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Speaker 1: On this episode of News World. The chief weapon deployed

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Speaker 1: by the power establishment of government, big media, big tech

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Speaker 1: in Wall Street against the Trump campaign and presidency was propaganda.

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Speaker 1: Time and again, allegations from anonymous sources were disseminated by

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Speaker 1: a partisan media promoted by a dishonest Democratic Party leadership,

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Speaker 1: and ultimately debunked when the facts surfaced. But by the

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Speaker 1: time the truth came out, it was too late. There

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Speaker 1: had already been casualties. One of the highest profile casualties

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Speaker 1: was an old friend of mine, Paul Manafort, and he's

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Speaker 1: joining me today to discuss his new book, Political Prisoner, Persecuted,

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Speaker 1: Prosecuted But Not Silenced. Paul is a political consultant and

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Speaker 1: government affairs professional whose career spans five decades, devoted to

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Speaker 1: furthering the interest in the United States in the world stage.

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Speaker 1: As campaign chairman for Donald Trump's two sixteen presidential campaign,

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Speaker 1: Paul put into place the structure that delivered the nomination

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Speaker 1: and eventually the general election for Donald J. Trump. Between

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five and nineteen eighty, Paul worked on the

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Speaker 1: Ford and Reagan campaigns, playing a key role in the

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Speaker 1: election of Ronald Reagan in nineteen eighty. In nineteen eighty one,

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Speaker 1: Paul co founded black Maniford and Stone, and in two

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Speaker 1: thousand and nine he found a DMP International. Paul presently

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Speaker 1: serves on the board of directors of a number of

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Speaker 1: private companies in the technology and telecommunications arena. Paul, welcome

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Speaker 1: and thank you for joining me on News World. It's

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Speaker 1: good to be with you, mister speaker. Since we worked

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Speaker 1: on the Trump campaign and the national convention in twenty sixteen,

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Speaker 1: you have been through a real whirlwind and roller coaster

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Speaker 1: of a life and ways. I am confident you never expected.

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Speaker 1: You grew up in New Britain, Connecticut and a large

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Speaker 1: Italian family, So, Paul, if you would tell me a

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Speaker 1: little bit about your upbringing. I grew up in an

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Speaker 1: Italian household. I was second generation Italian. My grandfather had

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Speaker 1: come over from Italy when he was ten years old,

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Speaker 1: came out of boat by himself, was met at Ellis

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Speaker 1: Island and lived with relatives. At a young age. As

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Speaker 1: a teenager, he created a company with one other person

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Speaker 1: and a pickaxe as demolition company, where they would take

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Speaker 1: down small buildings and really make money off of the

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Speaker 1: salvage from the demolition and then My father and his

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Speaker 1: two brothers were the next generation and took the company

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Speaker 1: to another level. And now that company is in the

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Speaker 1: fifth generation and is one of the largest companies dealing

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Speaker 1: with nuclear deconstruction as well as major demolition projects. After

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Speaker 1: your father served to World War Two, he registered as

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Speaker 1: a Republican. Pretty unusual, a high school educated blue collar

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Speaker 1: worker in New Britain at the time. Why do you

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Speaker 1: think he made that choice. Well, it was very specific

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Speaker 1: as to why he fought in the Battle of the

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Speaker 1: Bulge and in the European theater, and they believed that

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Speaker 1: he was fighting for the freedom of the Europeans. When

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Speaker 1: Yalta happened and Roosevelt gave away Eastern Europe to the

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Speaker 1: Soviet Union, my father was incensed. I mean, he felt,

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Speaker 1: why are they giving these countries to a totalitarian regime

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Speaker 1: when we've just finished fighting and bleeding to free these people.

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Speaker 1: He came back from Europe and said, I don't want

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Speaker 1: to be a Democrat. I will not associate with a

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Speaker 1: party that can just utiliterate with his pen give away

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Speaker 1: the freedom of millions of people. And he became a

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Speaker 1: blue collar working class probably eventually mayor and the leader

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Speaker 1: in the Republicanship party in Connecticut, as I understand that

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Speaker 1: he served three terms as mayor, so you were right

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Speaker 1: inside the political process from childhood. From childhood and seen

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Speaker 1: him why he was a Republican and seeing how he

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Speaker 1: ran for mayor for reasons Trump ran for president, which

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Speaker 1: were to stop a system that had an entrenched bureaucracy

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Speaker 1: that was not doing very much for the working class

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Speaker 1: people of the city. And he ran as the working

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Speaker 1: class mayor and was elected three times in a city

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Speaker 1: that was like four to one Democrat. So when you're

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Speaker 1: in high schools, I understand you ran for mayor of

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Speaker 1: New Britain for a day, but you lost. We had

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Speaker 1: four high schools in Connecticut, and my father wanted to

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Speaker 1: get young people more involved in politics, and so he

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Speaker 1: set up a structure where each of the high schools

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Speaker 1: elected four representatives to a city council, and then the

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Speaker 1: sixteen members elected a mayor. I thought I had the votes.

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Speaker 1: I was elected from my school, and I thought I

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Speaker 1: had ten of the sixteen votes, but at last minute

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Speaker 1: deal I dropped down to seven and I lost. I

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Speaker 1: learned how to count votes for the first time that day,

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Speaker 1: and I gather that sort of guy you thinking about

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Speaker 1: this whole process of organizing and managing public service and politics.

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Speaker 1: That's exactly right. I started to focus on the first

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Speaker 1: time how important organization was and began to be interested

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Speaker 1: both in the public side but also in the organizational side,

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Speaker 1: and carried through into my college years and then into

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Speaker 1: my adult life. What drew you from Connecticut to Georgetown. Well,

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Speaker 1: I was interested in politics, and I went to school

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Speaker 1: in the late sixties, going to Washington in nineteen sixty seven,

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Speaker 1: and that was the epicenter of politics at the time,

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Speaker 1: and we had very tumultuous time and everything seemed to

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Speaker 1: be going on in Washington. I wanted to get involved

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Speaker 1: in Republican politics, and so I felt like going to Washington,

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Speaker 1: DC it would allow me to engage at a high

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Speaker 1: level from the very beginning. And from your perspective, did

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Speaker 1: you see yourself as a conservative in that cycle or

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Speaker 1: how would you have placed yourself? Yeah, I did. The

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Speaker 1: College Republicans at the time was a conservative organization and

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Speaker 1: got involved in that. YAFF was very active at that

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Speaker 1: point in time. I was not a member of YAFF,

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Speaker 1: but a number of my friends were. I should say

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Speaker 1: YEAFF was Young Americans for Freedom which is a conservative

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Speaker 1: student group, and so I found myself associated with a

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Speaker 1: lot of the Young American for Freedom meetings and things

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Speaker 1: like that, and on the college campuses, I was definitely

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Speaker 1: part of a conservative group that was speaking out against

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Speaker 1: some of the protests that were going on at the time.

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Speaker 1: In sixties, When did you begin to really get involved

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Speaker 1: directly in political campaigning? Really when I went to Washington

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Speaker 1: in sixty seven, the Nixon campaign was just started up,

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Speaker 1: so I got involved in youth for Nixon. Moving in Washington,

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Speaker 1: worked at the national headquarters for Nixon that was out

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Speaker 1: of Washington, and became active in that regard. Because I

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Speaker 1: was involved in the College Republicans, which at that time

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Speaker 1: was a more powerful organization than it is today and

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Speaker 1: had been an active part of the Goldwater campaign in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty four election, I found myself slotted into

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Speaker 1: a national violent here kind of role and building support

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Speaker 1: for Nixon on the college campuses. And so almost immediately

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Speaker 1: I was dealing on a national level in different organizations

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Speaker 1: to promote the Nixon campaign. So you were first actively

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Speaker 1: involved with the Nixon campaign, yes, and then during his

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Speaker 1: second term I was very involved in the re elect

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Speaker 1: campaign again used in the College Republicans and Young Republicans

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Speaker 1: as a platform where I was going around speaking at

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Speaker 1: different campuses all over the country on behalf of the

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Speaker 1: reelected campaign, which was the most successful popular vote in

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Speaker 1: modern times. It was an incredible operation, yes, but then

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Speaker 1: after Nixon has to resign to go to the Watergate,

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Speaker 1: you end up with the next two major players, Jerry

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Speaker 1: Ford and then Ronald Reagan. I talked about it in

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Speaker 1: the book. It's pretty interesting in the sense that I

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Speaker 1: was now part of the National Conservative Operation and we

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Speaker 1: had just formed Nick Pack Charlie Black, Rogerstown myself and

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Speaker 1: started to raise money on a Nickpack, which is the

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Speaker 1: National Conservative Political Action Committee. Jesse Hell was doing our

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Speaker 1: letter writing, and it was the first major political pack

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Speaker 1: and we were able to raise an awful lot of

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Speaker 1: money off of direct mail at the beginning to make

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Speaker 1: it into a serious organization from day one. And I

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Speaker 1: got a phone call from a friend of mine at

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Speaker 1: the time asked me if I'd like to come over

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Speaker 1: to work in the White House because Rumsfeldt had whitewashed

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Speaker 1: the White House from any political structure and people at all.

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Speaker 1: But he had left to become Secretary of Defense, and

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Speaker 1: his assistant, the guy named Dick Cheney, became the chief

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Speaker 1: of staff, and Cheney was looking to bring some political

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Speaker 1: people into the White House at the time, because Ford

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Speaker 1: was starting to think about running for election behind his

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Speaker 1: own merits in nineteen seventy six. Because I was active

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Speaker 1: in the National Young Republicans and seemed to have a network,

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Speaker 1: some of my friends who were working in the White

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Speaker 1: House suggested that I'd be one of the people that

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Speaker 1: come over. I got an offer to do that. Before

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Speaker 1: I went over, however, I touched paces with Charlie Black,

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Speaker 1: a friend of mine. Wanted to know if we thought

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Speaker 1: Governor Reagan would run in seventy six for president, and

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Speaker 1: Black said he didn't think so, but I should call

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Speaker 1: out to Judge Clark, who was running Reagan's operation to California,

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Speaker 1: to let him know I've had this opportunity to White

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Speaker 1: House and let me know if I should turn it down.

