The Qatar/Trump Super Special
Welcome to the jetstream, where elite criminal impunity flies above laws and accountability. Russian mafia expert Olga Lautman joins Gaslit Nation to connect the global dots on oligarchy in the White House.
We start with Qatar, a small but powerful gas station dictatorship, and a leading financier of terrorists. Once diplomatically isolated for its links to fellow terror-state Iran as well as groups linked to Al-Qaeda and ISIS, Qatar has been back in business, brokering nuclear talks with Russia and Iran, investing billions with the Kremlin, propping up Hamas, and gifting Trump a $400,000 luxury jet, dubbed a “flying palace.” National security risk? Absolutely. Surveillance threat? Almost certainly. Bribery? Looks like it. But what is Qatar getting in return?
Qatar, the second-largest buyer of U.S. weapons, after its nemesis Saudi Arabia, recently secured a $2B U.S. arms deal, thanks to Trump. It also invested $10 billion in a Texas-based natural gas venture that requires federal oversight, under Trump. Andrea and Olga go through all the ways Trump and Qatar enjoy kleptocratic quid-pro-quo, and years of Trump’s Middle East-linked corruption that illegally helped him come to power in 2016, enriching him and his family, Kremlin-style.
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Show Notes:
Qatar, Russia sign agreement to jointly invest 2 billion euros into sovereign wealth funds https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20250423-qatar-russia-sign-agreement-to-jointly-invest-2-billion-euros-into-sovereign-wealth-funds/
Michael Flynn, Russia and a Grand Scheme to Build Nuclear Power Plants in Saudi Arabia and the Arab World https://www.newsweek.com/2017/06/23/flynn-russia-nuclear-energy-middle-east-iran-saudi-arabia-qatar-israel-donald-623396.html
Why Qatar is Bribing Trump https://open.substack.com/pub/popularinformation/p/why-qatar-is-bribing-trump?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=2mrjsl
House Democrats ask Trump for proof he did not take $10 million 'cash bribe' from Egypt https://www.cnbc.com/2024/09/03/trump-egypt-democrats-letter.html
Trump touts Saudi relationship as "bedrock of security and prosperity" amid $600 billion investment deal https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/trump-speaking-us-saudi-investment-summit-riyadh/
2 Trump-aligned GOP operatives face foreign agent charges for helping Qatar https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/02/trump-gop-qatar-00133567
Trump Jr. and Other Aides Met With Gulf Emissary Offering Help to Win Election https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/19/us/politics/trump-jr-saudi-uae-nader-prince-zamel.html?unlocked_article_code=1.G08.dUBd.YVKXSVfgqo8i&smid=url-share
The Qatar bribery allegations featuring Trump, Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn, and the Steele dossier, explained https://theweek.com/speedreads/773479/qatar-bribery-allegations-featuring-trump-michael-cohen-michael-flynn-steele-dossier-explained
Qatar pursues US-Iranian nuclear steps after detainee swap https://www.reuters.com/world/qatar-pursues-us-iranian-nuclear-steps-after-detainee-swap-2023-09-20/
Exclusive: Qatar held separate talks with US, Iran touching on nuclear, drones https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/qatar-held-separate-talks-with-us-iran-touching-nuclear-drones-2023-09-20/
Iran seeks Russia’s support for its nuclear talks with US https://apnews.com/article/iran-russia-us-nuclear-negotiations-2bae3b073bcac464ad9b44a8d5a4c581
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Andrea Chaupa (00:10):
Welcome to Gas Nation. I am your host, Andrea Chalupa, a journalist and filmmaker and the writer and producer of the journalistic thriller, Mr. Jones, about Stalin's genocide famine in Ukraine. The film the Kremlin doesn't want you to see -- so be sure to watch it. They literally shut down a screening in Moscow and then liquidated the group that dared to show it. So yes, watch it in defiance of Putin.
(00:34):
I am joined this week by the world's most renowned Russian mafia expert, Olga Lautman, an analyst and researcher who has worked on such bestselling books as Craig Unger's, House of Trump, House of Putin. Olga maintains the essential Substack Trump tyranny tracker, which is a living hellscape of an archive of all the many crimes of the Trump administration. She is here to help us stay grounded in the fire hose of corruption and lawlessness. Coming out of this presidency, Donald Trump made his money off of oligarch blood money from dirty dictatorships around the world is Trump properties.
