introduced his vice presidential running mate, look how young barack obama looks, i worked on that campaign and i remember that day so well. it was completely joyful because these announcements are such a big part of any presidential campaign. they always are. it at a whole other energy. and in some ways it means they campaign doubles in size and in other ways, it feels like an entire lifetime ago but given everything that has happened in the 16 years since then, it's been 16 years, it's even more evident today that joe biden was the right choice, the guy who bounded up the stairs to bruce springsteen, he's had a lot of history change, and theo could have a huge impact on the history of this country. that does it for me tonight. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. hey, rachel. >> jen, thank you so much for that. i'm so glad that you had ben

wickler there to talk about a vibes check on waiting for the running mate announcement. but also swing state vibes check about the strength of the field, basically. super interesting to get his take on that. >> so interesting, and as we know, it's about six or seven states, and he is on the ground. he's one of the best state party chairs in the country. loved having him here. >> yeah, excellent, well done my friend. thank you so much. thank you at home for joining us this hour. while there really is so much going on. and first of all, before we really start tonight, i do just want to note here. please indulge me for just a second because there has been a resolution, a not bad news resolution to something that we have repeatedly covered on this show that you might not have seen anywhere else. and so i want to sort of settle this matter for you, bring you up to date. so a few different times on this show we have covered what happened to this woman. she was arrested and ultimately tried and convicted and

sentenced to years in prison for the crime of putting tiny little notes on supermarket shelves. putting little notes on store shelves where the price tags usually go. it's basically the tiniest act of protest imaginable against russia invading one of its neighboring countries and starting a war with ukraine. she used little price tag labels in a russian store. she replaced the existing ones with ones that looked like the real ones but they had little statistics on them about what was happening in russia's war in ukraine. now, this effort, sort of like an art project and protest effort, it started in countries outside of russia. it started, like, for example, in poland, people did this at a hardware store that decided to expand its operations in russia, even when lots of other companies were pulling out of because of the war. people started doing it outside of russia but then some very brave people inside russia started doing it too, including

this young woman, this artist in st. petersburg in russia. we covered it on the show, when she was arrested, her friends turning up at the police station to bring her her things, to support her when she was put on trial behind closed doors for again, this tiniest act of peaceful protest. this was her being brought out of that closed door court hearing the day before they took her off to jail. this young woman was ultimately given a seven-year prison sentence. again, for the grave crime of posting like 2 inch square tiny pieces of paper on store shelves because they protested the war. and told the truth about it. so we covered her story here a few different times, now we can tell you that she was among the russians who president biden got out of prison. among the russian dissidents who president biden was able to get

out of prison was this young woman. when the hostage swap happened last week there of course was a lot of attention in this country to evan gershkovich, the "wall street journal" reporter and paul whelan the u.s. marine was held in russia. you might have recognized him as a rachel maddow show viewer, from the times he appeared as a guest here on the show. as a leader in the opposition of vladimir putin, vladimir karl-murza was the pulitzer prize and was decades in prison on a treason charge when president biden got him out of prison, got him sprung, but alexandra, she too is now free. and out of russia. thank god. and, you know, thank god there's an american administration in place who was capable of pulling this off, right?

the biggest and most complex hostage swap in generations possibly ever involving a half dozen different countries, all with different interests and different stakes. the biden/harris administration was able to pull all the necessary strings in exactly the right order in exactly the right times in order to get this miraculous thing done. so anyway, thank you for indulging me on that. anytime -- it's a weird thing to have a rule about. anytime a guest on this show or a person who has been the subject of multiple segments on this show gets freed by a fascist dictator because of the skilled intervention of an american president, i feel like i should say something on the show. feels superstitious to go unremarked upon. knock on wood, let this never happen again. but they're out. they're out. you might remember when

