Trump's "Arctic Adviser" Has Russia Ties - Surprised?

0:00I have several cherished sweaters in my closet from Quince that I wear on repeat. You know, I run cold sweaters for sweaters often and that's one of the things that Quince does best. Quince also makes premium pants, fitted tees and polos and breathable active wear. Quality basics designed to work across your wardrobe and hold up to everyday wear. Everything at Quince is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work directly with ethical factories and therefore they cut out the middlemen to your pain for high quality and not brand markup. And as such as clothing, Quince brings that same approach to everything they make from hotel quality bedding and bath and kitchen essentials and thoughtfully designed furniture. They make well-designed pieces for everyday living. Find your next fall favorites at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash Tom THOM. If free shipping on your order in 365 day returns now available on Canada and the UK too. That's q-u-i-n-c-e.com slash Tom. Quince.com slash Tom. This is the Tom Harbin Program.

1:14Hey, welcome out of our program. On the line with us is Heather Vogel and investigative reporter with one of the greatest in reporting, investigating, investigative reporting groups out there. ProPublic, a group I should probably review. I support financially personally and I encourage you to as well. PRO, P-U-B-L-I-C-A dot or proPublica dot org is their website and Heather Vogel, ELL, over on Blue Sky. Heather, welcome to the program. Nice to have you with us. Hi Tom, thank you so much for having me on. A pleasure and an honor. So the headline here, Papa John's propaganda and Putin, how a mega influencer with ties to Russia became Trump's Arctic advisor. I mean this is kind of coming on the heels of our learning that another Russian oligarch who was with Putin in China flew from China to wherever it was to pay for Donald Trump

2:16juniors wedding. I mean this is a totally weird stuff. Tell us about Thomas Danes. So Tom Danes is presidential appointee, who's from name to the US Arctic Research Commission in December. And if you haven't heard of that agency, it's not surprising. It is a very small federal agency and it advises the president and Congress on what to study in the Arctic, which is an increasingly crucial region. Now most of the people who have led that commission have been people with very deep knowledge of science and policy. But Mr. Danes is a former venture capitalist and a mega influencer with no formal science background. I mean the Arctic is, it seems critical and critical to understand and invest, you know, work with it all. For a couple of reasons, one is that it's one of the last pristine places on earth where

3:17we can watch nature and it's being radically affected by climate change. And the second being that the impact of that climate change is that what used to be solid ice certainly in the winter and barely navigable in the summer is becoming an open water way. There's also the fact that Russia and the United States could exchange weapons or for that matter commercial airplanes right over the top of the earth. I mean, it's a really critical area for a whole bunch of reasons. Am I missing any? No, it's a very dynamic region with things are, the climate change is changing faster up there than it is even down here. So it's warming faster. As you said, you've got new sea lanes that are opening up. Russia has the biggest coastline of any Arctic coastline of any country. And so it is critical to that country's economic output really because they've liquefied national natural gas facilities in the north and they use those shipping lanes.

4:22Have we reached the point where the Arctic is really quite amenable to transportation? Where a lot of ships are going through the Arctic or is it still? I mean, I don't get the sense that it's quite, it's not reached that point yet, but you know, at least seasonally, there is more access there that is faster for countries so they don't have to go much further south, go around, go through some of the canals. So it provides a shortcut for certain seasons. Right. Tell us about the US Arctic Research Commission, this organization. How and why was this created? And what's going to be the consequence to it of putting this guy who has no scientific background in charge of this basically scientific organization? Well, what we found basically was they have largely done their job for more than 40 years without making a lot of waves fairly bipartisan manner for the most part.

5:25And sometimes they testified before Congress. They issued reports. You've got some people who've been involved with very deep experience in the area, in the region, knowledgeable about different specialties, knowledgeable about even some industries that are active there. You know, so it's been a crucial part, I would say, of the US's formulation of its policy toward the Arctic just by virtue of the fact that these folks know a lot about it and they've helped set research priorities so that we can make smart decisions there. So you mentioned that Russia has the largest Arctic coastline and views the Arctic, control of the Arctic as essential to their economics. Thomas Dan's is the venture capitalist. He was involved with Papa John's, right? The Trump put in charge of this. What's his association with Putin?

6:29You know, I don't know of an association directly with Putin. What I do know is that Tom Dan's has been a very big fan from what I can tell of Russia. For a very long time, he learned Russian when he was in grade school, beginning, I think in seventh grade. And he was an exchange student there. He went back and worked at a private equity company that was funded by USAID after the fall of the Soviet Union when there were a lot of business opportunities there. And he's been involved in different ways, I think since then. But if he read his social media feeds, he often, he'll post sometimes in Russian even, he'll post Russian news sources, he'll post Kazak news sources. So he had a, and you mentioned the Papa John's, he was in the Treasury Department before and filed a disclosure form that reported that he had a stake in a company that was a parent company to another company that ran a bunch of Papa John's in Russia.

