Analysis and discussion of the days top stories and compelling issues from Lawrence ODonnell. Analysis and discussion of the days top stories and compelling issues from Lawrence ODonnell. And we already know that Robert Mueller has found links and coordination between the russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of donald trump. The meeting with russians at trump tower during the campaign shows there are links between the russian government and the campaign. We already know that when the russian government offered to coordinate with donald trump jr. To provide dirt on Hillary Clinton donald trump jr. Said i love it. Now, we have no idea what other links and coordination Robert Mueller has found between the russian government and the Trump Campaign. And we dont know whether any of those links and coordination constitute criminal conduct by anyone named trump. Weve watched donald trump on the Campaign Stage publicly try to link with the russian government and coordinate with the russian government on Hillary Clintons emails. Russia, if youre listening, i hope youre able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. Robert mueller will have to decide whether that constitutes a criminal conspiracy to illegally coordinate with the russian government to the benefit of the Trump Campaign or whether its a component of that in some way. The most dangerous part of Robert Muellers authority for the president and everyone near the president is the second part of Robert Muellers authority, which is to investigate any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation. Which brings us to Obstruction Of Justice. Those words do not appear in the authorization of the Robert Mueller investigation. But that second component of the authority, which is anything that arises in the investigation, includes anything, including Obstruction Of Justice. The part of the Mueller Investigation that Rudy Giulianipublicly fears the most is obviously the Obstruction Of Justice part. We have new reporting on that today from mari woss in the new york review of books. He says he has been allowed to read a confidential white house memo which is in the special prosecutors possession which explicitly states that when trump pressured comey he had just been told by two of his top aides his then Chief Of StaffReince Priebus and his white House Counsel don mcgahn, that Michael Flynn was under criminal investigation. Last year the Trump Defense team delivered a letter to Robert Mueller outlining their defenses of the president on Obstruction Of Justice. The key element of their defense was that President Trump did not know that his National Security adviser Michael Flynn was being investigated by the fbi when the president talked to fbi director james comey about letting flynn go. James comey quotes the president as having told him, i hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let it go. The Trump Defense team has said that it is impossible for that conversation to constitute Obstruction Of Justice because the president did not know that the fbi was then investigating Michael Flynn. But murray waass reporting that the white house memo that he read is a timeline prepared by white House Counsel don mcgahn showing every step that occurred in the white house and exactly who knew what and when in what became the story of the firing of National Security adviser Michael Flynn. Murray waas reports the February 15th memo combined with accounts given to the Special Counsel by priebus and mcgahn constitute the most compelling evidence we yet know of that donald trump may have obstructed justice. The most compelling evidence that the president may have obstructed justice appears to come from his own most senior and loyal aides. The greatest threat to his presidency is not from his enemies, real or perceived, but
from his allies he within the white house. Leave leading off our discussion tonight, john heilman. Hes cohost and Executive Producer of showtimes the circus. Also with us, danny cevallos, nbc legal contributor. And barbara mcquaid, former federal prosecutor. Professor of law at the University Of Michigan and msnbc legal contributor. And john heilman, here is the watergate echo. It turns out the people who can do the most damage to the president work in the white house. That was absolutely true in watergate. It was not the democrats whose office got broken into who took down president nixon. Its always the case, right . And its the case because they are the closest. They are the ones who are writing things down. Even the ones in this chaotic white house, a white house that breaks so many norms. There are a bunch of teem like don mcgahn and others like Reince Priebus who thought were supposed to be doing th the way
other people did it. We dont really know what that is. But things like timelines and things like paying attention to some basic rules of procedure the way in which youre supposed to do stuff in the white house governed their thinking enough that it could be the thing that ends up undoing the president on this front. And barbara mcquaid, it seems to have guite guided their drinking at the beginning of the presidency. This Michael Flynn story is at the beginning of the presidency and it might actually be the period in the Trump Presidency where people like don mcgahn were operating most closely by the book, possibly because they didnt realize hows wild the whole place was going to become. I think this could be a very significant factual development. It has an echo of remember when there was that tweeted that President Trump put out that said i had to fire mike flynn because he lied to the fbi and then his lawyer, i think it was john dowd, came back very quickly and said no, no, i put out that tweet and i got it wrong. It does ring true that this is a
fact they have known for a long time is a troubling fact because when you try to have to establish Obstruction Of Justice you have to show that the person acted with a corrupt intent. And if President Trump knew and learned even just before he asked jim comey to stand down on the Flynn Investigation i think there could be some powerful evidence of the corrupt intent thats necessary. According to Murray Waa 16789s Reporting this is very clear. People familiar with the matter have told me that both priebus and mcgahn have confirmed in separate interviews with the Special Counsel that they had told trump that flynn was under investigation by the fbi before he met with comey. 24 dismantd lz the key element in the Trump Lawyers letter to the prosecutor about why donald trump con have committed Obstruction Of Justice in the Flynn Matter Sxwlp but the trump teams theory from the beginning did not make a lot of sense. Their position is trump knew there was no longer an investigation, and then he walks into a meeting and says hey, by the way, i hope you can see fit to let go, parentheses, an investigation thats not going
on. That doesnt make any sense. But thats the trump teams position. In a way this bombshell is something that lakes a lot more sense than the trump teams original theory, which is trump believes theres no investigation, trump goes into meeting with comey and asks comey to let go of an investigation that as far as trump is aware does not exist. And so john, this reporting if true, is yet another really clear block on the issue of is donald trump ever going to sit down for an interview with the special prosecutor. You and i are have been saying all along hes never going do it. But this is the kind of thing that shows you why its been impossible, because the trump team has known for over a year that priebus and mcgahn say and have told the special prosecutor that they told donald trump that the fbi investigation was
