The Asset

On this very special episode of The Asset, we showcase an episode of the newest podcast from the creative team that produced The Asset. Subscribe here.

It was Valentine?s Day. While waiting for his Uber ride, the teenager texted a former girlfriend ?You will always know I love you.?

When they arrived at his destination, the young man gave the Uber driver explicit directions on where to drop him off. He knew exactly where he wanted to go.

Picking up his backpack and black duffel bag, the 19 year-old walked towards the school from where he had been expelled the previous year.

What was about to happen?

Was this Stoppable?

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On this very special episode of The Asset, we showcase an episode of the newest podcast from the creative team that produced The Asset. Subscribe here.

One Wednesday evening, a young man began the drive from Columbia SC to Charleston SC, normally a two hour drive. He arrived in 90 minutes. It would seem he was in a hurry.

Before walking into the Bible Study Class, he looked down and saw what looked like a black fanny pack. It was awkwardly sitting looped to his belt on the front of his pants for all to see. He had meant to hide it before entering.

Looking up, a Reverend called out, ?Pastor, we have a visitor.? 

What was about to happen?

Was this Stoppable?

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On this very special episode of The Asset, we showcase an episode of the newest podcast from the creative team that produced The Asset. Subscribe here.

A nursing student drove to a town 10 minutes from his home in Southern California. He planned to visit a House of Worship as members of the congregation were gathering to celebrate a holiday. The members there proudly proclaimed ?Everyone is welcome and accepted, regardless of background, knowledge, or affiliation.?

As the young man approached the Center he found the doors wide open.

What was about to happen?

Was this Stoppable?

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On this very special episode of The Asset, we showcase an episode of the newest podcast from the creative team that produced The Asset. Subscribe here.

A young man from a small town in Ohio, drove overnight 500+ miles to participate in a celebration of unity. Although he had few friends back home, he was welcomed into the gathering. He had worn all the right clothes and said all the right things. When the convocation was abruptly canceled, he got back in his car to drive home...until he took a turn back towards town.

What was about to happen?

Was this Stoppable?

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On this very special episode of The Asset, we showcase an episode of the newest podcast from the creative team that produced The Asset. Subscribe here.

An 18-year old traveled hundreds of miles from his home on a mission he kept secret from his family and best friend. A local man engaged the traveler and they talked for over an hour about history, science and culture. The young man left the scene, planning on returning the next day.

What was about to happen?

Was this Stoppable?

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Listen to Episode 1 Here

From the team that produced The Asset, District Productive presents Stoppable, the true crime podcast that explores the riveting and dramatic stories of people who become enthralled with the idea of mass killing to achieve their ends. The podcast delves into the back stories of perpetrators to solve the mystery of how and why our friends, neighbors, siblings, children, and parents turn to dark acts of extreme violence against innocent victims.

In examining these cases, you will walk in the shoes of the perpetrators and travel on their journey as our team of mass-murder and terrorism experts analyze the actions of people preparing to commit atrocities. Every episode details a captivating tale of suspense and terror.

In the end, you will discover why these planned tragedies did?or did not?occur.

Stoppable is jointly produced by Muflehun and District Productive.

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In a cross-over event with The Tent podcast for the the CAP Action Fund, Tent host Daniella Leger interviews The Asset host, Max Bergmann.

"When we think about Ukraine and how much it means to Russia and the Russian State, Putin, his entire 22 years in office, has been about trying to make Russia stronger," says Bergmann. "And the one area where he totally failed is Ukraine."

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In Season 1 of the Unconventional Threat-- one of our other podcasts produced in partnership with the non-partisan organization Keep Our Republic--we issued warnings last year that were unfortunately made into a reality on January 6, 2021, when Trump loyalists stormed the Capitol and attempted to overthrow the certified Presidential election results naming Joe Biden President. We now know, it served as a trial run for a nefarious plan to overthrow our democratic republic.

The Future of our Nation Hangs in the Balance.

And that is why we are sharing Episode 1 of Season 2 of Unconventional Threat as a bonus episode to The Asset listeners. In this episode, we document the efforts of those who seek to gain control of our government through illegal and unconstitutional methods. By working to install confederates in state, county and local offices in the midterm elections of 2022, a shadow network has created--and is currently executing--a plan to secure victory for their candidate in the 2024 Presidential election...by any means necessary.

