I havent read them either. A cold reading for both of us. Read it out . Carter page, a good carter page. I want to marinate myself in all 243 pages before i decide which part i want to play. Okay. But, you know, you have got carter page down. That is that is so good. Its the hair, i know. Yeah. Thank you, rachel. Thank you, lawrence. Well, a week ago at this hour we registered some real surprise that former National Security adviser Michael Flynn not among the first three publicly announced people to be indicted by special prosecutor Robert Mueller, one of whom pleaded guilty because Michael Flynn obviously broke the law. Theres absolutely no doubt about that. He did not register as a Foreign Agent working on behalf of the turkish government in the Trump Campaign in 2016 and that is a felony. Punishment can include prison time. The government doesnt you believely prosecute these cases when it seems to have just been an oversight. Government can be kind of understanding about that. But when prosecutors are playing tough as Robert Mueller is, this is the kind of thing that can and will get you indicted as it did for Paul Manafort and his junior partner richard gates. Count ten of the indictment of Paul Manafort and richard gates says the defendants knowingly and willfully without registering with the attorney general as required by law, acted as agents of a foreign principle, to wit, the government of ukraine. Count 11 of that same indictment says that manafort and gates knowingly and willfully caused to be made a false statement of a material fact and omitted a material fact necessary to make the statements therein not misleading in a document filed with and furnished to the attorney general under the prosituations of the Foreign Agents registration act. Hitting Michael Flynn with those two counts of an indictment has been from the start the easiest thing that Robert Mueller could do because Michael Flynn did not register as a Foreign Agent but after he was fired from the Trump White House, when this kind of deception became public, Michael Flynn filed as a Foreign Agent in march of 2017 for work he had done the previous year. So that means Michael Flynn gave up any kind of hope of claiming he wasnt a Foreign Agent. That would be one way of defending himself. But he gave that up. But filing after youve done the work, especially when youre also working on a president ial campaign when you did that work, is like stopping the car ten miles after you went through a stop sign. And so, tonights news which we have seen coming for most of the year is that nbc news is reporting that robtd mueller has gathered enough evidence to bring charges in the investigation of Michael Flynn and his son and it is unclear just how much legal trouble Michael Flynns son is in. But the father and son worked very closely together in Michael Flynns Company Called flynn intel group. And indictment would make Michael Flynn the first Trump White House official accused of a crime by Robert Muellers team. Michael flynn was fired after just 24 days as President Trumps National Security aid fl white house official accused of a crime by Robert Muellers team. Michael flynn was fired after just 24 days as President Trumps National Security aid visor. The administration insisted that it was for misleading the white house, in particular, misleading poor mike pence about Michael Flynns russia contacts during the transition. But it has been documented that the white house had been warned about those contacts by Michael Flynn weeks before Michael Flynn was fired. So, Michael Flynn was fired not because of what he did. No, no, no. Michael flynn was fired only because what he did became public. Or some, some of what he did became public. Nbc news reports investigators are speaking to multiple witnesses in coming days to gain more information surrounding flynns lobbying work including whether he laundered money or lied to federal agents about his overseas contacts according to three sources familiar with the investigation. Muellers team is also examining whether flynn attempted to orchestrate the removal of a chief rival of turkish president erdogan from the u. S. To turkey in exchange for millions of dollars. Nbc news reported two months ago that Michael Flynns son michael g. Flynn who is irritatingly enough not a junior, michael g. Flynn, he is also subject to Robert Muellers investigation. Quote, the inquiry into the younger flynn is focused at least in part on his work with his fathers lobbying firm, flynn intel group. Both traveled to russia in december 2015 when general flynn gave a paid speech to the Propaganda Network and had din we are vladimir putin. Three sources familiar with the investigation tell nbc news muellers applying renewed pressure on flynn following his indictment of Trump Campaign chairman Paul Manafort in june. Former fbi director james comey testified under oath that President Trump directed him to drop what was then the fbis investigation into Michael Flynn. I hope this is the president speaking, i hope you can see your way clear to letting this goe to letting flynn go. Hes a good