Jack - Roger Stones (feat. Asha Rangappa & Mimi Rocah)

Episode Date: December 24, 2018

Ep #60 - Joining us this week is Asha Rangappa (CNN & MSW Contributor) and Mimi Rocah (MSNBC Legal Analyst)! Plus, Jordan covers the Giuliani interview with Stephanopoulos, Jaleesa reports on the Russian targeting of African Americans on social media during the 2016 election in her "Racial Maddow" segment, and A.G dives into what the hell happened with Micheal Flynn.  Enjoy! 

They might be giants that have been on the road for too long. Too long. And they might be giants aren't even sorry. Not even sorry. And audiences like the shows too much. Too much. And now they might be giants that are playing their breakthrough album, all of it. And they still have time for other songs.

They're fooling around. Who can stop? They might be giants and their liberal rocket gender. Who? No one. This happens to pay for it forward somebody else's money. Hey, Mueller junkies. We have a Christmas slash holiday present for you.

Please enjoy this ad free episode brought to you by our patrons. Mueller, she wrote patrons enjoy ad free episodes every week, as well as our newsletter with my research notes, access to all of our bonus episodes, including the MSW Book Club, an invitation to play in our fantasy indictment league, as well as all sorts of great thank-you gifts.

All for as little as $3 a month. To become a patron and show your support for MSW and women in podcasting, visit patreon.com slash muller she wrote, and join the nearly 3,000 MSW patrons today. You'll be glad you did. today, you'll be glad you did. 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 or two in that campaign and I didn't have not have communications with the Russians. What do I have to get involved with Putin for? I have nothing to do with Putin. I've never spoken to him. I don't know anything about a mother than he will respect me. Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.

So it is political. You're a communist! No, Mr. Green. Communism is just a red herring. Like all members of the oldest profession I'm a capitalist. Hello and welcome to Muller She-Route. I'm your host, A.G. with me as always is Jelisa Johnson. Hello. And Jordan Coburn. Hello. Another super slow news week you guys. Nothing much happened. No real news stories. So let's see. I mean we only had one Trump enterprise shutdown for fraud. We only had one plea deal that blew up.

Sentencing is delayed till March for Flynn, a report on the extent of Russian social media interference. A Treasury back channel to the Kremlin, Mueller got the stone transcripts, a secret filing on Cohen, BuzzFeed wins a dossier lawsuit. Sanctions relief on Dara Paska, a sell-off to VTB bank, a Mueller win in Supersecret subpoena battle, an aging nominee memo that could lead to recusal, Matthew F. Whitaker ignoring ethics advisors withdraw from Syria and Afghanistan, Mattis resigned for versions of a continuing resolution, three Putin cheers, two Mueller indictments, and we almost know we did shut down the government. So yeah, not much. I'm gonna miss the holidays. I like hearing the news like this. Yeah. Do you like how I put we almost shut down the government and then oh no, we did. Yeah, very Christmas everyone.

I'm gonna change that in the script right now. We did. We did shut down the government. Congratulations. I'm not affected. My government job, my agency is funded for two years. We get appropriations every two years. So that narrows it down to like six or seven different agencies. You can guess that I work for. But anyway, I am not furloughed. I do want to let everyone know that if that people who are furloughed, they don't always get

Alam Sam payment at the end and They are for either they're furloughed. It's about 380 that are thousands that are furloughed 420,000 that have to continue to work and don't get paid Yes, and you don't always get that paycheck at the end. I have a lot of friends in federal law enforcement. Blue lives matter. That basically they said you don't get your money, we'll give you five Fridays off this year. Pick your five, they call it comp time. So you know, and now there's Christmas and they don't have that paycheck and a lot of these guys live paycheck to paycheck, so yeah Yeah, that sucks because public service never gets paid as much as it should like teaching Correct are these like lower level even or just random departments like is it is it teachers in a lot of ways like that people Like it be in the lower end of the government that it's all levels. Yeah, all levels are okay file clerks

Yeah, yeah, GS GS 3s and 2s all the way up to GS Wow 15s and then SES It's all levels. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay.

All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay.

All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, okay. All levels, joke all about the Trump administration and then all my friends that work for the government were like this is horrible we don't get paid like I'm sorry it was just a joke so if you go back and you Kevin Hart me just sleep out I'm sorry it's a verb now Kevin Hart me my first joke ever I don't open my mic was about the government shut down of I think 2012 and it was a dumb joke I'll never repeat it but like it's just yeah, I

I feel the same way. I feel like we've all been there. Yeah, obviously. I like to say I have not been there. I have never wanted a government shutdown. Thank you. Well, I didn't know. I was just making a joke about Trump. We've always been where we've made a joke that we wish we didn't make. That's I think. Right. Yeah, and I didn't mean how it came across at all. No, you were saying. Obviously, I don't want the government to shut down on idiot. No, yeah. You were saying, yeah, no Trump for a minute.

That sounds awesome. Exactly. Right. And I made a weird reference to how shutting down the government was throwing your Xbox out of the window because it won't work. It was a dominology. And they're like, it was not the same.

Right, right. It was a pro shutting down for me're like, it was not the same. Right, right. It was a pro shut down for me. Wait, wait, wait. The government isn't the same as an Xbox. Are you sure, dude? Have you tried turning it on? I'm Kevin Harding you. I'm Kevin Harding you right there.

Yeah. You can't host the Oscars, Jolissa. I don't know though. That Kevin Hart tweet was pretty, those tweets were pretty messed up. Totally. There's this really good thread from this song. I feel like I would Kevin Hart, Kevin Hart.

Yeah, absolutely. And then Nick Cannon comes to his defense, calls out only women for all of their previous tweets. He goes, what about Sarah Silverman? What about Chelsea Handler? What about, you know that reminded me of Schumer? When Trump brought out the victims of Bill Clinton sexual assaulting and to distract from his own accusations.

It's like really, you're saying like the lesser of two evils, you're all evil. Right. Yeah. He's the women that I didn't rape. Right. Here's the ones you raped. Yeah. Oh, high five.

Yeah. I feel like Nick Cannon was being an opportunist to use it to be a misogynist. Totally. Yeah. Showing us true colors there, which is really sad. That's a bummer, I like drum line. Yeah, I love drum line. Yeah.

Anyway, the government shut down. Interesting. Anyway, yeah, not much happened this week, guys. So it's gonna be a slow show. We do have some amazing guests, though, today, to talk about nothing. Mimi Roca and Asha Rangapa, very awesome ladies. Jordan is going to cover the Giuliani interview with Stefanopolis and Giulies, so you're going to be going over the

Russian targeting of African Americans on social media during the 2016 election in your racial maddo segment. I'm going to dive into what the hell happened with Michael Flynn, maybe. I can't even figure it out. We have no corrections from last week, guys. Yay! Wow. Not a one. I think our fact checkers are taking the holidays off. What is this? What is this?

It's not that I didn't make any mistakes. This is a nobody with listening. OK, guys, anyway, seriously, if you ever have any corrections or you want to let me know if I accidentally call the red or lynched season rice, which I've done from time to time, just shout out at me at Twitter. We'll correct it. No problem. Let's see. We were on the other hand though, we didn't have any corrections, but we were way off base on our guesses about who was involved in that secret Mueller subpoena battle.

We thought it was Trump, Pants were like, who is it? Totally wrong. It was wishful thinking mostly on our part. I think so. I think that's kind of like my bias showing a little. And you know, that's fine. I'm not a P.O.S. I'm a podcaster. And I'm pretty open about it. Right? I'm not like, listen to me. I'm fair and balanced. I mean, we don't hide our bias.

No, it's pretty. It's pretty on the table. But for now, we have a lot our bias. No, it's pretty it's pretty it's pretty on the table But for now you guys we have a lot of news to get to so let's kick it off with just the facts All right guys Sunday was Giuliani's interview with Stefanopolis and it was a doozy Jordan's gonna cover that in hot notes Oh, yeah It was a good one. It was um also Sunday Reuters reported that Turkey says Trump is still working on extra-diting ghoulin. Ghoulin is that Turkish cleric guy that Flynn was offered $15 million to kidnap and return to Erdogan, the Turkish president.

Apparently during the G20 summit in Argentina, remember this just recently happened. Trump told Erdogan he was working on extra-diting Goulin and quote other people. Interesting. One other people, others, just yeah, it just sounds like something Trump would say accidentally. Yeah, I'm just gonna convince someone that he's doing something.

Or that he's just doing a lot of things. Yeah, or that he's not just focused on Goulin. Like I'm working on getting Goulin back to you. And other people, others to both sides. You know, right. It's just something, you know, to make it sound fair. Yeah. When it totally isn't, Turkey's been after this guy for a while, blaming him for the

coup that happened in Turkey, which by the way, Michael Flynn at one point applauded. He was for the coup saying, let's get Erdogan out of there. We'll get more into Flynn later, but we've been saying here that Trump would continue the effort to deport goolulin back to Turkey and multiple media reports in the last few months Have continued to confirm that and now we can report he discussed it with the president of Turkey during the G20 summit We there you go. This is terrible. It's really really actually horrible. I smile my way through that story But yeah, no, I mean like that's just what we do is entertainer us, but I do. It's crazy. The gravity still stands out. Yeah, we've been talking about this since the very first episode.

That's true. Yeah, episode one, Gulen, was mentioned with Flynn when we brought up Flynn because he had that meeting with Woolsey, I think, that FBI guy and Turkey and was like, hey, let's, you know, 15 million. And this is after he was paid $530,000 to lobby on behalf of Turkey. And we'll get to that. We'll get to that though. That's an interesting point that Judge Sullivan brought up this week. It feels like Flynn was not this week. I feel like Flynn is old, like so old. Yeah. Because of everything that's happened since Flynn. I'm like, oh, we talked about this last week. No, we didn't.

Right. I haven't covered it at all. It's really messed up. That's how the news is going. On Monday, Flynn, Flynn associates Bijan Kion and Akim Alptiken. They were indicted as part of an ongoing investigation into Turkey's lobbying campaign to pressure the US to expel Gulen. We actually added Bijan Kion by name to our

fantasy indictment leak back in March. Episode 20, let's listen to that clip. All right, thanks to the minority report and the new book, Russian Roulette. I have a ton of people to add this week. All right, you guys ready? I'm just gonna run down. Oh yeah. I'm gonna run it down. VTB Bank, IC Expert for Toche, that's a Manafort partner. Brad Zaxon, that's a Manafort associate. If Gennie Prugozin, that's Putin's chef. Nice.

Torshin, Privis. Oh wait, no, not Privis. He's the mall. He's the mall. Kelly Ann Conway, Tara Dahl. She's a diplomatic foreign outreach for the Trump campaign. Skavino, we just went over him. Keith Kellogg, he was a foreign foreign policy advisor. Joseph Schmitz, he was a foreign policy advisor. Marshall Billingsley,

transition team, he knows about Flynn's contacts. Paul Erickson with the NRA, Maria Bhutina, the NRA Torsen's Galfriding. Johnny Yenneson, he's with the NRA, Sergei Million, Vasyl Nitskaya, Roman Beniaminoff, he's with the NRA. Sarah Gay Million, Vesonetskaya, Roman Beniaminoff, he has knowledge of the June meeting. Bijon Kion, he played, or he paid Finn Flynn to investigate Gulen, remember Gulen?

That was the guy he wanted him to kidnap. Give him half a million dollars. John Zaboskin. Yeah, yes, exactly. John Zaboskin, he disseminated Hillary Rodden Clinton's emails. That was his job. Alan Garten, he was a lawyer for the Trump org, and Alan Weiselberg.

He's the CFO of the Trump org. Deutsche Bank, Cambridge Analytica, Darren Blanton. He's a social media guy for the transition team. John Lando, Ladinese, he's social media for Trump campaign too. Aaron Nevens, a. ARan, Florida political ops. He's the guy who got the emails back and forth from Goosefer, Kushner companies, and observer media. Bayrock group, that's a satir and Tafik Arif joint.

Peter Smith, he's a dark web guy associated with the Trump campaign soliciting Russians to get Hillary Clinton emails. KLS research, that's Peter Smith, Colt research, that's Darren Blanton's company, Viz Sense and White Canvas Group, that's Flynn and Iodineese. Russian American Chamber of Commerce, that's Millions Group, the DMP International, that's Manafort's joint. Sendine, that's the host that Trump network used to communicate with Alpha Bank, they're

the hosts. Bridges LLC, that's the Bhutina and Ericsson shell company. Right to bear arms is Torshin and Bhutina shell company. And ACU strategic partners. That's Copson and Flynn. Those are the guys who wanted to do the Marshall Plan. That is who I'm adding this week. So everyone but the janitor of Trump Tower, basically,

he was probably a really nice guy. Yeah, basically. He was probably a really nice guy. Yeah, yeah. So Bijan Kian and Flynn started a firm called the Flynn Intel Group, or FIG. And they did lobbying work on behalf of Turkey without registering as foreign agents, like I was just telling you, Jordan, FIG received a total of $530,000 for its work,

discrediting Gulen in the eyes of the public and US politicians. They were lobbying on this. This was a stark 180 from Flynn's previous support of the coup in Turkey as I spoke spoke of before, but I suppose everyone has a price. $530,000 is what it cost to flip Flynn. To buy Flynn. Yeah. The timing here was interesting since that news came out Sunday. And there was news out Sunday about Trump speaking with Erdogan at the G20, like I was just talking about. And this came out Monday, and this is right before Flynn's sentencing, right?

The indictment was unsealed the day before Flynn's sentencing hearing, which we'll get to. But everybody wondered if these indictments would help or hurt Flynn during sentencing. On one hand, they show that Flynn helped Mueller nab these two guys. But on the other hand, the indictment clearly spells out Flynn's participation in these crimes. So it's like, oh, you're a real shitty guy. Who helped us catch these other shitty guys by doing really shitty things. Does that help you when I sentence you or does it hurt you when I sentence you? Yeah, it's real mobs through territory here. It is. And these indictments name named Flynn, is a co-conspirator. So we'll cover the points for you in the fantasy indictment league when we get to that segment.

