrs. Arens, when I was in high school, taught us that when we learn about things in history, we should consider all the other things that we're going on around in the world at the time, so we can put it in context and have a frame of reference. And so putting this, this was incredible for BuzzFeed to do, to put these things on a timeline

right next to all the things that Trump was saying, or to say, you know, for example, when Trump said, Russia, if you're listening, 30,000, I'm an asshole. Within hours is when they tried to hack Hillary Clinton's email, Russia did. So it's very important to put these two, to put this context together. That's because that's what Mueller's going to do and that's what is taking him so long. Absolutely. Yeah, they're all very responsive to one another, what Trump says and what these events are. On that same day, also, this is the third of November, Sater emails Cohen

saying that he's going to the Bahamas with the Russian developer. And this guy apparently rented a private island for them. And he tells Cohen to get him the video clip of Trump promising improved relations with Russia to share it with Putin Because he says quote it will help our cause and quote So just fucking right now islands that shit again. Oh god not just a small letter of intent that meant nothing It sounds like a show that Trump could have Pintus Island Oh my god white island right Island. Oh, my God.

That's a white island right there. That's what I learned. I guarantee they are. He filmed the pilot and it failed. I guarantee that is just because he's there and he's on the show. This may be a good show. If I lose, I should do the show on Trump TV.

We'll have Cutter, Thunder, and... Oh, God, Trump TV. I can't believe that doesn't exist already also. He does, right? Like it was a movie. There's a media company he's putting together with all the old Fox guys or something. Oh, my God. He's a mobile man.

Amazon, I'm saying this right now, Bezos, I know you're not busy. If you put that on your fucking prime, I'm going gonna have to deactivate my account again. Again. I did it over the NRA TV and I'll do to get, so you'll sign up again and then deactivate it. Okay, so then we have some more Putin Trump love that happens in December, Trump call or Putin calls Trump talented, whatever blah blah blah. Then two days later, Sator says that he's working with a former Russian military intelligence guy to help contact Russian banks for investment and they're shooting for VTP bank. Yep, ten days later, in response to Trump saying that he barely knew Sator because he

tried once these contacts start coming out, he tries to distance himself from Sator, right? Sator sends a text to Cohen saying, that story made me look really bad and I took it on the chin. It lasted one day because I kept my mouth shut for you and your team. Cover up. On the 14th of January 2016 Cohen contacts Putin's press secretary asking about the status of Trump Moscow project, which is what they change the name of it to. And then also emails them a couple of days later. Finally, on the 20th, they hop on a call. This is when Cohen tells them that Trump org

will give the tower's $50 million penthouse to Putin. This is the answer. There it is. Yep. On the 25th of January, Cohen receives an invitation from another real state developer, Andrea Binsky, to visit Moscow and look at land options.

Yeah, Sator keeps asking for dates when Trump can break off from the campaign to travel to Russia and meet Putin. Then from January to May 2016, there's a drop-off in the communications that they have because apparently Cohen and Sator switched over to an encrypted messaging app called Dust. Then they're back online May 3rd, and Cohen says that to satir through a text that Trump should travel to Russia after he becomes the nominee after the convention. They were pretty sure about him winning that nomination.

They're planning their schedule around it. That is how confident. Although that could just be the pure unmitigated confidence that they live from. Maybe that's not sketchy at all. A couple of days later, Sator says Cohen will be invited to St. Petersburg International Economic Forum by Poon's Press Sec. So more opportunities for the Trump team. On the 26th of May, Trump gets a delegate's needed to win the presidency.

Then we fast forward to June 9th. That's our Trump Tower meeting. I don't know why I said hour ill. That's a Trump Tower meeting with DTJ, Vesonette Sky and Company, you know that whole thing. Meeting set up by Goldstone, whereas we know Goldstone said the information was part of Russia and its government support

for Mr. Trump explicitly. On the 14th of June, Russian hackers hacked the DNC. That's also the same day, Sator recalls that Cohen told him that the deal for Trump Tower Moscow was off. June 18th to the 21st. That's RNC. They elect Trump as their candidate. The 22nd the day after that. It's when WikiLeaks starts publishing their emails. And on the 26th, Trump says he has zero investments in Russia. Dude, fast forward to 2018, November 29th, when Cohen pleased guilty to line in Congress

about Trump Moscow, and this is the same day Trump says, there was a good chance that I wouldn't have won. In which case, I would have gotten back into business. And why should I lose lots of opportunities? So there's a beautiful story. Wonderful. A calendar just with all the dates. Yeah, all the collusion.

