That is how they used to do it when he was in charge. Now that the white house has handpicked someone to take over that job, apparently we get the kushner forms 7 00 on a friday night. That does it for us tonight. Well see you again on monday. Now its time for the last word. Ari melber sitting in for lawrence tonight. Good evening, ari. Good evening, rachel. Sometimes the news breaks late and people ask why, and theres no reason. And then sometimes it feels like maybe theres a reason. Thats right. And, you know, some of these things, i just feel like its because were all cursed, and we dont get real weekends. So fridays just end up being a busy day. But there are some things in the news tonight that feel like legit, deliberate Friday Night News dumps that are supposed to be burying these things. Right. And your reporting on what outgoing former director shaub said adds context to that. I am ari melber in for Lawrence Odonnell this evening. It seems Attorney GeneralJeff Sessions week did go from bad
language that really, in any other administration, would be a prelude to dismissal. We do know the president says hes unhappy with Jeff Sessions. And according to the president , think about it. The reason is not immigration enforcement, which was the biggest doj focus in trumps campaign. The reason that trump is unhappy with sessions has nothing to do with cracking down on gangs or drugs or Mortgage Fraud or really anything related to the Attorney Generals vast powers and influence over the lives of everyday americans. No, according to the president s own words, the big reason he is losing confidence in Jeff Sessions is all about the Attorney Generals impact on donald trump himself. Lets get right to this big story tonight. Im joined by John Mclaughlin, former Acting Director of the cia, max boot, a Senior Fellow for National Security studies and adviser to mitt romney back in 2012, and reporter david corn. Mr. Mclaughlin, the intercepts that are described in the Washington Post story, what do
they mean to you, and how much more would you like to know about them . Well, ari, to be frank, i mean if this came to me in my old job, if someone walked into my office and told me this story, the first question id have would be i want to see the intercept. In other words, i would like to know all of the details in it and make some judgment about the way its characterized and so forth. Obviously if theres truth to it, its appropriate to think about smart to think about whose agenda is being served here, and i think you already talked about the possibilities there. But the final thought i would give you on what it means to me is if this is true, its obviously very sensitive intelligence. So someone throwing it out has to have an agenda thats pretty important to them. Max, do you see the same potential agendas . Absolutely. I mean to me, this is a little bit like choosing between iran, iraq during the iran iraq war
because you have donald trump versus his own Attorney General, and neither one inspires a lot of confidence. I mean certainly its huge news if this Washington Post story is accurate that Jeff Sessions had discussions with the russians about the campaign and then lied about it, including possibly perjuring himself before the senate. But then you have to wonder as John Mclaughlin just said, why is this coming out . Theres a lot of speculation that its being leaked by the white house because just a couple of days ago donald trump unloaded on his own Attorney General, and theres a lot of speculation that hes trying to force Jeff Sessions out so he can appoint Somebody Else who Will Fire Bob Mueller for him. So bad as sessions conduct may be, it may actually be in the interest of the republic for him to stay where he is so that trump cant put a yes man in that position. Sometimes we ask big, complicated questions. I have a very simple question for you building on the comments here of our colleagues. How could it be that there is no russia collusion or russia problem according to donald trump, but the one reason he would fire or be unhappy withJeff Sessions is a meeting with a Russian Ambassador that the president himself still maintains is of no significance . You know, i cannot answer any question about what donald trump thinks. You know, he is highly situational. What he says, i think, is only meant to stand for the nanosecond he says it. It doesnt matter whether its logical, consistent with anything else hes ever said. To me, you know, a big way of looking at whats coming out tonight, assuming the Washington Post report is accurate, is that why does this matter so much . Well, what matters is if you have really one of the top surrogates for donald trump, you know, in the spring of 2016 talking to the russians kind of as theyre beginning to figure out how to do Information Warfare against the u. S. Election to help trump and to hurt hillary clinton, but if hes telling the russians, you know, if we get elected, youll get a better deal with us. We want to revisit sanctions. Donald trump likes putin, wants
