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tv   The Rachel Maddow Show  MSNBC  May 25, 2017 9:00pm-10:01pm PDT

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new york. this is a little bit weird. i need to start with a personal caveat this evening. i actually spent the day homesick. i came into work. i realized i was too sick to be here. i went and saw a doctor. and then on doctor's advice, i went homesick. i then came back in because of tonight's breaking news, particularly because it is nbc news that is breaking part of it. but you can probably tell that i'm not -- i'm not at my best. just as a human here, i have to tell you i'm a little bit of a mess. i'm on meds that make me out of it. i apologize for neither looking nor sounding nor being my best. but you know, once in a lifetime, this story. when i got the call about this news, i wanted to come in because i think this is important. and here's the contours, the very basic context of what just happened. this story, as far as i can tell, we're going to confirm this with one of the reporters who broke this story in just a
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moment, but i think what we just learned tonight actually started on friday night. on friday night, "the washington post" broke two important pieces of news. first they reported that the fbi investigation into the trump-russia affair was focused in on money, on potential financial crimes committed by people close to the president. and, you know, before that was posted in "the times" on friday night, that point was sort of surmisable from some other things we had seen reported, like for example grand jury subpoenas for business records for security records from mike flynn, also from the treasury's financial crime unit. we had some indications that money was becoming central to the fbi's investigation. or at least to some of these investigations. but that "washington post" report on friday night was the first direct, clear reporting we had that financial crimes are
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the point or at least a point of focus for the fbi. so that was one thing "the post" broke on friday night. the other scoop they had on friday night was the other one that made the headline. russia probe reaches current white house official, according to people familiar with the case. so a person of interest in the trump-russia investigation. not just who was a trump associate or worked in business with trump or was part of the trump campaign or is a fired official who used to be in the campaign. but somebody currently working in the white house at a very high level, working as a senior adviser to the president. and in addition to that, the person who was the person of interest for the fbi's investigation in the trump-russia probe is described as being someone, quote, being close to the president. that is what we had as of friday night. and now, nbc news reports that the person of interest has a name, and that name is jared kushner. jared kushner, senior white house adviser. he is the president's son-in-law, unlike any other
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presidential family member in u.s. history, he has a vast policy portfolio. we've had, you know, a member of the president's fami in the cabinet before as attorney general. we've had a member of the president's family working on a specific policy, hillary clinton working on health reform for bill clinton. we've had a lot of people do specific things for their family member who is a president. but his policy portfolio is everything from middle east peace to mexico to china to all trade deals to broadband nationwide to the opioid crisis. kind of everything you can name has been described as jared's portfolio. in more ways than one, he is a figure as close to the president and as close to the powers of the presidency as it is possible to be without being donald trump himself. so nbc news reports tonight that jared kushner is now under scrutiny in the fbi's trump-russia probe. this is according to multiple u.s. officials.
