Transcripts For MSNBCW The Rachel Maddow Show 20190511 : vim

Is supposed to say yes, sir. Nobody has ever broken this law before. This administration is just refusing to turnover the president s tax returns as they are required to do under law. The reason the chairman took out his pen, whipped up the subpoenas, demanding to see the president s taxes making it a different kind of legally binding request than it already was just a month ago chairman neal was asking to see the last six years. The deadline to comply with the subpoena is a week from now, this coming friday at 5 00 p. M. This isnt a total surprise. We were expecting congressman richard neal, we were expecting him to announce some sort of next steps today in terms of how he was going to try to force treasury and the irs to actually comply with this legal request. We werent, though, necessarily expecting a subpoena. At least i wasnt necessarily expecting a subpoena. My expectations, i think some other peoples expectation was that chairman neal might skip the subpoena and head streit to federal court. Tthe New York Times spoke to staffer who said house lawyers ultimately decided not to do that. They decided going straight to the courts without going through the stuff with issuing subpoenas might carry serious risk, but the president and his administration refusing to comply with any request for testimony or documents, whether or not it comes with a fancy subpoena. Its unclear tonight if theyve avoided that additional risk by issuing these subpoenas tonight rather than going straight to court, whether it puts their demand for these tax returns on stronger or weaker legal footing. We dont know what the Practical Implications will be if the subpoena is issued tonight to get the president s tax returns. We dont know if the Trump Administration will be any more likely to comply now that weve had this marginal escalation from chairman neil and its no longer a threat that subpoenas might be coming. Theyve actually arrived. The Treasury Department confirmed they did receive the subpoena. Well keep you posted over the course of this hour if we hear anything further. Were also following the late breaking news tonight that came first from the wall street journal under this headline, quote, don mcgahn rebuffed white house request to say trump didnt obstruct justice. You might remember don mcgahn recounts in detail how President Trump ordered him to fire Robert Mueller. Don mcgahn said no. He would resign if the president tried to force him to do it. The president then told don mcgahn to create a false record denying any of that ever happened. Mcgahn also declined to do that. According to this new reporting from the wall street journal tonight, the president was not done asking don mcgahn for things even after he left the white house. Right after Robert Muellers report was submitted to the Justice Department, after muellers report was submitted to the Justice Department and shown to the white house so they could see how don mcgahn was this key witness to all of these alleged incidents of obstruction of justice by the president , the president we now know from this reporting in the wall street journal later confirmed by the New York Times and by nbc news. The president had his new white House Counsel reach out on behalf of don mcgahn, ask him to put out a statement telling the public that despite all of these things, don mcgahn described to Robert Mueller which mueller laid out as potentially incidents of the president obstructing justice and wanted him to say that he, mcgahn, he didnt consider anything the president did to be obstruction of justice. Once again, don mcgahn said no to that request from President Trump. He refused to put out that i didnt think it was obstruction statement. The wall street journal has since matched. The times actually adds that the president asked don mcgahn to make that public claim that he didnt think the president obstructed justice. Not once, but twice. The news that don mcgahn said no, that he refused this demand from the president to publicly vouch for the president on obstruction issues, that of course comes as the white house continues to say that don mcgahn will not be allowed to obey a subpoena that requires him to testify before congress. The House Judiciary Committee wants him to come testify and to provide documents to him documents to them about what he testified to Robert Mueller about. The committee has subpoenaed him for those documents and for his testimony since he has defied the subpoena thus far on the first part of it, which was the documents part of it, they have threatened to hold him in contempt. The white house says theyre going to block don mcgahn from sitting for questions later on this month. We dont exactly know how they are going to do that. But now after this bombshell reporting from the wall street journal tonight, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee jerry nadler says this directive from the white house that mcgahn must defy the subpoenas, nadler says that cannot stand. Quote, this is why it is critical for mcgahn to come before our committee and answer questions for the American People. The president cannot keep don mcgahn from testifying. Says jerry nadler. The news gods do not believe in casual fridays. There is a lot going on. The news is a little topsy turvy. I want to start tonight with some dramatic and headline grabbing testimony from james comey. Not the jaw dropping congressional testimony he gave in the summer of 2017 after he was fired as fbi director by President Trump. Thats when he detailed disturbing mafialike conversations with the president. Thats when he told congress lordy, i hope there were tapes. Also not his testimony a few months earlier while he was still fbi director and he announced publicly for the first time that the fbi was investigating any potential coordination which in the Trump Campaign and the russian operative who attacked the 2016 election as part of the fbis Counter Intelligence authorities. This is different. Super dramatic james comey testimony. This is testimony he gave a full decade before all of that. To give you an idea of how long ago that was, when james comey gave his testimony in may of 2007, this is when george w. Bush was president. This was when barack obama was a first term senator. This was when Rudy Giuliani was the leading republican president ial contender. What . But james comey told the senate Judiciary Committee a story that was absolutely riveting and it was about a confrontation he had had with the george w. Bush white house when he was working in the Justice Department as Deputy Attorney general. He was in fact acting attorney general because the current attorney general at the time John Ashcroft was in the hospital. The story was about how he, james comey and some of his colleagues including Robert Mueller who was then the fbi director, they intercepted Top White House officials who were trying to get something done around them, around their authority, by showing up at the hospital bed of the seriously ill attorney general. Sounding like a movie plot. It happened three years ago in this washington, d. C. Hospital. Lying in bed there, the attorney general, John Ashcroft. They wanted him to approve an extension of the secret nsa warrantless