The Tucker Carlson Show - Bob Amsterdam： How USAID Is Helping Zelensky Destroy Christianity With Fake Churches and Violence

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00:00:18.140 So thank you for doing this.

00:00:20.400 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

00:00:25.500 because you're one of the few people I know who has a real sense of what it's like in Ukraine

00:00:30.540 and has been for the last three years since the war began.

00:00:34.280 How would you summarize the situation in Ukraine right now?

00:00:37.660 Dire.

00:00:38.420 Dire.

00:00:38.640 Situation is dire.

00:00:55.500 Zelensky is wildly unpopular.

00:01:04.120 There are press gangs to take people to the front.

00:01:08.480 People are without hope.

00:01:12.320 And the casualties are enormous.

00:01:15.780 And the corruption is enormous.

00:01:17.960 And imagine sending your child to the front knowing all of this.

00:01:23.480 As you know, I represent the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

00:01:27.660 So our parishioners go to the front while their churches are being stolen back home,

00:01:33.740 while parishioners, elderly parishioners and priests are being beaten.

00:01:38.620 And, you know, what I've always said to people who defend Zelensky is,

00:01:43.180 you know, all his numbers are complete fabrications.

00:01:47.160 If he was popular, if he was trusted, he wouldn't have destroyed the press.

00:01:51.460 He wouldn't be jailing and labeling with treason charges political opponents.

00:01:57.000 And there would have been some control on the corruption.

00:02:01.740 I mean, the courts are impossible.

00:02:03.500 It's a police state.

00:02:05.240 The SBU, the secret police, run and intimidate everyone and everything.

00:02:10.200 And yet, the Western press has blockaded this story.

00:02:16.120 The dishonesty of some of the people that are reporting from Ukraine is astounding.

00:02:23.620 I've never seen anything like it.

00:02:25.140 I've been involved with cases involving wars and disputes.

00:02:29.120 But the absolute lying and the games that our papers are playing,

00:02:37.540 the Wall Street Journal, for instance, barely, barely has an op-ed that doesn't laud Zelensky.

00:02:44.560 You never get reality about what's actually going on in the presidential administration.

00:02:50.340 You get no coverage.

00:02:52.140 You know, there's a law, 3894, to destroy the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

00:02:57.620 No law has been passed like this in Europe since World War II against the Jews.

00:03:03.540 There's no coverage.

00:03:05.980 The argument, when I say to the press, how can you do this?

00:03:10.820 How can you not cover people talking about religious cleansing who are members of the Ukrainian parliament?

00:03:19.060 How can you not cover it?

00:03:20.360 They say, well, this church is somehow a Russian thing.

00:03:23.760 We, you know, as I've told you, we have reached a point where this narrative, the Zelensky narrative has been accepted.

00:03:33.540 And our people simply don't challenge it.

00:03:36.740 They fall to it.

00:03:39.140 And it's really been down to the new administration to put a pin in that balloon.

00:03:46.120 It's kind of hard to skip over you and your role in all this.

00:03:51.540 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.

00:03:58.640 And for doing that, you've been called a Russian stooge, a Putin worshiper.

00:04:03.780 Your character has been impugned.

00:04:05.820 Can you just take a couple of minutes, tell us who you are?

00:04:08.340 Why are you representing the Orthodox Church in Ukraine?

00:04:12.720 Are you a Putin puppet?

00:04:16.400 Look, for 45 years, I've done political cases all over the world.

00:04:24.680 We've taken on some big enemies.

00:04:27.820 We took on the United Nations pro bono on behalf of an individual worker for the UN that they had destroyed.

00:04:37.320 We got two assistant secretaries general disciplined in that case that made history inside the UN.

00:04:45.820 And we were awarded the global pro bono award from American Lawyer for doing that case.

00:04:52.020 I represented political opponents of Putin in Moscow.

00:04:57.320 I was arrested in Moscow at 2 a.m.

00:05:02.020 And they tried to load me into a vehicle, get me out of there.

00:05:06.120 I wouldn't go.

00:05:07.200 Wait, you were, I just want to be clear on this, you were arrested by the Putin government at 2 a.m. in Moscow.

00:05:11.920 That's right.

00:05:12.480 In 2005, defending a political opponent of Vladimir Putin.

00:05:18.380 And in fact, have been banned from Russia ever since.

00:05:23.820 I hold no water for Putin.

00:05:25.600 I represent opponents of the Russian government in various countries, continue to represent political opponents of Putin.

00:05:34.160 It hasn't stopped the Ukrainians from launching a massive disinformation campaign against me because of my defense of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church,

00:05:44.860 which is the majority church of Ukraine, which Zelensky and his gang have been trying to destroy.

00:05:52.820 I am on the legal team of some of the priests that they have illegally jailed.

00:05:59.060 We have an individual in London who fled the country because Zelensky had literally set people to basically, I don't want to use the word liquidate him,

00:06:13.340 but he had to virtually run across a border.

00:06:17.900 This is a member of the RADA who, Yermak, took away his security.

00:06:23.140 He had to run across the border to save his life, and his crime was speaking out against a law to destroy his church.

00:06:33.120 Can we just back up for one second?

00:06:34.860 So you're a, I think it's fair to say, broadest terms, a Jewish liberal from the Bronx who was arrested by Putin.

00:06:41.660 How did you wind up?

00:06:43.620 How did you wind up representing the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine?

00:06:47.580 Why was that important?

00:06:48.580 Of all the cases you could take, why that one?

00:06:50.620 Well, let's be clear.

00:06:51.320 It's the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

00:06:52.760 We are not part of the ROC.

00:06:56.240 We are, we share only a canonical link.

00:07:00.740 Our church denounced the invasion.

00:07:03.920 Our church separated itself administratively 30 years ago.

00:07:09.900 And every Ukrainian that's Orthodox has been baptized in our church.

00:07:15.980 Five years ago, a new church was established in Ukraine.

00:07:21.380 By the Poroshenko administration with the active connivance of the United States government.

00:07:29.360 The State Department of the United States was involved in the establishment of the church.

00:07:33.880 I believe either USAID or some other organizations have funded this state church called the OCU.

00:07:41.960 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.

00:07:56.280 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.

00:08:10.480 All in the name of anti-Putin activities.

00:08:17.480 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.

00:08:31.360 We were privileged 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.

00:08:50.700 This is something that's something that's not supposed to happen in the 21st century.

00:08:55.460 And as a Jew 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.

00:09:07.700 Yes.

00:09:08.000 And I believe that 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.

00:09:31.460 So we've studied it, we've met with people who were at high levels of the U.S. government who confirmed for me that this was a U.S. government operation.

00:09:42.800 And we have done everything we can.

00:09:46.920 And we have walked into a wall of Ukrainian propaganda inside Washington.

00:09:55.020 I want to be very clear.

00:09:56.600 I just finished speaking at a religious freedom conference.

00:10:00.020 It was a religious freedom conference that in many ways was managed by the Ukrainian government.

00:10:07.700 It was Ukraine in Washington, D.C.

00:10:11.740 My team was barely afforded an allowance to go in.

00:10:16.080 We were not allowed in a year ago.

00:10:18.620 This time we were allowed in.

00:10:20.220 They wouldn't take our money.

00:10:20.880 Well, you're defending a church against a dictator, but you're not allowed to appear at a religious freedom conference.

00:10:26.520 That's correct.

00:10:26.940 And this time, when I went to the religious freedom conference, I was only allowed – they stacked the panel I was on with a priest from the other church.

00:10:40.280 And they gave me basically five minutes to present my views, which were that, in fact, this other church, which, by the way, has stolen 1,500 of our churches, engaged in mobilizing –

00:10:58.140 Stolen the buildings?

00:10:58.920 The buildings.