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those officials telling nbc news tonight that jared kushner is a person of interest, which is a term that has no legal meaning, but people use it in the news all the time. and to be clear about what that means, mr. kushner is under scrutiny. but that doesn't mean that he is a suspect. from nbc news reports, nbc news' report tonight, quote, investigators believe jared kushner has significant information relevant to their inquiry. that does not mean they suspect him of a crime or intend to charge him. the officials said kushner is in a different category from former trump aides paul manafort and michael flynn who are formally considered subjects of the investigation. jared kushner, they believe, has useful information. now, nbc reports tonight that it remains unclear, quote, what precisely about kushner's activities has drawn the fbi's
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interest. that said, nbc news had this story tonight. "the washington post" also had this story tonight, they also broke this story at basically the same time as nbc did. i can tell you exactly minute to minute who put theirs out first, but i told you, i was homesick all day, and at the time these stories broke i was like this. on the couch until my phone rang. so i don't know. actually i think i hurt myself just doing that. whoo. i can tell you in "the washington post"'s version they broke tonight, they add this, which is specifically. quote, kushner, who held meetings in december with the russian ambassador and a banker from moscow, is being investigated because, because of the extent and nature of his interactions with the russians. now, all right, then. if possible financial crimes by people near the president is a
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focus of the fbi's inquiries, and the extent and nature of jared kushner's interactions with the russians is why the president's son-in-law has become a key person of interest in thenvestigation, what do we do with those two things? does that mean necessarily that those two things are linked, financial crimes and links with the russians, right? does that mean there are financial elements of the way the russians interacted with the trump campaign that are suggesting possible cooperation or collusion? are those two things connected? if you follow the money, does that get you to the question of cooperation or collusion? is that what we are getting closer to understanding tonight? now, we have known since last month that when jared kushner applied for his security clearance, he failed to disclose on his security clearance application dozens of contacts that he had with foreign officials, including meetings with russian officials. we know that one of the meetings
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he did not disclose with the russian official was with the russian ambassador. but we also know that another one of the meetings he didn't disclose was with a different russian. we've talked about this on the show before. it seems like there is renewed focus on this aspect of jared kushner's last few months, now that he seems to have risen to the top as a person of interest in the white house. the meeting that he took, not with the russian ambassador but with a different russian official, had to do with a bank called veb. veb is basically a russian state controlled bank. when i say it's state-controlled, one of the things i mean about that specifically is vladimir putin used to chair the board of supervisors for the bank. putin is known to direct the activities of veb bank himself personally. putin's position at the head of that bank allowed him to use that bank to finance the sochi olympics construction, which of course was crazily, crazily over
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budget, the most expensive olympics ever. that financing for that construction went through veb bank at putin's direction. veb also occupies a very interesting corner of the intelligence world. veb is under sanctions by the united states government because of its links to and its facilitation of the activities of the russian government. a top executive in veb's new york office just recently this year got out of federal prison in the united states. he had been serving time in ohio after being convicted basically as serving as an undeclared russian spy while he was purporting to work for veb bank in new york city. the charging documents against that spy showed that his spy ring had been trying to recruit americans to become russian agents. one of those targeted americans was trump campaign once upon a time foreign policy adviser carter page. and one of the meetings with a russian official, that presidential son-in-law jared kushner did not disclose on his application for security clearance was his meeting with the head of this bank. and the head of this bank himself has ties to russian
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intelligence. and the head of this bank himself was personally tapped for that position running that bank. just last year by vladimir putin himself. putin installed this guy at the top of veb last year. then this guy after the election meets personally with jared kushner. so if up an investigator sifting through curious collisions of proper names until the russia-trump investigation, you would have jared kushner and the russian ambassador. a lot of people have meetings that they didn't disclose with the russian ambassador. but you would also have this other thing that other people don't seem to have, which is jared kushner and this state-controlled russian bank that's linked to the russian intelligence services. if you're an investigator, you've already got like string tied between those two tacks on your bulletin board. you might also remember that just last week, "the wall street journal" reported a new piece of information about that bank, about veb bank, and its previously unreported ties to
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the trump organization. "wall street journal" reported just last week that veb pumped millions of dollars into trump's business partner in a big trump-branded toronto building that has had lots of financial difficulties. so now we have, according to nbc news and "the washington post," we have jared kushner named as the focus of the fbi investigation inside the white house, not described as a suspect, not necessarily accused of any wrongdoing, but apparently a person of interest to investigators. we also just moments ago -- wait, wrong direction, i told you i'm a little bit out of it -- moments ago we got this statement from jared kushner's lawyer. i want to give it to you verbatim. statement from jared kushner's lawyer. quote, mr. kushner previously volunteered to share with congress what he knows about these meetings, meaning the russian meetings. he will do the same if he is contacted in connection with any other inquiry.