eavesdropping program over strong Justice Department objections even though ashcroft was seriously ill. Also there, the number two man of justice, james comey, acting attorney general. He said today the scene started a crisis that nearly brought mass resignations from the Justice Department. I thought i just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man. He said ashcroft recited reasons why it should not be approved. Later that night agitated carr summonsed him to the white house. I responded that after the conduct i had just witnessed, i would not meet with him without a witness present. Eventually comey said president bush diffused the cries directing changes to the Program Based on Justice Department concerns. Senator Charles Schumer commended comey for opposing the man who would become his boss as attorney general. The story is a shocking one. It makes you almost gulp. There were several gulp moments in that testimony. Comey testified, told the congress that day that when he heard white house officials were heading to the sick attorney generals hospital room to try to get the ill attorney general to sign off on this Warrantless Surveillance Program that the Justice Department had already said they wouldnt sign off on, comey and fbi director Robert Mueller both raced to the hospital. Robert mueller ordered fbi agents at the hospital to not allow comey to be removed from the attorney generals hospital room under any circumstances. After that hospital room confrontation, president bush initially decided he would just go ahead with this Warrantless Surveillance Program without Justice Department approval. It was only when comey and mueller and a whole bunch of other doj senior people threatened they would resign. They actually drafted their resignation letters that bush finally backed down and the program was changed to account for the legal objections to it at the Justice Department. And that story about the hospital room krnttaticonfronta its a story you may have heard. It has resurfaced in recent years because the players from that drama have come back into the public eye. James comey went on to succeed Robert Mueller. After comey was fired Robert Mueller was appointed. Regardless of your feelings about Robert Mueller, regardless of your feelings about james comey, i know you have a lot of them, regardless of your feelings about the bush administrations Warrantless Surveillance Programs and all the surveillance programs that have distended from them, i think that that hospital room confrontation story remains compelling and keeps getting told over and over again because it is this clear and dramatic story of government officials standing up against something they viewed as illegal. Blocking the white house and white house officials from doing something they believed was illegal, going to physically dramatic extremes in order to stop that thing from happening. Threatening to resign unless the white house did the right thing. Forcing the white house to do the right thing by their integrity and by their standing up and by their being unafraid of the consequences. And so its about the people involved in it. Its important as they go on to becoming interesting and important characters in american history. Its also something thats important for us to tell ourselves as americans in terms of what we value and expect and respect when it comes to integrity and bravery from Public Officials who are in powerful positions. I think we as americans just like to know that sometimes happens. And so heres Something Else to know about that time. And about that incident in american history. James comey and Robert Mueller have been sort of the stars of that story every time that its been told ever since. But james comey and Robert Mueller were not the point of the sphere. They were not the first people at the bush Justice Department to raise the alarm about that illegal warrantless eavesdropping program that the white house had started. They werent the first people to try to stop it basically, put their own jobs on the line in order to stop it. When an Inspector Generals report is finally released to the public in 2015, we learned that the first person at the Justice Department to raise red flags, to try to stop it, to insist that program had to be put on a real legal footing or it could not proceed, the first person who actually did that, who threw himself on the machinery was the head of the Justice Departments office of intelligence policy. A man who was named james baker. Not a high profile position at that time. Not a high profile Justice Department official, but somebody who played an incredibly Important Role and did it first in that standoff. From that Inspector Generals report james baker told us while standing outside the Justice Department one evening several weeks after the nine 11 attacks he was approached by an fbi colleague who said, quote, theres something spooky going on, it appears Domestic Communications are being collected without a warrant. Some fbi personnel were getting nervous. Baker said several weeks later while reviewing a fisa application a particular passage lept out at him. He couldnt figure out where the information that was being cited in that application had come from. He surmised it might have come from this program he had not been read in on but had been warned there was something spooky going on. James baker chased it down. He says he immediately felt that spying program was on shaky legal footing. It was legally problematic and he refused to take the surveillance warrant applications to the court. Unless the court would be informed of the program. Those judges were being asked to sign off on surveillance applications. They actually didnt know where the information in those application was coming from. He insisted that the court be told. The white house resisted. At least one official at the Bush White House tried to have him fired for him resisting it. But james baker at the Justice Department was convinced he was right and he was stubborn and eventually he won. The white house had been intent ongoing around that court and overtly denying the court any information about that new spying program and they ended up getting forced to inform the court about it because of the way james baker stood up to him. More officials. He convinced more officials he was right about it and more officials raised objections. Congress intervened to craft legislation. Again, you may not be a big fan of the Legislation Congress ultimately created about this, but before people like james baker started raising red flags and saying no, im not sighing off on this, im not getting this go forward, this was a spying program that was being run more or less off the books without any Court Oversight at all. Just by the white house. The Inspector General report on this spying program which was a program code name stellar wind, this report was put together by inspectors general from five different agencies. On this matter it concluded with this quote. We believe that the Justice Department and fbi officials who resisted the pressure to recertify the Stellar Wind Program because of their beliefs that aspects of the program were not legally supportable, those officials acted including Robert Mueller and james comey and james baker. Single them