But Bijan Kion appeared in court Monday. He faces up to 15 years in prison. But Alp Teacon, he's whereabouts are unknown. No one knows where he is. But he faces up to 35 years. It's nice to hear the story come back around and get some results. Like I said, we talked about it in the very first episode. We haven't anything that's been like a consequential update about it. So this is very satisfying. Yeah It's been a whole year

I'm just kind of wondering and now we know for sure right. It's one of those things where you tell your friends You're like they're like well, what's up with a flinting? And it's like well, he's trying to yeah Also that but like it's crazy shit, man He's taking 15 million dollars of extra ice it doing. They're like, what? You tin foil hat person. Yeah. It's a day, like days like that day. Yeah, we had lots.

I feel like people miss the fact that we had two Mueller indictments this week. We had two. Yeah, like a little footnote. Yeah, like, oh, by the way, two more indictments. And I'm up, which hunt? They're randos, right? I mean, maybe you mentioned the one before,

but I forgot about him. It's Beeson Keon. I did. Actually, we brought? They're randos, right? I mean, maybe you mentioned the one before, but I forgot about him. It's Bejon Kion. I did. Actually, we brought up the meeting in the episode one. I named Bejon Kion in episode 20, which was in March. Right. And now we have, in episode 60, the indictments. I did not name Alp Teacon.

I don't think he was on that list. Okay. But I'm gonna go ahead and say, because, fuck, we named him one time in episode 20, if it's randos will count them So yeah, yeah, we'll go over that in the fantasy indictment Like if you have two randos you get two points. Oh nice. I did not I had no randos. I think you had one Jordan, right? I was gonna be a week because I gave up my rando and you picked up a rando I think maybe I feel like I've been so preoccupied with all the stone and a sange roster. They take up so many spots.

They do. They do. Stonehenge takes up a lot of space. I'm like, damn it, why don't we have 10 picks? We're going to change the rules on fantasy indictment league for us when we get there. So we'll go over. Oh, cool. For season three per hams, maybe.

Oh, yeah, maybe we could wait until season three to institute, because institute, to institute those changes, because this is actually we have two more episodes, this episode, and one more episode this year that comes out on New Year's Eve. Then we're going to go to season three guys, that's when the Dems take the G just nuts. Also Monday, though, we learned that the judge in the Flynn case asked for the transcript of the Flynn FBI interview. He did this Monday in response to Flynn's sentencing filing, stating that the FBI tricked him into lying, remember? The transcript document is called a 302, by the way. We fill these out in the government all the time. It was released, though it was highly redacted, but it showed that Flynn clearly lied and there was no trickery On the part of the agents questioning him the 302 proves that the FBI agents allowed Flynn to tell them his side About what happened with Kisleyak for example the agents then tried over and over to indicate they knew he was lying and

Ask him again a hey buddy one more time. What were you talking to Kisleyak about? Hey, hey pal, wait a minute. What, you know, like over and over again, this is in the 302, giving him hints about the intel that they had, but Flynn continued to lie. He not only lied about what he spoke with Kisleyak about, but he lied about not telling Katee McFarland, for example, who was at Mar-a-Lago, by the way,

relaying messages back and forth with Trump. And he did, he did talk to her, but he denied having knowledge of the expulsion of Russian diplomats. Even after the agents reminded him, gently, that Susan Rice had alerted him to that fact and they had the information. So the 302 came out ahead of Flynn's sentencing hearing and it did not do him any favors. You know, the Republicans are like, show us the 302, the ahead of Flynn's sentencing hearing and it did not do him any favors. You know the Republicans are like show us the 302, the FBI's corrupt and they get it and they're like oops.

Yeah, I don't want to see that. Never mind, never mind. Put away a bad face receipts. Burn it. Yeah. It was bad. It was a big paper. What did you say that one time? The words.

Yeah. It's like offensive to the words on the page for the eyes to lay on them or something I heard your brain That was really funny. She didn't want to hear it, do you? It was good, right? Don't look at my words. Don't look at my words. It's offensive that your eyes are on them Also, Monday Monday, comey is sick of your shit That's what I call this segment. Oh, yeah. After his second closed door session with Congress, he came out saying, quote, at some point,

someone has to stand up and in the face of fear of Fox News, fear of the base, fear of mean tweets, and stand up for the values of this country and not slink away into retirement, but stand up and speak the truth. I find it frustrating to be here answering questions about things that are far less important than the values that this country has built upon. And I could just hear him saying this. The music playing in the background. Right. Just his tall face. Just that. Tall face. Then when Fox News asked Comey if he shared any responsibility for the FBI's reputation taking a big hit, he was like, no, dude, the FBI's reputation has taken a big hit because the president of

the United States with his accolades has lied about it constantly. And in the face of those lies, a whole lot of good people who watch your network believe that nonsense. That's a tragedy, he says, that will be undone eventually, but the damage has nothing to do with me." Basically, railing on Fox News. He's getting more political, huh? He doesn't give a fuck in his pissed.

Yeah. And he's tall. He's like 20-20 years. He's Lincoln. Oh, yeah. Did you start wearing a top hat? There's just a beardless Abe. Yeah.

Then Roger Stone will be like, there's only room for one. Top 10, yeah. Now let's go to my swingers party. It's such a creepy dude. It's a creepy. He also said the House Republicans failure to defend the FBI from Trump's attacks is, quote, to their everlasting shame. Their silence is shameful.

And someday, they got to explain to their grandchildren what they did today. Wow. How old time is that to your everlasting shame? Yeah. This might be so bad at all. They're going to bring the grandkids into this? Yeah.

They'll like screw the children. The grandkids. What about the grandkids? Our kids are dicks. But their kids are awesome and fuck. You're going to have to explain that to them. Also Monday, a terrifying, I'm like, a terrifying report on Russian social media influence

was released. Jelisa's gonna cover that for us a bit later. It's actually really, really shocking. Yeah. What they came up with, although people who give a shit for being on Facebook, welcome now, because you can be, have shit for being on Facebook, welcome now, because you can be, have a shit for being on Twitter and Instagram and Snapchat and pretty much every social

media platform is wrapped up in this. And Instagram more than all of them, which a lot of people try to say is the cool one. Yeah, they're being hacked, guys. Yeah, you're cool. Yeah, Nassio Ribco is basically able to run a disinformation campaign for a while for Instagram.

Yeah, pretty much. Till she got arrested. Boat ho. And I shouldn't say hack, because they're actually working with them. So it's less of an assault. More of a cooperation. Yeah.

I'm excited to hear what you have to say, but I'm also terrified. We also learned that the Russians had targeted Mueller. By the way, according to the Washington Post, Russian disinformation teams turned their focus to Mueller after the election. So at first, they were trying to get Trump elected. Then after the election, they to the Washington Post, Russian disinformation teams turned their focus to Mueller after the election. So at first they were trying to get Trump elected, then after the election, they went after Mueller.

They attacked him for using fake Facebook accounts, fake Twitter accounts, and then like I said, they infiltrated Instagram. And in fact, Instagram had 187 million comments and likes on fake accounts attacking Mueller far more than any other social media platform. They claimed Mueller was corrupt, and that Russian interference was a crack pot conspiracy theory. Though I suppose it's easy to convince people who believe Clinton murdered Seth Rich or a random child sex trafficking and ring out of the basement of the Alamo.

There's no basement at the Alamo. Then Tuesday, three sources familiar with the Mueller probe told the Daily Beast that the Special Counsel's Office is preparing court filings that are expected to detail Trump associates' conversations about sanctions relief and what the Kremlin hoped to get in return for helping Trump win the election. And then law professor and CNN and MSW contributor and former FBI agent, Asha Rangapa, tweeted that if Trump or anyone in his campaign knew or encouraged or facilitated or participated in the Kremlin's assistance to get Trump elected, that we were looking at quid pro quo, aka collusion or conspiracy, aiding and abetting, etc.

And joining us to discuss this point is the one and only Asha Rangapa. Asha, welcome back to Mueller, She wrote, Thank you so much. I'm really glad you're here. So you had indicated that this could be a huge, can you elaborate on that? Yeah, you know, we've been seeing little pieces of the puzzle and what the critics of the Mueller probe have said is, you know, fine, but where's the collusion? Because there's kind of vino-smoking gun as it were. That everything is connected. And, you know, for people who are actually using deductive reasoning, you're starting to see this emerging picture where on the one hand, there's approaches being made to the Trump campaign offering assistance, you know, in the election in the form of dirt on Hillary Clinton, WikiLeaks releasing that dirt at strategic times that helps Trump. And then on the

other hand, you've seen, you know, these little bits and pieces about talking about sanctions or quote unquote unquote adoptions. And the question is how does this all fit together? And I think the hypothesis is was there some kind of explicit or implicit agreement that you scratch my back and you scratched my back on scratchers. And, you know, that, that, that assistance was in exchange for things that would benefit Russia, namely, you know, lifting of sanctions. And, you know, who knows what else? So, you know, if, if what Mueller is planning to file actually outlines some of that, even if it's just kind of explicit promises

or commitments by the Trump camp that they are going to follow through on specific policies, then after that anything where they were participating in the assistance that they were receiving from Russia would be kind of a slam dunk collusion. Yeah, definitely. And then we get all these little clues this week, like the treasury communicating with the Kremlin about ZIF, which is one of the things that the Trump Tower meeting in June was about with that, you know, the adoptions, like you said, which are sanctions. And then, of course, I mean, that secret subpoena battle going on with the company A from country A, or and it seems to all sort of the kind of the picture sort of becomes clearer.

Yes. So I also wanted to ask you about another huge story, huge story that dropped Tuesday, another smocking gun, about the dissolution of the Trump foundation, because apparently, Trump agreed to shut down his charity amid allegations he was using it for his own personal and political benefit. But the lawsuit is still continuing, isn't it? Yes, as far as I know, the attorney general got part of what the state of New York was looking for

in filing this lawsuit. Now, let's rewind. This is a civil lawsuit that is looking at a pattern of misconduct in the Trump foundation, specifically that the Trump foundation, okay, so a foundation is collecting charitable funds, and they have fiduciary duties on how they use those funds. They should be used for charitable purposes. They have reporting requirements. They, you know they have non-profit to New York, are regulated quite tightly in terms of having to report and approve how these funds are spent. And basically what the Attorney General's lawsuit alleged was that there were patterns of self-dealing of using these charitable funds to just come

back into the Trump organization, that there was coordination between the charitable funds in the foundation and the Trump campaign, that Trump was using these charitable funds as basically a personal slush fund to pay off things like his legal fees or buy himself, portraits of himself, all of which, by the way, are not legal. So what the Attorney General was looking for were a few different things. One was to ban Trump from serving as any director

of a nonprofit for 10 years and for any of the members of the board from serving for one year. And members of the board are all his kids. Also seeking 2.8 million in restitution. So you know, this is a big deal in and of itself. But the bigger deal is that the Attorney General also made referrals to the IRS and the Federal Election Commission for possible violations of federal law on that front. So these could turn into, if they have not already, criminal inquiries, which are going

to continue, it starts to also intersect with the Trump campaign and with the Trump organization. So, you know, it's just, everything is just mushrooming, if I may use that term, on the legal front for Trump. And the fact that he settled, you know, really reveals the, in my opinion, a desire to avoid what would have been a worse outcome for him, which is discovery and potential depositions. So, you know, the lawsuit is ongoing. I think they are still looking for the restitution.

It's not over yet, but, you know, Trump is going to be in big trouble, I believe. Yeah, I discover he's bad for him because then the tax returns come out. Although I think we'll probably get them from some committee or other run by the demo. And then he's also deposed under oath, which then gives him yet another opportunity to commit perjury. So it's always a trap, exactly, to make him talk. But what's happening is that literally everything he has ever touched is now under investigation, could result in civil lawsuits, criminal lawsuits that are by the way outside of the

Mueller investigation. They're not connected to Mueller. So he can't control it just by firing Mueller or, you know, what he thought. And I just think, what kind of hubris do you have to have to have engaged in this kind of corrupt behavior your whole life? And then run for president and not expect it to come to light. I mean, it's just bizarre to me. I don't understand. Now, are you saying that in this settlement he did agree to not chair or work on any charities in New York or is that still part of the ongoing lawsuit? That I believe that that was part of the initial settlement that he is barred and that his kids are barred for one year or at least that is what is on the table for the

initial settlement but then I think there's still restitution being sought and I mean think about what that is saying the state of New York has basically said these people are so dishonest and corrupt the Trump you know Donald Trump and Trump family, that we cannot trust them to manage charitable donations. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, he is running the country and in charge of a nuclear arsenal. It's pretty astonishing. Yeah, and now Mattis is gone, which frightens me. So, yes, it should frighten everyone.

Yeah, one of the bulwarks that was sort of one of the adults in the room anyway, even though his name was Matt Dog. He was one of the more sane ones. Anyway, thank you so much. CNN contributor, former FBI agent, Asha Rangapa. Have a great holiday. Thanks a lot. Bye-bye. Then Tuesday, the Flynn sentencing hearing happened, and I'll go over all things Flynn contributor, former FBI agent, Asha Rangapa. Have a great holiday. Thanks a lot. Bye-bye. Then Tuesday, the Flynn sentencing hearing happened, and I'll go over all things Flynn later in the show. And we'll be right back.

Just kidding. This is an ad-free episode. This is normally where an ad would go. Maybe we could put a little girl for me, Benima music, sort of, in the background. Yeah, just to kind of set the ambience. To give people, because people miss that. I got actually a lot of people saying,

no, don't take away girl from me. Really? So maybe you know, just throw it back in there. And then we could finish it up like right now. Yeah, that'll be good. Also Tuesday. We got an update on the secret subpoena battle. And it turns out it's not Pence or Trump

as we had guessed last week. We had this whole big conversation with, I think, Virginia Heffernan. And we were like, it could be be this it could be that soft planning etc. Nope it's not an American at all. It's not even a person. First and foremost the coolest thing about the latest news on this secret case is that Mueller won. He won it. Somebody appealed his subpoena and we learned this week that they lost and Mueller won. He got he won. So whomever it is must now hand over whatever it is

Mueller was asking for. And we finally got a hint as to who the other party is. Per the filing, we learned it's a company owned by country A. So I don't know. Who do you guys think it is? Company owned by a country? Yeah. I've heard a lot of themes thrown on Ross Nafs over the week. So I'm gonna Who do you guys think it is? Company owned by a country? Yeah. Sweet owned company. Yeah. I've heard a lot of themes thrown on Ron Snaps over the week, so I'm gonna just go with the majority.