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i think the last "if" there is doing a lot of work. the statement from jared kushner's lawyer tonight suggesting, if he is contacted in connection with any other inquiry suggests mr. kushner has not yet been contacted by the fbi in the trump-russia investigation. one of the unanswered questions we've had is whether anyone in the white house has had an fbi interview since inauguration or even during the transition other than the now-fired national security adviser mike flynn. we still don't know the answer to that. we have a hint from mr. kushner's lawyer tonight that jared kushner has not spoken with the fbi, at least not yet. joining us now from "the washington post" newsroom is one of four heavyweight reporter by-lines about jared kushner being a focus of the fbi investigation. thanks for making time for us,
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congratulations on this. >> thank you, and thanks for coming in on what probably should have been a day off. >> i hope you can't tell, other than the fact that i said it. part of the reason i wanted to talk to you is you were also by-lined in the really big story in "the post" on friday night that reported there was a person of interest in the trump-russia investigation who is working as a senior white house adviser. should we see your story tonight as essentially a part two? friday you said there was a person of interest, now you're naming the person. do they fit together that way? >> yes, definitely, the person we referred to last week is definitely jared kushner. we've done a lot more reporting to lock down that that person is jared kushner. we've also done more reporting to lock down at least one component of what they're interested in, these december meetings. you mentioned financial crimes. financial crimes is a part of this. i think we're one step short of where you want to go which is that they suspect some financial wrongdoing on jared kushner. i, like your reporters, would
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stop short of saying he's a suspect in this. but there's a definitely a lot of reason to be interested in him. >> let me be specific, i don't want to go anywhere that the facts don't indicate. i'm just trying to be super clear on that. you guys have reporting that says financial crimes are of interest. and you guys have reporting that says jared kushner is a person of interest in the trump-russia investigation. but we don't actually have any information as to whether or not the interest in him is driven by financial crimes or potential financial crimes? >> yes, that's absolutely right. now, we're not saying it's not. but we're not saying we're there yet. we're not connecting the financial crimes piece of this directly to jared kushner. there are other folks in the investigation who you mentioned, mike flynn and paul manafort, who maybe are more obvious on that front, although kushner has been involved in some interactions that maybe would get your feelers up a little bit. but you're right, we're not yet connecting the financial crimes piece of this to kushner.
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>> you said you've been able to do more reporting so that you can name him. the justice department is not commenting on this at all. obviously everybody has been chafing this story as hard as they can. once you guys said person of interest in the white house, everybody has been trying to figure out who it is. do you suspect this is the sort of thing where either the fbi or the justice department would ever make a public statement about this, if he does become a target of the investigation which i know you're not saying he is now, if he did become a target, would we expect him or his lawyers to be notified of th fact? is that how this works? >> in some investigations they will send wh's called a target letter to people and say, hey, you are the target of this investigation. i'm not sure if it would work that way here. it will all be up now to bob mueller, who is a former fbi director, who is the special counsel that's leading this thing now. historically he has been pretty tight-lipped about everything. so if jared kushner were to become the target of the
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investigation, i doubt that he would sort of go to congress or go to the public and say, quick update, you know, jared kushner is the target. >> okay. it seems likely that investigators might be interested in those meetings that kushner held in december with a russian official, the head of a russian-state-run bank that's close to putin. if they're interested in his interactions with russians, we know about that. you guys are also reporting that fbi agents have been looking more closely at earlier exchanges between trump associates and russians that date back a long time earlier, to spring 2016. what can you tell us, if anything, about those meetings? >> yes, so there's one in particular, this april 2016, i can't even call it a meeting, but there's an event at the mayflower hotel where kushner is at and sessions is at and kislyak is at. we don't know exactly to what extent if any that kushner and kislyak intact at this thing. but what we do know is that investigators are interested in this april event.
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we're not exactly sure why right now, but we think that's important because the broad strokes of this investigation are coordination between the trump campaign and the kremlin during the campaign. and april is, you know, before the election. the december meetings are all after the election. and the people who would defend kushner would say, well, look, he is the president's top foreign policy guy. he's sort of a transition official at that point. he's well wiin his rights to be having meetings or conversations with foreign dignitaries. maybe a little weird to be having them with a russian banker and the russian ambassador, given what russia just did with our election, but they would say, look, he's within his rights to do that. the pre-election meeting maybe is of interest because it's, you know, during the campaign. we're not really sure, although we are told that that april meeting is of investigative interest, or that april event, i should say.