(01:18):
Around the world were basically bribes and money laundering operations, and that has not stopped since he's become president. We're going to be focusing on the QAR gift of a $400 million luxury jet that is described as a flying palace. It is highly illegal according to the US Constitution for a president to accept such a gift. Trump, of course, is trying to justify it, saying that Air Force One is a dump and he's not going to get his new Air Force one planes until 2027 when he's hopefully on his way out, but knowing him, he's already promoting Trump 2028 and selling merch and all that. But so he's justifying it that he needs this plane. He doesn't need this plane. He is saying, well, look at other world leaders. They have other world leaders like whom? Like Putin, like the Arab State dictatorships?
(02:16):
This is a nouveau riche monstrosity. It's like a Trump Tower in the sky. What's more, it's also a security threat, knowing that Qatar is one of the largest funders of terrorism, including Al-Qaeda and ISIS link groups and certainly Hamas. They're also close with Iran, a terrorist state that is not just backing Hamas, but also Russia's genocidal war in Ukraine. So giving the president of a United States a luxury plane full of all sorts of surveillance, clearly, and the president of the United States and others American officials in the chain of command flying on terrorist jumbo jet is probably the worst idea ever for obvious reasons. And here to break it down with us is Olga Lautman. What are your thoughts, Olga?
Olga Lautman (03:11):
I mean, my thoughts are he continues to crime the corruption. This is the most corrupt president that we have ever seen in our lifetime. And this just is another thing about this because I mean on top of this plane, which is going to be literally designed like Trump Tower, they actually said this, and with gaudy gold lying through inside, you also have to remember the crypto aspect and how much money the Saudis and Qataris and UAE is injecting through Kushner, through Eric Trump and Don Jr. and their crypto company. The whole thing is absurd. We've gotten to a point where now all our agencies are taken over by Trump. You have a Department of Justice who is no longer independent, who signed off on this when it clearly states in the constitution that no official should receive any gift from a foreign government. And apparently Pam Bondi said, well, there's no problem not to mention that she lobbied for Qatar years ago and was very proud about it.
(04:30):
So I mean, this just goes to the corruption aspect where during Trump's first term, he basically hid these corrupt deals and it took investigative journalists dig to put together dots to expose the corruption that was happening. Whereas now he is so emboldened because he has basically captured Congress and it's a rubber stamp for his extremist agenda. He's captured the Department of Justice, he's captured IRS and Treasury and every other agency, he no longer needs to hide it. And this is why yesterday he in a very, I mean disgusting manner, just said, well, who wouldn't take this gift? No one would take this gift. You're the only one who would take this gift. And now you have all of the Republicans justifying this despite them claiming to be the most ENT supporters of Israel, despite Trump carrying out all these operations to quash a descent on America's universities over a antisemitism. And here Trump is flaunting that he's going to get a $400 million gift from a country that supports terrorists, that funds terrorists, that houses Hamas leaders. So I mean, it just goes to the hypocrisy of it, and it shows you that Republicans, again, who claim to be supporters of Israel suddenly now have absolutely no issues. Not only that, it is illegal to take this plane because Congress has to sign off on a gift from a foreign government, but also the fact that the plane has coming from a country, country that supports terrorists funds terrorists, Qatar.
Andrea Chaupa (06:19):
Is such a hotbed for terrorism. We're talking Iran, Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Qaeda and ISIS link groups, Hamas.
Olga Lautman (06:29):
They support Houthis, they support Hamas, the same Houthis that have been shooting at our ships and our planes in the Middle East and basically causing a blockade at times through the straight. So I mean, this is who Qatar is. I mean, there's no reason to whitewash it. And just the fact we are having this discussion to sit and correct the narrative that no Qatar is in some fabulous country with a fabulous royal family. No, these people support terrorists and Trump himself in 2017 carried on how Qatar supports and funds terrorist organizations and that we shouldn't be going anywhere near them. This is not our ally, and it's very telling. This is the first trip foreign trip, and this is where Trump goes right into the hot bed of the Saudis and Qatari, not our allies, but to the Middle East. And I mean frankly, this whole trip is about business for himself, for him, his family, his cronies.
