Jack - Russian Roulette (Ch. 5-8)

Episode Date: March 28, 2018

Our second installment of the “Russian Roulette” book series is here! Today we discuss chapters 5-8.  This book covers the incredible, harrowing account of how American democracy was hacked by Moscow as part of a covert operation to influence the U.S. election and help Donald Trump gain the presidency. Enjoy! 

I'm Greg Oliar. Four years ago, I stopped writing novels to report on the crimes of Donald Trump and his associates. In 2018, I wrote a best-selling book about it, Dirty Rubles. In 2019, I launched Proveil, a bi-weekly column about Trump and Putin, spies and mobsters, and so many traders! Trump may be gone, but the damage he wrought will take years to fully understand. Join me and a revolving crew of contributors and guests as we try to make sense of it all. This is Preveil. Thanks for listening to Muller She wrote. The She in Muller She wrote is no accident. Did you know we are 100% women owned and operated? Every single person that helps make this podcast possible identifies as a woman.

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by visiting mullershearote.com and become a patron today. So to be clear Mr. Trump has no financial relationships with any Russian oligarchs. That's what he said. That's what I said, that's obviously what 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. Welcome to Muellerer She wrote, this is the Russian Roulette mini-sode. We're going to be going over Michael Issakov and David Korn's new book, Russian Roulette. And so, you know, I'm excited about this.

This book is really good. So I'm A.G. I'm your anonymous host, as always, and with me is Jolisa. Hey, what's up? Jordan Coburn. Hey, everyone. Alright, let's get anonymous host, as always, and with me is Jolisa. Hey, what's up? Jordan Coburn. Hey, everyone. All right, let's get right into it. All right, chapter five.

This is the new version of Watergate, is the name of this chapter. And I know Jolisa, you read really in depth into this chapter. And I want to hand this over to you so that you can talk about it a little bit. Yeah, thank you. So this chapter basically covers the first time the FBI reached down to the

DNC. And I have to tell you my notes, say that this guy Hawkins, that you're about to talk about, I wrote mid-level IT guy, but for some reason I just read it as Medieval IT guy. I've read it as that too. Yeah. And now this sounds like another Saturday Night Live's good. Like you know the Frozen Cave Man layer? Or are you guys too young for this?

Too young, no. I've seen that one yeah, yeah Frozen cave and now we have medieval I do you guys I dig it I dig it sounds like it's gonna be amazing That's way better than the other one honestly. Yes. This is the sketch. We need to do if nothing else Have you tried unplugging it? Yeah? Oh my god, no, no, don't apologize. So this this whole chapter is about FBI agent Hawkins Hawkins and the call that he received from the or the call that he made to the DNC and it started in September 2015. So he called to tell them they've been hacked basically. Yeah. Yes. And the guy he told, he was a mid-level IT guy, but the IT guy didn't really believe him.

He's got a crazy name too. What was his name? The guy that was... The mid-level IT guy. Yarrit Samini was the guy that the FBI Asian Hawkins called. Yeah, mid-level IT guy. Yeah, he didn't know it. He had a guy you know in your office. Exactly. Yeah.

Could have just got the job, basically. So he was the one that was called and Hawkins told him to check the logs and look for a virus called the dukes because that was the one that they were aware of that the Russians might have a connection to. Yeah. So from the APT guys. Exactly. Yeah.

So it's hilarious too because if you got a call, think about this. You work for the government. You get a call that says, I work for the FBI. I need you to look at your logs Get the F out of you. Yeah. Why are you calling me? Exactly. How do you prove that? You know why are you calling me a middle-level IT dude? Like I don't he was super wary it was like a prank to him. Yeah, he was like it didn't sound real Not real, but it was like somebody trying to get info. Mm-hmm. Yeah, he was like, it didn't sound real. You're not real, but it was like somebody trying to get info. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So, so Hawking, he was an APT specialist and basically the APT's hack

in and leave malware that lets them keep leading data. So they were kind of leaching off of the DMC and all of these botched early communications would be seen as a missed opportunity to thwart the Russian attack. So later the DNC was actually thought of, or would think that the FBI didn't try hard enough to thwart these attacks. Right. They thought it was on purpose. Right.

So basically, the guy calls the middle-level IT guy and he's like, I don't even know what you're talking about. Don't even worry. I'm not listening to you. I'm not looking. I'm the middle-level guy. Right. And I was like, trying to call him back. So this was a messed up. I was dumb. They should have gone to the top. First

of all, the FBI should have gone to the top. They should have gone to MOOC or Elias. Because they eventually did, but they should have started there. Yeah. But they didn't. They call this one guy. And you're right. And exactly the APT, that's what it does. They hack in and they leave a little thing in there and just it bleeds all your updates all your data. And this, now that we look back on it, the fact that they called this middle-level guy and nobody really got in touch with anybody big until six months later, I think. It doesn't really make any sense.

It's lazy. It's, why did you not pay attention? And I don't blame the DNC for thinking that the FBI did this on purpose Right because I'm because the FBI was the one who like did the whole Hillary email thing and Exactly and she thought that they were against her so they At the time it makes sense like they were in Trump's pocket steel Christopher steel thought that for a while too Yeah, remember when he tried to tell him about the stuff and they were like now They wouldn't announce it and instead they announced the Hillary stuff

And he was like he thought the FBI was in Trump's pocket. Exactly they had no way of knowing at the time. So in March 2016, Podesta got an email from what he thought was Google saying his account was hacked and needed to change his password and to click and log to change it. So they gave him a link and this is where I want to really quote the book because this was the craziest passage to me. So basically it says on Saturday, March 19th, 2016 at 4.34 a.m. John Podesta, the Hillary Clinton campaign chairman, received what looked like an email from Google and his personal Gmail account.