Please click  here to subscribe to this important podcast.

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Max Bergmann sits down with Paul "Woody" Woodhull, the co-creator of The Asset podcast and president of the progressive podcast network, District Productive, to analyze the election outcomes and the future of Donald J. Trump.

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President Trump on mail-in ballots: ?A whole big scam.?

Vice-President Joe Biden on claims of voter fraud: ?He?s trying to undermine the election.?

Unless we see a massive victory by either one of the candidates, both campaigns have signaled they will fight for what they believe to be the right outcome.

What Americans need to know is how this battle for ballots could create an unprecedented outcome with the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, being sworn in as President of the United States on Inauguration Day.

How is that even possible?

Republican and Democratic scholars and advisors lead us on a Constitutional journey from November 3rd to January 20th, pointing out the legal tripwires and dates certain that may likely determine our next President.

In this Election Day Special we are presenting an encore episode of the Unconventional Threat podcast.

Listen to the podcast Unconventional Threat

and help @defendourdemocracy2020

Follow us onTwitter @UncoThreat 

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In the year since season one of The Asset concluded, we have learned a lot. There are tell all books about the Mueller investigation, explosive new reporting, and the bombshell Senate Intelligence Committee Report. In this special episode of The Asset we break it all down and tell you what it all means.

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In this very special episode of The Asset, host Max Bergmann introduces a new podcast, Unconventional Threat from The Asset's production team, District Productive and the bi-partisan organization Keep Our Republic.

This is an election year unlike any other in ways that are unsettling and dangerous.

Unconventional Threat brings together exclusive interviews with newsmakers about everything that can happen between now and Inauguration Day, when it's possible we may still not have chosen a President. Journalist Peter Eisner and longtime State Department official Jonathan Winer will outline all the possibilities, including:

the use of the military;uncounted ballots; andone scenario where the House of Representatives picks the next President, with each state getting just one vote, no matter who wins the popular vote or leads the Electoral College.

You will hear exclusive interviews with such notable guests as:

Former United States Secretary of Homeland Security, Michael ChertoffSenior Vice President of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Heather ConleyChair of the House Committee on Rules Rep. Jim McGovernRanking Member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Bob MenendezAuthor of The Plot to Betray America Intelligence analyst Malcolm NanceFormer FBI special agent, specializing in counterintelligence investigations, Asha RangappaAuthor of Shadow Network: Media, Money, and the Secret Hub of the Radical Right Anne Nelson

Based on hard reporting, facts, and Constitutional Law, this series of 10 podcasts will prepare you for a very possible Unconventional Threat and delineate the steps we can take to come together as a nation to ensure that everyone has the chance to vote, their votes are counted, and the count is respected to create our national choice for President for the next four years.

Listen to the new podcast Unconventional Threat and help @defendourdemocracy2020

Follow us onTwitter @UncoThreat 

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In this bonus episode of The Asset Robert Draper, a writer at large for New York Times Magazine and the author of How the Bush Administration took America into Iraq, gives us a behind the scenes look at the Trump Administration's battles with the intelligence community.

Draper chronicles how the White House has co-opted the intelligence agencies in order to further its political agenda and the devastating results it has had on our nation's global standing.

Draper says, "The erosion of our credibility in the global intelligence community is a lamentable and rather stunning development."

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Max Bergmann, the Executive Director of the Moscow Project speaks with historian and author David Shimer about the alarming and disturbing pattern of electoral interference in American politics by Russia.

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The Moscow Project Executive Director Max Bergmann sits down with Senator Mark Warner, Vice-Chair of the Select Committee on Intelligence, for an exclusive interview on the committee's report of Russian Active Measures, Campaigns, and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election.

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In this special episode of The Asset, we are showcasing a new podcast from our friends at the Sixteen Thirty Fund: Made to Fail.

From health care, to unemployment insurance, to exercising the right to vote, COVID-19 has affected every part of American life. Sky-high unemployment. Vulnerable elections. Unrest in American cities. But what?s happening in our country is something much bigger than a pandemic. Something that?s been in the works for a long, long, time. The pandemic has pulled back the curtain on the conservative policies that time and time again, have failed the people they were supposed to protect. 

