Time to Clean House
This week we look at Biden’s big anti-corruption plan – and wonder if anyone will actually implement it! The Biden admin has put out a kleptocracy battle missive that reads like Gaslit Nation’s greatest hits, but will it be another “Iron Triangles” fiasco? (For those who don’t have brains bursting with bureaucratic betrayal, the “Iron Triangles” speech is the one Robert Mueller made in 2011 vowing to crack down on transnational organized crime, which he followed up by spending the rest of the decade enabling transnational organized crime.)
We don’t know what will happen, but we do know that Congress needs to clean House – at home and abroad! Sarah launches into a long story about Paul Gosar, the January 6 Capitol attacks, the unindicted conspirators, the bipartisan obsession with harming AOC, the strangeness of Congress not wanting to defend itself from people who want to murder them, and the donation record of a shady Russian oligarch associate who is funding not only the DCCC, but Nancy Pelosi individually, and keeps upping the donations! Wow, way to battle the kleptocracy, Dems!
Andrea takes on the Biden-Putin video call and looks at the looming Russia war on Ukraine and the humanitarian disaster it will bring for the region, particularly for human rights activists and journalists who are already fighting a brave fight. As always, we implore the Biden administration to abandon Nordstream 2 if they actually want to clean up global corruption.
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Evgeniya Chirikova:
Our main problem is that Europe continues to collaborate with Putin’s regime and continues to buy from Putin gas, oil and other natural resources. It's a huge problem. And at this moment, I think it's extremely important to stop the Nord Stream 2 project. Why it's important is because Putin’s regime, unfortunately, use this money from Europe for these gas needs for propaganda machine, for military campaigns against our neighbors, against Ukraine, against Georgia. And I think it's really very bad for human rights in Russia. Iraq continues to pay for Putin's regime, Putin’s regime continues to pay for [inaudible], for police, for FSB, and they continue to press civil society. I can ask [inaudible] of USA and the State Department to organize sanctions—strong sanctions—against the Nord Stream 2 project. I think that we need to ask the Biden and administration to demand from Putin’s authorities to release Alexei Navalny immediately. And, well, I think that we need to ask Biden to demand from Putin to stop pressure to Memorial, immediately, too.
Sarah Kendzior:
I’m Sarah Kendzior, the author of the bestsellers, The View from Flyover Country and Hiding in Plain Sight, and of the upcoming book, They Knew, out in 2022.
Andrea Chalupa:
I'm Andrea Chalupa, a journalist and filmmaker and the writer and producer of the journalistic thriller, Mr. Jones about Stalin's genocide famine in Ukraine.
Sarah Kendzior:
This is Gaslit Nation, a podcast covering corruption in the United States and rising autocracy around the world.
Andrea Chalupa:
And our opening clip was Evgeniya Chirikova, a Russian environmental and anti-corruption campaigner currently forced to live abroad in exile. She is the founder of activatica.org and the winner of the Woman of Courage Award and of the Goldman Environmental Prize. She, like so many other Russian and Ukrainian activists, are pleading with Western leaders to stop the Nord Stream 2 project, a dangerous instrument of blackmail that Putin holds over Europe, which we've covered many times on the show. More on that later as the Biden administration and Europe prepares an aggressive sanction package in the hopes of deterring Putin's invasion of Ukraine, a sanction package that, so far, according to current reporting, does not include Nord Stream 2. As Julia Roberts says in Pretty Woman, “Big mistake, big.” Today on Patreon, we're answering questions submitted by our listeners at the Democracy Defender level and higher.
Andrea Chalupa:
Our Gaslit Nation Ask Us Anything sessions with our listeners give us a sense of what's on everyone's mind, how we’re all coping with the rise of autocracy, how we're seeing various crises play out, and generally provide a support group for our community to come together and vent. You can sign up to listen to those bonus episodes available Tuesday afternoons as the Gaslit Nation early show by subscribing at the Truth Teller level and higher on Patreon. And once again, to submit your question to me and Sarah, sign up at the Democracy Defender level or higher, and we look forward to seeing you at the Gaslit Nation Q&A's.
Sarah Kendzior:
Yes, we do. And so, Andrea, I know you have some exciting news, which is that the Biden administration has discovered that corruption is indeed bad, and kleptocracy is bad. And they seem to have come up with a plan to combat it, with the question that I have being, Will they implement it? But do you want to tell everybody what the plan is?
Andrea Chalupa:
So there's big news this December leading up to Biden's video call, happening now, as Sarah and I are talking, which means the usual goon squad that likes to listen to our conversations is a little preoccupied right now. So Putin obviously has been extra deranged, extra, terrorist-y, be cause he's been trying to force a summit, another summit, with Biden before the year's out. Why would he do this? Because it's to flaunt his power and all the terrorism he's gotten away with. Instead, Biden’s like, Eh, I'll see you over Zoom. Obviously, it's not Zoom. It's whatever fancy presidents and dictators use, some secure video conference. But leading up to this, the US government put out a deep dive into how the US will now be prioritizing the global fight against corruption as a US national security interest. And we'll get into that and why that matters.
