tv The Rachel Maddow Show MSNBC March 5, 2018 6:00pm-7:00pm PST
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before i go, exciting news, the paper back version of my latest book "a colony in a nation" comes out tomorrow and there is a brand-new afterward about donald trump and his rhetoric of law and order, which given today's news looks more and more releva relevant. "the rachel maddow show" starts now. >> when do you find the time? by the way, i wrote a whole new afterward to my book. >> i'm running on empty. >> well done, my friend. >> thank you. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. happy monday. busy day today after a busy weekend of news, as well. jane mayor posted a huge story at the new yorker that's about christopher steele, the author of the trump russia dossier that led to so much controversy in the year or so since it was first published by buzz feed news. jane mayor has like a ga zzilli
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separate scoops including an intelligence memo that wasn't published by buzz feed because it was produced later after the election. that memo reportedly sites a russian government source basically bragging about the fact that the russian government was given veto power over who the new american secretary of state would be in the trump administration. there has been a lot of very good reporting in the last couple years how clhillary clinton's tenure as secretary of state so exercised and upset russian president vladimir putin their ultimate efforts to interfere in the u.s. presidential election was steered by putin's animosity towards clinton. after russia did what they can do to keep hillary clinton, former secretary of state from becoming president, jane mayor's reporting today suggest russia then felt empowered. they reportedly were somehow
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empowered to choice mer ose ame next secretary of state. they did not want mitt romney. that of course, in turn, implies that russia did want rex tillerson. who was the person we all ended up with. we'll talk in just a moment with jane mayor. she's here live and we'll talk with gardener harris this hour. he has his own scoop today on what rex 'till tillerson has be delivering since trump instilled him in that job for whatever reason. in addition to the whole sale disassembly of the u.s. state department, tillerson has taken in $120 million that congress basically forced on the state department to fight off russian incursions under tillerson's leadership, the state department spent precisely zero dollars of that $120 million appropriation on trying to fend off the
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russians. so again, we got gardener harris from "the times" and jane mayor from "the new yorker." in terms of other stories we're watching tonight, today brought a strange spectacle of another trump campaign advisor playing walking around in his bathroom i'm too nuts to be in real trouble card. it was sam, a trump advisor through august 2015. he's been talking to reporters every step of the way about his interactions with the special counsel robert mueller invest gages to say the mueller team asked him to do an interview. he then called reporters today to show them the subpoena he received. that subpoena requiring him to appear before the grand jury and produce documents with other members of the trump campaign
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including donald trump himself. after receiving that subpoena, he thought about that for awhile and then decided he would call more reporters including nbc's katy to katy tur live on the air. he thought about it and decided they wouldn't compile with the subpoena to hand over the record s. this is not like steve bannon being like i'm not going to talk to congress or hope hicks being like i'm not going to answer your question. this is not a committee of congress where democrats and congress has to agree to hold hands and vote. this is not a request for documents that sam says he'll defy. this is a grand jury subpoena in an on going criminal proceeding and robert mueller isn't just the special counsel. he's a prosecutor. so sam doesn't have the option to say no, i don't feel like responding but apparently he's going to try which probably will
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not end well. after speaking about this today to katy tur in what was remarkable and weird tv, he then stayed on tv all day long today talking about this decision of his and asking various interviewers if he would go to jail. it was a weird spectacle and he did capture the news cycle and we'll have more about the claims he made about president trump that are now basically everyone saying do we have to chase this down when it came from that guy? should we see this is a credible allegation? we're day to day today. ist beenit's been a remarkably few days of newsit's been a rem days of newst's been a remarkab days of news when it comes to following the money with the president, his senior staff and family and these are serious corruption allegations. there have been a bunch of them.