00:11:00.180 Yes.

00:11:00.600 Stolen them?

00:11:01.340 Stolen them.

00:11:01.860 And worse, beaten our priests, beaten our parishioners.

00:11:08.480 And I have this all on video.

00:11:10.300 If you go to savetheuoc.com, you will see the videos of our parishioners being beaten.

00:11:15.540 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.

00:11:35.380 And let me be very clear to you that you will never hear elsewhere.

00:11:38.540 There is a massive right-wing movement in Ukraine that has tremendous influence.

00:11:45.700 Our newspapers were warning of this in the late teens.

00:11:51.500 And once the war started, we never heard anything else.

00:11:54.800 It's as if all these neo-Nazis disappeared.

00:11:57.620 They haven't disappeared.

00:11:58.800 They're part of the Ukrainian government.

00:12:00.540 But you're never allowed to say that because if you say anything like that, you are told that you are a Putinist.

00:12:07.660 And Kasparov has summed it up.

00:12:09.680 He's basically said, if you criticize Zelensky in any way, you're a Putinist.

00:12:14.900 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.

00:12:25.600 We're supposed to ignore all of that.

00:12:27.480 Because 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.

00:12:38.920 We have this crazy adopted authoritarianism now where we as a country of institutions have made a king out of Zelensky. 0.87

00:12:51.320 We have allowed him to destroy every Ukrainian institution out there that's independent. 1.00

00:12:56.960 And we've turned him into a king or demigod. 0.92

00:13:00.120 And I will tell you that one of the instruments that was being used to attack me, for instance, was Farah.

00:13:08.460 The Foreign Agent Registration Act.

00:13:10.340 That's right.

00:13:10.820 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.

00:13:25.120 When I knew very well I had an exemption because I represent the church.

00:13:30.300 It's been crazy.

00:13:33.720 I've gone into meetings.

00:13:35.200 Firstly, most Democrats, almost all Democrats, but a few, including Dick Durbin, who gave us a very respectful hearing.

00:13:44.520 Almost all Democrats wouldn't meet with us.

00:13:48.560 Which really shocks me because I, you know, I've been a lawyer for 45 years.

00:13:53.240 I generally get meetings when I need them.

00:13:55.420 None.

00:13:55.820 Republicans, on the other hand, often their staff at least, were willing to meet with us.

00:14:02.720 One senator had the courage to stand up and speak out.

00:14:07.560 And that man, God bless him, is now the vice president of the United States.

00:14:11.920 He was the only one.

00:14:13.580 J.D. Vance was the only one?

00:14:15.040 The only one.

00:14:17.160 Absolutely.

00:14:17.600 And he will, I will forever be in his debt because he took the destruction of Christ's children seriously enough.

00:14:25.820 To raise it.

00:14:26.780 And he was outraged that our government was allowing it.

00:14:30.140 He didn't even go so far.

00:14:31.520 I don't think he understood that we were, in fact, funding and supporting it.

00:14:36.140 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.

00:14:46.620 But his lifeblood is to destroy this church.

00:14:51.660 He helps, I'm sure he directs the SBU to jail these priests I work with.

00:14:57.040 Guess who would-

00:14:57.820 Yelensky is-

00:14:58.780 Yelensky with a Y. 0.84

00:15:00.540 And he's written some very interesting books.

00:15:02.700 I don't want to get into that.

00:15:04.260 About what?

00:15:05.240 Uh, just nothing, everything you can think of against religious freedom.

00:15:11.240 He has written about when it was the Soviet Union.

00:15:14.260 Really?

00:15:15.280 Well, he wrote a book about Zionism and clericalism.

00:15:19.840 This is the guy that is heading up their department of religion, essentially, and freedom.

00:15:27.760 This guy was honored and given an honored position at the Religious Freedom Conference in Washington.

00:15:36.200 Wait, the persecutor of the Orthodox Church was given a position of prominence at a Religious Freedom Conference?

00:15:42.140 You have that right.

00:15:43.280 What conference was?

00:15:44.360 I mean, this sounds-

00:15:44.800 This is the one that was in Washington, a huge conference that went right before the prayer breakfast in Washington.

00:15:51.180 Did anyone say anything other than you?

00:15:52.860 No.

00:15:53.140 No, because nobody, the only thing they were worried about, I got a call-

00:15:57.760 What about all the Christians? 0.93

00:15:59.720 They're silent.

00:16:01.140 I got a call.

00:16:02.580 Why is it left to you?

00:16:04.020 I mean, this is the point where I feel like pulling my hair out.

00:16:07.260 Well, I tell you-

00:16:07.840 Why is this your job?

00:16:09.200 Well, and let me tell you-

00:16:10.160 What about Mike Johnson and all these other Christians in the Congress are always talking about how Christian they are?

00:16:14.720 Well, I can tell you that because of the smear, and we understand that the Ukrainians,

00:16:22.580 gave a $3.6 million contract to a PR firm in Washington to go after my church and me.

00:16:32.200 So, I've had vicious letters written about me all over the place talking about me as a Russian agent.

00:16:40.060 We have had-

00:16:40.760 You who were arrested by Putin.

00:16:42.040 Yeah.

00:16:42.500 We have the Hudson Institute, reputable Institute, hosting an event, taking the Ukrainian line. 0.98

00:16:55.160 We wanted to get a voice.

00:16:58.080 It was about religion in Ukraine.

00:17:00.840 We weren't allowed to join-

00:17:02.780 The Hudson Institute was allowed to do that.

00:17:03.940 We weren't allowed to join the Hudson Institute because I think the Ukrainian propaganda machine are indirectly sponsoring these things.

00:17:12.980 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. 1.00

00:17:28.340 You know, there is no one more than me who will support evangelicals or anyone else who are being oppressed.

00:17:37.800 But to sponsor this type of activity and not mention our church is a scandal.

00:17:44.760 To avoid mentioning the majority church of Ukrainians and never say a word about law 3894 that destroys our church.

00:17:55.840 We will not have a church in six months.

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00:20:41.780 Do you know who at the State Department worked on this op to create a fake church?

00:20:48.100 Yes, yes.

00:20:50.120 It dates back to 2014.

00:20:52.440 We believe it began with Victoria Nuland, who, I mean, this was a big operation,

00:21:02.000 because she worked with the ambassador of the United States to Ukraine,

00:21:08.280 amazingly becomes the ambassador of the United States to Greece.

00:21:14.240 And it is, in fact, the patriarch of the Constantinople Church

00:21:22.540 that becomes the one who engineers the, basically the destruction of our church

00:21:32.340 by taking canonical control away from Moscow and taking it to himself,

00:21:39.340 violating a treaty from the 17th century.

00:21:44.880 So we have the United States, and by the way, this was engineered by Secretary of State Pompeo.

00:21:48.880 So this isn't just a Democrat thing.

00:21:51.180 Secretary of State Pompeo was directly involved.

00:21:53.480 Well, the difference between Victoria Nuland and Mike Pompeo is negligible.

00:21:57.800 There's no difference at all that I'm aware of.

00:21:59.880 He may be slightly smarter.

00:22:01.600 He's smarter than she is, and therefore more sinister.

00:22:03.900 But they have the same views on everything.

00:22:05.120 Well, in any event, Pompeo was involved in basically having this, what's called,

00:22:13.180 in religious terms, a tomos, granted so that Ukraine could establish an autocephalous church.

00:22:21.600 This is in 2019.

00:22:24.980 So the church that is allegedly now a clean church away from Russia is five years old. 0.88

00:22:33.660 And that church, which we believe is partially U.S.-funded, has engaged in a vicious campaign of harassment,

00:22:43.280 intimidation, coordination with secret police to steal churches, to disrupt events, to break priests.

