Mueller Expands Probe Into Trump's Business, While Sessions Labors On

Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and Bloomberg dot com. For more on this breaking news about the Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his mother and his investigation, I want to bring in a one of the authors of this story, and congratulations to you, Christian Bertelson. Thanks very much for being here. Much appreciate it. Why don't you just lay out for people who all they've gotten on the headlines, just get set, you know, set us up and and

go for it. Sure so. UH. The Special Counsel who was appointed just a little over two months ago, Robert Mueller UH to handle the investigation into Russian interference in last year's presidential election, has included as part of his probe a number of business transactions involving Russian financing of Trump developments UH, the Trump Miss Universe pageant that was held in Moscow in UH and as well as an earlier investigation that was started by federal prosecutors in New

York into Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and and Ukrainian transactions that he engaged in two thousand eight. So, Christian, let's talk about how this differs from what we've known so far in this scoop that just broke by yourself and Greg Farrell talking about how the U s. Special Council is investigating possible ties between Trump's campaign and Russia. It including some of these financial ties that we know to be long standing between the Trump organization and a

variety of different Russia and interest Uh. We also know that President Trump did talk with the New York Times in a wide ranging interviewer he said any look at financial ties would be off limits. So it's not off limits. In fact, it's front and center. What do we know about how this changes the tenor of the overall investigation. I don't know that it changes the tenor, but right, I mean, the the initial mandate for the investigation was

to look into Russian interference in the election. Um and that included you know the hack of the d n C. Uh, you know whether the Trump campaign coordinated in any way with Russia to get damaging information about Hillary Clinton, that kind of thing. UM. So this look at the financial transactions and the sort of you know, longstanding business ties between Trump and Russians, UM is a bit different. You know.

I couldn't say whether it actually goes beyond the mandate uh and the Special Council or from the DOJ, but it, uh, it does seem to go in an area that Trump warned in that New York Times interview that he considered sort of beyond the bounds of our scope of the investigation. All Right, I'm gonna try to connect two pieces of information that you have been able to determine our true Uh. Jeff Sessions, attorney current Attorney General, had asked for the

resignations of forty six u S attorneys. One of those U S attorneys happened to be from the Southern District of the County of New York. Can you tell us about preparre his office and I believe some of his colleagues who are now assisting in this investigation, and why that's relevant. Uh. There there's never been any sort of full explanation of why Barrara was fired. I mean, you know, Barrara was fired along with all the other remaining OBA was he considered to be an excellent prosecutor. He had

an incredible reputation and still does. Um. You know. The the thing that is unusual about Barras firing, the firing of U S attorneys is routine any time an administration changed his hands, um, and all the U attorneys who were fired were Obama administration of pointees. The thing that makes barras firing unusual was that he met with Trump after Trump was elected, but before the administration began, and according to Barrara's account, he was told he was welcome

to stay. Uh So, so there's always been a question about why Barrara was included in the mass firing with the others after he had been given the assurance of Trump that he would be allowed to remain in office. So could it be a sort of prevention of justice being done? Kind of it? Could that be sort of part of the probe that you're hearing about, or obstruction

of justice? Or is this just sort of another sort of whiff of smoke to to add to you can't you can't know, you know, because Berrara himself has given in a very detailed accounting in public of his firing, and even Berrara doesn't know. You know, he received a call from the White House the day before he was fired.

He did not return the call because he felt it was inappropriate and there are existing Justice part regulations that that prohibit contact between U. S. Attorneys and the White House, So he he didn't have the conversation, and he didn't know Andrew Goldstein. Sorry, just because you've got to connect who is he and why, because Lisa knows is has a legal mind. Andrew Goldstein was a I believe he was a deputy chief in the U. S. Attorney's Office and the head of the public corruption a unit in

the Southern District of New York. And he left his position there, I want to say, two weeks ago, uh, to move down to Washington to join Mueller's investigative team. So I just want to note that equity markets do seem to be down on this news. They did, uh. The SMP five hundred did drop subsequent to this story hitting the wire. So it does seem like this just injects another note of uncertainty, UH, to the ongoing political intrigue. I want to talk a little bit more about the