Andrea Chaupa (07:41):
It's the jet stream oligarchy, the global 1% that are consolidating their wealth and their power. Just to illustrate the terrorism of Qatar, in June, 2017, four Arab nations led a diplomatic and economic boycott of Qatar that lasted three years and ultimately involved well around a dozen of Qatar neighbors closing up borders. Some even kicked out Qatari citizens from their countries. They ended trade shelves and supermarkets became empty in some places in Qatar. This boycott was led by Saudi Arabia, Qatar's closest competitor, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt, as well as around, as I mentioned, nearly around a dozen nations total trying to isolate Qatar because countries leading this boycott are obviously not beacons of human rights. They are dictatorships, they have their own human rights crises and terrorist issues as well. But the fact that they all united in trying to stand up to Qatar, what does that indicate?
(08:55):
That indicates the Qatar an extraordinarily wealthy but small Arab nation is notorious for punching well above its belt. And one way it does that is it tries to acquire very large, very advanced weapons, and that is part of what they're getting out of this deal. Trump is green lighting, some very sophisticated sales to Qatar from America's military industrial complex. Right now the largest purchasers of American weapons, number one, it's Saudi Arabia and number two is Qatar. And so Trump's like green lighting that go ahead, cutter. And then other interests include trying to get a massive deal, a collaboration with a Texas firm greenlit, and they're going to need federal approval. So there you go. That's more incentive and Cutter just wants to be seen as a player on the global stage, and I'm sure they're probably going to use this as well to promote the interest of Hamas against Israel. And that's pretty awkward given that Trump came to power with the Netanyahu Israeli vote, the Netanyahu endorsement, making phone calls with Netanya telling him, wrap up your war. Don't wrap up your war. Don't accept Biden's cease deals. He's an ally of Netanyahu. In terms of the geopolitics of this, where do you see this? How do you see it playing out?
Olga Lautman (10:17):
Well, I mean, frankly, he's throwing Netanyahu under the bus, which is very interesting because two things happened when he had the deal, and this is always a good thing to release an American hostage with Hamas. The deal basically sidelined the Israelis. The Israelis weren't aware of these talks, and basically he's been sidelining them, so he's throwing Netanyahu under the bus. But you mentioned Saudi Arabia. I mean, you still have 911 families who are demanding the extradition of people who were involved in organizing 911 in US. And we know that the Saudis were involved in this. You have Trump whitewashing MBS. Why OMBS to silence a critic of the Saudi family chopped up Khashoggi in a million pieces in Turkey. That's not going to be discussed. These people like Russia and Qatar and Saudis, they pay an extraordinary amount of money to whitewash their reputations. They want to pay to remove the blood on their hands from all the terrorist attacks occur under the world that they are either aware of or sponsoring funding.
(11:41):
And just the fact that he is there as a first trip whitewashing these countries and what they have done. And frankly, this goes for both sides of the aisle after what happened to Khashoggi, a legal resident of the United States, and that we knew this assassination of gruesome assassination. I mean, this isn't even assassinations are bad to begin with, but this was a gruesome where he was literally chopped up in pieces so they couldn't find a whole body. After that happened, the United States should have cut ties with the Saudis. We had the intelligence. We released the intelligence that it was the Saudis involvement. What happened after Kushner ran and secured a $2 billion deal with the Saudis, right as Trump was planning his insurrection, and I can't even begin to tell you how many tens of billions of dollars are flowing through Kushner from the Middle East, from the Saudis, from Qatar, from UAE.
(12:47):
And on top of it, before this trip, Kushner advised Trump and his cabinet members because of his close ties to the region, and Trump made it very clear, this has nothing to do about hostages. This has nothing to do about Hamas. This has nothing to do about peace in the Middle East, strengthening ties between Israel and Saudis. This has to do specifically with business deals. This is why he's there. He is there to pump more money into Trump Organization and into various Trump crypto ventures. And at the same time, he's whitewashing a thuggish authoritarian regimes who should have the worst human rights records and who should be sidelined. Now whitewashing this definitely, I mean as a first visit, it just shows you where Trump is. And it's interesting because you have a part of the mega wing who also went off yesterday on this very loyal people to Trump and also went off about this jet and said, why in the world would you take a jet from Qatar?
(13:58):
Like why? And then of course, there's the security aspect and the fact that we as Americans are going to have to pay for that jet to come to the Pentagon because they're using the Pentagon as a cutout to strip it down completely and then basically put it back together to make sure that there are no listening devices, no bugs, no bombs, nothing. Because he can't just hop on the shed after the whole thing is disgusting. And it is one of many things that are happening that are disgusting in plain sight. And like I said, Trump feels so emboldened that he doesn't need to any longer hide all his criminalities, all his corruption. And I mean you see him spitting at the constitution, threatening to suspend the habeas corpus. Due diligence does not apply for anyone. And just so people understand immigrants and the international students are test cases for this.
