The Young Turks - NEW Details On The Mueller Report And Cenk Gets Called Out

Episode Date: March 26, 2019

What’s next for the Mueller Report? Cenk responds to critics. Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Young Turks, Jake, your granite, Kasparian, does something interesting happen over the weekend? No. Nothing. Has something happened since I last joined you guys? All right, so obviously the Mueller report is kind of out, not the actual report for the summary by Donald Trump's Attorney General is out. We're gonna talk plenty about that, and guess what I'm gonna show you? That I was right all along.

So right wingers, some left wingers, this is the time for you to get your memes ready on moving goalposts and all that fun stuff, and I'm gonna show you why you're wrong, okay? Now, does Donald, more importantly, of course, does Donald Trump have any liability left or is he as is like being trumpeted by almost all the press cleared, cleared of any wrongdoing? The answer is no, he's not cleared. We will explain, there's plenty of nuance, okay? And then later in the program, Michael Avanotti is arrested. Is that a legit arrest?

Well, there's three different parts of it, and so I'll give you some nuance and context on that as well. So that's a fascinating story. Israel gears up for war, and of course, the swamp continues unabated while none of us are looking except the young Turks, we'll have it later for you in the program. Donald Trump is selling off parts of the country for his donors. So all that in this program. Oh, and then in the third hour of the Young Turks, a political writer comes on to defend

his article saying that small donors should not be an indication of, yes, popularity and strength for a campaign. The big donors should be the better indication. Oh, I can't wait for that conversation. So that is gonna be fascinating. Don't miss him into the Young Turks. Hey, luckily, if you're a member, you can get all of it anytime you want, t.com slash join for progressive Netflix.

All right, Anna, let's get it started. Special counsel Robert Mueller has concluded his investigation into alleged conspiracy or collusion between the Donald Trump campaign and Russia. And according to the outcome of the investigation, he claims that there is no evidence indicating that Trump directly colluded or the Trump. Trump campaign directly colluded with Russia. Now, the public has not seen the Mueller report yet, and it's unclear as to whether or not we will ever see the full Mueller report.

But what we did receive today is the summary by Attorney General William Barr. And what I'm gonna do is go ahead and read the relevant components of Barr's memo so you can understand where he's coming from. So he writes, the special counsel obtained a number of indictments and convictions. of individuals and entities in connection with his investigation, all of which have been publicly disclosed. During the course of his investigation, the special counsel also referred several matters to other offices for further action. The report does not recommend any further indictments, nor did the special counsel obtain any sealed indictments that have yet to be made

public. Now, I think that's an important part of what William Barr wrote, because it does make it absolutely clear that the Mueller investigation was limited in scope. He was specifically looking at Donald Trump's relationship with Russia and whether or not collusion took place. Other issues were basically outsourced to other investigators. So there are other investigations into some of Trump's conduct, but for the purposes of alleged Russian collusion, this investigation found no such thing. All right, so let me give further clarity in context.

So in terms of the direct election interference, Mueller, if Barr is correct, which I suspect he is in this case, is clear that no, he does, they did not find evidence of collusion or even coordination with the Russians and the Trump campaign in interfering with the election. So okay, that part is very clear and great news for Donald Trump. for the people who believe that. Now, it does not at all clear him of any other crimes. So the talk that Attorney General Barr has of total exoneration is not remotely true. So there's a second charge of obstruction of justice we're going to get to in a second

that is related to the Mueller report. But there are, but it does not address any of the other things. emoluments clause, the self dealing with Saudi Arabia, China, et cetera, the campaign finance violations, the financial fraud that happened to the Trump organization, Trump University, Trump Foundation, et cetera. Those are all potential crimes, some are very clear, some are people are going to prison for already, et cetera. So when you hear total exoneration, it's very important for you to ask of what.

So if it's interference in the election, then actually you are pretty close to a complete exoneration there, it appears, okay? But let's get to the obstruction of justice charge, and then there is a lot more nuance on the issue of Trump and Russia by itself. Exactly, so just a little bit more on what Barr summarized regarding Russia. So he says the special counsel's investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election, as the report states, the investigation did not establish that

members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities. So that right there, that last sentence, is a direct quote from the Mueller report. So that is very clear. Again, on the other hand, not on the other hand, in addition, to go back to the earlier point about the indictments that Anna brought up, so one possibility was that Mueller was going to come in and say, it's possible that crimes are committed here, but I cannot charge a sitting president, so it's up to someone else to charge him or decide whether he can be indicted or not.

This did not go to that question because it didn't need to. They're saying there is, in the case of the collusion, on the election itself, no underlying crime, so you don't have to determine whether a sitting president can be indicted or not. There's also no further indictments of Donald Trump Jr., or anyone else that could have been implicated, for example, in the Trump Tower meeting. So they did meet with the Russians to try to get information from the Russians, but it appears the Russians did not give them that information, and that apparently did not cross a line, according to Mueller, on coordination, including for Donald Trump Jr., who organized that meeting.

So that's a huge relief for the Trump team as well, and relevant new information we're getting. And also, William Barr makes it clear that Robert Mueller does acknowledge that that that there were attempts by Russia to meddle in the election through disinformation campaigns, the very same issues that have been talked about in the news over and over again, but that the Trump administration or the Trump campaign did not directly coordinate or collude with the Russians. Actually, Anna, that's so important, I'm glad you brought that up. And I want to add two layers to that too.

So for people who are now saying, oh, we'll see, then Russia did not interfere in the elections, That is not what the Mueller report said. It said that the Russians did interfere with the election, and they did it through two different things. The internet research agency, which did social media attacks on Trump's opponents, and we'll get more of the details when the actual report is filled out. But some of those folks have been indicted already. And the second part of the interference was stealing the emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign and Democratic. National Committee, the Russians did do that and people have been indicted for that second part as well What Mueller is saying, according to Barr, is yes, they did it, but they did not coordinate with Trump while doing it.

