The second part of the Narek Karapetyan and Robert Amesterdm interview by Carlson Tucker was devoted to Robert Amsterdam. This part was 90 minutes long. After watching Narek Karapetyan’s interview (see part 1/2 of this blog post), I wondered. What was its purpose? After watching Robert Amesterdam interview, not only did I wonder what the purpose, but I also scratched my head to understand the purpose of his interview for Armenia on the popular Carlson Tucker show. I have attached Robert Amsterdam's interview’s transcript in its entirety below. I have also highlighted the many issues discussed and posted them too. Interested readers may decipher the purpose of this interview and form their opinion. Vaհe H Apelian
The main points of Robert Amsterdam’s interview:
CHRISTIANITY AND THE STATE DEPARTMENT
THE STATE DEPARTMENT’S INSTRUMENTALIZATION OF RELIGION
A JEWISH LAWYER’S DEFENSE OF CHRISTIANS
TORTURE AND THEFT OF CHURCHES IN UKRAINE
CENSORSHIP AND DISINFORMATION
THE FEW VOICES SPEAKING OUT
THE SILENCE OF CHRISTIAN LEADERS AND MEDIA
MEDIA’S BLIND LOYALTY TO ZELENSKY
THE COLLAPSE OF EUROPEAN LEADERSHIP
THE ROOT CAUSES OF POLITICAL DECAY
TRUMP’S FOREIGN POLICY IMPACT
THE TRUTH ABOUT NIGERIA
THE FAILURE OF SANCTIONS POLICY
THE FUTURE OF IRAQ AND AMERICAN PRIORITIES
SELECTIVE OUTRAGE OVER CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION
THE NIGERIA SITUATION
THE PERSECUTION OF SAMVEL KARAPETYAN IN ARMENIA
EXCLUSION FROM RELIGIOUS FREEDOM EVENTS
PERSONAL RISKS AND CONSEQUENCES
THE CRISIS OF LIBERAL DEMOCRACY
BOB AMSTERDAM ON CHRISTIANITY AND THE STATE DEPARTMENT
TUCKER CARLSON: Bob Amsterdam, as always, one of the people that I talk to most off camera about what is happening to the Christian population of the world. It’s kind of amazing. Thank you for doing this. So the situation in Armenia, the government of Armenia persecuting the church. How is this happening without more international comment?
BOB AMSTERDAM: Look, Tucker, as you and I have discussed, I do not understand the evangelical movement, the Christian movement in the United States. One thing I want to say, and I won’t make many friends by saying it, in the United States, Christianity has been subsumed by the State Department. The US Government decides what Christians we support and what Christians we don’t.
So in Armenia, there is going to be a prayer breakfast. And I want you to understand there’s going to be a prayer breakfast while my client, Samvel Karapetyan is in jail. Archbishops have been jailed, clerics have been jailed. The leader of the country is trying to split the church by going to services of a defrocked priest, a man who has said he is going to remove the leader of the church.
This man is being feted by American Christians in Yerevan, Armenia. A man who calls clerics prostitutes, a man who uses language that at my advanced age, I’ve never heard a leader use against leaders of the church. And yet, shockingly, this prayer breakfast is going to go on. And I call it a reputation laundering breakfast. The US Government allows this to go on.
TUCKER CARLSON: And what connection is there between the U.S. State Department and the prayer breakfast?
BOB AMSTERDAM: Look, I can’t exactly tell you. I’m not privy to the arrangements, but as I’ve seen in representing the Ukrainian church, the prayer breakfast and religious freedom all seem to follow a script outlined by the State Department. And there’s a lot of pressure from the administration on peace in terms of Armenia and Azerbaijan, which of course, all of us welcome.
But it’s happened at a tremendous cost to the people of Armenia. There’s tremendous cultural and church relics that are being lost and defiled. There’s 120,000 who have been cleansed from Azerbaijan and no thought has been given to this. We have 23 Christian hostages in Baku, and the prime minister of Armenia did not even speak of them when he was with President Trump. President Trump raised them.
I mean, it is shocking how Armenia has a prime minister who seems to resent his own history as an Armenian. They’ve taken Mount Ararat off stamps. They don’t talk about the genocide. They attack the church. The leader of the country wants to remove and appoint the Catholicos.
Well, of course, he doesn’t understand what an apostolic Church is. To be an apostolic church, listen to this Jew tell you about apostolic churches. You have to have a connection to the first apostles, which means your election must be sanctified by bishops, by leaders of the church, not a political figure. He is shockingly ignorant of his own religion.
TUCKER CARLSON: It sounds like it’s not his religion. I mean, it sounds like he’s not a believer.