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first take carl icahn, an actual billionaire and legendary investor. when he first got in trouble thanks to his role in the white house, i asked the research folks on the staff of this show to check to see if trump ever mentioned carl icahn by name and producers said are you serious? how much of it do you want? do you want us to keep going? we could go on indefinitely but here is a starter. >> we have the greatest business people in the world, i have so many people endorsing me. carl chi aicahn. these are great, natural, natural. carl icahn. >> we got carl icahn. carl icahn. carl icahn. carl icahn. carl ica carl icahn. i have carl icahn. >> and mexico is going to pay for him. candidate trump loved talking
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about carl icahn on the campaign trail and that's because carl icahn is a famous rich person and investor. once president trump won the election, he then named mr. icon to be a special advisor to the president on regulatory reform. you see that title in the headline of the press release. that title did not last long. carl icahn would claim that that press release never had been issued. he never had been given that title. when it emerged that these regulations he had been advising the president about were regulations where he personally had hundreds of millions of dollars riding on the white house decision on those matters. that caused him to leave the white house and pretend like he had never been there in the first place. well, now center for american progress and "the washington post" say once again carl icahn appears to be financially inbred with the trump white house. two weeks ago, mr. icon apparently had the foresight to sell off more than $30 million
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of stock that he had just been sitting on for years. was millions of shares of stock in a company whose stock price would definitely tank if the u.s. government announced tariffs on steel. well, a few days after carl icahn made that dramatic move and sold those 30 million dollars worth of shares, just a few days later, bingo, trump announced tariffs on steel and everyone invested and took a bath exempt for carl icahn. >> carl icahn. carl, carl icahn. carl icahn. >> carl, carl. he did fine. the last time carl icahn was reported to have used his access to the white house to gain market investments, the new york attorney general's office said his behavior was quote on our radar. well, in the reporting on these latest circumstances, so far carl icahn is admitting that he has been in communications with the quite house since he left
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his job, which he doesn't want anybody to remember he had. he's not said anything specific about whether his sudden urge to sell that steel related stock had anything to do with the on going white house communications but that is potentially a very serious fall of the money story on carl icahn. there is also a little more fall of the money news about the president's alleged relationship with an adult film star that goes by the name stormy daniels and a payment made to her intended to buy her silence about the alleged affair she said she had with donald trump. the "wall street journal" has interesting reporting on the side of who made that payment to stormy daniels before the election. the journal today is reporting that michael cohen, president trump's personal lawyer complained that deal with stormy daniels had been delayed at least a couple times because he said he couldn't easily reach trump himself in the last days before the election. that implies trump was personally involved in that
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deal. cohen reportedly complained to friends that he hadn't been reimbursed for the money he put out to pay stormy daniels. reimbursed by whom? we don't know. the journal also reporting that michael cohen's bank flagged that payment as suspicious and reported it to the financial crime section. more intriguing to me is the report in the washington post about stormy daniels and that money but the post reports is about the vooefireceiving side report there is a red flag raised way after the payment was made to stormy daniels. so this was a payment made by michael co-hhen, stormy daniel' lawyer received the $130,000 payment for her 12 days before the election in october 2016 and apparently, there was no problem
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with that bank receiving that money intended for stormy daniels in october of 2016 but then nearly a year later, in september of 2017 this past fall that bank started asking questions about that payment they received for stormy daniels. that bank, the one that received the money reportedly contacted stormy daniels' lawyer and asked them about the source of those funds, where did that $130,000 come from that you got right before the election? now, that's intriguing. because it implies that something sparked the interest of that bank in california, sparked concern by that bank in california 11 months after the transaction. why did they need to go back 11 months? why did they need new background information on that payment that hadn't raised any issues for them when they received it? if they were asking about that
