Bob Amsterdam: How USAID Is Helping Zelensky Destroy Christianity With Fake Churches and Violence

Donald Trump just called Zelensky a dictator. Human rights lawyer Bob Amsterdam has worked in Ukraine for the past couple of years and confirms that if anything, that’s an understatement. (00:00) The Situation Is Dire (03:28) Bob Amsterdam’s Fight to Defend the Orthodox Church From Zelensky (06:45) USAID’s Fake Church Operation (19:14) Mike Pompeo’s Involvement (28:16) Why Is the US Bending the Knee to Ukraine? (33:00) The Push for Sanctions (48:00) China’s Role in Undermining the US Paid partnerships with: Hallow prayer app: Get 3 months free at https://Hallow.com/Tucker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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• 0:30Tucker Carlson?

  So, thank you for doing this. You're one of the few people who, at the end of our last conversation, I thought, "I want to talk to that man again." Because you're one of the few people I know who has a real sense of what it's like in Ukraine and has been for the last three years since the war began. How would you summarize the situation in Ukraine right now?

• 0:49Speaker 00

  Dire.

• 0:50Tucker Carlson?

  Dire.

• 0:50Speaker 00

  Situation is dire.

• 1:12Speaker 00

  Zelensky is wildly unpopular. There are press gangs to take people to the front. People are without hope. And the casualties are enormous. And the corruption is enormous. And imagine sending your child to the front knowing all of this. As you know, I represent the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. So our parishioners go to the front while their churches are being stolen back home, while parishioners, elderly parishioners and priests are being beaten. And you know, what I've always said to people who defend Zelensky is...

• 1:55Speaker 00

  You know, all his numbers are complete fabrications. If he was popular, if he was trusted, he wouldn't have destroyed the press. He wouldn't be jailing and labeling with treason charges political opponents. And there would have been some control on the corruption. I mean, the courts are impossible. It's a police state. The SBU, the secret police, run and intimidate everyone and everything. And yet, the Western press has blockaded this story. The dishonesty of some of the people that are reporting from Ukraine is astounding. I've never seen anything like it.

• 2:37Speaker 00

  I've been involved with cases involving wars and disputes. But the absolute lying and the games that our papers are playing. The Wall Street Journal, for instance, barely, barely has an op-ed that doesn't laud Zelensky. You never get reality about what's actually going on in the presidential administration. You get no coverage. You know, there's a law, 3894, to destroy the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. No law has been passed like this in Europe since World War II against the Jews. There's no coverage. The argument, when I say to the press, "How can you do this?

• 3:22Speaker 00

  How can you not cover people talking about religious cleansing, who are members of the Ukrainian parliament? How can you not cover it?" They say, "Well, this church is somehow a Russian thing." We, you know, as I've told you, we have reached a point where this narrative, the Zelensky narrative, has been accepted. And our people simply don't, don't challenge it. They fall, they fall to it. And it's, it's really been down to the new administration to put a pin in that balloon.

• 3:58Tucker Carlson?

  It's kind of hard to skip over you and your role in all this. You're the only American attorney who's worked in Ukraine, who I have seen, who's telling the truth about what's actually happening there. And for doing that, you've been called a Russian stooge, a Putin worshiper. Your character has been impugned. Can you just take a couple of minutes, tell us who you are? Why are you representing the Orthodox Church in Ukraine? Are you a Putin puppet?

• 4:27Speaker 00

  Look, for 45 years, I've done political cases all over the world. We've taken on some big enemies. We took on the United Nations pro bono on behalf of an individual worker for the UN that they had destroyed. We got two Assistant Secretaries General disciplined in that case that made history inside the UN. And we were awarded the Global Pro Bono Award from American lawyer for doing that case. I represented political opponents of Putin in Moscow.

• 5:09Speaker 00

  I was arrested in Moscow at 2:00 a.m. They tried to load me into a vehicle, get me out of there. I wouldn't go.

• 5:19Tucker Carlson?

  Wait, you were, I just want to be clear on this. You were arrested by the Putin government at 2:00 a.m. in Moscow?

• 5:23Speaker 00

  That's right, in 2005, defending a political opponent of Vladimir Putin. And in fact, have been banned from Russia ever since. I hold no water for Putin. I represent opponents of the Russian government in various countries, continue to represent political opponents of Putin. It hasn't stopped the Ukrainians from launching a massive disinformation campaign against me because of my defense of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which is the majority church of Ukraine, which Zelensky and his gang have been trying to destroy.

• 6:05Speaker 00

  I am on the legal team of some of the priests that they have illegally jailed. We have an individual in London who fled the country because Zelensky had literally sent people to basically...

• 6:22Speaker 00

  I don't want to use the word liquidate him, but he had to virtually run across a border. This is a member of the Rada who Yermak took away his security. He had to run across the border to save his life. And his crime was speaking out against a law to destroy his church.

• 6:44Tucker Carlson?

  Can we back up for one second? So you're a, I think it's fair to say, broadest terms, a Jewish liberal from the Bronx who was arrested by Putin. How did you wind up? How did you wind up representing the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine? Why was that important? Of all the cases you could take, why that one?

• 7:02Speaker 00

  Well, let's be clear. It's the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. We are not part of the ROC. We are, we share only a canonical link. Our church denounced the invasion. Our church separated itself administratively 30 years ago. And every Ukrainian that's Orthodox has been baptized in our church. Five years ago, a new church was established in Ukraine by the Poroshenko administration with the active connivance of the United States government. The State Department of the United States was involved in the establishment of the church.

• 7:46Speaker 00

  I believe either USAID or some other organizations have funded this state church called the OCU. This is a basically kind of a CIA operation, if you will, to set up a church that would be completely free of what they viewed as the dangerous Putin influence. So you have our State Department violating our constitution openly, engaging in the destruction of religious freedom in a foreign country, doing things absolutely illegal under our constitution, all in-

• 8:23Tucker Carlson?

  Like establishing religion.

• 8:24Speaker 00

  Yes, all in the name of anti-Putin activities. And because I am so very strongly against the present Russian administration, I insisted on traveling to Kiev with a bunch of my lawyers to interview. We were, we were privileged to meet with the Holy Synod. To, to meet with senior members of the church, interview priests, interview lawyers, so I could fully accept the mandate to fight for a church that was being driven out of existence. This is something that's not supposed to happen in the 21st century. And,

• 9:07Speaker 00

  and as a Jew, uh, who feels strongly about freedoms for my Christian brothers and sisters, as somebody who feels that religious freedom is the foundation of all our freedoms.

• 9:19Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 9:20Speaker 00

  And, and I believe that to the, to the center of my being, I could not believe that the American government, a government for which I signed up for the draft on my birthday when I was 18, when we were still in Vietnam, this government could be funding the destruction of this church. So we've studied it. We've met with people who were at high levels of the US government, who confirmed for me that this was a US government operation. And, um, we have done everything we can. Uh, and we have, we have walked into

• 10:01Speaker 00

  a wall of Ukrainian propaganda inside Washington. I want to be very clear. I just finished speaking at a religious freedom conference. It was a religious freedom conference, uh, that in many ways was managed by the Ukrainian government. There, it was.

• 10:20Tucker Carlson?

  In Washington.

• 10:21Speaker 00

  In Washington DC. Um, my team was barely afforded, um, an allowance to go in. We were, we were not allowed in a year ago. This time we were allowed in, they wouldn't take our money.

• 10:33Tucker Carlson?

  Well, you're defending a church against a dictator, but you're not allowed to appear at a religious freedom conference.

