This. Which mr. Avenatti has publicized that. So we know something about the character of the allegations and time frame. The real mystery is who is his client and who are his clients . He says he has a client who can be described as both a witness and a victim and a number of other clients he would describe as corroborating witnesses. So when he says hes going to come forward not just with specific allegations but with evidence about them, we assume thats going to come from the people who hes representing as witnesses. Now, what the senate is going to do with that, what the exact nature of those claims is going to be, we dont know bhch but it does mean between now and now and thursday morning were expecting a lot more news on this subject, which is exactly what the senate does not want. And he told you the woman hes representing as a victim has herself passed an fbi background check for presumably a federal government job. Right, security clearance. He said shed been cleared for multiple security clearances in the past. So, you know, i mean senator klobuchar was just here saying, you know, as a former prosecutor and a member of the Senate Judiciary committee, im putting words in her mouth, but she was essentially saying i cannot believe were not having an fbi background check to take into account these allegations. I feel like they might have thought they would be able to fudge that, but now theres a second named accuser and i think were about to get a third, again with corroborating witnesses, i think the white house is either going to have to change their mind on that or theyre going to regret having decided the fbi cannot look into this. Because it looks like theyre giving absolutely no process to these allegations at all. And already by a 20 point margin the country thinks these allegations need to be heard before theres any vote on this guy. Yeah, the polling is stunning but theres also a conceivable white house incentive not to do the fbi investigation because they were aware of the possibility of these mushrooming accusations. And if the fbi goes in on dr. Blasey fords allegation, starts investigating that while theyre in that investigative mode, they could have come across this Michael Avenatti information. Its so shortsighted, though. Theyre not deciding to give him an award of some kind. Theyre going to put him on the Supreme Court and hes going to be sitting there on the Supreme Court if they confirm him. And the Supreme Court is a place from where you can be impeached. I mean, theres no reason if these allegations are seen as credible, both by relevant Law Enforcement authorities and by senators and by the public, and theyre not investigated and they ram through his confirmation without actually giving them due process and due diligence, theres nothing that will stop these allegations from being investigated and pursued even potentially as criminal mat or a subject of impeachment hearings once hes on the court. What kind of a nightmare is it going to be if they get a Supreme Court justice impeached and thats the back half of Donald Trumps first term. I think the shortsighted decision to push him through without vetting and without investigating this stuff has got to be something theyre ruing right now. Rachel, im going to begin tonight junking any scripts i have to go straight to lisa graves and other experts to talk about what you just dealt with Michael Avenatti because lisa used to be part of a team on the Senate Judiciary staff on the democratic side working these kinds of things. Well get her reaction to what Michael Avenatti had to say tonight. But lets just remember something i think the republicans are pretending is not true. I mean orrin hatch has been say, gee, the democrats are good at bringing this into the confirmation process. No, theyre not. It is extremely rare. And lets give neil gorsuch some credit. He went to exactly the same high school which kavanaugh went to, which is reportedly drowning in beer and wild parties according to kavanaughs best friend, mark judges book. Neil gorsuch went to that high school. No one came out no one came out and said anything like this about neil gorsuch. So, no, this doesnt happen every time. And also the idea theres these generic allegations that democrats keep on tap to fling at anybody who comes along who they want taderail and they have no connection to reality, i mean its, a, youre right it doesnt account for the gorsuch factor here. But also as these allegations continue to mount, if theyre so, so sure theres absolutely nothing here, refusing to allow the allegations to be investigated is not the way to disprove them. It can only be that you refuse to have an fbi investigation because the fbi investigation can only make this worse, cant make it better for Brett Kavanaugh. Rachel, thank you for a great hour and starting us off tonight. And were going to begin right now with lisa graves, the former chief counsel for nominations on the Senate Judiciary committee and also was a Deputy Attorney general in the department of justice. Jill wine banks, msnbc legal contributor and John Heilemann, National Affairs analyst for nbc news and cohost and executive producer of show times the circus. I want to start with lisa, and lisa, what we learned from Michael Avenatti in this last hour, which by wednesday if not possibly sooner he will be presenting what he calls both a witness and a victim of Brett Kavanaugh. It sounds like he means during Brett