Transcripts For MSNBCW MSNBC Live With Alex Witt 20180805 17

MSNBCW MSNBC Live With Alex Witt August 5, 2018 17:00:00

Alex Witt hosts coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. Alex Witt hosts coverage of national and international news, including breaking stories. Don jr. And it goes on to say this was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics. It is done frequently in politics when everyone involved is an american citizen. It is much more treacherous if there are any foreign nationals who are part of a meeting like that because there are violations of the law if foreign nationals contribute anything of value to a campaign. Money, information, anything of value. So thats where it gets a bit tricky. Now, one of the issues, we know, is that donald trump jr. , through his testimony and the emails that he released, did acknowledge that it was a meeting to get information, dirt as it was described on Hillary Clinton. We also know that another attendee of that meeting, jared kushner, who is the president s soninlaw and senior adviser, has since gotten his Security Clearance at a level not the highest level but has a valid Security Clearance. That raises the issue of the process to get that clearance would contemplate all of these issues like this meeting and things that they would know behind the scenes. So is that something to suggest there wasnt something unlawful there . We just dont know, but thats another piece of the puzzle. Today jay sekulow, one of the lawyers for the president , addressed some of these concerns about what is the Legal Standard here and how might there be exposure or perhaps not. Heres how he laid it out. The real question here is would a meeting of that nature constitute a violation the meeting itself constitute a violation of the law. You have to look at what laws, rules, Regulation Statutes are purportedly violated here. Why did you deny President Trumps involvement . When did you learn that the Denial Wasnt True . Let me tell you two things on that. Number one, as you know, george, i was in the case at that point a couple weeks ask there wnd th lot of information we were gathering, and as my colleague Rudy Giuliani said, i had bad information at that point. Over time you have facts develop. Thats what investigations do. Reporter not helpful to the president and his team is that issue of his lawyer previously giving Bad Information publicly. That was a denial that the president was involved in the Explanation Statement for what that meeting was originally about. It was something he dictated on air force i with other colleagues there to say that the meeting at trump tower in 2016 was about the ban on russian adoptions. When that subject came up, it was only a small part of the issue, but it was also significant because that was an issue important to the kremlin and Vladimir Putin who denied russian adoptions in response to sanctions on russian oligarchs. So there is a thread there to follow, but his lawyer had originally said the president had nothing to do with that, and then later they disclosed to the Special Counsel that the president was involved, had, in fact, dictated what they called a brief but accurate statement. So the fact that there is a hodge podge of the record here may complicate this. It doesnt look good for sure, but the Question Sekulow and the legal team is asking is what specifically is a violation of law here . Thats the part we dont know because the Special Counsel is not talking. They tend to do their work completely in secret and we dont know the results of what theyve done until they present it through an indictment if one ever comes in a case like this, as weve seen in other figures who have been a part of the russia investigation. Richard . Nbc white house correspondent, great to have you to lay it all out for us there. Kelly odonnell, thank you. Lets go to manu puza, msnbc contributor. Matt, in the last 12 hours, we were highlighting what might have been of interest, and that is the admit tatanceadmittance, that the president was of the understanding there was a meeting to get information on an opponent. Kelly is giving me ptsd here, because i was actually the one back in july of last year whose job it was as part of the times team that revealed the existence of this Trump Tower Meeting, and it was my job to get the official comment from the white house, so i was the one who got the this was all about the russian adoption, it had nothing to do with the campaign whatsoever. That was my job in all of this, and so we went through days and days of reporting, and of course we found out it was about the campaign, and it was actually about getting political dirt on Hillary Clinton, and now we finally hear from the president who says, yeah, it was all about getting political dirt on Hillary Clinton from the russian government and thats totally fine. This is going to be familiar to any parents out there who, when talking to their children, get the i didnt do it shifts to yeah, i did it but its totally fine and you cant be upset about it. I dont know if this has any legal consequence here, but it certainly becomes another headscratching moment where the president of the United States has sort of leaned in One Direction after being 180 degrees previously. Youre right at the front lines there and have been on it. Interesting from you, matt. Why do you think this idea was exposed now . Why even