Made to Fail travels the country to tell the story of how conservative ideology has gutted the safety net, corrupted our institutions, and made government unaccountable to the people. As we confront an unprecedented era of economic uncertainty, amidst a health crisis and a national reckoning on race, the question is?how can we find the way out?

https://www.madetofail.org/

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Max Bergmann interviews The Guardian's Luke Harding about how Russia has sought to undermine the West by interfering and corrupting the politics of the US, UK, and other Western countries. Harding discusses his interviews with Christopher Steele, new revelations about Russian interference in the United Kingdom, his reaction to the Mueller report, and how Russia will seek to interfere in the 2020 election. 

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In this very special episode of The Asset, Max Bergmann brings us the back story of Michael Flynn's rise within the Trump adminstration and breaks down why Donald Trump can never let Flynn be incarcerated.

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Russian investigative journalists Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan risk their lives every day to expose the truth about Vladamir Putin's murder sprees around the world, including in the United States and Great Britain. In wide-ranging exclusive interview with Max Bergmann, the host of The Asset podcast, Soldatov and Borogan explain how and why Putin orders international assassinations and the reason there are little to no consequences for the Russian leader.

To hear the full interview, please subscribe to our Patreon page.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/34596098/edit

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Now that Donald Trump's first Impeachment Trial has wrapped up, Max Bergmann and Peter Ogburn discuss what was lost and gained in the trial and the path forward to saving our democracy.

To hear the full episode and all of our unedited interviews,please subscribe to our Patreon Page.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/34081678

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Max Bergmann, the host of the Asset Podcast, assesses the Impeachment Trial to date and handicaps what's ahead, as the end of Donald Trump's trial before the Senate looms.

To hear the full episode, become a Patreon subscriber.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/33614330

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In this teaser episode of This Week in Impeachment, Max Bergmann breaks down the the latest news of Parnas and Pence.

In the full episode available on Patreon, Max triangulates the Republican Senators' positions, projects the possible outcomes, and explains why any of them will be good for the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/33256671

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Max Bergmann, Executive Director of The Moscow Project and host of The Asset podcast, blazes the trail that could lead to a trial in the Senate with full witness testimony, something Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is working to thwart.

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Earlier in Season 2, we explained the backstory to the Ukraine scandal, tracing Trump?s efforts to extort a foreign government for his own personal gain. When a whistleblower complaint brought this scandal to light, it sparked the fourth impeachment investigation in our nation?s history.

In this episode of The Asset, host Max Bergmann, the director of The Moscow Project, an initiative of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, explains why Democrats finally moved forward on impeachment, and talks about how the Ukraine scandal grew out of an effort to shield Trump from the political fallout of his decision to collude with Russia in 2016.

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"Follow the Trail of Dead Russians" was the advice given by national security expert Clint Watts when he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. In this excerpt from our Patreon page, Max Bergmann continues down the mysterious trail that crosses the globe and is littered with the dead bodies of Russian diplomats, businessmen, and gangsters.

To listen to the full episode please subscribe to our Patreon Page here:

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"Follow the Trail of Dead Russians" was the advice given by national security expert Clint Watts when he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. In this excerpt from our Patreon page, Max Bergmann leads us down the mysterious trail that crosses the globe and is littered with the dead bodies of Russian diplomats, businessmen, and gangsters.

To listen to the full episode please subscribe to our Patreon Page here:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/32059046

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Max Bergmann, host of the Asset Podcast, sits down with Calder Walton, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and general editor of the Cambridge History of Espionage and Intelligence, to discuss the long legacy of Russian espionage in the United States and the consistent pattern of current efforts by Russia to disrupt American politics and damage the standing of the United States around the world.

To hear the entire interview, please subscribe to our Patreon page.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/31876080

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Producer Peter Ogburn sits down with host Max Bergmann to find out what happened This Week in Impeachment. We discuss the stunning testimonies of Fiona Hill and David Holmes as well as the madcap antics of Devon Nunes and Gordon Sondland. To hear the full 40-minute roundup, sign up at https://www.patreon.com/assetpodcast

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On July 25, 2019, Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and asked him for a favor: a public announcement of investigations into Trump?s political opponents. After he hung up, White House lawyers immediately sprang into action, burying the records of the incriminating phone call on a secret server and swearing those on the line to secrecy.

