Latest / Arroe Collins Like It's Live / Rule Of Lies From Jamison Firestone Corruption Murder And Putins Russia

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Rule Of Lies From Jamison Firestone Corruption Murder And Putins Russia · Arroe Collins Like It's Live

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Speaker 1: Enjoy your exploration. Well, and Frankie Fresh, I give to
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Speaker 1: you a man who's hung out in brothels.
0:34
Speaker 2: I was raised in one.
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Speaker 1: Oh my god, even better? So is that where you
0:41
Speaker 1: gained your confidence and your courage to go into areas
0:44
Speaker 1: that most people would run away from?
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Speaker 2: Well, I would say, first of all, my dad was
0:49
Speaker 2: hanging around with a lot of loan shark and contract killers,
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Speaker 2: and so I learned how to deal with them, make
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Speaker 2: them laugh, show them respect, but get out of doing
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Speaker 2: anything they wanted me to do. And I don't know,
1:00
Speaker 2: I thought I had a lot of courage when I
1:01
Speaker 2: went to Russia. I just had nowhere else to go.
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Speaker 2: I mean, home was an insane asylum, right and and
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Speaker 2: Russia was like it was Gorbachalov and build uh, build
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Speaker 2: democracy and and and and uh and the capital markets,
1:15
Speaker 2: and so it was exciting and it was far from home.
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Speaker 1: I love the idea that that you went over there
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Speaker 1: in the way that there's a gentleman by the name
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Speaker 1: of Ben Doucin who's also a law student that went
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Speaker 1: to Russia, but then he's been helping out Ukraine for
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Speaker 1: the past four to five years. I just love the
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Speaker 1: way that you guys take it beyond the courtroom, beyond
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Speaker 1: different things and and and do they feed that to
1:37
Speaker 1: you while you're learning or how is it you find
1:39
Speaker 1: that that that ability to move things when others don't.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's not taught to you in law school. Law
1:48
Speaker 2: school is generally teaches you how to do sometimes amazing
1:51
Speaker 2: things in courts. But this is something different. I would
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Speaker 2: just say that's the the uh, the school of life. Right.
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Speaker 2: In my particular case, I accidentally became a lawyer in Russia,
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Speaker 2: and of course, after a while, Russian law ceased to work.
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Speaker 2: If you want to hear an oxymoron, it's Russian law.
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Speaker 2: So what do you do when you're a lawyer in
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Speaker 2: a place where law doesn't work? You find other ways
2:16
Speaker 2: to get it done. Now, in the nineteen nineties, that
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Speaker 2: at times meant that I had to store my own
2:22
Speaker 2: office with a private swat team to get it back
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Speaker 2: under control, or bug the offices of corrupt Russian police
2:28
Speaker 2: to catch them at their dirty game. Later on under
2:32
Speaker 2: Putin when he arrested and tortured to death my law
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Speaker 2: partner for having exposed I mean, my law partner should
2:43
Speaker 2: have been a hero. He exposed Russian official stealing from
2:46
Speaker 2: their own government. But when we couldn't get anything legally done,
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Speaker 2: we started making YouTube moneys movies and exposing them. Like
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Speaker 2: I would would pick an officer right, and I would
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Speaker 2: show what he did to Surgey, how he had him
3:00
Speaker 2: falsely arrested, and how Adam tortured, and then I would
3:03
Speaker 2: show how much money this guy made doing it, all
3:05
Speaker 2: this illegal money with apartments and fancy vacations. And we
3:11
Speaker 2: would show these videos and people would go wow, my god,
3:15
Speaker 2: and they still wouldn't put them away. So when that
3:17
Speaker 2: didn't work, then we went after them abroad, and we
3:20
Speaker 2: were like, okay, well, let's like freeze all their money
3:22
Speaker 2: in the West, right, let's close Western countries to them.
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Speaker 2: So it's more out of desperation that we learned to
3:29
Speaker 2: do these things when the system that doesn't work the
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Speaker 2: way it's supposed to do, then you find another way
3:33
Speaker 2: to get your job done right.
