tv The Rachel Maddow Show MSNBC March 27, 2018 6:00pm-7:00pm PDT
6:00 pm
ar-15s on the street. it's not either or. >> anna, do you see part of the job of move on others as thinking of an alternative world. >> the students are thinking of save our lives. that's the north star. that's the challenge they are putting out and the role of organizations, institutions, groups out there to support the organizing energy the students are calling forth is to help find imaginative ways that we need. one of the important things to understand is it's not enough to say no in this era from the trump administration, from the nra and others. we have to talk about what we want to see. we want to see a country that's safe for everyone. >> lauren tried -- >> sorry,, i have to go. >> okay. >> i have to hand the show over
6:01 pm
to rachel. that is "all in" for this evening. "the rachel maddow show" starts now. good evening. >> much appreciated. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. we have just learned where the president is tonight. we had known the president was going to a dinner at a private home tonight somewhere in the d.c. area. he hasn't done all that many of these since becoming president. when he leaves the white house, he goes to one of his private properties somewhere of his d.c. hotel for example but the white house today emphasized that the president would be leaving the white house to go to a dinner with supporters. he's done a couple of these in the last two weeks. the white house went out of its way to say this is not a fundraising dinner so. so we've been wondering where he would be. the dinner is at the home of
6:02 pm
cecchi. he's described as a trump loyalest. but just because history is a dog that not only chases its tail, it catches it and bites hard, "the new york times" further reports tonight hopefully that cecchi at one point was known as the condo king of washington. among his most famous achievements in business is he was the developer of the watergate complex. yes, that watergate complex. the president holding a private dinner tonight with the guy who built watergate. you can see the president's dinner host here at work on the future watergate building. that's the tale in the news tonight biting on to it is something else in the news at this hour. i think we should have expected
6:03 pm
this to happen at some point. i don't know why it happened today but i'm curious about it and we have to go to watergate to make sense of what is happening tonight. this was the front page of the "new york times" on sunday, october 21th, 1973. you see the big banner headline there across all eight coal llu of the front page. three big lines of capital letters, so much happening that the freaking headline had not one but two semi collins in the headline. quote, nixon discharges cox for defianc defiance. richardson out. this was, of course, the sunday morning after the saturday night massacre and we've all memoirizmemoir
6:04 pm
i -- memorize what had happened. nixon freaked out and ordered that the watergate special prosecutor should be fired. he told the attorney general to fire the special prosecutor. the attorney general said no and resigned. that's him on the left side of your screen. then with the attorney general out of the way, nixon went onto the next man in the line of succession, the deputy attorney general on the right side of your screen, he said he would not carry out the president's order to fire the watergate special prosecutor and he, too, resigned as deputy attorney general so then the president had to keep chewing his way through the upper ranks of the justice department until he found the guy who was the third down the line of succession and he agreed to do it. the general said he would fire the prosecutor. this was in washington that saturday night, by the next morning it was earning double c
6:05 pm
hair was on fire about nixon's behavior and after the saturday night massacre politically he never recovered. but you know, that did not happen by happenstance. they ordered to fire the watergate prosecutor. they did that. they said no sir, i will resign instead. they did that because somebody thought ahead. go back to the big front page again. big headline, summing up the big news across the top of the page but then look a little bit further down the page. look at this article. this is the article that explains the third line of the big headline. it explains why the attorney general, richardson said no, mr. president, you're going to order me to fire him in the protest,
6:06 pm
you see the subheadline, the explanation, attorney general says he couldn't oust prosecutor sites vow. he could not carry out president nixon's order to discharge the watergate prosecutor in light of the pledge to provide mr. cox with full authority to contest claims of executive privilege. during his confirmation hearings, mr. richardson promised the prosecutor would have unimpeded authority to subpoena from any source including the president himself. elliott richardson insisted hec and he promised the special proos c prosecutor would not be dismissed except for
6:07 pm
improprieties on his part. if there wasn't special improprieties on his part, he wouldn't fire the guy. he was nominated to be attorney general in the middle of the water skate scandal. the previous attorney general ended up going to prison on perjury and b ocobstruction of justice charges on the same day he ousted john dean and john all of whom would go to prison for waterga watergate. so when those guys were being pushed out and trying to bring in a new attorney general, comes time for the senate to confirm the new attorney general in the watergate scandal and they were thinking ahead there might be a problem in the nixon administration. they obtained that promise from him under oath as part of his confirmation proceedings. he promised he would not fire the watergate special prosecutor unless there were extraordinary
6:08 pm
improprieties on the part of that prosecutor. they got that promise from the attorney general. when the new deputy general was nominated, he, too, promised he would not fire the watergate special prosecutor unless there were extraordinary i'm propr improprieties. dude, subpoena the white house tapes, which is pushing but not extraordina extraordinary important pryty. the attorney general said no, it was only earlier that year he promised he wouldn't fire the guy except in extraordinary circumstances.
