Jack - Unexplained Wealth Order (feat. Tristan Snell, and Alexander Vindman)

Episode Date: August 15, 2021

This week: the House Oversight Committee should gain access to Trump's tax filings from his time in office; Scotland is investigating two of Trump's properties there via an Unexplained Wealth Order to investigate possible money laundering; Biden nominates Elizabeth Prelogar for the position of Solicitor General; plus the Fantasy Indictment League, and two great interviews!Follow our guests:Tristan SnellAttorney; Founder, MainStreet.lawhttps://twitter.com/TristanSnellAlexander VindmanWhistleblower; Hero; Author, Here, Right Mattershttps://twitter.com/AVindmanCheck out all the shows on the MSW Media Network:https://mswmedia.com/

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 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. You can call me Allison Gill now, though. I don't work for the government, so F the Hatch Act. I was smashing the Crotch Act, but I don't have to anymore. I'm coming to you from a hotel on the road. So it's a little bit echoey in here. I apologize for that. I have a couple of stories for you,

but then I wanted to play a couple of interviews. I had earlier this week. You probably may have already heard them. If you haven't, I really want you to listen to them. That's why I'm dropping them in this show as well. I talked to Alexander Vindman, absolute hero, and we talk a lot about how what we saw during the first impeachment is connected to the second impeachment and COVID. And you know, he just draws these incredible through lines through everything, the entirety of the conspiracy, and it's it's really good. And then I also talked to Tristan Snell, this week, who is a reporter who has a lot of inside information on what's going on with Matt in the Matt Gaetz world. So he's gonna kind of be our sabotage today

because I'll come back and I'll pick to do my picks for the fantasy indictment league or maybe I'll do the picks before we listen to the interviews so you have them going into there. But anyway, it's gonna be a really good show with some incredible interviews, but I do have some news. So let's jump in with just the facts.

All right, first up, as it turns out, the House Democrats and the Oversight Committee can get some of Trump's tax records from Mazar's, which is his accounting firm. This has been going on, as you know, for you, it's probably since the kitchen days, it's been going on for so long. The U.S. House should be able to access some of Donald Trump's tax returns through that

subpoena to Mizar's, and this is according to a federal judge in DC, and this was a ruling on Wednesday. It's a resounding loss for Trump, given that the accounting records appear to cover financial information that the former president has fiercely protected, and it's a major step towards resolving the long-running fight over access to Trump's tax records. And don't confuse this with the Houseways and Means fight, because if you remember, going back to the Mueller she wrote days,

we had a bunch of stuff going up through the courts. We had a subpoena from House oversight to Mizar's for Trump's taxes and accounting papers, but we also had a subpoena by the Houseways and from the Houseways and Means Committee. And the Houseways and Means Committee is the one that shall furnish the taxes. Remember, we talk about that 100-year-old law that says when they ask, they, the IRS shall furnish the taxes. And so that's not this, right?

So when, you know, people are kind of conflating the two. I've seen a lot of people say, why are they only given part of these taxes over, to the House Oversight Committee? It's the law says that they shall hand them over. That's not this. They actually need a legislative purpose here. And the judge has sort of split this down the middle, right?

They say, hey, you can have some of the tax returns, but you can't have eight years worth. You're doing oversight. When he was president, you want to do oversight of his emoluments and his DC hotel, DC International Hotel and Downtown DC. Okay. Cool. You can have the tax returns that pertain to those years, 2017, 2018. Can't have anything from before he was president, but this is a huge win, you know, constitutionally speaking. And of course, Trump has already filed to appeal this decision.

It's going to take more time, and I know people are upset. But I have to, again, like I said, when we went through this with Mazar's and the Ways and Means Committee, it doesn't really, this is for oversight purposes. Long haul, long term oversight purposes. And It's in a criminal investigation into his taxes. The Manhattan District Attorney has his taxes. The DOJ has his taxes. We don't have to, we're not waiting to prosecute him based on this.

Makes sense. So he'll be like, oh, he's never going to be held accountable. These particular subpoenas from Mazar's from House Oversight and House Ways and Means isn't to hold him accountable. Right? Makes sense? To get the truth out. I mean, we can't impeach him anymore.

I mean, we could. You can, but, you know, the Senate won't convict. That's why they didn't convict him on the second impeachment was because you can't. They said, we don't believe you can impeach and convict a person who isn't the president anymore. You can. That was their excuse, not to. But anyway, with the case, when we read here from CNN, the case is a continuation of

the House tax returns case that traveled up to Supreme Court. Now District Judge Ahmed Mehta has weighed in the House for the House request for Trump's financial records against the standards laid out by the Supreme Court in its 72 ruling last year. With that Supreme Court opinion in mind, meta-upheld parts of the House subpoena that were targeted at the lawmakers stated need for considering legislation and around foreign emoluments, clause issues, and the GSA lease at the Trump hotel and the old post office building. The committee can also access some financial documents from 2017 and 2018, according to Judge Mehta. They ruled the subpoena of Mazar's in some ways should be treated like Annie's subpoena, especially

as the committee investigates Trump Trump's Washington DC hotel lease with federal government. It says, quote, the committee has presented detailed and substantial evidence, the president, at least through his business interests, likely received foreign payments during the term of presidency. That's regarding the emoluments clause, right? The judge noted the Trump organization gave to the Treasury Department more than $400,000 in payments during Trump's presidency, validating the committee's belief that the president received some foreign payments during his presidency. And so therefore the committee is not engaged in a baseless fishing expedition

according to the judge. So those will be handed over, except no, their Trump just, as we knew he would, I mean, a Trump's going to appeal everything all the way up all every time. All right, so now this will go to the appellate court. And we'll keep an eye on it for you. But again, you know, this is stuff we want to know, but stuff that, you know, I mean, after they do all this investigating and we get the stuff, they could make a criminal referral a year, maybe two. We need, we need and probably we'll see more

for an action from other investigatory agencies who already have this information. Next up, the Scottish judge just resurrected an effort to investigate Trump for money laundering in Scotland. The Scottish Court Wednesday gave activists Wednesday was a bad day for Trump. They gave activists a green light to continue their effort to use anti-money laundering statutes to investigate the financing of Trump's golf course. While Trump built his reputation in New York, they said the gravitational center of his

business empire has shifted towards Scotland in the last decade, with two courses that he operates that are requiring huge amounts of cash to maintain. By some estimates, Trump would have had to spend half of his available cash to finance his 2014 purchase of Turnberry. Where do you get the money? And he has spent more than 400 million on Turnberry and and a second course and Aberdenshire You're gonna I'm sorry, I butchered that with the send-in corrections Anyway, that's along the windy North Sea coast which he he built from scratch. Neither course has ever turned a profit.