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payment 11 months after the fact because 11 months after the fact they received a subpoena about it or a request for information from regulators or got sole other request from law enforcement, the bank could likely not say that out loud. they couldn't talk about it. but something happened 11 months after that money went to stormy daniels that made the bank that received the funds for her start asking and now that's the other shoe we're waiting to drop. however titillating the alleged affair between trump and stormy daniels is, i'm sorry i said titillating, sorry. who paid this woman to be quiet about it right before the election is potentially a serious criminal matter and it now looks like that's a matter being investigated by someone other than really good reporters. so really interesting and troubling carl icahn follow the money story, interesting and increasingly intriguing follow
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the money story about the stormy daniels payment and when it comes to following the money, there are now official ly a million and 8 stories out there about potential corruption allegations that center on the presidential son-in-law jared kushner and his family real estate company. after "new york times" reporting last week about the kushner real estate company receiving a half billion in loans from two companies last year shortly after executives from those companies met with jared, the associated press followed up with the news after one of those firms, after they paid that $184 million loan to jared's family company, the sec dropped an on going investigation of that same firm. now those two things may have no connection at all. right? but we can't know that if high-ranking government officials are meeting in the
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white house with people who are also giving them money in a business capacity. there is jared kushner meeting with this firm then the firm giving his family business $184 million, then the sec drops the investigation into that firm. maybe all of those things are totally unconnected but how are we supposed to know? we never should have to ask these questions because ethics rules should prevent those from happening inside the u.s. government. same goes for the trump administration taking a bewilderingly hard-line stance against the nation of qatar a few months ago. turns out that was right after officials from qatar had a meeting with jared's dad in april of last year. in that meeting they turned down his request for a big multi gazillion qatarry investment natural is statin
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the real estate. we don't know if qatar turning down the request for money for their business, we don't know if those two thing restlatlated bu that's not why you work on policy when you and your family are trying to do business with entities affected by u.s. government policy. that's why we have ethics laws that are supposed to prevent people like jared kushner from having a job lake he has and same goes for the newly reported interest by the special counsel robert mueller and trump administration policy toward not just qatar but also the united arab of emirates and turkey and china and russia. mueller reportedly looking into whether policy toward any of those countries was at all inflected by jared's contemporaneous discussions with officials and businesses in those countries about investing in his family business. so it's a lot but basically we're reaping a bumper harvest
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of follow the money stories about various scandals and corruption allegations afliwith white house and the porn star and jared kushner stripped of security clearances and drowning in corruption of foreign countries and his dad. and then, there is jane mayor. jane mayor is a national treasurer that is a reporter. jane mayer does national security and politics and the intersection between national security and politics better than anyone. go back and read her iran contra book if you want to know how long she's been this good at this and has an incredible track record of turning up new information other people have never been able to get. so even though the russia investigation and christopher steele dossier and christopher steele himself are really well trout ground, when jane mayor
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does that story, she turns up totally new stuff and not one or two things but a bunch of things. here is a few of the embedded scoops from jane mayor's now reporting. number one is the secretary of state issue. jane mayor reports that christopher steele author of the controversial trump russia dossier, she met, and cause mex, he met with the special counsel's office this past september in 2017. quote, one subject that steel is believed to have discussed with mueller's investigators is a memo he wrote in late november 2016 after his contract with fusion had ended. this memo, which did not surface publicly with the others, when buzz feed published the dossier last january, this is shorter than the rest and it's based on one source described as a sen yr russi -- senior russian official and talks circulating the russian ministry of foreign affairs but