Again, that is an important exoneration for Trump. Now, let's move on to the second part of this, which is obstruction of justice because Trump was not only facing this investigation because of possible collusion, but obstruction of justice following his firing of James Comey. the way that he would talk or tweet about Jeff Sessions. And so here's what we know based on what William Barr has written. The special counsel did not draw a conclusion one way or the other as to whether the examined conduct constituted obstruction. Instead, for each of the relevant actions investigated, the report sets out evidence on both sides of the question and leaves unresolved what the special counsel views as difficult issues

of law and fact concerning whether the president's actions and intent could be viewed as obstruction. So this is where things get very interesting. So Mueller felt that he didn't have sufficient evidence or enough to claim that, yes, Trump committed obstruction of justice. But William Barr, in reading the analysis and reading the investigation, has taken it upon himself to claim that Trump is innocent and that obstruction of justice hasn't taken place, which is interesting.

So there's some question as to whether or not Mueller is okay with that, what are his perspectives on it. I mean, Mueller's been investigating Trump for possible obstruction of justice for a while now, and then William Barr comes in and says, no, I'm clearing him of obstruction of justice. So of course, members of the House Intelligence Committee, Democrats want to enter Moller and kind of understand what his thinking was on this. Also, William Barr writes, the special counsel states that while this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.

Attorney General William Barr wrote that. It is in his summary of this investigation, and I want to make sure everyone's clear on that. Democrats in the House also want to talk to William Barr to see why he immediately ruled on obstruction of justice. So let's be clear about this. While the interference in the election did happen according to Mueller, Trump did not coordinate on it or collude, but did he do obstruction of justice? And Mueller comes in with, yes, there's a lot of evidence that he did, but I don't know

that it's, I'm the guy to decide whether that evidence is overwhelming enough to charge a president. Can I jump in real quick? Yes. So it's not just about whether or not the evidence is overwhelming enough. Remember, the burden of proof is extremely high when it comes to this case. So, a, Mueller would have to prove, or prosecutors would have to prove that Trump is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

But more importantly, they have to prove intent. And that's a difficult thing to prove. So was he saying those things because he's not that bright? Like, hey, why would you tell the national audience that you fired James Comey to stop the Russia investigation? I mean, I guess a case could be made that he is so low IQ that he said that even though it appears to be plain obstruction of justice, okay? So there's a very reasonable explanation for all this in a second, okay?

But first, we're laying out the facts. So Mueller says there is evidence, but I'm not the one to prosecute him for it. What we don't know yet, this is very important, is whether Mueller said Congress should decide or Department of Justice should decide or who should decide on that issue. And whether Mueller's opinion on who should decide is even that relevant, right? So what we do know is Barr then comes in and goes, well, you didn't say he definitely did it. And I'm now the Attorney General head of the Department of Justice. So I'm going to decide in under 48 hours, what you took 18 months to gather facts on and

go, and by the way, he says in his report, Barr does, in his memo. I said, oh, no, I checked with other people. I checked with Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, so that's relevant. I also checked with other people in the department, and I read the report, and so I've concluded, no, it's definitely not obstruction of justice. I don't know that that's his decision to make. It might be, if it goes to the Justice Department, he's the head of the Justice Department. It could go to Congress, which would be different, and then Barr wouldn't get to unilaterally

necessarily make that decision, so that's complicated, and do I trust Barr that he has He had made the right judgment call on that? No, not at all, okay? Remember, the only reason Barr is the attorney general now is as a private lawyer for no reason at all, he wrote a memo to the attorney general saying, Donald Trump is right, the Mueller investigation is problematic and that he doesn't see any problems with what Trump did. That was way before the Mueller report was ever handed to him. And that was before he was even nominated.

So here's a guy who raised his hand out of nowhere and say, I will protect Donald Trump. That's why he's the Attorney General now. So his decision to protect Donald Trump on the obstruction of justice charge is not, it could be very important if everybody concludes he is the person who would get to decide that. But if he's not the person to decide that, then I don't really care what he thinks. So of course the Trump lackey put in charge to be a lackey is going to conclude that despite the evidence that he thinks Trump didn't do it. One other thing I want to add about the obstruction of justice,

The Trump camp, specifically Trump's lawyers, have been arguing that he can't commit obstruction of justice if there was no crime committed in the first place. So Mueller's investigation has cleared Trump of the Russian collusion charges. And so Rudy Giuliani will argue, and you've probably heard this already, that hey, well, if he hadn't committed the initial crime, then you can't obstruct justice. That is not true. It is very, not very likely, but it is possible to commit that crime, obstruction of justice, even if the initial crime that that individual has been charged with didn't actually occur.

So I want to clarify that as well. Now go ahead, Jake. Yeah, on that, look, so let's finally get to what I think is happening. Because unfortunately, I haven't really seen this in too many other places and as usual is driving me crazy that they're not pointing out what could be the most obvious. answer. And so don't worry, that's what we're here. So if there was no underlying crime at all, why would you try to cover it up?

Right. Now, and if you, if the only thing that was related to Trump and Russia was just the narrow window of the election and he didn't, and Trump didn't do anything wrong there, then I would actually agree with Barr and say, well, there's no underlying crime, I guess he wasn't trying to cover it up, he's just being an idiot, right? But the cover-up is significant and obvious. So you have him firing Comey over, you have him going ballistic over Jeff Sessions for not for recusing himself from the case.

You have a thousand tweets, you have cover-up on top of cover-up. So what's the logical explanation? There is an underlying crime, it just wasn't about the election. So what Trump was really nervous about, and that's why he said in some of the interviews, they better not investigate my business ties. which tells you, ding, ding, ding, ding, the problem is the business ties with the Russians. That happened before the election. Now you could say, well, Jing, why would that be relevant?

