Jack - Nothing Wonderful Comes Easy (feat. Robert Denault and Uncle Blazer)

Episode Date: January 6, 2020

Happy 2020! We're kicking off January's Mueller She Wrote episodes with another legal update from Uncle Blazer, as well as an interview Robert Denault. Become a patron of our show at patreon.com/muellershewrote!

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. This episode of Mullershoe Road is brought to you by Zola. Zola makes wedding planning easier and less stressful by having your wedding website, registry invites,

and guest list manager all in one place. Go to zola.com slash AG to sign up and get your free personalized paper sample. Then use code Save50 to get 50% off your save the dates. Thanks to Noom for supporting Mullershoe Road. Getting in to get 50% off your save the dates. Thanks to Noom for supporting MolarShiRote. Getting in shape isn't about a number on the scale. Noom helps you develop a new relationship with food, build healthier habits, and feel better about yourself. Sign up for your trial today at Noom.com slash AG.

And thanks to Noemi for supporting MolarShiRote. Noemi designs and manufactures everything in-house and sells directly to consumers with a lifetime warranty and free shipping. Go to HelloNoMe.com slash AG and get $50 off your first purchase with promo code AG. This is Jack Bryan, the co-writer and director of Active Measures and you are listening to Mother Shiro, Lucky You. 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. I'm not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time of truth in 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. Commun 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. and with me today is Amanda Reader. Hello. Tits McGee is on vacation in New York. She'll be back on the 8th. That's Jordan Coburn. Happy New Year to you all. We have a big show coming back from the holidays, including an interview with Uncle Blazer about the Mueller cases that were argued in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals last Friday.

We call the Super Bowl of Separation of Powers. And joining us later in the show will be Robert DeNalt. He's the author of the forensic news net story about Russia Bank VTV's connections to a subsidiary of Deutsche Bank and how they're involved in Trump loans. That story got a lot of attention over the weekend. You'll want to stick around for that. And we also have some sabotage and of course the fantasy indictment league.

But before we get to the headlines of the week, it's time for my favorite segment, Corrections. It's time to stay. It's time for me to say I'm sorry. Oh, I made a mistake. It's hard for me to say I'm sorry. Oh, I made a mistake. And we only have one correction from the holiday break. So when we aren't here, we make fewer mistakes. Isn't that great? This is from Sarah Hoffman.

She says, love the show. Hello, A.G. Manion Jordan. On this past Sunday's Mueller. She wrote, it was stated, Kavanaugh had never done anything good, but wait, he did one good thing. He wrote the majority opinion tossing out the most recent conviction of Curtis Flowers, the subject of season two's in the dark podcast. I added a link to the article about the overturned conviction. If you haven't heard the podcast or become knowledgeable about the story, story, I highly recommend it. Sweet, I'll treat that out. Yeah, definitely.

I guess you did do one good thing. He likes beer. That's our correction. If you have any corrections, now that we're back and talking, head to mullershearote.com. Click on contact, select corrections, build us a compliment sandwich. We'll get it right eventually, we promise.

And now let's hit the headlines with just the facts. Alright, so there's some big news out in the Ukraine impeachment scandal, including some new emails released in a FOIA case, and then some more information from the New York Times about the timeline for the hold on Ukraine military aid. So let's talk about the emails. In an exclusive from just security, the Center for Public Integrity Watchdog received about 300 pages of emails and a Freedom of Information Act request lawsuit. And as we know, we got the first batch December 12th and the second batch on December 20th, but most of those

pages were redacted. Well, over the holiday, just security somehow got unredacted copies of these emails, spanning from June to October, and they revealed the alarm bells set off by the Pentagon that holding, withholding the aid would violate the Empoundment Control Act. And that's the law that requires the president to spend money appropriated by Congress, as was the case with the military aid to Ukraine.

So these now unredacted emails make it clear that the hold was 100% about Trump himself, about what he wanted and how he could personally benefit. And in an email from Michael Duffy, from the Office of Management and Budget to Elaine McCusker, the Pentagon comptroller, he said that the hold came directly from Trump, quote, clear direction from Podas to continue the hold. What was most interesting is what the Department of Justice chose to redact when it handed these emails over because now we can compare them side by side, right?

What was redacted and what wasn't? Because the Center for Public Integrity has the redacted stuff, just security has the unredacted stuff. And among some more of the questionable redactions is when they blacked out a question from McCusker, that's the Pentagon comptroller, to the Office of Management and Budget, asking if the hold had gone through the Pentagon's general counsel. There was also a letter from the Deputy Secretary of Defense to the Office of Management and Budget warning they had repeatedly advised the Office of Management and Budget that holding

the aid beyond August 19th would jeopardize the department's ability to obligate the funding prudently and fully and that entire letter was redacted. So that's what Barr decided to redact when they handed over the stuff for the FOIA request. They also blacked out a McCusker email to the Office of Management and Budget, saying legal teams had discussed the hold and its potential violation of the law.

That's the Empowerment Control Act, along with another warning from the Department of Defense that the hold could prevent them from being obligated at all. And Natasha Bertrand points out on Twitter that all of those warnings, after all those warnings, an Office of Management and Budget General Counsel told the GAO that at no point did the Department of Defense Office of General Counsel indicate to OMB that as a matter of law, the apportionments would prevent the DOD from being able to obligate the funds

before the end of the fiscal year. So the DOJ went out of its way to make all of us think that the Pentagon never warned the Office of Management and Budget about the Impoundment Act mainly because that's one of their talking points, that's one of their defenses, and the Office of Management and Budget spokesperson told CNN last week there was an agreement at every step of the way between DOD and OMB about the withholding of the aid. And all of these redacted letters and warnings

show that there was not. It was, in fact, it was discussed in detail to the extent of is this legal? Yes, multiple times. Yeah, and as we know, we had five Pentagon officials resigned. We had two Office of Management and Budget officials resigned over this, over the possible violation of the Empowerment Control Act, and that they wouldn't write a legal opinion

that said that this was okay. And again, these are potential witnesses. Yeah. And witnesses that Shiff has called. And Esper, who was SECDEF, Secretaryary defense, and Bolton and Pompeo actually went to the Oval Office and said, Trump, you can't hold this aid. The lawyers are saying at the Pentagon, McCusker, a comptroller, they're saying that if you do, we won't be able to

get this aid out in time. And that's against the law. And Trump continued the hold. And now we have the email showing from Michael Duffy to McCusker that the hold is coming directly from the president after he was warned multiple times about the illegality of withholding the aid. So and also we still haven't, we still haven't had any anything from Bolton, right? No. He still staying quiet. He just goes, I know a lot of stuff. Right? A book. That's pretty much the stress at goes, I know a lot of stuff. Oh, right in a book. That's pretty much the stress at this point. Pretty much what he said. And then we know that last Friday,

Judge Leon dismissed the cuperman case, which is the thing Bolton was sort of counting on to not have to go and testify. Right. But that's been dismissed as moot. So now they can no longer use the excuse. Well, it's going through the courts. I can't testify.

They should be able to rely solely on them again, dismissed as moot, so now they can no longer use the excuse. Well, it's going through the courts. I can't testify. They should be able to rely solely on the McGann finding that he has to testify. Now, of course, that's been appealed and it was heard last Friday. We're going to talk to Uncle Blazer about that later. The McGann case will probably be appealed to Supreme Court. We'll hear a decision from the DC Circuit Court of Appeals

probably in, I don't know, six, eight weeks or something like that. And then of course, he'll have a little bit of time to file a cert with SCOTUS. And then SCOTUS will decide whether or not they're going to hear it. We might not get a decision on McGann until June or July.

But the already written decision should be enough to get Bolton to testify. And also also the fact that he knows all this shit That he went that he was at that July 10th meeting when he when he told son like hey, you can't do that I'm not going to be part of this drug deal with Giuliani or when he went to the president with Esper the Secretary of Defense out panic on Secretary defense secretary of defense Yeah, and and Pompeo of State, and told Trump, you can't do this and like release the aid, release the bats, and he wouldn't do it

and continue to hold. And now we have the email showing that he is specifically the one who was requiring the hold. And we have, we have these FOIA requests are making that even clearer. Yes, now what we still haven't seen or anything from Mulvaney, between Mulvaney and Trump in writing that says,

why he was doing this? And we probably aren't gonna see anything like that because first of all, Trump doesn't email, second of all, we would just need Mulvaney's testimony and he said he's not gonna testify. So, because he thinks we should get over it Yeah, we should get over it. Yeah, although he has Come out and said yes, there was a quid pro quo

That was still a stunning moment in American history. So do we really need his testimony? And that I mean that's that was one of the bases of which we impeached Trump in the first place was because Trump And that was one of the bases of which we impeached Trump in the first place was because Trump asked for investigations from Ukraine on television and China. And Mulvaney said, yeah, that's what the withhold of the aid was. That's a good brookal. We do it all the time. Get over it. The number of times that crime has been confirmed live on television is just a stunning part of

this particular era that we're in. Yeah, and that's one of their defenses against why they aren't obstructing justice because they're doing it in broad daylight. It's so funny. Funny peculiar. Not funny, huh? Is he still... Well, Vaney hasn't been fired or anything yet.