• 10:38Speaker 00

  That's correct. That's correct. And this time, when I went to the religious freedom conference, I was only allowed, uh, they stacked the panel I was on with a, a priest from the other church, and they gave me basically five minutes, uh, to present my views, which were that, in fact, uh, this, this other church, which by the way, has stolen 1,500 of our churches, engaged in mobilizing.

• 11:10Tucker Carlson?

  Stolen the buildings?

• 11:10Speaker 00

  The buildings. Yes.

• 11:12Tucker Carlson?

  Stolen them?

• 11:13Speaker 00

  Stolen them, outright stolen them. And worse, beaten our priests, beaten our parishioners, and I have this all on video. If you go to savetheuoc.com, you will see the videos of our parishioners being beaten. These are the elderly parents of people at the front, fighting for the liberation and protection of Ukraine, being beaten, very often, by SBU, that's their secret police, wearing death masks with Nazi insignias on their arm. And let me be very clear to you that you will never hear elsewhere. There is a massive, right-wing movement in Ukraine that has tremendous influence.

• 11:57Speaker 00

  Our newspapers were warning this, warning of this in the late teens, and once the war started, we never heard anything else. It's as if all these neo-Nazis disappeared. They haven't disappeared. They're part of the Ukrainian government. But you're never allowed to say that, because if you say anything like that, you are told that you are a Putinist. And Kasparov has summed it up. He's basically said, "If you criticize Zelensky in any way, you're a Putinist." So the fact that he's destroyed civil society, he's destroyed a free media, he jails, or sanctions, or charges with treason his opponents, we're supposed to ignore all of that, because

• 12:39Speaker 00

  if we mention it, or if I stand on a soapbox to scream that he's jailing and torturing priests, we are somehow disentitled to speak. We have this crazy, adopted authoritarianism now, where we, as a country of institutions, have made a king out of Zelensky. We have, we have allowed him to destroy every Ukrainian institution out there that's independent, and we've turned him into a king or demigod. And I will tell you that one of the instruments that was being used to attack me, for instance, was Farah.

• 13:19Tucker Carlson?

  The Foreign Agent Registration Act.

• 13:22Speaker 00

  That's right. A journalist in The Washington Post, who we offered to interview all sorts of beaten priests, instead focused on me, tried to make it sound like I was in Putin's pay, and somehow violated Farah, when I knew very well I had an exemption, because I represent the Church.

• 13:43Speaker 00

  It's been crazy. I've gone into meetings, firstly, most Democrats, almost all Democrats, but a few, including Dick Durbin, who gave us a very respectful hearing. Almost all Democrats wouldn't meet with us. Which really shocks me, because I, you know, I've been a lawyer for 45 years, I generally get meetings when I need them, none. Republicans, on the other hand, often their staff at least, were willing to meet with us. One senator had the courage to stand up and speak out, and that man, God bless him, is now the Vice President of the United States. He was the only one. J.D. Vance was the only one?

• 14:26Speaker 00

  The only one. Absolutely, and I will forever be in his debt, because he took the destruction of Christ's children seriously enough to raise it, and he was outraged that our government was allowing it. He didn't even go so far, I don't think he understood that we were in fact funding and supporting it. And there is a guy in the Ukrainian government, a Mr. Yelensky, not Zelensky, Yelensky, who's been in charge of the destruction of this church for years. His lifeblood is to destroy this church, he helps, I'm sure he directs the SBU to jail these priests I work with. Guess who? Yelensky?

• 15:10Speaker 00

  Yelensky with a Y, and he's written some very interesting books, I don't want to get into that. About what? Just, nothing, everything you can think of against religious freedom, he has written about when it was the Soviet Union. Really? Well, he wrote a book about Zionism and Clericalism, this is the guy that is heading up their Department of Religion, essentially, and Freedom. This guy was honored, and given an honored position, at the Religious Freedom Conference in Washington.

• 15:48Tucker Carlson?

  Wait, the persecutor of the Orthodox Church was given a position of prominence at a religious freedom conference?

• 15:54Speaker 00

  You have that right.

• 15:55Tucker Carlson?

  What conference was, I mean, this sounds-

• 15:56Speaker 00

  This is the one that was in Washington, a huge conference that went right before the prayer breakfast in Washington.

• 16:02Tucker Carlson?

  Did anyone say anything other than you?

• 16:04Speaker 00

  No, no, because nobody, the only thing they were worried about, I got a call-

• 16:09Tucker Carlson?

  What about all the Christians?

• 16:11Speaker 00

  They're silent. I got a call-

• 16:14Tucker Carlson?

  Why is it left to you? I mean, this is, this, this is the point where I feel like pulling my hair out.

• 16:18Speaker 00

  Well, I tell you-

• 16:19Tucker Carlson?

  Why is this your job?

• 16:20Speaker 00

  Well, and let me tell you-

• 16:22Tucker Carlson?

  What about Mike Johnson and all these other Christians in the Congress are always talking about how Christian they are?

• 16:26Speaker 00

  Well, I can tell you that because of the smear, and we understand that the Ukrainians gave a $3.6 million contract to a PR firm in Washington to go after my church and me. So, I've had vicious letters written about me, all over the place, talking about me as a Russian agent. We have had-

• 16:52Tucker Carlson?

  You who are arrested by Putin.

• 16:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. We have, we have the Hudson Institute, reputable institute, hosting an event, taking the Ukrainian line. We wanted to get a voice, it was about religion in Ukraine, we weren't allowed to join-

• 17:14Tucker Carlson?

  The Hudson Institute was not allowed to-

• 17:16Speaker 00

  We weren't allowed to join the Hudson Institute. Because I think the Ukrainian propaganda machine are indirectly sponsoring these things. And what they're doing is, they're running shows and movies about Russian activities, anti-evangelical activities in the Donbass, which I believe are happening and which I completely support. You know, there is no, there is no one more than me who will support evangelicals or anyone else who are being oppressed. But to sponsor this type of activity and not mention our church is a scandal. To avoid mentioning the majority church of Ukrainians.

• 18:02Speaker 00

  And never say a word about law 3894 that destroys our church. We will not have a church in six months.

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  You just have to know where to look.

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  Escape to Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.

• 20:50Tucker Carlson?

  Do you know who at the State Department worked on this op to create a fake church?

• 20:56Speaker 00

  Yes, yes. It dates back to 2014.

• 21:03Speaker 00

  We believe it began with Victoria Nuland, who, I mean, this was a big operation because she worked with the ambassador of the United States to Ukraine. Amazingly, becomes the ambassador of the United States to Greece. And it is, in fact, the patriarch of the Constantinople Church that becomes the one who engineers the, basically, the destruction of our church by taking canonical control away from Moscow and taking it to himself,

• 21:48Speaker 00

  violating a treaty from the 17th century. So we have the United States, and by the way, this was engineered by Secretary of State Pompeo. So this isn't just a Democrat thing. Secretary of State Pompeo was directly involved.

• 22:02Tucker Carlson?

  The difference between Victoria Nuland and Mike Pompeo is negligible. There's no difference at all that I'm aware of. He may be slightly smarter, he's smarter than she is, and therefore more sinister, but they have the same views on everything.

• 22:14Speaker 00

  Well, in any event, Pompeo was involved in, basically, having this, what's called, in religious terms, a tomos granted so that Ukraine could establish an autocephalous church. This is in 2019. So the church that is allegedly now a clean church away from Russia is five years old.