This is where my head gets all swirly. On the lifeline. Yeah, yeah, it could be a lot of it. I mean, it could be Alpha Bank, right? There's some connection there. Well, Alpha Bank is privately owned. Oh, okay. This has to be a state owned.

Wow. Country owned. Deutsche Bank? Deutsche Bank is private. I like this game. It's a fun game, right? And everyone's like, you shouldn't guess your journalist. I'm like, back off. We're not journalists. Come on. I'm flattered that you think so, but come on. I can give you my guess. Okay. So there's a Cremlin owned entity that is currently buying up all of the Darapaska shares so that he can get sanctions relief. And yeah, this week we learned that the Treasury announced that it's lifting sanctions on Dera Pasca's company, Rousal, as long as he divest the majority of his shares.

Well, it turns out they're being bought up by a Russian-owned company. The same company is the one that was funding Trump Tower Moscow, which is big in the news. And we know with the Cohen charge of lying to the FBI that's the one charge Mueller was looking into and it had to do with Trump Tower Moscow, right? Which could have netted Trump hundreds of millions of dollars while he was running for president. This company was actually sanctioned, which blocked U.S. companies from doing business with it, but not Trump apparently. This company is VTB Bank. And because of its involvement with Trump Tower Moscow,

Seder and Cohen, that's my guess. That's where my beans are. I think it's VTB Bank. Of course, this is all speculation. It could be any state-owned company from any country. A lot of people think that because Ahmed was on the case, she's a Middle Eastern specialist. And she speaks Arabic.

A lot of people thought it could be the Katari investment fund That the one that bailed out Kush Yeah, and that also took the sale from Rossnaft at 19.5% commission from Rossnaft It could be any Saudi or UAE some people think it could be a China that China owns a whole floor the bank on Bung Bank I think they want a whole floor and in Trump. Okay. And they're buying up all the Ivanka Patents or whatever I can't remember how soon on this one will we know if Dude, do we do we know when we'll know like is it the kind of thing that could have to drag on for a while?

Like yeah, I have no idea. I don't know, but I know I know Mueller one Yeah, which is why I'm wondering will they at least announce it now that we know that he's got the upper hand, or will he just, he's probably a secret. Mueller wants it secret. He doesn't want people to know. I think he wants. He's the one that's keeping it so secret. Yeah, and if it's not already pretty immediately

a parent like individual one has become, then it's probably not gonna be selling. That's gonna be pedal-bout in the news a lot. Yeah, I don't think he wants people to know. Interesting. Just leaving us guessing, given those Mueller crumbs, and trying to news a lot. I don't think he wants people to know. Interesting. Just leaving us guessing, given those muller crumbs, and trying to make a cookie. Anyway, yeah, of course, this is all speculation, like I said.

It could be any state-owned company, you guys. We have a post in our Friends of Justice Facebook group for patrons where you can make your guess. And if your latest answer is correct, when the company is revealed, you'll get 10 points toward your fantasy and diamond leg. This is for patrons only. company is revealed, you'll get 10 points toward your fantasy indictment, League. This is for patrons only, so sign up if you're not a patron. You want to play fantasy indictment, League.

This is our bonus wild card. You'll get 10 fake points. That mean nothing. Yes. You're welcome. I do allow to fake points. That mean nothing. It's like, who's lying?

Is it anyway? Fake points. The point's mean nothing. No one wins. I decide to win her at the end. Just up to me, no matter what. But yeah, it's just, it's crazy. That's like, hmm, who is it?

We don't know. But it's not pants, it's not Trump, it's not a person, it's not an American. It's a company, that's interesting. Owned by country A. I can safely assume at least that country A means not us. Oh yeah, so otherwise they wouldn't designate it. They don't blink out US, right?

Out of these situations. No, we don't have any state owned. We don't. We're not at that level yet. Trump wants us to get there. Yeah, well he tries to say he's a capitalist bit. Trump country. Oh, Trump TV.

Oh no. Freedom fest. Oh man. It's going to be state down to watch. Yeah. On Wednesday, we learned that Buzzfeed won its lawsuit over publishing the Steel Dossier, a Cypriot businessman named Guberiv. Guber. Seed Buzzfeed for defamation because his name was included in the dossier that Steel published, but or Buzzfeed published. But a judge ruled that Buzzfeed was protected by

a, quote, fair report privilege, unquote, because the article involved an official proceeding. I'm meaning both Trump and Obama had been briefed on it, and the FBI investigated allegations in the dossier. So it's fair and true to reproduce the dossier because they didn't express any opinions about it. It was just here it is. Very calling.

Yeah, beans. Yeah. Not conjecture. Right. No, beans is conjecture. Yeah here it is. Very calling. Yeah, beans. Yeah. Not conjecture. Right. No, beans is conjecture. Yeah, it is. It is.

Unbeans. Unbeans. Cooked beans versus un-cooked beans. Cooked beans. Oh, robins. Robins. We have anything. Look out, America, and everywhere else.

Goober-Ev is expected to appeal. Goober, he's going to appeal this, by the way, but we'll keep you up to date. So I just thought that was neat that they won that. Yeah. It is. Yeah. I wonder how many people are going to try to super defamation or something and it's going to be like, government's already been investigating. You're a pro.

You're screwed. You're screwed. Yeah. That's a fair reporting thing. Sorry, you were involved. Mm-hmm. Yeah. hang around some nicer friends. Yeah, yeah. Don't be such a dick. You won't end up in dossiers. Also, Wednesday, a new Cohen document was filed under seal

in the US District Court in Manhattan, which was immediately placed in a vault. Whatever the fuck that means. They're like, and put in vault, put in the vault. I was like, what vault? There's vaults? Yeah, I think of like, in Harry Potter, that little pointy-eared man.

Yeah, the band trying to think of a PC way to refer to a fictional character. That's a point. That's a 2018. That's why not offend the fictional elf. It's Gringots, right? Yeah. It's a suite of each other.

You're so nice. You're like, mm, the small man with the pointy ears. Yeah. But those vaults, the small sis elf, I think little person is how they prefer guessing you sis. I could be wrong. He could identify as a dwarf. Yeah.

I don't even know. Transgender dwarf. Yeah. He could, anyway, Gringots. It's in the vault, do you guys go in the vault? You have to get, like, ride in one of those steel carts to get down to it, but it's there. Continuing with Wednesday, Wednesday was crazy. Not as crazy as Thursday, but it was pretty crazy.

Republicans in the Senate blocked a bill protecting Mueller. Again, this is the third time such a bill has been struck down by Republicans. Yay. They seem to think Mueller will just be fine. I also think so, but I'm also like, why not? Or do they really think he'll be fine, or do they just not want to play a part in making him for sure fine? That's kind of what I'm thinking. It's like, what does it hurt? It hurts them. I guess they can't fire up. They're like, dammit, we can't get rid of them now. But yeah, it seems like, just do it. It's ebologic is where they're coming from.

Yeah, well, they're riding this wave hard right now. Mm-hmm. Well, it's about to crash. So, mm-hmm, beans. And for this week, in what the fuck? Apparently Roger Stone is selling rocks. To fund his legal defense, he's literally selling rocks. He calls Roger Stones.

When I said kick rocks, I didn't mean Litteries. For $9. Wow. Each stone? Yeah. Wow. Roger Stones are $9. That's a little pretty.

That puts his name on it, Roger. I like to see him show up on Shark Tank. I like, aren't you that gay? That's no better. Aren't you from the Society of Recreative and Acronisms? What are you doing here? Aren't you a Liper? Why are you here? In other stone news. It's so in rocks you guys. That's so crazy. I wish we could spend more time on it. To cover his legal fees. Oh my goodness. That's adorable.

It's like a lemonade stand for high crime. This saddest lemonade stand. A lemonade stand for a creepy old pervert. Yeah. This is the comedic part of the movie where they just kind of break the tension a little bit, you know. That one ran him. Do do do.

He's out there at his front yard. He's got a bunch of rocks with Roger written on him. $9. No. Help me defend myself. How did you get $9? Who was the cost? And that's crazy.

It's the overhead. Well, it took me $0 to steal this from a beach. Yeah, just keep them all in your head. You'll be fine. I think you guys understand what goes into selling rocks. There's a lot to it. Oh, maybe it's code word for drugs. And also, dumb'll be fine. I think you guys understand what goes into selling rocks. There's a lot to it. Oh, maybe it's code word for drugs. And also, dumbest thing you could ever think to ship to anyone

because it's going to be really expensive. Gonna sink the ship. Sure. I just ship boxes of water. It's very financially prudent. Let's check what's inside the rocks. There might be a message, and we're just missing this. It's cracking open.

It's an employee in sight, man. Yeah. Cracking open. Oh, what? We're like deer-put deer Putin a little fortune cookie type as a situation? Unroll it And then you have to add instead of in bed. We always add unless it's raining To your fortune cookie Good. It's a good. It was a nice comedy relief. I needed that in other stone news

Mueller asked Congress for the transcripts of Stone's testimony. That's the fact. My conjecture is that this is signaling that Mueller is just about done with a stone investigation. And now he just needs that last piece to prove he lied to Congress so he can offer him a deal. A lot like the one Cohen and Corsi got, right? Line to the FBI or line to Congress.

And basically, Mueller has all the evidence and all the testimony he needs, I think. So then he gets congressional transcripts, charges the target with lying to Congress, and then offers a medial, then confronts the target during proffer with all the evidence he has, kind of like that FBI Flynn interview. Are you sure, bro? I might want to check this out. Slide some across the table right there where you said, never mind.

Stone though commented on this saying, he thinks Mueller doesn't have enough to indict him, which is weird because he said earlier that he was sure Mueller was going to indict him. So lots of folks are also wondering if Mueller will be offering him a deal. But that seems like his method of operations to me. That seems like his ML.

Whether or not Modus operandi. Whether or not he takes the deal is the issue. We'll stone take the deal. He could go half-knownberg, full-corsi, but it's full-twisting layout, and totally refused to comply, right? But we're not far off from knowing. Do you guys think he'll cooperate?

Do you think he'll be stoned? I mean, the guy that sells rocks does not cooperate. I think any chance he gets to talk, he'll take it. Do you think so? Yeah. Just his specific care. Whatever we make him more famous. Yeah, exactly.

I think he'll defy. I think so too. He'll blow up. He's already committed so many crimes at this point. He's just gonna be like, yeah, sure. Ask me on the record, see if I care. I just already committed so many crimes at this point. He's gonna be like, yeah, sure, ask me on the record. See if I care. Let's say what I get rock I want.

And by Roger Stone today, three easy payments of $3. I don't see how this is relevant to your testimonies, sir. Oh, it is. Oh, it is. By my rocks. We also learned Wednesday that there's another reason for bar bill bar to recuse himself. This is the guy Trump appointed to be his attorney general. He hasn't been confirmed yet. The Wall Street Journal reported last summer, bar wrote a memo to the Department of Justice, which was

critical of Mueller's investigation into allegations of collusion. And it also stated his broad belief that a president can't be charged with obstruction of justice because he's above the law. Snoop Dagg, that's Rod Rosenstein, said Thursday that the memo had no impact on the probe. Quote, the memo that you made reference to reflects Mr. Barr's personal opinion. Lots of people offer opinions to the Department of Justice, but they don't influence our own decision-making. Boom. He also said he pointed out that Barr made these comments without having all the relevant facts. He's like, this is his opinion he made without having any of the relevant facts that we have.

Sounds like Cromesky. Yeah, the end. If you're going to be the AG guys, you can't have public opinions like this without giving the appearance of bias or, you know, in propriety, which the Justice Department tries to avoid at all costs as you heard, Asha and I talk about, even though my name is A.G., I would make a terrible A.G. because I'm quite biased. My opinions are clearly known, right? I imagine that Democrats will ask for recusal during the confirmation hearings, but I doubt they'll get one. They'll get recusal because sessions recusal is the entire reason he's no longer a attorney general.

He's he's trying to find somebody who won't recuse from overseeing the that's the one thing that sessions did wrong in Trump's eyes. Yeah, in Trump's eyes. Exactly. Yeah, total racist possible. I was gonna say I have a couple of other You might wait. I had one or two But yeah, he was perfect for Trump. Got off his creepy racist shit, done, you know? Yeah, in his defense, he was hired for his explicit political views. That's true. So, it's a little mixed messaging for that guy.

What do you want? Do you want me to be for you publicly and under my democracy or not? Yeah, you got to pick one. I just got to recuse myself. No Also Wednesday representative Elijah Cummings sent 51 letters to the Trump administration and cabinet members requesting compliance with document requests Cummings is the probable incoming chair of the House oversight and government reform committee Cummings is the probable incoming chair of the House Oversight and government reform committee and it's clear that he has his site set on Investigating all sorts of things including Trump's response to Hurricane Maria the family separation policy at the border Misconduct by top officials and cabinet members, which that could be tens or dozens

Payments to the Trump org from foreign governments. There's one for the whole thing. Yeah, to name a few 51 letters. This request is like a nicety. It's a, he doesn't have to. He can simply subpoena the documents if he gets no replies. But he's like, hey, just, you know, because I'm a nice fella. I'm a Elijah Cummings. Here's some letters.

We need these things. Right. It really helps them long term, because you know Trump will say, no, I'm not giving you anything. And then they'll be like, hey, we try. We try to talk to them. Yeah, yeah, they're basically do process Remember like all the time all the ways they tried to serve who was a cushioner? Yeah, they want to every residency Did you ask nicely?

No, I just imagine him peaking out of the windows like they're here again You may alone. No. So in related news, we learned that Matthew fucking Whitaker told everyone that ethics advisors inside the department of justice had cleared him to oversee the Mueller probe and that he wouldn't have to recuse himself. But the Washington Post and New York Times reported that that actually wasn't the case. And that Whitaker actually cleared himself rejecting the recommendations of career DOJ ethics specialists.