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>> fascinating and super clear. matt, covering the justice department for "the washington post," by-lined in this "washington post" story, congratulations again on this report, appreciate you being here. i want to bring into the conversation now barbara mcquaid, she is one of the u.s. attorneys who was asked to resign by president trump this past march very suddenly. she has extensive experience prosecuting a lot of different kinds of high profile cases. former u.s. attorney barbara mcquaid, thanks for being with us tonight, we appreciate it. >> thanks, rachel. >> let me ask you first about these terms we're throwing around which i bet make you cringe as a former u.s. attorney. person of interest is a term that i know has no formal legal meaning. it's used a lot in journalism to indicate that investigators sort of have a bead on somebody. they may not be about to charge them with anything, they may not even suspect them of wrongdoing, but they are interested in that person. is that the right way to understand that?
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is there better language that we should use around being more specific in that regard? >> we never use that term in law enforcement. i can understand why it's used in media, because you don't know exactly what category someone falls under. the three general categories that someone like this might be falling under right now in sort of increasing order of seriousness would be, number one, just a witness. it may be that he has information, that he attended meetings, that he participated in conversations that might be useful to the investigation. the next level would be subject of the investigation. that's somebody whose conduct might fall under the scope of the investigation. they may or they may not be charged at some point. and then the most serious is someone who is a target of the investigation. that usually comes later in the investigation, after a substantial amount of evidence has been gathered, and the prosecutor believes that the person is a likely defendant. >> somebody at the stage of targeting, not suspicion, but somebody who is at the stage that we believe jared kushner is the ahere, would a person in
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that role expect to be notified by the fbi or notified by investigators that investigators wanted to speak with him, that they were a potential witness, that they were thought to have information that might be of use? >> yes. i think at some point. based on the reporting i've heard, they say he's not in the same category as flynn and manafort who are subjects. he is in a lesser category. so it sounds to me that they're at the moment considering him to be a witness. and if so, the first step would be to see if he would voluntarily produce documents or sit for an interview. and if someone won't do that voluntarily, the next step is to issue a subpoena which would require him to testify before a grand jury. >> if he is potentially a witness for the fbi investigation, who would issue that subpoena? would that be from robert
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mueller who is overseeing the investigations, would that go through a u.s. attorney's office? >> it sounds like the investigation is being run out of the u.s. attorney's office for the eastern district of virginia, which may are the place where venue is appropriate for this investigation. so typically it would be that office. it's actually issued under the authority of the grand jury. but it's the u.s. attorney's office that does the paperwork and prepares the document and sends it out. >> one other point raised by raised by mr. kushner's lawyer this evening is that he has already previously stated that he would be happy to cooperate with and happy to appear before the senate intelligence committee which is investigating these matters. jamie gorelick, the lawyer tonight, said he would be happy to talk to anybodylse involving any other inquiry. in terms of whether or not jared kushner might appear before any of the congressional committees who are investigating this, would we expect that robert mueller, who is overseeing the fbi investigations, would have to okay that, that it's something that if we had been expecting jared kushner to testify in congress before, maybe right now this means he's less likely to?
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>> well, he doesn't necessarily have to okay it. but there's certainly a tension between those things. if i'm robert mueller, i would rather have the first crack at any witness, including jared kushner, so that he's not telling multiple stories in multiple forums. but i can't prohibit him from testifying. if he goes before congress to testify, he may be concerned that his statements there could be used against him in the criminal investigation. and so it may be that he invokes his fifth amendment right not to incriminate himself before the grand jury to protect him from criminal prosecution down the road. so those two different investigations proceeding on parallel tracks creates some tension and challenges. >> and create a need for all of us civilians to re-look-up the word over and over again the word "de-conflict" which doesn't exist in nature. thank you very much for walking us through this, i appreciate your help. >> thank you. much more ahead tonight. nbc news presidential historian
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michael beschloss is here, champing at the bit for a very good reason. we think we've solved a mystery about the firing of fbi director james comey, that is ahead for us tonight. stay with us. it's not how fast you mow, it's how well you mow fast. it's not how fast you mow... ...it's how well you mow fast! they're not just words to mow by, they're words to live by. the john deere ztrak z345r.