out by name to say they acted, quote, in accord with the highest professional standards of the Justice Department. When james comey became director of the fbi years later he tapped that same james baker, praised for his integrity in that earlier confrontation with the republican white house, he picked james baker to be his general counsel, to be the top legal official at the fbi. That is a position of immense importance and trust at that agency. A person who serves as general counsel is almost always hand picked by the fbi director. And so james baker was there at the very top of the fbis top legal job at the fbi when the Country First started to realize within Law Enforcement and intelligence circles that russia was attacking the 2016 election for the purpose of trump to get donald trump installed in the white house and they were simultaneously becoming aware that there were numerous, numerous, numerous somewhat inexplicable contacts between a particular president ial campaign which happened to be the Trump Campaign and People Associated with the kremlin at the same time that that russian attack was going on. And that must have been a remarkable thing to go through, right . In 2016. To be a New York Times<\/a> spoke to staffer who said house lawyers ultimately decided not to do that. They decided going straight to the courts without going through the stuff with issuing subpoenas might carry serious risk, but the president and his administration refusing to comply with any request for testimony or documents, whether or not it comes with a fancy subpoena. Its unclear tonight if theyve avoided that additional risk by issuing these subpoenas tonight rather than going straight to court, whether it puts their demand for these tax returns on stronger or weaker legal footing. We dont know what the Practical Implications<\/a> will be if the subpoena is issued tonight to get the president s tax returns. We dont know if the Trump Administration<\/a> will be any more likely to comply now that weve had this marginal escalation from chairman neil and its no longer a threat that subpoenas might be coming. Theyve actually arrived. The Treasury Department<\/a> confirmed they did receive the subpoena. Well keep you posted over the course of this hour if we hear anything further. Were also following the late breaking news tonight that came first from the wall street journal under this headline, quote, don mcgahn rebuffed white house request to say trump didnt obstruct justice. You might remember don mcgahn recounts in detail how President Trump<\/a> ordered him to fire Robert Mueller<\/a>. Don mcgahn said no. He would resign if the president tried to force him to do it. The president then told don mcgahn to create a false record denying any of that ever happened. Mcgahn also declined to do that. According to this new reporting from the wall street journal tonight, the president was not done asking don mcgahn for things even after he left the white house. Right after Robert Muellers<\/a> report was submitted to the Justice Department<\/a>, after muellers report was submitted to the Justice Department<\/a> and shown to the white house so they could see how don mcgahn was this key witness to all of these alleged incidents of obstruction of justice by the president , the president we now know from this reporting in the wall street journal later confirmed by the New York Times<\/a> and by nbc news. The president had his new white House Counsel<\/a> reach out on behalf of don mcgahn, ask him to put out a statement telling the public that despite all of these things, don mcgahn described to Robert Mueller<\/a> which mueller laid out as potentially incidents of the president obstructing justice and wanted him to say that he, mcgahn, he didnt consider anything the president did to be obstruction of justice. Once again, don mcgahn said no to that request from President Trump<\/a>. He refused to put out that i didnt think it was obstruction statement. The wall street journal has since matched. The times actually adds that the president asked don mcgahn to make that public claim that he didnt think the president obstructed justice. Not once, but twice. The news that don mcgahn said no, that he refused this demand from the president to publicly vouch for the president on obstruction issues, that of course comes as the white house continues to say that don mcgahn will not be allowed to obey a subpoena that requires him to testify before congress. The House Judiciary Committee<\/a> wants him to come testify and to provide documents to him documents to them about what he testified to Robert Mueller<\/a> about. The committee has subpoenaed him for those documents and for his testimony since he has defied the subpoena thus far on the first part of it, which was the documents part of it, they have threatened to hold him in contempt. The white house says theyre going to block don mcgahn from sitting for questions later on this month. We dont exactly know how they are going to do that. But now after this bombshell reporting from the wall street journal tonight, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee<\/a> jerry nadler says this directive from the white house that mcgahn must defy the subpoenas, nadler says that cannot stand. Quote, this is why it is critical for mcgahn to come before our committee and answer questions for the American People<\/a>. The president cannot keep don mcgahn from testifying. Says jerry nadler. The news gods do not believe in casual fridays. There is a lot going on. The news is a little topsy turvy. I want to start tonight with some dramatic and headline grabbing testimony from james comey. Not the jaw dropping congressional testimony he gave in the summer of 2017 after he was fired as fbi director by President Trump<\/a>. Thats when he detailed disturbing mafialike conversations with the president. Thats when he told congress lordy, i hope there were tapes. Also not his testimony a few months earlier while he was still fbi director and he announced publicly for the first time that the fbi was investigating any potential coordination which in the Trump Campaign<\/a> and the russian operative who attacked the 2016 election as part of the fbis Counter Intelligence<\/a> authorities. This is different. Super dramatic james comey testimony. This is testimony he gave a full decade before all of that. To give you an idea of how long ago that was, when james comey gave his testimony in may of 2007, this is when george w. Bush was president. This was when barack obama was a first term senator. This was when Rudy Giuliani<\/a> was the leading republican president ial contender. What . But james comey told the senate Judiciary Committee<\/a> a story that was absolutely riveting and it was about a confrontation he had had with the george w. Bush white house when he was working in the Justice Department<\/a> as Deputy Attorney<\/a> general. He was in fact acting attorney general because the current attorney general at the time John Ashcroft<\/a> was in the hospital. The story was about how he, james comey and some of his colleagues including Robert Mueller<\/a> who was then the fbi director, they intercepted Top White House<\/a> officials who were trying to get something done around them, around their authority, by showing up at the hospital