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Speaker 1: So I called. Clark told me that Reagan wasn't planning

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Speaker 1: on running for president and that if I had an opportunity,

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Speaker 1: I should definitely take it. I was twenty five years

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Speaker 1: old time had a chance to work at the White

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Speaker 1: House in a political role, So I took it, and

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Speaker 1: of course, several months later, Reagan changed his mind decides

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Speaker 1: to challenge forward, and I get a phone call from

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Speaker 1: my friends Nick Peck saying you got to quit the

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Speaker 1: White House. I said, look, I can't do that now.

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Speaker 1: I'd made a commitment, even though I would have always

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Speaker 1: gone with Governor Reagan. First, I liked President Ford. I

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Speaker 1: think he's a good man. I think he's a good president,

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Speaker 1: and I feel like I can't change my equipment now,

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Speaker 1: to which point they then, as Dick Pack became more

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Speaker 1: successful that year, retired all of the notes of the

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Speaker 1: ten people that had formed Nick Back except May as

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Speaker 1: a way of punishing me. It was only a thousand dollars,

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Speaker 1: but a thousand dollars to me at that time was

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Speaker 1: an awful lot of money. But I stayed there and

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Speaker 1: ended up getting sent over to the campaign. Stu Spencer,

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Speaker 1: who had run Governor Reagan's gubernatorial races, was running Ford's operation.

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Speaker 1: He and I hit it off right away. Spencer wanted

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Speaker 1: me to go over to the campaign. They were reorganizing

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Speaker 1: it because Reagan was starting to beat for it in

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Speaker 1: the primaries, and I remember a meeting that I talked

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Speaker 1: about in the book where Ford is saying to a

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Speaker 1: senior group, which I was one of the people at

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Speaker 1: that time, that we needed to get somebody to manage

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Speaker 1: the campaign because a guy named Rogers Morden was a

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Speaker 1: congressman from the Eastern District in Maryland who was a

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Speaker 1: blue blood Republican, was the chairman and manager of the campaign.

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Speaker 1: He had no idea what he was doing. So they

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Speaker 1: decided to send me over to the campaign and they

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Speaker 1: were going to hire a guy who was a real

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Speaker 1: good man who could manage the details, and Spencer and

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Speaker 1: a couple of other people and I would be involved

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Speaker 1: to dealing with politics, and Cheney would run it from

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Speaker 1: the White House. And of course that person that they

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Speaker 1: called up was Jimmy Baker. So all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: at twenty five years old, I'm working with Jim Baker

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Speaker 1: as the campaign manager, Dick Cheney as the chief of staff,

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Speaker 1: and Stu Spencer as the consultant. And the people I

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Speaker 1: dealt with in that campaign ended up becoming the establishment

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Speaker 1: of the party over the next twenty years. Eventually Ford lost,

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Speaker 1: I made peace again with my Conservative friends and got

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Speaker 1: my note retired and was part of the senior staff

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Speaker 1: on Reagan's election campaign in nineteen seventy eight. Do you

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Speaker 1: think if Reagan had not run in seventy six and

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Speaker 1: the party had not been splitting, it was a very,

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Speaker 1: very narrow convention. I think got something like seventy votes,

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Speaker 1: actually something like seven votes on a key issue that

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Speaker 1: was the rules issue. I think Reagan hadn't won, Ford

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Speaker 1: would have won. I think the feelings were raw Ford

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Speaker 1: got boxed into being the established Shant Rockefeller candidate, and

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Speaker 1: that hurt in the general election, which was a very

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Speaker 1: close general election, as you know. So I come back

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Speaker 1: with one of the great campaigners and political leaders of

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Speaker 1: different field. Yeah. I still treasure the moments traveling with

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Speaker 1: him on the campaign, the stories he'd tell, and the

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Speaker 1: way I would see him. I'd hand him a commercial

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Speaker 1: that we needed to cut for the radio. He'd read it,

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Speaker 1: do one take and it was perfect. It would become

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Speaker 1: the add I was that kind of guy. I learned

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Speaker 1: a lot about why he felt so strongly about the country. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And I tell the story in the book. He used

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Speaker 1: to be the spokesman for General Electric and as the

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Speaker 1: spokesman for General Electric. They had a weekly television show

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Speaker 1: he would be going to different General Electric plants around

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Speaker 1: talk to the employees. And those plants were generally in

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Speaker 1: So he told me he got to understand the fabric

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Speaker 1: he felt being president was important. You had black Maniphortan Stone,

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Speaker 1: which is one of the most prestigious and successful political

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Speaker 1: consulting groups in the country, and you've done really well,

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Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you get approached by this

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Speaker 1: businessman who had never run for anything. Why did you

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Speaker 1: decide you would take on Trump? I knew Trump a

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Speaker 1: little bit. Roger Stone, my partner in those days, was

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Speaker 1: actually his first promoter, going back to the nineteen eighties

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Speaker 1: when he was working with Trump on the Riagan campaign.

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Speaker 1: Roger always said that this guy has got the qualities

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Speaker 1: to know him a little bit over the next twenty years.

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Speaker 1: But Roger was always the one dealing with him. In

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Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, when he announced, Stone had called me and

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Speaker 1: said he's gonna run. He's gonna take on the system,

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Speaker 1: in which I was happy about because I had sort

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Speaker 1: the Obama years because I felt Washington was losing sight

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Speaker 1: of why they existed and they were surviving for their

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Speaker 1: own establishment purposes a lot of the messages that Trump

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Speaker 1: defined as draining the swamp. And so when he announced,

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Speaker 1: and when Roger told me why he was running, it

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Speaker 1: made sense to me. But then something happened that it

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Speaker 1: never happened to me in my career. My family has

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Speaker 1: got a very successful business in Connecticut. It's a blue

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Speaker 1: collar business, construction business, and they were never involved in politics.

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Speaker 1: I started getting calls from my cousins for the first

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Speaker 1: time it asked me about Trump and telling me they

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Speaker 1: really liked what they were hearing. And so it started

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Speaker 1: to impact on me that what Roger had told me

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Speaker 1: and what was actually happening was impacting the country in

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Speaker 1: a way that Roger said it would. And I started

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Speaker 1: to engage, not in a serious way, but started to

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Speaker 1: follow him more. Liked what I saw. And Trump, as

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Speaker 1: you know, was an incredibly unique candidate. I mean, he

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Speaker 1: was way more than candidate, his own poster, He was

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Speaker 1: own communications director, he was his own strategist, and so

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Speaker 1: none of the roles of a typical campaign existed. His

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Speaker 1: Trump was playing all those roles and he was able

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Speaker 1: to pull off incredible successes in winning the primaries, but

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Speaker 1: primaries and winning the delegates, and Crews understood that Crews

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Speaker 1: whether it was going to be contested or where they

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Speaker 1: could make it into a second ballot operation. And so

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Speaker 1: with Trump's organization after the primaries, his whole organization moved

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Speaker 1: with him, what little there was, and there was nobody

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Speaker 1: left behind, really, which is when the delegates got elected.

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Speaker 1: So Cruz was picking up Trump delegates in physical bodies

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Speaker 1: who were going to be at the convention, which could

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Speaker 1: change the rules, could change the management of the convention,

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Speaker 1: and could seriously impact even having a majority of delegates

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Speaker 1: on the floor, but not having a majority of bodies

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Speaker 1: on the floor. And Trump, after the Louisiana convention, which

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Speaker 1: was after the primary that he had won big and

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Speaker 1: where the convention elected Cruise delegates to Trump. Spots was furious.

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Speaker 1: He thought the party is trying to rig the convention

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Speaker 1: against me. They're stealing an election. So he called Brian's

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Speaker 1: previous the chair of the R and C, and he

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Speaker 1: met with Ryance, and he was complaining about what was

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Speaker 1: happening to his delegates, and Rince looked at him and said, Trump,

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Speaker 1: because they didn't really know each other, realized that the

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Speaker 1: rules for election of delegates are different than just the primaries,

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Speaker 1: and Trump, you know, he wasn't in that level of

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Speaker 1: detail in the process. He really wasn't. And he looked

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Speaker 1: over at the people who were in the room with him.

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Speaker 1: You guys know about this. They didn't. And so nobody

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Speaker 1: had been paying attention to that issue because the one

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Speaker 1: rule Trump wasn't playing was the manager of the delegate operation,

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Speaker 1: and nobody else was. And so when they left that meeting,

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Speaker 1: he talked a couple of people, several of whom are

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Speaker 1: friends of mine, one of whom was Roger, and he

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Speaker 1: was told that he needed to get somebody who understood

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Speaker 1: how to like delegates and that was me, and I

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Speaker 1: had had that reputation going back because of the Ford Convention,

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Speaker 1: but also because in the convention politics that was a

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Speaker 1: role I was playing for twenty years. You had done

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Speaker 1: that for Reagan, Bush and Dole as well as for

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Speaker 1: Jerry Ford. That's correct, and there weren't too many people

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Speaker 1: who were interested in that because it's arcane. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: the direction of the future, but it was still an

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Speaker 1: important part of the nominating process. So I had that

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Speaker 1: skill set plus understanding politics nationally. Nobody else that wasn't

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Speaker 1: on the cruise campaign had it. And so he called me,

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Speaker 1: asked me to be involved, and I started the next day. Really, Hi,

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Speaker 1: this is nude. We have serious decisions to make about

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Speaker 1: at gingwishtree sixty dot com slash book. It's part of

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Speaker 1: that process. You have to end up picking a running bait.

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Speaker 1: How to that? Of all, I got involved in three

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Speaker 1: or four different ways of this thing, and you were

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Speaker 1: right in the middle of it. Part of my job

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Speaker 1: was to set up the process that was going to

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Speaker 1: select and I had talked to people who had run

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Speaker 1: the VP vetting process, and we needed to create a

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Speaker 1: structure because, as you know, there was a very sensitive

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Speaker 1: information that was getting shared by potential candidates who are

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Speaker 1: in the last part of the selection process as candidate nominees.