donald trump was president, he had a call putin right after one of putin's dictator style fake elections in russia where he got like 160% of the vote or whatever it was, and trump's staff gave him a card, a note card before that call which said it in big black all capital letters, do congratulate, and trump got on the phone and immediately congratulated him. something like that happened again this weekend at trump's rally in georgia. trump brought up the biden/harris administration, pulling off this miracle getting all of those americans and those russian dissidents out of putin's prisons in this big hostage negotiation, and trump's immediate comment on that before his crowd in georgia was to say, quote, congratulations to

vladimir putin on the hostage deal. not for president biden and vice president harris, who got it done, but congratulations to vladimir putin. do not congratulation, my friend, do not congratulate. but of course he congratulated the russian dictator on the release of evan gershkovich and paul whelan and this artist from st. petersburg, and vladimir, and great job putin. who says this kind of thing. today marks three months exactly from the presidential election. today is august 5th. the election is on september, october, november 5th. three months from today. regardless of what happens in that presidential election, president biden will be president, vice president harris will be vice president for the next five and a half months until the next president is

sworn in. today the white house released this photo of president biden and vice president harris and key cabinet and security officials meeting in the situation room, meeting on the roiling crisis in the middle east. israel is warning that they expect retaliation of some kind from iran after the assassination of a hamas official inside iran's capital city. today a number of american personnel, american troops were reported to be injured in a rocket attack on the al asad air base in iraq, northwest of baghdad, halfway between baghdad and the syrian border. we don't know more about that attack on the al asad air base. we don't know if it was a lucky shot or a killed targeted attack, iranian-backed militias or some other force. we don't know the nature or extent of the injuries of americans, the statement from president biden, that he put

alongside the photo from the situation room said we received updates on threats posed by iran and its proxies. diplomatic efforts to deescalate regional attentions and preparations should be attacked again. we discussed the steps we are taking to defend our forces and respond to any attack against our personnel in a manner or place of our choosing. there does appear to have been an attack on american personnel today. we have yet to understand the full scale and import of that attack, let alone the exact nature of injuries to americans who were said to be hurt in this attack. we certainly do not know what the american response will be to that attack or when it will happen. but we'll let you know more about that tonight as we learn more. so one side of the presidential election is sort of free to campaign, and just do that. the other side has to attend to the business of government. so while kamala harris is attending briefings and discussions like this in the

situation room today, vice president harris is also preparing to announce her running mate for the presidential election. this running mate announcement we're told will happen definitely by tomorrow, by tuesday. we're guessing probably sometime early in the day, but who knows. and we think we know who the short list is, but who knows. you know, she and her new running mate, whoever that person may be are due to appear together at a rally tomorrow night in philadelphia. thereafter, she at least is due to hit seven different swing states in five days. in preparation for the running mate announcement and, frankly, making the most of the fact that it hasn't happened yet and there's tons of anticipation as to who she might pick, the harris campaign today told their supporters that for a $20 donation, you can now buy an official kamala harris and running mate yard sign. but look at the picture, they've got the name of the running mate

covered up with tape and question marks so that's not how the sign will come. the sign will come harris and then the running mate's name, but we don't know who it is yet. we're asking you to buy it site unseen. has very clever. they put out this text message tonight, making the most of the anticipation, it says, quote, hi it's kamala harris, i know many of you are eager to find out who i will be selecting to join me on the campaign trail and hopefully in the white house as my vice president. though i have not yet made my decision, it is important to me that grass roots supporters like you have direct updates about the state of the race. that's why i want you to be the first to know who i am selecting to serve alongside me as my vice president. add your name to this exclusive list of supporters who will be notified immediately since the news breaks. and since there have been legitimately no leaks and only more or less well-informed speculation as to what the choice may be, telling people they'll be the first to know if

they sign up on this list to receive the information by text direct from the campaign, there's the lot of anticipation that people really want to know. that is a pretty good way to build a contact list of potential supporters. here at msnbc, i have to tell you, we have precisely zero information about who she's going to pick. lots of people have been contacting me and coming up to me the last few days begging me to tell them who vice president is going to pick as her running mate. i don't know. i have no more idea than you do. but we are pretty sure that we're going to find out tomorrow in advance of tomorrow night's rally in philadelphia. i can tell you for sure i will be helping anchor or special coverage of the running mate announcement tomorrow, tuesday night, starting at 6:00 p.m. eastern. but, again, that does not mean that i have any kind of a heads-up on who she's going to pick or how she's making her choice or when exactly she's going to announce it or how any of us are going to hear about

