Jack - Trump Tower of Debt (feat. Scott Stedman)

Episode Date: September 26, 2021

This week: Trump Tower is going through some things from the standpoint of debt; what’s going on with Right Direction America, Matt Gaetz, Chris Christie, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders; two GOP operatives were indicted this week and Scott Stedman and I will speculate about where that investigation originated and why it’s still ongoing in the Fantasy Indictment League, and more.Follow our guest:Scott Stedmanhttps://twitter.com/ScottMStedmanhttps://forensicnews.net/ Follow Allison on Twitter:Dr. Allison Gill (@allisongill)Want to support the show and get it ad-free and early?https://dailybeans.supercast.tech/Orhttps://patreon.com/thedailybeansPromo Codes Nuts.com. It’s the simple and convenient way to have nutritious, delicious, healthy nuts, dried fruit, flour, grains, beans, and so many other high-quality foods delivered straight to your door. New http://Nuts.com customers get free shipping on your first order when you text MUELLER to 64000. Choose from salmon, cod, halibut, and more, or a combination of them. And every month there are different specials to explore. Wild Alaskan Company seafood is how nature intended it to be. Always wild, never farmed or modified, and it contains no antibiotics. get $15 off your first box of premium seafood when you visit http://WildAlaskanCompany.com/MSW.

I'm Greg Oliar. Four years ago, I stopped writing novels to report on the crimes of Donald Trump and his associates. In 2018, I wrote a best-selling book about it, Dirty Rubels. In 2019, I launched Proveil, a bi-weekly column about Trump and Putin, spies and mobsters, and so many traders! Trump may be gone, but the damage he wrought will take years to fully understand. Join me and a revolving crew of contributors and guests as we try to make sense of it all. This is Preveil. Hey all, this is Glenn Kirschner, and you're listening to Muller Shee wrote. 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 two, and that campaign, and I didn't have, not have communications with the Russians. What do I have to get involved with Putin for having nothing to do with Putin?

I've never spoken to him. I don't know anything about a mother than he will respect me. Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. So, it is political. You're a communist.

No, Mr. Green. Communism is just a red hailing. Like all members of the oldest profession I'm a capitalist. APPLAUSE Hello and welcome to Muller She Road. I'm your host, A.G., well formerly known as A.G. You can call me Alison Gil now. We have a very big show today. Scott Stedman of Forensic News will be joining us

for the fantasy indictment league to discuss his exposé on the Russian that used two GOP operatives to donate money to the RNC and the Trump campaign. Those two operatives have been indicted. And that's going to be, you know, part of the fantasy indictment league. And Scott and I are going to talk about it. And we're going to speculate about where the investigation originated. Like where did this come from? Did it come from Muller? Did it come from something later?

And also, we're going to talk about why it's still ongoing, because that is in the indictment. The investigation is still ongoing. So we have a ton of headlines also to go over. I just wanted to take a quick moment to thank our patrons. You make this show possible. If you want to be a patron, you can do that at patreon.com slash Mullullershyroad or go and search for mullershyroad on supercast. We use both platforms. But again, we do have a lot of stuff to go over, so let's kick off the show with just the facts. All right, first up, a $100 million loan on Donald Trump's Fifth Avenue Tower has been placed on a debt watch list, according

to data from a banking giant Wells Fargo. Bloomberg first reported the story on Friday, last Friday, noting that the decision was a result of lower than average occupancy. Wells Fargo, which is the master service of the loan, said that occupancy has dipped to 78.9% from 85.9% at the end of 2020. And that's according to the outlet. That's according to Wells Fargo. The building's real estate income was 33.7 million in 2020 and 7.5 million in the first quarter. That's according to loan documents. The Trump organization did not immediately respond to requests for comment. And insider is reporting this.

Kelsey Vlamas previously reported other other financial challenges at Trump tower, who was we know recently, multiple tenants fell behind on rent. The Trump organization sued the maker of Ivanka Trump's shoe line earlier this year for 1.5 million in unpaid rent, according to reports. Some of Trump's properties elsewhere in the US have also been facing scrutiny. The former president's property tax was slashed for his Chicago office tower because the building's commercial space was mostly vacant. Nobody wants to rent in a Trump tower.

So if you take that, you know, they've been put on this debt watch list and you couple that with Rosemary Wrayblick and her exit from Finra that we reported last week and the investigation of the Trump organization. You know, there's Weiselberg's lawyer, which we're going to get into in a little bit, had some interesting things to say on Open Court this week. And not to mention Eric Trump's lawyer, Mukasey is quitting. Mukasey, Mukase, Hasey, I don't know, Mukasey.

He's quitting the case. He's quitting. And he didn't say why. But there was a stipulation agreed to by both parties filed under seal by the case. He's quitting. And he didn't say why. But there was a stipulation agreed to by both parties filed under seal by the court. The next day, Mucasey quit. So I don't know if Eric's cooperating or if he just wants the fuck away.