bed of the seriously ill attorney general. Sounding like a movie plot. It happened three years ago in this washington, d. C. Hospital. Lying in bed there, the attorney general, John Ashcroft<\/a>. They wanted him to approve an extension of the secret nsa warrantless eavesdropping program over strong Justice Department<\/a> objections even though ashcroft was seriously ill. Also there, the number two man of justice, james comey, acting attorney general. He said today the scene started a crisis that nearly brought mass resignations from the Justice Department<\/a>. I thought i just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man. He said ashcroft recited reasons why it should not be approved. Later that night agitated carr summonsed him to the white house. I responded that after the conduct i had just witnessed, i would not meet with him without a witness present. Eventually comey said president bush diffused the cries directing changes to the Program Based<\/a> on Justice Department<\/a> concerns. Senator Charles Schumer<\/a> commended comey for opposing the man who would become his boss as attorney general. The story is a shocking one. It makes you almost gulp. There were several gulp moments in that testimony. Comey testified, told the congress that day that when he heard white house officials were heading to the sick attorney generals hospital room to try to get the ill attorney general to sign off on this Warrantless Surveillance Program<\/a> that the Justice Department<\/a> had already said they wouldnt sign off on, comey and fbi director Robert Mueller<\/a> both raced to the hospital. Robert mueller ordered fbi agents at the hospital to not allow comey to be removed from the attorney generals hospital room under any circumstances. After that hospital room confrontation, president bush initially decided he would just go ahead with this Warrantless Surveillance Program<\/a> without Justice Department<\/a> approval. It was only when comey and mueller and a whole bunch of other doj senior people threatened they would resign. They actually drafted their resignation letters that bush finally backed down and the program was changed to account for the legal objections to it at the Justice Department<\/a>. And that story about the hospital room krnttaticonfronta its a story you may have heard. It has resurfaced in recent years because the players from that drama have come back into the public eye. James comey went on to succeed Robert Mueller<\/a>. After comey was fired Robert Mueller<\/a> was appointed. Regardless of your feelings about Robert Mueller<\/a>, regardless of your feelings about james comey, i know you have a lot of them, regardless of your feelings about the bush administrations Warrantless Surveillance Program<\/a>s and all the surveillance programs that have distended from them, i think that that hospital room confrontation story remains compelling and keeps getting told over and over again because it is this clear and dramatic story of government officials standing up against something they viewed as illegal. Blocking the white house and white house officials from doing something they believed was illegal, going to physically dramatic extremes in order to stop that thing from happening. Threatening to resign unless the white house did the right thing. Forcing the white house to do the right thing by their integrity and by their standing up and by their being unafraid of the consequences. And so its about the people involved in it. Its important as they go on to becoming interesting and important characters in american history. Its also something thats important for us to tell ourselves as americans in terms of what we value and expect and respect when it comes to integrity and bravery from Public Officials<\/a> who are in powerful positions. I think we as americans just like to know that sometimes happens. And so heres Something Else<\/a> to know about that time. And about that incident in american history. James comey and Robert Mueller<\/a> have been sort of the stars of that story every time that its been told ever since. But james comey and Robert Mueller<\/a> were not the point of the sphere. They were not the first people at the bush Justice Department<\/a> to raise the alarm about that illegal warrantless eavesdropping program that the white house had started. They werent the first people to try to stop it basically, put their own jobs on the line in order to stop it. When an Inspector General<\/a>s report is finally released to the public in 2015, we learned that the first person at the Justice Department<\/a> to raise red flags, to try to stop it, to insist that program had to be put on a real legal footing or it could not proceed, the first person who actually did that, who threw himself on the machinery was the head of the Justice Department<\/a>s office of intelligence policy. A man who was named james baker. Not a high profile position at that time. Not a high profile Justice Department<\/a> official, but somebody who played an incredibly Important Role<\/a> and did it first in that standoff. From that Inspector General<\/a>s report james baker told us while standing outside the Justice Department<\/a> one evening several weeks after the nine 11 attacks he was approached by an fbi colleague who said, quote, theres something spooky going on, it appears Domestic Communications<\/a> are being collected without a warrant. Some fbi personnel were getting nervous. Baker said several weeks later while reviewing a fisa application a particular passage lept out at him. He couldnt figure out where the information that was being cited in that application had come from. He surmised it might have come from this program he had not been read in on but had been warned there was something spooky going on. James baker chased it down. He says he immediately felt that spying program was on shaky legal footing. It was legally problematic and he refused to take the surveillance warrant applications to the court. Unless the court would be informed of the program. Those judges were being asked to sign off on surveillance applications. They actually didnt know where the information in those application was coming from. He insisted that the court be told. The white house resisted. At least one official at the Bush White House<\/a> tried to have him fired for him resisting it. But james baker at the Justice Department<\/a> was convinced he was right and he was stubborn and eventually he won. The white house had been intent ongoing around that court and overtly denying the court any information about that new spying program and they ended up getting forced to inform the court about it because of the way james baker stood up to him. More officials. He convinced more officials he was right about it and more officials raised objections. Congress intervened to craft legislation. Again, you may not be a big fan of the Legislation Congress<\/a> ultimately created about this, but before people like james baker started raising red flags and saying no, im not sighing off on this, im not getting this go forward, this was a spying program that was being run more or less off the books without any Court Oversight<\/a> at all. Just by the white house. The Inspector General<\/a> report on this spying program which was a program code name