00:22:54.700 I mean, you have to understand, I have met tortured priests.

00:22:59.140 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.

00:23:09.180 I mean, just try to imagine that.

00:23:10.520 Well, U.S. tax dollars are paying for the torture of priests.

00:23:13.360 I mean, that's the problem.

00:23:14.080 Yeah.

00:23:14.260 And I mean, you know, for those who say this is not true, please, please call Mr. Dimitrik,

00:23:22.540 who is now, thank God, in safety in London and who is a former member of the RADA,

00:23:29.520 who will be saying in open court, because he's now fighting bogus extradition charges,

00:23:35.580 he will be outlining all of this in open court about what's happened to him.

00:23:39.680 And he is just a microcosm of what's happened in Ukraine.

00:23:45.520 And, you know, it is the ongoing treason charges.

00:23:52.240 As you know, as I've said, I'm now exposed to a criminal investigation in Ukraine,

00:23:58.100 something that even Putin didn't do to me, Zelensky is doing to me, 0.65

00:24:02.880 because I'm defending a church.

00:24:05.100 In Putin's case, I'm defending opponents of Putin.

00:24:09.500 But in Zelensky's case, I'm defending a church.

00:24:12.900 And they've opened up a criminal investigation.

00:24:15.600 Would you be able to go to Ukraine right now?

00:24:18.400 No, I think the whole reason is to ensure that I don't spend time with my clients.

00:24:26.020 There's also the question of violence, which everyone ignores.

00:24:29.100 They've committed violence against the church you represent.

00:24:31.440 They've also committed a lot of violence.

00:24:33.820 A lot of people have been killed.

00:24:35.380 Non-combatants have been killed by the Zelensky government.

00:24:38.260 And people I know have been targeted for assassination, including a head of state in Europe.

00:24:44.780 And so I don't know why that doesn't get any coverage.

00:24:47.740 Like, you would be afraid to go to you.

00:24:49.060 You're an American citizen.

00:24:50.260 You're an attorney.

00:24:51.060 You have clients in Ukraine.

00:24:52.700 It's our client state.

00:24:54.060 And yet you would be afraid to go there.

00:24:56.380 Let me take it a step further.

00:24:57.660 With all of the FARA 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.

00:25:15.300 I mean, the Ukrainians had such a lock on Washington. 1.00

00:25:20.060 It is unbelievable.

00:25:22.060 It is unbelievable.

00:25:22.700 And the Ukrainian RADA demanded that U.S. authorities investigate me because I wrote a letter to the RADA, an open and public letter, saying to every member of the RADA,

00:25:36.820 If you pass a bill that destroys a church, you could be individually subject to sanctions.

00:25:46.320 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 atturn to religious freedom. 0.62

00:26:00.400 Should not be controversial.

00:26:02.420 And it is on this basis that the Ukrainians were begging our own authorities to get involved.

00:26:09.420 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. 1.00

00:26:17.700 It was an afterthought.

00:26:19.180 Lots of wheat has grown there, very pretty women. 1.00

00:26:21.180 But it's Ukraine.

00:26:21.860 It's not central to anybody's geostrategy.

00:26:26.360 And all of a sudden you wake up and the Ukrainians seem to be in charge of the U.S. government. 1.00

00:26:29.840 How did that happen?

00:26:30.600 Look, I'm going to be speaking about this on Friday.

00:26:35.160 I think that you have to go back to the Mueller investigation.

00:26:39.920 I think you have to go back to the Russia scare.

00:26:42.860 And I think that a tremendous amount of partisan politics was played out involving Russia.

00:26:51.360 And it instilled a tremendous amount of fear in the United States.

00:26:54.980 And the Ukrainians have developed the most sophisticated propaganda and information campaign I've ever seen. 0.99

00:27:06.680 I have never seen any country engage in this level of competent, highly sophisticated disinformation.

00:27:16.440 By the way, they accused the Russians of.

00:27:19.520 There is no day of the week the Russians have been 10 percent as effective as the Ukrainians. 0.80

00:27:25.000 I will say, knowing the Russians, very smart, lead the world in chess and engineering.

00:27:30.780 But they're just embarrassing on the propaganda question.

00:27:35.120 They're bad.

00:27:35.980 They're bad.

00:27:37.320 Embarrassing.

00:27:37.840 They are.

00:27:38.280 They're bad.

00:27:38.880 I mean, I'm not, you know, I like Russia, but I'm not.

00:27:40.780 It's just a fact.

00:27:41.600 They're not good at that stuff at all.

00:27:42.860 No.

00:27:43.420 And, you know, I fought them and we were quite successful at exposing the false charges against some leading Russian businessmen.

00:27:55.260 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.

00:28:10.680 I mean, we had an interview with the Guardian three, three days or four days after I got back.

00:28:19.340 Very, very, very competent reporter, took down notes, was in shock at what happened.

00:28:26.600 The Guardian never published the story.

00:28:28.540 This is the Guardian who will publish anything about anybody involving human rights.

00:28:33.180 They wouldn't publish the story because it went against, there's two obstacles.

00:28:40.200 One, it goes against the Russian narrative.

00:28:42.260 And two, all of the guys on the ground for the Western press sell books on Ukraine.

00:28:50.820 And I do wonder if there's a commercial motive in the reporting.

00:28:56.200 Because if you look, and some of these guys are my friends, but I got to wonder if you look at it, no wonder they're notoriously blind to what's going on.

00:29:06.640 Well, there's some kind of unspoken motive here because none of this makes any sense.

00:29:11.000 I mean, Ukraine is so far outside of our orbit.

00:29:14.820 Ukraine, it's not one of those countries I thought had any influence over American foreign policy or public discourse at all.

00:29:20.740 And all of a sudden, 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.

00:29:28.620 What is that actually about?

00:29:30.320 What are the deeper interests here?

00:29:31.580 Do you have any clue?

00:29:33.760 Look, as I said, no other country could do that no matter how sophisticated the propaganda is or almost no other.

00:29:38.840 Look, I have said to myself, because I've done many, many controversial cases in my career.

00:29:50.140 Nothing's ever approached this in terms of the blowback. 0.92

00:29:54.460 When 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%. 0.95

00:30:05.020 Right. 0.74

00:30:05.400 So the president said that Zelensky had an approval rating of 4%.

00:30:08.060 Right.

00:30:08.500 I'm sorry.

00:30:09.500 So I say to myself, Mr. Zelensky can't argue the numbers because he is in a police state.

00:30:18.700 He has no media.

00:30:20.180 He has no opponents.

00:30:21.480 He just cited for treason two or three of the most important people in Ukraine, including his predecessor, Poroshenko.

00:30:32.940 He's done everything he can to mobilize forces to destroy any hope of freedom or opposition.

00:30:43.560 He hasn't held an election.

00:30:45.260 He is, in fact, under their constitution, out of time.

00:30:49.960 He should be out of office.

00:30:51.760 He has no constitutional mandate.

00:30:54.040 Well, he's the definition of a dictator.

00:30:55.900 He's an unelected strong man who's eliminated his opposition.

00:30:58.820 I mean—

00:30:59.180 And he's trying to argue about how popular he is.

00:31:02.820 Well, I'm sorry.

00:31:03.640 You know, there's this old expression, res ipsal aquitur.

00:31:06.540 It speaks for itself.

00:31:07.960 Yeah.

00:31:08.100 I mean, if you're popular, you don't ban the press and jail your opponents.

00:31:15.520 It seems to me, having, you know, used the drug myself many years ago, he seems like he's on cocaine to me.

00:31:22.200 I don't know that.

00:31:23.180 I have no evidence of it.

00:31:23.960 I hear a lot of people say that.

00:31:24.900 Have you heard that?

00:31:25.700 I've heard it.