Yeah, yeah. Collusion calendar, like a holiday. Like a beach week calendar. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's just so insane. It's just like so explicit. When I first read that and looked at all the images,

and it just blows my mind, how explicit it is. Yeah. Looking back now with everything we know really puts it into perspective, like even more so. I felt like a year ago we were like, whoa, and now it's like holy shit. Yeah, it's interesting to see it all come together. Yeah. All right, thanks Jordan. For my hot note and for the winner of all time best responses to Trump's State of the

Union address, that's the House Democrats, you guys. As you know, Trump said in his State of the Union, which was to me, a line obviously written by Stephen Miller, that we need peace and legislation not war and investigation. And the next day, the Dems responded with a giant fuck you when the Intel Committee launched a massive investigation into Trump, Russia, basically reopening the bullshit farce of an investigation led by Nunes when he was in charge of that committee. There are five major areas, Shiff said that they're gonna look into.

Number one, the scope and scale of the Russian government's operations to influence US political processes and the US government response during and since, the 2016 election. Number two, the extent of any links and or coordination between the Russian government or related foreign actors and individuals associated with Donald Trump's campaign, transition, administration, or business interests in furtherance of the Russian government's interests.

Hmm. Huh. Number three, whether any foreign actor has sought to compromise or hold leverage financial or otherwise p-tap over Donald Trump, his family, his business, or his associates. Number 4, whether President Trump, his family, or his associates are, or were at any time, at heightened risk of, or vulnerable to, foreign exploitation, inducement, manipulation, pressure, or coercion, or have sought to influence U.S. government policy in service of foreign interests.

And number 5, and this one's good, whether any actors, foreign or domestic sought or are seeking to impede, obstruct, and or mislead authorized investigations into these matters, including those in Congress. Nunes, we're talking about you. Yes. Yes. Yes. And also Tuesday, Adam Schiff's House until committee voted to hand over transcripts of testimony for over 50 people to Muller's team, including these people of note.

Might want to slow this down to half speed. Junior, that's Trump's kid. Hope Hicks, Trump's close assistant, Corey Lewandowski, Trump's first campaign chair, Keith Schiller, Trump's bodyguard, Kushner, that's Trump's son-in-law, Brad Parscale, he ran Trump's 2016 data campaign and got all mixed up in Cambridge Analytica, and he's the 2020 campaign chief. Bannon, we know who he is. Eric Prince, he's the black water guy who's sister Betsy DeVos is the education secretary, and he met with Nader Demetriavan others in the Seychelles to set up a back channel and talked about lifting sanctions.

Yes, Alexander Nick's former CEO of Cambridge Analytica, Rora Bacher, former congressional rep who helped lobby free in a COVID genist now, and well, he's a known Russian sympathizer. He's not now. He's always been. Right. Ronograph, that's Trump's secretary. She's the one who writes emails on his behalf since he doesn't probably know how. Rick Dearborn, Jordan, your buddy, friend of Mashburn, who worked with Manafort to weaken the RNC platform on Russia and Ukraine during the convention. Mike Caputo, Slimey Asshole, Trump's Advertrope Advisor pop-up clovish schmitz and all those dipshit Cavalats and

And he's an agalor off posse member who was at the Trump Tower meeting Cavalats a Rennott Akmechan that's the Russian American that was at the Trump Tower meeting It got a ton of mysterious payouts before and after the Trump Tower meeting Anatoliy Samorotchenov or Sam muchnoff, he's the translator when you need anyone for his name. He was in the Trump Tower meeting, they had that translator there. Wallet Ferrez, he's a Trump policy advisor, Mueller asked about Flynn and Poppidop, along with his Russian connections.

He was also part of that National Security Council. Goldfarb, that's the old lady Trump supporter that was tricked by Russians to campaign for him. Clovis, he's another one of the security dudes. Yeah, remember him. Sean Henry, the CEO of Crowdstrike. Those are the ones who found out that Hillary's, about the hacks into the DNC, detourable scene. Diane Denman, a Texas Republican who fought for Mashburn and dear, fought Mashburn and dearborn on softening the RNC platform. Remember the lady who was like, what the fuck are you doing?

Sean Henry, oh wait, we already said him. Goldstone, his transcripts are in there. Sator, he's the former mobster and real estate guy from Bayrock, the Bayrock group, friend of Cohen. He's the one who helps set up the Trump Tower Moscow deal. We were just talking about that Jordan. Simone Menjante, no one knows who she is, really other than Papadopoulos' wife, and she lies to lie about that Jordan. Simone Menjante. No one knows who she is really other than Papadopolis's wife and she likes to lie about her age. I think she's a Darra Pasca boat hoe those are beans and fight with us on Twitter because she has nothing better today.

She's very important. In addition to the major investigation into all things Trump Russia and sending Mueller over 50 transcripts, the house also held its first hearings on gun violence in eight years. And the first hearings on climate change in nine years. They're also starting hearings about Trump taxes. They wanna get his taxes. They've started that process. And they're also holding hearings on what happened to the children at the border.

