Again. Plus the director of National Intelligence is now openly defying congress over an urgent whistleblower complaint that may involve the president. Then i dont want you to listen to me. I want you to listen to the scientists. Senator brian schatz on the Climate Movement taking congress by storm. And brandnew polling from iowa that could shake up the democratic race when all in starts right now. Good evening from washington, d. C. Im chris hayes. We now have a dollar figure of how much money from the department of Defense Budget has been funneled into the president s business. Its not a small amount by any stretch. The United States department of defense using money we pay in taxes has transferred almost 200,000 of that money into Donald Trumps pocket. Politico reported last week the House Oversight committee was investigating why an Air National Guard crew stayed at trumps turnberry golf resort in scotland. Yesterday they reported air force crews stayed at trumps resort at taxpayer expense for several days at a time, even taking the opportunity to play golf at the resort. Now the overnight committee has given oscine idea of the scope of the systematic commitment to Trump Turnberry as well as the estimated cost to taxpayers. And both of those things are quite staggering. In a public letter to the department of defense, House Democrats say that based on the limited documents provided to them by dod, quote, it appears that u. S. Taxpayer funds were used to purchase the equivalent of more than 650 rooms at Trump Turnberry since august 2017, or the equivalent of one room every night for more than one 1and a half years. Unspecify the charges to government travel cards boost total military spending at Trump Turnberry to more than 184,000. The average cost of a room at turnberry for military Service Members was 189 a night according to House Oversight, quote, the materials provided by the department reflect numerous charges at rates that are higher than the average rights cited in the letter. The department has not explained the basis for the higher amounts. For example, on november 11th, 2018, the Department Paid 668, 639, and 611. Those are pretty high costs. Perhaps the most concerning part is that all of this was revealed in only 21 pages of material, half of which the House OversightCommittee Says was already publicly available. The committee has not seen any underlying invoices or travel records. They dont know the exact number of rooms booked, and they say, quote, the department is refusing to produce any emails, other communications relating to Trump Turnberry, or Prestwick Airport. Instead, the department stated it referred the committees request to these documents. For these documents, the white house. Thats kind of weird. It seems pretty straightforward. If theres nothing wrong with the situation, why not turn over the rest of the documents . Joining me now, one of the congressmen who signed that letter to the department of defense, jamie raskin. What is the scope of what we know about this now . We know that around 200,000 has been spent at that one resort in scotland since donald trump took office. Thats just one resort. Of course theres the one in ireland where the president sent the Vice President to go stay. Theres maralago. Theres new jersey. Theres virginia. Theres d. C. There are golf courses and hotels all over the place. This president has spent one out of every three days since hes taken office at a trump resort hotel or property. And theres a very clear legal principle that comes right out of the constitution which governs all of this. The president is limited to his salary in office. It can be neither increased or decreased by congress, and he can receive no additional compensation from the u. S. Government, from the taxpayers. Every time the taxpayers are hit up for another weekend, it costs about 75,000 or 100,000 at maralago for the secret service and the department of defense and the white house officials, or every time the money flows to scotland for this military stopover and all of the other properties that were just learning about now, that is a violation of the constitution. No other president in the history of the United States has come close to doing what this president is doing in terms of turning the presidency into an instrument of selfenrichment. In terms of turnberry, whats striking to me is that no one appeared to know this. I mean am i right that no one on the committee knew about this . No one had reported this. This has just been going on. Theres this little airport there, and american Service Members have been driving the 45 minutes to this property, which knowing how this usually works and knowing a lot of people that work for the federal government or in the services, thats not usually the kind of place youre getting sent. Right. Well, i mean the Prestwick Airport is necessary for the survival of the trump resort. And so hundreds of thousands of dollars flowing into the hotel is one thing. But the other is the millions of dollars that has been flowing to the airport, which is what keeps the whole local economy alive there. And the question is, is that money thats being well spent . Its been redirected there by the Trump Administration. Its like the president saying to the Vice President , well, we know that your meetings are in dublin, but we want you to stay 180 miles away. Thats like youve got meetings at the white house, and you stay in asbury park, new jersey, for your meetings. It makes no sense. How forthcoming has the