00:31:26.840 A lot or just impassive?

00:31:28.180 Oh, no.

00:31:28.580 I've heard a lot, but I have no—I can't say it.

00:31:32.260 I have no evidence.

00:31:33.720 I don't either.

00:31:34.600 I hear it a lot, including from people in Europe who know him.

00:31:39.020 Again, no.

00:31:39.840 But is that widely believed in Ukraine?

00:31:42.760 Do you know?

00:31:43.780 I believe it is.

00:31:46.260 But again, you know, I hesitate.

00:31:47.880 I don't like ad hominem comments.

00:31:49.780 No, no, no.

00:31:50.160 But you look at the guy, and you're like, there's something wrong.

00:31:52.580 Well, except what's wrong is the residency seems to have with everybody in Europe.

00:31:58.460 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. 0.70

00:32:16.400 Now, that's different than saying Russia engaged in an aggressive war, which I agree with.

00:32:22.980 That's different.

00:32:24.060 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. 0.98

00:32:34.200 Because the Russians are subhuman. 1.00

00:32:35.640 Exactly. 0.99

00:32:36.260 But hold on.

00:32:36.800 It gets worse.

00:32:37.520 That's like full Nazi propaganda. 0.75

00:32:38.760 No one's subhuman.

00:32:39.780 We're all human, right?

00:32:40.640 But it gets worse because our government under Biden has led the world in an insane sanctioning campaign.

00:32:49.920 Insane because it is contrary to American interests.

00:32:53.560 What have we done?

00:32:55.040 Number one, we have consolidated Putin's power.

00:32:59.080 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.

00:33:06.500 Their kids can't go to school.

00:33:08.480 Again, we have the subhuman thing.

00:33:10.200 Number two, we have consolidated the relationship between Russia and China.

00:33:16.340 The very thing that Richard Nixon worked very hard never to do, we have done.

00:33:23.560 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.

00:33:36.080 So you're referring to Russian energy shipments.

00:33:40.380 So Russia has a ton of energy.

00:33:41.580 The world needs a ton of energy.

00:33:43.000 But these sanctions make it impossible to conduct straightforward business.

00:33:46.560 So they're going through what you call transit companies and countries.

00:33:49.760 And they're doing all kinds of subterfuge to cloak this.

00:33:52.880 But everyone knows it's happening.

00:33:53.820 This is what you're referring to.

00:33:54.580 Exactly.

00:33:55.060 And, you know, we are making India very great today by their engaging in this arbitrage.

00:34:05.340 We're consolidating Xi Jinping's power.

00:34:08.920 We are working.

00:34:09.860 We are working to empower him against Taiwan. 0.98

00:34:14.320 We are doing everything not in America's interest.

00:34:18.600 So who's the we here?

00:34:19.820 Who's doing this?

00:34:20.900 Like, honestly, what is this?

00:34:22.840 Because it was obvious to me the day Russia invaded, which I didn't think would happen and I was opposed to, of course. 0.58

00:34:28.180 But the first day this happened, I thought they're going to get rid of the U.S. dollars, the world's reserve currency.

00:34:33.220 That's exactly what this is.

00:34:34.160 This is all of this seems like an attack on the West to me.

00:34:37.600 Well, who is behind this?

00:34:40.220 Do you have any idea?

00:34:41.060 Look, you know, I can only tell you that if you study sanctions, there are very few people ever who have said they work.

00:34:52.000 What sanctions are, it's a very cheap way for governments who are not very effective to tell their populaces we're doing something.

00:35:00.420 But what it does is—

00:35:01.540 I think Fidel Castro died in his bed.

00:35:03.320 Yeah, exactly.

00:35:04.300 What it does is it empowers the most corrupt all over the world.

00:35:09.720 We are empowering Ukrainian corruption. 1.00

00:35:12.440 We are empowering the corruption of our business interests.

00:35:16.100 We are doing everything to disestablish America's position.

00:35:20.640 We are giving Putin the armament to get away from the dollar.

00:35:24.300 We're doing everything for them to establish alternative payment systems.

00:35:28.620 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.

00:35:40.820 It is the most counterproductive system we've put in place.

00:35:44.220 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.

00:35:56.220 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.

00:36:16.760 And sanctioning people's children, who didn't do anything wrong, why would, you know, why would U.S. policymakers be, why would Toria Nuland want that?

00:36:27.700 I mean, that just seems cruel and awful.

00:36:29.280 Look, let me tell you, I'm dealing with a case in Switzerland. 0.96

00:36:32.000 The Swiss are worse than the Americans now. 1.00

00:36:35.200 Oh, I know. 0.93

00:36:35.540 Because they're so scared of the United States enforcement that we literally are defending children who are being attacked by the Swiss. 0.99

00:36:46.380 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.

00:36:59.340 We're all in this, you know, I call it the authoritarianism of the left that we are all subject to.

00:37:10.580 This, you know, wokeism, authoritarianism, this unwillingness to give the opponent a voice.

00:37:19.020 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.

00:37:34.260 And so we're never doing that again.

00:37:35.520 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.

00:37:42.800 I thought that was the lesson.

00:37:43.920 I'm 55.

00:37:44.420 I grew up in a country that, remember that?

00:37:46.620 Let me tell you something.

00:37:47.600 This law in Ukraine, law 3894, is one of the most dangerous pieces of legislation I've ever seen.

00:37:58.060 And it's not alone.

00:37:59.360 In Estonia, they're attempting to destroy the Russian Orthodox Church.

00:38:03.340 These Baltic countries that are bulwarks of freedom and democracy are going after those churches too.

00:38:10.200 And even though those churches are not separate from Russia, and I recognize that.

00:38:14.060 And yes, the Russian Orthodox Church has been instrumentalized.

00:38:18.260 I agree.

00:38:19.700 I still say under a rule of law state, you go after those people who commit offenses.

00:38:26.640 You do not ban a church.

00:38:29.080 If you start banning people's religions, then how are you better than what you oppose? 1.00

00:38:33.280 Exactly.

00:38:33.800 And yet, the Religious Freedom Conference honors the very author of this insane legislation.

00:38:42.580 Who sponsored this conference?

00:38:43.760 It's, you know, all I know is, I think there's a chairman who's a former Republican senator.

00:38:53.320 I think it's made up of charitable donations.

00:38:56.280 I haven't studied who the sponsor is.

00:38:59.140 I'm sure there's U.S. government involvement.

00:39:01.700 Mr. Vance, Vice President Vance spoke, spoke very well.

00:39:05.200 I mean, he's, as I said before, I mean, he's 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.

00:39:25.780 Although, you know, I have to say, working in Georgia, working and knowing what's happening in Trans-Denistra, you cannot minimize the threat of Vladimir Putin.

00:39:37.560 It exists.

00:39:38.340 So in September, we went across the country, coast to coast, 17 different cities on a nationwide live tour, and it was amazing.

00:39:45.500 We brought the entire staff with us like we always do because we've all worked together for so long and enjoy traveling together.

00:39:51.480 And one of our producers is a documentary filmmaker.

00:39:54.200 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.

00:40:02.560 Different people join us every single night on Gino and Russell Brand and Bobby Kennedy and J.D. Vance and Donald Trump, et cetera, et cetera.

00:40:09.800 We had the best time.

00:40:10.800 And the fruit of that is a documentary called On the Road, the Tucker Carlson Live Tour, which is available right now on TCN.

00:40:19.080 On the Road, Tucker Carlson Live Tour is hilarious.

00:40:22.260 You will like it.

00:40:24.200 Don Jr. here, guys.

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00:41:11.040 So, you said that you went up to the U.S. Congress and you tried to get the attention of members.

00:41:19.940 J.D. Vance was the only one who would listen to you out of 100 senators.