• 22:43Speaker 00

  And that church, which we believe is partially US-funded, has engaged in a vicious campaign of harassment, intimidation, coordination with secret police to steal churches, to disrupt events, to break priests. I mean, you have to understand, I have met tortured priests. I have met priests. One priest I met, the day after his meeting with me, had a heart attack during an interrogation by the SBU. I mean, just try to imagine. Well, US tax dollars are paying for the torture of priests. I mean, that's. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, you know, for those who say this is not true,

• 23:27Speaker 00

  please, please call Mr. Dmitriuk, who is now, thank God, in safety in London, and who is a former member of the RADA, who will be saying in open court, because he's now fighting bogus extradition charges. He will be outlining all of this in open court about what's happened to him. And he is just a microcosm of what's happened in Ukraine. And, you know, it is the ongoing treason charges. As you know, as I've said, I'm now exposed to a criminal investigation in Ukraine, something that even Putin didn't do to me.

• 24:09Speaker 00

  Zelensky is doing to me because I'm defending a church. In Putin's case, I'm defending opponents of Putin. But in Zelensky's case, I'm defending a church. And they've opened up a criminal investigation. Would you be able to go to Ukraine right now? No, I think the whole reason is to ensure that I don't spend time with my clients.

• 24:34Tucker Carlson?

  There's also the question of violence, which everyone ignores. They've committed violence against the church we represent. They've also committed a lot of violence. A lot of people have been killed. Noncombatants have been killed by the Zelensky government. And people I know have been targeted for assassination, including a head of state in Europe. And so I don't know why that doesn't get any coverage. Like, you would be afraid to go to you. You're an American citizen, you're an attorney, you have clients in Ukraine. It's our client state. And yet you would be afraid to go there.

• 25:04Speaker 00

  Let me take it a step further. With all of the Farah stuff that went on, and with The Washington Post publishing all this stuff, and with Mr. Zelensky almost, literally, demanding compliance from the United States under the Democrats, I was hesitating to come home. I mean, the Ukrainians had such a lock on Washington. It is unbelievable. And the Ukrainian RADA demanded that US authorities investigate me because I wrote a letter to the RADA, an open and public letter, saying to every member of the RADA, "If you pass

• 25:47Speaker 00

  a bill that destroys a church, you could be individually subject to sanctions." That is completely within my rights, as an American citizen, to inform a foreign legislator who is engaged in essentially criminal activities, that they need to return to religious freedom. Should not be controversial. And it is on this basis that the Ukrainians were begging our own authorities to get involved.

• 26:18Tucker Carlson?

  How did the Ukrainians so, I mean, 15 years ago, my whole life, Ukraine, you know, it's the largest country and the most corrupt country in Europe. It was an afterthought. Lots of weed is grown there, very pretty women. But it's Ukraine. It's not central to anybody's geostrategy. And all of a sudden, you wake up and Ukrainians seem to be in charge of the US government. How did that happen?

• 26:40Speaker 00

  Look, I'm going to be speaking about this on Friday. I think that you have to go back to the Mueller investigation. I think you have to go back to the Russia scare. And I think that a tremendous amount of partisan politics was played out involving Russia. And it instilled a tremendous amount of fear in the United States. And the Ukrainians have developed the most sophisticated propaganda and information campaign I've ever seen. I have never seen any country engage in this level of competent, highly sophisticated

• 27:24Speaker 00

  disinformation that, by the way, they accuse the Russians of. There is no day of the week the Russians have been 10% as effective as the Ukrainians.

• 27:34Tucker Carlson?

  I will say, knowing the Russians, very smart, lead the world in chess and engineering, but they're, they're just embarrassing on the propaganda question. They're bad, they're bad.

• 27:45Speaker 00

  Embarrassing.

• 27:46Tucker Carlson?

  They are, they're bad. I mean, I'm not, you know, I like Russia, but I'm not, it's just a fact. They're not good at that stuff at all.

• 27:51Speaker 00

  No, and, and, you know, I fought them and, and we were quite successful at exposing the false charges against some leading Russian businessmen. So I've seen them in action, but I've never seen anything as effective at developing the American narrative as, the Ukrainian narrative in the United States exerting huge levels of control over media. I mean, we had an interview with The Guardian three, three days or four days after I got back. Very, very, very competent reporter, took down notes, was in shock at what happened.

• 28:35Speaker 00

  Guardian never published the story. This is The Guardian who will publish anything about anybody involving human rights. They wouldn't publish the story because it went against, there's two obstacles. One, it goes against the Russian narrative. And two, all of the guys on the ground for the Western press sell books on Ukraine.

• 28:59Speaker 00

  And I do wonder if there's a commercial motive in the reporting. Because if you look, and some of these guys are my friends, but I gotta wonder. If you look at it, no wonder they're notoriously blind to what's going on.

• 29:15Tucker Carlson?

  Well, there's some kind of unspoken motive here, because none of this makes any sense. I mean, Ukraine is so far outside of our orbit. Ukraine, it's not one of those countries I thought had any influence over American foreign policy or public discourse at all. And all of a sudden, you know, you can't even say an obvious truth about the country, or you get in trouble, or in my case, you get fired, or whatever. What is that actually about? What are the deeper interests here? Do you have any clue?

• 29:42Speaker 00

  Look, as I said.

• 29:43Tucker Carlson?

  No other country could do that, no matter how sophisticated their propaganda is, or almost no other.

• 29:47Speaker 00

  I, look, I have said to myself, because I've done many, many controversial cases in my career.

• 29:56Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 29:58Speaker 00

  Nothing's ever approached this, in terms of the blowback. When you're, you know, you say to somebody like all of these people today that are speaking out about the president's statement about 4%, and they're saying, oh, that's crap, it's 60%.

• 30:13Tucker Carlson?

  Right, so the president said that Zelensky had an approval rating of 4%.

• 30:16Speaker 00

  Right, I'm sorry. So, I say to myself, Mr. Zelensky can't argue the numbers, because he is in a police state. He has no media. He has no opponents. He just cited for treason, two or three of the most important people in Ukraine, including his predecessor, Poroshenko. He's done everything he can to mobilize forces to destroy any hope of freedom or opposition. He hasn't held an election. He is, in fact, under their constitution, out of time. He should be out of office.

• 31:00Speaker 00

  He has no constitutional mandate.

• 31:03Tucker Carlson?

  Well, he's the definition of a dictator. He's an unelected, strong man who's eliminated his opposition. I mean.

• 31:07Speaker 00

  And he's trying to argue about how popular he is. Well, I'm sorry, you know, there's this old expression, "Reipselakwerter." It speaks for itself.

• 31:16Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 31:17Speaker 00

  I mean, if you're popular, you don't ban the press and jail your opponents.

• 31:24Tucker Carlson?

  It seems to me, having used the drug myself many years ago, he seems like he's on cocaine to me. I don't know that. I have no evidence of it. I hear a lot of people say that. Have you heard that?

• 31:34Speaker 00

  I've heard it.

• 31:35Tucker Carlson?

  A lot or just in passing?

• 31:36Speaker 00

  Oh, no. I've heard a lot, but I have no, I can't say it. I have no evidence.

• 31:42Tucker Carlson?

  I don't either. I hear it a lot, including from people in Europe who know him. Again, no, but is that widely believed in Ukraine? Do you know?

• 31:52Speaker 00

  I believe it is, but again, I hesitate. I don't like ad hominem comments.

• 31:58Tucker Carlson?

  No, no, no. But you look at the guy and you're like, there's something wrong.

• 32:01Speaker 00

  Well, except what's wrong is the residency seems to have with everybody in Europe. I mean, if you look at Germany, for instance, and this is another subject that as a lawyer who cares about freedom drives me crazy, which is sanctions. The Ukrainians not only have engaged in this massive propaganda campaign to dehumanize Russia. Now, that's different than saying Russia engaged in aggressive war, which I agree with. That's different. They have gone to the next level and tried to make it appear as if peace is somehow a crime, that you cannot make peace with these people.

