Up 10 points. That has now evaporated. Interesting to see who turns out, a testament to the excitement level. Thank you all. That is all for this evening. The Rachel Maddow show starts right now with ari in for rachel. Good evening. Rachel has the night off. We have a pretty big show. Today was day two of the federal criminal trial of the campaign chairman. The witnesses were several people who sold the defendant clothes and houses that he bought through secretive International Wire payments. One important thing we learned from what happened today, this judge is holding muellers prosecutors to the line, limiting their questions and how they present key evidence to manafort to the jury. A former prosecutor who tried these kinds of cases and inside that courtroom today joins me to explain if what the judge is up to could hurt muellers case. There are reports tonight about the russian woman charged with trying to carry out the government influence campaign through the nra in the u. S. And people who appear to have been her american coconspirators. That is a big story. But we begin with something far more troubling than any of that. It began last march. Lets set the scene. Donald trump had been in office just six weeks and his National Security advisor was already out. It was march 1st, they exposed Jeff Sessions participated in two encounters with the Russian Ambassador during the campaign, a ways away from sessions own testimony at his own Confirmation Committee that He Hadnt Had Quote Communications with the russians. We now know internally at the
doj there was a process going of Career Lawyers recommending Jeff Sessions recuse himself from the probe, he had an obligation on that. This was a key inflection point. Jeff sessions could have taken the doj guidance to recuse and could have also ignored it, a decision to make and donald trump at that moment could have stayed out of it or at least in the public realm. Heres what happened. The next day, march 2nd, trump had this very big grand appearance arriving via helicopter on the uss gerald ford, the navys very new and expensive warship. Trump spoke to sailors there. The Traveling Press Corps for this big fancy appearance were with trump. Watch this key moment. This was one of those unpredictable, you could seen say random times you see this normally routine even frustrating job of the traveling
reporters see it become pivotal, potential criminal evidence. Watch reporters ask trump whether Jeff Sessions recusal because he was too close to the Trump Campaign should happen. Mr. President , should sessions recuse himself from investigations of the campaign in russia . I dont think so at all. When do you think sessions spoke to the Russian Ambassador . When were you aware he spoke to the Russian Ambassador . I wasnt aware. That was a quick but pivotal moment. Trump did two things, he inappropriately pressured sessions not to recuse and if you listen closely he contributed to the dojs argument for sessions recusal. Because the doj standard for this is whether a person is too close to the subject of the probe, whether Jeff Sessions would basically be more of a Trump Campaign surrogate who happened to be Attorney General rather than acting as a Law Enforcement officer. Rachel Maddow takes a look at the days top political news stories. The probe remains open. That is just what we know based on what is in public and is leaked. One more thing as you take it all together. There is another reason donald trump may be writing things about sessions that look selfincriminating on twitter, have his own lawyers saying they arent what they are. This requires you to entertain the believe the president is more canny than clueless. Donald trumps team uses Donald Trumps past efforts to squeeze and oust Jeff Sessions. Muellers case may already have strong evidence of that, provable evidence. So knowing that it looks bad, donald trump may want to reup the worst parts of this himself and say, how bad can it be if its what i just tweeted . I turn now to a reporter leading much of our knowledge about this, Investigative Reporter for the washington post, and she
has A New Story Tonight On The Muumuu Ler interview offer to trump, essential to all of this. Thank you for being here on a busy night for you. Glad to be here. Thanks for the good questions you guys always ask. Its been a Roller Coaster of a day. I think thats fair to say. Theres some theme parks open well into the evening. We may still be on the Roller Coaster at this moment. Walk us through what you learned of muellers Counter Offer for a potential trump interview and why do you think hes willing to limit some questions . Im told muellers Team Presents a counterproposal in this 7 monthlong investigation for them to interview the president that the president obstructed justice or sought to thwart a criminal probe. In this counterproposal, what
