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The Current Transcript for February 5, 2019

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Our main feature is that we make it easy to get funds into the system, as well as get funds out of the system. So we comply with all of the regulations, but we don't go out of our way to impose ridiculous requirements on our customers when they're not warranted.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Famous last words. You just heard the man who was co-founder of what was Canada's largest cryptocurrency exchange, QuadrigaCX. Past tense, both him and the exchange because the man Gerald Cotten is dead and with him went the passwords or security keys for tens of millions of dollars worth of other people's cryptocurrencies. And now there's a mad scramble to try to figure out those passwords and a lot of musing over whether Gerald Cotten really is dead. And those ridiculous requirements he just mentioned, well you want to bet more than one cryptocurrency investor would have liked them to be in place today. In an hour, we are on a story full of mystery and inaccessible money. But before we get there, we'll hear from a man who revels in in your face politics.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Let me be clear, Donald Trump was not my first choice to be president. I was.

AMT: Chris Christie, former New Jersey governor, one time Republican presidential candidate, ended up endorsing Donald Trump for president. He says Mr. Trump was surrounded by amateurs, the grifters, weaklings, convicted and unconvicted felons, but he still likes Trump, even gives him advice that is often ignored. Chris Christie joins me in half an hour. But we're starting with the push for change for Venezuela.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Change is happening now in Venezuela. Canada, the Lima Group and all of our international partners president today, affrim our commitment to the people of Venezuela.

AMT: From Venezuela to China, Chrystia Freeland, as Foreign Affairs Minister, is taking on some of the biggest and most disruptive issues of our time. She's joining me to talk about it. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

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Dropping tariffs on U.S. steel would be 'rotten negotiating strategy': Chrystia Freeland

Guests: Chrystia Freeland

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Today, Canada is stepping up and announcing $53 million to address the most pressing needs of Venezuelans on the ground, including the almost 3 million refugees.

VOICE 2: We are indeed calling on the military of Venezuela, as we call on all Venezuelans and as we call on all governments of the world to recognize Juan Guaido as interim president of Venezuela.

AMT: Well Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and then Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland speaking in Ottawa yesterday, as Canada hosted an emergency meeting of the so-called Lima Group. It includes Canada and 12 Latin American and Caribbean neighbors of Venezuela. The group is seeking a peaceful end to the presidency of Nicolas Maduro, following years of economic and humanitarian turmoil. It is not the kind of crisis a middle power such as Canada wades into every day, but then these days are not business as usual in global diplomacy. Just look at the tensions with China and the ongoing trade issues with the US. Foreign Affairs minister, Chrystia Freeland, is in the middle of all of it and she joins me from our Ottawa studio. Hello.

CHRYSTIA FREELAND: Good morning, Anna Maria. How are you?

AMT: I'm well. Thank you very much. Chrystia Freeland, Canada has taken an extraordinary position in the Venezuela case. Why Venezuela, why now?

CF: Well I guess I would start by saying it's not just now. Canada has been active in the Lima Group since it was first created and that was August 2017. The meeting that we hosted in a while yesterday was the 10th ministerial level meeting of the Lima Group and since August 2017, we, the members of the Lima Group have been working extremely closely together at the officials level. We have gotten to know each other very well and we have closely coordinated our policy on Venezuela and we've been working very closely with the opposition in Venezuela and with multilateral institutions. You know an important step in the Venezuela situation was in September, when Canada together with some of our partners in the Lima Group, referred the situation in Venezuela to the International Criminal Court. So I think it's very you know, for people who are not following the issue closely, it may look as if it's just sort of suddenly erupted, but in fact, Canada's work on Venezuela very much with our partners in our hemisphere, is something that has been going on for two years.

AMT: How instrumental was Canada in the timing that saw Mr. Guaido declare himself interim president?

CF: Mr. Guaido was instrumental in that timing and the people of Venezuela were instrumental in that timing. What Canada and the Lima Group did and this was absolutely the right thing to do, is we acted very quickly to recognize Juan Guaido as interim president Venezuela. And it's important to emphasize as interim president, whose job now is to lead Venezuela back to democracy through fair free and open elections. And I think it's also important just to underline for Canadians, where the legitimacy of Juan Guaido comes from and why Canada and the Lima Group and now actually, as of yesterday, 38 countries around the world have recognized Juan Guaido as interim president. These countries include our closest our allies, partners, like minded countries, countries like Germany, France, the U.K., Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain. So we're in very good company. We did act very quickly because as members of the Lima Group, as partners in our hemisphere, we're very close to this situation and legitimacy of Juan Guaido as interim president comes from the National Assembly, which he leads.

AMT: The opposition led, yes.

CF: Well it's not not just that the National Assembly is opposition led Anna Maria. That's not the key point. The key point about it is the National Assembly today in Venezuela is the sole remaining democratically elected institution and that is why that is the institution which has democratic legitimacy. And that is why Juan Guaido, as the leader of the National Assembly, has been recognized by so many countries as the interim president of Venezuela.

AMT: You know how polarized Venezuelan-Canadians are on this. Did you second guess yourself at all on this?

CF: No.

AMT: OK. President Trump has pointedly not ruled out military intervention if Mr. Maduro does not step aside. That has triggered some historical fears. How helpful do you think the American response has been?

CF: Well you know Anna Maria, I try to stick to speaking to what Canada's position is and we did discuss in the Lima Group meeting yesterday, at some length, the issue of what sort of a transition did we think was the right one for Venezuela. And part of the Lima Group communique, which we published yesterday, addresses that. I have it with me. And what we said is that we, the Lima Group, reiterate our support for a process of peaceful transition through political and diplomatic means without the use of force. That is very explicit and Canada's position very much is this is a process that needs to be owned by the people of Venezuela. Outside military force is not appropriate.

AMT: Does the Lima Group have a plan if Mr. Maduro digs in and uses his military supporters to fight this?

CF: Look, as I said, I think that we need to be very clear about what the role of the Lima Group here is and what the role of the people of Venezuela is. This is a process that needs to be and in fact is being led by the people of Venezuela. It is led by Juan Guaido, as interim president, and leader of the National Assembly. It is led by the brave Venezuelans who are coming out and speaking in support of him and standing up in support of him.

AMT: Fair enough, but do you have a plan should Mr. Maduro dig in?