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Speaker 1: Your name was on the list from the very beginning.

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Speaker 1: I asked Trump in the first meeting when we started

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Speaker 1: focusing on this, who do you want us to consider?

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Speaker 1: He gave me a list of about ten people. You

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Speaker 1: were one of the names that he seriously was considering

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Speaker 1: and then he said, you had a couple more names,

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Speaker 1: if you will, because me and Lewandowski at the time,

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Speaker 1: ultimately Corey was not there in the final stages of

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Speaker 1: the process, and so I added a couple of names,

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Speaker 1: of which one was Pence, and Corey added Richard Burr's name, which,

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Speaker 1: of course Burr ended up being the guy who voted

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Speaker 1: to impeach Trump. I didn't think that was a very

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Speaker 1: good idea at the time, but you know, Corey had

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Speaker 1: the right to do that as well. And within a

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Speaker 1: short period of time the list Trump looked at, honed

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Speaker 1: it down and basically had three or four names in

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Speaker 1: the final cut. You'd be in one of them. And

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Speaker 1: I go through in the book the process that we

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Speaker 1: dealt with from that point on. I mean, the other

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Speaker 1: names on the list were besides you, obviously, Mike Pennce,

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Speaker 1: Joni Ernst, and Chris Christie, who had been a candidate

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Speaker 1: for president had been a long time friend of Trump's

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Speaker 1: very much wanted to be the VP nominee, but had

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Speaker 1: a problem with Jared pushed her and that Chris was

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Speaker 1: the prosecuting attorney that brought charges in conviction on Jared's father. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that probably did not create a really warm feeling. No,

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Speaker 1: it did. In Trump's own animical way. He decided that

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Speaker 1: the way we would resolve whether Chris should be on

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Speaker 1: the final list with you and Pence was to have

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Speaker 1: a meeting between Chris and Jared and Trump sitting in

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Speaker 1: the room with me, and they worked it out, and

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Speaker 1: no holds barred, worked it out. And I didn't think

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Speaker 1: that was the very best idea, but Trump said, no, no,

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Speaker 1: they got to work it out. If they can work

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Speaker 1: it out, then we could move forward. I Vaca was

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Speaker 1: in that meeting at first, and she said when her

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Speaker 1: father set the groundles and he was going to shut

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Speaker 1: up and let the two of them go at it,

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Speaker 1: vas I don't need to be in this room anymore.

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Speaker 1: She was the smart one. She left, and I got

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Speaker 1: to say, in all the meetings I've ever done with Trump,

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Speaker 1: it's the only meeting where he really did say nothing.

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Speaker 1: He sat back, and it was the most uncomfortable thirty

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Speaker 1: minutes that I spent in the meeting. At the end

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Speaker 1: of that time, it was clear to Trump that he

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Speaker 1: could not comfortably include Chris in that final list. And

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Speaker 1: I go through that detail in the book A little

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Speaker 1: bit more than this so it really came out to

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Speaker 1: you and Pence. We were both mutual admiration Society. And

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Speaker 1: pens had actually sat next to Callista pro two years

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Speaker 1: when he was a freshman. She was the chief clerk

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Speaker 1: of the Agriculture Committee and he was solo in the

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Speaker 1: totem pole. He literally sat next to the chief clerk

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Speaker 1: and would like all good freshman commit and saying, now

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Speaker 1: what are we doing today and how long will we

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Speaker 1: be here and all that stuff. So they'd known each

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Speaker 1: other a long time, and he had used my gopack

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Speaker 1: tapes way back in the nineties. But I remember seeing

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Speaker 1: Trump about all this, and I finally turned and said,

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Speaker 1: you know, you can't possibly pick me. I said, I'm

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Speaker 1: a pirate. You're a pirate. You can't have a two

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Speaker 1: pirate ticket. You need a normal human being who can

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Speaker 1: reach out to Paul Ryan and others and get something done.

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Speaker 1: And I thought Pence in that sense was the perfect choice.

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Speaker 1: His solid guy had been in Congress, was good governor,

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Speaker 1: very very deeply religious and solid conservative. And I thought

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Speaker 1: it was absolutely the right choice. And as you'll remember,

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Speaker 1: I actually spoke just before Pence's acceptance speech, and I

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Speaker 1: thought he did a great job. He was what we

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Speaker 1: needed to sort of unify the party at that point.

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Speaker 1: I remember the meeting that you had with Trump because

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Speaker 1: in it as well, when you said exactly those words

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Speaker 1: to him, and Trump was conflicted because you he knew, well,

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Speaker 1: he trusted, and he saw the breath that you could

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Speaker 1: bring to his administration. And so when you said that,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I saw his admiration for you grow even more.

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Speaker 1: And I remember him saying you, well, if you take

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Speaker 1: yourself out of this, you have to be a key

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Speaker 1: part of my administration because I need your advice, I

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Speaker 1: need your counsel. And that was one of the moving

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Speaker 1: moments to me of my experience in that whole campaign,

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Speaker 1: in the way you were so gracious to not put

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Speaker 1: him in a conflicted moment because you understood the pressures

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Speaker 1: he was feeling. And I think Mike Pence understood that too.

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Speaker 1: He wasn't that I meet it obviously, but I think

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Speaker 1: he understood that later that in many respects he was

434
00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:46,359
Speaker 1: selected because of your magnanimity. Well, you know, it was

435
00:23:46,400 --> 00:23:51,560
Speaker 1: a really tough campaign and nobody in my lifetime had

436
00:23:51,600 --> 00:23:54,719
Speaker 1: come out of nowhere to both win the nomination, I mean,

437
00:23:54,760 --> 00:23:58,240
Speaker 1: beating fifteen other guys and then take on the woman

438
00:23:58,240 --> 00:24:01,639
Speaker 1: who had spent her entire career getting ready to be anointed.

439
00:24:02,080 --> 00:24:04,399
Speaker 1: When did you think Trump could win? When did it

440
00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:07,800
Speaker 1: hit you you know this thing might work? Honestly, I

441
00:24:07,880 --> 00:24:09,920
Speaker 1: thought he could win from the time my cousins called

442
00:24:09,960 --> 00:24:13,600
Speaker 1: me in twenty fifteen. Now, I didn't know how he'd win,

443
00:24:13,880 --> 00:24:15,479
Speaker 1: but I thought he could be the nominee. And when

444
00:24:15,520 --> 00:24:18,600
Speaker 1: I started getting it involved with him running first to

445
00:24:18,680 --> 00:24:22,200
Speaker 1: convention and then the campaign, I saw the connections between

446
00:24:22,320 --> 00:24:24,520
Speaker 1: him and the people that were reflecting me back to

447
00:24:24,720 --> 00:24:28,040
Speaker 1: my cousins calling me, and I'd never seen I mean,

448
00:24:28,040 --> 00:24:30,160
Speaker 1: I remember in the Reagan days we'd get great crowds.

449
00:24:30,359 --> 00:24:34,200
Speaker 1: We had to build the crowds. This was spontaneously happening,

450
00:24:34,280 --> 00:24:36,680
Speaker 1: where people were being shut out of meeting rooms and

451
00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:39,800
Speaker 1: halls and they were standing outside and cold to listen

452
00:24:39,840 --> 00:24:43,560
Speaker 1: on speakers. I'd never seen anything like that before, and

453
00:24:43,640 --> 00:24:47,040
Speaker 1: I felt confident that we could get the nomination and

454
00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:49,880
Speaker 1: we could get it the right way. So the key

455
00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:53,080
Speaker 1: was going to be can we organize the general election

456
00:24:53,520 --> 00:24:56,439
Speaker 1: in a way that fills the gaps that existed in

457
00:24:56,480 --> 00:25:00,399
Speaker 1: the Trump organization. And that's where and I about this

458
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:03,320
Speaker 1: in some detail in the book. Ryan's previous was key

459
00:25:03,320 --> 00:25:06,119
Speaker 1: to it by mine because Ryan's previous had built at

460
00:25:06,160 --> 00:25:09,600
Speaker 1: the R and C a structure that complimented what the

461
00:25:09,640 --> 00:25:14,800
Speaker 1: Trump campaign needed and didn't have. The bomb administration had

462
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:20,240
Speaker 1: done social media, digital media, grass roots support, and what

463
00:25:20,400 --> 00:25:24,000
Speaker 1: he had built was the exact mirror of what Trump

464
00:25:24,080 --> 00:25:28,800
Speaker 1: didn't have a grassroots organization structurally, and so between the

465
00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:32,720
Speaker 1: mass movement happening on the ground and previous R and

466
00:25:32,760 --> 00:25:36,080
Speaker 1: C organization, I felt we could build a structure, and

467
00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:39,800
Speaker 1: that's what started. In about June. I spent two summer

468
00:25:39,840 --> 00:25:43,080
Speaker 1: months building out in what would be the targeted states

469
00:25:43,119 --> 00:25:46,280
Speaker 1: for the general election campaign. And so when Clinton was

470
00:25:46,320 --> 00:25:49,520
Speaker 1: constantly talking about she had the best organization, she did

471
00:25:49,680 --> 00:25:53,080
Speaker 1: knowledgely lost she was wrong. Between what we put together,

472
00:25:53,200 --> 00:25:56,360
Speaker 1: between the R and C and the Trump campaign, we

473
00:25:56,400 --> 00:25:59,119
Speaker 1: had the best organization, and it showed the results in

474
00:25:59,200 --> 00:26:02,200
Speaker 1: the targeted state where we wanted by the close majorities

475
00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:04,760
Speaker 1: that were there. And the more I built that, the

476
00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 1: more I saw the response, and so it just kept

477
00:26:07,720 --> 00:26:11,320
Speaker 1: validating my initial impression that this guy had the right

478
00:26:11,359 --> 00:26:14,399
Speaker 1: message at the right time for this election cycle, and

479
00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:17,159
Speaker 1: he had the right opponent and Hillary Clinton, who was