lawyers, i need to know whether or not the president had corrupt intent when he took some of the actions that he took, most importantly, firing fbi director, jim comey. He wants the president in the room with him one way or another. The second seems to me likely possibility about this Counter Offer is he wants to show hes willing to negotiate a little and not be stoic and stubborn. So this is a little move closer to trumps request or the Trump Legal Teams request, but i even hear within the sources close to the president and in the white house, that theyre not so sure mueller moved that far, but he certainly made the effort to appear he was reducing some of the questions. Do you have any hints whether he is prepared to go to theSupreme Court if trump wont sit down and how do you do that and when do you trigger that . One thing we know very clearly he has given the Trump Legal Team, he would like to avoid a subpoena fight. There are all sorts of good reasons. He knows that will take months. Very little chance the court of appeals certainly involved on the road to the Supreme Court would move with any and the question never been answered, can you force the president to the table to talk about acts as president. If there is one thing we know as well, mueller has gathered a lot of evidence. Hes interviewed a ton of people and pressed in his questions he hinted at to the Trump Legal Team what hes interested in. Obstruction is a central piece what he wants to get to the president. You say obstruction. That brings us to the most damning and obvious question many of us watching would like your view on. Why do you think donald trump wrote something on the internet that was so plate tently selfincriminating about obstruction into this case that is an investigation into obstruction. So blatantly. Two things, i agree with the prosecutors i spent a lot of time in federal courts. I agree any statement you make that suggests youre threatening or intimidating or encouraging a course of action is not a crime but certainly goes to a State Of Mind and could be part of the mosaic laying out, arguing, the president was really signaling to tens of millions of people, this is what he wanted. Its not a crime but builds the color around the State Of Mind of the actor, the president. The second thing is why did he tweet . The president has shown a talent for sending a message early in the morning, either about his anger or about the topic he wants all of us to be talking about. In this instance, i believe hes been watching a lot of coverage of Paul Manaforts trial. Obviously, were not live inside that trial but hes watching the cable news minute by minute updates and he wants to send a signal about how he feels this is wrong. It could be just a signal to his base and nothing more. You said it was a mosaic of sorts. I wonder whether its a selfportrait titled evidence of obstruction, given how blatant it was. Carol, we appreciate you being here and your nuance. And asserting collusion is not a crime, he read aloud from the u. S. Code the actual statutes that would be broken if there was collusion with russia and election interference certainly adds to the public record, senator. I want to start with your view of what donald trump wrote on the internet today is evidence of potential obstruction. Its certainly evidence, ari, of his State Of Mind, how he views the ongoing Mueller Investigation and what he thinks should happen. Hes saying this morning Jeff Sessions should shut down the Mueller Investigation he calls a rigged witch hunt a number of commentators said this evening that could be entered into evidence what his State Of Mind has been. Ill remind you, this goes back to his lester holt interview following the firing of james
comey, when he said he had the russia investigation in mind when he fired jim comey, the former fbi director. I think theres abundant evidence obstruction and intent to interfere with the Ongoing Investigation whether or not russia committed some conspiracy with the Trump Campaign in order to violate our federal election laws. Thats been out there in plain view now for months. My answer why President Trump did that this morning is a combination appealing to his base and delegitimizing the Mueller Investigation and he cant help himself. Cant help himself. His lawyer said it was come from the top and didnt do what it did. Sometimes it feels like were all going through a type of law School Together in this era. You would be one of our voluntary professor, i suppose. Collusion, conspiracy, criminal hacking and theft, fraud against the United States, Foreign Campaign contributions, those are all felonies that relate to what has been alleged in 2016. Walk us through your point about what crimes constitute collusion. First, the term collusion is being used casually. Its a conspiracy to break federal election laws. The federal election law, tite 52 of the u. S. Code, says it is a crime to solicit or accept a thing of value from a Foreign National in order to influence a federal election. Im summarizing what is a much longer paragraph. Essentially, thats what it says, a Foreign National cant contribute either money or thing of value and an american cant solicit or receive a thing of value from a Foreign National in connection with a federal election. Thats the crux of whats being investigated here whether the russian well documented wide scale russian effort by dozens of Russian Military officers to influence the American Election and offer hacked emails was in some way either solicited on accepted by the Trump Campaign team. Thats why i think the developments in recent days, Michael Cohen may be willing to testify President Trump knew about the June 9th Trump Tower meeting with russians offering dirt on Hillary Clinton could be a key Turning Point here. Theres lots of public evidence of enthusiasm by the highest levels of the Trump Campaign to accept derogatory information of Hillary Clinton and her campaign and information Robert Mueller made of indictments and russian efforts to influence the outcome of the campaign. What is missing is what connects