A fun bonus is that the House Intel Committee is poaching Trump staffers to work on the committee and that's pissing Trump off. And this is why winning the House was so crucial and I'm so proud of all of us and the hard work We did to elect a democratic check on this authority on this authoritarian piece of shit in the White House We have more work to do but as a veteran I just wanted to let you know I'm so proud of you guys and I'm so grateful that you care about what we're defending here So this week treat yourself

Three words for you. Treat, yo, self. Treat yourself 2011. Once a year, Don and I spend a day treating ourselves. What do we treat ourselves to? Clothes. Treat yourself. Fragrance.

Treat yourself. Massage it. Treat yourself. Momosa. Treat yourself. Fine leather goods. Treat yourself. It's the best day of the year.

The best day of the year. The best day of the year! That's right. Go get a massage, have a glass of sparkling rosé, take a day off work and chill, smile at yourself in the mirror, take a power stance, have some cake, and then let's get our noses back to the grindstone. Cause the next 20 months,

we'll determine whether or not we make, make it as a democracy, honestly. And we need each and every one of us working together to save it. Oh yeah, well said. We'll be right back. Hey, Mueller junkies. As you all know, I have a day job as a government exec, and while I have to look professional, I really like to stay comfortable.

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Alright, if you're an OG MSW listener, this will not be news to you, but it's bubbling up to the surface again this week, so I wanted to remind you all about Trump's longtime bodyguard, Ke Keith Schiller. Since he left the White House, a company owned by Schiller has received $225,000 from the RNC for security consulting. He's not really doing anything. A year ago, we put beans on this being hush money, but now Schiff has sent his testimony transcripts over to Mueller, something might be in the wind, so keep that in mind while we're drafting

for our fantasy indictment teams this week. All right. You guys ready for the fantasy indictment league? Oh, yes. I'm gonna be a candidate. Oh, it is gonna be okay. I'm gonna be a candidate. I'm gonna be a candidate.

I'm gonna be a candidate. I'm gonna be a candidate. Oh, that they can't. It's gonna be okay. Just calm down. I can't calm down. I'm gonna be a candidate. Okay, so this week, guys, Maria Boutina's boyfriend boyfriend Paul Erickson, the beast, was indicted in South Dakota for stealing investors money and probably money laundering.

Um, and our initial reaction prior to having access to the indictment was that it had nothing to do with Mueller. Um, so no one gets points. But once I saw some of the details, including payments from Erickson's companies to Bhutina's college and cash payments to someone with the initials MB. I'm pretty sure that's Maria Bhutina. I think I'm changing my mind, and I'm not just saying this because I had Ericsson on my fantasy and diamond team, but this could be more connected than we think. So if you picked Ericsson, if you had Ericsson on your team,

give yourself five points. But most interesting to them, actually, I think he's worth one point, two points. I don't know, whatever it says on Facebook. Give yourself the points for an outer circle guy, two points. Yeah, it sounds about right. Yeah. So most interesting to me was a cash withdrawal that prosecutors flagged for $14,000 that happened around the same time, Erickson and Bhutina organized that NRA trip to Moscow that included several presidents and past presidents of the NRA. And it had the CEO of the outdoor channel remember

that and Sheriff David Clark was there that's the nut job with all the flair we need to talk do you know what this is about my flair yeah or your lack of flare because uh... counting and i only see fifteen pieces well that fourteen thousand dollar amount stuck out to me because i remembered hearing about a reimbursement for that amount from the n-r-a when we had reported

that they had started backing away from their ties with russia remember i don't know how or why that amount stuck out to me but i looked into it and in fact i had read a rolling stone article saying david carc file an ethics report showing from their ties with Russia. I don't know how or why that amount stuck out to me, but I looked into it, and in fact, I had read a Rolling Stone article saying David Clark filed an ethics report showing $6,000 of his trip was covered by Bhutan's group, Bhutan's group, the right to bear arms. And former NRA President Brownell covered $14,000 of Clark's airfare and visa expenses. So I'm wondering, $14,000000, 14,000 did Ericsson reimburse the president of the NRA with Russian money,

laundered through his fraudulent company called investing with dignity, which will now be known as investing with fucking dignity. There you go. So you know. So ironic too. So put some beans on that $14,000. I feel like it's important.

So I do not get to pick first. I believe you go first this time, Julisa. Is that right? Am I right? I don't know. Yeah, well, you go ahead. I will go ahead and take- Reburetion. Junior.

I know you think it might be a little while. I'm thinking any minute, though. Well, he has the transcripts this week, so this week could be it. Yeah. All right, you go ahead. Okay, I'm doing a Corsi plea deal. Corsi plea deal. I'm going to draft Sator for lying about Trump Tower Moscow. of course he pleaded of course he pleaded uh... i'm gonna draft

satar for lying about trump tower mascath satar was one of the transcripts that was sent over to muller this week and i know that he's going to indict trump tower mascath people so i'm going with satar smart yeah and that same light i'm gonna go for hope it's i know it's been a minute since we talked about her but he had to or uh yeah, I think she would Okay, I'm doing super-seating Maniford. Yeah I abbreviated as SS Maniford it sounds like it's boat

All aboard the SS Maniford the government has that too Just have his like his boat with a name on the back that says, crimes paid for this. I'm going to go with AMI because they broke their friggin non-possictorial agreement this week with the base of this thing. OK. I will take Bannon.