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Speaker 1: It's so fascinating to me because I know inside my
3:38
Speaker 1: heart you didn't do this by yourself, that it really
3:40
Speaker 1: took a team. And I love it when people can
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Speaker 1: be open and honest enough to have those conversations saying
3:45
Speaker 1: we need to find a solution. We can complain all
3:47
Speaker 1: day all we want, but if we don't find a
3:49
Speaker 1: solution here and start making things move, then we're going
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Speaker 1: to be here in twenty five years doing the same complaining.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is true. And I've had multiple teams that
4:00
Speaker 2: I've worked with or behind me, and they've been great.
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Speaker 2: I mean when they killed when they killed my law partner,
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Speaker 2: my client who he was working for. This this man,
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Speaker 2: this wealthy British investor by the name of Bill Browder,
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Speaker 2: dropped his entire business and it was like in the
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Speaker 2: book I compare him to He's like Bruce Wayne, right.
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Speaker 2: I mean, he just hung up his business, built the
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Speaker 2: back cave and said, Okay, my whole life is now
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Speaker 2: dedicated to chasing these people down. And everybody who worked
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Speaker 2: with him he just repurposed. He said you're no longer
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Speaker 2: a financial analyst. You're chasing dirty money, right, And that
4:38
Speaker 2: was an amazing, an amazing thing that was incredibly effective,
4:41
Speaker 2: and we passed laws all over the world named after
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Speaker 2: my dead partner, the Magnetski Sanctions. And then in the
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Speaker 2: course of doing this one thing, when I told you
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Speaker 2: I was making those videos, I needed to distribute the videos,
4:55
Speaker 2: you know, get them out there so people saw them.
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Speaker 2: And I met this young blogger Russian, nobody had ever
5:00
Speaker 2: heard of him at the time, named the Lexing of
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Speaker 2: Olney and I and I said, you've got this blog
5:05
Speaker 2: following I want to show you my videos. Will you
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Speaker 2: released them? And he looked at my videos, you know,
5:09
Speaker 2: chasing these people. Then I went, wow, this is amazing
5:11
Speaker 2: and nobody's ever like hit these officials before. I'll be
5:14
Speaker 2: your distribution point. And then Navoli went on to make
5:17
Speaker 2: his own anti corruption videos and then he became this
5:20
Speaker 2: you know, incredible phenomena. He became the lead oppositionist. If
5:24
Speaker 2: I got a million five people watching one of my videos,
5:27
Speaker 2: I was patting myself on the back. Alexey would get
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Speaker 2: one hundred and fifteen million people watching these videos. Right.
5:34
Speaker 2: And again, when we went after the Russian assets. There
5:38
Speaker 2: were just all these lawyers all over the world who
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Speaker 2: are who want to help get Russia's money and give
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Speaker 2: it to Ukraine. And so there's a whole other team
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Speaker 2: there of lawyers all over the world who I'm working with,
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Speaker 2: and they're great, and you know, nobody, nobody plays top
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Speaker 2: dog in this stuff. Everybody just contributes what they can
5:56
Speaker 2: and we try and get the job done.
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Speaker 1: It's become such a scientist, big psychological I guess, stopping
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Speaker 1: point in history, the way that people are working behind
6:07
Speaker 1: the scenes in front of people, and it's almost like
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Speaker 1: you've made yourself invisible, but you're getting stuff done.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, So sometimes we're invisible and sometimes not. So when
6:18
Speaker 2: we were doing the you know, when we were doing
6:20
Speaker 2: the movies, of course everybody knew we were behind them.
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Speaker 2: My face was on the movies. I was narrating them.
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Speaker 2: When we ran around the world with Bill Broder. Bill
6:27
Speaker 2: Browder was to get the sanctions done. Bill Browder was
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Speaker 2: the face of the campaign, and I was, you know,
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Speaker 2: kind of on the side there, but visible. But there's
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Speaker 2: a lot of stuff we do that that isn't visible.