I don't know, but food or fuss is still on the case. I feel like Vance is gearing up to drop some more charges with all of this information. And I'm wondering, as I wondered last week, allowed, if his creditors are going to come collecting, he owes what, 400 million that supposed to be coming due 2024. But once your organization is indicted, the creditors can knock on the door anytime and say, we need the money now or we're, you know, foreclosing. So interesting.

And let's see, in other news, in June, former Treasury Secretary Steve Manuchin visited Israel to scout investments for his new company and then flew to Qatar for a conference. Remember, we talked about this. And at the time, Manuchin had been out of Qatar for a conference. Remember, we talked about this, and at the time, Mnuchin had been out of office for five months. But because of an order given by President Trump, former President Trump, he was still entitled to protection by Secret Service. As agents followed Mnuchin across the Middle East for his own personal

shit, the U.S. government paid up to $3,000 each for their plane tickets, and $11,000 for rooms at Cutters Luxe St. Regis Doha. And that's according to government spending records, $11,000 for rooms. In all, the record show US taxpayer spent more than $52,000 to guard him the multi-millionaire on his business trip for personal shit. These payments were among 1.7 million in additional government spending triggered by Trump's highly unusual order, which awarded six extra months

of Secret Service Protection for his crotch fruit, his adult children, and three top administration officials. I wonder what he's paying him back for, you know? This is according to the Washington Post, by the way, by law, the Secret Service is supposed to protect the ex-presidents and their spouses for life and their children until they turn 16. In recent years, former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and GW have also ordered agents to protect slightly older college-aged children for a short time, for a short time after leaving office. But Trump went far beyond that.

He extended six months of extra protection to Ivanka 39 Eric 37 Along with their spouses and Don Jr. who's 43. That guy's younger than me Tiffany 27 as well as minutian Meadows And former national security advisor Robert O'Brien. Why? Why them? So have something to do with January 6th? Yeah, yes, yes. The narrator said, yes, it does. I'm speculating, of course, it's a conjecture.

Trump did not publish any public order announcing the decision or nor has he explained the rationale. And to estimate the cost of Trump's decision, the post-Washington Post requested secret service records, detailing the cost of protection for all seven people. For five of them, the post-receive records, covering the full six months, showing the cost of buying airplane tickets,

renting cars, booking hotel rooms for agents. But for the other two, Tiffany and O'Brien, the post-examined records covering the first four months, which had previously been obtained by the Watchdog Group crew, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Love you, Robert McGuire. The records began on January 20th in the first hours that Trump left office. Among the first payments the Secret Service made was to Trump's own company. That day, the records showed Ivanka Trump and her family left Washington for Trump's golf club at Bedminster, where Ivanka Trump had a cottage on the grounds. Secret Service agents came along in Trump's club charged them for the rooms they used.

The bill was $708 for one night. The rate appeared to be 141 66 per room, the same rate that the club charged the secret service while Trump was still president. In the next six months, the secret service spent about $347,000 on airfare, hotels, and rental cars while protecting Ivanka and her husband, Kush. The receipts showed the pair visiting resort destinations, Hawaii, Utah's ski country, an upscale Wyoming ranch, and Kawa Island. Agents also followed Kushner, now a private businessman, to the United Arab Emirates

in May, paying $9,000 for hotel rooms. The Secret Service did not say what airfare costs were for that trip. The Daily Beast reported the hotel was the Ritz Carlton in Abu Dhabi, citing a government spending document. Spoke people for Ivanka and Kushner did not respond to requests for comment. Ivanka Trump's adult siblings, according to the records, were less expensive to protect. Tiffany Trump, a recently engaged law school graduate, appeared to cost the least to the secret service. The partial records showed that as of May, the secret service spent $56,000 on her. appeared to cost the least to the Secret Service. The partial records showed that as of May, the Secret Service spent $56,000 on her.

The cost protecting Eric and Donald were similar. 241,000 for Eric, 213,000 for Don Jr. The records showed that the brothers mainly shuttled between their homes in New York and South Florida with an occasional side trip. Junior went fishing in Montana, for example. Eric Trump, who has become the most visible leader of the Trump organization, visited Trump hotels in Washington and Chicago.

And when he did, just as when his sister visited Bedminster, the Trump organization charged agents who stayed at the former president's properties. Jordan Lee, Boets, a spokesperson citizens, for responsibility in ethics in Washington, says these charges, though small, represent a moral choice. If they wanted to reduce the burden of their extended protection on taxpayers, here was an easy chance to do it. Just don't bill for rooms at Trump properties. Quote the patriotic thing would obviously be not charging the government to stay at your

properties and not profiting or profiteering off the government. It is just so easy for them to write off the rooms. And we're not seeing that. That's Libawitz. In that way, Trump's children were following an example set by their father since he left office. He has lived full time at his own properties and charged the secret service for rooms every night, total bill now more than $72,000. It is almost certain to grow. And Trump, unlike his kids, has protection for life. An examining expenses among the three White House officials who received the extra six months,

the Post could find little data on the cost of guarding O'Brien, Robert O'Brien, former National Security Advisor, huh, National Security Advisor, is that the keeper of the nice system that is housing all of the transcripts of conversations with Putin and Zelensky and things you were impeached for? That, that Robert O'Brien, is that who you granted all this free secret service protection to? The Secret Service spent $17,000 on rental cars alone while guarding him, but the rest of the expenses were not released.