And joining us today to discuss the implications of that is former federal prosecutor from the Southern District of New York and MSNBC contributor, Proud Mom, Mimi Roca, Mimi Welcome to Mullershy Road. Thanks, thanks for having me, and a big fan. Yeah, I'm, we're so glad you're here. We've been wanting to have you on the show for a while, so I'm very, I'm honored that you're here today with us. So can you tell us how out of the ordinary it is that Whitaker cleared himself basically

to oversee the Mueller probe? It, there really are no words to describe how absurd this is, because there is no such thing as clearing yourself in DOJ world. You know, the part of justice obviously has ethics professionals. And you know, every US attorney, well, I don't know if every US attorney is obviously in the Southern District of New York, which is a large US attorney's office, we had a designated ethics advisor who would consult with people in Washington what needed.

And basically, the word of the ethics professionals is like the word of God to do Department of Justice career employees. And, you know, Matthew would occur, he's been apparently out of the department guesses for a while because he was in some little entrepreneurial for a, with some crazy company, but he was a US attorney for several years.

And now he is the acting attorney general. So he knows the culture, he knows the practice, he knows the sort of respect that the ethics professionals should be given. And it's frankly kind of dangerous for him personally and professionally. You know, once you've decided to not take the advice of an ethics professional with the Department of Justice. He potentially opens himself up to some kind of disciplinary action. You know, there have to be certain circumstances, but by the bar of whatever state he's registered

in, you know, because there's a certain willfulness now, right? So if he takes some action as a lawyer, as an acting attorney general, but is found to be questionable in an ethical sense, and a bar association of whoever is responsible for his registration. I don't know what state he registered in, but like in New York, it's called the Office of Court Administration. Every state has a different one. And they would look at the fact that he basically rejected this advice as sort of a showing

of will for us, if you will, as opposed to some kind of innocent mistake. If this comes up, Donald Rhodes. So, I mean, in addition to it just not being the right thing to do for the country, for the Department of Justice, for our justice system, it also is just professionally and personally does not make sense to me. Yeah, no, me neither, but it seems like anyone who goes to work for this administration is just leaves it completely beaten up and battered in their career ruin. So I'm not sure why anyone would want to go into this. And it's it's worrisome too that you know with the the nomination of Bill Barr and his previous memo to the Justice Department about obstruction, the president being above the law basically. And now we've got the Whitaker approving himself to oversee

the Mueller investigation and now we've got the Senate rep and Mark Warner even said, we see what you're doing here. There have to be more than two lawyers in the country who haven't had, don't have a conflict of interest with this investigation and now Senate Republicans have thrice rejected a Mueller protection bill. Do you think the investigation could be under threat? So I mean, I think there's no question that, very little question, that Trump's intention is to try and somehow do you really have the investigation? And that he is, I mean, it's transparent. His pick of, you know, now Whitaker and Barr, for what he believes are their hostility to the investigation.

I think with Whitaker, that's a well placed concern. I mean, the things that he said, albeit in the context of a talking head, where people are giving sort of more of an opinion as opposed to acting within the confines and context of the justice system. And actually, let me just make one point on that. So the fact that Whitaker said these things on television, he has a decent argument to say, look, I was asking as a commentator, it's a different environment,

that doesn't mean I actually, you know, and hostile to this or want to shut it down. And now that I know more or once I know more of the facts and now that I know, you know, even more facts have come out since I said those things, I think it should go on. But in an excess of caution for the appearance of conflict i'm going to for use myself and in fact he said his letter that he's going to leave the day today operation to rozen's and so if all of that is true then why in the world would you not

which is yourself which we do to believe it's not true and that he's not going to be the trojan sign and that he's not okay with the investigation so that point one of why sort of it's obvious why Trump picked in and I'm extremely suspicious and worried about what it occurred but what occurs short-lived. I think that the that bar is more complicated. I don't think it's as it's not as clear to me that he will be would be a threat to the investigation because I don't know him personally, but people who are very much know and respect, like for example, Chuck Rose and Barb,

another MSNBC analyst, FBI, former official, just someone who's sort of blood, is in the Department of Justice. He has some faith, I think, in the bar's, you know, respect for the institution of the Department of Justice, which is a very strong pull, you know, when you are in it and you're operating at it and you want to do right by it. That is what I think is one of the most wonderful things about working there. And apparently, Barr, you know, is that kind of person.

He's an institutionally. And so while he clearly expressed, you know, a negative opinion about the investigation, he did leave room for the fact, well, first of all, it was specific to one area of the investigation. He talked about the issue of whether the president could obstruct justice. His view is this broad executive view, which I disagree with, but it is something that legal scholars are debating. I think there's more of a chance that Barr notwithstanding that statement and that view could be an objective overseer of the investigation, but we won't know that until his confirmation hearing. And that has to be a really rigorous

questioning and getting to the bottom of whether he can do that. And again, that's something we don't have with Whitaker because he was just sort of snuck in there. With Barr, at least, we would have this confirmation process. I do think that the fact that he reached out though and wrote such a long memo, Barr, expressing that he didn't like this part of the investigation, it is troubling. I mean, that doesn't happen every day. Yeah, but we may see during the confirmation hearings, like you said, they're, I'm sure that 100% sure there'll be questions about it. And, you know, he might actually, you know, if he's the institutionalist, he says he is, and he's more about the, you know, even avoiding the appearance, the appearance of impropriety, he, he may actually want to

recuse himself from this. I don't know how, I don't know what Trump would think of that, since that's the whole reason he fired Jeff Sessions in the first place, but it's just, it's amazing to me, is particularly with Whitaker, that, you know, we, we have to move forward with, it's not just whether or not you're actually conflicted, it's giving the appearance of, and that was the whole argument, one of the Republicans' three arguments against this whole investigation about Peter Struck who was texting personally to page and once that even appearance of impropriety, even though the IG found no bias whatsoever in his work, he left the investigation because of the appearance of it. And here we have just this complete hypocritical 180 with Matthew Whitaker. It's just a astounding.

Yeah, exactly. And if you recall, I mean, sort of if we want to go back to, you know, 2016 for a minute, I mean, the whole reason that Clenney was overseeing the Clinton email investigation and made the pronouncement that he did was because Loretta Lynch wanted to avoid the appearance that's been propriety because she had had that meeting on the tarmac with Bill Clinton. And, you know, they're probably were very good arguments. Why she didn't need to do that? meeting on the tarmac with Bill Clinton. And they're probably were very good arguments why she didn't need to do that.

But she in an excess of caution and not wanting to avoid the appearance of it, she said, OK, I'm not going to be the one to make this fun of decisions. So. Yeah, but then we've got Whitaker and Kushner on Marine 1 hanging out all day. So it's like what? Right, exactly.

I mean, the double standards are just ridiculous and in this administration in particular. But yeah, I think look, I was a power prosecutor for 16 years. I think everybody that I know from my experience, both Southern District and the Department of Justice more broadly, the appearance of neutral objective justice

is hugely important. It's not just a side issue, it's part of the job. It's, you know, and frankly, that's why I get so upset at the attacks on, you attacks on the FBI and the prosecutors for being the 12-ing of Democrats, etc. Because I find all that to just be based on an ignorance of how prosecutors and investigators work. And that, yes, they may, I mean, I don't even know the politics of all that, but people have their own personal political views, but it's as diligent in pursuing Republicans and Democrats and people of all different backgrounds, and that wasn't the motivating factor at all. And so I think this idea that they can say that about prosecutors, but that it's okay,

maybe I'll run back to the double standard, but I guess the point to drive on is that this idea of appearance, justice, that's a big part of our justice system in this country is people feeling like it is neutral and partial objective. Well, yeah, and Komi actually wrote about it in his book, mentioned it brought it up several times, he called it the Reservoir of Trust, this whole idea that keeps the justice department afloat is its independence and its appearance of absolute neutrality. That's kind of the whole idea. And that's again why this whole, I think the New York FBI field office leaks and the Komi reopening of the investigation into Hillary's emails.

Why? Why? Komi will not say anything negative about the FBI because that would put a dent in that. And, and he talks about how long, how many decades it's taken to fill it and how one tiny thing can empty the whole reservoir. He used that multiple times in his book. Yeah, yeah, that's a good analogy. I agree with that.

He was very adamant about that. So, all right, well, I really appreciate you coming on talking to us about this. It's just absolutely incredible that he cleared himself ethically. I work for the government. You can't do that.

There is no clearing yourself. When McCabe's wife was running, he got that cleared through ethics. And you know, he actually got approval to do that and the IG found no bias. But here we are. People in the department, just again, that I encountered in my 16 years, live in fear of the ethics professionals.

Their word is like God. If they even say to you, yeah, the close call. I mean, that's one of the point I want to take. Apparently, one of Whitaker's measures for not taking the ethics opinion was or seeking an ethics opinion even is that, well, you know, no one's up. No attorney generals ever recuse themselves based on appearance complex, which is a ridiculous statement because no attorney general has been out there in the press slamming an investigation and saying, you know, thinking of ways to shut it down ahead of time. I mean, it's just a very, it's like a judge saying, well, I'm not going to roll in this case because, you know, these facts have never been decided before. I mean, here we are now, and this is the set of facts, and it's the extreme set of facts. And the last thing I would say, I think your original question was, is the investigation threatened?

I think at the end of the day, the Mueller trains, and taking off the name of your podcast, the Mueller train is so far out of the station that it would be really hard for, and even an attorney general acting or otherwise, to do sort of large damage to what mullerts are already doing to the investigation. That seems to be the consensus too, and not only that it's so far out of the station, but that mullert is set up all these fail all these fail saves and break glass moments and dead men switches

and giving himself full power of a US attorney and then making all of his prosecutors little mini-molars basically giving them full power of US attorneys. It's gonna be, they're gonna be hard press. I think I don't know if it's Trump picking the only two lawyers who think the president is above a lot to try to come in and run the Justice Department.

We'll shield him from any of this, but maybe he just doesn't feel like he has any other, maybe he just doesn't understand or he just doesn't think he has any other choice. Yeah, and I guess he just doesn't understand. So we see these people who have these views and it's just, oh great, let me pick Tom and everything will work out and he just doesn't get it. Right, or they're good on television. They look great on television. Yeah, it seems to be one of his standards. All right, well thank you so much for the prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and MSNBC contributor, Mimi Roca. Thank you for being on Mueller She wrote today. Thanks for having me, Angie.

I appreciate it. All right, guys. Thursday was crazy. First of all, news drop from BuzzFeed saying that Russian agents sought secret U.S. Treasury records on Clinton backers during the 2016 campaign, and that there were back channel communications between Russia and Treasury officials using Gmail and Hotmail accounts set up by Russian counterparts. This came to light thanks to whistleblowers who said the Americans were exchanging messages as the 2016 election heated up. Russians were pressing Treasury employees for private financial documents on at least two dozen Trump opponents.

Most notably, Russia was looking for financial records on Dirk Edward and Ziff, and if those names sound familiar to you, they should. Because they're the investors, Russians claimed Clinton took money from, and that was the dirt they were dangling for the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting. So by calling out Clinton for that alleged crime, they're just showing their own collusion essentially. Yeah, but not even a crime She just took money from these three guys. Right, right. I guess they are they're crying that it's a crime But I feel like yeah, that's what they do They always point the finger at her and then it comes right back to them as an actual crime

So a few weeks before the Trump Tower meeting, Russia was asking for this information, this dirt, ziff and Clinton, and then that's what they dangled for the Trump Tower meeting. Pre-collusion. Pre-collusion. Pretty collusiony. Yeah. Collusiony. Collusiony.

Yeah. Lusers. So the Treasury had nothing to say when reached for comment, though a spokesperson said, quote, Treasury does not discuss or comment on confidential communications with foreign governments, blah, blah, blah. But they have apparently notified the Inspector General of the Treasury, so put some beans on that report. Though much like the FBI New York Field Office, IG report, I don't think it will come out until after Mueller concludes his investigation. To point. Like, that's super collusiony.

Like, that's like right to the heart of, yeah, the timeline, you know, the communications, like, yeah. Yeah, and who in the treasury was sending these private emails using private Gmail and Hotmail accounts, two Russians in a back channel communication about, you know, Clinton backers, and Trump opponents. Who the fuck was that?

This is during Obama's term too, right? That's really weird. During the 2016 election, when all the other collusion was happening. Yeah, I just keep thinking about that, like, in this context, it's like an inside man for Russia, almost. Yeah, like, who was it, and why, or did they know? Like, there just wasn't any information on it.

Yeah, I guess they couldn't have known too. They might, yeah, yeah, right, like, did that, who, that seems like you should know. Yeah, I guess they couldn't have known too. They might yeah, yeah, right Like did that who that seems like you should know? Yeah I don't know Was gambling yeah by my rocks Also if there's day on video testimony from decades ago was unearthed showing Trump having really good knowledge of campaign finance laws Ruining his argument that he doesn't know about hush money payments and they're if they're illegal or not and Cohen should have known better. He's the lawyer, not me. But he's sitting there in this deposition saying,

no, I'm very familiar with campaign finance law. Here's this, here's that, here's this, here's that. Ah, funny. I would put beans on that tape, making an appearance in a grand jury. Oh yeah, awkward. Yeah, totally. Do you think he's trying to set up the case for himself

that he knew as much as he could and still was ignorant of the crime? Like, look, I tried my best. I told you I knew a lot. And then I still, I don't know. Yeah, I'm really smart, but I'm just not that smart. Yeah, wow, that'd be too easy of a cop out. Yeah, and that's more plausible than so and just being like, I know nothing.

You could. True. That's why he's probably doing it that way, though, it's because he's trying to appeal to that. But that's right now still his stance. I don't know enough about the law. Cohen's the lawyer, he should know. And meanwhile, this clip is out there.

I didn't tell him to do anything illegal. No, you actually know. It appears the clip, and here's the clip of you saying that you know. So they are claiming ignorance, which isn't going to work out. It sounds like with the evidence. Yeah. Your way would have been smarter, Jordan.