Well, that would be relevant because then the Russians know that Donald Trump. In that scenario, committed many felonies for which he would go to jail for a long time. And the Russians could turn over that compromising information anytime they want, which would then mean that after the election, the Russians could talk to the president and say, we could turn an evidence of your money laundering, or you could do it. what we asked you to do. Now, you don't, if you say, hey, Jane, Mueller did not prove that, you're absolutely right. It turns out, and this is what I was really worried about, and Anna, you remember me saying this, and you guys will see it later in the program with your own eyes

as well, the old videos. I said, brace for impact. It looks like Mueller did not look just about into his business ties with the Russians. If you only look at the election, I've now said, I don't know, dozens of times on the show. Again, we have video evidence of that as well. saying that the election meddling was the least persuasive of all of these potential charges of Trump and the Russian connections. You have said that repeatedly. And one thing that I've said that I worry about, and I'm definitely worried about it now, is that the way the Democrats have framed and handled this investigation and how they've

focused specifically on the Russia collusion charges, and how they've emphasized that over over and over again is going to hurt them politically and potentially hurt the chances of a real investigation into Trump or convincing the American public that Trump has carried out possible financial crimes. So they've been focused on collusion, collusion, collusion, and after the outcome of this investigation into Russian collusion, they've lost credit, right? So as they continue investigating, which they plan on doing, not when it comes to Russian collusion, but specifically on the financial crimes, I think that they are going to

be challenged a lot harsher. I think that people are going to think that this really is a witch hunt, because the American people, because of the way Democrats have framed this, are conflating the Russia investigation with the investigations into possible financial crimes. And so they've really done a disservice to the legal process and also the entire perception of these investigations. So as usual, we have Democrats snitchie snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, because if they had talked about Donald Trump's overall criminality and emphasized that as much as

Donald Trump has emphasized the reverse, then they could have framed it in a way where they said, look, the Mueller report is just investigating the election, but there are a lot of issues with Donald Trump, including a lot of issues with Donald Trump's connections to Russia that don't have to do with the election, well, then we would have taken it in the proper context of, and the whole country would have, of the Mueller report is a small part of the overall investigations of Donald Trump. Instead, the Democrats, because they're so obsessed with losing the 2016 election and showing that, hey, it wasn't our fault, it wasn't Hillary Clinton's fault.

Remember, almost every congressman in Democratic Party backed Hillary Clinton with very few exceptions. And they all said that Hillary Clinton was a great candidate that was definitely gonna beat Donald Trump. They all got deeply embarrassed afterwards, he's like, oh no, well, we would have been right but if it wasn't for those Russians that interfered in the election. So for them it was political, and of course as usual the Democrats completely bungled, even from that political way of looking at it. If you care about the policies and you care about the reality and making sure the president is not above the law, you wouldn't be overfocused on the smallest part of the case.

The only reason to do that is because you're trying to cover your own ass for losing the election. And we've also said that dozens of times on this show. So look, you're angry at the Democratic Party, I'm right there with you, brother, for totally wrong framing on this that led right into exactly what Donald Trump wants. If you say, hey, Trump was exonerated on the meddling in the elections, okay, that is apparently what the Mueller report says, no problem, okay? But if you say that, hence, Donald Trump didn't do anything wrong in terms of all the other

criminality, no way. If you're saying Donald Trump didn't do anything wrong with the Russians overall, no way. So now, is there enough time between now and the end of his term to prove that he did actually do something wrong with the Russians? Only God knows. So there's plus a couple of other people. To that job to mind. There's a couple of other players, Felix Sater is going to testify on Wednesday, and he's

connected to Trump, and he's also connected to the Russians. So there's peripheral players like that that could be very important, and that testimony could totally upend what we're thinking today. We're gonna cover that live for you guys on t.yt.com slash live, so don't miss that. The Sater testimony is very important. But the two most important are, so there it is, starts at 9.30 a.m. Eastern, okay? So right here on the Young Turks, play by play coverage. All right, now, the two most important people, though, are still outstanding.

Alan Weisselberg, who is a chief financial officer of Trump organization. Presumably, he would know all the things that Trump did. So, if not all, a lot. So we don't know what he has said so far, and we don't know to what degree Mueller looked into any of these issues. It appears not at all, because his remit was to talk just about the election, so he didn't go before the election or after the election where I think the real events are. And so Weisselberg will be very important.

And then the second set of people is the Russians. So now you might think like why in God's greener at this point with the Russians, if they have incriminating evidence on Trump, ever turned it over? Because remember the original point of the Russian meddling was chaos. They wanted to create chaos in America. Later they were like, Trump might win? That's amazing, let's go help him. Because we don't want Hillary Clinton.

She will continue the sanctions on the oligarchs. And Trump, we've dealt with Trump, we've had a very positive relation with Trump. And then afterwards, did they call in those chips? Those are the things we're going to have to decide. But could the Russians cause more chaos go, you know what? Here's the evidence of the money laundering. They could. And maybe it depends on how much Donald Trump continues to play ball with them.

Or you can play ball with them all the way. And then Putin can decide to mess with him and the country by revealing that evidence anyway, if I'm right. But now the likelihood of finding out before the next election has significantly decreased. And look, this is not a very important point to make, but I'm gonna make it anyway. That means I'm probably gonna collect my $200. Yes, certainly your chance of collecting our bet that Trump would be out of office. I said he would be out of office before the next election.

Your chance of winning that have gone up dramatically. Yes. All right, just something to think about as we go to break, but when we come back, we're going to jump on a time ship, time machine, and take a look at Jenks' coverage of the Russia investigation throughout, and he's going to tell you all that he's been right. Yeah, so I have been right all along. You're going to see it with your own eyes. And we also want to talk about Trump's other crimes, and we also want to talk about what we just alluded to a little bit there. I want to get more into, okay, what does this mean for impeachment and for taking Trump out of office? Is that totally gone as an opportunity or a possibility now?

Or is it possible that it's still in the ballgame? All right, so let's come back and talk. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-E-Bing the Republic or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be. Featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTRTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you'd

knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional wisdom and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, You must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training, or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been

fed over the course of your lifetime. So search for UNFDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. Go about that. All right, back on a young church. Jank and Anna with you guys. Let's go to the member section as usual.

