the collusion here is not even -- it's -- >> thanks for joining me tonight. rachel maddow starts right now. thank you so much you to at home for joining us the next hour. a couple years ago 2015 the nation of nigeria got a brand new p. he was elected in large part on a promise he was going to clean up corruption in that country. nigeria has a big economy. it's a fairly well off country. but it's economy is really dominated by the oil deck or. the oil sector is famously fabulously corrupt. and so the new president came into office saying he was going to clean up corruption in the oil sector, which is so dominant in their economy. clean up corruption in the government. and then this happened. last week -- look at that. investigators got a call about a suspicious looking woman who

kept taking bags in and out of an apartment, a seventh floor apartment owned by nigeria's intelligence chief. i'm not exactly sure what it takes for an anti-corruption investigator to raid the home of the nation's spy chief, but somehow the anti-corruption investigators were able to get the go ahead to do that, and wow. what they found inside spy chief's apartment in lagos was $70,000 worth of nigeria cash. they found about $35,000 worth of british pounds also in cash. and they found $43 million in american cash. $43 million.

in one of the pictures they released, see in the upper right hand corner, these bricks of cash were wrapped up like they were christmas presents maybe? they also released video showing that at least in part this $43 million in cash was very tightly filed in big filing cabinets, also in arm wars and wardrobes. $40 million in cash is a lot of cash. all stacked up and wrapped as christmas presents in his arrangement apartment. the spy chief says nothing to see here. this is totally normal. there is nothing weird about this. the speculation for why he needs $43 million in cash in his apartment is that that's how we funds covert ops. he funds covert ops using stacks of hundred dollar bills that he wraps up like presents. so maybe. apparently he has not been arrested yet but he's been suspended from his job because there's something -- abgovernment officials having

that much cash at home. government officials, people taking government salaries and then having tebz of millions of the political process without anybody having track of the money but them. there's something eh about that. we closed out the hour with a question. we raised a question about $107 million that appears to be sloshing around right now somewhere inside the trump administration with nobody accounting for it. these images here, these are images from the biggest presidential inauguration we ever had. this is the first obama inauguration in 2009. biggest ever event of any kind of the city of of washington,

d.c. to pull off that inauguration, the obama inaugural committee raised more money that had ever been raised before for an inauguration. they raised tens of millions of dollars. they raised $53 million just for the inauguration. that broke all previous records for inauguration fundraising. it broke those records by a lot. but you know what, it really was a big inauguration and in the end cost $50 million to put that on. so they had to raise about $50 million to put that on. but let me say again, that was a really big, really unusually big inauguration. let's put that on the left side of the screen. really big inauguration in 2009. on the right side was an inauguration that was not nearly as big. and i don't say that to be mean. i'm not trying to shut down the park service. but the trump inauguration which

is the picture on the right, just as a matter of fact, it was much, much smaller than the one we saw in 2009. and it was of a different character. there were no internationally known celebrity performs flying in and having hundreds of thousands of people to see them. the entertainment was like middle school bands and baton twirlers. which is cool, there's nothing wrong with that. size isn't everything, and i like baton twirlers. but the trump folks collected from donors $107 million to put on this inauguration. the one with the baton twirlers and the high school band. and nobody lining big long stretches of the parade. if this is what your inauguration parade looks like, what do you need $107 million. why do you need to more than double the record amount of money that was raised and spent on the biggest inauguration ever

for an inauguration that was a fraction of that size? now, this is not a good government issue, at least in terms of tax pair money. not public money we're talking about. this is money trump folks took from donors specifically for the inauguration. they took $107 million, and that $107 million they took in from donors regardless of what needed to be spent for the inauguration in the end, that $107 million, it went somewhere. it obviously didn't go to this, right after that $107 million was not given by donors to the inauguration. it was not needed for the inauguration. they could have gold plated every person at that nutrition and it still wouldn't have cost $107 million. but ask the next question. if that's not what donors money went for, what did it go for because the donors didn't get