6:09 pm
he basically was able to tell the president, listen, i made a public promise i wouldn't do what you're asking me to do so i won't do it. i'll resign instead and the deputy attorney general had to say the same thing, i maeb made -- made a public promise i wouldn't do that. you're telling me to fire the guy, i made a public promise i wouldn't do that so i'll quit, too. that's why the saturday night massacre happened the way it did. it wasn't just the goodness of their heart and stoic virtue, at least it wasn't that alone. it was key, it the instrumental. they made a promise publicly because somebody thought ahead to ask them to make that promise before push came to shove.
6:10 pm
so because we have that history, i think we should have expected this to happen at some point but tonight it hasn't. nine democrats wrote to protect the prosecutor back in 1973. the person at the justice department who oversees the mueller investigation is, of course, rod rosenstein. he's made this kind of public commitmen commitment. >> if you were ordered today to fire mr. mueller, what would you do? >> i would follow the regulation. if there were good cause, i would act, if there were no good cause, i would not. >> if there were no good cause, i would not act.
6:11 pm
i would not follow that order. rod rosenstein has made this public commitment but he will not fire robert mueller unless there is good cause to do so. well, if the president fires rod rosenste rosenstein, though, the line of succession would go from him to the assistant attorney general for the office of legal counsel and then to the head of the national security division at the justice department and then it would go to two specific u.s. attorneys, first, the u.s. attorney in the eastern district of north carolina who is bobby higdon and aaron cox, no relation sh arto archer cox, alh i should check. these nine senators wrote to the saturday night massacre. in this case it's written to all five below rosenstein,
6:12 pm
francisco, higdon, cox. we have significant concerns he could order the authority to interfere with the probe or shut it down. you fall in the line of succession at the department of justice if the deputy attorney general were resigned or removed. we request you provide a written and publicment m meddling. as such, we ask that you publ publicly commit to refuse any order or request expressed or implied to interfere in the investigation including but not limited to firing mr. mueller, cutting off funding or resources, limiting staffing or inhibiting his ability to follow
6:13 pm
the facts wherever they may lead. so again, that letter is being sent out tonight from democrats on the senate judiciary committee and they are saying they want a response right away. so far there is no word prom the -- from these five officials whether they will make that kind of promise. it is worth noting that the man above the doj in the oversight position now, rod rosenstein made that promise so it wouldn't be weird if other officials followed in his footsteps and did so, as well. we'll have to wait over the next few days to see if they think they ought to make this kind of promise. very interesting. imagine being in their shoes right now knowing the history and the way the president talked about special counsel and railed against the attorney general for recruiting himself and against rod rosenstein and the way he railed against mueller, knowing the history of the saturday night massacre, knowing how richardson is viewed in history
6:14 pm
versus how robert boric is viewed in history because he said yeah, i'll fire him. imagine being a justice department official facing that letter. should i make the promise? other thing i'm curious about is why senators pefelt compelled t send these letters requesting this promise. i am interested in that particularly because only about 90 minutes before this letter went out tonight, we also out of the blue got this. right before that letter to all these justice department officials, we also unexpectedly got this joint bipartisan statement from delaware democratic senator chris cand thom tillis that released this tonight. quote, we've heard from constituents and independents that agree robert mueller should be able to conduct his
6:15 pm
investigation without interference. this should not be a partisan issue. we introduce the special counsel integrity act because we believe the american people should have confidence in the department of justice's ability to conduct independent investigation and commitment to the rule of law. we urge president trump to allow the special counsel to complete work without impediment, which is in the best interest of the american people, the president and our nation. okay. good to know. that special counsel integrity act they referenced there is in fact bipartisan regulation sha chris introduced to protect the mueller investigation itself in case the president tries to kill it off. that's not gone anywhere because republican leadership has not led it. maybe this unexpected joint statement tonight from these two senators is just an effort to put a new spotlight on their old bill that still is kicking around and hasn't been acted on. but i'm curious why now? why tonight?