Meadows, former chief of staff, insurrectionist, accounted for $342,000 in protection costs. The Secret Service released few details beyond a list of car rentals that showed visits to Washington and Florida, and of, his home state of North Carolina. The most expensive of the seven was Mnuchin. As an investment banker and Hollywood producer who served all four years in Trump's term, in all the Secret Service reported spending almost $500,000 protecting Steve.

The receipt showed the agent spent $114,000 over six months to rent rooms at the W and L.A. That's where he lives. They also followed Mnuchin on three trips to the Middle East, as we said. Mnuchin is reportedly seeking to raise money from sovereign wealth funds for a new venture. He's calling Liberty Strategic Capital. One of those visits Mnuchin told the Jerusalem Post. He was hoping to capitalize on the Trump administration's efforts to build ties between Israel I'm hoping to make money off of my friend who's paying for secret service protection for me is what he said I'm paraphrasing, but that's basically what he said

Given our relationships here the opportunity to bridge the economic transactions between Different Abraham Accords members and states is also a tremendous opportunity for us according to Manuchin. The Secret Service spent $23,000 on hotel rooms in Israel related to his travel. He also went to Cabo San Lucas and to guard Manuchin during those trips. The record show the Secret Service paid $56,000 for hotel rooms and $2,000 to rent golf carts. I thought you could just buy a golf cart paid $56,000 for hotel rooms and $2,000 to rent golf carts. I thought you could just buy a golf cart for $2,000.

I'm not apparently not. All right. In other news, on the day Donald Trump's second impeachment trial began in the Senate, the campaign for Matt Gaetz made by far its largest ever political contribution, a $100,000 to a nonprofit created to defend Trump. I'm going to go ahead and go out on a limb before I read the rest of this article and speculate that that was a payment for a pardon. Maybe set up by that Alfred guy who was just indicted for snookering Don Gates out of

15 million dollars for a pardon for Matt Gates. Anyway, let's get into the article here. While that donation may not sound out of the ordinary, it stands out for a number of reasons. For one, the size of the donation is curious. It's double the amount of Gates' second largest donation ever, and it's $22,000 more than the campaign's Compined Gifts to ally governor governor Ron DeSantis. For another, the non-profit appears to have done nothing for more than a year. And even order is the Gates campaign's own explanation, which experts say, raises questions of legality. The group Right Direction America is a non-profit launched in December 2019 by Trump ally and former governor Chris Christie.

It's a 501 C4 and it's so called dark money social welfare organization, which doesn't have to disclose its donors, but can't participate primarily in political activity. Christie build the group as a vehicle to drum up public support for Trump during his first impeachment trial in the Senate. You're not supposed to do that with a 501 C4, but whatever. But that's not why the Gates campaign says it gave $100,000. A campaign spokesperson told the Daily Beast the organization supports former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who two weeks prior to the Gates donation

had announced her 2022 campaign for governor of Arkansas. Quote, we support the mission of right direction America. That's what the spokesperson said about the hundred grand, but there's no public record of RDA supporting Sanders for governor. There isn't even any activity of any kind since August 2020. According to the FEC, and RDA has received money from no political group other than the Gates campaign. It looks like this little fucking nonprofit was set up just to take that hundred thousand dollars from Matt Gates to Donald Trump. For someone who's so strongly backing Sanders that he would make a Sarah Huckabee that he'd make a hundred thousand dollar donation. There's no record of any direct donations to the Sanders campaign.

From the Gates campaign, nor from the beleaguered congressman himself. Unlike with DeSantis, right? The campaign did not reply though when presented with that information. campaign from the Gates campaign, nor from the billy-gird congressman himself, unlike with DeSantis, right? The campaign did not reply though, when presented with that information. So they're like, oh, we support Sarah Huckabee. Okay, well, why have you not made any donations to her directly? Oh, no comment. Further complicating the Gates campaign's sole explanation that RDA supports Sarah Huckabee

Sanders, the group's nonprofit status bars it from participating in political activity. The Gates spokesperson did not answer one asked if the campaign knew what else the group did. It's not a surprise that Gates would support Sanders for governor. But I mean to set up a nonprofit so you can be tax exempted to take one $100,000 donation from Matt Gates to a to a nonprofit set up by the Trump campaign, would know other monies being given to Sarah Huckabee Sanders. That's, um, that's a, that's payola.