their money back when it turned out to be kind of auto cheap one. what were they donating to? what were they expecting to get fortheir money given it wasn't needed for the inauguration. a couple weeks ago a reporter posting something at mic.com. on february 8th, two and a half weeks into the new administration, the white house host ing a meeting between several national security council officials and this guy. we now know thanks to fac filings thanks to the white house that when this international investor got that white house meeting with national security council meeting, we now his dad has written over $600,000 in checks to fund spectacularly overfunded inauguration. according to the jake horowitz's reporting the son got a meeting with national security council officials on february 8th. then following day he was

actually ushered into an even higher level meeting, ushered into the top tier of the white house with a meeting with steve bannon. the purpose of those meetings, the national security meeting and the steve bannon meeting was for him to present his detailed ten-point plan for changing u.s. foreign policy toward venls, and specifically dropping u.s. sanctions toward that country. the guy reportedly venezuela's guys on the phone, put the foreign minister on the phone during the meeting apparently just to show off that he could get the foreign minister on his cell phone during the meeting. now, venezuela doesn't get a ton of political coverage in the united states, but venezuela is

a country in intense turmoil right now. the sanctions that the u.s. put on venezuela were put there in 2014 after 43 people got killed while participating in anti-government protests, another three people got killed in anti-government protests just yesterday. there had been weeks and weeks of rioting and protests. the white house that shows that interesting thing about the guy who got the meeting with the nsc officials and steve bannon. it also shows while venezuela uns have been riding in the streets where there have been been food and medicine shortages, a country that should be a rich country but people have been literally starving in venezuela, somehow in the misds of this incredible crisis in venezuela, venezuela's state run oil company somewhere found a half million dollars to donate to the very, very, very inexplicably overfunded trump inauguration. venezuela's state run oil company gave them $500,000 too.

so they're dumping money into the trump inauguration, meanwhile another $500,000 was apparently enough to not only open the white house but the national security council to a very well-connected donor and international investor who had a plan he wanted to share on venezuela. venezuela is in dire straits. it does not have the money to spare and yet they dumped $500,000 on trump. and this guy who's dad donated to the inaugural to take away the sanctions on venezuela, do you think he one of you gotten a meeting with the national security council and the top adviser to the president had they shot shoveled him $666,000 to pay for something that was already paid for? this kind of thing has a name. it's one of those catchy political names. might remember it from the campaign.

>> it's called pay for play. some of these were really, really bad and illegal. if it's true. it's illegal. you're paying and you're getting things. this was big stuff. pay for play. it's illegal. it's illegal. >> in a normal administration in a moll time, something like this inauguration donor thing, it would be the subject of multiple congressional investigations, right? it would be the biggest scandal in any number of recent presidential administrations. in the trump era, there's no congressional investigation of something like this. we just do news stories on cabling and hope somebody picks it up. this is not arcane stuff. it's not complicated stuff or hard to find. this money truly is not wrapped up like christmas presents or stuffed into an nigerian spy chief's closet. donors to the inauguration did not actually pay for the inauguration.

there was not $107 million worth of inauguration to pay for. if the police see you give somebody $200 on a street corner, and you're explanation when they ask you about that is you were buying a stick of gum or a loose cigarette of a guy, they're not going to believe you that that's what you gave him $200 for. and i know like big numbers are hard for me to get my head around. big numbers are hard to conceptize sometimes. if we take the unit has inaugurations, the inauguration on the left cost $50 million. if that's true, the one on the right could not cost $100 million. so where's the money? where did all that money go? what are they using it for if they're using it for anything yet? who has it? number two, not incidentally the

people rioting in venezuela would like some of it back. number three, and this is the most important, certainly the most scary, in a normal administration, the national security council doesn't get used for stuff like this. national security council officials do not have to meet with half million dollars donors to hear their ideas on sanctions for some other country. what's the price in this administration for a meeting with the national security council staff? was it a half million dollars when that same donor wrote a second check for another $166,000 apparently on that same day? twhauz you guys upping the price?

did you fold in the money from the state run oil company or was that separate? how much does it cost to get meetings with national security council officials? because in a normal administration, the national security council isn't used to pay off donors. the national security council is for a thing. it's not supposed to be concocting fake leaks of scandalous intelligence to republican congressman in order to subma arena the russia investigation. it's not supposed to be for entertaining donors. it's for a thing. it is supposed to rationalize and synthesize huge information on national security for the benefit of parking lot decision making on those matters. it's supposed to achieve consensus and a unified view and message within the government on sensitive national security issues. so when it's important and brinks man ship and war and peace are at stakes, the u.s. government a, makes decisions, and b, speaks with one voice. so stuff like what's happening now doesn't happen.