it. i know as little as you do. it's going to be a sleepless night tonight for all of us worrying about it. but while we are on the subject of worry, here's a thing that i think needs to be on the national radar. no matter how you're feeling about the news in general right now or politics in general right now or the stock market or the prospects of vice president harris and her campaign, there is something i feel like needs to be on everybody's radar, and it's just barely starting to be, but we're just getting more and more increasingly strong signals that this is where this whole thing is heading. so i talked about this a little bit last week. got lots and lots of feedback from people that i had upset you, freaked you out, got you worried about something you were otherwise feeling good about. i'm sorry to say there's more dpris for that mill. there's more reason to focus on this. now even more than there was last week, and for this we need to go back to that dpa rally

this weekend, the one where trump congratulated vladimir putin for president biden getting the hostages released from russian prisons. there were a lot of kind of funny things about that rally. trump complained repeatedly at that rally about the fact that he was addressing a bunch of empty seats in the arena. this was a particularly sore subject for him. just a few days earlier, vice president harris had held a rally at the exact same venue. she had the place filled to the rafters, while trump was addressing an arena, there was a crowd there but there were also tons of empty seats and increasing numbers of empty seats as people steadily filed out while he was still speaking. and trump kept remarking upon that during the rally. it clearly bothered him that there were so many empty seats. he kept suggesting that there were thousands of people outside the arena, desperately trying to get in and there was some conspiracy that the seats were being held open. there were not thousands of

people outside trying to get in. he really just appears to have not been able to keep butts in the seats in the venue. also at that rally, and tell me how this strategy works, trump repeatedly took a bunch of really nasty shots at that rally against the republican governor of georgia whose name is brian kemp. trump repeatedly and in very sort of vicious terms at that rally, criticizing brian kemp, who is, again, the republican governor of that state, criticizing kemp for not having helped him overthrow the election results in georgia in 2020 when trump lost that state to biden. that is a weird way to try to lock up the republican vote in georgia ahead of a hotly contested election, right? tell georgia republicans that they have a terrible republican governor, that they made a terrible choice when they picked that governor. georgia voters, after all, elected that governor at the

same time they didn't elect donald trump. but he's there telling them that their governor is terrible and that he's disloyal, and he was an awful choice for georgia. what a great way to lock up the republican vote in that state, right? in addition to all that, though, there was one thing that was not only sort of stranger than that, but i think more broadly worrying. i'm going to play you just a little bit of sound from that rally. it's a short piece of sound, i promise. but you're going to hear him say here a few names that you have never heard before. and that's actually what is important about this. so please watch. again, it's a short clip, but this is that same rally in georgia. >> i don't know if you've heard but the georgia state election board is in a very positive way. this is a very positive thing, marjorie. they're on fire. they're doing a great job. three members.

janice johnson, rick jeffries, and janelle king, three people are all pit bulls, fighting for honesty, transparency, and victory. they're fighting. are they here? where are they? where are they? where are they? thank you. what a job. thank you. thank you. >> thank you, wow. what a job. where are you? are you here? wow, thank you. these people who trump is shouting out by name, you've never heard any of these names before, right? these people he's shouting out by name, at least one of those people is apparently there at the rally waving back at him, and he's acknowledging her. the reason you've never heard of these people is they have a job that's supposed to be a secure technocratic job. they are members of the georgia state elections board. he describes them as three pit bulls, fighting for victory, and

he calls them out by name, and he thanks them, and he praises them, and he points out at least one of them who's there in person at the front row of his rally. he says they are doing a great job. they are, quote, fighting for victory. georgia state elections board is not supposed to be the kind of entity that has its members shouted out at a candidates rally for all they're doing to assure the victory of that candidate. the state elections board is responsible for administering elections, for in the words of georgia state statutes, they're responsible for conducting, quote, fair, legal, and orderly elections for the state of georgia. and here is trump shouting them out by name for all the great work they're doing for him. since the 2020 election, in which trump tried mightily and failed to overturn the results of the presidential election in georgia, since a georgia grand