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Speaker 2: So taking the money, for instance, from Russia to Ukraine.
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Speaker 2: This group of lawyers we developed this framework. We're under
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Speaker 2: international law. We can take three hundred billion dollars of
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Speaker 2: frozen billion dollars of frozen Russian money and give it
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Speaker 2: to Ukraine. And I mean sometimes, you know, our faces
6:55
Speaker 2: pop up on papers or newspaper articles, but the public
6:58
Speaker 2: doesn't know who we are really. But you know, we're
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Speaker 2: going to get this job done, and we don't have
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Speaker 2: to you know, we don't need the public recognition. We
7:09
Speaker 2: just need it done.
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Speaker 1: How did you even locate trust within those four walls
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Speaker 1: of any building in Russia? Because I would be looking
7:16
Speaker 1: over my shoulder every five seconds.
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Speaker 2: Well, you know, originally Russia was just home. I mean
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Speaker 2: I lived there and it was great. And I mean
7:24
Speaker 2: even when the mafia was running around. At least then
7:26
Speaker 2: there was the mafia and there was the government, right,
7:28
Speaker 2: But when Putin came to power, there was the government
7:31
Speaker 2: became the mafia. And under the old system, at least
7:33
Speaker 2: there were police to run to, maybe they weren't the best,
7:36
Speaker 2: but under Putin system, there's nobody to run to. So
7:40
Speaker 2: you know, one thing Russia does is when you make friends,
7:43
Speaker 2: you make friends for life, and people really stand by you.
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Speaker 2: People really stick their necks out for you. Russians can
7:49
Speaker 2: be really great friends, and so it's a really terrible
7:52
Speaker 2: thing for me to see what Putin is done to Russia.
7:55
Speaker 2: It's like it's like Hitler, what Hitler did to the Germans, right,
7:59
Speaker 2: I mean, look at German today. It's this great country
8:01
Speaker 2: filled with great people. But when you have a leader
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Speaker 2: who teaches people to be callous and thugs and makes war,
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Speaker 2: I'm watching that and it's really terrible.
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Speaker 1: Please do not move. We've got more with Jamison Firestone
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Speaker 1: coming up next. The name of the book Rule of Lies,
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Speaker 1: My ride through chaos, corruption and murder in Putin's Russia.
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Speaker 1: It reads like a spy novel. This is the kind
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Speaker 1: of stuff my father would go absolutely crazy over because
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Speaker 1: he just loved this kind of stuff. And I just
8:34
Speaker 1: feel but I want to I would love to look
8:35
Speaker 1: at my dad and say, Dad, he lived it. It
8:38
Speaker 1: does read like a spy novel, but he lived it.
8:40
Speaker 1: He was really on the street. He's a John Wayne
8:43
Speaker 1: of our time.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, it's pretty cool now that it's now that
8:48
Speaker 2: I've walked through it. You know, when you're walking through
8:49
Speaker 2: a minefield, it's terrifying. Oh god, But when you're on
8:53
Speaker 2: the other side and you kind of look at what
8:54
Speaker 2: you've done, You're like, wow, I've actually done something. It
8:58
Speaker 2: has been an amazing and I'm very proud of many
9:01
Speaker 2: of the things that we've accomplished. And as for the
9:05
Speaker 2: book itself, you know, I just wanted to tell this story,
9:08
Speaker 2: my story in Russia's story, because it's all one and
9:11
Speaker 2: I wanted to just put people in the shoes of
9:13
Speaker 2: a twenty four year old kid who went to Russia
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Speaker 2: with nothing, deeply in debt, and who made something of
9:19
Speaker 2: himself and then got caught in this crazy thing where
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Speaker 2: Russia tries to take everything you have and kills all
9:24
Speaker 2: your friends. And when you read my book, you really
9:28
Speaker 2: understand just what's happened to Russia. You get to watch
9:31
Speaker 2: this want to be democracy get taken over and criminalized,
9:36
Speaker 2: you get to watch how the justice system is weaponized.