to sit down and talk to him about doing things differently. If that message is being conveyed by Jeff Sessions to the ambassador from russia, he is giving Putin Incentive and motivation for going ahead with this farranging information campaign, Warfare Campaign that included the hacks and the release of emails but went much further than that. He is helping the russians by letting them know that if they do this, there may be a big payoff for them in the end. David, the president complains about leaks a lot. He doesnt seem to be complaining yet tonight about this leak. Well, well see what tweet comes out at 5 00 in the morning, 6 00 in the morning. I mean he complains about Anonymous Sources yet he goes off the record with the New York Times himself and of course white house people go off
story of the week. Remember, the week began with news that donald trump had a quote, unquote, secret meeting at the hamburg g20 summit with Vladimir Putin where they talked about, quote, unquote, adoptions, which is code words for sanctions. Then shortly thereafter, trump ended u. S. Aid to the moderate Syrian Rebels, which is a key demand that the russians have been making for a long time. Were every single day learning more about this meeting that occurred in 2016 between donald trump jr. And the rest of the Trump Campaign hierarchy and these russian representatives, including the fact that we learned today that the lawyer who was involved there on the russian side represents the fsb, the russian intelligence service. So if you put all this into the context and you see all of these russian connections, theres a new one every single day, and increasingly benign explanations for what theyre up to, benign explanations are just not incredible. Right. You mentioned the disclosures on the meeting alone and how outnumbered the trump folks were with these russian officials. John mclaughlin, here was Jeff Sessions i would say the crescendo of his testimony when he clearly decided to try to lay
down a gauntlet and appeal to his former colleagues in the senate with the idea that he couldnt possibly have done something wrong on russia. The suggestion that i participated in any collusion, that i was aware of any collusion with the russian government to hurt this country, which i have served with honor for 35 years, or to undermine the integrity of our democratic process is an appalling and detestable lie. John mclaughlin, as someone who has sifted evidence your whole life, at this hour, is it still operative, that kind of Blanket Denial from him, or do you see anything in public here that casts doubt on that . Well, if theres truth to this report weve just been talking about, everything that Jeff Sessions said doesnt stand. And he says it in such an affirmative way that its been a
long time since ive seen such a stark contrast between the statements of a public official and what in this case may be true in this Washington Post article. Im certain in any event that theres a core of truth to it. So i think it casts considerable doubt on Jeff SessionsStaying Power in this position. I think thats probably the next shoe that well see drop here will be some discussion of whether he should stay or leave. So once again we see intelligence this is a common theme in this administration throughout its six months so far, is that intelligence is used by various factions in the administration as a political weapon. Whether were talking about leaks from the hill or leaks from within the white house, just another example, i think, of what is evidently a chaotic situation in which they do not yet have across the board the
kind of team work established thats required to really move our government and our interests forward. T. Kind of appalling from all of those points of view. How would you, if you were back in your role running the cia, how would you deal with Something Like this . Is there any effort to get the intercept if not out to the public, to the gang of eight or to some respectable process body that can look at it, or does that just make a bad problem worse . Well, the first thing, of course, is you would probably know who had this intercept if its an intercept as described. You would know who had received it, and you would be running down your list of potential sources for the leak. If someone in the congress had not seen it and this may have been a restricted document this may have been an extremely sensitive document that not many people will have seen. So you would be getting calls from your two Oversight Committees for the document and any Background Information on it. Youd be briefing it. Youd be answering questions about it. You would be talking you would be as i said, the first thing i would do is say, let me see that document if it appeared in the press like this, if i hadnt seen it up to that point. And i would want to look at it from the standpoint of what are the motives of kislyak here. I met him quite often when he was head of the a Americas Department in the Russian Foreign ministry. He was capable of Embellishing To Americans but i dont think he does that with his superiors. Hes actually a rather professional guy speaking just from an espionage point of view. And also i would say a really outside possibility here, just to put every conceivable idea on the table, is that the russians could