6:16 pm
and why less than two hours later did we get this we need some promises here letter going out to the whole line of succession at the justice department. i don't know why both of those things happened tonight but i'm about to get to ask somebody who should probably know. joining us now is senator richard blumenthal who signed that letter calling for justice department officials to commit they won't interfere in the special counsel's investigation and he also co-wrote an op ed for slate tonight that calls out parallels for 1973 that does feel like quite a curtain opener. thank you for being with us tonight. >> thank you, rachel. >> i'm not suspicious but i'm curious as to why now, why you and these other eight senators on the committee have sought
6:17 pm
these assurances from the justice department tonight, particularly given that we saw this interesting statement tonight from senator kuns and 't tillis. >> the reason i wrote is for swirling concerns but more and more concerning that the president may attempt to fire bob mueller. he tried it last june. and he stopped only because his white house counsel threatened to resign. now his legal team is dissgoing the departure of one of his lawyers and his tweets are erratic and extreme but most fundamentally is the fact that the investigation is coming closer and closer to donald
6:18 pm
trump himself. he may well be interviewed shortly. there are three guilty pleas of witnesses potentially against him with very relevant and important information that could incriminate him. there is a credible case of obstruction of justice right now against the president of the united states and that case becomes more and more compelling every day. in fact, the president's actions themselves are creating that case unfolding in realtime right before us. so this letter with congress now out of town and therefore unavailable to take action is meant to send a warning but also to elicit the commitment of these five officials who are in line of succession to rod rosenstein they will not fire bob mueller or interfere in the investigation by limiting staffing, cutting resources, constraining in any way his way to follow the facts and law.
6:19 pm
>> i'm struck by the fact department attorney general rod rosenstein has given that public assurance more or less. he's told congress on several different occasions that he will strictly follow the special counsel regulations that he would not follow in order to fire bob mueller if there weren't good cause for that order to have been issued. given the fact he's already made public assurances related to this matter, has the justice department or any individual justice department officials who you have approached, have they given you any indication whether they would see it as appropriate or inappropriate whether they plan to address your concerns through any public statements? >> they have given no indication whatsoever, which is also a reason for alarm because it is very uncomplicated. there is nothing particularly elaborate or challenging about
6:20 pm
adhering to the recaule of law i'm alarmed by the republican leadership blocking bills. there is strong bipartisan support for the bills i introduced as well as senator 'til li tillis, graham, republican of south carolina and so i think that there ought to be a hearing and in fact there should be votes to allow us to vote for it and dispel concern there may be that we will be too late and the president will have acted and we'll have this constitutional integration unnecessarily but the pledge from these five officials to rod rosenstein are very, very important and given no indication what they will do. >> senator richard bloomen that
6:21 pm
will of connecticut, thank you for helping us understand. much appreciated. >> thank you. >> we've got lots more to get to. it's been a busy news day and a busy news night. stay with us. y nice. now i'm turning into my dad. i text in full sentences. i refer to every child as chief. this hat was free. what am i supposed to do, not wear it? next thing you know, i'm telling strangers defense wins championships. -well, it does. -right? why is the door open? are we trying to air condition the whole neighborhood? at least i bundled home and auto on an internet website, progressive.com. progressive can't save you from becoming your parents, but we can save you money when you bundle home and auto. i mean, why would i replace this? it's not broken. hello. let's go for a ride on a
6:22 pm
peloton. let's go grab a couple thousand friends and chase each other up a hill. let's go make a personal best, then beat it with your personal better than best. let's go bring the world's best instructors right to you. better yet, let's go bring the entire new york studio - live. let's go anytime, anywhere, with anyone who's willing. and let's go do it all right here. ready to go? peloton.
