Jack - The Mueller Report - Pt. 8

Episode Date: July 12, 2019

Join the hosts of the award-winning podcast Mueller, She Wrote for part 8 of their special coverage of the Mueller Report!  This week, we cover pages 144-173. 

Welcome to Teacher Quit Talk, I'm Misredacted, and I'm Mrs. Frazzled. Every week we explore the teacher exodus to find out what if anything could get these educators back in the classroom. We've all had our moments where we thought, what the hell am I doing here? From burnout to bureaucracy to soul-sucking stressors and creative dead ends, from recognizing when it was time to go, to navigating feelings of guilt and regret afterwards, we're here to cut off a gaslighting and get real about what it means to leave teaching. We've got insights from former teachers from all over the country who have seen it all. So get ready to be disturbed and join us on teacher quit talk to laugh through the pain

of the US education system. We'll see you there. Thanks to Zipper Cruder for supporting Mueller, she wrote, hiring is challenging, but there's one place you can go where hiring is simple, fast and smart. A place where growing businesses connect to qualified candidates. That place is zippercrooter.com slash AG. 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 the opposition is. I'm not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a

surrogate at a time, a true, in that campaign, and I didn't have not have communications with the Russians. What do I have to get involved with Putin? For I have nothing to do with Putin, I've never spoken to him. I don't know anything about a mother than he will respect me. Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. So it is political. You're a communist. No, Mr. Green. Communism is just a red herring.

Like all members of the oldest profession, I'm a capitalist. Hello and welcome to Muller She Wrote. I'm your host A.G. and with me today is Jordan Coburn. Hello. Chalice Johnson is not feeling well today so we're gonna cover this part 8. This is our special coverage of the Redacted Muller Report and today we're gonna cover pages 144 through 173. It's a big chunk of the report. And this is Section B of Part Four, entitled Post-Election and Transition Period Contacts. We've spent the last few episodes covering Part A, which was all about the contacts with Russians

during the campaign. So that took what, six episodes? Yeah. Yeah. And so we're going to try to cover all the post-election activity in one shot. So buckle up, you guys. And also, I just wanna let you know, we have the window open today.

So you might hear some nature and birds. We thought it appropriate because it's soothing. So if you hear some birds in the background, that's what's going on with our magical studio for today. So almost immediately, guys, we're just gonna jump in here almost immediately after Trump won the election. Multiple attempts were made by Russia to establish contacts with the Trump administration and the transition team. And these attempts were made through Kissley Act and other individuals who sought contacts through Americans not formerly tied to the campaign or the transition team. And Mueller says here that he could not establish that the

contacts constituted coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia in its efforts to interfere in the election. So, or it's subsection one now, and that covers immediate post-election activity, including outreach from the Russian government and high-level encouragement of contacts through alternative channels, not like post-modern MTV alternative channels. Just, you know, alternative other channels. Then sub-subsection A, which we call underpants. So underpants A begins at 3am on election night

when Hope Hicks gets a phone call on her personal cell. From a person who sounded foreign, she says, but was calling from a DC area code, and she had a tough time understanding, but got the words Putin call, and then she told them to send an email, call. So she got Putin Tang. Yeah, Putin Tang. She got the email the next morning and it was from Sergei. Let's see, Kuznetov, Kuznetsov and he's an official at the Russian Embassy and I've kind of

figured when I saw the DC area code mentioned here that it was a Russian embassy and the subject line in the email said, message from Putin, in which he offered his congratulations and said he looked forward to working with Trump on improving relations with Russia. So she forwarded that to Kush and we call Kushner Kush and asked him to look at it saying she didn't want to get duped, you know, but she also didn't want to blow off Putin. So I actually want to respond thinking it was Putin and it was not. It looks stupid or something. Right or she didn't want somebody like,

like, you know, like some sort of troll sending an email saying, hey, this is Putin. Yeah. Congratulations. And then it being like Bob down the street. So Kush told Congress when he testified that he called Simes. That's the guy from the Center for National Interest

Dimitri Simes, he's the Mayflower Hotel guy. And he asked the name of the ambassador. He's like, hey, what's the ambassador's name? Just to double check. And then Hicks told, or he conveyed the email to transition officials. She sent it to them and Trump and Putin spoke by phone five days later in the presence of transition team members,

including Flynn. And they'll get into the details about how that whole meeting came about a little bit later in the episode in the Mueller Report and in the episode, cause it's an episode about the Mueller Report. Here we are. And we are following it linearly.

And there's a couple of questions that I had in this particular section about why some things were positioned in certain ways, but I guess it all kind of makes sense in the end. So keep in mind, Hopex recently testified to Congress again, but refused to answer over 150 questions from during the transition and her time

in the White House claiming something called absolute immunity, which is not a thing. And the footnotes at the bottom of the page, which is where I'm page 145 here, they refer to the 302s from Hicks and Flynn. Statements to Congress from Hicks and Kush, and the emails and letters in question. So, Muller had all that. And then on to part B. This is the high level encouragement

of contacts through alternative channels. And this includes outreach from Demetriev, Prince, Nader, Kislyak, Gorkov, Oven, and Duvorkovitch. Sounds like a really fucked up law firm. Yeah, I don't recognize Oven. Yeah, I didn't either. And we'll get into who he is. He's a Russian national who heads Alpha Bank. And how he, this is the soul's first section is how he tried to explain to Mueller the flurry of Russian activity during the transition. He told Mueller that he's one of about 50 super rich

Russian business guys who regularly meet with Putin. And these guys are often referred to as oligarchs. I hope you define it like that. So remember earlier this year too when Oleg Darapaska was trying to get sanctions lifted on him and he complained about being called an oligarch? I prefer billionaire. So this painter, Oven, said he met with Putin quarterly and all the oligarchs and he took those meetings seriously.

Probably. Good idea. Probably a good idea. Understanding that any suggestions Putin made were implicit directives and there would be negative consequences for AVEN. All right. If he didn't follow through that whole. Some meeting. Wink in the nod thing, right?

So, and so, he went to the fourth quarter meeting in 2016. This is the end of the year. And it was as it was customary, that quarterly meeting was preceded by a preparatory meeting with Putin's chief of staff Anton Vino, okay first time I've heard that name too. Yes And so I guess it kind of makes sense that you know if you think about the governance and and the situation So they have this quarterly meeting with all the rich dudes and Putin and then before they have a prep meeting with Putin's chief of staff

and have a prep meeting with Putin's chief of staff. And the one-on-one meeting, he had a, so eventually it gets to this point where Putin and Avon have a one-on-one meeting. And Putin told Avon to brace himself for Russian sanctions, including some against Alpha Bank. And he also spoke with the difficulty he had getting in touch with the Trump transition team, and didn't know whom to formally speak with to get through to them.

Putin said this. Yeah. Avon says that Putin says this. Right. And Avon told Putin formally speak with to get through to them. Who said this? Yeah. Okay. Oven says that Putin says this. Right. And Oven told Putin he would try to get in touch with the incoming administration to try to protect Russia and Alpha Bank against sanctions. Okay.