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what he heard was astonishing. people were saying the kremlin intervened to block trump's choice for secretary of state. he was notably hawkish on russia calling it the single greatest threat to the u.s. steel's memo said the kremlin through unspecified channels had asked trump to appoint someone who would be prepared to lift ukraine related sanctions and who would cooperate on security issues of interest to russia. if what the source heard was true that a foreign power was exercising pivotal influence over policy and an incoming president. the quote on december 18th, 2016, the secretary of state job, it was a surprise to most and a happy one. tillerson's business ties were long-standing in 2011 he brokered a historic partnership between exxonmobil and the state-owned russian giant. after the election, congress
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imposed additional sanctions on russia and retaliation for the election interference but trump and tillerson have resisted enacting those additional sanctions. it's interesting, this bombshell from jane mayor today is treated like a mitt romney story but more than that it is a story who the secretary of state ended up being. i mean, if this memo was correct, and russia did get veto authority to say no to mitt romney getting that job, presumably that means they did say yes to the guy that got that job to put a spotlight on that man. if the russians were so siked to get you there, what did they like about you so much and are they happy about the purchase and are there receipts? second revelation, brand-new revelation from jane mayer. she's got a lot of detail about the past relationship with
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christopher steele and the f birksbi on corruption and international soccer. his work on an international gambling and money laundering ring that led back to an apartment in trump tower of all places. there is new news about the clinton campaign having a vague idea what christopher steele was doing about him not knowing for months that his own work was being paid for by the democratic party. there is an interesting detail about the fact the clinton campaign never knew that christopher steele had taken his material to the fbi. we talked with jane mayer about all of that. there is also this great revelation about why this particular guy was so well positioned to do this research beyond the fact he had been the top russia guy for mi 6. the kremlin was interfering in western elections. in april 2016 not long before he took on the fusion assignment, he finished a secret
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investigation he called project russian interference in france, italy, the u.k. germany and turkey. the report chronicles persistent political interference by the kremlin, social media war fair also ocho pepaque financial supn the form of bank loans, gifts and support. the report discusses the kremlin's entan entanglement an french right-wing leader. it suggests that russian aid was given to lesser known right wing nationalist in the u.k. and elsewhere. the kremlin's long-term aim was to boost extremist groups at the expense of democracies and destroy the e.u. to end the punishing economic sanctions that the e.u. and the u.s. imposed on russia after the p l political interference in ukraine. the reports language and many
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details to anybody closely watching russia, it was the equivalent. it warned it was more strategic and disruptive and check out the killer wrote. it cautioned was only likely to grow in size and reach over time. yeah, how about reaching across the atlantic? that's the work that christopher steele was wrapping up in the spring of 2016. he produce that report documenting russian interference and foreign elections and saying its about to spread and get bigger. he finished in april 2016. that's when fusion gps said hey, do you want to do a look into the russian president and u.s.? yes, yes, he did want to do that, perfectly positioned to do that. and then there is the part about the death that robert mueller is reportedly investigating in
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about seven weeks ago diane feinstein surprised everyone when she basically threw up her hands and said what the heck and made an individual decision she would release a transcript of ten hours of senate testimony from gps glenn simpson. that decision led to all sorts of congressional fighting about all sorts of things substantive and otherwise but there was a shock factor that day that the transcript was released. a shock factor from one quick line very late in the day in simpson simpson's testimony a. line uttered by his lawyer. quote, question, talked about evaluating the credibility of the information you're being provided by mr. steele and talked about your belief he was credible. did you take any steps to asses
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the credibility? answer by mr. simpson. i'm not going to get into sourcing information. without getting into naming the sources or anything like that, what steps did you take to verify? i'm going to decline to answer that question. question, why? answer, not by glen simpson, answer by simpson's lawyer, quote, this is a voluntary interview and in addition to that he wants to be careful to protect his sources. somebody has been killed already as a result of the publication of this dossier and no harm should come to anybody related to this honest work. somebody has been killed, that was nine hours into ten hours of testimony from august. that was the transcript that was released to the public in january thanks to diane feinste feinstein. here is jane mayer tonight at the new yorker, quote, in russia there were rumors of a preliminajustice