No, he's still chief of staff. He's still chief of staff. Although there are a lot of people like talk about considers considerations for other people to take his job. Oh, he's not on daddy's good side right now. No, not since he admitted crime on national television and then had to walk it back. Adam Schiff put out a statement about all these emails to saying that these documents were subpoenaed by the House and he can now see why Trump and the Department of Justice

hid them because they're deeply incriminating character. He also said that without the production of all relevant documents, a fair trial in the Senate cannot take place, and that sort of bolsters the idea that we aren't going to send the articles to the Senate. Shiff said there are several takeaways from these new release documents. Three. Number one, the administration redacted highly incriminating information, including documentary proof, the president personally directed the hold to continue after Esper Pompeo and Bolton met with Trump in the Oval Office to try to convince him to release the aid.

And that shows there can be no other reason for the hold other than to pressure Ukraine into helping Trump's re-election. Number two, the documents undermine any claim that the hold was for an unknown but legitimate reason. If there were a legitimate reason, they would have told Congress and wouldn't have redacted the information. And three, the emails are only one small part of the documents subpoenaed. And unless Trump provides these documents, we can only conclude anything with held is similarly incriminating. Haha. Yeah. I mean, genuinely, generally, when you withhold something, it's because it's incriminating. Hmm. Yeah. If you have a legit reason, it's like Joyce Vance said on Twitter and this this

week got a lot of traction. It's been quoted a million times. She's like, if somebody's going to testify and their testimony will exonerate you, you let them testify. You don't block it. Never, never, never do you do that. There's only one reason to block this stuff. There's a reason that like 12 year old girls hide their journals.

You know, you want to see that shit? That's correct. So do 45 year old girls. Also in the news this week in the Mueller related universe, Peter Struck is speaking out again this time in a court filing from last Monday, saying his first amendment rights and his right to privacy were abrogated when the FBI fired him and published private text messages sent between himself and lawyer Lisa Page. The filing this past week is part of the suit he filed in August that raises questions

about the freedom of rank and file employees of the FBI to share personal political opinions on government issued devices. This is as opposed to higher ranking FBI officials. This case is a particular interest to me, although I can't tell you why. As soon as I can, I'll fill you in, but there is a major difference between rank and file government employees and what they're allowed to do and say politically versus political appointees and higher level appointees and executive branch employees. Lisa Page, for example, is a GS-14, which is the same pay grade as me, and that means she is allowed to discuss politics and her opinion freely.

Interestingly, Trump came out with new Hatch Act rules for social media and texting right after all this happened. I got that email, so I'm very interested to see how all this pans out for them. The actual argument from the Department of Justice, is that even though struck is rank and file, his role in the investigation imposed on him a higher burden of caution with respect to his speech. But roughly 8,000 other SES level managers are similarly situated to struck in the federal workforce, but the vast majority aren't policymakers. This tells me, first of all, struck is SES, which does have higher standards

than GS. SES stands for senior executive service. This is the cadre of employees that liais between political appointees and the rank and file, some middle managers. Naturally, Trump is fine with political speech from executive employees when it praises Trump. And struck even said this in his filing. And this is what's going to take Trump down in this case. There has been no evidence of an attempt to punish agents who celebrated Trump's election victory in private tax and volunteered to work on a probe

of the Clinton Foundation, all of which came out in the Inspector General's report that showed there was nothing wrong with the opening of the Trump-Russia investigation. And this is key. This is a key concept in government human resources and labor relations. You cannot punish one and not punish the other. You have to have the rules apply equally to everyone. So saying bad things about Trump in the new rules, for example, those new rules that came

out, Trump said specifically you can't say anything bad about Trump, which is weird. And we know Kellyanne Conway is violated the Hatch Act over 60 times because she's pro Trump. The rules say you can't oppose or support a political candidate for office. But Trump is allowing people who support him to break this rule, this hatch act, to violate the hatch act, but is punishing those who say the opposite. Now, of course, struck is taking you a step further, saying, I'm rank and file, I am not held to this higher

standard. You shouldn't be holding me to this higher standard. I have first amendment speech rights, although he is SES. And Lisa Page has even a stronger case because she's a GS14. And you are allowed to have political opinions. There's just some rules that you, you know, you can't fundraise publicly, you can't use your title and agency to support or oppose a candidate for office, which is what Kelly and Conway has done a million times. But also, these were private fucking conversations. Yeah, but they were on government issue devices.

True. And so that's another thing too. The rules about that are unclear. Yeah. Because if it's a private conversation, then it's a private conversation. They weren't publishing it. Right.

Yeah. And as we know, because of Lisa Page's interview with Molly John Fast, which is a really great interview, that it was the Department of Justice that called in reporters and released these text messages and told the reporters not to source the Department of Justice as where they got these text messages. And that violates so many privacy rules. And, you know, especially from an administration who, you know, combats leaks so fiercely where we have McCabe on the other hand who told the Wall Street Journal about something about the Clinton investigation and Trump used that as an excuse to give a criminal referral to the Department of Justice, which the

grand jury failed to return an indictment on. So it's like six and one. You can't have one without the other. And that is going to prove to be very difficult for the Trump administration. I know it too. Because if you don't prosecute Kellyanne Conway and prosecute a strong word, because the only punishment for violating the Hatch Act is that you can be removed and it's up to your boss. But if you're not going to remove similarly situated employees for violating

the same rules, you can't do it for someone else. Yeah. You have to apply the rules equally. Yes. And so this case will be moving forward imminently. It is now. Yeah. So like, for example, when I was a manager in the executive branch, if I wanted to write

up an employee for being late, and there were six other employees that were late that I did not write up, I can't write up that employee. I have to start, do you have to do it across the board, or you have a hard time doing it at all? And that is a good thing, because that means you can't have favorites, you can't every, the government in the military is supposed to be like that. Equal application of the law. That's just a very good rule to follow.

So whenever I had to write somebody up for being late, they would come to me and say, did you write anybody else up for being late? Yes, here's all the people I've written up for being late. Here's all the time they were late. Here's all the documentation. And they go, okay, you applied the rule equally. Sorry, you can't do anything about it, you have to take the right up.

So that's how that works. Another cool piece of news here, Trump had another call with Putin last week, and as usual, we heard about it from Russian state media. The Kremlin actually issued a statement saying Putin initiated the call to thank Trump for information provided by the US

that helped foil a terrorist attack in St. Petersburg. Really? So either this is a lie or he actually helped FOIL a terrorist attack in St. Petersburg and it makes me wonder if that was by the Iranian general, Soleimani and and Putin's like, kill him. Like, okay, I have no proof of any of that. But these are your beans. But that's super space beans. That's some super space beans.

Right, so it's like he wasn't in an imminent attack to American lives, he was in an imminent threat to Russia. To Russian lives. Or to Russia. To the Kremlin. To the Kremlin. And he had this call and then the next day. Anyway, just saying weird.

Beans, because a full 24 hours later, the White House officially confirmed the call and added that the two also discussed arms control and the state of U.S. Russia relations. And their latest tear cuts in the weather and their best use. This is I think eight calls and meetings now we have to learn about from Russia. So I assume there's a standing order that Trump is not allowed to release readouts of their calls before Putin does. So we'll probably never know the exact substance of the call, but I know how they ended, right?

You hang up first. No, you hang up first. Okay, on the count of three, one, two, three. You didn't hang up. Oh, I know you, you guy. I think that's probably how it happened. And now of course, just days after that call, the United States has assassinated the top general in Iran.

And now Iran, China and Russia are running military drills together. That's wonderful. It's only a matter of time before North Korea gets involved. And since we've shit all over our NATO allies, we are going to be able to coalition build and no one believes the State Department on, or Trump that there was an imminent terrorist attack about to be carried out by

Sulimani unless the imminent terrorist attack was the one on St. Petersburg. And of course, Trump supported her saying that if you disagree with this move you're siding with terrorism, ignore that bullshit because the lack of evidence is astounding. The gang of eight wasn't briefed on this attack and now we're sending thousands of troops to the region. There was't is no plan. Nancy Pelosi is calling for an immediate discussion with Congress about how to proceed because it's illegal to go to war without. At a minimum, consulting Congress, and this attack comes as Pelosi is holding up a sham impeachment acquittal in the Senate.

So interesting timing. So the salamone killing may well have been justified, but public skepticism about the reasons shows how a president with zero credibility can undermine national security and wasn't even justified. There was a reason Obama and Bush did not kill this guy. They knew exactly where he was. They were both advised by the best strategic and political minds that Soleimani's death and martyrdom would be more dangerous than him being alive. Pompeo also canceled his trip to Ukraine. How convenient. I had tweeted back in May, quote, this is back in May. Trump wants to start a war in Iran for nothing other than enriching

his friends and winning in 2020. He will be willing to kill Americans women and children to line his pockets. That's it money think of someone you know in the military so yeah, that was back in May and Here we are. Yeah, fuck I have a question for you And I don't remember super clearly, but when a sub of Edelandin was killed, 2011, was it? I think it was around there. Was more morning given to Congress was, you know, were the proper channels followed when that happened? Yeah, 100% of it was briefed.

