Jack - Manafort, Stone, and Cohen, Oh My (feat. Katie Phang)

Episode Date: February 18, 2019

S3E7 - Joining us this week is Katie Phang (MSNBC Legal Contributor)! Plus, Jaleesa is going to be covering a story about Trump gutting the election protection task force and AG covers the rest of the week's Mueller news. Enjoy!

I'm Greg Oliar. Four years ago, I stopped writing novels to report on the crimes of Donald Trump and his associates. In 2018, I wrote a best-selling book about it, Dirty Rubels. In 2019, I launched Proveil, a bi-weekly column about Trump and Putin, spies and mobsters, and so many traders! Trump may be gone, but the damage he wrought will take years to fully understand. Join me and a revolving crew of contributors and guests as we try to make sense of it all. This is Preveil. Thanks to Third Love for supporting Mueller, she wrote. Third Love knows there's a perfect bra for everyone, so right now they're offering our listeners 15% off their first order.

Go to ThirdLove.com slash AG to find yours today. And thanks to Ritual for supporting Mueller She Wrote. Better health doesn't happen overnight. Start your year with Essential for Women, a small step that helps create a healthy foundation for 2019 and beyond. Visit Ritual.com slash AG to start your ritual today. Finally, thanks to Buffy for supporting Mueller She Wrote. For $20 off your Buffy Comforter, visit Buffy.com and enter promo code AGE at Checkout.

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 our position is. That's what I said, that's obviously what our position is. I'm not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time, a two in that campaign, and I didn't have, not 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 a capitalist. Thank you. Thank you.

Hello, and welcome to Muller She Wrote. I'm your host, A.G. and a capitalist. on a self-care trip with some close friends who are soon to move away. So we will miss her, but she will be back for the midweek episode this Wednesday. Julie, so how was your week? It was good, productive. Yeah. Got a lot of shit done. Yeah, lots of news to read, so that was good. Oh my God, so much news. It was this seemingly quiet week, and then it just blew up in faith. Oh, yeah, Friday was crazy. Oh, it's always fire Friday. It's nuts. We have some corrections this week. First of all, I call Jeffrey Epstein a petarast, but that means you're into young boys. So petafile is more correct. I also lumped Vin Weber in with Democratic lobbyists Tony Podesta and Greg Craig from Scadden, ARP Slate, Murr and Flom. But Vin Weber is a Republican from Minnesota, so duly noted. Thank you, Minnesotans. Tickets are now on sale for the Miracle Theater in DC on March 29th for MSW Live.

And we're also going to be at the Bell House in Brooklyn, March 30th, and the Largo in Los Angeles on April 18th. There are but a few remaining tickets. They are going fast, only a few left, so grab them while you can. Bell House, by the way, is 18 and up. Miracle Theater is all ages, despite what rumors are out there. There's no formal meet and greet at Largo, but I'll be sending a message out to patrons on our Patreon page with the information about which bar we'll be headed to after the show where we can all hang out and have some cocktails.

If you're not a patron and you want to get these super secret messages and you want to become a patron, head to patreon.com slash muller she wrote. You'll get ad free episodes in the midweek update and a whole bunch of other stuff for just three bucks a month. It's a steal. Best deal in the business. So check that out. Also I'm going to be on the open arguments podcast this Tuesday.

So look for that wherever you get your podcasts. And I was also recently on Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness. So check that out. What an amazingly smart and honest person. So even if you're not listening to that one, just check out his podcast. It's really incredible. He's super smart, does his research, and he probably already just knows shit anyway. He doesn't even have to look it up.

The guy is incredible. Also, this week, as I said, has been somehow quiet yet insane. I think big things are about to go down. And we're joined today by special guest, Yale Grad, and trial lawyer. She's also an MSNBC legal contributor, Katie Fang. And we're going to talk about all kinds of things, including Tom Barrick.

Jalisa has been reporting for a while now on the continued Russian election interference. And today you have a hot note about Trump gutting the election protection task force. Oh yeah. Election protection. That reminds me of that scene with Paul Rudd in Wanderlust. Hmm. Do you like my erection selection? Paul Rudd is a national treasure. Paul Rudd, if you're listening, I hope you can make your way to the Largo on April 18th from Mullershey Road Live. It'll be tremendous. We have a lot to cover this week, so we might as well jump in with just the facts.

Alright guys, early in the week, House Intel Committee Chairman Adam Schiff was on Meet the Press, MTP, where he said snoop dagrosenstein may have killed the Deutsche Bank subpoenas to keep muller from being fired which is why the house intel committee is now going to be looking closely into that case in you know just on the off chance muller did not because he you know some muller didn't want to maybe he didn't want to cross the line that red line trump drew in the sand. That makes sense, yeah. And keep his job. So, if there's something Mueller's not investigating, I think it's safe to say it's either

being handed off to other federal prosecutors or US attorneys, or the House is now going to investigate it. That whole big sweeping announcement of investigations that we covered last week. Pretty incredible. Nice, yes. All right, also Monday we learned that AMI, that's American media ink. They're the American media ink. They're the inquirer. Dishes. They told the daily beast that the inquirer obtained the Jeff Bezos

texts from his mistresses brother. So basically, Bezos cheated on his wife with Lauren Sanchez. Lauren's brother Michael is buddies with Roger Stone and Carter Page. So obviously a giant piece of shit. Bezos said last week in a stunning medium article that he was being extorted blackmailed by AMI and the inquirer, saying they told him he had to say AMI was not acting politically or they weren't politically motivated. Otherwise, they were going to release a bunch of his kinky texts. Bezos also alleged Saudi Arabia was part of this scandal because they hate the Washington Post as much as Trump does and we know Bezos owns the Washington Post.

And Saudi Arabia hates the Washington Post because Kashoggi worked for them. Exactly. Well, now people from AMI are telling reporters that it was Michael Sanchez, who we now will call a dirty Sanchez forever, and he's the one who stole Bezos's text from his sister's phone and gave them to the inquire. I personally think, and these are beans, that he's the fall guy here. I don't think he did it.

He says he didn't do it, although he really can't believe anything. Dirty Sances says. I think the Saudis are more involved in this than Trump and AMI want us to know. And that's why AMI went out of their way to extort them. They wouldn't have shit all over their non-possicutorial agreement over this,

if it weren't covering up something super important. So put some beans on that and look for AMI and Dylan Howard to be indicted as they've broken their non-possicution and immunity agreements respectively. Oh yeah, they're going down. Also Monday, Cohen has postponed his Senate in Tel-Committee testimony citing medical issues. He recently had a shoulder surgery

and says the meds he's on make him too goofy to testify. Well, that's probably true. I don't know how that's different from his regular testimony. But yeah, even though he was out partying, he was seen partying with friends and then his wife over the weekend.

Yeah. The next night, he already knew his house intel testimony or we already knew his house intel testimony was moved to February 28th and nobody in the house minded that probably because I think personally Mueller asked for the delay not Cohen. Actually, I think it's been reported. It's been confirmed that Cohen didn't ask for that delay. That's right. I'm not sure why he's moving the Senate intel testimony,

but Cohen reports to prison for three years in a couple of weeks. Yeah, and they can take him out of jail to do his testimony, right? So I wonder why he'd push it back. For some reason, they're like, we'd rather do it before he goes to jail, but whatever. Yeah.

And a cutter appears to be distancing itself from Kushner, as Reuters reported this week, that after cutter found out it unwittingly bailed out Kushner's devil building 666 Fifth Avenue, it revamped its investment strategy. So let me see if I can explain this to you with a straight face. The cutteries want us to believe that one of their investment vehicles called Brookfield Investments, which is funded in part by the cutter investment authority investment vehicles called Brookfield investments, which is funded in part by the cutter investment authority Bailed out Kushner and his building to the tune of over a billion dollars for a property worth half that much probably It's a shitty investment nobody wanted it And and the the cutteries say they had no idea about this. Yeah, just another Tuesday for them, you know Just a billion no biggie and we have reported you know, when I'm talking about QIA,

possibly being the secret company from country A and the Mueller's subpoena dispute, we've talked about how Qatar said that they want to do 35 billion dollars worth of business in the United States. Maybe a billion here and a billion there's no big deal to them, but I'm, I don't know, despite the coincidental, the coincidental subsequent removal of the cuttery boycott by the Saudis, and the auster of traders to the Saudi crown from Intel given to Muhammad Bonsob by Jared Kushner.