6:23 pm
6:25 pm
the person that ran the census, he says quote, it would be a horrendous problem for the census burro and create controversies. the guy who ran the census under richard nixon and ford and carter says adding this question would be quote beyond comprehension at this point, it would be really bad. four former census directors told the supreme court in a legal filing, if this particular question was added to the census, the sum effect would be bad census data. and yet, the trump administration is going ahead and doing it. they announced they are adding a citizen ship question to the next census, which is 2020. they are adding this question without even testing it, without doing any preparation on what effect this might have on the
6:26 pm
overall census. that's despite the fact that everybody who has run the census for the last 40 years says don't do it, it will screw everything up. they like decided they will pour sugar in the gas tank. why have they decided that? everybody says no, everybody knows it's really bad for your car to put sugar in the gas tank but yeah, they are going ahead they got a different idea. why is that? the census data we get every ten years is used to determine congressional seats, electoral votes, how hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding is divaed up and how much health care and schools and areas and businesses use census data all the time and everybody that's over seen the gathering of the data in the past says what the trump administration decided to do will throw a wrench into it. will screw up the data. the likelyfect lly effect of a
6:27 pm
citizen shship question is not t bad and accurate data but specifically an under count. adding the citizen ship question is likely to result in an under count because not just immigrants but anybody with an immigrant anywhere in their family or household might rashly or irrationally have a worry about reporting that fact to the government. that person is therefore less likely to stand up and be counted and therefore we're less likely to get an accurate count of the people in the country and the government knows this is the likely effect because internal focus group data from the census burro shows people are already so freaked out by the current administration and attitudes they are already more reluctant than they used to be to answer census questions from a september census burro memo. quote, census researchers heard respondents express concerns about topics like the muslim ban, discomfort registering
6:28 pm
other household men evmbers, th daca program and customs enforcement. researchers emphasized facing a new phenomenon and reporting fears have increased this year. getting a bad count, specifically the under counting of america, it's already a significant problem for communities of color or immigrant communities. the census burro estimated they under counted the hispanic population in the u.s. by 1 .5% in 2010 for the last census, which is big when you talk about the population of the country. this is certainly assuredly going to make that way, way worse. which is bad for the latino community and everybody that uses census data for anything and counts on it being true. and that's why this sort of seemingly technical rejection of
6:29 pm
expert advice on the subject clearly has a purpose and has led to the blooming of 1,000 lawsuits today and that story is next. stay with us. your top-rated thing. that five stars, two thumbs up, 12-out-of-10, would recommend thing. because if you only want the best thing, you get the #1 thing. directv is rated #1 in customer satisfaction over cable. switch now and get a $200 reward card. more for your thing. that's our thing. call 1.800.directv let's see. if this pack, and this pack, have the same number of bladder leak pads, i bet you think the bigger one is better, right? actually, it's bulkier. always discreet doesnneed all that bulk to protect. because it's made differently . the super absorbent core quickly turns liquid to gel, for drier protection that's a lot less bulky than poise.
6:30 pm
6:32 pm
6:33 pm
administration announced they would add a question on citizen ship to the next census to make that call they over ruled career officials at the burro who warned adding that question would lead to an under count of the population and pressed forward despite the warnings of every living person who has run the u.s. census before and so yeah, a dozen states and a group run by the attorney general of the united states already filed at least three different major lawsuits against the trump administration's decision here and it is only day one. joining us now is the former head of the sicivil rights division and ceo of civil rights. honor to have you here tonight. thank you for your time. >> great to be here. >> why is an under count on the census such a big deal and are you confident in the data that suggestions that will be the result of this action by the trump administration? >> an under count is a very big deal. the census is the basis as you
6:34 pm
said for congressional representation, for the state and federal dollars to every part of the country. what i think is really important to note here is when the justice department sent a letter to the department of commerce back in december asking for the inclusion, jeff sessions with the question to enforce the voting rights acts. to say suddenly that jeff sessions, justice deputy found religion on the voting rights act and that is the basis for this, i think really is laughable and what the decision to add a citizen ship question that was made yesterday by secretary ross, in effect weaponizes the census for the kind of native partisan agenda that donald trump and jeff sessions have been promoting and
6:35 pm
this is a deeply alarming thing because ultimately, the census is a constitutionally mandated program that's supposed to count every single person in this country, not just citizens, every person. >> i know a little bit about the interesting constitutional origins. we have few things that were actually actively directed to do by the founding fathers and constitutional inheritance. we have to have a post office. there aren't that many of those. i'm familiar with that. i'm also familiar with the political importance of the census, the different things it's used for from the business world to academic research to the allocation of federal dollars and very, very important allocation decisions, what i don't know anything about at all, though, is the census has a subject of litigation. how clear is the case law and the president in terms of conducting the census fairly, conducting it in a way that is
