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Refried Beans | Buckle In (feat. Lev Parnas) | Sep 23, 2024
01:00:25
Tuesday, September 24th, 2024 A key Nebraska legislator will not vote to change the state’s electoral process to a winner take all system; pretty much the entire staff of North Carolina lt. Gov Mark Robinson has up and resigned; Kamala Harris campaign is going after Trump for chickening out of the debate; meanwhile, Trump runs ads in the state of Georgia with pictures from the country Georgia; Missouri might be about to execute an innocent man; Melania Trump was paid for a rare appearance at a Trump campaign event; and Allison talks with Lev Parnas.
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MSW Media. Hey everybody, it's Ag. And welcome to Refried Beans, where we play an episode of the Daily Beans podcast from the same week either one, two or three years ago so we can see how far we've come. So please enjoy this episode from days gone by and note the date in the intro. Refried beans. I like refried beans. That's why I want to try fried beans, because maybe they're just as good.
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And we're wasting time.
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Swearing.
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Daily beans. Daily beans. Daily Beans. Daily Beans.
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Hello and welcome to the Daily beans for Tuesday, September 24, 2024. Today, a key Nebraska legislator will not vote to change the state's electoral process to a winner take all system. But pretty much the entire staff of North Carolina Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson has up and resigned. Kamala Harris's campaign is going after Trump for chickening out of the debate. Meanwhile, Trump runs ads in the state of Georgia with pictures from the country. Georgia, Missouri might be about to execute an innocent man. And Melania Trump was paid for a rare appearance at a Trump campaign event. I'm your host, Alison Gill. Hello everyone, and welcome to a very special episode of the Daily Beans Podcast. If you have not yet seen From Russia with Lev, you must, especially if you go back to the Mueller She Wrote podcast. And you've been listening to me talk about this for years now. It's truly an amazing documentary put up by msnbc, Amato produced. And when it was over, I had a thousand new questions about the stuff that didn't make it into the documentary and things that Lev hinted at in the interview with Ali Velshi after the documentary aired on Friday night. So I reached out to him and we spoke for almost an hour. And I have that entire interview for you today. And because we spoke so extensively, I'm going to save the good news for tomorrow so I can bring you the headlines today because there was a lot of important breaking news that happened as well, aside from the bombshells that Lev Parnas broke during our interview, including the Mueller team offering a deal to Dimitri Firtash or the fact that Ron Johnson knew he was laundering Russian disinformation into Congress, stuff like that. So I look forward to you hearing that interview. But first, let's hit the hot notes. Hot notes. All right, first up from cnn, the Missouri Supreme Court has declined to halt Tuesday's execution of a death row inmate, but prosecutors say may be innocent. According to the governor's office, quote, Mr. Williams has exhausted due process in every judicial avenue, including over 15 hearings, attempting to argue his innocence and overturn his conviction. That's what Governor Mike Parsons said in a statement, quote, no jury or court, including at the trial, appellate and Supreme Court levels, have ever found merit in Mr. Williams innocence claims. At the end of the day, his guilty verdict and sentence of capital punishment were upheld. Nothing from the real facts of this case have led me to believe in Mr. Williams's innocence. As such, Mr. Williams punishment will be carried out as ordered by the supreme court. Marcellus Williams, 55, was convicted of killing Felicia Gayle, a former newspaper reporter found stabbed to death in her home in 1998. Williams has long insisted he is innocent. And in an unusual move, St. Louis County's top prosecutor filed a motion in January to vacate his 2001 conviction and sentence. But that motion was denied. With new information about potential evidence contamination. Prosecuting attorney Wesley Bell and Williams lawyers had recently filed a joint brief asking the Missouri Supreme Court to send the case back to a lower court for a more comprehensive hearing of the January request by Bell. That's a Democrat now running for Congress, by the way. So Williams case raises the specter of a potentially innocent person being executed. At least 200 people sentenced to death since 1973 were later exonerated, including four in Missouri. So now the jury who heard this case doesn't want the death penalty. The prosecutor's office that brought the case doesn't want the death penalty, and the governor is ignoring all of it. There's evidence contamination problems that didn't come out at court. At the very least, he deserves a new trial. Next up from wral. It's a local station. Several top staffers and fundraisers for Mark Robinson's gubernatorial campaign. Quit, resigned. Current and former campaign members said this on Sunday. The North Carolina Republican Party nominee for governor is facing increased pressure and skepticism from members of his own party after a recent report by CNN alleging that he made lewd, racist, pro Hitler, I'm a black Nazi comments on a pornographic website's messaging board. Robinson, the state's sitting lieutenant governor, has denied all the allegations, says he's going to go after cnn. I'm going to sue him. Several top North Carolina Republicans have since called on Robinson to prove the allegations are false. Others called on him to quit the race altogether. Why is nobody calling for him to step down as the fucking lieutenant governor? I am blown away by this. Pressure has been mounting on Robinson in recent weeks when some Republicans saw his poor polling numbers as a potential drag on Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's chances of winning. North Carolina's very crucial 16 electoral votes. If Harris wins North Carolina, she does not need Pennsylvania or Georgia. Wow, right? A WRAL News poll in early September found the presidential race is still statistically tied, but Robinson is trailing Democratic opponent Josh Stein by double digits during a visit to Wilmington on Saturday. Trump, who until recently frequently praised Robinson from the stage at rallies in the state, didn't even mention him, didn't even mention the candidate he endorsed, and frequently compared to a Martin Luther King Jr. On steroids. Robinson spokesman Mike Lonergan wrote Sunday in a news release that Robinson's campaign manager and deputy campaign manager Chris Rodriguez and Jason Rizk had stepped down. And so did Heather Willier, a prominent GOP fundraiser who was Robinson's finance director, and Conrad Pogorzelski, the campaign's senior advisor who is also a key part of Robinson's History Making 2020 campaign, which Robinson won to become the state's first black lieutenant governor. In fact, the only people left are two comms guys and a