Andrea Chalupa:
It's very clear that people somewhere in positions of power or adjacent to power have been listening to Gaslit Nation because there's a lot that we want to see done that is outlined in this report. And we're grateful for it, but everything comes down to, of course, implementation. First we want to highlight what is the latest now, what the stakes are, and some big sanctions news on the horizon. Currently, there's an estimated 100,000 Russian troops amassed on Ukraine's border. That number could go up to 175,000 as Russia gets ready to pull the trigger on its self-destructive invasion. So, now, as we mentioned, Biden and Putin have that call today to try to prevent that. It's not in Putin’s favor to get into a long, bloody, drawn out invasion of Ukraine. That would work against him in so many ways, for the obvious reasons: Too many adventures—misadventures—abroad is a contributing factor to bringing down powers, great powers that be. It stretches your resources too thin.
Andrea Chalupa:
It creates a lot of problems at home, a lot of resentment. It would certainly radicalize the Russian civil society movement that has been going strong against great odds. Then, of course, it would lead to further sanctions and further damaging consequences that would be extremely unpopular among Putin's court of oligarchs. They do have their limits there. So, it's not in Putin's interests to carry out this massive full-scale invasion. The Biden administration is working on a new aggressive package of sanctions against Russia, should Putin invade Ukraine, that would be the most economically devastating sanctions since those imposed by the US against North Korea and Iran. The sanction package includes disconnecting Russia from the international bank payment system known as SWIFT. If you see a Russia analyst dismissing this as weak, it's because the analyst is likely in the pocket of the Kremlin. Getting disconnected from SWIFT is a big deal.
Andrea Chalupa:
It will make it severely painful and difficult for Russia to do business with the outside world. I'm going to keep going on what this sanctions package includes because it is pretty horrific for Putin's court of oligarchs. And again, the Kremlin response, including their little analysts that they've placed in places, the response so far is to be dismissive. “Oh, that’s like nothing”, right? They're basically trying to laugh off these sanctions, but really, they're scared. The new sanctions could go after a long list of sectors, including energy and banking and Russia’s sovereign debt. Russian energy producers could be shut from debt markets which will make it harder for them to continue to do business and to finance projects. Some of the heavyweight Russian oligarchs in Putin's court of oligarchs could also be targeted, losing access to American banking and credit card systems and having their travel limited.
Andrea Chalupa:
And plus, they will wear the stink of being sanctioned, which makes it harder to launder your reputation by making large donations to museums, universities, and hospitals. The big concern is that Russia will retaliate by weaponizing energy, by withholding supply, something it is already doing by withholding gas to Europe to drive up prices and leave Europeans in the cold. This, again, underlines the point we've been making on the show for years now: the sheer stupidity of Europe, especially Germany, to increase its dependency on Russian gas by allowing Putin's Nord Stream 2 project (the infamous gas pipeline between Russia and Germany) to move forward. Europe did this to itself, essentially allowing Putin to blackmail Europe into not holding Putin accountable for his global terrorism. So, hopefully Nord Stream 2, which Congress really wants but the White House has been slow walking for whatever reason…They've made their public reasons known, but we don't know what the real reason is.
Andrea Chalupa:
They basically said, Hey, it's already been built under Trump, it's too late to stop it. That's not true. You can, you can stop it from actually functioning through strong sanctions. And again, this is something, as you heard at the start of our show, the Russians—the everyday Russians who are putting their lives on the line, whose families lives are on the line because the regime in Moscow targets family members of activists—they're the ones who are calling for sanctions on Nord Stream 2. So, Biden not leading the effort of sanctioning Nord Stream 2 to the point where it's completely unable to function is ignoring the desperate cries for help from regular Russian people. As I mentioned earlier, in the lead up to the call with Putin, the Biden White House released a report titled, United States Strategy on Countering Corruption Pursuant to the National Security Study Memorandum on Establishing the Fight Against Corruption as a Core United States National Security Interest, otherwise known as the Gaslit Nation transcripts as available on gaslitnationpod.com.
Andrea Chalupa:
To combat international corruption as a US national security priority, the US will promote greater transparency. I'll read now from the report: “On June 3rd, 2021, President Biden established the fight against corruption as a core national security interest of the United States. As he wrote in the National Security Study Memorandum, ‘corruption threatens the United States’ national security, economic equity, global anti-poverty and development efforts, and democracy itself.’ By effectively preventing encountering corruption and demonstrating the advantages of transparent and accountable governance, we can secure a critical advantage for the United States and other democracies. Federal departments and agencies have conducted an inter-agency review to take stock of existing US government anti-corruption efforts and to identify and seek to rectify persistent gaps in the fight against corruption. In parallel with this review, departments and agencies have begun to accelerate and amplify their efforts to prevent and combat corruption at home and abroad,—”
Sarah Kendzior:
At home, eh? Sorry, go on. [laughs]
Andrea Chalupa:
[laughs] We’ll get to that in the second half of the rest of the show: “—bring transparency to the United States and international financial systems—” and make it increasingly difficult for corrupt actors to shield their activities by making major donations to the Democratic Party itself. I'm just kidding. I added that last bit.