That call was part of a broader effort, a shadow foreign policy agenda in which a coterie of Trump advisers?including Rudy Giuliani, Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, and Special Envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker?demanded political favors in exchange for first a White House meeting and, later, $400 million in desperately needed military aid. In this episode, host Max Bergmann outlines how that extortion scheme came to be, starting with the Trump administration?s attempts to build a relationship with the new Ukrainian government and leading to the infamous July 25 call that prompted a whistleblower complaint and launched impeachment proceedings. 

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Producer Peter Ogburn sits down with host Max Bergmann to find out what happened This Week in Impeachment. We discuss the testimony of Ambassador Bill Taylor and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs George Kent. To get the FULL episode, go to our Patreon page at Patreon.com/assetpodcast where we talk more about how the Republicans will continue to shelter Trump, Maria Yovanovitch and the conviction of Roger Stone.

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On October 9, 2019, two Soviet-born Florida businessmen, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were arrested in Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, D.C. It would soon turn out that these two men had been involved for months in Rudy Giuliani?s quest to find dirt on the Biden family.

In this episode of The Asset, host Max Bergmann outlines the origins of Trump?s conspiracy theories surrounding Ukraine and Biden and explores the involvement of Parnas, Fruman, and exiled Ukrainian oligarch Dmitry Firtash in pushing these theories.

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Donald Trump?s efforts to extort the Ukrainian government for his own political gain are now at the center of the ongoing impeachment proceedings. But how did we get here? To understand that, we?ll need to go back to the former Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, and explore his efforts to get closer to the Trump administration. 

 

In this episode of The Asset, host Max Bergmann, the director of The Moscow Project, an initiative of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, explains Ukraine?s mad scramble to develop relationships with Trump and his inner circle after the 2016 election. As Russia sought to weaken Ukraine, in part by fighting a war, running disinformation and cyber attacks, and funneling money to fuel corruption, Ukraine increasingly found itself stuck between Vladimir Putin?s Russia and the Trump administration.

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In 2016, Donald Trump conspired with a foreign government to become President of the United States.

 On July 25, 2019, with the 2020 election around the corner, he decided to do it again.

The first time around, it was collusion, aiding and abetting Russia?s attack on American democracy. This time, it was extortion, demanding the Ukrainian government manufacture dirt on Trump?s political opponents in exchange for help the country needs to fend off a Russian invasion and chart a democratic future free of Vladimir Putin?s Kremlin. 

But then, a whistleblower inside Trump?s own government sounded the alarm. The White House tried to cover it up, but Democrats called out Trump?s extortion scheme and moved to impeach him. And Trump did the unthinkable: He confessed.

How did we get here? We will provide the backstory to the scandal that launched the impeachment proceedings, from the original efforts by Ukraine and its former president Petro Poroshenko to cozy up to Trump?s inner circle, to Rudy Giuliani?s efforts to manufacture dirt on Trump?s political opponents, to the whistleblower complaint that blew the whole thing open. Join host Max Bergmann, the Director of the Moscow Project at the center for American Progress Action Fund and a veteran of the State Department under Secretaries of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Kerry, for season two of ?The Asset.?

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In order to fully understand the impeachment inquiry, the United States' relationship with Ukraine, and how "All roads lead to Putin," you must first understand the recent turbulent history of the region.

Max sits down with Franklin Foer, a staff writer for The Atlantic magazine and a longtime journalist covering Trump and Russia. In this exclusive interview with The Asset, Foer delves into Ukrainian politics and the oversized role Paul Manafort played in their elections before transitioning to the Trump campaign.

To hear the full interview, subscribe to our Patreon page

https://www.patreon.com/posts/assets-exclusive-30912523

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On July 25, Trump had a phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky, the recently-elected president of Ukraine. According to notes on the conversation released by the White House, Trump asked Zelensky to do him a ?favor? by investigating two conspiracy theories, one claiming that Ukrainian government officials conspired with the Clinton campaign in 2016 and the other alleging that former Vice President (and Democratic presidential candidate) Joe Biden improperly intervened in a Ukrainian investigation into a company on whose board his son Hunter sat. The call was part of an effort going back more than a year to pressure Ukraine into acting in Trump?s political interests.

 

Public reporting of Trump?s efforts to pressure foreign governments to investigate his rivals has captivated the public and led House Democrats to open formal impeachment proceedings against the President. To break down how we got here, The Asset?s Max Bergmann sat down with the team at The Tent podcast to discuss the Trump team?s longstanding ties to Ukraine, that July 25th phone call, what?s next for the impeachment inquiry, and what this means for U.S. foreign policy.

