2016 was at least aware that papadopoulos wanted the campaign to make an overture to russia. According to a source close to sessions, quote, attorney general Jeff Sessions rejected a proposal by a Junior Campaign aide who offered to use his russian contacts to set up a meet between donald trump and v lead mir putin himself. He was not aware of anyone on the campaign who had communicated with russia. Heres what he told al franken in his confirmation hearing in january. If there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump Campaign communicated with the russian government in the course of this campaign what will you do . Senator franken, im not aware of any of those activities. More recently we saw sessions was careful to avoid a direct answer to this question posed by senator Lindsay Graham just last month. Did you ever overhear a conversation between you or anyone on the campaign about meeting with the russians . I have not seen anything that would indicate a collusion with the russians to impact the campaign. Very careful there. Very careful, attorney general. Anyway, separately senator al franken sent a letter to the attorney general today asking him to address the information that papadopoulos gave to investigators. Franken wrote sessions saying this is another example of in which you the nations top Law Enforcement officer failed to tell the truth under oath about the trump teams contacts with agents of russia. The ranking democrat on the Senate Judiciary committee has been asked to return to capitol hill for more questioning. Joining me right now is senator al franken of minnesota, a member of the Senate Judiciary committee. What do you make of this sort of indirect claim by attorney general sessions now that he shot down the idea by papadopoulos to do business with the russians . Well, thats whats being reported that he said something to the effect in that meeting which was of the Foreign Policy group that was meeting with trump and they met with trump that day and there is a photo of this with sessions there sitting two away from papadopoulos and that sessions said i dont think we should do this and i dont want no one should talk about this again, and papadopoulos had been meeting with russian contacts. So when he was asked first in that first confirmation hearing in january, he said he hadnt met with any russians and he didnt know of anyone meeting with russians and that turned out at least the part of him not meeting with russians turned out not to be true. He met with kislyak, the ambassador, three times and as recently, rather, as the last hearing with him in the judiciary, he said he still didnt believe that anyone had met from the Trump Campaign with russians, and you know, i asked him if Jared Kushner, do you know about donald trump jr. , Paul Manafort who all met with russians in trump tower. Yeah. And he but he still claimed then that he didnt think that anybody from the Trump Campaign had met with russians and now it turns out that papadopoulos in his guilty plea said that he had been meeting with his russian contacts and told them that in this meeting and said that i think i can arrange this meeting between putin and trump and sessions reacted to that, strongly enough, to, i believe, remember that. I have a lot of questions. Yeah. For the attorney general, and theyre in my letter, and i agree with Patrick Leahy that he should return to the Judiciary Committee and answer some questions before us. Well, how could the attorney general say now through an intermediary, i suppose, to the press that he told this young guy to shut it down and not to have any more communications with the russians because he saw it was dangerous politically and perhaps in terms of national security, he shouldnt be doing anything like that stuff, and yet he didnt ever have a conversation like that. Either he did it or he didnt. If he did say shut it down kid, and then he remembered there were contacts with russians. Exactly. Look, he has contradicted himself so many times in the last since january that it really is hard to believe that hes been telling the truth at any one point. Yeah. It seems like hes an old enough man to know what the cold war felt like, what the kgb acts like to be smart enough to say stay away from those damn russians. He seemed to be smart enough to say that when papadopoulos raised the idea and if i deny all contact with russia ill be safe. He denied contact with russia in his confirmation hearing and he met with kislyak three times and met with the ambassador three times so that wasnt true. So then he changed it. He said i didnt meet with any russians to discuss the campaign. Then it turned out that he had kind of talked about some Campaign Issues with kislyak at the Mayflower Hotel and then he changed it to, i didnt meet with russians to talk about interference with the campaign. So hes been moving the goalpost. This is very, very hinky, and he needs to testify and needs to answer my letter, as well. One thing i keep reminding myself is that watergate ended with evidence, and the president of the United States in that case obstructed justice because we had the tapes. Do you sense that mueller is moving along consistently in a way that he has something in mind at the end . Does he seem to have what you might call the smoking gun at this point . Does he have it . I dont know. What i think hes doing is doing a very serious and thorough investigation and i think that the revelations from this guilty plea and thats how a lot of things get unearthed during these investigations is people plead guilty so they dont have to spend a long time in prison. So the way they get truth is to promise people 0 to six months in a minimum security prison situation and they probably dont have to serve and you do that and work your way up the ladder. Yes. Thats what i believe happened. I mean, i believe john dean spent time in prison, and i do also