Sarah Kendzior:
[laughs] That's coming up, that's coming up, stay tuned.
Andrea Chalupa:
Yup. The efforts will also target the dirty money of real estate, which it targets as well as—this is my notes on this now. So the strategy report will target…It says that they're going to now target the dirty money of real estate, which is a way that bad actors, of course,move their money and hide their corruption. Manafort had a bunch of properties seized by the US government, which should be now turned into museums of corruption.
Sarah Kendzior:
And property in Trump Tower. Of course, we have the president who is the paragon of laundering money through real estate and was actually under investigation by the Treasury for that, until they dropped it once he became the president, which is a reason why these people run for office. But go on.
Andrea Chalupa:
Right. And a lot of Russians were buying up his properties, including overpaying for some.
Sarah Kendzior:
It was a dorm.
Andrea Chalupa:
Mmmhmm (affirmative)
Sarah Kendzior:
A mafia dorm.
Andrea Chalupa:
The report promises greater support and mobilization of law enforcement and the intelligence community to work together. Basically, the report reads a lot like Robert Mueller's 2011 Iron Triangles speech, which we've referenced a lot on this show, where Robert Mueller, as FBI director in 2011, said that the mafia of today is not a bunch of guys sitting around in a restaurant with their guns, making a great scene for a Scorsese film. It's fancy law firms and accountants and other Western operatives and financiers that help hide money and move blood money around. The mafia of the 21st century is financial sophistication. It's real estate. This whole anti-corruption as a national security priority for the US reads like the new Iron Triangle speech from Robert Mueller in 2011.
Sarah Kendzior:
Only, notably, without any mention of organized crime using the words organized crime, which could be seen as, well, they've now succeeded in infiltrating our systems so insidiously—as Mueller warned against, and then did nothing about—that that line between licit and illicit ventures that you mentioned is just gone, so they're not going to name it. I wish they would name it, but it is good that, I guess, kleptocracy is going to be their word. Kleptocracy, literally meaning rule by thieves, which is what we've got. But yeah, sorry. I keep interrupting you. Keep going.
Andrea Chalupa:
No, I mean, that's basically it. It's just Robert Mueller, FBI director, saw all this. He saw the sophisticated financial instruments that gave rise to the Russian mafia and Putin's Russian mafia state working together to bring Trump to power. The FBI knew all this in 2011 and then five years later, the Russian mafia wins the 2016 election in the US. We don't want to repeat a history where, here, we have this report that extensively outlines how critical fighting global corruption is for our national security. That means the sovereignty of our nation. That means the integrity of our elections. That means the right of American citizens, the right of people who pay taxes here in the US, to elect their leaders fairly, openly, with transparency. That means we decide the fate of our own country, that it's not going to be hijacked by some blood thirsty international crime syndicate.
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Andrea Chalupa:
So I want to provide now a montage of remarkable women from a round table discussion I was honored to participate in the other week featuring courageous human rights activists from Russia and Belarus. If the US does not follow through on its anti-corruption strategy report, activists like these women, their friends and family, will remain under great threat. Lives are at stake. Corruption kills. If you want to support and ensure human rights, democracies around the world must unite to meaningfully combat and contain corruption. That's how they can support the extremely vulnerable civil society groups from Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and too many other places. In this montage, you'll hear from Tatiana Yankelevich Bonner (the daughter of the dissidents Yelena Bonner and Andrei Sakharov). She’s an independent researcher affiliated with the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian studies at Harvard University. You also hear from Nadia Zelenkova who is a co-owner of a digital agency, a partner Ў Gallery of Contemporary Arts in Belarus, a democratic activist currently forced to live abroad in exile, and the wife of political prisoner, Alexander Vasilevich. And then you'll hear again from Evgeniya Chirikova, the leading Russian environmental and anti-corruption campaigner. These women are warning you about what needs to be done to hold true to your promises and not allow another victory for the international crime syndicate of the Russian mafia and its enablers in the West.
Tatiana Yankelevich Bonner:
We have very determined regimes in my home country, in my motherland of Russia to crush any independent activity, be that an organization, or group, or an individual even now. And we have to find a way to bring the attention of our legislators. We have to be really aggressive, thoughtful, determined.