Just a little taste of what's to come in The Asset Season 2!

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Donald Trump's deep and complicated relationship with Russia goes back to the 1980's with his trip to the Soviet Union. In this excerpt of our exclusive interview with journalist and author Luke Harding, who was the Guardian's Moscow bureau chief from 2007 to 2011, we dive into the stories swirling around Donald Trump of assassinations, sketchy real-estate deals, money laundering, hacking and Russian espionage...and Paul Manafort's connection to the Ukraine.

To hear the full interview, subscribe to our Patreon page

https://www.patreon.com/posts/29158985

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As an FBI Special Agent, Asha Rangappa specialized in counter intelligence investigations, pursuing threats to our nation's security. In that role, Rangappa tracked down assets of foreign governments and neutralized those threats. She also flipped foreign nationals into becoming assets of the United States government. In this trailer to our Patreon post of the full 45-minute interview with Rangappa, the former agent lays down the groundwork to analyze Donald Trump's role in the Russian interference in the 2016 election.

To hear the full interview, subscribe to our Patreon page

https://www.patreon.com/posts/29901493

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Special Counsel Robert Mueller?s report documents not only collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin to win the 2016 election but also Trump?s frantic efforts to cover up collusion with Russia. In this week?s episode, host Max Bergmann, the director of the Moscow Project, an initiative of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, breaks down those efforts, from pressuring witnesses not to cooperate to pushing out his attorney general so he could rein in the Mueller investigation.

 

With help from experts like former FBI Special Agent Asha Rangappa and former CIA Operative John Sipher, we discuss whether Trump is a witting or unwitting asset of Russia. And finally, we break down what happened and how we are where we are ? with Trump, a Russian asset, still in office, and posed to fight for reelection with Russia primed to interfere again.

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After the election, Russia sought to cash in for its efforts during the election. Collusion didn?t end with the 2016 election, as the Trump transition team and the Kremlin continued working together to plot ways the incoming Trump administration could deliver for Russia.

 

This week on The Asset, host Max Bergmann, the director of the Moscow Project, an initiative of the Center for American Progress, analyzes the Trump transition team?s various backchannels to the Kremlin, from phone calls with the Russian ambassador to a rendezvous in the Seychelles to meetings right under everyone?s noses in Trump Tower.

 

For more than two years, Trump has acted like a Russian asset in the Oval Office trying to deliver for Putin. He sought to get rid of sanctions, push a Russian plan for Ukraine, attacked America?s allies, and undermined democratic norms at home.

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Special Counsel Robert Mueller?s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election is the most damning document ever published about a sitting president. But as much as it told us, the Mueller report said it found ?insufficient evidence? to establish that there was a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Not that there was no evidence of a conspiracy, just not enough to prove it in court.

 

This week on The Asset, we sift through the evidence pointing toward a conspiracy and explore some of the questions the Mueller report didn?t answer. Why did Paul Manafort share confidential polling data with a suspected Russian agent? Why was a server for the Trump Organization communicating with a server for a Kremlin-linked Russian bank? What did Russia do with the data it stole from the Democratic National Committee that didn?t wind up on WikiLeaks? Where does Cambridge Analytica, the shady data-digital firm the Trump campaign hired, fit in?

With the help of experts like journalist Franklin Foer and Clinton campaign press secretary Brian Fallon, host Max Bergmann, the director of the Moscow Project, an initiative of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, breaks down what we know about the possible answers to these questions?and what we don?t.

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October 7th, 2016, was one of the most important days in American political history. At 4:03 pm that day, the Access Hollywood tape was released. Just 29 minutes later, WikiLeaks ? at 4:32pm on a Friday ?began releasing emails hacked by Russian military officers from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta?s account. The timing of this dump made no sense for WikiLeaks. But it made a lot of sense for Donald Trump.

 

Last week on The Asset, we talked about the five steps to collusion: Hack. Inform. Collude. Release. Campaign. This week, we take a deep dive into that final step and break down how Trump campaigned on the stolen email releases. Russia hacked in March, gave WikiLeaks emails in September, WikiLeaks released them in October 2016, and Trump ran on these emails through November, mentioning WikiLeaks more than 150 times in the final weeks of the campaign. The email releases from WikiLeaks were core to Trump?s campaign strategy in the home stretch of the election.

