and i think it would have been a lot worse for me. i would have gotten a lot more hatred. >> great point. >> now you know there's fake news. it's a lot more hostile. >> thanks for being here. that's all in for this evening and for the week. rachel maddow starts now. >> thank my friend. >> thanks to you at home for joining us the next hour. this was supposed to be the week when arkansas he will two back-to-back double header executions. arkansas has not killed any of its prisoners in 12 years but they decided they would try to kill eight of them in a row, all in a rush. eight men, eight prisoners, two per night in four different double header executions spread across a week and a half. and the you do for that was because one of the drugs he wanted to use is getting close to its sell by date, and it will not be legal to use that drug to

kill people after the drug expires at the end of this month. from a bureaucracy perspective, that makes sense. hey, got to hurry, we can't use this stuff to kill anyone after april, so let's kill everyone in april then. let's kill them all now. from the perspective of one of the people who's going to be killed though, you can see how that would seem like a random factor, deciding whether you are going to live or die. if the state didn't have this expiration date thing going on on that one drug they didn't notice before the, there would be no chance all these guys would be on deck to be killed at once. but that's the reason they're trying to kill them all right now. steven breyer is a moderate liberal justice on the supreme court. but he has decided to make a really hollering legacy out of his time on the court by

dissenting again and again when it comes to the vagaries and the strangeness in the bias in our nation's system of killing men and women who are prisoners. so that's where we were as of last night. arkansas wanted to kill eight men over the course of ten days. they wanted to have already killed four of them by this time tonight. but over the course of this week, three of their four planned killings got blocked by the courts. and then last night as the u.s. supreme court weighed in on the fate of the fourth man at the very last minute last night, a few land marks were reached. number one, the new justice neil gorsuch voted to kill his first man. he voted to kill and it was a deciding vote and that was his first significant vote on the united states supreme court. number two, justice steven briar dissented again, short, sharp and to the point, less than two

pages. it's pretty remarkable stuff, not particularly legalistic argument. he just puts it out there. justice breyer, quote, arkansas set out to execute eight people, why these eight, why now? the apparent reason has nothing to do with the crimes or are presence of absence of mitigating behavior or mental state or need for speedy punishment. four of the men have been on death row for over 20 years. all have been how did you find in solitary confinement for at least ten years. apparently the state decided to proceed is that the use by date on the drug is about to expire. the justice continues, quote, in my view, that factor when considered as a determining factor separating those who live from those who die, that factor is close to random.

he says i have previously noted arbitrarine arbitrariness with which the death penalty is administered. so steven briar dissent. it's one thing to have a fight whether or not killing prisoners is something states should, do but the way we're doing it, the actual decisions about whether or not these guys are going to live or die, it's basically random now. it's arbitrary, and under the constitution, that is illegal. but justice briar's opinion was a dissent. the neil gorsuch won, and arkansas went ahead with one of the four killings they wanted to accomplish this week. the death warrant to kill will he deli expired at midnight central time, less than an hour before that warrant expired, the

utes supreme court voted 5-4 to kill him. by 11:26 it was announced to the people at the prison. 18 minutes later they started injecting lee. and by 11:56 they said he was dead. that's important, that timing there, just made it. the warrant that made it legal to kill him expired four minutes after they said he died. arkansas still wants to kill all the other prisoners that it can next week before the expiration date on one of their drugsmation the rest of the executions illegal too. so they're hurrying. one of the things we'll be watching in the news is the continuing legal wrangling to see how many of these guys are going to be able to kill. the pace of executions, the speedness of the process of killing people, how much time people get to try to fight off the state to save their lives,

how many times they can go back to court and bring in new evidence or make new arguments or show new angles on what happened to them. a the time a person gets is one of the things that gets fought about all the time in death penalty states. in september, we reported on one of those fights that had taken an unexpected turn into presidential politics and ultimately into scandal. ita it started in 2013. republican politicians were trying at the time to hurry up the pace of executions in that state, florida already kills a ton of their prisoners, but the state eats governance rick scott, attorney general pam bundy, they were really crew saiding in 2013 on wanting to start killing more of that state's prisoners faster. rick scott had in fact signed a bill to make executions go faster in that state.