So we have almost getting there. We have one outreach so far to try to get to the transition team to stop sanctions. The ones that Obama was going to impose probably for Russia in election interference. He ended up doing that. We'll get to that in a bit. The report then refers to volume one, part four, B five, and pivots to Camille Dmitriev. And keep in mind, that eventually Kissley Act did speak to Flynn about sanctions twice, and Flynn told at least, and Flynn told him to tell Putin not to reciprocate to the sanctions,

and that everything would be cool. And those conversations were ordered released by the judge in the Flynn case Sullivan but the government told them not to release those and they hadn't really publicly admitted that they even took place. And we've been talking about this however they do later in the report. They talk about these phone calls so we'll get there. And on page 147 Mueller says Oven's description of his interactions with Putin are consistent with the behavior of Corridor Demetriev, a Russian national who heads the Russia-Sovar and Well-Fun, known as RDIF,

and he's also close to Putin. And Demetriev was the Putin cutout that attended the Seychelles meeting, which is covered also later in this section. Demetriev made several attempts to reach out to the Trump team after the election. And one of which was, he was contacted, Dimitri have made several attempts to reach out to the Trump team after the election. One of which was he was contacted, well he contacted his friend from the UAE, George

Nader, and asked him to introduce him to the Trump transition team and Trump transition officials. And Nader eventually arranged the safe shells meeting between Dimitri of Prince and Bannon. And Nader also introduced Dimitri of to Rick Gerson. That's the friend of Kushner, that guy. They worked on that proposal for reconciliation between US and Russia, introduced Dimitriyev to Rick Gerson. That's the friend of Kushner, that guy. And they worked on that proposal for reconciliation between US and Russia, which Dimitriyev said he cleared through Putin. And Gerson provided that proposal to Kushner

before the inauguration and Kush gave copies to Bannon and Rex Tillerson. We'll get to the details of that soon too. So it seems like when Putin has those meetings with these oligarchs, probably at every individual meeting he's telling them, I don't have a direct person to get in contact with, to talk about this meaning, try, please. Right. It seems like there were multiple ways and multiple targets that they were trying to infiltrate into not just the campaign, which we finished that section, but now the transition team.

Especially with the impending sanctions coming. So, yeah. And so this actually made it to Rex Tillerson and Bannon. So, I guess it's confusing to me that that's okay, right? That that potentially is going to shape their actual policy platforms. Yeah, or at least, they're a back channel, or at least to their back channel,

or at least their reaction to the sanctions. Right, because they're not, these people aren't registered with FARA when they're talking and doing all these things. No, and they are part of a current administration either, which violates the Logan Act, and he never even talks about violations of the Logan Act in this report at all.

And that could be counterintelligent stuff. This might have all gone to counterintelligence. Would they need to have formerly registered as a foreign lobbyist basically for what they did here? Yeah, I would think so. That's what I would think too, yeah. But maybe if he's not officially a president yet or something, then it doesn't like.

Yeah, but even lobbyists who don't have anything to do with the president have to register. Totally. Greg Craig is on trial right now because he was pushing the Ukraine, Temeschenko, Whitewashed report, that Scadden, ARPs, something, meager and fall. Whatever, Scadden ARPs, I don't know,

you know, Scad ARPs guys. And Vanders won, put together with Gates and Manafort, and that's why he was part of that whole thing. So, and he was supposed to have to register as a foreign agent. And that's all he did was try to get this report to some folks in the US. So, and he's on trial. So it's weird that they're not, right?

And I'm wondering if this is just all hidden and wrapped up in the account or intelligence stuff, which we don't know anything about right now. But we'll find out, hopefully through Congress, they're working on it. So Mueller continues to hear about who Dimitriev is and how if Russian, he's the Russian wealth fund, the RDIF, they co-invested with the United Arab Emirates sovereign wealth funds.

And Dimitriev, that's how Dimitriev regularly met with NATO. And NATO is a senior advisor to MbZ in connection with the RDIF Stealings with the UAE. So that's a lot of letters. MbZ is Muhammad Bin Zayed. He is ahead of the UAE, right? Because we know Muhammad Bonsob, or Muhammad Bin Salman, is Saudi Arabia, Kramprins.

But this is MbZ. And Nader and Dimitri have worked together a lot because his Russian wealth fund and the United Arab Emirates Russian wealth fund invested in a lot of shit together. So mutual interests. Yes. Then this is interesting. Nader developed contacts with both presidential campaigns during the 2016 election and kept Dimitri of a prize of his efforts. So right there he was trying to develop, Nader was trying to develop contacts with the Clinton campaign. And according to Nader, Dimitri have said Russia's preference was Trump and asked Nader to help him meet members of the Trump campaign. So my assumption here, because it never really comes up again,

is that, you know, Nader developed these contacts with both campaigns to put his eggs in both baskets until somebody said, we don't care about this one and we care about this one. So I think that's probably why it's even mentioned here, because Mueller has said explicitly that there were no contacts or coordination or collusion or anything between the Clinton campaign. Paul Seed's suggestion. Right. And the Russians. So, according to Nader, Demetri have said Russia's preference was Trump. As I said, and he asked Nader to help him meet members of the Trump campaign.

This is Demetri of. Then there's a redacted sentence for grand jury material. And a statement that Nader did not introduce Demetri of to anyone associated with the Trump campaign before the election. And then there's an entire paragraph redacted for grand jury material again. And then the footnote show Nader's 302's, but nothing from Demetriaf, which makes me think the grand jury stuff is Demetriaf's testimony. But I mean, I don't know, it's hard to guess. Yeah, I don't know either, but I know that his testimony is a big deal.

It would be, and I don't know if we could have gotten Carole to meet Traev, because, you know, was he in the United States? Why would he even help? I don't know. Mollivin talks about Eric Prince, who, as we know, was associated with a bunch of Trump officials, including Trump, Banon, Jr., and Roger Stone, and that's according to princes and Banon's 302s, per the last unredacted footnote. And prince has no formal role in the campaign, by the way, but he issued policy papers on trade and election interference to bannen. Policy papers on election interference. I know. I wish he would have expanded more on that. And to bannen. And he frequently visited the transition offices at Trump Tower, mostly to meet

with bannen, but sometimes with Flynn and others. So, that's kind of vague. Prints and Bannon discussed who should fill key national security positions, and although Prints wasn't formally affiliated with the transition, Nader and Redacted received assurances that he was entrusted associate. I don't know who Redacted is. MbZ, I don't know who Redacted is. MbZ? I don't know. Yeah. So now that Mueller has explained who Dimitriyev is, he goes on to discuss post-election contacts with the incoming Trump administration.

We're on page 149, but most of this is redacted due to investigative techniques, and it sounds like a spy novel. So check this out. Soon after midnight on election night, Dimitriyev messaged Redacteded who was traveling to New York to attend a 2016 World Chess Championship. Redacted, Dimitri Peskov, the Russian Federation Press Secretary, who was also attending the event. That's the guy who Sator was talking to. Yes. Exactly. He's the guy that Cohen and Sator tried to contact for help with the Trump Tower Moscow. And then there's a few more Redacted sentences. A midnight to the Chess Tournament. And then there's a few more redacted sentences, a midnight to the chess tournament. And then approximately at 2.40 a.m. on November 9th, 2016 news report stated that Clinton had called Trump to concede. At redacted, redacted wrote to Demetri of Putin has won.

God. I know. So somebody texted Demetri of saying Putin has won. Now after Trump was elected, after Clinton conceded. Now you may not all remember this, but NBC reported this past April that Trump was invited to attend the chess championship that year, and Mueller asked him about it in his written questions. So it was of import. And Trump told Mueller he didn't attend, but he was invited, and they asked him earlier in 2016 if he wanted to host the event at Trump Tower.

Dude, is nothing sacred anymore? Now chess is a place where shit goes down. I know. It makes me sad. Yeah. So the president of the event, Kiersohn, Ilum's, Ilum's Genoff. Ilum's Genoff. Okay, he's a sanctioned Russian oligarch. Probably goes to those oligarch parties.

And it's been reported that Putin used the World Chess Federation and its president to serve as a covert diplomatic vehicle for the Kremlin. What? So these redactions could indicate that the person who sent the Putin has one text may have been a Russian agent under surveillance by the intelligence community.