To me, this is nothing more than the cuttery's looming the truth for when we find out in a couple of weeks that maybe they are at the heart of that secret subpoena battle because they don't want to hand over their records to Robert Mueller because they bribed Flynn, Cohen, and Kushner, right? Those are super space beans. I'm only guessing. It could be somebody we've never heard of, but I think it's QIA.

We'll find out now. Yeah, but that sounds pretty logical. And we learned this Wednesday that the courts are going to make public more information about the secret company from country A. And to me, and these are just beans, cutter wants you to know that when all is revealed, they really honestly had no idea they helped fund a billion dollar Kushner bailout in exchange for policy. That is crazy. That's pretty stupid.

There was an incredible piece in the New Yorker this week by Ronan Farrow about side group and black cube. Jalice has been reporting on these Israeli Mossad for higher groups and their connections with the Trump campaign pretty extensively. And I think that this reporting is coming up again because we might find out soon about that August 3rd Trump Tower meeting with Joel Zamol that Seth Abramson referred to as the biggest news story

of 2018 in our season finale episode to December 31st. Zamol is a guy, by the way, he's the guy who proposed social media siaoats to the Trump campaign and who Nader then paid $2 million to shortly after Trump won and Nader has immunity guys so put some beans on this space and I highly recommend you check out the article from Ronan Farrow in the New Yorker it's called Private Masad for Higher or check out our midweek episode. Jalisa did a deep dive into this because she's been following these

stories for a while. Oh yeah, it's crazy. Get article though, really long. It was, it was a really good read. The Ronan Ferris and Incredible writer. Ronan, if you're listening, you should come on, Mueller, she wrote, please do. Jelisa also did a story in the midweek episode

about a Trump squid pro crow with a coal man named Murray in which Trump publicly by tweet urged the Tennessee Valley Authority to keep open a 49-year-old coal plant despite its plans to convert more into wind and solar and hydro, right? Oh, yeah. And that coal plant is owned by a huge Trump-owner named Murray. Ah, go figure, right?

Yeah, Jaliza, what a weird story. It's so strange. And the TVA, that was the board that was going to vote on the closure of this plant, they were supposed to get together on Thursday to decide. So I haven't seen an update yet. I wonder what they went with on that one, because they said they were leaning towards closing it, because it just wasn't viable. It just made sense to let it go, but Trump insisted.

It was so important to keep it open. So. What a dummy. Yeah. Then things started to go a little nuts this week on Wednesday. We learned Roger Stone fighting against a gag order told the judge that Mueller should have to prove he didn't leak the stone indictment to the press

before he was arrested. And then his magical lawyers who can't file paperwork properly presented evidence that actually showed the indictment was released after Stone was arrested. As it turns out though, it was released just moments before the arrest was carried out and the time was filled in a little bit later. But Stone is beating this conspiracy drum that idiot right-wingers, including Matthew Fuking-Wittaker by the way in his congressional testimony, are trying to push that CNN must

have known about the arrest for Mueller ahead of time, they're conspiring because they're outside of his house before the FBI knocked on his door. Or they listen to Mueller's hero. Yeah, look, guys, just because you're not smart enough to understand something doesn't mean it's a conspiracy theory. We knew Stone was getting arrested that day. We're a podcast of comedians. The grand jury met the day before. Stone himself said he was about to get arrested. There were sealed indictment. There was a sealed indictment on the D.C. docket the night before. We put two and two together guys. I know I've said this before, but that's what I think conspiracy theories are. Someone just isn't smart enough to understand something, so it has to be a conspiracy.

Just because you can't wrap your head around the concept of a round earth doesn't mean the rest of us are fucking with you. Yeah, I saw a mean today that was just like the pyramids and it said works so hard that people think the aliens did it. It's kind of it. That makes me think of conspiracy. Totally. Just because you can't understand the concept of water vapor doesn't mean the government is using chemtrails to control your mind, right?

Or just because you have the mental capacity or you don't have the mental capacity to grasp the Trump-Russia investigation doesn't mean there's a deep state or you know you can't see germs that doesn't mean you shouldn't vaccinate your kids. That was crazy. I thought that was like a made-up poem so I saw the clip. You actually said that. You did. Can't see germs.

Or just because you have an experienced racism doesn't mean it's not a thing or because you haven't been raped or assaulted doesn't mean women are out to get you you know not all men all lives matter the earth is flat globe heads are real follow the money 9-11 was an inside job it's Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve make America great again deep state pizza gate ah fucking shut up these q-fucks are killing me with their stupidity and And rant. Um, I love it. Well said. Thank you. Anyhow, back to Stone.

Sorry, momentary rant. Uh, Judge Jackson in the Stone case ruled to allow Jerome Corsi, another conspiracy theorist and former Stone associate, to file an amicus brief. That's a friend of the court brief, supporting the gag order. He's also suing Stone for defamation,

as we reported last week. And as it turns out, Judge Jackson did end up filing a partial gag order. He's also suing stone for defamation as we reported last week. And as it turns out, Judge Jackson did end up filing a partial gag order, saying stone is not allowed to run his mouth outside the courthouse. Just outside the courthouse. I feel like this is almost a trap. Like, she didn't give him a full gag order. Let him go ahead and try to say some shit

because it can and will be used against him in a court of law. Oh yeah, he will try if he can. Right, like how Manafort wrote that op-ed with a Russian when he's supposed to be a gagged out on bail. Yeah. But probably the biggest stone news came from details we got in a filing from Mueller's team responding to stones objection that his case be related to the indictment of

Russians, right? The Russians that hacked and then stole documents from the DNC, the D-Triple C, and Pidesda. It turns out the reason he was contesting that link, that relationship between his case and the Russian indictments is because all related cases are heard by the same judge, and I think he's scared shitless of Judge Amy Berman Jackson.

So, Mueller filed a document supporting the link between those cases. He said, here's why, they're related. And in that response, we learned that Stone had direct contact with some of the GRU defendants named in the Mueller indictment of the Russians concerning the hacked materials. He had direct contact with these Russian intelligence officials. Mueller said that when they reviewed the evidence collected in the Russian hacking case, they found direct communications with Roger Stone.

Um, WikiLeaks, you up? Yeah. Who knew phone? Who does? Quote, as alleged, in the netteek show, it sounds like a weird show, indictment, the Russian indictment, as alleged in the Russian indictment, the defendant stole documents from the DNC, the D-Triple C, and Podesta. They then released many of them, including through WikiLeaks. The government executed warrants on various accounts used to facilitate the transfer of stolen documents

for release, as well as to discuss the timing and promotion of their release. Several were executed on accounts that contained communications from Roger Stone, including Gujit for 2.0 and WikiLeaks. Evident shows that the Russian defendants hacked and stole the documents for release through WikiLeaks, and that Roger Stone lied about it to the Congressional Committee. Guys, that's it right there. Stone participated in the weaponization of materials hacked and stolen by the Kremlin to benefit Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton, and then lied about it to Congress. And Mueller has documentary evidence to prove it.

This is what we've been saying all along and Judge Jackson agreed and ruled against Roger Stone's objection, handing yet another win to Mueller's team as he remains undefeated in federal court. So when they ask you where's your proof, tell them. Mueller has documentary evidence that Stone communicated with Russians that hacked the Democrats and conspired to release them in such a way as to do maximum damage to Clinton and to help Trump. Oh, yeah, and I feel like some people just may never believe it. Even when the report comes out and we see the evidence, some people are just probably never gonna, like, you know, people that like, oh, where's your proof? It's like, it's like flat earthers. I can't see it for myself. I didn't see it happen. Exactly. So it's not real. Yeah. Fuck you.

There's also evidence that Stone lied about all this to Congress to cover up the conspiracy. Why would you lie? Consciousness of guilt is what it's called. And we also have evidence that Trump and Stone were in constant communication around that time. Late night chats on the phone. So I just like laying on their stomach with the feet kicked up. Like, hey, how are you? No, you hang up first, right? So I put a late night call with Pudy, called a Pudy call. Pudy call, two I am.

