>> the accountability project is going to start. they are going to be in prison. >> a corrupt retribution scheme in plain sight. >> you have to get in the game republicans. starting every investigation they need to right now. >> tonight, new reporting on maga's very public payback campaign. >> it is a terrible path they are leading us to and it is very possible that this could have to happen to them. >> and donald trump is openly signaling russia to help himself get elected again. >> russia if you are listening, the president of russia will do that for me and i don't believe he will do that for anyone else. >> plus, judge cannon's wild move to disrupt the documents trial and another installment of our series, are you better off than you were four years ago? >> president trump posing for pictures, holding up a bible without explanation. >> when "all in" starts right now. good evening from new york. i am chris hayes. tonight's top story, multiple current and former u.s. officials including the speaker of the house of representatives, dozens of senators and congressmen, have been revealed to be working hand in glove with convicted criminals in a corrupt retribution scheme to sway the 2024 u.s. presidential election. conspirators are nearly all republican officials including the heads of the judiciary and oversight committees, former white house officials and at least two men who have been found guilty and right now awaiting sentencing for privacy -- for previous crimes. a campaign to compel national, state, and local government officials to abuse their power. it is happening out in the open with conspirators telling reporters what they plan to do. a nuclear option for an authoritarian takeover that they say was tripped by the criminal conviction of the republican party leader, former president donald trump, for tampering with the 2016 election by paying two women hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep affairs quiet until he won that campaign. as the new york times reports, within hours of the jury finding mr. trump guilty, gop leaders in and out of government have demanded elected republicans use every available power against democrats, including targeted investigations and prosecutions. all of this is happening on behalf of trump, who is so angered by his conviction on 34 felony counts, he openly encouraged allies to consider political persecution of his adversaries a worthy goal for the party. >> would it be so terrible to throw the president's wife and former secretary of state, think of it. the former secretary of state, but the presidents wife into jail. wouldn't that be a terrible thing? but they want to do it. so you know it is a terrible, terrible path that they are leading us to and it is very possible that it is going to have to happen to them. >> some longtime trump allies are taking those as marching orders including steve bannon, who faces a hearing tomorrow morning for his federal contempt of congress charges after he refused to testify to what he knew about the deadly capital insurrection. bannon, who also faces a trial this fall in manhattan for fraud and money laundering and connection with a far right fundraising scheme, pulled new york times reporters it was time for republicans to prosecute democrats all over the country. texting there are dozens of ambitious attorney generals and they need to seize the day and own this moment in history. at the same time stephen miller, who penned the administrations so-called muslim band, went on fox news with an all hands call for authoritarian action in stark existential terms. >> every house committee controlled by republicans using it subpoena power in every way it needs to right now with every d.a. starting every investigation they need to right now? is every donor off the sidelines and in the game? every facet of republican party politics and power has to be used right now to go toe to toe with marxism and beat these communists. >> republicans are doing their part for this plot, led by house speaker mike johnson who outlined the approach yesterday, offering a three- pronged approach on how to target the justice department in new york and other jurisdictions for investigating trump. vowing to use house oversight powers while cutting funds in the appropriations process and taking other unspecified legislative measures. already johnson's closest allies are running with that mandate. judiciary chairman jim jordan, a staunch trump far right ally has demanded testimony from the district attorney who prosecuted trump and proposed withholding federal funding from municipalities that charge trump for his crimes. even republicans without any higher responsibilities are using participation in the revenge plan as a tool for advancement. congressman ronny jackson, former trump white house physician who retired from that post in disgrace amid investigations into alcohol abuse and sexual misconduct, told newsmax it was time for republicans to go after democrats including joe biden and his relatives. >> president biden should be ready because on january 20 next year, when he is former president joe biden, what is good for the goose is good for the gander and i will encourage all of my colleagues and anyone i have influence over as a member of congress to aggressively go after the president and his entire family. >> today house speaker mike johnson installed that man you just saw along with election denier scott perry on the all- important house intelligence committee. congressional republicans seem to be acting on jackson's advice. they sent a criminal referral for president biden's brother james and last living son, hunter, both of whom have been targets of