send Something Like this through in a form that they expect it to be intercepted just as part of their covert action operation to throw more chaos into our system, which theyve succeeded in doing. I appreciate your point. I think thats very much on the table of possibilities given the recent conduct and how much work theyve done to sow chaos. We know parts of the Misinformation Campaign were just to create some independent coo of confusion, which is different than other parts that were designed to explicitly reach strategic objectives like blunt any momentum of hillary clinton. Weve seen both patterns in the intel community, and your former colleagues have spoken to that. David corn, i want to read the denial here from sessions spokesperson, which also seems to have a problem in it. But here it is. Quote, i obviously cannot comment on the reliability of what Anonymous Sources describe in a wholly uncorroborated Intelligence Intercept that the Washington Post has not seen
and that has not been provided to me. David can we play, can you spot the problem . I was going to say, number one, in fairness, it is true we dont have the intercept, so theres a fair point i think they make. Then the problem, i think, is shes zeroing in here on a quote regarding only meddle, which is not actually a denial to the rest of the piece. Go ahead. This is a quite common device used in washington and elsewhere, which is you deny the charge that isnt really made. You know, he never talked to the russians about collusion or meddling. Thats not what this intercept, you know, says according to the Washington Post report. It says that he talked to kislyak about the Trump Campaign and policy positions that trump would presumably adopt should he become president. And he had specifically denied that any of his contacts with kislyak, which first he denied
totally happened, but then when he conceded there were contacts, he said it had nothing to do with the campaign. It was just maybe in his senatorial role and he exchanged pleasantries, but nothing about the campaign. So its not hard to come up with the essence of the charge here and deny it straight on. They chose not to do that. Absolutely. John mclaughlin, thank you. Other folks stay with me. Coming up, President Trump has said to be especially irritated if Special Counsel Mueller is going to investigate the president s Business Dealings. And some white house aides say theyre stunned Attorney General sessions hasnt already resigned. Well explain next. We in this department of justice will continue every single day to work hard to serve the national interest, and we wholeheartedly join in the priorities of President Trump. He gave us several directives. One is to dismantle transnational criminal
organizations. Thats what were announcing today, a dismantling of the largest dark website in the world by far. I congratulate our people for that. I have the honor of serving as Attorney General. Its something that goes beyond any thought i would have ever had for myself. We love this job. We love this department, and i plan to continue to do so as long as that is appropriate. Where are we . Welcome back. We have more on this friday night breaking news. The Washington Post reporting that according to a u. S. Intelligence intercept, then Russian Ambassador kislyak reported to moscow that he and Jeff Sessions did indeed discuss the Trump Campaign and trumps position on policy matters that were important to russia in two conversations. This is a reference to the conversation at the Mayflower Hotel and the other at the Rnc Convention after the russian effort to influence the u. S. Election for donald trump was indeed under way. And all of this comes, of course, with some context. Donald trump lashing out at the man at the center of this article, Jeff Sessions, over what . Well, over the recusal from the russia inquiry and that very odd New York Times interview, donald trump did not apparently clear it with his legal team. Then there was thursdays remarkable report in the Washington Post that donald
trump has been asking about his president ial power to pardon his staff, family, and even himself. The post reporting, trump has been fuming about the probe in recent weeks as he has been informed about the legal questions that he and his family could face. Hes told aides he was especially disturbed after learning that mueller would be able to access several years of his tax returns. The focus on the president s family comes in the wake of Donald Trumps confirmation that he had that meeting in 2016 with Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort and a kremlinlinked lawyer who promised the dirt on hillary clinton. Kushner has now agreed as well to be interviewed by the staff of the Senate Intelligence committee. This is going to happen on monday, and then right over to the House Intelligence Committee the next day, tuesday. Donald trump jr. And Paul Manafort are also working with the Judiciary Committee to be interviewed, at least behind closed doors. All of this is in the front. This is the important stuff. Then you have the other stuff, this shakeup in the west wing on who is going to speak for the white house. Sean s