Jack - MSW2 S6 E4 - Bored Oligarch Yacht Club (feat. Pete Strzok)

Episode Date: March 27, 2022

This week: Sanctioning Russian oligarchs and breaking up their shell game; Manafort is grounded; plus Sabotage, and the Fantasy Indictment League.Check out: The Mueller Report - Pt. 4 https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/chrt.fm/track/D1246F/traffic.megaphone.fm/STA1714353838.mp3Pete Strzok:https://twitter.com/petestrzokFollow AG on Twitter:Dr. Allison Gill https://twitter.com/allisongillhttps://twitter.com/MuellerSheWrotehttps://twitter.com/dailybeanspodWant to support the show and get it ad-free and early?https://dailybeans.supercast.tech/Orhttps://patreon.com/thedailybeans

Hi, I'm Harry Lickman, host of Talking Feds. Around table, the brings together prominent figures from government law and journalism for a dynamic discussion of the most important topics of the day. Each Monday, I'm joined by a slate of Feds favorites at new voices to break down the headlines and give the insider's view of what's going on in Washington and beyond. Plus, side bars explaining important legal concepts read by your favorite celebrities. Find Talking Fedswear every you get your podcasts. to see personalized offers. And thank you to SwitchCraft for supporting the podcast. SwitchCraft is a mobile game with a unique blend of TV-worthy writing, choose your own adventure style narrative, and thousands of magical match three levels.

Download SwitchCraft for free and unlock the magical mystery. And thanks to Fields for supporting Mola Shee wrote, Fields is a better way to feel better for 50% off your first offer, plus free shipping, go to Fields.com slash MSW, F-E-A-L-S.com slash MSW. Hey all, this is Glenn Kirschner and you're listening to Mueller She Wrote. [♪ Music playing financial relationships with any Russian oligarchs. That's what he said. 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 tree, and that campaign. And I didn't have, not have, communications at the Russians. What do I have to get involved with Putin for having 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. Hello and welcome to Muller She Road. I'm your host, A.G. Alison Gill.

We have a big show for you today, including some new headlines. A Trump lawsuit against pretty much everyone ever, at least everyone who was involved in investigating his ties with Russia, we have some sabotage and an interview with one of the targets of Trump's lawsuit Pete Struck, and we're also going to be chatting about the Manafort thing and him being pulled off a plane to Dubai. We do have a lot to get to today, so let's jump in with just the facts. First up, this is a long story from the New York Times, so buckle in. In July 2012, a shell company registered in the British Virgin Islands wired $20 million

to an investment vehicle in the Cayman Islands that was controlled by a large American hedge fund firm. The wire transfer was the culmination of months of work by a small army of handlers and enablers in the United States, Europe, and the Caribbean. It was a stealth operation intended, at least in part, to mask the source of the funds. One Roman Abramovich. For two decades, this Russian oligarch has relied on the, on the, this kind of work around investment strategy, deploying a string of shell companies, routing money through small

Austrian banks, tapping the connections of leading Wall Street firms to quietly place billions of dollars with prominent US hedge funds and private equity firms. And that's according to people with knowledge of these transactions. The key was that every lawyer, corporate director, hedge fund manager and investment advisor involved in this process of this shell game could honestly say he or she was not working directly

for a brawmavitch. In some cases, participants weren't even aware of whose money they were helping manage. Wealthy foreign investors like a brahmedvich have long been able to move money into American funds using secretive roundabout setups, taking advantage of a lightly regulated investment industry, and Wall Street's willingness to ask few questions about the origins of the money, because they make money off of it. Now, as the United States and other countries in post-Sanctions, on those close to Putin, hunting down these fortunes could pose significant challenges. Last week, the IRS asked Congress for more resources, as it helps to oversee the Biden administration

sanctions program, along with a new DOJ kleptocracy task force, kleptocapture. And on Capitol Hill, lawmakers are pushing a bill known as the Enablers Act that would require investment advisors to identify and more carefully vet their customers. A lot of rich people don't want this to happen, so I'd be very surprised. Mr. Abramovich has an estimated fortune of $13 billion, derived in large part from his well-time purchase of an oil company owned by the Russian government that he sold back to the state at a massive profit. This month, European and Canadian authorities imposed sanctions on him, froze as assets, which included the famed Chelsea Football Club in London. This is that oligarch.

The US has not placed sanctions on him. Mr. Abramovich has assets in the United States, and I want to say we don't know whether or not the United States has placed sanctions on him, because we had a list of 23, I think, people we have sanctioned in Russia, oligarchs and elites, but 50 total. And they wanted to keep the rest secret because they didn't want them to hide their assets. So, we aren't for sure. But at the time, this article was written, we had not placed public sanctions on him. And I just want to make that clear.

They don't do that here in the article. Now, his assets in the United States include many millions of dollars in real estate, like a pair of luxury residences near Aspen. But he also invested large sums of money with financial institutions, and has ties to Putin and the source of his wealth long made him a controversial figure. Many of his investments were facilitated by a small firm, a small firm called Concord Management, which is led by Michael Matlin, according to people with knowledge of the transactions who were not authorized to speak publicly. Mr. Matlin declined to comment beyond issuing a statement that described Concord as a consulting firm that provides independent third party research due diligence and monitoring of investments.