I'm going Bannon. I'm going to Assange. All right, I'm going to go super seeding stone. Oh nice. Nice. Such a weird game. I love it. Cush. You dick.

There was none of us drafted Cush last week. I'm not going to lie. But hey, we were right. He didn't get You dick. Yeah. There's was none of us drafted kush last week. How about how we all act? But hey, we were right. He didn't get indicted. So I'm going to go Ivanka. Man, that's a long shot. For I'm going to go with, you got super-seating Maniford already. Damn, I'm out of people.

Let's do that. And there's so many. Let's do that. And there's so many. It's funny when we forget. So it's like hundreds of people are so many. There's just so many. I'm gonna go with, boot and a plea agreement. Or did she already have one?

I mean, she's already cooperating, but outside of the motor investigation, so no. Let me do... Eric Prince. Oh man. One more each. Okay, okay. All right, it's been a while,

but I'm gonna go with par scale. No one, yeah, yeah, because he's in that sheet. I'm gonna do super seating, Yeah, yeah, because he's in that sheet. Mm-hmm. I'm gonna do super-seating Vessel Knit Skaya. Mm-hmm. Okay. I was thinking about that. That's a good one.

I think I'll finally go with, um, for my last pic here. He used to mind. Hahaha. I'm gonna say, Kushner's dad, but... Oh! Cohen's dad. Everyone's family. Yeah, I think I will. I think I'll go with Papa Kush.

Okay. And it... Oh, would you have to be a plea agreement? Oh. Would you have to turn on his son? Probably just the administration Which I guess is a son. Yeah, it might be that his son is turning on his dad. Oh, not like Flynn Flynn Jr You know, yeah Flynn Jr. Such a cocksucker And I don't mean that in an anti-Nor know we're just flipping That's a bad way Which is actually probably pretty homophobic.

Never mind, I take it back. He's an asshole. It's so hard, like the word bitch. It's like, I guess, you know, I'm just trying to offend people. Yeah, yeah. Well, shit. Uh, Nunez. Oh, yeah.

Oh, something's going to happen to him, yeah. All right, guys, that is the fantasy and diamond league. So are we ready for the interview? Yeah. Hello and joining us for the interview today is co-host of the opening arguments podcast in real-life lawyer Andrew Torres. Andrew, welcome to Mollarshi Road. Hey, G, thank you so much for having me on. We're really delighted to have you here. I love your podcast and I think this is going to be pretty epic. So the discussion I wanted to have with you today is about the story that broke this week about AMI lawyers, allegedly blackmailing Jeff Bezos or Bezos. He's the owner of Amazon in the Washington Post and a known political enemy of Donald Trump

by basically threatening to release photos related to his extra marital affair unless he went owner of Amazon in the Washington Post and a known political enemy of Donald Trump by basically threatening to release photos related to his extramarital affair unless he went on the record saying that AMI's motives were not, you know, what AMI was doing was not politically motivated. Can you tell us your first of all, just your top line reaction to these allegations in that media article that 10 page media media article that Bezos wrote. Yeah, so let me say it this way, right? I, among my day job includes, I represent a bunch of podcasts. So it's literally true to say that I've that dick jokes for a living.

I've kind of a strange legal career. And this is the most bizarre correspondence between lawyers that I have ever seen in my entire life. It absolutely has sort of all the makeings of extortion around it. And you know, I mean, like when you start to pour through it, you see completely contradictory statements, right? Like you see AMI's lawyers on the one hand saying it was perfectly legitimate for us to capture naked photos of you, you know, Jeff Bezos, and for us to publish it, but by the way, we're happy to enter into an agreement to not publish a thing that would obviously make us a lot of money as a tabloid press.

I mean, it's just, it's crazy. It's insane. I've never seen anything like it. Yeah. And speaking of, gosh, that email, that really odd exchange. Well, I can't remember the name of AMI's lawyer again, but is he, now, is he jeopardizing his, you know, his bar membership in doing this kind of thing? I mean, it seems straight out to me, it seems like extortion.