THE STATE DEPARTMENT’S INSTRUMENTALIZATION OF RELIGION
BOB AMSTERDAM: Well, I never will say that about someone. I agree. I don’t know him. But what I will tell you is our State Department has lost the meaning of faith. They have instrumentalized religion as a tool of foreign policy. Exactly what we accuse the Russians of doing, we have done it. Thank God our people don’t bless tanks the way Bishop Kirill did in Russia.
But this support of governments, and we’re seeing it in this prayer breakfast, traveling to a country like Armenia with top leaders of the Christian religion in particular, and doing all of this while we have clerics. And I have a client in jail. I feel very personal about this because I was able to defend this client in an Armenian court.
I want to thank the Armenian bar for allowing me to actually speak in defense of the client directly with an interpreter. I was able to deal with the court myself and I thought effectively portray the absolute farce that this trial was and that these charges were with respect to Samvel Karapetyan, who is an absolutely, unbelievably principled Christian who is now sitting in his fifth month in jail innocent of everything other than praising God. And that’s why he’s in jail.
TUCKER CARLSON: I know I’ve asked you this before, maybe not as pointedly as I will now, but how did this fall to you? How did you, I think, grew up pretty liberal or left wing Jewish guy, wind up being like the world’s, one of the world’s foremost defenders of persecuted Christians. Like, how did that happen?
A JEWISH LAWYER’S DEFENSE OF CHRISTIANS
BOB AMSTERDAM: Well, firstly, as a Jew, I am an inclusive person. If somebody has faith in God, almost any God, I respect that. I feel the same way. And I was raised by a family that was deeply impacted by the Holocaust. I have traveled all my life. I have sought refuge during riots or whatnot, whether it be in churches or mosques.
I just never feel proprietary and feel that all men of faith have a commonality to it. I’ve been involved with the Orthodox Church since I was a young man. We did a case against the Soviet Union, which a colleague of mine, Reg McLean, did most of the work on. But Dean Peroff and I were young lawyers together and he was a member of the Macedonian Bulgarian Orthodox Church.
And I took on that case 45 years ago trying to fight a Soviet attempt at taking control of a church. And since that time, I’ve always had an interest in these issues. And when, as you know, I was approached by the Ukrainian church and now by Karapetyan in the Armenian church context, it just seems very natural as a Jew to defend children of Christ.
TUCKER CARLSON: So it’s just an amazing story. Thank you, by the way, for doing it. So what is the latest? You have been the defender of the church in Ukraine, the Orthodox Church in Ukraine, which is under almost unbelievable persecution by the government with the help of the United States. Where are we now?
TORTURE AND THEFT OF CHURCHES IN UKRAINE
BOB AMSTERDAM: You know, I want to be very clear, Tucker, when you say persecution, that doesn’t sum it up. I’m talking about torture. I’m talking about the theft of churches. I’m talking about…
TUCKER CARLSON: This is not just, we’re cutting off funding. No, no, it’s not going to torture you.
BOB AMSTERDAM: I have pictures, I have videos. There’s a trial going on in England where the Ukrainians are trying to ship back a former member of Parliament of Ukraine whose crime was to speak out for the church. On the day they passed this horrendous bill to ban the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, a bill that I would say has no comparison in Europe since the Nuremberg Laws.
When they passed this bill to ban this church, this man had the courage to stand up in the Rada, in their parliament, to denounce it. For that, Zelensky and Yermak pulled his security, knowing that his statements would be highly controversial and perhaps deadly. He realized that there was basically a death warrant. He fled the country on foot through a forest, made it to the UK.
Within 14 days of arrival in the UK they were trying to extradite him back to Ukraine because for some hooliganism charge. And, you know, fortunate for him, I knew him. I knew when I had met him in Ukraine, when I had been there, that he had evidence of torture. We’re now taking that evidence of torture to the courts.
Ukraine is a one party, one person autocratic state that has no comparison to any democratic values. Rather, today is a mirror of the old Soviet Union. The man in charge of religious affairs is an apparatchik who wrote an anti-Jewish screed 20 years ago. He’s the head of Religious Affairs. And by the way, sorry to laugh.
TUCKER CARLSON: This is so crazy.
BOB AMSTERDAM: By the way, hold on, let me go a step closer. Crazier. He was a keynote speaker at the Religious Freedom Conference held in Washington. What?
TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.
BOB AMSTERDAM: His name is Yelensky. He was a keynote speaker. This is a man who spends his life trying to destroy the Orthodox Church and transfer it into what is essentially the OCU, a state church. He’s a keynote speaker at a Religious Freedom Conference in Washington where there is a happy hour sponsored by the Ukrainian government, where there are men in Ukrainian army uniforms walking around.
TUCKER CARLSON: This happened in Washington D.C.?
BOB AMSTERDAM: Yes, a number of times. And this is all going on while I, on behalf of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, we can’t get an interview in any press in the United States. Censorship exists in this country.
TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.
CENSORSHIP AND DISINFORMATION
BOB AMSTERDAM: And when we got any coverage, it wasn’t to cover the outrage in Ukraine, it was to taint me as some form of Russian agent, a guy who was arrested by Putin, whose friends were murdered by Putin. I am tainted as some Russian agent for speaking out against this criminalization of Christianity that’s going on in Ukraine. And by the way, supported by pastors who are very close to the White House and I don’t fault them.
TUCKER CARLSON: Wait, it’s supported by American pastors?
BOB AMSTERDAM: Yes. They don’t know. I mean, essentially the Ukrainians are masters of disinformation, absolute masters. They have their own sort of captive cells of religious leaders who are told essentially, “Look, we have black PR against you. If you don’t follow what’s going on and you don’t support us, we’ll take you down.”
I mean, the former president of Ukraine is under indictment for treason. Novinsky, who you’ve interviewed, under indictment for treason. They’ve done nothing treasonous. They just represent alternative areas of independent thinking. In Novinsky’s case, a religious man who supported the church, but they have sanctioned him, they have tried to destroy him.
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And of course they are within a hair’s breadth of taking down the church, a thousand year old church, destroying it, taking the priests out of it, removing all the churches, transferring it to the state church of the OCU, which essentially is a cutout of the presidential administration. This is, it’s hard to…
TUCKER CARLSON: So we first spoke about maybe two years ago. Yes, and I was shocked by what you said at the time, which is the government of Zelensky is trying to eliminate traditional Christianity, the traditional church of Ukraine. And I thought, boy, you know, when people find out about this, because whatever you think of Zelensky or Putin, certainly Putin, you can hate Putin and still be appalled by this.
Of course I thought, wow, it’s going to stop like that once people know. But it just kept accelerating and I still haven’t heard a single, I’m sure there have been, but I haven’t heard any American Christian leaders say anything about this. Look, what is that?
THE FEW VOICES SPEAKING OUT
BOB AMSTERDAM: I will tell you that J.D. Vance, when he was a senator and no one frankly knew him from Oshkosh, gave a statement in the Senate for which I thank him every day in my prayers that has kept… I think it’s one of the key things. I think you, J.D. Vance, and there are two young members of The Young Republicans.
Catherine Whitford, who is a co-chair of the National Young Republicans and is Orthodox, is actually leading a day of action and she has a colleague as well who is leading this. Those young people have been along with our Vice President now the only sources of support we’ve had.
TUCKER CARLSON: What about Franklin Graham?
BOB AMSTERDAM: He is speaking in Yerevan.
TUCKER CARLSON: What does that mean?
BOB AMSTERDAM: He is the keynote at the prayer breakfast in Yerevan, Armenia.
TUCKER CARLSON: With the Prime Minister who’s putting clergy in jail.
BOB AMSTERDAM: Yes.
TUCKER CARLSON: How does that work?
BOB AMSTERDAM: Listen, I am, it may surprise you to know I am not working in evangelical circles. I have no idea.
TUCKER CARLSON: I’m not either. But I’m very sympathetic to the, you know, to evangelical people, great people. And I’m not against Franklin Graham, but just shocked that Franklin Graham would…
BOB AMSTERDAM: I don’t know, you know, having certainly being aware of him. I have no idea if he knows. I think because our government has decided, as has the EU frankly, that they are going to go with the SOB they know. I think the silence of the government is something that everybody takes as permission. And I’m sure Franklin Graham is not aware that…
TUCKER CARLSON: I mean you would think. And I don’t focus on Franklin Graham. I’m sure he’s a nice person or I really don’t know what he’s like, but I’m not against him. But has he said anything about what Zelensky is doing to the church in Ukraine that you’re aware of?
THE SILENCE OF CHRISTIAN LEADERS AND MEDIA
BOB AMSTERDAM: No, no, no. I honestly am in shock at the silence of the media in the United States and the silence of the Christian community to what’s happened. I mean thanks to Candy Stroud who you and I both know, great person. I’ve been on radio everywhere I can.
But you know, the Ukrainian effort in Washington and with media is masterful. They have their own people in key media who continue to write puffy articles about them. Never a criticism. The first time it ever came up that I saw was the protests over corruption a few weeks ago which led people here to scratch their head and say, “Well Christ, if Zelensky is so clean, how could he be trying to wipe out the anti-corruption independence?”
And that was an eye opener to some. But in the UK we wrote to the government to say why aren’t you doing something about the church? And they wrote back and said everything’s great, everything’s great, everything’s great. I mean the UK government is more hardline about Ukraine than Ukraine. The reaction of Europeans, understand Germany is imploding because of this war.