(15:02):
This is for us, this is for Americans, and they're testing all these systems, all these tactics, putting together a federal police force across the country along with ICE and FBI and every other agency to test it on international students and immigrants. And then this will come for us at the same time we have next week on top of this foreign investors who are putting money into his crypto and he's hosting a White House dinner, $2 million per plate, not hiding it. They're advertising it, $2 million per plate for people to buy his meme coin. And then whoever wins this event gets a private tour of the White House and time with Trump. I mean, where have you seen a president host a dinner, $2 million per head dinner for his business? It's his sons who are capitalizing on crypto. Where have you seen something like this? We've never had this.
(16:12):
And I mean, it's just one of the many things. This plane is just frankly a symbol of everything else that they have been doing to flaunt that they are in power that we no longer have a say, which we always do, but we have to push back that it's basically the oligarchs like Musk and others who put him into power who now have control along with Trump, and that's it. And I mean the corruption is very widespread, very out in the open, and they don't bother hiding it. And this gaudy plane is just a symbol of everything else that has been happening since day one that he took office.
Andrea Chaupa (16:54):
And has Mr. Efficiency has DOGE with all of their fraud catching and their expense cutting, have they commented on this? I mean, doge is slashing services for the most vulnerable all over the world, including USAID, putting out a work, so many brilliant people who are the best of America. So Elon Musk has commented on this. I mean, this plane has to be picked apart and then put back together again, this $400 million luxury jumbo jet
Olga Lautman (17:29):
Last month, the beginning of last month wrote an article of what I personally think do is because you mentioned that I do the Trump Tyranny tracker, and part of it is looking for patterns. And that's why I started documenting. First I was going to do privately and I'm like, let me document all these abuses publicly. But for me, it's more for looking for patterns. And I knew that DOGE was a cover for something, but I couldn't understand what, so besides the fact that they're consolidating power and gutting the federal agencies to install and...
Andrea Chaupa (18:06):
Data sucking to feed their AI.
Olga Lautman (18:09):
And to install their loyalist, I wrote an article basically that from the patterns I am seeing, they're building a centralized surveillance state like in Russia and like in China. And what they're doing is grabbing the data from all this is what I believe. They're grabbing data from all the agencies and every single agency has a different data set on us. And then when you fuse this together, then you have a full picture. And then when you run it through AI, then you can create target list and you can separate people by targets like in Russia to see who is more problematic, who needs to be dealt with before they become an issue. And basically what I think it is happening is that they're using this DOGE as cover to build the surveillance state. They're testing it on, again, immigrants and international students, and believe it or not, federal workers because they've turned the federal workplace into basically a surveillance state where every single keystroke is monitored, every phone call is monitored, every single work station is bugged and they're testing it out on federal workers before again turning it to us.
(19:28):
So no, they're not going to comment because their interest is not about saving money. And I'm so frankly tired of the mainstream media normalizing an unauthorized agency. This is a fake agency that's unauthorized Congress never sat down, never authorized the creation of this to sit there and steal all our data. And they're normalizing it as if it's for cost efficiency. They never cared about how much they're going to save. And as a matter of fact, with numbers wise, they saved apparently 160 billion and spent 200 and something billion to operate this fake unauthorized agency. So no, they're not going to say anything because they're too busy stealing all the data on all of us
Andrea Chaupa (20:17):
And breaking laws because that money that they're trying to deny people was approved by Congress, which has the power of the purse.
Olga Lautman (20:25):
Well, the whole thing is unlawful. I mean, this whole thing is unlawful. And this is what I'm saying. This is just another thing, and frankly the plane is outrageous, but it is just another shiny object for us to chase because personally I am more concerned of a centralized Russian style system where you have a surveillance system that knows every single weakness. Who in your family is sick? How many people are in your family from infant on anyone who is registered with the government who didn't pay social, I mean child support 15 years ago, they're you one who keeps a job for a long time or are you one who cycles through jobs? Is this a vulnerability? I mean, frankly, when you put Fuse all these files together, you get a very complete data set on an individual from their medical history to their work history, to their banking, financial history, family history and whatnot.