Yeah. Everybody was in there, Secretary of State. Right. I've seen, you know, you've seen all the pictures and stuff. Right. Right. secretary state right i've seen you know you've seen all the pictures and stuff right right i mean so so if this was justified as he's saying it was it would have taken

very little time to run this past congress to get approval right you know and and and the only reason he didn't is because it's completely fucking unjustified you yes he has no reason right right right uh...

you'll be as i asks this question about Obama and the killing of some of bin Laden, is I'm just talking about the talking points that Republicans will have in terms of comparing it to other moments in time. You know, for real. Yeah. That was, yeah, 2011, yeah, 2011.

And there's a great piece in a Washington Post about why his killing is different from other targeted attacks by the US. He's chucked that out in a Washington Post about why his killing is different from other targeted attacks by the US. You should check that out in the Washington Post came out yesterday. And experts are reacting to this badly. So it's just, we'll have to see it unfold. And I don't have, I don't know, this is going to give something great for the Democrats to run on, but I mean, this is very dangerous.

It's really dangerous and yeah, I think I mentioned this on the beans episode that we just recorded, but I know it's really easy to deal with your fear about the situation by making jokes about the draft or whatever, and I get it because that's the whole reason we have the show, dealing with stressful stuff through humor, but do keep in mind all of the loss of civilian life that will happen. It makes voting even more important, and I don't know, luckily, un-luckily, it gives Democrats even more fuel to their fire for this election. Yes, and I promise you that if you disagree with the way that this was handled, it doesn't

make you, it doesn't put you on the side of Iranian terrorists. No. No matter what Trump or Trump supporters try to tell you. Yeah, here's the thing, support the troops, not the war. Yeah. You know, it's really easy. You can support the troops when not support war. And I think that the right does not understand that.

I am a troop. Exactly. You know, there's a lot of people on the right who fundamentally don't understand that nuance. And granted, I'm in a little bit of a bubble. I know who I speak to that are veterans and they're in the military. Everyone's like, what the fuck?

Right? So. And like I said, even under GW, they were like, we're not killing this guy. He's more dangerous dead as a martyr than he is alive and plotting. But now I'm really interested to know what this imminent St. Petersburg attack was that Trump helped foil.

Yeah, I, if you need a tiny brief moment of levity, there's a really short clip with AOC giving her statement on this about Iran and I enjoyed that where she was just completely and totally blunt about it where she was like, she's like, are you pissed about it? And she's like, yeah, it makes me very nervous, but I think that I'm, I'm, I'm, I hope Democrats come out against this as strongly as they need to this year. And I hope it becomes a major, major, major issue. I'm sure it's going to be heavily talked about in the January 14th of coming Democratic debate.

I'm sure it'll be... Is that the next one? Yeah. I'm sure it'll be talked about. I wonder who's going to be on this debate. I haven't looked yet, but I know CNN is hosting it, so... But I'm sure it will come up. Yeah, we're not a fan of CNN hosting the debates. I'm sure it will come up. Yeah, we, not a fan of CNN, hosting the debates. No. Yeah. I like PBS. That wasn't bad.

That wasn't bad. That wasn't bad. That wasn't bad. That wasn't bad. Yes. MSNBC did a pretty okay job. What's the guy's name, the Univision guy who did, who he was like a really, really good at the debates in 2016?

He asked really good questions. He can't remember his name, but he saw someone. I hope he does another one. Yeah, that would be great. Yeah. I love to see that. But not this time, not January 14th, unfortunately. So yeah.

But maybe in the future. Speaking of the vision, it's great to see some candidates doing town halls in Spanish. Oh yeah? We love that. Yeah, I mean, there's so many Spanish speakers in this country. It's kind of blows my mind sometimes actually

as someone who grew up in a country that's like legally bilingual and like formerly bilingual. Only if formerly. Yeah, pardon? Formerly. Not formally. Yes, correct. Formerly, not formally.

Formerly, as in like it's a legal requirement for government service to be provided in English and French. It's wild to me because only a third of Canada's population are a francophone, and yet we have this like illegally mandated bilingualism. And here, like way more than a third, not maybe way more than the third, but like millions and millions and millions of Americans have Spanish as their first language. And yet you can't get, not a third, that's what I'm saying.

It's not a third, but there are, there's a huge number. You would think that in states where there is a lot of Spanish speakers, more government services would be provided, but I think that should be a thing. It is in a lot of agencies require multiple languages. Okay. But yeah, not the talking points of the Republican Party for some reason. No, of course not. Of course not.

I mean, we live in San Diego, obviously, I feel that way. Yes. Yeah, it's a different world over here in California for sure, for sure. But no, it is nice to see. And unfortunately, the field keeps narrowing, and it's becoming less diverse. Sadly, Castro just dropped out over the holidays. So, you know, now we still have Gabbard and Williamson in. Again, I'm going to vote for whoever wins, but they are going to win. And it's just a little disheartening to me personally. As I'm sure it is too many, but we have to remember the...

Keep your eye on the prize, because if we don't vote, we have to vote. And I've sort of been living under this assumption that Trump is going to lose the election in November. We have to stop doing that. Is that our new energy for 2020? Yeah. No more naivete. Yes. Because we had that going into 2016 and it didn't vote well. I know it was a level of arrogance too, I think. I'm the part of the Democrats. We were like, oh, absolutely not. Right. You know, I think that is gone now. Good. Yeah, I don't want to perpetuate that. You know, I think that is gone now. Good.

I don't want to perpetuate that. I mean, I have full faith in confidence because I'm trying to spread hope, but I need to make sure that it doesn't get. It's not lost on me that things can take turns for the worst. Either way, we'll be here and we'll continue to be here, and we'll be here right after this break. Let's stick around. Hey, everybody. Today's episode of Mola Shear Riders brought to you by Zola.

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promo code save50. You'll be glad you did. Alright everybody welcome back. So we got a new transfer documents in the McCabe case. Almost 200 pages released, New Year's Eve. So that was my new apartment. Happy New Year. And these are from interviews with the Inspector General and his investigation into McCabe's handling of the Clinton and Russia probes. We already knew that McCabe was criminally referred to the Department of Justice for

just-justing. The Department of Justice for lacking candor when he told the interviewers that the Inspector General that he did not know how a Wall Street Journal story came to be. But then retracted that later and corrected his answer. We knew this. This is, we've known this. He was asking, he was asked the question. The day Comey was fired, he was dealing with quite a bit,

as you can imagine, not to mention the Inspector General was interviewing him regarding a different media link and just sort of also asked him about this one. So then in August, a couple months after sifting through the piles of interviews and documents, the Inspector General noted that at one point another somebody else said, McCabe talked to the journal, but McCabe said he didn't. So they came back and asked McCabe about the conflict of information. And McCabe, they said, did you authorize this story? And McCabe said, yep, yep, I did. And, you know, modified his testimony. So these new documents show that the agent was frustrated with McCabe at that point saying, man, we put a lot of work into

this when you said that you didn't. We put a lot of work based on your answers. And then McCabe said, I'm sorry, I know I'm sorry. And so the Republicans are running with this saying, McCabe flip-flopped and then lied and then apologized. This is not news. McCabe did not flip-flop. Like I said, these are the headlines you'll probably see from Trump camp, the Trump camp, embedded in publications like The Daily Beast.

But none of this is news. It's all laid out in Andy's lawsuit. We've already spoken to him about it. We've told you about it. The grand jury did not indict him for this error. He was wrongfully terminated. He will win his pension back. So don't worry about it. I know you're seeing a lot of stories right now that that say, oh, new document show Trump, or excuse me, McCabe, flip, flopped and lied and apologized. He admitted, he admitted this along as time ago and this has been the exact same testimony since the beginning. It's the same story. It's the same. So don't

don't worry about it. He's he's already come forth with the same story. Please do not. And speaking of document dumps, we got our latest dump of molar memos in the Buzzfeed FOIA case. This is a new molar memosos this is the one where Jason Leopold reported for reported for bus feeds that there are so many underlying muller documents 18 billion that uh... he'll be getting a dump of hundreds of pages every month for at least a hundred sixteen nine years

uh... and i'm not that's i didn't make that number up that's the thing uh... this one has a this dump has over three hundred fifty pages includes interviews with steven miller Porter, more from Cohen and Manafort. And there's also a 31 page interview that's totally redacted, including the name of the person that was interviewed. So some of the key takeaways from this dump, other than there was an entire redacted interview. Makes me really wonder who that is. First in the Stephen Miller 302. 302 is the form that you fill out when you're interviewing

the FBI interview. We learned that he had a key role in drafting a letter for firing Komi. One that eventually wasn't used because Rod Rosenstein's letter was used instead. But during a trip to Bedminster May 5th, in a meeting where Miller and Kushner were in attendance, Trump said he wanted to fire Komi and he needed a letter and he already had a great concept for the announcement, but the great concept details are redacted. We don't know what his great concept was for firing Komi. I have an excuse that might work for firing Komi. And that one was not used.