TUCKER CARLSON: I know it was obvious that it would four years ago. It was obvious the second it started saying, this is going to destroy Germany, which is really the economy of Europe.
BOB AMSTERDAM: And let’s say something else. It’s going to radicalize Germany.
TUCKER CARLSON: Well, that is, that is deep, and that is scary. That is what’s coming, of course.
BOB AMSTERDAM: And as a Jew, that is a very scary thing to witness.
TUCKER CARLSON: But it’s inevitable. It’s going to radicalize all of Europe. I mean, how could it not?
BOB AMSTERDAM: Yeah, and I will say to you that the behavior of the press has been the most disappointing to me because I’ve worked with the press. When I was fighting Putin in the early 2000s on behalf of one of his key opponents, I had the press with me, and we would do interviews. It was constant.
But now that St. Zelensky is starting to show a few cracks in the visage, there’s still nothing about this ongoing torture and use of secret police to destroy a church. Nothing.
MEDIA’S BLIND LOYALTY TO ZELENSKY
TUCKER CARLSON: What is that exactly? Like, why? Most Americans, including certainly most reporters, most people in the media, had never heard of Zelensky until this war started.
BOB AMSTERDAM: They know it.
TUCKER CARLSON: They couldn’t identify him. And immediately after it started, the loyalty to him blinded them to his faults, induced them to lie to the public in America about what was happening. I mean, they just became shills for Zelensky in, like, one day.
BOB AMSTERDAM: Why?
TUCKER CARLSON: What is that?
BOB AMSTERDAM: What’s interesting, because we did a study, we looked at media in the United States because one of the things that’s frightening about the churches that are being taken in Ukraine is that very often the people who take them and beat up parishioners and break the heads of priests, those people have swastikas on their arms.
TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, I noticed.
The Media’s Selective Coverage of Ukraine
BOB AMSTERDAM: So we found out that the New York Times and other papers had been profiling the rise of the right in Ukraine right up until the war. Now the Azov Battalion, which is basically a neo-Nazi battalion, has almost taken over command and control in the Ukraine. And this is an ultra-nationalist government right now that is pushing a very radical line, but no one is covering it.
TUCKER CARLSON: But do you have any guesses as to, and I should say you’ve been in and out of that region for over 50 years. You know it well. You know a lot. I mean, I could go on about your background, but I would just ask viewers to look you up or to take my word for it, you know what you’re talking about and what you’re saying is true.
But why would the media, again, do that? Why are they defending actual Nazis? Like what? That’s how deep their commitment is to Zelensky. So what is that? What does that commitment, where does it come from?
BOB AMSTERDAM: Well, you know, it’s funny because Zelensky made all his money in Russia.
TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, I know.
BOB AMSTERDAM: And yet he’s in charge of a government that’s debasing any guarantees of language rights for Russian speakers inside Ukraine. And the sanctification of him relates in my mind to two things. One, we have a total breakdown in elite politics in Europe and to some extent, in the United States.
TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.
BOB AMSTERDAM: And secondly, you know, I stopped playing the market when I was 21, but I certainly remember making a bet and watching it crash and then think, I’ve got to double down to lower my cost in. Exactly. And I think that’s what’s kind of happened here.
TUCKER CARLSON: I understand the first one. I mean, the second one, I think you’re exactly right. Like, I was all in from the beginning. I can’t get out now.
BOB AMSTERDAM: Yes.
TUCKER CARLSON: Double down. And I sort of understand what you mean about the degradation of elite politics, but can you put a finer point on that?
THE COLLAPSE OF EUROPEAN LEADERSHIP
BOB AMSTERDAM: Well, you know, look at the UK. I mean, I love the UK.
TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.
BOB AMSTERDAM: We have a government that is wildly incompetent. They even know they’re incompetent. We’re going to have a budget that’s going to destroy what’s left of the middle class. Look at France. Complete chaos right now. Complete loss of direction. Italy struggling, struggling. But with Meloni, there’s some sort of strength there.
But many of the other countries, of course, Spain. Spain is, now, you may not be aware, I’m fighting Spain in a big way against their tax administration. We just outed in a press conference last week the fact that Spain is using Huawei computers to store tax information for Americans.
TUCKER CARLSON: Not really.
BOB AMSTERDAM: Yes. And not only are they doing that, but they have this discriminatory policy towards Americans. They have 50,000 Americans. They have hundreds of thousands foreigners. They’re doing discriminatory tax audits and basically stealing the money from foreigners to try to subsidize a government that is the most corrupt government I’ve seen since Papa Duvalier.
I think something like 21 indictments. The Prime Minister’s wife, his brother, the General prosecutor. I mean, what’s going on in Spain is unexplored territory in the United States, and people don’t seem to have any interest in it.
