Chuck schumer. The daily beast has decided that the new star of new york politics is jamal bowman, and he hasnt even quite won his Congressional Election that the primary where he challenged elliot i thinkngle. He will join us tonight since hes on the threshold, the verge once the votes are counted of becoming a rising star in new york politics. What an excellent booking. Im jealous. Yeah. Well, you know, we work hard at this. Im going to start stealing your stuff. Here is the way its going to work. I will get him before hes technically won, and then the second hes won, he will be on the Rachel Maddow show. Thats how this will work. If you can promise that on his behalf i will both be surprised and hold you to it. I will book him for you tonight on tv. Thank you. I owe you. Done. Thank you, rachel. Thanks. Thanks, lawrence. It is not a coincidence that on the day that the United States sets a new grim record for the largest number of new coronavirus cases reported in a single day a New York Times poll comes out, a poll of the president ial race that shows joe biden with a record high lead in that poll over donald trump. Klein believes that is not a coincidence, those two things, and he will make his case later in this hour. Hes already being called, as i told you, the new star of new york politics and jamal bowman has not yet officially won for the congressional seat currently held by the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs committee, but jamal bowman does have a very big lead. Looks like an insurmountable lead in the vote count already, and he will join us later in this hour. If he is sworn in as a member of the house of representatives next year, he might be taking his place in a much more sane atmosphere than it is today because republicans in the house of representatives now seem to have only one mission, to impress donald trump and trump voters by vandalizing house proceedings in every way that they can think of. As we saw in the house impeachment inquiry last year and again today, House Republicans have a strategy when all of the evidence at the hearing reveals trump corruption and in todays hearing corruption by the attorney general, and that strategy is chaos, confusion and Parliament Tear vandalism. Republican members of the committee did not have to do any homework for todays hearing about corruption and Donald TrumpsJustice Department headed by attorney general william barr because their plan was to try to make the hearing imcomprehensible. The first witness to speak today was interrupted in a way we have never ever seen before. He served in the Justice Department in Ronald Reagans administration as well as george w. H. Bushs administration. He rose to the number two job, Deputy Attorney general. Republicans on the committee today were not impressed with mr. Ayers republican credentials. When he went slightly over the fiveminute limit for his opening remarks, which is very, very common in congressional hearings, texas republican louie gomert tried to drown autothe witness testimony with increasingly loud banging on his desk. He said that bill barr does regularly lie in ways that impact official actions. Mr. Chairman, there is not order in the room. There is a banging. No, there is certainly not. Mr. Chairman, would you have gene cooper removed . That kind of madness has never happened in a congressional hearing before republicans like louie gomert started competing for Donald Trumps affections with more and more outrageous conduct. The star witness of the day was Aaron Zelinsky, one of the prosecutors working on the roger stone case. He described the pressure from the president and the attorney general to reduce the prosecutions sentencing request for roger stone. We were pressured to reduce the initial sentencing guidelines calculation for mr. Stone without any clear, legal rational for doing so. When we refused to go along, we were instructed again to disregard the guidelines entirely and to recommend an unspecified lower sentence for mr. Stone. I was told that to the best of anyones recollection such a recommendation has never been made by the fraud and public corruption section of the United States attorneys office. When we again refused, we were told that we could be fired if we didnt go along. I notified the office i intended to withdraw from the case rather than file a memo that was the result of the wrongful political pressure. And while all this was happening, i was repeatedly told the departments actions were not based on the law or the facts but rather on political considerations, mr. Stones political relationships and that the acting u. S. Attorney was afraid of the president. And there you have it, a condemnation of the attorney general from inside the attorney generals own department. Aaron zelinsky revealed that he was testifying remotely today because he was being extra cautious, as cautious as possible, about exposure to the coronavirus because he has a newborn baby at home. And when louie gomert finally got his precious five minutes to question witnesses, here is everything, and i mean the totality, of what he had to say to the biggest witness of the day, aaron civilzelinsky. And the fact that mr. Zelinsky, i was going to ask him questions but and i understand Family Matters and by the way, im grateful for my wife for sticking with me for 42 years today and there are Family Matters. Yeah, shes a lot more fair than were getting around here. But so 42 years. Thank you, kathy. Some of us have Family Matters, too, that are very pressing. But