Jack - Splitting Aces

Episode Date: January 13, 2020

This week on Mueller, She Wrote, we're continuing to discuss the ripple effects of Trump's recent decision regarding Iran, which big court cases and dates we're currently looking towards in 2020, and the latest impeachment updates. Want special, patron-only content? Support us at patreon.com/muellershewrote

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Hello and welcome to Moller She Road. I'm your host, A.G. And with me today is Jordan Coburn. Hello. And Mandy Reedy. Hello. We have a great show lined up, especially the fantasy indictment league is hot today. Do-do-do-do-do. We have a former US Attorney Joyce fans. She's gonna join us to explain some legal questions about a guilty plea in the Trump inaugural this week. Oh God.

To your boy, you missed the fantasy indictment league last week. We were all over you. I have a very sore throat today. I was moving some stuff around yesterday, particularly old records and LPs, dust, like all over my vocal cords, and it was kind of oddly seemed rainy, but somehow dry. Like, you know, like it's almost raining, but you get out of the car and you shock yourself on something metal. That was yesterday. And so now my voice is all messed

up, so I'm really sorry sorry unless you think this is rad. Hey. Kind of sent Silchery. I kind of like it. Me and Kathleen Turner. I'm not bad. I'm just drawn this way. Now we're totally gonna do this. But you know we do have a lot of news. I can't not bring you the news. But I just want to let you know like my voice is messed up. I also want to think our patrons. If you're not a patron yet you can sign up for as little as three bucks a month and you'll get early ad free episodes of our sister podcast, The Daily Beans. And we have some new things coming, including a video feed, which will feature us with messed up hair and jammies.

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It's the pink taco. Euphemism? Is that the right word there? The double entendre. The localism? The name. It's not. The localism? The name. It's not. The top one was a localism, but yeah. Yeah, the pink taco.

See, I would have to. I would have to. That's fair. Sorry, we're inserting my fifth green humor into this. Different from the green taco, which I don't know. I don't know. Interesting. Is that a restaurant?

No. Oh, good. Because that sounds disgusting. Who would ever do that? Like, we're going to call ourselves the green taco. The green taco. Come on in. The pink taco was shut down and the food left out. Two for three weeks. There is a restaurant called pink taco.

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Dear A.G. Jordan and Amanda, thank you for all you do. I've been a subscriber from day one. I rely on the dedication, insight, and. Nice. Dear A.G. Jordan and Amanda, thank you for all you do. I've been a subscriber from day one. I rely on the dedication, insight, and good humor. The three of you bring to the news swamp that is our present lot. Thank you. Saw this at a friend's antique bookshop. Thought of you all.

Beans come true. Have a wonderful 2020. I do hope one day you visit Toronto all the best, your fan gene. And it's this book. Like, it's, it's orange and it's like a pamphlet kind of and it says beans like a scene enjoyable the world over grown in Michigan. I don't think of beans as being grown. We neither. But I guess that is how all living things work. I mean I guess we all grow but beans I feel like they just are. Yeah. Yeah they just come into

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delicious anytime, anywhere. Boston may have made them famous, but Michigan grows them. 99% of all the Navy PBs, Harvard, Susan, the United States, come from Michigan's thumb and Saginaw Valley. Just so cool. You know what?

On that note, I really like weird and interesting facts about places. So tell me what you believe to be the most interesting fact about your state. Tweet at us. Ah, your state or your city. Or your city. I love that. I love that shit. I love finding out like weird details about someone's like we grow the most blah blah blah. We got some bumper stickers from Bill Moyers vote for sanity in 2020. A democracy can die when there are too many lies. Thank you for those bumper stickers. And then we got these amazing handcrafted wood

Thank you for those bumper stickers. And then we got these amazing handcrafted wood name tags and coasters. So there's one that says AG one that says Mandy Reader, Mandy Reedy, and one that says Jordan Coburn, it says Muller She wrote, these name tags are laser cut from Baltic Pine, one eighth inch plywood. The standing is vaporized wood adhering as it blows over the piece. vaporized wood. Wow. I use one of your logos and I think it worked okay. It looks amazing. The coasters are the same deal. Notice how deep the cuts are. It's so spills get caught in the coaster and then soak into the coaster. The cup is supported by the raised parts. Your logo isn't very symmetrical. Well, it looks cute as long as. So I talked to Nancy Drew.

So I added some lines to support a cup. I hope that works. It's beautiful. I really want to thank you all, all the patrons for your support. I can't go into details right now, but I will soon. I promise. But your support is my rock right now. So thank you all so much. As I said at the top, we have a great show, but before we hit the headlines, let's make some corrections. It's time to stay! It's time for me to say I'm sorry! Oh, I made a mistake! Alright, so from ENTO, we have on a recent episode, AG mentioned that if Bernie and Biden win the primary, for better or for worse, at least there would be no identity politics in play. However, Bernie is ethnically Jewish and anti-Semitism in America has sadly been on the rise for

better or worse. I doubt a Bernie candidacy would be free of identity politics. First of all, it was a man who said that, not a G. And second of all, I don't know if Bernie's Judaism rises to the level of identity politics. I mean, he's mentioned it like twice in his life. And I don't think he's a practicing Jew. He's definitely not an orthodox Jew. Not that that matters or makes any difference

whatsoever. In fact, when the DNC was hacked by Russia, they got emails from the Hillary campaign or at least from the DNC saying, let's attack Bernie for not being Jewish enough. I don't know if you remember that. No. So I don't see that as a huge identity politics situation.

It wasn't when Lieberman was vice presidential candidate. I don't see it as being one here either, but, you know, maybe I'm wrong, but I don't know that that falls into the identity politics. Definitely feel the white nationalist won't forget it. That's for sure. Yeah, good point. Yeah, I don't, I can't foresee how That's for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Good point. Yeah. I don't

I It's I can't I can't foresee how that's gonna go down obviously But what I meant by that was they're old they're both old old straight white men Everybody who's left as a white person. Yeah, that's I think what you're saying and It's like something to spite Trump's best efforts Judaism is not a race right it's over, but I mean that's different now He's actually called it that so that he can I don't know he was I can't speak authoritatively and anything to do with Judaism or being Jewish because I am not oh I'm not saying I am what I'm saying is that Trump made a rule yeah absolutely to make it

Racial so that it can be considered racist. Yeah, if something goes down right Although Netanyahu is now has a warrant out for his arrest For Trump's arrest I was like are you okay today? I am I just was like I heard you incorrectly and I was like Netanyahu as a worn out for Trump's arrest What no no Spain no. Spain. Oh God. I wish they could do global citizens' arrests. Yeah, I wish that was like walk up to them like, hey,

citizens' arrests, citizens on patrol. Yeah, no, he has a warrant for his arrest in Spain. If he sets foot in Spain, he will be arrested. Hell. Wow. Wow. And Spain's were grinned us from that they were like a huge help intelligence-wise in the Mueller investigation. And Spain's were grinders from that they were like a huge help

Intelligence-wise in the Mueller investigation. So that's fantastic Another correction from Andrew Markey hated daily beans. I'm currently on active duty. I Like you I'm disgusted at Gallagher. However, I doubt that is why recent troop deployment was disallowed their cell phones Since my entry into S.O.F. in 2012. had several no-notice deployments and phone bands were the norm. The troops recently deployed and are not SOF, though this is new to them, check these out, and you'll see why we avoid phones overseas. All right, thank you for that.

It's normal. But he said he's currently overseas right now. He says he's currently active duty and SOF. Got it. Well, thank you for your service. Yes, thank you for your service, Mr. Markey. But yeah, it was odd to me because the article made it sound like this never happens. You know, that wasn't my point of view. That was from the news that I got. I find that happening. Sorry, go ahead. When I was in the military, we didn't have cell phones. So we didn't have cell phones. Mm. So we didn't have cell phones. Sorry, I laughed so hard that. But you're, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, the tone of the article doesn't kind of match the actual facts if you look into it more the reality of right

So now I find myself needing to like even if it's you know Especially actually the New York Times, you know, they had a weird stint of being like still over the way So yeah so Wall Street Journal did it this week too. I'll get into that in a bit But yeah, you're totally right like what the fuck? Michael Watson Turkey is a member of NATO. Their ascension happened in 1952. They call it an oh, accession. All right. I was going to say ascension. It's like, it's

like Jesus. Though honestly, given their defense procurement, oh, this person is from the UK. They spelled defense with a C., accession might be a special UK word that I'm the procurement of the Russian anti-air system, the S-400 to their regular use threats to European NATO members to destabilize the European Union. Distabilize with an S. Good job. One would wonder why they still are. Yeah, okay. So, you're saying Turkey is a member of NATO. I was for some reason thinking they weren't. I think it was Ukraine I was thinking of. Too many scandals to keep track of. scandalous countries, not countries,

but relationships with scandalous relationships with other countries. Well, and it's also hard because we have a president who says very anti-NATO thing at times, but then also throws bones to Erdogan all the time. So it's like, who do you hate in totality? I can't tell. I can't keep up.