CF: I think the plan is to continue to support Juan Guaido as interim president of Venezuela and to continue our pressure on the Maduro regime and that is something again, which Canada has been doing for some time. We have imposed Magnitsky legislation sanctions on the leaders of the Maduro regime. That is something important and we did speak in the Lima Group about how now is the time for other countries to step up that pressure on the Maduro regime. The other thing which we talked about, which I think and that is something which we've also been discussing with our European partners who were also present at the meeting as friends of the Lima Group yesterday, the other thing which we discussed which is very urgent and the prime minister made a big announcement about yesterday is the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela is really, really acute. At least three million Venezuelans have fled the country as refugees and we talked about ways of getting humanitarian support to the people of Venezuela and that's something where Lima Group members, who are neighbors of Venezuela, talked about ways that a humanitarian corridor might be created. That's something really urgent. People don't have enough food. People do not have medicine and that's something that we want to work on too.

AMT: I want to ask about China and the tensions between our two countries since the arrest at the request of U.S. Justice Department of Huawei's Meng Wanzhou in December. More than one former diplomat has said Canada-China relations are at their lowest point in decades. How do you fix that?

CF: Well look I absolutely agree that this is a difficult moment in Canada's relationship with China and we are very clear with China, with the world, that the detention of Michael Kovrig, of Michael Spavor are arbitrary and that they need to be released. Also in the case of a Canadian Robert Schellenberg, who as you know, has now been sentenced to death. Canada is asking for clemency. We oppose the use of the death penalty every where. So these are important cases for us and we are going to continue pushing and working on those cases. What is important for us is to be clear with China, to be clear with Canadians and to be clear with the world that when it comes down to Ms. Meng, Canada is a rule of law country and in acting in accordance with our extradition treaty with the United States. We were strictly following our international treaty commitments and our justice system, which Ms. Meng now has full access to, as you know she is now released on bail, is absolutely fair. It is absolutely impartial and that's how it ought to be at this stage. Can I just say one more quick thing about the China case and sorry to have offered such a long introduction, but as you know, it's complicated. The other thing which is really significant in this situation with China and which is really welcome is the extent to which our partners around the world have taken the really unusual step of publicly speaking out in support of Canada and in support of the detained Canadians and there is now a really long list of countries that have come out and said Canada is a rule of law country, these detentions are arbitrary and these Canadians need to be released. And you know it's a list that includes Germany, France, the U.K. and we had the NATO secretary general last week speaking out too.

AMT: Yeah, I saw that, but Canada is caught between two superpowers. How do you find a way forward that doesn't alienate one of them?

CF: Well I think we have to stick to our principles and our principles here are, we follow the rule of law and that is the way that we have to behave. And that is going to be what we continue to do going forward. I do think that it is important when it comes to talking to China about this situation, to make very clear because we have very different systems, to make very clear to China that the detention of Ms. Meng was not a political decision by Canada. There was, as there ought not to be, there was no political interference. This was a purely criminal justice and policing matter. And I do think the Chinese are now seeing in the treatment that Ms. Meng is getting in our criminal justice system, that it is absolutely fair and impartial. And I think the comments by the CEO of Huawei who, as her father is understandably concerned, really reflected that and he talked recently about the confidence he has in Canada's criminal justice system and of the kindness with which his daughter had been treated.

AMT: Let's talk about Huawei. What are you going to do with Huawei. The company's entrenched in research and several universities are already working with Bell and Telus. There's pressure from the Five Eye countries to not be involved with Huawei. What will the government of Canada do?

CF: I don't think you expect me to announce that right now,. Anna Maria. That is of course it's a big issue. It's something which is being studied and looked at very closely by officials, by Canadian experts, very much including security experts. It is, it's a bit you're quite right that it is a big and complicated decision and Canadian experts are looking at it very closely and they will share their findings with the government and then the government will take a decision. That decision has not yet been taken. What I will also say, which I think is important, is this is a decision which as we work towards finding the necessary information to make it, it's a decision where we are consulting very closely with our partners. That very much includes our partners in the Five Eyes, but also other European partners, countries like Germany, they are grappling with the same difficult issues

AMT: And what do you say to Canadians who are concerned about the economic fallout from this?

CF: From the relationship with China?

AMT: Yes and the uncertainty over Huawei.

CF: Well I say to Canadians, we live in a really complicated world right now and what we need to do as a country is navigate that world carefully, thoughtfully and in a principled way. And I mentioned the part about the principled way because I think that is really an essential compass for Canada. As you pointed out at the beginning, we are a middle power. We're not a small country, I think we sometimes think of ourselves as smaller than we actually are. We're the 10th largest economy in the world, but we're also not a superpower. And this is a moment of turbulence in the world. It's a moment when that rules-based international order that was established after the Second World War is facing greater challenges than it has at any time since it was set up. And so Canada, as a middle power, we need to be working really, really hard to maintain that rules based international order and to build coalitions of like-minded countries who are going to work to maintain that order. That's something that we're doing in the Lima group. That's something that we've done bringing together these countries to support us when it comes to China and these detentions and we do that because it's the right thing to do, but we also do that because Canada as a middle power is going to get the best, you know we're going to have a fighting chance in the world when it is a world of rules. If we let it become a law of the jungle kind of world, that is not a good world for Canada.

AMT: Well let's talk about some more rules. I'm going to move on to trade. I know you worked very hard for the new US-Mexico-Canada agreement. There is still a trade dispute with the U.S. over steel and aluminum. The Ontario and Quebec governments want Canada to lift retaliatory tariffs first, so that the U.S. would drop theirs. Is that a possibility? Will you do that?

CF: Absolutely not. And I think that is a rotten negotiating strategy. You know, unilateral surrender tends not to produce great results. It was the right thing for us last July to impose retaliatory tariffs when the US imposed these illegal and unjustified tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum. It was important for Canada to respond and we did. Right now, what we are doing is continuing to pressure our American friends and partners to point out that these tariffs are illegal. They are unjustified. We are taking cases at the WTO and the NAFTA trbiunal. And I have to say, we are gaining American allies on this issue. People like Kevin Brady, who's the ranking Republican member of the Ways and Means Committee. People like Senator Chuck Grassley, who is now the chair of the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees trade. They have publicly come out in recent days and said they think that NAFTA should be ratified in the U.S., only with the full dropping of tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum. And I agree with them.

AMT: So you are going to stand strong on that one? Who you staring down, Mr. Trump or the trade secretary or both?

CF: You know, I really, Anna Maria, I don't see it that way. I see these tariffs as lose lose. And what I think that we're explaining to our American partners is it just doesn't make sense. I mean it is frankly absurd to see Canada as a national security threat. We have made that point from day one and I think what we're also saying now is look we have a deal now, when it comes to our trading relationship. There is no point to keep these tariffs in place. And I really believe that that is an argument that we are starting to win. We do need to hang tough and that is what we're going to do. I will be in Washington later this week and talking about the national security tariffs, the steel aluminum tariffs is very, very high on the agenda. And we are pointing out by the way, that the U.S. has no better national security partner. So you know, the very justification of these tariffs is specious.

