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--:-- John Bickley: This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible. Financial geniuses. Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit Progressive.com to see if you could save. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.
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--:-- John Bickley: A key contributor to the Steele dossier was arrested on Thursday and indicted on five counts of lying to the FBI. The now discredited dossier led to a two-year investigation into Trump and Russia collusion. Who is the man arrested by Special Prosecutor John Durham? What claims are now in dispute? And what are the implications of his arrest?
--:-- Georgia Howe: I'm John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Wednesday, November 10th, and this is Morning Wire.
--:-- John Bickley: As the UN Climate Summit wraps up this week, concerns emerge about competing interests between climate activism and human rights. Is the U.S. compromising on human rights in order to attract China to its climate agenda? We speak to a government watchdog group who's raising some serious questions.
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--:-- Georgia Howe: And Elon Musk is making headlines again, vowing to sell 10% of his Tesla stock based on, get this, a vote by his Twitter followers. What is the billionaire's rationale for the stock sale? And how does it connect to the larger debate around taxation of unrealized gains?
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know.
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--:-- Ben Johnson: Another pillar upholding Democratic allegations that President Donald Trump colluded with Russia has fallen, as one of the main sources behind the Steele dossier has been indicted. Special Prosecutor John Durham says that Igor Danchenko lied to the FBI about the Trump campaign, leading to a two-year national scandal.
--:-- Ben Johnson: Danchenko is a Russian national who lives in the United States and formerly worked at the Brookings Institution. In 2016, Danchenko worked for Christopher Steele. He fed Steele unfounded rumors about Donald Trump that formed the substance of the Steele dossier.
--:-- Ben Johnson: The FBI then used the Steele dossier, which was funded by Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, to petition the FISA court for four successive warrants to spy on a Trump campaign official named Carter Page.
--:-- Ben Johnson: Danchenko told the FBI that he obtained his information from Russians with direct knowledge of the allegations, but his actual source has stepped forward. It's an American named Charles Dolan Jr., who's a PR executive who's had formal roles in the Clinton's presidential campaigns for 29 years.
--:-- Ben Johnson: So the indictment suggests that this was a Clinton campaign-funded dossier based in part on a source that is a Clinton ally.
--:-- John Bickley: Yeah.
--:-- Ben Johnson: John Durham indicted Danchenko for five counts of making false statements to federal investigators. If he's convicted, he could face a fine and up to five years in prison for each of the five counts.
--:-- Ben Johnson: Last week a judge released Danchenko on a bond with no electronic surveillance. The defendants indicated that he plead not guilty to the charges. His next court appearance is scheduled for this Wednesday.
--:-- Ben Johnson: Okay, so Danchenko was one of the key sources of information behind the Trump-Russian conspiracy theory. What specific rumors did he feed the FBI?
--:-- Ben Johnson: Danchenko originated the most salacious part of the report, that during a trip to Russia before he was president, Donald Trump hired two prostitutes to urinate on a bed that Barack Obama had once slept on.
--:-- Ben Johnson: With this indictment, that allegation is as close to fully refuted as anything can be. But Danchenko's lies cast a much larger shadow over the Trump campaign.
--:-- Ben Johnson: The indictment says that Danchenko is responsible for, quote, the allegation that there were communications ongoing between the Trump campaign and Russian officials and that the Kremlin might be of help in getting Trump elected.
--:-- Ben Johnson: This indictment is Durham's second indictment of someone involved in the Steele dossier. Can you remind us of the first one and his role?
--:-- Ben Johnson: Yes, Durham also indicted Michael Sussman of the Perkins Coie law firm, which funneled money from the Clinton campaign to Christopher Steele.
--:-- Ben Johnson: Durham said that Sussman lied to the FBI when he said he wasn't working for any client as he passed on a now-refuted allegation that the Trump business organization had secret electronic communications with a Russia-based Alfa Bank.
--:-- Ben Johnson: Look, as we all witnessed, the Russiagate story consumed the media for two years. These indictments strongly undermine that story.
--:-- Ben Johnson: How has the media reacted to this latest report?
--:-- Ben Johnson: Well, for the most part, they haven't. All three major news network broadcasts and CNN's primetime hosts ignored the arrest last week.
--:-- Ben Johnson: Whatever reasons that may be, it's certainly not because they consider the original story unworthy of coverage.
--:-- Ben Johnson: The big three network news broadcasts, NBC, ABC, and CBS, spent 2,202 minutes covering the alleged Russian collusion scandal in the first two years of Donald Trump's presidency.