Doesn't feel like Erudwan should be in NATO But yeah right now. I guess we shouldn't either so And he says while listening to you all from Sweden. Oh, oh, Sweden not the UK You guys remind me of how hilarious and insightful Americans and Canadians slash Amanda Can be your great contribution to us in Europe is understanding what the hell is going on in the United States. Can't not be understated lots of love and keep it coming. And then some dude who's opening statement well first of all he complained that I call it a compliment sandwich. He says you wouldn't put a

piece of bread in between two pieces of baloney. Fine it's a shit sandwich if you want me to fucking nice about it. And then he corrected us on the corrections. And then he says that gerrymandering, the decision of the gerrymandering scotus case was more complex than we alluded to. Well, that's just it. We only alluded to it. We did like almost an entire episode on the Jerry Mandering Scotus case.

You can check it out if you want to or don't. But kindly don't accuse me of not covering something when I already have and you don't know. Send me a message like this. Good job. Thank you for sending me a message. All right. We have a lot of news to get to.

So let's jump in with just the facts. All right. This week we finally heard a little bit about where Nancy Pelosi is going. In a six-page dear colleague's letter, that's like a dear John letter for Congress. She told Nallar to prepare to vote on impeachment managers and to prepare to send the articles to the Senate and we were like, what? This isn't my favorite, but she has a plan and I'm going to support it. I'm not going to be part of the media that vilifies her they've been poking at her and poking at her mom mom mom mom mom

Mommy mommy mommy mommy mommy for like ever to try to Get us in the articles and she's like I'm just fucking doing my job just chill. So here we are Anyway, she may have a few tricks up her sleeve yet, and it could be there was a story that came out like just a couple hours ago that Parnas Parnas's lawyer again was to Congress mummy mummy mummy mummy like hey, I've got some stuff Mm-hmm you want to see and maybe that's what maybe that's the if you want to withhold them for now Yeah, maybe that's the trick. She's got it personally. I don't know or you know She because she didn't say I'm sending the articles over she said be, be prepared to have a resolute, to talk about a vote for a resolution to point the managers and then send the articles over. That could be a while. But she's also

running up against the election. Yeah, I wonder how much of their conversation, you know, behind closed doors is sort of, what do we do in the scenario, which seems to be the case, that is him continuously doing things that are impeachable offenses constantly. Like how do we split that up? Do we split it up at all?

What kind of action do we take against that overall? So I wonder if it's not parnous, there's a bunch of things. There's a frickinin treasure chest of crimes and misconduct and high crimes and misdemeanors. Yeah, so it's, so I feel like that's a big part of it too. Yeah, it's like, how do we, how do you play a move when it's constantly your turn?

I know, I know. Where do you pick? But specifically, I want that fucking in any day now, more Manafort documents will come out about Ukraine and the peace plan, which was just a backdoor communications to allow Russia to have control over, you know, the peninsula over Crimea. But like, you're right. Where do you stop? Because and then right after the election we had the first round of Javalan's which we only sold to Ukraine after and we gave them a presidential visit a White House visit to But that was not only an exchange for something else, right? And so we have to and of course back then it was Shoken in the corrupt government that reason power so it was a little easier. Right. And then they have to remove Marie Ivanovich

and oh, some Yovanovich emails came out this weekend, which are just nuts. Basically, in email, I think it was from a top diplomat at the Secretary of State saying that Yovanovich, to Yovanovich, saying don't testify, don't testify and don't hand over documents in the impeachment inquiry, like direct documentary evidence of obstruction of Congress. And who did that come from?

Some a top official at the State Department. Do we know if it's Pompeo or have any beans? If I knew, I would tell you, of course. Yeah. You're all like, why are you withholding it from me? Well because it's good to me. It's just fun for me. No, yeah, no, it's redacted They're heavily redacted these 42 emails that 42 pages of emails that were sent on a letter That letter to your Von Nevich. Hey, you're not allowed

Interestingly George Conway and Kelly. This is Kelly and husband and Interestingly, George Conway and Kelly, this is Kelly Ann's husband, and Neil Katyal have penned an op-ed in the Washington Post with an idea that basically, this is for the articles, that involves the House sending one article of impeachment, the obstruction of Congress article, and holding the Ukraine extortion abuse of power article. I call this splitting aces. The op-ed says that just because Pelosi has announced she may transmit the articles doesn't mean she has lost the standoff with McConnell over whether to call witnesses. Kotchell and Conway say that

because there are two articles Pelosi has room to maneuver now so she can either transmit one article or transmit both with a letter like I love you note saying if the Senate fails to call witnesses and obtain documents, the House will reopen the investigation into Article 1 and subpoena the witnesses and documents itself. Now, I don't know why you need to put that in writing. I thought that was what would just happen anyway. But Kotel and Conway prefer splitting aces, and they say it makes perfect sense because

the obstruction article is a matter of public record no more evidence is needed. But this implies that there is more evidence needed in the first article which I disagree with. They had 17 witnesses, everything they don't need anymore witnesses. It'd be nice to have Bolton and Mulvaney like people that the president is blocking from testifying to testify, but unless they just are talking about more being, you know, like stuff that remains to be seen, what do you mean? In the investigation, in the Ukraine investigation period, whereas the obstruction stuff, the stuff that's already happened in the past, oh, right. It's already documented.

Maybe they're saying, it's a continuing investigation, basically, at this point. So is obstruction. That's true, because it keeps happening. Yeah, every single day, they failed to send something over or they redact a bunch of stuff. But you're right, yeah, it's like not that, if you take from point A and to point B, in some past moment, you could say,

okay, we have all the evidence we're gonna have as far as the obstruction goes, at least for that point in time. Whereas for Ukraine, they're still more to discover. I agree, but that's not what they said. What they said was we have enough evidence in the obstruction, which implies that we don't have enough evidence in the Ukraine shakedown. And I just wanted to be like, yeah, we do. And yes, we do. And that's the end. But you're right. Ukraine evidence could come out until for 100 years from now. We could still be getting you. Slydrip. Yeah. Yeah. Just a depth. So if it all, even if it was a fire hose, we could be

getting it until the end of the century because it's just so much stuff. There's always more layers of shit with Trump. There's always another layer of shit. You dive deeper into the pile of shit and you find out there's more shit. It's a good thing about the fire hose, is it like gets the shit off. Try, it's like a Portipataico chilla. It's like the ultimate bidet. Portipata.

God, I just had a flashback to the Portipata as a burning man. Oh yeah, I can't even imagine like a wrestler. Like, it's the ultimate bidet, and it's a fire hose, and it's just totally like, shaves your whole about, hold on. The first time I saw bidet, I didn't know what it was, the ultimate bidet and it's a firehouse and it's just totally like, shaves your whole about a whole lot. The first time I saw a bidet, I didn't know what it was because my bidet.

My people don't. Yeah, I grew up pretty like, like working parents. And like, a lot of our parents worked. Well, there are like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I just went like, we were very like, we were not, we were very, yeah, we were very, yeah, we were also really not in the US. Like, at all.

I really, really sad. I had never seen one before. I had never been to a hotel fancy enough or had friends who had a bidet and then I saw a bidet for the first time and I actually lived in an apartment with a bidet. Yeah, well now they have them where you just attach them to the side of your toilet

and your friend is like, dude, try the bidet. And you're like, okay, but like, oh, trust me. I think you have a friend that's done that actually. So you're fucking toilet you guys. What is this? Is this like a Japanese toilet? Yeah, between the squatty potty and the, like, the day there's just a complete operation now.