480
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:20,520
Speaker 1: the epitome of the establishment, the epitome of corruption, the

481
00:26:20,560 --> 00:26:23,439
Speaker 1: epitome of arrogance, and she ran her campaign in an

482
00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:26,680
Speaker 1: arrogant way which played right into our strengths. So you're

483
00:26:26,760 --> 00:26:29,480
Speaker 1: right in the middle of the campaign and the news

484
00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:34,960
Speaker 1: media turns more and more viciously hostile to Trump, and

485
00:26:35,040 --> 00:26:37,120
Speaker 1: you sort of had caught up in the same process

486
00:26:37,160 --> 00:26:39,199
Speaker 1: because you become one of the ways they try to

487
00:26:39,240 --> 00:26:41,679
Speaker 1: go after Trump. And one of the things that you

488
00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:46,200
Speaker 1: detail in your book now infamous Russian meeting at Trump Charer,

489
00:26:46,320 --> 00:26:48,880
Speaker 1: Can you try to explain what actually happened as opposed

490
00:26:48,920 --> 00:26:52,920
Speaker 1: to the false reporting that media was so insignificant that

491
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:57,159
Speaker 1: neither Jared Don Junior or I remembered it as a

492
00:26:57,240 --> 00:27:00,400
Speaker 1: meeting with Russians until we had to get refresh by

493
00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:03,679
Speaker 1: our lawyers going into the documents. The meeting ended up

494
00:27:03,880 --> 00:27:06,080
Speaker 1: happening because Don got a call from one of the

495
00:27:06,119 --> 00:27:10,000
Speaker 1: business associates that had worked with the Trump organization when

496
00:27:10,040 --> 00:27:12,960
Speaker 1: they ran the Miss Universe contest in Moscow a couple

497
00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:17,879
Speaker 1: of years earlier. And this business content called Don and said,

498
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:20,320
Speaker 1: I think I've got somebody who has got some information

499
00:27:20,359 --> 00:27:22,880
Speaker 1: on Hillary Clinton that would be useful to you, not

500
00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:27,280
Speaker 1: the Russian government, not Russians, and don you know, accepted

501
00:27:27,359 --> 00:27:30,240
Speaker 1: the meeting and then asked me later what I attend.

502
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:33,800
Speaker 1: I said, these meetings never happened. They're never what you

503
00:27:33,840 --> 00:27:35,679
Speaker 1: think they are. I don't know that we should do it,

504
00:27:36,240 --> 00:27:39,040
Speaker 1: except my notes reflected that. But he said, well, but

505
00:27:39,119 --> 00:27:41,639
Speaker 1: we've got to do it because it's the business associate.

506
00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:44,680
Speaker 1: So we did the meeting, and the meeting was a joke.

507
00:27:44,760 --> 00:27:47,679
Speaker 1: It was meeting lasted about twenty minutes, of which the

508
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:54,400
Speaker 1: first ten minutes were introductions and the ten minutes was translation,

509
00:27:54,520 --> 00:27:58,080
Speaker 1: taking of time. And the presentation of the woman was

510
00:27:58,359 --> 00:28:03,120
Speaker 1: that sanctions had been put on Russia because of invading

511
00:28:03,119 --> 00:28:08,800
Speaker 1: the Crimea, and so Putin's retaliation was to make it

512
00:28:08,840 --> 00:28:13,639
Speaker 1: impossible for Americans to adopt Russian babies. And so she

513
00:28:13,760 --> 00:28:16,600
Speaker 1: was saying that if Donald Trump would come out for

514
00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:19,120
Speaker 1: the repeal of the Magnetsi Act, which was the sanctions

515
00:28:19,160 --> 00:28:22,960
Speaker 1: at the Congress at past that she thought that the

516
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:27,120
Speaker 1: adoption restrictions could be loosened up. I understood it because

517
00:28:27,119 --> 00:28:29,840
Speaker 1: I had read a book by Bill Browder, whose lawyer

518
00:28:29,920 --> 00:28:33,720
Speaker 1: was mcginsky, who had been killed by putin so I

519
00:28:33,800 --> 00:28:36,280
Speaker 1: understood what the act was all about, which was nothing

520
00:28:36,320 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 1: that Donald Trump would ever say should be repealed, but

521
00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 1: never got into discussing it. She basically finished her presentation, which,

522
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:47,880
Speaker 1: as I said, it was about five minutes of the

523
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:50,960
Speaker 1: remaining ten. Don looked at me from across the table.

524
00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:54,360
Speaker 1: There was nothing else to happen. Jared had actually left

525
00:28:54,400 --> 00:28:57,680
Speaker 1: the meeting already because he saw the certainty of the meeting.

526
00:28:58,120 --> 00:28:59,840
Speaker 1: I didn't want to leave Don alone, so I didn't

527
00:29:00,080 --> 00:29:03,160
Speaker 1: out with Jared, and Don thanked them all and left.

528
00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:07,280
Speaker 1: What I now know didn't know at the time was

529
00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:11,120
Speaker 1: as Russian woman before she met with us, met with

530
00:29:11,400 --> 00:29:15,320
Speaker 1: Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS, and then met with them

531
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:19,080
Speaker 1: again after our meeting. And when this was uncovered in

532
00:29:19,120 --> 00:29:23,080
Speaker 1: the course of the presidency of Donald Trump, she said, well,

533
00:29:23,560 --> 00:29:25,400
Speaker 1: she was there on other business as well, and that's

534
00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:28,040
Speaker 1: what she was talking to Glenn Simpson about. He's clearly

535
00:29:28,040 --> 00:29:31,400
Speaker 1: as set up by the Russians to trap us, but

536
00:29:31,680 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 1: the Russians working with Hillary Clinton, not Russians working out

537
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:40,000
Speaker 1: of the Kremlin and the Trump organization. So that was it.

538
00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:43,040
Speaker 1: There was nothing more to that meeting. Fortunately, as you

539
00:29:43,080 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 1: may or may not remember. When I'm in meetings, I

540
00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:46,960
Speaker 1: usually have my laptop of the I'm making notes of

541
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:49,200
Speaker 1: the meetings. I didn't even bring my laptop to this meeting,

542
00:29:49,320 --> 00:29:51,600
Speaker 1: but in my iPhone with me, so I meet some

543
00:29:51,640 --> 00:29:55,680
Speaker 1: scribbled notes that basically said she was talking about against Gayak,

544
00:29:56,120 --> 00:30:02,640
Speaker 1: Bill Browder, IRNC adoption laws. And those notes ended up

545
00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:04,680
Speaker 1: being the basis by which we were able to discredit

546
00:30:05,120 --> 00:30:09,440
Speaker 1: the whole misinformation that the first Democrats and then the

547
00:30:09,440 --> 00:30:12,720
Speaker 1: Special Council put out about that meeting. Well, as you're

548
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:15,600
Speaker 1: handling that meeting, there's another explosion when the New York

549
00:30:15,600 --> 00:30:20,040
Speaker 1: Times broke the story alleging that the Ukrainian government agency

550
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:23,520
Speaker 1: gave you off the book cash payments something like twelve

551
00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:25,920
Speaker 1: point seven million dollars according to New York Times. What

552
00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:29,000
Speaker 1: was the real substance of that? Yeah, I mean, first

553
00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:30,400
Speaker 1: of all, it was one page of what they said.

554
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:33,040
Speaker 1: It was a cash legend that was never produced. The

555
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:35,440
Speaker 1: people that they said created and denied every year. It

556
00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:38,440
Speaker 1: was a forged documents, a created document. What was going on?

557
00:30:38,480 --> 00:30:41,520
Speaker 1: And this was Ken Vogel of Politico. Now New York

558
00:30:41,520 --> 00:30:46,000
Speaker 1: Times wrote an expose in January twenty seventeen, where he

559
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:50,800
Speaker 1: uncovered that the DNC, the Clinton campaign, and the Ukrainian

560
00:30:50,840 --> 00:30:56,080
Speaker 1: government were working together to help elect Clinton president, not Trump,

561
00:30:56,600 --> 00:30:59,719
Speaker 1: and this was disinformation that they created to embarrass me,

562
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:03,280
Speaker 1: to discredit me and get me removed from the campaign.

563
00:31:03,520 --> 00:31:05,800
Speaker 1: And it worked in the sense that under all that pressure,

564
00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:09,840
Speaker 1: you resigned from the campaign. Yeah, I mean, I didn't

565
00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:12,000
Speaker 1: want to become an issue. I had the structure together

566
00:31:12,040 --> 00:31:14,600
Speaker 1: for the general election, the strategy was in place, the

567
00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:18,600
Speaker 1: media through Octo Boys in place, so I felt it

568
00:31:18,640 --> 00:31:23,120
Speaker 1: was important that I might not be a distraction. Trump

569
00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:25,960
Speaker 1: was exercised at the time because they were coming at

570
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:29,400
Speaker 1: him every which way on fake news, and so we

571
00:31:29,520 --> 00:31:31,360
Speaker 1: both decided it was in the best interest of the

572
00:31:31,360 --> 00:31:35,120
Speaker 1: campaign for I read it physically remove myself from that position,

573
00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:39,280
Speaker 1: although I continued to help quietly and making sure that

574
00:31:39,320 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 1: the plan and everything else was executed correctly. Well, I mean,

575
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:45,600
Speaker 1: since you knew what had actually happened, and you knew

576
00:31:45,600 --> 00:31:48,680
Speaker 1: that there was a non story, when did it began

577
00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:52,240
Speaker 1: to hit you that the machinery of the system was

578
00:31:52,320 --> 00:31:54,080
Speaker 1: going to come after you and it didn't really matter

579
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:57,080
Speaker 1: whether or not you were totally innocent. When I resigned

580
00:31:57,200 --> 00:32:01,080
Speaker 1: from the campaign, officially, I figured would put it up

581
00:32:01,080 --> 00:32:04,280
Speaker 1: to bed. It didn't. I had to kept being a story,

582
00:32:04,280 --> 00:32:07,240
Speaker 1: even though the Anti Corruption Bureau in Ukraine, which was