--:-- Ben Johnson: And that doesn't include countless hours from MSNBC and CNN.
--:-- Ben Johnson: The only major report of Danchenko's legal troubles came from Rachel Maddow, who said, quote, This indictment is designed to smear Christopher Steele's intelligence reports.
--:-- Ben Johnson: Okay. That may explain why polls show America's faith in the media has fallen to an all-time low.
--:-- Ben Johnson: Yeah, well, we'll stick to the facts here.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks, Ben. Thanks, John.
--:-- Ben Johnson: That's Daily Wire reporter Ben Johnson.
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--:-- Eric Eggers: The United Nations Annual Climate Change Summit is underway in Scotland.
--:-- Eric Eggers: Here with the details is Eric Eggers from the Government Accountability Institute and the co-host of the Drill Down podcast.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Eric, good morning.
--:-- Eric Eggers: Good morning, Georgia.
--:-- Eric Eggers: So ahead of the global summit, climate czar John Kerry said that this is the, quote, last best hope for the world to combat climate change.
--:-- Eric Eggers: So there's a lot of pressure he's putting on this event.
--:-- Eric Eggers: The global leaders that are in Scotland, including John Kerry, are absolutely convinced that keeping the global temperature from rising another one and a half degrees is essential to global survival.
--:-- Eric Eggers: Remember, that goal was the basis of the Paris Agreement in the 2015 COP, and John Kerry has said that that goal would be, quote, essentially impossible without China's cooperation.
--:-- Eric Eggers: So when China announced that they were not going to be participating in this year's summit, Hopes were, as you might imagine, muted.
--:-- Eric Eggers: Demand for oil is surging during a developing global energy crisis right now.
--:-- Eric Eggers: China and Russia, two of the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, are on no-shows, no-shows at this global climate summit here in Scotland.
--:-- Eric Eggers: So given that both China and Russia are major producers of emissions, it seems like it would be a pretty big obstacle that neither were at this summit, just in terms of enthusiasm about the event.
--:-- Eric Eggers: But never underestimate the enthusiasm you can generate when you're in Scotland in November.
--:-- Eric Eggers: Unfortunately, despite initial signs of lowered expectations, Kerry's actually sounded pretty upbeat once the summit began.
--:-- Eric Eggers: This one has greater energy, more focus, and intensity that I have not felt in any of the other cops.
--:-- Eric Eggers: The real issue is going to be follow-up. And follow-up is exactly the concern, especially given the conflicting Biden administration priorities as it relates to China.
--:-- Eric Eggers: And what do you mean when you say conflicting priorities?
--:-- Eric Eggers: Well, as climate czar, John Kerry has been very clear that relations with China means more cooperation on climate change.
--:-- Eric Eggers: So Kerry has actually pressed the Biden administration to overlook some of China's human rights issues in its negotiations on environmental policies.
--:-- Eric Eggers: According to Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Chris Smith, Kerry has actually worked to undermine Congress's efforts to hold China accountable for these abuses.
--:-- Eric Eggers: In a letter to the Biden administration, Rubio and Smith have alleged that Kerry, and I'm quoting here, is downplaying genocide precisely because he intends to import solar panels that are produced using forced labor in the PRC to the United States in order to meet the administration's climate goals.
--:-- Eric Eggers: While these claims are difficult to prove or disprove, there have been claims of a conflict of interest within the Kerry family.
--:-- Eric Eggers: Now, it's been reported that Teresa Hines Carey has an investment of at least $1 million in a hedge fund that specializes in private partnerships and investments with Chinese government-controlled funds.
--:-- Eric Eggers: But beyond that, John Carey himself has an investment worth at least $1 million that has documented financial ties to Chinese companies that support surveillance and slave labor in Xinjiang, China, where thousands of Uyghurs and other minorities are interned in camps or shipped to other parts of the country to work in factories.
--:-- Eric Eggers: And has Kerry been pressed on this issue?
--:-- Eric Eggers: He's been asked about why the administration isn't doing more to protect against slave labor in China.
--:-- Eric Eggers: And he has stated he's trying to, quote, stay in his lane, as in focusing on climate change rather than labored issues.
--:-- Eric Eggers: But it's worth noting that provisions to protect Uyghur Muslims were conspicuously removed from the reconciliation bill in the latest draft.
--:-- Eric Eggers: So definitely some open questions worth investigating.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for reporting.
--:-- Eric Eggers: Thanks for having me.
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--:-- Ian Howarth: In recent months, multiple Democrats have been pushing for a wealth tax of some type, with the latest iteration being taxation of so-called unrealized gains.