It probably had everything to do with Russia. It was probably like because of the Russia investigation, everyone's like, no. Can't say that, bro. Can't say that. And that's when they used Rod Rosenstein's letter, that pissed off Rod Rosenstein. Rod Rosenstein eventually appointed Mueller

as the special counsel to look into the firing of Comey at the request of McCabe or McCabe urged him to do that. What's Rosenstein up to now? I don't care. Just tweeting like a magnanimous asshole. Another interesting find in this tronch is that K-T McFarlane spoke to the FBI under an agreement usually given to people under criminal investigation. She provided information under a proper agreement.

A proper agreement is like called a queen for a day interview. It means, we know you're a crime. You're a crime. But anything you tell us won't be used against you. You just tell us the truth. She spoke to the FBI under a proper agreement. KT McFarland, Bud McFarland's protege, she was really into this whole Middle East martial plan,

building Saudi nuclear reactors in Saudi Arabia to, quote, recolonize the Middle East, very tied into Russia and that whole group of folks. And she was first interviewed in the summer, but revised her statement after it was contradicted by Flynn's guilty plea. And this 302 shows us the interview where she told the FBI, she was going to be given the ambassador ship to Singapore

in exchange for Trump, and she's for writing a letter, an email for Trump saying the president never directed Flynn to call the Russians about sanctions. She did not do that. Her lawyer told her not to because it looked like a quid pro quo and she and instead took down the request in a contemporaneous note and gave that to the FBI. And here's a good one. Jerome Corsey told the FBI he'd been lying to himself so he would learn to believe his own story. Yeah, of course he is a stone associate best known for advancing birthrism and working

for info wars. Quote, the special counsel's office interview, it was the first time he came to terms with the truth. His 302 says, quote, he had been lying to himself to believe his own cover story. Quote, he apologized and had taken him so long to come to terms with the truth. He needed to admit to himself that he was lying. Of course, the Department of Justice has redacted what he was lying about. But that's a funny.

I was lying to myself. We also got the actual part of the interview. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, he told the FBI, I've been having a lot of myself over and over again so I could believe my own cover story. So I don't get, you know, I don't get tripped over the truth. I'm sorry about that, dude. What he was lying about is that sucks for you, dude. Still redacted. And we also got in this dump. We got the actual part of the interview where Cohen Googled a phone number to the Kremlin to try to get a meeting with Putin and Trump.

We knew about this because this is one of the whole Trump-Taramasko thing was going down. That Cohen was trying to get a hold of somebody at the Kremlin and he actually Googled the Kremlin to find out and called that number. 1-800 Kremlin. Yes. 1-800 Kalyushin. So we knew that happened, but to see it in writing, to see Cohen say it to the FBI is just amazing and hilarious. There's a lot more from Cohen in this dump, including him trying to weasel his way out of his slush fund, essential consulting as a lobbying firm. He said, yeah, yeah, I got talking points for Columbus Nova

and an aerospace company in South Korea and a company called Fruit of Pop that sold alcohol infused ice pops and a pharmaceutical company. But I'm not a lobbyist. But these folks knew I had close ties to Trump. So I was given these talking points from AT&T and Novartis and Blavotnik, Columbus Nova to give to Trump. So I was given these talking points from AT&T and Novartis and Blavotnik, Columbus, Nova to give to Trump and I sold them for money. So I'm not a lobbyist.

It's funny. Then we got some new Manafort stuff and Manafort told the FBI he believed Trump was using Hannity as a back channel to communicate to him. And this is not a surprise to us either because we read the manifold Hannity text we called him the Manity text Where Hannity was telling Manifort to hang in there and Trump scotch back and blah blah blah and but we now have it in writing It that Manifort told the FBI that it seemed like Trump was speaking to him through Hannity not directly We also found out Mashburn. This is one of the guys involved in changing the language on Ukraine policy and the R&C platform during the elections. Mashburn told the FBI that hope Hicks called Papa Doppler a problem child, so that's cute.

And finally this week, the FBI has rated the home of K Street lobbyist. This is now past the documents. Okay. This is a different story. Okay. I just want to say that those are the key points that I took away from these documents. There's more. There's so much more.

Just little nuggets. Just little new nuggets every month. Just more confirmation. It's everything we knew. Sometimes there's new stuff. Like, like, Manifort thought Trump was talking to him through Hannity, which we assumed, but to hear

Manafort say it is just exceptionally fun. God. So, but aside from that, now the FBI has rated the home of K-Street Labbiest with close ties to Trump and Trump's family named Michael Esposito. They also rated his office looking for evidence of fraud according to several people familiar with the matter that spoke to the Washington Post. Apparently, Esposito greatly exaggerated his closeness to the President and his business boomed in the Trump era, selling access to the President.

Seemingly another guy selling fake access to Trump, like Brody did, like the Chinese national at Mar-a-Lago did selling photos and then of course essential consulting is fucking essential. Trump sells fake access to Trump. Yeah so now this guy is under investigation for possibly defrauding his clients after the 2016 election when he joined the cadre of loyalists who follow every new administration trying to climb the Washington influence ladder and sell access, but his connections to Trump don't hold up to scrutiny. And he has previously represented himself as a Democrat. So this is one of those guys who will latch on to whoever seems to be winning. A chameleon.

Yeah, it reminds me of Nader actually who recently was indicted for selling access to Hillary Clinton and then switched to sell access to Trump after Trump won So it seems like K street is just one giant ambiguous blob of assholes trying to sell fake access to whatever candidate appears to be on top regardless of party. This is what they do Nate Yeah, did you know that was happening? I knew it was happening, but now we're just starting to get all the and this is These are both ciders and this is these are both Siders like you said these are chameleons this is Esposito guys like Nader is like Greg Craig is like Any of these lobbyists who will there's no scruples because Greg Craig is not the good word for that. Yes

Yeah, Greg Craig and no loyalty right because Greg Craig was a you know a Democrat but then helped do this Fucking lobbyist work for, you know, the whole. Yeah. It's just, it's, I mean Trump used to be a Democrat too. So whitewashing the Temeschenko report, basically, this man of fort put together this report that says Temeschenko, which is Yanakova, which is a opponent, she belonged in prison and she got, they got scaddened ARPs to write this report you know with the help of vandors one who's stepped at owns alpha bank just to all these weird connections uh and then of

course Greg Craig who's former democratic lobbyist still a democrat I guess uh but has worked for you know Clinton and others now is helping get this new story published get this white wash report at temeschenko pro kremlin you know, a thing out through the New York Times. He was eventually found not guilty of this lobbying, but his hands were all over it anyway. I want that Trump crime network to be like a print for the wall, and I want you to design it. Oh jeez. I met the studio's not big enough.

No, I know, but I'm just saying like, you know what I mean. Oh, all the connections? Yeah. No. You could drop, I mean, there's probably every single new name that we're hearing, it's like not even six degrees of separation. No. Three degrees of separation. Yeah, and ice cubes involved in order to caprio.

Yeah. So I was Michelle from the Fuji's. Also, can you think of anything more embarrassing than being charged with defrauding your clients for selling fake access to Trump? It's pretty sad. It's fucking essential. So what exactly... I'm not saying it's essential consulting.

Yes. Sam Patton was involved in this selling, you know, being straw donors to sell it. A inaugural tickets, this is all going to come out in the inaugural investigation. Bullshit artists always call it, it's the same thing in the tech startup world, right? The same thing in politics, same thing in a lot of these sorts of things where you can just like, you can come in out of nowhere and have a consulting firm or like have a business. Yeah, we always have bullshit names like that. We used to say that they probably, the best way to name your consulting bullshit consulting firm

is to go to Home Depot and just get a bunch of paint chips. We like sunrise horizons, soft surf sand, or whatever, you know, and they have all these shell company names to, you know, where you're laundering money and hide it in the camons and the say shells and cypress and just home depot paint chips. Go to like a random name generator website, but yeah, paint chips, that's a good one. Home depot paint chips.

Thank you. Thank you. That's how you name your consulting firm. The ruined sunset. Yeah. But like essential consulting, my favorite still is Giuliani's fraud guarantee with 11 in Igor. That's still the best name of all the fraud guarantee.

Oh man. The movies are going to be good. There's going to be so many. There's going to be some. Yeah, if anyone's writing any, let me know. I'll consult. I know all these connections. You listen, you are absolutely going to be consulting on movies about Trump

in the future. I hope you know that. I hope so. Yes, because I could use a paycheck for for for once. And maybe some time off. But I just did take two weeks off. I shouldn't complain too much, but it was it was a long time coming. Yeah, I was like, oh, all you guys for like letting me take, we did put out a mullichy row last week. I can't take I can't take full credit. I did. You worked a little, but you did actually take time off to deal with life shit, to rest.

I think it was really important. Well, thank you. Yeah, I feel better. And Jordan and I did too. Yes. And it was really good. I think everyone rested or rejuvenated or ready or something like that. Absolutely.

And now we're back. And there's nothing going on. So nothing. It's totally legal and totally cool. And we will be right back, very special hot note about the January 3rd separation of power Super Bowl, as called by myself, and Uncle Blazer. He's going to be with me right after the break.