financial ties that Muller's team is looking into. In particular, you highlight, for example, a Trump Soho hotel condominium development, um and where got it's ten million dollar cash and fusion that was from somewhere in Russia or believed to be. As well as Miss Universe pageant where a prominent Moscow developer paid twenty million dollars to bring the beauty spectacle to that country. How does this relate to President Trump's

rise to power in the US. I would think, well, you know, Russian, Eastern European capital in general was a source of development for various Trump projects, and I think that to the extent Mueller is investigating that. Uh, he's trying to determine the origins of the relationship between Trump and various you know, sources of capital in Eastern Europe. Uh,

you know, as to Trump Soho. Uh, the money that came that helped build Trump Soho came from a development group called the bay Rock Group and according to a lawsuit filed against bay Rock by its former finance director, bay Rock received some of its money from Russia and Kazakhstan. This is a Bloomberg Market time pim Fox, my colleague and co host a Lisa Abramwitz. Our guest is a

Christian Burtleson. He is a Bloomberg reporter who, along with Greg Farrell, have broken a story about the Special Council Robert Mueller, who is expanding his probe into a president Donald Trump's business transactions. UM, I wonder if you could just reset quickly for people that there's a lot of pieces to all of this, right, I mean, you know you the threads. Can you just sort of condense it for people so that they understand exactly why this is important.

The the investigation being conducted by the Special Council is into Russian interference in the presidential election last year, but the the investigation is also looking at Trump's longstanding business size too various Eastern European UH sources of capital for his developments UH. The The president told The New York Times in an interview yesterday that he viewed any investigation into his business dealings as being sort of beyond the bounds of what the point was intended for. I want

to bring an Awl Hunt. He's a Bloomberg View calumnist who's been following all of the variety of different political intrigue that we've been experiencing over the past few months. And al do you think that this new disclosure of the new angle of the special prosecutors investigation changes the

tenor of the discussion at all around Russia. No, it really doesn't, because, um the whole question all along, Mueller's mandate was always quite broad, and it was interference with the election and the charge that somehow Trump might be beholden to the Russians, they might have leverage. Only he goes back to his business dealings. So Mueller had to investigate this, or we're special cant I mean, I'm old 've been here when the Nixon special counsel was here.

Special counsel like this or special prosecutors as as existed before, are given a broad mandate and they have to see what they can they can find. When they were investigating Nixon, they didn't start having any idea that there was illegal use of the Internal Revenue Service, for instance, when they were investigating Clinton, didn't have any idea that we were talking about sex in the Oval office. I don't think that Bob Mueller will be will go off in a

wild chase the way Kim Starr did. But central to this investigation is Trump's relationship with the Russians, and central to that is whether the Russians money laundered through Trump and whether they bailed him out, and whether in any way he is indebted to them, uh and has not told the truth about it or has not or is not revealed in his tax returns. That's something that a special counsel would be Darrell looked if he didn't investigate.

You know, I have to say, this raises a real fuzzy ground, which is, yes, we know that President Trump has been involved with a variety of different Russians and his financial dealings. At what point does that mean he's beholden to them versus just has a very good relationship. That's not That's not fuzzy. That's what the Special count to investigates. If it's just a normal business transaction, then

there's no problem with it. Uh. If in fact, you know there's there's something deeper than that, than that's what Bob Mueller will fund. I don't think at all what's the difference between a normal financial relationship and an abnormal one if you're basically cloaking it. I mean, like, I just don't understand the distinction that there's a Special Council will even draw there, you know what I mean? Well, no, I don't, because I think the distinction is going to

be did the Russians somehow? And I don't know the answer this least, but I think this is quite clear and quite obvious that the Special Council has to look in this. The question is in some way with the Russians giving aid to Trump's organization and the Trump bailing him out in a way that he is indebted to them. They have leverage over him, they have knowledge about him that he doesn't want out. I don't know that's the case, but that's the charge, and that's a charge that has

been suggested by serious people. Bob Muller will find out if it's true or not. If it's just a normal business transaction, then then there's then there's no problem. There's all kinds of reasons to wonder, however, among them being that Trump and his people continue to lie about this. So if you're lying about it, what are you trying to hide? I don't know. That's what Bob Muller will find out. Al Hunt, I gotta love you because you

know you're you're so last century. You actually believe you know you you you know, until proven you are, Uh, you need the detail correct? Well do you want? No?