So this is different than Concord Management that was indicted by Mueller. A spokesperson woman for Abramovich didn't respond to emails and text messages from the New York Times. Now, Concord, which was founded in 99, didn't directly manage any of Mr. Abramovich's money. It acted more like an investment advisor and due diligence firm, making recommendations to the directors of Shell companies in Caribbean tax havens about potential investments in Markey American investment firms. Now, big Wall Street banks, like Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, often introduced Concord executives to hedge funds, according to people with knowledge of those meetings. Over the

years, Concord arranged more than 100 investments in different hedge funds and private equity firms, mostly for Abramovich, and that's according to an internal document prepared by a Wall Street firm. They included funds managed by millennium management, BlackRock, Sarisa Capital Management, Carlyle Group, De Shaw, Bear Stearns. That's all according to the people briefed on the matter. Concorde kept a low profile, and it didn't have a website. It's not registered with US regulators.

And one of the few times it surfaced in public was in 2020, when Concord applied for and received a PPP loan worth $265,000 during the pandemic. Concord repaid the loan, a spokesperson said. Their secrecy made some on Wall Street very wary. And when you're making people on Wall Street wary, you're not on the up and up. In 2015 and 2016, investigators at State Street, which is a financial services firm, filed

suspicious activity reports, SARS, alerting the US government to transactions that Concorde arranged involving Abramovich's Caribbean shell companies. And that's what BuzzFeed News had reported. State Street, of course, declined to comment. American financial institutions are required to file such reports to help the government combat money laundering. But for the most part, American financials had no inkling about or interest in discovering the source of the money that Concord was directing. As long as routine background checks didn't turn up red flags,

it's all just fine, right? Now, Paulson and company, the hedge fund run by John Paulson, received investments from a company that Concord represented, and that's according to a person with knowledge. Concord also steered tens of millions of dollars from two shell companies at Highland Capital. To Highland Capital, that's a Texas hedge fund. Highland hired a unit of JP Morgan Chase, the nation's largest bank, to ensure the companies were legit, and that they were complying with anti-money laundering rules. JP Morgan cleared the investment. Highland never learned the ultimate source of the money, as we said, in the beginning to top of this story, a lot of them didn't even know they were handling a Brahmavitch money.

Big hedge funds might have accepted the money even if they realized it did belong to him, but at the time, the oligarch was not under sanctions. The manner in which one hedge fund received Mr. Abramavitch's money in the summer 2012 shows the challenges facing the United States and European authorities who want to track down the assets of him and other Russian oligarchs. The manager of the fund, which overs up billions of dollars but wasn't a big name on Wall Street, provided a detailed accounting of his involvement on the condition that neither he nor his firm be named.

In 2012, a New York-based wealth manager at Credit Suisse, Gerald McGinley contacted the fund manager on behalf of what he said was a wealthy family. McGinley said Concord was representing the family and was interested in investing tens of millions of dollars with the hedge fund. The fund manager said Credit Suisse had told him that in order to receive the investment he would have to set up a financial, a special financial vehicle in an offshore jurisdiction so that the investment wouldn't incur US taxes. Oh, how cool.

The hedge fund would receive a small percentage of the total investment as a fee and credit suites would get 20%. A company by one of Mr. McGinley's colleagues at Credit Suisse, the fund manager traveled to Concord's offices in a drab building in the New York City suburb of Terrytown, thick metal doors hit its offices from other occupants of the building, and inside the walls were devoid of any artwork or decorations. The fund manager didn't know who Concord's client was, and he didn't ask. McGinley, who now works at the Swiss Bank UBS, didn't respond to questions about his work with Concord. And of course, a credit-swee spokesperson declined to comment.

After initially meeting with the fund manager, Concord executives referred him to Highwater, a firm based in Grand Cayman, that specialized in providing, quote, corporate governance services to investment managers. For 15 grand a year plus fees, high water would provide an employee to sit on the board of a financial vehicle that the fund manager was expected to launch to accept the wealthy family's money. And that's according to emails between the fund manager

and high water executive that New York Times has in its possession. The fund manager also brought on Boris Onefader, who ran a small US consulting firm Constellation, as another board member. Onefader said in an interview, he couldn't remember whose money came, the Cayman vehicle was managing.

You're asking for ancient history, he said, I don't recall a brome of it, his name coming up. Of course you don't. The fund manager hired Murant, an offshore law firm, to get the paperwork for the Cayman vehicle in order. The managing partner of Murant did not respond to questions and would not comment. He also hired Globe-Op Financial Services, which provides administrative services to hedge funds to ensure that the Cayman entity was complying with the anti-money

laundering laws and wasn't doing business with anyone who'd been placed under US government sanctions. Quote, we abide by all laws and all jurisdictions in which we do business. Yeah. Okay. That means as long as you funneled it right through the correct, you know, bank accounts and shell companies that we and as long as we don't know anything about it, it's cool. John Lewis, a high water executive, said in an email to the Times that his firm received four referrals from Concord from 2011 to 2014 and but hasn't dealt with them since. Quote we are rare no links to Russian money or Roman Abramovich. He said he added Globe op did not identify anything unusual or high risk. That's because that's their fucking job, Mr. Lewis.

The Cayman Fund opened for business in July 2012 when 20 million arrived by wire transfer. The expectation was that tens of millions more would follow, although additional funds never showed up. The Cayman Fund was run as an independent entity using the same investment strategy, buying and selling exchange traded funds, employed by the fund manager's main US hedge fund. The 20 million was wired from an entity called K-thorpe Holdings, which was registered in the British Virgin Islands, and documents accompanying that wire transfer showed the money originated with Catherine Privat Bank in Vienna. It arrived in Grand Cayman after passing through another Austrian bank, Ray Fassin, and then to JP Morgan.