stellar wind, this report was put together by inspectors general from five different agencies. On this matter it concluded with this quote. We believe that the Justice Department<\/a> and fbi officials who resisted the pressure to recertify the Stellar Wind Program<\/a> because of their beliefs that aspects of the program were not legally supportable, those officials acted including Robert Mueller<\/a> and james comey and james baker. Single them out by name to say they acted, quote, in accord with the highest professional standards of the Justice Department<\/a>. When james comey became director of the fbi years later he tapped that same james baker, praised for his integrity in that earlier confrontation with the republican white house, he picked james baker to be his general counsel, to be the top legal official at the fbi. That is a position of immense importance and trust at that agency. A person who serves as general counsel is almost always hand picked by the fbi director. And so james baker was there at the very top of the fbis top legal job at the fbi when the Country First<\/a> started to realize within Law Enforcement<\/a> and intelligence circles that russia was attacking the 2016 election for the purpose of trump to get donald trump installed in the white house and they were simultaneously becoming aware that there were numerous, numerous, numerous somewhat inexplicable contacts between a particular president ial campaign which happened to be the Trump Campaign<\/a> and People Associated<\/a> with the kremlin at the same time that that russian attack was going on. And that must have been a remarkable thing to go through, right . In 2016. To be a Senior Intelligence<\/a> leadership role, to realize what was happening. Call on all of your years of experience, all of your personal gumption to deal with this absolutely unprecedented situation. To run a Counter Intelligence<\/a> investigation into a hostile foreign powers operation targeting our election while that election was ongoing and while there appeared to be numerous unexplained contacts between the party in the United States<\/a> that was benefiting from that foreign intervention and People Associated<\/a> with that foreign power. What is even more remarkable since then is how all of those people who were in all of those leadership roles at the time that attack was happening, they were realizing what was going on, they were starting the investigations into it. All of the people in senior leadership, Law Enforcement<\/a> and intelligence roles at that time have just been systematically destroyed by the Trump Administration<\/a> ever since, right . James comey wof course was fire. His deputy who became acting director Andrew Mccabe<\/a> got fired, got his pension reduced on the way out the door, has been referred for possible prosecution. Peter strzok was the lead Counter Intelligence<\/a> agent in the fbi. A veteran russia Counter Intelligence<\/a> agent. He gets forced out. Bruce orr, the senior person in the russia department, he escapes by the skin of his teeth, still has a job but moved into a basement filing room or something and is basically daily attacked by the president and increasingly by republicans in congress as well. Former cia director, the man who was cia director at the time of the russia attack and the time the investigation sbinto it. John brennan gets his security clearan clearance yanked. And others he might try to yank including the National Security<\/a> adviser, the Deputy Attorney<\/a> general who became the acting attorney general who came to the white house and warned them about their National Security<\/a> adviser being compromised by russia, the director of National Intelligence<\/a>. He puts them all on a list saying they might have their security clearance revoked, toortoo, because of their baseless accusations because of improper contact with russia. I dont need to mention there are now more than 100 pages of a report by none other than Robert Mueller<\/a> that say those accusations were far from baseless. All of these people with all of these decades of leadership experience, with all of this subject matter expertise, the people who were in all the key roles of trying to understand and assess and help the country understand and assess the attack by russia, people trying to understand that attack and thwart it and get to the bottom of it, people who led that effort have paid the price for it. That includes james baker who was the top legal official at the fbi. President attacked james baker by name several times for his s ostensible role in this witch hunt. For supposedly being part of some plot to mount a coup. James baker left the fbi a year after james comey was fired. All of that time of being a punching bag for the president and his supporters, james baker could not speak publicly about what he actually did as a top National Security<\/a> official during the russian attack. He couldnt talk about the investigation into russia and into the Trump Campaign<\/a>. He couldnt say what he knew. But now he can. With the Mueller Report<\/a> completed and released to the public, with his testimony to the Judiciary Committee<\/a> on these matters having been released to the public by republicans on that committee, former fbi general counsel james baker says hes able to speak out on these matters that have at least now become public knowledge. Were about to find out, but it sounds like what he wants the American People<\/a> to know is despite the unprecedented situation, he says the fbi did things by the book. Showed confidence in what they did. Today he was interviewed. James baker said that had the situation not been done by the book, quote, he would not have tolerate tod tolerated it whatsoever. I have gone to the mat in the past in my career with stuff that i thought was inappropriate. There was no way in hell i was going to allow some coup or coup attempt to take place on my watch or any conspiracy to do anything unlawful. No way. And of course when james baker says he would go to the mat over something he sees as unlawful, he would threaten to resign if he needed to to stop it, theres reason to believe it. He has cashed that check before. He has done. Before. Now tonight hes here to talk to us about what it was like to be at the top of the fbi during this remarkable period in our history, what its like to be targeted in the way he has been since then. James baker joins us live in studio next. Did you know you can save money by using dish soap to clean grease on more than dishes . Try dawn ultra. Dawn is for more than just dishes. With 3x more grease cleaning power per drop, it tackles tough grease on a variety of surfaces. Try dawn ultra. If you have moderate to Little Things<\/a> can be a big deal. Thats why theres otezla. Otezla is not a cream. Its a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. With otezla, 75 clearer skin is achievable. Dont use if youre allergic to otezla. It may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. Otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. Tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts or if these feelings develop. Some people taking otezla reported weight loss. Your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. Upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. Tell