Nadia Zelenkova:
Already for 15 months, Alexander Vasilevich, my husband, has been in prison. He's also a political prisoner and I spent 10 hours under interrogation and became a suspect in a criminal case. And after leaving the interrogation, I found out that my husband would not get out of there. And that so many people's homes and offices had been searched, including mine and my parents' apartment, our gallery of contemporary art, my agency office. After two months, I was able to leave Belarus, and since then I’ve lived in Estonia. Here, I gave birth to our second daughter. She's one year old now and a dad for her is just a photograph on the wall. People face a conscious choice between immigration and prison, though many people have chosen immigration. And I'm personally very grateful for them, for this choice, because they can continue to influence the situation. They do so through unimaginable personal challenges. Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya is the leader for whom the Belarusians gave their votes first, and then their hearts. Talks about Belarus at her meetings with the Western leaders, knowing that her husband is going through a closed court, which will issue a ridiculous sentence in actually two weeks. Sviatlana and the immigrated Belarusians create working structures that continue to fight for the rights Belarusians and are preparing reform, creating a systems that can be transferred to Belarus after. We would like to quote Belarusian writer, [inaudible]. He thought the Belarusian diaspora became a part of the democratic world. And it's free from many offshore [inaudible], which the citizens of the recent totalitarian states inherited. That historical role of the Belarusian diaspora is that it was the first to rise from its knees.
Evgeniya Chirikova:
Despite the high cost of protest, people in Russia continue to fight for their rights. Every day, on the social portal activatica.org, our team publishes news about civil activity throughout Russia, where citizens managed to organize a systematic and massive protest. They managed to win. It's possible in Putin’s Russia. The most significant victories of civil society in Russia in recent years are the victory of Shiyes against the landfill in the Arkhangelsk district, and the victories in Ashkharistan where activists defended the unique natural territory, that authorities take revenge on citizens for their victories. For example, an activist from Shiyes, [inaudible], was in prison for two years for simply reposting of content; a clip of Rammstein, the rock band. The authorities discredit activism in Russia. For example, they allow Stalinists to hold rallies on important social topics while banning any other attempts to carrying out public events on such issues. We are also obligated to help activists in danger to immigrate from Russia, to help with integration in new places. Our new priority is to preserve the life and health of activists and help activists both inside Russia and outside Russia.
Sarah Kendzior:
I'm glad you brought that up and I'm especially glad you brought these activists’ voices to the fore. I have one thing to say before I launch into a big long spiel about threats and corruption and rising autocracy in the US, but regarding the Biden plan to tackle global kleptocracy, it's ironic that this plan is coming out the week that Bob Dole died and in which, you know, Biden as President of the United States is going to be giving all these speeches thanking Dole for his service. There's probably going to be a big memorial. And by service, I mean service and office as a politician. He ran against Clinton in 1996. He had a very long career. I’m not saying anything negative about his military service, the fact that he was a veteran, that part is good. But Bob Dole is so emblematic of the exact system that they're saying he's going to fight. Manafort, Paul Manafort, was Bob Dole's campaign manager, and Dole was a registered foreign agent.
Sarah Kendzior:
He was an agent for Taiwan. He then went on to work for Oleg Deripaska as part of his lobbying consultancy. He took a board position at a bank in Kyrgyzstan that is notorious for money laundering. This is Asia Universal Bank. Again, this deal seems to have been facilitated through Manafort. And so you really see where those lines disappear in Republican politics, particularly after the collapse of the Soviet Union during their hypercapitalist car bomb period where people like Deripaska rose and Western operatives took advantage of that situation to profit enormously for themselves and to, to help these very dirty mafia-affiliated actors rise to power in the former Soviet Union and particularly in Russia. And Bob Dole was one of those people. Like, I'm sorry to say. I'm not speaking ill of the dead. I am speaking truth about the dead. That is a part of his career.
Sarah Kendzior:
The thing to remember here, like everyone wants to look for a clear cut villain or a clear cut hero, or they think that they can identify a person's whole philosophy or trajectory by one item in their resume. That is not the case. We have a number of people who did good things at one point, who served their country honorably at one point, and they take a dark turn. They are lured away by greed, by threats, by blackmail, by craving power. And Bob Dole went out fully supporting Donald Trump, Trump, the president who let a plague spread and launched a coup and is a career criminal. That is simply the fact of the situation and that is what people are reluctant to examine because they would rather have a cartoon villain than deal with somebody like Dole or any other of these compromised representatives who at some point did serve America honorably before turning in a different direction.
Sarah Kendzior:
I will now get into a number of people who never served their country honorably and were apparently total assholes from the day that they were born, and now, unfortunately, are inhabiting the halls of Congress. I'm gonna start on that with GOP representative from Arizona, Paul Gosa. I've been meaning to talk about him for a while. Today is the day. I've got a story to tell. Paul Gosar has always been a national security threat. Everybody from his own family members to other members of Congress to Gosar himself have made that clear. In 2018, when he was running for Congress, all six of Gosar’s siblings did an ad together warning about how dangerous he was and they endorsed his Democratic opponent, David Brill.