Please note, in this interview, when I talk about gamble VUS, try to connect it to McKinan. I meant McKiever, VUS. You'll see what I mean. It's a case that has to do with what's going on with inherent powers to get around a rule succeed, a turnover of grand jury materials. It's McKeever, not McKeanen, and certainly not Gamble, that was a double jeopardy case. Just to, you know, so you don't have to worry about that correction, I just wanted to make

it for you. And it's a really great interview, so stick around. Hey everybody, it's AG. Getting in shape does not have to be about losing weight, or a magic number on the scale. It's about building healthier habits and feeling better by yourself, maybe fitting into that favorite pair.

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Hey, A.G. Great, how you doing? Good, happy new year. Thanks, same to you. So this past Friday, we heard a live stream of oral arguments in both Mueller cases, what we called the separation of powers superbowl. And those are the Don McGahn subpoena case for the obstruction of justice and impeachment investigation, and the Mueller Grandjury Materials case. So what can you tell us about what happened?

Well, I think it's best to discuss the two cases together because they overlap in a lot of ways, including the composition of the panels that I considered the two cases. On both panels, there's two separate panels of three judges, but both of the panels have two judges in common, and then a third judge that's different between the two panels, but probably is ideologically more aligned with Trump, or at least the GOP's view of executive power. And so the swing judge in both the cases,

I think, is Judge Griffith, who is a GOP-appointed judge, a federalist society guy, but also a guy who voted against granting on-bomb review to Trump in the Mizar's case, and so has shown at least that he's not willing to go as far as Trump's legal team is willing to go in describing the powers of the executive branch. So, I really, in listening to the two cases, I listened to Griffith, and I didn't really care all that much about what any of the other judges were saying. Everything they said just confirmed my view that they were going to vote the way they

were going to vote no matter what happened in that argument. I see what you're saying. So, you were thinking that regardless of the arguments based on the composition of the panels, are you thinking they already had their minds made up? I'm thinking that everybody on the panel, except for Griffith, probably everybody had their mind made up before the argument. They'd read the briefs. You're very unlikely to be actually persuaded during the argument. It's conceivable to persuade

a judge during the argument, but only if he's really, he or she is really on the fence. And in this case, if the judges had made up their mind going into all argument how they were inclined to rule, then all they're going to be doing is asking questions to try to confirm in their own minds that they're already correct. And so when they're pushing back against things, they're generally pushing back against the things that they've already decided against. And so they just want to test, they want to kind of pressure test their own analysis to make sure that it withstands the argument by the other side. So, but yeah, I think all the judges likely came in at least leaning one way or the other. And so Griffith, it wasn't so much about seeing whether Griffith was going to make up his

mind on the spot, but whether Griffith was going to say things that let us know how he's already inclined to rule. So that's what I was really listening for from Griffith. I think, you know, Rao is almost certainly going to find for Trump, although she did pose some difficult questions for Trump for for the DOJ. But I still think she's inclined to find in favor of Trump's view of executive power. And so Griffith ends up the swing judge on both panels. And I mean, his he was all right. So on the substance of the arguments judge on both panels. And I mean, he was, all right, so on the substance of the arguments,

he was very opposed to everything Trump's council was saying and seemed very supportive of the House's position on the substance of the case. The issue that Griffith seems to be hung up on in both cases is can the judicial branch of government step in and resolve disputes like these between the executive and legislative branches or should the executive and legislative branches be left to their own devices to resolve these disputes using their normal tools like Congress uses the power of the purse.

And the argument that's being made by the Department of Justice is, listen, over all these decades, all of these kinds of controversies were resolved by negotiations between the parties, the courts didn't intervene. And so you shouldn't intervene in these kinds of cases. There's no precedent for you to step in. It always just gets resolved by the parties. And the, you know, I think the Griffith pushed back against that in some respects by saying, well, all right. So my view of Griffith is that this is his issue in the case. If he can get, however he resolves this issue, that's how the case is going to be resolved at the circuit court level, so far as I'm concerned.

And I'm trying to glean from what he says, how he's leaning on that issue. And I think there were, he said things that cut both ways. So I'm not sure whether he's made up his mind on that point. And maybe he was looking to be persuaded, but it's unclear which way he's going to rule on that issue. Now let's say that Griffith does dismiss these cases for jurisdictional reasons, or because he was on, he's a panel member on both cases, correct?

Correct. So if he dismisses on jurisdictional grounds to leave it up to the parties to, you know, solve for themselves, what does that mean for, does that mean that the Trump can just go on and defy the subpoenas and the Department of Justice can go on and not hand over the Muellerenas and the Department of Justice can go on and not hand over the Mueller-Granjury Materials

or would they have to? Well, that's where Douglas Letter, the House General Counsel, really went with that hypothetical or that idea that you would just let the executive and legislative branches negotiate between themselves. He said, so what do you think's gonna happen next? I mean, we're supposed to send over the sergeant arms, and he meets, you know, bars battalion of FBI agents,

and they open fire on each other. I mean, he literally said that to the court. He said, you know, is this supposed to be a gun battle? What do we do when they flatly refuse to comply with the subpoenas? You know, there's no negotiation to be had here it's not like we'll give you some of this but not some of that that's what a negotiation is this is a binary choice is he

going to let these people testify or or is he not yeah and what other arguments stuck out to you because that one really stuck out to me the hypothetical gun battle between the sergeant and arms and the FBI. What other arguments did you hear that stood out to you? Well, in the Mueller-Gran jury material case, which I think is a closer case and more interesting case of the two cases, by the way, there was an issue that the Department of Justice raised that even Naomi Rao pushed back against and I think it's going to take a lot to find something that she's going to push back against from the Department of Justice.

But the Department of Justice is saying, looks, you know, 60 grand jury materials can only be obtained in a judicial proceeding. And so you have to argue that the impeachment proceeding in the House is a judicial proceeding. And so you have to argue that the impeachment proceeding in the house is a judicial proceeding or you can't get the materials under under 60. But don't we have a precedent for that in the Nixon case? The Jaworski report? I don't think so because they're saying you it has to be a trial in order for you to get grand jury materials under 6E. I don't think that grand jury materials were an issue in the Nixon case.

They were predated this statute, maybe. I'm not sure why the same statute wouldn't have been invoked both times. Right. Because they did get the Jaworski report in the Nixon case. We didn't find out about it until very recently, but that Jaworski report had outlined several felonies committed by Nixon, and that is actually what flipped all the Republicans and forced Nixon to resign before he was actually impeached. But I don't know the mechanism by which, you know, I'm going to have to look up, look that up, the mechanism by which the Jaworski report was released other than it's, you know, it's just the grand jury materials rules don't apply

because this is, you know, a need to know. It is a judicial proceeding. And there have been other cases where impeachment has been ruled a judicial proceeding. Yeah. And I think the OJ's answer to that is to say that the issue of whether or not it was a judicial proceeding was not decided by any court. That those documents were provided by the executive branch to the impeachment committee in the House,

but it wasn't pursuant to a court order. It was just because they decided to do it. And so the Department of Justice is, although at the same time they're saying, we don't have to, we don't have to turn, we can't turn these materials over. Right, and now prosecutors are saying, well, since the Department of Justice is being non-cooperative, we have to go to the executive, or we have to go to the judicial branch to have this settled. Right, and I mean, I think the obvious answer to this question is that you don't need

to meet the exceptions that are expressly stated in 6E in order to get grand jury materials. Congress has the right to these materials under its impeachment power. And so Congress is saying, look under the Constitution, I have the sole power of impeachment, I must be able to get all of the evidence that I need for that. And so I am summoning this evidence under my constitutional powers and no statute can override my constitutional power. So if the statute says you can only get it if it's a judicial proceeding, well, we don't even have to answer that question because I'm not invoking that provision of the grand jury material statute.

I'm invoking my constitutional power to get whatever the hell I want in order to decide an impeachment question. Right. There was a recent case where they said that judges don't have inherent powers to do that, but that's not what's being argued by the prosecution here. They are saying, or Congress, excuse me, Doug Letter, saying we have this power under under constitutional article one, article two impeachment powers. Yeah, and simultaneously, they're saying, by the way, this is a judicial

proceeding. And so if you, if you must decide under the statute, whether this is a judicial proceeding, it is one. But you don't have to reach that question because we, we're using our constitutional power to get these documents anyway. So they're sort of fighting it on both grounds. But then once you decide, okay, this is a judicial proceeding, then the DOJ says, well, if that's the case, then the court needs to go through every single reduction to the Mueller report and say whether or not Congress has a specific need for each and every single redacted word in the document. And even that's the part where Naomi Rao pushed back

and said, you mean to tell me that a judge is supposed to decide what Congress is going to want to look at in an impeachment inquiry? You don't think that's us substituting our judgment for them when they have the sole power of impeachment. And the DOJ's answer to that was, well, it's not a judicial proceeding. So I don't think you should go through that analysis because step one is, is it a judicial proceeding?

Okay, if it is a judicial proceeding, then you must review each and every reduction. And so the DOJ says, because you can't meet the second step, therefore you must not be meeting the first step either. So it's a wackadoodle argument that's very difficult to even articulate or understand. I don't know if it's really even worth discussing if it's just going to confuse people. Right. And then, not only that, but then there's, of course, the DOJ argument that this isn't an impeachment anymore because the impeachment is over.