So guys, don't miss these filings. Molar is telling us all about the crux of the conspiracy and you don't want to miss them, okay? So, this is the conspiracy. These are the facts and this is the conspiracy. These are the facts, and this is the evidence. And of course, we've been saying this forever. It's in Seth Abramson's book, the Collegiate Bible. Right, our Bible.

So just make sure you pay attention to these, because these little filings are where all the details are going to come out. If there's not some big grand sweeping and indictment at the end of all this, that scoops everybody up and conspiracy and wire from. That would be amazing. But if there's not all the details we need

are gonna come out in these filings, so pay attention to them. All right, guys, we'll be right back. Hey, Mueller junkies, A.G. and Jolissa here to tell you how much we love our bras and undies from third love. Third love uses the magic of metadata by analyzing the measurements of millions of real women

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It's just really nice. Yeah, I like the front closure one. That re-confuses the dudes. Oh, yes. I don't know. I don't know, or whoever you would do. Third love has a 100% fit guarantee with easy and free returns and free exchanges

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installed to supervise the security clearances for the White House. He's the guy that gave Kushner and Jr. their clearances, even though the CIA and the FBI objected. And as we reported previously, he's let over 30 clearances go that probably shouldn't have, or that weren't recommended by the FBI or CIA. Trisha Newbold, one of his subordinates, filed for whistleblower status less than two weeks after she was suspended without pay for defying Carl Klein, saying he was granting unwarranted security clearances for officials including Kushner. She alleges that Klein repeatedly mishandled security files and has approved unwarranted clearances giving preferential treatment to certain individuals by not making them come in to answer for questionable concerns. When she raised these concerns specifically about Kushner, Klein told her to watch herself. And then when NBC News reached out to Klein, they got no comment other than a text reading, I don't care.

He doesn't care about your national security. The House Oversight Committee is now investigating the matter and we will keep you posted. That is so crazy. They really don't care, though. And they're so blind about it. What do you do? Yeah, I don't care. Gross.

At least they're honest. I guess. Also Wednesday, the lawyers for Bijon Keon asked for more time to prepare their defense for trial, because they have terabytes of data. If you remember, Bijon Keon is the guy that was indicted the day before Flynn got went to did that crazy hearing, right? And he, B. John Keon was indicted for acting

as a foreign agent or espionage light, you might have heard us call it, in the turkey matter, right? He pleaded not guilty and his lawyers are asking to move the trial to this fall because his daughter's wedding is the first week of August and he doesn't want to get a jammed up before that. Coming this fall privilege. Coming this fall to NBC. So this is the best part. The judge is like, oh, you don't want to get jammed up before the early August wedding? Okay, your trial is July 15th.

Nice. I love it. Take that. You fucking criminal. So saucy. I know. So I'll see judges. And in the Concord Management case, guys, the judge handed Mueller a win saying the Russians can't have any of the discovery material they want. The Concord Management case is the one where the those asshole lawyers, they're American lawyers, but they're representing the Russians. Yeah, Concord

Management is a Russian company run by I think Progoshin, Putin's chef. That's right. Concord management and catering or some shit like that. And so basically, they came in, they got some American lawyers, and these are the ones who like put cartoon and pop culture references and they're court filing. Yeah, they're ridiculous lawyers, yeah.

Right, and drop the F bomb and the judges like, you're stop it, just stop it. You're being an asshole. They're trolling and court. They are. And what happened was as they took some banal documents from Mueller and edited them, forged them, put them online, and then tweeted out from an anonymous Twitter account,

oh, we hacked Mueller. Look at his reports are stupid and they say nothing. So that's the Concord Management case. The judge found in favor of Mueller saying, no, you can't have any of the discovery. It's too sensitive and you're just going to hand it over to Progosian. Very nice. So each of you shouldn't die. Courts are so important, man.

I know. And they're doing such a good job on this. They're batten a thousand for justice. As I said earlier, we also learned Wednesday that we will be getting more information made public about the super secret secret subpoena case involving secret company owned by country A. My beans are on the cutter investment authority. I've spelled that out quite a bit a couple episodes back and in a pretty extensive Twitter thread if you want to check that out. My second and third

picks are VEB and VTB respectively, but we'll soon know if beans come true. Oh yeah. And Wednesday, Jerry Nadler, he's the chair of the House Judiciary Committee on the fucking bad ass. He wrote a love letter to Matthew fucking Whitaker for Valentine's Day, saying the committee doesn't believe your bullshit testimony. Specifically, when you said you didn't talk to the White House about Mueller. So come on back down to the hill and clarify your inconsistent story. The other thing NADDLER wants to clear up with Whitaker is whether or not Trump or any other

White House official expressed displeasure, displeasure, with him in the wake of Cohen's guilty plea last November. NADDLER says in his letter that some of what Whitaker said is in conflict with evidence they possess. We're not done with you yet, big dictator, that guy. Nadler says in his letter that some of what Whitaker said is in conflict with evidence they possess Uh, we're not done with you yet big dictator that guy mm-hmm or as Molly John fast calls him hot tub crime machine. Oh, that's good Also, Wednesday we found out that Sam Patton's sentencing has been scheduled for April 12th Patton is the guy that Muller and Dited for taking foreign money into the Trump inaugural

He was the first public confirmation that Trump and his inaugural was taking foreign money into the Trump inaugural. He was the first public confirmation that Trump and his inaugural was taking foreign money, which Patent did using a cutout, a straw donor, to sell inaugural tickets and was reimbursed by Putin back to Ukrainian emigrates. So keep your eyes out for the names Intrater, Vexelberg, Blavotnik, and Kukes. These are all soft power U.S. citizens that are Russian allies. The Kremlin uses them to get shit done in the United States because they're citizens here or they're on visas. And they're likely the straw donors, federal prosecutors, will be looking into in the Southern District of New York's investigation into the inaugural fund.

Why the Sam Patton case was held by Mueller's team and not handed off probably has to do with Patton's association to Manifort Gates and Calumnic. As we know, Mueller, lawyer, Mueller, the lawyer, Weisman said that the meetings between Calumnic and Manifort specifically, that August second meeting go directly to the heart of the Mueller probe. So I expect Patton has wound up in that somehow, so put some beans on it. Yeah. You think in superseding for that for him or just go the course of his current charge? Patten?

No, I don't think he's going to face any more charges. I think they're all, you know, stuff with it that Mueller didn't want us to know about is redacted, but you know, it'll just come up again. Yeah, or in Flynn stuff, it might come up in Kalimnick Manafort stuff. Oh, yeah. It might be redacted in Manaifort filings we've already seen. Right. That we just can't read.

That would make sense though. So, we will see you maybe. We got a ton of Manifort news speaking to Manifort. I'll go over that later in the show in Hot Notes. Then Thursday, Andrew McCabe popped back up in the news. That is right. My boyfriend did an interview with 60 minutes ahead of his book tour and he dropped some bombs during that chat.

He said that there were actual serious discussions in the Department of Justice about invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from about eight days prior to the firing of James Comey until Robert Mueller was appointed and he confirmed that Snoop Dagrod Rosenstein was serious when he suggested wearing a wire during meetings with the president if you'll remember the McCabe memos corroborated that and we were like what but I thought it was a joke now he was serious wow uh... to mccabe is being honest if mccabe is being honest

uh... mccabe i think you're right mccabe also said that once komi was fired he prompted the fby team uh... to start investigating the trump russia conspiracy and also to investigate obstruction as national security issue counterintelligence problem after komi was fired we've covered that that big new york times Times piece that dropped. And he opened that investigation to establish the case in the event he were fired, which he was. For lack of candor, the day before he was going to retire by Jeff Sessions. Insanity.

Who he was investigating. So as he did back then, a spokesperson for Snoop Dagg is kind of denying these statements. He said Thursday, quote, the deputy attorney general again rejects Mr. McCabe's recitation of events as inaccurate and factually incorrect. Dagg has stated based on his personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th amendment, nor was the dagg in a position to consider invoking the 25th amendment. End quote. Note that he doesn't say he didn't try to or didn't discuss the twenty-fifth amendment he said you can't write or he or he yeah he's just not in a position to do so at nor did he at all mention the wearing a wire thing oh yeah what I do what here's

what I think is going on personally mccabe was wrongfully terminated is what I think um... snoop dad wore a, and they all talked about removing Trump under the 25th Amendment. Though the next day, McCabe's spokesman came out and made clear that McCabe was not part of any ongoing discussions about the 25th Amendment. OK. So there's that.

