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Speaker 1: Yesterday, President Donald Trump told The New York Times it

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Speaker 1: would cross a red line if Special Council Robert Mueller

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Speaker 1: started investigating business dealings that weren't connected to Russia. Trump

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Speaker 1: left open open the possibility he could fire Muller. Well, today,

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg News is reporting that Mueller is now conducting a

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Speaker 1: wide ranging inquiry into transactions involving Trump's businesses and those

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Speaker 1: of his associates. Among other things, investigators are looking at

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Speaker 1: Russian purchases of apartments and Trump owned buildings, miss Universe

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Speaker 1: pageant in Moscow, and Trump's sale of a Florida mansion

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Speaker 1: to a Russian oligarch. That's all, according to a person

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Speaker 1: familiar with the probe with us to talk about this

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Speaker 1: is one of the reporters who broke the story, Christian Berthelsson.

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Speaker 1: He's a federal courts reporter for Bloomberg. Christian, thanks so

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Speaker 1: much for taking the time to be here with us. Um,

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Speaker 1: just give us a sense of just how broad this

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Speaker 1: investigation into Donald Trump's business dealings seems to be. Based

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Speaker 1: on your reporting. Well, it's early days in this investigation,

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Speaker 1: and you know, uh, relatively the uh. Robert Mueller was

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Speaker 1: just appointed a little about two months ago to take over, UH,

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Speaker 1: the US inquiry into whether Russia meddled in the presidential election.

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Speaker 1: And they're still gathering a lot of various sort of

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Speaker 1: strains of inquiry into the president's relationship with Russia and

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Speaker 1: Eastern European businesses in general. UM. As part of that,

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Speaker 1: you know, and in looking at these issues, at what

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Speaker 1: they're looking at are sort of the origins of Trump's

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Speaker 1: relationship with Russia and other countries in Eastern Europe. UH,

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Speaker 1: probably to sort of give them a base from which

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Speaker 1: to go forward in understanding UH the other more interactions

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Speaker 1: and whether any of them woke to law Christian. In

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Speaker 1: your story, according to someone familiar with the developing inquiry

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Speaker 1: but not authorized to speak publicly, you say, the roots

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Speaker 1: of Mahler's in investigation lie in a wide ranging money

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Speaker 1: laundering probe launched by former Manhattan US Attorney pre Berrara

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Speaker 1: last year. Tell us about that part of it. That's correct, so, UH,

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Speaker 1: The U S Attorneys Office in New York, under Mr Barrara,

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Speaker 1: initiated an investigation into Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort, UH

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Speaker 1: looking at money laundering issues. UH in in several different transactions. UM,

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Speaker 1: that inquiry. You know, Mr Barra was fired in March,

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Speaker 1: along with forty five other U S attorneys around the

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Speaker 1: country who were Obama administration and pointees, and that inquiry

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Speaker 1: was then sort of absorbed into Mr Mueller's Russia investigation.

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Speaker 1: He was appointed Christian uh In the interview with New

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Speaker 1: York Times, the President said that if if Mueller starts

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Speaker 1: looking into business dealings that are not connected to Russia,

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Speaker 1: that would be a red line for him. Is everything

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Speaker 1: that you've learned about this investigation connected to Russia in

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Speaker 1: one we or another. Yeah, definitely that that seems to

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Speaker 1: be uh the sort of unifying link between all of it,

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Speaker 1: um and it. You know, if you look at the

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Speaker 1: letter that uh Rod Rosenstein wrote to a point Mr Mueller,

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Speaker 1: you can see it's a fairly broad mandate in there.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, obviously it talks about investigating Russian

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Speaker 1: UH manipulation of the US election last year, but there's

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Speaker 1: also sort of catch all language that basically allows the

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Speaker 1: investigation to go wherever it logically should. But you're right,

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Speaker 1: I mean, Trump's comments to the New York Times appeared

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Speaker 1: throw down this gauntlet where he's saying a certain level

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Speaker 1: of Russia inquiry is fine, but if you start going

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Speaker 1: into my business dealing sets off limits, which sort of

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Speaker 1: raises a question of whether we're this is ultimately going

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Speaker 1: to end in some kind of uh, you know, standoff

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Speaker 1: or something between them and Christian. As far as Jared Kushner,

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Speaker 1: where does the investigation there go? Because there was also

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Speaker 1: some questions about his uh the twenty billion dollar investment

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Speaker 1: in the black Stone Group, which has ties the Chrishner

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Speaker 1: family has tied to, shortly after he negotiated the arm

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Speaker 1: sale to Saudi Arabia. So is it going that far? Uh,

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Speaker 1: we don't know. We we have not heard from our

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Speaker 1: sources if that is a part of it, but you know,

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Speaker 1: definitely is uh. You know, money financing of Kushner developments

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Speaker 1: is part of the inquiry as well as sort of

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Speaker 1: more back in the main about uh, you know, Kushner's

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Speaker 1: contacts with Russians that he first did not disclose uh

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Speaker 1: in uh in all of his ethics forms and such. Christian.

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Speaker 1: Let's see if we can do this in twenty seconds,

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Speaker 1: because that's all we have. Uh. This is just one

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Speaker 1: avenue that Robert Muller is pursuing, right, what else is

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Speaker 1: he looking at more broadly, that's correct. So so the

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Speaker 1: trans all the sort of financial transactions and business dealings

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Speaker 1: are only one part of of what sounds like a

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Speaker 1: very sort of wide ranging and possibly definitive examination by

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Speaker 1: Mr Miller and his team of all things related to

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Speaker 1: Russia and the election last year. Okay, we're gonna have

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Speaker 1: to leave it there. Thank you so much. Christian Berthelson,

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg reporter who broke the story about Robert Muller looking

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Speaker 1: into many of Donald Trump's business dealings.