Sarah Kendzior:
Unfortunately, Gosar won anyway. But imagine the extent, how terrible you must be to have that happen. So, why don't they like him? Well, among other reasons, Gosar has long been linked to the Oath Keepers, the Proud Boys, an assortment of white supremacist groups. He abetted the attack on the Capitol, and people who also abetted the attack on the Capitol have confirmed this. In December, 2020, right-wing extremist Ali Alexander said that he, Paul Gosar, Andy Biggs, and Mo Brooks—these are other Republican representatives—helped organize the attack. I'm going to play a clip of him saying that.
Ali Alexander:
I was the person who came up with the January 6th idea with Congressman Gosar, Congressman Mo Brooks and then Congressman Andy Biggs. We four schemed up putting maximum pressure on Congress while they were voting, so that who we couldn't lobby, we could change the hearts and the minds of Republicans who were in that body, hearing our loud war from outside.
Sarah Kendzior:
Ali Alexander is a questionable figure. There are a number of rumors about him, about who else he may be working for besides the broad cause of Trump autocracy and overthrowing legitimate elections. Nonetheless, I believe him on that in terms of the complicity of these Republican actors. None of them acted alone. As we've covered in this show before in great detail, the Capitol attack was organized and publicized at the highest levels by (among others) Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, Steve Bannon, and people who worked for Trump's campaign and administration, including Trump, himself, and Kushner and Ivanka. And all of that evidence was in the public domain from before the time the attack took place. For example, Stop the Steal, which Ali Alexander is referencing, was not coined in 2020. It was coined in 2016 by Roger Stone, who also promised a bloodbath if Trump were not installed as president.
Sarah Kendzior:
And so a violent coup was always the backup plan if they did not succeed in their ambitions, and it is still the plan today, which is why we are in a crisis. Nearly a year after bragging that he helped plot the attack and after calling for the Coup 2, the sequel to the Coup, now with more bloodbath, Ali Alexander was finally subpoenaed by the January 6th Committee in October, 2021. Notably, Paul Gosar has not been subpoenaed by the January 6th Committee. They are allowing him to stay in office, despite repeated warnings from those who know him best and evidence of his threats to other members of Congress being in the public domain. The same is true of Mo Brooks, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and other House representatives who have applauded the attacks on the Capitol and who have interacted with the attackers and who should be subject of an investigation to see exactly how much they helped out in this seditious situation. They have faced minimal consequences. Instead, House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has allowed them to stay in office and continue their very personal, very dangerous attacks on members of Congress like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, who they are stalking in the hallways and threatening online. And this is alarming a lot of people, in particular their victims but also, as I said, people who know Gosar best. For example, his sister, Jennifer Gosar, who is deeply alarmed by the inaction. Here she is on MSNBC on November 9th:
Jennifer Gosar:
He has not been held accountable in any way, shape or form. He's not been censured, he's not been expelled, and he's not had a seat forfeited by any of the leadership. And by that, I don't mean to specify a Minority Leader McCarthy and McConnell. I do mean Speaker Nancy Pelosi. I do mean Senate Leader, Chuck Schumer. I do mean Attorney General, Merrick Garland. I mean, where are these people? Does he need to act on his sociopathic fantasy for representative Ocasio-Cortez? I am very concerned for she and other members, and this is absolutely unacceptable. I do not understand it and I’m livid.
Sarah Kendzior:
This was after Gosar threatened AOC again. I'll get to that in a second, as to the details of that. AOC tweeted on the same day that Jennifer Gosar did that interview on November 9th, “Institutions do not protect Women of Color.” This is true. And again, the danger is not limited to Republicans or to agencies like the DOJ, which certainly are not protecting Women of Color and have often participated in attacks on Women of Color. The danger is coming from the leadership of the Democratic Party. There is a long history of Nancy Pelosi refusing to use her role as Speaker to protect progressive members of Congress from threats, particularly women like AOC, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib and so forth. Instead of protecting them, she disparages them and streamlines the violence against them, only intervening on their behalf when she is greatly pressured, and sometimes not even then.
Sarah Kendzior:
The threats that AOC and other female representatives of color get are severe. They go far beyond criticism. In 2019, a man threatening to murder Ilhan Omar was arrested and Omar just last week was playing a new death threat that she received at a press conference. She was playing it at a press conference to show Americans that these threats of violence continue. We are dealing with the prospect of assassination and we have a political climate which facilitates it. Pelosi's demonization of these women is notable in this context because it's been a consistent aspect of her tenure as Speaker. It's also notable that the very congresswomen who get threats both from right-wing extremists and are simultaneously targets of Pelosi's wrath are the ones who have made serious calls for accountability and transparency regarding financial corruption and nefarious foreign activity. For example, the sorts of activities detailed in the new Biden kleptocracy report. And so both the GOP and Pelosi have motive to delegitimize them, and I'll get more into the details of that in a second.