 

In this episode of The Asset, host Max Bergmann, the director of The Moscow Project, an initiative of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, breaks down how the Trump team ran their campaign of collusion all the way to the White House. The episode explores how these two campaigns, the Russian campaign and the Trump campaign, worked together in tandem. And if this sounds like the definition of collusion, that?s because it is.

 

The Asset tells the full story of Trump and Russia. Each week, we will examine the colorful characters and dirty deals that populate the story of how Russia helped the son of a shady real estate mogul became President of the United States.

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Friday, July 22, 2016 was the day it became clear that the 2016 presidential election would be like no other ever experienced in the United States. On that day, the Russian cut-out WikiLeaks released a massive trove of hacked emails from the DNC. And Russia had just shown that it was all-in in support of Donald Trump.

 

We break down Trump?s collusion with Russia into five easy steps: Hack. Inform. Collude. Release. Campaign. Throughout each of these steps, the Russians were looking for feedback, looking for access, and looking for assurance from the Trump campaign that they wouldn?t be left high and dry. And they got it, again and again.

 

In this episode of The Asset, host Max Bergmann, the director of The Moscow Project, an initiative of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, outlines how two campaigns worked to elect Donald Trump: one run by the Trump team, and one run out of the Kremlin. These campaigns worked in tandem, meeting and communicating to collude to elect Trump as president. This is how collusion occurred.

 

The Asset tells the full story of Trump and Russia. Each week, we will examine the colorful characters and dirty deals that populate the story of how Russia helped the son of a shady real estate mogul became President of the United States.

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We break down the beginnings of the two campaigns to elect Donald Trump: one run out of Trump Tower, and the other run out of the Kremlin. 

From the moment Trump announced he was running for president, he was unabashedly pro-Russia. It made no sense. Until we learned that throughout the campaign, the Trump Organization was actively seeking to develop a Trump Tower in Moscow.

 In this episode of The Asset, host Max Bergmann, the director of The Moscow Project, an initiative of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, details the early connections between the two campaigns. Trump surrounded himself with shady actors with ties to the Kremlin, including his campaign chairman Paul Manafort, national security adviser Michael Flynn, and campaign aides George Papadopoulos and Carter Page.

 Lastly, the episode breaks down the beginning of the Russian campaign to elect Donald Trump and the origins of its online efforts. Russia created an online army online designed to poison American discourse on social media and advance Trump?s campaign. The Russian efforts worked like a political campaign and we will break down their impact on the 2016 election.

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Join us as we go through the murky world of Russian intelligence. In Vladimir Putin?s Russia, the old-style KGB tactics didn?t go away. Instead, the Russian intelligence apparatus has been empowered. This episode goes through the story of the Russian ?illegals? spy ring operating in the U.S., examining the back story of these deep cover Russian agents who would later become the inspiration for the hit television series ?The Americans?. We also show how one of the American men recruited by a Russian spy, Carter Page, eventually rose up to become one of Trump?s initial foreign policy advisors.

In this episode of The Asset, host Max Bergmann, the director of The Moscow Project, an initiative of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, shows how Russia sought to infiltrate and cultivate the far right movement in the United States, locking in on guns and the NRA as the most effective way to do so. It breaks down the story of Maria Butina, a Russian agent currently behind bars.

This episode also hones in on Donald Trump?s reemergence on the political scene with his embrace of the birther conspiracy theory and shows how that conspiracy mirrors the same sorts of disinformation campaigns that Soviet and Russian intelligence love to push.

Lastly, the episode breaks down the idea of kompromat and examines Trump?s 2013 Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow. This isn?t just the trip where that infamous tape took place. It is also where Trump once again was seeking to do business in Russia.

The Asset tells the full story of Trump and Russia. Each week, we will examine the colorful characters and dirty deals that populate the story of how Russia helped the son of a shady real estate mogul became President of the United States.

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The fight over Ukraine?s future is key to the Trump-Russia story. It is central to understanding why, in 2016, Russia undertook such a brazen and risky assault on American democracy.

