Season 1
Epilogue: Rehashing
In the year since season one of The Asset concluded, we have learned a lot. There are tell all books about the Mueller investigation, explosive new reporting, and the bombshell Senate Intelligence Committee Report. In this special episode of The Asset we break it all down and tell you what it all means. The Asset is…
Read MoreCover Up
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, breaks down…
Read MorePayoff
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,…
Read MoreConspiring
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…
Read MoreWinning
October 7th, 2016, was one of the most important days in American political history. At 4:03 pm that day, the Access Hollywood tape was released. Just 29 minutes later, WikiLeaks – at 4:32pm on a Friday –began releasing emails hacked by Russian military officers from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s account. The timing of this…
Read MoreHack and Collude
Friday, July 22, 2016 was the day it became clear that the 2016 presidential election would be like no other ever experienced in the United States. On that day, the Russian cut-out WikiLeaks released a massive trove of hacked emails from the DNC. And Russia had just shown that it was all-in in support of…
Read MoreRunning
We break down the beginnings of the two campaigns to elect Donald Trump: one run out of Trump Tower, and the other run out of the Kremlin. From the moment Trump announced he was running for president, he was unabashedly pro-Russia. It made no sense. Until we learned that throughout the campaign, the Trump Organization…
Read MoreCultivating an Asset
We go through the murky world of Russian intelligence. In Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the old-style KGB tactics didn’t go away. Under Putin, Russian intelligence has been empowered. This episode goes the story of the Illegals spy ring, deep cover Russian agents, out to gain access and influence, and which would become the inspiration for the…
Read MoreThe New Cold War
The fight over Ukraine’s future is key to the Trump-Russia story. It is central to understanding why, in 2016, Russia undertook such a brazen and risky assault on American democracy. Russia’s attempt to reassert itself as a great power and exert control over Ukraine led to a collapse in U.S.-Russia relations. Color revolutions in former…
Read MoreFrom Russia With Cash
Russian Money was pouring out of Russia into the US real estate market and Donald Trump was all about it. We follow the Russian money flowing into the Trump Organization, highlighting the shady cast of characters that surround Donald Trump and his businesses from the suspicious deals in the former Soviet Union, to “little Moscow”…
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