Page 5 - Background Stuff News Today

Most determined and the most civically minded voters. how do you convince them that the country is better than doing better than that. right now people are very cynical about this country and about what its willing to do and whether or not electing president obama was a statement about what the country is or about a moment when the country tried to be different but really fundamentally is not different. so its a big question. well have it again. thank you very much for being here. >> thank you. ...

But you know, this is a chance, an opportunity at white house press briefings for the media to really ask those important, specific questions and do so in an orderly way, not with the chopper whirring in the background and the president getting to pick out who hes talking to. so, you know, its a bit of give and take there. >> "the new york times" has reported that grisham has a bit of a checkered past, i guess you could say. this includes a plagiarism accusation, two duis, including one in 2016....

Appropriate ever and certainly never a justification for attacking anyone with a baseball bat." "the post" goes on to explain based in part on extensive divorce filings, patrick shanahans own behavior in the immediate aftermath of the baseball bat fractured skull attack including him renting a hotel room where he hold up for days with his son while police were looking for him. joining us now is aaron davis, investigative reporter with "the washington post." mr. davis, i appreciate your time toni...

Investigative reporter with "the washington post." mr. davis, i appreciate your time tonight. this is quite a scoop. >> thanks for having me. >> so you mentioned that mr. shanahan had been discussing these incidents with "the post," with you since january. its remarkable that you guys have had this reporting project in the works for all this time while when he was not long ago confirmed as deputy defense secretary, this never turned up in any of the documents that were handed over to the senate....

Manaforts lawyer when he got out of court yesterday did not say as many defense lawyers do, we will appeal this, we have -- >> considering all his options. >> we are evaluating our options which indicates theyre thinking about a lot of things. i thought for a long time that manafort is playing the pardon game in part because theres no other sensible rational to choosing to have two trials. it only benefits the government and so when you start to see donald trumps tweets and statements about your...

They set it up. i went down there last wednesday. they have an informal off-the-record discussion. some background stuff because as you know, this entire affair has totally destroyed my life in so many ways. >> what did they want to know? >> well, they wanted to know everything that you wanted to know. they wanted to know if i was -- so i said, hey, look -- >> they wanted to know about the role you played between roger stone and assange? >> yes. and heres what i said to them. youre wasting your ...

The lawyers and write it down. and he said, fine. i went down to have an informal off of the record discussion, and background stuff, because as you know, this entire affair has totally destroy ed my life in s many ways. >> what did they want to know? >> they wanted to know everything that you wanted to know. >> they wanted to know the role between oliver stone and asauj. >> --s a sa assange. >> and i said, you are wasting your time chasing roger stone, because you are chasing rainbows. i unders...

Security adviser mike flynn, who was the subject of an fbi investigation led by a veteran counterespionage prosecutor even before he started lying to the fbi his second day on the job at the white house, so that did not work out with mike flynn. he was not the only one for whom things did not work out. for a while we had a nominee for labor secretary before it turned out his marriage had been the subject of an oprah winfrey episode back in the day about white-collar wife beaters. that one didnt ...

We got a head of the centers for the disease control who turned out to be buying and trading tobacco stocks while running the centres for disease control. >> that one didnt end up working out either. remember for a hot minute, we had an army secretary who quite recently punched a guy out at a high end horse auction. it was a very unusual reason for that one not working out. but there has been a lot of them. >> that just didnt work out. nobody asked about the background stuff. i mean, those ones,...

Required to disclose the donors at all. what could possibly go wrong? mr. gordon, thank you for being with us. appreciate you being here to talk about your work. >> rachel, thank you for having me. i have to say peter is the lead author but i was part of it and peter did great sleuthing for us. >> peter stone and greg gordon, got it. let me ask you first of all in explaining the importance of the reporting, did i get that right? >> perfect. perfectly. >> why is this coming to light? i have heard...