And this is what the email said. Hi John, someone just used your password to try to sign into your Google account. This is what the email said. Hi John, someone just used your password to try to sign into your Google account. And the email also said it was from the Gmail team. So it noted that the attempted intrusion had come from an IP address in Ukraine. So the FBI noted that. And the email went on to say, Google stopped this sign and attempt. You should change your password immediately. And the Gmail team, or quote and the Gmail team or quote the Gmail team included a link to a site where a podessa can make the recommended password

change. I've gotten a lot of these where they're like somebody breached you click here to put to change your thing. Exactly. Another thing that happens to is Twitter verification. They'll be like, do you want a blue check mark next to your name? Click here. And then you click there, you put in your Twitter handle in your password. And then they ask for credit card and they ask for all this stuff. And I'm like, no, yeah, yeah. That morning, Podesta forwarded the email to the chief of staff, Sarah Latham, who then sent it along to Charles the 11, a young IT staffer at the Clinton campaign.

So at 9.54 a.m. that morning, Delavon replied, this is a legitimate email. John needs to change his password immediately and ensure that two factor authentication is turned on his account. It is absolutely imperative that this is done ASAP. So the thing is, Delavon later asserted to colleagues that he had committed a typo.

So he actually meant to write that this is not a legitimate email. And not everyone in the clean campaign actually believed him, but he does have an alibi. So in his argument and his interest. And what's interesting too is when he when he sent the this is a legitimate email, yeah, even though he was supposed to say this is not he put the correct link there. Yeah, he just didn't click that. He nested and clicked out. Exactly.

He clicked the original link. The Russian one. And the Russian one. That's the alibi, basically. Is it De Laven, Devlin? I can't, I forget. He's a really important figure, so I want to get his name right. But I would say De Laven.

He did have a pretty good argument. The fact that he sent the correct link, as you said, AG makes it so that his intentions were well, but it turns out the guy just happened, put us to just happen to fall for the original link. It could have happened to anyone. I just happen to be the lead guy of the Clinton campaign. So, I guess so. That's just, that's pretty basic, like,

cyber security training. Yeah, but if you get an email back from your person saying it's authentic, yeah, that typo's a big deal. It is, if you get an email back from your person saying, it's authentic. Yeah, that's high pose a big deal. It is. Yeah. But if they say click here, I would have clicked there. Exactly. But that's where it seems like that's

where the simple mistake came into play. He's like, okay, I did follow up with the right person and he gave me a link back. But sometimes threads, like, and emails can get really confusing, like, yeah. I guess. But I think what's interesting is that this this Google fish Was sent to 19,000 people

Yeah, and 40 of them actually were like fell for it and Padec is one of them. Yeah Yeah, so that kind of sucks because they may have gotten a lot of low-level people But Padec says not low level and any sense so he was this bitch Yeah, you know, I want to feel bad for him because I would have felt for it, but you're right, Jordan. I'm not in his position. I should be trained a lot better if I ever got in that position. Yeah. Well, and then the FBI contacted MOOC. Oh, yeah.

That's right. They started, they started going up the chain, right? They put the pain data manager, finally, for HRC and handed off to Mark Elias. He's the HRC lawyer. Exactly. And the FBI requested documents from a DNC, but the DNC didn't trust the FBI. No, because they thought, because of the whole batch communications, the first place that the FBI was in the pocket of the truck.

And it made sense, yes. But the FBI tried to assure that the documents would remain classified and wouldn't be subject to FOIA. FOIA? FOIA? FOIA. FOIA request. Yeah. Freedom of information act requests.

Meaning like, yeah, because basically if I want to get any information on anything the government does, I can put in a FOIA request under the Freedom of Information Act. Yeah. But if the FBI is seizing documents or getting documents as part of an evidence of an ongoing investigation. They don't want that to have access. Yeah, you are not allowed to have that. Right. You can't those can't be turned over from a For your request until the investigation is closed and even then they might be redacted or classified. Yeah, so he wanted to let them know that it wouldn't be subject to that So but the DNC had their own cyber problems. So it's very crazy. Yeah, Bernie had an issue

So his staffers stumbled upon Clint's voter rolls in the DNC. And so as a result, the DNC blocked Bernie from accessing the rolls at all, including his own and then Bernie sued and the DNC let him back in and then Bernie dropped the suit. So during all of that, the original mid-level IT guy, Tamine, was that... Yeah, yeah, he found the original intrusion. So totally by accident. Yeah, so it turns out someone locked

into the system using his credentials and while he was sleeping, that's how they got away with it. He didn't even know it was happening. Well, that's how he found out. Yeah, okay, so looking at the logs and he saw that somebody was logged in at three in the morning. And he was like, there we go.

There we go. Yeah, so all this whole time, he was looking for something different. Mm-hmm. When he should have been looking for... His own log. Anyone's own logins when they worked a week. Exactly. They were actually, Russia was pretty clever about this.