9:39
Speaker 2: And as you said, it's all told very in an exciting,
9:43
Speaker 2: true way where you're just on this ride.
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Speaker 1: Well see, And that's what I love about it because
9:47
Speaker 1: how many years now have we been given so much
9:49
Speaker 1: clickbait that we don't know what is going on behind
9:52
Speaker 1: the scenes. I rely on books like this, this becomes
9:55
Speaker 1: my news, this becomes my leader, and then if I
9:57
Speaker 1: do have questions, I go research it. But the fact
9:59
Speaker 1: that the matter is that you had the courage and
10:01
Speaker 1: the confidence to put it inside these paragraphs, to ignite
10:04
Speaker 1: my imagination and my willingness to go research.
10:08
Speaker 2: Well, thank you. That's really a great compliment actually.
10:12
Speaker 1: To build that connection though, I mean, because I mean,
10:14
Speaker 1: here's the thing that really get you haunted the hell
10:17
Speaker 1: out of me with this line. Instead of stealing with guns,
10:20
Speaker 1: they steal with court cases. Now, if you don't think that,
10:23
Speaker 1: I don't think that about this nation right now, I
10:25
Speaker 1: just feel like that we're going to be walking the
10:27
Speaker 1: same dang path here. But you put it in words,
10:29
Speaker 1: and it just made it so much more believable.
10:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me tell you so. I gave a presentation
10:35
Speaker 2: about my book to a bunch of lawyers in Las
10:37
Speaker 2: Vegas last month, and I said, and I said, let
10:40
Speaker 2: me tell you what I've learned. What I've learned is
10:42
Speaker 2: democracy is really fragile, and when you weaponize the justice system,
10:46
Speaker 2: attack the universities, pull the most popular comedy show off
10:50
Speaker 2: the air because it's making fun of the president, and
10:54
Speaker 2: tell everybody that the country was crap without you, and
10:58
Speaker 2: you're the only one who can save it. You lose
11:00
Speaker 2: rule of laws, You lose rule of law, and then
11:03
Speaker 2: you lose democracy. And then I said, and if some
11:05
Speaker 2: of you are wondering why I've just switched from talking
11:08
Speaker 2: about Putin to talking about Trump, I'm not talking about Trump.
11:12
Speaker 2: This is all of what I just said Putin did.
11:15
Speaker 2: And so if that's if that's triggering you now, it
11:17
Speaker 2: should we Americans should be very concerned. I mean, listen,
11:21
Speaker 2: I don't care if you like your guns or how
11:23
Speaker 2: you feel about abortion. I have my own personal beliefs.
11:26
Speaker 2: But what I care about is don't destroy the neutrality
11:29
Speaker 2: of the American justice system. Don't destroy the system because
11:33
Speaker 2: you can't put that stuff back. And that's what I'm
11:36
Speaker 2: afraid Trump is doing. And again, his policies are a
11:39
Speaker 2: different question. Vote for his policies, but but be aware
11:42
Speaker 2: we can't lose our system.
11:44
Speaker 1: What as you strolled through the country, did you get
11:47
Speaker 1: your take notes at all? Because that was that's the
11:49
Speaker 1: one thing that this was Back in two thousand and
11:52
Speaker 1: all I was trying to do was get into Canada
11:54
Speaker 1: through a ferry, and they had to go through my
11:56
Speaker 1: journal and It's like, did did they do the same
11:59
Speaker 1: thing to you where they just looked at your journal
12:01
Speaker 1: and looked at all your writing and stuff to find
12:02
Speaker 1: out if you were on the up.
12:03
Speaker 2: And up going into which country.
12:06
Speaker 1: Well into Russia period, or any country in all honesty,
12:09
Speaker 1: because I mean, my god, I mean, if you're putting
12:11
Speaker 1: up videos like that, the world knows who you are, dude,
12:13
Speaker 1: they know who you are, right, So you.
