and don kalway, democratic strategist, a member of the advisory board for the national voter protection fund, protection action fund forgive me and also ceo and founder of pine street strategies, a d.c.-based lobbying firm. well, good evening and welcome to all of you. we re especially grateful for you spending a few minutes with us on this holiday monday night. congressman, i would like to start with you. republicans aren t letting up. there is every reason to believe these efforts are going to become more aggressive as we approach the midterms and certainly the next general in 24. how do you remain optimistic it s more or less the mission statement of your new organization? yeah. look, in terms of the legislation we re seeing work its way through republican legislatures in states across the country, a lot of these matters will end up in federal court where hopefully they will
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has rejected accusations that she had lobbied for the insolvent tech company Wirecard.
Merkel was summoned by a parliamentary investigation committee in Berlin after allegations that she had spoken up for Wirecard during a trip to China in 2019.
But the German Chancellor defended her comments and said the company had received no special treatment.
Merkel said Wirecard s aim of entering the Chinese market overlapped with the best interests of the German economy.
The financial services company later collapsed in an accounting scandal in June 2020, less than a year after Merkel s visit to China.
Wirecard filed for bankruptcy after admitting that €1.9 billion euros supposedly held in trust accounts in the Philippines probably didn t exist.
misusing the assets of that foundation, basically operating that charity as a fraud, as another fraud. just this week, a few tdays ago president trump had to pay $2 million as a settlement in that case. so the trump foundation hasn t fared well. it s gone now. pam bondi, on the other hand, has landed on her feet. she was recently brought to the white house to be a lawyer on the president s impeachment defense team. in order to take that role, though, and this is awkward, she had to resign from a lobbying firm she d been working at, a firm called ballard partners. if that sounds at all familiar to you, it s because you might have seen headlines about ballard partners being one of the entities that has subpoenaed in federal court in new york parallel to the impeachment proceedings on capitol hill. this is a criminal case in the southern district of new york that involves igor fruman and lev parnas. they took part in the scheme for which president trump will be impeached working with rudy
district of new york now with multiple felonies, and according to the new york times, this lobbying firm that pam bondi worked at until like five minutes ago, ballard partners, they have been subpoenaed in that case in part because they paid thousands of dollars to lev parnas for some sort of business deal that appears to have coincided with the impeachment scheme. of all the lobbying firms pam bondi could have possibly worked for, that s the one? the firm she has to leave in order to work on trump s impeachment defense just got subpoenaed for information about a time in which she had been working there in a criminal case related to the impeachment scandal? i mean, that s very awkward for her to be involved in the president s defense given that, not nearly as awkward, though, as this picture of lev parnas with pam bondi with their arms around each other. he of course is the defendant, one of the defendants in that criminal case related to the impeachment scheme, and there s his one
federal court in new york basically parallel to the impeachment proceedings on capitol hill. this is criminal case in the southern district of new york that involves igor fruman and lev parnas. they took part in a scheme for which president trump will be impeached, working with rudy giuliani. they are charged in the southern district of new york now with multiple felonies. and according to the new york times, this lobbying firm that pam bondy worked at until like five minutes ago, ballard partners, they ve been subpoenaed in part because they paid thousands of dollars to lev parnas in some sort of business deal that seems to have coincided with the impeachment scheme. of all the firms she could have worked for, that s the one? the firm she has to leave in order to work on trump s impeachment defense just got subpoenaed for information about a time she had been working there in a criminal case related to impeachment scandal. i mean, that s very awkward for her to be involved in the pr