OA642: Discount Mueller Probe Ends In Complete Failure for Republicans

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:01:17 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 642. I'm Thomas. That's Andrew Torres. How you doing?

0:01:24 Andrew: I am fantastic Thomas how are you?

0:01:26 Thomas: I'm doing great. I am excited for today's breakdown. This something that I don't think we've really covered at all, right?

0:01:32 Andrew: No we have not.

0:01:34 Thomas: When I saw this headline, that another one of, well, you're going to explain, you're gonna give us the whole breakdown, but essentially it, that's what, they tried to do their own Russia investigation, right? They try, like, Republicans, Trumpers, tried to be like their own version of that, so another person didn't get charged with things because this is imaginary crimes. Do I have that right? Does that make any sense?

0:01:46 Andrew: It makes a lot of sense, and I want to fill in the details, but yes, we are going to be talking about Crossfire Hurricane, which, which a is is a really, really important object lesson that, like, like, boomers should not be allowed to name FBI investigations. And B, if you don't know what Crossfire Hurricane is, that means you are not a member of the conspiratorial far right in this country. That's the name. And there are a bunch of, like, subsidiary investigations. But Crossfire hurricane is the umbrella term.

0:02:01 Thomas: Crossfire. All Crossfire hurricane. I can't get over that. I need someone to explain what you're going for that Crossfire Hurricane. Is there, that's two different, what the hell is that? What Rolling Stones lyric? I'm not a big Stones fan because the Beatles are way better. But I like a few of songs.

0:02:29 Andrew: Yeah. Just the Rolling Stones lyric. Yeah. No. I'm with you too. So hold

0:02:43 Thomas: Oh, good. But like crossfire, like cross fire, like you're firing, like gunfire, but then a hurricane. Is this like trying to nuke a hurricane type thing? Like, why are there weapons words and weather words is

0:02:57 Andrew: By the way, it's the, it's a lyric from "Jumping Jack Flash," which, you know, it's not, not in the top 30 Stone songs, but whatever, um, oh, now we're gonna get, get folks, uh, it's not, it's not a good song, sorry, in any event. "Jumping Jack Flash" by the Stones begins, "I was born in a crossfire hurricane, and I howled at my ma in the driving rain, but it's all right now, in fact it's a gas, it's I'm Jumping Jack Flash, it's a gas, gas, gas."

0:03:23 Thomas: That is in the top five Rolling Stone songs, but that's because there's only like five good Rolling Stone songs. Okay, so the answer is it's a nonsense term. So now I can't really blame, well, but what does that have to do, Andrew, I'm sorry, I can't get over things like this. What does that has to do with the thing we're talking about today? Maybe it'll make sense by the end of the deep dive.

0:03:42 Andrew: Maybe. We'll see if we get there. By the way, "As Tears Go By," number one Rolling Stone so that, just feel free to fight me on it later.

0:03:49 Thomas: I don't think I know that one.

0:03:49 Andrew: Oh, It's it's so good. Um, so. So, July 31st, 2016, the FBI opened a Foreign Agents Registration Act investigation. That was the beginning of the use of the term Crossfire Hurricane. The point of that investigation was to determine whether individuals associated with the Donald J. Trump for President campaign were coordinating activities with the Russian government without having registered as agents of a foreign power. Hour gonna jump ahead to, is um, Chief Trump, you bootlicker, but, but not ordinarily, you know, somebody that you would think is associated with the deepest, most deranged conspiracy theories coming out of, of the Trump administration, Lindsey, outgoing Republican Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Lindsay Graham, said on January 15th, 2021, you may recognize as being nine days after a literal coup attempt in our nation.

He said about Crossfire Hurricane, quote, "I consider the Crossfire Hurricane investigation a massive system failure. I by believe that Crossfire Hurricane was one of the most incompetent and corrupt investigations in the history of the FBI and the DOJ. The FISA court was lied to. Exculpatory information was held on those being investigated. The investigators, with some notable exceptions, were incredibly biased and used the powers of law enforcement for political purposes. The subjects of the investigation had their lives turned upside down. The leadership of the FBI were either grossly incompetent or they knowingly allowed tremendous misdeeds. There was no there there. The investigation was pushed

0:04:41 Thomas: Uh, Oh,

0:05:28 Andrew: When it should have been stopped. And the only logical explanation is that the investigators wanted an outcome because of their bias. It is hard to believe that something like Crossfire Hurricane could have happened in..." Okay.

0:05:41 Thomas: I'm sorry, so the Crossfire Hurricane is the name for the actual thing, not the name for the Republicans trying to suss out a fake controversy?

0:05:49 Andrew: Yeah, that's what they called it inside the FBI. That is how Lindsey Graham describes Crossfire Hurricane. Case And you have forgotten that Attorney General Bill Barr is and one of history's worst monsters, I know we are used to him not being willing to go the final step of validating a coup, but still a monster. Bill Barr named John Durham as a special prosecutor to go after everyone involved in the crossfire hurricane fiasco. And Right. He indicted a whole bunch of people. And that proves there was no collusion between Trump and Russia, only a political vendetta by Barack Obama to try and bring down Trump, which was aided by the most incompetent and or corrupt investigators in human history. Right. There are only three problems with this argument. The first and again, I just want you to think about this in the background.

0:05:49 Thomas: Okay. True.

0:06:37 Andrew: There were no leaks of Crossfire Hurricane prior to the 2016 election. If you were trying to sink the Trump campaign, you would have announced it. Right. We know this because every time Jim Comey, same FBI director Jim Comey mentioned the Hillary Clinton investigation in which she was exonerated, by the way, she tanked in the polls. Right? The same FBI that you just heard, I just read you Lindsey Graham's fulminations, that was supposedly involved in this corrupt, biased use of the powers of law enforcement for political purposes, never once publicly mentioned that the Republican candidate for president was under present investigation for credible links between his campaign and our geostrategic enemy. Me

0:06:46 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. So Forever. Uh, f Comey for this. I mean, come on, you're gonna do a press conference about emails, but

0:07:27 Andrew: Not say that's right. I mean, look, like it would have been irresponsible for Comey to leak the investigation, but he was already being irresponsible. So You know, yeah, that's right. Point one. Point two, of course, is to, um, the contrary of, of Lindsey Graham's fulminations, there is overwhelming evidence, uh, most of it produced by Republicans, that the core proposition of Crossfire Hurricane was in fact absolutely justified. And I will go to two sources for this. The first is the Senate Intelligence Committee, first chaired by, uh, North Carolina Republican Richard Burr, and then by Republican and Trump whipping boy and sycophant little Marco Rubio. Okay, that committee, again, Republican committee, majority Republicans, produced five volumes of reports running to thousands of pages. On August 18th, 2020, so a couple of months from Trump losing the 2020 election, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a 900-plus page Volume 5 in the middle of that re-election campaign. And I'm going to read to you what Marco Rubio drafted and signed off on.

0:07:28 Thomas: Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Yeah.

0:08:32 Andrew: Quote, "Committee found that the Russian government engaged in an aggressive, multifaceted effort to influence or attempt to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. The fifth and final volume focuses on the counterintelligence threat, outlining a wide range of Russian efforts to influencethe Trump campaign and the 2016 election. In this volume, the committee lays out its findings in detail by looking at the many aspects of the, the counterintelligence threat posed by the Russian influence operation." So that's obviously from the introduction. What are some of the specifics? "Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort's connections to Russia and Ukraine began in approximately late 2004 with the start of his work for oligarch Oleg Deripaska and other Russian-aligned oligarchs in Ukraine."

0:09:19 Andrew: "Committee found that Deripaska conducts influence operations frequently in countries where he has a significant economic interest. The Russian government coordinates with and directs Deripaska on many of his influence operations." So let's take a side note on there. The person who ran Donald Trump's campaign, his campaign manager, right, was somebody who was pals with a Russian oligarch who was personally directed by Vladimir Putin to conduct influence operations, um. This It seems slightly more significant than where you store your emails. All right, I

0:09:54 Thomas: But there were some really questionable recipes in those emails, Andrew, which I don't think we talk about enough, you

0:10:00 Andrew: Again, this is laying the groundwork a decade before Trump runs for office, right? This is how deep these connections go. "From 2004 to 2009, Manafort implemented these influence operations on behalf of Deripaska, including a multi-million dollar political influence campaign directed at numerous countries, countries of interest to Deripaska and the Russian government. Pro-Russian Ukrainian oligarchs with deep economic ties to Russia paid Manafort tens of millions of dollars and formed strong ties with Manafort independent of Deripaska. Okay, so now 2004, palling around with Russian oligarchs, and now we've expanded our sphere of influence by collecting tens of billions of dollars from even more of them. Not, right, there's not just a single potential point of failure here. Now we know, know, all the Russian oligarchs.