• 32:42Tucker Carlson?

  Because the Russians are subhuman.

• 32:44Speaker 00

  Exactly. But hold on, it gets worse.

• 32:46Tucker Carlson?

  That's like full Nazi propaganda. No one's subhuman. We're all human, right?

• 32:49Speaker 00

  But it gets worse because our government, under Biden, has led the world in an insane sanctioning campaign. Insane because it is contrary to American interests. What have we done?

• 33:03Tucker Carlson?

  Exactly.

• 33:03Speaker 00

  Number one, we have consolidated Putin's power. The people who were opposed to Putin in London and other places have had to go back to Moscow because their currency is not working, their kids can't go to school. Again, we have the subhuman thing. Number two, we have consolidated the relationship between Russia and China. The very thing that Richard Nixon worked very hard never to do, we have done.

• 33:32Speaker 00

  We've absolutely built up the economies of all sorts of transit countries that don't help us at all by having these phony economies come up.

• 33:44Tucker Carlson?

  So you're referring to Russian energy shipments. So Russia has a ton of energy, the world needs a ton of energy, but these sanctions make it impossible to conduct straightforward business, so they're going through what you call transit companies and countries, and they're doing all kinds of subterfuge to cloak this, but everyone knows it's happening. That's what you're referring to?

• 34:03Speaker 00

  Exactly, and you know, we are making, we're making India very great today by their engaging in this arbitrage. We're consolidating Xi Jinping's power. We are working, we are working to empower him against Taiwan. We are doing everything not in America's interests.

• 34:27Tucker Carlson?

  So who's the "we" here? Who's doing this? Like honestly, what is this? Because it was obvious to me the day Russia invaded, which I didn't think would happen, and I was opposed to, of course, but the first day this happened, I thought, they're gonna get rid of the US dollars, the world's reserve currency. That's exactly what this is. All of this seems like an attack on the West to me.

• 34:46Speaker 00

  Well...

• 34:47Tucker Carlson?

  Who is behind this? Do you have any idea?

• 34:49Speaker 00

  Look, you know, I can only tell you that if you study sanctions, there are very few people ever who have said they work. What sanctions are, it's a very cheap way for governments who are not very effective to tell their populaces we're doing something. But what it does is...

• 35:10Tucker Carlson?

  I think Fidel Castro died in his bed.

• 35:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. What it does is, it empowers the most corrupt all over the world. We are empowering Ukrainian corruption. We are empowering the corruption of our business interests. We are doing everything to disestablish America's position. We are giving Putin the armament to get away from the dollar. We're doing everything for them to establish alternative payment systems. We are building our opponents with a sanction system that violates... The rule of law that denies people their human rights, very often some of the most industrious people going. It is the most counterproductive system we've put in place.

• 35:53Speaker 00

  And yet, everybody's going crazy that Elon Musk is trying to engage in, I'll admit, pretty unique efforts to reduce the budget deficit. But nobody's talking about how our government is propagating, in my view, these absolutely violative sanctions all over the world that are totally destroying our rule of law and America as a safe haven for those opposed to people like Putin.

• 36:25Tucker Carlson?

  Sanctioning people's children who didn't do anything wrong. Why would, you know, why would US policymakers be, why would Tori Newland want that? I mean, that just seems cruel and awful.

• 36:38Speaker 00

  Look, let me tell you, I'm dealing with a case in Switzerland. The Swiss are worse than the Americans now.

• 36:44Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, I know.

• 36:45Speaker 00

  Because they're so scared of the United States enforcement that we literally are defending children who are being attacked by the Swiss. So, the whole sanction situation, this whole dehumanizing of people with Russian names, that no one is speaking out against because we're all afraid. We're all in this, you know, I call it the authoritarianism of the left that we are all subject to. This, you know, woke-ism, authoritarianism, this unwillingness to give the opponent a voice.

• 37:28Tucker Carlson?

  But I thought that, I mean, I thought this was the key indelible lesson of the 1940s, that when governments decide that some people don't have human rights because of their genetic makeup. It winds up with mass murder and it's bad for everybody. And so we're never doing that again. We're never going to allow any demagogue or group of demagogues to say that group right there is not entitled to human rights and we're going to hurt them. I thought that was the lesson. I'm 55, I grew up in a country that, remember that?

• 37:55Speaker 00

  Let me tell you something. This law in Ukraine, law 3894, is one of the most dangerous pieces of legislation I've ever seen. And it's not alone. In Estonia, they're attempting to destroy the Russian Orthodox Church. These Baltic countries that are bulwarks of freedom and democracy are going after those churches too. And even though those churches are not separate from Russia, and I recognize that, and yes, the Russian Orthodox Church has been instrumentalized, I agree. I still say, under a rule of law state, you go after those people who commit offenses, you do not ban a church.

• 38:37Tucker Carlson?

  If you start banning people's religions, then how are you better than what you oppose?

• 38:42Speaker 00

  Exactly. And yet, the Religious Freedom Conference honors the very author of this insane legislation.

• 38:51Tucker Carlson?

  Who sponsored this conference?

• 38:53Speaker 00

  It's, you know, all I know is, I think the, there's a chairman who's a former Republican senator. I think it's made up of charitable donations. I haven't, I haven't studied who the sponsor is. I'm sure there's US government involvement. Mr. Vance, Vice President Vance spoke, spoke very well. I mean, he's, as I said before, I mean, he's, he set off a revolution in Europe with his speech, which I welcome, because I believe he's identified a tremendous problem in Europe in terms of freedom of speech and the basic freedoms.

• 39:35Speaker 00

  Although, you know, I have to say, working in Georgia, working and knowing what's happening in Transnistria, you, you cannot minimize the threat of Vladimir Putin. It exists.

• 39:49Tucker Carlson?

  Coast to coast, 17 different cities on a nationwide live tour. It was amazing. We brought the entire staff with us like we always do because we all work together for so long and enjoy traveling together. And one of our producers is a documentary filmmaker. And so he decided to make a documentary film about our trip, a full month across America, with some of the most interesting people around. Different people join us every single night. Gino and Russell Brand and Bobby Kennedy and J.D. Vance and Donald Trump, et cetera, et cetera. We had the best time and the fruit of that is a documentary called On the Road, The Tucker Carlson Live Tour, which is available right now on TCN. On the Road, Tucker Carlson Live Tour is hilarious. You will like it.

• 40:35Speaker 01

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• 40:40Speaker 02

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• 41:05Speaker 03

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• 41:36Tucker Carlson?

  So, um, you said that you went up to the US Congress and you tried to get the attention of members. J.D. Vance was the only one who would listen to you out of 100 senators. What about in the House?

• 41:49Speaker 00

  Oh, I attended a few meetings, as I said, where I were, where I was generally insulted by people. We had very few-

• 41:57Tucker Carlson?

  Insulted?

• 41:58Speaker 00

  Yeah, we had very few congressmen who would meet us.

• 42:03Speaker 00

  We had some very courageous lobbyists who we worked with and still work with, including a Democrat, a former Democrat Congressman Ron Klain, who because he's, I think, a devout Christian, has, I think, really suffered a lot reputationally by working with me, and God bless him, for having the strength and courage to do that. Because, as he knows, I mean, we're completely nonpartisan. We're not actually lobbying the United States at all.

• 42:44Speaker 00

  We want people to talk to the Ukrainians and simply explain to the Ukrainians that this law to ban our church is unacceptable.

• 42:55Tucker Carlson?

  Especially since we're paying for it. Have you ever voted for a Republican in your life?