Both courses bleed money. They are totally money laundering enterprises, right? So the judge has cleared the way for this to go forward. In the UK government investigators have the power to find out where the money to buy and develop Trump's courses came from using something called an unexplained wealth order. Essentially a mandate to peer into a particular person's finances if there's a reasonable suspicion, something isn't quite right. It can't be wielded against just anyone.

It's designed to make inquiries into the finances of politically exposed persons suspected of money laundering. It has been evoked several times in London, including to examine how the wife of jailed ex-Ozor Bajani government official had managed to afford a 16 million pound shopping spree at Herids. In February 2020, lawmakers from the Scottish Green Party began agitating for the Scottish government to invoke the UWL against Trump. The unexplained wealth order, that is. The movement didn't gain much steam until after he left office, and then Patrick Harvey,

the Greens co-leader and the Scottish Parliament, pushed a vote on the matter. Harvey cited a report from the Transparency Advocacy Group of Vaz that detailed Trump's ties to people accused of financial improprieties, such as his former campaign manager, Paul Amanivort, who was convicted of money laundering. And the question surrounding the financing of his money, you know, money losing, of course, these are money losers for him. Anyway, interesting stuff. And finally, this is cool.

President Joe Biden on Wednesday nominated acting solicitor general Elizabeth Prelegar to be his solicitor general. That's the Supreme Court lawyer, right? On a permanent basis. Prelegar is served in the position on an acting basis since January, arguing two cases before Scotus in that role. She's a seasoned appellate lawyer who served from 2014 to 2019 as an assistant to the Solicitor General.

If confirmed, she would be only the second woman to lead the Solicitor General Office on a permanent basis, the other Elena Kagan. She was Solicitor General from 2009 to 2010. And she's, I don't know who she is now. During her prior tenure at the Justice Department, Pearl O'Gar was tapped to serve on a little investigation as one of 17 angry Democrats, Robert Mueller,

the Robert Mueller investigation. She's also spent time as a partner at Cooley, LLP, and an associate of Hogan levels. And she's taught a course at Harvard Law School on scotus and a pellet advocacy. So she's badass. She's gonna be our solicitor general. So that's pretty awesome. All right, let's do this. Let's play the fantasy indictment link. I'm gonna be a date. No, it is gonna be okay. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a date. I'm gonna be a down, I'm gonna be dead. All right, you know that I have gates this week, right? I mean, it's just inevitable. I'd be sick.

I'm almost wondering if he's already indicted by the time you hear this. I don't want to jinx it, though, so probably not. But I am on technically on vacation, so it would be a good time. But I did have this incredible discussion with Tristan Snell about when we can expect the best time to be able to do it. on vacation, so it would be a good time. But I did have this incredible discussion with Tristan Snell about when we can expect that, and I'm going to play that interview for

you. He's got really good inside information that it's going to be sooner rather than later, because we were all wondering if the post-ponement of Greenberg sentencing was going to push that out. We were all thinking God What if he's not picked up? What if he's not picked up until October or November, right? Well, he's got some information that's that's not the case. It's not gonna take that long But he's gonna gate gates is on my fantasy diamond league, and I'm also gonna put Angles on there because he's pretty great and Ingersaw, right those are three guys involved down there.

And I don't think Weiselberg is going to cooperate because guess what? We found out this week, this is some more news that prosecutors that Weiselberg may have lied when he had limited immunity in the hush money, catch and kill case, stormy Daniels case. Remember when he got limited immunity and they put Cohen behind bars? Cohen committed the exact same crime that Trump did? That's a ready made case. I don't know why we just aren't charging Trump with that right now,

or the obstruction of justice and volume two. But anyway, Ingol's Ingersaw, Ingol's, and since Weiselberg, you know, now he's less likely to flip or he's, you know, because he previously lied to prosecutors, he might not be that great of a witness. I think they've got plenty of others, but I don't know what's going to happen now. I don't know how the Manhattan District Attorney is going to deal with that, but I'm not going to put Weiselberg plea agreement on my fantasy indictment team this week. Instead, I think a

barrack plea agreement, a Tom Barrack plea agreement. I've heard rumors he's singing. So I'll put that on there. That gives me four, right? Gates, angles, Pleiagreement Barak. Mmm. I don't know. I don't know who else to. Let's go with Ivanka. I'm gonna call her. Alright, that's my, those are my fantasy indictment League picks. And by the way, somebody was indicted this week. Let me pull this up.

I just want to tell you since this is the indictment part of the show. I think his name is Lazaro. Yeah, Tony. It was Tony Lazaro. He was indicted. Five counts of sex trafficking a minor. So he was arrested in Minnesota. He's a GOP strategist, young guy. Did a lot of commentary on Kavanaugh. It's just so ironic. And anyway, he's been picked up and arrested, so that's good. All right, everybody, I want you to hear this interview. The first one here is going to be Tristan Snow.

We're going to go over all the stuff on Matt Gaetz. This is going to be considered this abatage of the show because, you know, I mean, he's got such great insight information. And then right after that, I'm going to play the Alexander Vindman interview for you. I hope you enjoy that. And I'm going to sign off now. I'm going to let you listen to these interviews. And everybody, please, you'll enjoy them.

They're really, really good interviews if you haven't heard them. So I will see you all next week. I've been Allison Gill. And this is Mollershi Rout. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. I'm happy to be joined today by CNN and MSNBC commentator founder of Main Street Dot Law, and he prosecuted Trump University successfully at the New York Attorney General's office.

Please welcome Tristan Snow. Tristan, welcome for the first time on the Beans. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk to you. I've been following you for a long time, so I'm really excited to have this conversation. And today we're going to be talking not about Matthew Gertz. Bless his soul. Poor guy. Poor guy. That's so wrong. I know. We're going to be talking about Matt Gates. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

The other guy. The other guy. Now you've been tweeting that we're getting close to a Gates charging decision. We've had public reporting out in the Twitter sphere and in the media that a charging decision would come in July and August, July or August, then we had Joel Greenberg say, three months isn't nearly enough time to tell you about all the crimes. And so they pushed his sentencing back. And both sides agreed to this because apparently he's he's offering substantial assistance. And so I don't think they would take him from 33 to seven counts if he if he weren't or six counts something six counts now. Yeah. Six counts. Now first of all everyone's really interested in and I know you can't reveal sources.

But I'm assuming you have sources. You're not just saying this stuff and putting it out there, but where are you getting this? And I also want to talk about this recent political article that seems to say that the Gates investigation is stuck. Yeah, first in terms of what I'm hearing, there have been a number of folks that have come forward to me. Once I started tweeting more about gates, especially within the past two days,

a lot of people DMD, and then also there's a certain amount of intelligence that one can get through the government enforcement great vine. I'm no longer in government, but by virtue of my past work, and some of the present work that I do for private clients, representing there's a number of folks that are victims of white collar crime, whom I represent.