12:15
Speaker 2: Have to realize that when I went to Russia under
12:19
Speaker 2: the Soviet Union, there was still the KGB. The KGB
12:22
Speaker 2: pretty much after the Soviet Union ceased to exist in
12:25
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one. One of the things Yelson did was
12:28
Speaker 2: pretty much make the KGB powerless and nobody thought about
12:32
Speaker 2: the KGB again, and all that stuff with what you're
12:34
Speaker 2: reading and who you're talking to, all that disappeared, and
12:38
Speaker 2: it disappeared until after two thousand Putin put it all back.
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Speaker 2: So by the time I left Russia, when I finally
12:45
Speaker 2: left for the last time in two thousand and nine,
12:47
Speaker 2: and I've been working with Russia ever since, but my
12:49
Speaker 2: last trip into Russia was two thousand and nine, the
12:53
Speaker 2: KGB are now called the FSB, was really powerful again.
12:57
Speaker 2: They weren't quite spying on you yet. Today they weren't
13:00
Speaker 2: check us up at Now of course it's completely different now.
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Speaker 2: They do check your phones, they check what you post
13:07
Speaker 2: if you criticize the warrior going to jail. It's a
13:10
Speaker 2: whole different ballgame now.
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Speaker 1: And I sit back and I just can't imagine you
13:17
Speaker 1: putting this book together in the way of what did
13:19
Speaker 1: not make it to the book and did you have
13:21
Speaker 1: to go through an editing process where you had to
13:23
Speaker 1: make sure that you kept it on and on a
13:25
Speaker 1: legal side of things.
13:28
Speaker 2: So I did have to make sure that I don't
13:32
Speaker 2: get sued. So there are people, there are people who
13:37
Speaker 2: I highly suspect could have done certain things, like there's
13:40
Speaker 2: a man in the book who really should be investigated
13:44
Speaker 2: in connection with the arrest of Sergey Magnetski. Now I'm
13:47
Speaker 2: not a court of law, so I can't decide whether
13:51
Speaker 2: Eager sagree Am did something wrong or didn't do something wrong.
13:56
Speaker 2: What I can tell you is all that I can
13:58
Speaker 2: make a list of everything this very spooky mister Sagurian
14:02
Speaker 2: did correlating it to the arrest of my law partner.
14:08
Speaker 2: And you know, you can draw your own conclusions. But again,
14:12
Speaker 2: unless a court looks at it. You know, you can't
14:15
Speaker 2: say what happened, right, So, yeah, you have to be
14:17
Speaker 2: careful about those things. I have no right to accuse
14:21
Speaker 2: anybody of anything unless a court of law has decided it.
14:25
Speaker 2: So for those people who were sanctioned or found guilty,
14:28
Speaker 2: I can tell it like it is. And when you've
14:32
Speaker 2: got a murky situation, I put all the facts out
14:35
Speaker 2: there and let the readers see what was going on. See.
14:37
Speaker 1: I love your connection to law in this because you
14:39
Speaker 1: really do that that that little character comes out when
14:42
Speaker 1: you need it most and then all of a sudden
14:43
Speaker 1: it just kind of goes away and the rest of
14:44
Speaker 1: you can step through, going Okay, now, I'm gonna ask
14:46
Speaker 1: this question why because it seems like you're that type
14:49
Speaker 1: of person that always asks why why why?
14:53
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely, And one of the things is a book
14:55
Speaker 2: makes clear is that we a lot of times we
14:58
Speaker 2: were asking we had no idea, which was what's scary? Right,
15:02
Speaker 2: So when you're in the middle of something and you're
15:04
Speaker 2: being attacked and you don't know why, that's really frightening.
15:08
Speaker 2: At least if you know why, you can kind of
15:10
Speaker 2: try and stop it. Right. So a lot of the
15:13
Speaker 2: book is searching for those answers and figuring out what happened.