your doctor about your medicines and if youre pregnant or planning to be. Ready to treat differently with a pill . Otezla. Show more of you. The man here for the interview tonight is the former general counsel of the fbi. He served as the agencys top lawyer from january, 2014, to december of 2017. As that top fbi lawyer, james baker was in the room for many of the major zdecisions made during the fbis investigation into russian interference in the 2016 election and of course People Associated<\/a> with the Trump Campaign<\/a>. Baker is currently the director of National Security<\/a> and Cyber Security<\/a> at the R Street Institute<\/a> which is a nonprofit Public Policy<\/a> research institution. Mr. Baker, thank you very being here. Thank you for having me. You spent more than 20 years at the Justice Department<\/a> and the fbi. Since you left last year, you have been under investigation by the Inspector General<\/a> for handling of the investigation of the president s campaign. Youre the subject of a criminal investigation over alleged leaks to the media. The president has made a sport out of suggesting that you personally acted in treasonously. Youve become a star in media. Just as a human being, the transition in your life before to your life after just feels precipitous. How are you . Im fine. Thank you for asking. Its been, you know, horrible basically. And ive used the word trauma to describe what happened with respect to starting with the clinton investigation all the way through starting the russia investigation and the transition, the comey firing, and the kinds of things you outlined before with andy mccabe and everybody else. These were people ive worked with every day, especially with jim comey. Ive known him for years. Hes my friend. I care about him deeply. I think hes a fantastic leader and he got fired in a way that was terrible. It was very humiliating in a very humiliating way. It was a traumatic experience to go and having it talked about endlessly in the media, theres no escape. Its been challenging. I did a podcast last year about spiro agnew and the way his vice presidency ended and one of the signs that things were getting bad is when in speeches he started naming individual Justice Department<\/a> officials and individual prosecutors who he believed should not just be blamed for what he was going through, but he wanted his supporters to go after them. He wanted to Train National<\/a> ire on people who individually and by name and by title he would call out. It sort of seemed like the point that people realized agnew was going to be over and eventually he was forced to plead in court in a 40count indictment and he has to resign, the whole thing. Its now common not only from the president himself but from the president s supporters, from the conservative media, from now republicans in congress to not just name people like you individually and to take you out, take you on by title and as a person, but to pursue you. To say that youre the scandal and that you and all of the other colleagues involved in the outset of this investigation, you are the problem in the country. I feel like this is unprecedented. I felt the only thing ive ever seen like this before is agnew. Do you feel like this ever snaps back . Do you feel like its now become normalized and this would be the way we do it from here on out . Im pretty concerned about that. It seems like its become normalized and quite frankly thats part of the reason i wanted to start to speak out more now, because it shouldnt be and people who disagree with some of these views need to speak out and try to do the best they can. Im worried about it, yeah. I think it could have a significant negative impact in the long run, because people are worried about their careers. People are worried about their reputation. When the president of the United States<\/a> starts to go at you on twitter its an out of body experience as ive described it. Its unnerving. And if youre concerned about your reputation or your longterm career, youre going to be i think more likely to be hesitant to do things that will attract that type of ire. Do you believe that the president s actions of this type or indeed the specific allegations of obstructive conduct that were described in the Mueller Report<\/a>, any of those behaviors by the president have materially affected the behavior of the Justice Department<\/a> or the fbi . Do you know of investigations either being curtailed or delayed or softened or not taken up because of the types of worries that youre describing . Not that i can confirm. Ive heard rumors to that effect. I cant confirm it. The fbi and the Justice Department<\/a>, the career officials there is a highly resilient professional organization, both of organizations, and theyre going to resist that kind of thing as much as they can, but to think that it wont have some effect as they pursue certain types of investigations, especially as they start to touch the political system or political leaders, thats what you have to worry about. The fbi really is a specialist in dealing with public corruption in government. And so if they are intimidated in any way, then yeah, thats very dangerous. Again, theyre very professional. I think theyll resist that. But its a risk. And when you say that youve heard rumors that that dynamic may be at work, you mean currently . Yes. Can you say anything else about that . No. Its speculation. Its rumors that ive heard. I dont want to go any farther than that. Whether its true or not, its something to worry about. There was an awkward moment last week in the senate Judiciary Committee<\/a> when Senate Kamala Harris<\/a> of california was asking questions of attorney general barr and she asked if the president or the white house had ever put pressure on the Justice Department<\/a>, put pressure on the attorney general to initiate an investigation against the president with one of the president s enemies for legal purposes and attorney general bar wouldnt answer directly. Since then, we have seen the president openly called for former secretary of state john kerry to be prosecuted and he says hes talked to people about that. Weve seen the president s republican allies in congress say that they want to at least pursue congressional investigations of fbi and Justice Department<\/a> personnel who were involved in the russia investigation. That side of it not just getting shy about things they might otherwise pursue, but actually being used as a weapon against the president s enemies, that seems so far fetched to me for so long and now i feel like the attorney ynl general is denyingt possibility. Are you worried about that . I have Great Respect<\/a> for the attorney general. I worked with him in the past. When he was general counsel at verizon he hired me. I have viewed him as a person of integrity. This is outside of the norm of what were used to where the president is recommending criminal investigations and or prosecutions of individual citizens and so thats alarming. Again, it would require the department of justice, individuals in the department of justice to resist that kind of thing if they didnt think it was warranted. Its just not normal for this country to have political leaders, especially the president of the United