pam bundy is attorney general, was busy in court definition that new law, kill florida prisoners faster, we need to speed this up. we need to speed them through system. we need the pace of executions to be faster. that's what was kbog in florida politicizing in 2013. and that's why it was weird in september of 2013 when pam bundy suddenly reversed course. there was a man who was scheduled to be killed on september 10, 2013. his execution was on the calendar basically thought they were going good to go with this one, but in that case, that september 10th execution, pam bundy actually intervened with the state to slow it down. she asked the state to please delay that execution, push it back, she had her reasons. >> marshall gore was convicted for the murders of two florida

women in 1988. he was scheduled to be executed tonight but a campaign if you ever took priority. marshall lee gore was supposed to be executed at 6:00 p.m. but pam bundy asked governor rick scott to delay the execution for three weeks because she had a conflicting eventen her schedule turns out that event is a political fundraiser. >> and again, maybe from the perspective of the attorney general, from the policing's perspective it makes sense. move the execution instead. maybe that makes total sense to you as the policing. but justice steven briar from the perspective from the guy who will be either leah or dead tomorrow based on the actions of the state, the date of pam done by's fundraiser is a fairly arbitrary factor in deciding

whether he's going to live or die. but fundraising is very, very important. but here's where it veered into presidential politics. because of what happened over the course of the following week after all that happened. that execution that was delayed so pam bundy could hold her fundraiser in piece, there was a lot of attention in the florida press and national attention about how important frufundrais was to her. fundraising was that important to her. coverage of that was around that execution date, september 10th. then three days later, an item that was considerably lower profile except to the people who who really cared about this subject ran in the orlando

sentinel. this was september 13th. new york's trump university suit draws attention from officials. quote, complaints filed in florida were among those cited by new york attorney general aircraft schneiderman latest month when he sued trump and trump university and the trump entrepreneurship initiative alleging civil fraud. claim to lure people into spending thousands of dollars on questionable courses and mentoring services. trump has denied the allegations. but now florida attorney again pam bundy's office is reviewing the energetic lawsuits teelgsz determine whether florida should join the multistate case. so this is trump university fraud case. this is the one that trump settled by paying out $25 million to people who said he defrauded them in that

scheme. this did not end well for him. but in 2013 that lawsuit against him was just getting started in new york, maybe in florida too? a lot of the complaints from that case were out of florida. and pam bundy was reported to be weighing whether or not florida as a state should join that lawsuit against trump over trump university. pam bundy was also reported that same week to be so inhumanly devoted to raising campaign fund that she rescheduled a man's death to accommodate her fundraising. four days after that article about the trump university lawsuit and pam bundy considering whether or not florida should join it, this check was sent to pam bundy's god blessed re-election campaign. it was sent from the dump foundation. they didn't exactly spell this

out in the memo line, but in invisible i think it said you're getting the state of florida involved in a lurkts would you also like to consider $25,000 check to your leakers campaign from the donald j. trump campaign signed personally by donald j. trump. one of the single biggest donations she got in that whole campaign cycle. voila, pam bundy's office said they would not have florida join the fraud suit against trump university. very tidy little timeline. compared to a lot of other popularity things that get decided by politicians, even life or death things, this seems very tidy, not at all random. this seems not at all arbitrary. this seems direct. but wait, it keeps going

because, first, that story made news because they were delaying an execution which didn't make he said is on the surface for republican politicians who were crew saiged to kill more prisoners that they would want to slow one down. then that story made news because it turned out the reason for the delay is pam bundy had a fundraiser. then pam dobundy took one of th biggest donations to her campaign that year. then it made news again because that person who she decided not to sue, he went on to run for president. then that story made news during the presidential campaign because it turns out that check from the donald j. trump foundation, it's illegal for trump's foundation to cut a check like that to a political campaign. and the irs caught him for it

and he had to pay it back and pay a fine. this has made news a million different times, but it keeps giving, because now, three and a half years after pam bundy took that donation and said she will not sue donald trump, now donald trump just hired her chief of staff from that time who was involved in that whole scandal, who was included in all those discussions and decisions around the trump university case. trump as president just hired that guy to be the top lawyer in the united states department of education. because maybe he remembers him from the trump university thing? that was a school, right? here's the announcement from the white house about him. here's the slack jawed ap lead and their story a bit. quote, carlos munoz helped