But this is where I'm going with this, and I want I want Christian to come in on this because the cycle and information, the gathering that has been included in all of this includes online revelations, emails about the president's son, emails from the President's son, um, conversations about Jeff Sessions, the attorney general to the New York Times. All of these things, people draw their own conclusions. You

know that the Twitter sphere, of the blogger sphere, they live. Uh, this is a feeding frenzy for this and it's become part of it in your investigation. How important will the email trail and the money trail be in figuring this

all out? You know, I'm not a lawyer, and I really I probably not qualified to a point on that, but I you know, I think, uh, in a large part it will explain, as I said, at least the origins of the relationships um, and flowing from that, you might get some understanding of sort of why Trump and Russia appeared to have such sort of close interactions over

the course of his campaign. You know, I have to wonder, given the fact that we did see markets moved down, and that both of you are saying, this isn't really materially change uh the narrative going forward, why our markets reacting at all? I mean until to a large degree that they kind of haven't reacted all that much. But we are going to be speaking with someone up Mark Grant, coming up from hill Top Advisors, who said that, you know, people are losing faith that we are going to get

anything done. I mean, Christian, do you hear from people, uh that just the ongoing tome of information that keeps coming out is dampening any hopes, uh for for anything else to sort of gain attention. I will say just you know, in talks with people, I don't know about the financial market implications of it, but I will say that the people I've talked to do feel significant concerned that if Mueller is not allowed to complete his work, uh, that where we are as a country is a very

troubling place. Um. You know, there's a lot of hope that you know, he will be allowed to complete his investigation, that we will get some clarity on what happened in uh and if that doesn't happen, if he's sort of fired or stopped or something that, uh, you know, we are in a dark place in terms of the rule of law. Al hunt, are we already there? Oh? I

agree with every hand. Christian just said, Um, I suspect that Trump really is thinking about firing Muller, and I think that we then become whatever you want to call it, Banana Republic, Russia. The rule of law doesn't matter. And that's the case, and that then the key will be whether whether Congression Republicans will stand up and say this is not acceptable. That's what they did in seventy three when Nixon fired Archie Cox. That's what we have to

do now. But I think the predicate that Trump was trying to say yesterday but somehow he either wants to fire Mueller or he wants, uh, somehow the four sessions out and the point of Attorney general will do it. I think if he gets away with that, this country is in terrible, terrible trouble. And why does he want to do that? You know, the Wall Street General had a very good trip the other day. They said, look,

there's a simple answer, Mr Trump, release everything. You know, if he would release everything, then you know we we we won't have a problem. There's a reason perhaps he won't release everything. Well. Al when you talk to people on the Hill, do you get the sense that among Republicans there's a growing and of concern about h the US becoming up an inn a republic and holding President Trump's feet to the fire. I think they're scared stiff

because they're caught in the terrible costs. Far least the number one that base that Trump based now it's it's smaller than it was. It's the ministe. She's lost support, there's no question in that. But the fervor of that base still is there, and that's a key part of the Republican constituency. On the other hand, he is losing all sorts of independent and people who were sanxious if you will, who didn't like Hillary and held their dose

and voted for Trump. Uh. And secondly, a number there are a number of these Republicans are oh my god, what what what's going on? Is? Uh? Were there? Are there really some very worrisome things. They were bothered, for instance, by his second meeting with Putin that he didn't tell anyone about. They were bothered by the Donnie Junior look. Donnie Junior and Paul Manaford and Jared Kushner. I've covered campaigns for forty years. A month before the convention, time

is precious. The Missouri state chairman, they come in, you don't have time to meet him. I'm sorry, We're too busy. And to spend that amount of time with with those Russians, and the lie about it to begin with, and then the lie about the number of people there. What are they hiding? Least? And I think Republicans at least some of them are asking those questions of themselves at least. I want to keep you with us, l and Christian.