AMT: Does all the stuff keep you up late at night?

CF: Yes.

AMT: Do you get to sleep?

CF: I do sleep. My husband tells me that I speak in full sentences in my sleep, sometimes about the matters that you are questioning me. So poor guy.

AMT: So before I let you go, let's just go back to Venezuela for a minute. Do you have any idea when there can be a free and fair election?

CF: Soon, I hope. I mean one of the things that was actually very positive and very encouraging of the meeting of the Lima Group yesterday was, we the Lima Group, agreed to welcome Venezuela, the representatives of the interim government of Venezuela to join our group. And that's a big moment because we've spent almost two years sort of talking about Venezuela and now we have Venezuela at the table. One of the things that I was very positively impressed by and encouraged by was the extent to which people in the interim government, who were here with us in Ottawa, have a really well-developed plan for what happens the day after in Venezuela. The day after the transition to democracy. So I was very, very encouraged. I think we have to keep up the pressure on Maduro. We have to continue our political support for Juan Guaido and we have to start focusing on the humanitarian situation and ways to help the poor people of Venezuela. It's a really, really tough time. Chrystia Freeland, we have to leave it there. Thank you for taking the time today.

CF: OK, not at all. I could have talked for much longer. It was a very interesting conversation for me, Anna Maria.

AMT: Good to talk you. Thank you so much.

CF: OK.

AMT: Bye bye. Chrystia Freeland, Canada's Foreign Affairs minister, joined us from Ottawa. Let us know what you think of what she had to say about all of those issues. Find us on Facebook. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. And stay with us, Chris Christie is next. This is The Current.

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Chris Christie warned Trump not to 'poke the bear' by attacking Mueller investigation

Guests: Chris Christie

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Coming up, Gerard Cotten's sudden death at the age of 30, has locked the doors of Canada's largest cryptocurrency exchange and 115,000 people want to know how to get their money. We're looking at that and the story of what we can learn about dementia through the portraits of an artist. But first, a surprising endorsement.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: There is no one who is better prepared to provide America with the strong leadership that it needs, both at home and around the world, than Donald Trump. He is looking at the five people on the stage last night, the clear standout and the person who will do exactly what needs to be done to make America a leader around the world again. He'll provide strong unequivocal leadership. He will do what needs to be done to protect the American people, first and foremost, both in the home way and in creating jobs for this country and he will make sure that people around the world know that America keeps its word again. Donald Trump is someone who when he makes a promise, he keeps it.

AMT: Well that was Chris Christie throwing his support behind Donald Trump for US president in 2016, after throwing in the towel on his own presidential campaign aspirations. At one time Mr. Christie appeared to have the inside track to the White House, climbing from a crime-busting federal prosecutor, to the high profile governor of New Jersey, to become a rising star among the Republican elite. But like everyone else in the Republican field, not to mention Democrat Hillary Clinton, Chris Christie's presidential aspirations came to a humiliating end at the hands of Donald Trump. Chris Christie details the many highs and lows of his political career in his new book, Let Me Finish: Trump, the Kushners, Bannon, New Jersey and the Power of In-Your-Face Politics. Chris Christie joins us from New York City. Hello.

CHRIS CHRISTIE: Good morning, Anna Maria. How are you?

AMT: I'm well, thanks and thanks for joining us. How do you feel listening back to your endorsement of Donald Trump?

CC: Well you know I feel exactly the way I felt then, which was exactly what I said. Of the five people on that stage, I thought that Donald Trump was the one best prepared to be able to ride the leadership we needed to beat Hillary Clinton. And I think I was right then and I think I'm right now.

AMT: He's giving the State of the Union address tonight. What do you want to hear?

CC: Well you know I want to hear what he wants to do with his next two years. I want to hear what his plan is for what he wants to see happen in America economically and around the world for the next two years. I think he needs to lay his blueprint out now, begin to hit on his themes for why he wants to seek re-election. And I think all those things are things that need to start tonight and I do think that it would make some sense for him tonight to let the American people know that he realizes that this shutdown caused some pain and for that, he's very unhappy and won't let it happen again.

AMT: I want to talk to you about your relationship with him. You describe a meeting with Donald Trump's campaign CEO and White House chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, where Bannon tells you, you are no longer chairing the presidential transition team. What happened?

CC: It was quite shocking, Anna Maria, to tell you the truth. I mean I'd just run the second post-election transition meaning and I was asked to be seen by Steve Bannon in his office afterwards and it was a very abrupt meeting. He just said we've decided to make changes, I said OK, what change are we making? And he said you, he said you know we want you out of here, the vice president is now vice president-elect. He's now going to chair the transition committee and we don't want you around anymore. And you know I had at that time, a 14 year relationship with the president and I just was not going to accept that as just that abrupt and I wanted to know whose idea it was because I wanted to talk to whoever the person was, who's idea it was to do this. Assuming that it was the president-elect and he wouldn't tell me initially and when I told him that I was going to go down to talk to the press and tell them that it was all his idea and that he took complete credit for it that kind of brought him around a little bit. And he told me that in fact it was Jared Kushner and that Jared Kushner had been working for some time, as he put it, putting an axe to my head with Donald Trump. So that's what Steve told me and I have not heard a thing since then to disbelieve it.

AMT: He called Jared, the kid.

CC: He did.

AMT: You don't like Jared?

CC: You know what, I think the Jared hasn't acted in the best interest of the president and that bothers me. I never had any personal animus towards Jared because in the end, this was something that he was you know acting upon, based upon me having done my job, prosecuting his father 12 years earlier. I understand as a son why you know your dad going to jail would be a traumatic experience, but I think Jared focused too much on the prosecutor and too little on the criminal.

AMT: Tell us the story because you did prosecute. This was Charles Kushner, real estate mogul, big case that you prosecuted. What happened?

CC: Mr. Kushner was being investigated by our office for tax evasion and for violating federal election campaign laws by forging signatures of other people on campaign donations, so he could give more money. And we were investigating for that and it was a family-owned business. And so we were interviewing his family members. One of the family members we interviewed was his sister, Esther. Soon after we interviewed her, we wanted to put her in to the grand jury to give testimony, when apparently when Charles found that out, he went ahead and hired a prostitute who he sent after his brother-in-law, Esther's husband. The prostitute ultimately seduced you know her husband, they videotaped it with a private investigator and then right before she was going to testify again before the grand jury, the tape was sent to her house on the day of her son's engagement party in an attempt to intimidate her from cooperating any further.

AMT: So she blows the whistle.

CC: She comes to us and says listen, I know this is my brother. And I said to her, how could you know that this would be your brother? And she said Charles plays on people's weaknesses and she put her hand on her husband's shoulder, she said Billy has a weakness, Charlie played on it.