yesterday the trump administration, secretary of state, said explicitly in writing that iran is in compliance with the nuclear deal yesterday. then today, the president said out loud that iran is not in compliance with the nuclear deal. even if you don't have an opinion on iran and the nuclear deterioration which of those are you going to take at american policy? which is it? that was just today. at the beginning of this week the trufrmgs expressed grave concerns about the erosion of democracy in turkey. it was mark by serious reports of irregularities in the vote. that was the beginning of the week. no sooner had the trump administration expressed those concerns, then the president himself called turkey's president to congratulate him on his big win in that awesome referendum. okay? regardless of how you feel on the turkish referendum, which is it? is anybody working here? because apparently this is the

way national security works now. in the most powerful country on earth. it's ten-point plans on venezuela policy get stove piped directly to senior council staff and into the oval office by donors who pay money into a mysterious slush fund and nobody admits to wrolg it. that's how we get venezuela policy advice now. now we shoot missiles into syria either because bashar al assad must go or because the fate of bashar al assad must be decided by the syrian people, not us. or because the u.s. will henceforth will make sure no innocent people are harmed in syria, or because we're not going into syria at all. who's in charge? turkey is either a catastrophe right now or it's awesome. iran is either in compliance with that deal or it is out of compliance with that deal. spin the wheel.

whose turn is it to talk? depending how invested you are in foreign policy in different parts of the world, difference wars, i don't know which of those individually might worry you, but here's one that's really clearly trying its best to worry us. on saturday, north korea time, you might remember we covered the start of the big start of the military parade to commemorate the founder, kim il-sung, thegrapher of the current dictator. what kind of low can those trucks bear and what types of missiles they have and how far can they go, what kind of weapons can they be fitted with. that was the parade. the big finale of this weekend's birthday celebration for kim il-sung was a state tv broadcast of like a musical? i don't know if you call it a musical. it was a military band and a

military choir, kind of a mitt performing in uniform at the top of their lungs. this was the finale. you might have heard about it but i don't know if you've seen it. i'm going to show you less than a minute of this. it's going to feel really long, but watch it. it's a little less than a minute. watch it until the end. you'll see why it's important to watch it to the en. in particular, watch the screen. watch what's being projected on the screen behind the

north korean state television this week. i'm sure that was a lot of fun for everybody involved. with a big finale, the big cull minimum nation is the animated did he picks firing intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear war heads at what appears to be san francisco, and the crowd goes wild. and ultimately a few seconds later there's kim jong-un clapping along, yay. north korea loves the united states, that's not new. they're making this threat that they might be about to test another nuclear weapon in real life.

nbc news reporting that u.s. planes are deployed right now watching for potential underground detonation in north korea. that includes an air force plane that's been deployed that is specifically quipped to detect evidence of a nuclear explosion. whether or not they've moved forward on their nuclear capability or missile capability, in this kind of a threat environment, and the

people who are really the most freaked out are some of our closest allies in the world, south korea and japan. their biggest portion centers are within reach. their population centers are in reach of the conventional arsenal that everybody knows white well that north korea has already got. and in that threat environment, there is this freaking white house literally can't even be board to pronounce pyongyang. >> all the other ways in which we can bring pressure to bear on the regime in ponian. >> it's pyongyang. >> on the regime in poneyang. >> agriculture secretary. also, korea's not part of china, nor has korea ever been part of china. "wall street journal" released a transcript in which the transcript bragged about learning about the whole history from a ten minute lecture he got from the chinese president. as americans we're not psyched to learn our if the is trying to learn basic world history by listening to other country's leaders telling him about it. if you're south korea, you're not psyched to learn our president thought korea was part of china. south korea's really mad at china on the odd chance president trump accurately

described what the chinese president told him, now south korea wants an explanation as to whether or not china is spreading a rumor telling ignorant leaders around the world about a made up history between china and the korean peninsula would love to be true. in this incredible threat environment neither south korea nor japan, both of them god allies of ours, we had sent an aircraft carrier to that region to basically back north korea up, to push back on them to make an american show of force off the korean peninsula. despite the president and the national security adviser and the defense secretary and the white house spokesman saying multiple times we had not actually sent that aircraft carrier up there. they're not psyched about that either. everybody so on everybody's very excited about us coming up on the first hundred days. what will they say they've accomplished in their first hundred days? will the president's approval

ratings be for his first hundred days? first we have to get to day 100. and tonight, we're on missile test or nuclear test watch again for north korea.