• 42:59Speaker 00

  Never.

• 43:00Tucker Carlson?

  You have, so you're... Just wanted to be clear about that. So you were arrested by Putin and you've never voted Republican, so just want people to understand where you're coming from here.

• 43:10Speaker 00

  No, no, I mean, that's very much where I'm coming from. Though I will say, you know, quite frankly, that I think what's been dangerous about the past few administrations is that their breaks with rule of law have been wildly pronounced but hidden. Whatever you want to say about President Trump, I think that it's far healthier where he does, he does a number of things I disagree with. It's out in the open and we can address it, attack it if we think it's wrong, but it's out in the open. With the prior administrations, it was all hidden from view and it was almost impossible

• 43:54Speaker 00

  to attack, like sanctions. You know, almost impossible to attack, very difficult to deal with. And this authoritarianism, this denial of the civic space...

• 44:09Speaker 00

  is hugely important.

• 44:11Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 44:11Speaker 00

  And, and it's, it's what we in the United States have done to ourselves. I, I really can barely watch CNN. I understand they have serious problems with President Trump. I get it. But there is a whole world out there. And President Trump has made a tremendous amount of waves in that world. Surely, beyond bashing the guy, we can deal with some of the real problems, like my church, which has never been covered by CNN.

• 44:43Tucker Carlson?

  Ever?

• 44:44Speaker 00

  Ever, that to my knowledge.

• 44:45Tucker Carlson?

  They cover Ukraine all day long, but they've never mentioned that the government banned a Christian denomination.

• 44:50Speaker 00

  Never. And not only, the majority church of the country. Let's be clear. And when I went to church, one of my first times in church, but the patriarch of our church insisted that I attend church.

• 45:03Tucker Carlson?

  I love you call it our church.

• 45:06Speaker 00

  That he, he insisted I attend the churches because he wanted me to see the difference between our church and the other church. So I went. I went to church after church. Our churches were full. Our priests were like rush hour traffic on a Sunday. I mean, we're having multiple services because there are now so few churches because the other church is stealing them. So when you go to the other church, they're virtually empty. In fact, many of the churches they've stolen, they've turned into museums. I mean, which by the way.

• 45:41Tucker Carlson?

  This is like Soviet, what's going on.

• 45:42Speaker 00

  No, no, and I was in.

• 45:43Tucker Carlson?

  They're creating, they're banning religion and creating a state church in this.

• 45:46Speaker 00

  Let me tell you something. I was in the Soviet Union. So I'm, you know, I'm older than you. I was in the Soviet Union.

• 45:51Tucker Carlson?

  Trying to get the Jewish Refuseniks out, correct?

• 45:53Speaker 00

  Beginning, just at the beginning. I wasn't a lawyer then or doing much of anything, but I went because I, I knew this problem existed. I was a very, very young boy, but my father wanted me to go. I think I was one of the only, only guys, I think I was the first sole traveler to a place called Kishiniev, Moldova. This is way back in the seventies. Um, and was interrogated, my first interrogation by the KGB was when I was like 17. Um, so I've had a long history in this region. I went to the Lavra when I was, I, I studied under Ukraine's greatest historian.

• 46:36Speaker 00

  Bodan Batsirkew. His son is now a noted speaker and expert on Ukraine and very pro-Ukrainian and a very, very serious person. But I went there at the express direction of his father and I went to the Lavra to just experience this incredible. I mean, the Lavra was incredible and this has become the scene of these clashes where Zelensky's government has taken the Lavra, control of the Lavra away from our church and handed it to the nationalist church.

• 47:13Speaker 00

  So there's this huge nationalism in Ukraine that is the motive behind Zelensky's destruction of my church and it's political. Our church and the Donbass, the more Russian-speaking part of Ukraine, had supported Zelensky. But with the unfortunate aggression against Ukraine, that voter bloc is denied to him. So he has had to move much further to the xenophobic side of the Ukrainian spectrum to keep his base.

• 47:54Speaker 00

  And we think that's primarily some of the politics behind him agreeing to the destruction of our church.

• 48:04Tucker Carlson?

  Can I ask you what may be an unanswerable question? So you were describing the effects of the Ukraine war on the West and on the United States and it's basically knocking the US from its perch and it's causing all kinds of problems, the loss of the US dollar, the alignment, the permanent now alignment between Russia and China. If you were China and you were trying to assert yourself as a global power, which they have every right to do in my opinion, but you're trying to subvert the United States, like you would do everything you could, like whose interest is being served in this? And it seems like the Chinese interest is being served. So if you have our entire media, our entire political establishment is all in on this thing that hurts the United States.

• 48:42Tucker Carlson?

  Is it possible that China has a role in that?

• 48:44Speaker 00

  Look, I'm somebody who, as a young man, studied China and then the Soviet Union. I do not have an animus towards China in terms of seeing them in the negative light. I think there was hope for our relationship that's been kind of destroyed. I think it's still possible, by the way, to be resurrected. But certainly, it is, to some extent, in China's interest. But we never understand something that's fundamental to Xi Jinping's survival, which is, he is on an economic fault line. He needs GDP growth at plus 5%

• 49:29Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 49:30Speaker 00

  to survive. A flourishing relationship with the United States could be in his interest under a different type of

• 49:39Tucker Carlson?

  I think that's right.

• 49:40Speaker 00

  relationship. And I think what we've done is, we've almost forced the Russians into becoming an unequal partner

• 49:50Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 49:51Speaker 00

  to the Chinese.

• 49:51Tucker Carlson?

  Well, that is exactly right.

• 49:53Speaker 00

  The Chinese, of course, have this history of a century of humiliation, suffering under unequal treaties. Now, they are the ones offering unequal treaties to countries like Russia.

• 50:05Tucker Carlson?

  They are. And there's massive Chinese investment in Russia right now.

• 50:08Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 50:09Tucker Carlson?

  Massive. And it's very noticeable when you go there. Why is this country so prosperous? There's a war going on, a real war, too. And the answer, in part, is because there's huge Chinese investment in Russia, and it's solidifying a relationship based on mutual benefit, I would say, to the point where it can't be, it's not going to be broken.

• 50:28Speaker 00

  Well, never underestimate the root antagonisms of the Chinese-Russian relationship.

• 50:36Tucker Carlson?

  Well, that's a solid point.

• 50:39Speaker 00

  And so, a different administration than the Democrats could possibly engage in some of the behavior that Nixon first developed.

• 50:50Speaker 00

  It is absolutely contrary to American interests for China and Russia to be one. So, we have, from a geopolitical standpoint, a lot of work to do.

• 51:01Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 51:02Speaker 00

  Uh, working with the Indians, working with others in terms of trying to figure out how to divide these countries. And, and, and this is why a, a focus solely on Ukraine to the tremendous cost of our own geopolitical position is so insane.

• 51:18Tucker Carlson?

  Like, completely agree, and I travel a lot, so I see the effects, you know, everywhere. So you've, uh, you've mentioned that Europe, for whatever reason, I still think it's baffling, but is, is all in on this, completely all in on it. Keir Starmer, just, Prime Minister of Great Britain, just said that they're signing some hundred-year defense deal with Ukraine, it's insane. Um, Germany, same thing-ish. Uh, China, we know is benefiting to some extent. India, you said, is a massive beneficiary of all this stuff. What about the Middle Eastern countries? What about the Arab world and Israel? What, what interest do they have here? What connection do they have to the Ukraine war any?

• 51:52Speaker 00

  Well, look, I, I, I think there, uh, it, it's Africa that suffered the most.