AMT: Does he ever have a weakness, the woman meets him in a diner and says oh can you give me a ride?

CC: Right, back to my hotel. And so you know, it was easy for us to figure it out. We had cell phone numbers from the day that this happened and we found out that the prostitute called the private investigator, who called Charles Kushner's personal security guy, who then called Charles Kushner right after his brother-in-law had left the hotel room. And so you know it was pretty easy to figure out that this was Charles's doing and that was a witness tampering charge that was added on to the 18 counts he pled guilty to of federal crimes.

AMT: How much time does he get?

CC: He got 24 months.

AMT: And how did that affect your relationship with Jared?

CC: Well I didn't know Jared. Right so, I mean Jared was a young man at that time. We're talking 12 years ago, so Jared was probably in his early 20s. I never met Jared. I didn't meet Jared until I endorsed Donald Trump for president. I knew that Jared had married Donald's daughter and I've obviously seen that from talking to Donald and also from reading the newspapers. But I had no relation with Jared, in fact Anna Maria, it may surprise your listeners to hear, I've never met Charles Kushner. I saw him in the court room when he was arraigned. I saw him in the courtroom when he pled guilty. I saw him in the courtroom when he was sentenced, but we've never had a word between the two of us.

AMT: So what do you make of what clearly, it's not solely you, it's other people writing and watching this, that Jared Kushner has always, since that time, he's been out to get you.

CC: You know I think it's said. I understand you know a son being upset about his father going to prison. What I don't understand is the unwillingness to acknowledge that your father pled guilty. It wasn't that he went to trial and he claimed his innocence and then was found guilty by a jury and you think it was an unjust verdict. He admitted to these crimes. He stood in court, was questioned extensively and specifically and admitted that he evaded federal taxes. Admitted that he violated federal election contribution limits. Admitted that he had engaged in that prostitute scheme to try to tamper with and influence a witness in a federal case, that witness being his sister. So I understand Jared being upset about his dad going to jail. I wouldn't want my dad to go to jail, no one would. But to blame the prosecutor, who was duty bound by oath, to bring the case that your father pled guilty to and then to wait for 12 years and exact a vendetta against him in the midst of a presidential campaign, it just seems to me you have your priorities out of place.

AMT: What does that tell you about because he's very involved in all sorts of White House business.

CC: That at times he doesn't exercise the best judgment.

AMT: I want to go back to when you were becoming U.S. Attorney for New Jersey. You were nominated for the job by President George W. Bush just before Al-Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center. What was September 11th, 2001 like for you?

CC: Well you're right. I had been nominated the day before by President Bush to be the U.S. attorney in New Jersey and then the next day, one of those airplanes flew out of the airport in Newark, New Jersey and you know execute on these terrorist attacks. Even more importantly in my life at that time Anna Maria, both my wife and my brother worked in downtown Manhattan. My wife, two blocks from the Trade Center, my brother on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. And so that day, I didn't hear from them for nearly five hours after the attacks occurred. And it was an incredibly, incredibly tense and worrisome time as you might imagine, given everything that was going on down in Lower Manhattan that day and finally, I got a phone call from both of them, asking for ways to get off the island in Manhattan and any ideas I had from watching the news, so they could try to get home. And that was an enormous relief to me, especially for me as a husband and a father because we had three young children on that day, you know on that date, they were eight and five and one. And the idea that I may have lost my wife on that day was traumatizing to me and having lost a number of friends that day you know that we subsequently found out you know it helped motivate me a great deal towards the work that I did as US Attorney in the aftermath of 9/11, both in terms of bringing additional terrorism prosecutions, but also towards reaching out to the Muslim-American community in our state in attempting to create a better relationship, so that things like this wouldn't happen in the future.

AMT: You prosecuted more than 130 public officials for corruption as US Attorney.

CC: We did and we focused on that. It was a big problem in New Jersey. We knew it was a big problem and we set a whole new tone inside the state for that and we were proud of the opportunity to have the chance to do that. And so when I ran for governor and won in 2009, I brought 29 former assistant United States attorneys, who had worked with me at the U.S. attorney's office with me, and put them in various places all throughout government, not only because of their ethics and their integrity, but also because they're very, very bright accomplished people who knew how I liked to lead and how I liked to have things done. And so we really kind of took Trenton by storm, with a whole new group of people who had not been in the main, involved in politics before in their life.

AMT: And given that reputation, there have been numerous reports of President Trump having business relations with people involved in organized crime. Did that give you any pause before throwing your support behind Donald Trump?

CC: No because I've never seen any concrete evidence of it and one of the things that I was trained to do as a prosecutor is not to act on what I think happened, but to act on what I could prove happened, beyond a reasonable doubt. And since I never saw any concrete evidence of it, it was not something that was front of mind to me.

AMT: And you didn't look into them?

CC: Well no, it was never, it was certainly nothing that ever came across my desk when I was U.S. attorney. That was something that would predominantly be handled either by the Southern District of New York or the Eastern District of New York where the overwhelming majority of his business interests were.

AMT: I want to ask you about Michael Flynn. You had a particularly fraught relationship with General Michael Flynn. He'd go on to become Donald Trump's first national security adviser. Why did you think something was off with him?

CC: I thought he was ill tempered. I thought his temperament was one of not, was one of someone who did not belong in the job, as nuanced and as difficult as national security adviser. I remember when we first went, I write in the book, about we went for our first intelligence briefing after Mr. Trump was the presumed nominee of the Republican Party, so it was prior to the convention, but he was already had it locked up. And they started to give him intelligence briefings and he was allowed to bring two people with him. So he asked if I would come and General Flynn and his conduct at that meeting was just wild. He was arguing with the briefers. He was demeaning them. He was asking questions just to show off for Trump and it just made no sense to me and it was that meeting that began to cement an impression that I'd already had, which was that he was a very good military officer, but he had no business being in politics. And his temperament was just ill suited for the things that he wanted to do and the then candidate was considering allowing him to do.

AMT: Flynn was the national security adviser for 24 days in the Trump administration. Knowing what you know now about his links to Russia and Turkey, did having him in that position put US security at risk?

CC: It very well could have and I'm sure if it did that Mr. Mueller will let us know that as part of his report. But I had, the last conversation I had with the president-elect prior to me being fired as transition chairman, was to implore him not to give national security adviser to Mike Flynn. President-elect said to me, well you just don't like him and I said you're right sir, I don't like him and the reason I don't is because he's going to get you in trouble. And it turned out that within a few months I turned out to be absolutely right.

AMT: You know as a law and order guy then, what do you think of President Trump and his supporters attacking the FBI in the special counsel's office for investigating links between President Trump, his campaign and Russia?