JP Morgan was serving as a correspondent bank, essentially acting as an intermediary for banks with smaller international networks. A spokesman for the Catherine Bank declined to comment, a spokesman for JB Morgan declined to comment, and Raevesson they didn't respond to request for comment either. The fund manager noticed some of the documentation was signed by a lawyer named Natalia by Chenkava. The Russian sounding name led him to conclude he was probably managing money for a Russian Olegark, but the fund manager wasn't bothered since Globop had verified K-thorpe was compliant, with the no-your-customer anti-money laundering rules. He didn't know who controlled K-thorpe, and he didn't ask.

In 2014, after Russia invaded Ukraine to annex Crimea, the markets tanked, the fund manager made a bearish bet on the direction of the stock market and his fund got crushed when stocks rallied. The next year, K-thorough withdrew its money from the Cayman fund and K-thorough was liquidated in 2017. The fund manager said he didn't realize until this month he'd been investing money for a broma vich. And also in the news, Reuters will remove all the content of the Russian state news agency TAS from its business to business service Reuters Connect.

And that said that on Wednesday and an internal email to staff, about time Reuters you shouldn't have partnered with TAS in the first place. The well-known newswire service said that making TAS content available on Reuters is not aligned with the Thompson Reuters Trust principles. At least not anymore. The move followed growing criticism of how the war in Ukraine was portrayed by the Kremlin back news organization. Earlier this week accounts for multiple Reuters journalists raised alarms over the company's

partnership with TAS, which goes back to 2020. Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the partnership and TAS is ties with Russian government prompted more scrutiny from what it, why does it take so much? And Paul Manafort, by the way, was pulled off a plane in Miami, speaking of Russian-backed separatists. He was about to fly to Dubai, which is right now a hub for fleeing Russian oligarchs and their yachts, apparently, and joining us next to discuss that and the new ridiculous lawsuit filed by Donald Trump against pretty much everyone is Pete Struck.

Stay with us. Hey everybody, it's AG and today's show is brought to you by Switchcraft. While Match 3 games can be a lot of fun, and it seems like most of them are pretty similar, using the same themes and characters. But overall, it's the same kind of format that lacks that kind of gripping television worthy story to keep you on the edge of your scene, and interested, and entertained. Until now, Switchcraft is a brand new take on a match 3 games, and as you play, you unlock pieces of beautiful, magical, and gripping graphic novel.

SwitchCraft is a mobile game with a unique blend of TV-worthy writing. I absolutely love it. It's choose your own adventure style narrative. There's thousands of magical match 3 levels. And the art and aesthetics are beautiful. I enjoy the diverse characters. I love how unique SwitchCraft is. Their story features over 85 characters from a variety of cultural backgrounds, as well

as differently abled and LGBTQ plus characters, which is so refreshing to see. There are thousands of levels to play while enjoying the unfolding storyline, I never get bored, because it's so compelling. And I want to keep playing just to see what happens next. The story begins with the disappearance of your best friend, and using your magical match three skills, you need to solve the mystery of her disappearance. You can download Switch Craft Now for free, and unlock the magical mystery.

You'll be glad you did. Welcome to Teacher Quit Talk. I'm Miss Redacted, and I'm Mrs. Frazzled. Every week we explore the teacher exodus to find out what if anything could get these educators back in the classroom. We've all had our moments where we thought, what the hell am I doing here?

From burnout to bureaucracy to soul-seucking stressors and creative dead ends, from recognizing when it was time to go to navigating feelings of guilt and regret afterwards, we're here to cut off the gaslighting and get real about what it means to leave teaching. We've got insights from former teachers from all over the country who have seen it all. So get ready to be disturbed and join us on teacher quit talk to laugh through the pain of the US education system. We'll see you there. So, Renato, do you still have your own podcast? Yeah, it's complicated.

What's so complicated about a podcast? That's the name of the podcast, remember? Oh! Will you still be exploring topics that help us understand the week's news? You bet, but we'll have a new name because we're going to be working together to explore complicated issues that are dominating the news. Working together? Yeah, you're hosting it with me, remember?

Oh, right. Wait, does that mean our podcast is going to have a steam-op segment? Let's not get carried away. But we'll discuss hot new legal topics, so check out our new episode, coming soon to everywhere you get podcasts as well as YouTube. Alright everybody, welcome back, happy to be joined today by the author of the book, Compromised. Please welcome Peter Strock. Peter, hello.

Hey, how are you? I'm good. I've had a pretty good couple of weeks in your absence. You weren't here with us last week, but I'm glad you're back with us this week because you specifically come up as a named defendant in a very interesting lawsuit. But before we get to that lawsuit, I wanna talk to you about what happened with Manafort in Miami on an Emirates flight,

which isn't, we texted the back and forth a little bit about this, not a private jet. This is an airline, and he was able to make it onto the plane until he was taken off the plane because this passport had been revoked. And there were a lot of, there's a lot of speculation on Twitter about how he could have been involved with maybe some of the materials that were seized in the raid on Rudy Giuliani of April of last year, they could be continuing to pursue charges against him that he was not pardoned for for stuff that he took part in in the 2016 election, namely giving stuff to Constantin Calimnic.

