said to be much better tonight. so we wish all of our former presidents well. that is our thursday edition of our program tonight. good night from nbc news headquarters here in new york. i know it is a thursday night in mid july and that means by political science logic there is not supposed to be a lot going on on a night like this. but there's a lot going on. including a few stories we're keeping an eye on as developing stories even into the late evening tonight. former president jimmy carter, god bless him, he's about to turn 93 years old. look at him. he nevertheless has been spending the week doing construction, building affordable housing along with his wife with the group habitat for humanity. and today he was out on a hot july day building houses. he got dehydrated in the heat

while working. ended up being hospitalized tonight. his wife is women him. the carters put out a statement saying that the former president carter is okay. the statement also says, quote, he encourages everyone to stay hydrated and keep building. god bless him. former president jimmy carter, age 92, he is in the hospital tonight. everybody in the whole country of course wishing him well. we are keeping an eye out tonight for any updates we may get on his condition over the course of the hour. we're also keeping an eye out tonight for developments on the republican health care bill. the republican plan to repeal obamacare. it's unpopular for a number of reasoning, because it is expected to cause millions of american to lose their health insurance. it will take a huge whack out of medicaid which is the single biggest health provider in the whole country. it's even bigger than medicare. on capitol hill republicans

introduced their latest version of the kill obamacare bill. it already has two definite no votes against it from republican senators rand paul and susan collins. if one more republican senator says no to it, it is toast. so even though it's past close of business in washington, basically every hour from now until they vote on it people are going to be watching to see if any other republican senator, any third republican senator comes out and says no. that could come at any time. we are watching that tonight, as well. >> and we've got news about the character of the campaign against what the republicans are trying to do here. you'll want to see that later on this hour. we're also learning tonight of some surprise news that is basically personal in nature. in most cases it would be considered not even just personal but private information. but in this case it has become national news because of its

link to a big important news story that was recently published in "the wall street journal." two weeks ago today "the wall street journal" published this story, documenting for the first time an admitted instance of an american citizen contacting russian government hackers during the campaign, or at least trying to contact russian government hackers to basically try to participate in the russian government attack on our election. that story from "the wall street journal" focused on this man, peter smith. an elderly 81-year-old long time republican activist who admitted that he headed up this effort to contact russian government hackers because he was seeking damaging information he thought he could get from them about hillary clinton. peter smith talked openly about this project that he ran to try to accomplish this during the campaign. he talked about it to "wall street journal" reporter shane harris in an interview that took place in may. and one of the striking details

in that story when it was published two weeks ago is that peter smith had died not long after sitting down and doing that interview with shane harris. well, now tonight the chicago tribune reports that peter smith's death was a suicide. now, again this is something that would normally be considered an entirely private matter, only of concern to his family. because of peter smith's interesting and unique involvement in the presidential campaign though and the subsequent focus after the story came out as to who in the trump campaign might have been working with him on this project with the russians. because of a all of that, the news of his apparent suicide at age 81, it's not just his family's information, it is now national news. and we actually have one new piece of information to contribute to what is known about that story coming up later on in the show tonight as well. so as i said, there's a lot going on right now. we've got our eyes on a lot of

developing stories. but i want to start tonight with donald trump attorney michael cohen. at the end of may michael cohen confirmed that he had been asked by house and senate investigators looking into the trump-russia affair, asked if he would testify and hand over documents in conjunction with their investigation. and michael cohen said no. said he would not cooperate with the house and senate committees investigating the trump-russia matter, would not testify, would not hand over documents. he was then subpoenaed, not just asked but issued with a subpoena to testify and after he got the subpoena, he said okay, he will. before michael cohen was a central figure in the trump-russia investigation, he was a long standing trump organization executive. he had been donald trump's sometimes personal lawyer. and when donald trump first considered running for president this time around, when he first started kicking that around in 2015, michael cohen was

basically his top, his only political adviser for the early days of his campaign. and in some combination of all of those roles trump organization executive personal lawyer to donald trump political adviser to donald trump who might run for president, in some combination of all of those roles, in the summer of 2015, so not that past summer but the summer before, michael cohen decided to give a comment to a reporter who was writing a story on donald trump for the daily beast. and that story concerned allegations against donald trump that had been made once upon a time in a sworn deposition by one of his ex-wives. now michael cohen spoke to the reporters writing that story, defended trump from those charges, but then it got weird. michael cohen told the daily beast reporter that if that story ran, quote, i'm going