Just entire appendages, so all toilets across the nation. That's quite funny. So anyway, in this whole Ukraine thing, new evidence has emerged since, here's why I like what Nancy did, because since she's had the articles on hold, new evidence has emerged since here's what here's why I like what Nancy did because since she's had the articles on hold new new evidence has emerged since she since the first articles were adopted including new emails that show Trump personally ordered the Ukraine aid hold 91 minutes after the call with Selensky and of course John Bolton saying he's willing to testify and now these new emails where they

actually wrote to Yvonnevich and said, don't you dare testify or don't hand over documents. So holding the Ukraine article, according, like holding one of the articles, split in the Aces, according to Katya Lankanwe, would be powerful and precise. It would be a powerful and precise response to McConnell's declarations that has no intention of holding a fair trial. Well, we know that.

My problem with this gambit is it would mean two impeachment trials, if there was a second, you know, article or additional articles. And I think, while I think it's a bad idea, Kotel and Conway assert it's a fair price to pay for obstructing justice so much, I don't know that you want him to have two trials because then you get two acquittals. Then you get, then you really get the argument. They came after me and came after me and they still lost over and over and over

and he'll run on that. And that's a much more powerful message than, the Senate acquitted me in two weeks because whatever, one time. Right. And if we're gonna do two, then shouldn't we do three and then four and then five? Whereas if we just gonna do two, then shouldn't we do three and then four and then five, whereas if we just have this one time,

maybe that makes a little bit more sense, I guess. Yeah, and I never understood the urgency message that everyone would say, it's urgent, it's urgent. We have to do it, it's urgent. How does, I never understood how impeaching the president faster in the house would stop election interference in 2020 or keep him from cheating or keep him from doing it more. How as long as the Senate is how it is.

Yeah. We knew from the beginning that he wasn't going to get removed in the Senate. So what? I don't even understand why we have to impeach him fast. Yeah. So much of this, I feel, is just deciding how they want to go down in history, really. Right. And I think that that weighs heavily on Chief Justice John Roberts mind a lot.

And we'll see how he handles this. So I don't like either of these options holding splitting aces or, you know, having a second impeachment trial. If I had to pick, I'd pick the latter, though, and hold Senate Republicans to task in the election for acquitting Trump. Especially since the evidence will come out, whether there's a second trial or a first trial or no trial, the evidence will come out. And when it comes out, anyone who acquitted Trump is going to be, and you'll hear him,

they'll like, we didn't have that evidence at the time. I didn't have that evidence at the time. Had I had that evidence at the time, I would have voted differently. I didn't see that. I didn't know that. They're going to fucking say that. Right. Even though they had all the evidence at the time, there is plenty of evidence that this went down this way. Even though also the Onus is on you to do the fucking research to get more evidence because we don't do more evidence in trials, didn't you? Here. Like, if you are supposed to be making a fair decision

for the American people, you should do your due diligence and do some goddamn research and try to find more evidence. No, you know. And that's what Marco Rubio said. Exactly what you're saying. And I think that's what you're sort of alluding to. The Bible bot as one of our Twitter followers,

that I went Bible not, and that was a really dumb joke. So he's justified an unfair trial by saying no new witnesses and no new evidence because the Senate need only consider the evidence, the house considered, and nothing else. Even though that flies in the face of wanting to call the Biden's to testify,

how can you possibly, they're not even being impeached. They're not even nothing, nothing. Yep. Imagine it's going to a judge and being like, I think this guy may have killed someone and I know we didn't have enough evidence before, but we have more now. Oh, sorry, no, no new evidence. Yeah, it's just a weird person to call. It'd be like, hey, yeah, you know what? I shot that guy and I'm on trial for that. But did you hear what his brother did in the 80s?

In fact, here's his brother to tell you. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. No bearing. That's the defense that they use all the time now. That's true. Look over there. Look back then.

Don't look right now. That's in front of your face that you can do something about. Don't look at this. But speaking of the Biden's, they're the focus of a new FBI investigation. Not because the FBI is investigating the Biden's, but bombshell reporting from Bloomberg on Friday, the FBI is probing if Russia is targeting the Biden's,

targeting the Biden's, just Biden. Just Joe. Just Joe Joe that should be his slogan not no more. Just Joe. I'm just a Joe standing up. That is that is an incredibly populist slogan for how not like yeah just Joe. Hey I'm just Joe. Yeah they get a great campaign ads just time for media. I'm sitting in just Joe Yeah, he sits in a swivel chair turns around with a cup of coffee No, he's just putting a cat with hair You sure does I'm button a little bit too much. Yeah Your face, you know, I never remember I got a little bit somehow

With my face I should have been a big one. I should have been a big one. Yeah. You're getting all flustered over there, Jordan. Yeah. So I'm sorry. But Bloomberg reported Friday, the FBI is probing if Russia is targeting Biden in the 2020 election, meddling as part of its ongoing disinformation and social media efforts to help Trump win in November.

This is 2016 all over again. Interestingly, part of the inquiry is to determine whether Russia is going after Biden by spreading disinformation about Biden's past involvement in US policy toward Ukraine while his son worked for an energy company there. Interesting that the number one defense of the Trump side in this whole Ukraine shakedown and the witnesses they want to call are based on this conspiracy theory that is now being investigated by the FBI as election interference because it's such a conspiracy theory.

We know the answer is yes to that. I bet the beans, there's already a full investigation open and ongoing. Though there's no confirmation of that from the FBI. The question becomes, do they keep it a secret like they did in 2016 or do they announce it? As this is no longer Obama's intelligence community. I hope they learn from 2016. Keep your eyes on Chris Reyes' job. If he's probing Russian election interference, he might go the way of Comey. So, God. Keep your eye on that. This could... Go the way of Comey has been fired through the television. Everyone's fired through the television.

Via tweet, a tweet that you see on television. Yeah, exactly. And with all that in mind, the New York Times has a story that also came out Friday morning that Russia has grown stealthier approaching in the next election. Groups linked to the Kremlin have recently infiltrated the network of an elite Iranian hacking unit, attacking systems in the Middle East and Britain, hoping Tehran would be blamed for the hacks. After interviewing dozens of

officials, the time says it's clear, many of our vulnerabilities from 2016 still remain. They're still there. The task of heading off the Russians has now made more challenging by new threats from other American rivals such as Iran, which has more motive than ever now to interfere in 2020 with the killing of Soleimani. Stunningly, they report that Fancy Bear has shifted some of its workload to servers in the United States because the NSA and other agencies are limited by law to operate abroad. So the NSA can't investigate servers in the United States. You have to investigate abroad, isn't that crazy? Wow. Okay. I don't understand how servers work exactly. So they're in Russia hacking, like, operating out of servers in the United States.

Via, like, some sort of proxy, like some code. I don't know. I don't know. Okay. They don't have like, sympathizers in the United States. Yes. Oh, they do. Wow. Yes. That's the thing. And this was in the Mueller report. Remember, they had some servers in Bismi, Arizona. Yeah. And they were paying contracts for this. I just don't think that the proxies here know

what they're using their servers for. They just rent out the server space. But because they do at the United States, the NSA CIA, they didn't touch it. Damn. And then, so that's, that's fancy bear. Now, cozy bear has apparently dropped off radar off the radar altogether.

No one knows where cozy bear is. Hopefully cozy somewhere. Yeah, I was going to say, just living out the rest of their days in the arms of a six-year-old child. Just snugglin'. Then we have the internet research agency, which has ditched email accounts in favor of encrypted communications tools like ProtonMmail, which are harder to trace.

Taking a note there, Protonmail, hard to try. I'm kidding. They're also trying to exploit the Facebook loophole that allows for political lies, their lies and political ads now, and they're paying American users, American users, to hand over personal pages. So, they'll come to you and say say I give you 100,000 for your page and then they overt they take over your persona and use it so they aren't like you know the picture of the bulldog with a name and 18 letters after it

it's it's more believable to you yeah so that's and setting up offshore bank accounts to cover their tracks, which I'm pretty sure they were doing already. Like, did they read a Mueller report when they were? But as we all know, McConnell has blocked multiple election security bills. So fuck, I can't not believe. So Russia is trying to frame Iran, basically. So, are they truly just... I mean, there sounds like another Ukraine thing, doesn't it? Yeah, but also just like... They're just so dedicated to instability and like fostering it. And they just keep roping in different countries.

It's working. It's... It's crazy right now. Right, and they're like, again, just swooping in and capitalizing off of fear-mongering tactics that have been happening on the US side. But also think about how much money and how well Putin would do if the United States went to war with Iran. And also how Putin benefits if the United States and Ukraine are no longer friends.