0:10:47 Andrew: "Manafort hired and worked increasingly closely with a Russian national, Konstantin Kilimnik. Kilimnik is a Russian intelligence officer." It only says Russian intelligence officer in the Senate report because they're, again, as I'm reading this, remember, they are trying to downplay these connections. Right. These are Trump sycophants trying to say that this is not as big a deal as you think it might be. Okay, Kilimnik was a, a Russian intelligence asset, and he was best friends with the Trump campaign's campaign manager. And, uh, to go back to the report, which, which again, I remind you, was drafted by Marco Rubio and signed off by the Republicans on the committee, "Kilimnik and Manafort a formed close and lasting relationship that endured to the 2016 U.S. elections and beyond. Prior to joining the Trump campaign in March 2016 and continuing throughout his time on the campaign, Manafort directly and indirectly communicated with Kilimnik, Deripaska, and pro-Russian oligarchs in Ukraine.

On numerous occasions, Manafort sought to secretly share internal campaign information with Kilimnik. The committee, and then here, remember again, this is Rubio trying to downplay this, "the committee was unable to reliably determine why Manafort shared sensitive internal polling data or campaign strategy with Kilimnik, or with whom Kilimnik further shared that information." Well, Marco Rubio could have read the Mueller report, Volume One, or any of it, which we know he has not read a word of, because on page 129 of the Mueller report, again, Republican Bob Mueller notes, "Manafort instructed his associate, Rick Gates, his deputy on the campaign and a longtime employee, to provide Konstantin Kilimnik with updates on the Trump campaign, including internal polling data."

0:12:31 Andrew: Manafort expected Kilimnik to share that information with others in Ukraine and with Deripaska. Gates periodically sent such polling data to Kilimnik during the campaign. Now, when Gates got cold feet about this, this is I'm skipping ahead to page 130 to 131. Manafort did not see a downside to sharing campaign information and told Gates that his role in the campaign would be, quote, good for business and potentially a way to be made whole for work he previously completed in Ukraine. The investigation did not establish that Manafort otherwise coordinated with the Russian government on its election interference efforts. That's how it ends. So let's unpack that for a second. That is the Mueller report establishing a quid pro quo, but not coordination, right? So Manafort wasn't directing a Russian intelligence asset on what to do.

0:13:20 Andrew: But remember, 18 U.S.C. 371, right, Conspiracy to Defraud, says if two or more persons conspire to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, and any one person do an act to affect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or in prison not more than five years, or both. So conspiracy to commit what offense? Obviously, the violation of campaign laws that prevent Russian agents', intelligence assets' from donating things of value to the campaign. That's 52 U.S.C. 30121. "It shall be unlawful for a foreign national directly or indirectly to make a contribution, donation of money, or other thing of value, or to make express or implied promise to makea contribution or donation in connection with a federal, state, or local election." I think very clearly Manafort conspired with Kalimnik to help him make a contribution to the Trump campaign in violation of that statute.

0:14:12 Andrew: What was Kilimnik's the contribution? He's the Russian intelligence asset who could go back and go, "Oh, Trump campaign has told us that their battleground states are Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota," which in fact they did. Uh, you know, so if you're going to run some uh psyops, if you, are going to try and meddle and interfere, uh, those would be good state. Those are the crucial states uh in which to do so, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota.

0:14:39 Thomas: I do remember, you Know, in fairness of trying to figure out how much on a scale of one to Tulsi Gabbard, how much of a Russian asset this thing. You know, like think the counter argument was like, all right, that's not really anything. I mean, anybody who worked in any of the campaigns could have looked at polls and said these states are important.

0:14:48 Andrew: Yeah.

0:15:01 Andrew: The counter counter argument is 538. I mean, showed Minnesota and Wisconsin as dark blue and medium blue, respectively, and Clinton, right, won Minnesota, but won Minnesota by like a percent, right? They almost flipped Minnesota as well, and that was on no one's radar, uh, and lost Wisconsin, uh, lost Michigan, which were, uh, the polling showed, you know, kind of a tight race, but I, I don't think anybody had uh Trump winning either of those states before the election. Pennsylvania, sure, that's not important information. But, um, perhaps, perhaps we shall continue a little bit with, does, what Kalimnick get out of this? Mueller's report notes, in a way that has become way more ominous since 2019.

0:15:42 Thomas: You know, he should publish this report.

0:15:44 Andrew: Yeah, it's a good one.

0:15:46 Thomas: I don't know why more people aren't reading. Well,

0:15:50 Andrew: Manafort also twice met Kilimnik in the United States during the campaign period and conveyed campaign information. The second meeting took place on August 2, 2016, in New York City. Kilimnik requested the meeting to deliver in person a message from former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. That's the stooge that got elected as president of Ukraine, who was then ousted and fled to Russia, who is then living in Russia. The message was about a peace plan for Ukraine that Manaford has since acknowledged was a backdoor means for Russia to control eastern Ukraine. Several months later, after the presidential election, so after Trump has won, meet so they in August and Kilimnik says, I want to meet you in person and I want to tell you about this peace plan.

0:16:39 Andrew: And they do. After Trump wins, Kilimnik meets again and is like, hey, man, I'm not helping you out here. Kilimnik wrote an email to Manafort expressing the view, which Manafort later said he shared. Now Now, shared means with incoming President Donald Trump, that the plan's success would require U.S. support to succeed, quote, all that is required to start the process is a very minor wink or slight push from Donald Trump. The email also stated that if Manafort were designated as the Ukraine representative and started the process, Yanukovych would ensure his reception in Russia, quote, at the very top level, end of quote.

Manafort communicated with Kilimnik about the peace plans for Ukraine on at least four occasions after that August meeting in December 2016 that's the email that I just read in January of 2017 that is as Trump is transitioning February 2017 after Trump is president and again in the spring of 2018 the office reviewed numerous Manafort email and text communications and asked Trump about the plan in written questions I thought that was interesting that's supported by footnote 841 so I go to footnote841 and it says according to the president's written answers He does not remember Manafort communicating to him any particular positions that Ukraine or Russia would want the U.S. to support. Oh, well,

0:17:56 Andrew: That settles that then. Right.

0:17:57 Thomas: Darn. All right. Well, end of episode. Thank you, patrons.

0:17:59 Andrew: Yeah. So, OK, Hurricane, maybe it wasn't politically weaponized, and maybe the underlying aspects of there being multiple credible relations between the Trump campaign, its campaign manager, and the highest levels of Russian intelligence, Russian oligarchs, and the Russian government, maybe that's all true, uh, what about that third thing, the John Durham prosecutions of all of the horrible actors, uh, that were a part of this, um, Durham indicted three people, to explain the three people that he indicted, because one of them pled guilty, although it had nothing to do with anything Durham had to do. I got to explain for a second who Carter Page is.

0:18:43 Thomas: Yeah.

0:18:43 Andrew: I know you remember, right? Carter Page was the Trump campaign's Russian expert foreign policy advisor. He was openly pro-Russian. He took a trip to Moscow in the middle of the campaign in July of 2016, and he sent back enthusiastic, stupid, and naive reports to the Trump campaign. He promised to deliver, quote, "a readout regarding some incredible insights, and and outreach I've received from a few Russian legislators and senior members of the presidential administration here," and he met with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. You may recall Sergey Kisleyak as being the person who met with General Michael Flynn that led to the whole Muller thing in the first place. In October of 2021, our friend FBI Director Jim Comey, with sign off from Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, applied for a FISA warrant for Carter Page. That application said, "Carter W. Page knowingly aids or abets other persons who, pursuant to the

0:18:44 Thomas: Yeah. And

0:19:35 Andrew: Direction of an intelligence service or network of Russia, knowingly engage in clandestine intelligence activities which involve or about to involve a violation of the criminal statutes in the United States. The FBI expects that the collection of this surveillance data will produce foreign intelligence information that will assist the Fvi in more fully understanding the capabilities, activities, plans, and intentions of the Russian government with respect to the upcoming elections." That is all true. There is no aspect of that part of the FISA warranty, that I have read to you that is incorrect. Okay.

0:20:06 Thomas: When was that obtained?

0:20:08 Andrew: Oh, sorry, I'm in October of 2016. Yeah.

0:20:10 Thomas: Boy. Oh, that would have been, uh, Comey, why don't you do a press conference about this? I mean, probably because it was too close to the election. Let's see, when did he do that Hillary press conference? Never.

0:20:14 Andrew: Yeah. Didn't happen, so Like a week beforehand, yeah.

0:20:22 Thomas: I'll never get over it. Unbelievable.

0:20:23 Andrew: I have, your assistant's laptops, which might have more emails on it, which, again, were nothing. Three people were indicted by John Durham. The first was an attorney named Kevin Clinesmith. He pled guilty to one count of 18 USC Section 1001, of lying on information that was part of a memo that was sent to the lawyers who prepared that FISA court application. Specifically, what happened was he asked the CIA if Carter Page was an active source, right? Because Carter Page is an active resource for the CIA, that would explain, or that might explain, Right. Why he's palling around with

0:20:30 Thomas: Uh, Yeah. That's

0:21:03 Andrew: All these Russian assets. Right. He got back an email said Page had previously served as an active source, but was presently an operational contact. OK, we've used this guy in the past. We're not using him now, but he's something, you know, he's in our Rolodex.