 Russia?s attempt to reassert itself as a great power and exert control over Ukraine led to a collapse in U.S.-Russia relations. Color revolutions in former Soviet states, including two major uprisings in Ukraine, aggravated Putin?s suspicions of the West and made him determined to prevent similar dissent within Russia. When massive protests broke out in Russia following the December 2011 elections, he blamed then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

 In this episode of The Asset, host Max Bergmann, the director of The Moscow Project, an initiative of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, traces how Putin, in fighting for control of Ukraine, brought on a new confrontation with the United States. But Russia?s weak economy and inability to directly respond to US and EU sanctions, ultimately forced Putin to get creative and brush off the old KGB playbook. The target: American democracy.

 The Asset tells the full story of Trump and Russia. Each week, we will examine the colorful characters and dirty deals that populate the story of how Russia helped the son of a shady real estate mogul became President of the United States.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Russian Money was pouring out of Russia into the US real estate market and Donald Trump was all about it. We follow the Russian money flowing into the Trump Organization, highlighting the shady cast of characters that surround Donald Trump and his businesses from the suspicious deals in the former Soviet Union, to ?little Moscow? where Trump concentrated his properties in Florida, to the story behind Trump?s favorite bank. Trump may not have a lot of money in Russia but Russia sure has money in Donald Trump.

In this episode of The Asset, host Max Bergmann, the director of The Moscow Project, an initiative of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, shows how Trump changed his business model to tap into the Russian market. Suddenly the Trump Organization wasn?t really in the development business. It was in the real estate licensing business, hiring all sorts of shady brokers to help it tap into the Russian market.

Yet somehow after the worst real estate crisis since the Great Depression, Trump suddenly found himself with loads of unexplained cash. Trump went into the worst real estate market in real trouble and comes out on the other side able to spend absurd amounts of cash on golf courses, as well as having a new line of credit from Deutsche Bank, a bank that had just sued him for defaulting on his loans. This does not add up. Except, in many ways, it does. It just requires factoring in Russia.  

 

The Asset tells the full story of Trump and Russia. Each week, we will examine the colorful characters and dirty deals that populate the story of how Russia helped the son of a shady real estate mogul became President of the United States.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

To understand the Russian interference in the 2016 election, it is essential to understand Vladimir Putin. And to understand Putin, you need to understand his KGB past, his rise to power, his fight for control of Russia, and the system--The Sistema--he created.

The collapse of the Soviet Union set off a mad violent scramble to take control over its vast state-held industrial sector. Organized crime flourished and The Oligarchs were born: a new class of noveau-riche businessmen capturing all the wealth. They move their money abroad and are a force unto themselves. Until KGB drives its comeback with Vladmir Putin behind the wheel .

In this episode of The Asset, host Max Bergmann, the director of The Moscow Project, an initiative of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, shows how Putin goes from political unknown to president in a matter of months, setting his sights on taking control. One of Putin?s first priorities: Bring the oligarchs to heel and put them under state control.

As Putin?s power consolidates and strengthens over the ensuing two decades, an informal system or Sistema took root. This system is also staggeringly corrupt and makes Putin shockingly wealthy. A key requirement of operating in Putin?s Sistema is you have to be corrupt. That means that anyone and everyone in The Sistema is also compromised. The oligarchs become tools of Putin and the Kremlin. As Russian oligarchs went out into the world and spread their money around, bought property, made investments, built connections and developed relationships; they were also developing relationships and connections that could be seized and cultivated by Putin?s Kremlin. This would soon include a relationship being cultivated with an organization based in a tower on 5th Avenue in Manhattan.

 

The Asset tells the full story of Trump and Russia. Each week, we will examine the colorful characters and dirty deals that populate the story of how Russia helped the son of a shady real estate mogul became President of the United States.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Donald Trump?s businesses failed; a lot. He bankrupted hotels, casinos, an airline and?even an entire football league. And when they failed Trump needed someone to bail him out. And up until the late 1990s that person was his dad.

Yet despite Trump?s businesses failures, he came to personify the image of American wealth and success in the 1980s. It was an era of a roaring stock market and Wall Street extravagance and no one seemed to embody the fabulously wealthy lifestyle more than Donald Trump. He cultivated that image and became a celebrity.

In this episode of The Asset, host Max Bergmann, the director of The Moscow Project, an initiative of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, shows that when Trump wrote The Art of the Deal, when he was on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, when he was being listed in Forbes as one of the wealthiest people in the world, it was all a fraud. It was an act. As everything was falling apart around him, Trump proved a master at keeping up appearances ? at living a double life. He convinced the public, the media, and banks that he was a great businessman when in fact, he was bankrupt.

