HS 381 - The Geopolitical Landscape with Robert Amsterdam

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It's my pleasure to welcome Robert Amsterdam. He's a partner at Amsterdam and Partners. He specializes in geopolitics, international law, business rights, and really has a fascinating career having represented some of the biggest names and governments in the world. Robert, welcome. How are you?

Just fine, thanks for having me.

Good. Where are you located?

Right now, Washington, D.C. but we have offices in D.C. and London.

Yes, good stuff. Tell us about some of the big cases you've worked on and, you know, some of the fascinating involvement that you've had with the richest person in Russia, for example, and, you know, some, some of the very interesting stuff there.

Right now, we represent the Republic of Turkey with respect to the Gulen Organization. And the Gulen Organization is a cult that really has been established by a gentleman named Fethullah Gulen who is credited or discredited with attempting the coup in 2016 in Turkey. What's fascinating is that Mr. Gulen runs 200 charter schools in the United States, takes in almost a billion dollars annually, and imports teachers from Turkey who have to tithe a big proportion of their income back to him. And it's been almost impossible, even though we've published a 700 page book outlining the hundreds of scams of this organization, it's been almost impossible to get educators or administrators in the US to take notice. And it's been. Representing Turkey in this matter has been an education for me about really the incredible deterioration of, if you will, ethics in the US Because a lot of the reason this group isn't investigated is because they have a massive political donation operation.

Yeah. Well, what's new?

What's new for us is that we decided after we came out with this book called Empire of Deceit that we would follow the book up with another book outlining who's donating the money to which politicians so what we decided to do was not only expose the Gulen organization, but expose their political cover. So we think that two volume set will be quite interested in terms of understanding sort of how the US is run. And I guess one of the insights that I've gathered through this is that the Republican Party has become so ideological in its projection of charter schools that they literally have closed their ears and eyes to massive instances of corruption. It's quite frightening actually.

Pardon my very layman's view of this, but when that little sort of coup happened in, in Turkey a couple of years ago, I thought the good guys lost. That's the way it felt to me. It seemed like the more oppressive radical government won and the, you know, more democratic movement lost. Am I wrong about that?

Completely. And I think though it's a common perception in the United States.

Okay, so, so my perception is, is, is sort of mainstream, but it is an incorrect perception.

Well, firstly, the United States has to stop supporting coups. We can't pretend to be a democracy and yet if we think the good guys might win, we support it. When people take military and terrorist means into their own hands, well, the good.

Guys always become the bad guys 20 years later, of course.

But yeah, but here's the other story that's been missed, which is that nobody in Turkey supports Gulen. He is one of the most unpopular figures for all the parties in Turkey. And that's the embarrassing thing of looking at it from the US because in fact there was nobody in Turkey supporting Gulen other than his cult followers. All the political parties banded against Gulen continue to because he has victimized all of the parties. He is actually a very radical Islamist in sheep's clothing, a wild eyed anti Semite who pretends to be pro Israel. I mean, it's a. He is a very scary human being and it's a very scary organization.

More so than the existing regime, though, let's be clear.

The existing government is actually democratically elected. And whether you like it or not. And I think again, this is something Americans need to understand. It's up to the people in these countries to determine the right and the wrong. I mean, we're supporting a government in Egypt through general scisi that has God murdered massive numbers of their opponents, jailed thousands of others. Yeah, and we've decided we look the other way.

Yeah, I know, I know. Well, and look at Saudi Arabia too. You know, I mean there's lots of examples of course, but.

Yeah, exactly. So in our situation under President Erdogan in Turkey, the average life expectancy of somebody has gone up five years in Turkey. The country's economy, outside of some setbacks in the last few years, has grown astronomically. The legal system has changed and opened until recently to the state of emergency because so many of the judges turned out to be followers of Mr. Gulen. So there's really a very different reality than one might see on the ground.

Yeah. Okay, interesting. So how, how big is Gulen's movement in Turkey? I mean, how many people are in the quote unquote cult?

We don't know. We think it could easily be up to a million or 2 million.

Wow, that's. That's big. And the charter schools in the U.S. i mean, that seems sort of like a. Unrelated. I mean, how did he get involved in that?

Well, there's a lot of questions as to whether he was supported by organizations here because to have 200 schools make the kind of money he's making by importing unqualified Turkish teachers is almost beyond the imagination to comprehend. It's very difficult to logically explain how this imam with a fourth grade education, who doesn't speak English, with any fluency, has managed to establish an organization like this, leading many in Turkey to believe that he is backed by the CIA, which is part of the reason that there's such a low relationship between Americans Turks right now. You know, that's a huge problem.