KavanaughsHigh School Years because he says that what she will describe took place over a number of years. Rachel read in detail an email that Michael Avenatti sent to the Staff Members, who you know the Staff Members on the Senate Judiciary committee about what information he has because they inquired of him what information he has. Im going to do a short reading of it, lisa, and im going to get all your reactions how you expect the counsel to deal with this. Michael avenatti suggested to the committee they ask Brett Kavanaugh even in private in preparation for this, the following questions. Did you ever target one or more women for sex or rape at a house party . Did you ever assist mark judge or others in doing so . Did you ever attend any house party during which a woman was raped or used for sex by multiple men . Did you ever witness a line of men outside a bedroom at any house party . Where you understood a woman was in a bedroom being raped or taken advantage of . Did you ever participate in any Sexual Conduct with a woman at a house party who you understood to be intoxicated or under the influence of drugs . Did you ever communicate with mark judge or anyone else about your participation in, quote, a train, end quote, involving an intoxicated woman . Did you ever object or attempt to prevent one or more men from participating in the rape or taking advantage of a woman at any house party . And lisa, those are the questions that Michael Avenatti suggests that the Judiciary Committee staff ask Brett Kavanaugh right now. Well, those questions are highly detailed and certainly indicate Michael Avenatti feels he has a witness and corroborating witnesses to make that specific line of questioning public. I think that what this shows, again, is the reckless process that senator grassly and senator mcconnell have engaged in this nomination. Reckless for perhaps kavanaugh himself but also for the United StatesSupreme Court. While theyre trying to rush this thing forward theyre refusing to call even to this moment mark judge to testify, subpoena him. Theyve refused to have the fbi go back and investigate the matters that have already come before, and there are new matters breaking almost every day now about Brett Kavanaugh. And i think that in this circumstance where the senate has basically created a kangarootype court where grassley has had his counsel interview kavanaugh, that interview is in standing violation of that committee of rule 10 that requires a bipartisan deposition if there were one by staff for that to be under oath. Theres no indication that grasslys staff has any authority to supposedly put put Brett Kavanaugh under oath, and that should be given any weight at all. Theres no transcript. Theres nothing there that gives it any credence. And i would just say its important to remember here when youre looking at credibility of witnesses, you have one witness this thursday, Brett Kavanaugh who now has a documented record of misleading the committee and he has never incentive to lie. And i think when youre weighing motive, thats important. And we know from recent history and most of history that the most predictable reaction to an allegation of rape or attempted rape is for the man to deny it and for those denials to pea false. And so i think its important for the real process to happen, which is for this to go back to fbi and not proceed in this hearing but excludes key witnesses whether theyre mr. Avenattis witnesses or mr. Judge himself along with others who come forward this weekend. And jill winebanks, a look at your reaction from what you heard from Michael Avenatti tonight basically confirming to rachel that what we will be hearing when these accusations are eventually made public does coincide with the questions he was asking the committee ask Brett Kavanaugh. I think what we learned about Michael Avenatti is he produces what he promises. And i think that if the Senate Continues to ignore all of the witnesses, that people will vote based on that and that the republicans will be ousted in much bigger numbers than is even being predicted now. It is outrageous that these witnesses are not being given a chance to testify publicly. The list of questions that Michael Avenatti presented is a great start, but there are a lot of other questions. One is why hasnt the fbi gotten into this and started to investigate and interview all of his classmates in high school, in college, in law school, his clerks, the people he clerked with. Why arent they talking about the kaczynski chambers, and why azar who proceeded clerk for kaczynski, why did he leave . And how can kavanaugh say he didnt know about the Sexual Misconduct in those chambers . Theres so many things. How did he pay off this debt, and was the debt really for gambling . I think we also have to look at given everything we now know as to whether he was then or is now an alcoholic, whether hes recovered or not, there was clearly a drinking problem thats been brought out. So there are a whole lot of questions that as a trial lawyer i say, you cant ignore those and as a voter i will not ignore them. Lets listen to some of what Michael Avenatti told rachel in the last hour. Im representing one client who i can describe as a witness and victim as well as additional corroborating witnesses to what she is going to allege publicly within the next 48 hours. As it relates to her particular allegations, were not going to provide Additional Information beyond