Jerez sauce writes in, I hate to say this, Donald Trump will be president again in 2020, His machine is unstoppable moving to New Zealand. I think you're right. No, I don't agree with that at all. And we're gonna see, okay, but no, I don't agree one percent. Kimberly says, why are those around him in trouble for Trump's wrongdoings makes no sense? So that's actually complicated and nuanced.

Some of the things that people are in trouble for like Manafort doesn't have any to do with Trump. his own acting as a foreign agent, crimes that he committed on behalf of Ukrainian-connected oligarchs, and then hiding the money from the IRS, et cetera. Some are related to Trump, but not necessarily related to Russian meddling in elections. And others are related to the Russian interference, but not related to Trump. So it's a whole range of them, okay? Now let me go to Twitter, Imi Papito writes in, that's it, I lost hope on Trump.

Trump leaving office in shame. Okay, well, that's different than whether he wins again in 2020. And there, yes, now that's become a lot more of an open question. Let's put it that way. There, my confidence about being right, shaking a little bit, okay? So separate out the different issues. Now, Annum Leith asked a very good question, very good question. I wanna see the logs from the Trump-Divost Alpha Bank server, guess not anytime soon.

So one of the things I did connect to the election was that server. So some people have seen that online and that's true, right? And so I don't know if Mueller looked into it at all. I have no idea because we haven't seen the Mueller report. If you didn't look into that server and that server story still stands, then what did we do here? My God, then this investigation was 18 months of the most laser focused on a tiny issue there is.

Again, the Democrats didn't think it was a tiny issue, they thought it was a giant issue. Mainstream media didn't think it was tiny, they thought it was a giant issue. But I got super specific, did the Russians work with Trump explicitly or implicitly on the election itself? Man, if you don't look into the server, then what did you look into? But we don't know that yet. And if by the way, Mueller looked into the server and said, no, that's not true. We investigated it, then I would totally accept that. Nobody's questioning Mueller's integrity.

The question is, did he do a wide enough investigation? All right, last one. Eugene C. Bradshaw writes in with an angry tweet, which is always fun. UF words have been yelling tick tick tick for two effing years now. Just come out and admit it, we were wrong. No deal. I will not admit that. In fact, I'll show you how right I was.

Yeah, can I actually want to jump in on that. I don't know, maybe my perspective is completely skewed, but I think compared to other news programs, we did not focus on the Russian collusion story nearly as much. Now, did we talk about that story when there were updates that we felt were relevant? Yeah, absolutely. Did we share our own speculation as to what the outcome of the investigation would be? Absolutely. So I'm only speaking for myself here, right?

Did I think that it was likely Trump colluded with Russia? Yes, I did. But it wasn't because of what Democrats were saying. It was because of the way Trump was carrying himself publicly. So all the tweets, the fact that he fired Comey, the fact that he couldn't stop criticizing his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions, for recusing himself. I felt that he was doing a great job incriminating himself, right? Which I thought was interesting.

So I was wrong. Apparently, this investigation finds that there was no collusion with Russia. So I have no problem admitting that I was wrong here. No, no, no, no, no. Super important decision. We're gonna show you the videos right now. If you say there's no collusion in the election, okay, that's true, right? And to the degree that we covered that and we minimize it throughout, you're gonna see

with your own eyes, okay? Then I would say yes, then we would be wrong about that part. Do I concede that there was no collusion with Russia at all? Absolutely not. I don't concede that for a second, because it's not true. There's a reason why Donald Trump's acting like a maniac to cover things up, because he did collude with the Russians. He just didn't do it during the election.

So let me explain, because I have been explaining throughout, right? So we're going to show you some old clips, we're going to show you some relatively new clips, but the best summary of my point of view on this was when I was talking to John during our live coverage of the Michael Cohen. hearings. I want to show you that, then I want to show you me debating or discussing the issue with people who never believed in Russia Gate, like Aaron Mote and Kyle Kalinsky. And you'll get to see what I actually said in all those things. Okay, so first, this is the overall explanation of what I thought about a month before we found out anything about the Mueller report. Watch.

One of the crimes that would be alleged is not collusion. That's not an actual term used in legalese. One of the crimes would be conspiracy. But it appears, that there is not a conspiracy that has come to fruition here. But it looks like, based on the information we have now, I would conclude that I don't believe the conspiracy came to a fruition. But it's possible that they did all of that, but fell short of actually conspiring with the Trump campaign. In a way that is clear and provable.

Yes. So I need you to brace for impact on that possibility. Because right now I've got that as the leading possibility. A second issue is non-Russian issues. So, Malumance, Clause, you know, what did he promise the Saudis? Did he do a deal with ZTE and China and Indonesia? That's a whole separate issue, right? There's a trademark issue.

And then the most clear one is the campaign finance violations. Clear felony, Michael Cohn has admitted it. He has documents to back it up. His co-conspirator, as is revealed definitively today, Donald Trump. But I'm going to leave all that aside and get to issue number three, which is, is there collusion after he becomes president? And that's my thesis, okay? And so that is based on two things. One is the money laundering in the past before the campaign, which gives Russians the leverage and the compromising information on Trump,

which then allows them to suggest to Trump that things would be better for him if you were to go in this direction. And there the evidence is the secret meetings that Trump is having with Putin, which is outrageous, unprecedented, taking away the translator notes, not allowing any aids into the meetings, and then later not allowing any American translators into the meetings. So when you put all that together, I think the collusion, as it were, the conspiracy, etc., happened after the election, not during the election. So for all the people on social media saying, hey, Jank made it up after the Mueller report came up that he thought it was really the collusion before and after the election and not during the election, I guess you were 100% wrong because there I am a month before any of that comes out saying exactly that.