Interesting stuff.

What about Russia?

Talk to us a little bit about your involvement there and who you've represented and so forth. I'm looking at your blog now and I, I see some interesting articles.

We represented Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was at that point Russia's richest man, and we were assisting him on the international side, but then were moved to Moscow to get involved and work with his Russian domestic lawyers. That was truly an incredibly fascinating case because we got to see probably the seminal legal dispute in Russian history in the last 30 years firsthand. And it was also, it was really the moment when Putin became the Putin we know and fear today. You need to remember, in the early years of Putin, he was viewed as a democrat. Schroeder of Germany called him a dyed in the wool democrat. It was only when Yukos happened and they so wildly discarded rule of law and threw these very famous telegenic business leaders into jail and looked like they were going to throw away the key that people started to take a second look at Putin. And I'd been involved in Russia at that point for 40 years and was able to, I think, for Russians as well as foreigners, contextualize this attack on Khodorkovsky with respect to the broader arc of Russian history and point out how Khodorkovsky was being victimized in a way that was not all that different than how Soviet governments had gone after political opponents in the past.

How does your work and your knowledge fascinating involvement in so many parts of the world. How does it impact people in the west, you know, especially us?

Well, I think, to be frank, I mean, I've represented the former leader of Thailand and represented political prisoners and Venezuela, Guatemala and other countries. And I think I'm constantly surprised by the inability of Americans to understand why we are hated in so many parts of the world. And we're hated in many parts of the world because we have overthrown governments to a degree that is almost incomprehensible to understand.

Well, you know, Washington said avoid foreign entanglements, and we don't do that at all. We don't mind our own business. It's an empire. Yeah.

Let me tell you. We overthrew the government of Guatemala in 1954, a very progressive government. And that overthrow led to a civil war that cost a quarter million lives and has led to the massive domination by an oligarchic clique of Guatemalan society. We overthrew Allende in Chile. We overthrew in the early 50s, Mossadegh in Iran. We overthrew and we may have killed the leader of the Congo. In the early 1960s, we supported and virtually built the king of Thailand into a reactionary, anti communist force and built their army into something that has virtually destroyed civilian government, leading to 18 coups and the imprisonment of anybody who wants to construe themselves to be liberals. We invaded Panama, the Dominican. We had an intervention in the Dominican Republic. We invaded Granada. I mean, it's really an incredible story as to the behavior of the United States, not talking about what happened in Vietnam.

Sure.

And I think Americans just don't grasp that impression.

You know, we have our own news media, and the news media tells us what the, the corporatocracy wants us to hear. But, you know, is this. You know, I'm curious, Robert, like, if you sort of back up from this and look at the big picture, you have to. It's fair to ask a few questions. Number one, a question would be, okay, America does all these things, very imperialistic, but compared to what? You know, compared to. I mean, of course we have more power and influence and weight to throw around, military and otherwise. But other countries, they engage in all this crap too. Right. It's not just the U.S. and then number two, before you answer, understand that I agree with you. Listen, I hired Ron Paul to speak at our last conference. I mean, you know, you'd probably get along great with him. You know, I agree that we just need to stop meddling so much because it just backfires every time. But is it strictly about greed and money and power, or is this just a bunch of unintended consequences? Maybe it's a cascade of unintended consequences that, you know, at the time, it seemed like a good idea. It seemed like we were going to help people, we were going to help ourselves, but ultimately turned into a disaster. I don't know.

