tv The Rachel Maddow Show MSNBC January 8, 2015 9:00pm-10:01pm PST
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have these kinds of violence around them, right? obviously, that creates different kinds of conversations. and one of these is pragmatism. do you want to get involved in this? >> and the fear, i think, harry, is the point that you end up with the sort of race at the bottom. harry sheer, imam fisel and matthew atkins, thank you very much. that is "all in" for this evening. good evening, rachel. >> thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. the newspaper office is now known as the scene of this terrorist attack. but, before, it became a place where 11 people were murdered. before that, it was just an office. it was easy to find. if you typed in charlie hebdo in paris, it pops right up. a simple google search. first hit. anybody with a computer or a smartphone can find exactly where they are, can use the street view feature to scope out
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the entrance to that, again, the entrance to that, again, nondescript office. but when the two suspects showed um to that office yesterday morning, they went to the wrong place. even though they were wrong at first, they eventually figured it out. the address they were looking for was a couple of doors down from where they had started. they entered here after forcing a female employee of the magazine to enter her security code so they could get in. and that's how yesterday's attack began. after shooting and killing their victims, the suspected gunmen fled northeast, they stopped less than 700 feet away from the charlie hebdo offices. they continued north from there and then crashed into another vehicle before they abandoned their getaway car.
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the suspects reportedly carjacked another car and they took off. at that point, they were in the wind. they matched the description of these two gunmen. throughout the day today, the bulk of the nearly 90,000 extra police officers and security forces to search for these two suspects, the bulk of them focused their search very near that gas station in the small
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towns of longpont and corcy. they also were focused on the surrounding large and heavily wooded area. right around that area, it's one of the largest protected forests in france. it's almost 33,000 acres of heavily wooded land. in the surrounding small towns, it's about an hour and a half northeast of paris. meanwhile, the person who had been described in social media as the third suspect in the attack, had been described as the driver of the getaway car, that was 18-year-old named amid murad. he turned himself in. that third suspect reportedly volunteered himself. he went to a local police
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station and turned himself into authorities after seeing his name circulated in the media as a suspected. french officials say that he's not been charged and they are aware of reports that he may have an alibi. namely, he was in school when that happens. there are reports of this that he was in class at the time of the attack. obviously, those reports are unconfirmed. not very much is known at all about that 18-year-old who turned himself in. we do not know whether he was the driver of the getaway car. all we do know is that he walked into a police station last night near the belgium border and turned himself in. law enforcement officials have now turned to the public.
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it's not like they tracked him down somewhere or knew where to look for him. the only reason they got him is because he came forward and wants to clear his name. the other two, the two suspected brothers are on the loose and the police are saying they need the public's help. about a year and a half ago, we had a version of this unfolding in one of our major cities. it was three days after the boston marathon bombings which killed three people and injured almost 300 others. it was three days after that authorities turned over to the public. these two young men walking very calmly along the side of the street, you see the backpack
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there which ended up being key. they couldn't identify who these two young men were. they weighed the potential benefits and risks of letting the whole world know that they had these images. they weighed the upsides and the downsides and they decided to go for it. their asked for help publicly. and, almost immediately after they asked for public help, the actual physical chase for those two suspects began. the suspects were on the run, they hijacked a car outside of a gas station outside of boston. it was less than an hour after that hijacking that one of the two suspects was killed in a confrontation with police in a boston suburb. jakar, the younger brother, got away. watertown was put under a shelter in place order. people were ordered to stay in their homes.
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police went door-to-door looking for the younger brother. it seemed like he had disappeared in thin air. hours passed. the next day turned into evening. when the governor of massachusetts finally lifted that shelter in place order, letting residents leave their homes, even though the suspect hadn't been found, just before 7:00 p.m. on that friday, a resident went outside to check on his boat that was parked on a trailer in his yard. lifted the cover of the boat, saw a bloodied body hiding there. that's how he was finally captured. the trial started this week. it started on monday in boston. there are some weird similarities here, right? two suspects, both young men, brothers, who have been radicalized to commit these
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gruesome acts of violence and then evade capture. if they are in that forest or if they are still in france, trying to evade capture, even if they've crossed borders and are somewhere else in europe now, one of the factors with 88,000 police officers looking for them, in terms of figuring out how well-suited they are for this manhunt, how much they've thought through, how well trained they are.