bring it up . I think the post story was the immediate impetus. I think the larger issue is this is a president who feels he cant get out from under the russia investigation. And frankly, what is ironic about that is its the president and his teams own statements that have really dragged him further into the muck when it comes to the russia investigation. Remember in november of 2016, the official line from the Trump Campaign was there were no contacts with russians. The fbi at the time knew that there were absolutely contacts with russians. It made people say, if thats true, why are they lying about it . Then its, no, we didnt meet about campaign stuff, we met about russian adoption. Okay, we did meet about campaign stuff, but it wasnt illegal. The president didnt know anything about it. Okay, the president dictated the statement. The changing stories have only worsened the pr and legal problem for the president , and he is frustrated that he cant get out from under it. Its understandable hes so frustrated. If youre the president of the United States, having an investigation hanging over your head doesnt make it easier. Whats your sense about the frustration leader. As you described, some issues coming to bear for this presidency and this administration, you also have paul manafort. He will be taking the stage at 1 00 p. M. Tomorrow. You have the midterms, you have melania coming out with some statements about lebron james. You have his attacks on the media and then you have list the items that seem to come together, an intersection that would make most journalists heads spin. Is this perhaps an indication that hes brooding and perhaps hitting a low point . I dont know about low points or brooding because i feel like every few weeks there is another story about the president is very upset and he cant get ahold of the message. Its not my job to give the president messaging advice, but the president his twitter account is the Worlds Largest megaphone right now, and he uses it to talk about russia. We are here today talking about it because the president tweeted about it. He said hes frustrated people arent talking about jobs or the message he wants to get out, but the only message hes out there with consistently is attack the news media and russia and mueller and the russia investigation. And he says, i dont understand why people keep talking about it. All righty. Always good to have you. Math apuzzo, Investigative Reporter with the New York Times, always with insight of whats happening there. Thanks, matt. Thank you. Lets bring in steven mulroy, a law professor at the universi university. What sort of jeopardy might the president face, if we can put that tweet up again, the president today if we were to say what is different what hes saying . Hes saying, for the first time from his voice, this is a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics. Hes saying he did not know about it, but in this tweet hes saying he does now know about it. Your thought about legal jeopardy, steven . Collusion is not a legal term and it may be that collusion by itself is not necessarily a crime, but the conduct thats contemplated in that Trump Tower Meeting from the summer of 2016 potentially exposes them to liability in a number of different ways. There is conspiracy to assist in the Computer Hacking which is criminal, there is also violations of federal Campaign Finance laws, receiving things of that you will that might assist in a campaign from foreign sources, and then the general conspiracy statute says its a crime to conspire with others to defraud or reconstruct the State Department in hiding the fact that there were these foreign agents actively interfering in the campaign and assisting in the Trump Campaign, any of those things could lead to Double Jeopardy. What was stated in that tweet . As a former federal prosecutor, steven laid out probably his favorite statute, the conspiracy statute. Because Conspiracy Law is so broad that it can cover many, many kinds of conduct. So even in the trumps team mind, they will have incredible dirt on Hillary Clinton. As steven said shs it could relate to defrauding the United States, it could be a conspiracy against the United States, and even federal election campaign la laws. The strange paradox. These should deal with legal things, not gains in stacked material. That leads to more Double Jeopardy for the trump team. So i think, they finally picked up some things to bring by my case. And if youre sekulow, youre saying no meeting with the Special Counsel. I would say yes to both of those questions. The latest tweet and everything weve heard lately only has to be added to the pile of ammunition that mueller has for his legal theory. I almost think because of the constant shifting nature of the. Investigation. On the other hand, if they resist too much, mueller could issue a subpoena, and i dont know if they want to go down that road, either. Thank you for being here to tell us the news. Thank you. Kelly tries to define the use of the word hoax. That is next. Copd tries to say, go this way. I say, ill go my own way, with anoro. 