bodyguard. All right, this next story comes from a local paper called the Nebraska Examiner. The Republican push to change how Nebraska awards its Electoral College votes and boost former President Donald Trump ran into political reality Monday as a key lawmaker. State Senator Mike McDonnell announced he will not support the change. McDonnell, of Omaha said he had heard from people passionate about the issue who live in the Omaha based 2nd congressional district, but he said he didn't hear enough to move him off his original position against switching. Quote, elections should be an opportunity for all voters to be heard, no matter who they are, where they live or what party they support. That's what he said in a statement. Quote, I've taken time to listen carefully to Nebraskans and national leaders on both sides of this issue. After deep consideration, it is clear to me that right now 43 days from election Day is not the moment to make this change. McDonnell said that he told Governor Jim Pillin his stance and suggested that the legislature put winner take all to a vote of the people as a proposed constitutional amendment so the people of Nebraska can decide the issue once and for all. Nebraska and Maine are the only states that award a single Electoral College vote to the winner in each congressional district, plus two votes to the statewide winner of the popular vote. Nebraska has split off votes twice in four presidential elections. President Joe Biden won the second district in 2020. Trump won all five of the state's electoral votes in 2016. Romney did the same in 2012. The second district got its national name as the blue dot in 2008 when former President Barack Obama won it Next up from NBC. In a bid to coax Donald Trump back onto the debate stage with Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats plan to launch a new messaging campaign dubbing the former president a chicken for saying he won't debate again. The DNC will launch static billboards and mobile billboards. The chicken billboards, which will first appear at Trump's rally Monday in Pennsylvania, include a digitally altered image of Trump in a chicken suit alongside the words there's no debate. Donald Trump is a chicken. The DNC originally said that they would be sending staffers dressed in chicken suits to Trump rallies as part of this messaging campaign, but after publication on Monday, a spokesperson for the group said this would no longer occur. Instead, a pro Harris student group at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania college where Trump is speaking would send inflatable chickens to his rally instead. I love this for him. Meanwhile, from Matthew Chapman at Raw Story, former President Trump made a glaring mistake in a new digital ad campaign targeting Republican voters in Georgia, using imagery from the wrong Georgia. This is from the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Attention Georgia. I'm humbly asking you to stop what you're doing and check your voter registration status. That's the ad which, as of press time, is still reportedly running for certain Facebook users in Georgia, only a handful of votes would decide the election. We can stop inflation, secure our borders, lower taxes, make America great again. The message is accompanied by an image of a vast meadowed mountain range overlaid with the words register to vote for Trump. Check your registration, which links to a registration portal. The problem is that the mountain range is not in Georgia, at least not the state. According to Shutterstock image data, it's from Georgia, the former Soviet republic located in the caucuses. Now, let's not confuse him further by using the word caucuses, shall we? The guy who thinks asylum seekers come from asylums and the guy who thinks transnational gangs in prison means people are getting transgender surgeries in prison. Let's not confuse him, okay? Let's just throwing around words like caucuses. You think the wrong. Oh my. Anyway, well done, chicken suit man. Next up from Pamela Brown at cnn. And as I read this story, I just want you to imagine if Jill Biden had done this, okay? Melania Trump has barely been seen on the campaign trail this year. One of the few times she has appeared at a political event, she received a six figure paycheck, a highly unusual move for the spouse of a candidate. You got to pay me six figures to show up and support you. The former first lady spoke at two political fundraisers for The Log Cabin Republicans. This year she was paid $237,500 for an April event, and that's according to former President Donald Trump's financial disclosure forms. The payment was listed as speaking engagement. Trump's latest disclosure form said Melania Trump was paid by the Log Cabin Republicans for the April fundraiser, but it's a mystery who actually cut the check. Charles Moron, president of the Log Cabin Republicans, told CNN earlier this month that the group did not put the money up for her to speak and the disclosure form did not give any more information about the source of the payment. I'm going to say the Save America Pack maybe ahead of another fundraiser in July for the conservative LGBTQ group. A person familiar said at least one request was made to a donor about a similar payment. It's unclear whether Melania Trump was ultimately paid. The campaign has not put out the financial disclosure for that period. The source told CNN that Rick Grinnell, former ambassador to Germany and Trump ally, was the one who made the request on behalf of Melania Trump. Sources say Grinnell and has also helped the former first lady with other business ventures, business ventures, campaign finance and government. Ethics experts say a payment to a presidential candidate spouse to appear at a political fundraiser in an election is unusual, ethically questionable and should at the very least be properly noted in the disclosure forms. Quote, it seems pretty self serving from my own general observation. I'm not used to seeing that. That's what Virginia Cantor said, chief ethics counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington Crew. If the organization did not in fact make the payment to Melania Trump, the former president's financial disclosure form may run afoul of ethics rules because it should have listed the sponsor who paid Melania Trump and not just where she spoke. Quote, you could indicate the payment was for a speaking engagement for the Log Cabin Republicans, but you also need to report who the source of the payment was. Otherwise you you can't assess for the conflicts of interest and it wouldn't be in compliance with the rules. That's what she said. She went on to say it should have properly been reported so that the source of the income is listed per the honorarium. Sources supportive of Melania Trump, who attended the Log Cabin Republican events and didn't know she got paid for at least one of them. They're defending her, saying it's her right to decide how to spend her time and get paid for her time. Yeah. One person close to Melania Trump said she has decided, quote, my best and highest use is where I am adding Quote, she's a priceless, timeless asset for Donald Trump. Joe Biden shows up for free. Records show Melania Trump was also paid $250,000 for a Log Cabin Republican event in December of 2022, one of three payments for $250,000amore or more that she received for speaking that month and just after the former president announced he was running for reelection. According to Donald Trump's prior year financial disclosure form, one of the events took place in Florida and the other was a California group, Fix California, which was founded by Rick Grinnell. Rick Grinnell did not respond to multiple requests for comment. I wonder how he'll respond to what Lev Parnas has to say about him in my interview that you will hear shortly. The former first lady was also paid $155,000 by a Trump aligned super PAC called Make America Great Again Again for a speech that she gave in Palm Beach, Florida in December 2021, before Trump was a candidate. She has a history of appearing at Log Cabin Republican events. This is just, I mean like if I, if I have a spouse and I decide to run for office and I set up a super PAC and I raise money from donors for the, well, somebody else would have to set up the super pac, right? But I, that, that pack takes in tons and tons of money and then I pay my spouse out of that pack, it's just laundering money, isn't it? I don't know, maybe I'm crazy. But the fundraising appearances also underscore how Melania Trump has been sparingly on the campaign trail this year. In addition to the two Log Cabin Republican events, she appeared alongside her husband at a fundraiser hosted by billionaire investor John Paulson in Palm beach. And she made a brief appearance at the rnc. Though she didn't speak, there's no indication that she was paid for the appearance at Paulson's fundraiser. Quote, she's been so disconnected with this campaign and so absent that I could see her saying, if I'm going to put my time in, I'll get paid for this. That's Stephanie Grisham, former Trump White House press secretary, top aide to Melania Trump, who has become a critic of the former president. Quote, even when we were in the White House, she was always so concerned about people making money off of her because she felt it was money she should be getting. Grisham said that while in the White House in 2018, Melania Trump instructed her staff to direct a gift shop by the White House to stop selling Melania Trump memories. Memorabilia such as bobbleheads without her permission. I know that gift shop. She was outraged. She didn't like it that they were making money off of her. Donald Trump's financial disclosures show former first lady had earned more than $330,000 over the past year for a licensing agreement for the sale of digital trading cards. Her website sells jewelry and other collectibles. In addition, the former first lady is releasing a memoir next month and embarking on a promotional tour. I don't know why she thinks their supporters read books, but this is separate from the campaign. In a series of short videos promoting her book on Twitter, she's made rare remarks on the attempted assassination of her husband in Butler, Pennsylvania, the 2020 election results and her history is a nude model quote. I can't help but wonder, why didn't law enforcement officials arrest the shooter before the speech? That's what she said in one of the videos referencing the gunman who fired at and wounded Trump at a rally on July 13th before being taken down by the Secret Service. Melania Trump's not the only Trump family member, by the way, to get paid while in the political spotlight. Kimberly Guilfoyle received a $60,000 speaking fee for introducing her fiance, Don Jr. At the Stop the Steal rally on January 6, right ahead of the insurrection at the Capitol. Her speech was less than three minutes, $20,000aminute for her to speak speaking in. Appearance fees for events outside political fundraisers for former government officials aren't unheard of. Former President Bill Clinton and former first lady Hillary Clinton collected more than 153 million in paid speeches from 2001 to the time the former secretary of state launched her 2016 campaign. Former President Obama recently made $400,000 from a single speech at a Wall street health conference, attracting criticism from members of his own party. Not me, because he's not getting paid by Michelle Obama and they're not running for office. Like, it's just fucked up. And in the two years after he left the vice presidency and before launching his presidential campaign, the Bidens made a combined, I think that says here 15.6 million from book deals and speaking engagements. But officials for Jill Biden, Michelle Obama, Hillary Clinton, Laura Bush and Bill Clinton say they did not get paid for any fundraising appearances during a political campaign. Exactly. Thank you. The president's son, Hunter Biden, was scrutinized for selling pieces of art priced at $85,000 and that he did that at a Manhattan art gallery last spring while his father was a candidate for reelection. So fucking what? By all accounts, The Log Cabin Republican fundraisers this year were a success. Grinnell posted on Twitter in July that the former first lady opened her New York City penthouse tonight to raise money for the group. Quote, it's the first campaign event ever held at the Trump residence. He wrote, and we raised $1.4 million in one night. Our goal is to get 50% of the gay vote. 50% of the gay vote for Donald Trump, the party that doesn't want you to exist. You are not going to get 50% of the gay vote, Rick. All right, everybody, buckle in. I'll be right back with Lev Parnas after these messages. We'll be right back. Oh, my gosh. Everybody, welcome back. I am honored to be joined today by someone I have been chatting with in DM messages for years now. He was part of the Ukraine shadow diplomacy that resulted in the first impeachment of former President Trump. And he's the focus of a new documentary out by msnbc, produced by Rachel Maddow, called From Russia with Lev. Very clever title. As you know Muller, she wrote, I'm always down for clever titles. And he has a new book out called Shadow Diplomacy, and they're gonna be launching that release very shortly. Please welcome Lev Parnass. Lev, hi.
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Hi, Alison. Thank you for having me. It's been a while.
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It's so great to meet you face to face.
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Well, virtually face to face, Virtually, finally. Yes.
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We've been talking for so long, and, you know, I'm friends with your son and we do quite a lot of work together for the DNC and Harris Walls. But I'm so glad to talk to you because there were so many things. This first of all, From Russia with Lev. Absolutely outstanding. And two hours or an hour and a half or however long it was, was not enough.
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Yeah, right, absolutely.
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I'm hoping for a second and a third and a fourth documentary. And, you know, you talked to Ali Velshi right after I watched it premiere, and you said, like, 23,000 things that I wanted to follow up on with you. So I, you know, I was like, yeah, come, please, come on the podcast. So talk about just a little bit about your experience with this film, making it, and then we can get into what, you know, what got left out just simply for time constraints. You have such a huge story to tell.