00:41:23.800 What about in the House?

00:41:25.460 Oh, I attended a few meetings, as I said, where I was generally insulted by people.

00:41:32.660 We had very few—

00:41:33.720 Yeah, we had very few congressmen who would meet us.

00:41:39.240 We had some very courageous lobbyists who we worked with and still work with, including a Democrat, a former Democrat, Congressman Ron Klink,

00:41:53.680 who, because he's, I think, a devout Christian, has, I think, really suffered a lot reputationally by working with me.

00:42:03.960 And God bless him for having the strength and courage to do that.

00:42:10.740 Because, as he knows, I mean, we're completely nonpartisan.

00:42:15.480 We're not actually lobbying the United States at all.

00:42:20.480 We want people to talk to the Ukrainians and simply explain to the Ukrainians that this law to ban our church is unacceptable.

00:42:32.180 Especially since we're paying for it.

00:42:33.500 Have you ever voted for a Republican in your life?

00:42:35.700 Never.

00:42:37.640 You just wanted to be clear about that.

00:42:41.540 So, you were arrested by Putin and you've never voted Republican.

00:42:44.460 So, just want people to understand where you're coming from here.

00:42:46.920 No, no.

00:42:47.220 I mean, that's very much where I'm coming from.

00:42:50.240 Though I will say, you know, quite frankly, that I think what's been dangerous about the past few administrations

00:42:59.220 is that their breaks with rule of law have been wildly pronounced but hidden.

00:43:07.080 Whatever you want to say about President Trump, I think that it's far healthier where he does a number of things I disagree with.

00:43:18.820 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.

00:43:24.520 With the prior administrations, it was all hidden from view, and it was almost impossible to attack, like sanctions.

00:43:33.440 You know, almost impossible to attack, very difficult to deal with.

00:43:37.960 And this authoritarianism, this denial of the civic space is hugely important.

00:43:47.320 And it's what we in the United States have done to ourselves.

00:43:52.480 I really can barely watch CNN.

00:43:56.140 I understand they have serious problems with President Trump.

00:43:59.740 I get it.

00:44:00.660 But there is a whole world out there.

00:44:03.940 And President Trump has made a tremendous amount of waves in that world.

00:44:08.680 Surely, beyond bashing the guy, we can deal with some of the real problems, like my church, which has never been covered by CNN.

00:44:19.740 Ever?

00:44:20.380 Ever.

00:44:21.000 That, to my knowledge—

00:44:21.660 They cover Ukraine all day long, but they've never mentioned that the government banned a Christian denomination.

00:44:26.940 Never.

00:44:27.740 Not only—the majority church of the country.

00:44:31.500 Let's be clear.

00:44:32.300 And when I went to church, one of my first times in church, but the patriarch of our church insisted that I attend church—

00:44:40.040 I love that you call it our church.

00:44:42.300 He insisted I attend the churches because he wanted me to see the difference between our church and the other church.

00:44:49.760 So I went.

00:44:50.880 I went to church after church.

00:44:53.420 Our churches were full.

00:44:55.480 Our priests were like rush hour traffic on a Sunday.

00:45:00.340 I mean, we're having multiple services because there are now so few churches because the other church is stealing them.

00:45:07.580 So when you go to the other church, they're virtually empty.

00:45:11.480 In fact, many of the churches they've stolen, they've turned into museums.

00:45:16.380 I mean, which by the way—

00:45:17.520 This is like Soviet, what's going on. 0.98

00:45:18.920 No, no.

00:45:19.120 And I was in—

00:45:19.720 They're banning religion and creating a state church in this world.

00:45:22.420 Let me tell you something.

00:45:23.040 I was in the Soviet Union.

00:45:25.100 So I'm, you know, I'm older than you.

00:45:26.980 I was in the Soviet Union.

00:45:28.100 Trying to get the Jewish refuseniks out, correct? 1.00

00:45:29.860 Well, beginning, just at the beginning.

00:45:31.880 I wasn't a lawyer then or doing much of anything, but I went because I knew this problem existed.

00:45:38.160 I was a very, very young boy, but my father wanted me to go.

00:45:41.520 I think I was one of the only guys—I think I was the first sole traveler to a place called Kishinev, Moldova.

00:45:50.460 This is way back in the 70s, and was interrogated.

00:45:56.600 My first interrogation by the KGB was when I was, like, 17.

00:46:00.380 So I've had a long history in this region.

00:46:04.560 I went to the Lavra when I was—I studied under Ukraine's greatest historian, Bodan Batsirkyu.

00:46:14.640 His son is now a noted speaker and expert on Ukraine and very pro-Ukrainian and a very, very serious person.

00:46:26.640 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.

00:46:37.940 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.

00:46:50.060 So there's this huge nationalism in Ukraine that is the motive behind Zelensky's destruction of my church, and it's political.

00:47:00.580 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.

00:47:17.700 So he has had to move much further to the xenophobic side of the Ukrainian spectrum to keep his base, and we think that's primarily some of the politics behind him agreeing to the destruction of our church.

00:47:40.140 Can I ask you what may be an unanswerable question?

00:47:42.320 So you were describing the effects of the Ukraine war on the West and on the United States, and it's basically knocking the U.S. from its perch, and it's causing all kinds of problems. 0.76

00:47:50.780 The loss of the U.S. dollar, the alignment, the permanent now alignment between Russia and China.

00:47:55.540 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, you would do everything you could. 0.98

00:48:07.320 Like, whose interest is being served in this?

00:48:09.820 And it seems like the Chinese interest is being served.

00:48:12.220 So if you have our entire media, our entire political establishment is all in on this thing that hurts the United States, is it possible that China has a role in that?

00:48:21.120 Look, I'm somebody who, as a young man, studied China and then the Soviet Union.

00:48:27.480 I do not have an animus towards China in terms of seeing them in the negative light.

00:48:38.500 I think there was hope for our relationship that's been kind of destroyed.

00:48:43.460 I think it's still possible, by the way, to be resurrected.

00:48:47.020 But certainly it is, to some extent, in China's interest.

00:48:53.600 But we never understand something that's fundamental to Xi Jinping's survival, which is he is on an economic fault line.

00:49:02.620 He needs GDP growth at plus 5% to survive.

00:49:07.200 A flourishing relationship with the United States could be in his interest under a different type of relationship.

00:49:16.040 I think that's right.

00:49:16.620 And I think what we've done is we've almost forced the Russians into becoming an unequal partner to the Chinese. 0.93

00:49:28.080 Well, that is exactly right.

00:49:29.380 The Chinese, of course, have this history of a century of humiliation, suffering under unequal treaties. 0.51

00:49:36.660 Now they are the ones offering unequal treaties to countries like Russia.

00:49:42.060 They are.

00:49:42.660 And there's massive Chinese investment in Russia right now.

00:49:45.260 Yes.

00:49:45.400 Massive, and it's very noticeable when you go there.

00:49:48.260 Why is this country so prosperous?

00:49:49.580 There's a war going on, a real war, too.

00:49:52.200 And the answer, in part, is because there's huge Chinese investment in Russia, and that's solidifying a relationship based on mutual benefit, I would say, to the point where it's not going to be broken.

00:50:04.540 Well, never underestimate the root antagonisms of the Chinese-Russian relationship.

00:50:12.860 Well, that's a solid point.

00:50:15.400 And so a different administration than the Democrats could possibly engage in some of the behavior that Nixon first developed.

00:50:25.760 It is absolutely contrary to American interests for China and Russia to be won. 0.96

00:50:33.060 So we have, from a geopolitical standpoint, a lot of work to do.

00:50:38.040 Yes.

00:50:38.720 Working with the Indians, working with others in terms of trying to figure out how to divide these countries.