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taken place. his lawyer asserted somebody has been killed as a result of the publication of this dossier. mayer continues. who that could be has been the subject of much media speculation. one possibility that has been mentioned is oleg erovinkin. on december 26th, 2016 in fact erovinkin was found dead in his car. no official cause of death has been sited by jane mayer continues, no evidence has emerged that oleg erovinkin was a source for christopher steele and mueller is believed to be investigating a different death that is possibly related to the dossier. a different death. jane mayer, you're making me crazy. joining us now is jane mayer from the new yorker magazine. jane, congratulations on this scoop. it is killing me. >> thank you so much. great to be with you. >> so i have a few different --
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there is obviously a lot here, a lot of new material and a lot of stuff nobody else reported and i want to ask you about it. let me start with the reporting about the memo from steel the ar his fusion gps contract ended. it was produced in late november after the election in 2016 and it was based on a russian source suggesting that the kremlin had had a hand in casting the u.s. secretary of state for the trump administration. what else can you tell us about that reporting and it's credibility? >> well, you know, it's hard to evaluate. it's only based on one source. it's a shorter memo than most of the steele memos that created the dossier but one of the things, it mean, on its face it seems fantastic that something like this could be true and a foreign power would intervene with an elected president by then which trump was and shape
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the foreign policy of our country but one of the things that seems suspicious and kind of backs it up to some extent is that the circumstances of what happened with romney which was this very long prolonged process of him being interviewed for secretary of state. it seemed to go on and on. it was humiliating. he was sort of dragged through dinners and the limelight and interviews and it was just odd and then in the end of it, trump decided not to pick him and very quickly and as a big surprise turned to tillerson instead. so i mean, you know, hard to know. i mean, one of the things that i think we're going to find with much of what's in the steele dossier, it's looking better and better every day, more and more credible but it's going to take somebody like mueller with subpoena power to nail down a lot of the things you need to
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know. somebody who can take a look at all kinds of other kinds of intelligence and so that's what it's probably going to take. >> and you do have reporting on some potential new territory for the mueller investigation if in fact, as you report, he's looking at a death that is related to the dossier that isn't the much discussed aid to igor session that turned out dead a month after the election. can you tell us anything further about that? >> one of the things i thought was really interesting point that was made by a former very top cia official who i interviewed said this is fake news. he said fake news doesn't produce real deaths. there were real repercussions from this dossier.
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quite a few other things that happened to personal to sources that may have been steel sources in russia. >> does that explain some of the state of mind that describes steele feeling potentially that his life may have been in danger or he needed to take stretcheps protect himself? >> it explains why he's so careful about not speaking. his lawyers have told him not to talk to the press and he's had to be very, very careful about his life, his family's life but also about his sources. i mean, these are people he's worked with for many years. this is -- they didn't just come out of the wood work for this one task which was to do this investigation of trump. these are people who have worked with him for all kinds of assignments on many other cases, as well. and interestingly, they are -- his sources and subsources, many
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were known to the fbi because steele worked with the fbi over the years on a number of cases and the fbi had a lot of confidence in him and in these sources, his network. >> jane, if you don't mind sticking around, there is one other matter i'm desperate to ask you about and something i've been wondering about since the clinton campaign was paying for steel's steele's investigation. why didn't they use this? you got good reporting. mind to stick with us? >> i'll be happy to. >> be right back. what would our founding fathers
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want us to do about this president? i'm tom steyer, and when those patriots wrote the constitution here in philadelphia, they created the commander in chief to protect us from enemy attack the justice department just indicted 13 russians for an electronic attack on america. so what did this president do? nothing. he's failed his most important responsibility - to protect our country. the question is: why is he still president?