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Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Alison. So the movie, I mean, the film started off actually four years ago after I got arrested, early 2020, while I was still, you know, in the process of going to trial, I was approached by, in my DMs by Billy Corbin and Alfred Spellman. Billy I knew we had mutual friends in common. We're both from Florida. And I admired his work, what he did with cocaine cowboys. And he reached out to me and said, I want to talk. And we got together and he told me he wants to do my story. At first, I was in a very crazy period of time. I was in survival mode, trying. I had fees, lawyers fees, things going on. I didn't know what was happening. I was just trying to. I was looking at 20 years in prison. My family was all over the place, and, you know, I wasn't in the right state of mind, and I didn't know who to trust, and I wasn't really going to do anything, but I didn't have a choice because I needed some sort of money to pay certain lawyers, and they were gracious enough to give me, offer me some money to do the deal. And I literally had to trust them because they told me I would have no input, that I would have no editorial rights, I would have no, you know, any kind of. That we would have to deal with. Basically, they would. They would. I would have to give them the information, they would have to put it together. And I was definitely nervous, scared, and. Because giving your life into somebody's hands, to be able to tell the truth to. Because for me, it was important, because especially at that time, the way I was being framed by the DOJ and the media, that I was a Russian spy, a liar, a thief. So it was extremely important to get the truth. So I agreed. And in the process of three and a half years, four years, while we're doing. I mean, three years until Rachel jumped on, we've just been taping and doing interviews, and I've been. Because I have so much information that they had to validate. It would just be like weeks and weeks and months and months. I would give them terabytes of information, then they'd have to go validate, then they'd get back with that. And so it was just a crazy, tedious process. And finally they said, we're ready to go shop the movie. The problem is that all of a sudden, I don't know if you know us, but there's no docs coming out. There's a blockade on docs, especially political docs. Anything to do with Trump, nobody's doing him, nobody's taking him, and the market is completely dried out. So Billy's like, I don't know if we could get it in time for the elections. And we were very worried because I thought that the most important role for the information would be prior to the 2024 election. Because I saw Trump doing the same ex. The same exact people. Nothing changed. And we were kind of done. I mean, we didn't think it's going to happen. And then one day he calls me and he says, I didn't want to tell you, but we've been talking and Rachel's on board, she's going to jump on. She wants to do the movie. And after that, it just was a process after process, more interviews, more check, checking, more checking. And then the NBC lawyers got involved and Ms. I mean, it was just like nonstop, like 24 hours a day of validating everything because the stories were so big and so impactful in American history and such important people that were involved, you know, obviously. And these people, their tactic, they sue right away. You know, right away. They sue you even if you tell the truth. You know how they work. And so obviously, everybody was very cautious about getting this out. But once the lawyers gave the sign off, we were ready to go. And this was prior to me even testifying in Congress. That's why, like Rachel says, the ending changed like two, three times. And then all. And then, because the purpose of the documentary and the book was because I wasn't getting called in Congress because they were trying to deflect. And when Jamie Raskin and said, listen, call up Rudy Giuliani and left Parna, subpoena him. And then Comer and Jordan said, no, we're not going to subpoena him. So I never thought I was going to already appear. And then all of a sudden, I got a call from the Oversight Committee, and they said that we want to vet your information. We're considering to have you testify in the impeachment. And that was some crazy stuff on its own because I just had to go right back into the vetting process again because again, I had to send over information again. Now their lawyers had to vet it. And then that was a process. And then finally they turned around, they said, okay, you're going to testify. And so then that the ending had to change with that because now I was testifying finally in front of Congress under oath, which was an important part to the story to get out. And then I think like two weeks before he was. Billy called me up and said, I gotta submit the final copy. I gave him another surprise. I said, hey, Billy, by the way, I'm going out to Los Angeles and I want to apologize to Hunter. You want to come with me?
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Yeah, yeah. And, you know you talked about that on Velshi, and that ending by. Was incredible. What a fantastic ending. But it is interesting that that was like the third or fourth iteration of how you were gonna end that film. And it must have been when he reached out, Corbin reached out. It must have been so difficult to know who to trust at that point because of what had happened. I mean, the way that I see this, and we talked a little bit about this offline, is that you were a fall guy. You much like Michael Cohen. Right. Here's a guy who. Who has done some crimes, and we can get him indicted in an effort to make. Oh, this was all him. He was doing this. But Rudy was right there with you the whole time, like.
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And so he was in the lead and Trump just not Rudy.
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And so. Right. And so he gets a pass because of the weaponized Department of Justice. And it must drive you insane that Jim Jordan has a weaponization of the Department of Justice committee. Talking about Hunter Biden and the Biden crime family.
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Right.
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And I wanted to talk a little bit about that, because the end with Hunter Biden was very touching. I also wondered if you had reached out or tried to make amends with Masha Yovanovitch, the. The ambassador that you basically tanked.
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Yeah, no, for Masha Ivan, which was the very first call I made before even handing over the stuff to the impeachment committee. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to speak to her personally, but I apologized through her attorney, and I look forward to one day meeting her in person and apologizing to her in person. Unfortunately, I don't have a contact. But if you could give her that message, because I would love to one day sit down, talk to her and tell her, you know, have her ask, just like Hunter, any questions she might have. Because what we did to her, what we did to Hunter is just unforgivable, and it's insane to even understand what happened.
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Yeah, I did interview her for the. For the Daily Beans in the MSW Book Club when her book came out. And I will certainly put a word in.
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Thank you, Alison.
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For you, Lev. Because that was the. After seeing what. The discussion with Hunter, that was the first thing that popped into my head. But then the second thing that popped into my head was, where's the laptop information? What's going on with the. Because I have been shouting, as you know, from the rooftops since it happened, that this laptop was a Russian op. And you. Like, they had the laptop. They took the laptop. They put. Kept some real emails in there. But Then inserted their own and then had somebody leave it at this shop. And that.
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Yeah, I mean, there was. There was a several operation. I mean, there was several. There was a laptop. There was a hard drive. So that's why there's a little confusion going on.
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Right. And so you very briefly mentioned in a slurry of words about Ken Vogel being part of the BLT and all of these other people that were involved. You kind of just briefly mentioned Devin Archer and how he was Hunter Biden's posing as his friend, but actually his handler to get him in certain places to get him to Vienna where his laptop was stolen and he was being paid by Russia. First of all, please do a whole. Have contact Corbin and Mattow and say we need a whole movie on the laptop and then tell us a little bit about what went on like with this laptop. Because, you know, I've been called crazy.
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B
No, you're not crazy.
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That this had anything to do with Russia.
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No, you're. You're not crazy. You're 100% right. So it all started off the story. You have to understand how it came about. And one of the key figures in the story, there's a lot of key figures that have been missing, but there's a couple that somehow miss go through this loops. One is Devon Archer and then the other one is Vitaly Proust. Do you know the name Vitaly Proust?
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A
I don't think so. Not off the top of my head.