Yeah, and that one went just nowhere. Yeah. That just fell completely flat. None of the judges lapsed on to that at all. No one was interested in that argument so far as I could tell. And I seriously doubt that they're going to remand the case. I know I said that to you that I thought they might, or that was a fear. I really don't think they're going to remand the case and ask judge how to go through each

and every reduction to the Mueller report and decide whether or not it's something the house should want to see. Yeah, and that didn't make sense. And the fact that Rao even pushed back on that, because Rao has found in favor of Trump in another case, did she not? Yeah, yeah, well, she descended from the Maysars opinion and said that Trump should have won that case. And that's a much easier case to decide than this one.

So, I feel like she's to rule in favor of Trump, but she's probably not going to rule in favor of Trump on that issue. Yeah. So when do we hear? When do we hear the rulings? I think we're probably three to six weeks. But the wild card in that is, like, if Raul wants to dissent from the opinion, you know, she can hijack it for a couple weeks while she's writing her dissent.

Although, you know, the judge that's assigned to write the main opinion can, you know, limit the time that you can spend writing your dissent, but, you know, she may be able to drag it out a few extra weeks if she really wants to buy Trump time. Time for what? I don't know. I mean, exactly. You can never run the clock out completely, right? But I mean, the case has to go to the Supreme Court next.

And so the longer it drags out, the longer it takes to get to the Supreme Court, the longer it takes to get to the Supreme Court, the longer it takes to get decided by the Supreme Court. But I mean, does Rao really give a shit about that? I mean, why is she trying to help him by time? Yeah, no, I don't think so. I mean, she might have a dissenting opinion one way or the other, but I, you're right, I don't think it's a, I don't think she would go so far as to just rule in order to buy

him time. That doesn't, I don't think that that's something that would happen. No, although I do think McFadden is doing that in the Treasury case. I mean, he's just basically sad on the case for months and months and months, but that's a little bit different than trying to buy a couple of weeks. I mean, what's the point of that? And the Treasury case being the House Ways and Means Committee trying to get the tax, trying to get the tax returns from the IRS. And yeah, I mean, that case is going nowhere.

Yeah, you're right. It's just been totally sort of stopped. It could be hung up. It could be hung up for another six or eight months. I mean, it's just going nowhere. It's going no faster than any other case on that court stock that I'm sure. Yeah, that's crazy. Okay, so three to six weeks, unless there's a little bit of a hijacking for a dissent, could be eight weeks on the outside. And we think that they'll find two to one,

probably in both cases for the house, I think. And this is just based purely on speculation and what has happened in the past. I know that Chief Justice Roberts is the allotted justice to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals, and I think that the Circuit Courts may not issue stays for this, and if not, I think Roberts would probably grant a small limited one in order to give Trump a week or so to file his cert with the Supreme Court. I want everyone to know. This isn't the end. This still has to go to the Supreme Court. But I think it would be in the correct timeline to still be

heard in March in which we would get those decisions in the June July time frame. Do you see anything wrong with that sort of a prediction? I mean, I know you don't like to make predictions, but that's sort of where I think this is going to end up. Yeah, I mean, I think you could push to oral argument before the Supreme Court in April, but I think that a decision coming out later than July is pretty highly unlikely. So yeah, I think, you know, you looking at June, July as outside dates for all of the really bad stuff falling on Trump's head.

And I know people think, oh, you know, that's forever. And we just can't wait three more months or six more months or however many more months it is each time we have to wait. Yes, we can, because Trump isn't going to be removed between now and then. If we had it all today, people seem to conflate impeachment with removal, and that this is urgent, we have to do it now, or else something bad will happen, but no one can really articulate what the bad thing is that's going to happen. Yeah, I mean, the thing is you've got to remove Trump from office.

And so if the only, if the, if the soonest time you can do that is July, then do it in July. If the soonest time is August, then do it in August. But I mean, you have to determine what is the earliest date on which I can, I can make such a compelling case that I will remove him from office. That date looks like it's probably gonna be in the June timeframe. Yeah, and all five of those cases you mentioned are the Sive Ants, Mizar's case, the House Mizar's case,

the House Deutsche Bank case, and then of course the two that were just heard in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals. That's the McGann, Sapena, and the Mueller Granjury's material case. So I just wanted to give everyone a quick overview of what we're waiting for, and the articles still have not been sent to the Senate

for, you know, their quick acquittal. And we'll see how this all plays out. It's gonna be very interesting. Indeed. All right, well thanks so much for joining us again, everybody, Uncle Blazer, follow him on Twitter. What's your Twitter handle? At Blake's mustache.

Great, thanks so much. And happy new year again, thanks for coming back. Thanks, Evan here. All right. Thanks so much. Happy New Year again. Thanks for coming back. Thanks, Evania. All right. Thanks so much for that interview with Uncle Blazer. Are you ready for sabotage? I am.

All right. Get this. Two senior officials say that Eric Prince has been referred to the United States Treasury for possible sanctions violations for a recent trip to Venezuela. Eric Prince is a former blackwater asshole, brother of education secretary Betsy DeVos, and he served as the Trump proxy for a meeting in the Seychelles with proxies for Putin and Mohammed bin Salman, namely Dmitriy F. and George Nader. Apparently, he recently trotted down to Venezuela and met a top aid to Maduro. This, as support for opposition leader Juan Guaidó, appears to be waning. Now,

we did a huge report before the holiday, and I hope you remember this, about a loan Venezuela took out against Sitco, its oil company, when Maduro was in charge. And since everyone now recognizes Guaidó as the president, that loan should be defunct, right? And our treasury department could have called it as such, that loan should be defunct, right? And our Treasury Department could have called it as such, because if the loan went into default, Venezuela would lose sit-go to Russia. Then we learned about Giuliani trotting off to Spain, staying with Venezuela, rich guys, and then when this Eric Prince story hit, I said 100% this has to do with Rudy.

100%. And then bam, 24 hours later, we get the headline, Trump's lawyer and the Venezuelan president, how Giuliani got involved in back channel talks with Maduro. The Washington Post says in September, Maduro had a call with Giuliani and Pete Sessions. Sounds familiar, yeah, that guy. Both part of the shadow diplomatic effort in Ukraine

backed in part by private interests, aimed at easing Maduro from power and reopening Venezuela to business with the United States. So this sounds an awful lot like the personal interests shit that happened with Giuliani and Rick Perry and Pete Sessions in Ukraine with NAFTA gas. Remember they were trying to kick out their CEO and then install their own CEO and a board, you know, director or the board of directors there. And both of those guys, the ones that they asked to install and the one they tried to kick out have just recently talked to the FBI about this.

So that's under investigation. Giuliani's willingness to speak to Maduro flew in the face of White House positions under Bolton. That was then, they were then ratcheting up sanctions against Venezuela and Venezuela government. Giuliani met with Bolton to discuss an off the book's plan to ease Maduro from office and Bolton said, fuck you, dude. No, we aren't doing that. And so now Eric Prince is now talking about this same thing because obviously they want, you know, they have business interests, oil business interests. They want to profit off of this and they want to ease Maduro out of office so that they have,

they can reopen this business with Venezuela. And it's especially, quote unquote, good time for them to do this because support for Guaidó is is waning. But he's still recognized. Absolutely. The current president. Yeah, 100%. I'm looking at an article right now from the Hill about this. And it says, uh, before traveling to Venezuela as a private citizen, Eric Prince received clear legal guidance, which he scrupulously followed. Yeah. So, but yeah, but if you if you can look up, if you have a chance to read the article about Venezuela's default loan on sit-go and how it all was going to go to Rosneft, you know, Russia. And also. We talked about this in detail.

And it was it was it was it was Manuchin it was Steve who helped lift the sanctions on Deripaska and it was Steve who could have prevented the loan going into default and having sick go go over to Deripaska. Do you think he was going to do that? No, no. So that's really huge. And now you've got Eric Prince and Giuliani and Pete Sessions trotting down to Venezuela to set up their business interests there.

I'm surprised Rick Perry hasn't been brought up on this. Is too busy doing dancing with the stars? No, he's finished. He lost his ass on this little skipy dancing with the stars thing. But Rick Perry was heavily involved in the Ukraine, shake down stuff. And so I'm surprised he's also not down in Venezuela trying to give him a list of super Rick Perry donors to put on boards of gas companies in Venezuela that he could you know possibly benefit from. So what is the official White House position on this currently? What's Mike Pompeo's position on this currently?

Hasn't said. Right. Communionally. Yeah, we won't know because at one point of course it's in their interest to ease off on maduro but it's it the global it's in the global best interest to recognize the guaidau so and if if they get caught allowing alone default from a defunct president a non-legit president

that gives an entire oil company that is one of the backbones of venezuela and the economy to r, which a company that they also helped lift sanctions so that they could do business with, that doesn't look good. That's not a good look, but you can't put that on bumper sticker, so no one's going to do that. No one's going to do that. Although we will try.

I know. You know what, though, I think that's actually like honest to God, Democrats need some like angry fucking bumper stickers for 2020. I mean, hoping change is good. It's all good. But people, people are riled up by fitting angry shit onto a bumper sticker. I know, I know. We're gonna think of some. We will. Yeah. All right. So that's sabotage. You ready to play fantasy and diamond league? I am. I'm gonna be a dinosaur! No it is gonna be okay. I'm gonna be a dinosaur!