583
00:32:07,280 --> 00:32:10,720
Speaker 1: funded by the US government, admitted that the black ledger

584
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:13,840
Speaker 1: against me was a fake document sometime in September. So

585
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:17,120
Speaker 1: what caused the problem for me has already been discredited,

586
00:32:17,520 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 1: but they were still coming after me. My attitude was

587
00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:24,680
Speaker 1: after the election, if Trump wins, then we'll move on

588
00:32:24,800 --> 00:32:28,240
Speaker 1: in life, because the campaigns in the United States, generally speaking,

589
00:32:29,040 --> 00:32:32,560
Speaker 1: the winners move on. Losers go back, lick their wounds

590
00:32:32,560 --> 00:32:35,000
Speaker 1: and prepare to fight for another day. And so I

591
00:32:35,000 --> 00:32:39,160
Speaker 1: expected after the election that would happen. It didn't, obviously,

592
00:32:39,760 --> 00:32:45,160
Speaker 1: And when the Steel dossier was released in early January,

593
00:32:45,880 --> 00:32:49,760
Speaker 1: that's what I saw a bigger pattern. And I saw

594
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:54,240
Speaker 1: that the Democrats didn't know why Trump won. Hillary Clinton

595
00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:56,800
Speaker 1: still hasn't recognized his election. That's why I find these

596
00:32:56,920 --> 00:33:00,920
Speaker 1: January sixth allegations of the greatest threat to democracy Trump

597
00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 1: not recognizing the results of the election as a total fraud,

598
00:33:04,400 --> 00:33:08,400
Speaker 1: because the same people are making those allegations never accepted

599
00:33:08,440 --> 00:33:11,640
Speaker 1: Trump's election as legitimate and for five years try to

600
00:33:11,680 --> 00:33:15,720
Speaker 1: destroy his presidency and then his life, making impeachment a

601
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:18,760
Speaker 1: tool of a majority of the House of Representatives as

602
00:33:18,760 --> 00:33:22,640
Speaker 1: opposed to an extraordinary remedy for serious violations by a president.

603
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:25,120
Speaker 1: That to me was a much bigger threats to democracy

604
00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:45,560
Speaker 1: than any of the allegations they were thrown around January sixth. Essentially,

605
00:33:46,600 --> 00:33:51,960
Speaker 1: you were really really knowledgeable about politics and traditional news media,

606
00:33:52,400 --> 00:33:56,720
Speaker 1: but suddenly you're getting sucked into a legal environment with

607
00:33:56,880 --> 00:33:59,960
Speaker 1: a totally different set of rules in which the government

608
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:03,960
Speaker 1: and has all the power and you're essentially vulnerable. Well,

609
00:34:04,000 --> 00:34:06,800
Speaker 1: when that came out, that was when I first felt

610
00:34:06,840 --> 00:34:10,319
Speaker 1: in a serious way vulnerable, and that's when I went

611
00:34:10,360 --> 00:34:12,680
Speaker 1: out and found a law firm. But at the time,

612
00:34:12,719 --> 00:34:15,680
Speaker 1: I considered this to be a congressional thing. It was

613
00:34:15,719 --> 00:34:17,879
Speaker 1: the Senate in the House Intel committees that were doing

614
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:21,360
Speaker 1: the investigating. I knew there was no Russian collusion. Trump

615
00:34:21,440 --> 00:34:23,920
Speaker 1: knew there was a real Russian collusion, so I figured

616
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:26,840
Speaker 1: that these investigations would come up with that. But because

617
00:34:26,840 --> 00:34:29,640
Speaker 1: it was a congressional investigation, I figured I better have

618
00:34:29,719 --> 00:34:31,920
Speaker 1: counsel to help me get through it, and I picked

619
00:34:31,920 --> 00:34:35,440
Speaker 1: a firm that had good democratic representation because it was

620
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:37,719
Speaker 1: the Democrats on the House side that were driving the

621
00:34:38,120 --> 00:34:42,040
Speaker 1: intelligence for the investigation, and so I hired a firm

622
00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:44,600
Speaker 1: to deal with that, and they kept coming back with

623
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:50,319
Speaker 1: absurd questions about connections in Russia and this assistant of

624
00:34:50,360 --> 00:34:54,160
Speaker 1: mine who was anything but a Russian asset that was

625
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:57,200
Speaker 1: being linked to the Kremlin, and so I started to

626
00:34:57,200 --> 00:35:01,200
Speaker 1: get nervous. And then when Jeff Sessions recused himself from

627
00:35:01,239 --> 00:35:04,600
Speaker 1: anything dealing with the Russian and the campaign, that's when

628
00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:06,919
Speaker 1: I knew it was going to be a long haul game.

629
00:35:07,400 --> 00:35:09,920
Speaker 1: Because I could see the writing on the wall. I

630
00:35:10,040 --> 00:35:13,880
Speaker 1: was fearful that a special counsel would happen, And of

631
00:35:13,880 --> 00:35:18,000
Speaker 1: course when Mueller was appointed, that's what I knew I

632
00:35:18,040 --> 00:35:22,920
Speaker 1: was in real trouble again, not because I felt guilty,

633
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:27,000
Speaker 1: but because this game had no connection to reality, and

634
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:30,120
Speaker 1: they were not going to rest until they destroyed Trump,

635
00:35:30,440 --> 00:35:33,240
Speaker 1: and I was going to be sort of collateral damage.

636
00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:37,279
Speaker 1: Was the particular choice of Muller a signal to you,

637
00:35:37,719 --> 00:35:42,759
Speaker 1: yeah why because it collacentrated away the media wrote him up.

638
00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:46,200
Speaker 1: I knew that this guy, you know, would use any tactics.

639
00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:49,960
Speaker 1: His reputation was not this white shoe lawyer. He had

640
00:35:49,960 --> 00:35:52,360
Speaker 1: a representation of very very sharp probbles and relying on

641
00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 1: people who were totally unethical and borderline illegal in the

642
00:35:57,120 --> 00:36:00,000
Speaker 1: way they executed the laws of our country, Andrew weiss

643
00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:04,359
Speaker 1: In being the primary exhibit for that practice. So when

644
00:36:04,360 --> 00:36:07,120
Speaker 1: they did that, I all of a sudden decided I

645
00:36:07,160 --> 00:36:10,760
Speaker 1: needed to change my representation legally because I was dealing

646
00:36:10,760 --> 00:36:13,680
Speaker 1: with the congressional investigation on a matter that I knew

647
00:36:13,800 --> 00:36:15,920
Speaker 1: wasn't true, and now all of a sudden I was

648
00:36:15,960 --> 00:36:18,279
Speaker 1: in legal parl it matters that I didn't think were

649
00:36:18,280 --> 00:36:21,799
Speaker 1: true but nonetheless had much graver consequences for me, and

650
00:36:21,960 --> 00:36:25,320
Speaker 1: I had to be much more serious about the attention

651
00:36:25,360 --> 00:36:28,000
Speaker 1: I gave it. We're talking about ten or twelve days

652
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:32,680
Speaker 1: after thirty FBI agents went tomorrow Largo, which I thought

653
00:36:32,719 --> 00:36:35,239
Speaker 1: was a pretty large group. But your own experience on

654
00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:38,680
Speaker 1: July twenty six, twenty seventeen, it was sort of similar

655
00:36:38,719 --> 00:36:41,560
Speaker 1: in terms of just the overkill of the photo bule

656
00:36:41,560 --> 00:36:45,400
Speaker 1: of investigation. One was that like, well just like Trump

657
00:36:45,520 --> 00:36:49,400
Speaker 1: was cooperating with the US government on turning overhere of

658
00:36:49,480 --> 00:36:52,440
Speaker 1: documents that should be turned over, and they rated him. Anyhow,

659
00:36:53,000 --> 00:36:55,920
Speaker 1: that week of my raid, I had just finished talking

660
00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:58,960
Speaker 1: with both Intelligence committees on the Hill, providing them all

661
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:02,520
Speaker 1: the documentation they wanted, and so everything was in order

662
00:37:02,560 --> 00:37:05,320
Speaker 1: as far as I was concerned. At six o'clock in

663
00:37:05,360 --> 00:37:09,920
Speaker 1: the morning on that day, in dark the morning, still

664
00:37:10,239 --> 00:37:13,120
Speaker 1: I lived in a condominium. My bedroom was like fifty

665
00:37:13,160 --> 00:37:16,120
Speaker 1: feet into the apartment. They were at the door of

666
00:37:16,120 --> 00:37:18,920
Speaker 1: my bedroom as I was getting up, with guns drawn,

667
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:21,920
Speaker 1: about to open my door. My wife is asleep and

668
00:37:22,000 --> 00:37:26,960
Speaker 1: I hear FBI were coming in hands up. Now. That

669
00:37:26,960 --> 00:37:28,840
Speaker 1: could have been the FBI, could have been the Russians.

670
00:37:28,880 --> 00:37:30,520
Speaker 1: It could have been the mob. It could have been anybody.

671
00:37:30,560 --> 00:37:32,319
Speaker 1: I didn't know who it was. It certainly didn't make

672
00:37:32,320 --> 00:37:34,319
Speaker 1: sense to me it was the FBI because there was

673
00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:38,000
Speaker 1: nothing I wasn't cooperating on. But it was the FBI,

674
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:42,200
Speaker 1: and they then were involved for twelve hours in ransacking

675
00:37:42,280 --> 00:37:45,480
Speaker 1: my apartment the General's warrant. They wanted me to leave.

