WTF. Didn't Freedom of the Press just get like $5M through an NFT? Surely Snowden shouldn't need to resort to hucksterism.

I am sitting in the Zoom right now and it's as bad as it sounds. https://twitter.com/MichaelBKelley/status/1385985667147120647

The room is currently dancing over "Who wants to win this $100 bill?"

"How many of you want to earn one to ten million in the next year?....Me me me me me"

"If you guys are not interested in money, this seminar is not for you."

The host is now going through the list of 'millionaires' minted through his PIC program, with Snowden's picture scrolling through the back.

The host is currently selling a package deal of $30 for a challenge coin, a Secret to Success audio book, and access to the "VIP" room. "It's going to be life changing for you."

"Please stop asking what time Ed is coming on." The host says "for security reasons" he can't say, and that the event is all about business.

LOL. "Someone is very upset about Ed."

The host, Sunil, is now asking everyone in the chat to tell him "how much they love me".

The host, Sunil Tulsiani, is chatting w/ Grant Cordone, who is recommending people stay in expensive hotels and drink coffee at most expensive places they can find bc that's where the best ideas are.

And "commit to the future" by paying as much as you can to the host for seats.

Cordone's overall pitch is explicitly geared towards why even struggling people should pay Sunil thousands of dollars for "access" to wealthy people if they want to become wealthy themselves.

Sunil was having everyone who bought his "gold notes" for $200 flash them on the screen.

One of sponsors is Lomiko Metals ( https://www.lomiko.com/ ) and founder told story about defending migrant workers in court who were told to apply for EI instead of getting paid and compared it to what Snowden did.

This is only person so far who seem to have a bit of genuineness.

Sunil is now talking about giving away a signed copy of Snowden's book.

"Who wants to win it? Show me in the chat box."

Sunil then mentions Snowden's NFT being worth $5M and says signed book might not be worth that.

"Who wants to win it?...You got it...You got it...You got it..."

Sunil is selling two other books alongside Snowden's and injected a brag about how he makes $5000 / hour when consulting with clients.

Sunil says the plate of his car is PLERKING -- for play/working -- and hopes everyone "plerks for the rest of their lives".

"How many of you want to plerk? PLERK. PLERK. PLERK. PLERK. You're plerking. You're plerking...Colin: you want to plerk? Tareen: you want to plerk?"

(Fake?) money just rained down as the next speaker -- Daniel Char (sp?) -- just walked out to talk about buying real estate with "no money down".

Daniel makes a point of clarifying that this is *not* a scam.

Daniel is waving a fat stack of cash around as he speaks.

I wish I caught in a snapshot, but Daniel threw a bunch of the (fake?) money in the air as he explained that this approach is "ethical" and "legal" and recommended taking out high interest rate loans.

Daniel is explaining that there is no tax on the sale of a property if you lived in it for at least a year and showing off his gross profit. All while waving around his stack of cash.

Here is the "Daniel Char Wealth Cycle".

I continue to hold out hope that Snowden had no involvement in any of this and that his interview is an empty promise to get people to sit through these grifts.

Oh. Nevermind.

I zoned out for a minute and came back to this.

Char closes with a plug for his "totally free training" and promises Snowden is soon.

Sunil is now promising that he will play a short 30 second "shoutout" from Snowden confirming his later participation.

A wild Maslow's hierarchy appears.

Sunil was humble enough to mention that he is now at the very top of Maslow's hierarchy and points out that most people are a few levels down.

This is some galaxy brain shit.

"Content is important, but context is 100 times more important...Grow your context..."

"The content is a tractor trailor in front of you [on the highway]...context is the ability to automatically move out of the way"

"We're talking about Tony Robbins...people that grow you...and the other books are *how* to do this. That's the content..." Knowing how to make the deals, "that's the context"

The Snowden shoutout had technical problems and no audio.

Sunil says he needs to give away more gifts in the mean time.

And...*of* *course* he is pitching Deepak Chopra's new book now. (Chopra also participated in Salesforce's Dreamforce)

The audio worked this time and promised that the actual conversation will be in another two hours...