7:35So he's had a business interest for a long time. This is incredible. I mean, all the Trump connections to Russia has, is there a concern that a pro-Russian person or a person as you've described? I'm not sure you'd, you know, I don't want to specifically call him pro-Russia. But somebody, you know, with those sentiments, could do damage to American interests or to world interests or to world peace by virtue of having this position on the Arctic, US Arctic Research Commission? Well, the thing that is interesting, so it's understandable people haven't heard of the Arctic Research Commission. But one of the things that the position gives Mr. Dan's access to is a global stage, because he appears at conferences around the world, especially in, you know, Europe and the US and Canada. In front of a lot of our sort of NATO ally, you know, high-level diplomats for NATO countries,

8:37people come from all over the world to these conferences. And so he, at a lot of these appearances, he has been very consistently advocating for the US to restore relations with Russia and, you know, taking sort of big picture for policy stands like that or comments about Greenland, things like that. And that has not been a role people told me that has been something that the Arctic Research Commission has done in the past to take sort of big foreign policy stands. So that is one way he's having an impact. The other ways he may be having an impact, we don't know about because the law specifically accepts the Arctic Research Commissioners from having to disclose any financial conflicts, the way some other high-level appointees have to. And you wrap the story up with a quote from Virginia Cantor, who was an ethics lawyer with

9:40the White House. She said, the fact that he has foreign entanglements and access to government-wide information should raise national security concerns. That's specifically what you're talking about. So if you look at the statute that creates the commission, it gives them all the commission or the ability to access and to request information from other federal agencies that they think is relevant to carrying out their duties. So a lot of that information is probably fairly public in terms of it being something that may be able to access under the freedom of information law. But it's possible that some of it is the kind of information that might be held back by agencies. And her point was just, you might want to know what connections a chair of this commission would have if they have access to broad amounts of information from federal government. So in a wild worst-case scenario, conspiracy theory world, he could be the mole inside

10:42the federal government who's handing information off to Russia. But there's no evidence of that, but that's the kind of thing that people are concerned about. That probably is one of the risks that crosses people's mind when they talk about possible national security risk. Yeah. But I don't have evidence of that. Yeah, no, no, I get that. It's a remarkable story, Heather. We just have a minute here until we're going to have a hard break. I can't stop. Is there anything else in the story that you want to make sure people understand? One of the other things is sort of a conflict of interest that has been a little more public with him because he's talked about working for a European defense contractor. He's said in April that he worked for dominant shipyards, which is a Dutch company that builds ships. And he has also said that he was working with them to bring icebreakers to the US. And so again, this question about whether he's advocating for a company or a foreign company and what that involves. There were a number of people that raised concerns about that and concerns about whether

11:45he had done proper disclosure of his ideas required to make. Wow. So it could be like Jared Kushner going to negotiate peace with the people who are giving him $6 billion and getting a few more dollars kind of thing. My speculation, not yours. Heather Vogel, investigative reporter of pro-publica.org. Heather, thank you so much for dropping by and thank you for the extraordinary work you put into this. Thank you. I really honor the work that you and your colleagues are doing. It's just exception. Pro-publica.org. So, Donald Trump sparked outrage when his administration said that they are preparing to send 40,000, 2,000-pound bombs to Israel through a foreign program, a mechanism known as foreign military financing. This is how it works. The American contractors who build the bombs get a check from the United States for those

12:51bombs for $2.8 billion and they ship the bombs to Israel. I mean, that's pretty much it. These are not being purchased by Israel, even though that's what the headline in the New York Times says. They are being purchased on behalf of Israel by the Trump administration. $2.8 billion coming out of the Pentagon, budget, and 40,000 bombs, and there's enough to reflat and Gaza. Or in this case, probably Lebanon, or maybe Syria, God only knows what Netanyahu wants to do next. Is he going to go after Jordan? People are freaking out about Tucker Carlson said this is a gift and this supports genocide. He's right. Marjitil agree. We did not vote for this. America does not support this.