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B
Well, see, that's what I'm saying to you. This is how important is. Okay. Vitaly Proust is the gentleman from Tri Global Enterprises. It's a company that does. Was working with Rudy Giuliani for 15, 20 years, setting up speaking arrangements in Eastern Europe, in Russia, Ukraine, all over the place. Has very big ties to Russia, Kremlin and so on. He is also the person that was very close friends with Devon Archer. He was also the person that was very good friends with the owner of Burisma, Mikhail Zlachevsky. He was involved with Burisma before Hunter was even around. When the Ukrainians and the Americans were putting pressure on Burisma because of the corrupt activity they were involved with, they came up with an idea to be able to stack the board to protect themselves off against Ukrainians and the Americans. So the first person they brought on there was Kofer Black. He was the ex CIA agent in charge of CIA. They brought him on board that then helped them. Then they went and brought the ex Polish president. I forgot how his name is spelled. I'm not going to say they brought him on board. That didn't help. And then they had a look by chance, Archer and the Proust meet up in New York City, bumped into each other. And Archer at that time was working, working with Heinz and Hunter Biden. They had Rosemont, Seneca, and he was working with them. And he started telling about who he had. And that's when the idea came about where he basically, Proust told him that if he could bring Hines and Hunter on the board of Burisma, that he will get paid. Because the one thing, and before we go forward, you need to understand, with all of this craziness, just think about it. They talked about Hunter, Bayern, everybody. But nobody ever asked the question, what was Devon Archer getting paid for? Why was Devon Archer getting paid millions of dollars? What were his qualifications for him to be on the board of a Ukrainian oil and gas company and getting paid millions of dollars? Because he was a handler. He was Hunter Biden's handler. And basically, originally, he was supposed to bring Heinz and Biden, but Heinz backed out. And because of Hunter's drug addiction and because of the place he was at, he trusted Devon. They had a very friendly relationship. But unbeknownst to Hunter, what Devin was doing at the time, he was setting up similar fake corporate companies that sounded the same like Rosemont, Seneca, where he was doing business. Like, for instance, that whole thing about Hunter having business with that mayor of Russia, the billionaire that got $3 million. That wasn't Hunter. That was Devon Archer. Yes, and Devin Archer got paid. And yes, Hunter got some of that money because Devon Archer put it in the account. And Hunter. That's how he kept Hunter around, by paying Hunter. But Hunter wasn't doing the deals. Same thing with Burisma.
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A
But where was he getting his money?
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B
Who? Devon Archer?
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A
Yeah.
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B
From the Russians. From the Russian, the mayor, the 3 million?
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A
Or.
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B
No, no, from the mayor of Russia, the Russian, the wife of the mayor. The 3 million, they're saying that went to Hunter Biden, that was Devon Archer's deal. And then he was getting paid by Barisma. He was getting paid by Barisma, $85,000 a month. Plus, plus, plus, plus. He was. He was getting equally whatever Hunter was getting and maybe even more.
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A
So how did he put him in position to have his laptop taken?
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B
So here we go. So it was. So it was Devin Archer's birthday and they were in Paris and Hunter gets all messed up. You know, he. Because of his drugs and alcohol, and all of a sudden, Hunter wakes up not in Paris, but in Kazakhstan. So Devin brought him there in a blacked out state of mind, continuing the party that they were going to, party continuing in Kazakhstan. And they were trying to also simultaneously working out some deal for Burisma. So he dragged Hunter along while Hunter was in a drug infused stage when they got to Kazakhstan.
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A
And were you there? Like, how do you know all this?
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B
I know this from four different people that were there. So that's what I'm saying.
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A
Yeah, Remember, right? The famous love remembers.
- [34:54]
B
Yeah. And I challenge all of them, you know, sue me, you know me, let's get the truth out. Yeah, Prove me wrong, show me, give me the evidence.
- [35:01]
A
You know, he's blackout on drugs and drunk and wakes up in Kazakhstan.
- [35:06]
B
In Kazakhstan. And at this point, this is where his laptop gets taken by the, not only the gru, but also Chevsky's people. And they take a copy of it, you know, mess with it and basically have it now in their background to use it whenever they needed to if the time came as the bomb to use against the Ukrainians, the Bidens, the Americans and so on. And so they had this for a while. But the leak, it started leaking because the first time we heard about it was when Lutsenko, the ex prosecutor of Ukraine and about March of 2019, first mentioned it to me and Giuliani, he said that there is a hard drive that I could get to that has all of Hunter Biden's stuff. And that didn't pan out for like three months. We were chasing it, then pan out then in Japan.
- [35:55]
A
You know what that reminds me of was the, you know, a Miffsud, you know, hey, I, I have some Hillary emails if you're interested.
- [36:01]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was just like dangling the carrot. And. And then about three, four months later, June, we get a call from Vitaly Proust, which is one of the people that was in the room and all of this, and told that me and Rudy, Rudy, that story that I just told you basically. And he started telling us about that he could broker a deal with Lecheski. Because what a lot of people don't know is Rudy told Zlochevsky through proofs that there's an open investigation in the DOJ against Zachevsky and nobody knew about this, it wasn't public information. And we used that to threaten Zlachevsky to be able to give us dirt on Hunter and Joe Biden. And that's when we had that exchange of those 12 questions, asking him directly if there was a bribe to the Bidens and Zlachevsky didn't want to play ball. Gave us the answers, as you could say. There was no bribe, nothing like that. And that's basically what was up to then. Then fast forwarded to three months later. It was I think August or September of 2019. Right. A month before my arrest, we were in Vienna. I was dealing with Dimitri Firtech. He was working with us. And the whole time we were pushing Firtish to basically get Zlachevsky to give us dirt on the Bidens, like force Lachevsky because Firtos had the power over him and Firtos never want to get involved. He kept, you know, being like, I don't want to be in between the Bidens and the Trumps. I just want to make sure my, my extradition goes away. So everybody had their, everybody, they had their own little thing going.
- [37:40]
A
Everybody's a transactional.
- [37:42]
B
Right, exactly, exactly. You know, get them right. And. But we started pushing him hard. Giuliani really pushed him and said listen if he wants because at that point we already had a meeting with Bill Barr and basically Victoria Tunzing got his extradition put on the side. And as you can see, he still hasn't been died.
- [38:02]
A
So, so I don't know how Tonesung and Degenerate didn't get arrested.
- [38:07]
B
I, I mean, I guess Bill Barr.
- [38:09]
A
Must have written up a bunch of non prosecution memos, you know.
- [38:12]
B
Yeah, I mean, well, they got Bill bar the the job. Tonsing got Bill bar the job. So I mean that's what you said.
- [38:19]
A
Yeah. So, so now how did this, how did this hard drive.
- [38:23]
B
So here we go. Yeah.