• 51:57Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 51:58Speaker 00

  Uh, simply because their, their food supply is being terribly impaired. Um, Riyadh benefits always from this type of geopolitical issue because they benefit from great relationships with everybody. Um, you know, it, it's like this, uh, this old Turkish foreign policy of, you know, making friends at every border. That's what they're doing. Uh, as you may be aware, I also represent the Congo, which is now being horribly invaded by Rwanda. And I've always wondered why the United States didn't take a stronger position there. Um, you know, we can't...

• 52:43Speaker 00

  We have destabilized Africa, the entirety of Africa, with this war. And we have not addressed the fact that so much of our future is tied up in Africa, yet the entire continent is being completely destroyed. Talk to people in Zambia or some of these other countries who can't have, get food because the costs are now so high. We need to look at this struggle in a far broader sense.

• 53:10Tucker Carlson?

  Because Ukraine is a huge producer of fertilizer.

• 53:12Speaker 00

  And basic exports, yes, absolutely. So geopolitically, the Europeans have only one thing in their mind, which is, you know, they don't want to see another Munich. And, you know, my argument is, this isn't Munich, it's Potsdam. We are, we, we, we, there's been a three-year war, hasn't gone all that well. And we need to have a geopolitical understanding of where we are and what is in not only America's interest, but the world's interest. And Ukraine has to have a generation to survive and grow.

• 53:52Tucker Carlson?

  Well, exactly.

• 53:53Speaker 00

  So, you know, but all of that is beyond my mandate, which is to try to save the Orthodox, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, so that it can survive for another thousand years.

• 54:06Tucker Carlson?

  Well, it's, it's just interesting, though. I'm just asking these questions because I know that you represent clients in a bunch of different countries and have for almost 50 years, and you travel a lot. But it does seem like this is part of the cost of a world, the West, and this is not true in the East, by the way, but in the West, the only history people know is kind of a half-baked, you know, kind of a Twitter version of World War II, and everything is through the same lens. And it's like, this isn't Munich, actually, as you point out. And maybe ignorance is part, people are very inflexible in their minds, like...

• 54:38Speaker 00

  You know, it's funny, as a young boy, I went to Moscow. At that point, sort of pseudo-communist sympathizer as a very young man. And I remember being taken, I could not attend any city without first being taken to the war cemetery.

• 54:57Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 54:58Speaker 00

  We never talk about 27 million Russian dead.

• 55:03Speaker 00

  My family would never have survived without Russian troops. And yes, they visited horrible times on Eastern Europe. Totally true. But that sacrifice saved us. And when we dehumanize them, we are, in a way, dehumanizing ourselves. And it should never be the policy of our government to allow any other foreign state to so contaminate our narrative and our discussions. And, you know, quite frankly-

• 55:44Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, too late.

• 55:46Speaker 00

  Yes, but, you know, even in terms of using the International Criminal Court, the way they have, where the court has gone to such incredible lengths with respect to this case. Again, I'm not in any way denying Russian war crimes. I'm simply saying that there's a difference between punishing wrongdoers and dehumanizing a nation and a people. And we have allowed this to get into a horrific attack on the people with the sanctions and all of that, that isn't American. And it's not who we are. And we need to stop.

• 56:30Tucker Carlson?

  Have there been any media outlets at all, globally? Let's just stick to the United States and Great Britain, English-speaking media, who've been willing to give you a fair hearing?

• 56:41Speaker 00

  I would say, in general, no. We managed to get one op-ed from one of our priests in The Times of London, which I'm deeply grateful. We managed to get a couple of stories in The Telegraph. Nothing in The Guardian. The Wall Street Journal is completely cut off from us, and I would say, reality.

• 57:08Tucker Carlson?

  Wall Street Journal is completely cut off from reality. The Wall Street Journal is actually every bit as dishonest as The New York Times in my read, but much stealthier about it. And it has this kind of unbreakable relationship with late-middle-aged right-wingers that-

• 57:24Tucker Carlson?

  You know, it uses to spew lies and stupidity and propaganda.

• 57:28Speaker 00

  Well, there's one editorial writer who interviewed me about the church when I was in Kiev, and I had some hope, but then wrote a crazy story denouncing me and the church, which we

• 57:44Tucker Carlson?

  Denouncing you?

• 57:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, which we managed to, we managed, I think, at the end of many rewrites, to get her editorial only, we moved it from terrible to very bad.

• 57:57Tucker Carlson?

  Who was this?

• 57:58Speaker 00

  I can't even remember her name.

• 57:59Tucker Carlson?

  Some lady writer at the?

• 58:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, but who's written consistently pro-Ukraine pieces. And one of the things-

• 58:05Tucker Carlson?

  So like, how dare you defend a church's right to exist?

• 58:08Speaker 00

  Exactly. No, but one of the things about the Ukraine beat is, it's very often the same people saying the same things, just with different background music, again and again, in a very propagandistic way, avoiding the hard truths. I mean, these, these, these press gangs that are grabbing young men and taking them to the front, get so little coverage. The, the fighting inside the presidential administration that we know exists gets so little coverage.

• 58:43Tucker Carlson?

  Oh, some have reached out to me.

• 58:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:44Tucker Carlson?

  So it's pretty clear that Zelensky's in charge, but is he really? You referred a couple of times to Andre Yermak.

• 58:50Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 58:51Tucker Carlson?

  Who is that?

• 58:52Speaker 00

  He is the capo de capo. I mean, he is, he is the guy that arranges the theft of assets. He is the guy who organizes a lot of the activities of the SBU to go after opponents and go after assets. It's my privilege to, to represent a gentleman named Vadim Novinsky. They, they took his assets, which involved gas.

• 59:24Speaker 00

  Because his crime is supporting the church. He's a very high-level archdeacon in the church and has financially supported the church. And, by the way, was sanctioned by Russia, yet he's charged with treason. Why? Because he supports Ukraine's historic church. Mother church, the majority church of the country. But what's amazing about them illegally taking his assets is they didn't deploy them for the benefit of Ukraine. They were gas wells, and they shut them. And when his own people said to these gangsters, "Run the wells, you're destroying the wealth of the country", they didn't.

• 1:00:09Speaker 00

  And so, you know, they briefly gave the licenses back, then they took it back again for political reasons because they charged him with treason. But they don't care. It reminds me of my first day as privileged to be part of a major legal team in Moscow in 2003. And the lead counsel, the Russian lawyer, was a very famous Russian lawyer, brilliant, brilliant man, named Padva. And I said to him, because the Russian stock market had gone down 50% after they attacked my client at that time,

• 1:00:51Speaker 00

  I said to him, "Well, surely Mr. Putin will understand that this can't go on." He took a newspaper, he hit me over the head, and he said, "Don't ever say anything that's stupid again. This is Moscow, they will steal the very desk in this court, and they'll keep stealing." The corruption in Ukraine is as ingrained as it is in Moscow.

• 1:01:23Speaker 00

  The secret police in Ukraine are using old KGB texts to jail my priests. They are charging them with psycholinguistic crimes. What's that? This is out of 1984. Psycholinguistics. This is basically alleging that what they're saying has meanings similar to what Putin says, and therefore it's a crime. People are being jailed away from their families for psycholinguistics under Article 161 of

• 1:02:03Speaker 00

  the Ukrainian Criminal Code for essentially division, causing religious division. Now, the OCU members, or those working for them with swastikas on their arms, don't get charged. But our church, our folks, get charged routinely. Novinsky is charged with psycholinguistic crimes. His entire life has been disrupted, his assets stripped from him. Horrific things said about him because when he was a member of the Rada, so therefore

• 1:02:43Speaker 00

  privileged communications occurred, he had some disagreements with the government of the day. They are using Soviet texts to go after their own political opponents. And Zelensky, this man that has been virtually treated as a saint by the Europeans, is using the SBU in a manner no different than how Russian leaders have used the FSB or the KGB. No different. Including the arrest and beating of priests, and our papers say nothing.