6:36 pm
designed to be effective and not purposely under count people. what do you make of the chances the various lawsuits have at challenging the decision here? >> as you said, this are very few things mandated in the constitution and conducting a fair count of every person who is in this country is one of them and it's for the purpose of being able to determine congressional representation. here we have a situation where the trump administration is purposely setting the census up to ensure in this kind of context a depression of participation of certain vulnerable communities and so i think that these lawsuits are making a very strong and viable claim that in so doing, there is purposeful unconstitutional efforts to undermine the census and frankly, to put over 16 billion of taxpayer money at risk because there is one of the
6:37 pm
most peaceful operations the government conducts. this is a consequence we'll have to live with for ten years so late gag litigation is important and congress can undue this and any time between now and when the census is counted in 2020 and that's why it's really important that the leadership conference coalition continue to urge congress to take the right step. it's why people need a vote in november to make sure that this kind of thing, the politicil l t litizatili politicalization is not going unaccounted for. >> the obama administration, now president and ceo of the leadership conference on civil rights. thank you for helping us understand this. when you say there will be more litigation to come. i believe you. thanks for being here tonight. >> thank you. >> also, the last point she was making there that congress can overturn this in november 2018, of usualyou
6:38 pm
obviously that won't happen with repub connecticlican control. people are realizing the democratic takeover in november should in someways be predicated on this issue. if democrats are going to be procedurely disenfranchised or at least disadvantaged in electoral politics but something administration is about to do now, democrats would see that as urgency to relevel the playing field if they got control of congress in november. this will be a big deal. stay with us. more to come.
6:39 pm
ways to lose stubborn belly fat. the roasted core wrap. 3, 2, 1... not cool. freezing away fat cells with coolsculpting? now that's cool! coolsculpting safely freezes and removes fat cells with little or no downtime. and no surgery. results and patient experience may vary. some rare side effects include temporary numbness, discomfort and swelling. ask your doctor if coolsculpting is right for you and visit coolsculpting.com today... for your chance to win a free treatment.
6:40 pm
if your adventure keeps turning into unexpected bathroom trips you may have overactive bladder, or oab. ohhhh... enough already! we need to see a doctor. ask your doctor about myrbetriq® (mirabegron). it treats oab symptoms of urgency, frequency, and leakage. it's the first and only oab treatment in its class. myrbetriq may cause serious allergic reactions. if you experience swelling of the face, lips, throat or tongue, or difficulty breathing... stop taking myrbetriq and tell your doctor right away. myrbetriq may increase blood pressure. tell your doctor right away if you have trouble emptying your bladder or have a weak urine stream. myrbetriq may affect or be affected by other medications. before taking myrbetriq, tell your doctor if you have liver or kidney problems. common side effects include increased blood pressure, common cold symptoms urinary tract infection, constipation, diarrhea, dizziness, and headache. need some help managing your oab symptoms along the way? ask your doctor if myrbetriq is right for you,
6:41 pm
6:42 pm
they thought they were witnessing their guys last hooray so they stood back stage and cried when he announced he was running for reelection but he made a good come back and ran attack od attacked attack ads. in russia it says this could be your last chance to buy food. vote for boris, otherwise you'll starve. wow. russia hadn't really seen a political ad campaign like the one deployed that year but it worked. he beat his opponent. the guy he said would take away the food, he beat him by 14 points. this was "the washington post" after that election in t'96. he campaigned from tears to triumph, turned fortunes around the one observers said they were so bamboozled, it turned
6:43 pm
people's brains to mishmash. that's the technical material. that strategy, that never seen before campaign was designed by this guy, his name is lesin, he developed the ad campaign that one boris reelection and for that he made him the press minister and stuck around the kremlin for awhile for the beginning of the vladimir putin years. he was an important person and run against putin's critics and found the tv station rt. russia today. russia's state run propaganda outlet. most recently he worked for russia's state-owned gas company ahead of the media there because in russia it's not weird for the state gas company and oil company to have their own tv stations and empires. this guy was a long-time fixture of russian politics in putin's
6:44 pm
russia and then he up and quit. ut oh. in 2014, mikhail lesin quit and did it suddenly and unexpectedly. there were reports he would be investigated in the united states for possible money laundering. by some accounts he went into hiding and had a falling out with people close to putin reportedly fearing for his life, he contacted the fbi and told them he was ready to cooperate in the money laundering case if they could keep him safe. during that time, his whereabouts were a mystery until he turned up dead in a hotel room in washington d.c. with an appointment to go to the justice department the very next day. hold that thought. >> vo: they want more out of life in every way. so they're starting this year's garden with miracle-gro potting mix and plant food.