We believe that, you know, I, I, I, I, I, I'm in regular touch with, with folks that are in the government enforcement world. And so there's, you know, there are some sources that I'm able to, to tap into that way and some things that have been able to hear, even though everybody's really playing things close to their vests at this point. And with regards to this political story, which I read and I was like, this isn't, this can't be correct. And you've, you've posited that too, but you've got stronger sourcing and you, you've told me pre-interview, you've got more information on this on the theory,

which you tweeted out that this is a Matt Gaetz sort of planted story. Yeah, I managed to get some additional intel that suggests that that is correct, that corroborates my tape. That started off as an analysis by me, but that other people then proceeded to come forward and let me know that I was actually correct, which is always fun when my hunches end up being correct. Sadly, when you do this stuff for long enough

and you learn how the sausage gets made, and by which I mean not just the political stuff, but the political stuff, which I have done on and off at different points in my career, I know what it looks like when a political office manages to get a piece spun the way that they wanted to. And there's also just the fact that like nobody close

to the investigation on the prosecution side would have said any of the things that were in that article. And then there's just a couple other things. One is that as you were pointing out just a minute ago, Greenberg went from 33 counts down to six. There's no way that the prosecutors have suddenly now decided that he's a bad witness. They have been there spent a lot of time with that man for better or for worse, and

they already have decided to cast their lot with him. That is a huge reduction in the number of counts. They are only rolling forward with him because they do think that he'll be a perfectly fine witness. Of course, he's a scumbag and he's not a good dude. All cooperating witnesses are criminals. Yeah, that's by definition. And it just depends on how bad, you know, what is it that they did? You know, and there's quite a lot of degrees.

Some of them were just kind of in the mix of it and some of them were the key criminal players. In this case, Greenberg was a Pimp. Let's just call it what it is as opposed to using all the euphemisms around sugar daddies and things like that. This was these were, he was a Pimp and these women are victims of sex trafficking. And you wouldn't see him have that much of account reduction if they didn't feel like he was a good witness and the and the whole thing with trying to sort of cast doubt on the credibility of doing for work these days, just struck me as the worst kind of terrible blame the victim,

victim-shaming thing that we see all the time in sexual offense cases where the female victim's credibility gets called into question and this really, really looked like a very dirty DC, uh, near job. Yeah. Well, it seems to me that at least there's seems to be a pattern of praying on corruptible quote unquote women. Right. We couldn't talk about the playboy bunny or broides $1.6 million abortion with a with a with a playmate or if they're all sex workers, sex workers legit work. We're very, we're very sex positive on this show,

but that seems to be, and it's not just the women either, that these folks recruit like Trump, for example, Gates, for example, Greenberg, recruit corruptible people to do their bidding so that it's a mafia tactic, right? Right. Yeah, absolutely. But this is the kind of, this is the kind of tactic that is often seen in these kind of cases to basically attack the women that have come forward in one way or another.

So that started off as a hunch on my part, as my analysis of that political piece. And then I had some people come forward and tell me that they knew much more about it and that in fact I am correct, that that was very much a one-sided piece that was sourced from gates and his people, the Defense Council, his political team, et cetera, and that that's where all of that was coming from.

So, that piece muddied to the waters a lot, but we really, really need to discount it. If you're following this matter, that piece was really not to be trusted, that Intel was very much wrong and slanted with an agenda. Yeah, and that was backed up today by new reporting, right? This isn't a stuck, this isn't a stuck investigation. So vindicated by phone calls and DMs you get and then bam, we get this massive story. Yes. With a lot more evidence, a lot more going on. And I want to talk about what's in this report

and then a little bit about the freedom of speech tour. But I have to take a quick break, Tristan. Will you stay with me? Absolutely. Awesome. Thanks. Everybody will be right back. Hello, everyone.

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She's very patient and insightful and genuinely cares for her clients So visit better help calm slash daily beans. That's better help H.E. L.P And you can join the over one million people taking charge of their mental health with a help of an experience license Professional special offer for daily beans listeners get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com slash daily beans. Everybody, welcome back. We're talking with the founder of Main Street dot law again, prosecuted Trump University at the New York Attorney General's office Tristan Snell. And before the break Tristan, we were talking about this political story. You had sort of posited and I do this all the time. I'm very speculative as a

quote, quote, quote, journalist myself, I call it putting beans on stuff. I'm like, put some beans on it. This is my super space beans, call it a tinfoil hat, and it always ends up coming true. And yours did when you positive that the political, the political story, saying that the Gates investigation was stuck, it was on hold, it was going nowhere or whatever, was seeded by Matt Gates and his defense attorneys, et cetera. And that I had insinuated was born out today and this new reporting, remind us where this reporting came out of and what it says. So this was from ABC News today and they have a very well-sourced story there where they have managed to get access to a lot of at least some of the very large amount of evidence that the prosecutors have in this matter.

One-stual Greenberg decided to cooperate and work with the federal prosecutors. He is often true in this case for any witness or cooperator, then you're handing over your devices to the prosecutors, to the FBI, and then they're basically downloading everything from your phone, from your computer, et cetera, et cetera. And so they have everything. They have photos, they have videos,

they have emails, they have text messages, they have Dunmo they have emails, they have text messages, they have Dunmo and Tosh app payments. So it's voluminous. And just even a smidgen of this was made available to the journalist for ABC. And they were able to see records showing green bird sourcing for and paying for sex with these women that he was signing online and then making them available and in turn getting payment from other individuals including that date. And fills in some of the gaps and things that we already knew. It corroborates other

reporting that had been done previously on this issue. This is probably the deepest dive that anybody has had into any of the evidence that has been accumulated here. But there is, make no mistake about it, there is a very, very large pile of digital crumbs that were left by the perpetrators of this whole scheme. And they did not cover their tracks. I don't even think they were trying to necessarily, although there's the really creepy things about how they were like trying to find like a safe place for them to have their rendezvous, but they, while they were trying to find, you know, people's apartments and places to have these encounters, they were leaving the digital traces of all of this all over the place, and all of that is stuff that now between Greenberg's cooperation, and I'm guessing third party

subpoenas that were probably served on entities like Venmo, they've got everything, which is usually true for these cases. They've got everything. Criminals, these days cannot hide their evidence very well unless they actually stay off anything digital and operate in cash, i.e., if they operate like a criminal from 30 years ago. But as soon as they start using the internet, all of that stuff's going to come out at some point

and it has here. And then you get wire fraud charges too. And yes, exactly. You just ramp, you ramp the whole thing up. Yeah. Yeah. And what's interesting is reading through this, it now retroactively explains some of Matt Gaetz's responses

to these allegations, right? First of all, that he raped an underage girl. You have to deny that, right? Because if you don't, your choices are to say you didn't know, which is no excuse, and to say that you think the age of consent should be lower, which is not also a good path to go down. So you have to deny that. But, you know, when he carefully chose his words and denied that he was using that sugar daddy website, we can now see that, yeah, that's true. He probably was.