And then, of course, those of us who worked for the government have worked for the government offered a third option that maybe they just administratively forgot to reinstate his passport after he was pardoned. And he might just have to reapply for another one. And we haven't heard a conclusion to this story, but I was wondering what your thoughts were on this particular taking him off the plane. Yeah, so it was, I mean, I think you laid out kind of all the options really well. It was when it first came out, it was that he was removed from a plane and the question

is, well, you know, was that a private plane where you, you know, get screened separately by immigration or was it off a passenger plane, the initial reporting indicated that there was some nonstop flight into Dubai that left around the time that he was allegedly removed and left late. And so they speculated correctly, it turns out that it was at Emirates flight. But I think, you know, people a couple of things, you know, people don't understand kind of how visa and passport processing goes, you know, you don't, when you come into the US, you go and, you know, you meet the little CBP guy, you see questions and take you to form and scan your passport. On the way out, you don't interact. There's no, at least in the US, you don't hit passport control on the way out, like you

do in many other countries. That's something done electronically. So when you show up, whether you're checking in online, you typically can frequently now have the option to put in your passport details online when you check in and or when you show up there, but you have to put your passport there and scan it. So there's still a exit process going on. And I don't know how many details are very public or how would details are public so I want to be general. But it's not you are able to check in and that is not the same thing as leaving on the flight out of the country.

So in other words, there, you know, often enough times it comes that somebody will check in, have their boarding pass go to the gate, and for whatever reason decide not to take the flight. So one of the ways you ensure that, if you're trying to mark like, when you process through, it's the same thing. If you check your bag and you go to the gate and don't get on the plane, they won't, because in 9-11,

and some of the terrorism, anti-terrorism work, if you don't board the plane and you've checked luggage, they will unload all the luggage and take out the luggage of the person who didn't get in the plane. So once the doors close, there's a lot that goes on between the people who were actually on the plane and in an automated sort of way. Some of it's going to be okay, did, you know, are the only bags we have, the bags from the people that are currently on the plane, it is reasonable to believe, you know, part of the way you assume that, you know,

somebody's actually left the country to be able to mark that in US immigration type records is whether or not they got on the plane. So, suffice it to say, it isn't necessarily an instant check when you scan your passport in that the check and area at the airport when you're leaving on a domestic flight, those sort of checks against government holdings may go on up until the time the plane leaves. So or even, well, then just leave it at that.

So that's what it explains why he was able to get on the plane because there was also a lot of speculation of, well, why was he even able to get on the plane? And then some folks were saying, well, it's easier to get somebody, quote, unquote, nab somebody or quote, unquote, you know, remove somebody. If they're on the plane versus, I don't know, at a synabon after having checked in. But you're saying that that possibly could be due to the amount of checks and time that it takes to do those checks. Yeah, and to me, it speaks, if you're doing it that late when somebody's on the plane, that's not ideal. You'd rather get them before like either pulling them aside when they hit the gate, when you might want to be able to show that somebody was trying to get on the plane,

right, that they were trying to leave the country, whether it's because they had contraband on them, and they were trying to prove that they were trying to flee or whatever the case may be, you want to see them take that step of getting on the gangway to go to the plane, because that demonstrates intent to leave the country. But if you don't need to do that frequently, it's, you know, Mr. Smith, me please come to the gate agent, and you know, they come to the gate agent, and there's an FBI agent or CBP agent or whoever it is there to take them in the custody.

So when I heard he was on the plane, that struck me as either a last minute and it doesn't, you know, a last minute somebody's, you know, everybody's dream of, he's under investigation. There's a Pfizer, there's a Title III, there's surveillance and people finally, you know, realized that he was making a run for the border and just finally put it on together and had to grab him off the plane. That is, I suppose, possible. I think that's really, really unlikely. I think it is far more likely the kind of less scenario that you threw out there that

given that he was already on the plane, that he assumed, you know, he had at any one time, like I think there was something like a Virginia period, he had applied for 10 passports, which is a little sketch But it he is a sophisticated enough traveler that he is not easily going to a hop on a plane that expired passport So my assumption is there was a passport that the date appeared valid that the date when he was typing it in You know the automated things when you go to check in sees a valid passport date So it assumes at first blush. this is a legitimate active passport, and that he gets on the plane, and that's something then when it runs against the actual text,

when it runs against the CBP data set, they see how this is a revoked passport. Now, I don't know the ins and outs of how CBP, like if you revoke it, is it revoked forever, or turned off, if you can turn it on or not, whether or not he was told, hey, this is dead forever, you need to get a new passport. I don't know the ins and outs of the way state runs the passport.

They're kind of the validity of that. But I do think the most likely scenario is he was going on legitimate, but scummy business and happened to use a passport that he thought was valid and turns out to have been revoked. And whether or not it should have been unrevoked or turned back on or whatever the term is, it didn't. And I think the last reporting I saw on it from Reuters, Ray Pee, was that his attorneys or somebody made the same, that he was eligible to apply for a new passport and he was in the process of doing that. So, you know, there's not going to be, this was not stretching him off the plane because his arrest is imminent. This is not some sort of like trying to flee the country. I think it was just, again, trying to do

business, which we can talk about if you want. And, you know, having kind of the administrative muddiness of his past convictions, catch up with them. the muddiness of his past convictions catch up. Yeah, I mean, I imagine if he were being under investigation or about to be indicted or there's indictment under seal or whatever, that if he tried to flee the country, he actually would have been arrested. It would have been the FBI there, and not the customs of Border Patrol.

Like we saw with partisan Frueman, for example, who were trying to leave Dallas for Vienna, where a furtosh happened to be. So, yeah, I think, and then Rudy decided not to get on the plane at all. I remember he's like, well, I'm just not even going to try because that's how you get arrested. Why would anyone just, maybe you know this, maybe you don't, but he applied for, you said, 10 passports, I read that as well.

