military. it's not going away. >> thank you both for sharing your insights. good evening, rachel. >> i have to tell you, this is one of those days when i not only enjoy doing the show and having this job, i enjoy having you as a guy who works down the hall. >> we were doing a lot of huddling today to make sense of what happened. >> there was a lot of, dude, did you see that? what are you going to do? me neither. i had a comrade in arms. >> i'm going to see what came out of that. >> not much. thank you. thanks for joining us this hour. one of those days. just another previously unimaginable tuesday in today's news. right? enough going on for you? have you been able to keep up with each bombshell in today's news? do you have a colleague that you -- a beloved colleague you can run to in the halls at work when each news story breaks so you can say, what does this mean? remarkable day today.

the president today announced that the united states is blowing up the nuclear deal that iran signed in 2015 with not just us but with us, alongside the uk and france and germany and the european union. we will talk about why our country's allies are rattled by this decision, what they are likely to do in response and why this is such a banner accomplishment for the american hardliners who have been hoping for and working for an actual new u.s. war with iran. ever since they started the u.s. war in iraq 15 years ago. speaking of 15 years ago, in march 2003, while the george w. bush administration was ordering the invasion of iraq, this man was captured in pakistan. he was the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. in cia custody, he was tortured for weeks over 15 different

sessions. he was water boarded 183 times. he was forcibly fed three his rectum instead of being given food as food. he was kept awake for a week. kept awake for a week while they kept him standing with his hands chained to the ceiling. we remember the bush administration's complicity and facilitation of the torture program because officials like vice-president dick cheney cheered for it and bush administration members wrote memos saying all the laws making torture illegal didn't really make torture illegal, not if you squinted at it the right way and listened to the vice-president. in the secret prisons the cia maintains, the cia went beyond what they got that fake lawyerly permission to do. the cia did things to their undeclared prisoners, things

that weren't purportedly cleared by the memos the government disavowed. the cia reportedly told white house they were getting tons of good intel by torturing people. turns out they were getting the kind of jibberish and say anything to make it stop nonsense that you get when you torture people to the point of death or just this side of it. in the case of the so-called 9/11 mastermind, he told the cia folks beating him and drowning him that he had recruited black american muslims in montana to carry out home grown terrorist attacks on behalf of al qaeda in america. he had done no such thing. he was only saying he had done that because he was trying to make them stop torturing him. tomorrow, a veteran cia officer who ran one of the secret cia prisons where the cia tortured people, she's going to have her confirmation hearing to be the director of the cia.

we do not know if she helped torture anyone or if she oversaw officers who carried out that torture. we know she personally oversaw one torture site and she played a key role in the cia destroying the evidence of that sessions even though the cia had been ordered to preserve the tapes. get this. there's talk about a news day today, that confirmation hearing -- it's tomorrow. charlie savage is reporting at "the new york times" that the supposed 9/11 mastermind guy, he has filed an emergency request with the military commission that is trying him at guantanamo. he is asking for emergency permission from the judge in his case. he wants the judge to allow him to provide information to the senate committee in time for

haspel's confirmation hearing. he wants to give them a statement about haspel. we know this guy was tortured by the cia. we know that she ran one of the torture sites at the time that he was in custody. we don't know if she tortured him. we don't know exactly what the information is that he wants to provide to the senate. he has asked permission to give the senate something. it's reportedly six paragraphs of written information that he wants to hand over to the senate committee considering her confirmation. we don't know what's in those six paragraphs. we don't know what the judge will say. we don't know if the judge will allow it to go to the senate in time for tomorrow's hearing. this is obviously just a remarkable turn of events. this is the kind of long poisonous tale for the torture policies of the bush administration that everybody who lived through that era knew we would be living with for the rest of our lives.

like i said, just another previously unimaginable day in the news. happy tuesday. it's also election night tonight. four states have been watching returns. about a half dozen or so races that have national implications. senate primaries for the republican party tonight. they are choosing nominees to run against manchin and joe donnolly. mike pence's brother has won a republican congressional primary in indiana. that's happened. ohio governor john kasich has hit his term limit. there are primaries for the governor's race in ohio. we will have coverage of those. yet there's more. the story that has been breaking tonight, including into this hour, is this document. this seven-page document that's just been released by the

attorney for adult film actress stormy daniels, michael avenatti. he will be on "the last word" next hour. you should probably plan to watch that. i know what you are thinking. you are thinking, i know that handsome lawyer. i have seen a lot of michael avenatti on tv. there he is. why would i make sure to watch this guy tonight? it's because of this document that he has just released. mr. avenatti put this out this afternoon, posted it online. it was this stand alone set of sort of jaw dropping allegations about financial transactions involving the president's lawyer, michael cohen. mr. avenatti did not release any supporting documentation or information to go along with this thing that he posted online. initially i'm not sure anybody in the news business knew what to make of sort of wild and surprising allegations he is making here. it's hard to know what to do with it without any backup. but now over the course of the last couple of hours, both "the