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the older of these two suspects, he reportedly traveled to yemen in 2011 to receive training from al qaeda. that group is the group that trained one of the two suspects. according to one of these counterterrorism sources, the training lasted several months in yemen. officially tonight, both brothers were known to the united states and were in the u.s. terrorism databases. the source tells nbc news that both brothers had been on the u.s. no-fly list for years.
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tonight, overnight, in france, a massive manhunt continues. and the suspects are still nowhere to be found. they're placing their best hopes tonight not just in detective work, but in appeals to the public to please, tell us anything they know. richard, thanks for joining us tonight. it's nice to see you. >> absolutely. it's always good to talk to you, rachel. i'm sorry to be here in paris, one of my favorite cities in the world for such a terrible circumstance. but it's always good to talk to you. >> yeah. richard, do you have any sense of the confidence level in the investigation and where they are focussing?
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>> the competence level is very high. the french counterterrorism authorities are among the best in the world. this is a modern country. if you saw the amount of equipment that was being deployed today and the gear that these forces were wearing, it left you with absolutely no doubt that they have the equipment, they have the training. the question is, do they have the key piece of information where are these two brothers hiding? most of this manhunt today was focused outside of pow e paris about an hour north of here and they were going house-to-house looking. they had some rumors that they had fled into that nearby wooded area into the national park. but we also heard rumors that they had gotten into a car and were heading on a fairly major highway on their way to paris. and there was something of a scramble here in the city as police were going to set up a dragnet to catch them on their way into paris. that did leave a few doubts in
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my mind that they have a real solid sense of where these suspects are. they're looking, but until they find them, i don't know if we're ever going to know for sure if they were in that area north or paris. >> richard, these new reports that at least the older brother may have trained with al qaeda and e in the arabian peninsula for months, does that change the way the authorities are thinking about the attack, thinking and how it might fit into some larger plot that this might be part one of? does it change anything about the way they're thinking about how these guys might try to elude capture? >> i think it's very important to understand who these people are. there's two sides. you want to find the individuals, and that's a
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manhunt operation, like a prison break. you want to just locate the individuals before they do more harm and to bring them to justice. but then there's the larger intelligence picture. what drove them to this? who are their possible a associates, do they have major international backers? several indications are pointing to some sort of yemen connection. first, the yemeni group, al qaeda and the arabian peninsula, that grooup had specifically, marking for death, the editor in chief, that's one thing the group in yemen had done. and then, what we learned today, the older brother, said, who had been the follower of the two brothers, the one who was manipulated into this, when we heard today that he had also received months of training.
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one of the two returned earlier this summer. al qaeda is operating there and so are other groups. we do have one more piece of the puzzle that is completing a picture and tying them to yemen's al qaeda cell. >> richard engle, again, i agree with you, this is a terrible circumstance to be in paris, but i'm glad that you're there for us. stay safe. thanks for staying with us. thanks. that point that richard was just making about potential
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affiliations, that it might have been directed by others in some way, we did get one other piece of that puzzle today. and it was a surprising one. and that story is next. stay with us. i loved the look of the fusion... we test drove it...i was like "this is my car". all-wheel drive is amazing... i felt so secure. you can do it, emmie! ecoboost is when you can take a four cylinder and make it feel like a six cylinder... i was really surprised... i drove the fusion... and i never went back. make the switch to america's favorite brand. check out special offers on ford fusion at ford.com or see your local ford dealer. ♪ alka-seltzer plus presents the cold truth. i have a cold, with terrible chest congestion. better take something. i'll catch up later. awww... truth is, theraflu severe cold doesn't treat chest congestion. really? new alka-seltzer plus day powder rushes relief to your worst cold symptoms plus chest congestion. oh, what a relief it is. here we go! woooo! woooo!