15:17
Speaker 1: So okay, now now I've got to bring Ben back
15:19
Speaker 1: in this. I've got to bring in Joe Langsley as well,
15:22
Speaker 1: because they're both over there in Ukraine and they do
15:23
Speaker 1: speak openly about having their eyes open while they sleep
15:26
Speaker 1: at night. How did you sleep at night knowing what
15:29
Speaker 1: you were getting yourself into?
15:32
Speaker 2: So in Russia I slept. I mean, look, there were
15:36
Speaker 2: times when I when I there are times when it
15:38
Speaker 2: was really scary. Yes, when when in the in the nineties,
15:41
Speaker 2: when I was fighting with my with my then business
15:45
Speaker 2: partners who were trying to commit crimes in my own
15:47
Speaker 2: country company, and I had to make a decision to
15:51
Speaker 2: raid my own offices with the SWAT team. That was
15:53
Speaker 2: scary when they paid the police to cause me problems,
15:57
Speaker 2: and I finally had to and I was hiding out
15:59
Speaker 2: in hospitals where I could get arrested, and I finally
16:02
Speaker 2: just lost it and flew to the spy store in
16:04
Speaker 2: New York bought some hidden cameras back to Russia. But
16:07
Speaker 2: the office is the Russian police. That was a bit
16:10
Speaker 2: Harriet right, And again later on under the Putin years
16:16
Speaker 2: when they arrested my law partner, Serge. There was a
16:20
Speaker 2: period when I came back to Russia because I had
16:24
Speaker 2: left the day after his arrest. But I came back,
16:27
Speaker 2: and it's the strangest thing to be in a city
16:30
Speaker 2: of ten million people where everything is normal. Everybody's going
16:33
Speaker 2: out to dinner, everybody's going to the park, people are
16:35
Speaker 2: on the streets with their strollers. But you're hunted, and
16:38
Speaker 2: you know there are people who are out after you.
16:41
Speaker 2: And that's terrifying the way you look around and everything's
16:44
Speaker 2: normal for everybody else, but nothing is normal for you.
16:47
Speaker 1: So do you ever look at a tom Cruise moving? Go,
16:49
Speaker 1: come on, dude, come to my real world and I'll
16:53
Speaker 1: come to your set and show you how it's really done.
16:56
Speaker 2: Well, let's say this. Things I've done, I don't jump
17:01
Speaker 2: off cliffs. I got to hand it to movie. I mean,
17:04
Speaker 2: I really got to hand it to that guy. You know,
17:07
Speaker 2: if if he were if he were thirty years younger,
17:10
Speaker 2: he's the guy I'd wanted to pay play twenty four
17:12
Speaker 2: year old me in the movie. I mean, you know,
17:15
Speaker 2: he's amazing.
17:15
Speaker 1: So I mean, are you are you really thinking of
17:17
Speaker 1: a movie? Because I was thinking, actually of a five
17:20
Speaker 1: ten year different kind of binge watch here, because everything
17:22
Speaker 1: that you do, I mean, every day for you would
17:25
Speaker 1: be like just sitting there taking one episode at a time,
17:28
Speaker 1: is just one day at a time of your life.
17:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, i mean I'm hoping Netflix will will we'll
17:34
Speaker 2: we'll take something like this. I mean, it's it's crazy
17:37
Speaker 2: from beginning to end. As I explained in the book.