Yeah. Because it's for investigative purposes. So later that morning, after the election, Demetri have contacted NATO and said he wanted to come meet with key people. And later that day, he flew to New York for the chess tournament. And Peskov traveled separately and did the same, went to the chess tournament. Demetri have asked NATO if any Trump people would be there and also asked him to invite

Kushner so he could meet him. NATO did not pass the message along to anyone, although one world chess federation official recalled hearing from an attendee that Trump himself had stopped by the tournament, but Mueller could not establish that Trump or anyone from the campaign or transition team attended. So why did Mueller bring it up? Probably because he knows somebody was there and he just didn't have the evidence to say so. That's what I'm guessing.

Otherwise, why bring up the whole chest thing in the first place? So Nate or told Mueller that Demetri have continued to press him to set up a meeting with transition officials and focused on Kush and Junior, and that Demetri have said, or Demetri have said that the meeting would make history. Yeah, sure has. It's in the Mueller report. So all this makes you wonder about Eric Prince telling everyone that the Seychelles meeting with Demetri have was just happenstance, right? Think of all this that they went through to set this shit up. And they didn't even really talk about anything

is what Eric Prince said. Right, so they just all happen to be there despite all of this setup. Eric Prince is totally lying and I'm wondering why he hasn't been charged. There's another redacted sentence here for grand jury material, but Nader was unable to set up any meetings

with Demetriof and the Trump folks during that trip to New York. But Demetriof kept poking at Nader, and in December he asked for a meeting in January or February, and that evidence came from text messages from Dimitri of Tnader, according to footnotes. And as we know, Nader's phones were all confiscated because they eventually found porn on them, child pornography. And before we get to the St. Shell's meeting, since then we have to remember that

Nader has recently been arrested for those child pornography charges. He was charged under seal last year, shortly after he gave all this information to Mueller and then skipped country. And he was arrested, the minute he set foot back in the United States. And that's what's going on with George Nader.

He is another pedophile that is Trump's best friends with. Awesome. All right, on to page 151 about Eric Prince Dimitriyev in the Seychelles meeting. That's the one Prince said meant nothing. Yet Muller dedicates six pages to it. His report totally happens to answer nothing. If you've been listening to Muller She wrote, you know all about this meeting. We've talked about it at length.

So Nader communicated with Prince that Demetri have wanted to meet with him and sent Prince Demetri of bio and a list of nice things Demetri have said about Trump. Look he really likes Trump. Prince opened the file, so Muller knows Prince opened the file and read them within an hour from Trump, within an hour from getting them and he was at Trump Tower when he opened them. And told Mueller, he was at Trump Tower. Prince told Mueller he was at Trump Tower that day, meaning with Kellyanne Conway, Wilbur Ross, Steve,

Manuchin, and others while waiting to meet with Bannon. Mueller says cell site evidence shows Prince remained at Trump Tower for about three hours that day, but Prince told Mueller he did not recall, whether or not he met with Bannon, or that they discussed Demetrieth. I can't imagine he was there for three hours and if Bannon was there, so he didn't meet me.

Yeah, or discuss that he was meeting with Demetrieth. Or who Demetrieth was. And then there's a redacted grand jury sentence. And that could be Bannon's testimony, I don't know. But all that shit went down in early January 2017. And by January 7, Prince had booked a ticket to the Seychelles. And then the next day, Nader wrote Demetri of saying he had a pleasant surprise for him that he'd arranged for him to meet with Prince and Nader invited Demetri of to the Seychelles

for January 12th. Five days later, can you imagine how much a ticket to the Seychelles on a five day notice would cost? Yeah, I have no idea where the Seychelles are. Far and beautiful. Nice. That's just nuts. So the next day, Demetri of Ascinator,

if the meeting would be worthwhile. And this seems to happen a lot in this section. Everyone's like, is this guy worth your time? Is this guy a piece of shit? Who's this guy? Is he good? Or is he stupid? And Flynn does it with kissley act, too.

It's funny. So then anyway, there's some redacted, someone whose name is redacted told Mueller Demetri of wasn't enthusiastic about meeting with Prince, but Nate assured him that he wielded influence with the incoming administration. This guy is designated by Bannon to meet you. And remember how Prince was saying,

I wasn't representing the Trump campaign. Well, he was designated by Bannon. And he said, I know him well, and he's very, very well connected, trusted by the new team. His sister is now the minister of education. That is Betsy DeVos, of course. So Nader told Muller that Prince had led him to believe that Bannon was aware of the upcoming meeting, and Prince acknowledged it was right for Nader to think that Prince would pass information on to the upcoming meeting. And Prince acknowledged it was right for Nader to think that Prince would pass information

onto the transition team. But Manin told Mueller that Prince did not tell him in advance about the Seychelles. Mm. Mm. And that's, you know, and that's why Prince, that's why Mueller was like Prince was there for three hours, said he never met with Manin.

And then Manin told Mueller he didn't meet with him and didn't tell him about the Seychelles meeting, which means they totally fucking met and talked about the Seychelles meeting when he means they totally fucking met and talked about the Seychelles meeting when he was at Trem Tower that day. Sounds like it. But he doesn't acknowledge that. It might come up in the declinations

in Section five, which we'll go over next week. But on to page 153 in the Seychelles meeting, and we've heard all about this, Dmitri have arrived at the four seasons on January 11th, very nice. Where Nator and NBC were staying. NBC was there at the hotel. I guess not just at the four seasons on January 11th. Very nice. Where Nator and NBC were staying. NBC was there at the hotel. I guess not just at the actual meeting.

Right. Prince also arrived on the 11th. And Prince and Demetri have met in Nator's Villa for about 30 to 45 minutes. And Nator was there for that meeting. And then there's a redacted sentence for grand jury stuff followed by a quote, Prince described the eight years of the Obama administration in negative terms and stated he was looking forward

to a new era of cooperation and conflict resolution. So that's what Prince told Mueller. And according to Prince, he told Demetri of that Bannon was effective and Prince provided policy papers to Bannon. So he's trying to, you know, say Bannon's got influence, right? And then there's a redaction sandwich.

And the unredacted statement in the middle says, Prince added he would tell Bannon about his meeting with Demetriev, and if there's interest in continuing the discussion, Bannon would do so. So this sort of kind of, like, totally throws in the face or, you know, defies the logic that Bannon and Prince didn't meet the day, or the day is leading up to him flying to meet in the Seychelles. It just doesn't make sense.

Yeah. Especially with Bannon coming up at this meeting so often. And this is something I hadn't heard yet, but when Prince got back to his room after the meeting, how does Mueller know this? He learned that he learned that Russia sent an aircraft carrier to Libya, and then Prince called NATO and asked for another meeting with Dmitry of telling him Libya is off the table. And at the second meeting, Prince told Dmitry of the U.S. could not accept any Russian involvement in Libya because it would make the situation worse.

Then there's a redacted sentence for grand jury stuff. And the footnote about this is partially redacted. But the unredacted part says that Prince denied whatever was redacted and said he was making these remarks to Demetri have not an unofficial capacity, but based on his experience, as a formal naval officer. So it seems there's some kind of interference that he was or inference that he was speaking on behalf of the incoming administration in an official capacity even though he told Mueller he was not. Yeah, but it's just one of those things where it's like if you are recommended by Bannon and You have a connection to that 100% that's undeniable. Why are you there if you're not speaking on behalf of the administration? And I think that's kind of what Mueller's trying to illustrate. Totally.