TUCKER CARLSON: This is a vacation spot.
BOB AMSTERDAM: And the king is flying to China because Sanchez is all in with China, of course, and Venezuela. So it’s astounding. And the rule of law is under such attack there that the EU is quietly sending a commission to investigate in January because everybody in Europe knows rule of law is dead in Spain. So it’s frightening what’s going on there. And this is what I mean about the sort of calcification of the ruling elite.
THE ROOT CAUSES OF POLITICAL DECAY
TUCKER CARLSON: But what is that? Is that just a, now I’m asking you, I’m luring you into philosophy, but I’m very interested and I agree with everything you said. It’s observable, it’s provable, but where does it come from? Is it a natural cycle or is it something else?
BOB AMSTERDAM: You know, the cost of being a politician are so high, the reputational costs are so high. And the materialistic nature of all of us now, the loss of ideology, the loss of principles, the loss of faith, this leads to a loss in terms of the quality of people entering politics.
TUCKER CARLSON: That’s right.
BOB AMSTERDAM: And you have a chaotic world situation which, you know, there’s a lot of fear, and it leads to a completely transactional foreign policy. And more and more states are engaging in this transactional policies as opposed to following any form of ideological policy.
TUCKER CARLSON: So it sounds like a part of a cycle then, just as politics becomes less productive, therefore more reviled by the population. These are supposedly democratic countries, or not really, but they still have the skin suit and people are mad at the political class. So that means that only the worst people join the political class.
BOB AMSTERDAM: Right. And yet fascinating. What I’m seeing in watching the Orthodox community, the Christian Orthodox community and the Jewish community. The Jewish community as a result of this horrible growth of anti-Semitism, the Orthodox community, as a result of the woke nature of many Christian churches, is that those who are fundamental in their faith are growing. Orthodox Christianity is growing at a massive rate. Oh yeah, massive.
TUCKER CARLSON: I’m sure Orthodox Judaism is too.
BOB AMSTERDAM: Yeah. Because people are clinging to real values.
TUCKER CARLSON: That’s right.
TRUMP’S FOREIGN POLICY IMPACT
BOB AMSTERDAM: And in Europe, you know, quite frankly, it’s very, very hard to find inspiration in the United States. We have a president, by the way, I think probably the most effective president in foreign affairs that we may have had since Nixon. I think he’s incredibly consequential in foreign affairs. On domestic policy, on legal issues, I think the rule of law is in trouble, but I won’t go into that.
TUCKER CARLSON: I’ve noticed.
BOB AMSTERDAM: No, I agree, but foreign policy wise, he’s moved incredible mountains. And I’m not just talking about the recent activities with the hostages. I’m talking about as a lawyer engaged in Africa, the man has done more to open up our eyes to the opportunities in parts of Africa. He’s made it much less risky to go into Africa.
As an American in Africa over the last decades, you don’t know how frustrating it is when the Department of Justice opens up investigations the minute American companies want to venture into Africa or into Latin America. And now that’s not happening. And now American companies are going into some of the Wild West countries in Africa, Latin America, and I say more power to them. Why would we just hand this to China?
TUCKER CARLSON: So Congo most obviously.
BOB AMSTERDAM: But others, yes.
THE TRUTH ABOUT NIGERIA
TUCKER CARLSON: Speaking of African countries, all of a sudden, I’m not defending Nigeria. I don’t have strong views in Nigeria, but Nigeria has become famous in the last week as a country in which there’s Christian persecution going on. I think that’s been, there’s been a lot of conflict between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria for, you know, my whole life. But all of a sudden, it’s a kind of centerpiece of the conversation. How did, what is the truth? You’ve been in and out of Nigeria for how long?
BOB AMSTERDAM: 50 years.
TUCKER CARLSON: 50 years. 1975. Is that correct? Yes. It’s a long time. So you know Nigeria pretty well.
BOB AMSTERDAM: I do.
TUCKER CARLSON: What is the truth about what’s going on? Well, I ask because you’ve got credibility, you know the country and you’re spending the rest of your life defending Christians around the world. Tell me what the actual truth of Christian persecution in Nigeria is.
BOB AMSTERDAM: Let’s be very clear that the Nigerian government is populated by Christians and Muslims. I have represented in his earlier life the national security adviser of Nigeria when he was a young man. And he’s a lovely individual and caring and universally respected in terms of religious issues. Devout Muslim, but universally respected.
In my adopted family in Lagos, the Odesanya family sort of adopted me when I was a very, very young man and living there. I sort of have a half brother there, Dapo Odesanya. That family is a totally integrated family. Muslim Christian. I was always teased that I was a Jeruba, which is a Jewish Yoruba, but I mean, there have always been tribal conflict.