defeat the office's decision to sit out the legal action against trump university. now the president is naming him to be the top lawyer in the u.s. education department. ap reported last year that bundy personally solicited a $25,000 political continue baugs from trump as her office was weighing how to respond to questions from the orlando sentinel about whether she will join new york attorney general iraqshire man attorney. just to tidy this up and nest all the dolls properly here, politician, trump sends fat check, illegally. politician says upon further review i'm not suing the trump

university scam. politician defends that stunning decision, stunning even at the time, that stunning decision with a pr effort, run out of her office, including talking points for reporters prepared by her chief of staff. and then chief of staff gets awesome new job from trump. as the top lawyer in the department of education because -- honestly, keyword, university. is that where they filed him? that's a senate confirmable decision, by the way. we'll see if that becomes an issue in the senate when they trying to confirm him. there's a lot going on right now in national politics a. by the time we're back on the air doing our monday night show here, arkansas wants to have

killed two more of them by then. legal fights over those killings continue right now as we speak. they will likely continue through the week if you watch that story. we're also still waiting for any sort of plausible explanation for this reporting from the "miami herald" whose reports discovered the president took a secret meeting at mar-a-lago with two former presidents of the nation of colombia who were lobbying against the peace deal that's pengds in that country to end the world's longest war. this a super sensitive and complicated subject. the united states of america taking a position on that will be super important to how that works out. if our president is taking meetings with former presidents of colombia who are trying to undermine the current government to scrap that peace deal, that's a really big deal in diplomacy. that's a really big deal for foreign policy. and therefore it's nourish that

meetings like that one of you happening outside the purview of the u.s. state department which is supposed to be careful about these things on behalf of the people of the united states. it's weird it would be happening outside the purview of the state department, let alone it's at a golf club. the explanation for the meeting was, yeah it happened, but it didn't mean anything. the former presidents of colombia were just there at mar-a-lago with a member of the club. so it was just a quick hello. but the former colombian presidents are making public statements and publicly thanking president trump for the cordial and frank discussion they had about colombia and the region. a conversation they did to have with the president of the united states admittedly because someone paid the president of the united states $200,000 to get into his club.

$200,000 minimum. as the heterosexual puts it, the unclosed meeting also raises a number of questions of the ease with which people can influence trump can access him through membership of his club without fear of public disclosure. a mar-a-lago membership costs $200,000 for the initiation alone. there's normal and sometimes terrible politicizing in the states and the capital. we got word today that they're going to trying to repeal obamacare again. they're also going to totally overthat you will tax code. quick, an artificial measuring stick is upon us. do something. there's new news from the trump/russia investigations tonight and from the justice department where the person overseeing those investigations at dodge is leaving her post now. a lot going on.

a lot to notice. we are still going to need this country when these guys are done with it. and for the sake of who we ever want to be again, it can't ever not be news. it always has to be news when something really looks like bribery at the top levels of american government. when something really looks like bag of cash under the tashlgs corruption. when it really looks like you pay money, you get access to the president. when it really looks like public officials are taking money in exchange for their official actions and then getting thanked and rewarded for it down the road. when that stops smelling bad to us, when corruption doesn't seem like news anymore, then we do consign ourselves and the generations after us to the corruption we've never tolerated before, not at this level of our national politics. to that end we have lined up

next the biggest potential target of opportunity in terms of bribery that anybody has yet reported about our new administration. it is the product of mind bendingly throw and difficult reporting by some very good reporters. and one of the reporters who just worry through some proverbial shoes to break the scheuer, joins us tonight. that's next. when standard cancer treatment no longer works

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$35 million into the president's pocket. and depending on your business, conceivably that might get you something more valuable than hand crafted italian brass doorknob. the hand carved doorknob place with the round top windows, it is a trump property. it's for sale by trump international realty. you will recall he put his money

into a trust and the beneficiary of the trust is him. so when the company makes money, he makes money. reporters from "usa today" has done just painstaking but incredible and important work. they tracked down exactly what that potentially means in terms of the presidency and his business interests going forward. nobody figured this out before before "usa today" did the incredible leg work necessary to tell this tale, we didn't know this information. here's their lady, "usa today" spent four months cataloging every property trump's companies own. trump never sloefd a complete unit by unit inventory of his companies' real estate holdings or sales. they're being modest about this but "usa today," their reporters had to build this list unit by