That's a bag of cash. Isn't it? I mean, it has to be. It, it has to be. I can't think of it as, what else could it possibly be? I mean, it just makes no sense. And by the way, when asked multiple times, whether the Justice Department had notified Gates that he's no longer the subject

of a federal investigation, two campaign spokespeople would not say. So that means he is, right? One response promoted Gates' podcast. the Daily Beast also contacted criminal defense attorney Mark Furnich who in June received $25,000 in legal fees from the Gates campaign and who has represented sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and drug lord walking El Chapo Guzman. But do we I didn't get a reply from him either. Days prior to that $100,000 donation, Gates, a lawyer offered to represent Trump in the impeachment trial. The three-term congressman, whose phone was seized by federal agents in December, told Fox

News that given the ethics conflict, he would resign from Congress if the law required it to represent Trump. So didn't represent Trump was under federal investigation at the time offered to represent Trump for free. Didn't get to do that. Makes a $100,000 donation to a 501 C4 that has done nothing other than accept that donation. Hmm. What?

Gates said at the time when he was trying to represent Trump. What? Gates said at the time when he was trying to represent Trump, I only regret that I have but one political career to give to my president. Wow. Wow, it becomes crystal clear, doesn't it? All right, everybody. Next up, more headlines and some sabotage. And then later in the show, I'll be talking to Scott Stedman of Forensic News about two

GOP operatives that were just indicted for funneling Russian money into Republican coffers in 2016. Stay with us. Hey everybody, it's AG. Actually, it's the host formerly known as AG. I'm Allison and I found an amazing website you need to visit. It's called Nuts.com. It's the best kept secret of savvy snackers nationwide.

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Hey, everybody. Welcome back. So early results in Russia's parliamentary elections showed a rise in opposition to Putin's governing party, though it was nevertheless expected to cruise easily to victory. In partial results broadcast by Russian state television after three days of voting, the party, United Russia, carried 44% of the vote, 10 percentage points less than in the previous election in 2016. In second place, the Communist Party received 22% compared to 13% in 2016. Russian elections are not free and fair,

and Parliament's role in recent years has mainly been to rubber stamp the Kremlin's initiatives while providing a veneer of democratic legitimacy to Putin's rule. Over the weekend, videos of ballot stuffing and other apparent instances of fraud circulated widely on social media, but allies of the imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny hoped to use the elections to deliver a rebuke of Putin by consolidating the opposition vote. The weekend's elections came amid a harsh crackdown on dissent by the Kremlin and murmurings of popular discontent. Apparently, fearing a rebuke at the ballot box, the authorities just

barred all well-known opposition figures from running for Parliament while forcing many dissidents into exile and declaring popular independent media outlets foreign agents. Oh, coming from the number one fucking foreign agent in the world, that's rich. The multi-day nature of the elections measures officially put in place to reduce the spread of the coronavirus, increased the likelihood of fraud by making the process harder to monitor election observers and crumbling critics say and and given the system by which the 450 seats in the lower house of parliament, the Duma are apportioned, United Russia could still maintain its two thirds majority, two thirds majority in the chamber, despite getting

less than half of the votes. Sound familiar? The opposition's uphill battle was complicated by decisions by Google and Apple to comply with Russia and their demands to block access to Navalny related content that was supposed to coordinate the protest vote. Google and Apple did that. After the two tech giants on Friday removed from their store smartphone app connected to Mr. Navalny's movement, he had an app, they took it off of there.

Google over the weekend went further, apparently, complying with a government request to block YouTube videos and Google Doc files that Mr. Navalny's allies were using to coordinate voting. Google did not respond for a request for comment. Mr. Navalny's allies who were organizing the protest vote campaign said they were notified by Google that their content could be blocked because of a government request. This content is not available on this country domain due to a legal complaint from the government.

That's a YouTube message that pops up when users in Russia try to open one of the block to videos. Google's compliance with Russia's demands and recent days is represented a remarkable concession for a company that prides itself on an enabling an abling the exchange of information, open exchange of information, right? In Russia, Google's products in particular YouTube have helped provide avenues for free expression, even as the Kremlin has rolled back those freedoms. Specific threats of prosecution against some of Google's more than 100 employees inside Russia forced the company to take down the Navalny smartphone app.

Russian courts in recent months have outlawed Navalny's movement as extremists and declared his smart voting campaign to be illegal. Nevertheless, Mr. Navalny's allies have been pushing the tactic they call smart voting to pool opposition votes and elect as many challengers to United Russia as possible, no matter the challengers' political views. They're trying to combine all the Communist Party, all the challengers against Putin's party. The campaign garnered support among opposition-minded voters, many of whom managed to find out which candidate the smart voting campaign supported in their district, despite Google and Apple's

compliance with the Russian government. And during a meeting in Washington, DC in 2019, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg agreed to not fact check political posts of the Trump administration if they would promise to steer clear of any heavy handed regulations. Venture capitalist Peter Teal said that to an associate, and that's according to a new book. The associate alleged that the meeting, which was also attended by Teal, former president Trump, Jared Kushner, and their spouses, Zuckerberg essentially promised to champion state sanctioned conservatism.