Yeah. They're very, very sophisticated. And a lady in the DNC said, this is the new water gate. So where the chapter title comes from, this is how they do it now. You don't need a crowbar anymore. I love that quote. Yeah, that's good.

This is the new watergate. This is how they do it now. You don't need a crowbar anymore. That's, give me the chills. It's chilling. Yeah. And what's interesting about that lady

is when she worked in the office, when she worked for the DNC back during the Nixon administration, she kept that file cabinet that was broken into. And I think she like had it, has it next to her in her office. Well, she could sell it on eBay, man. I'd buy it. Oh, yeah. I would keep the shit out of that.

Absolutely. Can you keep the shit out of something? Yeah, you can, you can, you can, the shit out of anything. Keep it AF. I would say. Well, this is where CrowdStrike comes in, right? Exactly. And they were in the minority report that, you know,

that we just went over. Yeah, so they, they were the firm that the BNC hired to pretty much counter this whole thing. And they immediately found the intruders. It was APT28 and APT29, also known as fancy bear and cozy bear. Ooh. Yeah. That's shout out to episode 17. APT 29 also known as fancy bear and cozy bear. Ooh! Yeah. Yeah.

That's shout out to episode 17. Yeah, we talk about that in a couple episodes actually. So cozy bear had been leaching off the DNC since 2015 and fancy bear got there in 26. They just got to the party. Just 2016, yeah. Yeah, they're new. Fancy bears knew, they're fancy, but they're new. Oh, yeah. And there was no evidence that these two weren't

Cajoods, but it's all problematic separate bears. Yeah, it's crazy That had nothing to they were cooots. They're just who they're just all bears Yeah, is it because is there pictures of Putin riding a bear? They're sure that's yes, that has to be why right? Yeah, you would imagine Yeah, what other president trolls right? Yeah. You would imagine. They're just what other presidents. Yeah, trolls, right? It's just a very troll-induced name.

Troll-inspired. Yeah. So among the stolen files was the entire Oppo Research file on Trump. So they had the dirt, and there was no telling what they were going to do with it. That part freaks me out. So Hillary had built, well not Hillary herself,

but the Hillary's campaign had built this entire OPPO research file on Trump. All the dirt on Trump that you could ever want and or need and the Russians had it. That means immediately, that the Russians, that he's vulnerable to blackmail by the Russians. Yeah, oh, I didn't even think about that. Yeah, I was just thinking about them having the upper hand, but you're right.

Just an international. Well, like the whole thing that the Russians want to do is is Compromot. That's their big tactic, right? So that's why they take, that's why they offer you prostitutes and put you in a Ritz Carlton where they have cameras. Make you honorable. So they can get Compromot on you. Yeah.

And then go, I'm going to show everyone this tape if you don't do what I say So Compromot is a very very common thing in Russia. It's like their number one thing Yeah, to get on people and now they have the op-o they op-o research file opposition research file on Trump that they got from the from the DNC Mm-hmm And they did all the work for them. They could have used that that That could have helped them. Blackmail him. Yeah. Yeah. He's that was one way he's compromised. He's also it was them probably millions of dollars, but whatever. I wouldn't even judge Trump for the PP tape at this point if he just came out with it and just quietly disappeared. Like if that's the worst, but I doubt it. I don't know. I hope so.

I don't know, I hope so. All right, let's go on to chapter six. Felix Sater. Da da da. November 2015 is where this takes place. It starts up around the time Trump was ahead in the primaries. And he started saying all those awful things. Just the awful, everything was awful. Mexicans are rapist.

Rosie O'Donnell is a fat cow. Hey. Hey, her fat face. Somebody, the book says this. This is the best quote on how to describe what he was doing. He was quote, shrewdly exploiting deep-seated resentments and bigotry, unquote. That's exactly how it is. And on December 2nd, Horowitz of AP Associated Press asked Trump if he knew Sater and Trump,

if he knew Sater and Trump, if he knew Sator and Trump distanced himself. He's like, boy, I'd have to think about it. He said, I'd even have to think about it because he's so eloquent. I don't think I know him. But he was working closely with him, like right then, on that second Trump tower. Him and Cohen, Sator and Cohen and Trump, on that second Trump tower in Moscow, the one that we just learned about in the Minority Report. And this book, Trump was privately negotiating with a Russian development firm,

and Sadre was the go between. This quote is great. Quote, the deal would require approval from the Kremlin. So a candidate was seeking the White House and simultaneously seeking a business venture that could proceed only if the government of a foreign adversary gave it the green light. That's insane, I know.

So they kept it a secret because if it got out, his whole America first campaign would be shot to shit, right? So the deal went down like this. Three months earlier in September, Sadre called Cohen to start it up. He said the tower would be built by IC expert. They are now on my fantasy indictment, League List, and they were in the minority report.

Oh yeah. The tower would be built by IC expert, a Russian builder with no experience. They've only ever built one apartment building, and it was totally steeped in corruption. Ha ha ha ha ha. Trump would license it and manage it, put his name on it basically, and he would

be paid $400 million up front. I see expert was working to fund the project from VTB bank. That is a sanctioned Russia bank. It is illegal to do that. He was a candidate for president working with a sanctioned bank. And here's the quote from the book, which I love. Quote, so a presidential candidate was cobbling together a deal that could well depend on Russian financing from blacklisted banks linked to Putin's regime. Talk about a motive, man. Trump wrote a letter of intent to license the project. So the letter exists and these reporters, it's a coffin corn, know about it.