0:21:18 Thomas: They had used Carter Page in the past, I've forgotten this. What?

0:21:20 Andrew: Yep. So Clinesmith added the words "not a source" to the email, which he thought was a true summary of what that email had to say, but it meant that as it was interpreted, the FISA application didn't mention any connection between Page and the CIA. And that would have been information, uh, that would have been useful to know in the overall, I mean, would the application still be? We do not know. So, OK, Clinesmith, during the internal investigation, right, the Office of Inspector General did an internal investigation. They came to Clinesmith and they were like, "So, talk to us about this email." And he was like, "Yeah, I put that on there to try and expedite things." Um, I'm, I'm really sorry, I would like to plead guilty, uh, to lying to the FBI because I lied to the FBI, uh, he got probation, right?

0:22:06 Andrew: Not exactly a smoking gun. Right. Guy said, thought he was summarizing it correctly, but probably you shouldn't have said what he did.

0:22:08 Thomas: Yeah. And That's, by the way, correct the high watermark on on the Republicans' version of trying to do a Russia investigationy thingy.

0:22:15 Andrew: That's the high water mark, yes, Somebody over enthusiastically

0:22:24 Thomas: By the way, again, I would imagine that these things happen all the time, we don't know it. I mean, when we're talking about getting warrants, FISA warrants or whatever, like, I'm, if Republicans want to be like, "Oh, let's, uh, examine, you how, uh, ethical the FBI is or whoever when they're obtaining warrants on stuff," like, I am all for that. A little selective in and when you care about it, this

0:22:26 Andrew: Summarized an email, uh, hundred percent, this, if our politics were not broken, that those of us on the left could come, could to agreement with, you supposedly, supposedly libertarian Republicans, Ran Paul, in saying, yeah, the FISA court process seems broken. There's, right? No extrinsic oversight. And, would it surprise me to learn that lots of FISA court applications are probably supported by people gilding the lily on evidence? That wouldn't surprise me at all. And there fix, we should 100% try and fix that system. Yeah, you're not, you're going to find us as um defenders of the surveillance state, but in terms of finding, you a deep-seated, you democratic deep state way of faking the, that's nonsense, it not yeah.

0:23:29 Thomas: Is literally this one pleading guilty to kind of fibbing on something.

0:23:34 Andrew: The the second, this had nothing to do with anything, with Durham did.

0:23:38 Thomas: Nothing. Yeah, that had nothing to do with this. Isn't the right. And Trumpers probably have tried to play this as though this means the whole thing was nothing. All this is, is the, a slight gray area thing about having why they got a warrant on one of the people to begin with. Right?

0:23:38 Andrew: Right.

0:23:53 Andrew: That's right, imagine, right, him like crying and breaking down. The second the office of inspector general, whoever that was, walks into his office and be like, "All right, I've been sitting on this email for forever. I'm sorry." But he did that before he was indicted. He was then indicted on 18 USC 1001, pled guilty, went into court, explained what I just explained to you. The judge was like, "Well, you probably shouldn't lie to the FBI, but I am going to agree with the government's recommendation, uh, that you serve probation, because, you you were not actively trying to mislead the FBI." By um, yeah, he was an attorney, right?

0:24:02 Thomas: Yeah.

0:24:23 Thomas: Wait, who does he work for? Is he not part of the FBI or Oh, gotcha.

0:24:28 Andrew: He was working for DOJ, uh, and going to the Fvi to help them put together, uh, the FISA application. So yeah, that's their big success.

0:24:30 Thomas: Okay. Gotcha. So a lawyer that, that's even less than I thought. So it's not even like an FBI agent that they got to to say, like, he deep

0:24:42 Andrew: Yeah. He was he was one of the associates who was putting together memoranda and information because, you know, again, this was signed off on by Sally Yates. Yeah. Right. And, you Know, his memoranda wound up. And again, I do not want to downplay that fact. Right? It's Right. Why I highlighted it. It wound up in the characterization of Carter Page being omitting a relevant fact, which was this is somebody who has been a CIA asset in the past. So, you he's running around talking like a pro-Russian stooge because he is. But there are also reasons for why that might be the case other than just, you general stoogery. Might be an excellent time to take a quick break.

0:24:51 Thomas: State It's A great idea, let a break before we come back and get to the bottom of this Russia hoax hoax, so there's got to be more there than this, I'm sure. Okay, today's show is brought to you by Up First by NPR. Oh, I love NPR, I'm so excited to have them as a sponsor for today's show, and you need to check out Up First. Look, we're all familiar with the term doom scrolling, that can honestly be what it feels like to be on the show sometimes because there's so much doom. Trouble is that we all want to know what's going on in the world, obviously, but it's hard to not burn out on bad news. So if this sounds like you, I recommend that you listen to the Up First podcast on NPR, because Up First provides the three biggest news stories to start your day.

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0:26:58 Thomas: That was a fake out, there's, I don't think there's any more to the dastardly conspiracy, but, one thing that I occurred to me, I want to ask you, not, not like Biden got in there and just stopped all this and was like, "Ah, fire everyone involved," this still carried on until like the other day, right?

0:27:15 Andrew: Yeah, no. One of the things that that Biden did that he did not have to do is Biden could have fired John Durham, a special prosecutor, day one that that he assumed the presidency. And he didn't. He let this continue because.

0:27:28 Thomas: Probably looked at it and was Like, hey, okay, why don't you, good job, little buddy. Keep going with your little thing.

0:27:30 Andrew: Yeah, yeah, You do that. Yeah.

0:27:34 Thomas: Yeah, tell you what, when you draw up your little counter Mueller report, we'll put it up on the fridge for you. We'll get the magnets. We'll put them up there for you to see. Hey, you got a guy to say he kind of fibbed on a thing that's not relevant to anything. Good job, buddy.

0:27:34 Andrew: Yeah. And right. It Now, kind of goes downhill from, you know, the grape job right there. The second indictment that John Durham handed out, and this was, boy, the darling of right-wing media for a week and a half, was the indictment of Michael Sussmann. We covered this on Episode 570. This was an attorney with the firm of Perkins Coie. Which uh, was hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign. And Sussman, uh, was one of the folks who went to the FBI to say, Hey, uh I'm looking around and, sure uh looks like there are a lot of contacts between the Trump campaign and high ranking Russian officials. You might want to look into that.

The indictment alleged that, Sussmann uh lied to the FBI about not not disclosing the fact that he was there, not just, you know, as Michael Sussmann, concerned citizen and officer of the court, but Michael Sussmann, operative of the Hillary Clinton campaign. Now, we had Randall Eliason on who, laughed you about this indictment and said it, know, had basically no chance of going anywhere, even if it were true, because, you what you would have to show is that this was a material misrepresentation and the idea that, you you would just be like, oh, hey, wonder who this guy is and not look him up and be like. Oh, he works for the firm

0:28:27 Thomas: Hmm. Ah, yes. Yeah.

0:29:06 Andrew: That's been engaged by the Hillary Clinton campaign that they have publicly disclosed in their public filings. And so, you know, we had a good chuckle about this. But as it turns out, it was even worse than this John for Durham. Turned out that the evidence showed disputedly, but but showed via memoranda from Jim Baker, holdover from the Reagan, H.W. Bush, W. Bush administration, a longstanding Republican guy, that he did, in fact, tell Jim Baker. Yeah, I I work for the Hillary Clinton campaign.

0:29:35 Thomas: What? Okay.

0:29:38 Andrew: And in any event, you, the investigation was already open before anybody at the FBI talked to Sussmann. So

0:29:43 Thomas: Wow. This is, what? I mean, this is nothing.

0:29:48 Andrew: Shocker. Yeah, Sussmann was acquitted on May 30th.

0:29:50 Thomas: Okay, here's what I want to know. Quitted on May 3rd. When was he indicted?

0:29:51 Andrew: Uh-huh. Uh February 18th of this year. Yep. In

0:29:55 Thomas: Okay. I just want to point out, maybe this is, let me run this by you, Andrew. Maybe this is nothing. For all the hemming and hawing that we have done about how the biggest tragedy in the world would be if we indicted someone and didn't get a conviction, because that would mean that blah, blah, bla, blah. Someone was indicted and it was bullshit and there's no conviction. Did the sky fall out? Like, what, what happened as a result of, I just wonder if that's a valid argument, you know, because Randall Lyson in particular, I think, is one who's like, well, if they try to indict Trump and then, know, he is not convicted, then just imagine. So, you know, this happened here. Does it mean that, like, all of the left can now lie to the FBI or something? I'm just trying to, like, construct the equivalent argument here.