Very interesting. McCabe's got a book coming out in this week, I think. I've ordered us a bunch of copies. See if we might do a book club on it. Yeah. Also Thursday, the results from Trump's annual physical were released, which said he's six foot three. And that he's 243 pounds.

Yeah. In your bra. Then later Thursday. In your bra. Nice. Natasha Bertrand published a piece in the Atlantic, asserting that the Senate's probe into Russian interference is facing a reckoning.

So after Nunez screwed the pooch on the GOP-led investigation in the House, the House Intel Committee, we all kind of hedged our bets on the Senate Intelligence Committee. We here at Muller She wrote, have said on multiple occasions that we thought the Senate investigation had more credibility. It was more legit than the clusteruck going on in the House, which is why we push so hard to take back the House and appoint committee chairs that

would actually follow through with what I think and I think what all of us think is the single most important investigation in our history. So although we put more faith in the Senate, it seems that their bipartisanship is starting to waver. The chair of the Senate Intel Committee, Burr, and the vice chair, Democrat Mark Warner, appear to be disagreeing over there being any direct evidence of conspiracy. But as Chuck Rosenberg told Natasha Burr, I don't think I've ever had a case where I've had direct evidence of conspiracy. If there's snow on your front lawn, you can safely conclude that it's snowed.

Is it direct evidence? No, it's circumstantial. Someone could have driven up to your house and thrown snow on your lawn, but that's unlikely. And then he says this really important thing. He says, the law treats circumstantial and direct evidence as being of equal weight. Wow. So, FU, Trump supporters who are like, ooh, circumstantial evidence. And think about any blue collar crime that you know about about in the way that it's handled for most people

It's like circumstantial almost all the time. Oh circumstantial evidence and here's where burloses all credibility with me Burr claimed recently that Christopher steel of the steel dossier had not Responded to the committees attempts to engage with him But steel had actually submitted written answers to the panel last August, so that circumstantial evidence holds the same legal weight as direct evidence, and Burr is now either a liar or incompetent. Those things are indicative that his statement about there having been no direct evidence of collusion is just a pile of shit to me now. And add to that, the red flags that Burr

took no steps to hire experts to aid in the investigation, and he failed to use his subpoena power to obtain records from entities like Deutsche Bank, and you've got another complicit cover up in what we thought was a more credible investigative body. And it could still be more credible, but like you're saying there's all these holes because Burr is Burr. I mean, you know, whether it's because he's a Republican or what, he clearly has an agenda that's not the same as justice maybe. It's not a just-to-see agenda.

No, I don't think so, but there are others that seemingly, you know, we're trying to keep it on the right track, so there were points where we thought that it was going the right way, but in the end, you know, he's in charge. Yeah, and all these Republicans are like, there's no smoking gun, there's no smoking gun. I just want to let you know that a smoking gun is circumstantial evidence. Oh, bam, there you go, A.G. So fuck you. Pretty sure a bullet was just shut off of their smoke. You know how the gun just could be smoking.

Oh, yeah, smokey gun. Standin' over a dead body, but you didn't see it happen with your own eyes, flat earth. Finally, Thursday, William Barr was confirmed in sworn in as the attorney general. This is interesting to me for several reasons, least of which that he's not committed publicly to releasing the full Mueller report. And if you remember, Barr is the guy that on Christmas Eve 1992 pardoned all those

Iran contra-fucks back in the day. Match that up with Matthew fucking Whittaker's testimony that he's laid eyes on pardoning documents in the White House and you've got a significant problem in the Department of Justice. Oh yeah. Then Friday came. No, no, no, no. And even though it wasn't a felony Friday, it was lit. First, Trump's shot on the Rose Garden by declaring a national emergency and then saying I didn't need to do this and then leaving for a weekend golf trip Big emergency

Both of those things will undoubtedly be used against him In court as proof that there is no emergency and California governor Gavin Newsom has said we will see you in court Oh, yeah, he's been sued by so many right something totally yeah, Cruz going after him the ACLU is going after him There's no way that this is going to get anywhere. And if it does, and he does steal money from the military, because he cares about the military so much, to build his stupid wall, we're just going to knock it down when we win in 2020. So each shit.

We also learned Friday that Sarah Sanders was interviewed by special counsel. I would be especially excited to know how she answered for lying to the public about Don Jr. statement regarding the Trump Tower meeting and how it was about adoptions.'s statement regarding the Trump Tower meeting and how it was about adoptions. A statement we now know was directed by the president and possibly written for him by Putin because at the G20 summit right before they got on the

plane there was that little sidebar with Putin for about an hour that only Melania was there for. Exactly. And the translator who will never get a problem is actually a translator not even ours and then try to get Trump so I mean I wonder if that'll be helpful I don't know we'll see and finally Friday guys Elijah Cummings of the House Overset Committee published 19 pages of redacted notes from the office of government ethics and wrote two letters to two different Trump lawyers alleging that they too lied to government officials about the hush money payments. Cohen is going to prison for in a couple of weeks.

Yay! That means that now there are three Trump lawyers who could be implicated in the hush money payments. We would do well to remember that both AMI, Pecker, and also Dylan Howard may have just blown up their non-prosicutorial agreements and immunity deals by extorting Washington postowner Jeff Bezos. So everything they've told prosecutors, they may now be criminally liable for. So put some beans on it. Mm-hmm.

We'll be right back. Hey, Mueller junkies. Did you know that 80% of us fail at sticking to our New Year's resolutions? Well, fail no more, because ritual vitamins makes it easier than ever to stick to our promises about being healthier. Ritual makes it easy and convenient to create new healthy habits that stick, and their obsessively research vitamin for women has all the nutrients most of us don't get enough of from our diets, and they do it all sustainably and in the cleanest purist forms. No creepy additives that end up doing more harm than good.

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All right, time for hot notes. Jalisa, you have some news about how tough Trump is on Russian election interference. Oh, yes. he's the toughest. How tough is he? I'm so tough. So according to the Daily Beast, Trump has dramatically decreased the size of two teams at the Department of Homeland Security, whose jobs it is to prevent foreign countries from meddling in our elections, and apparently three DHS officials leaked this

information, and they also said they highly doubt the department will ever properly prepare to protect the 2020 election. Another DHS official, who's familiar with the team, said, quote, the clear assessment from the intelligence community is that 2020 is going to be the perfect storm. And that's because we already know Russia is still meddling in our election with no real motive to stop. None. I think of Putin as like Freddie Mercury singing Don't Stop Me Now. Like he's just going at it.

The other task force was shrunk after the 2018 midterms, so basically after the blue wave happened. And even though that's really fucked up, it would make a pretty funny title. I was thinking, honey, I shrunk the budget for the Department of Homeland Security in Sting Classic. But anyways one DHS official said our key allies. I think I shrunk the budget and honey I blew up my plea agreement. Oh yeah I like it. I like the sequel. Yeah. He said our key allies are wondering why the US is not more coordinated and not more proactive in dealing with this. And I'm pretty sure we on Mollysh wrote reported on the 120 million dollars or so that has been allotted to combat cyber-terrorism and Trump has used none of it. It's still the case. Yeah, you've actually been following that and in leading up to

the midterms you talked about all the breaches that were happening with Jilla Brand and other races. Totally, all races. Yeah, absolutely. Like the meddling is happening all the time. It's constant hacking. And we also learned from the article that people are beginning to be moved around in the task forces and a lot of new people are coming in to handle election security For 2020 and it sounds like it's a lot of Trump's people that are coming in so former DHS deputy analyst John Cohen said if these reports are true regarding Russian interference in our elections Then it's highly disturbing that the department and the administration are not more focused on dealing with death threat. And another former DHS official said it won't be 2016 all over again, the threat is changing,

and a thinly staffed task force working on that is not going to be able to keep up with the adversary. Oh, God, that's frightening. Yeah. That's why we say vote in numbers too big to manipulate. Exactly. That's really our only choice in this option. It's just like we do with the blue wave.