So I'm sure Mueller has it. The head of IC expert would later say he owned it 100%. But it turned out it was owned by three offshore shell companies. One headed by a super out lawyer. That's Cypress. It's unclear how the deal started. Like who started it? But that explains why Trump was kissing Putin's ass in the media.

That's whole time. He needed his approval for this project. And during this time, Sadre sent out some emails to Cohenon saying quote let's build a trump Moscow and fix relations between the countries by showing businesses more practical than politics and quote uh... sador noted in an email to coon quote i arranged for i won't get to sit in putons favorite chair on a trip to

Moscow i'll get puton on board and will get donald. And our boy Trump will be president of the United States and we will engineer it. I will get Putin to buy in on this and we will make it happen, unquote. And that this week, in the main episode, he walked back those remarks saying, I was exaggerating.

Even though he nailed it. Yeah, well, I end the reason that he walked that back this week is because it fucking came out in the book this week. So yeah, you better. So so come January the permits had not come through the project was stalling these guys suck at life Sater and Cohen wanted to reach out to the Kremlin to like get some help, right? But then they both looked at each other and like realized want want neither of us actually know anybody in the Kremlin Right realized, want, want, neither of us actually know anybody in the Kremlin. Right. That face. Wow.

So what's hilarious is Cohen started blindly calling journalists to see if they knew how to get a hold of anyone in the Kremlin. That's one way to do it. One of them was Maggie Haberman. She's like a New York Times reporter reporting on Trump forever called up Maggie Haberman, saying, hey, you know how on you, nobody, the Kremlin. She's just like a drunken death sentence. And interesting that they would call Maggie Haberman,

a known Trump expert to get Kremlin contacts. Right. That says a million things right there. Cohen even like, who knows the Kremlin, someone who reports on Trump? Like, oh, that Trump like yeah, okay Cohen even sent a plea for help using the general help email account on the Kremlin's public website like When you go to Kremlin dot Kremlin dot rush are you I'm sure I don't know what it is

Yeah, Kremlin dot com and you like contact us and there's like a little form to fill out That's what he said in the email, like, help us. We want to make a tower. Their marketing is on point, but their intelligence is hilarious. Like, we're going to make this whole thing. I don't know anybody. Do you know anybody? No, let's call information. He was just a brand of forms.

Yeah. So here's a little bit about Sater. Okay. He was born in Russia. He grew up in Brighton Beach. Now we need to watch Brighton Beach memoirs. He stabbed a guy in the face in 1991 with a broken stem of a Margarita glass, and he did a year in jail.

I just love that. That's my favorite thing about this guy. He's so rude. I think that's my favorite thing about it. Who knows a guy maybe he earned it? I don't know. Okay, Fair enough. But when he got out,

he set up this crazy pump and dump stock scheme with Russian mobsters and Members of the mafia to the tune of $40 million you guys $40 million stock scam and in 1998 he cut a deal with the feds And helped them roll up the others from the stock scheme He basically you know sold out he became a stool pigeon. He informed on all of them. By 2002, he was working for Bayrock. That's a cosmic firm partnered with him for this real estate company. Their office was in Trump Tower, Manhattan. Interesting. Bayrock did a ton of deals with Trump, including Trump Soho, South-Haston, which was later sued by owners saying they were defrauded by Trump and his kids.

Basically, what they were doing is they were saying, like, we have 80% of the building sold. And it was, these sales were with fake Russian, like fake Americans that were at real Russians that were trying to lie and say, because it's easier to sell pieces of property inside a building if most of the building is almost sold out. But if it's empty and you're the first person in, nobody wants it. So they lied and said they're almost sold out. And they use these fake Americans that were real Russians

that were funding the money to do this. You can't do that. That's defrauding people. That's very bad. And Bayrock tried to do the first Trump tower in Moscow, the first one, but they, you know, were stymied by Obama's sanctions because they invaded Crimea. Russia did. They annexed, tried annex Crimea. Trump said, quote, I wouldn't even really know what he looked like. Unquote, when asked about Felix Sater, but you've done

all these fucking deals with him. He lived in your building. You tried to do first Trump tower with him. You tried to do second Trump tower with him in Moscow. But you wouldn't recognize that. I wouldn't even know what to look like. I don't know him. So he's distancing himself.

Then there's Sergey Million. In 2009, Million's tiny real estate company signed a deal with the Trumps to help meet Russian industrial real estate needs. And Trump sold a ton of condos to Russians through this company. A 2017 Reuters review of his real estate showed 63 individual Russians bought over $98 million in Trump properties in Florida alone. And many more that were bought by shell companies. Most of the money did not end up with Trump.

He got a commission. So that's smells like laundry to me. Yeah, it's like laundry. Dirty to that, you know. But not the fresh, delicious game slash bounce laundry. No, no. Gains if you want to sponsor us. Yeah. Gain bounce, what can you say? Yeah, we'll eat it like Halo top. Meshedeg, Tidepods.

Meshedeg, Tidepods. Nice. I'm too old for tightpots. In 2011, Millions Little Company did a cultural exchange program. But it was soon invested. They were trying to get executives to come over there and some will come over here. They would swap them out like a student exchange program, but for grown-ups. But it turned out that it was in being investigated by the FBI because he was recruiting spies.