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president obama made a surprise detour. just before 6:00 eastern, marine 1 landed inside the gates of the white house as the president returned from his trip to phoenix today. but instead of going inside the white house after the helicopter dropped him off on the lawn, the president, instead, got in the motorcade and head to the french embassy. he signed a condolence book for the victims of yesterday's terrorist attack in paris. on behalf of all americans, he wrote, i extend our deepest sympathy and solidarity as allies across the centuries. we stand united with our french brothers to ensure justice is done, we go forward together
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knowing that terror is no match for freedom and ideals we stand for, ideals that light the world. viva la france. you see it right there in the president's hand. we'll be right back. i make a lot of purchases for my business. and i get a lot in return with ink plus from chase. like 50,000 bonus points when i spent $5,000 in the first 3 months after i opened my account. and i earn 5 times the rewards on internet, phone services and at office supply stores. with ink plus i can choose how to redeem my points. travel, gift cards even cash back. and my rewards points won't expire. so you can make owning a business even more rewarding. ink from chase. so you can.
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so we're in day two now of the manhunt of the two brothers suspected of carrying out the man hunt of a dozen people. two senior counterterrorism officials tell nbc news that the older brother traveled to yemen in 2011 and received several months of terrorist training before returning to france. he reportedly trained in small arms combat, marksmanship and other skills with the fighters
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of the group al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. yesterday, at least one witness at the scene of the attack in paris told the media afterwards that these two attackers said at the scene of the crime that this attack had been committed by al qaeda in the arabian peninsula. this new arabian peninsula about this direct tie, at least reportedly between the brothers and the arabian peninsula now has more meat on its bones. both brothers were also on the radar for american intelligence, including both of the brothers being on the u.s. no-fly list for years. since the attack happened, and since the brother's names and photos surfaced as suspects, there have been bits of biographical detail and information about potentially
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relevant affiliations for these guys. i have to say that most of these details for affiliations, people who they may know, what their lives are like, most of these details are still unconfirmed and pretty sketchy. the reason you're seeing so much speculation and trafficking in these details is because they're of interest for a very direct reason. it is an open question as to whether or not yesterday's massacre is part of an ongoing plot, a plot that may have a second act or other people besides these two brothers. one of the few things we do have specific and checkable and the criminal history of shariq kouchi. he was going to fight u.s. troops in iraq. he never made it there. he was arrested. ultimately, put on trial. not just with the one other young man he was traveling with, he was put on trial as part of a
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larger group that was essentially tried for working in concert, working together to funnel fighters into the iraq war. so 2005 is when he was arrested. even though he was convicted and sentenced, his sentence applied retroactively to the time he already served awaiting trial. details on that are not fully clear. in 2010, he was picked up again. he was held for several months in conjunction with an attempted prison break. french police arrested 14 people in a plot to bust out of prison a man who had been convicted of
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masterminding a terrorist plot. he was held for three months, but they didn't try him. he was later freed for lack of evidence. so he was never prosecuted for that case. but police now say that in their investigation of that case, they found evidence on sharif's computer indicating that he had been seeking out and watching online jihadist videos and things like that. we got that detail because of his criminal record. now, the older of the two brothers, as far as we know, he does not have a criminal record. but now we know that while his younger brother was being questioned by police and held for three months and while they were reportedly finding al qaeda speeches and jihadist content on the younger brother's computer in 2010, the older brother, the one with no criminal record, he
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was on his way to yemen to train as an al qaeda affiliate for months. that's something that we understand now, that we did not understand yesterday. sorting out what is confirmable in this case is a work of art. following that trail is the best e best we've got to go on now. we'll let you know more as we know more when this manhunt continues. nce. yeah, everybody knows that. well, did you know that playing cards with kenny rogers gets old pretty fast? ♪ you got to know when to hold'em. ♪ ♪ know when to fold 'em. ♪ ♪ know when to walk away. ♪ ♪ know when to run. ♪ ♪ you never count your money, ♪ ♪ when you're sitting at the ta...♪ what? you get it? i get the gist yeah. geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. when the game is on the line... okay patrick, let's go base, shark, blitz.
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okay, it was june 1st, 2009. the country had just inaugurated a brand-new president. republicans were thinking who they could run the next time around in order to beat him and make him a one-term president. on that june, june 1st, 2009, a man who thought he could beat barack obama, traveled to iowa. >> imagine a country that actually respects the constitution enough where we appoint judges and justices to the supreme court that respect the constitution, that protect the bill of rights, including the second amendment. that's the kind of america i want to see. together, you and i. that's the kind of america. we can build. that's the kind of america we will build if we care enough. will you join me in that effort?