13:52Our tax dollars and weapons have been used to kill tens of thousands of innocent people. My God, what comes next? These are Republicans. Permilogyapal, a regular on this program, you know, the congresswoman from Washington state, she said, this is beyond unacceptable and I am furious at this news. US weapons are being used to perpetrate a genocide. This cannot continue in our name and I will be fighting in Congress to block this sale and all future weapons sales as long as the Israeli government continues to violate international humanitarian law. God bless you, Permilogyapal. Meanwhile a majority of American voters, a majority, it's a slight majority, but a majority of American voters considered Donald Trump to be dangerous and corrupt. Only 14% say he's not divisive. Yeah, it's got to be the same 14% who believe there are lizard people who live under the

14:55earth and Bill Clinton zipped on his human suit. I mean, here's the numbers. 53% of people who are pulled. This is September 11 through 14, economist Yu-Gov-Pol, 1416 US registered voters, registered voters. 53% said Donald Trump is corrupt. 51% said he is dangerous. 47% said he's out of touch. 46% said he is cruel. 45% said he is bold. The percentage of American voters who is right across the board, all political persuasions. The percentage of American voters who said the Donald Trump is steady was 18%. I'd say he's steady when it comes to running a grift. Democrats were testing an anti-corruption midterm message since corruption has hit a 20-year high. And the results brought sharply by party.

15:56They asked Americans whether you believe that the president has inappropriately profited from cryptocurrency and in the Wallain office. 91% of Democrats said yes. He's corrupt. He's inappropriately profited from crypto. 62% of independents said yes. He's corrupt. He is inappropriately profited from crypto. And 10% of Republicans agree to that sentiment. But Republicans are not universally positive. Half of them, 49% when asked to describe Donald Trump in one word. 49% of Republicans said that one word is dishonest, which is just like, you know, painfully and obviously true. Meanwhile, Joyce Beatty is the congresswoman from Ohio who sued. She's an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center Board. The law requires a member of Congress to be a member of the board.

17:00And so Trump can't get rid of her even though she's a Democrat. And she was at that board meeting yesterday where Trump said we're going to shut it down if I won't put my name on it. And she said it was the most unprofessional thing I've ever witnessed. This is an interview she did with MS now. She said he went into a name calling, trying to say I was an obstructionist. I was dumb. He said I think you're incompetent. And I said I know that you're incompetent. And I looked at the chair who was chairing and I said are we really going to do this? This is unprofessional. And of course the absolute chair was Donald Trump. And he said he was going to hold me responsible. If something fell out of the ceiling and killed someone and I said you're already killing people, there's a war. And then he wanted to start talking about how great he was in developing property. So I reminded him he had more bankruptcy than anybody in the room. She says I mean I'm not going to let him bully me and intimidate me in the fact stand for themselves. I'm telling you people are excited about people who talk back to Donald Trump. People want fighters.

18:01They want somebody who is going to say what it is who will call him out. Steve, a new Boston Michigan. Hey Steve, what's up? Hey Tom, I like to do a little reflecting with you on the reflection pool. Okay. Being that the truth is now out and that those five or six people who were falsely accused of penalizing the pool is not true. And this is based because the $15 million paid no bid contractor admitted that the reason the paints come in off the bottom is because they improperly treated the surface before they started the paint. That's the one coming up. Right. So now that the contractor has admitted it, the contractor has paid $15 million. I'm sure that's a reserve amount of money for that job.

19:02But okay, he got paid. Are they going to stand behind that work and fix it at their expense? And two, the people who were falsely accused of this and I believe several were arrested, what legal recourse action do they have to go back for the defamation's lawsuits that they should be filing? Yeah. The people who are arrested do have a charge of action against the United States. And there's actually a fund for this, which is the fund that Donald Trump used to give Mike, what's his name? To give a bunch of his totes, including that crazy right wing general, he gave him a million dollars and Mike Flynn. And so yeah, they have a basis for a lawsuit. The one caveat is that you can only sue the federal government if it gives you permission to sue it. So let's not get too excited here, but keep an eye on that one. In terms of the contractor, my understanding, although I have not seen a clear explanation

20:07of this and every article I've read in the mainstream press about this, it leaves it kind of ambiguous up in the air, but my understanding is the contractor is going to come in, fix the job. In fact, they're in the process of doing it right now. And we will pay them all over again. That's my understanding. Now keep in mind, this contractor is a major friend of Donald Trump, and a major donor to his political activities. It's a Florida company that does swimming pools. And that's why Trump is. Unbelievable. Yeah, it is. I mean, it's just, it's corruption. We have the most corrupt administration in the history of the United States, and one of the most corrupt administrations among any advanced democracy anywhere in the world. So yeah, spot on. Steve, thank you for the call. I'm going to go back to July of 2015 when the Russians hacked the Pentagon, and when

21:11I found out is that Epstein introduced Peter Keele to this Russian man named Beliacop, who was close ties to Putin. And seven days after the Russian hacking of the Pentagon, there was this man named Reed Hoffman. They hosted a private dinner in Palo Alto. Listen to who was at the meeting, and I have the photo right in front of me. Jeffrey Epstein, Peter Keele, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Ed Boyton, Desiree Dudley, Michelle Ray, Michelle Chan, Navi Farouk, and Eo Eto. And he was involved in a horrible financial scandal. And this was back in 2015. Now these people had this meeting.