I travel, I have one passport. Why would anyone legitimately need more than one US passport? I mean, there are a bunch of reasons. The most prevalent one that I've seen is that a lot of particularly Arab nations, if you have a visa or an entry exit from the state of Israel, they will not let you enter their country if you have any sort of recative travel in the Israel so that people will keep, you know, to passports or find some work around with it where they can, you know, go into whatever Gulf nation, Middle Eastern nation that might have those restrictions on one set of papers and then travel to and from Israel and another. Those, I think, have been lessening, I know a lot.

The number of countries who put restrictions on travel like that have been reduced, but they still exist. But there could be, you know, what I don't know is are there like obscure things. Like if you're traveling to travel, or if you're trying to travel into South Sudan and you have on kinds of travel into North Sudan. I don't know if there are regional animosities between states that just seeing that you're

trying to go into Bosnia, but you've got the stamp of an adjacent, I don't know what their individual cases may be, but the joy of being Paul Manafort when you were making your living in sort of working with all these dirty nasty warlike corrupt regimes who tend to have enemies who don't want you in their other in their countries is you tend to start entering into all these conflict areas where you have tensions and friction like that. Now, is that why he applied for so many? I don't know. It's not applied for so many, I don't know. It's not, you know, those records are there, you know, certainly now, back in the day where you didn't have everything in a sort of automated way, in an automated data set, having a passport was a good tool to get information out of.

And it's still, I mean, think about it. Like, you know, if somebody leaves the US, there will be a record that, oh, hey, you know, Paul Manafort left on this Emirates flight, leaving Miami and arriving into Dubai. But then in Dubai, if he gets, you know, changes airlines, you're even same airline, gets a plane from Dubai to Singapore, there are ways you can structure your travel

so that that second, third, whatever leg doesn't show up in US records. So being able to show from a law enforcement or intelligence perspective where somebody went, having multiple passports can help shield that. I don't know how legal it is or not. So in other words, typically if you apply for a new and it'll get you a new one, but you've got to turn in

and they used to like punch it, you know, punch it to little holes a new one, you'll get you a new one, but you've got to turn in and they used to like punch it, you know, like punch it to little holes in it so you couldn't have multiple active passports at the same time. So I don't know if he was simply trying to come up with a clean, sort of fresh set of documents every time a job. And I don't think that's addressed in that I recall saying in the Mueller report or anything that's been released, but I like his three or two or something, but I don't know. I don't know, and I certainly don't recall ever saying anything public talking about why I might have done that.

Yeah. And then of course, the biggest question of all my question is why he was going to do by, which seems to be where a bunch of oligarchs and a lot of their yachts are fleeing to. So I don't know if there's a big oligarch, Russian oligarch, rave that he wants to attend, but I, I'm curious as to why He'd be going, he'd be going to Dubai in the first place. Yeah, and I don't know. I suspect it was for business reasons. I mean, there was something again I don't know if it was the Daily Beast or who had noted that he engaged in the podcast where he

talked about, you know, getting back and that he was the whatever phrase he noted that he engaged in the podcast where he talked about getting back and that he was whatever phrase he used, that he was thinking about activating himself in the next couple of months. It would appear to me that it seems very logical and given his past clientele base that as this flow of oligarchs and their planes and their yachts were leaving Russia and wherever in Europe and heading to Dubai that he might want to descend there to offer his aid and assistance. Dubai has been playing the Emirates and the Saudis.

Doing some interesting stuff with regard to China and Russia that it's going to present some foreign policy challenges for the United States. But it's one thing if you're trying, if you're the Saudi's offering, it's a price oil in Yuan rather than dollars. It's another thing if you're, you know, to buy offering a bunch of sanctioned oligarchs harbor in your nation. So I can see Manafort because it's his sweet spot. I was very proud of the tweet that came up with it. You know, Paul Manifort is like the dog shit that always shows up on the boot of corruption.

I mean, he, that's his client base. I mean, that is the, you know, kind of not everybody, but a lot of folks that he has done business for and been paid for in the past are dirty. You know, whether they're oligarchs, whether they're tyrants, you know, just Syvnbee or, you know, not nearly as bad as Mabutu, CCC Seiko was, you know, hard, I mean, but just this rogues gallery of authoritarians that you look in, there's Paul Manafort, you know, lobbying on behalf of them and their interests in the United States and around the world. So it's kind of his calling card and, you know, he's not, I don't see him changing.

Yeah, especially with what's, you know, for me, the first thing I thought was, he's going over to help try to get Yanakovic back into power in Ukraine because that's what he does. Maybe, right. Um, at least it, and I, and I know that that was in his peace plan for Maryapal with Constantin Kolimnik that was floating around in 2016. All the quote unquote Ukraine peace plans that were put forward by the by Donald Trump allies and people who worked for his campaign were all about just carving Ukraine up and and and or putting Yanukovych back in power. Who you know I'm sure listeners will remember is is a Russian backed block guy right he's a Putin guy. So anyway well well, I, you know, maybe we'll never know,

but I appreciate you shining a little bit of light on that situation. Cause there was, yeah, there was a lot of speculation going around. And again, we don't know what the answer is. We don't know what might be true. We don't know if he's currently under investigation for past crimes or current crimes

or if he's caught up in what was happening. I know Rudy consulted him on several occasions for for coup planning and his dirty work in Ukraine. And so maybe there's something wrapped up there, but they didn't arrest him when they took him off a plane. And I want to tell you all about this Trump lawsuit. But first, I do need to take a quick break. So stick around. We'll be right back. Hi everybody, it's A.G and today's show is brought to you by Credit Karma. Are you paying down old credit card debt? Is it taken forever?