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one thing that president richard nixon had going for him in watergate was a whole cast of characters in the nixon administration who had various
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degrees of involvement in or knowledge of watergate. and that ultimately had its downsides. but for a while there, that really helped keep nixon afloat, because one after the other, he tried to throw those people to the wolves to save himself. don't blame me, blame the assistant to the president, or take john dean instead. yes, i know you would like to burn me at the stake, but here, i offer you my own attorney general, here is a commemorative lighter with which you may want to burn him. nixon tried to save his own bacon by cutting loose and then blaming stuff on a whole succession of government staffers who found themselves more or less mixed up in his watergate mess. what would he haveone, though,
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if it had been his own family who had been caught up in his watergate mess? would he have cut them off too? separated himself off from them too? tried to throw them under the bus to save himself too? can a president, you know, even try? can a president even attempt cutting off his own son-in-law? a man married to his daughter, once we've learned that is the person of interest in the fbi's investigation? and while i think we can all appreciate this realtime, real life lesson in why we have those nepotism laws after all, is there anything else like this in our history? is there any precedent for this that can tell us what to expect as to what's going to happen next? joining us now is michael beschloss, nbc news presidential historian who knows these things. michael, thank you for being with us, we appreciate it. >> my pleasure, rachel. >> so we have had presidential family members involved in governing before.
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>> we have. >> robert kennedy was attorney general, he was in the cabinet. but looking at presidents under investigation, looking at this particular twist of nepotism in the trump administration, is there anything like this at all that we can learn from in our history? >> there's nothing like this even in the investigation. we've had presidents for 228 years. i don't think we've ever had a family member as powerful as jared kushner in a formal role at the top of the white house staff, that's number one. we've now got a special prosecutor. that raises the possibility we'll see what we saw during watergate which was prosecutors trying to pit those aides that you mentioned, haldeman and ehrlichman and others, but now we see the possibility of a son-in-law being pitted against his father-in-law. >> there's nothing legally, is there, that is an additional complication. i know that there are rules about spouses testifying against one another.
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those things don't apply beyond that immediate familial relationship, right? >> no, i think that's exactly right. so if jared kushner knows things that the prosecutors want, they will go to extraordinary lengths to find those things out. and especially if they're aiming at his father-in-law. >> michael, when we look at other presidential family members who have made the news in unflattering ways, and there have definitely been a lot of brothers, i'm thinking in particular, who have made the news in unflattering ways. have presidents in the past been able to or even tried to distance themselves from family members who got either into embarrassing things or potentially really scandalous things? >> they have a little bit. for instance, richard nixon had a brother, donald nixon, who was dragged in in a tiny way in the water scandal having to do with money. it actually was distant enough from nixon that he didn't have to sort of fib about it.
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and you've had billy cter, sort of the same thing, questions about dealings with libya. but a president could credibly say, this is my brother. but when a guy is your son-in-law and is sitting next to you in the oval office and appears at every important event including this trip that donald trump has just been on, awfully hard for the president to say, i barely know the guy. >> nbc news historian michael beschloss. >> feel better, we need you. >> i'll do my best. >> okay. >> thank you. much more ahead on this very busy news night including the possibility that the host might pass out at any moment. you don't get that on every cable news show.
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so the big news tonight, that jared kushner, the president's son-in-law, is a person of interest in the fbi investigation into the trump-russia affair, that news relates to the fbi, to special counsel robert mueller's criminal probe into the trump administration's ties with russia and any potential cooperation by the trump campaign into the russia attack. meanwhile, the ongoing congressional investigations into the same affair are also looking for answers in their own way. but we now know as of today, they are not getting their answers anymore. at least they're not get them on deadline. today, the justice department told the house oversight committee that it will not hand over some documents that the
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committee had requested be turned over by yesterday. the deadline was yesterday. the documents didn't turn up by yesterday. today we got this explanation from the fbi. the oversight committee had asked to see any memos written by former fbi director james comey detailing his conversations with president trump. these are the memos that were described to "the new york times" last week that purportedly documented attempts by president trump to tell the fbi director that he should shut down the fbi's investigation of mike flynn. if those comey memos in fact exist, lots of people would like to see them. but those memos will now remain a mystery for the time being because now the fbi has told congress they're not going to hand them over. they missed that deadline deliberately, because now there's a special counsel overseeing the fbi investigations and they're going to have to ask him, they're going to have to ask robert mueller before they hand over anything. so if you were looking forward to that being leaked instantly as soon as those memos were handed over to congress, those memos aren't getting handed over to congress, at least anytime soon.