- [38:26]
A
And in a Mac store in Delaware.
- [38:30]
B
Yeah. So while I this is going on, we're pushing Firtos all of a sudden. October 6th, so I get arrested October 9th, remember? So October 5th or 6th I get a call from Fear to show people saying that he's going to bring Alexander Gurbanenko is going to come to Vienna. That's the ex CFO of Burisma and he's going to bring the hard drive, have Rudy fly down. So I fly to Washington D.C. on October 6th or 7th, tell this to Rudy. We have a meeting and we have a meeting in Fox, I think on the 7th or 8th where we're in the boardroom of Fox and we discuss how we're going to break this news and we decide that Hannity's going to do a special with Victor Shokin where Rudy's going to interview Victor Shulkin. He's going to come out and say this and then Rudy's going to pick up and show the hard drive and say we're coming home with it. So that was the plan.
- [39:24]
A
It's unbelievable.
- [39:25]
B
We're supposed to. The next morning, we're supposed to all be on a flight to Vienna while Tunzing and degenerate canceled that night, saying that the Geneva had a cold. And he did look a little sick. So I don't think they got any warning at that moment because he looked like he wasn't feeling well. But in the morning, we meet up with Rudy. We're sitting in the Trump hotel in D.C. and he tells us he got a call from Trump. He needs to see him at the White House so he can't make the flight with us. He'll come see us Monday. This was a Thursday. He said, set everything up for the weekend and I'll be there, I think Sunday or Monday. And I thought nothing of it because it was just like any other time. And that's when we went to the airport and we got arrested and we're here. The interesting part is that Victoria afterwards went to Vienna, obviously, because she was still representing Firtos and. And the timing, the way. And then Alexander Gurbanenko, which a lot of people don't know now, lives in the United States. So how. How that hard drive got here, I was not privy and I was not there. But it had to have come from.
- [40:29]
A
You were under arrest, taking the fall for the shadow diplomacy that had gone.
- [40:33]
B
Correct, correct. While. While I was sitting in that prison, they were doing, you know, wrangling the troops and figuring out how to get this stuff in because it was so important. But that wasn't the only hard. Hard drive, laptop. There another laptop. And another group that was working with the Bannon and the Roger Stone guys, they were working with another laptop that got stolen from Hunter by Dr. Abedin. I don't know if you remember that whole thing. And I truly believe that that's the laptop that MacIsaac would try to push to the FBI what the FBI originally took from McIsaac. But when. What. When the FBI wouldn't come out and open an investigation because there was nothing there, no criminal activity, the Bannon Stone really started getting nervous and started pushing. That's when all the media that the FBI is covering up, that they don't want to show the laptop, and here comes my arrest and Giuliani with the hard drive. And all of a sudden now macisa calls up Giuliani out of the blue and says, I want to give you and Costello the computer or hard drive or whatever he gave him. And the next thing you know it's on the New York Post and all kinds of stuff all over it.
- [41:42]
A
Yeah. And actually people took their names off that New York Post story because it was.
- [41:46]
B
Yeah, it was so bullshit.
- [41:48]
A
But I also wanted to ask you. A lot of the information you were gathering while you were over in Ukraine that you, Rudy and Igor were putting together was actually laundered into Congress through folks, through Rudy Giuliani. I remember there was like a manila envelope that he had Senator Ron Johnson in. Ron Johnson and Pompeii. And I was wondering because you had mentioned briefly in the documentary in From Russia with of I was glad handing with the Vice President, the president, Congress people, senators. It was an amazing time, you know, and I want to know if you know any, have any information about any conversations that took place with any members of Congress to get this Russian disinformation. Basically I called it information laundering. Right. You put it in a congressional committee and all of a sudden it's got legitimacy. I was wondering if you were privy to any of those conversations.
- [42:41]
B
Yeah, Senator Ron Johnson was our guy in the Senate that was pushing it. He was close to Victoria Tunzing and Jodi Genova and I remember them speaking to him and you know, he was on speaker and they were telling him we're going to give you the information. We're having a hard time push it through. Because at that time we only had Fox on the Hill and even Fox it wasn't full Fox. It was only Hannity, Laura Ingraham, the late night shows. But during the daytime we couldn't get into the mass media until Ken Vogel came into the fix. That's where people don't understand. You know, Ken Vogel's May 10 New York Times article was the thing that we needed and what Rudy was pushing for to be able to get the mass media involved on the whole Hunter Biden stuff. If you take a Look at that May 10th article, that's what started the whole thing. And because we couldn't get it in.
- [43:29]
A
Yeah. So now my question becomes, you know, Vander Swan and Gregory Craig got in trouble for putting out articles on behalf of Tamoshenko's opponent Yanukovych or the Russian bloc there in Ukraine. They were actually pled guilty to failing to register as a foreign agent for putting these articles out. I'm just at a loss as to how any of these people escape justice. But then I immediately remember Bill Barr was there the whole time brought in by Tonsingha digenova and probably just writing, you know, writing memos. Non prosecution memos and closing it down. One other thing. Well, I have a hundred other things I want to ask you, but something I've always been curious about is when Bill Barr and John Durham went to Italy to watch Miffsud testify, Italy told them about a crime so egregious that, that it caused Bill Barr to elevate Durham to special counsel level so he could criminally investigate. But it wasn't. It was a Trump crime. Do you know what that is?
- [44:41]
B
No, I wish I did.
- [44:44]
A
If you know anybody.
- [44:44]
B
I wish I did. You know, the one great thing about us and that, you know, I've been getting calls from people and I don't want to. That are now coming out of the woodworks with God's help that, you know, things are coming out so. Absolutely.
- [44:59]
A
Well, that's what's so incredible about, about, you know, your story and stories like Michael Cohen's and anybody who's come out around to the other side and gotten out of the cult, as you called it, which rightfully you called it, that is that it gives a permission structure for other people to do the same thing.