Yeah, so a couple of things. I mean, I want to talk about extortion. The deputy general counsel who's on the email that contains the proposed terms is John Fine, not somebody I know. In terms of, could he get disbard? You typically don't get disbard as a lawyer. I mean, it's one of the shames of our profession. You can do all sorts of horrible things, but so long as you're not commingling client

funds, you typically get cens you know, censured or reprimanded or whatever. I don't know if I'm sure there are some. I don't know of a case that involves a lawyer getting disborded for being super shady. But that being said, right, it, I share your take on things, right? Like the the federal extortion statute, right, says that's 18 USC 875 says that it's a crime to intend to extort a thing of value by threatening to injure the property or reputation of someone. And you know, like state crimes that deal with extortion, define it as trying to get something for a value in exchange for an accusation that would bring a person into contempt or disrepute. And right, that seems to be

what this is, right? We will publish, you know, dick pick of you and, you know, other things that are really only, you know, moderately embarrassing, in exchange for you killing a story. And that, that, you know, sort of seems to fit the definition of the statute to me. Yeah, and we know that one of the lawyers, along with Fine, is Dylan Howard, or at least one of the people who was involved deputy director, I think, and Howard was given, I think, at least situational immunity in this case, or in the campaign finance violation case with David Pecker. But, and then also we know that AMI

got a non-prosecutorial agreement out of that where they wouldn't be prosecuted as an entity for cooperating. And does this kind of, if this is found to be extortion, does it violate the non-prosecutorial agreement and the situational immunity that that that was granted and the AMI entered into and Dylan entered into with federal prosecutors last September?

And and if so, what would the implications of breaching that agreement be? Okay. Now, that's a that's a fantastic question. And there's there's a ton to unpack here. So let me try and walk through all of this. If you will forgive a plug, I did episode 235 of opening arguments. I did a long sort of deep dive into this non-proscution

agreement when it first came out. Because it's kind of a weird thing, right? Like, I mean, in lay person's terms, it's essentially a plea deal to a walk, right? And so the first thing we call it a plea deal without a plea. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. So the first thing to keep in mind is that it is already limited in a couple of ways, right? So the first thing is it is a promise that the Southern District of New York, right? So this is, you know, not the Mueller investigation, you know, you've pointed out on your show a bunch of times that, you know, the Southern District is sort of handling,

you know, it kind of feels like Mueller is farming out the cases that he doesn't want to deal with out to the Southern District. And it is a promise that the Southern District, and that's it, will not prosecute AMI for crimes related to their conduct between August 2015 and October 2016. And in particular, that's related to the catch and kill of stories related to Donald Trump. The first thing that I want to flag for you is that

that August 2015 is pretty much coincidental with the start of the Trump campaign. Right? Like so in other words, one of the very first things that Donald Trump did was to arrange this deal with American media and the national inquirer to catch and kill stories related to his campaign. I think that's kind of gone unnoticed because I think a lot of people are sort of reading the August 2015 and reading it with a six instead of a five. But no, like literally one of the first things the president

of the United States did before declaring himself as a candidate was make sure that his pet media outlet would catch and kill BIMBO related stories. So that's wonderful. And so the catch and kill story was intended. I mean, that very clearly is a campaign, an illegal in-kind campaign contribution. The FEC laws are super clear on that that it is a thing of value that was not disclosed. So the non-proscution agreement gives AMI immunity for that conduct with the exception of criminal tax violations.

So point one is the deal already would not include subsequent conduct after that period. But it gets worse for AMI because the deal also has what we call Manifort clauses in it, right, which are intended to allow the Southern District to use all statements that you make in connection with the deal if you violate any aspect of the deal, right, including statements made to the grand jury, including status reports that AMI was required to turn over. So now, then the question, so that's kind of point to, and that's really, really bad, right? Like when you're cooperating, the fact that you've waived the use of all of those statements in subsequent proceedings is going to make it super easy for a prosecutor to break a case against you. It doesn't. It also say you can't commit any crimes from now until 2021, and then even then, if you have to wait until these are all done and settled and so that could even be longer. Yep, that is absolutely the punchline, right? So the obligations under the agreement, right, which was signed in September of 2018,

explicitly run for three years, right, until September of 2021, or the later of the date on which all prosecutions are rising out of the conduct are final, which, you know, could certainly be well passed 2021, but at minimum, right, they run for three years. And as you point out, there are five ways in which AMI could breach the agreement. The first four are probably not impacted here, I mean, which is, you know, a little odd to think about. But they govern the conduct between AMI and the Southern District. So you have to be truthful in your disclosures, you have to cooperate, you have to attend the meetings, you have to provide documents.

But as you point out, the subpointe says, shall commit no crimes whatsoever. And so if AMI has arguably committed a crime, right, it does not say shall not be convicted of a crime, right? Then absolutely, the Southern District in particular prosecutor Tom McKay, who's no stranger to you and your listeners could go back to court and move to tear up the agreement and thereby use everything that anybody on behalf of AMI has provided in connection with their investigation against AMI.