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on top of that, though, there is one mystery about james comey's firing and the question of whether or not that was the president trying to obstruct justice in the trump-russia investigation. there's one piece of that that we think we've solved tonight. we've got that exclusive, next, right after this break.
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you think traffic's bad now, the future's going to be a nightmare! does nobody like the future? c'mon, the future. he obviously doesn't know intel is helping power autonomous cars and the 5g network they connect to. with this, won't happen in the future. thanks, jim. there's some napkins in the glovebox. okay, but why would i need a napkin? you could have just told me a bump was coming. we know the future. because we're building it. so we've got some new information in the trump-russia investigation. it is not a blockbuster revelation but i think it's important and clarifying.
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it's about a key part of the behavior of the trump administration with regard to the fbi since trump has been in office. so not during the campaign but since the inauguration. and i think what is widely believed to have happened, what is widely believed to have -- actually widely reported to have happened at this key point in time, what we think we know about it i think is wrong. i think we can correct that record tonight. so just settle in for a second and follow this through with me. first of all, therare two things that we knofor sure the fbi is investigating. and we know for sure because the fbi has said so publicly. then there is a third thing that we believe the fbi is investigating but we don't actually know for sure. what we know for sure about what the fbi is investigating, we know because james comey said so publicly in congress. >> i have been authorized by the department of justice to confirm that the fbi as part of our counterintelligence mission is investigating the russian
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government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the trump campaign and the russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and russia's efforts. >> so that was their one and only public statement. and that means there are two things we know for sure from public information that the fbi is investigating. there is also another thing we believe they're investigating. as you just heard comey say, the two things the fbi confirms they're looking into are number one, the russians' efforts to interfere in the presidential election, and number two, any links between the trump campaign and the russian government including the question of whether anyone in the trump campaign coordinated with the russians. we know those two investigations are under way at the fbi. after james comey was fired, those investigations started being overseen by the acting
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director of the fbi who they promoted to replace comey, andrew mccabe. and once the special counsel was appointed, the guy who took over running those investigations is robert mueller, former director of the bureau who has authority not only to investigate what happened but to bring charges if he sees fit. and we know from the order that appointed mueller to that role that the investigations he's overseeing are those investigations you just heard comey describe to congress there on that day back in march. i'm steve kornacki here in new york. we have news to tell you about. weave be following this special congressional election out in montana. greg gianforte republican candidate has been declared the winner of this race by the the associated press. i should tell you nbc is not making an independent call but the the associated press has called it. i have been looking at the numbers. we are starting to get votes that were cast today. not just early votes.