Why? Yeah, the FBI chased them back to Russia and Trump later would deny any business ties to million at all. Of course. It's not hilarious. It is hilarious and frustrating that that works for the time being.

Seriously. Just saying. One big Trump deal. One big huge Trump deal was Rebel Love Live. This is the guy his name. I could never say Reba Flavin. Reba Flavin. RoboCop. Love. Love. Love. Reba Love. Love. Love. Love. He he's been a year in jail in 1990 for murder by 2000. I'm gonna start making a friend of his name. But by 2008 Forbes said he was worth $12.5 billion. Wow. So, Ola Garke, he paid Trump $95 million for his $45 million

shitty mansion. Trump pocketed the $50 million. Oh, yes. Wait a minute. You turn around and sold it. Yeah. This is interesting. Laundry.

So that's chapter 6, you guys. Who did he kill? Do you know? I don't know who he killed. He murdered somebody and said, maybe Chaz. So I think one day you guys. Who did he kill? Do you know? I don't know who he killed. Murdered somebody in the chat. Maybe. So think one day you could be a person that just has a person they just killed and no one knows exactly.

And then you just put up a political zone, and then you get out of jail and then you're a billionaire. Yeah, must be nice. It's like moving on. You know, yeah, I like that. Looking forward. It's Russian privilege. It's what it is. Yes. Hi chapter seven

He's been a Russian stooge for 15 years. This is all Manafort this chapter is Manafort and we've talked about this to death already in our In our regular show, but to go through what they cover in the book Manafort worked for Ford, Bush and Dole But then he took a hiatus to work for the Ukraine for a long time But he wanted back into American politics So he pitched Trump via Tom Barak, this friend of his, he said he would take no salary, which is weird Yep, he had an apartment already in Trump tower and he said that he'd avoided DC insiders since 2005 so you can trust me Even though he's a case street lobbyist, but whatever in five so you can trust me. Even though he's a K Street lobbyist, but whatever.

And in the 2000s, he opened a lobbying firm with a guy named Rick Davis and Manifort pitched Darapaska at that time for $10 million to help him work on his stuff. So this backfired because there was a fact found on John McCain's facts machine from Darapaska thanking Manifort and Davis for setting up meetings with McCain and two other GOP senators in Davos, Switzerland. Wow. Yeah. So McCain's aides were like a gas because Darapaska had been sanctioned here by then. Which we learned from a Washington Post report written by a guy named Glenn Simpsons. Yeah. He ended up finding fusion GPS later.

Finding founding. Yeah. Yeah. So that's that's Glenn Simpsons. Yeah. He ended up finding Fusion GPS later, finding, founding. He's still low me. Yeah, yeah. So that's that's Glenn Simpsons. He was a reporter for WAPO. He reported on this a lot. Nice. Davis had to sever ties from Manafort

as he was McCain's aide. And McCain said, we're not having that fucking guy in our 2008 campaign. Yeah, because McCain's not an idiot. Instead, we'll have Sarah Palin. Oh, good point. What the fuck was that? She can only see Russia, though.

She doesn't actually conspire with them. Good point. So then Dera Paschic sent Manafort to the Ukraine to rehabilitate the image of a guy named Yana Kovic. He's like, I'm gonna, you know, I've given you $10 million. I need you to go make this guy look better than he is because he's fat, nugly, and he's a dick. So Yana Kovic was basically the guy who was a Putin, the

Putin install for the Ukraine. He's a pro Putin, pro Russian separatist wanted to, you know, be the president of the Ukraine. Yana Kovic, his opposition, Yushenko beat him in that election, but then he ended up being poisoned. Wow. It's a thing for them. Then Manafort set up an office in Kiev, staffed with 40 people, including Ted Devine, who later became Bernie Sanders' chief campaign strategist in 2016.

Yeah, another staffer was a guy named Kalimnik. That Bernie connection freaks me out. Yeah, that's weird. I don't know what that's about. They dressed up Yana Kovic, they bought him some nice suits. He's like a fixer, if you ever dated a guy, I can fix the sky.

I can change him. Well, they fixed him up a little bit. He's still a dick on the inside. They always are. And they figured out which hot button issues they could use to manipulate the electorate. So, is that sound familiar? Yes.

So, Manifort pitched him to the United States, too. Yana Kovic, they brought him over in 2006 to meet Dick Cheney, one of the loveliest men ever. Oh, God, a walking devil. But they didn't register as a foreign agent. And this pissed off Yannockovic's political opponents person. That makes sense. Yeah.

Yeah. Because, you know, they were like, we have to register. Why don't you register? Right. Yannockovage won that election with the help of basically just because of Paul Manafort. Yeah. And he set forth then to jail his opponent to Meshenko.

And Manafort even hired an American law firm to write a report supporting her conviction, saying she should remain in jail. Ridiculous. He lobbied Rora Bacher and three United Kingdom politicians to do this without registering with FARA, the Foreign Agency Registry Act, foreign agent Registry Act, Registry Act, I think.

Yeah, where you have to register that you're lobbying for a free investment. Yeah, yeah. And in 2011, Tim Ashenko filed a civil lawsuit in New York saying, Manifort colluded with a Ukrainian gas magnate named Fertosh, who laundered hundreds of millions of ill-gotten dollars through shell companies in Panama, Cyprus, and Europe.