republican conspiracy theories for the better part of a decade. hunter biden facing trial in federal court and in the senate a number of republicans, many of whom hold hopes of being trump's vice presidential candidate, are also involved. here is jd vance. >> that is the only language that i think these people are going to understand, that if they do this, if they turn the american system of justice into banana republic garbage they will suffer consequences. >> and marco rubio, top republican on the senate intelligence committee, blasted president biden in apocalyptic terms, saying our current president is a demented man propped up by wicked and deranged people willing to destroy our country to remain in power. it is time to fight fire emoji with fire emoji. vance along with 10 other republican senators signed a pledge by utah senator mike lee to block all legislation funding and nominations in retaliation for trump's conviction by 12 citizens in new york, a jury of his peers, effectively bringing capitol hill to a standstill. lee saying those who turn our justice system into a political cudgel must be held accountable. these are broad strokes of a plan that contemplates the party using all three branches of government to keep trump free and exact revenge on anyone in their way. up to and including the supreme court where one third of the justices were appointed by donald trump. as speaker johnson reminded fox viewers last week when he said those justices should overturn trump's conviction. >> the justices on the court, i know many of them personally, i think they are deeply concerned about that as we are, so i think they will set this straight. >> that's interesting. this is all happening in plain sight and further emboldening influencers to ratchet up rhetoric beyond what a peaceful society can sustain. >> should democrats be in jail? no question. should donald trump start locking them up? should there be a list of democrats who need to go to jail? 100%. >> not just jail, they should get the death penalty. we staff punishment for treason in this country. >> chances are if you watch the show or read the newspaper, none of the details are breaking news to you. you have seen who donald trump is and you have seen what the republican party has become. day in and day out in headlines buried by more headlines. when you take it altogether from a mile high perspective everything that has come to an end since trump's criminal conviction, when you think about how this would play in the news happening in some other country, you would say to yourself, whoa, that's not good. what is happening there? what is wrong with that place? with those people? how in the world does this get resolved? congresswoman jasmine crockett is a democrat from texas and she joins me now. it is good to have you here. what you think about the growing voices in the republican party, congress and former white house officials, who are explicitly saying we want to corruptly use state power to persecute democrats, to use the criminal justice system when we are in power, to go after them? >> they live in a very scary world and unfortunately this nation is probably one of the few that you can get the truth and find out what it is that their agenda is. we are in the midst of an election cycle and an election cycle that when you knock on doors people talk to about the housing crisis. they talk about food prices. they talk about needing to make higher wages and they are saying we want to vote for whoever is going to do this, but the reality is the republican party is only trying to appease a party of one. they are not looking out for us as a country, not looking out for their own constituents. instead all they care about is making donald trump happy. that is not what democracy looks like and i need people to wake up. this isn't about saying, you know what, i am a republican so i am going to vote r. you may be a republican, but these people are not even american as far as i'm concerned, because when we took an oath it was an oath to make sure that we would swear against any enemy, foreign or domestic. i am telling you right now anybody that would propose the death penalty but have a problem with the fact this guy is a criminal. we knew he was a criminal. we set it before. he said he could go out and kill somebody and nothing would happen to him and one out of four of the prosecutions he is facing actually went forward, but we experienced a breakdown in this country, because the fact the other three prosecutions are being held up, where we have grand jurors that came together, saw evidence and soffit to say you have enough for an indictment and now you want to challenge and threaten these jurors. that makes no sense and that's not the american way. >> i want to ask, trump is sort of leaning in to this criminal thing and he has compared himself to al capone multiple times. he had, on stage with him in the bronx, to individuals who are currently under indictment for a conspiracy that includes attempted murder if i am not mistaken. they are facing those charges and i have heard him say it almost explicitly and others that black folks and black voters will like this because they like criminals or they like -- they have had an unfavorable experience with the criminal justice system. what is your reaction? >> it is more racism, because essentially what you're saying is black people, we know you know about going to jail. to be clear, this guy has 34 felonies. i've never been arrested for a traffic ticket. i want to be clear there are black folk who have not experienced jail. i have been in jail as a former criminal defense attorney, but i want to be clear that as kendrick