Yeah, the book also delves into the early days of Teal, who eventually founded PayPal and Palantir, including his time in high school and at Stanford University, where he was disliked by pretty much everyone. In high school, the San Francisco native was targeted for his inscrutable and haughty personality. It's obvious and retrospect, quote, that what we were doing was bullying, one classmate said. I've always thought he might have had a list of people he's going to kill somewhere

and that I'm on it. This book is called The Contrarian Peter Teal and Silicon Valley's pursuit of power. All right, are you guys ready for sabotage? Alan Weiselberg, former Trump org CFO, who has been charged by Manhattan prosecutors for an alleged tax evasion scheme, is expecting that more indictments will be filed in the case after tax documents were found in an alleged co-conspirators basement. That's according to Weiselberg's attorney in Open Court last Monday. Quote, we have strong reason to believe there could be other indictments coming. That is Brian Scarletos. He said that at a pre-trial hearing in New York State Supreme Court holding up a Manila envelope with a bulge in it. Scarletos

said that the parties met in the judges chambers before the court hearing. It was represented to us by the DA that this package includes documents found in a co-conspirators basement that are tax documents. Wiselberg faces 15 state counts, including Larsony, Grand Larsony, excuse me, which were unveiled by Psyvance in July. The Grand Jury indictment alleged 15-year tax evasion scheme we've gone over it multiple times. The former president's name-safe business was also charged in the indictment, but Donald Trump himself has not been charged. Monday's hearing was Wiselberg's first court appearance in the case since his arrangement this summer. His lawyer did not identify who

else in Wiselberg's team expected to face an indictment, but prosecutors have been scrutinizing other top Trump organ employees, including Matthew Kalamari senior. That's the company's chief operating officer and his son, Matthew Calamari, Jr. The Trump org's corporate director of security, the younger Calamari, the tender, the tender Calamari testified before the grand jury earlier this month and received transactional immunity for the topics he testified about. That's in accordance with New York State law. We've gone over this. The decision to bring him before the grand jury signals prosecutors do not plan to indict him. Right? See? I told you.

I told you that's how that shit worked. Father and son have been under scrutiny by prosecutors over whether they properly paid taxes on subsidized rent and cars, we know. And on Monday, after the hearing, a lawyer for the calamaries said, and I can't get over the calamaries, said in a statement, we remain in discussions with the district attorney's office relating to calamari senior. Interesting. They believe there's no basis for inditing. He said, if they presently in need intended to indict him, I would have

been informed and I haven't been. And in fact, I've been informed to the contrary. So apparently, Kalamari senior's lawyer has been told that Kalamari senior is not going to be indicted. At Monday, short hearing, Scarletos referenced the dispute between Manhattan DA and the Trump org lawyer saying he's concerned that his client becomes collateral damage in a bigger fight. Yeah. Yeah. Alan Weiselberg is just the collateral damage. Whatever.

Scarletus did not identify by name the co-conspirators. He was referencing when discussing the tax documents and the basement. CNN reported one alleged co-conspirator in the investigation is Jeff McConney, the controller of the Trump organization. We know McConney has testified at least twice before the grand jury. Of course, as you know, by New York law, he has received immunity for that testimony. He will not be indicted for those crimes. Solomon Shinerock, a prosecutor with the Manhattan District Attorney's Office who has the coolest name in the world, responded to Weiselberg's attorney saying, Mr Weiselberg is the saying, Mr Weiselberg is the boss.

Mr Weiselberg is also not an innocent party caught up in collateral damage. Preach at Solomon, Shine Rock. The remainder of the hearing focused on scheduling and attempt by the defense to get a longer schedule for motions. They didn't get it. Scarletos argued that defense attorneys have been handed a large amount of documents, asking the judge for an extended schedule for the motions. Shine Rock countered. Solomon Shine Rock said, Alan Weiselberg is no stranger to these documents. The judge agreed. And there is a 120 day motion schedule to begin in January. But noted, quote, many of the documents came from the defendants themselves

and that their claims of needing to go through millions of documents was misleading a little as they're familiar with most of this shit. The next court date is set for July 12, 2022, with a trial date not expected until August or early September, right before the election. All right, we'll be back with Scott Stedman and the fantasy indictment leagues. Stay with us. Hey everybody, it's Allison Gill and this portion of the show is brought to you by Wild Alaskan Company. When you defrost seafood, the countdown for freshness begins.

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Alright everybody, welcome back. It's time for the Fantasy Enditement League. I'm gonna be a dinosaur! No wait, it's gonna be okay. I'm gonna be a dinosaur! A dinosaur! Or that they can, it's gonna be okay. Just calm down. I can't calm down, I'm gonna be a dinosaur!