that, which is contained within the emails that i exchanged with the Senate Judiciary committee. But let me say this. This woman when she does surface will be found to be 100 credible by the american public. I would not be representing her if i did not believe her. And if anyone has been paying attention over the last six to seven months, they know that i do not traffic in nonsense or rumor. I utilize facts and evidence. And this woman will prove to be credible, and she is believable, and we are hopeful that the committee will launch an fbi investigation forthwith. We have also asked she be permed to take a polygraph examination, which shes agreed to do provided that Brett Kavanaugh does the same. And we have yet to hear back from the committee on a host of issues that i raised over 10 hours ago. John heilemann, how do you suppose that interview landed in the white house and Chuck Grasslys Office Tonight . You know, first with a big, loud thud and then sort of with a kind of like shock to the solar plexus of all those folks. Look, i mean i think that you as others have said this evening and over the course of the last couple of days, as crow know ive spent a fair amount of time with avenatti, in the context of the Stormy Daniels period. He has his critics, he has his fans, but the one thing as jill has said a second of go is that he produces results. And he boasts about the facts that the things hes predicted to come true have generally come true, and things hes proven to be facts have generally come out. It was a ridiculous previously that mark judge was not being subpoenaed before avenattis email to the committee. The fact that mark judge is not being subpoenaed now if hes not now Going Forward is a travesty. This a person who strangely i had some acquaintance with when i moved to washington, d. C. Where he was a frequenter at a bar in georgetown, and he was everything you can imagine him to be in the book. And he was someone who must be subpoenaed to appear before this committee. If theres any pretense or the faintest whiff of a pretense of the truth around Brett Kavanaugh and the allegations that cloud his nomination. John, let me ask you quickly i know you spent some time with Susan Collins. I saw it on your show the circus sunday night. This story has been moving so fast, and what i heard her tell you was that she was as close to a decision on the vote, but that was clearly before anything that were talking tonight. It was on friday night. She did an event in New Hampshire where we caught up with her. That interview took place around 7 00 or so on friday night. So all of the kavanaugh and professor ford related stuff that had happened last week was all known to her. What was not known to her was the reporting by new yorker and Michael Avenatti allegations from the weekend. I will say to me the most telling thing about it was her flat out declaration, something shed not done before i dont believe anywhere, that she was certain that Brett Kavanaugh would not overturn roe v. Wade. And we understand that was one of the important things for senator collins where she stood in this nomination. She said dr. Ford needed to be heard, but she said she was at that point again, this was before these new allegations. But at that point she said she was about 45 of the way towards a yes for Brett Kavanaugh. Again, shed come to a firm conclusion that he would not, not overturn roe v. Wade which of course is not the conclusion of an awful lot of people in the world including some republicans. So i thought this was a woman just knowing the body language and knowing Susan Collins history, this was a woman who did not know. To Chuck Grasslys point tonight one of the things they were talking ability was the committees intention to bring in what theyre calling a former experienced sex crimes prosecutor to ask the questions for the republicans. And the attorneys for dr. Ford are objective to that saying there is no precedent for this committee to bring in outside counsel for the sole purpose of shielding members of the committee from performing their responsibility to question witnesses. They also mention mat the committee was using the watergate model as a justification to which dr. Fords lawyers say the watergate hearings lasted for months resulting over 319 hours being televised. A completely different situation. Weve never seen this kind of practice before in a confirmation hearing. There is no equivalency to anything in the watergate hearing to this. And i dont know how they think that they will protect the men who are on this committee, the republican men, from any kind of consequence by calling in a female to do the questioning. That is insulting to both men and women. Men can ask civil questions and can get the truth, but its clear from everything weve learned today and over the last week that the one thing the senate does not want is the truth. It sounds like an admission tat the republican members of the Senate Judiciary committee are incapable of doing their jobs. Lisa graves, please stay with us. Were going to take a break here. Jill winebankss and John Heilemann thank you for starting us off tonight. When we come back the question Brett Kavanaugh did not allow his wife to answer in their interview with fox news tonight. And later his view of what could be the constitutional crisis that we would see if donald trump fires Rod Rosenstein. [ upbeat music ] im ready to crush ap english. Im ready to do what no one