lamar says, they are not like us. he is not like us. my clients, i have never had this many charges pending against one, but never had anyone come close to him and still be walking three, pretrial. that is not how we get treated when we end up lock it up. in addition to the fact that i appreciate those on social media pointing out the hypocrisy that right now in this country this guy can get high six figures for a job and potentially be hired, where in most places we can't even ban the box so that people who have a record can get an interview for an hourly job. you are not treated like us, it is a two-tier justice system and you have been treated so much more favorably. the fact we are debating whether or not he is going to jail does not make sense either. >> when you hear your colleagues talk like ronny jackson, he is a colleague of yours. >> thank you for reminding me. >> he is in the state delegation. there are two ways to interpret this. this is what an old coach of mine would call down the block tough. after someone walks away like, what? there's a little bit of that. jeannie vance is almost the most down the block tough person i've seen. there is also listen to what they are saying. which of those do you see yourself pulled toward? >> definitely they inspire other keyboard warriors and they like to do a lot of talk, because they will send out an email and raise money because they talk tough. i do think the vast majority of them don't have it in them to get anything done. they just like to talk tough and rile people up. i do believe that we do have some real crazy people. like legit, you are all the way out there and you will push forward -- >> if in power again? >> if given power, absolutely. i also think even if some of those are more talkers, there are followers and that is also scary, because that is what we have seen. maga will take the lead and we can't get caught slipping, like we have to go along with the show. reluctantly. you have very few that actually push back. i always bring up ken buck because he has freedom caucus. the freedom caucus guy said you guys are crazy, i'm out. not the moderate republican, the freedom caucus guy. but he absolutely believes in our institutions and that is what we are missing right now. >> congresswoman jasmine crockett, thank you very much. coming up and stop me if you have heard this before, donald trump asks for russia's help winning the next election, again. trump is dangling in american citizens freedom for his own benefit, next. you can't leave without cuddles. but, you also can't leave covered in hair. with bounce pet, you can cuddle and brush that hair off. bounce, it's the sheet. 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exaggerating. listen to the candidate himself. >> evan gershkovich, a reporter for the wall street journal who is being held by russia, will be released almost immediately after the election, but definitely before i assume office. he will be home, he will be safe. vladimir putin, president of russia, will do that for me and i don't believe he will do it for anyone else and we will be paying nothing. biden likes to pay massive numbers. we will be paying nothing. >> okay, there are two possibilities. one is that trump is lying and he has no means of knowing if that would happen. if that is the case, not only is that an unspeakably cruel thing to say, trump is also, let's be clear, actively hampering the negotiations for gershkovich's release, because he is sending a signal to russia not to free him until after the election. under the guise of a better deal or as a tool to get trump elected, which vladimir putin wants to do. remember, trump issued these kinds of signals to the russian government before. >> russia, if you are listening, i hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. i think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. >> almost immediately after he said that, russian actors attempted to hack hillary clinton's personal office and her campaign. that is one possibility. trump doesn't have a deal with putin, he is just posturing. the other possibility is that trump does have a back channel to putin and he is discussing a deal that the two of them work out. he seems specific about the timing. that appears to be what he is implying. we have no idea if it is true. to be honest it does sound far- fetched, but there is precedent for an american presidential candidate told secret back channel negotiations with a foreign government or adversary. in 1968 richard nixon was running against hubert humphrey, the vice president under lyndon johnson, against the backdrop of a war in vietnam. it looked like the administration was on the cusp of securing the negotiation to win the war, so at the last minute the next session -- the nixon campaign opened the secret back channel with the south vietnamese to get them to pull out of the peace talks. >> on november 2, with three days to go until americans went to the polls, the president suddenly announced that the south vietnamese government would not attend the proposed talks after all. a representative of the nixon campaign at the candidate's personal direction had personally contacted the saigon government, urging him to stay away from the talks. promising that once nixon was elected he would drive a harder bargain with hanoi then humphrey would. >> and it worked. with the peace talks stalled, and nixon won the election. the delay and subsequent expansion of the war cost 20,000 american lives and millions of vietnamese, laotian and cambodian lives. a similar thing happened in 1980 when the next democratic president was facing a foreign policy crisis of his own. >> good evening. the