unit, city by city across the country interest skrash on their own with not guilty to bill on in terms of public disclosures. what did they find? quote, reporters first down that trump's trust and his companies own at least 422 luxury condos. 12 mansion lots on bluffs overlooking his golf course on the pacific ocean and dozens more smaller pieces of real estate. the properties range in value from $200,000 to $35 million each. th includes the doorknobs. unlike develops where trump licenses his name for a flat fee. profits from properties directly owned by his companies, those enrich him personally. and that's important because now he's president and those properties are for sale: you can buy one. and thereby pay the president, anything you think he might want to be paid.

the volume of real estate creates an extraordinary and unprecedented potential for people, corporations or foreign trosz try to influence a president. anyone who wanted to court favor with the president could snap up multiple properties or purposefully overpay. they could also buy in the name of a shell company making it impossible for the public to know who was behind the sales. even if the administration has decided it's okay for the president to keep his businesses interests going on going while he's still president, everybody agrees because of the clear language in the constitution about this he really can't take any money from foreign governments or foreign officials. the problem is thanks to these real estate holdings, that may very well already be happening. this "usa today" investigation tiends that roughly half the sales he has made since becoming president, they weren't to named people you could check out to

make sure they're not foreign governments. they were to llcs which are to hide the identity of the person making the purchase. the review of sales of trump owned real estate found dozens of transactions during and since the campaign involving buyers who have business in or connections with foreign countries, or are shielded by purchasing under the name of an llc. now, so far "usa today" says none of the sales they reviewed appear to be above market value, but imagine someone wanting to pad the price a little bit to fey president a little bit. because it's nice for the president to owe you a favor or at least to think caninely about your transistor because you once slipped him a few million dollars. remember the russian oligarch, the fertilizer king? the one who bought the mansion in palm beach? trump got this property in 2006

for just over $40 million. he barely touched it, never moved in, but a couple years later he sold it to the fertilizer king, this russian oligarch guy, for not $40 million $100 billion. if you took $60 million off someone in a sweet transaction like that, you might reasonably be thankful for that person for all the free money. when the fertilizer king thing happened, donald trump wasn't president. now he is. and right now his many properties are yours to buy if you will like to give him money for any reason. hold that thought. stay with us. before we hit the beach, i've gotta hit the loo. we can't stay here! why? terrible toilet paper! i'll never get clean!

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weapon congressman jason which a fits of utah bewildered a lot of people, made national news when he announced he not only won't seek re-election. why the rush, mr. chairman? what changed? what's going on? while everyone's trying to figure out and what it means for his seat in utah, including for the democrat who's raising all that money hand over fist to run against him, catherine allen,

while all that has been unfolding, he made news today for the day job he continues to hold for the minute, he's chairman of the house oversight committee in the house. nice, maddow, well done. the house oversight committee, period. today in his role of chairman of the committee, he signed onto this letter. it's a letter to president trump's lawyer. it seeks documents relating to a supposed plan from the trump folks that they said they would pay the u.s. treasury back for any money that his hotels made from foreign government officials staying at his hotels while he's president. it might seem hike an obscure financial piece of the puzzle, but in the constitution, bluntly, the president is probated from accepting money from foreign officials. if foreign officials are staying at his hotels that part of constitutional problem with the president holding onto his businesses and continuing to

financially benefit from them. this letter today from the oversight committee cites a "usa today" report from march in which a trump organization spokesperson explains that the trump folks were going to put off making that donation of their foreign profits until the end of the calendar year. house oversight committee doesn't want to wait until the end of the calendar year. they say they want information by next month. steve riley is a reporter for "usa today" who wrote that piece. he was also part of the team of reporters who spent four months examining trump's real estate sales across the country exhaust i havely which led to this really remarkable piece today in this morning's paper. thank you for being here. >> good to be here. >> let me ask you first about the piece that you've got today. as far as i can tell, you guys

are very modest. but reading between the lines, seems to me there's no unified public disclosure anywhere of all the real estate for sale that's currently he will by entities that are associated with the president. whether it's his trust or his virus companies. did you guys build that list from scratch? >> exactly. we did. it was an exhausttive process. t the background here is disclosing the entities. so we had the names of the companies associated with president trump's business empire. what he wasn't required to disclose and what be we had to gather ourselves was the listing of real estate parcels which are own by the business entities. it took months for my colleagues and i to essentially reference