So that's why they're framing these countries. And a lot of around them from the US not liking them. And a lot of Iran's weaponry is from Russia, right? Yeah, the two missiles that took down the plane that we're going to talk about in a bit were purchased from Russia. Yeah, I wonder if it's like a simple, I'm sure it's not as simple as that, but if they would stand to gain a lot of money,

even just in the arms side of it. Anyway, we have a lot more headlines, believe it or not. I feel like we've done a whole show. Goodbye. No, we'll be right back after this break. Hey everybody, it's A.G. This episode of Mola Shirod is brought to you by Beta Brand. Do you have a to-do list that never seems to end?

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betabrand.com slash AG. Millions of women agree these are the most comfortable pair of pants you'll ever wear to work. Go to beta brand.com slash AG for 20% off today. All right, quick update on Iran. And this ties into your hot note Jordan, because you're going to talk about what happened in Baku, Azerbaijan, a while back. But imminent threat, right? That's what everybody's wondering about. Apparently, they're the only imminent threat was impeachment.

Pompeo says, look, I have the quote right here. It's absolutely ridiculous. Let me pull this up because you're going to laugh so hard. When he said it, I was like, did you just say that? I couldn't believe he actually went down that path. He says, when asked about, no that's policy oh this will get a lot of attention today on the imminent threat intelligence Pompeo tells Fox News Fox News there's no doubt that there were a series of imminent attacks being plotted by a Kassam Soleimani. We don't know precisely when and we don't know

precisely where but it was real. But we can still do it. Isn't that in the name of the word imminent? That's it. You have to have some sort of like temporal awareness of when it's going. When and where? Yeah. Yeah. If I have an imminent threat to me, it's not just because I have this impending sense of doom.

I have specifics about when and where it's going to happen. That is precisely what it means. Let's look up the description of imminent here, shall we? imminent. Adjective, it means about to happen. So, we clearly snob that. But, yeah. You're like about to happen.

Yeah. And of course this week, a Iran abandoned the rest of nuclear deal. They're going to start their centrifuges back up. Then I started reaching uranium, yay. And Trump, of course, has blamed Obama for the Iran missile attack that came after his strike, airstrike against Soleimani, saying it was the money we gave Iran as part of the nuclear deal. We apparently put $1.8 billion into an airplane and flew it in the night over to Iran.

Okay. And that apparently is real. People think that. People think that that actually happened. And that's not the case. Wow. We unfroze the money. We owed them from 1979 and paid that back to them. And there is

proof that most of it, 90% of it went to infrastructure and jobs and getting the oil refineries back online so that they had an revenue stream. But like maybe 10% of it went to their defense spending. Like we don't spend money on the Department of Defense. It's pretty cheap, you know, to around the Pentagon. But their defense department is the Arrani and Revolutionary Guard, which we know because Trump helped them launder money through his hotel. And you're going to talk about that in a little bit. So that's just super ridiculous, but also this week, Iran accepted responsibility and apologized for downing that plane. They said, yep, we did it.

It was a mistake. We thought it was something else. Oops. What a horrible loss of life. Yeah, I'm actually kind of surprised that they apologized and accepted responsibility for it. Like, yeah. I think it's, I mean, we were making it more believable.

Right, well, we were predicting this when we were first talking about it, like what's most likely, you know, it's, I think, it fits into exactly what was the most logical thing that happened and it also makes sense that they were trying to cover it up at first. I imagine they realized they were just two in over their heads and they couldn't cover

that up. I have to imagine, especially since it was their own systems, that, well, they said it was human error, but whatever happens, they're a bit trigger happy. They knew that that happened immediately. So, I think it's very interesting and surprising though that they came out Like you said and actually admitted their mistakes because they were blatantly lying that entire time I also don't know about about it not being them. Yeah. Oh, they didn't say it wasn't them They didn't say anything in the beginning. No

I Thought that they were saying that it was an explosion on the aircraft and stuff Okay, I mean they work that I know of I mean unless unless I'm told I thought that they were saying that it was an explosion on the aircraft. And stuff. Okay. I mean, they weren't going to- Not that I know of, unless I'm totally wrong. They weren't saying anything until they came out and said they did it. They would have been able to keep that under wraps of very long anyway because I don't

think the Canadian government would have been chill. They were pretty aggressively perceived. I know what you're talking about now. At first, they were like, we think there was a fire on the plane or that the engine blew up. That was definitely them. Yeah, and then they started changing their tunes slowly about letting people look into the black box,

but no one else has seen it yet. Right, yeah, well now they don't need to, I guess because the answer, I mean, they still need to, but now if they just, they relieve themselves of a lot of pressure in one way by saying admitting that it was them. Right. And they did it and they did it on accident. Right. What freaks me out is that I believe the Iranian Prime Minister now, more often than I believe our own government, our own president, which is one time. Yeah. One time is more than I've ever believed. Yeah. Yeah. And here's this crazy thing

came out. His motives now. Everyone's wondering like what his motives were for this attack on Salamone. Wall Street Journal came out with a story, a very long story. And it wasn't until the 22nd paragraph where they said, Mr. Trump, after the strike told associates, he was under pressure to deal with general Salamani from GOP Senators he views as important supporters in his coming impeachment trial in the Senate so this At least in part Was prompted by the impeachment his reelection definitely

Yep, that makes sense. I mean, tith is a surprise of no one. Yeah, fine. Right. We were guessing that, but for him to just fucking come out and say it. I think that he thinks, like you said before though, if he says it, it makes it okay. If he says it out loud, then he wasn't trying to hide it or cover it up, but it wasn't a lie. Like, the more he says things openly, the more he thinks it's okay, so.

Yeah, I suppose. Um, that's a weird phenomenon. It's weird. You're like, just because you say it doesn't make it okay. And from the Mueller files, I feel like we should have like a Rockford files theme song right here. Prosecutors in both the Manafort and Stone cases have said they're ready to release more documents from the Mueller investigation.

While we were recording last Sunday, prosecutors told a federal judge they were ready to release previously sealed details from court proceedings about how Manifort lied during his cooperation. Now we knew he lied, but apparently there's more details about what he lied about because last year we know his plea deal fell apart. We found out he lied to prosecutors about five topics and remember one of them was completely redacted. Well maybe that's something that they're going to tell us now, something else that he lied about. But not only that, he lied about his discussions with the

now indicted Kremlin-linked Russian associate, Konstantin Kalimnik, about the Ukraine peace plan, quote-unquote, that provided that back channel for Russia to control part of Ukraine. And they're interested in getting Trump's support for it. That's what they were, you know, back then trying to, Russia was trying to get Trump and the Trump administration to support the Ukraine peace plan which meant annexation of Crimea, so, or at least controlling part of the country. They had already done that in 2014, but this is the connection between 2016 and the current impeachment, right? Manifort, he's the Linchpin. The connective tissue between Russian interference in 2016 and the current impeachment, right? Manifort, he's the Linchpin. The connective tissue between Russian interference in 2016 and the

current disinformation coming from Russian back to Ukrainians in that shadow, you know, foreign policy conducted by the three Amigos, Giuliani Volker, Sunlin and Perry, which was directed by Trump as we have now seen in recent emails that came out after he was impeached. So, and then less than 24 hours later, courthouse news reported the prosecutors in the stone case are prepared to hand over sealed records from Roger Stone's search and seizure warrants to the media outlets that have sued them.

They're gonna do it in 60 days. An attorney for the media wanted them released in 30 days, citing the slow paced the case and the public's right to know. But assistant US attorney, Aaron Zalinsky, argued the release could compromise ongoing investigations and the public's right to know. But assistant US attorney Aaron Zalinsky argued the release could compromise ongoing investigations and the privacy of third parties. Zalinsky is a Mueller person. The counter argument was that the department of justice can and will redact anything that would harm ongoing investigations. So you don't have to worry about that. And the third party's involved already testified in the stone trial. So they're public. Stowns attorney also backed the 60-day, and that is the delay that won the day.