It's. No, no, look, I mean, you look at what we've done in the Middle east, which is through our invasion of Iraq, we have empowered Iran, through our engagement with Israel, we are alienating the entire Arab world. No, we need to fundamentally restructure our government in terms of getting back into government, people with real expertise. We've lost so much of that. The collective IQ of our government, it's been going down dramatically. And in the 1950s, to be frank, so many of these overthrows took place in the context of a cold war, which alienated us from many emerging countries. And we need to find constructive ways to re. Engage. We really need to engage in a fundamental rethink of our foreign policy, contextualizing what we've done in the past and providing a path for America in the future. And one of the key things, as a lawyer, I can tell you, is that we have criminalized our foreign policy. We have so overdone the use of the criminal law power to try to control events with the US Dollars, the reserve currency, and our ability to act as policemen of the world, that it's going to backfire. One of the ways it may backfire, by the way, is all of these cyber currencies that are being developed where a lot of the ability of the US to sanction may go out the window and where it's clear Russia and China are working desperately to establish new economic fiscal systems which can avoid the power of US Sanctions and mitigate the power of the US Dollar as a reserve currency. And the more we legislate extrajudicially, the quicker that day will come. And I think that we are way too prone to legislate and to act outside of the United States extraterritorially. And I did not agree with much of Obama's foreign policy, but I think trying to understand that we have to have limits to how we can legislate around the world and engage in more consensual discussions with our friends and allies in Latin America and Africa is absolutely key. Because the fcpa, for instance, which is often used as a sword against foreign companies, there's a tremendous discriminatory aspect to it. These things need to change or it's only going to result, in my view, over time, in a reduction in America's soft power. And we're seeing it already. There was an article, I think, in the Sunday Washington Post about how American firms are starting to kowtow to China. And part of that's because, to some extent, we've lost a lot of power. And as much as we've lost power, we've lost vision. You know, making America great and putting America first is a slogan that is out of touch with where a 21st century society really needs to be. And whether or not you are pro Trump or anti Trump, it lacks a vision. And in a global economy, putting yourself above everybody else, even if that's the ultimate goal, doesn't sell very well.

So what do you mean we've criminalized our foreign policy? Do you mean it's criminal what we do or.

No, what I mean is we've established so many laws to attack those who we view as enemies. For instance, we're going to sanction God knows how many more Russians in a few days. We are going to. Our FCPA is basically targeted at activities that go on outside of the United States, not only involving American companies, but involving massive numbers of foreign companies.

Tell us what, what the RFCPA is. Not everybody knows that. Can you explain that?

The foreign corrupt practices.

Right, like you can't give bribes to foreign officials and so forth.

Right, exactly. Yeah.

Okay, right. But I always try to ask myself, compared to what? I mean, we do that right on our own shores. I mean, we've criminalized everything in this country. It's like, you know, Alex Jones would say prison Planet. Yeah, it's terrible. I agree.

It's a terrible problem because I'll tell you, not only have we done that, but we're seizing people's assets before trial.

Oh, yeah, we're insane.

We're empowering prosecutors to have life or death control over individuals with respect to the charging process. I mean, you can be innocent in this country and be crucified before you get ever near court.

I've talked a lot about this on my shows. I interviewed the author of Three Felonies a Day. And, you know, they've just criminalized everything. And especially, Robert, if you own your own business, if you Own your own business. You are most certainly a criminal no matter what. You might be the most theoretically law abiding system. When I was growing up, my mom used to say ignorance of the law is no excuse. But. But everybody is ignorant of the law. When you have so many laws. These laws are so obscure and obtuse, sometimes they make no sense. And John Stossel, he's been on the show, he's done, he's done shows on this. It's crazy. Yeah.

One of the first things we should do is disentitle prosecutors from seeking political office because the prosecutorial decisions in this.

Country are made to further one's career.

Yeah, exactly. And it is terrible to witness. So.

So we make it like the Supreme Court or what do you, what do you.

We set up prosecution schools. We set up people who understand that their, their duty is to the rule of law, not to themselves. We get rid of the star prosecutor syndrome and depoliticize the courts and you know, quite frankly have a lot more control on who donates money to which judges and the judicial system and the, the ability now to freeze assets and seize assets without evidence that's going on is just absolutely shocking.

Yeah, well, that came a lot further under Obama, didn't it?

Absolutely. Absolutely. No question. And so when I'm talking rule of law, comparatively, I think our standards in the US fall far below that of Canada, somewhat below that of the uk. When I give speeches, I call the United States the fourth world because it is incredibly tough if you're litigated against in this country.

The fourth one, not insured.

What did you call the fourth world?

The fourth world. Not the third world. The fourth world. Okay, got it.

Because you're in this, this legal no man's land. So often when you're involved in litigation.

And is that civil litigation or the government attacking someone?

It's both. I mean, I think that we've made civil litigation in prohibitively expensive.

Oh yeah, it's absurd.

And the criminal litigation the government has, I think contrary to people's understanding, the government. The government continues to have massive power through prosecutors to abuse discretion.

Oh yeah. And they have an unlimited budget.

That's right.

And all the time in the world. Yeah, yeah, it's exactly. It's quite scary. It really is. But compared to what? You know, I mean, compared to Canada and Europe, you're probably better off. But compared to a lot of countries, you're better off here, right?