--:-- Ian Howarth: One person being targeted by these proposals is Elon Musk, who hasn't held back on the subject.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Here to tell us more is Daily Wire's Ian Howarth.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Ian, bring us up to speed on the latest with Elon Musk.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Well, no one can ever say Elon Musk's Twitter feed is a boring place. On Saturday, Elon Musk, who is the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, and according to Forbes, has a net worth of over $300 billion, tweeted out to his 62 million followers a poll asking whether he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock.
--:-- Ian Howarth: He wrote, quote, Much is made lately of unrealized gains being a means of tax avoidance. So I propose selling 10% of my Tesla stock. Do you support this?
--:-- Ian Howarth: And the results were fairly unsurprising. Over 3.5 million people voted, over 57% were in favor of Musk selling his stock, which would amount to over $1 billion.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Yeah, I guess that's not surprising.
--:-- Ian Howarth: So do we expect Musk to follow through here?
--:-- Ian Howarth: He did say on Saturday that he abide by the results of the poll whichever way it went.
--:-- Ian Howarth: He also added a note which brings us back to the wider debate over the taxation of unrealized gains.
--:-- Ian Howarth: It said, quote, I do not take a cash salary or bonus from anywhere. I only have stock. Thus, the only way for me to pay taxes personally is to sell stock.
--:-- Ian Howarth: But Musk has been less subtle, particularly when it comes to his ongoing feud with Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, who's pushing for unrealized capital gains to be taxed.
--:-- Ian Howarth: A few weeks ago, Musk wrote that eventually they ran out of other people's money and then they come for you.
--:-- Ian Howarth: But in another unsurprising but really important change, Tesla's stock fell by 5% on Monday morning after the markets opened.
--:-- Ian Howarth: And many people have pointed to this one case as an example of yet another consequence of taxing unrealized capital gains, both in terms of people selling the stock and also those whose savings might suffer as a result.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Interesting.
--:-- Ian Howarth: So there's been some reports that Musk is already facing a big tax bill with some saying that that might actually be the reason he's selling the stock now.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Is that correct?
--:-- Ian Howarth: Yeah. So CNBC reported that Musk might have a $15 billion tax bill coming up in the next few months because of his stock options, which they said made a stock sale likely regardless.
--:-- Ian Howarth: OK. But the debate here isn't really why Elon Musk is selling stock. It's whether taxing unrealized wealth, which isn't liquid, is constitutional or even moral in the first place.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Right. Let alone the fact that, as I just mentioned, the impact of sudden stock sales to pay for such a tax would impact the market in ways that anyone with a 401k would feel.
--:-- Ian Howarth: The claim being pushed by those who support this form of taxation is that people are escaping taxation by not realizing their gains.
--:-- Ian Howarth: For example, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen made this exact argument.
--:-- Ian Howarth: But it would help get at capital gains, which are an extraordinarily large part of the incomes of the wealthiest individuals.
--:-- Ian Howarth: And right now, escape taxation until they're realized and often they're unrealized.
--:-- Ian Howarth: But this was Elon Musk's point. Unrealized gains aren't income until they're realized. Capital gains are also already taxed.
--:-- Ian Howarth: And as just the news of the upcoming stock sale showed us, forcing stockholders to sell stock to pay tax on the unrealized gain of that stock only makes the value of that stock go down, which impacts each and every stockholder in the short term and potentially the long term too.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Lots of important questions about taxation being highlighted here by Musk.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Yeah, there certainly are.
--:-- Ian Howarth: We'll see what he does next.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for the update, Ian.
--:-- Ian Howarth: Thanks for having me.
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--:-- John Bickley: Another story we're tracking this week. A new survey from the National Republican Congressional Committee found that approximately two-thirds of American adults oppose the Biden administration plan to compensate illegal immigrants with $450,000 for, quote, psychological trauma related to being separated from family at the border.
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--:-- John Bickley: 72% of swing voters oppose the plan, whereas 29% of voters overall support the plan.
--:-- John Bickley: The proposal is included in the Biden administration's administration's signature $1.7 trillion Build Back Better Act.
--:-- John Bickley: If you like this episode and are interested in hearing more, subscribe to Morning Wire on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening, and give us a five-star review.
--:-- John Bickley: That's all the time we've got this morning.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for waking up with us.
--:-- John Bickley: We'll be back tomorrow with the news you need to know.
--:-- John Bickley: If you like this podcast, subscribe to our Morning Wire newsletter, available exclusively to Daily Wire members.
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