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joining us once again is jane mayer, the writer behind this staggering piece of reporting based behind christopher steele. thank you for sticking around. as i mentioned before the break, i wanted to ask you about the clinton campaign. you have a lot of new information about christopher steele and the fbi influcludinge fact the clinton campaign didn't know steele had taken his reporting to the fbi. there is a remarkable moment when a top clinton official says if i had known the fbi was investigating trump, i would have been shouting it from the rooftops. this was such a mystery when i found they were paying fusion paying steele to do this work and presumably owned his work
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product. why didn't they know? >> it was staggering. it's the opposite of the conspiracy theory that devin nunes and chuck grassly have been pushing. you have the campaign paying for steele's research but steele went to the fbi and didn't tell then about that and as it blossomed into a huge investigation at the fbi, the whole thing was kept secret. so the campaign, they may have gotten word through the grapevine that he had gone to the fbi in the very beginning but they had no idea there was a parallel investigation of trump going on during the summer when the campaign was being beaten up about the fbi investigation. john pa decembdidn't know and t campaign manager. it's kind of amazing that they
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didn't know but they didn't. >> and the president and vice president, president obama and vice president biden weren't briefed fully by the fbi until early january well after the election. is the implication of your reporting they did not know there was an opener counter intelligence investigation into trump and his campaign and had been for months? >> people in the oval office meeting in january, you know, way after the election said that it was chilling and that the president and vice president had no idea of the extent of the charges of collusion and had no idea about the dossier until james comey, the fbi director briefed them on it. it was starting because they were making a big effort to not politicize everything and stay out of the fbi's business which is what they are supposed to be doing. they were playing by the old rules. >> exactexactly. the idea of biden and obama
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learning it as they are well into the transition for this new president who will be sworn in. just remarkable stuff. jane mayer, staff writer for the new yorker. thank you for being here. >> thanks. >> much more ahead tonight including yet another twist in the story that captivated much of the cable news today turns out that guy says he wasn't drunk but he has changed his mind again just in the last few minutes. that's next. you wouldn't accept an incomplete job from any one else. why accept it from your allergy pills?
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powerful skincare,s now light-as-air a breakthrough moisturizer whipped for instant absorption feel a light-as-air finish in a flash new olay whips ageless so much can happen in a hurry. here is sam last month giving robert mueller's team when amounted to a great review on yelp. >> what i would say one is the taxpayer is getting their money's worth. they were highly professional. they -- >> talking about mueller's investigators. >> they didn't call me in just a check a box. everything they asked me was backed up.
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i don't want to get into it and give away the investigation but it wasn't a waste of my time or their time. i was happy to cooperate with them as i told you on this show. >> it sounds like -- >> they are very talented. >> happy to cooperate, very talented. reserve your table early. that was then. this is today. >> are you worried about getting arrested? >> i think it would be funny if they arrested me. >> are you ready to go to jail? >> i'm not going to go to jail. >> they aren't going to send me to jail. you know what, mr. mueller if he wants to send me to jail, he can send me to jail and i'll laugh about it and make a bigger spectacle than i am on your tv show now. >> how do you judge the size of a spectacle? happened between happy to cooperate there and let them come and get me, it will be funny. what happened is sam got searchsearcrved with a subpoena demanding that he hand over documents, text
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messages, telegrams, magnetic tape, e-mails, everything dating back to november 2015 and there was a list of ten separate members of the trump campaign including the president whose c communications the special counsel wanted to see. he's been told directed by the subpoena that he should appear before the grand jury this week on friday but then all day long today and into tonight sam has been unraveling in slow motion on national television doing interview after interview, after interview brandishing the subpoena he got. at times he seemed unhinged. reporters openly speculated he might have been day drinking. he denies that. another theory is this is weird tru trump-like political p.r. stunt i don't get now but that her th.
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he did make serious allegations in his weird way but he said he thinks the special counsel quote may have something on the president. he says the president may have done something during the election. he said steve bannon agrees with him that trump may have done something during the election and said in his interview they seem particularly interested in the way trump runs his business. so i mean, how seriously do you take this guy? sam broke new ground today gob smacking, circuit frying but tonight he says after all those interviews, he says he'll probably end up cooperating with the subpoena after hours and hours and hours of interviews saying he wouldn't cooperate, i will not compile, now he says maybe i'll compile. by morning, who knows.
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check in. for the non-stop nuttiness today if mr. nunburg does decide he'll ignore the subpoena. it's a serious matter and he may end up getting arrested sooner rather than later if he chooses to defy the subpoena. the only thing i'd say to watch for, whatever you thing of sam nunberg himself, if somebody gets arrested resisting mueller and his subpoenas that, who knows what that will kick off among others involved in this story. watch this space. i was really surprised that i wasn't finding all of these germans in my tree. i decided to have my dna tested through ancestry dna. the big surprise was we're not german at all. 52% of my dna comes from scotland and ireland. so, i traded in my lederhosen for a kilt. ancestry has many paths to discovering your story. get started for free at ancestry.com.