rioters has new report out on documents that have been seen by u.s. intelligence officials. they have seven because then the former intelligence officials as sources on this story. they say these two documents

originated with an in-house kremlin think tank in russia. this is a think tank staff by former russian senior intelligence officers. it works the president of russia, for vladimir putin. according to the rioters new reporting, this think tank last year produced two policy papers that were widely circulated in the russian government. rioter says the the first of these two documents laid out what was essential essentially an expansion strategy for the government to upscale its propaganda campaign targeting the u.s. election using social media and russian state controlled out lets. that was the first document from the summer. second document is from october of last year, a month before the election. and that one argue that hillary clinton was looking good for the election. that hillary looked like she had a shot and so russia should maybe stop promoting trump so much. they should hedge their bets a

little bit in case trump didn't win the election. instead, the russian intelligence operation in the united states should shift a little to not just hyping trump but instead hyping claims of voter fraud. otherwise trying to delegitimize the election and say it was rigged. so if hillary clinton won, the russian goal then would be to undermine her legitimacy as president and also to tla ground work for domestically destabilizing the united states by creating the impression that our election was rigged by undermining faith in your electoral process. we know now about the attacks on the election. we know also that the russian government orchestrated a propaganda effort to confuse american voters, to help trump, and most directly, to hurt hillary clinton. but what is new rioters report documents is how this doesn't

some freelance operation. this wasn't a low-level thing. this was a top-down strategic government run, well-thought-out intelligence run coordinated in part by the in-house think tank which putin staffed with his former intelligence officers. this was not a po dunk operation. this was military. this was highest levels. this was a nation to nation attack. two weeks before the inauguration this year, president-elect trump met with the intelligence community for a briefing on the russian scandal, on the russian attack on the election. remember at the time he was repeatedly insisting that there was no russian attack whatsoever on the election. he kept saying that. and so once he was president-elect, the intelligence agencies asked if they could please brief him on their evidence to show him in

fact the attack had taken place. almost immediately after that briefing he issue a statement saying these professionals wanted to brief him to tell him the operation has no effect on the outcome of the election. that is not what they told him. that was not true. the intelligence professionals did not tell him that, and that was not the purpose of the briefing. in fact, they've said publicly that they don't know what the impact was of the russian attack on the outcome of the elections. the week after had he put out that ridiculous statement, the following week, he was still on the subject and he continued to tweet about the russian attack, the hacking into the election. quote, russia says nothing exists.

probably release by intelligence, even knowing there is no proof and never will be. my people will have a full report on the hacking within 90 days. my people will have a full report within 90 days. so the scare quotes are important. nerchd this fake intelligence community junk saying russia attacked the election. my people will have a full report on the supposed russian hack on the election within 0 days. that was january 13th. it has been 97 days. it has been 90 days since the inauguration, since the president's people have been looking into the russian hacking full report. politico.com reached out to them and they said they are unwafer any such report. are we supposed to be working on that? a spokesman told them he was unaware if there was somebody in charge of compiling it or if the report exists.

giuliani says there will be this cybersecurity role until the new administration. maybe he's doing it. "politico" reached out to him and he said that he's not involved in any 90-day report. so here's the thing. the trump administration is not putting together a report on the russian hacking of the u.s. election. trump said he would get to the bottom and have a full report within 90 days. nobody's even working on it. were you counting on them to get to the bottom of it? but there are investigations into the russian attack on our election and the possibility that the trump campaign was in on it. the justice department, the fbi, they're on it, right? news on that, actually. that's next. ♪