I'm gonna dick. And I am! I'm gonna be a dinosaur! I'm gonna dick! I'm gonna dick! I'm gonna dick! I'm gonna dick! And I am!

I'm gonna dick! I'm gonna dick! And I am! I'm gonna dick! I'm gonna dick! I'm gonna dick! I'm gonna dick! I'm gonna dick!

I'm gonna dick! I'm gonna dick! I'm gonna dick! I'm gonna dick! I'm gonna dick! I'm gonna dick! I'm gonna start off with Gisley and Gisley. I'm gonna start off with her. I'm gonna go with Marik Prince because of this new thing. Yeah. I'm going to go with... ...frueman. Oh, Frueman. Super seating, Frueman.

Oh, Frueman. Super seating, Frueman? Yes. Okay, I'm gonna go plea agreement, Parnas. You still think that he's gonna go for a plea agreement? Well, he's now got a permission from a federal judge this past Friday to hand over some more documents

to the House Intelligence Committee, so he seems willing to cooperate to me. Okay. I'm going to go with Trump and Oddgirl. Good one. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do- How about... Are you truly only prince? You did Maxwell. Ba ba ba ba ba ba Broiding. Trying to decide here.

Who do I want? I'm trying to think... I'm trying to think who has a good chance right now. Make my points count. I'm gonna steal Jordan's favorite, Barric. Tom Barric from the inaugural and I'll go with an inaugural person to My last pick. I'm gonna go with a Rando Russian. All right. Taking a couple pages out of Jordan's playbook. She's not a huge,

I can steal her strategy. Sorry, Titsimiki. Nice. And you guys, we'll be right back with the interview. And this is a big one. on steel her strategy sorry tits McGee nice uh... and you guys will be right back with the interview and this is a big one you may have heard of friends at forensic news net where scott's deadman works broke a story about russian ties to trump loans through doichabank a subsidiary of doichabank uh... using a russian bank of the tb

i speak with the author of that article uh... right after this break you want to miss it stick around hey everybody the segment of mull, right after this break, you won't want to miss it. Stick around. Hey everybody, this segment of Mola She Wrote is brought to you by Noemi. If you've ever shot for jewelry, for a gift, or for yourself, you know it can be astronomically expensive. But Noemi believes that luxury jewelry doesn't have to be overpriced. They cut out the middle man to deliver exceptional fine jewelry without the traditional retail

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$390 it's just so affordable and so wonderful So if you're looking for fine quality jewelry made to last a lifetime from a luxury brand you can trust. It's no ME. Again they have thousands of five star reviews online. We suggest you read some and see why people are raving about this company. Go to hellonoMe.com slash AG to see their collections and get $50 off your first purchase with promo code AG. That's H-E-L-L-O. Hello. No ME and O-E-M-I-E, dot com slash A-G. And don't forget to use promo code A-G for $50 off your first purchase. You'll be glad you did. So joining us today for the interview is Duke Law Student and forensic news legal analyst

and researcher Robert Denal. Robert, welcome to Molar Shiro. Hi, thank you so much, A-G. Glad to be here. Yeah, this is going to be great. I know that we've spoken to Scott on a couple of occasions, so I'm happy to have you here and on Friday, you published an article on forensic news net that, again, that's also where past guests got Stedman rights for them and does research for that group as well. And this article was called Trump's Deutsche Bank Loans underwritten by Russian State-owned

Bank, whistleblower told fb so first of all can you tell us what russian bank this is uh... that co-signed these loans short so the russian bank at issue here is vtb bank uh... vtb is the second largest state-owned bank in russia uh... it's majority owned by the russian government sixty percent owned by the kremlin.

And VTB, you know, your listeners might remember it as the proposed financeer for the Trump Tower Moscow deal at Michael Cohen, pled guilty to lying to Congress about. In his proffer, in that case, he acknowledged that they were told in January 2016 that VTB was going to be the finance of that deal. So they've certainly been in the press. There's also been reporting that VTB was the primary finance behind the last-nest privatization deal that Christopher Steele talked a bit about in his widely discussed dossier. So VTB, you know know very well connected powerful russian bank

uh... and it's also the target of sanctions by the u.s. governor yeah i was gonna ask you about that i'm pretty sure they're sanctioned and rosnath the rosnath deal you're talking about uh... they help broker that with uh... cutter investment authority and we've been sort of speculating on the show here that that one of those entities is the state-owned entity that is connected to the Mueller subpoena battle that's been sort of, we haven't really heard anything about it since June, but it's that secret company from country A that does business in the United States and

is a, you know, a state-owned bank. And so I think VTB was always our second guest for that VTB VEB, but our first guest would be QIA, but they both had their hands in that Ross Neft sell off and I know that I think half a percent Commission is just hasn't been accounted for at least not publicly. So that's always an interesting transaction as well Yeah, and it's interesting too. There's been a lot of smoke and mirrors about the Rothschild deal. VTV was not publicly acknowledged as the primary lender or finance or behind that deal. They tried to use an Italian bank and sort of were just very opaque about who exactly where

those funds were coming from. But now it's been pretty widely reported that VTV was actually the source of a lot of the funds. So it's sort of interesting to think about and whether that mystery, Sapina, we obviously talked a bit in this reporting about as we were writing the story, whether that was something we all thought we have differences of opinion on that.

So we'll see. I don't know. Who do you think it is? In my opinion, I mean, I think it's pretty likely that it is a VTT-related entity or some sort of Russian bank. I think the Cotari Investment Authority, it's just different. It's not really a bank and there's been some very interesting language about the subpoena. And so I don't know.

I mean, it seems to me that the Cotia investment authority is more like a hedge fund type entities so i don't know but we uh... we don't think it's vtb for for a couple reasons it's not holy on by the russian government it's only sixty percent and there are some legal documents in that case that suggest whatever entities fighting the speedy is holy on so i think your guess at the eb could be a better uh... better guess maybe we'll find out maybe we won't uh... it could be on hold for any

number of nefarious reasons uh... and you know like i said we haven't heard anything about it since june and and back to this article that you wrote we know a while back loran so donald made made a similar claim on his show the last word with lorne so donald ms mbc saying that an oligarch had co-signed the loans and and then he quickly redacted his story uh... and you know obviously if whether it's vtb or an oligarch because i'm sure an oligarch has a lot to do with how vtb is

run but uh... he he made this he had this quick redaction and you had quite a response to your story when it was published tell us a couple things that happened after your story came out sure so i mean of course we were conscious of the laren story that have been retracted we do have uh... pretty strong reason to believe our

sourcing and laren says sourcing werecing were different so you know we're not really in the same position Lawrence was I think it's important to know Lawrence didn't wasn't retracting the claim because it was false but rather you know it hadn't gone through whatever NBC's jetting standards were and so I think it was just sort of a premature on his part story release. But for us, we base this on very different sourcing, and as soon as we published on Friday, within 30 minutes, our site was encountering serious technological issues, and then within a few hours we had hired an outside firm to come in and look at it

uh... and they confirmed that it was a malicious cyber attack uh... so a lot of readers you know as this is getting traction it was number eight at some point on trending worldwide on twitter but people couldn't read the actual article so we had to turn to script and just put a transcription of the article which i think had something like 20,000 shares itself, not even our primary article was being shared that much. But yeah, we're trying to get to the bottom of exactly what happened with the cyber attack.

It was definitely frustrating. And then we do some of our operations with PayPal and with no explanation, our PayPal accounts were shut down closed, we were booted off, and then by last night we were allowed back on with no explanation for why that happened. So pretty weird, pretty weird sequence of events. Yeah, and I know that it's been retweeted by Lawrence Tribe, and we put it out there, it's gotten a lot of attention.

And speaking of your sourcing, because you were saying that you're pretty sure you have different sourcing than the Laurence O'Donnell story. And that's also when I gathered, when I spoke to your source. Tell us about your source. So Val is not a bank official, his father, the late Bill Brocksmith,

was the chief risk optimization officer and he worked at dd tca which will get into a couple minutes but this branched city area in new york of dorechabank so val not a banker not a finance guy his father unfortunately committed suicide back in twenty fourteen and when he, Val gained access to lots of his files, emails accounts, and lots of things that he had retained over his years working at the bank. And I think Val, in looking through the documents, sort of wanted to get to the bottom of exactly what had happened, you know, Bill was his stepfather, but I think he really viewed him as a father figure.