And if you can't wrap your mind around the idea that Trump might have worked with the Russians for decades on business property, 63 different Russian billionaires giving him money to telltale money laundering, and then hence the Russians might have compromising information on him, and that that would be part of the collusion, not during the election, but after he becomes president, well, then I can't help you because you can't understand simple concepts. And you wouldn't be alone, the Democratic Party's like, what, money laundering? I care, what? I just cared about protecting Hillary Clinton.

I know you guys did, but not us. So we did not do the same thing as the Democratic Party. We did not do the same thing as the mainstream media. And those are very important decisions. I'll tell you one other thing. After the election, Eric Prince goes to Seychelles Island. There's a meeting that we know for a fact absolutely happened and has a secret meeting with the Russian officials, sent Eric Priss sent by Donald Trump.

Why are they having a secret meeting in the middle of the ocean on Seychelles Island when And they thought they wouldn't get caught on that meeting if they're not colluding after the election. Now of course the right wing is not very bright, so they go around going, how could you collude after an election? You would collude by, yeah, doing the Russians, what the Russians want, because they have compromising information on you. Not that hard to figure out.

So it is not moving the goalpost, definitely not on our part. So the emphasis on the possible financial crimes was definitely prominent. on the show, we talked about it over and over again. But moving forward, I think that, look, I don't know if there was collusion with Russia after the election, right? But I don't know if the Democratic Party and federal prosecutors can really look into that and not deal with a giant political blow, right? Because after this Mueller investigation, since they did focus so much on the collusion

angle, I just think that they need to be hyper focused on the possible financial crimes because the moment that they mentioned that they're still looking into collusion, then I think that it does lend credibility to Trump's argument and the right wing's argument that this is a witch hunt. So that's what they will frame it as, and some folks on the left wing will definitely help them in that framing. And so I get that politically it's going to be hard to do, and that's why I was warning throughout that they're bungling it.

And that that's not what they should do. So that is a political reality, that doesn't mean that Trump didn't do it. In fact, that same day that Michael Cohen hearings happened, that I had that conversation with John. Later in the day, Aaron Matte happened to be in the studio, we wanted to have this conversation about Russia. It just happened to be on the same day as the Cohen hearings. And I explained that I thought the election was the smallest part.

Here, watch. So there's the internet research agency in 2014, is when it begins, and they do probably propaganda in America. First, let me just admit right off the bat. I don't think that this, A, necessarily swung the election, nor is it necessarily collusion. Because it doesn't show that Trump helped them. And it started in 2014, so how would they even know that Trump was gonna run for president? And at some point, there was a hyperbolic thing on mainstream media about, oh my God, they

had four million Twitter impressions during the election. It was Pearl Harbor, you know, people were comparing it to, yeah. 4 million Twitter impressions is like two tweets, whatever, okay, it's not that interesting. So there I was saying that the election, potential collusion in the election is very uninteresting and not the main event. And in fact, I went on to say in that interview, as well as many other times on the Young Turks, why would Roger Stone have to go and get information about when WikiLeaks is releasing the stolen emails if Trump worked with the Russians to steal the emails, then they wouldn't have

to go to WikiLeaks, that makes no sense. So that's why I was telling John, I was telling Anna, I was telling anyone who would listen. I don't think the collusion in the elections is the big deal at all, okay? And you just saw it with your own eyes a month before the Mueller report comes out. All right, but there's, but did I actually say the big deal is before or after the election? Well, let's find out. I can go on and on about the election. But I actually think that the collusion in the election is a very hard case to make.

But again, it's not the main event, right? Because I think that the Democratic establishment and a lot of people in media, Rachel Meadow, have overhyped the collusion in the election, okay? Yeah. But what I'm concerned about is Donald Trump's deep ties to the Russians throughout his business career, which I'm worried has affected what he has done in office. Now, so I guess I was right, and you were wrong if you were saying that we're moving the goal post after the Mueller report comes out.

No, I don't do not conflate us with the mainstream media or the Democratic party. We are way smarter than that, okay, so they made that mistake a million times, we did not. So now you say, oh, but Jake, that was just a month before the Mueller report is out. All right, let's go to the Kyle Kalinsky interview I did over a year ago, 13 months ago. Let's see if I was saying similar things, let's watch. And are they demagoguing Russia because it's easier? Yes. So I agree with you on that.

And is the Democratic Party using a Russia meddling in the elections as an excuse for their loss of Donald Trump? Yes. Elizabeth Warren was on the show. Now to be fair to her, it was really a while back at this point. But she said the number one issue in the 2018 elections with Democratic Party should be Russia. And I was thinking, no, that's a terrible idea. So now, look, Kyle made a lot of great points in that interview.

You should go back and watch that. Aaron made a lot of great points in his interview. You should go back and watch that, get the full context. I'm showing you what I said here just to show you that this show has been consistent throughout. Now, so there I minimize what happened in the election. But did I really talk about what happened before and after the election all the way back then? Let's watch. Now, I will say that I think that Russia is a quote unquote big deal because I believe that Trump

did far worse than helping the Russians meddle in our elections, I believe that he did money laundering. And I think that he owes the Russians and is paying them back. And I think it is a wildly dangerous situation for our democracy. So at this point, you can still continue to disagree with me on that. But you cannot say Mueller covered that because he did not. That is not what the Mueller report was about. It was, and I did an episode of old school, again, about a month or so ago where I said,

watch out, I think he's just going to cover the election. And even though the money laundering would be directly related to what he would do for the Russians after the election, I don't think he's going to cover it. And if he doesn't cover it, then this report is pretty pointless because what happened during the election, as you just saw me saying over and over again in those videos was not that big a deal. So, they missed it, they missed it. And so, and it's not to say that Mueller did a bad job.