They've just gone with it. They don't know things. And also not everything. Yeah. Oops. Also Thursday, the Senate staffer wolf was sentenced to two months in prison for lying to prosecutors. We talked about this months ago.

Jalisa, do you have that clip? Oh, yeah. And then some big news dropped about a Senate intel staffer named Wolf, a 31-year veteran. He was arrested for leaking classified information to the press. Earlier in the week, the Senate voted unanimously to assist the Department of Justice in the investigation by passing a late-day resolution to hand over any documents they had on wolf. And we found out that the Department of Justice had been poking around in the New York

Times, in a New York Times journalist's phone and emails for the past year to build their case. And that kind of cracked down on leaks actually began under the Obama administration. But the Justice Department, under Obama, decided it was improper and wrote policies saying it was a violation of the free press. So this Justice Department, this one, sessions are racist possum, would have had to go around that policy in this case

in order to watch her for a year. And which sessions can do if he wants, kind of like how Rosenstein could circumvent the Justice Policy saying you can and died of sitting president. Yeah. There's a lot of speculation saying that this was a political move, but the Senate voted unanimously to cooperate the full Senate, not just the committee. It's your fully 100 to nothing or 98. There's people missing. Where are these two

people? John McCain I think is sick. Oh no I'm so sorry. Yeah. Dick. dick. I feel if this were political, you guys, there would have been a party line vote. I feel like if this were a true intrusion of something terrible or fucked up that the government or AG sessions was doing that the Democrats would have voted against it. You would see the split. Yeah. They'd have lost, but they would have voted against it. But journalists are seething about it, calling it a violation of freedom of press. Interesting.

I need to get more information to figure out where I stand. Exactly same. Well, anyway, he's been sentenced to two months in prison. It was pointed out by the judge that this is different from someone like Vandorswan, who only got 30 days, because Wolfe is a Senate staffer, and he's responsible. He's an American. He's responsible for keeping information secret in the Senate. Yet Flynn could get less time. I'm really hoping Flynn doesn't get off easy considering all his other crimes. There were none of us know exactly how much he helped Mueller.

True and people keep saying too, don't on Twitter to us that like even though Flynn cooperated, he was the first special fish that he still should get some sort of jail time and Jordan, you mentioned this too last week, right? Yeah, you guys still feel that way like no matter what he should get. Well, jail time. And Jordan, you mentioned this too, last week, right? Yeah. You guys still feel that way, like no matter what? He should get it. Well, that's what I thought. Especially when he came out and his sentencing memo and said, I didn't, FBI made me do it. And I was like, oh, that's so stupid.

Yeah. I'm going to go over that a little bit later in the show. But that's the dumbest thing you could do. Everyone was saying no jail time. And Mueller was even saying, including a term of no incarceration. And then he comes out with his bullshit and then... He got cocky, yeah.

Yeah. And then he's, I'll tell you, I'll tell you. His lawyers were funny about it, though. It was really interesting. Then Thursday kind of went off the rails when Trump tweeted that moderate dog Mattis was retiring. Then almost immediately, the Pentagon released General Mattis' resignation letter, which came on top of

a crazy news day that included Trump unilaterally announcing that he was going to pull troops out of Syria, even though we promised the Kurdish fighters we would stay there. And Trump's apparent call to pull out of Afghanistan not to mention a looming government shutdown and a tanking stock market lowest in a decade. And some people are saying lowest since the 1930, like since the Great Depression. Really? Or biggest dive, I guess. Okay, because I heard it. It's the highest still. Yeah, it'll never be. Yeah. I know. Not in my lifetime. It's still over 20,000. Yeah. It's still up there, but it's lost all of its gains plus some. Anyway, I don't know. You guys, Mattis was like the last respected member of Trump's cabinet and who most would consider the last adult in the room.

The special envoy for the global coalition fighting ISIS, Brett McGurk, also submitted his resignation Friday, due to his disagreement with the president from his Syrian drawdown. Mattis' resignation letter was a scathing rebuke of Trump's policies, and his particularly particularly his foreign policies not to mention his bending over for our enemies And disregard for our allies. That's pretty much what he said He's like I can't do this bro. You're being a dick. Mm-hmm. I got to go He made clear in his letter that he was not retiring But he was leaving because Trump's an idiot Everyone in Washington was shocked Pelosi said she was shaken.

Mitch McConnell said he was particularly distressed. Lindsey Graham hates this. All of his son Republicans are left wondering if Trump is even doing the right thing anymore, for even Republicans, which is, you know, that says something. Pretty gray area. I want our troops home from Syria.

I do. I don't think we should be anywhere, but now without a plan that our allies agree with, that when we've a vacuum in the Middle East for ISIS to grow, I don't know, and abrupt unilateral drawdown as a gift to Putin. Oh, totally. And that's the point of all this. It's like people were using the argument that, oh, don't these liberals want troops home,

and I agree with you. I want them home too, but there's a reason we're there. And Putin is the key to that. I mean, just we're there because of people like him. You know, and he's not going anywhere. Yeah, it's a gift to Putin and Erdogan. Yeah, and in a lot of these regions too, it's not even like our troops are engaging in direct combat.

Most of the case, they're not. They're training the on the ground forces that want our help. Yeah, they're advisory and advisory roles training the Kurds because we promised that we would do that. Yeah, and I think it's like, I myself also am on one hand ignorant of the realities of war because I've never served myself. So I can't sit here and say that. My opinions are, you know, mad is informed. But at the same time, we created these situations. Like you said, the vacuum, my older sister's husband is over there right now. And it's like, if they pull out right now, there's, that would be so disastrous for

their own crusade for defeating ISIS in the region. Yeah. Yeah. They're surrendering. And everybody who's died has done so in vain. We're just leading it. And more people will have many more than I feel like if we were there, again, with my limited knowledge, also, with military, I just, I really do feel like I've based these on movies in my head, which is probably a really bad source. But anytime we pull out in these movies, it's like always bad for the insurgents. It's always bad for the locals.

It seems that way, right? Like, I really, yeah, haven't served either, but I do understand the basic, you know, sense of duty that comes with having an agreement and sticking to it for the sake of honor and people's lives. And yeah, and honoring our word oversees with our allies. So, you know, all this cow-towing to Russia and China and North Korea and then treating our allies this way. It's about it's about seeing and lattice pissed about it. We also learned Friday that Trump's actually really pissed off about Mattis' resignation

letter. Hmm. According to a source close to the White House, he doesn't like the way the media is covering it. Words. Reading words from the page. So I actually hope I'm piling on here when I say Trump, no one likes you. I'm actually a little scared myself about the Mattis resignation. I feel like he was holding on the fort. My hope is that something major

happens with Trump before Mattis leaves in February. Otherwise, I don't know who's going to check this president, other than the House Downs. Yeah, and I thought that way about Kelly too to check this president other than the House Downs. Yeah. And I thought that way about Kelly too. So maybe I just forgot about Mattis, but do you think he's like the absolute last one now? You feel like that's he's the last guy because they all were kind of like, you know, in

Porter left, they were like, all right, he was a guy that was reasonable. Simmy reasonable. That was master, Tillerson, Kelly. So it's Mattis, the last of those, yeah. Wow. Last of the big dogs. I didn't think it would that way until now. Yeah. I mean, we still have Mark Milley, who's the deputy,

Dex Sackduff, but I don't know too much about him. Right. We don't hear too much. And we do have the joint chiefs, which are the other generals. But I have, I know more than the general. Yeah. I was talking to my buddy that's over there right now. And he was, I was like, isn't it crazy?

Did you hear the news about Matt? I said he's like, I mean, yeah? Did you hear the news about Madness? And he's like, I mean, yeah, it is nuts, but nothing surprises me anymore. That's how I feel sometimes too. And that's why I think just doing this podcast, it brings me back to like the reality of it all, back to back, just knowing the effects of someone like Madness leaving. Because when it's mixed in with all the other news, it just sounds like, oh, just another crappy thing.

But this is in terms of being the last big dog like you were saying, A.G., that's leaving. That's huge. I mean, there's no one else now. Yeah, and also the idea that our troops are over there struck with like a sense of nihilism. That's scary too. Just being like, I don't fucking know, dude.

The Morales. Everything's chaos right now. Yeah, maybe I'll be deployed to the Mexico border to help out with those toddlers. Yeah, it's crazy protecting us from those Nicaraguan toddlers. Yeah They really did steer the fear towards that. Meanwhile, they're doing all these backdoor deals and pulling out without telling anyone It's like they had an agenda that they knew they were gonna do and we were distracted. Yeah, yeah, and I know they're not Nicaraguan I know they're hungry. Oh of course Nicaraguan toddler had a better ring to it. Yeah, yeah, And I know they're not Nick Raugan. I know they're hungry.

Oh, of course. Nick Raugan Toddler had a better ring to it. Yeah, yeah. And with you with, you know, the Robin Choy sound. Yeah. That's okay. We understand. That's fair.

So thank you guys. Friday, we learned that Russia has filed formal charges against Bill Browder. Bill Browder is the guy who got the Global Magnitsky Act in effect, right? He's the guy who brought the Magnetski Act. He's Putin's enemy number one, really. Him and McFall and Clinton are like the three big ones. I highly recommend listening to episode two. I could give you some background and be curatorial today,

but episode two covers it. It's the Magnetski Act episode. Bill Browder's testimony is in there to Congress. It's really, it's quite an incredible story. But it appears Putin will stop at nothing to get Browder, and it's a gentle reminder, not really gentle, of just how important sanctions are to Putin. It's the number one thorn in his side, which is why Mueller, sanctions Magnetzky Act is, you know, is sanctions. And it's why Mueller's looking into those potential squid pro-crow's between Trump and Russia about the easing of sanctions. That's

like the core of his investigation aside from obstruction and collusion and aiding and betting, but yeah, other things. Minor details. They've sell your rocks, sell them to them. They've put out interpol red notices on Browder before, and once he was even arrested in Spain, but he was released pretty much immediately when Spain realized who he was and that Putin was just bullshitting. Yeah, Putin doesn't play with his money, so sanctions released pretty much immediately when Spain realized who he was and that Putin was just bullshitting. Yeah, Putin doesn't play with his money, because those sanctions are pretty much as his money is lifeline, right? The crazy things he much do with $300 billion, man, I can't imagine. All the hits seriously, all the money he's using to get people killed, I mean, it really does funnel down, I'd imagine like that.

Yeah, and on top of the sanctions, too, I think it also, Bill Brader also represents an instance of a person standing up to him getting support and change actually happening that affects him. So just on principle, letting someone resist him. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. His number one issue.

Yeah. He hates. He hates. We also learned Ruth Bader Ginsburg underwent surgery to remove cancer from her lung Friday. This is the third time that the Supreme Court justice has been treated for cancer since 1999. She had colon cancer, pancreatic cancer, and now lung cancer since 1999. It's amazing. They might not have found these malignant growths that she not broken those three ribs.

Oh, yeah, that's a great point. This woman is a badass, you know. Superwoman. Fuck, yeah. The movie about her life opens Christmas day. We should go see that. Really? I do a mini-sode or something.

I almost forgot that was coming out. Yeah, Christmas day. So now let's go see it. Yeah, yeah. Word won't be Christmas day, but. Right, we'll be. When we get back, yeah. Indeed.

Also Friday, we learned that the judge in the Maria Bhutan case, I'm an, you know what? I'm calling her Bhutina, I don't care. I recall saying Bhutina. If it's on booty for some reason. I realize that it's the feminine part of a name like Putin. Putin, you'll be the female.

Oh. But maybe we'll just call him Bhutin. Yeah, that makes it fair, I think. French fries with gravy. Bhutina. Is that what Bhutin is? I've heard other definitions. be able to just call him Poutine. Yeah, that makes it fair, I think. Yeah. Fred Fries with Gravy. Poutine. Is that what Poutine is? I've heard other definitions. She skirts.

Yeah. Not that kind of Poutine. I'm not that bad. I'm not boofing. Calm down. There you go. Yeah. Anyhow, the judge in her case is lifting the gag order at her request.

Wow. The judge reminded the parties in a minute order that they self to follow rules of the court. But Poutine is lawyer said that since she's pleading guilty and there's no trial and no jury, then it shouldn't matter. She shouldn't need a gag order that they self to follow rules of the court. But, uh, Bhutina's lawyer said that since she's pleading guilty and there's no trial and no jury, then it shouldn't matter. She shouldn't need a gag order, right? Because she can't influence any juries. So, hey, come on. Uh, but the government was like, uh, yeah, but wait a minute. There are some real imminent other charges for other people coming out in this case, imminent, imminent, they use the word,

charges connected to Bhutina, and then there's also all the people that that person could implicate and all of those jury trials. It's basically the government's coming out saying, we're back to indict Paul Erickson, and he's gonna hand us probably like six other dudes in the government, so could you not? Yeah, right, and what does she need to say? Or a leak? I don't know, she just wants to talk about her case. Yeah, oh, it wants to be heard. Yeah, a little bit there. But you remember her lawyer was going on TV

and doing all these interviews and they're like, shut the fuck up. Yeah, yeah. We've got other cases. They put him in time-outs and outs over. Yeah, but the judge is like, no, we're gonna lift the gag order anyway. So even though the government protested,

I think this is like the one of the first filings that the government's lost in the Russia collusion case. This isn't a Mueller filing. Right. Because Mueller isn't handling this case. He's undefeated. Mueller's undefeated. Yeah.

Mueller remains undefeated. Ha-ha. Ha-ha. Finally, the big news Friday was the government shutdown. Woo-hoo, which was pretty much orchestrated by Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, because here's what happened, right? Trump seemed to be wavering on the wall, and then Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh came out on whatever platforms people listened to them on, and they were like, you pussy.

I can't believe you're giving in. We need border security, and Trump heard that and said yet book yet wall or wall or government shutdown he was back on it it was just absolutely ridiculous that that that it's like and culture running the country right now uh... but at triple amputee veteran has started to go fund me further wall uh... which has raised nearly five million dollars anyway trump tried to say that uh that this is a Democrat shutdown.