I spoke to the foreign minister before I came here because I wanted to get clarity on the government’s position. Absolutely. Let’s be clear. President Tinubu’s wife is a Christian pastor. This is not targeted at Christians. There are probably an equal or more number of Muslim deaths.
I am grateful to President Trump for identifying these attacks on Christians. Believe it or not, you can blame some of this on the French who had this…
TUCKER CARLSON: I know nothing about it, but I believe you anyway.
BOB AMSTERDAM: They had a massive force in the Sahel. They armed the Tuaregs, which are a notoriously aggressive tribal group that has, that arming has led to mass killings of Christians. The fact that when Libya blew apart, a massive amount of arms went down to Boko Haram can’t be denied by anyone.
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Nigeria wants to consult with the United States. Nigeria wants assistance in protecting Christians and Muslims, protecting their populations. Nigeria feels it has not had a fair shake from Washington. And I’m not, you know, I don’t work for Nigeria. I’m not going to go on and on. The foreign minister is a close friend who I respect deeply.
But I can tell you from my work, I was privileged to represent one of the Nigerian states years ago, Akwa Ibom. We won a case, actually, for them. The Nigerians would welcome American assistance with open arms. So this is unlike Ukraine, which is destroying its church, or Armenia, which is destroying its church. Here you have a government that wants to protect its populace, doesn’t have the resources.
Nobody’s going to deny Nigeria’s been racked by corruption all the years I’ve known it. But they want a new deal, a new relationship with Washington, and in part to assist them in protecting Christians. So when I read some of what I’ve been reading, you know, I’m never going to say that Ted Cruz isn’t a brilliant man, but I’m going to say I might have a little more time in Nigeria than he does.
And I would welcome him to speak to the foreign minister or others. Because one thing America doesn’t need are more enemies. Africa is the future. I have said it time and time again. I’m privileged to be counsel to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
You know, my firm has spent many years. We’ve just, we’re still trying to defend the opposition leader of Tanzania, who, Tundu Lissu, who’s been illegally jailed. A thousand are dead protesting completely bogus fraudulent elections. And to the credit of the United States, at least in the Senate, they’ve spoken out. Foreign Relations Committee has spoken out.
We need our administration and we certainly need the EU to stop funding this grotesque government in Tanzania. But we have to stop looking at Africa as a security concern alone. And we have to recognize that between their minerals and between the entrepreneurial spirit, Nigerian lawyers are as good or better than American lawyers or British lawyers.
I mean, there is an incredible infrastructure of intelligence in Nigeria that we don’t know anything about. All we try to do is sanction and condemn. It is a horrible, horrible part of our policy that we sanction the hell out of everybody. We are responsible for the consolidation of power in Moscow under Putin. We were sanctioning the hell out of all these people who had moved to Europe. Who knows whether Putin would still be in power.
THE FAILURE OF SANCTIONS POLICY
TUCKER CARLSON: Exactly. No, it’s, that’s the truth. I know it’s so counterproductive that it’s got to be part of some sort of larger strategy that I’m too dumb to understand because it’s achieving the opposite of the attendant result.
BOB AMSTERDAM: And let me tell you, I’m working in Iraq against Iranian interests. We have a woman, Sarah Saleem, who is an American citizen, bravely, incredibly bravely defending her interests and those of the Kurdish in the north. And, you know, the Kurds are going to have an election soon.
She’s defending their interests against a wildly corrupt chief justice named Zeidan, who is actually an instrument of Iran. And there have been a complete reversal of her fortunes before the courts because of corruption against a group called the Hanna Brothers.
And when we’ve gone to the US Embassy for help, this is an American citizen who, by the way, was kidnapped and tortured 10 years ago and has been fighting for her redemption and for compensation against Al Maliki and Zeidan and others. Our embassy pledges neutrality. Does not help this brave American citizen.
TUCKER CARLSON: How can they not help an American?
THE FUTURE OF IRAQ AND AMERICAN PRIORITIES
BOB AMSTERDAM: Listen, we cannot understand it, especially in a moment where the future of Iraq, which is massively important to the United States, is at risk. I mean, there’s an election coming up in Iraq as well, and the oil wealth of that country is almost unimaginable.
And the issue is whether the Iraqi militia will disarm, whether in fact, the government that we not only have spent billions to support, but we lost almost 5,000 lives. Whether that government will be a government somewhat free of the corruption and control of Iran.
And our government’s been impotent. There’s a few people in Congress who have spoken out and blessed them for doing that, but very few people have paid Iraq any thought at all. And yet we over concentrate on Ukraine to the exclusion of almost everything else.
SELECTIVE OUTRAGE OVER CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION
TUCKER CARLSON: So Ted Cruz is upset about what’s happening in Nigeria to Christians. I’m not against him being upset about that. You say it’s much more complicated than he’s presenting. Probably more tribal than religious. I don’t know much about it, but how much has Ted Cruz said about the US funded destruction of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church?