And he did two real estate ventures in New York. Brad Zaxson helped with those real estate deals, and he used to work for Trump's dad. So I put them both on the fantasy entitement. Oh yeah. The suit was dismissed, unfortunately, because the racketeering took place mostly outside of the United States, mostly outside of the jurisdiction of the court. So they couldn't really do anything about it. Manafort's relations with Derapaska started going shitting. A decade earlier, Derapaska set up a firm called Surf Horizon.

These names for these shell companies sound like like paint color names from Home Depot or like generators. Like just plug in. I want to make like a start-ups. I want to see, I want to see like a bunch of paint colors and then take these, take these names Surf Horizon and Cambridge Analytica and like these are color names, like nail polish based names. I can make a painting based on this, yeah. I just see it, like that's how they home depot names, their paint chips. I love it. So yeah, so for Toche, yeah, so they helped with this.

But this, anyway, his, it started going south because a decade earlier, he set up, Darapaska set up Surf Horizon, right? I feel like that's an orange color. Oh yeah. And he put $7.5 million into mandarinment fees. He gave that to Manafort and Gates. And they set up a deal to buy a Ukrainian telecom company,

like a cable company for $21 million. And Manafort and Gates disappeared, and the deal never went through. And then Darapaska sued Manafort in the Cayman Islands. And then again, in Atlanta, Georgia. And you remember when we were talking about this, I was like, what do they do? How do you steal their money? What happened? This was it. They tried to do this cable deal and then Manafort and gate to took his money and ran.

Oh, wow. Hard core. Yeah, like that's Balsey. Woo. It's like some good fellow shit. Yeah. Totally. like we're out. And anyway, so he sued him. Dara Paska sued Manifort to get his money back twice and created multiple cut out entities and cypress and set the deal up as a series of loans to avoid taxes. That's how Manifort didn't have to pay taxes on this $21 million that he stole from a Russian. Right. So Manifort sought to use his position in the Trump campaign now to pay back Dara Paska

because he felt like he was about to get Polonium tea. So, in a series of... I trade her joes. Very different. It's totally not that kind of tea. But in a series of emails to Kalimnik, Manafort said, quote, I'm sure you've shown our friends my media coverage, right? And Kalimnik says, absolutely every article. And then he says, quote, how do we use to get whole?

Has OVD operations seen? OVD stands for Oleg Darapaska. Oh, okay. So Manifort owed about $16 million to Darapaska via shell companies. And when Washington Post sent out a list of questions to the Trump campaign, and I didn't know they did this, but they sent a list of questions to the Trump campaign about Manifort's relationships with Darapaska, Manifort instructed Hope Hicks to disregard the request. Manifort using his campaign position to fix his position with Putin, with the Putin oligarch

had to remain a secret. Wow. Told her to just a secret. So, yeah. Wow. Told her to just ignore. Yeah, and she did. Yeah, and she did, and then she testified, and then she quit. Yeah, and hopefully she told us. She told us all the yades, but yeah, I guess she did the right

thing in the end. Yeah, she did. She did. She did. She's got a good 10 days in, right? Yeah. Oh yeah, at least. Does acting attorney general, right? Was she acting attorney general? Yeah, that's what she did.

Mm-hmm. She was a badass. She'll be in the sexy Justice calendar. Oh, yes. Fair enough. There was one of our fans was like, you better put Sally Yates in. There was almost threatening.

I appreciate it. Yeah, the enthusiasm. I like it. Yeah. Would you have very enthusiastic fans? We do. Yeah. Forking awesome. I know. I love it. I'm so like daily humbled. Oh, yes by our fans

Yeah, that sounded like when I feel sad. I just being in a cup. I wasn't I was just Horing wine. Yeah, we need a wine sponsor sponsor as soon as possible. We're losing so much money Come on, if it's on come through All right guys chapter eight how the fuck did he get on the list? find come through. All right, guys, chapter eight, how the fuck did he get on the list? This is a little acute little hilarious chapter about Trump's basically his foreign policy advisor team.

Right. And I just wanna go over this, I think it's hilarious. So Trump's team of foreign policy advisors was a joke early on. None of them wanted anything to do with us, said John Kelly. Like when he was talking about trying to find legitimate foreign policy advisors.

So there was a radio talk show host named Sam Clovis. He managed to put together like a rag tag list of slap dash weirdos. And Trump read them off to a group of reporters one night. Wallyd Ferris. It just sounds like a, like that sounds like a cool Wally's Ferris, or, no, it sounds like a cool fucking, like, I don't know, R&B guy or something. Oh.

Wally'd Ferris, you know, like, Wally'd, yeah, the Wally'd part. There's a guy named Khalid, right? Khalid, yeah, there you go. There's Khalid, there's Farrell, what's his name? Ferris, Wally'd Fer, oh, I'm not sure anymore. That's the song, happy. Oh, Ferrell, Ferrell.

Yeah, there we go, Ferrell. So we have Colleen, Ferrell. There we go. I mean, Wallyde, Ferrell. Nice. Except this guy is a Fox News guy, so fuck down, come on. Yeah, yeah, not the same. Joseph Schmitz, a former Pentagon IG

and Inspector General, we have Carter Page and George Papadopoulos. No one had any experience, any credentials, like nothing, two of them had shady paths. So Farah's was close to a Lebanese warlord that operated hit squads against Shia Muslims and Schmitz was chief counsel to Blackwater. Blackwater is Eric Prince's outfit,

the guy who met in the Seychelles with in-busy. Blackwater killed civilians in the Iraq war and had to shut down, they were sued. Wow. They killed Iraqi civilians. Gundam down, women and children, it was terrible. Steve Bannon said, quote, these people are a bunch of clowns.