Yeah, and they could bring charges against them. Yeah, so that's pretty substantial right there. Yeah, there were a lot of I think there were a lot of consequences if they Violated any of those five things and I'm you know, we're thinking here number five don't don't Don't be a criminal It's weird that you have to tell anybody But you know, they did they put it in there. they put it in writing and they put it in for a specific rate for these kind of things is exactly why they put that in there so you know it's it's it's just odd to me that it would even I don't know that they would take this kind of a risk and I'll talk

about why they took that kind of a risk and a little bit I have some questions about that but now what do you make of the oh, oh about the Partial immunity or situational immunity or full immunity. I don't know what kind of immunity Dylan got Dylan Howard got but can that also screw his immunity over like like the same with this non-possictorial agreement So I have not seen his deal. I have seen Peckers deal and I have seen AMI steel Now just Peckers deals says that you can't commit crimes and if you do, no more immunity? Yes. It does. And look, it would be harder to connect Pecker. I mean, this is, you know, this is why there's a separate agreement with AMI. It would be harder to draw the line

back to Pecker because the crime that we're talking about here, the crime of extortion, is an intent cry. And right, it's a challenge to prove an intent cry, but it's not that hard of a challenge, right? I think it would be, you know, certainly on face, not hard to bring it corporately against AMI, it would be harder on the face to bring it against Pecker with the information that we have just from Bayzos, right?

Like without some kind of internal correspondence from Pecker to his lawyers that says, hey, why don't we tighten the vise here on Bezos? And I'm with you. I think I've pronounced it both Bezos and Bezos in this. You have to basically coax out this intent, which is a lot harder to prove. It's going to be hidden behind assertions of privilege. There certainly is an argument when you look at this that, you know, attorney client privilege only, you know, doesn't automatically attach just because there's a lawyer in the

room or a lawyer writing the document. You have to be legitimately seeking legal advice. And, you know, there would be an argument that, you know, extorting someone is not seeing or. Yeah, well, there's the crime fraud exception, right? To that kind of a thing. So, yeah, you, it's interdicline privilege unless you're committing a fucking crime. So. Yeah. But, you know, in realistic term, right? Like, you know, judges and lawyers tend to have a pretty broad and expansive view of what constitutes attorney

client privilege. Although, you know, as we've seen from the SDNY's Michael Cohen investigation, you know, that only goes so far. So yeah. No, my favorite was, I think it was Don Jr. to Congress trying to claim attorney client privilege when he was talking about this, talking to his dad about the statement on the Trump Tower meeting when they were on Air Force One and he was on the ground as there just because there was a lawyer in the room. Doesn't make it real so. Yeah, we had a we had a good laugh about that really think about that if that were the case, then the mafia would just like have a Michael which they do,

but they can't do attorney clan privilege for that shit. Now what do you make of the allegations that the potentially if foreign intelligence agency may have intercepted and obtained the Bezos photos and text messages for AMI? That's weird. It's that's super weird and I'd love to know your thoughts on that as well. Like to I'll tell you where I'm where I'm a little skeptical, right? And that is the source of all of this seems to be from Manuel Royte-Franzea, who's a reporter for The Washington Post. And again, I don't I don't doubt that he's a good reporter, right? Like, but you have, right? Bezos owns the Washington Post, and when it is Washington Post reporters who are sort

of driving the story, it leads to think, right? So I read Ragnaronsia's article, and it leads to things like, you know, the Washington Post reached out to Jay Carney, Amazon Senior Vice President for Global Corporate Affairs, who declined the post-request for an interview with Bezos. Like, you know, I mean, that's a weird thing to kind of parse, right? Like, one Bezos entity reached out to another Bezos entity to ask if Bezos would speak from the left hand to the right. It's just weird, right?

So I don't know what to make of it. And I, you know, on the one hand, I want to sort of look for the most parsimonious explanation. And I think, right, if, I mean, if you just ask me, delete everything else, what's the most parsimonious explanation? It would be that, right, the woman with whom Bezos was having the affair is Lauren Sanchez, right?

And her brother, Michael, is a mega hat guy, right? Like he's a Trump supporter, and I have to, like it's super hard, right? Cause he's Michael Sanchez, and I keep thinking of Lionel Hutz's alter ego, you know, Miguel Sanchez. But so, right ego, Miguel Sanchez. But so, Michael Sanchez has said, oh yeah, now like, Bayes is just to come down and hang out with my sister. And I've met him.

So that seems to be the easiest place whereby you would imagine that Trump's friends. What if a giant long con, though, and she was just sent in to have an affair with him, and then that would be crazy. Just who knows? That would be amazing. But right, so what? But what? They're kind of two things that make me keep open for foreign intelligence aspect. And the first one is that in the email

from John Fine to Debecker's Attorney, Martin Singer, it's the last document that's in the Bezos medium article that contains the proposed terms. Proposal, proposed term number four is that AMI affirms that it undertook no electronic eavesdropping in connection with its reporting. So that just means they did. This is what that means. You're like, hey, how about how about you draw us a roadmap there John? Fine. Why? Why you just tell us what to look for? Exactly.