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it does look like a fairly convincing victory for greg gianforte. we have been alerted that the winning candidate is expected to speak any minute there out at his headquarters. this will be the first public remarks that greg gianforte has made since being engulfed in what has become an international controversy over the last 24 hours with the audio recording that emerged of him attacking, seeming to attack a reporter for the guardian newspaper who had been asking him about his position on health care reform. the big question heading into this election was whether that last minute revelation and controversy would have an effect on this race. one thing we can tell you, though, many of the votes out here were cast long before that came to light last night. early voting in montana meant hundreds of thousands of ballots were mailed out. i can show you a little bit on the map here of what happened. you are seeing the clinton trump
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map from 2016. i can tell you a couple of things that we were looking at as the results started to come in here this is an area the democrats wanted to win tonight. that was their goal. we saw tht early vote that was counted very early on the votes the margin was seven points for the republican. gianforte won this county by seven points before today. the question was would the same-day vote be different? would there be an effect from the attack on the reporter? they have counted all the votes in cascade county and the margin on election day was seven points for the republican. so no different. we can tell you in that county if this tells you something about what we are seeing statewide in this one county 80%, eight out of every ten
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ballots were cast early, were cast by mail. this has been a trend. early voting, vote by mail. we are at the point where the clear maybe overwhelming majority of votes cast in elections in montana are cast before election day. if you were a democrat hoping that news of that attack that altercation with the reporter by greg gianforte yesterday would have a last minute effect one story is it just doesn't look like there were a lot of votes out there to be persituated. a couple of other things that we are seein maybe important indicators for the rest of the countrin terms of this as a bell weather. think of last november when donald trump defeated hillary clinton one of the stories was he rolled up massive margins in rural areas. rural largely white areas of the
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country. eastern montana is very, very rural. these are areas where donald trump got 80%, in one case 90% of the vote last november. this is his hard core base. would there be slippage in this special congressional election? would gianforte be down at 70, down in the high 60s? the answer i can tell you is no. he got trump numbers in trump country. there he is greg gianforte declaring victory in this race. let's take you out there to his hometown first remarks since controversy engulfed him. let's take a listen. [ cheers and applause ] >> thank you.
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thank you. thank you, montana. [ cheers and applause ] thank you, montana! [ cheers and applause ] tonight is all about you. tonight is your victory. over the last few years you have made tens of thousands of phone calls, knocked on hundreds of thousands of doors. thank you. [ cheers and applause ] we have had the great pleasure of driving over 80,000 miles all over this great state. everyone of 56 counts multiple times and stayed in your homes. together tonight we won a victory for our treasured state.
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[ cheers and applause ] tonight we won a victory for all montanaens. tonight we won a victory for our coal and timber families. we won a victory for farmers and ranchers. and we won a victory for our men and women in uniform and for our veterans. thank you. [ cheers and applause ] we won a victory for our montana seniors. and we won a victory for our second amendment. [ cheers and applause ]
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we also won a victory to keep our public lands in our public hands. [ cheers and applause [ cheers and applause ] we won a victory for every hard working montana family because their voice hasn't been heard. and for montanaens who have been left behind. tonight montanaens are sending a wakeup call to washington, d.c. establishment. [ cheers and applause ] montana said bernie sas and nancy pelosi can't callhe shots here in montana.
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montanans said we are going to drain the swamp. [ cheers and applause ] and we have a lot of work to do and hard work is the way we get things done. and sometimes hard work is borne out of hard lessons. last night i learned. and no, please. i need to share something from my heart here. i ask you to bear with me. when you make a mistake you have to own up to it. that's the montana way. last night i made a mistake. and i took an action that i can't take back and i'm not
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proud of what happened. i should not have responded in the way that i did. and for that i'm sorry. >> and you're forgiven. [ cheers and applause ] i should not have treated that reporter that way. and for that i'm sorry, mr. ben jacobs. [ applause ] i also want to apologize for the fox news team that was there. and i'm sorry to each one of you that we had to go through this. that's not the person that i am and it's not the way i will lead in this state. rest assured our work is just beginning. but it does begin with me taking
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responsibility for my own actions. you deserve a congressman who stays out of the limelight and just gets the job done. i promise to work hard to protect our precious way of life. i promise to be open and accessible and based on your input i will be your strong voice back in washington, d.c. [ cheers and applause ] i have always considered myself more of a workhorse than a show horse. and that's my promise to you. i'm going to washington to get things done, to drain the swamp and fight for montana families. [ cheers and applause ]
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i will bring accountability to washington, d.c. i'll support term limits. [ cheers and applause ] and banning members of congress from becoming lobbiests. and i will hold the politicians accountable. if they can't balance the budget they shouldn't get paid. [ cheers and applause ] no balanced budget, no paycheck. [ cheers and applause ] washington won't like it, but it's time for america and montana to come first again. [ cheers and applause ] it just seems when people go oo d.c. they drink the water and kind of sliver into the swamp.