Unquote. And regarding Papadopoulos, he said, how the fuck did he get on the list? That's literally what he said. They had their first meeting on March 31, 2016. We've all seen the photos because remember when Trump was trying to say Papadopoulos is a coffee boy. Yeah. But then they show the... The meeting.

The Instagram picture that Trump posted of Papadopoulos. Yes Papa dobs. Yeah, sessions was there. Clovis was there. JD Gordon. So, um, if Papa dobs at that meeting said he had recently met with a multi-professor who could help arrange a meeting between Trump and Putin. That's Miffsood. Yeah. Jeff Sessions shot it down, but Trump seemed interested, according to people in the room. Poppedop was went back and met with Mifsood again on April 26th, where Mifsood told him that he had dirt on Hillary Clinton. And then in May, the next month, Poppedop got drunk and bragged to Alexander Downer in the London pub. You always have to bragged to an Australian, because Australians have way better stories than in them.

Seriously, kangaroo fights, yeah. Yeah, really do., yeah. Really do. That's not a knife. And so he bragged to this guy in a London pub saying that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton. And he didn't think, Alexander Downard didn't think of anything about it at the time. Right. Whatever, this guy's drunk.

He was bragging, because he seems like a braggie guy. And then pop it up, kept emailing pop it up. I just come pop it up. Yeah. Pop it up. I like that. He kept emailing campaign officials over and over again. Manafort forwarded one of his emails to another campaign official saying, quote, Trump is not doing these trips. It should be someone low level in the campaign. So it's not to send any signal. Oh, James Bond. I guess, but that's just a little weird. So pop it up meetings were not the only outreach attempts though to get Putin and Trump together. It wasn't just pop it up. So here's some other ones. There's Torshin and Bhutina at the

NRA. I've added them to the fantasy indictment, like, too. They kept popping up at Republican fundraisers, NRA meeting CPAC's Freedom Fest, a national prayer breakfast, stuff like that. And during Freedom Fest, Freedom Fest, in July 2015, Bhutina asked Trump about sanctions. And he said, we don't need them, basically. We don't need sanctions anymore. Banan would watch these tapes later and ask,

why was she there? Why did Trump call on her? Why did his answer seem rehearsed? Prebus also thought it was odd, mole. And he thought it was strange that she seemed to be everywhere. Like who is she? In the spring of 2016,

Torschen and Bhutinam met with Trump at the NRA convention. The meeting was set up by Paul Erickson, a conservative activist who emailed Rick Dearborn, a senior Trump campaign staffer, saying, Kremlin connection. Jordan, we've talked about this a few times. Quote, Putin is deadly serious about building a good relationship with Trump. Deadly, deadly. Oh, and I'll settle it all. He wants to extend an invitation to Trump to visit him in the Kremlin before the election. The Kremlin believes that the only possibility of true reset in this relationship would be with the new Republican White House ever since Hillary compared Putin to Hitler all senior

Russian leaders consider her beyond redemption. Oh, they're offended. That is harsh. That is harsh. But if the Russians don't want you to be president, it is totally, yeah, totally deserved. If the Russians don't want you to be president, it seems that they yeah. Totally deserved. If the Russians don't want you to be president, it seems that they can make you not be president. Yeah, and he's proven the point.

Even if she didn't really have facts before to prove that he was like a Hitler type, he's only verified. It's in the book, the specific thing that he did, that was that, why, it was in response to an act that he did. I mean, poisoning your opponents, jailing them. Oh, well, she basically called him a fraud and she caused all the protests, I guess, in Russia,

the hundreds of thousands, 800,000 people showed up to protest, he blamed her. And she's a woman to do that. And then now he holds a grudge against her because she did that. Yeah, like Pussy right, I think he's threatened by the fact that these women are kicking his ass. Yeah, so he wishes he was Hitler.

You don't think he's a little misogynist? I don't, oh, he's totally misogynist, but I don't think he gives a shit about pussy, though. Oh, fair enough. Well, he handled them in his opinion. Quite. Yeah. I think they're amazing.

I love those things. Oh, yeah. Now around this same time, Flynn was giving his speech in Moscow. Remember when he gave his speech about how we should be friends and he sat next to Putin at dinner Across from them was Jill Stein. Oh, she must have been right Well, there's like she was there Yeah, I know supporting it when you said that yeah, when you said that thing about Sanders having some people that were tied to the

Cremelon now that my first thought was in soda Jill Stein So you think she was there like Why is what she'd be there? I'm one now that my first thought was in soda gel style. So you think she was there like, for what would she be there? This is an RT dinner. It makes me wonder are all of the people who tried to take down Hillary Clinton. No, they're all like, yeah, what's the wonder?

I was so worried. I helped out by Russia. Yeah, I would really, really like to believe no. But I would like to, but I've worked personally with Bernie Sanders. I think he's got a lot like to, but I've worked personally with Bernie Sanders. I think he's got a lot of integrity, but I mean, there are things that you and I as citizens just can't know.

