The Asset

In this special episode of The Asset , we are showcasing a new podcast from our friends at the Sixteen Thirty Fund: Made to Fail . From health care, to unemployment insurance, to exercising the right to vote, COVID-19 has affected every part of American life. Sky-high unemployment. Vulnerable elections. Unrest in American cities. But what’s happening in our country is something much bigger than a...

Max Bergmann interviews The Guardian's Luke Harding about how Russia has sought to undermine the West by interfering and corrupting the politics of the US, UK, and other Western countries. Harding discusses his interviews with Christopher Steele, new revelations about Russian interference in the United Kingdom, his reaction to the Mueller report, and how Russia will seek to interfere in the 2020 e...

In this very special episode of The Asset , Max Bergmann brings us the back story of Michael Flynn's rise within the Trump adminstration and breaks down why Donald Trump can never let Flynn be incarcerated. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

Russian investigative journalists Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan risk their lives every day to expose the truth about Vladamir Putin's murder sprees around the world, including in the United States and Great Britain. In wide-ranging exclusive interview with Max Bergmann, the host of The Asset podcast, Soldatov and Borogan explain how and why Putin orders international assassinations and the rea...

Now that Donald Trump's first Impeachment Trial has wrapped up, Max Bergmann and Peter Ogburn discuss what was lost and gained in the trial and the path forward to saving our democracy. To hear the full episode and all of our unedited interviews,please subscribe to our Patreon Page. https://www.patreon.com/posts/34081678 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice...

Max Bergmann, the host of the Asset Podcast, assesses the Impeachment Trial to date and handicaps what's ahead, as the end of Donald Trump's trial before the Senate looms. To hear the full episode, become a Patreon subscriber. https://www.patreon.com/posts/33614330 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

In this teaser episode of This Week in Impeachment , Max Bergmann breaks down the the latest news of Parnas and Pence. In the full episode available on Patreon, Max triangulates the Republican Senators' positions, projects the possible outcomes, and explains why any of them will be good for the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate. https://www.patreon.com/posts/33256671 See Privacy Policy at htt...

Max Bergmann, Executive Director of The Moscow Project and host of The Asset podcast, blazes the trail that could lead to a trial in the Senate with full witness testimony, something Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is working to thwart. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .

Earlier in Season 2, we explained the backstory to the Ukraine scandal, tracing Trump’s efforts to extort a foreign government for his own personal gain. When a whistleblower complaint brought this scandal to light, it sparked the fourth impeachment investigation in our nation’s history. In this episode of The Asset , host Max Bergmann, the director of The Moscow Project, an initiative of the Cent...

"Follow the Trail of Dead Russians" was the advice given by national security expert Clint Watts when he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. In this excerpt from our Patreon page, Max Bergmann continues down the mysterious trail that crosses the globe and is littered with the dead bodies of Russian diplomats, businessmen, and gangsters. To listen to the full episode please subscribe t...

"Follow the Trail of Dead Russians" was the advice given by national security expert Clint Watts when he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. In this excerpt from our Patreon page, Max Bergmann leads us down the mysterious trail that crosses the globe and is littered with the dead bodies of Russian diplomats, businessmen, and gangsters. To listen to the full episode please subscribe to...

Max Bergmann, host of the Asset Podcast, sits down with Calder Walton, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and general editor of the Cambridge History of Espionage and Intelligence , to discuss the long legacy of Russian espionage in the United States and the consistent pattern of current efforts by Russia to disrupt American politics and damage the standing of the...

Producer Peter Ogburn sits down with host Max Bergmann to find out what happened This Week in Impeachment. We discuss the stunning testimonies of Fiona Hill and David Holmes as well as the madcap antics of Devon Nunes and Gordon Sondland. To hear the full 40-minute roundup, sign up at https://www.patreon.com/assetpodcast See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice...

On July 25, 2019, Trump called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and asked him for a favor: a public announcement of investigations into Trump’s political opponents. After he hung up, White House lawyers immediately sprang into action, burying the records of the incriminating phone call on a secret server and swearing those on the line to secrecy. That call was part of a broader effort, a sha...

Producer Peter Ogburn sits down with host Max Bergmann to find out what happened This Week in Impeachment. We discuss the testimony of Ambassador Bill Taylor and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs George Kent. To get the FULL episode, go to our Patreon page at Patreon.com/assetpodcast where we talk more about how the Republicans will continue to shelter Trump, Ma...

On October 9, 2019, two Soviet-born Florida businessmen, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, were arrested in Dulles International Airport outside of Washington, D.C. It would soon turn out that these two men had been involved for months in Rudy Giuliani’s quest to find dirt on the Biden family. In this episode of The Asset, host Max Bergmann outlines the origins of Trump’s conspiracy theories surrounding...

Donald Trump’s efforts to extort the Ukrainian government for his own political gain are now at the center of the ongoing impeachment proceedings. But how did we get here? To understand that, we’ll need to go back to the former Ukrainian president, Petro Poroshenko, and explore his efforts to get closer to the Trump administration.    In this episode of The Asset, host Max Bergmann, the...

In 2016, Donald Trump conspired with a foreign government to become President of the United States.  On July 25, 2019, with the 2020 election around the corner, he decided to do it again. The first time around, it was collusion, aiding and abetting Russia’s attack on American democracy. This time, it was extortion, demanding the Ukrainian government manufacture dirt on Trump’s political oppon...

In order to fully understand the impeachment inquiry, the United States' relationship with Ukraine, and how "All roads lead to Putin," you must first understand the recent turbulent history of the region. Max sits down with Franklin Foer, a staff writer for The Atlantic magazine and a longtime journalist covering Trump and Russia. In this exclusive interview with The Asset , Foer delves into Ukrai...

On July 25, Trump had a phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky, the recently-elected president of Ukraine. According to notes on the conversation released by the White House, Trump asked Zelensky to do him a “favor” by investigating two conspiracy theories, one claiming that Ukrainian government officials conspired with the Clinton campaign in 2016 and the other alleging that former Vice President (an...

Donald Trump's deep and complicated relationship with Russia goes back to the 1980's with his trip to the Soviet Union. In this excerpt of our exclusive interview with journalist and author Luke Harding, who was the Guardian's Moscow bureau chief from 2007 to 2011, we dive into the stories swirling around Donald Trump of assassinations, sketchy real-estate deals, money laundering, hackin...

As an FBI Special Agent, Asha Rangappa specialized in counter intelligence investigations, pursuing threats to our nation's security. In that role, Rangappa tracked down assets of foreign governments and neutralized those threats. She also flipped foreign nationals into becoming assets of the United States government. In this trailer to our Patreon post of the full 45-minute interview wi...

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report documents not only collusion between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin to win the 2016 election but also Trump’s frantic efforts to cover up collusion with Russia. In this week’s episode, host Max Bergmann, the director of the Moscow Project, an initiative of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, breaks down those efforts, from pressuring witnesses...

After the election, Russia sought to cash in for its efforts during the election. Collusion didn’t end with the 2016 election, as the Trump transition team and the Kremlin continued working together to plot ways the incoming Trump administration could deliver for Russia.   This week on  The Asset , host Max Bergmann, the director of the Moscow Project, an initiative of the Center fo...

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 election is the most damning document ever published about a sitting president. But as much as it told us, the Mueller report said it found “insufficient evidence” to establish that there was a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Not that there was  no evidence  of a conspiracy, just...