jury indicted him and multiple codefendants and multiple felonies including rico charges for trying to overturn the election, in contravention of law. georgia republicans have since replaced the membership of the georgia state board of elections so that it's now stocked with election deniers and trump super fans who trump is now shouting out by name at his rallies while they sit in the front row and wave back at him. they have also stocked election deniers and trump super fans on county election boards throughout the state of georgia. and other swing states as well. but why is that important. these elections officials who are doing the kinds of jobs that shouldn't make them famous, why is it important that they're election deniers and trump super fans that have been installed since trump tried and failed to overturn the results of the last election.

well, those county elections officials in multiple counties, in multiple swing states, since 2020, they have refused to certify local election results dozens of times. all right. the state election board members who trump shouted out at his rally this weekend, they are now pushing through a new rule in the state of georgia that will give any county official at the county elections board level, give them the leeway to refuse to certify election results in that county or at least to delay the certification of election results in that county, and why does that matter? because no matter how people vote in a particular state, right, no matter who gets the most votes in a particular state, election results get tallied locally, and then they get certified by each county, and then they get certified at the state level. that's how we get official election results from each state. if individual counties, whether they're big counties or small counties, even little rural really trumpy counties with

almost no people in them, if counties refuse to certify their county level results, the idea is that will stop the state from being able to certify its results because they won't have official results from every county. it will stop them from being able to certify statewide results or at least delay the certification of statewide results, and that will have two effects. number one, it will serve as propaganda, right, it will serve as sort of smoke to tell the public that there must be something wrong in the election so the election results must be suspect and maybe emergency measures of some kind are going to be necessary, but secondly, it prevents the normal counting of votes. which prevents the normal allocation of electors in the electoral college, which is how we get a president, right? it stops that process. which then does what to the process? it throws it into the courts, maybe. throws it into congress to

decide? maybe. republicans may like both of their chances in both of those places better than they like their chances with the voters. >> where are they? thank you. what a job. thank you. thank you. wow. >> wow, what a job. shouting out the state elections board. before the 2020 election and trump trying to overturn the results of that election, it just didn't happen that local election officials would refuse to certify election results. it just didn't happen. it was unheard of. since the 2020 election, it has become a thing in republican politics. since trump lost that election and then said it was all fraudulent and tried to have it all overturned on the basis of those bogus fraud claims, republican officials are often

refusing to certify or delaying the certification of election results. they have done it more than 25 times. in nevada, and in pennsylvania, and in new mexico, and in michigan, and in north carolina, and in georgia. the list goes on and on. and they're not doing it because there's something wrong that they know of in these elections. they're doing it to show that they're not going to certify election results anymore. because they, as election deniers and trump super fans have gotten ahold of this part of the technocratic process of conducting elections in our country. and they have done that and they have no intention of certifying election results, not because they think there's anything wrong with the way the election was conducted but because they don't think elections are a good way to do things. today we just posted the last episode, episode 8, the finale episode of this podcast that i have been working on for a long

time that's called "ultra," today was the finale of the second season. second season of "ultra" is about americans in the late '40s and '50s who were involved in really really radical antidemocratic organizations and movements including some of whom were tied up with the nazis of germany, and those americans ended up getting sort of tapped, basically brought into american electoral politics. and the result was explosive and terrible and very dangerous for our democracy. and among other things, it led to a plot very much like what trump and his supporters tried to pull off on january 6th. it led to a very similar plot to dispute the election results in multiple states, to stop the normal tallying of the votes, to stop the normal tallying of the electoral vote because republicans thought they could seize control of the government even without winning the election. it has happened before.