So, yeah, so that made me a little skeptical. And then also, you know, when the steel dossier first came out, like I think I said on my show, like, you know, come on, like this is just, like, you know, we're pretty lefty, but but come on and then of course, you know every Detail nothing surprises me anymore Andrew nothing. What do you think? I mean like how does it strike you with the oh gosh? I don't I don't know somebody was saying am I six other people are saying Saudi Arabia Which seems to make more sense to me. Why would I my six do that? um I really don't know, although what I do think, and I wanted to ask you about how Saudi Arabia might be involved in this,

because as we know, the inquirer love Saudi Arabia and MBS, and it would make sense to me that they'd be in on this, because they also hate the Washington Post, and we know why, because Jamal Kushouji also hate the Washington Post and we know why because Jamal Kashoggi worked for the Washington Post. And so can you explain to us a little bit about what you think about Saudi Arabia maybe being involved in the connections between Bezos and the Washington Post and Kashoggi? Oh my God.

So this story is, I mean, if it doesn't make you angry, then I don't know what will. Right. So the financial connection, I think, Bayzo lays out, right? Like, there's a little hyperlink in there to an AP news story about how an AMI publication got access to the Saudi royal family. And then they put out this like 97 page, you know, coffee table magazine, right? Like the, you know, like the new magic Saudi Arabia. It's beautiful and fantastic and forget 9-11. Just forget that. Now look.

You know, I, so yeah, I mean, forget, forget 9-11. I mean, like, let's talk about, I mean, the, the Kishoggi, like what happened there was you had a longstanding veteran journalist emigrates to the US in 2017, starts working for the Washington post September 2017, um, report out just today that, uh, upon that that contemporaneously with beginning to work for the Washington Post, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, or Muhammad bin Salman, says that he would go after him, quote, with a bullet and that our intelligence sources, our intelligence analysts tell us that that means, right? Yeah, okay.

But it odd, super odd that just came out after this Bayzo's thing. But yes, continue. No, it is. And so that you know, and then Kachoji is at the Saudi consulate in Turkey, right, getting legal documents. He's kidnapped, beheaded on orders of Mohammed bin Salman, right? That's not just me liberal podcast, who's saying it. That's not the Washington Post saying it, right? Like that's the CIA's report, right? And then in December, the United States Senate unanimously, right? That is counting

the Howler Monkey contingent in the US Senate. Nevertheless, unanimously passed a resolution saying, Mohammed bin Salman was responsible for the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. And yet our game show host president said, well, you know, could be maybe does maybe doesn't right? Not the first time that Trump has just dismissed the findings of our national intelligence agencies. And then Saudi Arabia obstructed the investigation right? Like it is just like this behavior is it would be an administration ending scandal for any previous president, right? Like a hostile foreign power beheaded a journalist working for the Washington post. Our intelligence sources confirm that and our president.

Yeah, and I think just today, Trump, we found out he's not going to honor that request from that bipartisan group of senators to investigate Kishouji. He's not going to honor that request from the bipartisan group of senators to investigate Kishouji. He's not going to and I feel like that's that violates the Magnitsky act as well. If there aren't laws that it violates There should be right like I mean it that's that is Yeah, I again, I mean, I'm just know, sort of literally angry with rage right here. It is, it just continues to be more validation that, you know, our president does not have a notion of what it means to have civic obligations or be patriotic. And, you know, the only hope I see for the future is that I believe, and this may be hope after hope,

that there are members of the Republican Party that, like, for who? That's what we thought too. And because it was the senators on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in October that invoked the Magnitsky Act, giving Trump 120 days to report to Congress on his findings and how he plans to react. And today we find out he's not going to give that report and that to me seemingly violates the Magnitsky Act. And my glimmer of hope is that we now have a lot of really rare to go oversight committees in the house that are probably going to have a look into this.

Yeah, no, I agree with that. And again, I want to underscore that, right? Like Richard Burr's committee, the Senate Intelligence Committee affirmed the findings of the joint findings of our intelligence agency and continued the investigation, despite the fact that Burr was on Trump's foreign policy team in 2016. And again, contrary to Devon Nunez and the House rubber stamp committee that's, oh, I'm definitely nothing to see here. And the reason, and again, Richard Burr, I am sure that Richard Burr and I disagree on 99% of politics. But I also think that Richard Bur and I disagree on 99% of politics but I also think that

Richard bar does not want to see a hostile foreign powers. I know I'm with you I think that there's a lot more credibility to the Senate oversight and especially on the Republican side than there was ever in the House. But finally the pushback from AMI to go as far as potentially blackmailing Bezos seems to indicate that they're trying to cover up something big. Otherwise they wouldn't presumably be willing to risk breaching that non-present tutorial agreement or jeopardizing potentially, you know, Pecker, Dylan Howard's situational or whatever kind of immunity they have. Do you think AMI could have conspired with Trump or the White House on any of this?