CC: I would separate the two. I think attacking the special counsel's office is wrong and I don't think that should ever be done, especially with Bob Mueller in charge of it. I think in my experience and I worked with Bob for seven years when I was U.S. attorney, he was the director of the FBI and I always found him to be a man of honesty and integrity and he is a trained prosecutor and I called a trained assassin. He knows how to get to the bottom of things and so I think attacking and calling it a witch hunt has not been helpful and I don't think that it's good for the president. I don't think it's good for the Justice Department. I don't think it's good for the country. Now on the FBI, there has been some conduct by the FBI, which has given a number of people pause during this, especially some of the text messaging and other conduct that was going on, surrounding the dossier and all the rest. I think that the president will be better served to be able to do that type of oversight of the FBI, through his new FBI director quietly and not as much in public, but I think as we've come to learn over these first two years, Donald Trump does everything in public. So I think he has some justification for his concern about the FBI, but I also think that he shouldn't be doing it in public and that his new FBI director, I'm confident he's doing a really good job.

AMT: You've told the president that, right?

CC: I have. I told him back in February of 17 that there was, in my experience, there was no way to make any of these investigations shorter, but there was a sure way to make it longer and that would be to be talking about it and tweeting about it. And as I put it, poking the bear. There's no reason to do it. I thought it was a mistake and I think this investigation has been made longer, at least in part by that conduct.

AMT: And how do you explain his warm relationship with Vladimir Putin?

CC: I think this is less about Vladimir Putin than it is about tough guys. I think if you look at it, he also has a warm relationship with President Xi. He's developing a warm relationship with Kim Jong-un. He has a good relationship with Erdogan in Turkey. I think that he.

AMT: He said nice things about Duterte as well, has he not?

CC: Listen and again, I don't think this is about Russia. People are trying to make it about Russia. I don't think it is. I think if you look consistently, folks around the world, who are in leadership positions that don't have a congress to answer to, is someone that he's particularly enamored with.

AMT: And does that give you pause?

CC: You know I mean it really doesn't because in the end I don't think it results in any actions or any conduct and I often have said to people that because the president does talk so much, that you need to not just listen to his words, but look at his actions and I think his actions have been significantly less concerning than some of the worst.

AMT: In July of 2016, you spoke at the Republican National Convention and you give a pretty fiery speech.

CC: I did.

AMT: I want to play a bit of what you said. Let's listen.

SOUNDCLIP

CC: She deleted in four years, the safety and security it took us to build in 40 years. The next yearm she said our goal, America's goal, was to strengthen Russia. Strengthen an adversary, led by a dictator, who dreams of reassembling the old Soviet empire? What an extraordinarily dangerous lack of judgment. So once again, we need to ask, as a flawed evaluator of dictators and failed strategists, who has permitted Russia back in as a major player in the Middle East, is Hillary Clinton, guilty or not guilty.

[Crowd shouts guilty]

AMT: Chris Christie, couldn't the same charges you made against Hillary Clinton be applied to Donald Trump now in how he's engaged with Vladimir Putin in Russia?

CC: No because his engage has been rhetorical, but the conduct that has been shown by the American government towards Russia, has been tough and we have taken tough steps and tough measures against Russian diplomats and against Russian businesses and I think that that's the difference in the point I was trying to make that with regard to Hillary Clinton was that they had taken concrete actions, hit this reset button with Russia, where they were turning back the policies of the Bush 43 administration, which I think were good policies and that her changes were destructive, just as I said in that speech. So I think the major difference there is I was critiquing Hillary Clinton's actions and in the question, you're critiquing Donald Trump's words, but the actions by this government, not only the executive branch, but the congressional branch, I think have been significantly tougher under Donald Trump than they were under Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

AMT: Even though the White House pushed to weaken the sanctions that were brought in?

CC: Right, but then in the end, he signed it. I mean listen, you know a president can negotiate with congress over any number of things about how he would like to make them look. The ultimate test of a president is if they put a bill on his desk that isn't exactly what he wanted, does he sign it or doesn't he? And in this instance the president signed and it became the law of the United States. So he gets credit for making the ultimate decision, even if he disagreed with some of the aspects of the legislation, he decided on balance, that it was more important to sign it than it would be to veto it. And I think he was right, but I think he also deserves credit for that even if he argued against certain aspects of it.

AMT: You say in your book that Donald Trump was surrounded by amateurs and grifters, weaklings, convicted and unconvicted felons. Why would you want to connect yourself to a presidency that has those kinds of people working for it?

CC: Because I want to make it better. Listen, we have one president at a time. And the fact is I have a 17 year relationship with him and we do talk all the time and I do give him advice and he does listen. Not every time because he's the president, he gets to make his own judgments, but he does listen. I don't think you walk away from it because you disagree with some of the personnel choices the president's made. I was very clear at the time that I disagreed with him and I was obviously very clear in the book that I disagreed with him just from the passage you read and there's more of that in greater detail about individuals. But in the end, I really believe that when we have one president at a time, you try to make that president as best as you can. And let's face it, I did this with Barack Obama as well. He asked me to be on his trade commission and I worked with Barack Obama to develop a trade policy, as part of his trade commission as a Republican governor. When the president picks up the phone and calls you and asks you to help, I think unless you have a principled philosophical difference with the president or a personal one, that you try to help if you're a patriot and that's what I am.

AMT: What will the legacy of the Trump presidency be for the Republican Party, do you think?

CC: Who knows. You know there's so much time to go. Two more years to go. What happens in those two years? Does the president get re-elected or not re-elected?

AMT: Does he get impeached?

CC: You know I don't think at the moment, but again we have to wait to see what the Mueller report says. I think there's lots of Democrats in the House who would love to impeach him, but I don't know whether they're going to have the grounds to do it with a straight face.

AMT: They'd need Republicans to join them, wouldn't they?

CC: Well they wouldn't need Republicans to impeach him, but they would need Republicans to remove him. So you know the Democrats are a majority in the house. They can impeach him by a majority vote just like the Republicans impeached by a majority vote, Bill Clinton, back in the 90s, but to remove the president, as the Republicans learned back then, you need two thirds of the vote in the Senate. They didn't get it. And I can't imagine a scenario, at least right now, under which you would find two thirds of this United States Senate, with 53 Republicans in it, that would vote to remove Donald Trump.

AMT: How comfortable are you with how history will remember your role in helping Donald Trump become president?

CC: Let me be clear. Donald Trump was not my first choice to be president. I was. And so you know you don't always get the choice that you want to get, either as a candidate or as a voter, but when I looked and evaluated the difference between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, I preferred and do prefer having Donald Trump in the White House with the policies he's pursuing versus Hillary Clinton. I hope that's the way it'll be evaluated because that's the basis upon which I made the decision.