- [45:17]
B
Absolutely. And that's. And that's the motto. If you protect. I mean, it's just like in a mob, you know, the boss is. You protect him at all costs and then you have the hierarchy and so on, and then that's the main thing there. That's why I talk about. Just think about it, Allison. People are talking about the elections, about, you know, Trump is out there saying this and that. The other thing, the one thing nobody even realizes who would run our country because Donald Trump's the like, if he were to be president, that's just one position. Who would be our chief of. Who'd be the Chief of staff? Jason Miller. Who would you. Who would be your Attorney General? Cash Patel. Who's gonna be your state? Stephen Miller. Dhs. Michael Flynn.
- [45:57]
A
The Attorney General.
- [45:58]
B
Like Michael Flynn as your Secretary of State. I mean.
- [46:01]
A
Or Defense. Right.
- [46:02]
B
Or Defense. Here comes Project 2025 right in. Like, you know, it's.
- [46:06]
A
Yeah.
- [46:07]
B
All. It's, it's like, who else is going to be there? Elon Musk. I mean, come on. It's incredible how, how you could just think about there's not, not one normal person that would work in that administration. Except for Crook Steves and hustlers.
- [46:20]
A
Yeah, 100%. After these messages. We'll be right back. All right, so let's talk about the book that you released because I really think people need to grab it because all of this and More everything that we ended, you know, all of the questions we ended up with in our heads after we saw From Russia with Lev are all answered in this book. So talk about what, what prompted you to write this book? I mean, my guess is you just are really, really adamantly wanting to get the truth out there.
- [46:59]
B
Yeah. What happened was, like I said, when I went to prison, I already thought at that point that I'm never going to be able to testify, never going to be able to get the truth out. I thought, that's it. My life is done. I'm going to prison and it's never going to happen. And I was speaking at the time with a gentleman who was a book writer out of New York. And he was a small, you know, not a big time book writer, but somebody. We were just having communication, somebody that I started becoming friendly with, and he basically visited me in prison and we started talking and I decided that, well, I have all this time in prison. I'm going to put down my memoirs, start putting down things so I don't forget, and things like that. And then after another visit, we decided to, that this would be the best way to get my story out and get the truth out there. That even though I didn't testify, even though I wasn't able to, you know, give my story under oath, at least it would be a good way to get it out. And also when I get out of prison, maybe hopefully have some way to be able to feed my kids, my family and so on. And we started writing. We started writing and writing and writing and writing. And by the time we were done, it was over almost a thousand pages. It was over 900 pages. He says, we can't put out a book this big. So we then had to start narrowing it down. And it ended up, I think, close to 375 pages. But he did a miraculous job. And we were able to put. Put in there everything that I would have testified to if they would have asked questions, and everything that I would have said, you know, basically, and everything that happened, because what people don't understand that this hour and a half movie with that Rachel and Billy did, it's just the tip of the iceberg. It just talks about one situation and one part of time that we did in Ukraine. But what it does show, incredibly, is the way Trump handled things and the way the administration was run. Now take a look. I was also involved, Alison. I was on the phone with Nicolas Maduro, Pete Sessions, Rudy Giuliani, discussing a soft landing for Trump. There's a Reason why Trump talks right now. You hear him on the campaign trail talking about Venezuela constantly. He even told Elon Musk that, you know, if we lose him and him, Elon will go to Venezuela, you know, because. And he has a very different relationship. He was planning on giving Maduro a soft landing. He was going to let him keep all the money and having Maduro and his bandits come. Even Maduro made a statement to Pete Sessions saying, I can't wait to wear my Cowboys jersey and watch TV in Texas. So this was the plan. Rudy went to the White House to speak to him, and at that point, John Bolton was there. And John Bolton overheard that Rudy was starting to lobby for Maduro, and he flipped and basically told Rudy to go screw him himself. There was also a meeting we were supposed to set up with Maduro and Trump in New York when Maduro was there at the UN Council, when they brought him in there, if you remember, in 2019, we were in New York. We were in New York and Trump and him were supposed to meet. And then Bolton Pompeo flipped out, canceled it. And for a long time they haven't come out.
- [50:05]
A
Because I remember Rudy going to Bill Barr to try to get some of his Venezuelan friends off the hook.
- [50:10]
B
Oh, absolutely. I was with him. It was. We were in Spain, actually. And the person that he was representing was a Maduro guy that then flipped, started all of a sudden funding Guaido because he was under indictment in the United States. So me and Rudy flew to Spain to meet with Guaido's father. Rudy was taping secret tapes, so only Trump would see that he would play for him in the White House, that nobody would see through shadow diplomacy channels about begging for more funding for Venezuela and Guaido administration. I mean, they play both sides and we're all over. And the interesting part is, I think now people like John Bolton are coming out and we'll also start validating some of the stuff, especially with Venezuela. I think John Bolton has a lot to say about that, and I look forward to people asking him some questions about this time and what happens, because I think it's important with all of these, you know, the way Trump is trying to get the vote from a lot of the, you know, Venezuelan, the Spanish people, especially down in Florida, if they had any idea what Trump was really up to and his relationship with Maduro, it would be, you know, disaster for him. And this is one of the things he's hiding in the campaign. I mean, there's other things, like nobody knows. I introduced Trump to Erdogan, the Turkish president. Because back then, the way I set him up with Brian Ballard, Ballard was his lobbyist at the time. And he then started being the lobbyist for Turkey and Hulk Bank. If you remember the whole Hulk bank situation.
- [51:47]
A
I remember the whole Hulk bank situation.
- [51:49]
B
That's what I'm saying. Right. I mean, there was just so much to it. That's what I'm saying to you. That's why the book really goes into detail about a lot of things.
- [51:58]
A
And that book is available everywhere right now. Right. So anybody. Because it's going to make a great holiday gift. Like I said, I, I buy books for people for, for the holidays.
- [52:07]
B
The best is just to follow me on or go to ww.lev remembers.com and there I'll show you everywhere on tour, the book and everything else that's going on with me. So you, you could go to there.
- [52:20]
A
Awesome. My favorite thing is to order it through small bookshops. Let's talk more about. Before I let you go, I just want to talk a little bit more about other stuff that. That didn't make. It didn't make the cut. But I want to talk more about Firtosh. Can you talk a little bit? I've been calling him Firtash forever.