department of defense been in terms of documentation . Its been pathetic. Weve gotten 20 pages. We originally wrote them back in june. We had to write them another letter just last week in order to tell them were getting serious. They finally produced about 20 pages, about half of that was already publicly available. Then theyre saying theyre waiting for the white house to review some documents. The president says he has nothing to do with it. He doesnt know anything about it. The legal point is clear. Whether or not the president is commanding them to go stay at all the resorts and hotels and commanding the military planes to stop there or hes trying everything in his power to stop it, it doesnt make any difference. He cant receive the money. He cant take it. Also the way the corruption works, if youve covered corruption in either domestic or international context, is that messages are sent down the chain that like it would be good to kick some money upstairs to the boss. Yes. Thats just how corrupt environments operate. I mean its striking to me that this was going on, and no one inside the chain of command inside dod is saying to themselves, whether this is done totally for perfectly good logistical reasons, this does not look good. Why was there a policy shift made . We want to see all of the accounting. We want to see all of the invoices and we have a right to see it. Its not up to donald trump. We have a right to see that, and that gets us into the obstruction of our congressional factfinding function. Theres a Washington Post article. This has to do with corey lewandowski. It has to do with the fact that they have turned over almost no documentation in your impeachment inquiry. Theyve asserted the broadest privilege assertions i think weve ever seen any modern president make. They even seem to think that they have the absolute right to stop anyone they want to from testifying. Josh dawsey wrote up this reporting from the Washington Post. He says, white house aides say they have a few advantages in this battle. Pelosi isnt behind nadler. Many of the hearings have fizzled. They say theyre not feeling the heat by not responding for interviews or documents. Democrats split. This is their latest on the inquiry. Is he right . No, i dont think hes right. I think our caucus is more unified every single day to stop the lawlessness and criminality of this administration. We have a responsibility to defend the constitution and defend the people. Its a completely untenable situation. All that is true, but the speaker of the house i have watched nancy pelosi operate. Nancy pelosi is one of the most adept legislators of our time. When nancy pelosi wants something to happen, it happens. I watched her drag the aca across the finish line and make 40 members walk the plank knowing she was sending them to their doom. If she wants soming to happen. If she doesnt want something to happen, it doesnt happen. It is very clear from the outside observing congressional behavior, the speaker of the house does not want to impeach the president , and you guys can do whatever you want to do, but she is not going to pick a fight over it. First of all, we have moved concept citations against william barr, the attorney general of the United States. I have a resolution to specifically disapprove and reject every Foreign Government payment donald trump has pocketed since he came into office, and i am very hopeful that we move on that by early october at the latest. And we tell the president , turn over all of your ill gotten gains from Foreign Government or face congress. So but face what . This is the problem is youre meeting procedural max miz many with procedural normalcy. The president steps outside the bounds of tradition. He asserts new powers and he says, lets see them in court. Hes been doing this for 40 years. He is treating you the way he treated the piano tuners and the painters, and youre doing the same thing. Its like, well see him in court. Thats not going to be good enough. Well, youre right. We are defending the rule of law, and were defending the constitution. But heres the thing. Lets not start at the end of the story. The media always wants to jump to, well, pelosi is against impeachment. Nadler is for impeachment. Im not positive nadler is for articles of impeachment. Im noz positive shes against them. All i know is shes not going to prejudge the caution because shes got a big caucus to govern, and he has to keep us moving forward in the investigation. That may be true. All im saying is what it looks like from the outside is the caucus is not united in wanting to pick the fight. That you have someone that is acting in ways that are sort of intransigent, abare ant, even lawless. Chaotic. There is not the stomach to pick the fight. Its basically were going to do what we can where we can do it. Were not going to just let him do it. Were going to start of raise our objections. Were going to march through our resolutions. Were going to have our hearings, but were not going to escalate this to a cataclysmic battle. Were going to stand tough for the rule of law. I believe that the original sin of this administration is convico converting the white house into a forprofit enterprise. Its unfortunate to my mind that all of the russia stuff came out first. The way to understand the russia stuff is this is a president very clearly related. Yes, because this is a businessman who went bankrupt six times. No selfrespecting American Bank would lend money to him, and he found the russian oligarchs. Thats