new york times" and nbc news have reported that they, too, have obtained and reviewed original financial documents that substantiate what michael avenatti is saying. so now we have some actual news here. it's about the company that michael cohen used, the president's lawyer used to pay off stormy daniels. right before the election so she would not speak about her alleged affair with the president. we learned a few months ago from reporting first in the wall street journal that michael cohen didn't just pay stormy daniels directly. he created a company called essential consultants. then essential consultants was the entity that paid ms. daniels. what we learned tonight from this document that was first released by mr. avenatti, been reported out by "the new york times" and other news organizations, is that this little company that michael cohen set up to pay stormy daniels, essential consultants, it appears to have been used for

a lot more than just paying $130,000 to stormy daniels. it also appears to have paid michael cohen more than a million dollars. oh. according to mr. avenatti's document, three checks from essential consultants, two for a quarter million dollars, one for $505,000, were deposited in mr. cohen's own bank account last summer. a summer of 2017. what that looks like is this little company he set up paying michael cohen more than a million bucks. that's what it looks like. that raises more questions. first, was michael cohen ultimately the recipient of that million bucks or was he depositing those checks and getting that money for someone else? we don't know what happened to the money ultimately. we know michael cohen put it in one of his own bank accounts. also, where did that money come from? where did essential consultants get a million bucks? michael cohen, didn't he say he

needed to take out a home equity line of credit to scratch up the $130,000 that that company was going to pay stormy daniels a few months before? he had to take a home equity line to get 130 grand? where did that company get a million bucks to pay michael cohen just a few months later last summer? that's where we get to the juicy part. according to these documents, the same company that michael cohen used to pay stormy daniels, they took in a lot of money from a lot of surprising places. they got paid $150,000 by korea aerospace industries last november. november 2017. okay. essential consultants reportedly got paid $200,000 in four installments of 50 grand each in late 2017 and early 2018, that $200,000 in four payments came from, a little company you might have heard of, at&t.

essential consultants got paid for $400,000 by novartis, the global pharmaceutical company. according to the documents, the way they paid -- this is interesting -- was four separate payments to essential consultants to this little company michael cohen set up, which paid off the porn star, novartis paid $20 less than $100,000. they paid $99,980 on october 5, again on november 3, december 1 and january 5, 2018 this year. four payments, each for just under $100,000. almost as if there was a $20 wire fee that novartis was deducting. mr. avenatti notes -- it's true -- right after that last payment from novartis in january 2018, president trump did have dinner with the ceo of novartis.

what was novartis paying for? there's one more payment. the other payment is the one that gets the front page headline in "the new york times" tonight. firm tied to russian oligarch made payments to michael cohen. here is how it's printed in avenatti's documents. chief among the financial transactions are approximately $500,000 in payments received from mr. victor vexelberg, a russian oligarch. he and his cousin routed eight payments to michael cohen to essential consultant through a company called columbus nova, beginning in january 2017 and continuing until at least august 2017. columbus nova is a private equity firm with over $2 billion in assets. it's the u.s. investment vehicle

for renova group, a multinational group called by victor vexelberg. michael cohen, the president's lawyer, with a background in the taxi business, sets up this little delaware shell company as a way of paying the porn star, paying stormy daniels that $130,000 right before the election. he says publically that to come up with that $130,000 to pay stormy daniels, he had to take out a home equity line of credit. a new lawyer for the president, rudy giuliani says that ultimately that $130,000 was slowly reimbursed to mr. cohen over months when the president paid michael cohen $35,000 a month over time during 2017. we now find out that little company that paid out the 130 grand to stormy daniels causing significant financial hardship to michael cohen, that little company also paid michael over a

million bucks and tons more money was being paid into that company. not by michael cohen's home equity loan but by at&t. at&t, korea aerospace, novartis and an investment fund tied to one of the richest men in russia. he is an oligarch. he is one of the original. he is one of the richest men in russia. he is considered to be close to vladimir putin. he was sanctioned last month by the u.s. government because of his links to putin as was his company. the firm that apparently paid michael cohen $500,000 and landed itself on the front page of the "new york times" right now, it's a private equity firm that used to call itself on its website the u.s. investment vehicle for the renova group. they have dropped that description on their website now that renova group and its founder have been sanctioned by the u.s. government. it's illegal to do business with