to mess your life up for as long as you're on this freaking planet. you're going to have judgments against you, so much money. you'll never know how to get out from underneath it. quote, rest assured, you will suffer the consequences. you do whatever you want. you want to ruin your life at age 20, you do that, i'll be happy to serve it right up to you. quote, i will make sure that you and i meet one day while we're in the white house and i will take you for every penny that you still don't have and i will come after your daily beast and everybody that you know. i'm warning you tread very f'g lightly because what i'm going to do to you is going to be f'g disgusting. you understand me? signed, michael cohen. trump organization lawyer. trump's personal lawyer for many years. the man who managed trump's early political maneuvering to run for president. michael cohen coming to a

congressional committee near you. due to testify before the house intelligence committee investigating the trump-russia matter. hopefully they've got a bleep button in that committee if it's going to be on c-span. as president donald trump has had to hire some new lawyers, not just for the legal jobs in the administration, he's also had to hire new lawyers for the job of representing him in the russia investigations. i think we probably should have known from the michael cohen experience what trump like to look for in a personal lawyer. >> you're going to want to watch this next piece of video we're going to show you. he's free on $100 million bail after being convicted on 14 counts of conspiracy and fraud. he's said to be sentenced july 29. prosecutors had asked ever him to be remanded into custody saying he was a flight risk but the judge granted bail although he will remain under house arrest with electronic monitoring of his whereabouts.

his attorney promised to appeal the convictions. this is the video i was talking about. cnbc caught up with mr. dowd just a short time ago. >> would you like to comment for cnbc at all? >> get the [ bleep ] out of here. that's what i got for cnbc. >> that's what i got for cn -- that gentleman, john dowd is one of the lawyers who president trump has brought on in a personal capacity to represent him in the trump-russia investigations in washington. that was cnbc's coverage from after dowd's client, a hedge fund billionaire received the longest prison sentence ever handed down by any court in the united states for an insider trader conviction. that's what his client got. now that hedge fund guy's lawyer is on trump's russia team. but the captain of the team is a different lawyer, a lawyer named marc kazowitz who president trump brought to washington to

lead his personal representation on all things russia. marc kazowitz is a little like michael cohen in that he's represented trump for years. represented him in the trump university fraud fiasco. where trump ended up paying out $25 million. he represented trump in an effort to keep secret to proceedings of one of the trump divorces. he was the one who wrote to the "the new york times" threatening to sue the times for publishing interviews of women who said they had been sexually assaulted or harassed by president trump. you might remember president trump threatened to sue every one of those women as well as the "the new york times." he never did sue any of the women or the "the new york times" but the threat to sue the sometimes came from marc kazowitz. marc kazowitz is a long time trump lawyer but now he's been shipped down to washington to become the lead lawyer for the president in the most serious national security foreign influence scandal to ever hit this presidency or any other american presidency.

and last night at almost exactly this time on this show i mentioned that we might be seeing signs of some problems brewing, a little shakiness at the top of the president's legal defense team. first was this reporting from the "the new york times" that marc kazowitz is considering resigning as trump's lawyer in the russia matter. today marc kazowitz put out a statement saying that "the new york times" reporting was not true. but for what it's worth, that reporting exists. and there was this piece published by proepublica. it's sourced to more than two dozen current and form her employees of marc kazowitz's firms as well as friends and acquaintances of marc kazowitz. propublica reporting in detail on one strange fact about this lawyer, mark kasowitz, who is leading the defense of the president in this highly sensitive national security

foreign influence scandal. and that one strange thing to know about the president's lawyer, is that despite this case that he's working on and the sensitivity of it and what it's about, the president's lawyer in this case does not have a security clearance. he doesn't himself have a security clearance and he says he doesn't intend to get one. which means, among other things, that if there is any classified information that is involved in either the case against his client or the defense, he is going to try to mount for his client, he can't even look at that information. he can't even have it described to him. if his client or somebody else relevant to the investigation ends up being asked to testify in a classified session somewhere, marc kazowitz can't even go into that room. propublica quotes bob bennett,