which is why i wanted to do this podcast because it is helpful to me, at least, to get my head around the fact that americans have had to contend with things like this before. so, you know, if you've been waiting until all eight episodes of "ultra" were out because you want to binge them all, the final episode of ultra season two posted today. but for me, the reason that i wanted to do this project in the first place is because i do think it helps us get our heads around what is happening today. the american system of government is not perfect. but it was a hard system to get. and it has been repeatedly hard to hold on to. when americans who don't want this as our system of government have repeatedly tilted against it. they've made clear that they would prefer the kind of system that they have, say, in russia or that they had in germany in the 30s or that they had somewhere else where there's

authoritarian leaders. there have over time always been a subset of americans who would prefer that they just have their preferred leader in control, who could run things the way he wants. there are always forces like that at some level in our country. and usually they're on the fringe, and nobody pays attention to them. but occasionally they ascend. from time to time, they get closer to achieving that kind of goal. when they have a political leader or a political faction inside real electoral politics, and they attach themselves to that figure. right? they're here to undo this dumb, weak american system that relies so much on elections in the first place. you get somebody who's got real power inside that system, and it's a very very powerful place from which to attack the system. these are the forces that today look at viktor orban in hungary, look at vladimir putin in russia and they say, oh, yeah, they have elections, sure, but

they're ornamental, they're cute, they don't decide anything. why would you like anyone other than viktor orban and vladimir putin decide anything. right? there are americans who feel like our elections should be the same thing, that technically we should have them, but there shouldn't be any doubt as to the outcome. and, you know, even that fetish for foreign dictatorships isn't that unusual in history. when there was the america first movement before world war ii, that movement really was lousy with elected politicians in the u.s. congress who were taking money from and working for the nazis top propaganda agent in the united states. the subject of "ultra" season 2, it happens around mccarthy and the red scare. that was a supposedly anticommunist movement around joe mccarthy, but it really was creepily entangled with this pro russia american fascist theorist who argued that it was really russia that had it together, and we ought to try to be more like

them. it's not about fighting socialism or communism or marxist whatever, it's not about america first. it's not about some deep state that needs to be uprooted, it's about wanting our system of government to go away. it's about creating a sense of emergency, a sense of an enemy within so that the public at large can be pushed and persuaded into giving up this system of government. and just letting their guy, their real man, their strong man take over. and when that is what you are up against, no, do not be surprised when it turns out they're not going to respect election results, they don't want elections to be the way we decide things anyway. trump is now telling his supporters you will never have to vote again. he's also even more frequently telling his supporters that he doesn't even need them to vote for him this time. he doesn't need their votes. why does he not need their votes? because he apparently thinks he can get back into power without

them. republicans really have stacked election boards in all of the swing states with dozens of officials who are bent on not allowing the certification of the vote totals in their counties, and thereby hopefully messing up the certification of the vote totals in their states. it is happening. and, yes, kamala harris on the democratic side, she really is running a juggernaut of a campaign. it is going to get turbo charged all the more tomorrow when she announces her running mate. but on the republican side, they are doing something entirely different. which is not about winning the most votes. it is about stopping the votes from being counted. the country's top lawyer, who is working both to sound the alarm about this, and to try to stop it is going to join us live here next. stay with us. fade defy plug. and i use this.

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in 2020, just as officials in wayne county michigan were about to certify the vote in that year's presidential election, two of that county's election officials, both of them republicans got a surprise call from the president of the united states, donald trump himself and the then chair of the republican party, ronna mcdaniel, called them, personally, according to the detroit news trump and ms. mcdaniel then told those two county election officials they needed, essentially, to take back their vote to certify the election results. and those two county officials did actually try to take back their vote to certify. then when it was time to certify the elections at the state level, republicans in michigan, again, tried to block the vote total from being certified. it was only after one very brave republican election official broke with his fellow republicans that michigan state results were finally able to be made official. republicans pioneered this in