how Vladimir Putin and the russian autocracy got their claws into him. Thats the way of understanding it. When he got into office, he was perhaps as stunned as anybody else, but he decided to get right back to work on making money. He said he would not divest himself. He would not do a blind trust. He was going to deep everything going, and he has, and its unconstitutional, and were going to stop him. This is the achilles heel of this administration. You watch, chris. Mark my words. Great to talk to you in person. Joining me now, Elizabeth Holtzman and walter dellinger. Liz, let me start with you. On the constitutional principles stated by the congressman, which i dont think i was quite familiar with, how do you read the idea . Lets put the facts aside and just have a thought experiment. A president is essentially running the presidency solely as a forprofit operation. Lets say even he owns a defense contractor and hes just funneling tens of billions of dollars a year into his pocket. Is that a violation of the constitution . Is that a violation of the law . Is that impeachable . Its a violation of the constitution. If you go back and read what the framers were worried about, they were very worried about two things with regard to the president in terms of corruption. They were worried that Foreign Governments would bribe the president. They saw a king of england being bribed by a king of france. They said this is not going to happen here. So it was a prohibition. Congress could say yes, but this president has never gone to congress to ask for congress permission even though governments from saudi arabia, from romania, other countries, have funneled tens of thousands, if not millions of dollars into his hotel. Now, the problem with that is not only hes being corrupted in the abstract, but we now see that saudi arabia, which has spent untold amounts of money at his hotel, has not been held liable. Right. In any way for the killing of khashoggi, a journalist who was living in the United States. Do we know that this was done because of the money going into the president s pocket, or do we know whether it was done because of some other reason . Right. So the corruption is there. The framers didnt want it and for the same reason they expressly prohibited and congress cant approve it. Any extra money going to the president aside from his salary, from any state of the union or from the United States itself. So its Crystal Clear and this president has thumbed his nose at the constitution and has allowed the basics of government to be corrupted because people obviously want to get help from the president. Maybe the military wants to get pay increases or change some kinds of protocols. And if theyve given money to his pocket, theyll think hes going to do the right thing. So we never know when you have a corrupt president whether hes acting in the interest of the United States or his own personal interest and thats what the framers wanted to stop dead in its tracks. Walter, do you agree . Oh, i agree with all of that. I think this is a very serious matter. Theres a clause in the constitution that says that the president s compensation shall be stated and it shall be neither increased or decreased while hes in office, and that he shall receive no other emoluments from any part of the government because it might influence him to favor the navy or the army if they were funneling money to him. Right. And thats whats happening with turnberry. You know, i think congresswoman holtzman is right about the foreign influence. The framers of the constitution were obsessed that we would be the plaything of european politics and that foreign princes would corrupt with all their wealth would corrupt our offices in our new modest country. You know, its hard to say what is the president s clearest constitutional violation, but i think its the foreign emoluments clause because it is so clear and so sweeping that the president simply has to report to congress and get Congress Approval for having any business dealings with a Foreign Government. Not just the president. Any officer of the government. Right. Imagine if john kerry, while hes negotiating the deal with the iranians was receiving valuable sums of money from iran without telling anybody. Imagine that the trade representative with china is receiving valuable intellectual property, trade licenses for his own personal businesses without informing congress and receiving congress consent. Its a sweeping clause and intended to be so. And its not just the corruption thats at issue here but the corrosion of the constitution. If were simply going to tolerate a violation of the constitution of these clauses, what about the rest of the constitution . Why should we obey any of it . You know, congress could defund the office of the white house, the president s executive office and leave him with one secretary if all of these people wouldnt testify when it passed a budget and have a showdown with the president. Yes. And in fact, what is becoming clearer, i think, is there will have to be some kind of procedural escalation on the part of the congress because right now theyre being stonewalled in almost every direction. And unless you do something that makes them sit up and take notice, theyre going to keep doing it. Thats been the m. O. For his life. Thank you both so much. Thank you. Next, breaking news tonight about the Intelligence Committee whistleblower whose complaint is being withheld from congress. 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