And joining me today for the Fantasy Enditement League, first time we've had a guest join us for the fantasy indictment league is Investigative journalist and founder forensic news.net Scott Stedman Scott. Hello. Hi, how are you? I'm good. This is an interesting week and I imagine more interesting weeks to come as Statutes of limitations start to run out on 2016 campaign finance violations. Yeah, we're running up against that wall and I think we're going to see a few kind of loose ends tied up here for these and hopefully. Yeah, I agree. And the reason I have you on today is because on Monday, as we know, Department of Justice indicted two GOP operatives named Weed and Benton

Department of Justice, indicted two GOP operatives named Weed and Benton for straw donations. They disguised the true source of a donation made in 2016 to Republicans. R&C, I think it ended up in a Trump pack, right? America first or something. And I wanted to just briefly have you go over the timeline, the crime line, you will. Yeah, so these guys, weed and benton, doesn't sound like they should have a TV show, like that name is just so perfect. It's like Buddy Cops, we invented.

And one guy's like, Doug Weeda thinks 75 and benton's 43. Yeah, so Doug's getting too old for this shit. Yeah, exactly. So they have a, they have multiple connections in Eastern Europe, but they know this one guy named Roman Vesalanco. And he, he was a Russian naval veteran for like a decade in the 90s and he was in charge of one of their financial services and their naval bases. And then he studied for a little bit, became a business man.

And in 2016 he pops up and he wants a picture with Trump. And if you look at the emails that he's sending in the DOJ indictment, he says, you know, weed is relaying the message, he really wants this picture with Trump. And so we arranges a fundraiser that they can all attend. And he takes Vasylenko's money along with Benton and funnels it into the Trump pack,

allowing them access to this event. And the Russian guy gets the picture, and the Russian money ends up with the Trump pack. Yeah, and what's interesting to me is that my first thought was, ooh, I wonder if this originated with the Mueller investigation, and was handed off in one of those appendix D things. But that didn't make sense to me because this would be something within his purview. He, in fact, indicted Sam Patton who did the exact same thing. And so then it becomes a question of when did this investigation start?

Where was it born? Was it born out of another investigation, perhaps handed off by Mueller, like say Tom Barrack, I don't know, I'm just speculating, I'm just throwing names out there, but trying to figure out the oranges of this particular investigation has really kind of got me a little bit flummoxed, like it seems like it's something that would have ultimately originally come out of the Mueller investigation, but if he had found this, I feel like he would have indicted this. I would even argue that this is more in his purview than the patent stuff, because even patent

was dealing with Ukrainian oligarchs. Obviously, they're involved, but this guy is, like I said, he's a naval veteran for the Soviet Army. And then he hosts like a yearly awards for the military. We're all these high profile people in Russia come. And you wrote in your piece, these are pretty much all the red flags, no pun intended, of a Kremlin agent. Exactly, yeah. And so for me, that's like directly in the the Mueller purview.

So one thing I wanted to point out is that in the indictment announcement piece, the last sentence they said was that the FBI in San Diego is investigating. And that was weird to me for a couple of reasons. One present tense, like the indictments have already come down, but they are investigating. And then the San Diego connection I haven't found yet like the companies that that Benton and Doug weed are involved in are either East Coast or I think there's a couple in Texas. So you know I think there are some indications that it was you know this investigation started maybe more recently.

You know, if they are still investigating and and more than find it, I don't know. I just I find it weird that it is kind of happening now. I think the closest we came and I live in Sandy. I'm I'm so cow. I'm on the left coast. So I paid very close attention to anything that even came close to our area. And the closest thing I can remember is you remember the guy Pignetta who made the fake identifications for the Russian Nationals who came over and posed as campaign, you know, Republican campaign operatives. That's the closest we've gotten to to Southern California. And I mean it would be a

stretch. We would be bending over to backwards to try to make any kind of connection. And again, I'm doing that. I'm, I'm, I'm dotless and I am rarely dotless here. Yeah. So another thing that came to mind with San Diego particularly is court of entry. I don't know, a lot of the things we see with, you know, FBI activity and major cities, like San Diego's

a major hub right for anyone that wants to import, that's something that came to mind. But other than that, I'm clueless as well as why San Diego specifically. But I do think the present tense of FBI is investigating still. You know, maybe there is more to come here. And today, J. Seculos signed on to be Doug Weed's attorney. So obviously, you know, Trump's inner circle has seen this and is kind of at least tangentially, you know, worried about what this might expose. Yeah, although they seemingly didn't have a problem with Constantine Kalimnik and Manafort and and all but well, I guess they did they fired him and tried to cover it up to be fair

Yeah, this fun their way out of it but Talk a little bit about because there's a there's a little bit of a twist here, right? I think that the reason that the Trump camp is interested in this is that this one of these guys was pardoned by Trump for the same kind of shit. Yeah, so Jesse Benton, he basically ran the same scheme with different characters back and I want to say it was 2012, I believe, when he was working on the Ron Paul campaign. So he basically funneled money, it's like a state senator for him to switch his vote to Ron Paul. It's covertly.