Yeah. So, I don't know. And so, I'm sorry. And so, also in April 2016, 11 million files from most Sackphone Seka were hacked and given to a German newspaper. These were known as the Panama Papers. We covered these in a really episode. Yeah. I think you did that, Jules.

I did. Yeah, episode three or something. Yeah, I wouldn't go back and listen. I'm just so embarrassed by our sound quality back then. That's fair. Like, they've gotten so good. I don't know if you guys know this, but we did never. I've never, none of us had ever podcasted until this.

None of us had ever done anything. We learned it all right then when the indictments went down because we wanted to do this for you. And so at first it was on the sound, but I think we've gotten to a point where I think we've got our sound down. It's only going to keep getting better. Really, it's all because of our contributors, and I have to thank them all. have to thank them. That's so true, like all the time. Yes. Because we're gonna break even soon, I love you. That's crazy, yeah. Just, it's, I want to bring you like the highest quality content, like every week with like sound that doesn't suck.

So, I hope that we're doing that for you. If you have any, seriously, emails at Hello at Mollarshi Road, if you have any like little tips and tricks, we would love to hear it because we we've never done this we're born new mics have a back in a front yeah dude our our podcast got immensely better when we stopped talking into the back of microphones it really did way less confusing for Julie so much she was editing it oh my gosh it helps that the microphone says back on it yeah it does but who's looking at that I don't know yeah see we're comedians we have handheld mics we're not used to helps that the microphone says back on it. Yeah, it does. But who's looking at that? I don't know.

Yeah. See, we're comedians. We have handheld mics. We're not used to these fancy condenser mics. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, Panama Papers, earlier episode, Putin blamed it on Obama, of course, in the United States.

But that didn't set off any alarms in the White House. It never does. It didn't never seem to. And somebody asked in the main episode, like, what's going on with the Obama administration? Didn't this happen under his watch? Yeah, a lot of it did. I don't, now when Trump comes on and says, you know, Obama should have taken care of this, it's his fault.

You were the one we should have been watching and weren't. So don't, let's not blame us for not catching you, you know, fucking my brother. whatever it is, you know, it's just, it's absolutely insane. His blaming Obama, he just loves to blame Obama for everything. Anyway, all right, so, so, you know, like I said, that did not set any alarms off in the Obama White House and neither did an intelligence report of an intercepted conversation that indicated the GRU was going to strike Hillary for stoking the 2011 protests. This was also largely ignored. This is like the fifth thing we missed. Yeah.

Now in May, Muk was briefed about the DNC hack and he said to himself, oh shit, I wonder what they got. Which is what I would think too. Like if you ever walked up to your car and the windows broken out, come home and somebody's broken into your house and you're like, shh, what the fuck is that? And you're looking around for what they got. And you can't remember what was in there

in the first place and you're like, I'll find out three months later when I'm like, where's my thing? Where's my pee pee tape? Yeah, where's my pee tape? I really needed that. Well, he was upset that he wasn't told sooner and he should have been.

Like, why did Hawkins, why did the FBI call call that mid-level guy? I don't even know. So he began wondering if Trump was involved and he had some clues, right? Trump hired a bunch of Russian friendly advisors. Trump's repeated sympathetic comments about Putin and Russia, that's a thing.

Trump's first porn, foreign porn. Porn. Trump's first porn star about Putin in Russia. That's a thing. Trump's first foreign porn. Porn. Trump's first porn star happened to a school. Trump's first, fuck, I can't even say it. Trump's first foreign policy speech on April 27th, vowing to improve Russia relations and attendance with Sergei Kislyak, right? Muk and the other senior campaign providers began thinking,

who was a sinister connection between Trump and the Russians? And rightfully so. They thought about planting phony information in their, you know, in their emails to see if Trump would use it in the campaign. Right. And then prove that would prove Trump was in league with the Russians. He told Mark Elias the campaign lawyer about this and they decided this is a bad idea Because what if we put salacious info in there and it's stolen and it gets out and nobody believes us About it that we that we planted it. No, we put that in there to see if he would steal it like everyone would be like yeah, whatever So MOOC decided to implement a new cyber security procedure But he had no idea that Podesta's emails were already hacked the Russians were already inside. Oh my gosh

That's that's a movie plot for sure. It's insane. Yeah All right, thanks for listening. I've I've enjoyed this book so much. I really recommend you guys pick it up I'm loving reading it. So Anyway, this is Mola she wrote join us next time for the next installment of Russian roulette the book report I guess I want to make a diorama. I like it. Yeah, that would be the scariest diorama ever There'd be poisonings and all sorts of pull out like tea party like little Russian tea party Oh tea party like a ripary dancing. I don't even know very nice. I don't know. It's creepy dolls. Yeah Definitely scary anyway. I'm a G. I'm Julius Johnson. I'm Jordan Cob. Anyway, I'm A.G. I'm Jolissa Johnson.

I'm Jordan Coburn. And this is Mollarshi Road. Mollarshi Road is produced and engineered by A.G. with editing and mixing by Jolissa Johnson. Market consulting by Amanda Reader at Unicorn Creative. Our digital media director and subscriber manager is Jordan Coburn. Fact checking and research by AG with support from Julie Sejonson and Jordan Coburn. Our web design and creative is by Joel Reader with Moxie Design Studios and our website is

mullershyrope.com. 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, Fla- All of it.

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