He did not. He did not. He did not. He did not. He did not. He did not. He did not. He did not.

He did not. He did not. He did not. He did not. He did not. He did not. He did not. He did not.

He did not. He did not. He did not. He did not. He did not. He did not. and so forth and so on. And then the other people, these other men were then in turn paying Greenberg. So the Greenberg was the conduit for everything. He was the organizer and sort of the central figure in this group of men of whom Gates is one of them. So yeah, Gates is telling the truth on that, but you're right.

He's telling a very selected set of pieces of truth. Right. And which makes the assertion that he's being blackmailed by someone that much weirder. But yeah, we can go back and look and now and see that those words were carefully chosen. You go to your lawyers, you say, how do I respond to these allegations? Right. And that's the kind of thing that they, that they, he's been coached to do this. I'll give you, there's another good example here. He had been previously, you know, he had been previously stating, you know, things like, and right now we, increasingly, it doesn't matter. Like he, he, he basically, and firstly, he was trying to categorically

say that he had never had sex with any of these women. He stopped saying that notably things he's not saying is denials anymore. Initially, back in the spring, he was saying that he had not sex with any women involved with Joel Greenberg. Now he's not saying that anymore. I think it's because he knows. Yeah.

In fact, I think he said something along the lines of, you know, they're trying to go after me for being naughty or something like that. Right. Right. And so, yeah, now he's, he's quietly not, he's quietly started not saying things that he used to say back in the spring. It's because he's being coached. You know, his, he's got defense counsel and they are coaching him on what to say and what not to say. And they're putting some of these other things out there to make it look like he's denying things because it's optically politically necessary for him to continue trying to deny it, but he's picking things that he actually can deny, but they end up being meaningless just because he's not the one who found them on the sugar daddy website does not mean that he didn't commit various crimes.

Yeah, which to me implies he did do the other things. that he didn't commit various crimes. Yeah, which to me implies he did do the other things. Yeah. And I'll add just one other thing, which is that to a criminal prosecution feels like blackmail. That's a very good point. So yes, he thinks he's being blackmailed by the feds.

That's who he thinks he's being blackmailed by because they're telling him things like, because the crunch he's under right now is that they're trying to, it appears by me reading between the lines. I don't have this clearly verified, but it would appear for all the world that one of the things that's holding everything up right now is that they're trying to get gates to cooperate. They're trying to get him to pre-gilt and to cooperate with the prosecutors.

When your choice set is cooperate and you'll get a more lenient sentence or continue to fight this and we're gonna throw the book at you, to a criminal that feels like blackmail. Yeah, I guess that's- But that's not blackmail, that's not blackmail, that's prosecution.

That's the rule of law. That's how this works. Yes. That's my follow-up question here. Cooperating against whom? Because to me, and a lot of folks I've talked to have said that in this particular investigation, Matt Gaetz is the big fish. But how far up does this go when we're talking about these sham elections, you know, with

our T-lays and Rodriguez and there was a, there's a few of them in Florida. I mean, does this go higher up in Florida politics or are we talking higher up in United States politics to Trump, et cetera? Yeah, I mean, that's where we really get more in the speculation. We know that there are a number of other people that have been connected to Gates and Greenberg

and that there are things beyond these sort of sex parties with these women and sex, and apparently some drugs, there's other issues around political corruption. We've got the whole medical marijuana angle. There's a number of other. Yeah, the Perizolo, a verbiage that turned up in his cannabis legislation,

pretty much word for word for word. And then we get a trip to the Bahamas and a bunch of women and her. Correct. So it looks like, it looks like, the sex offense angle may have been where this starts, but that there's a sort of broader political corruption case that they are pursuing and that they're going to be,

but this way, we don't necessarily have to think of his cooperation as netting a bigger fish than him. He might be the biggest fish, but it still would be from a prosecutor's perspective helpful to have another big witness who then helps take out like five or six other people, even if they're quote unquote, little or fish. So we don't necessarily need to think that Gates' cooperation is to get an even bigger fish than Gates, it might not be.

That's number one. Number two is that it could be that Gates is not really, you know, we might want to, I might need to be more careful about this too, that we, we say he might, we say he might cooperate. It may be that there isn't anybody else to go get, but then it's simply that they're trying to get him to plead guilty because it makes the, because then there isn't as much work go get, but then it's simply that they're trying to get him to plea guilty because it makes the because there isn't as much work to do, right? And then you have the certainty of the guilty to leave rather than the uncertainty of trying this case, which would not be fun from a prosecution perspective.

This will be a three ring circus if it goes to trial. Yeah. So as the prosecutor, you would way rather get him to plea and get this over with and have a nice press conference and and get the guy sentenced and declare victory and go all. Of course, you'd rather have that. Right. So it may be that they're not trying to get him to cooperate. They're just trying to get him to plead guilty in exchange for the leniency and there isn't going to be any other fish that is worth getting. Now number three could be, yeah, does this go any quote unquote higher in Florida politics, which I think is usually code for the Santas.

Yeah. And there are some hints that he's been involved with some of the players in all of this. Certainly, gates in the Santas are basically, colleagues, I guess you'd say. I mean, the Santas was a congressman before he was governor. Obviously, they run in the same circles politically. But they run in the same circles socially.

How much does Santos involve in this? That gets into the realm of speculation. There's other folks that have been digging into the links between these people in Florida, among these people in Florida, much more depth than I've been able to. It's a lot of people that are lawyers, journalists, and activists in Florida have spent a lot of people that are lawyers, journalists, and activists in Florida

have spent a lot of time mining this area. So there's a lot of stuff on that that one can go find on Twitter. As for number four, the national politics, then we start getting into January 6th. And we get to start, we get, we start to get into, what did Matt Gates know and when did he know it? How involved was he with the planning of the insurrection?

And there's been a lot of reporting on that. If that reporting is accurate, Gates knows quite a lot and is involved as potentially criminally culpable. Now, are the prosecutors in the middle district of Florida in Orlando working on that angle and trying to see if they can get gates to spill the beans on things regarding January 6th? I think it's possible that we have no evidence that that has happened to date, not that I am aware of.