Mueller was given a task, look into the elections, it was very narrow. He looked into the elections, he showed how the Russians did interfere, he did indictments based on that. He saw, had people lie to him, he did indictments based on that. He happened to uncover other crimes like Manafort's crimes, not related to Trump, he did that. And then he turned to the election and said, no, Trump and the Russians did not collude during the election.

did not cover before or after the election. And the idiot Democrats did not focus on those things, instead they focused on the only thing that they thought mattered to them politically, which is we didn't lose the election, we didn't lose it, the Russians stole it. And it was a terrible political idea in the first place, it was wrong also on the substance, and now it has been proven as such. Not only did we not agree to that, we fought against that idea. And so if you're asking me to conclude, if you will, that was a funny, Freudian slip,

conclude that Donald Trump is now innocent of all ties to the Russians. My answer is, hell no, I do not concede that, I do not conclude that, nor will I ever. If prosecutors actually looked into those issues and they came back with evidence, then I would say, yes, that's fine. But what we have in the public right now is overwhelming evidence that he did work with the Russians. Just not during the election. And if you want to cry about that or get triggered by it, have at it, Haas. So I don't know, you know, without a shadow of a doubt that Trump did collude with Russians

after the election or prior to the election. Obviously, further investigations will, you know, give us the answers to that. And the Democrats are planning on continuing the investigation to Trump. The point that I want to make is that because of the way the Democrats have handled this so far, they've bungled this. And I think that they have lost credibility in investigating him, period. I think that the right wing will very successfully use the Mueller report to paint a very specific picture of the Democrats and how they're only in it for political reasons and nothing more.

But I will agree that the number one concern is whether or not he has committed financial crimes, and even though no one knows for sure whether or not he's done that yet, obviously we have to wait for the results of the investigation, I just worry that regardless of what they find in the investigations, Republicans are going to fight for Trump till the end, right? So they can very easily take the findings of those investigations if they do find that Trump is guilty and just argue, no, we're not going to go along with Democrats and trying to impeach Trump because this has been nothing more than a witch hunt. There was this long investigation by Mueller, and anything that these people find is just

a political ploy to get rid of him. So they've bungled this, and it's a disaster, but it is what it is. Yeah, and the Republicans and some of the left-wingeres who are celebrating today, I'd also be careful if I was you. So you might be taking a victory lap today, and by the way, if you're a left-winger and you're super psyched that Donald Trump was cleared on one charge. Congratulations. So, but be careful that you don't, a high step too much, because you've still got Alan Weisselberg

out there, and you don't know what the chief financial officer of the Trump organization has to say yet, and Southern District of New York or other offices can pursue what he's saying, that you've got Felix Sater's testimony coming up, and you've got the Russians as well. God knows what they'll do next. If I'm right and they have that information on what Trump has done in the past, are you positive? They're not going to leak that to create more chaos? If you are, I think you're way too cocksure. So now I will concede this final thing.

Anna and I have been talking about this a long time. I certainly have, I've said this a thousand times, and we made a bet about it, that Trump will leave office, I said, before his term is up, because he'll get caught on these things. Well, so far, he hasn't gotten caught. And so now that prediction of mine still has some time left, but that one does not look good right now. And so he'd have to get caught, and he'd have to get caught awfully quick on all the other crimes for him to be taken out of office before the 2020 elections.

So the jury's out on that one, but I hope, and I believe that I'm a rational person looking at the facts, and the facts on that one are not in my favor. We gotta take a break. When we come back, we are gonna outline some of the further investigations that Trump is facing and these are investigations that do have to do with a possible financial crime. At TYT, we frequently talk about all the ways that big tech companies are taking control of our online lives, constantly monitoring us and storing and selling our data. But that doesn't mean we have to let them.

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In the meantime, enjoy the. this free second. All right, so some quick announcements on the Young Turks here. If you're a journalism student or a poly-sized student, you get a free Young Turks membership, people already got it for you. All you got to do is redeem it. So that's a student at t-y-t.com. Email is a student at t-y-t.com.

Get a free year-long membership. The Felix-Stator testimony I was telling you about on Wednesday, that has been postponed, apparently. It just happened. So we will cover it when it happens, but it won't be on Wednesday. And if you're an activist level member, that's a 10 bucks a month rather than the $4.99 a month, there's a bunch of privileges, including getting first tickets to events. So Anna is going to be on Rebel Radio here in downtown L.A., and it's going to be at the Ace

Hotel, and there's limited tickets available. That's April 4th, 7 p.m., but activists members on the young Turks get first dibs on it. So rebel radio.net slash events, but make sure that you go through membership. So tyt.com slash join obviously. And if you're not an activist level member, you can do an upgrade. TYT.com slash upgrade. The other event where you're getting first dibs on tickets is Ida Rodriguez show. That's on March 27. So that was coming up. That's t. WIT.com slash Ida to reserve a ticket if you're an actus level member, as she planned that show with Tiffany Hadesh.

Pick the people that are coming on with her, I believe, on that. So that's some pretty good stuff for the activist members. Thank you guys. All right, now let me read a couple of comments for you guys. Vlad Dracula writes in, hashtag Jimmy Door was right. Well, let me say this. We have a wide range of opinions on the network. And I know that a lot of people say that we shouldn't, but we do.

And so this is one of the reasons why you can see why having a wide range of opinions is a good thing. I still don't agree with Jimmy on some of the issues, but on the election issue, aggressive progressives were right. Jimmy Dora was right, Kalkalinski was right, Steve O was right. I do not agree with them still on whether Trump worked with the Russians at all. But that's why it's important to have a wide variety of opinions. And so I'm proud that we did that.

So Gabby Marita says Republicans will turn the Mueller report into the he was found not guilty once, so therefore he cannot be guilty of anything else at all. That's exactly what they'll say and that won't be true. I hope that people do not help them in that. Michael Napien on Twitter says this is why I adore Anna Kasparian, great power woman, great journalist. Thank you. Thank you, Michael.

I appreciate that. And last one is very important. Back to the member section, Joe says, I don't come to TYT for giving up. I come to you all for fight, for wins. Trump is not an unstoppable machine, he's a man and a broken one at that. And hey, before anyone rides a second further on their little give-up train, remember we got freaking Bernie Sanders fighting for us and for our people. Yes.