american embassy is in the hands of muslim students tonight, spurred on by an anti- american speech. they stormed the embassy, fought the marine guards for three hours, overpowered them and took dozens of american hostages. >> more than 50 americans are being -- americans were being held hostage and it was discovered his opponent set up a secret back channel of his own. john connell traveled to a number of middle eastern countries in the summer of 1980 where he encouraged the leaders he met there to pass on a message. don't release the hostages before the election. reagan will win and give you a better deal. it worked. and in a final twist of the knife, the hostages were released minutes after the new president was sworn in. all of which is to say that it is perfectly plausible that donald trump does have some kind of back channel to russia. at the end of the day, whether trump is making things up and trying to influence russia from afar, to keep gershkovich hostage or whether he 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[pilot] prepare for non-stop smiles. crest. there is a pretty rare thing that happens sometimes at the supreme court. it is when the court invites an organization that is not a direct party to the legal case they are hearing to come and participate and argue before the court. these parties are called friends of the court and it normally happens in big cases and once a term when they get invited in. just about never happens in lower words, the appellate and district court. except today in donald trump's criminal trial. the trump appointed judge in that case, judge aileen cannon, signed an order inviting outside parties to present oral arguments for and against the constitutionality of jack smith's appointment as special counsel. now it is crazy enough she is entertaining this at all, considering courts have decided over and over the lawfulness of appointments and she is a district court to us to follow precedent. now she is allowing random right-wingers to argue the appointment is unconstitutional and therefore she should throw out the indictment. mary mccord served as the acting assistant attorney general for the department of justice and is the cohost of the msnbc podcast, prosecuting donald trump, and she joins me now. when i saw this order being conceived i went around talking to people. i was like, amici at a district court hearing? i asked my wife who is a legal scholar. does this happen? she was like, no. everyone else was like i've never seen it. how common is this? >> it's not that uncommon to file an amicus brief in the court of appeals and sometimes an amicus brief in the district court. particularly novel issues. i would argue this is not novel. to invite amici who don't represent an entity like a foreign government, to invite amici to participate i've never seen in my career. even in the supreme court in 35 years between 1980 and 2015, out of the over 4000 arguments the court held, they had amici present argument in 1000 of those cases, but only nine of those were people not representing a governmental entity or foreign sovereign. that is how exceedingly rare it is. >> usually when this happens it is like texas, you are not a party to this, but you have an interest. or the department of justice. this is just like you are a guy with some takes. takes on the constitutionality. you are not connected to the case at all, you just have some opinions about it. >> that's right and each does express the interest they represent and why they think what they have to say would be helpful to the court. that is what they say in their motion to file the brief. i am not surprised the court allowed some of these briefs, but to give them 30 minutes each of argument time in what is now scheduled for a full day of arguments on just one part of this issue, whether the appointment of the special counsel violates the appointments act. not even the other part of the issue that mr. trump argues, which is that it violates the appropriations clause. first of all that is an extraordinary amount of argument time on a single issue and to invite amici to present 30 minutes of argument. most oral arguments aren't even 30 minutes per side or party. so this is really extraordinary. i will say that those who requested oral argument representing amici who support donald trump's motion, there was a brief filed on behalf of of those supporting jack smith's side of this and those people said if the other guys get to argue, then we want to argue, too. and judge aileen cannon did grant that, so we will have someone arguing as well who is supporting jack smith. >> i am straining to sort of communicate this to nonlegal people. every time cannon does something, legal people are like okay, this is a weird one. she is running her own little supreme court. she is a district court judge. look at 2018, another federal judge upholds constitutionality. it is settled precedent. this has been challenged before. this is settled before the supreme court. now the supreme court wants to overturn it, which they might and they can, but as a district court judge she has marching instructions. she's not wrestling with something that hasn't come up before and is running her own supreme court for an entire day of arguments. >> it is extraordinary. the 11th circuit hasn't ruled on this and mr. trump and his amici argue that the case that jack smith relies on, they make arguments that the court said it does not apply here, et cetera. so she at least sees a little path where she is not bound by previous decisions and again, if she were to rule in mr. trump's favor on this, these are things where what he is asking for is a dismissal of the