I don't know of any. However, it's interesting to think about. Yeah. It's certainly not outside the realm of possibility. You know, federal prosecutors across different offices collaborate on matters all the time. There is now a, you know, there's no doubt gates as a suspect in this investigation in Florida. So, you know, obviously, there's going to be, there's a, there's a, there's an FBI file on that gates now. And it may be that there were some other Missions that then, you know, you can go in type his name in the system, and you're going to see what someone in Washington put into the file About him with regard to January 6th, the two people call each other. Maybe they start collaborating on it

They're but there could there could be prosecutors from multiple offices working on that now. We don't know. I can't imagine they're not already talking. But you know, I mean, these are big national stories. Yeah. And there's there's certain crimes that you don't let go in a in a in a cooperation deal. Like, I mean, Joe Greenberg is a perfect example. We'll get rid of these weird ancillary nickel and dime crimes, but we got to keep the sex trafficking on minor.

We have to keep these major crimes and that I'm assuming that if there is any kind of a proffer with Matt Gaetz, it's like, look, we got to get you on seditious conspiracy, insurrection, whatever, and child sex trafficking if that is the case, but maybe the wire fraud, maybe the fact that you use the internet, we can let go. But it's certainly a reduction in sentence

when you cooperate early and cooperate. Right. So we'll see what happens. Yeah, production and counts is usually where you see the change the most because reduction in sentence, there are mandatory minimums that you can't go below. So usually in criminal cases, you see it as a reduction in the, in the various counts, the charges that are brought. So, you know, it is possible that put it this way, what I would hope is that if we do see gates, if gates does pre-gilty, cooperate in some way or another,

if we do see that sex trafficking charge get dropped, I sure hope that it will be in the name of something really worthy of that because he it would be really terrible to see him walk from that just because he please guilty to something else unless the unless the thing that he's going to cooperate on has to do with things like seditious conspiracy. then then then I could get my head around that. Yeah. There is still a possibility that these men that may face civil suits. That is also quite possible, but I guess we'll see what happens with that. Sure. Just because Gates, even if he does cooperate here, he's definitely not out of legal jeopardy. Yeah, and that might be a clue too. If we see charges and sex traffic and minor isn't on there, and they explain, if they don't say that, you know, we didn't find that or we couldn't prove that, that might be an indication that there's something

much bigger, but we would also see that. So, you know, we're just going to have to wait for that. And then I've got about 30 seconds left, Tristan. What is the new timeframe? Is there a new timeframe? Because it was July, August, but we didn't hear any public reporting about that being pushed back

with the, with the continuance on Greenberg sentencing with his, you know, extended cooperation. Did his extended cooperation push back the charging decision on Gates? Do you know? I think that's pretty, that's pretty clear from what has happened. I mean, that, that was instantly what I surmised. As soon as I saw that, I made, you know, I was definitely online saying that, look, we can't that, you know, I was definitely online saying that look, we can't, we're not, I was instantly expecting that we wouldn't hear anything about gates being charged until September.

What we're hearing now is that it actually could happen this month. They are very, they're very close to charging him. They're being, they're taking some very strong stances with him, which basically means to me, it is drafted, it is done. They might edit it a few more times, but there is an indictment. It is sitting in a, it is sitting there,

it is, they've been going through different drafts of it. And really the question is, do they roll with what they've got? Because he's gonna go not guilty, or are they going to do the cut down version because he's going to cut a deal, or are they going to do the cut down version because he's going to cut a deal? And that's really the remaining question. And it sounds like from what we've been hearing that it's going to either be within the

next two weeks, the second half of August here, or that it could be in early September. But it's easier than I was thinking. I was thinking we weren't going to hear until more like late September. Greenberg's sentencing date thereby has got pushed to, it's basically around October 4th-ish and he could get pushed again by the way. It's not impossible. It may be that if some of the other defendants work gates, please not guilty. Sure. And they're going to go to trial, then Greenberg's sentencing might get pushed out until after that trial is over. Yeah, we saw that with Rick Gates and, yeah, etc.

So, yeah, we'll be looking for that and I appreciate your time today. And everybody should follow you on Twitter at Tristan, TRIS-T-A-N-S-N-E-L-L, to follow along with us, because you've got some great inside information that I think that most of the mainstream media doesn't have access to. I appreciate your time today. Thanks so much. Thank you.

All right, everybody. Welcome back. Today we welcome the author of the new book, Here Right Matters, an American Story, a key witness in the first impeachment proceeding against the former guy. Please welcome Colonel Alexander Venman, sir. It's an honor to speak with you and thank you for your service. Well, thank you very much. Thank you for having me on. I'm very excited to talk to you. I know many of our listeners and many millions of Americans consider you

a hero in this story. And we've all gotten very familiar with the Hero Right Matters hashtag that was just a bombshell of a moment. So we appreciate your time. Now, I've read the book through and I have to say it's extremely riveting. You begin with the call, right? You delineate your life into two phases, pre-call and post-call, and you describe the call in detail and how you learned that day what the shadow diplomacy effort was all about, right? What Rudy, Sunland, and Mulvaney had been up to. And after the call, you sought out your brother and made a prolific declaration to him. Can you tell us why you spoke to your brother and what you told him? Sure. Yeah, I guess first I might mention that, you know, it's not like the whole

thing, the whole kind of nefarious enterprise was revealed in that moment. It had been unfolding for months, you know, with Giuliani and his pronouncements. Just weeks before I made my first kind of deep concerns heard when I reported Gordon Saunland's declaration that there should be a quid pro quo and investigation exchange for a White House meeting. And he attested to the fact that Mick Mulvaney was driving him really the biggest revelation was that it went

all the way straight to the top and that the president himself was responsible. And up until that point, I, my awe and reverence for the office of the president of the United States kind of counseled that I shouldn't, like, you know, hang this around the president. After that moment, it was able to do so. I should not have been able to do so.

I should not have been able to do so. I should not have been able to do so. I should not have been able to do so. I should not have been able to do so. I should not have been able to do so. I should not have been able to do so. I should not have been able to do so. I should not have been able to do so.

I should not have been able to do so. I should not have been able to do so. I should not have been able to do so. I should not have been able to do so. I should not have been able to do so. under our democracy, you know, tilt the scales and undermine free and fair elections. That was the big revelation for me. Not that all this stuff was kind of already simmering. And in part, that's why I hate referring to him. You refer to him as the other guy, or the last guy or something like that. I hate to refer to him as the president, because he did such a dishonor to that office.

But, you know, you, you, you wanted to be answer the question about my twin brother, who was the senior ethics official on the National Security Council. Twins, we were the NSE twins. It was frankly the only, the first time, and maybe the last time we'll serve in the same place together, or certainly in uniform, was a unique opportunity.