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that's why we're not moving to d.c. i'll commute and be back here traveling to every corner of the state as much as i can. [ applause ] i'll be in all 56 counties so that your voice is heard. you've always been on my side and i pledge that i will always be on your side. montana sent a strong message tonight that we want a congressman who will work with president trump to make america and montana great again. [ cheers and applause ]
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thank you. now, i feel a deep sense of obligation and duty to this great state where susan and i raised our family and built our business. thank you for your support and this opportunity to serve. >> thank you. [ cheers and applause ] >> good night. god bless montana and this great united states of america. [ cheers and applause ] >> that is the scene in bozeman, montana. you are looking at greg gianforte. he is now congressman-elect, greg gianforte, the republican candidate for the at large seat in montana. he has been declared the winner by the the associated press.
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you heard him declaring victory. a couple of pieces of news to tell you about from what we just heard. number one, this was the first public statement from greg gianforte since that controversy yesterday, the reporter from the guardian newspaper ben jacobs trying to interview him. there was an altercation. jacobs says he was body slammed by greg gianforte. he had audio of it, no video. the audio certainly seemed to under cut the original version of events that was presented by greg gianforte. now 24 hours later in victory and having been a call to apologize by the speaker of the house, republican paul ryan, greg gianforte did address that altercation and said when you make a mistake you have to own up to it. he said that is the montana way. he said i should not have treated that reporter that way and for that i apologize to mr. ben jacobs.
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an apology there naming the reporter by greg gianforte. now the congressman-elect. he also apologized to the crew that was there in that room when that altercation took place from fox news. he offered an apology. greg gianforte did address the so-called elephant in the room. also, there was this from the speech. this notable, as well. he embraced donald trump, the republican president. greg gianforte used donald trump's slogan make america great again. he talked about draining the swamp. that was one of the major campaign themes for donald trump. he said that he views this message from the voters from montana tonight as a message to work with the president. of course, a lot of people nationally were looking at this race in montana to see are there signs of trump fatigue out there in the electorate. greg gianforte doesn't see any.
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he tethered himself to trump during the campaign and invokes trump in victory. they are still counting votes and not sure exactly where it will land. it might tick up a couple of points. in the presidential ection last november donald trump won montana by 21 points over hillary clinton. that was his margin. it looks like the gianforte will be about high single digits when all is said and done. a 10, 15 point swing in the democrats' direction. democrats will tell you they think that is good news but there was a time there they were hoping to get closer than that and maybe win the state. remember montana has a democratic u.s. senator jon tester up for reelection next year. it has a democratic governor. barack obama came within three points of winning the state when he first ran in 2008 when there was an unpopular republican president back then, george w.
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bush. democrats hope this was an outside target for them. they were hoping there was an outside shot at victory. they make progress. how did this happen? what can we tell you about the geography of the victory? i think one of the headlines out of this race in montana is that trump country -- you can really kind of define that as the rural eastern participate of montana, almost everyone of these counties you see in this part of the state, donald trump got 80% in even one case 90% of the vote last november. was there going to be slippage in trump country? there was no slippage in trump country. greg gianforte rolling up the same margins. that put the pressure on the democrats to try to run up the score in bigger parts of the state. the short answer is they just didn't do enough. they made progress. this is where university of montana is. big college town. this is the kind of county in any state the democrats think they are going to do well in.
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they needed to do more. big part of the story here was when there was coming down to the final hours. we were looking to see that split between the vote that was st today, the same day same-day vote, absentee vote. it looks like the clear majority of the votes were cast before that event last night, before that altercation with the reporter. that is something you might hear from democrats. they might say, hey, maybe things would have been different if everybody was voting on the same day. again, we're looking at the evidence from the counties. we're seeing the same day in the early vote, not a huge division right there. so, again, democrats, some of these places you look around billings right here, you still have the republicans winning this thing by double digits. this county yellow stone, that's the one democrats wanted to win. they wanted to at least be even, within five points. did not get what they needed out of a county like that. so, again, the numbers just weren't there for democrats tonight. bigger picture, what does this mean nationally, though? think about this right now. we're in