Even after he owned it on TV multiple times, that infamous meeting with Pelosi and Schumer with Wikind at Bernie Pence in the background, Trump also tried to modify his language, calling the wall a steel slat barrier. A steel slat barrier is a fucking fence and we already have one. I told them we already got one. So yeah, anyway, like I was saying at the beginning of the show, 380,000 employees will be on furlough. Another 420,000 will work, but not get paid, like TSA agents.

Your TSA agents, protecting your safety during traveling in this holiday season, are not getting paid. That's not good for anybody. No. But it's important to keep in mind that at least 40% of these government workers are veterans. Who live paycheck to paycheck? They will have no Christmas money now. They don't always get paid back like I was saying and money sometimes they get comp time

instead. So again, I do not understand how any veteran can support this administration and his jag-off policies. I really can't. Anyway, guys, we'll be right back. Just kidding, it's an ad-free episode. We're not going anywhere. So maybe we'll do a little girl from Epinima, you know,

just to kind of make it the feeling, you know, happy, you know, everyone. I'm gonna keep on, baby, baby. Now you can't play the song while we sing it, or it's just weird. Oh, it'll be fine, a little humming in the background. It's not bad. It's a lighter note than our last discussion too,

so I dig that transition. Okay. All right, welcome back. Lookin' awesome. Hot notes. See me the same day. All right, today Jordan has coverage of the amazing Giuliani interview from Sunday,

but first in her racial maddo segment. Giuliza has a report on social media targeting by Russia in the 2016 election. Jalisa. So on Monday, the New York Times published an article called Russian 2016 Influence Operation Targeted African Americans on social media. And according to report from the Senate Intelligence Committee, when the Russian government tried to influence our election in 2016, they made quote an extraordinary effort to target African Americans. And they did this through several different platforms, but the overall goal was to try

to suppress voter turnout among black Democratic voters. And according to this report, the most prolific internet research agency efforts on Facebook and Instagram specifically targeted black American communities and appeared to have been focused on developing black audiences and recruiting black Americans as assets. So they would attempt to do this by creating Gmail accounts with American sounding names. I don't know if they mean black names. And then they would recruit and sometimes pay a wrong. Exactly.

Jamal 1992, a Gmail, I don't know. Then they would recruit and sometimes pay people to spread their propaganda with an emphasis on African Americans. The report also says that while, quote, other distinct ethnic and religious groups were the focus of one or two Facebook pages or Instagram accounts, the black community was targeted extensively with dozens. And apparently, in some cases, Facebook ads would target users who showed an interest in black history, the black Panther Party, or Malcolm X. And the most popular Russian Instagram account targeting black people was

called Black Stagram and had over 300,000 followers. This is like some digital blackface or something, right? This is weird. Digital blackface. Yeah, this is so crazy. I feel attacked. So the IRA also created dozens of websites, disguised as sites created by other black people and they had URL names like blackmattersus.com Blackdivis.info or my personal favorite blacksoul.us They got soul and some of them didn't even make any sense. There was one called blacktolive.org What is black to live? That's like die hard. It makes no sense. It means I'm, we're all dead. Yeah, it's white genocide. It's what that means. But somehow that one actually became their most popular YouTube channel. So yeah, they really resonated

with the black community. So even though the report provides all this info on how the Russian targeted African Americans, it fails to explain why they did. My conjecture is that they were afraid maybe of how Democratic voters helped to like Barack Obama. Like that probably was a really big fear of theirs. From that race that's villain perspective, of course. Fear of the black vote.org. Yeah, that would've been a better one. Hey, H.E. She worked.

Yeah, she did a better job. She did a better job. She did a good work for the Russians, though. Hey, you're that guy. Let's glue it. Maybe not the best idea. Start selling rocks. We good. Yeah, so some rocks So the New York rocks that come black rocks That's amazing. I like it. I like whole backs

So the strategy then as New York Times mentioned seems to be how mimicking the Soviet prop again I'm sorry you get it out ages. Black rocks got me too. That one. It's pretty good. All right we're better now. Yes, yes. Now we're journalists. Now we're journaling. So the New York Times even mentioned how the IRA's tactics seemed to mimic Soviet propaganda from decades ago. The strategy then, as it seems now, was to highlight racism and racial conflict in the U.S. in the hopes of stirring up ethnic turmoil.

So even one of the authors of a new knowledge report on the matter, René de Resta, said the IRA, quote, leveraged pre-existing legitimate grievances wherever they could. And you guys might remember that as the 2016 election was gearing up, the Black Lives Matter movement was at the center of national attention in the US, and naturally the Russian government appears to have taken advantage of that. In fact, they ended up being behind the initial Blue Lives

Matter social media posts. So yeah, they were on it. Yeah, yeah. Blue Lives Matter was Russia. Yeah, yeah. And then, of course, people liked it, though, and certain ones took it on, but yeah, they were on it. Way to go, America lives matter was Russia. Yeah, yeah, and then of course people liked it though and certain ones took it on But yeah, they were on it way to go America. Yeah, yeah, good. We fell for it

Yeah, well I didn't but you know It's funny because I remember seeing these posts and it didn't resonate with me But I had no idea that this could be from a different country. They really tapped into like the blue lives matter things Huge yeah, and it makes sense on a domestic planet. These people, they do believe these things. Americans do, some of them do believe that. Yeah, they basically did their creative work for them. Exactly. Russia did the homework and then Americans did it.

You're unable to have, you're unable to be creative. Let us do that for you. And then you can just follow these things blindly. Yeah. Yeah, and it worked. So essentially, the IRA didn't create the racial tensions in America, but they did exploit them. And according to the report of the 81 Facebook pages created by the IRA, 30 of them targeted

African-American audiences and had over 1.2 million followers. And coincidentally, in 2016, the Black voter turnout declined for the first time in 20 years. So in response to all of this, the NAACP said they would not use Facebook or Instagram for a week and urge their followers to do the same. I don't know if a week will cut it though. I'm pretty pissed off right now. I want to delete my Facebook as we speak.

Yeah, but it's everything. It's all social media. Yeah, you're right, Instagram too. And I do as a comedian, like I use this so much and it's, I'm torn though because they're clearly exploiting us. They're exploiting racism and they And I do, as a comedian, I use this so much, and it's, I'm torn though, because they're clearly exploiting us. They're exploiting racism, and they're exploiting us as victims of it.

And it's like, But I think your awareness of it is, It's the first step. You're right. And I get like, seriously, Yeah, to use the platform for better, because I don't want to get off the grid. I don't think that's helpful.

I just want to. And when you see those kind of posts, you can maybe say, Hey, maybe everyone consider where this comes from. Good, you know very good point. You can counter it When you see it. Yeah, yeah, stop scrolling. That should be a campaign stop scrolling. Yeah, stop scrolling on Facebook And then you'll say something all of the yeah, you'll miss all of the disinformation campaigns Just use it for what you need it for and that's it. Yeah. Stop scrolling. Hashtag.

You're missing out. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you. Jordan, what do you got? Yeah. So Julianne picked up on his loop the truth toward this week with a visit to Mr. Stefan Opelus on ABC News last Sunday. So a lot of looping happened this go around. Okay. First, when confronted with the fact that Cohen was provided very valuable

information to the special counsel's office Or I should say it has provided. Sorry. It has provided very important information Regarding all things rush out Giuliani first played dumb, which is a role Giuliani likes to go real method on a lot of time He said, I don't know what you're talking about. I have no idea what you're talking about Twitch Stefanoppalus was like, all right, well then how about some specific questions. And Giuliani just responds with, I have no idea. I know that collusion is not a crime. It was over by the time of the election.

It's like, why so skittish, Giuliani? Yeah. And what does it mean when you say it was over by the time of the election? What are you talking about exactly? Stephanopolis hadn't even asked him any questions at that point. He just said it. He just went into the grocery store and started screaming, no collusion. Yeah.

So, Stephenopoulos then was able to fit into a specific question finally when he asked if Stone had tipped off the president about the impending WikiLeaks that were sure to be damaging to Hillary and the DNC. Giuliani said, no, he didn't. Well, I don't think so. But even if he did, that would not be a crime. That's not like the framework that they answer all their questions and they say, well, no, we did not commit that crime. But even if we did, it's not a crime.

It goes further, too. It's Hillary's found at the end. Right. Yeah, you're right. They're missing the tag. Yeah, the Hillary tag. Yeah. Yeah, I love that they're like, they get to be the, they're trying to say it's not a crime.

I just wanna hear a judge respond to them and just be like, I'll be the judge of that. That's a judge. That's a judge. Nice. Judge. See these robes? I'll be the judge of that.

And other things. See this wig, no one told me to wear it anymore, but I'm gonna. It's important to note that Trump and his written answers to Mueller said that he did not learn anything about such hacks from Stone. So the fact that Trump might be suggesting or that Giuliani was suggesting that there's a possibility that he maybe did know. I think that could be foreshadowing some perjury charges. Some put in some beans on that.

Giuliani then went on to some finger pointing because you can't lose the truth without fingers and said, well, Michael Cohen has changed his story four or five times. And Stefan Apples was like, well, so is the president. And then Giuliani was like, well, the president isn't under oath. Which he's technically not wrong about. Which is the frustrating part that he's lying. Yeah. He's not under oath.

He doesn't have to tell the truth to you. Yeah, it doesn't that sound bad. I do wish though that when presidents were sworn in by the like the swear or whatever that person's called, the swear or the swear or the do it. Yeah, they could just slip in like a, by the way, from now on, you are constantly under the oath. Because, you know, the Bible's already there.

Yeah. Yeah, just do it. Just kill some more birds of that Jesus stone. Well, I get your hand on the Bible Bible. Just do it. I got some Roger stones. Yeah. You can kill some birds.

That's great. That's never going to be not fine. You know what I bet? Somebody's going to send us a Roger Stone now. We got some beans in the mail. But I can end up with some Roger Stones. Hey, I'll take it. Yeah.

Good luck on the shipping cost. Oh, man. Julie, he also tried to defend the president's potential lying by saying, the president is trying to do the best he can to remember what happened during a time in which he was the busiest man in the world. Because trees really fills up a schedule. Oh yeah, it's exhausting. Yeah, it keeps real busy. Also in this interview, when Giuliani was confronted with a revelation that Trump had been

pursuing a Trump tarot Moscow deal well into his campaign and effectively said that Trump did not establish intent to complete the project. CNN, they actually found a letter from October 2015 that demonstrates that intent exactly. It is literally a letter of intent to develop a real estate project in Moscow during his presidential campaign. It couldn't get any more blatant than that. He was totally on his own.

Oh, yes. Well, they're gonna spell it out with crayons. I suppose there's that. Yeah, he had to back and walk back a comment. He had to walk it back from his earlier interview and concede that the letter did in fact exist quite literally. He said, if I said there was no letter of intent, I made a mistake. God, freaking idiots. Did you lie though, or did you really think there wasn't one? Or did you think that no one would find it? Oh well, he says, even though he did sign it, there's nothing wrong with signing that.

He wasn't president yet. So there we go. Also, Hillary Clinton. Oh wow, always. There's the tag. Always. Yeah, even if he did do it, it wasn't illegal. Hillary Clinton.

Uh, Giuliani then had another moment in an interview. This is outside the Stefano Bliss interview. I just wanted to include this in his looped the true tour segment because it's hilarious to me. Uh, I think it deserves honorable mention. He was talking to Chris Wallace and Chris was asking him if Trump would be interviewed by Mueller and Giuliani said, over my dead body, but you know, I could be dead. Really? And do you know what that made me think of? That made me think of when Giuliani

and Trump hired that guy to be in the GSA, Beckler, who ended up dying and then couldn't protect the GSA emails. I feel like he's like over my dead body. Oh wait, that one guy did die. Yeah, that should happen. That's like what I immediately thought of. Yeah, maybe that's what that tag was. Yeah, but it might be dead. He's like, oh, fuck.

I guess it wouldn't hold then. I would. Yeah, isn't that so. There we go. I was wondering where Giuliani was. Yeah, it's nuts. So there we go. I was wondering where Giuliani was. He was gone for a few weeks. He was quiet. Yeah.

He came back just amazing to me that Trump keeps him on his team. Came roaring back. Yeah. It was fantastic. Thank you for covering that interview. Interviews. Yeah, interviews. Loose the truth to her.

We call it that because basically what Giuliani does is every once in a while he'll poke his head out of the cave and he'll say something that is a walk back of something the president did. For example, Trump did know about those payments and then go back into his cave. Like, he'll just come out, pop up, say something. It's true. And then go back in so that when the indictment happens or when the charge happens, his base is ready for it. So that's what we call it, looping the truth. You brought in finger-blasting the truth.

That was new to me. Those are special breaking news. The gloss right over that. Dang. I know he just went, I'm like, I really want to laugh really hard, but I don't know if I want to draw attention to that. I think of a chuchu train like, the chuchu train.

That ever crossed your mind. Oh no. All right guys, I'm going to talk about Flynn. I'm actually kind of tired of him already. He was gone for a year, now he's back and I'm sick of him. We all thought it would be normal. It would just be a regular old court hearing. He'd be sentenced, right? He'd come in. I figured he would a regular old court hearing. He'd be sentenced, right?

He'd come in. I figured he would just be sentenced and we'd be done with it, right? But that's not what happened at all. First, I should lead into this by telling you a little bit a little bit about the back and forth sentencing memos from last week, right? We went over this in the last episode,

but Mueller filed his sentencing memo saying, you know, stellar cooperation, outstanding, you know, I recommend low end of the guidelines or including no jail time perhaps a term of no incarceration. Thank you. And then Flynn filed and he's like, yeah, I'm awesome. I'm bad ass. Here's all my letters. Here's all my military service.

Here's all the people I water-borted. I'm awesome. Also, the FBI made me lie. So there. And then I was like, oh damn, the night before Mueller's response was due, I had this feeling like Mueller's gonna be pissed. Yeah. I'm pissed.

This isn't something that should go unaddressed. Very ungrateful. Yeah. Right? Like, it's over. Just stand there and you're uniform with all your medals and shut the fuck up. But he didn't. He was like, oh, on the FBI, they were, we were jocular and he made me lie. And they named McCabe and Struck because they know that those are punching bags. Yeah, totally.