(21:30):
And then this becomes dangerous because these are points where you can leverage against someone to silence them. And these are points you can feed through once you complete dossiers and everyone with AI doesn't take that long. Once you complete a full dossier on everyone, then this is something you can easily, easily spit out various target lists. And there's a reason that you have the European Union who put together such extensive privacy laws. They were thinking basically a friend of mine in Europe, and we had this discussion and he is like they were thinking of Hitler and how Hitler during his time was putting together target list on Jews, on Roma and various groups. And the European government wanted to prevent anyone from having any agency from having this much power to access and put information together on a person to prevent these target lists. And we see what these target lists do because I mean, Russia is a full centralized surveillance state.
(22:40):
Literally they know everything about you, more about you than you know about yourself. This is the thing that we should be focused on. I mean, there are so many things and the corruption aspect, I mean, frankly I've said with the Democrats, they are pushing back as much as they can. They don't have the power really to do anything, but if I were them, they need to be holding a national security briefing every single day at the same time and live streaming and explaining to people why this matters to this person of what is happening, whether it's DOGE, whether it's accepting the shed and the fact that as Head Start is being canceled and Meals on Wheels are being canceled, your money is going to refit this plane from a terrorist government that Trump is going to keep after he leaves office and bullshit, he says it's for his presidential library. Of course he's going to be flying around. If he's still alive then if he ever leaves when he leaves, of course he's going to be flying around on it.
Andrea Chaupa (23:46):
Wow. Just so much to unpack here. I want to go back into Qatar. There is a massive US military base in Qatar, and they do spend a lot of their own money in modernizing it again, throwing more money at the us. Why would the US have a military base in a dictatorship that's one of the leading sponsors of terrorism, especially in the region? Is this just this American strategy of keep your enemies closer?
Olga Lautman (24:15):
I think you named it for yourself. No, I mean we do need to have eyes and ears there. This is just something very simple. They've allowed us back then to open up a base. I mean, there are definitely a lot of the various groups and sub terrorist groups that are plotting attacks across Europe in United States on US interest and having a place there in the region is definitely something we need. So this is one of the arrangements we've had to host a base there. I mean, it's something that is good for us national security because you can't monitor the region without being in the region. You have to be there And relying on Israel to provide us all the intelligence is not enough because there are times as good as Mosad is with collecting intelligence in the region, they could miss something. And obviously we have Jordan who provides intelligence in various other countries there. But the best intelligence that you can gather is when you are in the region and also to be prepared in the case of any American interest are under attack that we can quickly mobilize a response. Because if you're flying military planes from another part of the world, it'll obviously take longer to respond to anything that happens.
Andrea Chaupa (25:44):
And Trump just approved a $2 billion arms deal.
Olga Lautman (25:50):
To UAE
Andrea Chaupa (25:51):
With Qatar.
Olga Lautman (25:52):
No UAE.
Andrea Chaupa (25:53):
Oh no. I have here that it is 2 billion arms deal with Qatar and for advanced weapons. This is from popular information, which I'll link to in the show notes. And this marked a significant shift in US policy due to Qatar's ties to several terrorist groups like Hamas. And as I mentioned earlier, they are a world leader in producing liquified natural gas LNG. And the country has a 70% stake in a $10 billion Texas-based Golden Pass, LNG terminals, and which needs again has federal oversight, federal approval. So Qatar's like we know Trump, we deal with Trumps around the world from oligarchy's and dictatorships around the world, or going to just line in his pockets and get what we need to further entrench our power globally. Again, this is a small Arab nation that's famous for punching above its weight class and wants to be a global player, and Trump is expanding that power for Qatar.
Olga Lautman (27:00):
At the same time, before Trump took off from the United States for the region, the State Department approved a 1.4 billion arm sale to UAE. Same thing yesterday. So you have approvals to two countries that he's visiting. Plus he's also negotiating a deal for the Saudis for their nuclear program, not for nuclear bombs, but for...
Andrea Chaupa (27:28):
Nuclear power. There's a whole Russia project to build nuclear power across the Middle East.
Olga Lautman (27:34):
Well, that's what he's dealing with the Saudis. I don't know if this is in line with Russia or if this is trying to take the Saudi from Russia and move them into the US pocket. This is also something that Michael Flynn was working on when he was National Security Advisor in January of 2017 before he got fired.
Andrea Chaupa (28:00):
And he is also lobbying for Qatar at the time as well as several other Trump campaign officials and admin officials were caught lobbying for being unregistered foreign agents for Qatar.
Olga Lautman (28:11):
Yeah, they have a lot.