indictment. these are things that could be taken to the 11th circuit. i will note that even if there is some problem with the appointment and i don't think there is at all. it is clear under statutory authority and the constitution that he can be appointed by the attorney general of the united states. i think that is quite clear, but even if there is another path, there is a doctrine which says when actions have been taken such as this, you don't go back and unravel that because the appointment was unlawful. that is a doctrine that is accepted. you move forward and change things moving forward, but you don't go back on what has already been done. so there are so many reasons why this is wrong. >> i would say, again, trying to be fair and not allow my own biases to colorize this, in the main this judge has taken a bunch of actions and not taken a bunch of actions that have led to a lot of delay and i would say a sort of surprising degree for the defenses arguments no matter how outlandish they seem. >> i agree with you, chris. i do think some of it is her inexperience. her lack of confidence apparently in her own ability to make judgments based on the written record. many of the motions that we have seen that she has had argument on, not to mention lasting an entire day and not the first time she had arguments go an entire day. many of these are motions that other, more experienced judges would have ruled on based on the papers. there is no requirement that she hear argument from the parties in court on every issue. argument is supposed to be an opportunity to ask the questions that you don't feel, as a judge, were resolved in the papers. that is all the more reason why you have no need really to hear from people who just have an interest and file a friend of the brief. any questions you might have based on their briefs, guess what? you can ask those questions of the parties. you can say to mr. trump's lawyer, so and so filed a brief arguing that. i have a question. can you respond to that? if they can't they can say we will file a supplemental briefing. so there are many ways for the court to get its questions answered and this is extraordinary. >> mary mccord, think you for sharing your expertise with us. appreciate it. still to come, since donald trump and his allies keep 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(♪♪) hey dave, don't knock it 'til you smell it. new gain relax flings. remember ronald reagan talking about jimmy carter? >> ronald reagan used to ask day >> are you better off? >> it is not whether you are better off. >> better off. >> better off. >> better off. >> then you were four years ago. >> it has been a while since we checked in on this question, but folks on the right continue to ask it, so we are doing our best to continue to answer. >> lawfare seems to have risen to the top of the heap, because they can't win on the proposition that you are better off than you were four years ago. >> if you look at the state of our country today, do you know of anyone who was better off today than they were four years ago? >> i do, actually. to give you some context, four years ago more than 100,000 americans died of the coronavirus. we were losing nearly 1000 people every single day that summer. the unemployment rate skyrocketed into double digits. the country was in the throes of mass protest and street unrest unlike we had seen in a generation. it had been a week and a half since minneapolis police officer derek chauvin murdered george floyd and the historic protests and arrests were beginning in earnest. >> across the country was started as peaceful gatherings protesting the death of george floyd devolved into destruction. from new york where police and protesters squared off in the streets, to portland where the mayor issued a state of emergency and a city curfew. >> the nation erupted into scenes of chaos. violence and widespread destruction into the early morning hours in some of the nation's biggest cities. the night spiraled out of control early. >> military vehicles were rolling into our nation's capital. the kind of equipment you see in war zones to fight battles against enemies, but the battle was against peaceful protesters and journalists who under donald trump's authority were violently cleared from lafayette square. >> we had to go about a block and my cameraman has been hit. we have also seen tear gas being used. this is exactly what it looks like. exactly what it looks like. >> can you hear us? >> are you okay? >> we are surrounded by police and you saw the way that they dealt with my cameraman. they're targeting at the moment. >> again, those protesters were peaceful and the journalists and protesters were fired upon and punched and assaulted and hit with pepper spray and that was all done why? so donald trump could bring his attorney general in uniform with the rest of his crew for a awkward photo op holding a bible at st. john's episcopal church across the street. >> reporter: fresh fallout over the government's decision to use force and/bangs to move peaceful protesters from the front of the white house. clearing the way for the president and his top advisers to walk across lafayette square to the historic church. president trump posing for pictures, holding up a bible without explanation. >> it is true, it was a bible. since then we have learned a bit about that day and the depravity of donald trump. trumps secretary of defense waited nearly two years to expose the fact that donald trump's desire to harm american citizens that they was running full throttle. writing, donald trump looked at general milley and said can't you just shoot them? shoot them in the legs or something. them