this is very pressing, too. And i wont try to compare those. Thats it. Thats everything he had to say to and about the most important witness in that hearing today. Thats how Louie Gohmert used his valuable time. He did not ask a single question, not one. He did not make a single coherent point other than it was his wedding anniversary today. Louie gohmert who was so desperately concerned with the use of the committees precious time, by that first witness, just threw his own fiveminute opportunity away, as so many republicans do in hearings like this. The one witness appearing in defense of attorney general barr was former Republican Attorney general Michael Mckay si who served in george bushs administration. He left a big crack in the defense against political interference in the Justice Department. Do you believe that the president , nor the attorney general who has been acting more like the president s personal body guard and his fixer, have not engaged in politics as it pertains to the president s friends. I cant speak for the president. The president is, by definition, a political based on your professional decision, political or professional experience, do you believe the president has engaged in a political way as it pertains to sentences or what happens to his friends . The attorney general himself criticized the president for tweets that he so thats a yes in. Its a maybe. Go ahead. A maybe. Donald ayer lived through the Nixon Administration and now president nixon resign the presidency in the middle of impeachment proceedings. He saw president nixons attorney general con viced of crime, felonies in that investigation. Donald ayer has seen it all, but he had never seen a greater threat to our rule of law than william barr. I was privileged to serve in the department of justice under two republican and one democratic president and i am here because i believe that william barr poses the greatest threat in my lifetime to our rule of law and to public trust in it. That is because he does not believe in its core principal, that no one is above the law. Instead, he has worked toed a vance his lifelong conviction that the president should hold virtually autocratic powers. That includes immunity and being able to accord special treatment to himself and his friends. During todays hearing, the Justice Department announced that attorney general william barr has agreed to testify to the House Judiciary Committee on july 28th. Leading off our discussion tonight, democratic congressman from maryland. Hes a member of the House Committee. Neil katial. Were you surprised by the attorney generals announcement that he is agreeing to testify, although its going to be five weeks from now . Well, hes agreed several times before and hes always found a reason to back out. So i think most members of the committee feel like well believe it when we see it. And, i mean, its scandalous that he wont appear. One of the things that donald ayer pointed out so well was that this administration has been openly defying the appro h appropriations power of congress. We appropriate money for certain purposes and they steal the money to build the president s infantile, medieval wall at the border instead. They have denied dozens and dozens of subpoenas that we have issued, demands for information, requests for information and so on. They just categorically reject the demands of congress, which is the law making power in article one of the constitution. So, you know, it was very powerful when donald ayer said today that donald trump is the biggest threat to the rule of law in the country today, which is res nant with Donald Trumps niece. We should reflect on what the rule of law means. In the hands of the right wing judges, it is just the rules. But the american revolutionaries thought that the rule of law was a system of legal controls against people who had power. They understood that the rabble below would always be subject to the baton in the ribs and the equivalent of the rubber bullets and the tear gas and so on. But the rule of law was a way to control people who get state power, and thats what theyre in the process of trying to demolish, by taking over taking over every governmental entity and stuffing it with their authoritarian puppets and then wiping out the civil rights and Civil Liberties of the people. So weve got a few months left to try to defend democracy at every turn on a daily basis, and we will continue to see these chaotic circus shows by people like Louie Gohmert who was a judge in texas. But they will continue just to, you know, vis corral graffiti and throw tomatoes to distract america from the world historical failure of this administration to deliver any kind of Public Safety or security to the American People in this pandemic, which has cost more than 120,000 lives of our people. I want to continue with our analysis of what we heard and the important points of what we heard today. But congressman, i do think we owe it to the audience to try to explain as quickly as we can why these hearings get out of control like this. There was a call by some democratic members we heard, could the chairman get the sergeant in arms to drag Louie Gohmert out of there. And the truth of the matter is the house rules havent anticipated situations like this. I used to work in the senate. I know what the rules are there. But i studied house rules today. The most i could come up with for unruly behavior was simply a rule about the house floor, where it says the sergeant at arms is authorized to hold