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Previously on Escalation.

If the prosecutor's not fired, you're not getting the money.

Oh, son of a bitch, got fired.

This became enmeshed in American politics.

Some of the preparations for that phone call

did send up some warning signals to me that this was not quite right.

My call was perfect.

The president yesterday of Ukraine said there was no pressure put on him whatsoever, none

whatsoever. My worst fear of how our Ukraine policy could play out was playing out.

When I understand that right now, it's elections, different camps trying to manipulate

around Ukraine.

It's late November of 2021.

Just a few months before the world, as I know it, will change forever.

As the Russians keep surging their troops at Ukraine's borders,

one American journalist gets a call.

I get a phone call from a White House official who says,

we have some intelligence about Russia's possible invasion of Ukraine and we want to give it to you.

And the first thing is I think to myself, oh, shit. That's Shane Harris, a national security reporter for the Atlantic, and before that, the

...