The president today announced that the United States is blowing up the nuclear deal that iran signed in 2015 with not just us but with us, alongside the uk and france and germany and the european union. We will talk about why our countrys allies are rattled by this decision, what they are likely to do in response and why this is such a banner accomplishment for the american hardliners who have been hoping for and working for an actual new u. S. War with iran. Ever since they started the u. S. War in iraq 15 years ago. Speaking of 15 years ago, in march 2003, while the george w. Bush administration was ordering the invasion of iraq, this man was captured in pakistan. He was the mastermind of the 9 11 attacks. In cia custody, he was tortured for weeks over 15 different sessions. He was water boarded 183 times. He was forcibly fed three his rectum instead of being given food as food. He was kept awake for a week. Kept awake for a week while they kept him standing with his hands chained to the ceiling. We remember the Bush Administrations complicity and facilitation of the torture program because officials like vicepresident dick cheney cheered for it and Bush Administration members wrote memos saying all the laws making torture illegal didnt really make torture illegal, not if you squinted at it the right way and listened to the vicepresident. In the secret prisons the cia maintains, the cia went beyond what they got that fake lawyerly permission to do. The cia did things to their undeclared prisoners, things that werent purportedly cleared by the memos the government disavowed. The cia reportedly told white house they were getting tons of good intel by torturing people. Turns out they were getting the kind of jibberish and say anything to make it stop nonsense that you get when you torture people to the point of death or just this side of it. In the case of the socalled 9 11 mastermind, he told the cia folks beating him and drowning him that he had recruited black american muslims in montana to carry out home grown terrorist attacks on behalf of al qaeda in america. He had done no such thing. He was only saying he had done that because he was trying to make them stop torturing him. Tomorrow, a veteran cia officer who ran one of the secret cia prisons where the cia tortured people, shes going to have her confirmation hearing to be the director of the cia. We do not know if she helped torture anyone or if she oversaw officers who carried out that torture. We know she personally oversaw one torture site and she played a key role in the cia destroying the evidence of that sessions even though the cia had been ordered to preserve the tapes. Get this. Theres talk about a news day today, that confirmation hearing its tomorrow. Charlie savage is reporting at the New York Times that the supposed 9 11 mastermind guy, he has filed an emergency request with the military commission that is trying him at guantanamo. He is asking for emergency permission from the judge in his case. He wants the judge to allow him to provide information to the Senate Committee in time for haspels confirmation hearing. He wants to give them a statement about haspel. We know this guy was tortured by the cia. We know that she ran one of the torture sites at the time that he was in custody. We dont know if she tortured him. We dont know exactly what the information is that he wants to provide to the senate. He has asked permission to give the senate something. Its reportedly six paragraphs of written information that he wants to hand over to the Senate Committee considering her confirmation. We dont know whats in those six paragraphs. We dont know what the judge will say. We dont know if the judge will allow it to go to the senate in time for tomorrows hearing. This is obviously just a remarkable turn of events. This is the kind of long poisonous tale for the torture policies of the Bush Administration that everybody who lived through that era knew we would be living with for the rest of our lives. Like i said, just another previously unimaginable day in the news. Happy tuesday. Its also Election Night tonight. Four states have been watching returns. About a half dozen or so races that have national implications. Senate primaries for the Republican Party tonight. They are choosing nominees to run against manchin and joe donnolly. Mike pences brother has won a republican congressional primary in indiana. Thats happened. Ohio Governor John Kasich has hit his term limit. There are primaries for the governors race in ohio. We will have coverage of those. Yet theres more. The story that has been breaking tonight, including into this hour, is this document. This sevenpage document thats just been released by the attorney for adult film actress Stormy Daniels, Michael Avenatti. He will be on the last word next hour. You should probably plan to watch that. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, i know that handsome lawyer. I have seen a lot of Michael Avenatti on tv. There he is. Why would i make sure to watch this guy tonight . Its because of this document that he has just released. Mr. Avenatti put this out this afternoon, posted it online. It was this stand alone set of sort of jaw dropping allegations about Financial Transactions involving the president s lawyer, Michael Cohen. Mr. Avenatti did not release any supporting documentation or information to go along with this thing that he posted online. Initially im not sure anybody in the News Business knew what to make of sort of wild and surprising allegations he is making here. Its hard to know what to do with it without any backup. But now over the course of the last couple of hours, both the New York Times and nbc news have reported that they, too, have obtained and reviewed original financial documents that substantiate what Michael Avenatti is saying. So now we have some actual news here. Its about the company that Michael Cohen used, the president s lawyer used to pay off Stormy Daniels. Right before the election so she would not speak about her alleged affair with the president. We learned a few months ago from reporting first in the wall street journal that Michael Cohen didnt just pay Stormy Daniels directly. He created a Company Called essential consultants. Then essential consultants was the entity that paid ms. Daniels. What we learned tonight from this document that was first released by mr. Avenatti, been reported out by the New York Times and other news organizations, is that this Little Company that Michael Cohen set up to pay Stormy Daniels, essential consultants, it appears to have been used for a lot more than just paying 130,000 to Stormy Daniels. It also appears to have paid Michael Cohen more than a Million Dollars. Oh. According to mr. Avenattis document, three checks from essential consultants, two for a quarter Million Dollars, one for 505,000, were deposited in mr. Cohens own Bank Account Last summer. A summer of 2017. What that looks like is this Little Company he set up paying Michael Cohen more than a million bucks. Thats what it looks like. That raises more questions. First, was Michael Cohen ultimately the recipient of that million bucks or was he depositing those checks and getting that money for someone else . We dont know what happened to the money ultimately. We know