I want to bring in Larry Liebert, national Security team editor for bloom Brook News, who is in Washington, d C. Larry, I want to pick up on one aspect that I was talking about, with the concerned that Republicans have expressed, at least behind closed doors, about the second undisclosed meeting that President Trump had with Vladimir Putin, President of Russia. UM, is there any concern among the security the intel community, UH, that right now there is something going on that could

potentially jeopardize the national security of our country? Or is this mostly uh, you know the details and still having to do with the campaign. Well in the intel community's concern about anything they don't know about. And really, UH, the question is what did they talk about in that meeting, which the President said was very brief, others had said was a full hour discussion. UH? What do they talk

about in terms of lifting sanctions and policy? What do they talk about, perhaps in regard to the current investigations are going on? UH? And and the fact that they don't know is what trouble From the fact that there were no no takers, not even Sexuary Tillerson, who was there for the meeting earlier in the day, UH was around to UH make any record of what was said. So that just that worries. But this president is not one to follow the diplomatic rules, and UH, I guess

they're trying to adjust to that. Christian, I know you've got something to add to this, please, Well, you know what's been interesting in the last two weeks amid you know, first the revelations about the meeting between UH Donald Jr. In his office with various Russian and Eastern Europeans UH prior to the election, as well as Trump's new explanation of his UH. You know UH side sideline meeting with

Putin at the G twenty dinner. UH. The the continued explanation is that they were talking about this issue of Russian adoptions, UH, which you know only partially explains what the adoption issue is. UH. The adoption issue has to do with something called the Magnetsky Act, which was passed by Congress to UH punish human rights abusers in Russia with severe financial sanctions. UH. And Putin was extremely unhappy about the passage of the Magnetski Act, and in a

retaliatory move, he banned adoption of Russian children by Americans. UH. So, so, yes, it's about adoptions, but actually it's about financial sanctions on Russians UH. And and that is sort of the real

substance of what's been discussed at these meetings. So one other aspect to the latest political news is the wide ranging interview which you mentioned before, that President Trump had with the New York Times, and in that he had some scathing remarks about Jeff Sessions, his Attorney general, basically accusing him saying if he had known that he would have recused himself from the Russia issue, he would not have appointed him as his Attorney general. Uh, Larry, I

would love to get your sense of this. We are getting news this morning that Attorney General Sessions has no intention of resigning. Um. Is there anything that President Trump can do at this point to halt this Special Counsel's investigation, Bob Mueller's investigation, or change his or would he have any incentive to really fire Attorney General Sessions as a

result of some of his displeasure around this investigation. Well, first of all, Uh, you know this is the innique president one and one of the folks officials we talked to said, it's normal for there to be some strikes between a president and his Justice department. Uh, it's not normal for the president to air at all for the nation. Uh. And that's just what Trump does. But we we don't hear, and I suspect the White House will tell us sometimes.

Today we don't hear that the president wants uh Sessions to quit or is about to fire him. Uh. And Sessions chose to take it that way, basically saying I asked if he could serve with with the President's questions about him. He said, he said, we are serving. We're serving right now and uh, and we intend to continue to and Uh, I'm not sure that the presidents and Sessions has recused himself from the Russia investigation, would gain

much for firing Sessions. In fact, he'd uh inheritu Rosestine, the deputy Attorney general who who Trump also despairs that, Well he's from Baltimore, and how many Republicans are from Baltimore? So what did he gain there? Uh? So I respected Sessions. UH will labor on uh and uh and Trump will Uh. We got we gotta leave it there, Larry, you back to work. We got more work to do. We've got more to bring you to. Larry Liebert, he's our National

Security team editor for Bloomberg Plus. I want to thank Christian burtleson great reporting and Al Hunt, Bloomberg View contributor and veteran d C watcher. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg P and L podcast. You can subscribe and listen to interviews at Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, or whatever podcast platform you prefer. I'm pim Fox. I'm on Twitter at pim Fox. I'm on Twitter at Lisa abramowits one before the podcast. You can always catch us worldwide on Bloomberg Radio