"We're not going to put up Edward Snowden's photo all over the place if he isn't coming...He's coming. Please, just maybe...I can't tell you the exact time but it's coming soon"

Sunil is now namechecking Tony Robbins and talking about how to go from excellent to outstanding.

"If you believe in the higher power...God wants one thing for you...you actually doing the part...I truly believe in The Law of Attraction..."

"If there was a gun to your head saying you have to find ten thousand dollars...you'll find it."

"I want you to take action when you're not ready."

Sunil just gave away a bunch of $30 coins and gift certificates to the audience so that people could no longer say they'd never won anything.

"If you're a woman right now you can send me flying kisses...Guys...you can just hold back on the kisses."

"Kayla has been giving me so many kisses. Derek gave me a heart, which I will accept."

More breadcrumbs that Snowden is coming up soon.

Sunil is namedropping Oprah and describing how he had put her on his vision board before meeting her "not once but twice...I've shared a stage with Tony Robbins...Brian Tracy...Kevin Harrington...some of the most amazing speakers on the planet"

"Now I'm a 7x best-selling author"

"It's not the content, it's the con*text* and access to relationships and opportunities"

Sunil is again pitching the $47 access to the "VIP" room tomorrow, along with the coin and audio book. He is continually referring to paying him money as an "investment in yourself".

"In the past people paid $500...$1000...to be part of Mastermind."

"It's always a VIP experience with Sunil."

This whole webconference is like a gameshow where the audience is constantly milked for money under the guise of "self-investment" with continual breadcrumbs that Snowden is coming up soon.

"I'm not a teacher, I'm a do-er."

"If you're looking for money, be there tomorrow at the VIP" [which costs $47]

"It's absolutely a no brainer to be part of [the VIP tomorrow for $47]. Snowden is about to come."

"By the way, Snowden is about to come. It's going to be at 4pm [ET]."

"Amanda says she can't afford the VIP...Amanda: try. If you had a gun to your head you could find a way...We're going to try to figure out how to get you in, but figure out how to get the $47"

I just want to say that telling people they should find a way to pay for something even if they don't have the way to pay for it is cult shit that I grew up hearing in an unnamed church.

In between telling people who clearly don't have any money that they should find a way to pay him $47, Sunil is bragging about how much of a philanthropist he is and how he helped 150 people in India get eye surgery.

"If you donate $47...you can have any book...any audio book"

"If you donate $47 you'll get a coin and a book...which is worth like $60...I don't take a million dollar salary and then send the money to them..."

"First you give, and then you get."

"What does [Snowden] have to do with business? Ethics has *everything* to do with business. I'll tell you how I started Private Investment Club. I left the police force and...finally I came into real estate. Ethics is so important to me."

"[Private Investment Club] is not a learning club, it's a doing club...Today we have the most elite real estate investment club in North America."

"We're going to have a twenty minute break...and then have Edward Snowden in the house...I want you to be inspired to take action on the things you haven't yet...Build the relationship with the person you haven't...Kill that virus 'I can't afford it'"

This is awful.

The big question here is where Snowden's friends and support network were on this. Surely someone looked into who he was selling his name to.

And we're back. Sunil is introducing Snowden as a former CIA officer that is Pres. of Freedom of the Press.

There are some mild audio problems.

The first question was how accurate Oliver Stone's Snowden movie was.

Snowden pivots quickly and says "this is an unusual audience..I was excited to have this conversation...on this idea of how [wealth works for and against us]."

"this gets us to whistleblowing and ethics..."

"Sometimes the person we're waiting for is us."

Snowden says that a friend reached out to him about this conference and mentioned the moment of Sunil pressuring someone to pay for the VIP room even if he couldn't.

Snowden says the things he heard made him uncomfortable.

I'm wondering if it was reference to my above tweet

Oh my god. Snowden just said he wasn't comfortable continuing and said goodbye.

Sunil just replied with "wow".

Extreme respect to Snowden for calling out the host on this.

The video is still on break while they figure out how to respond.

Someone with a hot mic that doesn't know it just said "Wasted fucking day"

The person with the hot mic apparently just ordered a "medium iced coffee" at a driveup window.

Sunil is back and saying that the problem is that someone wrote a "clickbait article".