Andrea Chaupa (28:13):
This is how Trump came to power. So last summer, August, 2024, as the Washington Post reported a bomb shell that the Mueller investigation was not only going after Russia and following the money between Trump and Russia, they were also following the money when it came to Trump and the Middle East. The Washington Post last August reported that Trump and Egypt's dictator LCC had a meeting in New York City during the UN's big September event that it has every year where it brings all the countries together. And Trump being a presidential candidate in September, 2016, broke serious protocol and possibly laws by taking this meeting with a dictator that the Obama White House at the time had treated as persona non grata, like CC'S regime was a military coup that overthrew Egypt's first democratically elected dictatorship. I stalled a military dictatorship and the Obama White House did not extend obviously official recognition.
(29:20):
There's no diplomatic relationship with Egypt under el-Sisi's dictatorship. And so for Trump as a presidential candidate in September, 2016 to meet with el-Sisi and his team on the sidelines of the big UN gathering in September was massive red flags. Shortly after $10 million in cash comes from Egypt from a bank under the dictatorship, and Trump gets suitcases of 10 million in cash. And next thing you know, one of the first things he does as president is he invites el-Sisi to the Oval Office, sea change in US foreign policy. And the next thing you know, el-Sisi, the dictator of Egypt is getting over a billion dollars in US weapon sales, something that was considered unthinkable under Obama. And so Trump needed that money, his campaign needed that money. And so Mueller's team was investigating whether this was an illegal quid pro quo election donation by Egypt. It was, but they didn't have enough to really piece it all together. And it's amazing that the Mueller team was able to keep this under wraps as long as they did. When the Washington Post finally reported on it in August of last year, the depressing article concluded with the fact that the statute of limitation had all run out and that there's nothing anyone could do about this anymore.
Olga Lautman (30:45):
I mean, you had a lot of things happening during that point besides the Russians because you also had Qatar are buying a whole floor of a Trump property and investing money in condos. This goes to the bigger picture. You have all these officials who were criming during the 2016 election with Russia with other, I mean, don't forget the kidnapping plot with Turkey that I believe Michael Flynn was involved.
Andrea Chaupa (31:15):
Yes, Michael Flynn was going to kidnap a Turkish opposition leader for Erdogan. Go on.
Olga Lautman (31:19):
And then ship him back for execution to Turkey. So you had Turkey pouring money into various officials. You have Egypt, you have several Middle Eastern countries. And this goes back to the bigger picture of accountability to crime. When there's opportunity, countries are going to send bribes and corrupt Americans will accept these bribes, even if it's against the interest of US national security and endangers US national security. And you have a whole Republican party who basically decided democracy isn't a good thing and we should have one leader who has all the power and will just be his rubber stamp like the Duma in Russia. But the bigger picture is the lack of accountability. We know if Mueller knew this was happening, and at the time there were pieces of reports coming out about the Egypt aspect, what was happening with Egypt, why is it someone like Menendez, which he should, is prosecuted for gold bars from Egypt for basically whitewashing their image and signing off on policies favorable to them, but no one else is.
(32:37):
And this goes to the bigger picture. If there is no accountability, people are unethical, people are criminal. They will absolutely, many will, especially in Trump Circle, will take the opportunity to take money from wherever they can get it. Whether Russia, the Middle East, they don't care if it's blood money. They don't care if they have to sacrifice countries for this. Like in Ukraine's case, they don't care. They will take the money. But we are supposed to have functioning agencies that are supposed to investigate and prosecute regardless who it is, regardless of Republican, Democrat, regardless, president or presidential aid, whoever it is who is breaking laws and endangering us, national security should be prosecuted. So we had a bunch of crimes happen in 20 15, 16 for the election. Nothing happened. We had a bunch of crimes happen from 2017 through 2020 while Trump was president. Nothing happened.
(33:43):
We had an insurrection, nothing happened. We had now how you call it Trump stealing classified documents. And I mean just that amount of things. And what we know from 2015 when he came down that gaudy escalator, what we know, what he and his officials and cronies did to now is probably 10% of what's the federal government knows. And now we got to a point, instead of these people all being held accountable properly, we're at a point that Trump is like, well, you know what? I'm just going to gut the federal government dismantle every agency, have a mass purge of federal officials and then handpick my loyalist. My yes meant that I will install in every agency. So when I say go arrest these democratic leaders, I want to sign off on a 400 million jet. Okay? And that's it. And this is where we're getting to the point, and this goes to the bigger thing, like I said, the lack of accountability and the fact that unfortunately, many in American agencies thought that America, this whole exceptionalism thing, and it's like surely we can't prosecute our top officials. Meanwhile across Europe, you have the French who had no issue prosecuting their prime minister for corruption. Ukraine, we already know. I mean,
Andrea Chaupa (35:14):
And Le Pen, too for her corruption, for her Kremlin back corruption.