him or the renova group. we learned last week that victor was stopped by federal agents working for robert mueller and his investigators as he landed in a private plane at a new york area airport in the past couple of months. mueller's team reportedly questioned him, including, it's reported, about the payments to michael cohen. it's been reported that investigators asked to search his electronic devices but we don't flow know if they did so. we know they asked. we're getting statements from some of the companies mentioned in this document as allegedly giving funds to michael cohen, paying into essential consultants. a spokesman for columbus nova, the u.s. affiliate of renova, had this to say. columbus nova is a management company solely owned and controlled by americans. after the inauguration, the firm

hired michael cohen as a business consultant regarding sources of capital and investments in real estate and other ventures. reports today that viktor used it as a conduit for payments is fap false. neither viktor nor anyone else was involved in the decision to hire michael cohen or provided funding for his engagement. i mentioned that the giant telecom company at&t also reportedly paid $200,000 to essential consultants. they released this statement tonight. essential consulting was one of several firms we engaged in to understand the new atd minu administration. the contract ended in december 2017.

a couple of things are interesting about that. first of all, at&t is hiring essential consulting to provide insights to under the new administration. i don't know who they is unless they consider michael and cohen to be two people. at&t is saying they needed to hire this firm, michael cohen's weird shell company that pays porn stars, they needed to hire them for hundreds of thousands of dollars to get insight. why would at&t want to put michael cohen on the freaking payroll in 2017? i mean, they have important government business. they're trying to go through this merger with time warner. they had strong interest in the net neutrality matter. finally, we got what i consider to be a surprising statement from novartis, the

pharmaceutical company. a spokesman did not take the same tack as at&t and columbus nova took. nothing to see here. nothing is weird here. this was a normal business/not really lobbying relationship. any agreements with essential consultants were entered before our current ceo taking office in february of this year and have expired. different kind of statement. not a denial that any such agreement was entered into. not a defense of any agreement. just throwing their former ceo under the bus saying, wasn't us, it was the people here before us. noting for the record any such payments were made not by its current leadership. i have to say, the other thing that we should tell you right now in terms of the russia investigation is that the lawyer from the british -- the dutch lawyer working in britain on behalf of the american law firm who was lying to the fbi, the

first person who has been convicted or has pled guilty in the mueller investigation who has gone to prison. he reported to federal prison yesterday to start serving his 30-day sentence. the question is with these new revelations about michael cohen, the linking of the stormy daniels payment through this shell company to somebody who has been questioned in the mueller investigation and is a sanctioned russian individual running a big sanctioned russian company raises the question of whether there's new criminal liability here in the revelations about michael cohen or whether this is just decorative financial information that flushes out the picture more than we knew. joining us is joyce vance, former u.s. attorney. she's here in person tonight. i never know what i'm going to end up talking to you about. we book you to talk about something and the news changes. >> unpredictable. >> looking at information like

this about these previously unknown uses of the shell company used to funnel this payment to this adult film actress, how would you read this with a prosecutor's mind? >> the first thing that i want to know when i see this document is a lot more about the facts. because the minute details of the facts will determine whether any of this conduct was criminal. we immediately -- it's so easy to leap to conclusions in these situations. this just stinks of influence pedaling, of what prosecutors call pay to play or what the federal statute calls bribery. without knowing more details about who was paid, when they were paid, what circumstances surrounded the payments, did money actually reach trump ever or were these perhaps just the sort of payments people make that smell bad but aren't really illegal? we can't tell without more factual determination. >> when you say money reaching trump, i mean, obviously that's one of the first things that

leaps to mind. the partial story that's been told about the payment to stormy daniels is that this company essentially consultants was used to funnel mr. trump's money through a round about way to ms. daniels. if money is flowing into this company, that does raise the question as to whether or not the ultimate recipient of the money is not just michael cohen, it was the person who registered the company, but potentially could be the president himself? >> it raises that. but it's so dangerous to leap to those conclusions. bob mueller and his team are certainly five or ten steps ahead of everyone else on these issues. it actually worries me a little bit, my prosecutor dna doesn't like to see these details that should be held closely within an investigation, leaking out into the public. they could certainly, if the mueller investigation is still in progress on some of these fronts, particularly involving the russians, they could trigger awareness on the part of people who are under investigation.

these banking details, it's very surprising to see them becoming public. these are details that prosecutors would subpoena. i have not seen this sort of information be public domain before. there are a lot of questions in my mind about where does this information come from, is it accurate, what conclusions can we reach? like watergate, this is follow the money. >> on that issue of where this information is coming from, we have seen initially from "the wall street journal" and from some other news outlets, there has been interesting reporting about the finances surrounding essential consultants, mr. cohen, stuff i have been surprised to make it into the public domain before "the new york times" and nbc news confirmed they had seen financial documents that backed this up. i would have had no idea what to do with the assertions from mr. avenatti. i would have no idea how he would obtain this information. >> it seems like there's someone

on the inside putting it forward, details like wire transfers. usually just come with a number attached to them. you don't usually identify who the individual making the transfer is. knowing this is novartis and at&t and other companies seems really unusual. >> just unusual to see those big name companies in the middle of a story that at times has seemed so small and so tawdry and personal. >> thanks for having me. >> i moved the desk. sorry. the earth moved. we'll be right back.

