July 13 - Is the Russian Lawyer Who Met With Trump Jr an Intelligence Officer?; Why Did Sessions Settle a Massive Russian Fraud Case?; Why is Macron Hosting Trump?

Full Program

Part 1

We begin with questions surrounding Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian Attorney who met with Donald Trump Junior, who was the same attorney representing the accused in the civil forfeiture case involving the money laundering of $230 million stolen from the Russian treasury which ended up in Manhattan real estate. Jenna McLaughlin, a reporter and blogger covering surveillance and national security at Foreign Policy magazine, joins us to discuss her latest article at Foreign Policy “DOJ Settled Massive Russian Fraud Case Involving Lawyer Who Met with Trump Jr.” We investigate why President Trump fired the Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara just before he went to trial with this case, after which the Justice Department under Jeff Sessions settled the case for $6 million instead of $230 million. On Wednesday, 17 Democratic Congressmen on the House Judiciary Committee wrote to Sessions expressing their concern that DOJ “may have settled the case at a loss for the United States in order to obscure the underlying facts.”  

Part 2

Then we examine further what looks like a massive cover-up by the Trump Administration of a brazen Russian money laundering scheme that the Attorney General Jeff Sessions settled at a huge loss after Donald Trump had fired the U.S. Attorney prosecuting the case, using the firing of all of the U.S. Attorneys as a cover at the time. Lisa Graves, a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department, joins us to discuss how even the Russian attorney representing the Russian crooks who met with Trump Junior, Natalia Veselnitskaya, was surprised at how generous Jeff Sessions’ settlement was.

Part 3

Then finally we try to figure out why the new French President Emmanuel Macron is giving Donald Trump the red carpet treatment, hosting a leader who is unpopular in France for what looks like an extended photo-op. An expert on French politics and the French Socialist Party, Phillipe Marliere, a professor of French and European politics at University College, London, joins us to discuss the French reaction to Trump’s sexist behavior. With his wife Melania who is 25 years younger than he is at his side, Trump commented crassly on first meeting France’s First Lady who is 25 years older than her husband, “you’re in such great shape”.