he says, quote, no question in any mind in order to represent president trump in this matter you would have to get a very high level of clearance because of the allegations involving russia. but marc kazowitz doesn't have one. and the rest of the piece is about why he might not be able to get a security clearance if he wanted to. and this gets into personal stuff about drinking and rehab and what sounds like kind of a tremendous bar fight. it's lurid stuff and it is sourced up the wazoo. and this would be personal in nature if it wasn't for the fact that mark wats is nkasowitz is

president's lawyer. and this stuff described, it may affect his ability to get a security clearance which really may affect his ability to provide effective representation to the president. i talked about that briefly last night around this time and then something new happened. i'm going to recount this. we're going back to reporter justin elliott at propublica. quote, marc kazowitz, president trump's personal attorney threatened a stranger last night. the exchange began after the man saw our story featured last night on the rachel maddow show on msnbc. the exchange of e-mails on wednesday began at 9:28 eastern when the man sent the following message to marc kazowitz' firm account, meaning his e-mail account at his law firm. the text of the message says marc, you don't know me, i don't know you but i believe it is in your interest for you to resign from your position advising the president regarding pending federal legal matters. no good can come from this and in fact your name may end up

being a disparaging footnote to the presidency of donald j. trump. that was sent at 9:28 p.m. eastern time. five minute later marc kazowitz responded. it was a short response. f you. these guys don't know each other. i think this is adorable. he used an asterisk for the u. we did not add that. he did that. then 15 minutes later, the other guy doesn't respond to that but 15 minutes later marc kazowitz is still stewing and he sends this, quote, and you don't know me but i will know you. how dare you send me an e-mail like that. i'm on you now. you are f'g with me now. this time he spelled it out. let's see who you are. watch your back -- word that rhymes with ditch that starts with b. then at this point the guy who initially started this exchange responded six minutes later and

he does not match the escalated tone that mr. kasowitz has thrown at him. he responds, thank you for your kind reply. thank you for your kind reply. i may be in touch as appropriate. then two minutes later, the president's lawyer, marc kazowitz continues to go nuts. quote, call me if you want a conversation. i will have it with you. you are such a piece of -- call me. don't be afraid you piece of -- stand up. if you don't call me, you're just afraid! call me. no response from this other guy to this e-mail. but marc kasowitz is not done. that did not help him blow of enough steam. he's also not busy. five minutes later he's still erupting. i'm jewish. i presume you are too. stop being afraid. call me or give me your number

and i will call you. i already know where you live. i'm on you. you might as well call me. you will see me. i promise. bro. bro? so that's the president's lead lawyer on the russia investigation. the guy he was threatening there, he says he has now forwarded this exchange to the fbi. but for what it's worth, i am not a lawyer, the i know where you live and you will see me, that is not awesome for the president's lawyer as to whether this will be interpreted as a legit and criminal threat. now marc kasowitz has since published an apology. i should mention, it's not technically from him. it's from a spokesman from him which is a hard way to apologize, especially since we know he doesn't work nights. but he says, the spokesman says,

quote, mr. kasowitz, who is tied up with client matters says he intends to apologize to the writer of the e-mail referenced in today's story. while no excuse, the e-mail came at the end of a long day. the person sending the e-mail is entitled to his opinion and i should not have responded in that inappropriate manner. i intend to send him an e-mail responding just that. this is one time when i wish i could reverse the clock but of course, i can't. so on the one hand, this is hilarious. how do you find people like this, let alone a whole stable of them, right? this is like you went shopping for all of your lawyers at the before section of the anger management commercial. right? but like -- but on the other hand, the president, any president, really does need good legal representation. and i say that as a mat are of me being an american citizen and wanting what's best for the