And even then, we were still being meddled with, but it clearly worked. All right, Julie. So thanks for that reporting. It's crazy. It anger me. All right, guys. So Paul Manafort had a shit week, and this pleases me. First, he had a hearing Wednesday about his breach of plea,

and we got the transcripts for it on Friday. As we know, Manafort is facing sentencing this week in the Eastern District of Virginia. That's just one of his trials. He's also facing sentencing in the two counts he pleaded to in DC, but that's not until March. So the transcripts of Wednesday's hearing are pretty scathing. But the part that stood out to me was when the judge said, quote, we've now spent considerable

time talking about multiple clusters of false or misleading or incomplete or needed to be prodded by council statements, all of which center around the defendant's relationship or communications with Mr. Kalimnik. This is the topic at the undisputed core of the Office of Special Counsel's Investigation into any links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign. That right there guys, that's the conspiracy. That's the proof of collusion that they always keep asking you about. So ultimately the judge ruled that Manafort intentionally lied to prosecutors after he'd agreed to cooperate and he lied about three things. He lied about his meeting with Kalimnik particularly the August second meeting

At the Grand Havana cigar room which incidentally is in 666 fifth Avenue And I wondering if this is the same meeting we've talked about this before you remember when he met with Kalimnik and then right around that same time Daripaska's private jet landed in Newark. Oh, yeah And then Kalimnik got on the jet with Daripaska they went to pick up the prime minister of Russia, WD prime minister of Russia, excuse me. And then they ended up on a yacht in Norway. Yeah, most expensive Uber pull ever.

Most treasonous here. With, with, what's your face? Buh-ho. Yeah, yes. Why can't I think of her name? Not she Rubka. Darria, yeah, yeah. And she recorded that and got the video. I think that's the whole thing to hear? Not see Rupka. There we go. Yeah, yeah.

And she recorded that and got the video. I think that's the whole thing. That would make sense. Um, and that was the one thing you lied about. Another thing you lied about was $125,000 payment he got from one of his packs. He said it was alone, but it was actually to help pay his legal fees. And he lied about information, material to another DOJ investigation, Department of Justice investigation, which they did not specify, but it could be the inaugural probe, which Rick Gates is helping with or maybe it's the Trump Tower Moscow deal. We don't know yet.

So the meaning, the meaning of the Havana St. Garclub is the thing that Mueller prosecutor Weisman says goes directly to the heart of the Mueller probe, and we talked about that last week, right? And that meeting took place the day before the extremely important August 3rd meeting with Joel Zamol of the Israeli Mossad Organization side group which we talked about earlier in the show. Gates was also at that meeting and we all know his sentencing has been delayed, likely because he's still cooperating in this ongoing investigation. The $125,000 payment was the thing Manafort told three different stories about, but the truth is it's money that came from a pack to help and pay his legal fees. The judge in the manifold case determined Manifort intentionally lied, so that makes him a useless mouthpiece now, meaning he can't speak on behalf of Trump or the Trump org or anything like that, or against the

Mueller investigation because anything he says is just going to be touted as total bullshit. Exactly. So but that's not all on Manifort this week. We also got Mueller's sentencing memo, and though it's redacted, it has a lot of stuff in there indicative of conspiracy and aiding and abetting. All the things we've been saying for over a year now since we started this podcast. The sentencing memo is recommending 19.5 to 24.5 years in federal prison, for which there is no parole. Any faces up to $24 million in fines, $24 million in restitution, and $4.4 million

in asset forfeiture. And the prosecutors have said there is nothing to mitigate that sentence or lighten it, since Manifort intentionally lied to prosecutors breaching his plea agreement. In fact, the prosecutors argued there are circumstances that aggravate the his sentencing, aggravating circumstances, a war in the courts imposing more time going for the higher end well uh... first off and i love this they say it's rich he's educated he's successful yet he still found it

necessary to do crimes and steal from the american taxpayers uh... they also say uh... like a privilege i love that they meet that point it's a really good point and it's an important one yeah and they also said because he was the ringleader of all the shit. He dragged gates and collumnic into his criminal activity. And he reaped most of the benefits. And that should be given a sentence at the higher end of the sentencing guidelines. So all these aggravating factors could make the judge give him more time,

not less, no breaks for this asshole.... this is the first judge to sentence him there will be uh... more sentencing drama in march for the dc district court and the only question then becomes whether he serves these prison terms concurrently or consecutively wow meaning you know if he gets twenty years here in twenty years here does he do twenty years or does he afford exactly either way that's told for his age that's not looking good

yeah the only way he's getting out is feet first. Yeah. So the final factor for consideration about this whole story is why did he lie? Why did he knowingly risk life in prison to blow up his plea deal? To me the answer is obvious, it's simple. He knows these only way out of prison is a pardon, a Trump pardon. So he lied to please Trump. And here comes Barr, the pardoner general, and Whitaker saying he's seen pardoning documents. And if he's pardoned, he gets out of jail and remains safe from being targeted by Putin and the Kremlin

because he didn't lie about, because he lied about communications at the heart of the Russian interference. Exactly. So I just want everyone to know that even if we don't get a major conspiracy indictment from Mueller, the conspiracy in aiding and abetting is coming out in these sentencing memos and all these filings and motions such as the document filed by Mueller against

stones request to have his case related or unrelated or unlinked from the Russian indictment case which is 18CR-215 that was what it was I was like 1935 18CR-215. Another example of a court filing outline in the conspiracy against the United States, perpetuated by stone, the Trump campaign, WikiLeaks, Guicchifer, 2.0, and ultimately the Kremlin. That whole thing.

So don't miss the proof of collusion right in front of us while we're looking ahead to try to find this massive superseding indictment, boom, pal document at the end of the, you know, pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Right, we got to have right in front of our faces. Yeah, and we don't want to miss it. We don't want to miss the forest for the trees, right?

Exactly. It's about the journey, not the destination. Yeah, it's the climb. So, so guys, it's all coming out now. So stay tuned to Muller She Wrote. We will keep you posted. We will keep you informed. And we'll try to make it easy to understand.

We'll be right back. Hey, Mueller junkies, A.G. here to sing the praises of my new Buffy Comforter. For me, a Comforter has always been just a necessity, but now it's a luxury. I take my sleep very seriously, and this is easily the softest and most versatile Comforter I've ever owned.

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by visiting Buffy.com and using the promo code AGE. Once again, head to Buffy.com and use the promo code AGE at checkout to put the comfort back in your comfort. You'll be glad you did. Alright, Jolice, are you ready for sabotage? Oh, yeah. Alright, guys, this week in sabotage, Reuters put out a story that got no coverage that the Senate Finance Committee has launched an inquiry into meetings between Obama Treasury officials, a Russian central banker, and Maria Bhutan.

Last July, Reuters had reported that there were previously unreported meetings in 2015 set up by the Center for National Interest. And if that group sounds familiar, we did a story on them. In episode 40, about how Bhutan had met with them in the CEO of AIG Hank Greenberg to get him to prop up a failing Russian bank by investing $8 million, which he did. And we now know that Bhutan and Torshin met with Stanley Fisher, the Vice Chair, then the Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve, and Nathan Sheetz, the Treasury Undersecretary for International Affairs.

And this week, the Senate panel sent a letter to Manuchin, and Fed Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, and the Center for National Interest Russian-born CEO, Demetri Simes, asking for more information on these meetings with top Russian government officials. The senators want to know about the extent to which the Russian government engaged in efforts to undermine our political system. Quote, it is concerning that Miss Bhutna and Mr. Torschen were able to gain access to high-level administration officials responsible for U.S. economic and monetary policy to discuss U.S.-Russian economic relations. administration officials responsible for US economic and monetary policy to discuss US

Russian economic relations." And guys, when I read this article, I remembered that in episode 60, almost two months ago, we had reported on BuzzFeed article, saying Russian agents sought secret US Treasury records on Clinton backers during the 2016 campaign, and that there were secret back channel communications between our U.S. Treasury employees and the Kremlin using private Gmail and Hotmail accounts. Remember that? And we found this out from whistleblowers within the department. Most notably, they were looking for records

from Dirk Edward and Ziff, which coincidentally are the records of Esselnett Sky up promised Trump Jr. during the 2016 Trump Tower meeting. That was the dirt they were promising on Hillary. Right. Are these two stories linked? I don't know, but I find it fascinating that Bootna and Torshan were meeting with US Treasury officials under Obama in 2015, then shortly thereafter the Kremlin had set up back channels with Treasury employees using private Gmail and Hotmail accounts that were later used to try to get dirt on Hillary Clinton. So could Vesselnet-Skya and Bootna be linked? Is this the common thread between the Bootna and R&D

investigation and the VesselNetSkya trump tower meeting? Wow. Put some beans on it. All right, are you ready for the fantasy indictment league? Yeah. I'm gonna be indictment. No, it is gonna be okay. I'm gonna be indictment.