• 1:03:23Speaker 00

  It is, it is just, you, you, by the way, sir, are the only one, especially heroically, that first interview, that first interview changed and saved and delayed the passage of this law till now, and I will be forever in your debt for doing it.

• 1:03:42Tucker Carlson?

  You've told us something that I didn't realize, which is that the US government established a fake state church in a foreign country, which is obviously unconstitutional, but also Soviet. I've also noticed this other trend, which I don't really understand, but it seems equally bad, which is to try and change the culture of the Slavic countries. Slavic countries are traditional, they believe in gender roles, for example, and there does seem to have been and continue to be this effort from the US State Department and maybe others in the US government to kind of change the way Ukrainian society is ordered. Have you noticed this?

• 1:04:17Speaker 00

  Yes, I mean, I, you know, as I've said, I had the privilege of listening to Robert Destro, a former, I think Deputy Secretary in charge of Human Rights, talk about some of what he saw going on, funding for atheist groups, funding for...

• 1:04:42Tucker Carlson?

  Funding for atheist groups?

• 1:04:43Speaker 00

  Funding for atheist groups.

• 1:04:45Tucker Carlson?

  That's the whole story right there.

• 1:04:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, funding for all sorts of groups that, certainly, you could wonder if this is in the interest of the United States. I mean, I have nothing against atheists, I don't know why we would necessarily feel it was incumbent upon us to fund them, but there is, there's an excellent book written...

• 1:05:11Tucker Carlson?

  Like, that's actually, if you think about it, outrageous. The whole pretext for this is Russia staged this illegal unprovoked invasion three years ago, so we have to defend Ukraine from Russia. Okay. At least that makes a kind of sense, true or not. But why would you want to change the religious belief of Ukrainians or the family structure of Ukrainians?

• 1:05:28Speaker 00

  Well, their, their argument in terms of my church has been, well, your church has some relationship to Russia. So they, they continue to make the argument, even though we believe we've disproven it, that there is no link. Our link is canonical. It's through, if you will, the book. And our government cannot control canon law. That, that is surely outside the purview of, of any government.

• 1:05:55Tucker Carlson?

  So it's sort of the same argument that, that a lot of Arab countries made during the Suez Crisis in 56. They had huge Jewish populations in a lot of these, you know, Morocco and Algeria and, you know, thousand-year-old, multi-thousand-year-old Jewish populations. And they're like, let's see, you're Jewish, the Jews in this other country, Israel, did something we don't like, therefore we're blaming you or kicking you out. It's like, not that, because you've got the same book. You've got a canonical connection.

• 1:06:18Speaker 00

  That's, that's the logic. And, and this is being done very scientifically, in, in a, in a very, I would have to say, it's almost a crazed psychosis going on because you have these ultra-right folks in Ukraine. Basically now, some of the churches have taken Maidan, the, the locus of the 2014 events, and set up shrines in, in the OCU churches to Maidan.

• 1:07:01Speaker 00

  So they've even changed the religion itself to conform to Ukrainian nationalism.

• 1:07:11Tucker Carlson?

  So they're basically worshiping a CIA coup?

• 1:07:13Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, it's an icon. They're, they're exchanging icons. So you're talking-

• 1:07:20Tucker Carlson?

  So this is a state religion you're describing?

• 1:07:22Speaker 00

  Yeah. No, no, it is. And, and, and what I, what I wanna, I want to be clear that there was a desire for this within Ukraine for a hundred years. Because there's this view, and I think it's a true view, that, that Russia had engaged in Russification, sort of depriving Ukraine of its culture.

• 1:07:44Tucker Carlson?

  Right.

• 1:07:45Speaker 00

  Which we agree with, but our church certainly does not make any demands about stopping anybody from praying in any way they want. We are simply saying, don't steal our churches, don't jail our priests, and don't destroy the religion. And, you know, we have experts, Dr. Bremer from, I think, one of the German Catholic universities has spoken out, His Holiness the Pope has spoken out, the UN has spoken out, the US Mission to the OCE has spoken out, Human Rights Watch did a special report about our

• 1:08:26Speaker 00

  church and what's going on. This isn't just me now. When you first had me on, it was just me. Now it's the Church of England. So we have an entire world condemning the Ukrainian government, and the only people defending it are their friends in Washington.

• 1:08:45Tucker Carlson?

  So shameful and disgusting. So, but we're clearly at an inflection point because, as you have said, the Vice President of the United States just gave this speech at the Munich Security Conference, biggest speech given in Europe in a while, I think it's fair to say, in which he, J.D. Vance, kind of reset the terms of the relationship. And so if you're Zelensky, the bottom line is you're no longer in control of Washington. So where does that leave Zelensky?

• 1:09:13Speaker 00

  Listen, I, you know, the information I got this morning is, it's left him very angry, very addled, and, and working to sort of form a coalition of European leaders around him.

• 1:09:29Tucker Carlson?

  Why does he think he gets, he has like a moral right to run the US government? It's pretty cheeky, I'd say.

• 1:09:34Speaker 00

  Well, he seems to think he has a moral right to run the European government.

• 1:09:38Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:39Speaker 00

  And, and, and I will tell you, from trying to interact with the EU, he's right, he's, he's running it. I mean, these people in the EU won't talk to me, and if they talk to me, they won't listen. I mean, it's incredible. He has them completely wrapped. I mean, I've, he doesn't have Orban wrapped, but he has...

• 1:10:00Tucker Carlson?

  Well, the Ukrainian government took US tax dollars to try to overthrow Orban. Maybe to kill him, you know? So, that's a fact. So, that itself, you know, Hungary is in NATO.

• 1:10:15Tucker Carlson?

  So you can't, one NATO power cannot attack another NATO power? Like, what is that? This whole thing has just scrambled the eggs of the world.

• 1:10:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, I have no knowledge of that. All I can say is that, that the information we've gotten is that the, the meeting that took place and the, the re-establishment of more normalized relations between the United States and Russia, uh, leading to some discussion, um, has been, uh, there's been a horrible reaction within the presidential administration, and we fear that this will cause further repression of the church.

• 1:10:55Tucker Carlson?

  Can Zelensky with, you know, we can debate what his actual approval rating is, but I mean, I would bet my house it's not over 50.

• 1:11:04Tucker Carlson?

  Can he hang on?

• 1:11:06Speaker 00

  Look, I'd bet my house, uh, it's not over 20. I have no idea, because when you have the secret police, um, you've got power. So I don't, you know, I can't answer that question. I can just say that, um, if you're an opponent of Zelensky, this is a moment of fear, because, uh, he is clearly doubling down on the repression. And, and anyone that's opposed to Zelensky should be in fear, because he is, he is a man that, that is a dictator. I mean, however you want to phrase it, that's who he is. Uh, he, he is running a police state.

• 1:11:48Speaker 00

  Our friends don't want to say that, but that's the, that's the reality of Ukraine today.

• 1:11:53Tucker Carlson?

  What's the other word for it? I can't think of one.

• 1:11:56Speaker 00

  I can't either, but you never, you never see that in any newspaper in the West.

• 1:12:01Tucker Carlson?