Michael Cohen put it in one of his own bank accounts. Also, where did that money come from . Where did essential consultants get a million bucks . Michael cohen, didnt he say he needed to take out a home equity line of credit to scratch up the 130,000 that that company was going to pay Stormy Daniels a few months before . He had to take a home equity line to get 130 grand . Where did that company get a million bucks to pay Michael Cohen just a few months later last summer . Thats where we get to the juicy part. According to these documents, the same company that Michael Cohen used to pay Stormy Daniels, they took in a lot of money from a lot of surprising places. They got paid 150,000 by Korea Aerospace industries last november. November 2017. Okay. Essential consultants reportedly got paid 200,000 in four installments of 50 grand each in late 2017 and early 2018, that 200,000 in four payments came from, a Little Company you might have heard of, at t. Essential consultants got paid for 400,000 by novartis, the global pharmaceutical company. According to the documents, the way they paid this is interesting was four separate payments to essential consultants to this little Company Michael cohen set up, which paid off the porn star, novartis paid 20 less than 100,000. They paid 99,980 on october 5, again on november 3, december 1 and january 5, 2018 this year. Four payments, each for just under 100,000. Almost as if there was a 20 wire fee that novartis was deducting. Mr. Avenatti notes its true right after that last payment from novartis in january 2018, President Trump did have dinner with the ceo of novartis. What was novartis paying for . Theres one more payment. The other payment is the one that gets the front page headline in the New York Times tonight. Firm tied to Russian Oligarch made payments to Michael Cohen. Here is how its printed in avenattis documents. Chief among the Financial Transactions are approximately 500,000 in payments received from mr. Victor vexelberg, a Russian Oligarch. He and his cousin routed eight payments to Michael Cohen to essential consultant through a Company CalledColumbus Nova, beginning in january 2017 and continuing until at least august 2017. Columbus nova is a private equity firm with over 2 billion in assets. Its the u. S. Investment vehicle for renova group, a Multinational Group called by victor vexelberg. Michael cohen, the president s lawyer, with a background in the taxi business, sets up this little delaware Shell Company as a way of paying the porn star, paying Stormy Daniels that 130,000 right before the election. He says publically that to come up with that 130,000 to pay Stormy Daniels, he had to take out a home equity line of credit. A new lawyer for the president , Rudy Giuliani says that ultimately that 130,000 was slowly reimbursed to mr. Cohen over months when the president paid Michael Cohen 35,000 a month over time during 2017. We now find out that Little Company that paid out the 130 grand to Stormy Daniels causing significant Financial Hardship to Michael Cohen, that Little Company also paid michael over a million bucks and tons more money was being paid into that company. Not by Michael Cohens Home Equity Loan but by at t. At t, Korea Aerospace, novartis and an Investment Fund tied to one of the richest men in russia. He is an oligarch. He is one of the original. He is one of the richest men in russia. He is considered to be close to Vladimir Putin. He was sanctioned last month by the u. S. Government because of his links to putin as was his company. The firm that apparently paid Michael Cohen 500,000 and landed itself on the front page of the New York Times right now, its a private equity firm that used to call itself on its website the u. S. Investment vehicle for the renova group. They have dropped that description on their website now that renova group and its founder have been sanctioned by the u. S. Government. Its illegal to do business with him or the renova group. We learned last week that victor was stopped by federal agents working for Robert Mueller and his investigators as he landed in a private plane at a new york area airport in the past couple of months. Muellers Team Reportedly questioned him, including, its reported, about the payments to Michael Cohen. Its been reported that investigators asked to search his Electronic Devices but we dont flow know if they did so. We know they asked. Were getting statements from some of the Companies Mentioned in this document as allegedly giving funds to Michael Cohen, paying into essential consultants. A spokesman for Columbus Nova, the u. S. Affiliate of renova, had this to say. Columbus nova is a Management Company solely owned and controlled by americans. After the inauguration, the firm hired Michael Cohen as a Business Consultant regarding sources of capital and investments in real estate and other ventures. Reports today that viktor used it as a conduit for payments is fap false. Neither viktor nor anyone else was involved in the decision to hire Michael Cohen or provided funding for his engagement. I mentioned that the giant Telecom Company at t also reportedly paid 200,000 to essential consultants. They released this statement tonight. Essential consulting was one of several firms we engaged in to understand the new atd minu administration. The contract ended in december 2017. A couple of things are interesting about that. First of all, at t is hiring essential consulting to provide insights to under the new administration. I dont know who they is unless they consider michael and cohen to be two people. At t is saying they needed to hire this firm, Michael Cohens weird Shell Company that pays porn stars, they needed to hire them for hundreds of thousands of dollars to get insight. Why would at t want to put Michael Cohen on the freaking payroll in 2017 . I mean, they have important government business. Theyre trying to go through this merger with time warner. They had strong interest in the Net Neutrality matter. Finally, we got what i consider to be a surprising statement from novartis, the pharmaceutical company. A spokesman did not take the same tack as at t and Columbus Nova took. Nothing to see here. Nothing is weird here. This was a normal business not really lobbying relationship. Any agreements with essential consultants were entered before our current ceo taking office in february of this year and have expired. Different kind of statement. Not a denial that any such agreement was entered into. Not a defense of any agreement. Just throwing their former ceo under the bus saying, wasnt us, it was the people here before us. Noting for the record any such payments were made not by its current leadership. I have to say, the other thing that we should tell you right now in terms of the russia investigation is that the lawyer from the british the dutch lawyer working in britain on behalf of the American Law Firm who was lying to the fbi, the first person who has been convicted or has pled guilty in the Mueller Investigation who has gone to prison. He reported to federal prison yesterday to start serving his 30day sentence. The question is with these new revelations about Michael Cohen, the linking of the Stormy Daniels payment through this Shell Company to somebody who has been questioned in the Mu