22:11I have the photo right in front of me. You see all the people. Keele, Musk, and Zuckerberg, they were acting as Russian assets. Why would they want to be with the Russian assets, Melody? By having the meeting, by having the meetings with Elon Musk and... How does that make the Russian assets? What am I missing here? Well, because it's been reported that Peter Keele helped get a lot of propaganda against Hillary Clinton. And there was an Epstein-Peter Keele connection in Russia. Yeah. And then when Elon Musk went to Russia, after the 2020 election for two years, and then the connections of these people,

23:11why are they having these private meetings? And with the power of Elon Musk and Peter Keele, and not liking our democracy and our way of government, they get our government contracts. And then with when Ashley St. Clair said something about the... You're a much former one, if you'll. Yeah. 2024. And then it was fed that on October the 30th of 2024, Elon Musk released 265 low-orbit, low-orbit, Leo V2 satellite, which has a direct-to-cell technology, which bypasses the aircapping, which can protect the... I think that's just his internet service, isn't it?

24:12No, no, it can go right to cell phones. I'm going to add that, you know, Mill, I don't know a lot of the details you're talking about, so I'm going to have to do a little reading here. Yeah, check out the... Thanks for the tip. Okay, bye. Appreciate it.

25:26First to wear the moth, who'll be hunted in the dark, Villaloo. The hero waits, history turns on these twisted faces. Pick it up if you're calling us here, Jim and Pioneer Ohio. Hey, Jim, what's on your mind today? Hi. Very sure today, Tom. Thank you. The thing is about Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. How is Donald Trump not disqualified from holding any office of trust under the U.S.? He pardoned, without going into the endless list of violations since, he pardoned people who were guilty of assaulting police officers. They're on film. And it's not about law, fair, or weaponization of the courts. These people pled guilty because they were dead to rights, and they were going to get a significantly harder sentence if they didn't admit guilt. But Donald Trump pardoned them.

26:28That's aid and comfort under Section 3 of the 4th Kingdom Amendment. So how is he not disqualified for any office? It's a brilliant question, Jim, and for the adification of our listeners who are not familiar with Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, it's one long sentence, and I will read it to everybody right now. And you can make up your own mind about whether Donald Trump should or should not be in the White House. No person shall be a senator or representative in Congress or a lecturer of president or and vice president or hold any office, civil or military under the United States or under any state, who having previously taken an oath as a member of Congress or as an officer of the United States or as a member of any state legislature as an executive or judicial officer of any state. Who have taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same or give an aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may buy a two-thirds vote of each House to remove such a disability.

27:31So yeah, it is very clear to me that Donald Trump led an insurrection against the United States. He encouraged people to try to murder the vice president of the United States in order to prevent Joe Biden from being certified as the lawful president of the United States in 2000 or in January of 2001. And he should not be in the White House. There's no doubt about it in my mind. Now obviously the Supreme Court and the Republicans in Congress don't agree with that. But you know what I mean? The Supreme Court called them out to take the vote. So what? The Anderson decision. Read the Anderson decision. The Supreme Court called Congress out to take the vote. To take the vote, what do you mean? The Anderson decision. Read page eight from the original decision. Oh, we're not going to kick out Trump if you want to hold him responsible under Article 3, you're going to have to do it yourself. Yeah, they call it out Congress to take the vote. Yeah, and of course Congress did.

28:32Why hasn't any congressmen stood up to their oath to defend the Constitution? Not a single one of them. Well, Al Green certainly has. He's put forward in impeachment resolution. In fact, he's put forward several of them. He's agreed to agree. Yeah, there have been a couple of Democrats who have done that and God bless them. Oh, and Thomas Massey. Well, Massey is not going after Trump. He's going after your headsets. But you know, kind of, Twitter, D. I get it, Jim. I get it. And it's just mind-boggling what we've come to in this country that we have a rapist, a felon in the White House, a chronic liar, and that he's supported by about a third of Americans. It's just breathtaking. Jim, thanks for the call. And special thanks to Louise Harmon, Sean Taylor, Jamie Holley, Nigel Peacock, Sue Netherkett, Patrick White, Gerald and Halbert Ron, Hart and Bob Chase, Sprostick, with Smiller Pat Swini, Jeremy Peterson, Connor Royal, Karnavarity, Martha Salinas, Josiah Western, Mateo Robertson, Diane Russell, and Ruben Michaels, all of the buying folks who work on this program. Have a great afternoon. Be good to yourself and the folks around you.

29:33Stay safe. Get out there. Get active. Tag you aren't. And we'll catch up soon. You've been listening to Tom Hartman for audio and video archives. Visit TomHartman.com.