guy. I hope you can let this go. Now, those are his exact words. Is that correct . Correct. This is a president of the United States with me alone saying i hope this. I took it as this is what he wants me to do. Nbc news reports if the elder flynn is willing to cooperate with investigators in order to help his son, two of the sources said it could also change his own fate. Potentially limiting any legal consequences. Joining us now, julia ansly, justice reporter for nbc news, one of the reporters who broke the flynn news. Also with us, euGene Robinson, a msnbc plit cap analyst and ron klain, chief of staff to Vice President s and president obama and a former chief counsel of the Senate Jewish yeah committee. Julia, first to your reporting on the flynn case and i should say the flynn cases, Michael Flynn, the father, Michael Flynn, the son. Yes. I mean, what were seeing here is a ramped up pressure on michael. The flynn, the father, because hes a very important part of this investigation for Robert Mueller. If you think about all of the work that muellers investigation has done over the past few months, pulling documents, all of the data and figures they need, they need people to fill in the gaps, tell narrative of how closely the Trump Campaign may have worked with russia leading up this election and michael t. Flynn, the father, can do that because he worked on the campaign and he also was the National Security adviser. So hes in a position almost more so than someone like Paul Manafort would be or George Papadopoulos to be able to give the Key Information and this pressure is ramping up on him because of the charges, because of the thing that is theyre looking into like you just read, lawrence, and because his son is now involved. His son was his partner, worked with him when he was lobbying and as he was National Security adviser so he has the same information, the father would. And so were thinking here that muler is trying to apply pressure to flynn to get him to cooperate to give him the details he needs to flush out the narrative putting pressure on both him and his son. Its a very smart prosecutorial move if you think about it trying to get a witness to cooperate. The other key piece of this, of course, is whether or not flynn used his position as National Security adviser to push for the removal of gulen. Thats gulen, the muslim cleric, opponent of turkish president erdogan. That, of course, would be a huge breach and completely illegal to allow another country to bribe, we understand that he may have been offered millions of dollars, to allow another country to bribe someone in a position to influence that policy. Those decisions, extradition or other means, are not supposed to come from someone at the white house and supposed to come through diplomatic, nonpolitical channels. Julia, i want you to keep reading the carter page transcript which i know you have in front of you. Well come back to you on that in just a moment. I want to go to Gene Robinson to talk about where the jury that really matters is on this and that is, of course, american voters. We have a very important new poll out tonight, a cnn poll showing that 64 view the russia investigation as a serious matter. 32 see it as an attempt to discredit donald trump. I think we know who the 32 are. Yes. They might have voted for for president. Another piece of the poll to consider, gene, which is 59 say they believe that trump knew that his associates were in contact with russians during the campaign. 59 think that donald trump knew that. 35 say, no. 6 have no opinion. Those are pretty powerful numbers, gene, politically for the way that the story is unfolding. Yeah. What those numbers tell me, lawrence srks that this russia story is getting through. Its somehow making its way through all the noise and the blizzard of tweets and, you know, were in the news cycle where 15 things seem to happen every day and you do wonder if anything really sticks, if anything really cuts through the noise. And i think its clear that the that people get the russia story. That people understand there were these untoward contacts, a lot we dont know, but a lot thats very suspicious. We know that donald trump jr. At the very least tried his damnedest to collude with the russians and so i think this is all pretty bad news for the president. Ron klain, talk about this father son investigation and how prosecutors approach a situation like this where the father is clearly the principle but the son might have some criminal liability there and you want to try to use the emotional pressures that could exist on this for both of them. Well, theres no question that bob mueller is going to use the fact that lets not get sympathetic. Michael flynn the son engaged in criminal acts and so, he has criminal exposure because he did bad things and bob muellers going to use to that to try to exert pressure on his father to cooperate. You know, one fact out of that poll, lawrence, is that 100 of the people named donald trump should be scared to death of Michael Flynns indictment because he really brings this to the white house steps in