676
00:37:45,520 --> 00:37:47,480
Speaker 1: I said, no, I'm going to stay. They said, you

677
00:37:47,480 --> 00:37:49,160
Speaker 1: don't have to be here. I said, I do have

678
00:37:49,239 --> 00:37:52,160
Speaker 1: to be here. And similar to what they did at Marlago,

679
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:55,000
Speaker 1: they went through my wife's closet, all of her clothes,

680
00:37:55,400 --> 00:37:59,560
Speaker 1: all of mine, on a very wide sweep that made

681
00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:02,560
Speaker 1: no sense to me. I called my lawyers. They sent

682
00:38:02,680 --> 00:38:07,000
Speaker 1: somebody over to sit with me as well, and it

683
00:38:07,080 --> 00:38:10,359
Speaker 1: was a phishing expedition. They got records that I didn't

684
00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:12,759
Speaker 1: particularly see any value in, but they were going to

685
00:38:12,880 --> 00:38:16,080
Speaker 1: use to construct the crimes that they charged me with,

686
00:38:16,560 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 1: even though almost all of the issues that were in

687
00:38:19,160 --> 00:38:21,960
Speaker 1: the crimes they constructed I had been dealt with already

688
00:38:21,960 --> 00:38:25,000
Speaker 1: with the US government. At that point in time, I

689
00:38:25,080 --> 00:38:26,719
Speaker 1: knew it was just a matter of time. That was

690
00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:30,560
Speaker 1: the day I said, my innocence doesn't matter. The Russian

691
00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:34,440
Speaker 1: collusion thing doesn't matter. They're coming after me so they

692
00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:36,759
Speaker 1: could go after Trump. And that was when it be

693
00:38:36,920 --> 00:38:41,000
Speaker 1: very clearly because I had been cooperating on the ostensible investigation,

694
00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:44,400
Speaker 1: meaning Russian collusion, and they still pulled this And so

695
00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:48,000
Speaker 1: in a sense, they're hitting your apartment as a phishing expedition.

696
00:38:48,680 --> 00:38:52,439
Speaker 1: Did they have a very wide authorization? Yes, they did,

697
00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:55,560
Speaker 1: which when talking to my lawyer, I mean, as you

698
00:38:55,680 --> 00:38:59,439
Speaker 1: know from your days in Congress, when the Independent Council Act,

699
00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:03,800
Speaker 1: Congress didn't renew it because they thought the unfettered power

700
00:39:03,880 --> 00:39:06,360
Speaker 1: was too much to put in a legal council, and

701
00:39:06,520 --> 00:39:10,480
Speaker 1: so they created this special Council, which is limited powers.

702
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:13,480
Speaker 1: The powers of a US attorney, not of what used

703
00:39:13,480 --> 00:39:16,400
Speaker 1: to be the Independent Council. Well, this was way outside

704
00:39:16,400 --> 00:39:18,400
Speaker 1: of the bounds of the powers of the US attorney.

705
00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:20,719
Speaker 1: What they were doing to be as would later be

706
00:39:21,120 --> 00:39:23,680
Speaker 1: the way they indicted me, and I asked my attorney

707
00:39:23,680 --> 00:39:26,799
Speaker 1: about this, and they said, yes, that's true. They've also

708
00:39:26,840 --> 00:39:31,440
Speaker 1: collected privileged information of my interactions with my attorneys. But

709
00:39:31,680 --> 00:39:34,239
Speaker 1: my attorneys were telling me, yeah, we could file all

710
00:39:34,280 --> 00:39:36,440
Speaker 1: the lawsuits you want. It's going to be like us

711
00:39:36,520 --> 00:39:40,040
Speaker 1: yelling into a hurricane. And it was already cost to

712
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:43,520
Speaker 1: me literally millions of dollars, and I had to make

713
00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:46,359
Speaker 1: judgment calls what I would do and what I wouldn't do,

714
00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:50,000
Speaker 1: and so we didn't challenge the search war. So a

715
00:39:50,040 --> 00:39:53,359
Speaker 1: couple of months later they actually indict you fracting as

716
00:39:53,480 --> 00:39:56,440
Speaker 1: unregistered agents for the government of Ukraine. What were you

717
00:39:56,520 --> 00:40:00,040
Speaker 1: thinking after hearing the charges, Well, I talked abo, this

718
00:40:00,160 --> 00:40:02,600
Speaker 1: is in the book a lot. They charged me for

719
00:40:02,719 --> 00:40:05,600
Speaker 1: something that I already resolved with the US government. When

720
00:40:05,640 --> 00:40:09,240
Speaker 1: the black Legers story broke in August of twenty sixteen,

721
00:40:10,400 --> 00:40:13,279
Speaker 1: I was contacted by the Fair Office, who said, look,

722
00:40:13,520 --> 00:40:15,239
Speaker 1: we saw this in the news. We need to talk

723
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:19,239
Speaker 1: to you. They approached my attorney on this that I

724
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:22,440
Speaker 1: had used in the past on fair issues, and so

725
00:40:22,520 --> 00:40:24,960
Speaker 1: we started a dialogue. And while I didn't think I

726
00:40:24,960 --> 00:40:28,040
Speaker 1: should file, and that's the reason why I didn't, we

727
00:40:28,120 --> 00:40:30,520
Speaker 1: came to an accommodation with the Fair Office and with

728
00:40:30,600 --> 00:40:33,640
Speaker 1: the Director of Fair and I did a filing based

729
00:40:33,640 --> 00:40:37,480
Speaker 1: on what they were suggesting I do. It matter was closed.

730
00:40:37,560 --> 00:40:41,040
Speaker 1: There was no penalties, no criminality, no fines, just a

731
00:40:41,160 --> 00:40:43,560
Speaker 1: filing of a limited document that they said it would

732
00:40:43,600 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 1: satisfy their view of what should have been filed. Well,

733
00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:50,120
Speaker 1: when Weissmann was appointed, one of the first calls he

734
00:40:50,239 --> 00:40:53,520
Speaker 1: made as part of the Special Console was to the

735
00:40:53,719 --> 00:40:57,840
Speaker 1: Fair Unit, asked about the status of my filing issue,

736
00:40:58,400 --> 00:41:02,040
Speaker 1: was told that the matter was resolved, filed information and

737
00:41:02,280 --> 00:41:05,799
Speaker 1: told the Fairy Unit director, well, I'm not recognizing that

738
00:41:05,920 --> 00:41:09,320
Speaker 1: I'm not taking responsibility, and ultimately he charged me criminally.

739
00:41:09,320 --> 00:41:11,839
Speaker 1: I would I already resolved with the US government. So

740
00:41:11,880 --> 00:41:14,360
Speaker 1: when they charged me for that, it was clear to

741
00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:18,839
Speaker 1: me that I was being politically prosecuted. Plus, fairy allegations

742
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:21,480
Speaker 1: in the past had always been a civil issue, not

743
00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:23,759
Speaker 1: a criminal issue. From the time, I think there were

744
00:41:23,800 --> 00:41:27,279
Speaker 1: two criminal indictments in the history of the Act, and

745
00:41:27,360 --> 00:41:29,800
Speaker 1: they were a long time before, and both were dismissed.

746
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:33,279
Speaker 1: So this was not a typical action by the US

747
00:41:33,360 --> 00:41:37,280
Speaker 1: government against people who they thought should file It's a

748
00:41:37,360 --> 00:41:40,440
Speaker 1: combination of all that. I knew again that I was

749
00:41:40,600 --> 00:41:45,240
Speaker 1: in the crossairs, and it was clear to me that

750
00:41:45,520 --> 00:41:48,759
Speaker 1: unless I was going to start cooperating, that I was

751
00:41:48,760 --> 00:41:52,000
Speaker 1: going to be even more exposed to this political and

752
00:41:52,080 --> 00:41:57,400
Speaker 1: selective prosecution. It goes on. After indicted, the judge requires

753
00:41:57,400 --> 00:41:59,920
Speaker 1: a ten million dollar bond, which I think was the

754
00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:02,759
Speaker 1: largest bond in the country at the time. Exactly right,

755
00:42:02,960 --> 00:42:06,799
Speaker 1: what's the reasoning with a figure like yourselves? You have

756
00:42:06,840 --> 00:42:10,120
Speaker 1: a ten million dollars bond. I had never had any

757
00:42:10,120 --> 00:42:14,080
Speaker 1: criminal problems before, no problems with the law, no except

758
00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:17,440
Speaker 1: when I was younger, meeting ticket and never a problem

759
00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:19,440
Speaker 1: with the law. Ten million dollars, but it was more

760
00:42:19,480 --> 00:42:22,560
Speaker 1: than the drug cartel leaders John Gotti, more than all

761
00:42:22,600 --> 00:42:24,080
Speaker 1: of them. But they didn't just give me a ten

762
00:42:24,080 --> 00:42:26,600
Speaker 1: million dollars bond. They put a gag order on me too,

763
00:42:27,160 --> 00:42:29,840
Speaker 1: so that I couldn't speak in public on any of

764
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:32,719
Speaker 1: the issues of my case. And then they started to

765
00:42:32,760 --> 00:42:35,160
Speaker 1: do the selective leaking that you were seeing today on

766
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:38,120
Speaker 1: Marlago and that they did all through their whole Russian

767
00:42:38,120 --> 00:42:41,319
Speaker 1: hoax timeframe, and I couldn't answer any of the allegations.

768
00:42:41,800 --> 00:42:44,400
Speaker 1: What they were trying to do will send messages to me,

769
00:42:44,840 --> 00:42:47,560
Speaker 1: which I had a second superseding charges brought to me

770
00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:51,600
Speaker 1: later when I wouldn't cooperate in Virginia a tax matters.

771
00:42:51,600 --> 00:42:55,080
Speaker 1: And Judge Ellis, who was a long time judge and

772
00:42:55,160 --> 00:42:58,560
Speaker 1: experienced judge of fair judge, looked at the prosecutors when

773
00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:01,919
Speaker 1: they read the indictment and I know what you're doing.

774
00:43:02,120 --> 00:43:04,360
Speaker 1: I don't know why you're bringing all these charges. I

775
00:43:04,480 --> 00:43:07,040
Speaker 1: know what you're doing, and he put Weisman on notice.