I'm gonna be indictment. I'm gonna be indictment. I'm gonna be indictment. I'm gonna be indictment. Hold it. It's gonna be okay. Just calm down. I can't hold down. I'm gonna be done. Alright guys let's do the fantasy indictment league. Let's do this. I get to big first. Nice. So I'm gonna start with junior. Okay I'm gonna do Xamol, Jo Xamol.

Okay nice. Yeah. San Jolissa Xamol. I'm gonna go with a satyr plea agreement. Okay, I'll take Prince Kiss I'm gonna go with a sange oh Superseeding Maniford Okay, and I want to make something super clear here. I talked to Joyce Vance and apparently if they're gonna charge Maniford again, it's not gonna be super seating indictments. It's gonna be new separate charges.

Oh, well then, yeah. Because super seating indictments can't happen after the case is done. That makes sense, yeah. He'll just get more indictments. Right, so he just manifold. Yeah, he doesn't manifold it. All right, we've been saying super seating manifold forever because we thought they might happen before he went to jail

Guess not Let's see I'm gonna go with AMI okay Erickson All right Erickson well, he's already been indicted. want more indictments? Yeah, but not in the Mueller case. Okay, yeah, I'm thinking the Mueller case. All right. Yeah, yeah.

Paul Erickson, the beast. And my last one's going to be Kushner. Very nice. And who's your last one? Trumporg. All right, got it. That's it. That's it. That's fantasy and diamond league this week.

We didn't get any points last week. No, and I always try to figure out the strategy, but there really is. You just gotta go with the flow. Yeah. See how it is every week. You do. So, yeah, that's how we do it.

So, if you wanna play the fantasy and diamond league, you gotta be a, well, you don't have to be a patron, but if you wanna do it officially on our closed Facebook group, Twitter's just as bad as Facebook is just as bad as Instagram. I know you hate it, but that's where we have it right now. That's where it lives. And you can do that by becoming a patron patreon.com slash muller. She wrote, and you look for the announcements and look for the pinned post and then just reply to that post with your five picks. And you can update it anytime in the week before an indictment picks. And you can update it anytime in the week

before an indictment drops. So you can't like add somebody after somebody's been indicted. Yeah, we can see the timestamps. But like if there's hints, like if the grand jury meets Friday and people are staked out at Junior's House or Saders House on Thursday night before he's indicted, you can slide him in.

Oh yeah. All right guys, it's time for the interview. So joining us today for the interview is Yale grad Trial lawyer and MSNBC legal contributor. Please welcome for the first time on the podcast Katie Fang Katie welcome to Mueller She wrote the crowd goes wild no choking. No, thank you for having me completely in honor. Thank you so much for your kind words We've been trying to we've been wanting you on for a long time. So We really appreciate you coming by and thanks for responding to us. So as of the time of this recording, it's Saturday.

We have just gotten the Manifort sentencing memo and all this news about Manifort this week. And I wanted to kick off this discussion about the man that helped Manifort get his job on the Trump campaign in the first place. His name is Tom Barrick. Katie, what can you tell us about him? Katie, there's so much I want to talk about about Tom Barrick. I feel like when I talk about Tom Barrick, everybody looks at me like a nuts because he's

not the guy that you hear about. He's this stealth player, but he's the common denominator. And I was having a conversation with someone else last night who I deem to also be in the know and she and I were discussing all things Mueller and she also was in agreement that Tom Barich is this man who is behind the scenes who I suspect has been the huge puppeteer for a lot of stuff that has gone down. And the reason why I say that is Tom Barrick is some multi-cugillionaire, but he's been friends with Donald Trump since the early 9 pre-Breakfast club. Way back.

They were, oh, I'm talking like dudes thought they were the original masters of the universe, right? And they both were in real estate, etc. But the distinction with the difference for Tom Barrick from Donald Trump is the following. Tom Barrick has always known what side his bread is being buttered, and he's always figured out what's the next big angle. So other than playing somebody like Donald Trump, and I'll get into more specifics about that, Barrett has ties to first cutter, and now we're strongly with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. And we all know

this as we sit here today and have this conversation. MBS from Saudi Arabia is the big bad wolf that we have to deal with in the middle east. But Tom Barrick basically teed up Paul Manafort to head the Trump presidential campaign. He insisted that Donald Trump hire, as you will recall, for free. Like who the heck works for free these days? Hired Paul Manafort for free to run his presidential campaign. Tom Barich actually also bought Jared Kushner's debt in that devil building that I call in New York 6665th Avenue. He actually bought $70 million of Jared Kushner's debt. And then when Kushner was failing, I'm sorry, but didn't also not, excuse me, the

cutter investment authority. Didn't cutter have a big cut of that through Glencore? I built, yes, I think you're right. I think it was cutter that was involved in that. And so no big surprise there, right? That Tom Barrick would have connected people, the country, um, you know, these governmental and even like private entities that wanted to have stakes in the United States. Why not have? Yeah, and I'm sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt you again. Uh, I misspoke. It wasn't Glencour. It was, uh, some other, um, uh, wood lawn, I think, was the name of the investment company.

Anyway, and Cutter just recently came out and said, oh, we had no idea that we gave over a billion dollars to help bail out the devil building. So that was interesting. Yeah, I caught the devil building. No, but it's just kind of, you know what, it's amazing. It's just like, you know, and I could go on and on. Barric hired Rick Gates as a consultant for Barric's company colony. It's just everybody's so incestuously tied together, but Barric's really important because

he also was the chairman of the Trump inaugural committee. And so now the inaugural committee, which is now faced subpoenas and really hardcore subpoenas for financial records and ties to foreign you know countries and whether or not we sold Trump administration basically sold access to the inauguration and to the administration courtesy of Tom Barrick on his watch. That's a part that's part of the subpoena. So it's just kind of wild how Tom Barrick seems to always be involved in something and yet he has not been highlighted. He's not in the forefront of this and his answer to all of this is, well, I've already been interviewed on the baller team. Okay, and a lot of people have.

Doesn't mean that you're not going to get indicted, but so it's just kind of, this guy is kind of keeps on popping up and I keep on mentioning him and sometimes people look at me and scratch their head like, I don't know why Katie's talking about this, but I feel like Tom Barrick's going to have a very significant role ultimately in the Mueller investigation, especially the spin off. That was my question for you. He's such a huge Middle East guy. Why Manafort?

Do you think it maybe was about lifting Russian sanctions to get those Saudi nuclear reactors built like that whole flin Copson deal that they were working on? I mean everybody you're like you said it so insesctuous But like what why Manafort if he's if he's pumping up MBS and MbZ so hard? Well Manafort actually had his own ties to Saudi Arabia before from like a long time ago. And so it's not like Manafort was a complete stranger to the Saudis or to the UAE. But I think that more importantly, I think Panou, I think Tom Barik knew that Manafort being put in the campaign as a direct plan because Barrett himself has always had direct involvement with Trump in terms of he was the first guy who was a multi-millionaire businessman to come

forward and basically stumped for Donald Trump. He's the first one who put his credibility on the line for Donald Trump out of the whole kind of stable of Wall Street and the rich elite and people saw that and it lent credibility to Donald Trump who otherwise didn't have any. And so I think Barrick could put a plant like somebody like Paul Manafort there who he knew was going to. Right, and we know that the Middle East and Russia are inextricably linked through this nuclear deal. If they want to build the reactors, they need to lift the sanctions on Russia so that they can do the gas part of it and do the pipeline part of it. That kind of where Eric Prince fits into this whole weird thing. So it's really, there's just so much, like I feel like my murder board has a lot of threads between the Middle East and Russia and the Trump campaign.