Well, you know, yes and no. I mean, I. One of the things people hire me to do is Help them litigate in foreign countries. Zambia, Kenya, Nigeria. And surprisingly, that's not a clear. Yes. There are a lot of countries where you probably get an easier shake in the courts than you might necessarily get here and far less money. So we've lost our status in terms of rule of law to some extent. And that's. That is extremely worrying.

The psychology always lags the reality. And, you know, the psychology is. And a lot of this is done through the media, through television shows like, you know, I've been binge watching Criminal Minds. Right. And, you know, it all always seems like the government, they're always such good people. You know, the people at the FBI are good, moral, ethical people that always do the right thing when they arrest people. They always read them their Miranda rights. And, you know, it just seems like the government is always the hero. You know, it's just the way it's portrayed. And certainly the US has this great legacy of this stuff. But the reality has changed, and I'm glad there are people like you helping the world see that, because it's just not what the heritage was, is it?

No. And I think it's really a tremendous problem that often goes unspoken. And I think that, you know, in reality, it's a strange thing to say, but in watching the sweeping, even though I disagree with a lot of the tax cut, in watching the government actually make some significant changes in that area, it would be wonderful if we could get a government who would try to make the same kinds of changes, sweeping changes to law enforcement and the judiciary, where we keep our constitutional protections, but in fact, enrich them. And I think that's long overdue. But again, with technology, a lot of this may change.

Yeah, hopefully it will. Hopefully there will be something like a cryptocurrency or like my idea, freecourt.com that will change this stuff. But there's really no incentive for it to change now, is there? I want to ask you to give out your website, of course, But I got another question for you before you go. I know we've got to wrap it up. How has the legal industry, if you will, system or industry, whichever way you want to answer that, how has it changed since you got in the business? You've been doing this a long time, and what kind of changes have you seen?

Wow. It's almost. Almost too much to describe. I mean, I think one of the biggest changes is cultural. Law firms today often don't focus on developing a firm culture, and I think that's a tragedy. I think part of being a lawyer, part of the honor and privilege of being a lawyer. And I practice in foreign countries, but part of that has always been working with your colleagues, developing that culture. And right now, so many lawyers are much more employees, they're much more fluid, they're much less engaged in the cultural issues of the firm. And I think to some extent, the economic challenges, you know, so many of us are making less than we made 10, 15 years ago, and our status isn't what it was 10 or 15 years ago. And I think that's also a tragedy in that we've had a grinding down of morality, a grinding down of professionalism. That's very sad. And I think that's been accelerated by the Trump presidency and what that's meant towards the deinstitutionalization of a lot of key Democratic protections.

Yeah, but I mean, come on, let's be fair to the, you know, Trump. I mean, this was happening for decades. I mean, Americans have.

Oh, no, no, we can't. We can't.

Right.

We can't just blame Trump. What I'm saying is Trump is just an acceleration of this process.

Yeah, yeah. Well, he certainly may be such a.

Pornographic acceleration, and maybe there'll be some reaction.

Yeah, yeah. But Americans haven't had a raise in a real. In real dollars. They haven't had a raise in decades. I mean, it's. It's terrible. You know, certainly morality has been going out the window. If I had to pick, I'd say a large part of it was the music that changed the world. And I think 1990 was kind of this apex where, you know, you started with, like, the Seattle grunge movement, you know, some of this really caustic music that came along. But everybody thinks that. Look at the older people. Oh, they thought that about Elvis and the Beatles and everything else. Right. But I don't know, man, it seems like 1990 was. Might have been.

I mean, that's a very. I will tell you, that's a unique perspective. I've never heard, and I'm not qualified in musicology.

Me neither. I'm just an observer. But, you know, MTV changed the world. There's no question about it. It's, you know, and one of the Rothschilds said, let me control the money, and I care not who makes the laws. I would expand on that and say, let me control the music, and I care not who makes the money or the laws, because music is a big deal. It changes cultures. So anyway, you know, we could go down the weeds in that, but, hey, Robert, give out your website.

It's www.amsterdamandpartners.com. and the website on the Turkish book is www.empireofdeceit.com.

And by the way, your book, at least the volume one of that book on Amazon is selling for like $76. Now. That's like a collector's item, isn't is?

But you can download it for free off the Internet, so no problem there.

Good stuff. Well, Robert, keep doing what you do. And thank you so much for such an interesting conversation today. Really appreciate having you, as do I.

Thank you so much. Bye bye.

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