776
00:43:07,760 --> 00:43:10,680
Speaker 1: Weissman stopped attending that session. He never missed on in

777
00:43:10,680 --> 00:43:13,600
Speaker 1: front of the DC Court. Judge Amy Berman Jackson an

778
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:17,320
Speaker 1: Obama pointe because she was basically sitting on the prosecutor's

779
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:20,239
Speaker 1: table for the whole trial. But Ellis called him out

780
00:43:20,280 --> 00:43:23,720
Speaker 1: on it for being a political prosecution. And that's exactly

781
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:25,040
Speaker 1: how I looked at it from the time I was

782
00:43:25,080 --> 00:43:28,920
Speaker 1: indicted in October of twenty eighteen, and then how do

783
00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:32,360
Speaker 1: you end up in jail? So it took me four

784
00:43:32,480 --> 00:43:35,040
Speaker 1: tries to get a bail package that could be passed

785
00:43:35,440 --> 00:43:38,239
Speaker 1: took me about six months, seven months because I didn't

786
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:40,080
Speaker 1: have the money. Did Weisman do that to do a

787
00:43:40,160 --> 00:43:44,200
Speaker 1: ten million dollar bail? I had three packages that were rejected,

788
00:43:44,360 --> 00:43:46,680
Speaker 1: parts were accepted, parts for were rejected, but it didn't

789
00:43:46,719 --> 00:43:50,040
Speaker 1: total ten million. So by the fourth bail package, I

790
00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:53,239
Speaker 1: was able to cobble together all of the accepted pieces

791
00:43:53,239 --> 00:43:56,200
Speaker 1: of the three previous submissions. So I made the ten

792
00:43:56,239 --> 00:43:59,440
Speaker 1: million dollars and it was apparent when I submitted that

793
00:44:00,080 --> 00:44:03,080
Speaker 1: the judge would have to grant it because she was

794
00:44:03,120 --> 00:44:06,880
Speaker 1: playing against herself. So at that point, Weisman pulled out

795
00:44:06,920 --> 00:44:09,840
Speaker 1: an obstruction of justice charge on a phone call that

796
00:44:09,880 --> 00:44:12,080
Speaker 1: I tried to make in February. This is in June, now,

797
00:44:12,600 --> 00:44:16,280
Speaker 1: in February to some people who were I thought, because

798
00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:18,799
Speaker 1: of the way the superseding charges were filing against me,

799
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:21,960
Speaker 1: might end up getting called. They were Europeans. I was

800
00:44:22,000 --> 00:44:23,520
Speaker 1: calling them to let them know that they might want

801
00:44:23,560 --> 00:44:26,400
Speaker 1: to get counsel because they might be getting contacted. Well,

802
00:44:26,600 --> 00:44:28,359
Speaker 1: I made a connection. The guy said he couldn't talk,

803
00:44:28,400 --> 00:44:30,400
Speaker 1: he'd get back to me. He never did. What I

804
00:44:30,440 --> 00:44:33,200
Speaker 1: found out later was Weissman had already been there before

805
00:44:33,200 --> 00:44:36,760
Speaker 1: he filed the superseding charges, had threatened him, had gotten

806
00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:39,920
Speaker 1: him to not be a cooperating witness for me to

807
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:43,960
Speaker 1: prove the IFARA chargers were improper. And Weisman said that

808
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:46,799
Speaker 1: that phone call, that was literally a ten second phone

809
00:44:46,840 --> 00:44:48,919
Speaker 1: call where he said he couldn't talk, he'd call me back,

810
00:44:49,440 --> 00:44:54,320
Speaker 1: was witness tampering. Now, Judge Jackson never filed a witness

811
00:44:54,360 --> 00:44:56,839
Speaker 1: tampering instruction and what you have to do for them

812
00:44:56,880 --> 00:44:59,360
Speaker 1: to be witness tampering. This guy was never listed on

813
00:44:59,400 --> 00:45:02,600
Speaker 1: any of the this list of the prosecution, and I

814
00:45:02,640 --> 00:45:05,719
Speaker 1: never talked to him, but Weisman got me indicted on that,

815
00:45:05,840 --> 00:45:09,080
Speaker 1: brought that to the bail hearing. The action said I

816
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:11,080
Speaker 1: was now at risk to the community, not just the

817
00:45:11,160 --> 00:45:14,160
Speaker 1: flight risk. I was risk to a community because I

818
00:45:14,200 --> 00:45:17,120
Speaker 1: was trying to tamper with Wittnesses and coors people. From

819
00:45:17,120 --> 00:45:20,000
Speaker 1: my appearance that day in court. She remanded me immediately

820
00:45:20,040 --> 00:45:22,799
Speaker 1: at the jail, how much total time did you spend

821
00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:25,920
Speaker 1: in jail? Well, I spent about two years in jail,

822
00:45:25,960 --> 00:45:30,040
Speaker 1: of which I spent the first ten months in solitary confinement.

823
00:45:30,719 --> 00:45:33,839
Speaker 1: And what was the rationale for that? To protect me

824
00:45:33,880 --> 00:45:36,319
Speaker 1: from the other prisoners. Mind you, when I was in

825
00:45:36,520 --> 00:45:40,320
Speaker 1: prison after the sentencing, I was put in the general population.

826
00:45:40,440 --> 00:45:42,960
Speaker 1: I never was at risk, and I really wasn't at

827
00:45:43,080 --> 00:45:45,920
Speaker 1: risk for the first ten months. It was another tool

828
00:45:45,960 --> 00:45:50,120
Speaker 1: of Weisman's to put pressure on me, and fortunately for me,

829
00:45:51,200 --> 00:45:55,560
Speaker 1: when this first started getting serious, I ran into a

830
00:45:55,640 --> 00:45:57,759
Speaker 1: friend of mine who was involved in the Enron case

831
00:45:58,320 --> 00:46:02,360
Speaker 1: against Weisman, a lawyer of representing that Ron, and he

832
00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:06,000
Speaker 1: warned me about Weisman's tactics, and he told me I

833
00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:08,800
Speaker 1: should read a book called License to Live by Sydney Powell,

834
00:46:09,239 --> 00:46:11,120
Speaker 1: which will tell me what I would be up against.

835
00:46:11,960 --> 00:46:14,680
Speaker 1: Got the book. I read the book, and everything in

836
00:46:14,719 --> 00:46:16,959
Speaker 1: the book was done to me exactly as my friend

837
00:46:16,960 --> 00:46:19,680
Speaker 1: had told me. So I was sort of prepared for it,

838
00:46:19,960 --> 00:46:22,279
Speaker 1: but you're never prepared for it. The rule I was

839
00:46:22,320 --> 00:46:25,000
Speaker 1: put in was an eight by twelve cell, no windows,

840
00:46:25,040 --> 00:46:27,040
Speaker 1: a slot for food to be giving me to me

841
00:46:27,160 --> 00:46:30,279
Speaker 1: three times a day, no exercise, no ability to get

842
00:46:30,320 --> 00:46:31,960
Speaker 1: out of the room except to me with my lawyers

843
00:46:32,120 --> 00:46:34,400
Speaker 1: who were three hours away from where I was in jail.

844
00:46:34,680 --> 00:46:36,720
Speaker 1: So it was most impossible to meet on a regular

845
00:46:36,760 --> 00:46:39,600
Speaker 1: basis or any basis, and it was one more tool

846
00:46:39,920 --> 00:46:43,000
Speaker 1: were you allowed to have books or anything to entertain you. Yes,

847
00:46:43,080 --> 00:46:44,719
Speaker 1: I got you. I was able to have books. I

848
00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:48,600
Speaker 1: read an enormous number of books several of years. And

849
00:46:48,640 --> 00:46:52,160
Speaker 1: I realized in the first week that I didn't know

850
00:46:52,239 --> 00:46:55,239
Speaker 1: how this was going to end. But I needed to

851
00:46:55,239 --> 00:46:58,000
Speaker 1: prepare myself and I needed to find a way to

852
00:46:58,080 --> 00:47:01,600
Speaker 1: live in solitary confinement because if I didn't drive me

853
00:47:01,680 --> 00:47:04,440
Speaker 1: crazy and not helped me prepare for my trial. So

854
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:07,160
Speaker 1: I built a plan using a lot of my political skills,

855
00:47:07,480 --> 00:47:10,359
Speaker 1: filled my day, structured it to the point that even

856
00:47:10,400 --> 00:47:12,560
Speaker 1: though I was never out of the room, there were

857
00:47:12,600 --> 00:47:14,320
Speaker 1: days I didn't finish everything I had planned for the

858
00:47:14,400 --> 00:47:17,000
Speaker 1: day because I built the schedule that tightly. Reading it

859
00:47:17,040 --> 00:47:18,440
Speaker 1: was a key part of it. The Bible was a

860
00:47:18,520 --> 00:47:21,239
Speaker 1: key part of it, and it got me through to

861
00:47:21,280 --> 00:47:25,279
Speaker 1: the point where Weissman's tactics just didn't work on me. Yeah,

862
00:47:25,280 --> 00:47:29,000
Speaker 1: it's very poignant that when you got out you told

863
00:47:29,040 --> 00:47:31,239
Speaker 1: your wife Kathy you wanted to cook dinner for to

864
00:47:31,800 --> 00:47:35,400
Speaker 1: start repaying her for all the sacrifices she had made

865
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:37,520
Speaker 1: over the last three years. I mean, that must have

866
00:47:37,520 --> 00:47:40,520
Speaker 1: been very tough on her. It was very tough on her,

867
00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:43,400
Speaker 1: and it was caught in this sort of twilight zone

868
00:47:43,440 --> 00:47:47,040
Speaker 1: that I needed to be strong for her while inside

869
00:47:47,080 --> 00:47:51,360
Speaker 1: I was churning up. But she's a strong person and

870
00:47:51,760 --> 00:47:53,879
Speaker 1: she hung in there. You find out who your real

871
00:47:53,880 --> 00:47:57,120
Speaker 1: friends are in those kind of moments, and friends came together.