BOB AMSTERDAM: Nothing. Nothing at all.
TUCKER CARLSON: Nothing?
BOB AMSTERDAM: Nothing.
TUCKER CARLSON: I mean, how can that be?
BOB AMSTERDAM: Listen, Tucker, nobody. I mean, the Washington Post did a hit piece on me. A woman I knew quite well did a terrible hit piece, tried to present me as a Russian agent. That was their focus. There was no issue about what’s happening to the church. None at all.
And the funny thing, by the way, is we are not trying to change American policy. Where you and I disagree is I’ve always been totally supportive of Ukraine from a military standpoint because my clients are in the front line. Members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church are fighting and dying for Ukraine.
TUCKER CARLSON: Right.
BOB AMSTERDAM: And you know, I don’t know if you remember last time I met you, I showed you a video that we had done of some young men in the army speaking out for the church. Well, one of those young men has just died fighting Russia.
And his comment in that video was to the President, “How do you want me to fight when my own church, I can’t defend my own church in my town?”
And Arseni here is a bishop. One of my lawyers went to the jail in the war zone to meet Bishop Arseni. He has been in jail 17 months. He has no stomach. He is horribly ill. He is a monk. He is a bishop. He has spent his years devoted to a cathedral.
What happens is, we think after 17 months they’re going to release this poor man in his 60s, possibly to die. They get him out for a moment and the secret police arrest him again on the trumped up charge that he resisted the Russian invasion. He didn’t resist the Russian invasion. Some completely bogus charge and he is incarcerated again. It’s a level of cruelty and torture I cannot express to you.
TUCKER CARLSON: And Cruz has said nothing about it? Really, no one said anything about it, but Cruz specifically. But he’s all of a sudden kind of out of nowhere, deeply concerned about the plight of Christians in Nigeria, which I want to restate, maybe a totally valid concern. I don’t know. But that’s weird.
What is that all of a sudden everybody’s concerned about people who clearly have no track record of being interested in Christians at all, including Ted Cruz. What is going on? Where is this coming from?
THE NIGERIA SITUATION
BOB AMSTERDAM: Well, in fact, what’s interesting is they’re calling it a genocide and a genocide under international legal terms requires an intent. And certainly it’s a very strange scenario where you have a government richly populated by Christians and accusing them of some form of genocide.
TUCKER CARLSON: The president, whose wife’s a Christian pastor. So, but I mean, one thing I do understand is coordinated propaganda. And this is coordinated propaganda. What I mean is it…
BOB AMSTERDAM: Look, you know, I can tell you that the Nigerians have no idea where this is coming from. They’ve wanted Washington’s attention since the beginning of the Trump administration. There are 230 million Nigerians who long for a strong relationship with the United States, who are being cultivated by Russia, cultivated by China, but want to work with America.
And we ignore them until we condemn them for a genocide that is absolutely not a genocide. Yes, I support President Trump’s interest in helping out Christians everywhere. But let’s be fair to a government who is working to try to protect Christians and doesn’t have the resources.
TUCKER CARLSON: Right. This is clearly, now, I’ll just say it out loud, it’s an effort to draw the attention of faithful Christians in the United States away from long standing persecution that we have studiously ignored in Ukraine and in other parts of the world. That is, I mean, it’s obvious to me what’s going on. Does that sound crazy?
BOB AMSTERDAM: No, no, because I don’t have another way to explain it.
THE PERSECUTION OF SAMVEL KARAPETYAN IN ARMENIA
And one other thing I want to mention on your show is that we have this new white paper on Armenia called “Pashinyan and the Persecution of Samvel Karapetyan.” And it’s available online at freekarapetyan.com and please download it and you will see, it’s 60 or so pages, but it provides the entire history of the persecution.
But you know, as you discovered the Armenian genocide, from there till now, Armenia has been a brave Christian country in a terrible, terrible neighborhood. And you know, having been in their court, having been in the jail, having met with Karapetyan, I am at a complete loss about the fact that I know they think that they’re going to have this prayer breakfast.
I believe one of the Trump children is going to Armenia. I’m sure Donald Trump Jr. again has no idea of what’s actually going on there. It’s a terrible situation where because you can’t get into the media to tell them the truth, so many senior people in the United States operate on ignorance and reputation launder people like Pashinyan.
TUCKER CARLSON: Well, I’ve been an unwitting participant in that phenomenon myself. So I know, like you don’t really know what’s going on. You get used. I’ve been used. I deeply regret it, not going to happen to me again if I can help it. But I’m sympathetic in general to that because, again, I’ve experienced it.