michigan in 2020. now republicans have kept trying this kind of thing in every election since. including in congressional elections in the primaries in the 2022 midterms, republicans in at least ten counties refused to certify the vote. in the general election in the midterms that year, county level republicans in pennsylvania and in arizona tried to block the certification of the results. this year, republican elections officials in multiple jurisdictions have refused to certify lawful elections, repeatedly. and now they're laying the foundation to do it again for the next national election. over the weekend, donald trump held a rally in atlanta where he randomly shouted out by name three members of the georgia state board of elections. those three officials have all refused to acknowledge that joe biden won the 2020 presidential election. they are now trying to push

through new rules that would make it easier for county level officials to refuse to certify election results. this seems to be part of a unified strategy, encourage republican election officials at every level to refuse to certify the elections no matter what the results are, doesn't matter where, doesn't matter if it's a county that republicans won, refusing to certify the election at the local level just sticks a wrench in the works, right? it makes it impossible to certify, if you make it impossible to certify a county, then you make it effectively impossible to certify a state. and then ultimately, that puts the whole tallying of the presidential election result into question. veteran democratic elections lawyer mark alias writes, quote, it is worse this election than previous ones because this year the gop is far more organized. they might have tried to subvert the election in a handful of places in 2020 and 2022, but

this year they will try to subvert them all, setting the stage now for what is to come in november. joining us now is mark alias who specializes in election litigation, he's the founder of democracy docket. thank you very much for joining us tonight. i appreciate you being here. >> thank you for having me. >> we have been talking about this on and off for months, we have been talking about it pretty intensively for the past few weeks. let me just ask you as an expert if not the expert in this field, am i getting any of this wrong or seeing any of this the wrong way around or am i presenting this in a way that you think basically captures the facts. >> i think you captured it entirely correctly. the fact is that when we talk about who won an election, we're really talking about two things, we're talking about the unofficial results that people get on election night, what ap reports, what nbc and msnbc use to call elections on election night, but then we are really talking about the certified results, and these are the results that are first approved

at the polling place and then at the county, and as you point out then at the state and then ultimately in presidential elections that chooses the electors and those certificates from the governor go to the congress, and rachel, if you think of it this way, january 6th was the culmination of a certification dispute, which as you point out began among other places in michigan at the county level, and when republicans couldn't achieve what they wanted to at the county level, they went to the state level. when they couldn't achieve that, they launched a fake elector scheme, which was another way of undermining accurate certification of elections. when they couldn't do that, they launched a series of frivolous lawsuits, and finally, they attempted to block what on january 6th, the certification of the election, so this has been on their raird screen for some time and will be on their radar screen for sure in 2024. >> we have seen them not just planning to do this for the 2024 election but trying it out in multiple jurisdictions, you among others have pointed out that this is a tactic at the

county elections board level that was essentially unheard of before 2020 but now it has happened literally dozens of times, sometimes in very off the radar like municipal elections, sometimes in primaries, sometimes in general elections. there hasn't yet been another presidential election during which they've tried it but what have you learned about how this process works, how these essentially concocted controversies can be resolved when they do this stuff at the county level? >> yeah, i mean, look. i have done more recounts and post election litigation than any other person ever. and i've never -- i had never seen it before 2020. in 2020 i represented president biden and the dnc in 60 plus cases. we saw it in michigan. before that, i had done recounts for al franken in minnesota, various senate campaigns, statewide senate campaigns. the idea of tinkering with the certification at the local level was just out of bounds.

that is part of the pageantry of democracy. it is what makes us impraet as a country that after the hard fought election, the election officials celebrate the results by certifying these election results. whatever takes place in court after that, takes place after that in court. but, you know, rachel, we saw in 2022 that they refused to certify the elections in counties in arizona and several places in pennsylvania. i sued them, we won. the folks subsequently got indicted for it. you might think that would serve as a deterrent for 2024 but as donald trump proved, the loyalty to his crimes and misdeeds is stronger than people's instinct for self-preservation. >> briefly, marc, what can people that are concerned about this do to try and make sure it doesn't happen. >> we all play a role. first of all, thank you for calling this out. lawyers, we go to court but making this public is a big part of the battle, and i'd ask every person listening to this to speak out on this, you know, don't stay silent. you all have a town square.