So it's pretty odd. Well, yeah, and then, you know, and the other kind of wild thing is this. So there's a recently, the, there's this memo that got leaked that was supposed to remain confidential. And so this company that I just mentioned that was founded by Tom Barich called colony.

So there's this confidential secret memo from colony. And basically what it says is, here's the game plan. This is how we are strategically going to position ourselves to be able to gain access to the Trump administration so we can basically cultivate relationships internationally, which will bottom line benefit our pockets. And so this memo which by the way no coincidence was written by Drumroll please Rick Gates. off his set like a camp. He is behind the scenes like, oh, you want to talk about Tom Barrick? Here you go. You want to talk about Paul Manafort? Here you go. You want to talk about the inaugural committee and all that money? Where did it go? Here you go. I mean, Rick Gates is doing exceptional work. My hat off to him behind the scenes with the Mueller team. But anyway, so Rick Gates wrote this memo because he was like I said, he was hired

by Barrick to be a consultant for this company. And of course, Rick Gates is still cooperating with Mueller. But Rick Gates basically said, look, here's the game plan. We do this, and this is how all the countries end up being in the White House, not on the outside, but in the White House with Donald Trump and his whole, you know, band of Mary mischievous, thieving, felonious misfits. And everybody will benefit financially. Yes, yes. And of course, we've got the Apollo group in there,

talking to was it Kushner, or Jr. one of the two. And yeah, it's just, it's in all the influence that came through Cohen's slush fund, that he was running, like, for example, Intrater, Vaxelberg. And so that all links back to the inaugural. So there's something really, really, you can't pull them apart. The Middle East, the inaugural Trump and Russia, they're all just superling. And so, and then, again, who's the person who's doing a lot of this? Tom Barich. I forgot to mention Tom Barich also loans Paul Mana for $1.5 million because you know that's what we do,

right? Because oh, I'll bail you out there. I'm a cushion for $70 million. Oh, do you need 1.5 million? Here you go, my friends. Oh, of course, I'll call in that chip later, right? That's the thing. It's like, you know, he's positioning these people. He introduced Jared Kushner to the Saudi ambassador to the United States. He teed up these meetings for MBS and Jared Kushner. And then of course, just last week, because we had that insane boring no week of news, right?

But just last week, Tom Barich is in Dubai, and what is he saying? He says the United States sucks is what he's saying. And he says that we as in decent law abiding non-murderous Americans, that we just got them all wrong in Saudi Arabia, and that because we don't understand the rule of law in Saudi Arabia, that we should not be criticizing the fact that they murdered Jamal Kashoggi.

Like we should just ignore that because that's how they roll over there. Are you having me? This guy has like, he's there shitting all over the United States because Donald Trump gives him carte blanc to do it, but he's basically saying it's completely kosher to be learning, you know, American residents, because I know he wasn't a US citizen, but shit, the guy was, you know, a writer for the post and he had legal status here in the United States. Oh, but come on, you get learned into an embassy and we're going to. Right. And then now we find these ties, you know, Kushok Ji works for the Washington Post,

as you said, and the post is owned by Bezos. And now we have this whole AMI. Ben. Ben. Yeah, and then Michael Sanchez, Lauren Sanchez's brother and Lauren being the girlfriend of Jeff Bezos. Michael Sanchez is good friends with Roger Stone, harder page, all those, you know, disgusting people. And so you just, it's like you just can't extricate yourself. It's like the stickiness of the webs, of like a spider web. It's so sticky, right? So it just keeps on sticking everything together and it takes a master perfectionist like Robert Mueller to unwind and unspoole these threads.

And to basically, it reminds me of this. I have a four year old daughter and she likes to get into everything. And I have a jewelry box that hangs necklaces. And if you, if she goes in there and she starts fiddling around with my necklaces, especially ones that are fine, what happens? They get tangled together and I get angry and, you know, I give her a timeout and then I have to sit down and I'm not kidding you. I'll use tweezers to have to peel them apart. And it'll take me a long time. And I think of Robert Mueller that way. Of course, I'm, you know, I'm completely superficializing. I just made up a word, Robert Mueller. But it's

that exact art of being able to unwind all of the stuff that's tangled together is what Robert Mueller does. And if it takes me that long to do to undo the shit that my four-year-old did? No, right. It's just too much. I mean, he is, to be fair, handing off a lot of this complex stuff, the inaugural, which by the way, the scope of that subpoena is ridiculous. It's gonna take months and months, but they're gonna comply, they say. But it's just, there's just so much left to unwind. And that's a really good analogy with the necklaces I've been there. Right. So you totally get it. So you can completely empathize. It's like you got to unwind it, but eventually what you do, you have discreet, clasped necklaces left over. And that's

exactly what Mueller's doing. He's unwinding this and he's presenting them when they're done. He's saying, here you go. And sometimes they still have some interrelationship, but sometimes they don't. And so I believe certain things like the Roger Stone prosecution, there's reason why it's being jointly brought so that if Mueller winds up his investigation, DC can continue to prosecute Roger Stone. But there are certain things that are still going out. There's a reason why somebody like Rick Gates, they just have a status update on his sentencing March 15th. A status.

They don't have his sentencing March 15th. Flynn is still pending. I mean, everybody just keeps on getting pushed back, even Bhutan gets her sentencing pushed back. And God knows what's going on with her. And so I just kind of feel like people wanted it. And if you butt it up against other investigations, it's actually going really fast. So a question for you.

So we know Tom Burak brought in Manafort and Manafort brought in Pence. And I get asked a lot about Pence and I just don't have any information on him because I feel like he's done a really good job distancing himself from this whole thing. Do you have any insights on how he fits into this whole web? What's his necklace? What's his deal? So, Pence is a really interesting fellow because I agree with your immediate assessment that he appears to have kept himself out of it.

And I do think though that it's a completely plausible, incredible approach to think that Mike Pence really didn't have the type of criminal, nefarious involvement that all the other players did, and either in, you know, Russian interference and or obstruction. And the reason why I say that is, I think you always need to have somebody who can have plausible deniability, someone. And if you look at, and I'm talking more higher level, if you look at Pence, he still appeals to the Trump base, right, that evangelical, very right conservative Trump base, that base that helped get the Trump Pence ticket elected and put into the White House. So if Trump ends up solid in any way, you still have Pence who can still have

his hands clean plausibly. And I think, oh, I will. That Pence also, I can't speak to his intellectual stamina or, you know, prowess. He doesn't. Well, as in. He doesn't impress me with either of those things at all. In fact, the do shows more passion being anti-abortion and I can't go sit in the room with you because you're a woman. You have a vagina if you're by yourself. He shows my passion for that than he does for world affairs and international relations. But I just think that maybe he's just the Patsy, but not like the fall guy Patsy, just like, oh, you know, doot doot doot, I'm lending some, you know, legitimacy to this administration because I clearly

am not involved in any of that, and he can say it credibly. But that's me, like, total far left field, you know, hypothesizing on how Pence is involved. But I do think that Pence just was put and introduced and... Yep, Kaiser Soze. I don't think it was because Pence ends up being Kaiser. Was it Kaiser? No, yeah, I think I'm along the lines with you. He was picked as a clean guy, basically. We need a clean dude. Well, because it wasn't like Trump, it wasn't like Trump had his hands clean.

Trump couldn't keep it in his pants. You know, Trump wasn't going to church. Trump wasn't maintaining, you know, long-term fidelity. Trump was all sorts of dirty and then some and I think you get pens. You're like, look, this man stands next to me and holds my hand. So I must not be such a bad guy, wink, wink, right? And that's what pens does. And I think that that's the bad guy, wink, wink, right? And that's what Pence does. And I think that that's the reason why Pence remains, which is kind of funny though,

because if you think 25th Amendment's time, it's like, whoa, secession plan would be whom? It would be Michael Pence, what? But yeah, so, you know, so it's kind of interesting, but again, I don't think that Pence is the brilliant And by the way, I know Kevin Spacey was No, we're speaking strictly of the character right the other character So here's another Barrett question for you and it I want to know his connections to Flynn, because besides the Middle East, right, the whole cops and texting on the day

as so the inauguration, we're going to rip up sanctions. Ha, ha, ha, we're going to get those reactors built in Saudi Arabia and we're going to recolonize the Middle East. And maybe that's why colony was the name of his Goddamn company. But I don't know. But besides the Middle East, there was that hole in that in that flin. I don't remember if it was a sentencing memo or if it was a, here's why we're not going to throw the book out in memo.