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>> very smooth. testing the presidential waters. he stopped at a local ice cream parlor and to, again, deliver a speech touting his conservative credentials and laying the groundwork for a presidential run maybe some day. that was june 1st, 2009. in a matter of two weeks, his presidential campaign was over. >> last year, i had an affair. i violated the vows of my marriage. it is absolutely the worst thing
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i've done in my life. i will not mention any names. the woman i was involved with, and her husband, were both close friends and they both worked for me. our families were very close. that closeness put me into situations during a very difficult time in my marriage which led to my inappropriate behavior. >> on june 1st, republican presidential hopeful tramping all over iowa. 15 days later, not only was he never going to be president, he potentially was heading to the clink. that set off one of more incredible congressional scandals that we have seen in a very long time. it revolved around john henson and doug hampton. they live in a nice place, it's basically a suburb of las vegas on the west side.
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in november, 2007, their very nice home was burglarized. in the aftermath, the hamptons moved in with their very dear friends, the enson family. doug was a top senate aide, cindy hampton did bookkeeping for the campaign organizations. they were not only both employed by john enson, they took vacations together, they spent a lot of time together. and after the hamptons home was burglarized, they needed a place to stay and they stayed with their friends, the ensons. and that apparently seems to be where the trouble began. the break-in happened november 2007. the following month, doug hampton came across text messages on his phone came to the conclusion that his wife and the senator were having an affair. needless to say, both families sat down together.
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after the new year, the affair kept going. which is amazing because doug hampton was working every day very closely with john henson. they went on a trip to iraq in 2008. while they were there, doug hampton discovered more evidence that his wife and his employer were still, for lack of a better term, schtoopin. he said can i use your phone. sure. instead, he scrolls to aunt judy. like that was his covert coverup name for cindy hampton. and then i realized something is still seriously wrong. what do you do when you're in iraq in the middle of a war zone with your boss and you realize your boss is still sleeping with
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your wife. apparently what you do is call your boss' roommates back home in washington. john enson was a very conservative senator. he lived at the c-street house that's often shorthanded as c-street. after coming back from iraq, doug hampton contacted the religious conservative lawmakers and their sort of spiritual advisor and asked them to intervene to get him to stop this affair. the c street leadership helped him confront senator enson. tom really kind of takes the helm. oh, he's smokin'. he's one upset man. and then the senator breaks down. the group at c street, in this
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intervention, they forced the senator to write a letter, this letter, and send it to cindy hampton, a letter ending their relationship. cindy, this is the most important letter i've ever written. what i did with you was wrong. i used you for my own pleasure not letting thoughts of you and doug and your children come into my mind. i lied to myself over and over. doug has been a great friend to me over the years and i threw that all away over wanting to feel good. there's restoring relationships with god and basically the whole thing is over, sincerely yours, john. that was sent to cindy over night via federal express. apparently, once the letter was sent, he called cindy and said ignored the letter, he was forced to write it. he then called c street back. for that, there's another
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confrontation. but this time, he told the hamptons that part of the way this is going to resolve is they could no longer work for him. i remember the husband and the wife both work for john enson. now that the affair has happened and has been exposed, it's starting to become a complicated thing. john enson's solution was to fire the woman he had an affair with and to fire her husband. two things happen thereafter. doug hampton is formally severed from the payroll in 2008. and, around that time, may, april 2008, two things come to pass that basically look like payment to the woman he's been
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having this affair with and the husband he cockholded to do that. first thing, it's a check for $96,000 and two of their three children. it was written to the family, and it was drawn from the account of john enson's very wealthy parents. that's one thing that happens. the other thing, john enson calls around and lines up some lobbying jobs for doug hampton. okay. fast forward a year. john enson is planning to run for president. but this whole chapter doesn't seem resolved enough for him to be running for president. first of all, the lobbying that he was doing over the last year
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was illegal. there's a cooling off period. you can't lobby for a year. doug hampton has been lobbying. that's one problem. at one point, senator tom coburn gets involved. then, when the whole thing came to light and blew up later, tom coburn trying to negotiate and said he would never reveal his role in those negotiations. he told roll call, that was privileged information that i will never reveal to anybody, not to the ethics committee, not to anybody. the role was privileged.