- [52:35]
B
So I know how to. You say tomato, I say tomato. Firtes. Firtash. It's okay. Yeah. No. So that was a huge part that didn't make it into the movie because it was. It would have taken up too much part. I think it's a movie of its own. There are parts that didn't make it to a movie that are like movies of their own. Fear T is a main character. He's one of the most powerful men in the world. He controls probably over 30% of all the natural gas and oil that is sold and transported all over Eastern Europe. And he's a very close ally to Vladimir Putin. And he's also Ukrainian and he's also involved in all of Ukrainian politics and controls most of all the Ukrainian natural gas and natural industries. So that's who Dmitry Firtes is. He was involved in a case, a corruption case with Boeing going back about now. It's, I think 10 years already almost. And he was indicted and they were. America was trying to extradite him here. He paid 100 and something, $40 million bail, which was one of the largest at that time. And he's been sitting in house arrest in Vienna all this time. Until one day when we were in May. This was when we were. When we left if you remember, when we left Ukraine, after we got threatened by Kolomonsky, we went to Paris because we were meeting up with Rudy there during the inauguration to oversee the inauguration when Parry was flying there. So while we were in Paris at the. At one of the bars, Igor bumped into one of his longtime friends. His name was also Dimitri and he happened to be Dimitri Firtos, right hand. And when he saw that we were there with Rudy, we started talking what we're doing. He was obviously aware of a lot of the stuff that was going on. Like all of the. And politicians and criminals in Ukraine knew the whole Biden stuff. At the time it was already. Because it was making not as big news here, but all over Ukraine. It was all over the papers, big news that what we were doing and stuff like that. And he started chiming in, basically telling us, like if you need to, I could set up a meeting with Dimitri Firtosh. And we were at awe because at that time Lenny Davis represented him and he wouldn't speak to nobody. There was no way to get to Dimitri Firtech. So we get back to the United States, me, Rudy sit down with John Solomon until we update him on our trip, like we would always do. We would sit down at the BLT and go over what happened. And when Solomon heard that we met with Dimitri Firtes, this guy, and that we could get to Dimitri Firtes, his eyes lit up. He was like, oh my God, he's the missing piece to this whole puzzle. And basically whipped out, he goes, I'll be back. Went into his car, came back and whipped out a manila folder with all of this stuff. Some of those WikiLeak leaks, some of it was State Department, what's it called, secret stuff like Victoria Newland Communications, that she was having all kinds of this stuff basically that I should not have had. And he gave that to me and said, use this to show Firtish that you're serious, that you're basically, you're not just joking around. And with that package I was able to fly to Vienna, meet up with Firteish after. After two weeks spending there, spending time convincing him, finally we got Warfirtes turned around and said, listen, I want to see Giuliani directly. But Giuliani couldn't fly out to Vienna because the media would flip out. So we did the best thing. Next best thing is we flew to London and Firtes couldn't fly. So he sent his lawyers and Giuliani came. And at that meeting, basically Giuliani explained to them that we need Firtosh to be able to give us information in his file that had to do with a deal that supposedly Andrew Weissman offered him a get out of free jail card during the Mueller report if he would testify against Putin and Trump and Victoria Solomon and Tunzing really wanted that information. Plus, they also wanted in fear Tish's case. Nobody knew. But the reason Victor Shulkin was not coming out in full detail, because Viktor Shokin would come out and say that blame Biden for him getting fired. But he never came out and actually said that Hunter Biden or Barisma did anything criminal. He always said that he needed to look into the investigation and if he would have done it, he would have found it. But they stopped him. But nobody knew that in fear that Victor Shokin gave a sworn statement in Vienna in court under ODE and Firtosh's case, where he went out on the limb and said that Biden there was corruption and all of that. And when we became lawyers with Firtush, when Victor Tunzin became his lawyers, she got that information and she basically took that without Firtosh's knowledge. And that's when Rudy went on TV with that Viktor Shokin letter saying, we got him. It was a whole big blowback inside of you in the Firtos camp because he was scared that the Viennese court courts would flip and, you know, because they're the only ones that were not holding him from the extradition case. So that's just one of the things. I mean, other things. I'll give you an example. People in that whole fear to Rick Grinnell. He slides by. Rick Grinnell was the ambassador of Germany at the time. And I remember when there was a time Firtesh called me up, his lawyers called me up saying that it looks like word came down that they're going to extradite him any day. I called Victoria. We all got together, the BLT team. And I remember her on speakerphone. First, Bill Barr, we need to meet tomorrow because it's a sense of case. They're looking to extradite him. Talking about fear Tish on the phone where Bill Barr was discussing telling her that, no, you have time. Then she called up Rick Grinnell. Rick Grinnell, telling him, because he was the ambassador Germany. She told him that if he sees anything come over the wire that they might be extraditing him. And Grinnell told her, if I see anything, I'll let you guys know. So this is the type of things that were going on. I mean, I could go on and on and on, but it's just. There's a lot. There was a lot. And that's one of the problems with getting all this information out, because most people get lost in the weaves. There's just so much, so many different players involved.
- [58:58]
A
Like, every sentence is a bombshell. Lev, the fact that Andrew Weissman offered Firtesh a deal to testify against Trump and he didn't take that deal and he was never indicted is just mind blowing. It's just mind blowing. Well, Lev, I could talk to you for 10 hours. I could talk to you for days. We could make seven more movies. Every line here is like a bombshell that I want to unpack. It's just incredible. And so I hope that you'll come back on the show.
- [59:34]
B
Absolutely. Awesome.
- [59:36]
A
We'll do everything we can to get this information out, to get the truth out there. I'm always happy to help do that. That and excellent documentary. Everybody needs to watch it. From Russia with Lev. And everybody needs to get the book Shadow Diplomacy. I really, really appreciate you spending time with me today. Let's do it again.
- [59:55]
B
Absolutely. Awesome. Let's do it. And thank you so much for all the great work you do.
- [59:59]
A
Oh, thank you for the kind words. All right, everybody, thank you so much for listening. I'll be back in your ears tomorrow. We'll have the good news. Send it in to us@dailybeanspod.com and click on contact. Until then, men, please take care of yourselves. Take care of each other, take care of the planet, take care of your mental health, take care of your framley. Vote blue over Q. Bring someone with you. Go to vote Org. Check your registration status. Vote down ballot all the way. I've been ag and them's the beans. Refried beans. I like refried beans.