0:30:38 Andrew: Yeah, I, I get it. I mean, if, if I were to take, uh, you know, devil's advocate or Randall Eliasen's advocate here, I would say that, you know, there's a difference between

0:30:43 Thomas: Sure. Between Trump and whoever the hell this person is that Fair. I just, I guess. But who made the decision to indict?

0:30:48 Andrew: Michael Sussman. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but uh, John Durham, special prosecutor, John Durham.

0:30:54 Thomas: Oh, Oh, I didn't know he had the decision. Unilateral. It doesn't have to go through like main justice or anything.

0:30:56 Andrew: Yep. So no, he was named as the special prosecutor. He was delegated that authority, which included, uh, the authority, to to issue indictments and and prosecute.

0:31:04 Thomas: Wow. So it's authority that Mueller should have had, if not for a piece of paper that said, yeah, he did.

0:31:08 Andrew: Um yes that and Mullard did have, right?

0:31:14 Thomas: Well, exactly.

0:31:15 Andrew: He, he indicted Papadopoulos and and Rick Gates and Manafort, and I mean, you know, like, it, an authority that Mueller did have and did exercise and remember that he got convictions on almost everybody uh that was indicted. He got guilty pleas from dozens of folks. Right? Contrast, there was rather more criming in the actual Russia Russia investigation, but we haven't mentioned the third one yet.

0:31:21 Thomas: Right. But just not with Trump, yeah, yeah.

0:31:34 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, this better be good. The third one is Hillary Clinton, who called Mr. FBI and was like, damn it, I need you to fabricate an entire investigation against my political opponent. That has to be what it would need to be.

0:31:53 Andrew: Well, because, and and let me, and I will include, you can decide whether you want to link to foxnews.com in the show notes, but I'm going to to read you a direct quote from Donald Trump's spokesperson about this investigation. Quote, that's exactly why the Durham investigation has become one of the most critical efforts to restore transparency, integrity and accountability of process, and every American should be watching and waiting for the next shoe to drop. Okay, was,

0:31:53 Thomas: Right. Oh, yeah? Yeah. You know, I'm sad that the left hasn't covered this more, actually.

0:32:25 Thomas: Seriously, like they should have been covering this as, hey, look at this absolute hoax of a thing. They're trying to do their own Mueller report. More coverage, because then we could have really, this could have been really funny to be like, here's the big finale.

0:32:26 Andrew: And that yeah, yeah, I agree, I agree, we're not, not, we're good at it the reason, is because for all of the complaints from not just the right, but like a lot of centrists, right, who are, well, you know, the left has MSNBC and the right has Fox News, and the difference is that Fox News is all of the Potemkins sham media companies that sprung into existence or flew into prominence under Trump, you know, OAN and that kind of nonsense. They are coordinated propaganda mills, whereas MSNBC is a normal media outlet that has some left-leaning columnists that

0:32:38 Thomas: Yeah, we're not.

0:33:12 Thomas: Yeah,

0:33:12 Andrew: Do evening

0:33:12 Thomas: No, I hear that. But I don't even know if that's kind of the issue here. Like this,

0:33:15 Andrew: It would be hard do to this. You would need some sort of central coordination, right? You would need to say, hey, the bullshit story we want to cover this week is, look, oh, at this joke of a Sussman indictment. Look you

0:33:25 Thomas: don'T even know that I would like, I DON'T know that that's necessary. Here, I think this, I, was newsworthy, even just covering it, like, honestly, I'm even saying covering it for the benefit of the left, just covering this honestly and being like, hey, here's what they're trying to do to have their own Mueller report, and this is what they have, they got indictments.

0:33:28 Andrew: That's right.

0:33:44 Thomas: I don't know, and like, a, or one, how many indictment, one indictment, I don't know what they get. Three Indictments, one actual anything, okay.

0:33:41 Andrew: Yeah yeah they had three indictments. One pled guilty and had pled guilty before he was indicted, was acquitted, and the third is Igor Danchenko. Who is Igor Danchenko? The answer to that is we should not know who Igor Danchenko is. Was someone that the FBI described as a model Russian informant who, quote, reshaped the way the U.S. even perceives threats.

0:34:06 Thomas: Good, because I don't wow.

0:34:16 Andrew: Was an incredibly valuable informant to the FBI, who was a key part of our, intelligence gathering process. And to understand how he came to be indicted by the Durham probe, need to give you a little bit more background. Part of a lead up to the entire outrage process, right, the manufacturing of a a fake counter-rush investigation, the Department of Justice Office of Inspector General compiled a 478 page report that fly specked the Carter Page FISA application and, quote, other aspects of the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation. Right, so they were ordered by Bill Barr, hey, I want you to look at every aspect of this, and, you know, tell me all the stuff that went wrong, and they wrote this 478 page report.

0:35:04 Thomas: Found a spoon, sir. Sorry. That's a reference that a couple people might find funny.

0:35:05 Andrew: Yeah, uh, a key part of that 478-page report was, um, discussing the role that the Steele Dossier played in the the investigation. Okay, now I, need to stop again for a second because, um, when you search, when you Google Steele Dossier, you will see it, supported by the adjective, like, now discredited Steele Dossier.

0:35:19 Thomas: Yes here we go, right.

0:35:30 Thomas: Right, right.

0:35:31 Andrew: Um, and that's gaslighting. The main claim of the Steel Dossi is that Vladimir Putin preferred Trump to Clinton and took active measures to make that happen, and that is 100% true, we have proven that again and again. So I get that the salacious element of the peeing and stuff, like, I never cared at all about those, no sensible person ever cared at al. When we litigated this, the Steele Dossier, in public in 2016, the question was, right, you, will remember, as I point to you, know, Trump's incompetence during the debates, Hillary Clinton saying, you're, you're puppet, a for the Putin government, and puppet, you're the puppet, right? That was the response. The response was, no, I am not a puppet of the Putin administration. In fact, it is the Democrats and Hillary Clinton who are weak on Russia. That was the argument that was made at the time, they were disputing the factual basis that Russia wanted Donald Trump to be president. And we now know, we now have Marco Rubio writing in print that, yes, of course, Putin wanted Donald, Donald Trump to be president. So

0:35:31 Thomas: Yeah yeah no puppet, why was little Marco writing that? I missed that.

0:36:36 Andrew: That goes back to the Senate Intelligence Committee report. Right. He was elevated to chairman when Richard Burr was removed. So Rubio has said, yes, Vladimir Putin, the Republican Senate Intelligence Committee has said in volume five of their report, yes. Vladimir Putin wanted Donald Trump to be President over Hillary Clinton and the crucial part took active measures to make that happen.

0:36:53 Thomas: Wow. Why wasn't that bigger news that even little Marco admitted? Okay. There's too much news, I guess.

0:37:02 Andrew: So it should be, I guess. And second aspect that the Steele Dossier itself played absolutely no role in the intelligence community's assessment of that Russian threat or the investigation into the Trump campaign. It just was not a thing that was relied upon. This was meant to be oppo research, first by Republicans in the primary and then picked up on by the Clinton campaign. So yeah, it's not surprising that our intelligence community wouldn't say like, I don't know about that, but we're going to look because of these independent reasons.

0:37:36 Andrew: And again, that is independently attested by multiple sources. So when you hear now discredited Steele Dossier, that's gaslighting. Yeah. Part of trying to show how bad the Steele Dossier was, report, the inspector general's report talks about and, know, their way of redacting, right? Right. Individual dash one is they call a person the primary subsource for the Steele dossier. Just like we've been able to do with something, you know, when it says President one was

0:37:14 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, wrong.

0:38:09 Thomas: Yeah pretty

0:38:10 Andrew: Right here, you're able to be like, OK, that's Donald Trump. And so maggots went back and discovered and basically leaked that primary subsource had to be Danchenko. Right. And they figured it out from context clues. And then that was made public again because of right wing efforts should never have been the case.

0:38:11 Thomas: Easy. Jimmy Carter, yeah, every time. Oh wow, so this person was kind of doxxed or something.

0:38:32 Andrew: Yes, it was 100%. It was meant to be kept private and was not. This would have otherwise been a sealed indictment because the position of the FBI to this day, through right, the Trump administration has been that this is an incredibly valuable intelligence asset. And now he's worthless.

0:38:50 Thomas: Is this somebody who's like in danger because of this? Were they like in Russia and endangered now that they've been doxxed or is this? He not.

0:38:56 Andrew: He was not in Russia at the time that he was doxed. But

0:38:58 Thomas: Okay. I means, it wouldn't be the first time that Trump has possibly gotten an intelligence asset killed. I

0:39:00 Andrew: Yes, true, true. True, but instead, what he's done is deprived the FBI of somebody that they have described as, you know, not just useful but uncommonly useful, uh, to our intelligence apparatus. Um, and so Durham issued, uh, a five-count indictment against Igor Danchenko, and, uh, when we come back from the break, I will tell you what those five counts were.