Sunil is now asking everyone whose life he helped to say so in the chat box.

"If I stole millions of dollars I would not be here...I was never charged criminally...The article says 'man named', not that he did it. That articles talks about securities and all that kind of stuff."

"You are not numbers to me."

Sunil says it was a big mistake that he didn't hire a security lawyer in the past. "This happened in 2008...They needed somebody to blame. I learned from my mistakes."

Sunil then got everyone to do a group high-five. "If you have any questions, I'll answer your question."

"How silly do we have to be to not know this? We're talking about Greg Cardone...Robert Allen...he knows...Kevin Harrington, he knows. They know." [presumably about the securities past]

"[Snowden] just left. We could have had a conversation...I get it...I'm still here guys...People who do things...they're the ones who leave...I have the same phone number...same office. I've changed lives. Some of you are those people."

"I want you to know that I'm pretty smart, and if I wanted to disappear I would have. I did not change my name or the name of the company."

Sunil just read a comment that pointed out that he sounds like he is about to cry. "This is in the past...Security was defined by the way the paperwork was done. I'm here. I wouldn't be allowed to do this if I was charged criminally"

My understanding was that Snowden's complaint was about the pressure tactics ('you could find the money if you had a gun to your head') on paying for the $47 VIP room and not the securities history. But I guess it is a sore spot.

Sunil says -- perhaps quoting one of the commenters -- that he thinks it might have been a well-planned setup.

The Q&A with his audience is still going on and Sunil is trying to turn this on Snowden to say him changing his mind was the problem.

Sunil -- for about the twentieth time -- is pointing out that he didn't change his business name after the securities fiasco in 2008. "I used to be a detective...If someone does something wrong they leave"

Everything went on break and now Eye of the Tiger is playing.

Here is a 2017 article describing the fraudulent sales / "Ponzi scheme" Sunil Tulsiani had with members of the Private Investment Club that left him banned from securities sales in Ontario.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/sunil-tulsiani-speaking-event-1.3940271

As is pointed out in the article -- and which jives with the above-mentioned "you could find the money if you had a gun pointed at your head" arguments -- Sunil's ban was partially due to his "high pressure sales tactics".

Daniel Char is back and suggests that today was a "curveball" and all they can do is "pivot" and continue to give the audience "value".

Daniel and his colleague are talking about the Ponzi scheme coverage of Sunil and PIC and asserting "we're good people" and "questioned Sunil about the article".

They are repeating the talking point that, because Sunil continued using the PIC brand, that is proof he is ethical.

"I guess this answer the question of whether Snowden was really coming today."

Daniel Char is now arguing that Snowden should have Google-searched Sunil before coming on.

Again, I think complaint was over VIP pressure tactics today, not 2017 article.

"At the end of the day, we're all business people...Someone giving you a one-star review [read: getting banned from securities for a Ponzi schme] shouldn't ruin your whole business...And it's very honorable that Sunil is still standing up."

Sunil is telling his audience to stop the negative comments about Snowden because he "wants to take things to the next level".

Daniel Char is now arguing that even negative attention "can be turned back to positive...Once you start growing you get targets on your back."

The Lomiko Metals founder says he might use today for "a chapter in his book".

"This has nothing but a positive impact on my involvement in what you guys are doing."

Sunil: "We were snowed in today...*applause"...This is not going to slow me down or my plerking."

Sunil is making one last pitch for people to pay the $47 to "come by tomorrow [for the VIP room]...spend three hours with me...it will be at another level".

The crew is still going for some reason and are being extremely repetitive. If I ever hear these people speak again it will be too soon.

Anyway, long story short, the real VIP today was Snowden's friend who called him up and informed him about Sunil's pressure tactics.

/

Against my better judgement, I stayed on.

One of the guests (Angelo, who is onscreen) -- after a minute long fumble of "he who laughs last, laughs best" -- just suggested that Sunil "consider legal action" against Snowden unless he comes back on to apologize.

P.S. Someone recorded Snowden dropping the mic after criticizing Sunil for his pressure tactics.



After thinking about this, I hope there is a fundraiser to replace any money he ends up losing over refusing to support this huckster.