So keep your eye out for that, 60 days from now, and the ties between the Mueller probe and the current impeachment going on with the Manafort documents. And after three years of a bullshed investigations into the Clinton Foundation and Uranium I, Trump's Justice Department has found no factual, factual, articulable basis to open a criminal investigation. We know that phrase from Andy McCabe, which has sent the Q assholes into a shame spiral. Despite the exoneration, Trump rallygoers continue to chant lock her up, a chant made popular by a disgraced former

national security advisor Michael Flynn, who faces sentencing in just 15 days. So by yourself, a nice bottle of Pino, get ready for him to be sentenced to prison. Because as we know, the Mueller team has revoked its no jail time recommendation in favor of recommending the max, which is six months in his case for the one count. And I still don't understand how he is facing additional charges. I know. I know. What the all the things he avoided right for copying a plea. but yeah, exactly But given that it's bill bars justice department How does that not set the president for other criminals though that you can just say you're gonna cooperate and then switch

And face no consequences, right and he'll probably get a pardon from the president Yeah, I'm sitting over here like yeah, you could see me right now. Yeah, it's not a good precedent Mm-hmm. No, it's not a good precedent. No, it's not. But we do have more news. So we'll be right back with hot notes, and the fantasy indictment league is lit. So stick around. Hey everybody, it's A.G. As you know, politics is my passion, but even I need a break occasionally.

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Download best fiends free on the Apple App Store or Google play That's friends without the R best fiends All right welcome back Hot notes All right welcome back Jordan. What do you have I really really want it like I know we went over I think it was in daily beans this week when I went over the coup, the 1953 coup in Iran and then the 79 in the Shah and we went over that whole history. And now I kinda wanna take a dip back into history

because this is so important now. So can you tell us about what was going on in Azerbaijan? Yeah, definitely. So this is only something that's transpired over the last decade. But we are taking a trip back in time to a piece that was done by the New Yorker in March of 2017. The piece was titled Donald Trump's Worst Deal, the president helped build a hotel in Azerbaijan that appears to be a corrupt operation engineered by oligarchs tied to Iran's revolutionary

guard. The story, it centers around Trump International Hotel in Tower Beku, which stands 33 stories high. It's right in the middle of a really weird area of the downtown. It's a pretty hard-to-reach location. There are stories of a person that was going there to scope out the area and their taxi drivers would be making like ten wrong turns trying to get there. It's just in a horrible location and it's in a part of the downtown that people that would

have the money to spend there typically wouldn't really frequent. So the whole thing is just initially kind of screaming, you know, sketchy. It's a tower that already existed too. So so when Trump's team got pulled in, it was basically to renovate it into this hotel and business time. When Trump said, uh, when they shot the plane down over Tariya Rondo, it was a bad neighborhood. Right. Did he really fucking say that? Yeah, he did. I think what he holy shit. I think what he and I don't mean to defend him. Yeah. I don't mean to defend him at all. I don't mean to defend him at all. He doesn't kill me before I do that.

But yeah, but I also think that he was kind of saying, like colloquially that shit, I mean, missiles were flying over there. I think that's what he meant by the bad neighborhood part. I think it was, yeah, it was a dangerous time in the sky. Yeah, I don't think he literally meant like, no, it happened over like a ghetto or something. It was like a Baltimore shit hole country. Yeah, I don't think he literally meant like it happened. It wasn't like a ghetto or something like a Baltimore Shit hole country, right? Yes, no, I sure he'll make one of those in the next week that we

I just thought it was funny like it was a bad neighborhood. I'm like, yeah, the sky. Yeah So plans for this development or renovation major innovation that started all the way back in 2008. Trump org signed the official contracts all the way back in 2012, but by the time Trump org formally announced the project in 2014, it was during a time in that country's history, which there were like incredibly low hotel occupancy rates in the area, and it really just didn't make sense for them to take the project on at that point in time. Again, just screams money laundering, but for some reason they decided to take on the project. Ezra Bejohn's Ministry of Tourism says that when he learned about the project,

he said, why would someone put a luxury hotel there? Nobody who can afford to stay there would want to be in that neighborhood. So what I was just saying, the local folks behind the project were really close relatives of Azure Bershans transportation minister, Zia Mamadov. Mamadov was known to be incredibly corrupt, but whenever asked about it, the Trump organization said his corruption was an issue because they never really dealt with that guy directly and that the deal was just mostly a licensing deal for them to slap Trump's name on the building anyway. So no big deal if he's regarded as one of the most corrupt men in that country, which is a country that is labeled as one of the most corrupt countries in the world by watchdog groups. So the whole thing just screams,

sketch. Sketch or not? So sketch. You know what I'm saying? It's like auto-tune, yeah. So pain, sketch. But, no, that's amazing. A reference I understand.

I'm appreciative of it. I'm excited that I made a relatively modern pop culture. Yes, but even though they tried to distance themselves from having a lot of involvement in the project, Ivanka, as we wind up seeing, was basically put in charge of the project and was super involved with the details of it. Remember, she posted an Instagram post where she's wearing a hard hat and she's like looking out the window and it says. It's raining and she's like, yeah, this one had a more rosy outlook, I guess.

In the caption reads, Ivanka has overseen the development of Trump International Hotel in Tower Boku since its inception. And she recently returned from a trip to the fascinating city in Azerbaijan to check in on the project's progress. So not doing a great job of keeping themselves distanced from it simply being a licensing agreement. She apparently was constantly being involved with very minute decisions. And to a certain degree, when you're overseeing a project

like that, aesthetically, just to maintain your brand since it is a licensing thing, it's expected for you to make some decisions, but she apparently was just like to... Like her managing, like very, very small details that she was constantly involved with. And experts on hotel development have said that her major involvement was very abnormal.

So it's, oh, Ivanka. Yeah. Sorry, someone told me it was Ivanka. Oh, Ivanka. And it's Iran, not Iran or Iran. Iran. There we go. Thank you.

Thank you. Yes. I'm still going to probably say it the way I say it. It's really no offense. Yeah. No, that's, I'm whatever I am open. I know what you're talking about. Yes, I got it.

But all of this is, it just screams that it was a corrupt business deal facilitated by a corrupt government official in a corrupt country. And even though there's no evidence that has surfaced yet that Trump or anyone in the Trump or really participated actively in bribery, money laundering, or illegal behavior, just the fact that they're working with the Mammadol family actually might be punishable by law because the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which passed in 77, it forbids American companies from participating in a scheme to reward a foreign government official

in exchange for material benefit or preferential treatment. It goes on to say the law even makes it a crime for an American company to unknowingly benefit from a partner's corruption if it could have discovered illicit activity, but avoided doing so. So basically, if you go into a business deal with a company that has any sort of inklings of being tied to corruption and you didn't do your due diligence to investigate that and see if that's what was going on,

then that's on you. If it turns out that they were using it as a front for some kind of money laundering or bribery scheme or whatnot. And that legislation closed what was known as the head in the sand loophole. I like that name.

Yeah, isn't that nice? Yeah, happy that it exists. Me too. Good job, folks. It's a passing people's. It's a passing people's. Yeah, it didn't fuck up. So it kind of smells like there's some corruption

happening there. Right. So given that this project really seemed like there's some corruption happening there. Right. So given that this project really seemed like there was no way it was going to make its money back or be profitable, that would have been should have been a huge red flag that something sketchy was happening. We need a new flag teller for Trump. It'll go on. Because the red flags are not doing it.

No. Yeah. The orange flag. I just want to say. Yeah, I thought that's the whole thing, right? After you're bombarded by red flags, they become normal seriously. And not only should it have been a red flag to them, but it was also pretty well known that Mammadav has really strong ties to Iran's revolutionary guard.

So this is where they start to come in. The whole project is seemingly drenched in corruption and Iran's revolutionary guard is generally regarded as something that's controlled by all the gark-a-cool figures that are constantly profiting off of corruption in the region and the fact that they didn't look into it more and get pull out of the deal way sooner is highly suspect. Super sketch. Yes, very sketch. Yeah, to even build a tower, they had to kick out a bunch of residents with homes and they told them that it was for a crucial governmental project. And one resident even sued the government when they found out about the tower. And this is

pre-Trump stuff. This is just the tower in itself. That was built. Right. Because Trump didn't come along, put his name on it till later. Right. Exactly. And Alan Garton, who's the Trump work lawyer, he didn't even deny that there was corruption involved in the project. But he said, I'm not going to sit here and defend the Mamadavs. But from a legal standpoint, they were blameless in his opinion. he says that the Foreign Curup Practices Act doesn't apply to the Baku deal, even if corruption occurred, because we didn't own it, we had no equity, we didn't control the project, the flow of funds

is in the wrong direction, we did not pay any money to anyone, therefore it could not be a violation of the Foreign Curup Practices Act. So deflecting blame completely when it comes to ties to Iran's revolutionary guard that really doesn't look good either on owners of revolutionary guard related businesses are like becoming you know have become rich left and right the only catch that is they'd say talk about in this article is that.