But the Ukraine thing is, anyone who wants to know about what’s happening to the church in Ukraine can find out. Like, that’s not a secret. Now, are there prayer breakfasts for Ukraine?
BOB AMSTERDAM: Yes, actually. Yes.
TUCKER CARLSON: Does anyone ever bring this up?
BOB AMSTERDAM: Our church is not invited to the prayer breakfast. We’re not invited.
TUCKER CARLSON: The biggest church in Ukraine is not invited to the prayer breakfast for Ukraine?
EXCLUSION FROM RELIGIOUS FREEDOM EVENTS
BOB AMSTERDAM: In Ukraine? No, they’re not invited. As you’re aware, when I fought to get into the Religious Freedom Conference last time, we had to fight to get a table to put information on. Then when I wanted to speak, they loaded a panel with five or six other people and I got about two minutes to speak while the man who is in charge of the destruction of the church was a keynote before a large audience.
TUCKER CARLSON: Who organized this?
BOB AMSTERDAM: This is the International Religious Freedom Caucus, I think. And I got a call from Sam Brownback to say, “If you do speak, could you be civil?” And I said, “Well, you don’t know me, Mr. Brownback, but I don’t have any record of incivility. You know, that’s not in my nature. I just want an opportunity to speak out for the people of this church.”
TUCKER CARLSON: Sam Brownback, former senator from Kansas?
BOB AMSTERDAM: Yes, he was running this.
TUCKER CARLSON: I think he was involved. I have no idea.
But I mean, did he speak out against the destruction of the largest church in Ukraine at a religious freedom event?
BOB AMSTERDAM: Nobody did. And let me go further.
TUCKER CARLSON: That is so bonkers to me. Like, I can hardly even believe what you’re saying.
BOB AMSTERDAM: Well, wait a second. What’s worse is they brought army folks. People were in Ukrainian army uniforms walking with OCU priests, that state church priests through the halls of this religious freedom breakfast or, I’m sorry, religious freedom convention or conference. And they had a happy hour, a happy hour sponsored by Ukraine that is absolutely crazy.
TUCKER CARLSON: Are they going to do this for China too?
BOB AMSTERDAM: A Uyghur happy hour.
TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, exactly. Celebrating religious freedom in China. It’s all…
PERSONAL RISKS AND CONSEQUENCES
Okay, last question, which I do think kind of sums it up. You’ve been in and out of Ukraine a lot. You’ve got, of course, a huge Ukrainian client. Can you go to Ukraine?
BOB AMSTERDAM: No.
TUCKER CARLSON: Why?
BOB AMSTERDAM: I’m under criminal investigation in Ukraine.
TUCKER CARLSON: For what?
BOB AMSTERDAM: I don’t know. I just know they’ve announced that I’m under investigation. But again, it’s no idea. It’s like with Karapetyan, you know, they try to find something to get you on and they invent stuff, as you know.
So it’s really, I’m very tempted to go and I may go again, but I have no idea if I go, if I’ll get out. And to some extent it’s a bit like that with Armenia, because in Armenia they’ve just arrested not only bishops, but now they’ve arrested three mayors who spoke out and who weren’t helpful, as well as the family of the patriarch, the catholicos, the brother and some other relative on again, completely trumped up charges.
TUCKER CARLSON: It feels like we’re moving very quickly to just kind of global repression. It seems like liberal democracy has been so discredited, no one’s defending it and it’s dying before our eyes. That’s kind of the overview from everything you’ve said.
THE CRISIS OF LIBERAL DEMOCRACY
BOB AMSTERDAM: Look, the EU has lost its way. There’s no question. I think the EU is a tremendous danger if it doesn’t get its act together on fundamental values. You know, there’s this dialectic going on. Everybody is afraid of Russia. Completely afraid. Paralyzed.
I mean, a Russian drone crosses the border and we’re at DEFCON 1. Yet after, I don’t know, four plus years, Kiev isn’t taken. None. You know, I think there’s been a 1% change in territory.
So how can Europe be so completely in fear of Russia and yet at the same time instrumentalize that fear to destroy their economies, to maintain sanctions, to engage in wildly self destructive behavior and fail to maintain democratic values?
You saw them throw out a candidate in Romania. You saw what they’re trying to do in Germany. You see what’s happened in France. It is a continuous obliteration of rule of law. And we have got to start getting back to first principles with respect to rule of law everywhere or we will lose it completely everywhere.
TUCKER CARLSON: Bob Amsterdam. I swear I check the news regularly waiting for an account of your arrest. I hope it never comes. But you are taking actual physical risks on behalf of people who don’t have power. So I’m grateful to you for that.
BOB AMSTERDAM: Well, thank you for having me.
TUCKER CARLSON: Stay free.
BOB AMSTERDAM: Thank you.
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