States<\/a>, singling out individual people and saying that they should be investigated or prosecuted. As you say, hes doing it very blatantly. He has done it consistently over time. I try to imagine you talk about somebody with integrity in the Justice Department<\/a> standing up and stopping that from happening. Try imagine what that would look like. Say i was given an improper order or suggestion to do something and ill an employee of this Justice Department<\/a> but i know its wrong. Just imagine what happened to that person in this environment. You have to be willing to resign or to go to congress or the Inspector General<\/a>. You have to be willing to give up your career. I think ive thought about this a lot. The only way to be successful in my opinion as a National Security<\/a> lawyer in particular is to be willing to have your career destroyed. Because if you fear it, if youre afraid that will happen, you wont be able to have frankly, you wont have the courage, i think, to do the things you need to do and say the things you need to say if youre afraid that your career will be messed up. You have to take it as a given is what im trying to say. Were you afraid of the effect on your career before you took some of the actions you took here . Absolutely. Sure. Absolutely. And you did it anyway. I did it anyway because it seemed like i was being entrusted by the American People<\/a> with certain spresponsibilities and i had a duty to do what i was being paid for. And also honestly in the long run, to be to do things i thought my children and my family would be proud of me doing when it eventually came out because all this stuff eventually comes out. So i think you have to think of the longterm interests of yourself and the country and not your shortterm career interests. Former fbi general james baker is our guest. 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I have a question about the Mueller Report<\/a> and what it doesnt say that i was spebtiexg it to say. One issue is mike flynn getting fired which is something that unfolded while you were general counsel of the fbi. Speak to the russian ambassador. He publicly lies about it. Ultimately he also lies to the fbi about it and thats all interesting. That becomes part of a guilty plea and he lied to the fbi. There was another thing we came to learn. Sally yates as acting attorney general goes up to the white house in the first week of the new administration to tell them not just that mike flynn has been in contact with the russians but that theres a problem because flynn had that contact, the russians know he had that contact because thats who he was talking to and flynn is lying about it publicly. That means that the russians have something on flynn. They know about his contacts with them. They can leverage that against him. Hes in a compromised position which is very dangerous as National Security<\/a> adviser. We learned the criminal part of what flynn did including lying to the fbi. But that Counter Intelligence<\/a> concern is what leads us the American People<\/a> to understand why it was so important that he had to go. I feel like there is a very similar situation with trump tower moscow. The Mueller Report<\/a> describes all the detail about all of the contacts between the kremlin and kremlin connected people and the trump organization, about trying to do that russia deal. We know that the president was lying about it at the time. Nothing in the Mueller Report<\/a> about whether or not that reflects any compromise, any effort to gain leverage over that president ial candidate, that campaign, ultimately our government. I feel like thats the missing piece. Was that investigation not done . Well, i think the Mueller Report<\/a> makes clear that what they focused on were the criminal aspects of the Counter Intelligence<\/a> investigation that was being conducted. So when the fbi investigates something, it comes to it with all of its authority, which includes Counter Intelligence<\/a> authority and criminal authorities and foreign intelligence collection authorities. All the authorities under law and under attorney general guidelines that the bureau has, it rings to the problem. And certain aspects of a situation could be criminal and some might be Counter Intelligence<\/a>. And so what i think is missing in large part from the report is an analysis of the Counter Intelligence<\/a> aspects of what it is that they found. I think its either in the report or in some collateral documents where they make quite clear that were not talking about that here. Were we had embedded fbi agents with us to deal with the Counter Intelligence<\/a> investigation and thats some other file, some other thing that may or may not be under the report. In fact, in that part of the report where they describe having other fbi aegents who wee sitting in and gleaning anything that had intelligence, they say they werent part of muellers investigation. Does that mean mueller didnt do a Counter Intelligence<\/a> investigation . On trump tower moscow, was there an fib assessment as to whether or not that was an effort to gain leverage over that president ial campaign . I dont think i can confirm or deny that particular thing. But if the fbi is the entity that would be empowered to deal with Counter Intelligence<\/a> aspects of this. Mueller is like, and he says in the report, hes like he was like a u. S. Attorney. So hes a prosecutor. The fbi can investigate crimes, but its also part of the Intelligence Community<\/a> and it has different authorities as a result of that under a different supervisory structure. So mueller i dont think its fair to think he was tasked with conducting a purely Counter Intelligence<\/a> investigation. He was tasked with at least as i thought about it dealing with the criminal aspects of the larger Counter Intelligence<\/a> investigation. Does anybody out there have to tell we the American People<\/a> or the intelligence committees in congress whether there was russian leverage over the campaign . Whether those contacts and for example the trump tower moscow deal amounted to perhaps a successful or even unsuccessful effort to gain the leverage . Adam schiff now says he hasnt had a briefing on the intelligence implications or findings of any investigation related to this since comey was fired. So i can say how i used to handle it and i used to handle it thinking that the intelligence committees were an integral part of how the United States<\/a> conducts intelligence and how we maintain the we the Intelligence Community<\/a> maintain the trust and confidence of the American People<\/a> because they need to know that their representatives get access to critical information so that a they can understand it. The reality is the Intelligence Community<\/a> is under the command of the president. And so at the end of the day, its the president s job to deal with the Counter Intelligence<\/a> with the intelligence threat that we face as a country. Even if they implicate him . We havent had to deal with this kind of thing before so thats tricky. How you do that is very difficult. I think this is a place where, for example, the director of National Intelligence<\/a> could step in and try to handle some of these things in a certain way. Im not going to describe it as a recusal, but it will be safer and advisable for the president to stay out of this part of it unless he really has to and delegate some of that authority to the dni. It is so chilling to me this is still a total black box to us. I have more questions in this matter and others. James baker is the former fbi general counsel. Well be right back. Nutrition can seem overwhelmin. Even if you try to eat well, you might fall short in key nutrients. Get more by adding one a day. Its the 1 multivitamin uniquely designed for men and women. One serving, once a day. One a day. And done. My body is truly powerful. I have the power to lower my blood sugar and a1c. Because i can still make my own insulin. And trulicity activates my body to release it like its supposed to. Trulicity is for people with type 2 diabetes. Its not insulin. I take it once a week. It starts acting in my body from the first dose. 