872
00:47:57,719 --> 00:48:01,120
Speaker 1: Faith carried us through. The family was very supportive, and

873
00:48:01,239 --> 00:48:02,839
Speaker 1: we got through it. It was hard for her in

874
00:48:02,880 --> 00:48:05,440
Speaker 1: many respects, harder than what I was going through because

875
00:48:05,480 --> 00:48:08,200
Speaker 1: I was stuck in a hole. She was dealing with life,

876
00:48:08,440 --> 00:48:12,080
Speaker 1: with our financial situation in chaos, with reading the headlines

877
00:48:12,120 --> 00:48:15,360
Speaker 1: every day of what I'm terrible person I was, and

878
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:19,040
Speaker 1: living in the solitude where she stayed with my daughter

879
00:48:19,040 --> 00:48:21,680
Speaker 1: and her family. But still it was the solitude at

880
00:48:21,800 --> 00:48:24,799
Speaker 1: night of being alone and worrying about my condition. And

881
00:48:24,920 --> 00:48:29,560
Speaker 1: you've just celebrated forty four years of marriage. Yeah, exactly right.

882
00:48:29,719 --> 00:48:33,680
Speaker 1: That's really quite remarkable. And you dedicate the book to her.

883
00:48:34,840 --> 00:48:37,279
Speaker 1: I mean, she was my rock the whole time through

884
00:48:37,320 --> 00:48:40,080
Speaker 1: that and my inspiration. She gave me the strength. I mean,

885
00:48:40,120 --> 00:48:42,400
Speaker 1: my faith was important to me. But there was a

886
00:48:42,440 --> 00:48:45,840
Speaker 1: conversation we had. You know, my economic situation was a

887
00:48:46,080 --> 00:48:50,239
Speaker 1: vaster They had effectively bankrupted me through the process, and

888
00:48:50,400 --> 00:48:53,080
Speaker 1: I hadn't gone through the forfeiture part yet, and she

889
00:48:53,200 --> 00:48:56,200
Speaker 1: was visiting me, and I was worried. She said, look,

890
00:48:56,520 --> 00:48:59,160
Speaker 1: we have each other. You know, everything else is just

891
00:48:59,200 --> 00:49:02,280
Speaker 1: a thing and it's not important. We started with nothing,

892
00:49:02,680 --> 00:49:04,400
Speaker 1: we can finish with nothing as long as we have

893
00:49:04,480 --> 00:49:07,600
Speaker 1: each other. And that moment still stays with me every day.

894
00:49:07,840 --> 00:49:12,200
Speaker 1: That's pretty impressive, and your dedicationers really lovely. In the book,

895
00:49:12,760 --> 00:49:15,440
Speaker 1: you finally had a little bit of good news on

896
00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:18,840
Speaker 1: the summer twenty third, President Trump pardons you. Did you

897
00:49:18,880 --> 00:49:21,200
Speaker 1: know that was coming? I didn't know it was coming,

898
00:49:21,239 --> 00:49:23,279
Speaker 1: but I sort of felt it was coming, and I

899
00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:25,520
Speaker 1: talked about this in the book. I never reached out

900
00:49:25,560 --> 00:49:27,560
Speaker 1: to the White House for a pardon. I wanted to

901
00:49:27,600 --> 00:49:29,840
Speaker 1: make sure that the White House knew that I was

902
00:49:30,160 --> 00:49:31,960
Speaker 1: only going to tell the truth, no matter what they

903
00:49:31,960 --> 00:49:34,319
Speaker 1: were reading, because I knew that they knew what the

904
00:49:34,360 --> 00:49:36,840
Speaker 1: truth was, and I knew what the truth was. I

905
00:49:36,880 --> 00:49:39,000
Speaker 1: didn't want fear to me was the biggest thing that

906
00:49:39,040 --> 00:49:40,919
Speaker 1: the White House would be worrying about what I turned

907
00:49:40,920 --> 00:49:43,120
Speaker 1: on him, And I wanted to make it clear that

908
00:49:43,480 --> 00:49:45,759
Speaker 1: I was only going to tell the truth and never

909
00:49:45,840 --> 00:49:48,920
Speaker 1: talked about a pardon. I won't say I expected it,

910
00:49:48,960 --> 00:49:50,960
Speaker 1: but you know Donald Trump. I know Donald Trump. He

911
00:49:51,040 --> 00:49:52,560
Speaker 1: knew what I was going through. He know what I

912
00:49:52,600 --> 00:49:55,440
Speaker 1: was suffering, my family was suffering. So I always felt

913
00:49:55,440 --> 00:49:57,839
Speaker 1: that at some point he would do that, he would

914
00:49:57,880 --> 00:50:00,560
Speaker 1: do the right thing, and he would pardon read very

915
00:50:00,600 --> 00:50:04,520
Speaker 1: real sense. You were one of the early casualties and

916
00:50:04,640 --> 00:50:07,839
Speaker 1: the establishments war against Trump. I mean, it has been

917
00:50:07,960 --> 00:50:12,120
Speaker 1: unbelievably ruthless. Yes, that's exactly right, which is why I

918
00:50:12,160 --> 00:50:14,400
Speaker 1: wrote this book, because the purpose of my book is

919
00:50:14,760 --> 00:50:16,600
Speaker 1: one to get my story out there and the truth

920
00:50:16,640 --> 00:50:19,480
Speaker 1: about who I am, but really is to alert the

921
00:50:19,480 --> 00:50:23,760
Speaker 1: American people to what we're confronting. Because I was a

922
00:50:23,800 --> 00:50:27,040
Speaker 1: means to an end to get Trump that didn't work.

923
00:50:27,360 --> 00:50:30,880
Speaker 1: But what it's all about is the establishment and that

924
00:50:31,200 --> 00:50:36,239
Speaker 1: woke left trying to aggrandize power and wipe out the

925
00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:39,640
Speaker 1: Trump world and the Trump supporters. And I finished the

926
00:50:39,640 --> 00:50:41,120
Speaker 1: book the end of last year, so I got the

927
00:50:41,120 --> 00:50:44,480
Speaker 1: first year of the Biden administration in my book, and

928
00:50:44,520 --> 00:50:48,880
Speaker 1: I talk about the circular relationship between the media and

929
00:50:49,040 --> 00:50:52,960
Speaker 1: the deep state and the bureaucracy that's politicized. And I

930
00:50:53,080 --> 00:50:54,960
Speaker 1: made the point in the book in the end that

931
00:50:55,000 --> 00:50:57,640
Speaker 1: the American people needed to understand that they were in

932
00:50:57,680 --> 00:51:01,600
Speaker 1: the crosshairs too, and if they rise up to make

933
00:51:01,640 --> 00:51:06,360
Speaker 1: sure that we defeat these socialist fascists this November, that

934
00:51:06,400 --> 00:51:08,080
Speaker 1: they're going to be the next targets. And you were

935
00:51:08,080 --> 00:51:10,640
Speaker 1: seeing it now parents at school board meetings being to

936
00:51:10,719 --> 00:51:13,480
Speaker 1: all terrorists, the irs, you know, coming to eighty seven

937
00:51:13,520 --> 00:51:16,480
Speaker 1: thousand new agents to come after Red America. So that's

938
00:51:16,480 --> 00:51:18,040
Speaker 1: why I wrote the book. I wanted to be able

939
00:51:18,080 --> 00:51:21,600
Speaker 1: to articulate and speak out with a platform on the

940
00:51:21,680 --> 00:51:25,760
Speaker 1: dangers that they woke left presents, not just to people

941
00:51:25,800 --> 00:51:29,040
Speaker 1: like me and Trump, but also to everyday Americans who

942
00:51:29,120 --> 00:51:32,239
Speaker 1: agree with the Trump agenda. Moving on until a long time,

943
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:34,799
Speaker 1: and I want to thank you for joining me on

944
00:51:34,840 --> 00:51:39,480
Speaker 1: this podcast. Your life's journey is incredible. Your experiences that

945
00:51:39,560 --> 00:51:42,759
Speaker 1: agree to what you sacrificed as a patriot is incredible.

946
00:51:43,280 --> 00:51:48,320
Speaker 1: Your new book details at all political prisoner, persecuted, prosecuted,

947
00:51:48,520 --> 00:51:51,200
Speaker 1: but not silence. We're going to have a link to

948
00:51:51,200 --> 00:51:54,319
Speaker 1: buy your book on our show page at newtworld dot com.

949
00:51:54,360 --> 00:51:57,160
Speaker 1: And I really want to thank you for taking this

950
00:51:57,280 --> 00:52:00,719
Speaker 1: kind of time to help educate the country on what

951
00:52:00,840 --> 00:52:03,719
Speaker 1: we're really up against. It's great to see again. I

952
00:52:03,800 --> 00:52:10,160
Speaker 1: look forward to senior person. So thank you to my

953
00:52:10,239 --> 00:52:13,160
Speaker 1: guest Paul Manafort. You can get a link to buy

954
00:52:13,239 --> 00:52:19,120
Speaker 1: his new book, Political Prisoner Persecuted, Prosecuted But Not Silenced

955
00:52:19,520 --> 00:52:23,160
Speaker 1: on our show page at newtsworld dot com. News World

956
00:52:23,239 --> 00:52:27,560
Speaker 1: is produced by Gingwich three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive

957
00:52:27,600 --> 00:52:32,200
Speaker 1: producer is Garnsey Slow, our producers Rebecca Howell, and our

958
00:52:32,280 --> 00:52:36,480
Speaker 1: researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show was

959
00:52:36,560 --> 00:52:40,440
Speaker 1: created by Steve Penley. Special thanks the team at Gingwich

960
00:52:40,480 --> 00:52:44,200
Speaker 1: three sixty. If you've been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll

961
00:52:44,200 --> 00:52:47,320
Speaker 1: go to Apple Podcast and both rate us with five

962
00:52:47,360 --> 00:52:50,879
Speaker 1: stars and give us a review so others can learn

963
00:52:50,920 --> 00:52:54,120
Speaker 1: what it's all about. Right now, listeners of news World

964
00:52:54,400 --> 00:52:58,040
Speaker 1: can sign up for my three free weekly columns at

965
00:52:58,080 --> 00:53:02,280
Speaker 1: Gingwich three sixty dot com SLA newsletter. I'm newt Gingrich.

966
00:53:02,680 --> 00:53:03,760
Speaker 1: This is news World.