you don't all havemaddow, but each and every one of you can post on social media. you can attend these canvas board meetings. you can file comments in georgia before the state election board. in your own counties, you can know who is on these boards and attend their meetings. every citizen has a role to play here. if we all do that, i am confident we will defeat these efforts and kamala harris will be sworn in as the next president of the united states. >> marc elias, a lawyer specializing in election litigation, the founder of democracy docket. marc, i have the feeling this is the start of several conversations we're going to have on this. thank you so much for your time tonight. keep us apprised. okay. we have much more here tonight. stay with us. with us so you can save your shirt and maybe even a little money. moat the... library.s right... for a better clean with less... it's got to be tide. we realize some home maintenance jobs aren't worth the risk. that's when we call leaffilter

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but it's under siege from big out-of-state media companies and hedge funds. now, california legislators are considering a bill that could make things even worse by subsidizing national and global media corporations while reducing the web traffic local papers rely on. so tell lawmakers, support local journalism, not well connected media companies. oppose ab 886. paid for by ccia.

i cannot improve on the opening lines of this. i'm just going to give you it verdict. raeld. quote, five days before donald trump became president in january 2017, a manager at a bank branch in chi metro egypt received an unusual letter from an organization linked to the egyptian intelligence service. the letter asked the bank to quote, kindly withdraw nearly $10 million from the organization's account. withdraw it all in cash. as in green bills. quote, inside the state-run national bank of egypt employees were soon busy placing bundles of hundred dollar bills into two large bags. four men arrived and carried away the bags, which weighed a

combined 200 pounds. the bags contained what was then a sizable share of egypt's entire reserve of american currency. when those four men came and carried away those hundreds of pounds of cash bundles of hundred dollar bills, where did the cash go? what could egypt's intelligence service possibly need with 200 pounds of hundred dollar bills? well, fbi agents in the united states thought that cash might have gone to donald trump. explosive reporting from aaron davis and carol leonnig at "the washington post" on friday revealed a year's long investigation into whether egypt illegally funneled $10 million in cash to donald trump for his 2016 campaign. two years into trump's presidency, federal investigators in the united states had come to know the following things, first, classified u.s. intelligence had indicated that egypt's president

at least wanted to give trump $10 million to boost his presidential campaign in 2016. also, in september 2016, just before the election, candidate trump did have a very chummy meeting with egypt's president in new york. after which trump praised him as a quote, fantastic guy. a few weeks after that meeting, just before the election, look at the time on this, october 28th, just before the 2016 election, trump miraculously produced $10 million of his own money to dump into his campaign. which at the time was quite strapped for cash. that $10 million infusion, though, wasn't a gift from trump to his campaign. it was structured as a loan so trump would get the money back. trump just a few days later won the election and then just a few days after that or a few days before his inauguration, there was that unexplained cash withdrawal of american dollars

by the egyptian intelligence service from a cairo bank, $10 million, the same amount that egypt's president had reportedly wanted to give trump, according to u.s. intelligence. the same amount that trump had miraculously found to loan to his own campaign. egypt's president then inexplicably became one of trump's first guests at the white house as president. trump later released over a billion dollars in military aid for egypt. trump at one point even called the egyptian leader my favorite dictator, and for him there's a lot of competition for that title. but u.s. investigators didn't ever prove that the money from egypt that cash from that egyptian bank went to trump to prove or disprove that, they would need access to more of trump's financial records. but they would never get that access. and that is its own scandal. carol leonnig and aaron davis reporting that trump's attorney bill barr stepped in to make sure that fbi agents wouldn't be

allowed to subpoena trump's financial records. he also then removed the u.s. attorney who was overseeing the investigation, and then he removed her replacement as well. until he finally got a u.s. attorney in that jurisdiction who would shut down the investigation entirely. now, what investigators thought might have gone down here, an illegal $10 million cash payment to a presidential campaign from a foreign dictator. i mean, if that were ever proven, that would be one of the biggest presidential scandals in american history if not the biggest. that said, it hasn't been proven. and donald trump has denied it. the reason it hasn't been proven is because nobody was allowed to look at the evidence that would prove it or disprove it, thank you, bill barr, thank you u.s. justice department for never apparently looking into any of the things that bill barr did as attorney general to bring grave shame and discredit upon the u.s. justice department.