country. even if you're not a trump supporter and you're hoping that the investigations into the trump administration and the trump campaign, even if you're hoping those administrations are damning and he gets thrown out of office, especially if you are hoping for that kind of outcome, it is my opinion, i think that you should be hoping for him to have competent representation along the way. we have an adversarial system of justice in this country for a very good reason. at the end of the day, however serious this scandal is, it has to be resolved in a way that the country broadly feels confident in. confident that it was handled properly, that the investigation was unimpeded and unintimidated and unbiased and thorough. and for it to be settled in a way that it is truly settled we're all really going to need confidence that the president was well-represented. that he got good legal advice through this process. that his side of the argument,

whatever you think of it was, was hard fought and well fought by experts who are good at what they do. whether or not he wins in the end you want to know that the investigation was fair and his representation was fierce and professional. and that's why these worries about these guys being his lawyers i think ought to be a bipartisan above the fray kind of thing. i mean, marc kasowitz really did put out his statement as trump's russia lawyer misspelling the word president in the first line. his first action as president trump's russian lawyer was to announce he was going to file professional complaints against fbi director james comey, then he never did. just blew it off. michael isikoff reported that yahoo news reported within the

last hour that mark kasowitz apparently received those donald trump jr. e-mails three month s ago. which if true raises some real questions about why the white house so spectacularly mishandled the management of the meeting and the disclosure of the e-mails themselves. the president's lawyers are his own choice. but it is also unfortunately a choice that is going to matter to all of us as a country as we plow through this scandal to its and and hopefully come to closure as a country when it is over. and i have one last point on this. the top trump lawyer who is not working for the president but is the top law enforcement official, attorney general jeff sessions, he today finally released, because a court ordered him to, a portion of the security clearance that concerned his contacts with russia officials. what they released from the department of justice is one page, almost entirely redacted except for the part on the form where he checked no in response to a question about whether he

or anyone in his family had had any foreign contacts with any foreign persons in the last seven years. he checked no to that. we now know since he filed this form that that was an incorrect answer. he has sense admitted to contacts for example with the russian ambassador during the campaign. that means his security clearance application appears to have been incorrect. we spoke tonight with a lawyer that handled criminal issues at the justice department for over a decade. that lawyer told us that omitting that kind of key information on a security clearance application would get any normal attorney fired from the department of justice. fired. that said, the phrase any normal attorney is not one that applies easily to any part of this administration. got a lot more ahead tonight. stay with us. steve was born to move. over the course of 9 days he walks 26.2 miles,

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so russia attack on the election last year had three targets. first they went after the government, actual government systems and infrastructure. the straight up hacking effort to penetrate local and state election systems all over the country, mostly targeting voter registrations. second they went after the democratic party. the russians stole e-mails from the dnc and the clinton campaign and fed that information back to the american people in a way that they hoped would most inflict -- would inflict the most damage on the democrat party and the democrat candidate. third, the russians went after american citizens. this was the operation they carry out in media and on social media, manipulating our news diet, polluting an overwhelming discussion about the election again to trying to help donald

trump and hurt hillary clinton. attack the government, attack the democrats and go after the american people. on that third part of the attack, the targeting of the american people, there remains this open question. did they have any american help in doing what they did? did they need american help to do what they did? i mean, in terms of what the attack looked like, we know for instance that in the spring of last year, as the democratic primary was winding down, the democrats launched a social media operation targeting bernie sanders supporters, paid operatives in russia and other country to flood online pro-bernie groups with vitriolic anti-clinton stuff, attacks that came from americans and other fellow supporters but they did not. the russians took the real split in the democratic party between hillary clinton and bernie sanders and they did their best to make it nuclear.

to blow it up into an unbreachable chasm. we know that breitbart and infowars, those sites and their social media feeds were flooded with russia-produced or russia-promoted stories. maybe that's a coincidence. but in march an investigation is looking into where the pro-trump websites were convenient targets for russian operatives or whether they may have helped the russian operatives and not under attack. senator mark warner suggested repeatedly over the last few months that russia might have targeted its social media operation down to the precinct level, targeting the most vulnerable supporters intending t0 drive down the enthusiasm they may have to turn out and

vote for hillary clinton on election day. at a hearing in march senator warren said would the russians on their own have that sophisticated level of election knowledge if they didn't get the information from someone in america? the jury is still out on that. honestly what we know about this, we know that russians are very good at this. the best of their work is a military power. they do it all over the world. maybe they can do this all on their own. but yesterday, further reporting that investigators on both the house and senate intelligence committees and on special council robert mueller's team, they are looking into whether the trump campaign digital operation helped guide russia's sophisticated voter targeting and fake news attacks on hillary clinton in 2016.