And so Trump pardoned him for that offense because Rand Paul lobbied the White House about this. And he was, Ben was one of the guys like in the list with Manafort and like that six-page list that we got in December of 2020 of Hardens and you know lo and beholds he did the exact same thing on a much larger scale with you know a foreign Russian for a national and to the Trump campaign and you know we have this picture with the Russian guy with Trump and we know that Benton worked on one of Trump's superpacks and so we know that Benton worked on one of Trump's super PACs. And so we know that Trump knows that this happened, right? He met the Russian guy and he knows Benton. I'd be surprised if it didn't come up

in those pardon negotiations. And that opens the door to analyzing Trump's intent with why he actually wanted to pardon Ben, was it actually because of the state senator case or did he think that this Russian thing was coming down the line? Yeah, and I would say, I mean, I haven't seen this pardon, but I'm assuming the reason they're able to bring charges because the pardon was pretty narrow and scope and just pardon him of this one particular crime because generally, this sounds like it wasn't a blanket pardon, like what they did for

Flynn Manafort stone, etc. Although stones is a little bit narrower than the others, but I think maybe because I was going to ask you like I haven't written here why wasn't the Russian indicted and then that together with your statement that San Diego FBI is investigating I'm wondering if this Russian isn't tied to additional FEC scams that would, you know, we know that the statute of limitations clock doesn't start ticking until you stop crime in that particular scheme. So maybe he is still being investigated for maybe other donations to other entities or other criminal activity, because it seems to me like if this were it, that this Russian and the translator

would have been indicted in this indictment as well. Right, I think there's, you're really onto something there. There have been, like I didn't put this in the piece because it's kind of speculative, but there have been kind of Russian forum discussions about this guy's company and called Life is Good. The website's pretty ridiculous. It's like you pay people for life advice. There's been discussion about that being like a pyramid scheme. So, it's good to say do you want to start one? We, and I could start one. Life is terrible.

Oh, it's terrible. Yeah, life is terrible. Just the email us We'll tell you all the fucking way is life is terrible. Yeah, it's simple super and you know what just 50 bucks Yeah, and 50 bucks an hour But anyway, yeah, maybe these are some dots. Maybe we have some dots now finally It's a good point because like that company is incorporated in Belize and I think it changed from the UK to Cyprus at one point. So there's a lot of weird financial activity with this guy. And the other point on why he's not indicted, I think, is because he's never going to come to the U.S. again anyway, because he's in trouble.

Yeah, that was kind of one of the lessons we learned from the indictments against Russians and at least Russian entities in the Mueller investigation was that when we had Concord Management come in, hire American lawyers and then abuse our federal court system to try to get our sources and methods going back to World War II through discovery. And then when they did get some discovery, they used, they falsified those documents and used it to say we were able to hack the Mueller investigation. And so it seemed to be more of a more trouble than it was worth to indict these Russian nationals. So it may just be as simple as that. And I do think like that's a, I don't say like

upcoming, but it's more of a prominent strategy that the Russians are using is like get things tangled in court and then try to spin every kind of deposition, every court document you can to feed that disinformation campaign. It's actually a good like evil genius kind of strategy, right? Like you have to play by the court rules and like you can depose people and you can get certain documents. And that's a tactic that they're using to feed this kind of misinformation beast that we're dealing with now. Yeah, for real. Any other before I let you go, D

you think we talked about at the beginning of our discussion here that we are winding down the statute of limitations five years for these federal campaign violations from 2016. It's coming now to the to code red, right? Because we are almost exactly five years out from the election. And have you heard or do you think that you may be having some stories coming out on forensic news.net about anything else that's in the works because it seems to me that this Department of Justice is really good at keeping its cards close to its vest. Yeah, I would agree with that characterization. I think there's things like, you know, I don't have any sort of specific information on this, but I do think like the line to Congress, the Don Jr. line to Congress is so blatant and they are print stuff and

We got those stories that they were like referred to the DOJ and then kind of peed her down So I do think that could possibly be ruts Ted again Maybe you're re-earning of stormy Daniels individual one Case in the Southern District of New York, which is you and I know because we follow this so closely The you know that the judge was like, you need to, hey, bill bar in the Southern District, you need to indict or get off the pot. And they closed the case.

And that doesn't mean that you can't reopen it, but we haven't heard again. Nothing, we've heard nothing. And then I would say that the other kind of 2016 story that is yet to be fully told. And I'm pissed about it is the alpha bank story. Like there's never an answer given to what that was. I think most of the explanations that alpha gave are garbage

and like very easily disperven. And I think there's compelling evidence. I want to do an article about this in a week or two, but I think there's compelling evidence that the FBI shut that down way too quickly. The ID report says they shut it down February of 2017, like pretty much right when the Russia stuff was ramping up. And I think, you know, there's evidence now that they kind of messed up that investigation. I think things after that investigation relied on the FBI closing it and, you know, basically relying on their word, right? When I think there is evidence that they kind of bungled it in a way. Well, Durham would have you believe that there was nothing there was nothing there and that

Susman lied about it. And he had to be high or at least lied about his client was. Which yeah, that did really piss us off. Yeah, which even we know and we've talked about the success of the other show. Even if they if you told him he was working for Hillary Clinton, there's nothing illegal about that. One thing I have a request. I have a Dick Clark sort of dedication hotline request for you. I would like to see a refreshed version, if you will, of Appendix D. The 14 cases handed off to other agencies in the Mueller report. Do you know of anyone or would you be willing to do a FOIA request?