And I wanted to pull him into this, wise or not, because I wanted to kind of both another set of eyes and another set of ears to witness what my report to John Eisenberg, who I didn't have every confidence in that he would do the right thing, but I kind of hope there, and walked in with the intention of getting him to counsel

the president that what he was doing was awful and probably unlawful. And I walked into Eugene's office, I closed the door, gave him a dramatic pause, you know, it didn't kind of like start ribbon him like I would usually do. I made sure I had his undivided intention and I told him, if what I'm about to tell you ever becomes public, the president will be impeached. And that was just, that just kind of captured the severity of what I had witnessed,

rather than, you know, prophetic that it was going to happen that way, because it was still in classified channels. I had, you know, I had no idea that this was gonna become public. I thought that people, the officials I had to report to you would somehow kind of roll back this transgression, this travesty.

And that was my intention, but I did not miss in any way the import of the moment with those comments clearly. And the rest is kind of history. Yeah, and I assume it's hard to convey the seriousness of what you witnessed to the public because we had been taking a fire hose of scandal from this White House from day one.

And even now as certain revelations are coming out about the former guy and the department of justice, it's kind of hard to talk about the seriousness and the depth of corruption that was there. And I think that that's kind of by design. I think that was sort of by design. Let's just drown everything out with just this litany of scandal.

Well, I think that's exactly right, frankly. There's in you that kind of sets in with ever increasing scandals, you would think that, you know, that was whatever that reporting was right around the time the election would be kind of like a, would, would separate him from his consistency when he was, you know, when he was pretty vulgar about how he treats women, but that didn't seem to, that eroded this idea that there are morals and ethics and that continued to progress throughout the entirety of his tenure where the bar was increasingly lower

and expectations were set increasing lower. So the scandals that you would have thought early on would kind of bring down a presidency didn't. And there is no bottom, there is no floor to how far, you know, he was willing to go, the kind of damage he was willing to do to the country. The good thing is that in a lot of ways, he was his own worst enemy

and he was just not that competent. And if he was, you know, if he was true, like, you know, even if we, even if we hang around his head, the fact that he's a villain, if he was like a criminal mastermind or, you know, kind of a mastermind villain, we would be in a much worse situation, but oftentimes as much as kind of being disruptive to the good order and function of government, he's also destructive to himself, which is frankly in a lot of ways his background and his legacy is that everything he touches, as Rick Wilson says, everything he touches dies. It was the same with his business interests, everything along the way. So, yeah.

ETTD, right? Hashtag, another good hashtag. You actually mentioned later in the book, but you addressed the competency, lack of competency and lack of honesty, professionalism, et cetera. If memory serves there in one of the later chapters. And this is when you were about to go into the National Security Council. And you say you were warned.

You knew it was gonna be a challenge, but you were also warned. Talk about that, who warned you? No, it's, I had a decade, a couple decades of public service under my belt and had been fortunate enough to kind of achieve through hard work and kind of through a proven track record, ever increasing positions of responsibility and importance.

And I, in a way, thought that I could continue to contribute even though there's no, I knew who he was even before he ran for office because I grew up in New York City. He had this kind of, you know, this, this really interesting reputation as a failed businessman as a kind of unsavory character. But I thought that I could still kind of offer counsel.

I don't know if that was, that was pride or ego or hubris. I mean, obviously, in this regard, I was not entirely successful, though the things that the president wasn't focused on directly, I was able to have a very positive influence on. And that's the legacy of a whole cohort of public servants that were able to serve very honorably and continue to keep this country on course and implement a national security strategy as long as the president wasn't involved.

It's when the president became involved in these affairs that he wanted us to work on that things got derailed. But I went into the position largely with eyes wide open and that's because when Fiona Hill asked me to join the team, I still had about eight months of time that I had to finish up with at the Pentagon before I was released to go onto the White House. And in that time, before I took the interview and after that, I did some a due diligence. I talked to military folks that were there and I received a warning that there is nothing

as perilous as the White House. It's a viper's den. People that deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan multiple times were like, this is a more dangerous environment in a lot of ways. So I went in there, again, some of my experience counseled that it's a environment that could successfully navigate. Three years in Moscow was about as far from a picnic as you could imagine.

It's a fish bowl. It's a truly beleaguered environment for an American diplomat, let alone a military act SAA to serve in, where you're constantly under scrutiny. They're constantly trying to trip you up your surveillance, looking to kind of, you know, public protests against you whenever you're traveling,

all sorts of crazy stuff. So I was in a lot of ways prepared for that environment and at the same time, not quite prepared for everything, but I had all the appropriate warning that I needed to at least be armed to be cautious. But on the other hand, I also had kind of an idealistic notion that I could still do some good. And that's why I went there. That's what I had in my mind when I went to the National Security Council. Yeah, you talk about that quite a bit in the book and a dedicated civil servants trying to just ride it out

and perhaps do some good in those positions. I myself worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs for a very long time prior to the former guy being elected and I'll put elected in air quotes there. But even in that environment, down at the GS 14 level, trying to push back against privatization and all that stuff in the Department of Veterans Affairs, where I worked, but my podcast came under investigation. And your friend and mine, Mick Mulvaney, had, you know, had announced to a group of donors,

hey, we found a cool new way to get rid of government employees. We just move their jobs across the country and force them to quit. And you'll never guess what happened to me. That exact same thing. I want to talk a little bit more about some of the traits you talk about with Zalensky, but I have to take a quick break. Will you stay with me? Sure.

Awesome. Thanks. Everybody will be right back. Everybody, welcome back. about with Zelensky, but I have to take a quick break. Will you stay with me? Sure. Awesome. Thanks. Everybody will be right back. Everybody welcome back. We are talking with Colonel Vindeman, author of here, Wright Matters. I always get that Wright Matters here here, Wright Matters.

I'm still up for some reason. Probably one of the most famous. I do get work in both ways. It works both ways. One of the most famous, yeah, it does. It truly does. And I wanted to talk to you a little bit about, you mentioned a few times in earlier chapters,

Zelensky's experience as a comedian, and as a comedian myself, I was struck by that. You said Zelensky's experience helped him in dealing with the former president. How did you find that skill set applied? Cause it was really an interesting observation. Yeah, he's a very funny man. But you know, you hit on something kind of implicitly

about the book, which is, it's not a Trump book. I mean, I talk, there's an opening chapter to kind of set the dramatic stage, but really, in a lot of ways, the president is kind of a foil, kind of like, you know, the pivot point, kind of the buffoon pivot point. I have no, you know, there should be a sense

I don't hold back against this guy that is really an enemy of this country. But that's what he is. And it's a story really about how to do the right thing under the most adverse circumstances. And the deep portion of my background that contributed to navigating is difficult affair. And in a way, this question about Zelensky hits on some of this because it's

because of my experience in either as an immigrant from that part of the world from Ukraine, learning Russian and being a fluent Russian speaker and then being trained as a Ukrainian linguist in the defense language, which is something that the House Republicans kind of missed when they questioned me. That the only reason I spoke Ukrainian is it wasn't the language I learned at home. It was Russian, it was Ukrainian, it was because of the Defense Language Institute.