Because Trump has a history of abusing executive power to try to stick it to Bezos. We remember when he pressured the Postmaster General to double the Amazon shipping costs. And that, to me, is just an impeachable offense, because that's what happened with Nixon trying to get the IRS to go after the bastards. But what do you think they could be trying to block investigators from finding? And we found out today, these federal prosecutors are now looking into this Bayzo shit. What are they? What were they willing to breach that non-proscutorial agreement to cover up?

So let me first kind of lay the groundwork for that because when you're talking about potentially inditing a corporation, right? Corporations are people, my friends. So corporations can be indicted, just like people can be indicted. And the DOJ has issued guidelines about how to go about inditing a corporation. And the interesting wrinkle. I mean,

it's obvious when you start to think about it, but the wrinkle as illustrated in the DOJ guidelines and as demonstrated through case law is that you have to show that the corporation was acting in the corporation's interest in committing the alleged crime or crimes. Right? So by contrast, right? Like if Pecker were using AMI and using the national inquiry to enrich himself at the expense of the inquiry, then those would be grounds to bring charges against pecker, right? But they wouldn't be grounds to bring charges against AMI. And this was

one of the things that really struck me way back when this AMI deal was signed in September of 2018, because every public allegation we had seemed to support the former set of facts and not the latter. Right? So, for example, right? Like the McDougal story, right? As it's sort of an allocation, right? Like in the non-prossecution agreement, there's a nine paragraph statement of admitted facts. And in that statement, right, on behalf of AMI, it agrees that they paid $150,000 for the McDougal story. They didn't intend to run it. And it contains, as a paragraph five, this clause that says that that 150,000 was, quote, substantially more money than AMI otherwise would have paid to acquire the story. And when you stop the parse that out, essentially what they're saying is we bought a story, we incurred

more expenses than we otherwise would have in acquiring the story, and then we didn't run it, right? So we missed out on the opportunity. Right. So they aren't really trying to enrich themselves Right, so we missed out on the opportunity. Right, so they aren't really trying to enrich themselves, in this case, and we knew back then that they were risking the magazine going under and some of the other magazines to go under. They were doing that, and then we found out something about, oh, what's this fucking name?

Chris Christie stealing pension funds from New Jersey and giving it to AMI, and now I'm wondering how much Saudi Arabia giving it to AMI. And now I'm wondering how much Saudi Arabia's bankrolling AMI so that they could do all these things without worrying about, you know, tank in the paper. I think that's right. And so once again, you've sort of cut to the punchline, which is, at some point, there must be a direct or pretty direct, you know, pretty strong inference to significant chunks of money from other sources, right? Because at the end of the day, like, that's the inquiry that any court would do in terms of evaluating and the DOJ would do in terms of evaluating whether you could bring charges against AMI.

And as I pointed out back when this deal was signed, AMI's counsel in this case is, you know, they're top-notch lawyers who have been doing this for a long, long time. And I would not think, and I expressed at the time, that if you counsel your client that they have no risk of being indicted, then you wouldn't sign the non-prossecution agreement, right? You're not getting anything in exchange for that. And as we're signing a non-prossecutorial agreement, signing a non-prossecutorial agreement is almost a consciousness of guilt situation. Yeah, I know exactly right. I love the way you've, I love the way you put it. And so, you know, I said at the time, look, there's something there that represents, if not a direct quid pro quo.

And again, the standard isn't quite, I mean, I want to get too much on, you know, log e-gory, but like the standard isn't at the level of wood pro quo like, you know, in the Supreme Court, Macdonald case, right, that the Virginia governor, whether like, well, if you don't say, I am giving you this in exchange for you doing white right, it's not, you don't have to prove at that level, but you do have to demonstrate that the benefits are not to the actions of the individuals. Interesting. Well, I'm definitely fascinated about by this, and I'm really excited to see what comes

out of this investigation now that the federal prosecutors are looking into it, and hopefully we'll get to have you back on once we find get the findings from that and AMI is definitely as an entity going on my fantasy and diamond like this week so we'll see how it goes. Can you tell us Andrew again where we can find your podcast? Oh thank you so much. Yeah it is it's the opening arguments podcast so if you start typing opening into into iTunes or your podcast vehicle, it usually is the first tip that comes up. It's got a lovely little blue background or you can go to open args opn a r g s dot com and you know, look for opening arguments anyway.

We pick that on purpose. I get lawyers who will always, you know, write in and be like, you know, you can't give arguments in your opening statement. Thanks. You seem fun. I bet you're fun at parties. Well, if I had a nickel for every time, I got some sort of comment like that. I would be in a tax bracket that I would benefit from Trump's tax plan.

All right. Everybody, lawyer, co-host of OpenArguments podcast, Andrew Torres, and Andrew. Thanks for coming on Muller Shee wrote today. I appreciate it. All right. Mullerinos, that's our show. If you want the extended, unedited version of that interview, along with the midweek episode, bonus episodes, book club, fantasy indictment league, close-face book group,

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