Page 1428 - Leverage News Today

Continuing resolution, whats in the budget, we will have some leverage and certainly the prospect of our becoming the majority in january gives us some leverage too. >> all right, congressman jerry nadler, thanks for being with me. >> thank you. for more on matt whitaker and trumps attacks on mueller today, im with betsy woodruff, josh, ill start with you, very weird time right now, heres the politico story. trump preparing -- mueller anxiety invades trump world. half a dozen people in contact...

One reason only. thats to prevent this investigation from getting too close to donald trump. i dont think that means hell reach in and fire bob mueller or dismiss indictments. on the close calls and subpoenaing a president can be a close call, hes going to side with the president. thats why hes there and what the president expects and maybe hell do the right thing. but i dont have any confidence in that. and ill say, i dont think its a coincidence the president stalled on answering these questio...

Personally? thats not the job of the attorney general. and hes obviously very scared of this. and he has been convinced until now, at least, that he could evade accountability, that he was above the law. and that no one would hold him to the law. but now youve got a democratic congress, or at least house coming in in january thats going to proper oversight, which is our constitutional duty, which is going to hold him accountable and the special prosecutor may very well hold him accountable too. ...

There was even a reference to asking the document be remain sealed until assange is arrested so he couldnt avoid the arrest. the implication here is that charges are pending against assange. we cant say that for sure. its possible this could be a draft. >> right. we dont know whether he -- exactly whether hes been filed, going to be filed, these charges are going to be file or a draft. just to be clear on that. >> yes. msnbc has not confirm that either way. "the washington post," however, is rep...

But now youve got a democratic congress, or at least house coming in in january thats going to proper oversight, which is our constitutional duty, which is going to hold him accountable and the special prosecutor may very well hold him accountable too. and hes acting very cornered. >> do you have any leverage in this lame duck senator blumenthal was talking about ways of thinking of attaching something that you must pass legislation, obviously the law -- thered have to be a matching law in the h...

She has the votes in the caucus but on the floor a small group of members, as few as 12 democrats voting no and the house freedom caucus has created the precedent to use that kind of leverage to force a change at the top. >> look at the national numbers on pelosi. i know its not a plebiscite but the national numbers would like that see a different number. 46% would like to keep pelosi. nobody goes in the voting booth and says i dont like that speaker. theyre going to talk about whether or not th...

>> it would also assure more funding so that the continuation of the present appropriation -- the moneys been appropriated would be assured. >> so you dont have much leverage in the minority right now in the senate, far less than one used to in the united states senate. jeff flake and coons tried to bring it up, defeated by mitch mcconnell. flake has said he wont vote for a -- lame duck session. are there other republicans who can go the flake route to get you the leverage you would need? >> i t...

Isnt trying to fib or exaggerate the truth. then they have to vet everything that corroborating witness tells them. because ultimately some defense attorney will try to pick it apart if the case ever goes to trial so its not just a matter of meeting with paul manafort, theres a lot of additional work the u.s. attorneys have to do. >> would it be fair to say that once the sentencing takes place that any leverage that prosecutors would have over him, then that goes away or diminishes, they want to...

Governments response is they havent denied theres charges pending. they said this was done in error. the reason we cant say there are sealed criminal charges against julian assange is because its possible this could have been lifted from draft document. what this shows is theres a very advance investigation proceedsing in the eastern district looking at wikileaks, looking at assange and it may not be related to 2016 election meddling at all. they have been investigating wikileaks for years. it w...

Hold-up here is clearly, its not like the goal posts are moving. there are, obviously, muellers accumulating new facts all the time. the basic things hes interested in have been the things hes been interested in for a very long time. and it suggests if the president, to your point earlier. he has an easy way out, which is tell the truth. its true thats the easy way out if all youre trying to do is avoid perjury. hes clearly not trying to avoid perjury. if the facts are incriminating, he has no e...