Anyway, I had a chance to watch Zelinsky, whose programs were in Russian, by the way. And as part of my homework on the guy, as he was still campaigning, before it was clear that he was gonna be the front runnerigning, before it was clear that he was going to be the front runner. And I made the judgment that he was going to be, in fact, be probably the lead candidate. At one point, it was between him and Ukraine's most famous rock star,

that the rock star backed out. And Zelinsky played a character on this show called Servant of the People, where he stumbled into being a president and then kind of his escapades about navigating, you know, a presidency in Ukraine where there's endemic corruption and trying to do the right thing. And I thought that, you know, he both captured the imagination, but he also had the charisma and, you know, but he also had the charisma and could translate his star power and his magnetism into a successful election run and he did. And I was in a position to kind of see this coming and listen to his shows and kind of see how those prepared him for, because a lot of the things he encounters to this day are segments

of shows that he had recorded. And being a position to really frankly, the whole goal was to bring the countries together for a common cause, which is to advance the interests of democracy, help the Ukrainians kind of shake off a legacy of corruption, through a vigorous anti-corruption campaign reforms. And all of this in mind for the benefit of the United States, which has enormously benefits from a Ukraine that's integrated into Europe and not part of Russia's camp. And I was just gonna wrap up with a famous quote from the National Security Advisor for Jimmy Carter,

Zignu Brzynski, where he said, it should not be underestimated. Russia without Ukraine ceases to become an empire. Russia with Ukraine subordinated and subordinated automatically becomes an empire. And we were facing enormous challenges from Russia now. Imagine how much, how they might be magnified with Russia, more powerful and involved. Yeah, very true. And even on the call, Zelensky was able to sort of read the room,

which is something that comics have a lot of familiarity with and ingratiate himself to the former president. And yeah, it gives me the creeps every time I have to say president too. Because, you know, I have former service member and all that. And so to see the office solid the way that it was is hard to swallow. But I think that that's super fascinating because, you know, in many ways, just to be able to sort of get him on your side, it takes talent.

But you talk about everything that sets you up for this experience because a lot of this book, and I love this, a lot of this book goes into your childhood, a growing up, and then your experience in Rotsie, and how the Vindamon boys were late bloomers, but when we get together, it's good stuff. I think that all I really encourage everybody

to buy the books so you can read this background. And there was a really a gut punch, heart wrenching moment when you talk about the loss of Sarah and how that prepared you in many ways and sort of changed your point of view a little bit. Can you talk about that, what happened, and how that sort of informed you going forward? Yeah, I'll tell you that this is a difficult topic

for me and for my wife, and I deflect, which is what I'm gonna do here. I really try not to think about it because it's probably about the lowest, I mean, it was the lowest moment. I've kind of never responded to anything quite like that. It was difficult. And I tend to kind of do what I guess,

what guys do, which is, which is, you know, suppressing stuff like that and think about other things and try to still be supportive for for my wife when she when she thinks about that loss. And it's a loss of like our hopes and dreams for a larger family or a loss of, you know, these our hopes and dreams for Sarah, which we only got a chance to know for a week. She followed, you know, in a lot of ways, we, I take some solace in the fact that

things unfolded the way they did and we ended up with Eleanor, our 10 year old and she's just an absolute miracle. Lover, this is the center of our universe. My wife says that, like, you know, she's got me wrapped around her finger. Probably that's true. And things unfolded the way they did. And we ended up with Alan Eleanor, but that doesn't really entirely soften the blow of, it's just kind of way to rationalize that loss. But one of the biggest takeaways is that it really puts things in perspective. What really matters, that mattered.

The fact that serving in combat and people died in defense of this country, that mattered. The relationships I had developed and the family support around me, the people face to face that provided support and encouragement through this versus the idiotic, you know, public attacks and the, you know, I took the president's attacks and a lot of ways is a badge of honor. Him and the, you know, Laura Ingram's of the world, I took that as a badge and honor. Because these are people I have zero respect for. And I'm being attacked by them, but at the same time, feeling the love from my family and from Americans,

at some point, when there was a means to access me through my synagogue and so forth. And I received thousands of letters. It's really, really puts things in perspective. And that's one of the things I think I've been very fortunate to have. Perspective about life, perspective about what matters. Perspective about this country in a lot of ways, which is a unique, amazing, wonderful place. I did this interview with Arnold Schwartz in Agrius today and just to hear

like it was me, him, and Bianca Goldruga, CNN, senior political correspondent. And we're all, we were all immigrants just talking about the wonderful kind of perspective on America and how in spite of all of our challenges, this is, you know, a unique place that still is growing and developing and striving towards this more perfect union, but it's the best country in the world. And I benefit from having perspective and overcoming challenges and having successes, the combination of everything that weighed in on the way I manage this, my role in the impeachment, frankly. Yeah, true. And the foil of the book, as you say, the former guy doesn't have, he completely lacks that kind of perspective and understanding. He can't understand somebody

who would do something for someone else or for a cause bigger than themselves, which led to his disparaging war dead and veterans, as we know from that famous August article that came out last year, which really knocked me upside the head. I'm sure it did you as well. But, but also again, unsurprising, shocking and unsurprising seems to be the theme. Yeah. I think that's right. You know, Jeffrey Goldberg, a friend of my friend, my other and chief of the Atlantic wrote that piece and then he was, you know, savagely attacked by the right, not all that dissimilar to my own predicament

where, in my case, the White House actually sent out attack talking points, but in the most kind of ham-handed manner, they sent it out not just to the Fox News's and OANN's, they sent it out like to not partisan networks and then it made end of becoming a story because White House ascends out attacking points on a NSE staffer or White House staffer. But this is the kind of methodology of demonizing character assassination, you know, taking issue with process to distract from the massive wrongdoing by

the president and his kind of proxies is a standard playbook. And it's something that you find in the authoritarian world, same kind of methodologies, same kind of demonization of the truth and undermining of the fact that there are, in fact, absolute facts, and disputable facts. This is all kind of out of the fascist authoritarian playbook.