A personal loan could be your solution. Loans usually come with fixed monthly payments making it the simple way to help pay off your credit cards plus. Loans usually have much lower interest rates than credit cards do, and credit karma can help you find the best option for you. Through credit, credit karma, you can find loans and offers that are tailored to your credit profile so you can estimate what amounts you can borrow. You can also see your chances of approval with credit karma, which is awesome, so that you can choose loans

you're most likely to get approved for and apply with more confidence. It's free to compare loans on credit karma, and it won't affect your credit score when you compare loans, and you could save money. Credit karma. Apply with more confidence today. If you're ready to apply, head to creditcarmad.com slash loan offers to see personalized offers. Again, go to creditcarmad.com slash loan offers to find the loan for you. That's creditcarmad.com slash loan offers.

And today's show is also brought to you by my new favorite self-care routine, Fields CBD. CBD isn't about what you feel, it's about what you don't feel. Stress, anxiety, and pain. Feels is a better way to feel better. With Feels Premium CBD, you can keep your head clear, and you can feel your best all day long. It is delivered hassle-free directly to your door. CBD naturally helps reduce stress, anxiety, pain, and sleeplessness,

all with no hangover or addiction. Just place a few drops of feels under your tongue and you'll feel the difference within minutes. Now everyone's dose of CBD is different, so what feels is done is they have a free CBD hotline that can help guide your personal experience so that you find the perfect dose for you. The Feeel's customer service team is dedicated to making sure you get the best use of your CBD. Feels is safe, natural, and there's no harmful side effects, and it's helped me relieve pain,

alleviate nervousness, and reduce the business. Feels monthly membership makes you yourself care easy, you'll save money on every order, and you can pause or cancel anytime it's super easy. I definitely recommend giving it a try. So go to feels.com slash MSW. You'll get 50% off your first order in free shipping. That's F-E-A-L-S dot com slash M-S-W. You'll be glad you did.

All right, welcome back. You were named in a lawsuit, which by the way, this list of defendants is like, I wanna go to that party. First of all, this is like everybody who's rad. Much, yes, the Carter page lawsuit, those defendants are good, but this is like, that's main event and then there's the after party and this is the after party, those defendants are good, but this is like, you know, that's main event,

and then there's the after party, and this is the after party, right? So it's, yeah, and it's not in Dubai. Are you and your lawyer, like, I've talked a little bit to a couple of people on that list. Are you at all worried about this? Is this gonna cost you any money? Do you have, I noticed Perkins Kooey is on there and I was like, maybe they'll just

represent everybody for free who's, you know, on this defendants list, Michael Sussman's on there who Durham indicted quote unquote for quote unquote, lying to to Jim Baker. But how, how annoying on a scale of annoying to costly, where are you on this, what is this? Oh, like pegged out on annoying. I mean, this is not, I'm not worried in the slightest about it. I think it likely to be dismissed

before the ink's even dry on it. But, you know, it's, it's more than just a simple annoyance. I mean, the crap, like, you know, so I've obviously seen the reports, I've read it, But it's more than just a simple annoyance. The crap, so I've obviously seen the reports. I've read it, I have not been served yet. So, everything that kind of comes in the sort of process, I once the process server finds you and shows up and you sign for it, and then you've got to decide,

okay, typically that, at least I think all of us from the former government perspective, but certainly in my case, everything there is in the context of acts I did in official capacity. So again, this is getting really in the weeds for your audience, but another of the Federal Torque claims act, typically, when an employee is sued for doing their job, the government will step in and say, you can't go suing

the individual, the government employee, you're suing the government, and they'll sort of like, create, you know, take that on, and it becomes a suit against the US government. As part of that, when you are sued in your official capacity or as part of your official acts, you can ask for representation for yourself by the government or in lieu of the government for them to pay for you to be represented. So, you know, then it's this long process of, you know,

you get served, you find that, you reach out to the government, you send in a little form, which I've done countless times for all these new since crazy lawsuits. And then the DOJ will make a determination whether, you know, it wasn't the course to your duties and whether it's in the interest of the government

to represent you. And if so, they will do so. Sometimes, you know, there's a test about, okay, is there a conflict? Do they also name them in the lawsuit where it might pose a ethical conflict for them to both represent the government and represent you? You know, is there other litigation? In this case, I'm suing DOJ. And, you know, because of unlawfully firing me. So at some point, I, my strong belief, particularly because this is a bullshit lawsuit, DOJ will either represent me or say, you know, we're going to pay for you to get private

representation. The good news is that's great because, you know, you're not paying for a doubt about it. The bad news is, like, the rate that the government agrees to pay is nowhere near what Like the rate that the government agrees to pay is nowhere near what like good large law firms charge So most of them understand that you know, this is right just work But you have to work that out and you know this world that I never knew or understood Is out there and so this process is it's more of an annoyance It's beyond an annoyance because there is certainly that Waying over you and then you then you're just sitting there and watching it go through the legal process which is horribly slow. So

you know the downside is you know that list of people I mean they're tonned that we're in the government and so you know if the government chooses to represent them then the taxpayer is paying for DOJ attorneys to represent all these former employees in this frivolous lawsuit. If the government decides they're going to pay for outside counsel for all these former government employees, that is the taxpayer paying for all these former government employees to defend against this frivolous Trump lawsuit. So Trump is doing two things. Well, he's doing three things. One, he's making himself feel good and his ego and he can say he's going after the deep

state and all these horrible people. Two, if he hasn't already, I guarantee you, he's gonna start fundraising to help me take the fight to the deep state and look at what I'm doing and he's gonna continue the grip and this is just one more avenue to fundraise. And then the third thing he's doing, whether or not he's intending to do it, he's imposing yet more cost on the taxpayer