17:39
Speaker 2: I mean, when I was living in my dad's braw
17:41
Speaker 2: hol and there was still money, and I was up
17:43
Speaker 2: at this expensive boarding school coming home for the weekends,
17:46
Speaker 2: my dad was sending the limo with you know the
17:48
Speaker 2: girls in the back to pick me up. I mean,
17:49
Speaker 2: it's crazy, right, It was this. It was this whole
17:51
Speaker 2: thing where where it was like pulp fiction needs I
17:57
Speaker 2: forget the movie that that gave Tom Cruise his break,
18:01
Speaker 2: but you know it's just not risky business, right, So
18:04
Speaker 2: it's like risky business meets pulp fiction. That was my
18:07
Speaker 2: US life. And then in Russia there's this other crazy
18:10
Speaker 2: thing and so yeah, I would lend itself well to
18:11
Speaker 2: a series. And there's there's a million stories I didn't
18:14
Speaker 2: tell because this book I really wanted to kind of
18:17
Speaker 2: push the Russia story forward. I wanted everybody to be
18:20
Speaker 2: on a wild ride and come away with a understanding
18:23
Speaker 2: of Russia, so I couldn't tell all the other wild
18:26
Speaker 2: stories that weren't related to Russia. But yeah, so we'll
18:31
Speaker 2: see where it goes. Well, I should be so lucky.
18:33
Speaker 1: You really do paint such an incredible picture, because I mean,
18:36
Speaker 1: I guess I'm one of the guilty parties where I
18:38
Speaker 1: just think that I don't see them as real people.
18:40
Speaker 1: But I get a book like yours, and I'm going,
18:42
Speaker 1: my god, they are real people. They just happen to
18:44
Speaker 1: be wrapped into something that really is out of their control.
18:47
Speaker 1: But I mean, you you bring the hum inside to
18:49
Speaker 1: so many different stories inside this book.
18:51
Speaker 2: Dude. Yeah. Look, I mean Alexi Nivolme, the Russian oppositionists,
18:57
Speaker 2: who you know, I was making the video. I was
19:00
Speaker 2: making these videos to expose corrupt police officers and distributing
19:04
Speaker 2: them through him, and then he starts doing that and
19:07
Speaker 2: we became friends, of course, because I mean, you know,
19:09
Speaker 2: he really helped me out, and then when they would
19:12
Speaker 2: bring cases against him, I was doing the same and
19:15
Speaker 2: trying to help him out on the international front, and
19:19
Speaker 2: then he returned there they poisoned him. They poisoned him twice.
19:23
Speaker 2: The second time killed him. But the first time they
19:24
Speaker 2: poisoned he was in a coma and my friend is dying.
19:28
Speaker 2: It was actually my birthday and my friend is dying,
19:31
Speaker 2: and I'm like in tears because I can't do anything
19:33
Speaker 2: about it, right, And it turns out he lived through that,
19:36
Speaker 2: And so when they flew him to Germany and he
19:40
Speaker 2: recovered from his coma, but he said, you know, I'm
19:42
Speaker 2: going back to Russia. And the last thing he did
19:44
Speaker 2: before he got on the airplane was released a list
19:47
Speaker 2: of thirty five people he wanted sanctioned. So he got
19:50
Speaker 2: on the airplane and got arrested. And I went around
19:52
Speaker 2: the world sanctioning the thirty five people for my friend.
19:55
Speaker 2: And it ripped my heart out when he died. I mean,
20:00
Speaker 2: you know, he was he was both a very real
20:03
Speaker 2: friend to me, a very funny guy, and also a
20:08
Speaker 2: larger than life hero to me at the same time,
20:10
Speaker 2: you know, like a big politician who's head of the
20:11
Speaker 2: Russian opposition. So I do cover the human side because
20:15
Speaker 2: these people are human. You can't really understand Alexey without
20:20
Speaker 2: the human side. I mean, a guy, a guy willingly
20:23
Speaker 2: chose to go back to Russia, understanding that he would
20:26
Speaker 2: be arrested and face.
20:27
Speaker 1: Deaf yep, oh my god. Twenty minutes with you is
20:29
Speaker 1: not enough. I am nowhere near being done. You got
20:32
Speaker 1: to come back to this show anytime in the future. Man,
20:34
Speaker 1: you are planting seeds that create conversation, and that's what
20:37
Speaker 1: I love about your book. It is a conversation starter.
20:42
Speaker 2: Thank you, anytime I'm invited him there. Excellent.
20:44
Speaker 1: Will you be brilliant today?
20:46
Speaker 2: Okay, sir, all right, I have a wonderful day. Thank you.