You have to be president of the United States. Right, you're expected to, it says, serve the needs of the guard. So effectively, you know, call it bribery, call it just whatever abuse of power they have in the region. Yeah, sketchy illicit stuff. The skirt unions, they, yeah, they just pretty much fuck everybody over. Yeah. Yeah, so, once it's a soft network, that can do all sorts of things that are very hard to trace. And the fact that it took Trump work until December 2016 to pull out of the deal is very sketchy. And then it also finally brings up the point that if Azure,

Bajon has proof that they did these business dealings with people that had all these ties to corruption, they could possibly blackmail Trent Borg with that. Yep, that's the old compromise, yo. That's, I just made that up, I don't know, but the compromise, yo. So yeah, that's a little bit bad. It's like the last zero, but with compromise.

Well, thank you for that. I really wanted to make sure that everybody knew what was happening in Azerbaijan back then. And that when Trump blames Obama for funding the revolutionary guard, it's because he himself did it. And he knows that he did it. And he did it through 2016 past the election. It's very recent.

It's not old news. I mean, it's old news but not. Right, right, yeah. The way that Trump blames Obama for everything reminds me of the way that I blame my dad for everything in my early 20s. Mm-hmm. Like get over.

Get over. Take some personal responsibility, Trump. Good therapy. Is it penis envy in your case though or? No. Although if I did have a dick for a day. Dude, helicopters all day. I don't want to think about Trump calling Obama daddy.

Oh, I don't like that. I don't even want to hear him calling daddy long legs daddy. I want to hear that we're coming out of his mouth ever. Me neither. Yeah. Nope. Nope. Nope.

No reporting Jordan. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I mean, it's basically just reading the New Yorker article and talking to daddy. It. Nope. No reporting. Jordan. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's basically just reading the New York article and still thinking about it. That's what reporting. But you're welcome. Yeah. That's how that. Yeah. Good job. Yeah. There's like so many details in that article too. I like barely scratched the surface. So if you ever want to great. Yeah. If you want to take the time to read it, take the time to read it and have Alexa read it to you. Yes

Okay, she does she read does Alexa read? She plays audiobooks nice. She'll read my messages to me I just got her so I don't know I'm not super capable like super sure what she's capable of As she turns my lights on and off and I live the and she can dim them. That's like jess and shit Yeah, I mean sometimes dim them. That's like Jetson shit. Yeah. I mean, sometimes I'm still, it's ridiculous. There are some days where I marble a technology still and I've worked in tech where I've been like, we live in the future. I feel bad though because one of my lights is called the first light and the other one's

called the second light and I feel bad for the second light. I want to give them their own names. You only have two lights that have the smart bulbs. Okay, very cool lights, but I'm going to put smart bulbs in everything. Is it in your room? It's in the living room. In the smart bulbs. Okay, very cool lights, but I'm gonna put smart bulbs and everything is in your room It's in the living room. What are my friends? I'm adapt. I don't know if it was her one of those It was either Alexa or one of the other home you know assistant services and she has it She has it set to call her you beautiful bitch. Yeah, so So we're like good morning you beautiful bitch

And it's great and I really love it and all you have to do is say Alexa call me a beautiful bitch. And it's great. And I really love it. And all you have to do is say, Alexa, call me a beautiful bitch. Yeah. That's all you would ever want. Yeah. That's fine. OK. OK. Can you say that sexier?

Alexaier? Oh, god. No. All right. So anyway, I have some old stuff, too. We're going to take a little time machine trip for hot notes here. So, because this, I can't even believe now that the inaugural investigation is just now ripening. So, let's listen to last February, nearly a year ago, when we had this breaking news story.

Then, Monday, some huge, huge news dropped. And this is big enough to be its own episode, so I'll try to keep it brief. This is potentially more consequential than even the Mueller investigation. Don't hate me for saying that. Though this investigation originated from Mueller's probe, so it came from there. The Southern District of New York issued a broad subpoena for the Trump inaugural committee, and we've been following this story for a really long time since we found out Trump's inaugural cost twice as much as Obama's apparently, but was like one-tenth as cool. They had a bunch of high school marching bands and like some DJ drums, cool drums,

or something. Just like DJ cool drums. Something like that. It was like one of those sick bro guys. You know, it was like playing a bunch of drums and being a DJ. That was the dumbest. You saved money when they played multiple instruments. Yeah. I guess. So what's amazing about this subpoena, you guys,

is the sheer scope of it. It requires Trump inaugural officials to hand over documents about donors, finances, activities, spending, any guests, any benefits they handed out, including tickets and photo ops with the president, federal disclosure filings, vendors, contractors, contractor lists, pretty much everything they have. It could take months to comply with this subpoena. They want to know all the benefits provided to guests and donors and donations because

the inaugural has to disclose these to the FEC. Any falsification or omission is a crime because the disclosure form is signed under penalty of perjury. And this one was signed by a guy named Doug Amerman. So you might want to throw him on your fantasy draft. Doug. Doug Amerman. Squirrel.

Um, prosecutors want to know if any foreigners illegally donated, as well as whether committee staff members knew that such donations were illegal, or if money was just being paid directly to vendors instead of going through the inaugural, like it's supposed to, so that they didn't have to report it. For tax, well, it's a non-profit, so it's not a tax dodge. It's more of a, we don't want you to know where this money came from, dodge. Right. And that bit is important, because accepting foreign contributions is only a crime if it's done with knowledge that the donations were illegal.

And it also says to me that there is indeed evidence of foreign contributions and the Southern District of New York is building a case for criminal charges. Beans. They asked for documents laying out a inaugural policy for accepting donations because federal law prohibits foreign contributions to federal campaigns, PAC packs, and inaugural funds. So if the Trump org has these documents that lay out a policy that says we can't accept foreign donations, then that means they knew, and therefore it's a crime, right? Jim Shuto, CNN said that the prosecutors are investigating a giant list of potential crimes, including conspiracy against the United States, false statements, male fraud, wire

fraud, money laundering, inaugural committee disclosure violations, and violations of laws prohibiting contributions made by foreign nations and contributions made in the name of another person known as straw donors, or if you hear us say cut out, that's what that is. And we already know Mueller and Dited Sam Patton for using a straw donor to funnel money into the inaugural when he bought four tickets to the party for $50,000 that was recouped from a Putin-backed Ukrainian oligarch. In fact, it was Mueller's interest in Russian-Squid Pro-Crow that launched this investigation

in the Southern District in the first place. Go, Mueller. The ultimate owner of this fund is Trump himself as a person. I don't know. I don't know who the ultimate I think the ultimate owner is the Trump inaugural. It's an entity. It's a non-profit. Is that to protect themselves? Like basically from legal like liability like no, I think it's just you have to set it up as a 501c3 or c4 Okay, force is five something so that you don't think there's like one individual who the liability falls on It's just everyone that was involved in any sort of passing those payments along.

Well, the executives could be like, like, take the Trump org, for example, you can indict the Trump org or you can indict the executives of the Trump org separately. Right. Just like AMI, you can indict AMI or you can indict Pecker or Dylan. Right. Separately, Dylan Howard. For this, the two people in charge were Tom Barich and Rick Gates. Okay. And you know they keep postponing the sentencing of Rick Gates, right? Yeah. So it seems like if he were assisting the Southern District in this investigation, it would make sense to postpone his sentencing so he can get credit for helping. Yeah.

Although you can get credit for helping up to being in jail for a year, but he hasn't even been sentenced yet. We don't even know what kind of time he's facing and additional help could make him avoid jail altogether if he wasn't already. He was the deputy director of the inaugural fund, second to Tom Barak, who I mentioned before. He's the guy who helped Manifort get the job with Trump in the first place. He's the one under investigation for his shady real estate dealings with the Qatar Investment Authority. He's the one under investigation for his shady real estate dealings with the cutter investment authority and in a pro-publica report

We know that Baruch was Seeking to personally profit from connections to the Trump administration according to a confidential memo obtained by WNYC The memo outlines how Baruch's company called colony sought to benefit financially from its ties to Trump on a Batchedly white men colonists It's ties to Trump, unabashedly white men, colonists. This memo says, quote, the key is to strategically cultivate domestic and international relations while avoiding any appearance of lobbying. Any appearance, yeah. Yeah, don't want to look like you're lobbying.