believe and a lot of the nixon they did. But dean cooperated, obviously. I dont think he spent a terribly long time in prison, and i think it was in a very minimum security prison. There was adequate tennis facilities and new tennis balls. I think they were old tennis balls. Okay. At the prison. Well correct that for the record. Thank you very much, senator al franken and a member of the Senate Judiciary committee. I am joined by barbara mcquade, former nsa prosecutor and ken vogel, a reporter with the New York Times, and, and we have papadopoulos pleading and there were discussions over the table with the president and with the future attorney general presse present, and were getting progress and now we got the break that through an intermediary and through a flack of some sort, the attorney general is now admitting that he did have a conversation about russian help and he shut it down. He told this Young Papadopoulos no more. What do you been that and where is that taking us in terms of this developing story . Chris, you have to figure a lot of these revelations that are coming out now that seem to be voluntary and seem to be sessions people trying to get in front of something are, in fact, prompted by what muler is doing and papadopoulos and people going back through looking and figuring out hey, what is my exposure here and its more than what weve seen and the guilty plea from papadopoulos and manafort and gates. You see mueller is showing a little bit of leg in some of these ways that are not necessarily in the four corners of the cases. For instance, in the supplemental material that was submitted in the manafortgates related to their bail they just dropped in there that oh, by the way, theyve been paid millions of dollar by russian oligarchs and they have these Bank Accounts that cobeneficiary is a Russian National and youre, like, huh . Why wasnt that in the indictment as if hes signaling theres a lot more to come. Sam klovitz has withdrawn his nomination for the top job at the agriculture department. These people know theyre not going to get through any confirmation hearing and they know theyve been tainted because of the way the testimony is coming out under pressure of a possible longterm prison sentences. I think the sam clovis withdrawal serves not only his interest, but maybe others in the Trump Administration. Imagine the kinds of questions he would be asked at his confirmation hearing under oath. This would be not only a huge distraction and an opportunity for members of congress to ask him about all of the matters in those emails, who are these other people identified only by title in the emails that were revealed in the statement by the case in the George Papadopoulos case. So i think that he and others in the Trump Administration thought there was no choice, but to withdrawal the nomination. Lets look at how the story is directing in various directions. You just pointed out the honest testimony under pressure with papadopoulos, a guy we didnt know about is now opening up a lot of doors. Carter page, when you start hearing in these conversations oh, go over there on your own dime, and you think, wait a minute, nobody goes over there on their own dime. These guys are expense account people and they always get someone to pay their way and theyre consultants and lobbyists and somebodys paying and when somebody like one of these top guys like clovis says, young man, if you want to the go to russia and get dirt on Hillary Clinton. Are you kidding me . Someones picking up the tab and my question is what about carter page . This cato kalin character who is always present and his role is unclear. They want us to think that both he and papadopoulos were minimal players and were doing this as you have suggested on their own volition, but what sort of makes it harder to take at face value their characterizations is that they tried to minimize manaforts role, when it first became when manafort was a target. You remember sean pricer at the podium, he played a limited role for a limited period of time. That is simply false. When you hear them making an excuse about other people, and you wonder if you can take that at face value or not, and even as it appears as it does with carter page that he was not a central player. You have to think that mueller is looking more closely at this and that we shouldnt necessarily take them for their word when they say this guy is a nobody. Its a mob thing. I dont know anything. I dont remember that guy. Carter page spoke to the House Intelligence Committee today just days after he told chris hayes that he might have had correspondence with papadopoulos about russia among other things. Lets hear him. Were you guys on email chains together, you and papadopoulos . Look, theres a lot of emails all over the place when youre in a campaign. Yeah, but yes or no. Were you in email chains with papadopoulos . Probably a few, yeah. Were you in email chains with him about russia . It may have come up from time to time. You travel over the summer to moscow. Yeah. Are you the person theyre talking about . I dont think so. And if you listen to the audio of all or the transcripts of everything i said i was always there just as a private citizen, and ive spoken at universities in moscow and russia and asia and europe many times and it was totally separate. Hes a very important man and heres what he said about the trip following his testimony. [ inaudible question ] no i had nothing to do with any of that. Im sorry, barbara. This guy seems ditsy to me. I dont get it. He should be on fox friends regularly. I dont know why donald trump would invest capital in him. This is the Strangest Group of people. The one thing they have in common is the word russia. Ive never seen so many russian connections. What is your sense of how the prosecution is proceeding . Prosecutor mueller has begun with a very small person and let him off the hook with