up the mace, the symbol of the sergeant at arms authority, before unruly members and carry the mace down the aisle of the House Chamber to subdue disorderly conduct. These rules havent really anticipated Louie Gohmert, have they . No. Or a lot of their friends, matt gates. If you are going to go down with that mace, you better bring the other mace with you, too, because these people were completely out of control. Lawrence, they wont even wear masks. We even have the dr. Fauci and the president s medical personnel saying everybody should be wearing a mask, and they make it a point of macho pride not to wear a mask when we go into congress, which is terrifying a lot of members, including some republicans who have medically Vulnerable People at home. And, you know, jim jordan has made a point of never wearing a jacket. I dont care about that. I would not want to kick him off the floor for not wearing a jacket. Thats a fashion statement. But when it comes to wearing a mask, thats a Public Health decision. Its extremely dangerous and we have had a lot of members come down with covid19. As you know, the pandemic is out of control in the red states. Its a lot of the republicans who refuse to wear a mask. Neil, what we saw here in the conduct of the republicans in the hearing is connected to what were talking about in the Justice Department because what we have discovered in the trump era is that so many things that we thought were rules that we thought were kind of unbreakable turn out just to be customs. And being scene in a Committee Hearing is just a custom that was shared by every Single Member of the house of representatives up until the trump era. And so also with so many practices in the Justice Department that we had a sense were codified. We had a sense there were legal lines drawn, but there werent as many as we thought. Thats part of what was under examination today in that hearing, wasnt it . Absolutely. I want to agree with the congressman about attorney general barr and whether hell actually testify on july 28th. I mean, the attorney general has been scared of testifying. The house has been trying for more than a year to get him to testify, and he asked and he acts scared at every turn and dodges it. Hes kind of like trump at a spelling bee, just frightened out of his mind. So, you know, ill believe it when i see it. I absolutely agree with you, lawrence, that the Justice Department is built on the rock of traditions and norms and chief among them is the idea of independence that president s dont tell you if you are at the department who to prosecute or who to let go. Both of those story lines today are clashing because you have the president saying, let go of my pals like roger stone, and thats where the testimony of Aaron Zelinsky today was flabber gasing. People like me who have heard it at the department before have heard it whispered. People have called me, prosecutors at the top of the department and in the career, you know, in the middle ranks saying this is unbelievable, they politicize Law Enforcement. You cant believe it. But they have been afraid to testify. Here you have got this brave guy, Aaron Zelinsky, career prosecutor who has evidently documented everything, thats what he testified today, and he said this president was interfering with Law Enforcement decisions by telling him to go easy on his pals and then there was other testimony today from other folks saying this president is saying to go hard on his enemies and use the prosecution power. And once that happens, our Law Enforcement system, you know, will become on the verge of collapse because it depends on the integrity and even handed enforcement of the law, as all Law Enforcement systems do. A quick word about the Appeals Court ruling in the Michael Flynn case today saying that it should be dismissed. Is that the end of this story . Oh, absolutely not. First of all, the opinion is legally flimsy to put it mildly, so it very well may get further appeals. Second, the president said that Michael Flynn was exonerated today. Nothing in the decision says anything about that, lawrence. Its just about does the president have the raw power to drop a prosecution after someone pleads guilty. And, you know, the exercise of craw power is very different than the wisdom of doing it. Here, everyone agrees this guy, the National Security adviser to the president , pled guilty for lying to the fbi about his conversation with the russians and that gave the russians huge comfort because they knew that our National Security adviser was now compromised, that he had lied to the fbi. Could you imagine having that person in the white house, which is what the president wanted. It was a grave sin. It was criminal. And nothing in todays decision takes any of that back. And Michael Flynn is not vindicated relative to this decision, whatever happens to it. It happens to be a terribly weak decision and should be the basis for further appeal. But whether it is or not, Michael Flynn is not exonerated. Thank you both for starting us off tonight. Really appreciate it. You bet, lawrence. Thank you. After this break, today the United States set a grim record. More than 36,000 new Coronavirus Infections reported, the highest single day total yet. And at the very same time, a new poll today shows Donald Trumps disastrous response to the pandemic is possibly the main reason for joe bidens big lead in that poll and others. Ez ra klein joins us next. S us. And ask your doctor about biktarvy. Biktarvy is a complete, onepill, onceaday trea