to defend all these people who are simply going out there doing their job to protect the nation and having to defend themselves in court by paying attorneys that he is causing to have happened. So again, it's I think entirely premised on his wallet and his ego. I don't expect he won't go anywhere. It doesn't have merit at all. And it's just, you know, kind of a pain in the ass because inevitably all the, you know, the frothy supporters get riled up and worked up and, you know, the threats pick up and all the little, you know, I don't care about the hate tweets and stuff. I do care about the physical threats, but inevitably this stirs all that crap up. And so, you know, it doesn't go away because if it's dismissed before the merits

are argued, they'll just say, oh, it wasn't decided on the merits, much like a lot of those, you know, bullshit election lawsuits. No, you never heard them on the merits. They, you know, just charge it for other reasons, like jurisdictional reasons are standing, which are fully legit reasons to not, to not go forward with a lawsuit. But of course, that'll just be seen as either again, part of the deep state, or you didn't even hear our real arguments, you know, you dismissed it before you even listened to what I had to say. And that's, and then I'll raise more money off that. So that's how it goes. Yeah. And, you know, good people don't turn around and go, again, I assume there are ways that you

could leverage this on the side that I'm on and all the other folks that got sued to get you yourself in the public eye or go fundraise. One of the interesting questions is the way these lawsuits work is, if it survives a motion to dismiss, which would be the first thing where all these plaintiffs would say are not the plaintiffs, the defendants, this is time barred, meaning it's too late to bring this action, are there deficiencies, are these whatever the case may be to try and get it thrown out, and what's called a motion to dismiss.

I think that's what's going to happen here. If it survives that, you move on to what's called the discovery phase. The neat thing about discovery is it works both ways. So like Trump as a plaintiff can ask for all this information from the government to prove the non-existent plot and because he was in the government to have this stuff is either already out there in various reports and testimony

or because he declassified it. But it goes the other way too. So all the defendants get to go and ask for discovery from Trump. And that's everything from his records, whether those financial records or phone records or travel records to actually deposing him, sitting down there and putting them under oath, which I don't know how many people were up to right now who've tried to do that and he's dodged left, right, up and down. But there is this opportunity to go back at him. And so, one interesting question was, is there anybody in there who would be interested enough in just essentially putting the screws to him to sit there and say, yeah, and I'm

not going to move to this mess. There we go. Let's move right to discovery. Here's our interrogatories and request for admissions and start getting information back and moving towards opposing Trump, understanding, you know, it goes the other way too, right? It's, you know, whatever information you might have that he's entitled to, you'd have to dig through.

But again, that takes a lot of money for the legal team, a legal team to do. There's a lot of work, there's a lot of intrusiveness to it. It's a pain in the ass, it's burdensome. I don't know that anybody in this set of named defendants are kind of itching and leaning forward and have deep enough, well, some of them have deep enough pockets and mess with Trump if they wanted to, but I suspect everybody's just going to try and move to dismiss. And I think it quite likely might.

I probably would, but if I were Perkins Kooey, I'd be like, let's do this. And the funny thing is, like people, people have made some really interesting observations that shockingly enough, it really seems similar to a lot of stuff that Durham initially early on was saying. And some, you know, all the little gratuitous detail that Durham's been putting in some of his court documents.

Surprisingly enough, it seems really similar to a lot of sort of the intelligence gathering lawsuit, law work that Alpha Bank and some of the people surrounding it were doing up until the sanctions made, all the US law firms back away from them. It shockingly, all this kind of bogus conspiracy theory on the one hand intelligence gathering, maybe on the other hand, that has evaporated, now Trump is diving into this

with his crackerjack team of attorneys. I read somewhere at the Florida group of attorneys were like, it was like lawbrains.com, I think. And then the other person, his, his representative elsewhere, an attorney by the name of Alina Habba, my favorite, there was a daily beast started conquiting somebody from the, or talking to other Trump lawyers saying, some of the Trump lawyers think her work is so bad,

so self-interested, pointlessly aggressive and sloppy, that they think Habba's mere presence on the team increases the likelihood of Trump and his family facing court losses and legal peril. And I think at some point in a private life sloppy that they think Habba's mere presence on the team increases the likelihood of Trump and his family facing court losses in legal peril. And I think at some point in a private life, she was like the general counsel for a set of parking lot companies or something like this.

So it's not. Maybe Jonathan Ellis worked with her because she was a traffic ticket lawyer. So who knows? Right. And she was on Hannity last night. So I think there's a motivation to judge to mean, is getting long in the tooth. And so maybe they can swap out places on the Fox lineup.

But I suspect that legal team will very rapidly given this list of defendants very rapidly find themselves extraordinarily outclass. It's going to be like the, when was it? Was it the 1988, when were the Olympics? We had like Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley and David Robinson and they were just, you know, beating the snot out everybody like a hundred and twenty fourteen. They started like the freshman. It's going to be the legal version of that.

So the dream team is what it is. Yes, yes. I, that's my sense of what's coming. Yeah. Oh, for sure. All right. Well, thank you so much. And sorry. In fact, Mary Trump, I was on Mary Trump show last night. We were talking about how we felt left out of this particular lawsuit. And then we were wondering, maybe we should sue him for not suing us. For the emotional, right? Something. Right? Yeah, I think so.

I want to say Mary might have been sued by the same Habba, what's her name, person, over the book, or something like that. Yeah, her and the New York Times, yeah. Well, it should be interesting. Look forward to seeing what happens to that. Hopefully, we'll talk to you again soon. And I appreciate your time.