Olga Lautman (35:17):
And you have, this is a very normal thing. It doesn't matter who the leader is, if they are committing crimes, if they's corruption, they are prosecuted. We are now 10 years from when Trump came down the escalator and now it got to a point because of the lack of accountability. Now he will crime in the open and no one can do anything. But that's it. We have Congress who's a rubber stamp. We have judiciary, even though for now it's holding to push back against Trump's illegal actions. How long? And what if Trump says, you know what? I don't feel like following this order. You're irrelevant. What is it here are you going to do there? They don't have an enforcement arm to go arrest anyone or to go hold anyone in contempt and have them actually face accountability. And Trump will instruct his people just ignore them.
(36:14):
Even if they are held in contempt, he'll pardon them because that's another thing he does. He already first as a sign, when he came back, he pardoned the January 6th people. And that was sending a message that if you commit violence for me, if you kill for me, you will be protected by me. And that's it. And basically, whereas Russia has the Russian mafia in the nineties and two thousands, that was, and now up to now carrying out task for the Kremlin to silence people, to silence opposition to silence businessmen or anyone who disagrees with the Kremlin or stepped in the wrong path here, Trump wants to have his private mercenary groups who will do the same. And then after that, he'll pardon in them again. So I mean, this goes back to the fact that if we ever survive this, we cannot, cannot go back to just ignoring how the institutions need to be strengthened.
(37:17):
They don't need to be dismantled. They need to be strengthened. And we need to demand accountability. I remember in 2017 all the activity on Twitter and the outrage over what ICE was doing and how they were handling mass deportations and family separations and whatnot. We had four years to actually either disband ice, which we at the time, I'm sure you and me and every other person said, these are Gestapo tactics. We had four years to either disband ice or to reform it and get all the bad fruit out of it because I mean, this is a very problematic agents. Nothing was done. And now you have ice agents unhinged running around, warrantless searches, breaking into people's houses because they think someone is there breaking windows to drag people out of cars and carrying out this disgusting things. And like I said, I've been tracking all of this.
(38:23):
I mean, we had the seventh since October the seventh death of an immigrant in ICE Detention seventh. What is happening? Are they beating them? Are they torturing them or are they denying medical care? And this goes to the bigger picture that what you started with, that yes, Trump will take a $400 million jet, he'll take 10 of them, he'll take a fleet of them because no one was ever held accountable. And now these people feel emboldened that they can do anything they want, go after anyone they want. I mean, and going back to ice, threatening to prosecute Democrats in New Jersey, I mean, what in the hell is this? You're arresting judges. We've already had three judges arrested. I mean, what is this? And before we wake up, we are going to be, I've become obsessed watching Handmaid's Tale the past few weeks. We are going to be that we're going to wake up in a society that is lawless and have a Russian style system where if you open your mouth to criticize the regime, then you will be arrested. But the regime can do whatever they want. And this is something we need to push back because I don't think people want to wake up and live in a system where you have to worry that your neighbors are going to report. You worry what you type on your computer and be under constant surveillance.
Andrea Chaupa (39:50):
I have to ask you, Kirill Dmitriev, the Kremlin's banker, Putin's investment Envoy recently visited Washington DC, the first Russian official to do so since Russia's full scale invasion in 2022, he met with Trump, Ukraine, Envoy, disinformation weapon, Steve Woff. Dmitri have also just signed a $2 billion deal with Cutter for Russian cutter to invest into each other's sovereign wealth funds and strengthen economic ties both countries. Were also trying to negotiate a nuclear deal in recent years with Iran, a terrorist state that backs Hamas and Russia's genocidal invasion of Ukraine. So obviously there's a clear Kremlin connection here with Qatar.
Olga Lautman (40:36):
Well, I mean, for starters, we have to remember who Kirill Dmitriev of his, he is one of Putin's messengers who moves around messages and money for the Kremlin. He call his wife, actually went to school and very close to Putin's daughter. This is how he even became who he is. Because in Russia, you usually get trusted positions when you have someone in the family or are in an inner circle.