AMT: Chris Christie, good to speak to you. Thank you for taking the time today.

CC: Anna Maria, thank you so much. I really appreciate it and appreciate you giving me time to talk about this whole range of issues.

AMT: Bye bye.

CC: Bye bye.

AMT: Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey, the 2016 Republican candidate for U.S. president as well, before stepping aside and endorsing Donald Trump. He's written a book called, Let Me Finish: Trump, the Kushners, Bannon, New Jersey and the Power of In-Your-Face Politics. Chris Christie joined us from New York City. Let us know what you think of what he had to say. Tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. And stay with us, in our next half hour, we'll bring you an intimate portrait of Alzheimers patients and other patients with dementia from an artist, who's helping his work can give us insights that perhaps we've missed in the past. Also, a Bitcoin mystery that may cost investors hundreds of millions of dollars. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current on CBC Radio One, Sirius XM, online on cbc.ca/thecurrent, on podcast and on your radio app.

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This Scottish artist is using art to inspire compassion for dementia patients

Guests: Mark Gilbert

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current. For 20 years, Mark Gilbert has been drawing people at the most traumatic moments of their lives. He's an artist. He's also a medical researcher and he began his work in one of London, England's busiest hospitals.

SOUNDCLIP

MARK GILBERT: I was working in the operating theatre. I was drawing people know with their heads unveiled during the operative process. I was working with people who had been through horrendous experiences. Some of them were dreadfully disfigured. Some of the people I was working with, mostly for facial disease and facial cancer, but sometimes because of trauma. But my fear was through the roof beginning that project I had no experience of illness myself. I haven't ever had to look after anybody in any great capacity I'd never been really in hospital myself.

AMT: Two years ago, Mark Gilbert's work became more personal. His father, Scottish painter, Norman Gilbert, sat by the hospital bedside of his wife Pat, his longtime muse and he began to draw her as she was dying. Norman had painted Pat for 70 years, first as art school students, later with their children then their grandchildren. Then as she faded into dementia and finally as she lay on her deathbed.

SOUNDCLIP

NORMAN GILBERT: It was after I'd been there for two or three days. I thought well this would certainly give me something to do if I took my sketchbook and drew her. And one of the doctors came in and saw what I was drawing and I said it's alright, it keeps me sane. I have no regrets about doing the drawings. I love having them and I cherish them.

AMT: At first, Mark Gilbert found the idea of his father's drawings to be difficult.

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MG: I was scared. I just kind of, I wasn't ready to look. You know my whole life is kind of working in these clinical contexts. I was still incredibly nervous to view the drawings when he offered two, three times you know, over Skype and so on, if I wanted to see them, and I said no, a number of times. There we go. So these are the drawings that my dad did. The sort of shading in of the mouth, the sort of darkness of the mouth, the open mouth. The way that the mouth's hanging the kind of slightly, you know the way that the eyes are, the darkness of the eyes, the way the eyes are kind of expressionless. And even just the way the hair's drawn back and so on. It's something that you know people who work in palliative care and have worked with patients, end of life, they look at it and go absolutely that's somebody who's dying. You know looking back on these, especially when I reflect about how nervous I was looking at them initially, you know I'm incredibly grateful. It's helped me come to terms with the death of my mother to a far greater degree. You know myself and my dad talk about my mum much more because of these drawings. You know we've spoken about the drawings so much and so it's taken me a great deal of time to then realise you know her pictures are able to speak to people about these kind of challenging times and I'm still learning.

AMT: We shared one of the drawings of Mark Gilbert's mother on Twitter. You can see it @TheCurrentCBC. Mark Gilbert's most recent research has brought him to Canada working under the supervision of Dr. Ken Rockwood, a dementia expert at Dalhousie University in Halifax and at the Nova Scotia Health Authority. Mark Gilbert is drawing portraits of Dr. Rockwood's patients and of their caregivers. The hope is that the pictures will help medical students and eventually the public develop more compassion for people with a disease and maybe even reveal things about patients that traditional medicine has missed.

SOUNDCLIP

MG: Medice has become more specialized and I think what can get lost is the importance of just being able to kind of see the patient, to be able to relate to the patient, to be able to maintain that sense of curiosity, not as a way of just being able to kind of seek the diagnosis, which of course is important and I'm not underestimating that, but just to be curious to get to know the person. There's very little of medicine that actually is able to deliver a cure. So a great deal of medicine is about caring. You know and I think we sometimes miss that.

AMT: CBC producer Mary-Catherine McIntosh joined Mark Gilbert as he visited a dementia patient named Dave Quinlivan-Hall, along with his wife and caregiver Margret at their home in Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia.

SOUNDCLIP

[Group chatter]

MARGARET QUINLIVAN-HALL: Hi. I'm Margaret Quinlivan-Hall and I'm David's wife. He has dementia and he was diagnosed nine years ago. At the time he was diagnosed, he was 59, two of the children were still in high school. They call it a journey, I don't know. We've been living with this for nine years. Having our portraits done was kind of a bright spot and I thought it was not something I expected to do in my lifetime. Have my portrait drawn.

[Mark beings drawing portrait]

MQH: He had the personality where he would go to a workshop or a group and he would bring someone home for a supper. Just his energy when he walked into the room and he'd fill the room with energy. And one of the reasons that my daughter and I finally went to see the doctor was that a good friend who hadn't seen him in a long time was asking me if he was ill. She noticed that he didn't have that energy or that aura of energy around him and that he wasn't as sharp when she was talking to him. Sometimes it takes an outsider who hasn't seen the person for a while. I mean I have six kids and some of them I wonder, if he's going to remember them.

MG: Portraiture isn't about copying somebody, and it's not really about likeness and things, and so really what you're trying to do is just to try and get to know the person that you're doing better and making sure that the marks you're making are as honest a response to who's in front of you as possible.

[Group chatter]

MQH: I just find the sketches so interesting. I mean these are squiggly lines and you wonder how Mark does it y ou know, how do all those squiggles turn into a portrait of someone. My mouth kind of turns down and I look very down and I look very sorrowful I guess. Sorrowful eyes. And I thought when I looked at them you know I need to do more things to make me smile. And I have. And also that I needed more help. I see his mouth turn down too and I see his eyes. His eyes water a lot and they look sad. His eyes look sad. Yeah and he looks older, in the portraits he looks older than he does. But I mean he looks, he's stooped over now and he could fool people for a while, but he can't anymore and I can see that in the portrait. I think the disease has changed his looks. He's a handsome man, but he looks troubled and he's stressed a lot, especially lately. He's always been a good communicator and the fact that he can't find the words and he can't express what he wants, does frustrate him. He's really good at snapping fingers and he's using both hands to snaps fingers and sometimes they're anxious snaps, sometimes they're angry snaps and sometimes they're snapping keeping time to music. He's found for himself another way to communicate and I kind of know what the snap means.