Otherwise, we have to register as foreign lobbyists and no one wants to do that. It's just not cool this year, 2016. And oddly, the only guy mentioned in the subpoena is Amad Zabari. He was in Trump Tower around the same time. Al Rumehi was there from the Qatar investment authority, meaning with Flynn, Jr. and Cohen. Mo. Probably to discuss the Ross Neft commission, Selaf.

Super beans, though, that's beans. And according to Renato Mariotti, friend of the pod and host of the on topic podcast, this subpoena indicates that the investigation is in its early stages. And the massive scope of the subpoena, as I said, could take months to comply with, and the inaugural has said it will fully cooperate. So they're going to start digging. So that was back in February.

And start digging, they did did because this week that guy Zuberi the only person actually named in the Trump inaugural subpoena has been charged with and is pleading guilty to obstruction of justice For deleting emails in which he discussed the oranges of his $900,000 donation to the Trump inaugural or inaugural Anogbury's where they mute the beers and no girl I love pottenalls. Well, hey shout out. So yeah, his $900,000 donation to the Trump inaugural, including emails with an unnamed foreign donor who happened to drop $5.8 million into Zabari's account around the time of his donation to the Trump campaign or Trump inaugural. They have also have evidence that after prosecutors asked him about the emails,

he called his internet service provider to see if there was a way to permanently delete those emails off the server. So he deleted the emails, the cops called him and said, bro, you deleted the emails, and then he called up Cox and said, hey, can you really delete those emails? That's like extra obstruction. Now this is huge news, but it isn't quite an indictment, and I'll talk to Joyce Vance

about that in the interview later on, but just like the old days, when a bad guy cop's to one charge, a cooperation agreement is usually in the works. So this is it. It's been almost a year. Fuck yes. And the first criminal charges in the Trump and Noggle have arrived. I was shocked. Maddo didn't cover this on Friday.

She's been following the story for as long as we have but there was some other stuff going on Good. Yep. I'm sure she'll get to it But this is huge. It has massive implications. So keep that in mind as I ask you. Are you ready for sabotage? Alright, my hot note takes us right into sabotage, which is the guilty plea by Zubari in the Trump inaugural case, so keep that in mind as you make your picks this week, because if he's indicted, then I would imagine, like I said, most of the other subjects and targets of the inaugural investigation are low hanging fruit now. And after the fantasy indictment leak, I'll talk to Joyce Vance about the difference between an indictment and an information, which is what this is called, and what Zubari is going

through and how this is indicative of a possible plea agreement, so stick around for that. And with that, are you ready to play the fantasy indictment leak? Yes. I'm going to be a plaintiff! No, it is going to be okay. I'm going to be a plaintiff! I'm a plaintiff! I'm a plaintiff!

I'm a plaintiff! I'm a plaintiff! I'm a plaintiff! I'm a plaintiff! I'm a plaintiff! I'm a plaintiff. I'm gonna cry dick. And I heard! I'm gonna cry! Hold it! It's gonna be okay. Just calm down. I can't calm down. I'm gonna be dead! Alright, I went first last week. You get to go first Jordan. Tom Barrick.

Yeah. Really? Really? A Zubari plea agreement. Yeah. Oh, oh wait, he didn't already. He just pleaded guilty. Yeah. Oh, oh wait he didn't already he just pleaded guilty I will do trope and I girl. Oh, I wasn't looking sorry I just never read it sorry

I like to be in the moment, you know, all right I mean I looked at this shit. I'm supposed to talk about and then otherwise I just like to be in the moment, you know? Alright, alright. I mean, I look at this shit I'm supposed to talk about, and then otherwise I just like to be present. I'm going with a gentleman named Doug Amerman. He's part of the Inog Girl, he signed off on all the... Okay. All right. Um, I'm gonna do you.

I'm gonna switch over to this AMI. Hush money situation. You've selected Pecker, you guess, like Pecker. I'm gonna do Hmm Trump org good good one. Yeah, I'm gonna go with a wallcraft plea deal who's wallcraft again the lady that $20 million from she's Ivanka or Melania's friend, okay? I'm gonna do Melania whatever Melania's friend, okay. I'm gonna do... Ivanka, Melania, whatever.

Melania. I'm gonna do Super Seating Firmin. That's good, I'm gonna go Parnas Plei. Nice. Plei deals. Yeah. I'll have Plei deals this week. Is that for?

Yes, you get one more aging. After you pick. Right, I get one more too. Yep, let's do. Okay, then I will do a Parnis Superseeding. Oh, Rudy. Oh, God.

Rudy Giuliani. Rudy Rudy. I have a question if Jislin is overseas actually. Would they still drop an indictment on her? Yeah, they would. Can I change my pick to Gillain? Which one would you like to remove?

The last one. Okay. Thank you. They all likely wait until she returns to the United States. And if she doesn't. But no one really knows where she actually is though. Some people are saying she's not overseas. I am 100% sure the FBI knows exactly where she is.

Yes, definitely. But I, I peasant. Yeah, there's no idea. I, a plea, do not know. All right, that's how we play the fantasy indictment league. After this break, we have the interview with former US attorney, MSNBC contributor, and I believe she's a law professor. She testified in front of Congress.

She's amazing. Joyce Vance will discuss the Trump inaugural and the impeachment strategy, so we'll be right back with that. Hey everybody, this segment of Mueller, she brought to you by Third Love. I am obsessed with Third Love. They are my favorite bra. All my bras now come just exclusively from Third Love. They're all I use. They do bras differently. They believe that every woman deserves to feel comfortable and confident every day. They're designed to fit you. Their bras are designed to fit perfectly. Not the other way around. They're designed with measurements for millions of women, so they use metadata. Their bra styles are made to fit your life. They have over 80 bra sizes, industry leader, including

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and get 15% off your first purchase. That's thirdlove.com slash AG for 15% off today. You'll be glad you did. Joining us today for the interview is University of Alabama law professor MSNBC contributor, former US attorney and Birmingham and her Obama all around awesome human person. Please welcome back to the show Joyce Vance. Joyce, thanks for coming on Mullershey Road again. Wow, with that kind of an intro, I'll come whenever you want.

That happens to me a lot too, people give me all these intros and I'm like, well now I got a lot to live up to all right Yeah, I'm not sure I deserve that one, but I'm glad to be with you. Oh, you definitely do you've earned every single accolade that you have so This week we heard news this was so big and it just sort of got glossed over because there probably is other stuff going on in the world right now, but We heard news that Zubari was being charged with obstruction of justice. And our listeners know Zubari from being the only person named in that broad subpoena issued by the Southern District of New York for information on the inaugural way back. I think it was like February and his mysterious $900,000 contribution to

the Trump campaign or Trump inaugural inaugural and you tweeted out though because i was like always indicted but you you you tweeted out that's you know this isn't an indictment it's information and it could mean there's a cooperation deal in the works so can you explain to our listeners the difference between what this is and an indictment sure there are two ways that federal prosecutors can charge a defendant. One is by going to the

grand jury, convincing the grand jury that there's probable cause to charge the defendant, at which point the grand jury votes for what's called a true bill, and the defendant is indicted. That's the constitutional procedure a defendant has a right in the federal system to be indicted by a grand jury. So when you see a defendant who's charged by an information, it's like somebody's waving a big red flag to tell you that this is a different kind of a process. The prosecutors haven't gone to a grand jury. This is a charging document that's based on a prosecutor's signature. And so if the defendant wanted to fight it, the defendant would go into court at the first opportunity and say, I'm going to dismiss this information. I'm entitled to an indictment by grand jury.

So you know that when prosecutors bring in information, that means that there's a plea deal that's been worked out with the defendant in advance, that means that there's a plea deal that's been worked out with the defendant in advance, that the defendant, when he's arraigned on the information, will waive his or her right to be indicted by a grand jury. And we'll plead guilty. The interesting piece is what you don't know for sure, but what it seems likely we can infer here is that the defendant will also be cooperating with federal prosecutors and that's why there's a plea agreement before he was charged

yeah i would seem that with all of the i mean he's facing other charges to in california and and it seems like this happens well quite a bit at least that i've seen with this with folks that kind of surrounding this administration is they'll be charged with one thing when they're clearly guilty of many other things. And I hate to say clearly guilty, but they could be on the hook for other crimes, and it's the one, and they've agreed to plead guilty to it. And that just always screams that there's a cooperation agreement going on.