100% Joe, I mean, if you remember election night, the Republicans, I mean, all they ever do is mislead and lie and stuff. They make it sound like on election night, we were despondent and gave up. No, you watch even the videos they circulate. I said we're gonna fight back and we're gonna win. And what do we do? We launched the Just Democrats and we won on a historic level. And now I'm telling you, Trump, unstoppable, are you kidding me?

He's a buffoon, he's a serial bungler. So politically, we're gonna manhandle him in 2020. So you've got to have a progressive candidate though, a populist progressive candidate. So that's why the primaries are everything. If you go to Trump again with another establishment candidate, well, I mean, that's the only way the Democrats can lose. How do I know? I saw 2016 with my own eyes.

We all did. So now Trump, looking like he's gonna stay in office, makes the case for electing a progressive and the primary is even more urgent. Okay, Anna, what's next? Following the outcome of the Mueller investigation into Russian collusion, we learned that Donald Trump and his campaign did not collude with Russia during the election. Now, following the release of that report, Donald Trump, of course, took a victory lap. After a long investigation, after so many people have been so badly hurt, after not looking at the other side,

where a lot of bad things happened, a lot of horrible things happened, a lot of very bad things happened for our country. It was just announced there was no collusion with Russia, the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. There was no collusion with Russia. There was no obstruction and none whatsoever. And it was a complete. and total exoneration. It's a shame that our country had to go through this.

To be honest, it's a shame that your president has had to go through this for before I even got elected. It began. And it began illegally. And hopefully somebody's going to look at the other side. This was an illegal takedown that failed. All right. I'd like to say a couple of things.

First of all, you might be seeing Donald Trump, I'm seeing Leon Lett. So you keep high stepping, let's see how it turns out. So he, now let's correct the things that he said that are false, as usual. He said it's a complete and total exoneration, not true. Right. He said exoneration of him colluding with the Russians during the election. It does not exonerate any of his other crimes, and it does not exonerate any connections that he has with the Russians overall, including the business dealings he had with them before,

and the meetings he has had with them after the election. So it's not remotely true that it's a complete and total exoneration. And Attorney General William Barr also noted in his summary of the investigation that Mueller's report does not exonerate Donald Trump. So that is the wording of his own Attorney General William Barr. I just want to make a note of that. In regards to obstruction of justice. Right.

And then one more comment on this. He said this was an illegal take down. You know, if this was an illegal take down of Donald Trump and it was a witch hunt as he has said what? A hundred times or a thousand times? Why didn't Mueller just say he was guilty? What kind of a witch hunt at the end says, hey, by the way, the witch is innocent? That doesn't make any sense at all.

So is Donald Trump ever going to be held accountable for his conspiracy theories that remember Mueller and the 19 angry Democrats and how they were out to get him. So apparently they weren't out to get you. Okay, so which one is it? Was it a witch hunt or complete in total exoneration? Well, he is now slowly but surely changing his rhetoric toward Mueller, because of course his camp is advising him that maybe don't discredit Mueller anymore because this report came out exactly the way that you wanted it to come out.

So you need to now build up Mueller's credibility rather than tearing him down. So but let's, can we all agree, MAGA guys, can you agree that it was not a witch hunt? That Obama did not set up FEMA camps. You were wrong and borderline lunatic with that conspiracy theory, that the UN never forced us into Hobbit homes, you were wrong about that. And then you were wrong that there was 19 angry Democrats and Mueller who were going to do a witch hunt of Donald Trump. You were 100% wrong about that.

Can you admit that? No, you'll never admit it, right? Because you don't care about facts. Now, there are further investigations into Donald Trump, including some of his alleged financial crimes. And so the Democrats in Congress are looking into that, including prosecutors out of New York. And I'm gonna give you the details in that just a second. But first, let's hear from Representative Katie Hill.

She is the vice chair of the House Oversight Committee. Now we have to say, okay, fine, he didn't directly coordinate with Russia. moving forward. But now we have evidence over the last two years that the Mueller investigation was not covering that is highly, highly suspicious, both on the influenced by foreign entities that have directly, I don't know, had part with our foreign policy, but also on so many other things, for example, on oversight, we're not even dealing with that. We're dealing with the security clearances issue. We're dealing with possibly giving nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia. We're dealing with the fact that we've got 30,000, I'm sorry, we've got thousands

of children that haven't been reunited with their families. And it's so many issues that we've got to continue this is our investigations on. And it's just not related to the Mueller report. It's time that we continue our focus on the issues that matter, but also continue our investigations of holding the president accountable for what he has done over the past two years since taking office. So look, I think that there are important issues to look into. I got to be honest, I didn't love Representative Hill's summary of those investigations. It seemed as though she was touching on pretty much anything and everything Trump has ever

done, including some of his policies at the border. I think that's the wrong way to go about it. You need to be hyper-focused on these alleged financial crimes. And Democrats have not had a good history of doing that. They've been so focused on Russian collusion that I think that they have ruined the perspective or the perception of much more important investigations into what influences Trump and what type of financial ties he has to foreign governments. Now let me give you the details on some of the investigations that are ongoing.

Federal prosecutors from the Southern District of New York have been working parallel to the special counsel's team. A primary subject of their investigation is the hush money. paid to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal to keep the women quiet about their alleged sexual affairs with Trump. That investigation is ongoing, and I do argue that that is an important investigation that we have, that has much more credibility than other things that Trump has been looked into for.

So that's a clear felony. Michael Cohen is going to jail for that felony. His co-conspirator was Donald Trump. They not only have Cohen's testimony on that, but they also have American Media Incorporated that it's the parent company of National Inquirer cooperating with prosecutors. They also have Michael Cohen's testimony, potentially Alan Weisselberg's testimony, the CFO. We haven't yet heard from him, but he appears to be corroborating all of this.