ongoing. And so how does donald trump handle that . In any kind of interchange with the special prosecutor. Because just like the word collusion and the word conspiracy are not in Robert Muellers remit and Obstruction Of Justice is not in it neither is the word perjury. Perjurys a big problem for donald trump not only because hes a liar but because hes already told so many lies that so many people on the inside know are lies, the lawyers that were with here tonight are lawyers and im going to not play a lawyer on tv leek i sometimes try to and just say a couple things about a couple of the humans were talking about here. Guys like Reince Priebus and don mcgahn, if this timeline exists, if murray waass reporting is right and they were brought in to talk about mueller, they testified to it. Because neither one of those guys is going to perjure themselves for donald trump. Another guy weve got to always remember, there are a lot of
problems with him as a political actor, but steve bannon who very quickly identified to Michael Wolfe and other people and the Obstruction Of Justice thing was going to be the thing that would hang trump because of the Fact Firing Comey is the worst political decision youve ever made because he knew, not necessarily directly, not necessarily because he was involved in putting together these timelines but because he was everywhere in that white house and he knew what the truth of these stories were, its why he always grasped the Obstruction Of Justice thing was such a difficult problem for trump and why some of the things were hearing Michael Cohen has been saying are also things steve bannon even if he wasnt in the room he knew about enough from being around. You want to know where trumps problems are go back and read all the stuff steve bannon has said in the past. This Obstruction Thing is one of the key ones. Barbara mcquaid, what is Donald Trumps best defense at this point at this stage of the evidence as we know it. Well, i think he would have to i dont know that hes going to be able to refute jim comeys testimony about what it was he said. But if he can show it was for
some other purpose other than to cover up his own misconduct or the misconduct of people in his campaign, that might be the best. If he can show there was not a corrupt motive. Yes, he knew that Michael Flynn was under investigation but he believed it was a waste of taxpayer funds, that he believed it would be fruitless to try to go after this kind of a case. If he can show that there was some other motive other than corrupt intent, that might be the best. But you know, at some point i think theres going to be a reckoning with Robert Mueller. Either he sits down for an interview or Robert Mueller has the ability to use a Grand Jury Subpoena to get the information out of him. At some point i think hes going to face that reckoning. Lets listen to what senator Richard Blumenthal said today about the Obstruction Of Justice case. There is credible evidence that the president of the United States has committed Obstruction Of Justice and possibly a conspiracy to undermine our elections. Thats simply the facts and the law, and giuliani is trying to
that their investigation is corrupt. That isnt going to go a long way. And prosecutors will stay an extra five hours in the office just to stick it to your client if you do that. And the other thing that rudy is falling victim to is taking everything his client is telling him in his initial meetings and going out into the world with it as gospel. Every attorney has been burned by a client when they dont doublecheck whatever the client or the clients family tells them about the way things are. And thats because clients, they cant help it. They have selfinterest. They dont want to commit suicide. They want to tell their attorney the best set of facts they can think of. And rudy has already gone out to the world with facts that are not really developed or that are eventually refuted. Thats the kind of thing Rudy Giuliani may be ahead of all of us in this game but so far if you look at some of the basic rules of Defense Attorney 101 hes its been a bit of a stumble. Hes really sloppy, right . When george takei was 5 years old, he was seized by the federal government and held in federal custody. He will join us later in the hour with his feelings about what children in federal custody are now experiencing. And it was day one in the manafort trial today. 21,000 watches, 15,000 jackets, and 60 million in hidden income from ukraine all in one day. Still nervous about finding a new apartment . Yeah. But popping these things really helps me. Relax. Please dont, im saving those for later. At least you dont have to worry about renters insurance. Just go to geico. Com. Geico helps with renters insurance . Good to know. Been doing it for years. Thats really good to know. Ill check em out. Get to know geico. And see how easy homeowners and renters insurance can be. Your hair is so soft did you use head and shoulders two in one . I did mom. Wanna try it . Yes. It intensely moisturizes your hair and scalp and keeps you flake free. Manolo . Look at my soft hair. I should be in the shot now too. Try head and shoulders two in one. Crisp leaves of lettuce. Freshly made dressing. Clean food that looks this good. Delivered to your desk. Two weeks ago when President Trump stood beside Vladimir Pult Xin said he couldnt see any reason why it would be russia who attacked our democracy in 2016, russia was still attacking our democracy right at the moment that President Trump was speaking, as we have now more confirmation from facebook today. With 98 days until the election facebook announced today that it has uncovered a new campaign to provoke emotional, political antagonism in the United States. The vice chair of the Senate Intelligence committee, senator mark warner, believes he recognizes the pattern that facebook has uncovered. Many of them modeling some of the techniques that were used by the russians in the past. I can say with pretty high confidence i think this is russianrelated. Facebook said today that it facebook said today that it
removed 32 pages and accounts from facebook and instagram because they were involved in coordinated inauthentic behavior. The fake pages sxkts attracted more than 290,000 followers, posted more than 9,500 times and ran about 150 ads in 2017 and 2018. The New York Times reported that coordinated activity was also detected around abolish i. C. E. , a leftwing campaign on social media that seeks to end the immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. According to two people briefed on the findings. Two days after the president stood with Vladimir Putin, donald trump specifically said no to the question is russia still targeting the u. S. Is russia still targeting the u. S. , mr. President . Thank you very much. Make your way out. You dont believe that to be the case . Today the trump Homeland Security the trump secretary
of Homeland Security disagreed and said this about the russian attacks on the 2016 election. Let me be clear. Our Intelligence Community has it right. It was the russians. We know that. They know that. It was directed from the highest levels. And we cannot and will not allow that to happen again. Joining us now, ned price, former senior director and spokesperson for the National Security council in the Obama Administration and a former cia analyst p. Hes an msnbc