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Liberty. Liberty. For a restless nights sleep. Pain settle theres a better choice. Aleve pm. The only one to combine a safe sleep aid an aleve pm. Theres a better choice. We are back with former fbi general counsel james baker. Thank you for being here, mr. Baker. My pleasure. Part of the way the republicans and conservative media have come after you and some of your colleagues is in part by trying to problem ties the idea that there were people during the campaign who came across information they believed was worrying on National Security<\/a> terms related to russia, related to the russian attack, related potentially to the Trump Campaign<\/a>. And they brought that information to the fbi. That itself is being defined as a scandal, that you as an fbi official received that information and passed it on to investigators, that other people in Justice Department<\/a> or fbi leadership roles were given information and passed it on. What do you make of that sort of becoming the source of scandal . I worry theyre trying to say nobody should bring information to the fbi if they find something theyre worried about . That would be a huge problem. The fbi depends on the trust and confidence of the American People<\/a> and on people coming forward with all kinds of threatening information, especially with counterterrorism. Whatever it is that they think poses a threat to the country or is a violation of law, they should bring it forward to the fbi. They should feel comfortable doing that. Do you think that you or anybody in the fbi or the Justice Department<\/a> mishandled any sort of tip or proffered intelligence or the steele dossier, anything in terms of the receipt of information which has been problemtized again. Do you think any of that was mishandled. I dont know everything we took it from every source. I cant talk about that. The information i took in which became the subject of discussions when i was being interviewed, i felt as though it was lawful for me to obtain that information. It was authorized under fbi policies and procedures, fbi employees are authorized to accept information from the public, so i thought it was okay. One other thing with respect to all this that has gotten me is that, look, we take in this information, but we dont swallow it hook, line, and sinker. We have a jaundiced eye with respect to the information we get. We take it seriously, but vet it. We dont just assume its correct because someone is proffering it to us. We do question on a regular basis why is this person bringing us this information, how reliable is it, lets scrutinize it. Lets take it seriously, but vet it thoroughly. In terms of sources of information to the fbi, the fbi has tip lines. Yes, absolutely. The idea that opposition that was funded by one side of a Political Campaign<\/a> might have turned up something that people gave to the fbi because they were concerned about it or they were hoping for an fbi investigation that would turn up something damning about the opposite candidate. Is that an improper source of information . Im worried at this point that that itself has been defined as such a scandal that they wont go to the authorities anymore. With respect to this information that came to us, my recollection is that we knew that it was coming from that type of source, therefore, we had to be skeptical about it. We should have been skeptical about it. But it didnt mean it was wrong. So it had to be vetted and analyzed. But with the origin of it in mind, so we didnt ignore that. We took it into consideration, but we didnt ignore the information itself and whether it could have been true. James baker, former general counsel at the fbi who has been through a hell of a couple years, an amazing career, but really a hell of a couple years. Thank you for coming in and talking to us tonight. I appreciate the trust level that needed for you to be here. Thanks for the time. I dont know how things will go for you, but when you want to come in and talk about whats going on, please come back here. Thank you. Well be right back. Stay with us. Okay, paint a picture for me. Uh, well, this will be the kitchen. And wed like to put a fire pit out there, and a dock with a boat, maybe. Why havent you started building . Well, tylers off to college. And moms getting older. And eventually we would like to retire. Yeah, its a lot. But Td Ameritrade<\/a> can help you build a plan for today and tomorrow. Great. Can you help us pour the foundation too . I think you want a house near the lake, not in it. Come with a goal. Leave with a plan. Td ameritrade. 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Other side effects include gas, stomach area pain, and swelling. Im still doing it all. The water. The exercise. The fiber. And i said yesss to linzess for help with belly pain and recurring constipation. Ask your doctor. The house, kids, theyre living the dream and here comes the wacky new maid maid . Uh, im not the. Is she an alien, is she a spy . Shes always here, someone tell us why why, oh, why shes not the maid we wanted because im not the maid but shes the maid we got again, im not the maid. I protect your home and auto. Hey, campbells. Whos your new maid . That does it for us tonight. I was so excited for that interview. I cant believe we had james baker here talk about all this stuff. That was awesome. I have to tell you about monday night. Beto orourke will be here. Curtain candidate for the democratic nomination for president. First time since hes announced for president monday night. Time for the last word with joy reid feeling in. You asked the question that i most wanted to know about, which is the trump tower stuff. Its still weird for me. I need more information. All the potential leverage in counterintelligence stuff, where did that go . Just poof. Poof, magic. I feel like i understand where it went after talking about it. I think people","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"archive.org","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","width":"800","height":"600","url":"\/\/ia903006.us.archive.org\/6\/items\/MSNBCW_20190511_010000_The_Rachel_Maddow_Show\/MSNBCW_20190511_010000_The_Rachel_Maddow_Show.thumbs\/MSNBCW_20190511_010000_The_Rachel_Maddow_Show_000001.jpg"}},"autauthor":{"@type":"Organization"},"author":{"sameAs":"archive.org","name":"archive.org"}}],"coverageEndTime":"20240617T12:35:10+00:00"}