  So that really bothers me. Look, there are tons of dictatorships around the world, um, but the West is supposed to be this beacon of freedom and enlightenment, respecter of human rights, et cetera, et cetera. What does it tell you as an American, as a product of the West, that all of our big institutions seem to like the Zelensky dictatorship? They like it. They, I've confronted a bunch of people. You think it's okay to ban a church? Well, that church is pro Russia. Okay, well, you say it's not pro Russia. I don't care if it is. You can't ban other people's religions, period. I don't care how much you dislike them. I don't care if it's Scientology or Kabbalah. It doesn't matter. Hinduism doesn't matter. You can't ban other people's religions. And yet, I don't know anyone who's bothered by it

• 1:12:45Tucker Carlson?

  in high position in the West. So what does it tell you about the people in high positions in the West?

• 1:12:50Speaker 00

  Well, it means that we have become disconnected from, in reality, who we are and who we're supposed to be.

• 1:12:57Tucker Carlson?

  Yeah, well, that's a diplomatic way of putting it, yeah.

• 1:13:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, and it does not bode well for our future as a country.

• 1:13:04Tucker Carlson?

  That's exactly it.

• 1:13:06Speaker 00

  And that's what's frightening to me.

• 1:13:08Tucker Carlson?

  You feel that?

• 1:13:08Speaker 00

  Yes, I feel that. I feel it's shocking to me how alienated I am representing this church because I'm not accepting the narrative that's been accepted by others. And so, my firm, myself, we are paying a terrible price. Not nearly as bad as our client, who faces physical violence and the destruction of their religion. But there is no quarter being given to disputing what's going on.

• 1:13:49Speaker 00

  This guy has seemed to have a complete lock on our institutions, on Washington. Now, we just spoke at the conference. We weren't able to speak a year ago. Maybe that's a good sign. We're going to try to go back on the Hill. I was there a few weeks ago. No member would meet us, but that could have just been the transition. We're going to go back and try again, but...

• 1:14:18Speaker 00

  It really is, the Zelensky effect is something that needs to be studied because it's incredibly unhealthy for us, number one, as a democracy, number two, in terms of our geopolitical reckoning. That's right. Who we are in the world has to be reassessed. And I, listen, I'm actually a Canadian and British lawyer, although I have a master's in American law, I don't practice here. And of course, now that I'm a Canadian, we could be at war, even though I'm an American as well. Well, you'll just be a state, apparently. Exactly, that'll be okay.

• 1:14:57Speaker 00

  But I will say that, that what this presidency is doing is, with God's help, opening up, opening up our eyes to what's been going on. That's right. And I have to say that as a lawyer, I am deeply in awe. Firstly, you have to hand it to President Trump, stamina like I've never seen in ten human beings. It's unbelievable. Secondly, you have to accept that the Justice Department was weaponized. Whoever you are, as a lawyer in this country, there is no doubt that the weaponization that

• 1:15:39Speaker 00

  took place under the Democrats was severe. I have a lot of issues with what happened regarding January 6th. I'm gonna have a lot of issues with what's going on at the Justice Department and the FBI. But I will say, do not say it is this president who has politicized the DOJ. This is a systemic problem that has been horrifically exploded during the last

• 1:16:12Speaker 00

  Democratic presidency.

• 1:16:13Tucker Carlson?

  So, so last question, I'm not gonna ask you, year you graduated law school, but

• 1:16:17Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:16:18Tucker Carlson?

  But it's a while ago. You've said you've been practicing for over forty years. When you graduated law school, I bet there were a ton of people with your attitudes in your class. Similar, similar attitudes about human rights, rule of law, politics, America's place in the world. Um, now you're literally the only one left that I've met, uh, from your generation. What's it been like for you with like your friends, your colleagues, your peers? People you know have known your whole life. You, you come back and all of a sudden, you know, you're being denounced as a Russian stooge. Like, what effect has that had?

• 1:16:52Speaker 00

  Well, it, it's interesting. I, I said twenty years ago that there was a, there was a terrible danger in the United States to the corporatism of criminal law.

• 1:17:08Tucker Carlson?

  Yes.

• 1:17:09Speaker 00

  We, we have, we have turned criminal law into the activity of big corporate law firms. In New York, even today, there are a bunch of, uh, small firms that take on, uh, difficult cases. Braffman, Agnifilo, some of these guys in small firms, taking on tough, tough, tough cases, um, that I think of as, as real, you know, defenders. But the corporate titans that are doing the big cases have become entirely focused

• 1:17:53Speaker 00

  on compliance. You're somebody, I'm sure, with, with far more resources than a poor guy like myself. But if you engage in transnational business, you know the hassles of even moving ten dollars across borders.

• 1:18:11Speaker 00

  These corporate law firms are making tens of millions off of managing compliance. Because of, and this is a separate story, in my view, this overregulation, money laundering allegations. Money laundering is the most dangerous crime governments have ever invented. Because it basically criminalizes activity that very many people never knew was criminal. You could be charged with money laundering if you've engaged in asset or money transfers when you had no idea at the time that it was criminal.

• 1:18:50Tucker Carlson?

  They don't care about rape on a subway platform. And if they did, we wouldn't have it. You know, a lot of countries don't have rape on subway platforms because that's horrifying. It's a violation, the most basic violation of someone's civil rights. What they care about is money laundering. I noticed, I just read today DOJ was issuing some statement on money laundering. Every day it's money laundering. It's because people using their money that they earned in ways that they choose to use it, that's a massive threat to the people in power.

• 1:19:19Speaker 00

  Yes, it is. And again, another day, I'll tell you about my use of human rights law to stop the freezing of assets and freezing of monies. This compliance psychology is a tremendous danger that we foster in our big firms. And that is, you know, so if you ask me after 45 years, how do you feel? It is a sense of tragedy that our basic rights have been withered away in so many events of emergency.

• 1:19:59Speaker 00

  Whenever I hear emergency or crisis, whether it's COVID, the war on terror, the war on crime, these are all events that chip away at our freedoms. And they're cumulative. They go on and on and they further narrow the scope for our activity. And we need a dramatic rethink of all of that in order for us to be free.

• 1:20:25Tucker Carlson?

  So when you were a kid, when you were a young lawyer, when you were in law school, Brandon Berg versus Ohio, the big speech cases, those were all very well-known, right, to everybody in your class. Do you think someone graduating Yale Law now has any real sense of that?

• 1:20:40Speaker 00

  You know, I'm giving a speech Friday to 60 top law students. I'll know better after that. I think that unfortunately, we're raising lawyers to fit into these corporate firms. This whole sort of compliance culture, and you know, I'm probably, God help me, probably one of the only lawyers that will applaud the Trump administration for stopping FCPA enforcement. It's not that I'm in support of corruption, and it's not that I think

• 1:21:20Speaker 00

  we shouldn't come up with a system to stop it. It's that the FCPA has represented a massive commercial barrier for American business to enter Latin America and Africa. We need to be in those places. And now maybe we'll have a shot, because the compliance barrier simply made it only possible for some of our largest businesses.

• 1:21:45Tucker Carlson?

  Well, that's the whole point.

• 1:21:46Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:21:47Tucker Carlson?

  That was the whole point of Dodd-Frank.

• 1:21:48Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:21:49Tucker Carlson?

  It's like, you know, all the small guys die when the big guys can pay enough lawyers to stay within the law or the regs.

• 1:21:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's right.

• 1:21:57Tucker Carlson?

  Bobby Amsterdam, I'm grateful for what you're doing, and I'm grateful that you exist. And when liberals like you went extinct, everyone made fun of people like you, because they're annoying. They're always jumping up and yelling about rights. But I was one of the only people who felt sad when your whole way of thinking died, because I felt like we really needed that. And it turns out I was right.

• 1:22:16Speaker 00

  Well, thank you again.

• 1:22:18Tucker Carlson?

  Thank you.