But the commentary on service members, I wasn't there at this particular meeting, but it strikes a chord with me because there's little doubt that this was said. And Jeffrey Goldberg's reporting is very sound that the president would call people that that serve somebody other than themselves, then themselves, you know, selfless servants, suckers and losers because he doesn't understand that. If there is not a transactional kind of benefit for him. Then it's not something he's even,

it's not something, it's not even that it's something he doesn't understand. It's not that he doesn't want to do it or that he doesn't see a benefit. He just simply doesn't understand the very basic notion of serving something other than yourself and that kind of mercenary approach. Yeah, and I think that's something that

he was passed down to him from his father. And to the truth, to the unfortunately to the children also. Yeah, and that's obviously really weird, strained relationships and maybe you just purely transactional, like you said. And I want to ask before I let you go here, just a couple more questions. One of the big stories that I don't think got enough attention was your're you're being uninvited to on that Ukraine trip and I wanted to have we learned anything else about that or anything else knew that you can talk about with regards to that particular slight. Well, I don't know enough about it and you know one of the

regrets of my testimony is when Representative Sewell, I think, from Alabama, asked the question and she said, are you being, are you the target of kind of reprisals and retaliation? And at the time, thinking about my career and how to kind of save it, I said no. And in fact, I already knew that I was, you know, that that was wishful thinking on my part, frankly, if anything, because I already had been the target of retaliation. I'd been ostracized by the political class at the White House. There was a trip that Ambassador Bolton had taken

to three of my countries in my portfolio that I would, the reason that directors travel is to maximize the benefits, to provide kind of on the ground support, to add context, to whatever the discussions are, to all sorts of different reasons that directors on the National Security Council travel at the principal.

And to be clear, it's not a very large, thick layer. You have the National Security Advisor, you have the senior directors, and then you have the directors that lead portfolios. The other ones actually are the workhorses that make stuff happen. They convene the deputy assistant secretaries to kind of synchronize US policy and so forth.

And I quickly figured out that it was as a result of my expressing concerns about this phone call and ended up being also just invited to meetings and other things of that nature. But that was maybe in certain ways working up. The reason I stuck around another several months, if these things started to unfold in August, I didn't leave until February,

is one is I wasn't going to be kind of bullied out of there. And two, I could still work very effectively with my professional counterparts out of departments and agencies, even and still kind of work through in a way through even seniors up until John Bolton left and it became more difficult. But anyway, I could still do my job in part, and that's really why I stuck around. Yeah, and I think the story at the time was that the former guy actually thought someone else was the expert, and nobody wanted to embarrass him. Was that an excuse? Or do you think that was a real thing?

No, I think that's the real thing. There's a guy named Cash Patel that, you know, was a, Devin Nunez, Aka-la kind of inserted into the National Security Council by, by kind of direction of the president and the president's offices, this staff secretary. And, you know, then was kind of a direct pipeline from what was going on by the professional staff to the political class. And this is an individual that maneuvered himself into increasingly senior positions ultimately as chief of staff to the department defense by serving in these kind of like, I don't know. I don't even know how to describe it. You know, certainly a kind of a, by doing political bidding was elevated. Yeah, he's definitely there leading up

to the, leading up to the insurrection in the Pentagon for there. So then I'm hoping the 16th commission and perhaps at some point the Department of Justice can look into that and get to the bottom of it. Finally, I want to ask you, we recently learned a former guy had a phone call with the former acting attorney general, Jeff Rosen. And we talked about this a little bit at the top of the interview.

And this is where he asked him to announce corruption in the 2020 election, much like the call with the Zolenski, where he said, you don't even really have to investigate. Just say you're investigating Biden. And I see so many parallels between the call with Rosen that we got the notes from from the Department of Justice handed to the Senate and the call with Silensky. Given your seat at the table during the Zelensky call, what were your thoughts when the news broke on the Rosen call? I think the attorneys and the prosecutors who'd call this a continuing enterprise, maybe a continuing criminal enterprise, I think, is more appropriate. And it doesn't surprise me the least. I mean, in a lot of ways,

the president was encouraged to continue on the Senate prize because of lack of accountability. He was not censured. He was not rebuked. There was really kind of a minimal reaction from a Senate that's worn an oath to a poll to a support and defend the Constitution of the United States, a poll to kind of the basic principles and ethics and values of good governance, and they abrogated that responsibility. And I think that encouraged the president to act with impunity going into the COVID pandemic. And there's little doubt that, for instance, if the president to act with impunity, going into the COVID pandemic. And there's little doubt that, for instance, if the president was removed,

that Mike Pence would have handled it much better. Because he was a kind of a more in the ilk of a standard chief executive, and he wouldn't have downplayed COVID. And we would not have had 600,000 dead. And that's something that's to me, that connection is as clear as day. And then the economic mismanagement by trying to downplay COVID, when it could have been dealt with severely and mercilessly to take to a journalist pandemic and into a inflaming protest in the summer and seeking to kind of inflame

a base that was concerned about losing their position in American society and the black and brown and the minority populations kind of having had enough and being victimized, standing their ground at the present, seeking to inflame that instead of kind of add ointment and provides sucker to the kind of, to the to these hardships. And then going into stealing the election himself, because that's who's trying to steal election. Donald Trump attempted to fail to steal an election by propagating this lie that there was all sorts

of election interference and election wrongdoing, which didn't exist by all accounts and was proven to be false and hollow. Then launching an insurrection, violent insurrection to retain power. To me, that is a absolutely clear logic link from the beginning to the end. It's all connected. I've been saying, people are like, DOJ, investigate, DOJ investigate, arrest Trump now.

That's a massive case. If we start all the way back. We can even maybe start back in 2016 with Russia, but clearly that line between the Zalinsky call COVID and the insurrection and the big lie, it's just a bright shining line to me as well. And so I'm glad that you brought that up. All right, well, thank you so much for spending time with me today. And again, send send some love over to Nat Zach hobbyist Rachel, who's

just a if if if you're not, I'm pretty sure every single like 100% of the listenership of this show is already following her on Twitter. But if you're not, you can you should create a Twitter account just for the purpose of following both you and Rachel. And I I really do appreciate your time today. It's been a truly an honor to speak with you. I consider you a hero. And everybody here, right matters, is available now. You can grab it wherever you get books. And it's a wonderful read.

Thank you so much for sharing everything with us today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Muller Sheerot is written and produced by Allison Gill in partnership with MSW Media. Sound designed in engineering or by Molly Hockey, Jesse Egan is our copywriter and our art and web designer by Joe Elrider at Moxie Design Studios. Mueller 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 m mswmedia.com. Hi, I'm Harry Lickman, host of Talking Feds. Around table that 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 insider's view of what's going on in Washington and beyond. Plus, Sidebar is explaining important legal concepts read by your favorite celebrities. Find Talking Feds wherever you get your podcasts.

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