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when he was talking about how much money to pay the family of his mistress, "i was counseling him as a physician." tom coburn's medical specialty is obstetrics. he's an obstetrician. and who knows, it's possible john enson was giving birth at the time he was talking to tom coburn about these things. but, otherwise, after the negotiations fell apart and john enson was heading off to iowa to make people think of him as a potential pet, doug hampton basically took things into his own hands. or, basically, to fox news. ten days later, doug hampton wrote this letter to megan kelly. he was basically trying to give her the story about senator
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ensign and his affair. a relentless pursuit of my wife led to our dismissal. i would like to say he stopped his heinous conduct and pursuit upon our leaving, but that was not the case. doug sent that letter to fox june 11th. fox apparently decided not to pursue it. four days later, on june 15th, he forwarded a copy of that letter to this guy, senator rick santorum. basically, as far as i can tell, asking rick santorum to help, to intervene in this whole mess. instead, he forwarded that e-mail straight to john ensign, thereby letting john ensign know that this was all about to become public.
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rick santorum forwarding that story. he went public, gave the press conference to absolutely the worst thing i've ever done in my life. a sex scandal is not a crime. family values is not a crime. illegal lobbying and conspireing to set someone up to illegally lobby, that is a crime. there was a big investigation and a rigorous one. the report was damning when it finally came out. the ethics committee found substantial and credible evidence that senator john ensign conspired to violate lobbying laws and he lied about that mysterious $96,000 payment. they recommended that john
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ensign be prosecuted for those alleged crimes. and the justice department decided not to. they decided, instead, to prosecute doug hampton. john ensign arranged for him to be lobbying. they were violating it. john ensign arranged the jobs. and you know what, the person who doug hampton lobbied once he had those lobbying jobs was john ensign. he set him up in these lobbying jobs so he could be lobbied by them, and john ensign took action that doug hampton lobbied for him to take. all at a time when it was illegal. but doug hampton was the one who got prosecuted. ended up pleading guilty and
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getting a year's probation. criminal record. he got a year's probation. he got a criminal record. john ensign got out. he quit the senate and is now a veterinarian. "this case, more than any other public corruption investigation we have ever seen is just so troubling. if you're powerful, it makes it look as if you can get away with anything." how did all of this happen and doug hampton is the only one who got prosecuted? how is that possible? that was a very long introduction. anything i missed there? >> no, i think you were fairly spot on there.
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i did contact rick to let him know that there was some validity to the letter that i sent megan. they really misconstrued that. she had kelly's court. my attorney and the first group of ensign attornies had met. they said at the end of the day, if you bring any charges, there's a statute of limitations. the reason i sent the letter is to let you know that i don't think it's okay. just because there's a law, just because you think there's nothing that i can, in fact, do against what he's done doesn't mean that i'm okay with the story and i'm okay with what happened. why would we want to make decisions based on lies?
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the biggest reason i approached him with a legal team was, number one, it had been unbearable to live with what happened. but he went to iowa. so in my mind, this man thinks this is all over with. this is all done. i'm going to go on with the possibly president. >> he thought he had buried it. >> he had buried it. only a person who buried it can go off and do what he did. >> when people talk about the senate, they talk about it as a club. they mean it in a positive way. in your case, the clubiness of the senate seems more sinister. >> yes. >> when you went to tom coburn, what were you hoping to get from him?
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what did you want him to do? what did you expect? >> the truth of the matter is, it's much like why john lopez, chief of staff of ensign, didn't go to senate ethics when i started calling on him. at the time, i realize i don't know who to call on for help. >> you thought senator ensign would listen to coburn -- >> absolutely. they also believed that tom had the character, had the fortitude to address a very difficult issue and tell ensign that if you don't go, i'll make sure it's handled correctly. >> i should note at this point
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in the interview, we did reach out to former senator john ensign today. we reached out to him through his veterinarian office. i have a cold with terrible chest congestion. better take something. theraflu severe cold doesn't treat chest congestion. really? new alka-seltzer plus day powder rushes relief to your worst cold symptoms plus chest congestion. oh, what a relief it is. here we go! kid: hey dad, who was that man? dad: he's our broker. he helps looks after all our money. kid: do you pay him? dad: of course. kid: how much? dad: i don't know exactly.