point a to point b to make it a conspiracy and that may well be what Robert Mueller is trying to present. Lying to investigators is also a federal offense. Sometimes things said on twitter, whether by donald trump jr. Or Paul Manafort or others, what really ends up being the thing that hangs them up, testifying to a committee or fbi investigator one way and proving the facts are the opposite. I think those are the three core issues here. Violating a federal election law and working to break the laws, which is conspiracy and lying to investigators. Most of the indictments that have so far come out from the Mueller Investigation move along one of those three tracks. I expect we will be seeing more indictments in the future. To paraphrase, they were right to say collusion is not a crime, collusion is like four crimes. Thats right. What we are commonly referring to as collusion is a complex series of violations of federal election law, truthfulness to investigators and commonly known of conspiracy 183 c 71, working with more than one person to break federal law, simple conspiracy. Senator chris coons, a member of the Senate Judiciary committee, an expert on this. I appreciate you. And we have the former federal prosecutor in the courtroom today in just a moment. Let your perfect drive come together at the Lincoln Summer Invitation sales event. Get 0 apr on select 2018 lincoln models
plus 1,000 bonus cash. In this courtroom believed the law did not apply to him, not tax laws, not banking laws, this man collected over 60 million for his work in a european country called ukraine. This man didnt want to use all his income and used Foreign Countries to funnel. The judge interrupted, the evidence you say will show this . Yes, your honor. The prosecutor tried to continue to say, to funnel millions of dollars. The judge said, did you hear what i said . Then we get a more typical response, yes, your honor. The court said, all right. Do it that way, please. Ellis did press both sides and told manaforts lawyer they must speak of evidence and not claims that. In terms of quote, you will hear
evidence that dot dot dot dot. Right out of the gate that has been the issue. Judge ellis didnt mellow out at all. At one point he scolded them to rein in their facial expressions. Its been reported that lawyers leaving the bench roll their eyes, communicating essentially why do we have to put up with this idiot judge. Dont do that. Obviously, if i see that i might be upset. You can see that running a courtroom at times is no different than dealing with your average teenager, at least from this judges point. The judge is trying to trim the sales of these aggressive lawyers including muellers aggressive prosecutors. The court saying oligarchky is just despotic power exercised by
someone and principals of high schools are that. Saying he was being paid by people who are themselves criminals. The name, oligarch has a majoritive meaning. He told them, look, find another term to use. Almost immediately, not being able to say the word, oligarch, kind of like a banana peel for the prosecution, ill read to you again what were learning from this big trial, the payments were made on behalf of mr. Ian nokovic, i would say oligarch but by the wealthy businessman. The judge wanted to know who paid that money . And he said, those are the oligarches. Those are the individuals that financed it, dont use that term and what good lawyers say, understood. And now a matter whether the prosecutors can use photographs
of manaforts very expensive suits as evidence. Grand names basically greek to this judge. Ica cant recognize these names. If it doesnt say mens warehouse, i dont know it. That got something of a laugh in his courtroom and then this did not. These pictures of manaforts very fancy suits may never get to the jury. The Big Curveball came when the judge started questioning other evidence pertaining to rick gates, muellers former deputy they got to cooperate. It has the potential to be the most riveting part of this trial and maybe the whole prosecution at this point because were talking about the Deputy Campaign manager for donald trump who flipped. Look at this. Judge ellis says, quote, you will offer up mr. Gate, arent you . Muellers prosecutor say, your honor, were not sure if we are. He may testify in this case, your honor, he may not. That is one of those things that sounds very measured, we may do this, we may not but has big repercussions what we will hear out of this case. Why would the prosecution be considering not putting what is described as their star witness on the stand . A good question. I will be joined by someone at the trial today and also covering as politicos correspondent, covering the trial since the beginning. I put that question to you. Whether gates will testify. Interesting moment in the trial. A sudden hush in the courtroom and sudden scurr