6:45 pm
6:47 pm
you wouldn't accept from any one else. why accept it from your allergy pills? flonase relieves your worst symptoms including nasal congestion, which most pills don't. flonase helps block 6 key inflammatory substances. most pills only block one. flonase. oh hi sweetie, i just want to show you something. xfinity mobile: find my phone.
6:48 pm
[ phone rings ] look at you. this tech stuff is easy. [ whirring sound ] you want a cookie? it's a drone! i know. find your phone easily with the xfinity voice remote. one more way comcast is working to fit into your life, not the other way around. in november 2015 an employee at the dupont circle hotel opened the room and door to the penalty house suite and found a dead guy laying face down on the market. vladimir putin's former med media-zar. the cause of death was blunt force injuries to the head and neck, torso, upper ex[expletive
6:49 pm
extremities and lower. we have the cause of death but not manner. the justice department opened the investigation to figure out how a ex russian was found dead. they got it, they figured out the manner of death and what kill that russian guy, how he got blunt forced to death all over his body. they concluded that the death of him was an accident. all that blunt trama to his head and his neck and his torso and his upper extremities and lower extremity was an accident. the justice department determined he died alone in his hotel room after days of heavy drinking. he drunkenly fell down multiple times which is how he got the injuries that killed him. he got trunk and fell down until he died. that's how they closed the case.
6:50 pm
there was still a ton of open questions around his death as you might imagine. for months people speculated whether he did fall to death over and over again while alone. i was a hotel room while he was a lone over and over and over again. there was big discussion about it. and then three fbi agents came forward and said no, that's not what happened. three fbi agents spoke to buzzfeed news last summer. they said unegively that mikhail lesin did not drink and fall to himself to death. he was bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat. he was beaten to death there isn't a single person inside the bureau who believes this guy got drunk, fell down and died. everybody thinks he was whack and that putin or the kremlin were behind it. which is news. but it still left open the question of why he got whacked in the first place, and whether this would ever be solved as a murder. those fbi agents had an answer for that too. quote, it was the department of
6:51 pm
justice that paid for the hotel room where lesin died. doj officials invited him to washington to interview him about the workings about rt. but lesin never made it to the interview. he died the night before it was scheduled to take place. so these anonymous fbi agents coming to buzzfeed and telling them that hours before mikhail lesin was scheduled to talk to u.s. investigators, he was murdered in his d.c. hotel room that report from buzzfeed news for obvious reasons went off like a rocket last year when they opened it. opened a cascade of fresh questions about that case and what the u.s. government would do about it if those agents were right. now today buzzfeed has added more supporting evidence to the dramatic claim. and this time it's from a different but familiar source. quote, the fbi possesses a secret report asserting that mikhail lesin was beaten to death by hired thugs in washington, d.c. according to the report, lesin fell out with a powerful
6:52 pm
oligarch close to putin. wanting to impress putin, he contracted with russian state security agents to beat lesin up. the goal was not to kill lesin, but lesin died from the attack. the report according to four sources was written by christopher steele, who also wrote the famous dossier alleging that russia had been cultivating, supporting and assisting donald trump. just yesterday the united states joined more than 20 countries and expelled a whole bunch of russian diplomats out of the country. closed a consulate in seattle. kicked out those russian diplomats, all in response to the poisoning of sergei skripal, attacked by on a park bench in britain earlier. the foreign minister says it's attributable to vladimir putin. the uk has kicked out diplomats.