0:39:30 Thomas: All right. Now that we're back from our break, excited to... Well, that's not the right word because this sucks. This is the right wing burning a good asset that we had, uh, in the intelligence battle against Russia, so that sucks.

0:39:43 Andrew: So surely with all this build-up you would think we have unbelievable allegations, criminal allegations, against Danchenko. Right, I mean, this is... He's got to be, you know, he secretly conspired to like have the Steel dossier, spoiler alert, um, the five count indictment are five separate instances of 18 USC Section 1001, that's the making false statements to the FBI, so he's, accused of lying on five occasions to the FBI. So let's but, look, like, lying to The FBI.

0:39:54 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:40:17 Andrew: Yeah. That Could be a real thing.

0:40:17 Thomas: No, if that's real, that's yeah. He

0:40:19 Andrew: So, so let's look at what those five lies are alleged to be. And this is, I will link the indictment.

0:40:23 Thomas: Said he was a size 34 waist when He's actually 38. Who Among us, yeah.

0:40:25 Andrew: Yeah, that's not, if that's lie. Paragraph 103.

0:40:34 Thomas: Said he could bench his own weight, they tested It, he could only do 135, 35. I just wait for what this terrible crap is going to be. That's not anything.

0:40:36 Andrew: Yeah, yeah, Count one. Defendant denied to agents of the FBI that he had spoken with PR executive dash one who we now know is Clinton operative Charles Dolan, okay, about any material contained in the company reports, when in truth and in fact, as the defendant well knew, Dolan was the source for an allegation contained in a company report dated August 22nd, 2016, and was otherwise involved in the events and information described in the reports, okay, that he talked to this guy, Charles Dolan, um. The only problem with this is that the judge actually dismissed this count in the middle of the trial as, quote, "literally the opposite of what the testimony established."

0:41:29 Thomas: Wow.

0:41:29 Andrew: Yeah, a good thing if you're A prosecutor, um,

0:41:31 Thomas: Yeah. Like, could there be professional consequences for somebody on this? Like, I don't, you are you allowed to just do fake charges to try to make a fake hoax?

0:41:41 Andrew: In the extreme there could be. But no, Durham will never face any consequences for this.

0:41:45 Thomas: Cool. Cool. Everybody.

0:41:47 Andrew: So here's what actually happened. Emails that were introduced into evidence show that Charles Dolan misled Danchenko about where he got certain intelligence information. He attributed it to, quote, a GOP friend who was a, quote. Close associate of Trump, when in reality it came from stuff he saw on CNN and Press clippings. Dolan justified in the trial that he had lied to Danchenko about meeting with the GOP friend and really just sent him what he'd heard on cable news. In 2017, when the FBI was scrambling to corroborate the Steel dossier, an FBI agent asked Danchenko if he ever talked with Dolan about anything that showed up in the dossie, and Dolan said no, and that was the basis for that charge. Um, the judge ruled that Danchenko was literally, technically, uh, the best kind of correct, uh, because the evidence established that Danchenko and Dolan had only ever emailed about the dossier, that they never, quote, "talked about it." The judge cited testimony from the FBI agent that Danchenko allegedly lied to, who told jurors that he didn't define "talked" when he was interviewing Danchenko. So this

0:42:07 Thomas: Uh, there

0:42:50 Andrew: Right, the FBI agent interviewing, he was like, yeah, I asked him if he talked. Did you ask him what talk meant? Nope. Did he ever, did speak to Charles, to Dolan? No, they only ever communicated via email. So that's not really a lie, is it? Well, that's it. That's what happened. So that was count one.

0:42:50 Thomas: You go.

0:43:06 Thomas: Wow. This is huge. This next one is going going be like, also Danchenko said he was busy during our birthday, but he actually wasn't. I saw on Facebook that he wasn't busy. He could have come to the birthday party, lock him up and throw away the key.

0:43:17 Andrew: It's only Slightly less ridiculous than that. And I'm going to read it to you because I don't think that undercuts how much of a nothing burger two through five are. And these all involve, um, an individual named Sergei Millian, okay.

0:43:32 Thomas: Can I get a refresher real quick? Sorry. This is called the Steele dossier. So Steele talked to Danchenko, you're saying? Like Dan?

0:43:38 Andrew: So the primary, yes, Danchenko is the primary sub-source for The events that are in the Steele dossier. So

0:43:43 Thomas: Okay. And one of the things it sounds like was just a made up thing from CNN or maybe not made up, but at least Danchenko heard it from a guy who heard it, a guy, who watched it on CNN.

0:43:46 Andrew: Right.

0:43:57 Andrew: So The question is, in communicating the Steele dossier to the FBI, did Danchenko lie so as to overstate the value of the Steele dossier?

0:43:57 Thomas: Okay.

0:44:10 Thomas: This is what I'm not understanding. Sorry. Don't at what point did the FBI become involved? Cause this was just steel doing a campaign research thing

0:44:10 Andrew: Yeah. July of 2016, in addition to everything else that the FBI is now, uh, inquiring and accumulating information about the contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia.

0:44:30 Thomas: And so they went back and doubled back and like checked all the sources. Is yeah which by the way I know the right acts like this is some scandal look

0:44:34 Andrew: And they interviewed, yeah. Yeah. Right. That's what you're supposed to do.

0:44:40 Thomas: Yeah if I'm doing oppo research on andrew and I'm obviously biased I'm trying to win an election against andrew as um most special OA host that's the election I'm trying to win and I uncover like oh andrew accidentally one time he smoked but didn't inhale some marijuana or something and I'm like, all right, this is a girl or whatever. I uncover some crime. He actually killed somebody. I uncovering some evidence that Andrew committed a murder. I could go to the FBI or whoever and be like, Hey, um, we're doing oppo research on Andrew. And like, I think he might have a body in his basement. The FBI shouldn't say, yeah, but are you biased though? Like, do you, you want to win most special podcast host of OA? So like, nah, No, you'd be like, wow, well, we'll take this with a grain of salt, obviously, because you are biased in this case. But like, we will check if there's a body and if there is a body, it becomes incredibly not relevant. The fact that I was running against you in an election or whatever

0:44:51 Andrew: Yeah.

0:45:05 Andrew: You're not supposed to tell people that.

0:45:26 Andrew: Yeah.

0:45:40 Andrew: And keep in mind, there was a body here. Right? That

0:45:43 Thomas: It is. Yeah, exactly. The fact that Danchenko, you talked to the FBI shows you that they didn't just take the Steele dossier as gospel and start with that as like their Bible and work backwards from that, right?

0:45:56 Andrew: Is exactly right. To translate into conspiracy theory land, right? The argument is the FBI only cared about contacts between Trump and Russia because of the Steele dossier. And the the Steele dossier was a big lie. And Danchenko, when they interviewed him, misled them about the SteeLE dossier. That's the inference they want you to draw. Now note that their allegations in the indictment do not say that, you have to fill in the gaps in your conspiracy addled brain to get to that point. There right. Was no allegation at, as I'm about to read, counts two through five that would firmly connect that up, but it doesn't matter right, what they're trying to do is pin whatever

0:45:58 Thomas: God, Yeah, yeah. In the End, all that's doing is arguing about how they discovered the body that was actually there. Well, you wouldn't have seen the body if it weren't for the fact. It's like, what? There's a body there.

0:46:39 Andrew: They can right right It's complete nonsense, but counts two, three, five all relate to statements made by Danchenko while being interviewed by the FBI regarding Sergei Millian, and when, I'm done reading those five counts, I'll explain who Sergei Millian was and and but I just want you to to hear them in context first because again I have a slight bias here, uh, but I'll, uh, let you listen and decide the seriousness of these alleged, uh, lies to the FBI. Count two, defendant stated to agents of the FBI that he received a late July 2016 telephone call from an individual who Danchenko believed was, quote, "probably Chamber President One Sergei Millian when in truth and in fact, as the defendant well knew, Millian never called Danchenko

0:47:05 Thomas: Thank you. All right. Oh

0:47:39 Andrew: That's that's count two count count three, defendant stated two agents of the FBI that he, quote, "was under the impression that a late July 2016 telephone call that he received was from Million when in truth and in fact, as the defendant well knew, Million never called Danchenko. Okay, so that is two separate counts for the same phone call, one saying probably that was Millian calling me, and I was under the impression that Millian called me. Okay. Okay, that's, yeah,

0:47:40 Thomas: My God. Hillary did it. I don't know okay a call boy talk about the page count joke I often make

0:48:11 Andrew: It really is. It really is, yeah.