a zero to sixmonth prison sentence that may be nothing and hes moving toward clovis and other guys in a chronological, even, way. This is the methodical process of right out of the prosecutors playbook. Start with smallerlevel people and people whose names we are not familiar with, as you said, a week ago and find a crime that theyve committed and exchange for leniency and in the initial complaint papadopoulos was charged with obstruction of justice which carried a higher prison term for altering his facebook page. That charge ultimately was dropped and he is providing information. It also says in those documents that they wanted to seal his document for a while so as not to tip off others in the investigation so that they can conduct interviews and engage in proactive cooperation. That means he may have worn a wire and recorded phone calls. So ill bet there are a lot of Administration Official shaking in their boots . Does that mean wear a wire, basically . It most often means wear a wire or record phone calls. Wow. Once they accused w. Of wearing a wire, and that was strange and this is much more serious. Its great to have you on, and have an expert on. Coming up, trump says the suspect in this weeks terror attack in new york should get the death penalty. What is this guy . The judge imperial or what . Why is President Trump commenting on a criminal case considering his comments could end up weakening, in fact jeopardizing the whole prosecution case and plus, trump promised to hire the best people and why is he giving plum government jobs and one that was a cabana boy, and do they prepare for the jobs trump gave people. And joe bidens spirited attack on donald trump and whether trump can resist the rightwing urge to kneecap special prosecutor robert mueller. Let me finish today with trump watch. This is hardball where the action is. And this guy is just trying to get through the day. This guy feels like he can take on anything. This guy isnt sure he can take it anymore. Unwavering selfconfidence. Stuck in a 4door sedan of sadness. Upgrade your commute. Ride with audible. Dial star star audible on your smartphone to start listening today. When this guy got a flat tire in the middle of the night, so he got home safe. Yeah, my dad says our insurance doesnt have that. What . you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. Most americans will be able to file taxes on a single sheet of paper. What do you think of that, kevin . Are you still there . Or will it be a paper and a half . Oh great job. Thank you very much. I didnt know i was going to be given a prop. That was my only copy. Its yours. [ laughter ] beautiful. Thank you. Do you think thats funny . Stay with us here. Welcome back to hardball. Republicans are new revealing their tax plan and it slashes the rate to 20 . It cuts the individual taxes of upper income people and gradually eliminates the estate tax altogether and adds 1. 5 trillion to the debt in ten years. Democrats characterize it as a giveaway to the wealthiest americans and people like donald trump itself. This is a shell game and a ponzi scheme that Corporate America will perpetrate on the American People. The republican bill written in secret, designed to be raced before its truly understood ran sacks vital benefits for the middle class. The republicans know the more this bill is exposed out there the less people like it. In short, the bills like a fish. If it stays out in the sunlight too long it stinks. You know what . This is something that should be taken seriously, ali. Yeah. What we are getting here is stafford and it should be taken seriously. Ali velshi. One of the big winners here, lets start with stockholder because the cash will flow down, and the Corporate Tax cut from 25 to 35 . So this is key. Nobody pays 35 . Thats the statutory rate. You can look at this a million ways and come out to 18. 6 because there are so many loopholes why is the market discounting this big flush of money . Because the markets doing it and ignoring everything unless donald trump completely reverses things and adds regulation, the markets going to keep on going. So what youve got is 20 without a big change in loopholes which means the effective rate the companies will pay is even less. This was a very, very big giveaway to businesses and the wealthy and a small giveaway to the middle class, and many of them will get a small tax cut. Between 250 and a million. Thats a lot of people and a lot of money. Its a were all going to like him for this. It has relatively broad appeal and the concept that this is a middleclass tax cut is largely false and it increases the deficit. This doesnt achieve a whole lot of goals. You go to latin america, and there are a few zillion airs that own the farmland and they own everything of any value and then masses you know why . They dont have estate tax because you can accumulate wealth over generations and generations. You dont have to work or do anything. Thats why you have an estate tax. Who wants that done . Weve run the numbers and just in Donald Trumps estate, according to the numbers that forbes has on what his waetealt it would net his kids another 525 million. There will always be trumps. There say philosophical argument about whether or not you should tax peoples estates, but the concept that this is a middleclass problem is entirely false. In 2017 the number of estates that will be subject to estate tax is 5,500 in total. The oligarchs. The number of those that are businesses and Family Enterprises that the republicans keep talking about is 80, 80. This is not a middleclass thing. Its a rich persons tax cut and we werent surprised. I like the way you deliver the facts. Justice trump style. The president tweets that the new york terror suspect should get the death penalty, he says. Doesnt he know this could jeopardize the prosecutions case. Nixon did this with Charles Manson. He almost got the guy