DAVE QUINLIVAN-HALL: I can go through many phases. Some days I can go that way. The other days and don't The ability to do things. And I know, I know there I met and going through any of it.

MQH: Here's a drawing of you. Can you see that Dave? Can you see your face there? Yeah you were just sitting here when you fell asleep.

DQH: Mhmm.

MQH: Home cares has been wonderful. I get away, I come home, I have afternoons and when I get home I'm relaxed and happy and cheerful and I can change his mood because he misses me. He's going around the house looking for me. Even when I'm home he's going around the house looking for me. I'm in another room or doing something so.

MG: So these are the drawings I did of you. So some of them I did when I was back at the clinic and some of them I did here.

DQH: Did we had. I.

MQH: What did you think looking at you in that painting?

DQH: I was looking. It was nice. I liked it. I liked it.

MQH: Did you think it looked like you?

DQH: Yes. Yes.

AMT: We have been listening to Dave and Margaret Quinlivan-Hall. Dave has dementia. Margaret is his wife and his caregiver. They're part of a research project at Dalhousie University and the Nova Scotia Health Authority. Medical researcher and artist Mark Gilbert draws patients who have dementia along with their caregivers in the hope that his art will help people feel more compassion for those living with the disease and perhaps teach medical people something that they did not notice before. We're going to post some photos of the Quinlivan-Halls and Mark Gilbert's artwork on our website cbc.ca/thecurrent later today.

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'It's a mess': Quadriga CEO's death a wake-up call for cryptocurrency industry, says tech writer

Guests: Takara Small, Lana Swartz

AMT: You are listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: The initial intent was to buy cryptocurrency for the purpose of using it and that was way back in 2016. And a bull run happened where the price of crypto started rapidly rising and I decided to hold it. So ultimately I'm only out of pocket five or six hundred dollars, but the thing is it was $15,000 dollars and at one point it reached $30,000, so it certainly feels like I've lost $15,000, right?

AMT: That is Elvis Cavalic of Calgary on CBC Radio's As It Happens yesterday. He's one of the hundreds of Canadian investors who bought cryptocurrencies through QuadrigaCX. Those buyers are now wondering if they've lost all their money. QuadrigaCX was Canada's largest cryptocurrency exchange with an estimated $190 million worth of digital money. In January, cryptocurrency investors found out the company had filed for creditor protection and that Gerald Cotten, it's co-founder and chief executive is dead. He died in India in December. QuadrigaCX's passwords, the virtual keys to tens of millions of dollars, seem to have been lost with him. It is a scenario that is causing some people to call for more regulation of the cryptocurrency industry. Takara Small is a technology writer and the host of The Globe and Mail's tech podcast, I'll Go First and she's with me in our Toronto studio. Hi.

TAKARA SMALL: Hi.

AMT: What a story.

TS: Yes.

AMT: So remind us first what cryptocurrency is.

TS: Yes so cryptocurrency is a digital currency and people trade real currency, so U.S. Canadian dollars in order to purchase it. One of the most well-known cryptocurrencies is Bitcoin, which we've seen over the years has quite a volatile journey, going from you know highs of $300 to as low as $5.

AMT: So who was Gerald Cotten?

TS: Yeah so he was the co-founder and CEO of the well known cryptocurrency exchange based in Vancouver and recently died, which has left you know a 115.000 users without access to their money.

AMT: So he died. He's 30-years-old and he dies in India. Nobody knows what happened.

TS: Yeah, apparently he was suffering from Crohn's disease, but I think you know this is like a lifetime movie. It has all the aspects of a fictional movie that you would watch on TV and say okay this is not real, let's bring it to reality. He died overseas. He was the only individual who had the passwords to actually access the cold wallet, which is where this large sum of money is. The company is now you know filing for creditor protection. His widow has no idea how to access the funds. It's a mess.

AMT: So the guy who is the, he's the founder, he's the chief executive and he's the only one with the passwords? How is that even possible?

TS: I know, it's incredibly rare and unlikely this situation would ever happen. So most exchanges they have what is called multi-signature process, which means not just one individual, but several actually have to have access to a cold wallet in order to access funds. In this case it was just the co-founder and CEO who had access and that's so unlikely. It's almost impossible to put into words because not only is it financially insecure, as we're seeing now, but also it would make anyone like that a kidnapper's dream. Like if there's only one person who has access or the password to millions of dollars, it's just not safe to be walking around like that.

AMT: OK. And before we get to that theory because there are others.

TS: Oh my God, so many.

AMT: First of all, hot and cold wallet. So the hot wallet is where the transactions go back and forth, the cold wallet is kind of like a storage, savings or something?

TS: Yeah so like a cold wallet or cold storage is a device that's not connected to the internet and then a hot wallet is usually, you access it through a web browser, but it also makes it vulnerable to hacking. And we've seen in Japan and South Korea in recent years that there have been hackers who have managed to you know run away with millions and millions of dollars. Actually having a cold wallet or cold storage. That's smart. That's a smart thing to do.

AMT: Okay and again, Quadriga is sort of like the place where you go to trade that stuff. It was the broker.

TS: It is one of the biggest in Canada.

AMT: Okay and that's why this is so huge right now. Okay so you talk about kidnapper's dream. There's a conspiracy theory that he's actually not even dead. What do you know about that?

TS: I know, again it just plays into this whole lifetime movie. I want credit for the screenplay by the way. I don't really buy into that scenario. I think when people lose a lot of money under such unusual circumstances, it makes sense for them to reach for an explanation, some type of feasible way in order to help them deal with the issue and also maybe perhaps inspire hope that they may be able to get those funds back to recover their funds. But in this situation, I feel personally unlikely that there's some conspiracy theory out there where he's living the high life on like a deserted island. Some people say that they've been watching some of the accounts and they've seen some transfers take place. At this point in time, you know I would say it's best to wait and let the regulators do their job because a lot of what's happening is just rumors innuendo.

AMT: So these passwords, these keys. We're not talking about you know your first dog's name as a password, these are really complicated security keys.

TS: Which is great because it makes it secure and you know it's one of the reasons why the company is finding it incredibly difficult to actually break into his laptop, into his accounts because they're so secure. The same reason people use it is the exact same reason why there are people out $150 million plus.

AMT: Is this indicative of how the cryptocurrency industry is run?