now whether or not the russians needed american help, we can also tell you that someone who is in a position to know these things says the russians appear to have gotten help with this part of that attack. and ringing out like a bell from the piece yesterday was a quote from the man who, until this past january was the top official at the pentagon on russia. he tells, quote, there appears to have been significant cooperation between russia and individuals in the united states who were knowledgeable about where to target the disinformation. that's not an just observation from some yahoo reading the news. that's from the guy that was in charge of russia stuff at the pentagon while the russian attack on our election was happening. this is someone in a position to know. he joins us for the interview, next. that's cool. feeling good in slim fit?

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michael carpenter was deputy assistant secretary of defense for russia, ukraine and eurasia until this january. he's also the former director for russia at the national security council. now he's the senior director at the penn biden center for diplomacy and global engagement and michael carpenter joins us tonight for the interview. thank you for being with us tonight. nice to have you here. >> thanks for having me. >> first of all, pentagon titles are very long, particularly for

those of us who have never been in the military or inside that building. what does it mean to be the deputy assistant secretary of defense for russia, ukraine and eurasia. what were your responsibilities? >> it's a policy job for specific responsibility for russ russia, ukraine, the balkans, and my jobs included conventional arms control in addition to other responsibilities. >> so it's a policy job with a very broad swath of the world under your remit there. from that position, because of that experience, it has really struck me what you told mcclatchy for their recent reporting. you told them there appears to be significant cooperation between russia's online propaganda machine and individuals in the united states. what exactly did you mean by that and how do you, how do you

know enough to make that observation? >> well, rachel, in the course of my career at the state department, at the white house national security council but also at the pentagon, i saw a lot of russian disinformation campaigns, usually covert campaigns. i saw anytime georgia in 2008, in ukraine, in moldova, where a couple of weeks before our election there was both a cyberattack, there was a sophisticated disinformation campaign on social media and actually a plot to launch a coup d'etat and assassinate the sitting president. i've seen a number of things over the years. i understand what the russia m.o. is as far as these things go and how the russian intelligence services operate. in a sophisticated and big operation like the one that was conducted in the u.s. presidential election last year, it is clear to me that in addition to just relying on

bots, which essentially retweet share, repackage information that is already out there either on rt or russian tv propaganda sites essentially but also from info wars and brights part, there was some degree of tailored messaging. and you saw this in the quote that you ran from mark warner. in fact down to the precinct level targeting swing voters in certain midwestern states. in order to do that the russian intelligence services a, don't possess the internal capacity to be able to do that on their own in a very sophisticated way. b, it is their m.o. and i've seen this in a number of countries, to reach out and try to use political operatives in the united states in this case to help with both the message, both the content but also where to target it. >> russia has been doing this

all over the world, as you just described. it's what it considers to be its sphere of influence. it does this stuff. it is possible that they've just gotten so good at this over time and that our system is so open for anybody who wants to observe it. and our political system in particular is so picked over by political science and all of these open source things that they could have just become expert enough to do it on their own without any american confederates? >> well we know that russian intelligence cutouts for the gru, the russian intelligence military service, like the 2.0 persona, a gru agent, reached out to u.s. persons both inside the trump inner circle but also to a political operative in florida in order to elicit information and also to share information. it is inconceivable to me that the russian apparatus would not

have reached out to individuals in the u.s., maybe connected to the trump campaign or maybe outside of it in order to glean more information on how to target this information. it's just not credible for me to believe that they ran this from the gru headquarters in moscow. that doesn't make any sense. >> michael carpenter, i have a strange last question for you, which is are you busy this time tomorrow night? >> no, i'm not. >> would you please agree, right here in front of everybody, to come back. i can tell now talking to you about this, i'll have more questions for you about this because you're in a position to see a lot of this happen from a perspective that nobody else has. i would love to have you back here tomorrow evening to have a fuller conversation. >> great, thank you. >> great. thank you very much. michael carpenter will be back. he's the former deputy assistant secretary of state. boy do i have more stuff to ask him. i didn't -- yeah. much more ahead. stay with us.