And he's using words like we're looking forward to changing how we do conflict resolution and stuff. Like as a private citizen, you're personally looking forward to it as a formal naval officer. Right. Like I just want to tell you about Libya. From my experience with the Navy, we don't want it to escalate. Like who does that? Or to think they wouldn't take it as that, assuming the absolute best, which is like very hard to even go to that place with these people, but yeah,

unfortunately, you need that, you know, that smoking gun sent totally. So after the second meeting, Dimitri, I've told Nader he was disappointed in the meetings for two reasons. First, he believed the Russians needed to be communicating with someone who had authority. in the meetings for two reasons. First, he believed the Russians needed to be communicating with someone who had authority. And second, he had hoped to have a discussion of greater substance like outlining a roadmap for both countries to follow.

And then there's a weirdly partially redacted sentence, which I'll just read to you. Quote, Demetri of TOLDENATOR that redacted, princes, comments, redacted, redacted, were insulting, redacted. And that's for grand jury material. So maybe he was just like, I don't like Prince, Prince is a dick, I want to talk to Bannon.

Yeah. Or something like that, you know what I mean? Prince talked to Bannon, Bannon knows we're here. I want to talk to Bannon, fuck this guy, he's a dick. Yeah, I wonder if it's because he was talking about foreign policy stuff, maybe saying like, yeah, like Libya is too messy, we're not going to get involved in Libya or just maybe anti-, yeah, like Libya is too messy, we're not gonna get involved in Libya or just maybe anti-Russian-aggression sentiments or something.

Yeah, or probably, my guess is, is that Dimitriov and wanted him to stop sanctions from happening and Prince was like, I can try my best, but blah, blah, blah. Yes, but yeah like or something to that effect like I you know I can't convince the president or the incoming president to not put sanctions like and I have no control over the Obama administration and it would be not correct for me to try to influence foreign policy before you know you during transition. Because we're not in office.

Yeah. But maybe not. Maybe. Because weren't there some sort of stories about them Googling the Logan Act? Uh, that brings about things. I think it was in the air. I remember that. Okay. Honestly, I think it was Don McGann and I think it was after themselves. Try to check themselves.

Yeah. I think it was after they learned that Flynn lied to the FBI. Yeah. Oh yeah. It was because McGann had Googled about lying to the FBI and about the Logan Act. So that's funny. That is funny. That's probably what this shit has to do with.

Like all of this policy influence, and later we talk about that UN vote that they tried to influence the Trump and the transition team tried to influence before he was president. It's just weird. Yeah. Goodling the Logan Act. I was president. It's just weird. Yeah. Go the L.O.G. act. I'll tell you what's in it, buddy.

This is the shit you're not allowed to do yet. Somehow no one was charged with it. It's just weird. And I'm hoping that when we get to the declinations where Mueller says, who wasn't charged for what and why? I hope he addresses the L.O.G. act. We'll find out. We'll find out. All right. So then within hours of that second meeting, where apparently

Prince was a dick, Prince sent two texts to Bannon. But of course, they're not in communication about this meeting at all. But Mueller was unable to obtain the content of those. Remember, I would say that key piece of information isn't there? So he wasn't able to obtain the content. And Mueller also did not identify any evidence of communication between prints and demetrius. So, I'm wondering here, if the office saw that there were text messages, but the content had been erased, or if they couldn't locate the messages at all. That was what I was wondering when I read this passage. Because in previous passages, in the report, Mueller states specifically,

with the coursey stuff, for example, that he was unable to find evidence that the messages existed at all or like when coursey said he tweeted, he couldn't find any tweets. That there was any evidence that they existed, but here he says that there were messages but he couldn't get the content, and that's a big difference. And the footnote for the statement about print sending text to ban and texts to ban and indicates that the source was call records between prints and a name redacted for grand jury material, which we know to be ban. So ban and must have testified that he received the messages and Mueller must have verified

through call records, but the content had been erased. So this is another one of those pieces of evidence Mueller couldn't get because they were encrypted or erased or otherwise destroyed. Then on the middle of page 155 regarding Prince's meeting with Bannon after he returned from the Seychelles. According to Prince and his interview with the FBI, he told Nader he would inform Bannon about his discussions with Dmitryev and that someone within the Russian power structure wanted better relations with the Trump team.

So he basically told Bannon, according to Prince's interview, he says he told Bannon about the all the meetings and shit, but they seemed upset and Prince was nobody, basically. So Prince and Bannon met at Bannon's house in mid-January, and he briefed him about the meeting. Prince told Mueller that he explained to Bannon that Demetri of was the head of the Russian Well Fund and wanted to improve relations between Russia and the US, and Prince showed Mueller a screenshot of Demetri of Wikipedia page from January 16th and said he showed it to Bannon. And said that Bannon was not interested. But Bannon told Mueller he never discussed Demetri of. He never discussed the wealth fund or any meetings

with Prince at all. And sadly, Mueller couldn't determine who was lying because their messages had been erased. Prince's phone contained no text messages, even though his service provider records indicate that he and Bannon texted dozens of times. So that's this is exactly what I thought. So there's Mueller saying exactly what we were thinking, right?

The messages existed, but they had been destroyed. So Prince denied deleting them and seems surprised that he had no texts on his phone prior to March 2017. None. Mm-hmm. Well, I don't know if this is the case, but there's a setting on your iPhone where it automatically deletes old things after, like, a year. But that is again, assuming the absolute best. Yeah. Well, he seems surprised. Yeah. Maybe he's got it set to do that, or maybe that's the default setting. Yeah, but it's looking, it's looking more so that that's not the case.

But Bannon's device also had no texts. And Mueller, he told Mueller he didn't know where they were. He didn't know why they weren't there. Bannon told Mueller he regularly used his blackberry for work related communications, but took no steps to preserve them. It's like, dude, you don't have to take steps to not delete text messages. You just don't delete them. But maybe what, dude, you don't have to take steps to not delete text messages.

You just don't delete them. But maybe what happened here, I don't know, that's a benefit of the doubt. It's a huge benefit of the doubt. And also, I've never heard of blackberry sitting that. No. And I think it's just saying you have to like intentionally turn on to, which is a bad move on your part. I'm positive it's something you have to turn on actually. So you have to opt into it. It's not a default. Yeah, you have to find it in your settings and intentionally do that.

Interesting. Cause that'd be really dumb too, right? If they're like, hey, it's fine. I'm just gonna, on my work phone, in which I'm discussing crazy things all the time cause of the nature of my work. I don't need to save these. I just let the phone decide when the communications get deleted.

We're only running for president. Yeah. None of these will come in handy in the deleted. We're only running for president. Yeah. None of these will come in handy in the future. Yeah, that's just stupid. All right, guys, hey, we're going to take a really super short quick break. We'll be right back. Hey, guys, this is A.G. for Mollershoe Road. And recently, we hired a new team member.

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That is zippercruder.com slash AG. Get all your hiring done in one place. You will be so happy about this. Again, it's zippercruder.com slash AG. You'll be glad you did. Alright guys, welcome back. We are now at the bottom of page 156. And this is where we get to the context between Demetri of and Kushner's buddy Rick Geerson. So Demetri of was introduced to Geerson by Nader. And Geerson runs a hedge fund in New York.

And told Mueller he had no formal role in the transition and no involvement in the Trump campaign other than casual chats with Kush about it. So Geerson runs a hedge fund in New York and told Mueller he had no formal role in the transition and no involvement in the Trump campaign, other than casual chats with Kushebattid. Just cat, like cat. I just imagine like you know the beginning of the sweater song.

Uh-huh. Wait, is it the sweater song? Weezer? Yeah. Where they're all just deemed deemed deemed. Hey man, you going to the party tonight? Yeah, bro, it's gonna be great. Yeah, totally.

We're the beer. This is just what I imagine, Gerson and Kush doing. Yeah, totally. That's a great image. I think that's actually them in the beginning. Yeah. The Weezer song.