that's a story for another day. i will say, though, trump is denying the implications of this reporting and this investigation. he could easily disprove the claims here himself. by simply allowing his banks to release his financial records to show that he has nothing to hide because he had nothing to do with this. in a hard fought presidential campaign, you might think that would become a political pressure point for donald trump. if you're going to tell people they need to release their long formed birth certificates, seems like maybe you ought to release your bank records, especially when you're credibly accused of potentially taking a $10 million prize from your favorite dictator. joining us now is "washington post" investigative reporter carol leonnig. thank you so much for being here. >> of course, rachel.

>> did i misconstrue any of that? >> you got it right, especially the chronology, it's very clear. people who had credible information from the cia, jaw dropping intelligence, the cia was warning the department of justice, we have an informant, an additional corroborating intelligence streams suggesting that egypt's president wanted to get $10 million to donald trump. the doj began investigating largely under then special counsel, independent special counsel robert mueller, and then when they actually found corroborating everyday of $10 million walking out the door of a cairo bank, just as the intelligence foretold through the account of the egyptian spy agency, the general intelligence agency, when they found that incredibly and compelling evidence, they were barred from trying to figure out whether any of that money ended up in any of donald trump's personal or business accounts. >> how -- what would the scope

be? how big a proverbial subpoena would it need to be in order for investigators to bring up the kinds of these implications? >> the subpoena that was drafted and proposed in april of 2019 of the u.s. attorneys office in d.c. and again proposed in june of 2019 and again proposed in the fall of 2019, was fairly limited. it basically asked for records around the time of this bizarre cash withdrawal in egypt, january 15, tweflt, a few weeks before, and several weeks after. it was not a very broad amount of time. it was scoped down and careful, but they could not get the u.s. attorneys approval for that after she met with attorney general bill barr. she decided that they didn't

have the factual basis or the predicate to seek the records of the sitting president, and just so you know, rachel, if you walked into the fbi field office today and said you believed you had information about me laundering money or taking money illegally, the fbi could get a subpoena for my bank records in about ten minutes. it wouldn't take very long. in this case, this group was blocked for two years from gathering any evidence. >> carol, your reporters take on this, from what you understand and the sources you spoke with, how would you describe the confidence level of the investigators who thought that this $10 million might have gone from egypt to donald trump? i mean, the trump appointees at the justice department who ultimately shut this thing down and didn't let them investigate it, they sort of made it seem like these folks were looking for evidence for some cockamamie theory, but the people who spoke to you who were involved in the investigation, how did they

characterize their level of confidence or suspicion that something really was truly wrong here? >> the sources we spoke to who were very close to the probe described a group of agents, fbi agents and prosecutors who were gob smacked, that they had found this level of information. first, the intelligence was pretty stunning and came from reliable, a reliable source who had provided reliable information in the past in this field. then they had a document that proved a movement of $10 million from exactly the intelligence agency that was suspected in the intelligence to have been the source of the funds in the exact dollar figure. then they had donald trump basically flipping the switch on all of this u.s. policy on egypt in a way that was extremely beneficial to the president of

egypt. the first meeting that was ever held with the new u.s. president was with the egyptian president, a pretty big kiss, if you will, to that country that we had held at arm's length. these investigators and agents were described to us as stunned because they had never gathered this quality of investigation in a money laundering or financial conspiracy case before. certainly not one that had been closed down. and not one in which they had been barred from continuing to investigate the leads right in front of their faces. >> wow. stunned and gob smacked. again, there is an easy way to sort this out. those financial records don't have to be subpoenaed. a candidate who wanted to dispel the sorts of allegations and said they were not true could simply release that information publicly. but we will await that development. "washington post" national investigative reporter, carol leonnig thank you for the reporting. thank you for helping us understand it, carol.

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