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so we learned late tonight that the subject of one of the big stories in the ongoing investigation into the trump campaign's tie to russia reportedly committed suicide only ten days after being interviewed by the reporter who broke that story. peter smith was a republican activist who specialized in oppo research. he told "wall street journal" reporter shane harris that he launched a project late last summer to contact russian

government hackers to try to get derogatory information on hillary clinton that he believed those hackers might have hacked. mr. smith talked to the journal about this in may and ten days after that interview on may 14th he died at the age of 81 and we had known that before tonight. tonight the "chicago tribune" reported that peter smith's death was in fact a suicide in a hotel room near the mayo clinic near rochester, minnesota. he reportedly left behind a note that said no foul play whatsoever was involved in his death. the tribune cited a quote recent bad turn in health since january 2017 and timing related to life insurance as the reasons he stated for why he took his own life. now because this apparent suicide happened so close to the interview with "the wall street journal" that shane harris had with peter smith, we actually reached out to shane harris to get his reaction to this news and find out if he had any sense

this might be coming. shane harris told us tonight, quote, i had no indication when we spoke that he was either ill or contemplating taking his own life. as i said earlier in the show, the manner of an 81-year-old's death is normally personal and private. in this case because of his connection to this huge story, because he was the first american citizen we have on record admitting he was trying to work with russian operatives to affect the outcome of this election, there is significant public interest in the matter of his death and timing of it. obviously our condolences to mr. smith's family and my apologies this has to be the country's news tonight instead of just your families. we will be right back. ♪ ♪ where all the walls echo with laughter ♪ ♪ and every room has its own chapter ♪

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protect democracy. now this is from the very dry super bureaucratic opposite of electrifying application for a trademark from a new group in washington pledging to keep an eye on the trump white house. quote, monitoring investigating analyzing and reporting and challenging when appropriate the actions of the u.s. government and its officials to ensure compliance with the constitution, with the rule of law, and with small "d" democratic norms. trademark application. by late february, protect democracy was launched, staffed by a group of former obama administration lawyers. soon thereafter came their first projects. they tarted by flagging the possible issue of possiba red f

about the administration's handling of a merger between two insurance companies. not exactly the soul of sexy, but they're paying attention. and now the same group has just filed a lawsuit against the donald j. trump campaign for what is essentially the virtual mugging of three specific americans. this is a fascinating lawsuit. i mentioned it last night. i read it. i read the entire complaint today. and this is the best book i've ever read about what happened in the russian attack. it's -- this is a lawsuit that landed yesterday in federal court in d.c. we posted it on our website last night. if you have not checked it out yet, you should read it. each of these plaintiffs had their personal information from dnc records exposed on

wikileaks, including like really personal stuff, sexual or y orientation and social security numbers. each of these plaintiffs recounts suffering personal harm as a result of that exposure. they allege not just that they were harmed by russian government hackers stealing their information, the important part here is that they're alleging specifically that members of the trump campaign conspired with the russians to release the information that the russians had hacked. "defendants agreed with each other and with other parties, including russian government officials and wikileaks, to publicly disclose on the internet private e-mail communications stolen or hacked from the dnc for the purpose of influencing the election." this is a lawsuit not against russia but against the trump campaign for helping russia. which means this lawsuit, among other things, this is a carefully constructed lawsuit, this may end up being a new way,

a whole new avenue by which we might learn through the discovery process whether the trump campaign worked with russia deliberately on the part of the russian attack that was the hacking and the repurposing of all those e-mails and documents from the dnc. joining us now is walter dellinger, former acting solicitor general under president clinton. thank you very much for your time. >> thank you. >> i know that you are not personally involved in this lawsuit. i also know that you are an important and busy man. can i ask why you think this lawsuit is important? why you feel it's important to talk about it? >> well, you know, when you have something as unprecedented and audacious as a hostile foreign power's attempt to intrude into our election process, there are going to be lots of harm done, large ones like corrupting our democracy, but also individuals get harmed. while mr. mueller is looking at criminal offenses and congress

is looking for legislative insight, there's harm to individuals. and here you have what was essentially a break-in of the democratic party's computer system that targeted members of the finance team and exposed thousands of e-mails and countless private information of people who were not prominent public citizens. they were people, two donors and a mid-level staffer who worked in the finance part of the dnc, who had medical records, financial information, sexual orientation, social security numbers revealed to the world through thousands of e-mails. they thought a very serious suit brought by some serious and able lawyers, first arguing that under the district of columbia's law, this public revelation of private information, information that serves no legitimate public purpose, is a compensable tort under d.c. law.

