Back Channel Message News Today

welcome to "the beat." im ari melber. we are tracking several stories tonight, including another supreme court ethics scandal, tying gop appointee samuel alito to another billionaire on a fishing trip. well get into that later. its a big story. but our news program begins tonight with not only the criminal trial of donald trump, now slated to begin on august 14th buck the broader ongoing threat of right wing individual lantyism and authoritarianism. tonight we begin with a special repo...

this legal pressure that is engulfing donald trump to a degree hes clearly aware of. his former white house lawyer made waves and concerned people by ricking trump will go to jail over white house documents. now we have this short but unusual letter from donald trumps lawyers, signed by them, publicized by donald trump that reads like a cry for help or some sort of freakout. i can tell you straight up its not a normal legal proceeding. its addressed to attorney general merrick garland....

it strikes and claims it makes neither of which are typical of the category. quoting now from the introductions first line, politics cannot be allowed to impact the use of justice. so, well focus on the filing ahead in the chances that a judge will agree with any or all of it given how early in the process it is. as well so examine how the various a surgeons are in fact in the filing, actually stand up to the facts themselves. also tonight, cnn exclusive that the justice department is ...

Belong to the american people. not to. trump >> maggie, give us a sense of whats the strategy is right now, his lawyers are including this purported back channel message from the former, to merrick garland? >> right, anderson, this court filing a model lawyer but this filing has a lot of public relations comments to. it unless the defense strategy, or anytime a court strategy. and more about trying to sway public opinion, its notable that he referenced that conversation, that intermediary hat wi...

Place, you know, obviously notes are taken and then what are called read outs are then sent to other agencies and departments. and it wasnt milley alone who was reaching out to the chinese. it was also the secretary of defense mark esper at the time. as i mentioned, there was this perception here in the pentagon that the chinese were unusually concerned about what they were seeing in terms of the rhetoric leading up to the election in november. and so esper ordered his top defense official, sorr...

Bow williams. mark ed enter ordered a top policy advisor to send a back channel message to beijing to reassure them. that message and order before the october 30th call that milley made to his counterpart and that, the point of this was according to this top former official a two-step process to avoid any unnecessary confrontation that could lead to con conflict. erin, you may remember esper was fired but milley continued his out reach with the chinese. >> the white house today standing by the c...

Very important to the -- to the interests of the united states, thats not for your average person on the street. >> yeah, they dont care. >> and, frankly, if you are going to appeal to those people on the street you wouldnt go there. you would just simply say this is american policy and the irregulars were not pursuing that. this is an argument to box in those half dozen, seven, eight -- >> that is very interesting. >> who are going to be faced with a very difficult vote. because if they vote ag...

The plug 10 minutes before they were set to go down, this after iran shot down a u.s. navy drone flying over the straight of hormuz. we were cocked and loaded to retaliate last night on three different sites when i asked how many would die. 150 people was the answer from the general period of 10 minutes before the strike, i stopped it. not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone. i am in no hurry, our military is rebuilt, new, and ready to g go. air force correspondent is joining us liv...

Because there was a back channel message to the white house saying, if you do that, that will be a signal that war is imminent. so that didnt happen. i think pompeo was right. were the so much better to be talking. the intelligence people say in a very direct way, north korea is not going to get rid of their nuclear weapons because thats their leverage. but keep the dialogue and its of thea path that takes decades fine. >>chris: with just 44 days until the midterms, there are very interesting nu...

Because there was a back channel message to the white house saying, if you do that, that will be a signal that war is imminent. so that didnt happen. i think pompeo was right. were the so much better to be talking. the intelligence people say in a very direct way, north korea is not going to get rid of their nuclear weapons because thats their leverage. but keep the dialogue and its of thea path that takes decades fine. >>chris: with just 44 days until the midterms, there are very interesting nu...