Yeah, it was very forward thinking of Weezer. That's why everyone loves him. Very fresh. Very fresh. But then after the election, Gerson assisted the transition team by arranging meetings for Trump folks with Tony Blair and a UAE delegation led by MbZ.

And Tony Blair is the former Prime Minister of the UK. Yes. Yes. I grew up on that guy. Oh yeah, yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah. Demetri of and Gearson, also that's a huge overstatement. I recognize his name for my childhood as all I meant.

I grew up together. I grew up together. I grew up on that guy. My overstatement. I recognize his name for my childhood is all I met I grew up to get up on my body and me To meet you're even Gearson first met to discuss business opportunities between the RDIF Russian sovereign wealth fund and Gearson's hedge fund because Dimitri have wanted to improve economic cooperation Between Russia and the US and thought Gearson would be a good contact. Yeah, they all want to make money. Gearson actually told me to if he would meet with him, but they had to keep it secret because of the bad look of holding the Trump or the meetings before Trump took power. So Gearson told him he would ask Kush and Flynn who the key people would be on security and economic matters. So he knew he wasn't supposed to meet with Russians

prior to inauguration. Yeah, right. And so Gerson told Mueller that the transition team asked him not to meet with Demetri of and that he did so as a private citizen for personal reasons. That's such bullshit. Oh, they told me not to meet with them. It is. And I wonder how much that actually flies if they could, I mean, I imagine, you know, if they had those other missing pieces of evidence to actually charge any formal amount of coordination, you know, I feel like, but it's feel like the Mueller team guys are sitting there like, yeah, yeah, totally freaking idiots. You think we're all dumb here, but they're not. They just know that they need a very, they don't have that evidence. Yeah. So on the same day, Dimitri of Ascinator, whether meeting with Prince was worthwhile, Dimitri have sent his bio to Gearson, asking him to send it to Kush. He also asked Gearson about Prince, and if he was worthwhile.

Like I said, there's a lot of that going around. Yeah, Prince must be an immensely insecure guy. All these people asking if he's going to be. So here we just have Demetri of looking for a dozen ways to penetrate the incoming administration. On January 16th, four days before inauguration, Demetri have put together a plan for improving Russia-US relations.

He and Geerson had been working on, and it had five main points. So the first point is fighting terrorism. Second point is anti-weapons of mass destruction efforts. Third point is win-win economic investment initiatives. Also read as making us rich. Number four, maintaining an open dialogue. Number five, open my ass. Yeah, that's kind of private back channels.

Yeah, exactly. And number five, being ensuring proper communications using key people from each country which also screams back channels And also screams like don't send that Prince guy again. We hate that guy They're like we had a number five just after all these interactions So then on January 18th Gerson gave a copy to Kush and explained to him who Dimitri of was Kush then gave it to Bannon and Tillerson but told Mueller neither of them followed up with him on it.

On the 19th, the next day Dmitry of Santa Copy, to Nader. So Gerson told Dmitry of he gave it to Kusch and a week later, Dmitry of told Gerson, Putin wanted to know if anyone who gave in any feedback. Dmitry of said he didn't want to rush things, but that his boss was asking to have key US meetings set up within two weeks. Demetri have informed Gearson that Putin and Trump would speak by phone that Saturday and that the information was very confidential. So the Russians knew about the call well before we did.

And Demetri have wrote to NATO on July or January 28th to confirm Putin could use ideas from the document for the call and apparent reference to the Trump Putin call. Yeah, and also a question like, is it cool that Putin has seen this? Then I gave this to Putin. Mm-hmm. Because that's going to be cool. Yeah. And then Nader said, definitely, it was submitted to team by Rick and me and they took

it seriously. So after the call, Gerson wrote to Dimitri if to say the call went well. And Dimitri of replied to that replied that the document they drafted played an important role. So then we're on to the part We're on to part three on page 159 now. We're talking about Ambassador Kisley X meeting with Jared Kushner and Flynn in Trump tower following the election So now we rewind back to November just after the election when Catherine Vargas, Kushner's assistant, I don't remember her name. No, she's new to me too. Got a message for a meeting with Kisleyak.

She sent it to Kush saying, setting up a dime to meet with you. Oh, time. That's my typo. Setting up a dime. You're not gonna die bro. Yeah, I was like, I feel like they wouldn't include that. But maybe they would. Who knows, that would be a misquote, wouldn't it?

So setting up a time to meet with you on 12-1, let me know how to proceed. Cushion responded in relevant part. Yeah, and what I want to explain what that means. There's a longer email here, but what Mueller is doing is he's picking out part of the email, saying Kushner responded in relevant part. Here's the relevant part of it. The part of it is, yeah.

Right. But I want to know what else is in the email. Yeah. So Kushner's decide what's relevant, Bob. Yeah. So Kushner, Kushner says, I think I do this one, confirm with signs that this is the right guy. The right guy.

Did he not know Kizliak was a Russian ambassador? Bargas reached out and then reported back that this wasn't either right guy for routine matters and that Yuri Ushikov was the contact for more substantial matters. So, meanwhile. That's weird because I hadn't heard or I had, but I hadn't really registered the Yuri Yushaakov name before. But it's interesting as the report goes on because he's mentioned a couple more times here.

And then I have some feelings about that. Totally. Well, there's gotta be a bunch of names that were higher up and closer to Putin that they weren't directly involving and trying. Because so much of this is just trying to establish a connection, you know, so there's a whole ring of people that we're above, honestly, all the stuff that was happening. Yeah, but they might have actually had conversations with Yuri. Yeah, but we don't

know. Yeah, I don't, it doesn't come up, so, but his name is brought up and I, again, Mueller doesn't bring shit up unless it's relevant, because you gotta remember this report is actually a really tiny, tiny summary of millions of documents and emails and evidence and grand jury materials and testimonies. And so if something's in here, it's because it's relevant to something. So he's bringing up Yuri Yushakov for a reason.

I just don't know what it is yet. Probably come back around later, huh? So meanwhile, Forzman, that bank guy, he tried to get Trump to speak at the economic forum in Russia, told the office that he told Flynn and KT McFarland that while Kizliak was important, he didn't have a direct line to Putin and Ushikov would be the official channel for the national security advisor. That's insane. Whoa.

Yeah, I know when I read that, I was like, that is why this Usukov guy is important. And I'll tell you now, and you might run into this again later, but remember how Sullivan had ordered the Dow'd voicemail be released? And he ordered that the transcripts of the Kisly voicemail be released. And he ordered that the transcripts of the Kislyak Flynn conversations be released.

And the government immediately said, no, no, no, no, no, no, you can't have those. And Sullivan went, okay, which I didn't expect into just roll over on. But there's talk about there being other conversations between Flynn and other people. Yeah. And I'm wondering if it's not this Ishaqov guy.

Yeah, but it doesn't come up. That is pretty crazy. Flynn and other people. Yeah. And I'm wondering if it's not this Ishaqaf guy. Yeah. But it doesn't come up. That is pretty crazy. Then being like, hey, this is going to be your frickin' back channel, dude. Yeah. This is your direct line. I mean, I know that's the national security advisor.

Right. I know they say official channel, but I don't get the sense that they intended that to be through all of the proper protocols that they're supposed to be going through. So Foresman told the office that Flynn did not ask him to undertake that inquiry in Russia, but said he felt obligated to report the information back to Flynn, and that he tried to get a face-to-face meeting with Flynn in January so he could do so. Emile suggested meeting went forward, but Flynn has no recollection of it or the earlier

December meeting. See, lies. That has to be a lie. Yeah. Then in parentheses, which I haven't seen yet, Mueller says the investigation did not identify evidence of Flynn or Kush meeting with Ujikov after being given his name.