0:48:11 Thomas: In these things hey we need five charges. Can you, uh, okay, um, there's also, uh, you know, like, how do you split a call into two charges I don't know

0:48:18 Andrew: Yeah, they split it into two. Once he said it was probably Millian and once he said I was under the impression that it was Millian. And You may be sitting here thinking, like, boy, probably does not sound, just wait. Count okay, four, on October 24th, 2017, defendant stated to agents of the FBI that he believed that he spoke to Millian on the telephone on more than one occasion when, in truth and in fact, as the defendant well knew, he never spoke to Millian. Okay, so now we have this, "Call was probably from Millian, I was under the impression it was from Millian, I've talked to Millian a couple of times." And then count five, on or about November 16th, 2017, the defendant again stated to agents of the FBI, by the way, all of this post the election, right, this is 2017, right, on or about November 16, 2017, the, the defendant stated to agents of the FBI that he believed that he had spoken to Millian on the telephone when, in fact, as the defendant well knew, Danchenko never spoke to Milliam.

0:48:25 Thomas: Wow yeah we're still on the, we're still on this telephone and talking to Millian, who, I'll be honest, I forgot who Millian is, I, I don't remember who that is already. Who

0:49:21 Andrew: That's it. Yeah. Sergei Millian is a former Russian American Chamber of Commerce president. And Danchenko said that he thought the guy who was a primary source for his information, so right? Danchenko is the sub-source to Steele, Danchenko. One of his sources was an anonymous call that Danchenko said, I thought that guy was Sergei Millian.

0:49:22 Thomas: Okay.

0:49:48 Thomas: Oh, my. It was an anonymous call? Oh, Mike. There's nothing here. He said he thought an anonymous call was a guy. And I guess the fact of the matter was it wasn't that guy?

0:49:50 Andrew: Yep. And So as as a matter of fact, it was not that guy.

0:50:03 Thomas: Okay. Lock him up and throw away the key, Andrew. He said, he thought, an anonymous thing was a man. It and it wasn't that guy. And he said he believed it might be that guy death penalty. Do we still have the death penalty? Federal? No, there's no federal death penalty. Well, Dang. You should definitely get life in prison for this.

0:50:03 Andrew: Right. The the Argument that was made, that that Durham made personally, right, who intervened and took over major aspects of the prosecution of this case, read into that however you want, was that, look, this doesn't make any sense, like, um, there was no, Millian never called, uh, Danchenko, and Danchenko knew that Millian was a Trump supporter. Why would he think that this Trump supporter would call him anonymously and you tell him bad stuff about Trump? And Danchenko's reply was, "Hey, man, I never said I, I talked to Millian. I said I got some weird anonymous phone calls. And I thought when the FBI agents asked me, hey, who do you think that anonymous caller might be, I was like, well, you know, it kind of sounds like Sergei Millian. And don't know, like they just asked me to speculate."

0:51:05 Thomas: Double death penalty! That one death penalty isn't enough for this crime, Andrew. Kill him, revive him, kill him again. This this is, wow, wow. Okay.

0:51:11 Andrew: It gets it gets better. It Lawyers say that um he had sent out an email to Millian a couple of days ago when a mutual acquaintance had linked them up, right, had to introduce them via email. So uh, let's say it's a week before, it's, I'm not clear on the timeline, but like, so a week before he gets this anonymous call, he's introduced via mutual friend to a Trump supporter uh named Sergei Millian, who's the the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce president. After making that rather novel connection, a few days later, a week later, whatever, he starts getting these anonymous calls telling him stuff, you know, dirt on Donald Trump. And he was like, yeah. So I kind of put one and one together and was like... Seems like the guy I just met over email might be calling and feeding me this information. But I don't know. He's an anonymous... That's what I said.

0:51:26 Thomas: Hmm. Okay. Yeah. Are

0:52:04 Andrew: Know, yeah. And all of their communications, they used, you know, what is described as a secure mobile app, probably Signal. So the fact that like there's no phone call record, he's like, yeah, right. Like we did our stuff over a secure mobil app. So there wouldn't be any records. And that's it.

0:52:04 Thomas: We doing here? Ah, okay. There wouldn't be. Yeah. That's it. That

0:52:23 Andrew: Durham went to trial on those facts.

0:52:25 Thomas: This isn't The What, that, what, what, isn't this a bigger story? Isn't This is insane. This is, yeah.

0:52:30 Andrew: This Is why we're covering it, yeah.

0:52:33 Thomas: Thank you for covering it, because what they just tried to make up a Russia thing, and it failed spectacularly, and like, you know, I, it sounds like no one was murdered in the making of this hoax, but like, I don't know, someone had to go all the way to trial on that shit is unreal, real.

0:52:36 Andrew: Yeah.

0:52:49 Andrew: And At the end of the day, right, the waters have been so muddied, right, I think if you ask the average person, you Crossfire Hurricane, they're like, oh, yeah, because there's no collusion Between, between Russia and Trump, um,

0:52:57 Thomas: Yeah. I, I just want to sum up one more time. This is someone again, I'm I doing oppo research on Andrew. I find a dead body or whatever. We'll, we'll make it less extreme, but I find like, you know, ties to the mafia or something like that. And I's Like, hey FBI, I, you know, I'm, I'm running against this Andrew Torres. Great guy, by the way, really cool, great candidate

0:53:06 Andrew: Yep.

0:53:17 Andrew: Well Let's, no. Let's make the, the fact pattern match, so You're Running against me, you hire A third party, we'll You hire Conrad Michaels to conduct oppo research against me.

0:53:23 Thomas: Okay. Okay. I Hire Conrad Michaels I Yeah. Yeah, that's

0:53:36 Andrew: Conrad Michaels, in turn, summarizes intel. He's a seasoned intelligence operative, right, seasoned veteran of this.

0:53:44 Thomas: Why I paid him the big, the big bucks, sure.

0:53:45 Andrew: Let's say, and this mirrors, right? Danchenko said that he was responsible for 80% of the raw intelligence in the Steele dossier and half of the accompanying opening analysis. Oh, OK. By the way, Danchenko also testified at trial that he was, quote, shocked and dismayed, end of quote, about how Steele presented the material that he gave him and portrayed it as factual when Danchenco considered it to be more, you know, rumor and speculation.

0:54:11 Thomas: Like The P-tape stuff, yeah.

0:54:12 Andrew: Yeah. In other words, think of it. That's that's not hard. Conrad Michaels. We'll just keep Danchenkos name the same here. Well, everybody else will change around. Right? So Conrad Michaels is is Christopher Steele here. And he calls up Danchenko, his one of his sources and is like, you know, what do know about contacts between, between Andrew Torres and the mafia?

0:54:13 Thomas: Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

0:54:28 Thomas: Finds A bunch of stuff and also finds, like, and also Andrew Torres, I don't know, he does weird stuff with his Transformers toys, we'll say.

0:54:39 Andrew: Right. That's exactly right. Yeah.

0:54:42 Thomas: And like, I heard from, from a guy who heard from a guy, I dunno about that one.

0:54:46 Andrew: People don't do that sort of thing with Transformers.

0:54:49 Thomas: He really likes those Transformers. So it's not that hard to believe, but like also, you know, whatever, not that important. The important thing is the mafia ties that I definitely documented and have evidence for.

0:54:49 Andrew: Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. Right. And there, then later turn out to be mafiotized The

0:55:02 Thomas: Yeah. And, and so the FBI gets ahold of it. They re-interview. You. And again, there are the mafia ties and,

0:55:08 Andrew: As it turns out, uh, this sub source to Conrad Michaels, you, allegedly, allegedly failed to caveat some details about how he found out the Transformer stuff. Yes.

0:55:21 Andrew: That's the whole thing, and by the way, they lost on that, right. Like the Argument would be meaningless If they had won, but they lost, yeah. So The Biden Administration gave Trump loyalists, uh, and John Sussman a hundred percent of the rope that they needed. They were like, oh, yeah, sure, you do whatever you want, finish to up your little investigation, uh, indict whoever you want, take whoever you went to trial, do what, do whatever you can to prove, uh, Russia counter hoax.

0:55:25 Thomas: Yeah, it's not. Yeah. Oh my gosh. That is wow. All we will put it on the fridge because it's really, really bad. And it looks like my kid drew it.

0:55:55 Andrew: And Will be a final report, uh,

0:55:57 Thomas: Oh, a lot awful reports. Courts. That's a, there we go.

0:55:58 Andrew: I Uh Can't wait to do that, uh, probably waiting for you, the, House of Representatives to change hands, so that, he doesn't just deliver a steaming heap of garbage to the DOJ, but, Uh, he's, he is going to do that in the near term. And, uh... I love the idea of doing it.

0:56:01 Thomas: Wow. Yeah.

0:56:17 Thomas: There should be criminal consequences for John Durham. Cause this is, or at least like he should, is he a lawyer? He should be disbarred.

0:56:22 Andrew: I agree. And I... You know, it's possible that...

0:56:25 Thomas: I don't get why they get to just do these things. The Well, double standard is just, it's unreal. I don't understand it. Thanks for covering it.