Sarah Kendzior:
This has been going on for years. This is a quote from AOC from July, 2019, talking about Pelosi's disparagement. She says, “When these comments first started, I kind of thought that Pelosi was keeping the progressive flank at more of an arm’s distance in order to protect more moderate members, which I understood. But the persistent singling out, it got to a point where it was just outright disrespectful, the explicit singling out of newly elected Women of Color.” And so, what happened? A bunch of people stormed the Capitol, threatening to kill her. And also threatening to kill Nancy Pelosi, to hang Mike Pence, to attack many members of Congress. You know, we have an emergency situation that ostensibly affects everyone, which is why it's very interesting that you see Republicans refusing to support an investigation into people who want to murder them.
Sarah Kendzior:
You see Pelosi not wanting to impeach, initially, this year, for that attack, and then not wanting to call witnesses. I know if somebody invaded my office and, like, smeared shit on the walls, I would want to know what was up with that and I would want to see them held accountable. It's a strange thing. And so this is a clip of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaking out, yet again, about threats of physical violence aimed towards her saying that she does not feel safe around other members of Congress. And this is from January, 2021. So, this was about a week after the Capitol attack.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez:
It’s not an exaggeration to say that many, many members of the House were nearly assassinated. I had a pretty traumatizing event happen to me, and I do not know if I can even disclose the full details of that event due to security concerns, but I can tell you that I had a very close encounter where I thought I was going to die.
Sarah Kendzior:
And so, as I said, this has continued all year long since the architects of the Capitol coup have not been punished, and this has exacerbated a culture of criminal impunity and it has made fanatics feel empowered. The threats against AOC are part of a broader culture of threat in which political violence has been streamlined and normalized. We saw in multiple trials of Trump officials where the judges, for example, in the Manafort and Stone cases were threatened with violence and then ended up giving lighter sentences. We saw threats of violence toward everyone who testified in Trump's first impeachment hearing; Fiona Hill, Marie Yovanovitch, and so forth, journalists, public servants, election officials. They are all dealing with constant threats of violence and elected leadership and the DOJ has done very little to stop it, even when many of the people making those threats are also determined to destroy the United States itself. And they are not shy about expressing that ambition.
Sarah Kendzior:
And so we get back to Paul Gosar. The most that Congress has done about any of these dangerous individuals in Congress is censure. On November 17th, Gosar was censured by the House of Representatives and stripped of committee assignments. So, that's good, but not good enough. It was the first House censure since 2010. It was the 24th in American history. The reason for this is because Gosar posted a doctored clip of the anime Attack on Titan on Twitter showing AOC and other Democrats as the Titans and himself as Eren Yeager (one of the main characters of the show) slaying them. And I will just say, I was offended by Gosar’s tweet, both as an American who wants our representatives to be safe—it was meant to inflame violence, it was meant to convey that—I'm also offended just like as an Attack on Titan fan. Like, this interpretation that Gosar and some people on the Right have of Attack on Titan, it's reminiscent of when Ronald Reagan praised Bruce Springsteen's “Born in the USA” as a patriotic anthem instead of understanding it as an agonized criticism of a country that lets its citizens down and especially lets its veterans down.
Sarah Kendzior:
For those who don't know, Attack on Titan is an anime. It's been on for nearly a decade. It's going to end real soon and there's a new season coming in January. It shows the trauma of war, the trauma of imperialism, bigotry and cyclical violence. It is a condemnation of those things. It's also really obvious that Paul Gosar did not read the manga or watch the conclusion of what happened to Eren Yeager, the character he's embodying. I'm not going to give spoilers, but it's very ironic. It has kind of a, you know, Anakin Skywalker emulation quality there.
Sarah Kendzior:
Anyway, that's besides the point. What bothers me is that, in the end, after years of AOC and others talking about this, it's a doctored anime meme that got Paul Gosar censured, not his repeated threats of violence, not his participation in an attack on the Capitol. So, what is this? You shouldn't have to convince members of Congress to protect their own country. That should be a given. That is their job description and it's also ostensibly in their self-interest. But under Pelosi and also under Chuck Schumer, it is not, so you have to start asking why. I'm not saying I have the answer of why, but I'm noticing a pattern here. So, you know, what has Pelosi been doing in 2021, besides being reluctant to protect her own caucus? She has been taking large sums of money from the shady partner of sanctioned Russian oligarchs, again.
Sarah Kendzior:
I'm talking here about Len Blavatnik, a business associate of sanction oligarchs Oleg Deripaska, and Victor Vekselberg. We have brought him up before on the show. Blavatnik is also a very close friend of Netanyahu who is currently on trial for corruption and is, of course, a lifelong ally of Trump and Kushner, an essential part of the transnational crime syndicate. Blavatnik is also adjacent to this syndicate. I'm being careful what I say here, because he loves to sue everybody. He is associated with the circle of oligarchs and corrupt international officials deeply tied to Trump and to the crime cult of the GOP. Blavatnik was born in the Soviet Union but he has US citizenship, which makes it legal for him to give campaign donations to US officials, while sanctioned foreign oligarchs—like for example, Deripaska—cannot do this. So, you know, Blavatnik may be acting as a middleman here.