00:50:45.000 And this is why a focus solely on Ukraine to the tremendous cost of our own geopolitical position is so insane.

00:50:55.400 Well, I completely agree, and I travel a lot, so I see the effects, you know, everywhere.

00:50:59.080 So you've mentioned that Europe, for whatever reason, I still think it's baffling, but is all in on this, completely all in on it.

00:51:06.280 Keir Starmer, just Prime Minister of Great Britain, just said that they're signing some hundred-year defense deal with Ukraine.

00:51:12.340 It's insane.

00:51:13.980 Germany, same thing-ish.

00:51:15.620 China, we know, is benefiting to some extent.

00:51:19.660 India, you said, is a massive beneficiary of all this stuff.

00:51:22.560 What about the Middle Eastern countries?

00:51:23.700 What about the Arab world and Israel?

00:51:25.240 What interest do they have here?

00:51:26.720 What connection do they have to the Ukraine war?

00:51:28.340 Annie?

00:51:28.400 Well, look, I think it's Africa that suffered the most simply because their food supply is being terribly impaired.

00:51:41.680 Riyadh benefits always from this type of geopolitical issue because they benefit from great relationships with everybody.

00:51:51.320 You know, it's like this old Turkish foreign policy of, you know, making friends at every border.

00:52:02.000 That's what they're doing.

00:52:04.320 As you may be aware, I also represent the Congo, which is now being horribly invaded by Rwanda.

00:52:12.540 And I've always wondered why the United States didn't take a stronger position there.

00:52:16.380 You know, we have destabilized Africa, the entirety of Africa, with this war. 0.98

00:52:25.860 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.

00:52:36.560 Talk to people in Zambia or some of these other countries who can't get food because the costs are now so high.

00:52:42.720 We need to look at this struggle in a far broader sense.

00:52:46.940 Because Ukraine is a huge producer of fertilizer.

00:52:49.300 And basic exports.

00:52:52.080 Yes.

00:52:52.860 Absolutely.

00:52:53.900 So geopolitically, the Europeans have only one thing in their mind, which is, you know, they don't want to see another Munich.

00:53:00.940 And, you know, my argument is this isn't Munich.

00:53:03.940 It's Potsdam.

00:53:04.720 We are, we, we, we, we've, there's been a three-year war, hasn't gone all that well.

00:53:13.440 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.

00:53:24.880 And Ukraine has to have a generation to survive and grow. 0.92

00:53:28.880 Well, exactly.

00:53:29.240 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.

00:53:43.080 Well, it's, it's just interesting, though.

00:53:45.200 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.

00:53:50.660 But it does seem like this is part of the cost of a world, the West. 0.68

00:53:55.460 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.

00:54:03.740 And everything is through the same lens.

00:54:06.240 And it's like, this isn't Munich, actually, as you point out.

00:54:09.960 And maybe ignorance is part, people are very inflexible in their minds.

00:54:14.500 Like, 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.

00:54:24.800 And I remember being taken, I could not attend any city without first being taken to the war cemetery.

00:54:33.340 Right.

00:54:33.400 We never talk about 27 million Russian dead.

00:54:39.720 My family would never have survived without Russian troops.

00:54:45.620 And yes, they visited horrible times on Eastern Europe.

00:54:51.280 Totally true.

00:54:52.520 But that sacrifice saved us.

00:54:57.420 And when we dehumanize them, we are, in a way, dehumanizing ourselves.

00:55:06.660 And it should never be the policy of our government to allow any other foreign state to so contaminate our narrative and our discussions. 0.99

00:55:19.280 And, you know, quite frankly...

00:55:21.300 Oh, too late.

00:55:22.260 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.

00:55:38.560 Again, I'm not in any way denying Russian war crimes.

00:55:43.200 I'm simply saying that there's a difference between punishing wrongdoers and dehumanizing a nation and a people.

00:55:52.000 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. 0.95

00:56:03.700 And it's not who we are.

00:56:05.240 And we need to stop.

00:56:06.660 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?

00:56:18.120 I would say, in general, no.

00:56:22.560 We managed to get one op-ed from one of our priests in the Times of London, which I'm deeply grateful.

00:56:31.380 We managed to get a couple of stories in the Telegraph.

00:56:37.840 Nothing in the Guardian.

00:56:40.120 The Wall Street Journal is completely cut off from us, and I would say reality.

00:56:45.560 The Wall Street Journal is completely cut off from reality.

00:56:47.380 The Wall Street Journal is actually every bit as dishonest as the New York Times in my read, but much stealthier about it. 1.00

00:56:53.160 And it has this kind of unbreakable relationship with late middle-aged right-wingers that it uses to spew lies and stupidity and propaganda. 0.98

00:57:05.320 Well, there's one editorial writer who interviewed me about the church when I was in Kyiv, and I had some hope. 0.99

00:57:13.080 But then wrote a crazy story denouncing me and the church, which we managed—

00:57:21.820 Denouncing you?

00:57:23.120 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.

00:57:34.060 Who was this?

00:57:34.800 I can't even remember her name.

00:57:36.100 Some lady writer at the—

00:57:37.520 Yeah, but who's written consistently pro-Ukraine pieces.

00:57:40.340 And one of the things—

00:57:42.140 So, like, how dare you defend a church's right to exist?

00:57:44.820 Exactly.

00:57:45.520 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.

00:58:02.180 I mean, these press gangs that are grabbing young men and taking them to the front get so little coverage.

00:58:12.880 The fighting inside the presidential administration that we know exists gets so little coverage.

00:58:19.500 Oh, some have reached out to me.

00:58:21.080 Yeah.

00:58:21.300 So, it's pretty clear that Zelensky's in charge, but is he really—you referred a couple times to Andre Jermak.

00:58:27.220 Yes.

00:58:27.400 Who is that?

00:58:27.980 He is the capo de capo.

00:58:31.880 I mean, he is the guy that arranges the theft of assets.

00:58:38.840 He is the guy who organizes a lot of the activities of the SBU to go after opponents and go after assets.

00:58:49.580 It's my privilege to represent a gentleman named Vadim Nowinski.

00:58:54.540 They took his assets, which involved gas, because his crime is supporting the church.

00:59:04.340 He's a very high-level archdeacon in the church and has financially supported the church.

00:59:12.440 And, by the way, was sanctioned by Russia, yet he's charged with treason.

00:59:18.400 Why?

00:59:19.100 Because he supports Ukraine's historic church.

00:59:22.440 Mother church, the majority church of the country.

00:59:24.560 Yes, but what's amazing about them illegally taking his assets is they didn't deploy them for the benefit of Ukraine.

00:59:31.500 They were gas wells, and they shut them.

00:59:34.920 And when his own people said to these gangsters, you know, run the wells.

00:59:41.580 You're destroying the wealth of the country.

00:59:44.760 They didn't.

00:59:46.120 And so, you know, they briefly gave the licenses back.

00:59:49.860 Then they took it back again for political reasons because they charged him with treason.

00:59:55.740 But they don't care.

00:59:57.940 It reminds me of my first day as part, privileged to be part of a major legal team in Moscow in 2003.

01:00:09.240 And the lead counsel, the Russian lawyer, was a very famous Russian lawyer, brilliant, brilliant man named Padva.

01:00:18.560 And I said to him, because the Russian stock market had gone down 50% after they attacked my client at that time, I said to him, well, surely, surely Mr. Putin will understand that this can't go on.

01:00:35.520 He took a newspaper.

01:00:37.440 He hit me over the head. 1.00

01:00:38.940 And he said, don't ever say anything that's stupid again. 1.00

01:00:45.220 They will, this is Moscow, they will steal the very desk in this court, and they'll keep stealing. 1.00

01:00:52.560 The corruption in Ukraine is as ingrained as it is in Moscow. 0.83

01:00:59.660 The secret police in Ukraine are using old KGB texts to jail my priests.