And that footnote is from Kushner's assistance FBI302. Right. And so that was another thing that tipped me off is that he specifies that Flynn or Kush had didn't have a meeting with Uzbekoff after being given his name. Like why why would you put that in there? Can't you just say they didn't have a meeting with Uzbekoff? Yeah, it kind of reads like So they didn't do anything wrong there. That's kind of how I read it. Yeah, but I don't know I just I've seen it said that like

I feel like it would have stated that the investigation did not identify evidence of Flinter Kush meeting with Ishaqaf. Mm-hmm. Period. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I guess the problem, it would establish more, you know, guilt, I guess, if they had done it, especially after they were given his name. After being told he's a direct line to be with you. But I don't know. But even though Kish thought Kizliak wasn't the best point person, having been told he did not have a direct link to Putin, he met with Kizliak at Trump Tower on November 30th, 2016.

And it is conceivable to back to the Ishikov thing that maybe they did meet after being given his name and they just didn't have any evidence of it, destroyed all of it and sub-edited about it, or it's all under FISA stuff. But there's nothing redacted here in the report, so that leads me to believe that it's not somehow elsewhere. So I don't know. So they set up a meeting with Kisley Akatram Tower in November 30th, 2016. Flynn also attended and Bannon was invited, but did not attend.

So in the 30 minute meeting, Kisley Akatram was told to repair Russian relations and ask Kisley Akatram to identify the best person to have future discussions with, Ouch. Um, it's like, Kisley Akatram is not you. Right, because B. Akatram already told him, kissly, I can't ship.

Yeah, I think he was trying to find out. Totally. Is this is your cough? The dude. Mm-hmm. Um, yeah, someone who had contact with Putin is what he was looking for and the ability to speak on behalf of him. Uh, so they also discussed the US policy towards Syria and kids,

like proposed having Russian generals brief the team using a secure communications line. Flynn said there was no secure line to the transition team. And Kiselya proposed having Russian generals brief the team using a secure communications line. Flynn said there was no secure line to the transition team, so Kushe asked if they could use secure facilities at the Russian embassy. Well, yeah, I remember when that story came out. Well, Kiselya quickly rejected that dumb fucking idea. Like, dude.

Well, no, no. We can't have members of the transition team. Namely, the president-elect's son-in-law come and use our embassy back channel bat phone to talk to Putin. Are you fucking stupid? Like that is just the most amazing. Because of Logan Act stuff. Yeah, and just because it's,

that's a really bad look, right? Secret meetings in the Russian Embassy with the son-in-law of the incoming president? No. Kissley Ak was even like, you are stupid. Yeah. Don't be dumb.

And this could be what is keeping Kushat a jail right now, just that he's so dumb. And he doesn't realize any of this is a problem. Seriously, he just had his eye on the prize, right? Of just getting to try to be. Trying to go to the building. Papa, get building paid off. That's what I think he was trying to do. That's true. Um, so now we're going to get back to Flynn in a minute because we know that you

guys are dying to discuss his recorded conversations with Kisley Act that the government still won't admit exists. And we have heard from Judge Sullivan, Flynn's lawyer that there could be other conversations, which makes us think he spoke to the Ishaqaw fellow. But first, Moller brings up Kushner's meeting with Sergei Gorkov on the top page of 161. So when we last left Kushner, he had decided Kizliak. When we left, I think it's so far from him. He had decided Kizliak, yeah, he's alone on an island.

What would he do? He had decided Kisleyak wasn't the guy to meet because he didn't have a direct line of Putin. So in December, he turned down a few meetings with him, so Kisleyak sent his underling Avibirk Whits to meet with Kisleyak instead. And they met on December 12th at Trump Tower for a few minutes and Kizliak had the sands because he wanted to meet with Kish. But Kizliak told Berk Witts that he wanted Kish to meet with Sergei Gorkov who had a direct line to Putin and was the head of Vineshik Kahnum. Kahnum Kahnum, wait, Vineshik Kahnum bank.

Yeah, Vineshik Kahnum. Yeah, Vineshikkonam bank. Yeah, VEB. Thank you. VEB? Jesus Christ. And it doesn't mean once you get it. And does this just sell like a bunch of dudes walking around saying, are you important? Are you important?

No, you're not important enough. Are you important? Are you important? You're not important enough. And just like testing each other's importance. And if they speak for Trump and Putin, and it just, it seems like they're all just kind of vetting each other walking around and trying to see who's important enough to set up a back channel with or is this just a waste of time

because they deal with guys like Carter Page and Poppodopolis who are douchebag fuckbases. I can't get them shit. Yeah, yeah, it's like two kids in high school that are interested in each other and all their underlings that want to prove themselves and their worth to them are like, oh, talk to her for you. Yeah, I'm a rapper. It's like you suck at this, dude. So Kush agreed to meet with Gorggok next day, even though VEB was under sanctions imposed in response to Russia's annexation of Crimea. Kush didn't recall any discussion about sanctions

against VEB during the meeting. Of course not. Or any Russian sanctions for that matter. No. Kush told the FBI that he didn't do any prep for the meeting. Nope. Nor did he or anyone on the transition team, even Google Gorkov. Nope.

But Berkowitz told Mueller he did Google Gorkov. I feel like you could find that information. But I don't know. Yeah. During the meeting, Gorkov gave, like I would think, Mueller could. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know.

During the meeting, Gorkov gave Kush a painting in the back of dirt from Belarus. So funny. When it would be funny before you knew what it was. Because I think it's because Belarus is where Kusher's family is from. Yeah. But just to get just a behanded a bag of dirt. Yeah, seriously. Here's a bag of dirt. Oh, okay. I wonder if it was like, remember Cohen's bag of boxing gloves and whatever. Like I wonder if it was like just a plastic grocery bag and dirt from Belarus. So it's irradiated, so don't open it. Yeah, so because your family's from there, I guess they thought that's sweet. That's a nice love language that that guy has.

And a painting. Yeah, and a painting. Yeah, what is this? Is he even courted for marriage? It's like family gifts. Well, because you gotta know, like finally, these, you know, kissley act and prince, you know, but now you got Kushner and now you got Gorkov, right? And Gorkov has a direct line to Putin

and Kushner has a direct line to Trump. These are big dogs, right? Definitely. So here's your bag of dirt for being not Eric Prince, I guess. Yes. Yeah. Uh. Yeah. Yeah. And, of course, when asked about these meetings, or this meeting, Kushner and Gorecroft's account

of the meeting didn't match. Kush said they talked broadly about diplomatic stuff and how Obama sucked at dealing with Russia. And Kush said he most definitely did not mention how he was up to his ears and debt with a 6665th Avenue building, which we call the Devil Building for obvious reasons. But VEB made a public statement suggesting Gorkov met with Kush in his capacity as a CEO of Kushner Companies to discuss business and not diplomacy. VEB said this meeting was part of a series of roadshow meetings, which included

negotiations and discussion of the most promising business lines and sectors. Yeah, the discussion of that $1.4 billion debt that cushioned her head on the devil building. So then, Forzman had a different take because he met with Gorkov and VEB deputy chair, Nikolay, Chimkonsky in Moscow before Gorkhov went to America to meet with Kush. And they told him they were going to meet with Kush to discuss post-election issues with

US financial issues and that their trip was sanctioned by Putin. And they were instructed to report back to him after the meeting. Mueller says at the top of page 163 that he could not resolve the conflict in the three stories, but there was no substantive follow-up after the meeting. But a few days after the meeting, Gorkov's assistant texted Kushner's assistant saying, Hi, please inform your side that the information about the meeting had a very positive response. And quote, there were a few other texts, but that was about the end of that communication. Then on to part 5 about Petr Ovin's outreach efforts

to the transition team. In December 2016, a few weeks after his face-to-face meeting with Putin, Petr Ovin attended a meeting of all the oligarchs and all the King's friends. All the King's horses and all the consent. Yeah, and I'm sorry, but I have a typo with my thing auto corrected. Instead of Petr Avin, it's Pet Raven.