Sarah Kendzior:
In 2019, Blavatnik was under investigation by representative Jackie Speier, in particular for possible dirty dealings with then Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, but that investigation vanished and now Speier is retiring. His donations to the Democrats picked up right around when that investigation began, and this is also the time where talk of impeaching Trump and doing a full fledged investigation into his criminal network, you know, bringing people like Felix Sater and others who go decades back into Trump crime to Congress to testify—just like Michael Cohen did—about what they saw. None of those other people ended up doing that. That was all cut short by the House. We never really heard a reason why. Michael Cohen was the only one who actually did what he was supposed to do. And so this is a real interesting little financial story we've got going here because, in the past, Blavatnik donated excessively to the GOP.
Sarah Kendzior:
In particular, he donated to current GOP Minority Leader and Kremlin Lackey, Kevin McCarthy. And in 2020, he was still funding some GOP officials, in particular McCarthy, who he gave quite a bit of money to, and Tom Cotton. But in 2019, as I said, once the Democrats took the House, once Pelosi became the Speaker, he switched to excessively funding the Democrats. In 2019, he gave the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee the largest individual donation in its history. After that happened, people like us began to make a fuss and due to the blow back—you know, the bad PR of this—the DCCC returned half of the Blavatnik donation money. But now they are doubling down, they are taking Blavatnik money again, and they're doing it in greater sums than ever. And what's interesting here is that Polosi herself is taking Blavatnik's money as an individual.
Sarah Kendzior:
This is not just the DCC. This is—let me make sure I have it correct here—the Nancy Pelosi Victory Fund was the recipient of $50,000 and she was actually the biggest individual recipient of his money in 2021, according to the FEC. She's not alone in that respect. He gave generously to Democrats, including the Biden Victory Fund, multiple donations to the DCCC, donations to Senator Blumenthal, you know, some money going to Act Blue. It's troubling, because again, you know, we have a big plan to battle kleptocracy, to battle corruption. We have a rising tide of violent authoritarianism within Congress. We're nearly coming to a year of the anniversary of the attack on the Capitol, for which none of the elite operatives that organized it are held accountable. We have innumerable Trump crimes, including the ones documented in the Mueller Report, all those obstruction of justice charges not being pursued by the DOJ. We have Trump, again, confessing on TV to obstruction of justice. He did this also in 2017 after firing Comey in order to stop an investigation after which he partied with two Kremlin operatives in the White House. Folks seem to have forgotten about that because they're like, “Wow, look, Trump confessed to obstruction of justice on television.” I'm like, Yes, again. We're seeing the same things again and again. We're seeing donations from people like Len Blavatnik again and again and we're seeing plans to do things—to battle corruption, to fight climate change, to save healthcare—again and again, and they don't get implemented. And the reason they don't get implemented is, of course, because of this corruption, because of this greed, because Congress is held hostage by donors, and it's also held hostage by blackmail, bribes, threats of violence. This all works together. This all works in tandem.
Sarah Kendzior:
It's not as neat as a direct cause, like somebody gives somebody money and then they do this or that. It's part of the general morass, you know, a cesspool that has formed around the White House like a moat protecting it. It's hard to get through it, it's hard to see through it, and they want it that way. They want that lack of transparency. That's one of the reasons that the FEC is allegedly possibly going to start just allowing foreign money to be donated to political groups, which used to be and remains illegal, so middlemen like Blavatnik don't need to do what they're doing, you know, which maybe he just did out of his great love of Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy. I mean, that's a totally normal thing to do…Not serious on that. But anyway, I'll wrap this up and just say all of this combines/showcases an environment of threat and corruption that has absolutely nothing to do with serving the American people—which is their job—and everything to do with political elites serving themselves while letting vulnerable representatives suffer. Andrea, any thoughts?
Andrea Chalupa:
I'm happy for you that you finally got to have a meaningful discussion on the show about Attack on Titan.
Sarah Kendzior:
I'm excited about that. I'm sure that I'm going to get blow back for that one from people who've never seen the show, but yes, that was kind of the high point of that because honestly, Attack on Titan is like the bleakest show. It's like the Gaslit Nation of animates, but Attack on Titan is like, you know, a hallmark movie compared to everything I just described about what's actually happening in reality in Congress and globally, and that's possibly happening right now between Biden and Putin as they have their little phone call. It's very depressing
Andrea Chalupa:
Attack on Titan is Sarah's favorite show. She talks about it all the time. I will finally get around to watching it, Sarah, if you agree to watch all seven plus hours of The Beatles: Get Back documentary.