6:53 pm
yesterday we kicked out 60 russian diplomats from our country in solidarity of britain and all these other countries around the world. now that buzzfeed has broken this news today that the fbi has, among other things, a report from christopher steele that a similar attack might have been carried out right here in the united states a mile away from the white house. what happens next in this story? joining us now is jason leopold, senior investigative report were buzzfeed news. mr. leopold, this is some reporting, man. >> thank you. >> congratulations. >> it was a heavy lift. >> yeah. >> we spent a year reporting this out. and just to, if i may add, it was not just christopher steele who handled this report, but in addition three sources independent of steele also went to the fbi with basically the same story about mikhail lesin and about the way -- the manner in which he died. >> i'm going ask you a steele question that i don't think you're going to be able to answer in terms of protecting sources. >> sure. >> but you don't say why
6:54 pm
christopher steele did a report on this nor who he was being -- who was paying him to do it. are those things you can't talk about? >> correct. but let me just be clear. i'm continuing to do additional reporting on it. >> there is no indication that this reporting that he did on this death in d.c. is directly connected to or paid for by the same people who did the russia trump steele dossier? >> i have no evidence at all. >> okay. so what is not unbelievable about this reporting is that this guy might have been killed because of his connections to russia. it does seem unbelievable that the u.s. government came to this conclusion about his death. >> it's crazy. when they came out -- when he died in november of 2015, it was undetermined. and march of 2016, that's when the coroner said it was blunt force injuries, head, neck and torso. multiple blunt force injuries. they spent a year investigating
6:55 pm
this. and we know now from our freedom of information act lawsuit against multiple government agencies that they had a grand jury investigation, that they were investigating this as a homicide, multiple witnesses came before a grand jury compelled to give evidence, that the metropolitan police department in d.c. had asked the fbi to step in, help them look at surveillance footage to make sure nothing was tampered with. they had asked the fbi to -- fbi agents to pay particular attention to the back of mikhail lesin's head in some of this surveillance footage, which sort of indicates that perhaps when they found him body, what the back of his head may have looked like. the one thing, however, that in the documents that the government has released and is part of their narrative, they have not explained how he sustained those blunt force injuries. they only in a press release they've said that he fell down
6:56 pm
multiple times. but in these documents, there is nothing there. so in the course of our reporting, and also you noted previously about fbi agents coming forward. we went aggressively to try to get fbi agents, current and former and intelligence officers to speak to us about this case. so it was an explanation as to why it took so long. and it was during the course of that reporting that we discovered that christopher steele himself had written a report in 2016, had looked at this, that he had sources inside the kremlin who provided him with this information. and then we had additional sources who basically said that mikhail lesin had a professional relationship with an oligarch that he fell out of favor with, and that's ultimately was the catalyst that led to the beating and his demise. >> because of these multiple rounds of reporting you have now
6:57 pm
done on this subject, and because there were multiple fbi agents who were willing to talk to you about this, is it impossible that this could be reopened as a case and reinvestigated in the idea that putin might have gotten away with something like this on u.s. soil is distressing. >> sure. with regard to reopening it, we asked the metropolitan police department in d.c. they said if additional evidence is presented. >> here is some. >> they'll reopen it. i also want to make it clear that in these documents, right, the documents that were released under foia that the fbi and mpd said they don't have any evidence that there was foul play here. but, again, the fact that they're claiming that he fell down multiple times alone in a drunken state in his hotel room. >> until he died is hard to -- jason. >> more reporting, obviously. >> jason leopold, senior investigative report were buzzfeed again. congratulations on a heavy lift of a scoop here. >> thank you, rachel.
6:59 pm
7:00 pm
that does it for us tonight. we will see you again tomorrow. now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." good evening, mr. o'donnell. i'm sorry to go to you three seconds early. i screwed up. >> i'm not ready. >> do you want me to hum a few bars? >> no. take a look at this wall behind me. grown you had your tv on this afternoon when nicolle wallace was on. but this was a wall created by her graphics team. they kept up for quite a while. it's all the people -- it actually covered her whole set. it's all the people who donald trump has found the time to attack. >> oh my god. >> on twitter. >> it's actually -- i shouldn't say it's all. it's a sample. it's some alphabetical clumpings. it's actually a toon any sample. and stormy daniels' name is not up there. because he just hasn't gotten around to it. by the
152 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
MSNBC WestUploaded by TV Archive on
![](http://athena.archive.org/0.gif?kind=track_js&track_js_case=control&cache_bust=810127631)