And so, in digging through it, he came across really sensitive and explosive internal documents from Deutsche Bank and this branch of city REDP TCA. And he immediately, upon sort of piecing together, contacted the FDI as early as 2016, letting them know, sort of pleading with them to meet with them about these files. And over the past few years, he's met with journalists, law enforcement, congressional investigators to discuss exactly what these documents contain. Yeah, and there's also a lot of attacks on him. And I assume it's kind of like,

it seems like anybody who has this kind of information is gonna be a target. And you said in the article that you cannot confirm the underlying claim that VTB underwrote Trump's loans from Deutsche Bank, but that you can confirm some of Trump's loans were issued by a bank subsidiary with ties to VTB. And that's the the

dbtc a you were talking about tell us a little bit about dbtc a so understanding Deutsche Bank you know if a global bank based out of Germany it's actually German largest bank it's headquartered there but that that's the primary company is called Deutsche Bank AG now they have offices all over the world but in new york they have several subsidiaries. There's a Deutsche Bank AG in New York office and then several subgroups. DBTCA is one subgroup of the main bank, but it's, you know, it has about 700 employees. It's fairly small compared to, you know, I think Deutsche Bank has around 10,000 in the

United States most of which are in New York. So, you know, this sort of smaller branch that does commercial lending, private banking, wealth management, that kind of thing is all being done at this DBTCA where Valve's father was working. And around 2010, Donald Trump, who had gotten lots of his real estate loans from another division of the bank, the commercial real estate division, which was done in an entirely separate entity, wouldn't work with him anymore. They had had a pretty horrible legal battle.

He defaulted on a $640 million loan, countersued them for $2 billion for causing the financial crisis. So they didn't want to work with him anymore for obvious reasons. million dollar loan, countersude them for $2 billion for causing the financial crisis, so they didn't want to work with them anymore for obvious reasons. And in sort of an unheard of turn of events, Trump was able to move to this DBTCA division and ask them for a loan to pay off a court-ordered liability to the other division of the bank. And it was sort of the beginning of a sequence for events as we sort of piece together exactly what was this funding relationship between DBTCA, Donald Trump, and the rest of the bank. It's sort of something to keep in mind.

How on earth were they able to guarantee or back these loans to pay off other liabilities to the exact same bank. So he was using this dbtca subsidiary after 2012, 2013, Trump was and all of his loans since then have come from dbtca. Well, I do that all the time. I'll borrow money from a bank and then borrow money from a subsidiary with a bank to pay off the bank. I do it all the time. So. It's like one of those things where I think people say this is so complex to understand.

But most Americans know you can't take out a mortgage from one bank and then when you can't pay it off, just take out a different one and be able to pay it, you know, scot-free. It really doesn't work that way. And after six bankruptcies free it really doesn't work uh... and after six bankruptcies it really doesn't work that way yeah of course we have eric trump around that time saying all we get all of our free money from russia just outcomes from russia right right and so then of course important to know you know as we say the article dbtc a is where this dtb relationship is existing as well and so that's sort of where we thought this is really newsworthy

so that's sort of the documentary evidence you have not not necessarily like signed off letters showing that vtb under wrote these loans but this relationship between dbtc a and trumps right and how interesting that this you know it had been publicly reported in the wall street journal that This, you know, it had been publicly reported in the Wall Street Journal that Deutsche Bank

had a longstanding credit relationship, commercial lending relationship with this BTP bank, but it wasn't reported that, you know, DBTCA was the source of that relationship. And it is a bit strange that a German bank would not go through its main office, you know, or sort of even the New York office that was regular Deutsche Bank and not this subsidiary DBTCA. Now, that could be explained by, you know, maybe the commercial lending relationship was unique to DBTCA or something like that. But to have all of this operation, be working through this 700-person subsidiary where you have this big commercial lending between VTV and DBTCA And we have later documents that show it seems there was correspond and banking Happening which suggests a really close relationship between DBTCA and DBTB

And then to have the sourcing that there are people claiming on the record that they have information That the loans were underwritten. It's really pretty strong. Yeah, and I mean the big picture connection sort of scheme here has to do with money laundering, at least part of it, because we know Trump gets these loans, which are now could be funded by Russia as far as we can see here. And then buys out many condos in real estate to these Russian shell companies and oligarchs and then gets other people to buy into the building and then they get resold and then perhaps to purchase other condos to just to launder money real estate. And of course golf courses are sort of havens for the sort of money laundering activity and we know also that sin fenis red flagged a lot of this stuff already all these trance all these

real estate transactions right and at some point it's just that there's so much smoke it becomes sort of irresponsible not to report some of this stuff and and i think that's where we are you know in reviewing this evidence and we did have a team widewide discussion, even including offerings and news employees that didn't write the article about what we thought was newsworthy, whether we thought we should be going forward with it, and it was pretty consensus that there's definitely newsworthiness here. And I think it's strange that organizations

like the New York Times have known about some of these claims and just saddled them. They're trying to sell a book about the origin of the bank in February. And so, it just seems odd to me that we would not be reporting something that's serious on all these ties when there's already been so much reporting about suspicious transactions. LLC purchases, Russian Russian connection the entire Mueller investigation it's just crazy to think that you wouldn't report on this kind of stuff. Well that book deal you mentioned that's coming out from something that was also sourced by Val

and and so you know it kind of reminds me of Bolton not testifying in the impeachment inquiry because he's got a book that's going to be coming out. So I mean, you know, you could, you can make specul, you know, guess all you want be speculative about why they've been sitting on this reporting, but that could be it. But you know, I don't want to make any, I don't want to make any, I don't have any, you know, sources that say that that's true, but, you know, you know you if to ask that question it's certainly speculative to ask the question um... i think though uh... where it bothers me

at least you know the person who's author of the book and david and rich he you know tweeted yesterday that he was unable to confirm this and and he wasn't sure if it was true or not the truth is that the new york times have done lots of reporting about what witnesses have told law enforcement in investigations. We saw it and how they reported on the obstruction investigation into President Trump. There was story after story about what a witness told them.

It wasn't about whether obstruction was proved. It was just newsworthy that a witness was giving testimony or giving information to law enforcement. That's what we've reported here. And so it sort of seems odd to me that they take the gloves off in this situation. I don't understand it. And we found Val to be very credible and back up his, you know, a lot of his assertions with documentary evidence.

And so, you know, we didn't see any reason not to not to go forward with it yeah absolutely and and we know also now that i mean you guys reported back in august at the house confirmed they were conducting a money laundering investigation into trump and his family and and you know maybe these are connected yeah i mean i thought i wrote that report and uh... you know dojabank has been very much the focus of my work at frantic news and and i do think these are probably connected we Georgia Bank has been very much the focus of my work at forensic news.

I do think these are probably connected. We know that there has been information exchanged between Val and Congress. One thing that we talked a lot about in this discussion, and as we wrote this article, is that bankers aren't stupid, right? So there's not going to be some email that says, oh, here's our scheme to underwrite all the Trump loans with Russian money. You're really going to need experts who can

tease together this puzzle, which is going to usually probably include tons of different kinds of documents and all that stuff. If anything, our reporting from Friday really bolsters the house's case for why it needs these documents because no one can give a straight answer. No one can come out and explain exactly whether this is true or whether it's not and Georgia Bank denied it but won't make any of its executive available for comment.

So we hope that the house gets to the bottom of it. I would say this is definitely connected to the houses and buscagation. Yeah, well thank you so much for your reporting and putting this out there. Can you tell our listeners where they can find you and this report? Yeah, so you can find me at Robert J. Denolk Twitter. And this report is available on forensicnews.net. It will be on our front page for quite a while, I imagine. And please read it. It's dense, it's a lot to understand, but we have a lot of great documentary evidence, and it's important for, I think, people interested in this subject, but also regular citizens and voters to get engaged on this issue because whether or not someone was you know basically getting billions of dollars of access because loans were backed by a foreign country goes to the core of whether we're being

governed by people who have our best interest at heart so I really strongly encourage people to read it. Yeah absolutely 100 percent thank you so much So everyone a Duke Law student class of 2021 you'll be eligible for your JD in 21 and forensic news legal analyst and researcher for forensic news net everybody Robert Denalt thanks again for coming on muller She wrote thanks so much, AJ great talking to you. All right everybody. That's our show for show the new year for show of 2020 It's gonna be a crazy year. It is going to be a crazy year.

Who would have thought in when we started this in October of 2017 that there would still be relevant Mueller news and enough of it to fill an hour and a half at least each week? So stick with us. We're going to keep covering it. And if you want to get more stuff about maybe the election and things like that and more detail about the impeachment stuff, we're also following that. And our sister podcast, the Daily Beans, that comes out daily in the mornings, the

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We'd really appreciate that. I don't have any final thoughts today. Do you have anything? Just keep smiling, y'all. Like, you know, I hope you got some respite over Christmas, but, you know, stay optimistic, even in the shit storm and fucking boat and keep your head up and we're gonna get through this year

together. Yeah, so my first final thought in the new year. It's gonna be a hard year, but it's gonna be a very good year. Yes, it is gonna be a good year, because we have each other. Nothing wonderful comes easy, and we're gonna learn very good year. Yes, it is going to be a good year because we have each other. Nothing wonderful comes easy and we're going to learn that this year. So we're going to band together and make sure it happens.

So stick with us, we'll help you through it. And please take care of yourselves and take care of each other. I've been AG. I've been Amanda Reader. And this is Mullershy Road is executive produced and directed by A.G. and Jordan Coburn with engineering and editing by Mackenzie Mazell and Starburn's industries. Our marketing manager, production and social media direction is by Amanda Reader, fact-checking your research by A.G., Jordan Coburn, and Amanda Reader, and our knowledgeable listeners.

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