real estate data from new york to california and find all the parcels of real estate which are owned by those companies. as you pointed out, it's hundreds of properties worth more than $250 million. it's totally unprecedented and exceptional situation for the president to be tied to that much active real estate. >> to that last point there, the newsworthiness here is really about the fact that these properties by and large are for rent, for sale right now, and simultaneously the president is in a position to personally benefit from the sale or rental income from these properties. if somebody did want to funnel money to the president as a bribe or to get his attention for some reason, this is a pretty direct way to do that. >> exactly. many of these properties are on the market.

they're kind of sold on a starringering basis. it frents opportunity anyone or any organization is set up a shell company which would conceal their identities and make purchases. even if these purchases are may made at market rate, it's still a texas that still benefits the president. if you remember, president trump set up a trust, however it's a revokable trust. he can withdraw funds at any time. it's kind of going on through a maze, the fund, before it reaches the president, but it still has the same destination. >> this reporting from you and your colleagues and from last month is that there doesn't seem to be protections on preventing the people who are giving the president money by these means be preventing it being from

foreign officials or governments. there's no direct evidence that we've got the government of china orca zack stan fudge him money, but it seems clear from the hotel storynd this ca there aren't froeksz stop him from being influenced by foreign entities through these processes, right? >> that's correct. last month we asked the trump organization about the mechanics of how they find out someone who's staying at a trump hotel is paying for that stay with foreign government money. we were told there was a policy. we were not allowed to see policy. that's what the house oversight committee is currently looking at. hopefully that will be aired before the public once they get the documents. the root of both situations is that foreign governments can conceal their identities or any foreign person can set up a shell company and do business with the president's companies essentially in secret from the

american public. >> which is utterly, complete unprecedented in american history. steve riley, congratulations to you and your colleagues for having ton this work and produced such a cogent press of what you found. thank you for being here. >> thanks so much. >> support your local investigative reporter. more to come. stay with us. think again. this is the new new york. we are building new airports all across the state. new roads and bridges.

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it's at the bottom of an almost unrelated other story, frbut at the very end, cnn drops this. quote, intelligence analysts and fbi investigators who analyzed various strands of intelligence from human sources to electronic and financial records have found signs of possible collusion between the campaign and the russian officials, during the russian attack on the united states election last year. but there is not enough evidence to show that crimes were committed, u.s. officials say. okay. tell me more. cnn sort of dropped that in at the end of an unrelated report. not elaborating. the question of whether or not it rises to the level of a prosecutable crime is also a big deal. we know the fbi has a

counterintelligence investigation underway into the attack on our election, counterintelligence campaigns don't always result in criminal prosecutions. but a counterintelligence investigation that was successful at finding those kinds of links in that in this kind of a case have to have big political consequences even if no one went to the pokey. in terms of whether there's at a criminal matter here, if i know the fbi said it's an open question. the fbi itself makes a recommendation as to whether or not there should be prosecution in criminal cases, but the people who ultimately decide if crimes were committed at once fbi has done the investigation, that official is at the u.s. department of justice. as we reported last night, the justice department official who still been leading, who has been overseeing the russia investigations, she's about to leave. mary mccord as informed people

who she works with at the justice department that she's out by professional reputation, mary mccord is an extremely competent career civil servant. she's been serving in this role as acting assistant attorney general for national security since on the. but she has now announced she's leaving. she says the time is right to move on to other opportunities. the white house has not nominated anybody to replace her. but that is angelo super important job, that's a super sensitive job given what she's been overseeing and given the in fact jeff sessions is himself recused from overseeing any of those investigations. who they photocopy replace her is going to be very, very, very important to say the least. might i also ask the question, mary mccord, why on earth are you leaving that job right now? is it really the right time to be moving on to other stuff? the other investigations into the trump/russia issue outside

of doj's were you ever, the house intelligence committee are calling people in to testify on may 2nd they're going to hear testimony behind closed doors from james comey and narcs as a director mike rogers. you recognize both of them. they both testified in the open hearing that the intelligence committee already held. they will bring them back now. that same committee will hear from them from behind closed doors. sometime after that may 2nd hearing they will schedule they say another open hearing. we finally get to hear from sally yates. james clapper, and former act attorney general, sally yates, the one who reportedly went to the white house with disturbing news about the national security adviser having communication with russian government officials that he was lying about.