Sarah Kendzior:
You know, I will do that and then we could compare what's better: the Beatles catalog or the Attack on Titan opening themes, which I have ranked. This is because I…I should tell people, I have a teenage daughter very into anime. When I heard about Attack on Titan, I felt like, Oh, I should make sure the show is okay for her to watch. So I started watching it and then I became like the Attack on Titan super fan. She's just like, Oh God. But what happens in this situation is you end up having a lot of conversations about your favorite characters, your favorite theme songs, all these things. So yeah. You know, anybody who wants to do a… We should make a Patreon tier of ponying up for Attack on Titan reflections. But it actually is a very interesting show, a very dark look at fascism, autocracy, as I said, cyclical violence and the pain of it. I think it's a misunderstood show. It's misunderstood by people who never watch it. There are some people who think it's pro fascism. It's like, Do you watch Breaking Bad and think that's like pro meth? Because that's basically the equivalent. But anyway. Yeah. Do you have thoughts on anything else besides Attack on Titan?
Andrea Chalupa:
Well, I want to touch on cyclical violence and bring us to the conversation on gerrymandering, which is a crisis in America right now that is helping the Far Right consolidate power. So the big news out this week is that the DOJ is suing Texas for its extreme gerrymandering. We'll get into that. A UN expert recently called gerrymandering in America “bordering on tyranny”. From US News in late November, Fernand de Varennes, the UN Special Rapporteur on Minority Issues speaking on the final day of a two-week visit to the United States, called out a Texas law that he said resulted in “gerrymandering and dilution” of voting rights minorities in favor of white Americans. “There is, in fact, what could be described as an undermining of democracy with a phenomenal number of legislative measures in different parts of the country, which certainly have the effect of making the exercise of the right to vote more difficult for certain minorities,” he told a news briefing.
Andrea Chalupa:
“”It is becoming unfortunately apparent that it is almost a tyranny of the majority where the minority right to vote is being denied in many areas,’ he added. He called for a New Seal to overhaul legislation.” A New Deal like from FDR’s time. ”There was no immediate US eaction to his preliminary observations, which he said he had shared with the US State Department officials earlier in the day. US democracy is on the decline, according to a report by European think tank International IDEA. Look at Texas. According to the Department of Justice, 4 million people moved to Texas over the past decade. 95% are minorities. So, 95% of the 4 million people that have moved into Texas over the last decade are minorities; Black and Brown people. Extreme gerrymandering has surgically engineered white majority districts to discriminate against them.
Andrea Chalupa:
So the DOJ under Attorney General Merrick Garland is suing Texas for extreme gerrymandering that discriminates against Black and Latino voters. The Republican Party knows that it can't win on the issues, so it has to steal elections through gerrymandering and other voter suppression dark arts. The problem: Laws can be passed—like the voting rights laws in Congress that we desperately need—but laws must be implemented. States like Texas can refuse to implement federal laws. Look at how Obamacare mandates were ignored in several so-called red states, or how religious exemptions are expanding to justify discrimination against LGBTQ people. So passing laws is one thing, implementing those laws is another. The DOJ can and must sue, but lawsuits, of course, take time and they can get tied up and go back and forth for years. And meanwhile, people suffer and the Republicans continue to consolidate power through voter suppression like extreme gerrymandering.
Andrea Chalupa:
The population of Texas can continue to change and become browner, but the legal warfare of Republicans will ensure Texas remains a voter suppression hostage state like Russia. If you're wondering, Well, where's the hope? Be the hope. You are the hope. Check out the Gaslit Nation Action Guide on gaslitnationpod.com. Donate what you can to those groups listed there. Join a community from the groups listed there. Run for office. Local and state office is where this warfare is being waged. So, flush out your system where you live locally. Run for office yourself. Help good, empathetic, fact-based people run for office. Get in the game locally, where you live. Protect your community. That is how you're going to keep the fascists on the run. Push back against them, because they're flooding both local and state levels with dark money, with propaganda, and Texas is notable, especially because there's a great report out of Texas on—I think it was the Dallas Morning News—on how Russian money was flooding not just Trump's campaign, but the GOP generally. And so we're up against kleptocracy, corruption. It's an international crime syndicate, and the way we protect ourselves is by protecting our local communities. So do that by going to the Action Guide on gaslitnationpod.com and be the hope we need right now.
[Outro theme music, roll credits]
Andrea Chalupa:
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Sarah Kendzior:
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Andrea Chalupa:
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Sarah Kendzior:
Our production managers are Nicholas Torres and Karlyn Daigle. Our episodes are edited by Nicholas Torres and our Patreon exclusive content is edited by Karlyn Daigle.
Andrea Chalupa:
Original music in Gaslit Nation is produced by David Whitehead, Martin Vissenberg, Nik Farr, Demien Arriaga and Karlyn Daigle
Sarah Kendzior:
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Andrea Chalupa:
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