For the right, you know, for the Trump supporters. So I was like, Mueller's gonna be pissed. And he was. Mueller filed this seven page scathing fuck you. He called it a pimp slap. It was a court pimp slap. He was like, dude, what fuck you? And now I still recommend a sentence

on the lower end of the guideline. He took out the verbiage for including a term of no incarceration. He took that verbiage out. Even though that verbiage was not in the conclusion of the first document, it was in the body of it, but it appeared nowhere in the second document, that language.

So then I was like, the sentenceencing's going to be interesting, particularly with the 302 release, because the judge was like, let's see this FBI interview that you're claiming that they doped you. And that came out and it would just look real bad for Flynn. And then we got the unceiling of a December 12 in Diamond of Bijan-Keyan and Al-Tekin, right? Flynn is implicated in that of B. John Keon and Al-Tekin, right? Flynn is implicated in that. Yeah. So I'm like, oh shit. So we're like, he's gonna get some jail time

is what I figured. That's key shame, right? That's what I thought. But I was correct when I said that the judge would also be pissed off. Let me, let's listen to that. Now we don't have to listen to the clip from last week. Just listen to that last week's episode. I basically was...

You laid it out. Yeah. He's gonna be pissed. He's probably gonna give him some jail time. And that's kind of what happened, except for the actual sentencing part. It sounded like it was going that way. Because it was funny because people were in the courtroom, like you can't have recorders in there or cameras. So people are like shouting out what's happening or like tweeting and texting it out to their buddies who's reading it on the air as it happened. Yeah.

They're like judges pissed off. Uh oh, looks like he's gonna get some time, you know? So basically it started off with the judge saying, hey, ladies and gentlemen, I only have unredacted knowledge of this case. So, you know, all those Flynn sentencing filings and sentencing memas we saw that were heavily redacted and all the addendums that were fully redacted. He's only seen the unredacted shit.

So he's like, if I say anything, I'm not supposed to. Don't be shy. Stand up and say, hey, shush. Don't say that. Right. Which is weird, but he's like, just, sounds like a poor system. Yeah, he doesn't want the responsibility

of having to know what's why. He doesn't want to look at the redacted document and the unredacted document and figure out what he can, can't talk about. He's a judge, he can do that again. Yeah, he can, it's his fucking court, right? He's like, I'll be the judge of that. I'm sure he would say.

So he's like, I only have unredacted knowledge. Please make sure to call me out if I say anything I'm not supposed to. He then spent a great deal of time making sure that Flynn didn't want to withdraw his plea and plead not guilty based on his assertion in his sentencing memo that the FBI had somehow tricked him. He's like, are you pleading guilty? Yes. Because you're guilty? Yes. Do you think you pleading guilty? Yes. Because you're guilty? Yes.

Do you think you aren't guilty? No. Are you sure? Yes. We have to be clear on this. Yes. Did the FBI trick you? No. Did you lie to the FBI? Yes. Do you take responsibility? Yes. Are you sure? You don't want to withdraw your plea like a bitch. And I'm sorry. I shouldn't say no. I'm bitching the neutral. So I'm like have a sad way of saying like, episode two, like a bitch. And you know, withdraw your plea because you said this whole thing. Yeah. And his lawyers like, no, no, no, no, no, it's cool.

That was us, your honor. That wasn't Flynn. Oh, that was us. I was wondering about that. Yeah, if it was Flynn or his lawyers and they were taking the fall for that I get. The lawyers, yeah, his lawyers took the fall for it. Then he talked about Flynn being an unregistered foreign agent. He's yelling at Flynn. So you betrayed your country. You betrayed this flag. He pointed at the flag behind him. He's like,

you sold out your country because he said that in he asked the judge actually said, you were an unregistered foreign agent while you were serving as a national security advisor. And then he asked multiple times about treason. If Flynn had been even if they thought about charging Flynn with treason, and then the Mueller team saw, um, I don't want to misspeak here, but, um, no, like it was a really weird exchange. As if they had another answer in mind and they were being very careful. I don't know, but basically what happened then

is that a recess was, the judge was mad. He's like, do you want me to send a shoot a day? You really want me to send a shoot a day? He asked him six times. Wow. Are you sure you want me to send a shoot a day? To him. And he's like, yeah, it's fine. Let's go.

And then finally, he got the hint. He's like, oh, no, maybe we shouldn't wait. Yeah. So the judge takes a recess. Then they come back. And the judge is like, excuse me. I misspoke. He had a snaker about Flynn being an agent while he was serving as National Security Advisor.

He clearly stopped doing that in November 2016. And he clarified that he was asking whether or not treason had been considered. He wasn't inferring Flynn should be charged with treason. And then he asked over and over again if Flynn was sure he wanted to be sentenced that day again. And finally, you know, took the hints. Maybe we'll take that continuance. Yeah, no shit. So sentencing was delayed with an update from both sides, due March 13th. The judge indicated basically he was giving Flynn more time to cooperate as much as you possibly can, show me why I should give you no time.

Basically he would face jail time, despite Mueller recommending, like I said, to low under the guideline. Now, that's what happened, but I have some conjecture. So, remember at the beginning of the proceeding when the judge is like, Hey, dude, I only have unredacted shit, so please let me know if I talk out of turn, right? Well, I think when he accused Flynn of lobbying on behalf of Turkey while he was national security advisor, was not a mistake. I think that that's actually true, and it's part of the redactions. We know that after the inauguration,

the FBI received a box full of stuff on Gulen and were asked to go through it to find in proprieties but the FBI had already done this under Obama with the exact same box of shit. So they're like no. So maybe it was an error or maybe the judge knows something we don't know. Which could also explain his questions about why Flynn wasn't charged with treason. Yeah as if he's like, can we hurry this up to the good stuff? And I don't know you're gonna tell me that we have to, you know, be at war in order for it to be treason, but that's not actually what the Constitution says. It's as quote, treason against the United States shall consist in levying war against them or in adhering to their enemies giving them aid and comfort. No

person shall be convicted of treason unless the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act or on confession and open court." Now, I'm no constitutional scholar, but I know what the word or means. Or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. Well, there you go. And in this context, adhering means believing and following the practices of. So by that definition, anyone who believes in and follows the practices of an enemy of that's what it sounds like to me. Of course, I am, again, not a constitutional scholar, not a constitutional lawyer. I am a comedian. I'm good at public health.

It could be considered an impossible case to prove, though, a treason. Since Mueller is really focused on justice and bringing cases he can win, he perhaps he's a lawyer. I'm not a constitutional scholar. I'm not a constitutional lawyer. I am a comedian. I'm good at public health. It could be considered an impossible case to prove though, treason.

Since Mueller is really focused on justice and bringing cases he can win, he perhaps he's just sticking to the obvious shit. Oh, that makes sense, yeah. But it's important to remember that Judge Sullivan has seen a lot of shit we haven't seen and that he would ask about treason as really telling. Yeah.

I'm kind of hoping that it's the him knowing more and letting it slip out. Yeah, because the lawyers are going to go, hey buddy, that's redacted. You're not supposed to say that. They're not going to say that in open court. They're going to say, let's take a break. Yeah. And then they're going to go talk to him and be like, oh.

And then he comes out and he's like, oh, I misspoke. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'm like, oh, did you? When will we find that out? Again, is it one of those open-ended things that we don't know? Once the case is done, most of, the documents are probably redacted. Oh, Marge is just an update. Let's do.

Oh, yeah. This next time we'll get more information, I guess. Wow. And so right now Flynn's just sitting around like, how can I help? What can I do? Yeah. How can I put off going to jail for as long as I can, too? Yeah. Yeah.

For starters, you cannot accuse the FBI of suborning your own criminality. Oh, God, I can't believe you did that. The suborning work in that sentence. It sounds like a sin. I know suborning perjury we know works, but I just love that word now that I learned a new one. Yeah, yeah. You're just gonna plot wherever you can.

I'm just gonna use it. Yeah, suborning pizza. Can we suborne pizza? Oh, I would like to suborne pizza. It's pointing weaver. It's so hard.ordinate subordinate weaver subordinate weaver That's so funny to me. I have no idea

Comedy is weird to me. It is Oh, it's weird. The White House response to Flynn was interesting The Washington Post published a story saying quote the White House has lost its narrative on Michael Flynn, so it made up some stuff about James Comey instead. Unquote. That's the headline in the Washington Post. Wow. The White House was hoping that the judge

would yell at Mueller's team for the FBI being shady, but the opposite happened. So Sarah Sanders didn't really have a response prepared for that. So instead, she changed the subject to Comey and butchered what komi said uh... quote what we do know is if that komi broke fb i standard protocol and we know that because komi told us that

and he said that the very reason they did was because the trump administration and they thought they could get away with it unquote what i don't i can't follow nonsense ham uh... makes no sense whatsoever. I should mention again, though, that I think that that, you know, his sentencing when he was in there and the judge is like, are you sure you want to be sentenced today?

Are you sure? I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that that 302 came out and that that B. John Keon indictment came out. Yeah. I don't think it helped flint at all. Right. I think it showed the helped Flynn at all. Right. I think it showed the judge like, dude, you're fucked up.

Absolutely, real case here. Oh, and another thing, the judge actually, after the whole case was like the dust settled and everyone's like, okay, we have to march. The judge's like, oh, by the way, you need to hand over your passport and you can't go outside of 50 miles of Washington, DC. He put travel restrictions on Flynn.

Good. Yeah, very good. Yeah, I was like, oh, snap. Yeah. Can't hold his trip to Turkey. Yeah, but just the fact that he's saying the unredacted shit and he's asking about treason and he sees that implication in the Bijon Kion, outtaken indictments. And he's like, you're a piece of shit.

Yeah, he knows everything. And so I don't know that that was a mistake. I mean, that's total beans. That's super space beans. Right, interesting beans though, yeah. I'm not sure it was a mistake. He's not all as he turkey at Christmas. That's how bad it is.

Yeah, did he walk back? Does comments or did he actually reveal redacted shit? I don't know. I don't know. But we'll be right back. Just kidding. It's an ad for you all the time! Dude, it gets me every time! Are you guys ready for the fantasy indictment league? Yes!

Alright, everyone, give yourself one point. If you had Bijan Kian, congratulations for naming him. If you had a rando, he counts for a rando. It's a one point. Even though we named him specifically back in March, I'll let a rando go. He's not that a lot of people know who Bijan Kian is. If you had two randos, you get two points because two dudes were indicted. Alp Teacon is another one.

We never named that dude, so he's a total rando. I did not have any randos, so I got nothing. I took my office week man. I got nothing in like it so this week I'm gonna go with Ivanka, Stone, Junior, Assange, and a rando and my wild card pick for the secret subpoena battle is now VTB. Ooh. What about you guys? Okay we get a wild card or is it is just you can we? everyone gets a guess on the oh That's just like a separate guess. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Um, I'm gonna go with Ross now for that one and then I'm gonna do a vodka kush junior I'm gonna do two randos. I'm feeling frisky guys. Yeah

frisky actually You know Friskate. Actually, you know, no, no, no, no, with that imminent thing in the boutina gag order thing, I'm actually gonna take, I'm gonna take Ivanka out and put, no, I'm gonna take my rando out and I'm gonna put Erickson. Okay. Oh yeah, that's right. Plei agreement. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, Paul Erickson, Okay. Oh yeah, that's right. Pleiagreement.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Paul Erickson, Pleiagreement. Follow his girlfriend. Now we're playing. Now we're playing. And you said, Ross Neft?

I did, yes. Okay. That's the big oil giant that was sold off in pieces that people say Trump might have gotten. Mm-hmm, suspect, yeah. 19.5% of which went through QIA. But you're going to say Ross Nath, and not Glencour. Well, what's the difference with Glencour there? Is that more direct line or just another way to say it?

Or process the payment? Oh, OK. Yeah, Ross Nath, I'm worth my worth. I'm just going to ask. I'm just going to ask. Ross Nath is confirmed, stay owned. Yes. Cool.

OK. I'm going to do. Course Depli Agreement. I'm holding out for it. Or I should say, Pli Agreement. Well, I know that he challenged it and it's going to be a long time until he find out what happened with that. I'll hold it off till more news comes out for that.

Let's do some of my Wiley talks to him. Yeah. Talks him off the ledge. Yeah. Like she did in number. She gave us a shout out. Back out. She was like Sam's fine. I was like great. Can you talk to her?

See off the ledge now. I love her. Yeah, she's awesome. Yeah, he needs to go on a media tour and get us some fucking good advice in his head. Get drunk. Do some coke. Go on all the shows. Rocks from merch. Get some clarity. Yeah, yeah. Some clarity.

Some drunken bottom. Which is clarity. Rock bottom. Thanks. bottom, which is clarity. Yeah, drop bottom. Thank you. Oh, man, rock bottom. A new line of stones. Yeah. Can we do fake commercials sometimes? But that'd be great.

You hit rock bottom by a Roger Stone. OK, I'm doing stone, a sange, Erickson, Pleadiel. That makes sense. I don't see why Bhutinez, I should Bhutinez. We do a Pleadion, he would not also see that. That's probably a good idea. And I'm going to do Ivanka and DTJ. Nice. Yeah. Cool. You guys ready for sabotage? Oh, yeah.

The president apparently has been yelling at Whitaker over the Cohen case, saying that prosecutors under Whitaker's oversight filed charges that made him look bad. We're talking about the implications of Trump being a fucking felon in the hush money catching kill campaign finance charges, basically. He's yelling at Whitaker. He's having discussions at all with the AG is incredible obstruction. It's like what? In plain sight, yeah.

Like do you remember when Loretta Lynch and Clinton had a chat? Yeah, everybody lost their mind because the Hillary investigation and Clinton was talking to Loretta Lynch, who was the attorney general. Okay, okay. And so, yeah, all the Republicans are like, the, you know, crying foul, like, hair on fire, fuck, you can't do that.

Oh, even though it was Bill, I'm not Hillary, but whatever. Yeah. And now, the president of the United States is talking to the AG overseeing the case who is investigating him and he's yelling at him. And his face is like, oh yeah, all good. That's totally fine.