and secondly, under the federal reconstruction era statutes, section 1985, designed to prevent intimidation of voters or participants in the political process. this wound up punishing people because they advocated for candidates or contributed to candidates or worked if a political campaign. and that is exactly what the reconstruction era statute was designed to prevent. so in that sense, it's a very serious lawsuit. >> and reading this not as a lawyer myself, it seems to me that the kind of premise of this claim, the premise of this lawsuit is that the trump campaign conspired and coordinated with the russians in releasing these e-mails and causing this harm to these plaintiffs. this is the subject of fierce investigation in congress and this special counsel. do these plaintiffs have to be able to prove that up front so they don't get thrown out of court? how does that get litigated?

>> no, they eventually will have to meet their burden of proof as plaintiffs, but there's plenty of information to allow them to go forward. you have the indisputable fact that there was a break-in to the computer system and the undisputable fact that private information was released for the whole world to see of these private citizens, that we know the russians and gucifer and wikileaks were involved in this. their argument is they believe the campaign and one individual were involved, and they have lots of meetings and information. now, of course, their case was strengthened this past weekend with the release of an e-mail showing that senior officials of the campaign were willing to discuss getting help from the russians. so they have, i think, a solid basis for going forward and seeking more information through the discovery process.

>> walter dellinger, thank you very much for helping us understand this, sir. i really did not get the voter intimidation part of this before you walked us through this. appreciate you being here tonight. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back. stay with us. i love you so much, that's why i bought six of you for when you stretch out. i want you to stay this bright blue forever, that's why you'll stay in this drawer forever. i can't live without you, and that's why i'll never ever wash you. protect your clothes from stretching, fading and fuzz with downy fabric conditioner.

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so he should have been with those first heroes. ha ha! that's better. so, to recap -- small business owners are heroes, and our heroes help heroes be heroes when they're not eating gyros delivered by -- ah, you know what i mean. programming note. if you frequently turn your television to this channel at 9:00 p.m. eastern, you might have seen this last friday. the great richard engel, nbc news chief foreign correspondent premiering his show, on assignment.

really good, including that incredible interview he did with the russian lawyer who survived the mysterious fall from the fourth floor window right before he was due to testify. he's about to do it again. this week he's doing it again but at a different time. you will still see me here tomorrow like normal at 9:00 p.m. eastern. richard engel on assignment will also air tomorrow, but it's going to be at 10:00 p.m. instead of at 9:00. richard is going to be in iraq doing his show live from iraq tomorrow. it is going to be excellent, but i didn't want you to be confused. now it's time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. >> good evening, rachel. thank you for giving me tomorrow night off. i just discovered that. no, i've been looking forward to richard's show all week. i think you know what i mean. >> we just had a little h.r. moment. >> i was riveted to the beginning of your show, especially when you were doing your dramatic reading of the

e-mails of marc kasowitz, provoked by your show last night. and i'm actually going to have to read some of them here too because there's some points i want to make about them later in the show. is that the reason he gave in his apology for doing such crazy things last night in those crazy e-mails was that it was 10:00 p.m. >> it was 10:00. >> i thought, wait a minute, that's my excuse. i own that. that explains everything i do. >> it only happened because it was 10:00 on a day that wasn't yet over. i was like you realize you're leading the legal team for the president of the united states in the biggest american political scandal ever. like 10:00 is not like nobody should be turning into a pumpkin at that point. you know what i'm saying? >> well, people have seen me turn into a pumpkin at 10:00, rachel. i have had my nights. but i'm going to try to hold it together just in honor of marc kasowitz.