TS: I think it's still in its infancy. I definitely on a larger scale, doesn't have the best reputation right now, but I think you know when situations like this happen, it forces an industry or space to take on more to grow and change and this will hopefully ideally do that. I don't think someone should write off the entire cryptocurrency as something to avoid or a negative, but you know these are some of the consequences. These are some of the things that can happen when you invest in such a young digital currency.

AMT: Well and the Canadian government doesn't actually consider it legal tender in Canada, am I right?

TS: Yeah and so that plays into the fact that as well is like when you're investing your money, your cold hard cash, you have to understand there are you know downsides to it. These are just some of the consequences, not the consequences, but I'd say like these are some of the issues people don't really take into account. They just see like the headlines where it says oh my God, like you know Bitcoin has increased $5000, it's now worth $5000. I'm going to jump on that bandwagon and try and make as much money as possible. Unfortunately, I know a lot of people who've invested and you know who have uploaded their money to Quadriga and it's so sad because a lot of them are trying to use this as like you know enabled to pay for a downpayment on a condo or save for a rainy day because a lot of people in Toronto have a very challenging time. Not just in Toronto, in multiple cities across Canada.

AMT: Right and of course this was actually a way to make you know it was rising for a long time.

TS: Yeah.

AMT: So do you think investors will ever see their money or we just don't know?

TS: Yeah, I don't want to be like a negative nancy, that's my grandmother speaking there, but I don't think users will recover at least the full amount. I know the company said they're going to start trying to sell their assets in order to try and help some of their users, but at this point in time it's probably unlikely.

AMT: To be continued. Takara Small thanks for coming in.

TS: Thank you.

AMT: Takara Small is a technology writer. She's the host of The Globe and Mail's tech podcast, I'll Go First. She joined me in our Toronto studio. Christine Duhaime deals with money laundering cases in her law practice in Vancouver and Toronto. Quadriga investors contacted her wondering if they have a legal case against the company. She says it's time the federal government makes regulation a priority.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: And I think government needs to step in and say okay because of the Quadriga debacle, we've had so much money. And we're talking about Canadians who trusted in exchange and unfortunately may never get their money out. So I think that there needs to be now a different view in Ottawa that this is something we need to accelerate the regulation of. Like I think the days of let's avoid taxes, let's not have anyone oversight, I think those are gone. Consumer protection, historically, always kicks in to protect consumers if the ecosystem can't govern itself responsibly.

AMT: So this is not the first time companies and exchanges have been in trouble. In 2011 Mt. Gox, one of the biggest bitcoin exchanges at the time, was hacked. Millions of dollars worth of the cryptocurrency disappeared. Bitcoin has also been tied to money laundering and other criminal enterprises. Supporters are not worried that it is sometimes used by criminals. That just makes it like every other currency on the planet they say. Bitcoins boosters and there are many, still see a bright future and our next guest writes about the history and the development of cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin. Her name is Lana Swartz and she's an assistant professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia. She's the co-editor of a book called, Paid: Tales of Dongles, Checks and Other Money Stuff. And she's in Charlottesville, Virginia. Hello.

LANA SWARTZ: Hi. Good morning.

AMT: You know I'm really struck by the irony. This currency, cryptocurrency, was created to be independent of governments and established banking systems. They didn't want to be at all encumbered by monetary policies.

LS: That's right. You know for many early boosters of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, the reason why they were so passionate about it is because they were invested in a vision of money aligned with a kind of idealized gold standard. So the value of the money would not come from any governments or any other authorizing authority, but instead would come from the value, you know it's true value on the market. So it's sort of this fantasy of markets, unencumbered from you know human governance and therefore, as they would imagine it, human error. But what we tend to see again and again, you know as in the case of Mt. Gox, as in this latest debacle, any time you try to obviate human error, you wind up sort of just introducing new avenues for human error.

AMT: So how surprising is it to you that Gerald Cotten would be the only person who knew the digital security keys for all of this cryptocurrency?

LS: That's a tricky call. I would say to some extent, I am surprised because in many cases the Bitcoin ecosystems, so all the intermediaries around Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, such as exchanges, such as payment intermediaries etc. have somewhat matured. So they're part of this kind of larger fintech environment and lots of Bitcoin aficionados that I know are passionate about security and passionate about you know thinking about plans for multi-signatories as your previous guest stated and that sort of thing. So to some extent, I am surprised, but at the same time, I am not surprised because you know if you think back to say like Mt. Gox like many people don't realize this, but Mt. Gox stands for Magic the Gathering Online Exchange, meaning you know referring to the fantasy playing card game. So it started off as a website for this kind of fantasy playing card game. So I'm never fully surprised at how the level of kind of amateur hour that we still see in the Bitcoin space.

AMT: So interesting because I mean we do have in your country and mine, securities, laws and issues of corporate governance.

LS: That's right. Yes and Bitcoin still remains this and other currencies remain in this gray area and governments have tended to you know be somewhat hands off. Bitcoin doesn't really and other cryptocurrencies don't really cause a threat to kind of global financial stability. And in some cases this technology that underlines it, it can be used for other purposes and so I think a lot of governments have been interested to just kind of let it flourish, see how it goes. See if it brings interesting innovations. It doesn't really cause a threat, except for you know the relatively small number of people who lose tons of money in it. So yeah they've been relatively hands off.

AMT: So what kind of reaction are you seeing from others in the cryptocurrency community to what's gone on with Quadriga?

LS: Well I know that, as your other guest mentioned, there are a lot of conspiracy theories. A lot of people imagining that maybe you know this was a staged death. It does make for the perfect kind of, I don't know about lifetime movie, but sort of a James Bond flick.

AMT: I hear a Netflix series.

LS: Exactly yeah. And to me that kind of speaks to the you know folks in the Bitcoin community aren't just in it to make money. They're in it because they're passionate and fascinated by the potential of this new technology and by the potential of this new money form. And so it makes sense to them that this would be not something as mundane as an incompetent leader passes away unexpectedly and leaves everyone in the lurch. To them, it makes more sense that this would be a matter of espionage and faked death and you know globe travelling and all of that. So I think the excitement and the mystique and sort of the shadowy component of Bitcoin is a big part of what draws people to it and that's part of the reason why they're willing to believe the kind of conspiracy theories.

AMT: Okay well Lana, we have to leave it there. Thanks for your time.

LS: Thank you.

AMT: Lana Swartz, assistant professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia, co-editor of a book called, Paid: Tales of Dongles, Checks and Other Money Stuff. She's in Charlottesville, Virginia. We have to end it there. That's our program for today. Stay with Radio One for Q and because I was talking, we didn't get to a song we were going to leave you with. So do yourself a favour and YouTube Blockchainian Rhapsody. Give yourself an earworm for the day and we'll see you here tomorrow. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thanks for listening to The Current.

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Feb. 5, 2019 episode transcript

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