three important ways. I mean, first, it is the first time a senior white house aide will be indicted since watergate. Thats a historically sad event. Second, trump cut off the other people he says but communicating with and praising on twitter mike flynn after he fired him. And third, most importantly, if youre going to make an obstruction case against donald trump for firing james comey, what was the crime that investigation that trump was trying to obstruct . Once you indict Michael Flynn, thats the crime that donald trump, the investigation of which donald trump was trying to obstruct, when he refuse directed comey to stop and then fired him for not stopping the investigation. So, ron, from the President Trump perspective, Michael Flynn really is possibly the most important player in this whole thing because that is where an obstruction of justice case would reside . Exactly. I mean, the other thing scarier is mueller coming after kushner. Thats right. Other than family, this is the most perilous indictment for donald trump. Julia, we need your Speed Reading assessments of the carter page transcript. This is a House Intelligence Committee interview conducted of carter page on thursday. What do we know at this point . I know its hundreds of pages long. It is. Luckily, i have the help of a lot of my colleagues here at nbc. We are all sort of piecing this apart and sharing the first things standing out and the first thing jumping out are how many people on the Trump Campaign knew that carter page was going to russia in july of 2016. So far that looks like corey lewandowski, jd gordon, hope hicks, sam clovis and Jeff Sessions. A piece i was charged with looking over showed that Jeff Sessions heard that carter page was going, of course, in passing. Every conversation carter page had in the year of 2016 was in passing. If you look at some of these if you look at the interview that he had with the House Intelligence Committee. But it seems clear that a lot of these people, including people like sessions who said that they had no knowledge of anyone on the campaign ever talking to russians, its clear that thats going to be a harder position to defend based on this transcript. And, Gene Robinson, this is one of those characters in this story that is hard to imagine, that fiction writers would have trouble coming up with this particular character, the one so strangely talkative in Television Interviews when everyone thinks he should be quiet and turns out he does have to adjust his story as things move along. Yeah. He does. Its this is very weird and never invent this character as you said and you always want to when i listen to him, i wonder is he playing some sort of ultra sophisticated fourdplengsal chess or is he an idiot . And i mean those are the choices. Okay . Thats it . All right. Let me think. I have to think about it. All right. Go ahead, gene. Sorry. Im leaning toward the latter but well see. You know . Well see. This is ron mentioned one thing, though, that i think we are all keeping our eye on and because obviously the step beyond Michael Flynn that could indeed be closer to the president is Jared Kushner. He was at the meeting at trump tower with donald trump jr. And Paul Manafort. And he was in charge of the data operation of the Trump Campaign. The russians sophisticated way targeted voters. How do they know how w. H. O. To target . So this is a question i think bob museumer will try to answer for us. I want to go to a moment of Michael Flynn at the Republican Convention actually saying lock her up about Hillary Clinton because i actually think it is an important factor in how prosecutors view him. Lets watch this one more time. We do not need a reckless president who believes she is above the law [ cheers applause ] lock her up. Thats right. Yes, thats right. Lock her up and he went on, ron, and of course, he famously said if he did one tebt of what she did he would be in prison already. Now, this is someone who the fbi had investigated, concluded as director comey said publicly that there was not a prosecutable case there so that is an attack on the judgment of the Justice Department and the fbi when hes saying it. Thats whos investigating him now. How do they feel about Something Like that when they look at that . Well, i think its certainly not going to help him. I think that his defiance and direct criticism of federal Law Enforcement in that clip certainly doesnt help him. But, you know, these people are professionals. Theyre not going out of mike flynn out of a grudge or revenge play but because he broke the law and probably multiple laws and he knew he had done it when he was giving that speech and thats really unbelievably offensive and i hope that when he is on house arrest after hes arrested and he doesnt make bail they make him watch that clip over and over and over again in his living room while hes awaiting the meeting out of justice here. Such a good point, ron. I want to remind the audience of that, too. When you see the clips of Michael Flynn with the lock her up, he knew, he knew that as he stood there that night saying those things he hi