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[cheering] everything okay? we're here because you're about to have a heart attack. pete's heart attack didn't come with a warning. today his doctor has him on a bayer aspirin regimen to help reduce the risk of another one. if you've had a heart attack be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. >> joining us is the top aide for former senator john ensign. more with him next. with the incredible fuel efficiency of 38 miles-per-gallon highway you can feel like royalty in the nissan altima. now, get great offers on the 38 mpg highway nissan altima. nissan innovation that excites.
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>> i don't want to name names, but they were both close friends and they both worked for me. >> former friend and former top staffer for former senator john ensign of nevada. doug, thanks for staying with us. let me ask you about that $96,000 check. what were the circumstances of that check? who gave it to you and what was it for? >> specifically it was really for cindy because cindy couldn't keep her job anymore. john fell compelled to give her a couple of years. she made approximately $4,000 a month. so it was really specifically for cindy. it really had nothing -- >> implicitly it was severance, even though it was portrayed as a gift from his parents? >> correct. it was portrayed as a gift because they found out doug said that's ridiculous and they
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scrambled and tried to make sure they handled the issue properly, but this was specifically for cindy. it had nothing to do with me. >> justice department decided no the to prosecute senator ensign as we mentioned. you ended up pleading guilty and serving a year probation on these lobbying charges. do you understand why they prosecuted you and not him? even though he set you up in the lobbying jobs and he's the guy you lobbied? >> sure, i do. i admitted to it. i admitted that we were dealing with nevada companies in that fashion. but i believe that they would come in and do a proper investigation, that they would really genuinely care what the truth was. i didn't think the department of justice would stop five months before ethics stopped. i thought they would do a better job and in doing so, they would understand that john ensign would help with the help of mike
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slanker, with the help of other people orchestrated me leaving. i never needed to look for a job, they created a job immediately for me to go to because john wanted me out of his staff. so he solicited the help of mike slanker to open up november inc. back in november to employ me. and he personally orchestrated what it would take in order to get me out and get me back on my feet. so when you talk about me soliciting john or looking to john for a job, none of those things are true. john orchestrated it all. john orchestrated all the relationships and he told me what to do. i think the mistake that i made was i didn't know my wife and i worked for him, our entire income was tied. i didn't know what to do. i had solicited the help of another senator. i had gone to him personally. i didn't know what to do except deal with what he was doing and hoping that at some point in time someone would step up and stop the insanity. >> and he quit. but he's never been prosecuted and he's never fully explained his role in this. we asked him if he would talk about it tonight. maybe after seeing this interview, he will.
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we really and hope. doug hampton, former staffer to senator john ensign, pretty much had his life torn down by this whole incident. thank you for trusting us enough to talk to us about it. thanks. ough fights your worst cold symptoms plus your runny nose. oh, what a relief it is. can't say thank you enough. you have made my life special by being apart of it. (everyone) cheers! glad you made it buddy. thanks for inviting me. thanks again my friends. for everything for all your help. through all life's milestones our trusted advisors are with you every step of the way. congratulations! thanks for helping me plan for my retirement. you should come celebrate with us. i'd be honored. plan for your goals with advisors you know and trust. so you can celebrate today and feel confident about tomorrow. chase. so you can. i've had a lot of hondas. we went around the country talking to people who made the switch to ford. i loved the look of the fusion... we test drove it...i was like "this is my car". all-wheel drive is amazing... i felt so secure.
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to combine a safe sleep aid plus the 12 hour strength of aleve. >> i want to thank you for being with us for this epic and slightly stressful show tonight. the continued manhunt for the paris massacre suspect. >> one of the suspects of the paris massacre left an id card at the site of the paris massacre. >> this story hits home for people day in and day out who mocks religious, social and political figures. >> a massive search under way. >> the two suspects are still at large. >> there have been reports of sightings throughout the night. >> searching a town outside of paris.
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