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I'm not a legal reporter.
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I'm not a crime reporter.
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I'm a business reporter.
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And when a business is doing things
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for years that just don't make sense,
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it just makes me keep wondering.
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What's going on?
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What am I missing?
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Okay.
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[speaking foreign language]
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Well thank you very much Mr. President.
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I think the theory of the case is pretty simple.
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This is right after the financial crisis.
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There's not a lot of real estate deals to be had.
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It was this paradoxical period
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in Trump's life.
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♫ Money, money, money, money
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Because of the Apprentice,
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because of his TV stardom,
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he had never been more famous,
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he had never been more thought of as
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the model of a successful businessman,
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of a successful developer.
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And his business was in a lot of trouble.
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You know, there were multiple bankruptcies,
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he was loosing control of his casinos.
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There was a real need for cash.
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The Trump organization really is no longer
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a developer in the traditional sense.
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It's not building buildings.
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It's not buying land and then constructing a tower.
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It's really becoming a marketing company.
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It has this brand, Trump,
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and it goes around the world
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and around the country
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and sells that brand.
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There's a few reasons why
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these Georgians were interested
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in the Trump brand.
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So part of it I think,
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is people have told me is
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it really clicks with what
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wealthy Russian men,
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or former Soviet Union men
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think of as manliness.
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He may be the most eligible bachelor in America.
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Please welcome Donald Trump.
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They love the gold.
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They love the marble.
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The flash, you know, the old guys with flashy clothes
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and the young, beautiful wife.
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And there's a real brand synergy there
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that maybe there isn't in other parts of the world.
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Remember, the Trump organization
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is switching to an international posture
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with like four or five people
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doing these international deals
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with very little experience overseas.
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And they're going into very complicated countries
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with deeply corrupt economies,
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and really problematic interactions
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between business and politics.
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And eventually what happens though is
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you are in bed with some really bad people.
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Yeah, so, the reason that
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I started getting passionate about this story
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is when Donald Trump,
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in an interview with the New York Times,
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basically hinted that if
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Robert Mueller, the special counsel begins
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investigating his business deals,
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he would consider that crossing a red line,
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and hinted that he might fire him.
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Now, I already knew a fair bit about
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how the Trump organization worked,
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and i had the strong suspicion
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that if there was any kind of collusion,
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we don't know if there was,
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it probably had it's roots
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in a business deal.
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So I thought to look more carefully
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at deals in the former Soviet Union.
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And what I saw here is
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that the connection to Putin is
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just a few hops, you know,
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the shin bone's connected to the ankle bone.
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I could not have done it without
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these two Columbia University,
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they were journalism students,
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and now they're investigative fellows.
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They spent unbelievable amount of time
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on the Georgian government's business registry.
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But then they find out
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that most of the companies involved
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are actually registered in these offshore jurisdictions.
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Malta or the Netherlands,
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or the British Virgin Islands.
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And so that's a process of trying to find those companies.
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Ultimately, billions and billions and billions of dollars,
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countries all over the world.
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We really needed to choose,
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no, okay, what really matters
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is that people are doing business with Trump,
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who were they?
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Where did they get their money?
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How did they get their money?
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And how are they connected to Putin?
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That's what matters.
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99 out of a 100 people won't talk to you but,
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once in a while,
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and it only takes a few,
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you find people who will tell you some real information.
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Probably the weirdest moment
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was I was meeting a source
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who asked to meet
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on the waterfront.
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Insisted that I
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leave my phone in the car.
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This person turned off both of their phones.
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It had that kind of cloak and dagger feeling
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throughout.
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I'd say the toughest thing about reporting on Trump now is
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everybody is terrified of
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being mentioned in a tweet,
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being attacked in some way.
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Now, nobody's threatened me.
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Nobody has said they want to hurt me.
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But, it is a scary time
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to be somebody who's reporting
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negative stories about the president.
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And I do live
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in some degree of fear.
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I mean I was a reporter in Iraq and I,
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I had other fears in Iraq,
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but I've never had that kind of
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personal,
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someone could just decide that I'm somehow
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the personification of the enemy,
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and ruin,
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you know, cause real damage.
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And that's scary.
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There's almost no question
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that some of their business,
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some of the money they made came
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from money launderers.
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Trump's not alone.
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I think he's probably an outlier.
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I think he takes on riskier deals
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with more troubling people than most would.
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But he's not alone.
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But now he's president.
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And when you have this kind of promiscuous approach,
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this broad approach to being available financially
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to some of the most problematic people in the world,
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people who are from a part of the world
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where there is no separation
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between politics, intelligence,
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and military and business.
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They're all one intertwined elite.
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You have a disaster.
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You have a president
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who could, it's reasonable to fear,
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be seriously compromised.
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Doing a story like this,
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I'm like boy, we have barely scratched the surface.
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Alright, thanks guys.
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[groups chatter]