And they have checks, so they literally have receipts in this case. So he definitely committed that felony. Now whether anybody's going to do anything about that is a good and open question. So you hear people screaming that Trump has been totally exonerated on all crimes. That is totally false, 100% false. Also, there are investigations into Trump's ties with Deutsche Bank. That was a story that we recently covered. A New York State Attorney General investigation is looking into Trump's dealings with Deutsche

Bank, including his failed 2014 attempt to buy the Buffalo Bills football team. Deutsche Bank has loaned Trump at least $2 billion. dollars over recent decades despite other banks cutting him off for his financial instability. An investigative report by the New York Times also found that while Trump was trying to secure loans from Deutsche Bank, he would inflate his assets in order to obtain those loans. At the same time, there is some evidence indicating that he would then turn around and deflate the value of his assets when it came to his tax filings. Those are very serious financial crimes that luckily he is being looked into.

This was not the subject of Mueller's investigation. Again, Mueller's investigation was very narrow in scope. It focused primarily and actually only on possible Russian collusion during the campaign. So on the Deutsche Bank issues, don't get it wrong, him getting $2 billion in loans is not criminal. That's not the issue. The issue is did he lie in getting those loans? And if you say, hey, Cenk, look, he lied a long, if he did, he lied a long time ago, and that's water on the the bridge, what are you guys dredging that up for?

Let me ask you something. If you lied in a loan application of the bank, do you think they'd prosecute you? Oh, hell, yes, they would. They throw the book at you. And if you then turn around and then reported lower numbers on your taxes, that's both the financial fraud and tax fraud. You think they'd be like, oh, well, hey, Bob, you know, you did it a couple years ago. Don't sweat it, man.

No, they throw the book at you. So they should look into those crimes and see, or look into those issues and see if there are crimes and if you're past statute of limitations or not. And if it turns out maybe there were crimes, but you're past statute of limitations, then he might get away with that too. Or what I'm most worried about is did he, Deutsche Bank ran something called, not inside of the bank, but by investigators called a global laundromat, where they washed a lot of money. money laundering.

So if that is connected, and my guess is that's why Donald Trump kept screaming witch hunt. Because if he didn't do the collusion in the election, which we now think he didn't, right? Why did he keep screaming witch hunt and saying like these guys are, why did he fire James Comey to cover up the investigation? Why was he ranting and raving about the attorney general recusing himself in trying to, what it appeared to be doing a cover up? That video we showed you earlier, it looked like Trump going, how did I get this lucky that they didn't look at Deutsche Bank, they didn't look at my tax returns, they didn't look

at my business dealings with the Russians, they're crazy not to look at that, that's where the mother load was, that's why I was flipping out. So that's why he's doing his victory lab, but he should hold on that victory lab. That's why I'm calling him Leon Led. Let's see what Don Beebe's got in store. So other investigations include Trump using his own charitable foundation to enrich himself. Also, federal investigators have had their eye on Trump's inauguration committee for potentially

committing illegal acts such as fraud, conspiracy, money laundering, and a host of other crimes. The inauguration raised an unprecedented $107 million and spent exorbitant amount on expenses such as makeup and rooms in the Trump International Hotel. So that's another, in my opinion, smaller investigation that's currently taking place. But again, I just want to go back to the main point of all of the other non-Muller investigations. It has to do with the potential financial crimes. It has to do with Trump using the office of the president to enrich himself. It has to do with financial conflicts of interest.

These are things that have been problematic since the beginning of his presidency. And I think that the Democratic Party has done a disservice to the American people by not amplifying messaging about. this and instead only talking about Russian collusion over and over again and focusing specifically on that and that alone. So the Pelosi mistake here, and now, of course, mainstream media is writing up about how Pelosi was a genius for not pursuing impeachment. No, exact opposite. Instead, Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic leadership kept saying, wait till you

see the Mueller report. But we're like, hey, wait a minute, though. The campaign finance violation is a clear felony. Why don't you pursue that now, you don't need the Mueller report for that? And the Mueller report isn't going to say anything about that because it's not about that issue. Oh wait till you see the Mueller report and they put all their eggs in that basket. And look at what happened. We told you, we told you to look at the actual criminal violations we already knew.

The Mueller report was whether there was going to be additional crimes on top of that. Lastly, look guys, you've now heard me say this a couple of times. We've been watching the whole show today. It's not just other crimes not related to Russia. He clearly could have, and I'm not saying that I have the evidence that no one else does. All I'm telling you is what I've been seeing for the last two years, which is out in the open. He could have committed crimes with the Russians, including money laundering, having nothing to do with the election.

And so, now, it would affect what he does in the office of the presidency because the Russians can then call in those favors. So 63 different Russian billionaires have given Donald Trump, have bought from Trump. tower and other Trump properties just in Florida, okay? Those are oligarchs moving their money out of the country. At one point, Trump's tower is about to go bankrupt. Russian oligarchs come in and buy a third of it, rescuing Donald Trump. One of his son says, oh, we get all of our money from the Russians because they love

to play golf. Okay, so those things still exist. They definitely got money from the Russians, and if you think that those are legitimate loans that, oh, hey, of course, that was Russian oligarchs and Donald Trump bought all those properties and circulated that money and it was all clean. How do you? Really? That looks like telltale money laundering.

I'm not saying that I have the evidence, I'm saying that somebody should investigate that based on the publicly available evidence that we'd all see with our eyes. If you say that doesn't look fishy, that's weird. Why would you say that it doesn't look fishy when it clearly does unless you have a political agenda. It's not to say that we're going to convict Donald Trump tomorrow. It's not to say that he should or shouldn't be president. But if you look at all that and go, no, I don't say anything there, you're trying

super hard not to see it. When we come back from the break, we are not going to talk about Trump investigations. We're finally going to move on to other news, including John Ida Rolla's awesome field piece at a Bernie rally. And Michael Lavinati has been arrested. Is that a legit arrest? What's that about? We'll talk about it.

Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work, listen to ad-free, access members-only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.co slash t-y-t. I'm your host, Shank Yugar, and I'll see you soon.