I'm saying, I can't believe you did this. You're my AG, I can't believe you let them run these indictments. And they made me look bad. Yeah. What? Amazing how quickly he went from not even knowing the guy to holding him accountable for acting in wins. He predicted he would.

I don't know. He's a good guy. I don't know. He's a good guy. There's apparently a second discussion Trump had with Whitaker, pissed off about Muller and Diting Cohen for lying about the Trump Tower Moscow, right? So Trump has pissed that Whitaker's allowing these charges to move forward, that we've heard that Whitaker

really hasn't had anything to do with that. And he was really just notified by Snoop Dagon Mueller that they were going forward with the Cohen charges. He was just kind of like a courtesy. Like we're doing this. He hasn't even been briefed on the Mueller investigation. Yet, except for now, like we were talking about in the interview, now he's got, he's cleared

himself through the ethics department and said, no, you know, the ethics people at the DOJ were like, you should recuse yourself. And he's like, I don't like what you're saying. So I need a second opinion. And then he put together a group of his own people who said, yeah, I guess you don't have to. And then he came out and said, I've been cleared by the ethics advisor. Of course. Yeah. Uh, which is just insane, uh, to me. So he, but he hadn't been briefed

up to that point. He was waiting for that. Now he'll probably get a brief on the Mueller probe. Uh, and I'm sure he'll tell Trump all about it. Um, I think Cohen could be charged again, though. Don't forget something was filed on him this week in the vault But in the vault in New York. I didn't realize there was a vault what vault Though I don't think I'll face any charges like yet like soon like maybe it'll take a while so I don't think this will affect my picks my Christmas picks same. Yeah, same you stick with yours. Yeah, all right cool All right you guys it's time for Q&A. Melta. Melta. Melta. Melta.

The male's here. Come on. Alright guys, at J.C.SC asked, what are the chances Trump refuses to leave after impeachment? Assuming he's impeached and leave after impeachment, assuming he's impeached and you don't have to leave until you're convicted by the Senate. So I'm assuming you're including a Senate conviction. So like if he's impeached and the Senate votes 67 votes to remove him, we would need the Romney 20 at that point, the White Horse Prophecy would have to come true. Yeah, and carry him out. Yeah. Google that. And so I don't see that that happening yet. But I, but again, I don't see how the unredacted shit, right? Yeah.

And if it did happen, what do you think? No, he has to leave. There's, I don't think he would barricade himself in. Well, what if he was facing? It becomes a tree hugger. Yeah. I mean, this is uncharted territory, guys. It sounds a little fairy-tellage

But it's like actually Possibly a reality that he could face charges the moment he steps out the White House, right? That's why I think he would resign. It's smarter for him to resign Because he can get a pardon. Smarter isn't really his thing Well, you're they're not asking me if he would leave if he would resign They're asking me if he's impeached and then convicted, would he bar, like, chain himself to the death? Yeah, or if he's the right.

And I'm thinking like a squatter on the American pub, like, I feel like he's that way already. Squatter. Yeah, yeah, what would he do? I mean, would he just walk out, you think? He'd have to. He'd be escorted out. Secret service would remove him physically.

Yeah, what would be in Trump's pack up box? I'd love to see that. What's his jam pack? He's like, would remove him physically. Yeah, what would what would be in Trump's pack-up box? I'd love to see that. You never know when you might have to jam. Yeah, I brought some literal jam. He's got a plan though. He's got to be thinking I'm not going to jail for this 70 two years old. Like he, I think he worst case scenario or crazy is case scenario is he would flee and just have that flight ready as soon as he gets off The white house lawn That's some epic action movie. Yeah, but yeah, you're right. He wouldn't bear cakes

That's that's super stupid But yeah, I think he would at least try to evade his gel time. I think he would flee he could flee to Russia Yeah, easily if they have him they might be pissed. Yeah, I think I think But easily, if they have them, they might be pissed. Yeah. I think by the time impeachment would even come close to being conceivable in the Senate, it's already going to be reelection by that point, and he's just not going to get reelected.

Yeah, I don't know. I think, yeah, the question isn't really about whether I think you'll be impeached or not. Yeah. I think it's something that people should consider. In a fantasy land then, if it happened tomorrow, you're saying, what would happen? Yeah you would he stay what do you leave and a year from now I mean that reality will be that much closer so I wonder yeah at apostate

eleven twenty three wants to know if we did a secret standard with the following people what would you give them Roger Stone rocks yeah I was going say, I ain't no no. Exactly, but I guess. Papa Dopolis? He gets biscuits because there's a Papa Dopolis biscuits company out there. Oh, yeah, someone's really nice of you. Oh, is it? Okay, then he doesn't get biscuits. Humanity. Ooh.

Okay. A hairline. No, he's okay in that area. I think I'm confusing him with a Miller. He's not okay in that. You're, you are confused with the Miller. It could be worse, yeah. okay in that area. I think I'm confusing him with a Miller. He's not okay in that. You know, you're, you are confused. It could be worse. Yeah. It could be worse.

Um, pop it up. Let's also a some mac in the face. Oh, yeah. With the, I moved to the head. Yeah. I want to just crack a cracker over his head kind of.

They're biscuit crackers. That's not racist. Oh, I didn't even pick up what you were putting down there. I was like, what are you even talking about? What would I get him? Probably some clear so. Manafort. Oh, another fake ostrich jacket and knock off. Yeah, yeah. Nice for prison. Like, maybe a black and white stripes where the black stripes are ostrich. Yeah, or homemade Nice for prison. Like, maybe a black and white stripes with a black stripes or ostrich? Yeah, or a homemade like an actual, oh, I guess that is the point. But like, let's elegant, like just like skin and ostrich. No, that's awful. That's a mean thing to do to the ostrich.

But be really funny for me. Oh, ostrich. Yeah. There we go. Yeah. An ostrich suit. I'd say a bottle of wine just double down on the gout. He'd be smart. I'm thinking any beverages, which is a plenty of tea. Get that gout, get it. Don Jr. Oh, a dad. I was going to say something family-related, poor chap. My buddy. I get him my buddy. Yeah. My buddy and me.

Oh, one of those little Trump bears. Trumpi bear. Oh, a Trumpi bear. Don't get my- It's a better father figure. Ivanka. A clue. Good taste.

Yeah. Yeah. I wanted to give- Go ahead. Something about like giving her the responsibility that she keeps trying to avoid, but I would I give go ahead. Oh something about like giving her the responsibility that she keeps trying to avoid but I couldn't figure it out yours is probably better. No, well I was thinking like like a a saw because Kushner is Pinocchio to me and I think she needs to saw his nose. That's a stretch. That is

still better than my landing. I can only think about Kushner being Pinocchio I thought you were gonna say like give him a saw like a file in a cake. Oh Kushner, what would you get Kushner? Oh man Peebordy Let me nice blush. Yeah, his balls to drop. It's getting really abstract Handity what would you give her handity? Oh my goodness. I hate that guy. It's hard to even play along with him. Give him an alias so he can continue to tweet. There you go.

Yeah. Yeah. I give him a bucket to wear as a hat because his face is in the shape of a square. Oh. Buckethead. Yeah. A time machine to undo all of his completion.

What would you get Matthew fucking Whitaker? I think I get him a masculine toilet. A name tag. Hello. My name is Matthew fucking Whitaker. Earmuffs. Oh, you're no evil. See, no, you just because it looks great on us. Dildo head, right? Yeah. If you want to keep this position, you're probably going to need to start not hearing things. Uh-huh. Uh, Eric Robson wants to know where Steven Miller will land after all this. Uh, I think he's going to take S.I. Spirlings job. I'm S.I. Spirling, President of Hair Club from N. And remember, I'm not only the Hair Club President, but I'm also a client. At Michael Poim, I asked if Flynn is lying because he was following orders like Ollie North

and his allegiance to Reagan. I probably, um, whose orders would that be then? Right. Is it directly from Putin's? Is it Trump? Is it Pence? Is it Putin? It is.

Oh, I'm hoping Pence. Yeah. I've got to get him for something. Yeah. Those GSA emails, we've got them because over my dead body. Yeah. It's a beckler. At Vintage underscore bridge asked if that unknown country owned company could have anything

to do with Azerbaijan because the prosecutor is a Middle East specialist, which is why she doesn't think it's China, Russia, or Germany. Okay. But I think that the Middle East specialist Ahmed was there because she worked on the Flynn case. Yeah, I was wondering if that was a connection. Yeah, but I don't really know. I'm, we're all guessing.

This is all just conjecture. We, that's probably something completely that we didn't even, like, it's Jordan or something. Not you, but the country. Right, right. No, it's me. I should have picked a random country for the fact that I can't. It's me.

It's me, when I buy a rock. Yeah, a country A. At Thothman 64, Seth Abramson made a good case about why Mueller isn't close to being done when NBC and others keep reporting he's near done based on an anonymous source. Who's right? So NBC put out a story this week that Mueller is going to turn in a report mid February and I didn't report on this and I didn't do that for a reason because I don't think it's correct. It mentions that he's going to give his report to the AG. We don't have an AG right now. So like, how are you, what are you talking about? And it doesn't even say, like, is it the obstruction piece? Is it the collusion piece? What report are you talking about? Are you talking

about a grand jury document sent over to the House Judiciary Committee, like the Jaworski report was, like what report are you talking about? It just didn't seem to add up to me that he would be done in February, especially considering all these new things. Revolutions. Yeah, there's a lot of layers to this. So maybe the beginning of the report, you know, dropping some, because he can do that, right? Mueller can say, oh, he can't do like updates like along the way.

It's their emergencies. Yeah. I don't think he's gonna do that. In this case, yeah, I know it's gonna make any sense. Yeah, because you could reveal shit that's part of an open and ongoing investigation, right? Not his style. Yeah, not at all.

Very bad for investigations. So yeah, I'm with Seth on that, actually. I don't think that that's. Oh, I mean, it's feasible, but not likely. Yeah, it's, you know, I'm over here like conjecting super space beans, but I'm like, no, I'm not going to read you're saying about reports due in February. That's just crazy. Well, the funnest thing is, the news moves so quickly that two months from now feels like a lifetime sometimes so I guess we'll see Yeah

At KMC D715 asked how fucked are we? All right guys, so that clip was given to us by Alright guys so that clip was given to us by a friend at the voices of our city choir. They are an organization, a nonprofit that is a choir made up of homeless people in San Diego and I think that that's amazing and so pretty soon somehow somewhere, some way we're gonna sell that sound clip as a ringtone and all the proceeds are going to go to voices of our city choir. Yeah. So thanks to them for helping us put that together. It's an amazing clip. You know right. Let's see at Sheroni Bologna says African or European.

Oh preference of race or what are we talking about? It's a it's a holy grail joke. Oh. I think I hope. Really glad I didn't answer that one. I went right over my head there. Bees? Remember the Africanized bees.

Oh yeah. So scary. Yeah, wooly Africanized bees are coming. They're not like our nice European bees. Wausps. We call them shithole bees. Holes bees. At least I have bees. Poor Pedro.

Yeah, no, African or European, I'm assuming Sharoni Baloney is talking about the Holy Grail Quote where he's like, what is your name? What is your, no, the coconuts, the coconuts. Right? He's like, we're to get the coconuts. Oh, they're supposed to get, you know, maybe they were carried here. coconuts don't migrate. And he's like, well, maybe it was a bird.

It's like African or European swallow. I don't know. And then he's, okay, okay, yeah. What's the average airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow? African or European? That's, I hope that's what she's talking about. Or bees. At Alexa G. Winton asked, will we survive?

That's pretty deep. Yeah. Here's a quote from Dan, rather. If you've only been listening to cable news tonight or reading your news alerts on social media, you might have the impression, given this to Maltuous News Day, that the country is coming a part of the seems. But please pause and take a deep breath.

The government, especially the Trump presidency, is in chaos and dysfunction, but the country is not. This is not to minimize the grave danger of the moment, but we must also realize that we are an expansive, diverse and resilient country of active and impassioned citizens and deep resources, material and otherwise. We are people of great resolve who possess the ability

to adjust and survive. We have proven that time and again. So steady, please steady. There is plenty to worry about, plenty to resolve, plenty to not normalize, plenty of fight for our rights and justice. But I have seen many dark days before, and I believe we'll make our way through the current crisis, eventually, to not just survive, but to thrive. The arc of history is long, complicated, and beyond any of our ability to fully comprehend.

But life has taught me things are seldom as bad or good as they appear at any given moment of time. Have courage. That's what Dan Ratham says. Beautiful. I know I like that one. Guys, that's our show. Yeah.

Merry Christmas. Yeah, I said it. That was fun. It was loose. A fucking love Christmas. Edgy Merry Christmas, yeah I said it. That's fun, it was a loose. A fucking love Christmas. Edgy. Oh yeah, happy holidays, I guess I'll be that person. It's Lord. But I'm not afraid to say happy holidays,

Merry Solstice, happy U.U.L. happy festivists, happy quarins, a happy Hanukkah, whatever you celebrate, I don't care. Say it all. Be safe, enjoy your time with your family or your chosen family or your friends. It's been a heck of a year. And I think 2019 is gonna be epic, but we'll be heading out on the road soon.

So follow us on Twitter at Muller She Wrote to stay in the know on that to see where we're going to pop up. If you enjoyed this ad for the episode and you want them all the time, please become a patron. We're real close to putting out a second episode. We're going to do that for patrons every week. So head to patreon.com slash muller. She wrote And Give today support women and podcasts. It's three bucks. You get there. I think there's like over

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We've got one final episode left in 2018. So we will see you next week. I've been a G I've been Chlease Johnson. I've been Jordan Coburn and this is mullershi Road. Mullershi Road is produced and engineered by AG with editing and logo design by Jolissa Johnson. Our marketing consultant and social media manager is Sarah Least Diner and our subscriber and communications director is Jordan Coburn. Fact checking and research by AG and research assistants by Jolissa Johnson and Jordan Coburn. Our merchandising managers are Sarah Least Diner and Sarah Hershberger Valencia. Our web design and branding, our by JoL Leader with Moxie Design Studios, and our website is For the past four years, we've been making history in critical elections all over the country. And last year, we made history again by expanding our majority in the Senate,

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