Andrea Chaupa (41:05):
Right? It's based on loyalty, not talent.
Olga Lautman (41:07):
Yeah, it's always based on loyalty and more so than loyalty, it's based on family. You get into just how the system is set up. If you want to get to a better university, your family needs to know somebody in order to get you into that university. If you want a better job, your family. So I mean, this is how, since Soviet days, it's always been set up. But Korea, Dmitriev is a direct pipeline to the Middle East. I mean, this is how Russia moves their money back and forth to Qatar, to the Saudis. And just to give a refresher to people, since we mentioned 2016 election in December of 2016, after Trump won, when we had Michael Flynn running around and Kushner with the Russian secretly, Kushner arranged a meeting with the then Russian ambassador to the US, Kislyak. And it was Kushner Flynn and Kislyak. Kushner proposed having secret communications using the Russian Embassy to avoid US detection.
(42:12):
Flynn, in that same meeting, proposed having a meeting in a third party country. And that's when we had less than a month later, the Seychelles meeting where Eric Prince and MBC and Eric Prince represented Trump. Dmitriev represented Russia and MBC all showed up for this meeting. And then throughout Dmitriev throughout developed a close relationship with Kushner, and throughout the first term was involved with Kushner on various things. I personally suspect he's the one who introduced Kushner and gave him credibility with the Saudis and with others, because Dimitri, like I said, is the direct pipeline to the Middle East to move money. And that's it. And then of course, when Trump created the Champlain, because I don't call it negotiations, and frankly I'm so tired of people discussing this as a negotiation, this is a total from the beginning, it was very clear that Trump wants to force Ukraine to surrender. So Russia sent Dmitriev on their end on top of senior officials and intelligence officers to handle this meetings. And Trump sent Witkoff a real estate guy who fricking had Russian mafia money like Trump pumping through his real estate. This is who was negotiating. And his son is involved in the crypto deals from the Middle East with Trump's sons. His son, Alex Witkoff is in business with Eric and Don Jr.
Andrea Chaupa (43:54):
It's just like the Kremlin.
Olga Lautman (43:56):
It's, it absolutely is. So Dimitri has been the main contact point for this. And freaking organizing travel for Witkoff and taking him around Russia, St. Petersburg, Moscow, I mean the scenes are disgusting, whitewashing at its finest, whitewashing the genocide over regime. And then comes this travel to dc and of course, Trump and his people lifted sanctions off Demetria because he is sanctioned for Russia's genocide or full scale invasion of Ukraine. Lifted sanctions to let him come to DC. They met here and that's it. And he's been the main contact person. I mean, the man is, frankly, again, this is something so outrageous that in a normal reality, this wouldn't be happening. And this doesn't even make the news. I mean, the fact that he was here, A few outlets picked up on it. I don't even think it was in mainstream media on TV, because they were probably chewing over some other nonsense.
(45:08):
And these are actions that actually count. You have the president of the United States who is showing fielty to Moscow, carrying out their wishlist to try to force Ukraine to surrender, sending a real estate guy with no translators. The translators that he uses are provided by the Kremlin. He didn't even know who the translator is. Can you imagine? So you have another Russian intelligence officer posing as a translator who is translating from Witkoff to Putin. How in the hell does he know what their translating, because he is not there for this champin. They're there for their own business deals. And Russia made it very clear. Putin had instructed over the past last month that all the state companies in Russia prepared the most lucrative deals, mineral deals, oil deals, this deal. And they even brought back Trump Tower Moscow as a dangle for Trump to finish off the betrayal of Ukraine, NATO and Europe.
(46:15):
And this is who is negotiating a business developer or a real estate guy. I mean, come on. So this just shows you, again, the corruption and the lack of actions being taken and the lack of urgency from everyone. I think that's more mind blowing to me than the corruption and the criminal acts is the lack of urgency by everyone. People should know better people In the federal government, military, these people took an oath to the Constitution to protect the United States of America. And the fact that there is zero urgency as Trump is dismantling this country into pieces and selling it to the highest bidder, carrying out illegal acts, suspending various things in the Constitution, dismantling agencies against that, he has no power over when you have very little resistance to it. And then it takes me back when I remember Americans used to ask, what happened with Russia? How could Russians tolerate this? Well, I have the same question for half of this country.
Andrea Chaupa (47:33):
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(48:41):
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