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one of the biggest bombshells from jane mayers piece in the new yorker is a piece that surfaced from the christopher steele dossier. reporting from one of steele's sources that the kremlin had intervened to block the president's choice for secretary of state, mitt romney. when rex tillerson was chosen that made them so happy. if there's one thing that vladimir putin doesn't like it's an assertive state department that will levy and implement sanctions against russia for its foreign policy and military adventurism. having an understanding soul in a secretary of state would mean
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much less of that for putin to deal with. under rex tillerson's leadership there's been an unprecedented parade of senior talent leading the building. there's also been slow walking of sanctions against russia. and something else, in 2016 as part of the defense bill that president obama signed, under rex tillerson the state department never collected the money for that program. one source saying that tillerson aide said that money is unwelcome because any extra funding for programs to counter russian media influence would anger moscow. can't have that. today they're still reporting that they haven't collected that money for this year either it's $120 million sitting there. not one of the 23 analysts
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working in the department's global engagement center which has been tasks with russia's meddling campaign, and not one of them speaks russia. here's the state department saying here are the tools and the money to do it, and they have responded by no thanks for over a year. is this normal? joining us now is gardner harris. mr. gardner congratulations on this scoop. thanks for joining us to talk about it. >> glad to be here rachel. >> i'm not well versed in interagency fighting around the foreign service and the pentagon and broader issues within the state department. is it possible this is a normal policy dispute where this money's just been hung up because of normal bickering or is this something that is quite strange? >> it's a little hard to believe
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that there is normal bickering going on. the one thing we know about the trump administration is that tillerson, the secretary of state, and mattis, the defense secretary are very close. mattis actually lives across the street from the state department, he and tillerson get together once a week for breakfast we've been told they constantly coordinate what they're going to say at the white house. they like each other, respect each other. so the idea that rex tillerson has wanted to get money out of the pentagon and the pentagon has not been willing to give it for more than a year just strains a little bit of credulity. because one would imagine in one of those breakfast meetings if tillerson said hey, would love to get some of this money to counter this russia propaganda effort that mattis would
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probably say yes. of course, what happened is tillerson is isn't get around to asking for the money that resides at the pentagon in this complicated way that it was authorized by congress. he didn't get around to asking for it until the last few days of the 2017 fiscal year. so he lost his chance for the first 60 million. and since then the pentagon and state department have been diggering over how the state department would spend this money. and that negotiation continues to this day. the state department told me they expect to get $40 million, they didn't even ask for the full 60 million. they expect to get $40 million sometime in april but a top pentagon official said in testimony on wednesday that a lot of discussion has yet to go. so will the state department get this money? when will it get this money?
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we still don't know. and i'm not talking about some other moneys they got in a counter isis supplemental. there's another $20 million they haven't spent. the remarkable thing is that the state department and the trump administration at large, as you've talked about, have really done almost nothing to counter russian meddling in the 2018 midterm elections, and also russian meddling in elections across the west. remember, there's a whole series of elections going on in eastern europe and in central europe over this next year that the russians, we know, are worried about. >> gardner harris, reporter from the "new york times." thank you for talking to me about this. this is something i have an a lot of interest in and very little knowledge on it. i'd be happy if you come back and talk to us about this again in the future. >> would love to, rachel.
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>> good. stay with us. ♪ we the people... are defined by the things we share. and the ones we love. who never stop wondering what we'll do or where we'll go next. we the people who are better together than we are alone... are unstoppable. welcome to the entirely new expedition. ethat's the height ofs mount everest. because each day she chooses to take the stairs. at work, at home... even on the escalator. that can be hard on her lower body,
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