During this period Trump also rubbed shoulders with mobsters and even got on the radar of the KGB ? even going to Moscow at the invitation of the Soviet Union?s Ambassador to the United States.

As the 1990s became the 2000s, Donald Trump?s dad was no longer around to bail him out. But traditional banks would not lend to him, coining the term ?the Donald Risk.? Yet Trump was able to build project after project by turning to a new class of uber-wealthy buyers and investors from Russia and the former Soviet Union. The question would soon become: who was cultivating whom?

 

The Asset tells the full story of Trump and Russia. Each week, we will examine the colorful characters and dirty deals that populate the story of how Russia helped the son of a shady real estate mogul became President of the United States.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The scandal of Russian interference became Topic # 1 in the first six months of 2017. In a whirlwind of bombshell stories and breaking developments, Trump?s Russia ties went from a fringe topic, ignored by the national media, to a national media obsession.

During the 2016 election, candidate Trump?s laudatory comments about Russia were, frankly, weird. For 70 years, the Republican Party had defined itself by being hawkish on Russia. In the previous presidential election, Republican candidate Mitt Romney said Russia was ?without question, our #1 geopolitical foe.?

During the campaign, Trump had flip-flopped on a whole series of positions to align with traditional GOP values. But on the subject of Russia and Vladimir Putin, Trump remained steadfast. He unabashedly praised and defended the Russian leader.

In this episode of The Asset, host Max Bergmann, the director of The Moscow Project, an initiative of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, rewinds the tape and takes us through the blurred timeline from the launch of Donald Trump?s campaign to the beginning of the Mueller investigation. Max brings into sharp focus the details of the greatest political scandal in American history: the Trump campaign?s collusion with Russia during the 2016 election.

The daily deluge of information makes Trump?s relationship with Russia seem even more confusing and complex. It is almost like reading a novel with the pages out of order.

The Asset puts the pages back in order, starting just as the FBI would if it were conducting a counter-intelligence investigation. We?ll follow the money. Each week, we will examine the colorful characters and dirty deals that populate the story of how the son of a shady real estate mogul became President of the United States with the help of a ruthless autocrat trying to undermine the United States and re-establish the glory of his fading superpower on the global stage.

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For decades, Donald Trump has cultivated Russian money and investment to keep his hotels and other business interests afloat. But as Trump was cultivating Russian money; Vladimir Putin?s Russia was cultivating him. With Putin consolidating power at home and trying to revive Russia as a great power abroad, he faced a challenge: democracy. ?Color revolutions? ? pro-democracy uprisings - threatened Russia?s rise and Putin?s rule. He blamed the United States and sought to hit back where we were most vulnerable: our politics. Donald Trump became the perfect vehicle; the ideal asset. As Trump?s campaign built up steam, Russia set up its own campaign to support him. These two campaigns shared the same goals, same tactics, and were in constant contact. In other words, these campaigns colluded. Since coming to office, Trump has continued to align himself with Putin, all while trying to obstruct the investigation into Russia?s interference in the 2016 election and his own campaign?s complicity in that effort.

 Host Max Bergmann is a veteran of the State Department who worked on sensitive military and national security issues under Secretaries of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Kerry. He now runs an initiative for the Center for American Progress Action Fund called The Moscow Project. For the past two years, he and his team have been examining Russia?s interference in the 2016 election.

Beginning with this trailer of The Asset, you will hear everything they have learned over the past two years to help you make sense of the biggest political scandal in American history, including elements of our exclusive interviews with:

Tim O'Brien, Executive Editor of Bloomberg Opinion and author of Trump Nation

Angela Stent, Professor of Government and Foreign Service at Georgetown University and director of its Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East European Studies and author of Putin's World: Russia Against the West and with the Rest

Luke Harding, Foreign Correspondent for The Guardian and author of Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win

Asha Rangappa, former Special Agent for the FBI, specializing in counterintelligence investigations in New York City

 John Sipher, former member of the CIA?s Senior Intelligence Service, Chief of Station and Deputy Chief of Station in Europe, Asia, and in high-threat environments, including Moscow

 David Corn Washington Bureau Chief for Mother Jones and co-author of Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump

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