01:01:08.940 They are charging them with psycho-linguistic crimes.

01:01:13.800 What's that?

01:01:15.060 This is out of 1984.

01:01:17.500 Psycho-linguistics.

01:01:19.700 This is basically alleging that what they're saying has meanings similar to what Putin says, and therefore it's a crime.

01:01:30.520 People are being jailed away from their families for psycho-linguistics under Article 161 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code for essentially division, causing religious division.

01:01:49.180 Now, the OCU members or those working for them with swastikas on their arms don't get charged.

01:01:57.220 But our church, our folks get charged routinely.

01:02:02.320 Nowinski is charged with psycho-linguistic crimes.

01:02:06.520 His entire life has been disrupted.

01:02:09.160 His assets stripped from him.

01:02:11.480 Horrific things said about him because when he was a member of the RADA, so therefore privileged communications occurred, he had some disagreements with the government of the day.

01:02:26.580 They are using Soviet texts to go after their own political opponents.

01:02:34.580 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.

01:02:50.080 No different, including the arrest and beating of priests, and our papers say nothing.

01:02:59.740 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.

01:03:16.080 And I will be forever in your debt for doing it.

01:03:18.400 You've told us something that I didn't realize, which is that the U.S. government established a fake state church in a foreign country, which is obviously unconstitutional, but also Soviet.

01:03:28.060 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 country.

01:03:37.600 Slavic countries are traditional.

01:03:39.240 They believe in gender roles, for example.

01:03:41.360 And there does seem to have been and continue to be this effort from the U.S. State Department and maybe others in the U.S. government to kind of change the way Ukrainian society is ordered.

01:03:52.860 Have you noticed this?

01:03:53.600 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.

01:04:15.040 Funding for funding for, funding for atheist groups, funding for, funding for atheist groups, funding for all sorts of groups that, that certainly you could wonder if this is in the interest of the United States.

01:04:34.580 I mean, I have nothing against atheists.

01:04:36.560 I don't know why we would necessarily feel it was incumbent upon us to fund them, but there, there is, there's, there's an excellent book written.

01:04:48.320 Like, that's actually, if you think about it, outrageous.

01:04:50.260 The whole pretext for this is Russia stages illegal, unprovoked invasion three years ago, so we have to defend Ukraine from Russia. 0.72

01:04:56.000 Okay, at least that makes a kind of sense, true or not.

01:04:58.940 But why would you want to change the religious belief of Ukrainians or the family structure of Ukrainians?

01:05:04.640 Well, their, their argument in terms of my church has been, well, your church has some relationship to Russia.

01:05:12.100 So they, they continue to make the argument, even though we believe we've disproven it, that there is no link.

01:05:18.940 Our link is canonical.

01:05:21.140 It's through, if you will, the book.

01:05:23.440 And our government cannot control canon law.

01:05:27.060 Yeah, that, that is surely outside the purview of, of any government.

01:05:31.460 So it's sort of the same argument that, that a lot of Arab countries made in, during the Suez crisis in 56, they had huge Jewish populations in a lot of the, you know, Morocco and Algeria and, you know, thousand year old, multi-thousand year old Jewish populations.

01:05:43.380 And they're like, let's see, you're Jewish.

01:05:45.980 The Jews in this other country, Israel, did something we don't like. 1.00

01:05:48.500 Therefore, we're blaming you or kicking you out.

01:05:50.620 It's like, not that, because you've got the same book.

01:05:53.380 That's that.

01:05:53.840 You've got a canonical connection.

01:05:54.880 That's, that's, that's the logic.

01:05:56.160 And, and this is being done very scientifically in a, in a very, I would have to say, it's almost a crazed psychosis going on.

01:06:14.900 And because you have these ultra right folks in Ukraine.

01:06:21.360 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.

01:06:36.380 So, they've even changed the religion itself to conform to Ukrainian nationalism.

01:06:47.400 So, they're basically worshipping a CIA coup.

01:06:50.240 Yeah.

01:06:50.560 I mean, it's an icon.

01:06:52.140 They're, they're exchanging icons.

01:06:55.100 So, you're talking.

01:06:56.940 So, this is a state religion you're describing.

01:06:59.200 Yeah.

01:06:59.760 No, no, it is.

01:07:00.540 And, and, and what I, what I want to, I want to be clear that there was a desire for this within Ukraine for a hundred years.

01:07:10.220 Because there's this view, and I think it's a true view, that, that Russia had engaged in Russification. 0.64

01:07:17.340 Sort of depriving Ukraine of its culture.

01:07:21.080 Right.

01:07:21.780 Which we agree with.

01:07:23.800 But, our church certainly does not make any demands about stopping anybody from praying in any way they want.

01:07:32.820 We are simply saying, don't steal our churches, don't jail our priests, and don't destroy the religion.

01:07:40.660 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 U.S. Mission to the OSCE has spoken out. Human Rights Watch did a special report about our church and what's going on.

01:08:04.220 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.

01:08:21.580 It's so shameful and disgusting. 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.

01:08:41.220 And so if you're Zelensky, the bottom line is you're no longer in control of Washington. So where does that leave Zelensky?

01:08:49.720 You know, listen, I, you know, the information I got this morning is it's left him very angry, very addled and working to sort of form a coalition of European leaders around him.

01:09:05.800 Why does he think he gets he has like a moral right to run the U.S. government? It's pretty cheeky, I'd say.

01:09:10.860 Well, he seems to think he has a moral right to run the European government.

01:09:14.460 And I will tell you, from trying to interact with the EU, he's right, he's running it.

01:09:21.300 I mean, these people in the EU won't talk to me. And if they talk to me, they won't listen.

01:09:28.040 I mean, it's incredible. He has them completely wrapped.

01:09:32.620 I mean, I've he doesn't have Orban wrapped, but he has. 1.00

01:09:36.820 Well, the Ukrainian government took U.S. tax dollars to try to overthrow Orban, maybe to kill him, you know.

01:09:43.880 So that's a fact. So that itself, you know, Hungary is in NATO.

01:09:51.140 So you can't one NATO power cannot attack another NATO power.

01:09:54.520 Like what is this whole thing has just scrambled the eggs of the world?

01:09:57.940 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 reestablishment of more normalized relations between the United States and Russia leading to some discussion has been.

01:10:17.800 There's been there's been there's been a horrible reaction within the presidential administration, and we fear that this will cause further repression of the church.

01:10:31.120 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.

01:10:40.380 Can he hang on?

01:10:42.240 Look, I'd bet my house it's not over 20.

01:10:46.260 I have no idea, because when you have the secret police, you've got power.

01:10:53.800 So I don't you know, I can't answer that question.

01:10:56.220 I can just say that if you're an opponent of Zelensky, this is a moment of fear because he is clearly doubling down on the repression.

01:11:09.560 And and anyone is opposed to Zelensky should be in fear because he is he is a man that that is a dictator.

01:11:17.840 I mean, however you want to phrase it.

01:11:20.100 That's who he is.

01:11:21.680 He is running a police state.

01:11:24.780 Our friends don't want to say that.

01:11:26.860 But that's the that's the reality of Ukraine today.

01:11:30.240 What's the other word for it?

01:11:31.020 I can't think of one.

01:11:31.780 I can't either.

01:11:33.740 But you never you never see that in any newspaper in the West.

01:11:38.240 So that really bothers me.

01:11:39.300 Look, there are tons of dictatorships around the world.

01:11:41.520 But the West is supposed to be this beacon of freedom and enlightenment, respecter of human rights, et cetera, et cetera.

01:11:49.020 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? 0.93

01:11:57.580 They like it.