Yeah, I saw. And now I want to call him pet raven from now on Putin's pet raven that's really cool if we go that as a Harry Potter vibe too and I like it yeah so we call it we for work before we call the pet raven down yeah um so pet raven attended a meeting of all the other parks and Putin uh it put where the main topic of discussion was the prospect of new sanctions on Russia from the US. He then tried to reach out to Trump transition team. Trump transition team. Fuck, Trump's transition team. The triple team. It's an awful, awful tongue twister.

T-Dow, T-Bone, come on. I don't know, I don't know. Yeah, so the tried to reach out to the team instructing Richard Bert to contact them. So Bert worked with Avon or Raven and was also on the board of Alpha Bank where his main job was to facilitate introductions to business contacts in the US and other Western countries. While at a work meeting with Bert, Avon told Bert that people high up in the Russian government wanted to set up a communication channel between the Kremlin and the Trump team and asked him for contact info. Bert said that even though he established a lot of connections for Ovin, this one was unusual.

And outside the normal realm of his dealing with Ovin, if you're like, Hey buddy, you're doing okay? You're asking me to do something kind of a bit more? Back channel? Back channel? Back channel? If you'll remember, Bert is also a member of the board of the Center for National Interest and Approach Simes, the president of CNI, because he remembered Simes had a relationship with Kush.

Bert called Simes and asked if he could set up a meeting with Kush to establish a back channel of communication between Putin and the Trump team. Simes told Mueller he declined and told Bert it wasn't a good idea in light of media attention. That's one way to put it. Simes told Mueller he thought they were on to us. Just calm down. Lila, here's a second.

Simes told Mueller he thought Bert was seeking a secret channel and Simes didn't want CNI to be seen as an intermediary between the Russians and Trump. So he knew it was wrong too. Yeah, okay, cool. Yeah. So Bert then sent an email to Auburn that Relayed what Simestone said, but indicated that they could pick it up again after the new year. But his wording is weird. He said, quote, Through a trusted third party, I have reached out to the very influential person I mentioned."

Bert told Mueller the very influential person with signs, but that the trusted third party he just made up and no such person existed. I've been replied, quote, thank you, all clear. And quote, and I've been told Mueller that meant he didn't want the outreach to continue, even though Bert spoke to I've been some time later about his attempt to make contact with a Trump team saying, quote, the current environment made it impossible. And quote, followed by a redacted bit for grand jury materials. That seems wrong. Thank you all clear means this is over. No. Yeah.

I think it means go ahead. Yeah. I don't know. Okay. Then it says, Bert did not recall discussing offense request with signs again, nor did he recall speaking to anyone else about the request. That makes it seem signs is under the redacted part. So we'd put beans on him having testified to the grand jury. We'll see. Maybe or not. Hopefully. Mostly because there are footnotes that signs had an interview with the FBI, but there are no other times footnotes just Redacted grand jury footnotes. So

In the first quarter of 2017, Avon met again with Putin and other Russian officials and Putin asked about Avon's attempt to set up a back channel and Avon told him it was a bust Wampong. Then there's a redacted sentence. Then it says, Putin continued to inquire about Oven's efforts to connect him to the Trump administration and several subsequent meetings. Yeah, and these are the, this is one of those quarterly giant oligarch Putin parties that they have.

The giant meetings and Putin's like, what's going on? And he's like, I failed. Yeah. Did they probably have bomb ass food there? Mm-hmm. God. Yeah, I bet. I hate oligarchs, but I love how they dine.

There's a really great place called Pactippa, Pomegranate on Elkome Boulevard. They have the best Shushleek in the whole universe. Anyway. Off and also told Putin's chief of staff that he had been subpoenaed by the FBI and that he'd been asked if he worked to create a back channel between Russia and the Trump administration. Off and told Mueller that he didn't seem to care. So then there's a brief section on Carter Page's contact with Deputy Prime Minister,

Arcadey Arcady. I'm not sure how that's pronounced. Yeah, I don't know either. I'll say Arcade. Arcade? Yeah. Arcadey DeVorgavitch. Yeah, which is called DeVorgavitch.

At the top of page 166. In December after the election, nearly two months after Paige was fired from the Trump campaign, Paige was in Moscow to pursue business opportunities. Then there's a redacted sentence for grand jury information, but we kick back in with Mueller telling us, Kalimnik told him that Paige was blabbing all over Moscow, that he still had connections to Trump,

which I imagine you would use if you're trying to get more business connections. It's kind of a, it is a good card to play. It seems like a lot of folks were doing that anyway to sell their access and knowledge or whatever about Trump or to be like, you want to do an oil deal with me because I know Trump. I know how they work. Kalimnik sent an email to Maniford about it saying, Carter pages in Moscow today sending

messages that he's authorized to talk to Russia on behalf of DT on a range of issues of mutual interest including Ukraine. So he got snitched on a nice way to put it. Yeah. Yeah, it is to be when you think about it. Uh-huh. And that's another that's a pretty close connection between Calimnic and Manafort, right? Just further establishing their ties. between Kalimnick and Manafort, right, just further establishing their ties. So while in Moscow, Paige went to dinner with Shlomo Weber, who we know that guy, who contacted the deputy prime minister, Duvorkovich,

and invited him to the dinner. He showed up and congratulated Paige on Trump's win and asked Paige if he could connect him with the transition team. Another one. This is just a whole bunch of Russians trying to get access to the transition team through compromised douche bags basically. Then there's an entire redacted paragraph with one sentence in the middle we can read that says devorkovich apparently discussed working together in the future by forming an academic partnership.

We'll be school pals. Mm-hmm. And then that's the end of that. So page is a stage a target just like Kush and Papadak among others. like Kush and Papadak among others. Page 167, we have a brief section on contacts with Flynn. Mueller tells us he was a conduit for communications between the Trump transition and Russian ambassador. I think this is a setup for the sanctions phone calls. It says Flynn dealt with two sensitive matters during the transition, including a UN Security Council vote

and the upcoming US sanctions for Russian interference in the election. As to the sanctions, Flynn spoke by phone with Katie McFarland to prep for his call with Kisleyak. McFarland was with Trump, another high-level officials at Mar-a-Laga when the call came in. Mueller determined that Trump did not ask Flynn to speak to Kisleyak about Russia's reaction to the sanctions, but Flynn did ask Kisleyak about Russia's reaction to the sanctions, but Flynn did ask Kisleyak not to escalate the situation in response to US sanctions imposed December

29. And Kisleyak later reported to Flynn that the Russians listened. And they did. That's what happened. I think it's a note here that Mueller does not mention that these were phone calls. There are no redacted parts here. He only knows that Flynn pleaded guilty to making false statements to the FBI,

but the calls are themselves are not mentioned. But we know there are recordings of the calls, or at least transcripts, because Judge Sullivan, who's a judge presiding over Flynn's case, had asked for those transcripts to be released to the public. So the government objected and Sullivan withdrew that order, but we did get the voicemail recording

of Trump's attorney calling Flynn's attorney dangling a pardon and threatening him not to spilled beans to Mueller. So anyhow, Mueller wants to talk about the UN vote on Israeli settlements first and then starts at the bottom of page 167. So before Trump took office, but after he won, Egypt submitted a resolution to the UN Security Council calling on Israel to stop West Bank settlement activity.