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Without drawing a drop of blood, again and again. The most personal technology, is technology with the power to change your life. Life. To the fullest. When he talks about the hoax, hes talking about this unproven fantasy that somehow the campaign that i successfully managed for the successful part of the campaign was in cahoots with russians. As you know, because you covered it. Our campaign was talking with mecklenburg county, not to moscow. Kellyanne conway this morning telling about trump as it relates to interference in the election. Msnbc contributor, and jamie newton small, contributor for time magazine. Bet betsy, what do you believe happened over the weekend . The word hoax is over have is validity of the 2016 campaign. The argument that Kellyanne Conway made this morning is incompatible with the tweets the president just sent out. Kellyanne conway said they werent having conversations with moscow, but trump himself tweeted that his son went into this meeting hoping to get dirt on Hillary Clinton from people who were connected with the kremlin. Those things cannot both be true at the same time. Either what kellyanne said was true or what the president said was true. Based on the preponderance of the evidence and based on the other claims that have been made, the president is saying something which lines up with reality, which is that the people in his inner circle, at the highest echelons of his campaign, sat down with russians to get material from foreigners that would have been helpful for their campaign, potentially liability. Its why the white house has such trouble talking about this. Jamie, what do you make of what was said on this Sunday Morning from Kellyanne Conway and john bolton . Kellyanne conway coined the term alternative facts for the trump administration. Shes always out there sort of putting this spin on things saying, well, he doesnt really mean what you think he means, he means something completely else. Then down the road, it actually ends up turning out that it actually means what we think it means. Remember, alternative facts applied to how many people were actually at the inauguration, which was proven by photos later on. And they constantly time and again deny the truth. They say its total lies, its fake news, it doesnt happen. Then when it turns out to be true later on, theyre sort of like, oh, well yes, thats true, of course. But never mind the man behind the curtain, its really not a big deal. Its not illegal, its not collusion, if collusion actually exists. So its striking that this weekend their whole defense is the idea that, oh, well, yes, they did have this meeting in russia russia, but collusion isnt illegal. Thats their new sort of arg. Argume argument. Next week their argument will be, this might have happened but its not a big deal and it will be fine. As we look at this back and forth, one of the questions has been here, betsy, what is the mood in the white house, and a vanity fair article had put some ideas behind that, that the president is going back to his old favorites, steve bannon as well as hope hicks. And there was this formation, this idea that based on his discomfort, his stress right now, that he might be going back to get some ideas of whats happening. So one has to take a step back and go, as we move into the midterms, where is the sensibility, where is that comfort in the presidency right now . There hasnt been reporting from any other outlets ive seen that the president is going back to see steve bannon. Its possible thats true but not something widely reported. The president is dealing with a significant amount of angst as a result of the mueller investigation. Hes been angsting about it since the legislation, but he seems particularly concerned that mueller could be getting information on his son don jr. Thats why he put out these tweets this morning, sort of Te Telegraphing those concerns. We havent seen people in don jr. s immediate circle being brought in for questioning, we havent seen reports about raids or subpoenas being directed on people who might have information on don jr. , but despite that, the president seems to be worried about it. Its possible the president knows about activity that mueller has engaged in that the broad country doesnt know about, or its possible hes had conversations with people in his orbit that has raised questions in his mind about don jr. s activity. Thats something to keep in mind Going Forward this week. To what extent does he remain central in this white house. So, j, as you look at what is said by Kellyanne Conway as well as john bolton, he was the one, were hearing, that said, hey, go out and stand there in the White House Press briefing and address the press on what is the concern about russian interference, then he goes out and says, its a hoax. So one has to wonder where hes getting his messaging advice here. Its always been a contradiction, and when i speak to people in the white house, they talk about how they just sort of keep their heads down, they do their jobs, they try to get policy done, they try to get work done, and thats really what theyre proud of and what they want, they wish the world would focus on. Then theres this other level where theyre sort of swimming at the deep part of the ocean, and at the top of the ocean, you have these waves that are really violent and there is a big storm at the top and thats really donald trump on twitter, which is so in contrast to what they say is whats actually going on inside the administration. So you see people getting up and doing this White House Briefing saying, yes, there is incontroversial evidence

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