So is that kind of, I guess that's sort of how we can deduce that that's likely in this case? Yeah, I think that's often the case. I mean, we don't know looking in from the outside what federal prosecutors have evidence where they can prove a defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt at trial. So sometimes we think that there's more evidence than there actually is and prosecutors are charging only what they prove, but other times and more likely here as you astutely point out is the fact that this signals cooperation. But I do think it's important that we sort of just sort of take a moment to consider what does cooperation mean.

Could it mean cooperation against someone who was involved on the Trump campaign end in the inaugural? Sure, but more likely given the contours of what we know about this case, it would mean charging the people who were using him to funnel unlawful payments to the inaugural. I think the one is more likely,

although the entire universe is possible. Right. Sort of like Sam Patton and his $50,000 straw contribution to the inaugural for tickets for Ukrainian officials. Of course, there's so many other people involved in the inaugural. And I think maybe a lot of this has come out because of Rick Gates' delay in sentencing that he was probably assisting on this inaugural case with the Southern District as well and it's just it's interesting though because you and I've talked a lot about Bill Barr and he's the Where the buck stops in the Southern District and I'm just I'm kind of frankly surprised that

These investigations are going forward and active and there's movement in them. What does that say to you? Does it say maybe we're looking at just something that's so iron-cloud or that bar just doesn't have as hands in it or what's the deal there? You know it's tough to stop a right-to-case. I think an attorney general who metals in a case that prosecutors are working where they've developed sufficient evidence to go is taking a dangerous and possibly an illegal path. But I think in this case, just being practical and understanding how this Justice Department has so often operated as a shield for the president, that's just another one of the factors

that leads me to conclude that the cooperation here is probably as against other contributors, and the Trump campaign, the Trump inaugural committee, will continue to take the position that there was no way that they could have vetted these contributions, and that they were unaware of the source and not involved in any illegality. Yeah, that is a good point. And I assume the inaugural itself, as an entity, could be in trouble. That's an interesting question. I don't know the answer for certain,

because I'm not sure what their legal status is, and if they're an entity that can be punished, there would certainly be people who were involved who would have susceptibility to individual liability. Yes, that makes sense. I think about that often too, when I'm thinking about the Trump organization,

although they are a full for-profit, and they don't have any of that weird, gray area of being a, any kind of a non-profit or not-for-profit, et cetera. I'm sure that there's a short answer to that question about the inaugural committee itself. I just don't know it off the top of my head. Yeah, and me neither. Speaking of subpoenas, I also wanted to pivot here for a second and get your opinion on the Bolton factor, I guess, if you want to give it a reality show name because that's what we're living in.

He has said he'd be willing to testify to the Senate. When asked said he'd be willing to testify to the Senate. When asked if he'd be willing to testify to the House, he didn't comment. I think somebody, I think even Swalwell said that he said he won't testify to the House. And if he does, he's going to file with the courts. And a lot of people are calling for Adam Schiff in the House to subpoena Bolton.

I don't know that that's necessarily a good idea in this case. And I was wondering what your thoughts on on the whole bolt in factor are Yeah, so you know this was a very interesting offer from Bolton A lot of people have weighed in to say that they think that it's very important and very formative and that it should put pressure on people like McConnell To permit this testimony to take place in the Senate. And I think the Senate is a good place to let this one rise and fall because one of the

rules that I know as a prosecutor that I think applies really well here is that nobody prevents a witness who can exonerate them from testifying, right? If President Trump was going to be exoneratedifying right if president trump was going to be exonerated by anything that boulton was going to testify to we would have heard his testimony a long time ago he is the proverbial firsthand witness that the republicans kept complaining the defendant or rather the democrats weren't providing in the house so now now this is Senator McConnell and Senator Graham Call and any four Republicans who want to get together and vote with Democrats can

ensure that the American people get to hear the testimony from this fundamental witness to the case. If we don't hear Bolton's testimony at the Senate trial, we will know it is because the truth is no friend to the president yeah hundred percent and i don't think republicans want to hear from a meter because then if they have to vote to exonerate the president and they have to go against this whatever explosive testimony boltin has and they have an amazing case without him you know and it's it's really a problem for them as you point out the case is

very strong. I mean, this is a compelling case without any more testimony. But a real problem that Republicans will face is the political cost of gagging these witnesses and not insisting that the White House produced documents that were properly subpoenaed, because the polling has steadily shown an increase in the number of americans who think that fair trial involved hearing from witnesses and seeing documents and i think the republicans will pay a price if they do something that so clearly obstructive of justice

and that turns the senate trial into just this mockery sort of a cover-up for the president yeah i agree a hundred percent and and one of the things, I mean, you know, when Cufferman was subpoenaed by the House, that's Bolton's number two, that's his deputy or was, the House worked very hard to dismiss that case as moot and withdrew its subpoena because the Republican talking point was let it,

it's in the courts, I can't testify, it's in the courts. And I'm afraid of the house subpoena's boltin he'll file with the courts and they'll have that excuse again uh... but you know who put boltin might not who knows he's got books to sell so we will it would certainly be you know inconsistent for boltin to say that he would test to find for the senate and not in front of the House.

That would certainly put some political shalak on this entire process. I hate to be sort of the skeptic here. Bolton has books to sell as you point out. One way of ensuring he doesn't have any classification problems is if he's already testified to the substance of what's in the book before the time it's released and he has a little bit less trouble getting that past the government so maybe that's one motivation here oh that's interesting i hadn't thought about that before you know that uh... it's a possibility but i think another possibility is that he decided that the american people deserve the truth and it's time to do the right thing we can speculate but i think we'll have to wait and hear it from Bolton's own lips.

Yeah, from his mustache. I think your former assertion is probably closer than he wants the American people to hear the truth. You know, we live in skeptical times and it's so easy to fall into that pattern of skepticism. I think one of the things that's really important for all of us as Americans is that we don't get so closed off by what Trump is putting the country through, that we can no longer give our fellow citizens the benefit of the doubt. So I'm a big believer in letting people tell you who they are and

not giving someone the benefit of the doubt when they've proven they don't deserve it. At the same time, I think we need to show a willingness to listen and understand that there are people who do still believe in this country and do believe in the rule of law and that at some point we need to gather in all of the people that believe in that and come back together. Yeah, I think it's just hard when you've been burned so many times. You give Romney a chance and he burns you. You give Collins a chance and she burns you. You give Bar a chance and he burns you. So I think it's also maybe a little bit of that

cynicism comes from that sort of fatigue. Yeah, that's where we all are. I think it's become very difficult to credit people with good faith. And, you you know I hate being the skeptic camp but I'm firmly there I'm still hoping someone will prove me wrong. Yeah I like to sit there too that's where I like to live so thank you so much for coming on explaining those differences to us and giving us your input on what's going on in the impeachment. Thank you I can't thank you enough for taking the time today. Thanks for having me. Yup, everyone. University of Alabama Law Professor MSNBC contributor former US Attorney Joyce Vance. Joyce, we'll talk to you next time.

Talk to you soon. Alright, everybody, that's our show. Do we have any final thoughts before we get out of here? First of all, thank you so much to Joyce. She's just... Yeah, really, I just have to tell you. Yeah, I have a national treasure. Same thing I've been saying constantly. Make sure you're registered about. Make sure you know when your primary is.

Make sure you're registered for the right party. If you have not done that, do it. Thank you. You're gonna be good. That's it. Straight forward. To the point? Yes, I appreciate that.

No, I don't think I have anything on my brain z's. So I'm not gonna make a, you know, I'm gonna let that one lie. Brainzies? Leave it. Any final thoughts from you? No, just- Just- Leader of ours? Just thank you so much everyone.

I'm really going through some stuff right now and I really can't thank you enough for being who you are and listening to the shows and you guys too. I wouldn't be able to do this without you, so thank you. No, Shucks. No, my... I appreciate you so much. You're the best. That's it! So everyone, please take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. I've been AG.

I've been Jordan Coburn. I've been Amanda Reader. And this is Mollershi Road. The MOLERSHI ROTE is executive produced and directed by A.G. and Jordan Coburn with engineering and editing by Mackenzie Mazell and Starburn's industries. Our marketing manager, production and social media direction is by Amanda Reader, fact checking your research by A.G., Jordan Coburn and Amanda Reader, and our knowledgeable listeners. Our web design and branding are by Joao Reader with Moxie Design Studios and our website is moloch by J.O.O. Reader with Moxie Design Studios, and our website is mullershyrope.com.

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