these three had been scheduled to testify in an open hearing last month before the hearing was abruptly canceled by the committee chairman, devin nunes. he's since recused himself from this investigation. now as of today she's been reinvited to testify. her lawyers said she wants to testify. now we've just waiting and watching like law of attraction for the house intelligence committee to set an actual date to that hearing. they'll set a date for sometime after may 2nd, but they haven't set it yet. watch this space. when you have allergies,

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imagine running for president as a hologram. that's not him. it's a hologram. the nation of france is holding round one of their presidential elections. eleven candidates. if nobody clears 50% of the vote, the top two will go forward. by american standards, this is a relatively fabulous field of candidates, including the hologram guy. the most candidate most likely to be in the headlines is the far right candidate head of party by her anti semitic, holocaust denying father.

it is called the front national. for years it has been the fascist party of france. and although she made a big deal of kicking her own dad out of the party a few years ago, she still carries on some of his legacy, his-muslim, anti-immigrant stances. president trump made his endorsement in the french presidential race. guess who he endorsed? that story is next. ♪ at lincoln, we're all about making things simpler for you. like, imagine having your vehicle serviced... from the comfort of your own home. introducing complimentary lincoln pickup and delivery servicing. because the most important luxury of all... is time. pickup and delivery servicing on the entire family of lincoln luxury vehicles including a complimentary lincoln loaner.

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britain voted to leave the european union. then the united states elected donald trump. now france is about to elect a new president on sunday. one of the top candidates is a radical anti-immigrant, anti-muslim screen phone whose party was led until recently by a holocaust denier who is her dad. today donald trump was asked about that candidate, marine le pen. he called her the strongest on borders. she's strongest on what's been going on in france. not technically an endorsement, but it's an endorsement. phillip crowder, thank you very much for being here. i appreciate your time tonight. i know everybody is asking you who is going to win, who is going to win. let me ask you, what's the smartest way for americans to watch this? what should we watching for on

sunday? >> you'll be watching for two weeks. you will be seeing 11 candidates going up across each other from the far left to the far right. and the two who get the largest amount of votes will go through to a run-off in two weeks's time. meaning there will be a lot of speculation for two weeks you will have to see. you will have to look out for how well marine le pen, the leader of the national front, does in this election and how well manuel does he is the one who might stop this shift to the far right in so many elections we have seen the last few months. not just in europe but here in the united states. >> one of the interesting things about him is he does not represent a known political party. he's not just a centtri st, he is an outside party to the political system. how does that affect his chances in. >> a better chance, in fact. established political parties

are not doing so well. the two main parties, the socialist party, the right wing party who are not doing all too well in the polls right now. meaning in the run-up in two weeks's time, we might not see a candidate for the two main parties. the fact that manuel and marie le pen are outside the establishment gives them a better chance to make it through to the run-off. a similarity to the u.s. presidential election. anti-establishment candidates look like they might make it through to the run-off. it could be the far left leader who you saw as a hologram just a few minutes ago. he could also make it through to that run-off. no one really knows exactly what will happen. so there will be a lot of speculation and that distinct possibility that france might elect a far right leader as its next president. >> yeah. in which case france pulling out of the eu would be the first things we would start talking about. it certainly would be the start

of a very radical conversation. phillip crowder, thank you for being with us tonight. i appreciate your time. >> thank you. >> all right. that does it for us tonight in terms of watching the french elections on sunday. there's the science martha will be happening in washington and around the country here in the united states. the french election will be happening on sunday. and the continued legal wrangling around the arkansas execution scheduled, a back-to-back execution scheduled for monday night. this is the start of the weekend, but there's going to be a lot of things happening this weekend. good evening, ari. >> nice to see you, rachel. glad to see you. jeff sessions pledged to leave the politics at the door when he got to the justice department. but he spent the day slamming a federal judge in hawaii for ruling against the trump administration. tonight he says he has no regrets. >> attorney general jeff sessions dismissed