But you know, hit the refresh button on that. I'd like to see where the redaction bars are off and where the redaction bars are still on. I would really be interested. I haven't seen an updated appendix D in a while. Yeah, I mean, I'd have to figure out which agency to FOIA that would actually be responsive, but yeah, let's do it. Some of your ideas and I'll get that going. Because we just, you know, I was just talking to Marcy Wheeler and as it turns out, some of these some of these Rick Gates 302s have had the characterization of redactions change from for privacy reasons to because of open and ongoing matters. So, you know, in a foot in a FOIA request, when they talk, you know, when you request documents, they can redact them for several different exemptions.

And the previous exemption under bar for this particular 302, these rate gates 302s was privacy. And now it's been changed to B7A, which is for open and ongoing. What was the subject matter on that, do you remember? No, because the rest of it was redacted. Oh, okay. But she noted that the redaction reason had changed.

And so I was like, that's fancy. So I'd be interested to see not only if any of the redaction bars have come off appendix D, but if any of the reasons for redaction under FOIA requests have changed. Hmm, let's get that going. Sameer idea is not want I want to send that off. That's a good idea. Yeah, because if something used to be for privacy and now it's for open and ongoing that?

That's a good catch by Marcy. That's a great, I mean, that's obviously purposeful, right? Like someone made that change for a reason. Yeah, she's amazing. So thank you so much. Tell everyone where they can find you and support you and support the investigative journalism that you do and because I think it's so important. Thank you.

Just the website, forensicnews.net, and then our main funding sources on Patreon, kind of like you guys, patreon.com slash forensic news. And yeah, just share, we're on social media everywhere. Telephones. All right, let me know when you wanna start a podcast. We'll get you hooked up with MSW Media. Sounds good. All right. We'll talk to you. Thanks so much. Scott's done it. And with that, it is time to draft my team for this week, which will stay pretty much the same.

I'm going to draft a random straw donor though, since we're at the end of that statute of limitations for these 2016 campaign finance crimes I just talked to Scott about. So put a random straw donor on my chart. I'm going to do super seating Weiselberg indictments. I'm going to do Kalamari plea agreement. I'm going to do McConee plea agreement. I'm going to add Eric Trump this week. He seemed a little over the top whiny about subpoenas over this past weekend. And then I'm drafting gates, though I think we're looking at in October, November time frame.

My time frame used to be July, August, because that's when the Greenbergs sentencing hearing was, that's when green, not the Greenbergs, but just the one Greenberg. But that's been pushed out now to November. But I'm going to draft gates anyhow. Why not? I'm also going to add Purizolo. That's the cannabis executive that bought gates a trip to the Bahamas in exchange for his marijuana legislation. They also shared women and drugs. Then I'm going to do the same old Rudy DeGenerne of a tonesig trio, though the special master is still going through those documents, but it's on a rolling basis. I think it's almost time He's been banned from Fox for the last three months as has his son

Who looks like Trump's kid. I'm sorry. I feel like there was a wife swap happening, which is cool Yeah, I'm all for it, but Not not when not when mobbed up criminals are doing it. Anyway, I think it's almost time. But yeah, yeah, the writings on the wall, right? And then I'm going to round out the team with a couple of Rand old Russian-backed Ukrainians in the Eastern District of New York and Southern District of New York investigation into election interference. And probably Derek Harvey. That's the Rudy aid that traveled to Ukraine with Cosh Patel. It was just a peanut this week by the January 6th committee.

And Derek, Derek Harvey worked on that 100 Biden laptop op among other things, digging up dirt on 100 Biden. Yeah, fairer violations. Probably even 951 violations of he was acting under orders from Fertash. Nobody wants to testify against Fertash though, I guarantee it. And there you have it, that is our show. Thank you so much to our patrons. Again, you make this show possible. And thank you to Scott Stedman and forensic news for coming on.

I will see you all tomorrow morning with Dana for the Daily Beans. And until then, please take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Take care of the planet. And take care of your mental health. I've been Allison Gill and this is Mullershi Road. Mullershi Road is written and produced by Allison Gill in partnership with MSW Media. Sound Design and Engineering, or by Molly Hockey, Jesse Egan is our copywriter and our art and web designer by Joe Elrider at Moxie Design Studios.

Muller she wrote as a proud member of MSW Media, a group of creator-owned podcasts focused on news, justice and politics. For more information, visit MSW Media dot com. Hi, I'm Harry Lickman, host of Talking Feds. Around table, the brings together prominent figures from government law and journalism for a dynamic discussion of the most important topics of the day. Each Monday, I'm joined by a slate of Feds favorites and new voices to break down the headlines and give the insiders view of what's going on in Washington and beyond. Plus, sidebar is explaining important legal concepts read by your favorite celebrities.

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