0:56:34 Andrew: Yeah. I wanted to because, again, this something I mean, you know, I read you the fulminations of Lindsey Graham, which I think we have now successfully proven that those are 100 percent bullshit. Right. There's nothing that he said that bears the slightest passing resemblance to the truth. And I think a lot of people, a beyond kind of just hardcore Uncle Frank Trump supporters are brought in on this. So so if you have somebody who's been, you crossfire hurricaning at you, this is the end of that. This this, puts the nails in all of the corners of the coffin. And remember, Vladimir, like Putin did, does prefer Donald Trump be president of the United States, did and is continuing to exercise disinformation campaign and cyber warfare techniques to try and influence our elections. If that matters to you as it ought to, then, you know, maybe take some actions to counteract to that. Um, the, and one action you can take, you know, we hit you with this every episode get out there and vote. Now don't don't, yeah yes

0:56:45 Thomas: Yeah, of course.

0:57:30 Thomas: Keep the house. Vote, please. God. This is the thing that will be the new January 6th hearings instead of the January 6 hearing. This will be made serious and yeah, they'll do primetime television on the nothing that this is. That's why it is really, really, really, really important for the sake of everything to vote, I please. Know the listeners know that, but not just vote, get out there, donate, volunteer, all that stuff. Cause wow.

0:57:40 Andrew: A hundred percent we yeah.

0:57:57 Clip: Thank you for being a friend, yeah, travel down the road with me, say we started from the bottom now we're here girl,

0:58:06 Thomas: And now it's time to thank our Hall of Famers, our all-time greats on patreon.com/law. look, I'm going to confess something, Andrew. I Uh, accidentally was doing the quintile method on a quartile month. Big no-no. I know. So we're actually a little behind. We're We're going to catch up though. Somebody do the wording of what that would be. If I did the first two as quartiles and then the rest, Who knows? I don't know how the math works, but now we're in 30% for the next two weeks. Somebody tell me what that word would be, or who cares. All right. Thank you to all the famers at patreon.com/law listener, Thomas F. Reminder that Sparkle Donkey Tequila will host a pre or post live show event for patrons at the Tequila Lab in Seattle.

Oh gosh, we need to get on that. Uh, stay safe and remember, many police and military people are hardcore right-wingers who won't do the right thing. One Smart Cookie scent cutters, wishing the fat jedi a safe trip with his precious at Emperor's Brewery cargo. GDT says everyone, everyone knows that the police cannot arrest you without, page two of two, your consent. Maritime last freedom menu. Benghazi in the buttery mails. Jennifer Tchaikovsky, not a Last Week Tonight producer. Supreme Court justices should have 18 year term limits, and so should Conrad Michaels. This is, you got to change this. Conrad's out, man. Conrad's doing intelligence work for my campaign. Come on, catch up. Andrew, tell your son that the biggest garbage plates in Rochester are at Dogtown on Monroe. Garbage

0:58:23 Andrew: Tequila lab yeah

0:59:29 Thomas: Plates? What's a,

0:59:30 Andrew: That's a, that's a Rochester thing.

0:59:32 Thomas: Okay. Edgy Veggie, Torsten, non-compost mentis, wolfies peel. All right, let's go, Dodgers. Oh, that did not age well. That did not, you didn't even get a single of that shout out before that's bad. Oof, what what a collapse. John Brown did nothing wrong. Elect Thomas Smith. American Honky Tonk Bar Association. Pablo Escargot's. Heroin snails. Don Quick's oat. Don't laugh. Donkey Hoding may deliver you a swift kick in the ass. Learn the name of the book, Brian K. Penelope is glad Sydney got sanctioned for terpsichoree. Angry Grimacface, Leo G. Still waiting on a Seattle live show. You're right. April Poff, Conrad Michaels forever. This is not the greatest patron name. No, this is just a tribute. Abortion is pro-life. I agree. A cuttlefish with a subtle wish.

1:00:17 Thomas: Sir Wilford Snibblesnabble of the Gribble Pibble. The Dows and another October birthday here. Happy birthday, Andrew and Morgan. Oh yeah. Happy Happy firm birthday the other week. Yeah. Take it away, Andrew. Your turn.

1:00:25 Andrew: Yeah and A big thank you to Jake, to which wristwatches are not hers, wristwatch is the bar, insist, the gender gist pre-exists, very nice men of quality do not fear equality, agreed, Christopher Brown, it is incredibly important that I convey to you placeholder while I think of something interesting, I passed the bar, so now it's time for a Philly live show, 2022, while there is still time, right, right, learn, at a hand job, copyright 2022, all rights reserved, Carl Jack R. Willie, vaccinated Aussie in Germany, if I get the, the next T3BE right, can you top up my supply of Vegemite and Tim Tams, please. Darth Mandy Pants. Seattle Pete. Lou Robert M. Bob Loblaw's Law Podcast. Fred from Colorado. Hi, Fred. Fred, keep Colorado an abortion access haven with LGBTQ legal protection, support Colorado State House Dems. Absolutely. Cuddlism is a religious belief about being sincerely held, impossible. Hamburglar society, society weirdo. Ball Arena live show with a cup. Polly Hernandez.

Andrew, will you represent my company, 100 percent liable, this is legally actionable, LLC. Um, side note, next Q&A, ask me about how my law firm almost got Nigerian spam scammed. What happened to Thomas's feet? Jason Copas. Bob Kuburn. Donate to EFF. Donate to FF. Donate to EFF. I endorse that 100. Stop calling him Uncle Frank. Nate Drex has to call him dad. You do not like treason, so you say. Try it. Try it and you may.

1:01:02 Thomas: All

1:02:00 Andrew: civilpoliticsradio.com, Fridays at 7 p.m. Eastern on Valley Free Radio. John Bilderback, Ian the Hurricane Hamilton, and dasvidaniya, Comrade Michaels. Yeah, no, dasvidania indeed.

1:02:10 Thomas: All right, thank you, Hall of Famers. You're the best. Hope you enjoy all the goodies. A lot of awful podcasts and all the other stuff. And you don't have to hear ads ever. Isn't that great? So great.

1:02:14 Andrew: Yeah so much good stuff it's the best

1:02:23 Clip: Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar will eat you.

1:02:28 Thomas: All right, Andrew, T3BE answer time. Thomas takes a bar exam. We had a interesting, funny question. This book is charming and delightful. Uh, teacher trying to get some slave labor. Cause we don't pay teachers enough. What in the world is This one? One

1:02:41 Andrew: So teacher asks a student to carry the teacher's books to the car. Student says, yeah, if you pay me. Teacher says, well, how about I report you to the principal for you being a jackass. And the student's like, all right, I'll carry the books to your car for no payment. Is the student entitled to damages for breach of contract? And I want to start off with, you, uh, eliminated, uh, the most insane answer right off the bat, C, yes, because no contract existed. And we're like, how could you get damages for breach of a contract when no contract exists? That's the most silly answer I have seen in 299 T3BE questions.

1:03:07 Thomas: Yeah I love that

1:03:19 Andrew: So I just had to jump on that. And then you were between B, yes, assuming an implied contract existed, and D, no, because the teacher coerced the student's unwilling performance. You went with D. I'm going to tell you the answer is B. Um, and the reason, here, this is a really, this is super useful bar exam question, uh, because I get to talk about something I haven't talked about yet and that is looking at the assumptions that underlie the bar exam's answers. He was so close to figuring this one out. Um, the reason that the answer is B is because B contains fewer assumptions about the, the existence of a contract. And as you suggest, it's highly dubious that there's a contract here, right? There is an argument that there is an implied contract, which is a contract that's based on behavior.

You do an implied contact every single day, like when you go in and sit down at a restaurant and you say, hey, I'd like a Coke, and they bring you a Coke. You now have to pay for that Coke, even though you never signed a document, so right? That's it's implied contract. The B answer says, we don't know whether there was a contract. If there was, then I don't know, maybe they could be entitled to breach of damages. The D answer says no, because the teacher coerced the student's unwilling performance.

1:03:16 Thomas: Yeah it really is no way gotta be kidding me interesting

1:04:34 Andrew: And that implies that in the absence of the coercion, that they would have been entitled to damages, that the contract would exist. And because D requires assuming more facts than are in evidence from the fact pattern, it makes it a worse answer compared to B. I know they're super close. I know that feels kind of unfair, but this is really illustrative of one of the things that hard bar exam questions will give you is they will give you a bunch of answers that none of them seem exactly right. Right? Clearly, the right answer here was, no, there's no implied contract. That would have made this an easy question. Because they wanted to make this a hard question, they they smuggled that answer into an answer that was a yes answer.

1:04:57 Thomas: Worst yeah yeah yeah so I hear all that, and I love this kind of thing. I want to make sure I understand it fully. I, so you just said that the obvious correct answer here should be no, because there's no contract. You just said dat. But obviously, that's not one that we have. But why isn't D that exactly? What is the reason in this question that there is no implied contract? Tract.