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last month attorney general jeff sessions admitted he had had meetings with a russian official, multiple meetings, that that he had not previously disclosed. when that news broke, he recused himself from oversight of the

counter and we met criminal investigations underway at the justice department into the russian attack on the presidential election last year. and of course the possibility that the trump campaign helped in that attack or was complicit in it. sessions himself is not overseeing those investigations at the justice department, at the fbi. it's other people at the justice department who are overseeing those investigations. told we got unexpected news that the head of the national security division at the justice department, the person in charge of overseeing as npr says, the justice department's investigation of foreign meddling into the 2016 election and ties between the trump campaign and russia, she's leaving. her name is mary mccord. she's a career justice department person. but now she's out. she's not offering an explanation as to why she is leaving her post in a message to staff, she just said this. quote, t time is now right for me to pursue new career opportunities.

is the time now right? is it? i'm sure it's right for her. but i would really like somebody who understand the justice department to tell me whether the time is now right for all of us as well. joining us is matthew miller. he's a former spokesman for attorney general eric holder. it's nice to have you here. >> thanks for having me. >> what kind of job does mary mccord do? what is this position he's leaving. >> the national security division is the lead prosecutor for terrorism cases, is one of the most important divisions of the justice department, and especially so right now where you have this unprecedented investigation into whether the president's campaign conspired with a foreign power to tip the election. it's a crucial spot. a lot of people don't know who she is, and didn't know she was leading this investigation. but she's been an critically important spot at the doj.

>> those of you outside the justice department community i think don't always know what it means when they say things like overseeing the investigation. we talk about jeff sessions being recused from overseeing those investigations. what is that day to day work like? >> the actual investigative work is being done by the fbi. i think we have very clear evidence of the director of the fbi. jim comey is involved in it directly. the prosecutors would be deeply involved in investigation like this.

they authorize subpoenas when someone needs to go to theify is a correspondent and get a fissa warrant as they didn't for corey page. it's something mary mccord and her staff would have done. they would be involved day-to-day on the developments of this case and providing direction for how it should go forward. she reports to the deputy attorney general, someone who's also an acting person right now. but really, that's in a briefing capacity. they brief him every now and then. she's hands on day-to-day in this. >> now that she's leaving, this administration has been very slow to nominate people for senior jobs who will now be in

charge if that position goes unfilled? i think it would be hugely troubling if they put a political appointee who had not been nominated or confirmed by the senate into this job to investigate the president. it has to be a career person. eventually it has to be a special council, but short of that, it has to be an acting career person until someone can be confirmed by the president. >> more to come. stay with us.

one of the hottest political

stories in the country right now is the 6th district in georgia where there's a hard fought race to replace tom price in congress. i continue to believe that one of the most amazing things about this story is actually tom price. and the fact that he was able to leave his seat in congress to get a job in the cabinet as health secretary. that might be the most amazing thing about that whole story that tom price was able to skroin the cabinet given what we know about tom price. reports while he was in congress heading up a key congressional subcommittee on health care, he was buying and selling health care stocks while also sponsoring and voting on legislation that could affect the price of those stocks. he was proposing legislation that would have directly benefited companies in which he held stock. last month, pro-public ca, this was only last year 2016.

that same day he called a u.s. health official to skaulgts rule that would have hurt those companies' bottom line and made them more profitable which would have made their stock price go up which would have been been cawhich inning for tom price. which would have been a scandal if anyone was paying attention. preet bharara in the southern district of new york was inexplicably fired by the trump administration. there's been a lot of attention on that georgia 6th race. interestingly, nobody's making that much mention of tom price

in that race as him being the guy who open up the seat in the first place. even his wife is an active combatant in that race. today president trump sent out fundraising miss he's criticizing the candidate for having ties to nancy pelosi. do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, or adempas® for pulmonary hypertension, as this may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. do not drink alcohol in excess. to avoid long-term injury, get medical help right away for an erection lasting more than four hours. if you have a sudden decrease or loss of hearing or vision, or an allergic reaction, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. ask your doctor about cialis.