01:11:58.420 I've confronted a bunch of people.

01:11:59.820 You think it's OK to ban a church?

01:12:02.340 Well, that church is pro-Russia. 0.52

01:12:04.280 OK, well, you say it's not pro-Russia.

01:12:06.240 I don't care if it is.

01:12:07.620 You can't ban other people's religions, period.

01:12:10.200 I don't care how much you dislike them.

01:12:12.280 I don't care if it's Scientology or Kabbalah.

01:12:15.080 I don't it doesn't matter.

01:12:16.320 Hinduism doesn't matter. 1.00

01:12:17.600 You can't ban other people's religions. 0.83

01:12:18.760 And yet I don't know anyone who's bothered by it in high position in the West.

01:12:23.520 So what does that tell you about the people in high positions in the West?

01:12:26.800 Well, it means that we have become disconnected from in reality who we are and who we're supposed to be.

01:12:34.420 Yeah.

01:12:35.240 That's a diplomatic way of putting it.

01:12:36.960 Yeah, and it does not bode well for our future as a country.

01:12:41.360 That's exactly it.

01:12:42.720 And that's what's frightening to me.

01:12:44.580 You feel that.

01:12:45.380 Yes, I feel that.

01:12:46.500 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.

01:13:03.580 And so my firm, myself, we are paying a terrible price.

01:13:08.980 Not nearly as bad as our client who faces physical violence and the destruction of their religion.

01:13:17.040 But there is no quarter being given to disputing what's going on.

01:13:25.400 This guy has, he has seemed to have a complete lock on our institutions, on Washington.

01:13:33.280 Now, we just spoke at the conference.

01:13:36.820 We weren't able to speak a year ago.

01:13:39.400 Maybe that's a good sign. 0.61

01:13:40.760 We're going to try to go back on the Hill.

01:13:43.780 I was there a few weeks ago.

01:13:45.500 No member would meet us, but that could have just been the transition.

01:13:50.720 We're going to go back and try again.

01:13:52.460 But 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.

01:14:08.640 Number two, in terms of our geopolitical reckoning.

01:14:12.480 That's right.

01:14:13.040 Who we are in the world has to be reassessed.

01:14:16.320 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.

01:14:24.660 And, of course, now that I'm a Canadian, we could be at war, even though I'm an American as well.

01:14:30.460 Well, you'll just be a state, apparently.

01:14:32.220 Exactly.

01:14:32.840 That'll be okay.

01:14:34.020 But I will say that what this presidency is doing is, with God's help, opening up our eyes to what's been going on.

01:14:45.960 That's right.

01:14:46.320 And I have to say that, as a lawyer, I am deeply in awe.

01:14:55.400 Firstly, you have to hand it to President Trump, stamina like I've never seen in 10 human beings.

01:15:02.680 It's unbelievable.

01:15:04.060 Secondly, you have to accept that the Justice Department was weaponized.

01:15:09.780 Whoever you are, as a lawyer in this country, there is no doubt that the weaponization that took place under the Democrats was severe.

01:15:20.320 I have a lot of issues with what happened regarding January 6th.

01:15:25.780 I'm going to have a lot of issues with what's going on at the Justice Department and the FBI.

01:15:31.220 But I will say, do not say it is this president who has politicized the DOJ.

01:15:39.160 This is a systemic problem that has been horrifically exploded during the last Democratic presidency.

01:15:49.920 So last question.

01:15:51.600 I'm not going to ask you a year you graduated law school.

01:15:54.100 Thank you.

01:15:55.060 But it was a while ago.

01:15:56.120 You said you've been practicing for over 40 years.

01:15:58.440 When you graduated law school, I bet there were a ton of people with your attitudes in your class.

01:16:03.220 Similar attitudes about human rights, rule of law, politics, America's place in the world.

01:16:09.120 Now you're literally the only one left that I've met from your generation.

01:16:15.760 What's it been like for you with your friends, your peers, people you know, have known your whole life.

01:16:22.620 You come back and all of a sudden, you know, you're being denounced as a Russian stooge.

01:16:27.380 Like what effect has that had?

01:16:29.300 Well, it's interesting.

01:16:31.060 I said 20 years ago that there was a terrible danger in the United States to the corporatism of criminal law.

01:16:44.700 Yes.

01:16:45.920 We have turned criminal law into the activity of big corporate law firms.

01:16:53.880 In New York, even today, there are a bunch of small firms that take on difficult cases.

01:17:07.560 Brafman, Agnifolo, some of these guys in small firms taking on tough, tough, tough cases that I think of as real, you know, defenders.

01:17:20.140 But the corporate titans that are doing the big cases have become entirely focused on compliance.

01:17:32.620 You're somebody, I'm sure, with far more resources than a poor guy like myself.

01:17:38.200 But if you engage in transnational business, you know the hassles of even moving $10 across borders.

01:17:46.280 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 over-regulation money laundering allegations.

01:18:04.600 Money laundering is the most dangerous crime governments have ever invented because it basically criminalizes activity that very many people never knew was criminal.

01:18:18.920 And 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.

01:18:26.920 They don't care about rape on a subway platform.

01:18:29.860 And if they did, we wouldn't have it.

01:18:31.160 You know, a lot of countries don't have rape on subway platforms because that's horrifying. 1.00

01:18:35.740 It's a violation, the most basic violation of someone's civil rights.

01:18:39.580 What they care about is money laundering.

01:18:41.260 I noticed, I just read today, DOJ was, you know, issuing some statement on money laundering.

01:18:45.320 Every day, it's money laundering.

01:18:47.040 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.

01:18:55.740 Yes, it is.

01:18:56.940 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.

01:19:06.540 That, this compliance psychology is a tremendous danger that we foster in our big firms.

01:19:13.860 And that is, you know, so if you ask me after 45 years, how do you feel?

01:19:20.680 It is a sense of tragedy that our basic rights have been withered away in so many events of emergency.

01:19:34.700 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.

01:19:49.980 They go on and on, and they further narrow the scope for our activity.

01:19:55.200 And we need a dramatic rethink of all of that in order for us to be free.

01:20:01.060 So, when you were a kid, when you were a young lawyer, when you were in law school, Brandenburg versus Ohio, the big speech cases, those were all very well known, right, to everybody in your class.

01:20:12.360 Do you think someone graduating Yale Law now has any real sense of that?

01:20:17.160 You know, I'm giving a speech Friday to 60 top law students.

01:20:25.100 I'll know better after that.

01:20:26.600 I think that, unfortunately, we're raising lawyers to fit into these corporate firms, this whole sort of compliance culture.

01:20:41.720 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.

01:20:52.580 It's not that I'm in support of corruption, and it's not that I think we shouldn't come up with a system to stop it.

01:20:59.320 It's that the FCPA has represented a massive commercial barrier for American business to enter Latin America and Africa.

01:21:11.780 We need to be in those places.

01:21:13.380 And now maybe we'll have a shot because the compliance barrier simply made it only possible for some of our largest businesses.

01:21:22.220 Well, that's the whole point.

01:21:23.420 Yes.

01:21:23.880 That was the whole point of Dodd-Frank.

01:21:25.160 Yes.

01:21:25.380 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.

01:21:31.420 Yeah, that's right.

01:21:32.360 Bobby Amsterdam, I'm grateful for what you're doing, and I'm grateful that you exist.

01:21:38.660 And when liberals like you went extinct, everyone made fun of people like you because they're annoying.

01:21:44.360 They're always jumping up and yelling about rights.

01:21:46.000 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.

01:21:51.960 And it turns out I was right.

01:21:53.600 Well, thank you again.

01:21:54.900 Thank you.

01:21:55.400 Thank you.

01:21:55.420 Thank you.

The Tucker Carlson Show - February 19, 2025

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

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