1:05:34 Andrew: The reason in this question that I would say it is less likely that there is an implied contract is because there doesn't appear to be a meeting of the minds over the terms of the contract, contract. And so you say, school teacher asks you to carry the books out to the car, you say, hey, um, I'd like to be paid for that.

They're like, no, I I was just asking it as a favor, and by the way, like, that's kind of gross, and I'm gonna tell the principal. Uh, know, I'm, I'm struggling with these books here. And you're like, threatening to extort me in order to carry that down. And the, and the student's like, all right, fine, know, don't tell the principal, and I'll just carry your books down after all. Now, you, there an argument that the lack of reporting to the principal is consideration?

There's an argument, but it's probably not a great one, right? Like, this feels kind of like you, a sort of mutual set of unsupported promises, right? Like when I say, hey, Thomas, uh, next time I see you, I'm 100, buying you, you a Crunch Wrap. And then I see you and I've forgotten like you can't sue me for the Crunch Wrap.

1:06:37 Thomas: Don't you play with my heart like that, Andrew, you I can

1:06:44 Andrew: You you sure as hell can and I would, it would be fair, right? Because I would, I would never actually do that to you, yeah, um

1:06:44 Thomas: Quit the podcast though better okay yeah I love, I want to make sure I fully understand it's really interesting, and it sounds like I need to, this, this book is so different that I'm, I gonna need to get these curveball ones. So if D had been no because there was no meeting of the minds, would, would we still have the same problem, or no?

1:07:07 Andrew: That would be interesting if, if, that were, we're D, right? Sometimes the bar will make you guess, right? We'll have you say, like, all I want you to weigh in, it's 70-30, you tell me which side is the 70, but sometimes they will reward you for knowing that this is 70-30, as opposed to, you a yes or a no, right?

1:07:26 Thomas: Yeah.

1:07:26 Andrew: That

1:07:27 Thomas: So the issue is D if D was like two separate thoughts, if D Was like, no, because there was no contract due to the teacher coercing the students, but would that have been better? Is that, is it because it kind of combined two thoughts and was like, No, because the teacher Coerce. So, so therefore, as you said earlier, it's like in you D's scenario, you are kind of assuming a contract. I still don't know how D assumes a contract.

1:07:51 Andrew: D absolutely assumes a contract. Right, because the, because says no because the teacher coerced the student's unwilling performance so then what you would have is, teacher says, hey, will you carry this out to the car? The student says, hey, um, I'm gonna want money. Now, strike that out and say, have the, have the teacher be like, no, I'm not gonna pay you any money. And the student carries the teacher's book to the card for no payment, would you be entitled to damages for breach of contract in that situation? And the answer is probably still no, right? Like, this is probably still an unsupported promise and not an implied contract. And so therefore, the fact that there was, late, that was also coercion is not the crucial fact here upon which the fact pattern turns. It's part of it, right, because it sort of shows the ongoing back and forth. But, but even if there were no coercion, this would probably still not be a breach of contract

1:07:58 Thomas: Right. OK. OK. So

1:08:42 Andrew: Situation.

1:08:42 Thomas: The coercion isn't why there isn't a contract? I see. Yeah, that's it. Oh, that'S dastardly.

1:08:45 Andrew: Right. It's super tricky.

1:08:48 Thomas: No. Yeah.

1:08:48 Andrew: Yeah, I, yeah.

1:08:49 Thomas: That's why I want to make sure I really, really understood it and didn't just nod along with you. Yeah, that's a that's a really sharp logic problem that I'm going to be on the lookout for that in this book because it isn't really the kind of question I got a whole lot in the previous 250 or whatever.

1:09:03 Andrew: Yeah, though that's right.

1:09:04 Thomas: It was. But this book really seems to be doing that. So, all right. Another failure from me. But maybe I'll be on The Lookout here. Man, I almost went with B. I flirted with it.

1:09:13 Andrew: You said B was attractive. You were close. You identified the issues again. Again, like your analysis is just getting better and better all the time. You know, one of the ways that AG sort of summarized when I was trying to explain standing to her is as an order of operations issue. Right. That like sometimes you you resolve X and if X is one thing, then you don't have to get to Y.

1:09:13 Thomas: Hmm. Right.

1:09:33 Andrew: Right. And lawyers will argue in the alternative. They'll be like, there's no X. Even if there was X, there was no Y. Even if it was X and Y, there is no Z. Even If there is X, Y and Z, there were no A. And sometimes legal writing is less than lucid as to the order of operations and the interlocking nature of those assumptions.

1:09:46 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, once again, I lost. Thank you for the explanation, Andrew. I think I got there in terms of my understanding. Appreciate it. Hopefully the listeners did too. And you know what? Actually, this is a great time to give a little shout out. Friend of the show. And, asked us to give a little shout out and we are glad to do so. And it goes really well here. Because, Because and sister's roommates, second cousins, uh cat. I don'T know. There's an extended. Yeah.

1:10:10 Andrew: Does that make us absolutely nothing

1:10:17 Thomas: Anne's sister's fiance is a listener and he just passed the bar. So shout out to Tyler Kramper Schroer.

1:10:26 Thomas: Look, part of the patented OA shout out is us butchering your name. So I think that's part of it. Don't you think that is part of package, part the experience of an OA shoutout?

1:10:36 Andrew: I do. And And I just have to say, Tyler, congratulations, and be prepared to say goodbye to your two best friends. And I don't mean your your pals aboard the Winnebago.

1:10:48 Thomas: Congratulations, Tyler Kamperschroer on passing the bar, think, I maybe it was with with the help of detailed explanations about really weird logic problems like the one you just heard. So congratulations, Tyler. And, that's awesome. All right. Well,

1:11:04 Andrew: All right, Thomas, I want to confess something to you. And maybe this is another point in your favor. I couldn't find anybody on social media who got the question right. Bunch of D answers, bunch of C answers, no Bs. So I'm going to be blackmailed instead. This week's winner is Russell, at One True Russ on Twitter, who writes, "It's D. It isn't. This was coerced, so rescission, not breach, is the way to go. But Thomas shouldn't dismiss A so quickly. Not doing something you otherwise could have done is valid consideration." That's true. "So if you pick me as the T3B winner, I won't leave a one star review." And then, just kidding, I would never. Well, I'm not going to take that chance. I can't uh can't deal with the one star reviews. Need all need five stars or just, you know, move on gently. Uh And uh I am willing to be coerced. So congratulations, Russell, and everyone let's give them a follow on Twitter, that is at O-N-E-T-R-U-E E R U S S at One True Russ, and congratulations on being this week's sort of winner.

1:12:06 Thomas: And that's our show. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you on Rapid Response Friday. Oh, and I'll see YOU in QED. Everybody, come to Manchester. Manchester QED. Say hi. I'll be there. Mention anything. Yeah. Just come, come talk to me. Say what your patron name is. I know we have a plenty of UK patrons. Some of our patrons actually famously. So look for me there. Say, hi, feel free. Don't be shy. And I'm excited to see you there. QED that feels like awkward an sign off. All right. That's the show. See you next time.

1:12:16 Andrew: Mention anything

1:12:36 Clip: I move for a bad court thingy. You mean a mistrial? Yeah, that's why you're the judge and I'm the law talking guy.

1:13:10 Clip: www.openargs.com. Be sure to join the Facebook group at facebook.com slash groups slash Yodel Mountain and follow us on Twitter at OpenArgs. This podcast is a production of Opening Arguments Media LLC, all rights reserved. It is produced with the assistance of transcriptionist Heather Leverage, production assistant Ashley Smith, and additional contributions from Morgan Stringer and Debra Smith. Special thanks to Teresa Gomez, who runs our live shows and heads up the OA Wiki, follow at OA Wiki on Twitter. Additional thanks to the moderators of the Opening Arguments Facebook community, Emily Waters, Alicia Cook, Eric Brewer, Natalie Newell, Brian Ziegenhagen, and Teresa. And finally, thanks to Thomas Smith, who edits the show and created the fabulous theme music, which was used with permission.

1:13:51 Thomas: Man, I need to cut that entire meme. I meant to, not Jan 6th, I meantto say Russia, I want a Russia investigation. That's what, they tried to do their own Russia investigation, right? That'swhat I meanttosay. Anyway, either cut that whole thing or edit it to where I make sense.

1:13:59 Andrew: That's exactly what this is yes yeah here

1:14:07 Thomas: I often like to describe memes that I thought of in verbal form, Andrew, because then some enterprising listener will make it and will get to see it. When I saw this headline, that another one of, well, you're going to explain, you're gonna give us the whole breakdown, but essentially, it, that's what, they tried to do their own Russia investigation, right? They try, like, Republicans, Trumpers, tried to be like their own version of that, so I just couldn't help thinking, like, I, I want a Russia investigation. And then, mom says we have a own Russia investigation, right? At home. And then you go January at home, and it's this headline, which is another person didn't get charged with things because this is imaginary crimes. Do I have that right? Does that make any sense?

1:14:40 Andrew: It makes