The vote was scheduled for the following day, December 22, their speculation in the media that the Obama administration would not oppose the resolution. Flynn told the FBI that the Trump team regarded the vote as a significant issue and wanted to support Israel by opposing the resolution. Flynn told the FBI that the Trump team regarded the vote as a significant issue and wanted to support Israel by opposing the resolution. On the day of the vote, apparently Trump and his gaggle of duchess reached out to other countries to find out how they were going to vote and to try to get them to support a delay of the vote until Trump was in power, knowing that Trump was going to oppose it.

Kush led the effort on the transition team side, and Flynn was responsible for the Russian government. Here Mueller says that morning, Flynn called a Kizliak and asked that Russia oppose or delay. Later that day, Trump himself spoke with LCC, Egypt's president about the vote, ultimately Egypt postponed the vote. On December 23rd, Malaysia, New Zealand, Senegal, and Venezuela resubmitted the resolution. Throughout the day, members of the Trump team kept contacting countries to oppose the vote,

but when Flynn spoke to Kizliak, Kizliak told him Russia would not oppose the resolution and the resolution passed 14-0 with the U.S. abstaining. Yeah, and this is before Trump took office. Yes, definitely. Just want to make that super clear. Yeah, definitely. Just want to make that super clear. Yeah, totally. Well, I mean, US has always been a huge ally to Israel, regardless of what people want to say.

We've been incredibly friendly to them, like all the time, pretty much, with a lot of their dynistic efforts. But that's all I'll say about that. Then we get to the sanctions discussions on page 168. As we know, Obama signed the sanctions on December 28th and then expelled 35 Russians and closed two Russian compounds, all in response to Russian election interference. At the time, Trump, McFarland, Bannon, and Prebus were at Mar-a-Lago and Flynn was on

VK in the Dominican Republic but was in daily contact with McFarland. Russia initiated the outreach when Kizliak texted Flynn December 28th, thank Comma Brown. Flynn did not respond that evening. Then someone from the Russian embassy called Flynn the next morning, but they did not talk. The sanctions were announced publicly December 29th, and that day McFarland emailed multiple transition team members about the impact of the sanctions. And a team member named Flayherty texted Flynn a New York Times article about the sanctions. These emails, we presume are the emails Mueller was able to obtain from the GSA,

which is news that came out this week, huh? No, this was a member a long time ago when the guy who Giuliani and Trump installed to be in charge of the GSA died. And when Mueller just went and asked for the transition emails from the GSA, they just handed them over. Yeah. And they were like, whoa.

Yes. Like, they totally forgot that they're guy who was supposed to protect those emails, just totally died. Yeah, totally. So I think that those are, I think these are those emails. What happened this week with the GSA? Oh, that's the FBI building, Hoover building, debacle, scandal,

where Trump doesn't want the FBI to move out of that building because he's afraid a hotel will take over and it's right across the street. And the GSA are the ones who were in charge of helping that move. Yeah. I've been. Nope, that happens.

There's a lot of... Maybe comedies. There's... Honestly, and this is the only reason I know this is because I work in DC. So. Totally. Oh, okay. That makes sense. Okay. So later that night, Bannon told McFarland of the sanctions would hurt Trump's

ability to repair relations with Russia. And McFarland told Bannon that, Kislyak and Flynn were going to speak later that night. So Flynn told Mueller he didn't want to call Kisleyak about the sanctions until he spoke to the team at Mar-a-Lago. He spoke with Michael Lidin, a transition team member. He talked to McFarland for about 20 minutes to discuss what to communicate to Kisleyak about the sanctions. They talked about how the sanctions could hurt Trump's goals and how they did not want

Russia to escalate. And they both understood that Flynn would relay a message to Kisliak in hopes the situation wouldn't get out of hand. This is all according to Flynn. And given the current news with him, we doubt pretty much anything that he said. So, meaning like he's just sort of gone from cooperator to an indicted co-conspirator. And he's got this new lawyer who's a fruitcake. Yeah, and he's rolling back his guilty plea essentially. Like kind of, yeah, but the B&K and stuff. Yeah, but even today they're like, no, he's staying in it. They want it both ways.

Yeah. Well, so anyway, we'll see how it turns out. But he's definitely not the ally that the government thought he was. Yeah. So here, Mueller says Flynn called and spoke with Kizliak and requested that Russia not escalate, but only respond in a reciprocal manner.

Then this starts getting weird. McFarland told a bunch of transition members that Flynn was speaking to Kizliak. She had the convos with Bannon in Pribus and then sent an email to transition members. Less than an hour after that email, she briefed Trump, banning, pre-bus, spicer, and other team members.

And according to McFarlane, Trump asked her if the Russians did it, meaning did they interfere in the election. McFarlane told him, yes, and Trump expressed doubt it was the Russians. I think that's a load of crap, right? And she just said that to make it seem like Trump had no freaking idea that Russia interfered in the election, but whatever.

That's what I thought too. I was like, oh yeah. Okay, Trump said, do you think the Russians did it? And I said, yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. McFarland also said that Trump opined that sanctions provided him leverage with Russians

and she said they discussed potential Russian responses and that if they were dicks, that would be an indicator of their relationship going forward. After the meeting, Flynn and McFarlane talked on the phone and he told her about his call of a Kizliak and their discussions of the sanctions. According to McFarlane, Flynn said the Russian response was not going to be escalatory because they wanted to be best friend's friend. Then the next day, the Russian foreign minister Lavrov said Russia would respond in kind to the sanctions, but two hours later, Putin released a statement saying Russia would not respond. Hours later, Trump tweeted, great move on delay by V Putin.

Shortly after that, Flynn sent an email to Kush, ban in prebus, and others about his call with Kizliak, but it did not mention sanctions. Flynn told Mueller the reason he didn't mention sanctions was because it could be perceived as getting in the way of the Obama administration's foreign policy. I get it, admitting that you can't do this shit.

Yeah. So he knows what the Logan Act is, right? As we know, Kisley at Cald Flynn and set his message was received at the highest levels of the Russian government. And Flynn told McFarland, who told Bannon and the rest, and McFarland congratulated Flynn. Mueller assures us here that there will be more on these sanctions discussed in volume two.

So then, I'd like to read the closing paragraph, summarizing the Russian contacts on page 173. So here it is. In sum, the investigation established multiple links between Trump campaign officials and individuals tied to the Russian government. Those links included Russian offers of assistance to the campaign. In some instances, the campaign was receptive to the offer while in other instances, the

campaign officials shied away. Ultimately, the investigation did not establish the campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government, in its election interference activities. Or there was collusion, but not criminal conspiracy, right? In short. Yeah. So that wraps up the Russia contacts with the Trump campaign and it only took less than 10 hours to tell you about the summary of the work that Mueller did. Yes, very cool. Very cool. Very cool. Very cool. Very cool. Very cool. Very cool. But yeah, that's, that is all of section B from part four. Part five is next, and we'll

start that next week. We might be able to get through all of part five, which are the prosecution and declination decisions. Basically, all of the stuff that he prosecuted and why, and all the shit he decided not to, and why not. And that's pages 174 through 199. And I do hate to tell you this, there's a lot of redactions in there. Well, so we're not gonna get all of our questions answered, unfortunately, but thank you again for joining us

and listening to the Mueller report. It's very important that everybody kind of, at least knows what's in it. And I hope that we're making it palatable and potable for you to digest And we will see you Well, if you're a patron we'll see you in like five minutes because we're gonna core the deal beans right after this But otherwise check us out Sunday night and then we'll be in Philly next week So we'll see you then. I've been AG. I've been Jordan Coburn. And this is Muller She Wrote.

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