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in georgia this week, a young democrat named jon ossoff

got 48% of the vote, just shy of the 50% he would have needed this week. now he's going to face republican karen handel in june in a runoff. there were a zillion republicans in the primary. it hadn't been clear whether it was a help or a hurt for those candidates to tie themselves to president trump. now that we're under the general election, though, that dye has cast. on the democratic side, there's, of course, no sitting president to raise money for the democratic candidate but jon ossoff continues to be a record-breaking fundraising juggernaut. and national democrats today made a half million dollar ad buy in support of his campaign. joining us is jon ossoff. it's nice to meet you. thanks for being here. >> nice to meet you, rachel. fan of the program. >> does it help you or hurt you in your effort to win this race that you are being seen as kind

of a national bellwether, a test of the sentiment for or against this new president? >> well, the truth is, i'm not entirely sure. there's obviously a lot of national interest and national attention, folks looking for national implications and many in the community here who have deep concerns about the direction of things in washington right now and the administration. i share those concerns and i speak to those concerns but one of the reasons the campaign was able to perform so well earlier this week, i've been working on building a coalition that unifies people around a vision for our local economic development and around shared values that unite people in the community rather than focusing on divisive nationalized politics. >> you are running in a district that is relatively high income district. it's a racially diverse district. it's a very well-educated district. a lot more people have college

degrees in your district than in the nation at large. are there things about your district that national folks looking from the outside get wrong, that people misinterpret or guess wrong in terms of the way you need to run locally that may not make sense on a nationwide basis? >> well, it's a pretty moderate pragmatic district, very well-educated, as you mentioned. in the aftermath of the presidential election and the difficult primary cycle that democrats had, there's a lot of hand-wringing right now about national strategy. all of these house districts are different in the type of candidates who will do well and each one will be different. in order for democrats to compete in these house districts, we need to have a broad tent that represents broad ideology. >> has there been a lack of hugging from bernie sanders who refused to get on -- refused to get on board with the idea that you're a progressive candidate or you're somebody who he might support?

>> not at all. i think he ran an impressive campaign last year. and i think that much of his support was rooted in the sense that our political institutions no longer represent the interests. i've investigated crime as an investigative journalist and i'm speaking to some of those same concerns about the need for campaign finance reform, how captured our institutions of government are by special interests and how we can return the work of folks in washington to what serves people at home. >> one last question for you, jon. maybe a delicate issue. tom price won re-election with big, big numbers. the people of that district wanted him in washington when he was a member of congress. what to my mind looked like serious corruption allegations made against him during his confirmation process to be health secretary, had to complicate the view of him in that district at all. is that an issue for you at all? >> well, very candidly. you've got to put the politics aside. when it comes to matters of public integrity, if any

official of the federal government, no matter their party or position, you know, if there are reasons to believe there may have been some form of impropriety, the facts need to be fully investigated. >> jon ossoff with george's sixth congressional district, thank you for being with us. >> thanks, rachel. stay with us. we'll be right back.

we've been following an interesting story out of montana. one congressional for the whole state until recently ryan zinke left to become interior secretary. if you only have one seat in congress for the whole state, you really need to fill that seat, right? the original plan was to have a special election conducted through the mail. the state sends you a ballot in the mail, you fill it out and send it back. montana senate liked it. county clerks who run the elections asked for that. it was basically a bipartisan money-saving good government, noncontroversial idea. and then the head of the state republican party decided it couldn't happen. he sent out a report to his fellow republicans warning them that an all mail-in ballot election would result in more people voting and that would,

quote, give the democrats an inherent advantage. montana hasn't sent a democrat to congress since 1997. trump won montana by 20 points but apparently it's better to have the voters spend $3 million than to risk too many people voting so they might lose the election. the montana state chairman said his fellow republicans' good government plan had to go. finally, it looks like the state republican chairman won. republicans in the legislature flipped on this. they killed the all-mail ballot despite attempts from people on both parties to try to save it. the ryan zinke special election will now happen on may 25th, on a thursday. you can bet a lot of people across that state will forget to vote or find it too inconvenient to do so and the state

republican leader will cheer their absence from the polls because that's better for republicans. you guys scared? that does it for us tonight. now it's time for "the last word this is just the late es reminder that terrorism can strike anywhere at any time. today the people of paris have our condolences and our prayers. and the people of france are on our hearts today. terror in paris. isis claims responsibility for attacks in france. the question now, will it up-end the nation's elections coming this weekend? plus, bernie sanders back on the trail, back to bringing in big crowds. as he and the dnc try now to grow the democratic party, there are already some growing pains. lebron james goes into the history books again as the cavs roar back in the second half. ♪