being the american citizens protesting. amid that desire to turn the military weapons on unarmed citizens protesting the murder of a black man, donald trump decided four years ago to take a victory lap that unemployment reached 11%, 7% higher than now, by evoking the memory of george floyd. >> hopefully george is looking down right now and sing this is a great thing happening for our country. a great day for him, a great day for everybody. it is a great day for everybody. this is a great, great day, in terms of equality. >> yeah, a great day for george floyd, a man murdered by police violence in a country with more than 100,000 dead from coronavirus and millions out of work. i know that year was a tough one. i know people don't want to revisit it. they don't want to think about it, but take a second. ask yourself, do you think you are better off than you were four years ago? t dry food. it's not wet food. it's just real food. it's an idea whose time has come. we're talking about cashbackin. not a game! we're talking about cashbacking. we're talking about... we're not talking about practice? 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first, what is this supposed to do? >> despite what the president said about this aiming to shut the border, i think it is important to acknowledge that this does not shut the border. this impacts individuals seeking asylum and says essentially that most people who cross the border between ports of entry will be deemed ineligible for asylum and also says those individuals have less access to alternate forms of humanitarian protection available and required under international law. >> to be clear if you show up between ports of entry, coming from the rio grande. they try to find a border patrol officer to turn themselves in and make an asylum claim because they are now on american soil. so those folks who this is aimed at, if they are between ports of entry, what happens to them? >> what happens to them is not going to be that different from what is currently happening. they will be taken into border patrol custody and in the past a border patrol agent would ask if they fear persecution in their home country before ordering them deported and if they said yes they would get a screening. now they have to affirmatively manifest their fear, meaning they have to advocate for themselves if they want a screening interview. if they do that they will still be screened for a more limited form of humanitarian protection that is similar to asylum, but much harder to win. >> the point is that you can't stop people from coming, right? so this changes the sort of affirmative -- you don't have to ask everyone. presumably this will lead to a higher rate of people being deported, right? >> yeah and it is important to acknowledge the president can't create a force field at the border with a stroke of the pin. the question is not of people will be let in. people enter the united states, they are here and now what can the united states do with them? this makes it easier to deport people regardless of the strength of their asylum claim. >> that is a useful sentence. easier to deport people regardless of the asylum claim. the argument that people give is that easier to deport people will act as a disincentive that will get back to folks that it is harder to get in and harder to get your asylum claim processed and that will have an effect on the number of people showing up and particularly the numbers showing up you don't have valid asylum claims. >> we have seen similar efforts in the past, but some of them like title 42, the pandemic health policy in effect from march 2020 to may, 2023, basically showed if you deport people without letting them seek protections, that does not necessarily deter people. some may be driven into more dangerous methods of crossing and directly into the hands of smugglers. >> want this incentivize people to come to ports of entry? >> you would think so, but ports of entry are operating on a lottery system. most migrants have to win -- to wait 5 to 8 months to win an appointment lottery. yesterday's order may actually make that process harder, because there have been a few dozen people a day who are allowed to walk up to ports of entry and as far as we can tell that may make this process more difficult. pushing people to be forced to wait months and months. >> we have seen a fairly dramatic decrease in the last three months from the numbers we were seeing in december and january. what do you attribute that to? >> the number one cause is a new agreement with mexico. mexico started arresting migrants and carrying out sweeping crackdowns and deporting them to southern mexico. essentially forcing people if they want to come north they have to make their way past checkpoints, evade mexican officials, bribe them or go through these complicated processes just to get here. this effort is temporarily reducing numbers, but that pressure could keep building and we could see an increase in the future. >> what do you think happens of donald trump is elected and this order is in place? does it matter one way or another? >> no matter who is president, the core operations have not changed and the laws will not have changed either. people still have a right to seek asylum, but it is worth noting that president trump, his administration released hundreds of thousands of migrants at the border in 2018 and 2019 when they saw similar limitations and the situation has devolved since then with people coming from further abroad, emphasizing the need for congress to step in and start funding the humanitarian protection system. >> aaron reichlin-melnick, thank you very much. >> thank you for having me.