Everybody buy a book compromised. You have to, if you don't have it yet, I'm sure everyone here does, though. And we'll talk soon. Thanks soon, and I appreciate your time. Everybody buy the book compromised. You have to, if you don't have it yet. I'm sure everyone here does though. And we'll talk soon. Thanks very much. Yeah, see you. It's time for sabotage. All right, about a month ago, warrants were unsealed in a case involving a Trump advisor

and convicted child sex traffic or George Nader. The warrants basically said, hey, the FBI has in its possession a few boxes of documents and a thumb drive. They're labeled with names of people who are now cooperating with the FBI. We need to get in there. We need a PST document and we need that thumb drive. So that's sort of what the warrants were like.

Hey, we already have this in our possession, but you can't just, you know, fourth amendment prevents you from going through everything and looking for all crimes. If you have, if you think there's a crime and it's sitting in a, you know, an evidence storage facility with the FBI, you got to get a warrant to go back in there and get the stuff and they did. If you remember, Nader was sentenced to 10 years for his child sex trafficking and he was also found to have given a substantial amount of money to Hillary Clinton, but he also gave a ton of money to Donald Trump and that investigation didn't go anywhere under Bill Barr. And now we have these unsealed warrants for additional information.

Also, we have a court filing from the Department of Justice in the Proud Boys Enrique Tariocase, stating, quote, as explained above, the government continues to investigate identify evidence relevant to the six defendants charged in the second superseding indictment. But the government anticipates that based in part on evidence seized on March 8, 2022, while Tarioc was being arrested from other Browd Boys houses, it may seek to charge several additional defendants

and or seek to add new charges. The government expects that any such superseding indictment would be issued prior to May 20th, 2022. And with those two pieces of information, it's time for the fantasy indictment leak. I'm going to be a candidate! No, it is going to be a candidate! I'm going to be a candidate! I'm going to be a candidate! I'm going to be a candidate!

I'm going to be a candidate! I'm going to be a candidate! I'm going to be a candidate! I'm going to be a candidate! I'm going to be a candidate! I'm going to be a candidate! I'm going to be dead! I'm going to be dead! I'm going to be dead! I'm going to be dead! I'm going to be dead! I'm going to be dead! I'm going to be dead! All right, I am adding super-seating indictments for George Nader, based on what we just talked about, and a super-seating indictment for Enrique Tario and his five-proud boys, co-conspirators, along with two new proud boys, Bertino and Stewart, by name.

I think the charge will be seditious conspiracy, but I'm not sure. The government says these indictments, as I said, would come by May 20th, but I'm going to go ahead and draft them now just in case. And then, of course, I got Gates, Engels, and L.A. Key down in the middle district of Florida, and Rudy, DeGeneva, and Tonezig. And that's my 10, already were at 10. So I'm going to put a second string bench together that includes Sydney Powell, some Randall Russians for illegally funneling straw donations to Republican candidates so you can add those to my team as well.

Alright, that is our show today. Thanks for listening. There's also an episode of the MSW Book Club out today for the next couple chapters of Go Back to Where You Came From by Wajahat Ali. And I'll be back tomorrow with the Daily Beans. And if the Daily Beans hasn't been showing up in your feed, by the way, that's an Apple podcast problem. You can fix it by unsubscribing and then re-subscribing to the daily beans, and I'll see you there tomorrow.

And until then, please take care of yourselves, take care of each other, take care of the planet, take care of your mental health, vote blue over Q. I've been AG, and this is Mola She wrote. Mola She wrote is written and produced by Alison Gill in partnership with MSW Media. Sound Design and Engineering, or by Molly Hockey, Jesse Egan is our copywriter and our art and web designer by Joelle Reader at Moxie Design Studios. Mueller She Wrote Is a Proud Member of MSW Media, a group of creator-owned podcasts focused on news, justice, and politics.

For more information, visitswmedia.com Hi, I'm Dan Dunn, host of What We're Drinking with Dan Dunn, the most wildly entertaining adult beverage-themed podcast in the history of the medium. That's right, the boozy best of the best, baby! And we have the cool celebrity promos to prove it. Check this out! Hi, I'm Allison Janney and you're here with me on What We're Drinking with Dan Dunn. And that's my sexy voice. Boom. Boom is right Academy Award winner Allison Janney. As you can see, celebrities just love this show. How cool is that? Hey this is Scottie Pippin and you're listening to the Dan Dunn show and

wait hold on the name of the show is what? Alright sure Scottie Pippin momentarily forgot the show's name but there's a first time for everything. Hey everyone this is Scoot McNary I'm here with Dan Dunn on what are you drinking? Fine What's calling it? Fine, twice. But famous people really do love this show. Hi, this is Will Forte and you're, for some reason, listening to What We're Drinking With Dan Dunn. Now, what do you mean for some reason, Will Forte? What's going on?

Hi, this is Kurt Russell, this is an ice cape from New York, but I couldn't get the hell out of Dan Dunn's happy hour. Please send help. Send help? Oh, come is Kurt Russell. Listen, I escaped from New York, but I couldn't get the hell out of Dan Dunn's happy hours. Please send help Send help. Oh come on Kurt Russell. Can somebody out there? Please help me. I'm Dita Von Tees and you're listening to what we're drinking with Dan Dunn Let me try one more time. Come on. Is it right? What was it? It's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. Is it right? Alright, what was it? It's amazing, isn't it? Is it amazing? Is it right? Ah, that's better.

So be like Dedevantiste friends and listen to what we're drinking with Dan Dunn, available wherever you get your podcasts. M-S-O-W-Media. you