But there was a third investigation that was completely redacted. It wouldn't even say if it was criminal or counterintelligence. And I'm wondering if that has something to do with the cutter investment authority or maybe it's got something to do with Barrick, but I'm wondering how much additional assistance Flynn can provide since the judge in the last trial was like, why didn't you charge these guys with treason and you better not let me sentence you today, go forth and cooperate more and we'll talk later. Remember when they asked him like six times, like, are you sure you should really wait? I'm really mad at you right now.

So I'm wondering if what the connection is there or if you have any insights on what you think that third investigation might be. I know it's speculation, but I enjoy speculation. Well, you know, so we know that we can always look at kind of the building blocks that can lead to rank speculation on our part, but could be maybe well-founded. So we know that Michael Flynn was hired by a firm that lobbied for Qatar, right? And so we know that Flynn was directly being involved. And so it really kind of makes you wonder whether or not Flynn's sentencing would actually show exactly how much the cutter royals had a direct involvement with Trump and the Russia connection because I think again people like to compartmentalize the way that this whole thing's gone down and it's it always was focusing on Russia to begin with with, and the narrative and the dialogue has always been so heavily Russia-driven, but now we know that you can't look at them as being mutually exclusive.

You can. They're all interrelated, but the ultimate question that merits an answer is, you know, how? You know, is it just people were being driven by greed? And these are countries that facilitated greed and they just happened to be cutter or Saudi Arabia or Russia or the Ukraine, or are we really specifically dealing with the fact that maybe there's this whole thing about bribery and, you know, the steel dossier and how accurate was the information and the steel dossier that spoke to things.

And so I don't really know the Flynn direct, the strength of the Flynn direct tie. I don't know. I think that will probably find out once Flynn is sentenced. But then again, also, even if he sentenced, and when he is sentenced, there's so much that remains redacted because they're still open in pending investigations and because everything's so interconnected, I think what we could do is, if things remain redacted, that means that- And we know that Flynn's deputy was KT McFarland, who was later offered a job as the ambassador to Singapore, and the ambassador, previous ambassador to to Singapore had a presence at that Mayflower meeting.

So it's like it's in that has to do with the the Saudi reactor plan. So it's just all this craziness and I think Bud McFarland was her mentor and it just seems like there were so many people installed almost in in this administration. And I just have to wonder how much Trump knew about and what he didn't know about and was being used for. You know what I mean? Well, remember, there's also that guy from Qatar who basically said that he was hanging out, shooting a ship with Michael Cohen and Michael Flynn at Trump Tower, right? And... Yeah, that's Al Rumehi. Yeah, right?

That was it, yeah, Al Rumehi was like, oh, yeah, why was it hanging out with them and we were doing stuff together, huh? Like, what were you guys doing? Like, and why is it a Trump Tower of all places? Yeah, him, yeah, he was interesting. I actually think that the, and I think we'll find out soon,

but I think that the secret company from country A in the Mueller subpoena battle that Mueller is the one who wants to keep quiet. I personally think that that's the cutter investment authority, but I mean, it could be somebody we've never heard of. But anyway, well, that would fit with the idea that it's a governmental entity, right? Hello, it's exactly by definition what it is. And normally it deals with, you know, they're trying to, they're trying to, they've been fighting the subpoena that ostensibly you're going to be for what

financial records, right? That's usually what it is. What else would you not want to turn over? So I think that that's a really educated, exceptional guess. It's probably pretty dead on. And by the way, I will add a footnote to our conversation about people getting together and doing shade into various things.

Tom Barich, let colony, the company, his company, he let their offices be used for transition team meetings that were deemed to be sensitive. It's like, oh, you need a place for me. I'm used to people being like, dude, I need to place for me. I'm used to people being like, do I need to place a crash? Here's my futon. Like, that's what I was.

As comedians, we do this thing called couch surfing when we go on tour. It sounds like all the Russians are shell company surfing. Just having these little meetings and crashing out at. Yes, absolutely. And then apparently they're gonna go hang out at uh... at tom barracks i go hang out at tom barracks i'm sure it's pretty fancy but member michael cullin

and we've got a lot of uh... sadly tainted as witnesses but very uh... knowledge rich cooperators in this investigation yeah they're never gonna be i mean in the traditional kind of mob prosecution sense Drug-ring sense. I mean anytime when I was a prosecutor and I was dealing with it It's you you started flipping people and they had their hands dirty They all did but who's better who's better suited to speak to the inner machinations and workings of and even if they aren't a good material witness as gates Proved not to be to the jury

and the Manifort trial, they just didn't listen to them at all, you can get leads and information that will lead you to documentary evidence and other evidence that can be used. So it's, while they might not be the most reliable witness, they are, you know, founts of knowledge. Yeah. And as long as there is independent corroborating objective evidence through the form of, like you said, documentary, photographic, videographic, whatever audio, I mean,

just if there's something else there that will corroborate, then you're okay. I mean, you can base it on that. You know, and even then you can use circumstantial evidence, you know, right? And we've seen this work because Maniford was convicted on eight Okay, I mean, you can base it on that. And even then, you can use circumstantial evidence. You know, I mean, and we've seen this work because Manafort was convicted on eight counts,

even though Gates wasn't the most reliable witness, the documentary evidence that he was able to lead Mueller to or Mueller found on his own and corroborating other evidence. That is what got the eight felony counts convicted. That's what he got eight felony counts convict. That's what he got convict. Oh yeah, and Manafort is leaving prison in a body bag. Is what's gonna happen to Manafort now.

Easy. He will. He will, and that was his calculated gamble. He thought he could play the government. And as we always say, as lawyers, the biggest law firm in the world, and the most powerful law firm in the world, is not Kirkland, Alice, by the way, because I don't know if you noticed, but all these Kirkland lawyers are now in DOJ and very high up in the food chain.

But no, it's the United States government. Yeah, well, before that whole cooperation agreement, we were of the ilk that he would never cooperate because he was angling for a pardon a or b He was scared shitless of the crumbling Because we've seen people accidentally get hurt to death of who have crossed Putin so They're accidentally they're accidentally Murdered well. I know it's in some insurance policies right accidental death and death and dismemberment. So maybe, you know, hopefully he was covered. That's a crime. I'm not familiar.

It's just what a horrible, what a horrible thing. And the fact that we do, do not and did not immediately invoke the wrath of sanctions and any other thing that was within our arsenal for that conduct. Yeah, it's a scandal a day. And we know Trump recently missed his deadline under the Magnetsky Act to respond to Congress about the murder of Kushokhi. And nobody talks about that. That came and went. And it completely dovetail on the day when Saudi Arabia said, sorry, we don't know where

the body is. Really? Yeah. we don't know where the body is. Really? Yeah, I think that that was probably some sort of sulfuric acid dissolution situation or something. And somebody have a hot tub full of sulfuric acid in this thing. I can't remember who it was. Yeah, and then what got weird was just like,

I was gonna say it's like right around the corner was on-voy or the ambassador's like the console general's home was around the corner and they found stuff they found evidence there. So I think that there could have been. And then that cutout guy must have accidentally put on all of Kashoggi's clothes and walked out of the consulate to, you know, make sure everyone saw that happens to me all the time. Yes, somebody accidentally wears my clothing. It leaves me but naked somewhere. So yeah, no.

Well, Katie, it's been really insightful speaking to you. I'm so glad that you got a chance to come on. I hope that we can have you on the podcast again. So everybody, trial lawyer, MSNBC, legal contributor, thank you so much, Katie Fang. All right, guys, that's our show. Please grab your tickets to our live shows in DC March 29th in the bellhouse in Brooklyn, March 30th. I just confirmed that our guests, our panelists and our panelists guest at the DC show is gonna be Katie Fang,

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