a whole bunch of interesting results. tonight is election night. in indiana, mike pence's older brother, he has the family hair, he won the republican primary race for mike pence's owed congressional seat. that seat is filled by republican congressman luke messer. he left the seat because he wanted to try to run for senate. he wanted to be the republican candidate trying to unseat democratic senator joe donnelly.

luke is one of two indiana congressmen who gave up his seat to run for senate instead. both of them had to face off against a third republican candidate, a former state rep and local businessman in indiana. mike braun has been poking fun at the others for being too hard to tell apart and he does have a point. nbc news projects tonight that mike braun, not the guy who looks like the other guys -- depending -- has won this primary in the indiana senate race. in ohio, john kasich is being trm li term limited out. there was a race to see who will vie to replace him.

on the republican side, the governor and attorney general, former senator, they have been engaged in a brutal primary campaign. the lieutenant governor of ohio love. on the democratic side, richard cordray, who has elizabeth warren's powerful endorsement, he was facing off against presidential candidate dennis kusinich. he tried to assert his progressive positions by calling for an assault weapons ban in ohio, touting his f rating from nra. nbc news projects tonight that democrats have not picked him. they have chosen cordray.

cordray against dewine. the big race we're watching in west virginia is the senate race. republicans are hoping to unseat democratic senator joe manchin. the republican primary for that senate race has been upstatedupy blankenship. he was the ceo of massey energy. in april, 2010 an explosion took the lives of 29 people. blankenship was sentenced to a year in prison to conspire to violate safety standards. he is less than a year out of prison. he has been hoping to win the republican nomination to unseat joe manchin. he has ticked off the republican party in part by making really overtly, proudly racist comments

about republican majority leader mitch mcconnell's wife and her family. president trump weighed in in this race. it was interesting. he told people not to vote for don blankenship. he can't win the general election in your state. he said, instead, vote for one of the other two guys. vote for either jenkins on morrissey. which means, republicans have no one guy who can stop them from blankenship. the president advising republicans to split their vote against don blankenship to keep him from winning. according to nbc's models, blankenship appears to be in third place right now. nbc is noted that blankenship is not leading in any geographical regions of west virginia. he is getting a lot of national attention for obvious reasons. what should we look for in that race and other races tonight?

let's consult our in-house expert, joining us is steve carnacki. tell us what's going on. >> you got it with the characterization, blankenship with about half the vote is looking buried. he is looking stuck in third place. we will see how it shakes out. the key is when you look at the map of west virginia, there are a lot of votes to come in. here is the thing, you don't see a natural geographic base for blankenship. i don't see a pocket where he is running in first, where there's vote left, where he will make up ground. this is simply, jenkins, the southern part, democratic coal country, you see that's the jenkins color. you get to the northern part of the state, especially this is small, but the eastern panhandle, the fastest growing part of the state and right here in jefferson county, this is where patrick morrissey lives. check this out. that wasn't supposed to happen. check this out.

look at the vote right now in patrick morrissey's home county. a big county we're talking about. 71% of the vote. you see state wide morrissey is leading by about 3,000 votes. the biggest piece of real estate on this map is right here. no votes from berkeley county. the second biggest county in the state. we have seen morrissey running up the score in that part of the state. morrissey is due to get a big boost out that was county. what is left for jenkins? you gotta go to the southern part of the state. huntington, that's marshal university, a couple thousand votes, jenkins could shave off there. that's a very close race there. that's changed since the last time i looked. it's not a -- that's the state wide. that's much more like it. jenkins is running ahead. not going to net as much out there was if this holds. morrissey you see with that edge of 3,000, with the vote to come in. you don't see a path for

blankenship. where was the upper big branch mine catastrophe? down here in coal country. running very far back there, 22%. that's where the mine disaster was. it resulted in 29 deaths and him going to prison. that's where it stands in west virginia right now. >> i know we will be following this to the end tonight. thank you very much. more to get to. it's been a very, very busy news night. i feel like we have 15 different lead stories. stay with us.

because antonio villaraigosa millions got it done.healthcare

he defended women's healthcare, banned military-style assault weapons, banned workplace discrimination, and more. antonio for governor. only one candidate for governor when students were stuck in failing schools, led the fight to turn them around. as mayor of l.a., antonio villaraigosa invested in classrooms and security. graduation rates soared. antonio for governor.

as unattractive as the use of military force against iran's nuclear program would be, it's more unattractive to consider an iran with nuclear weapons. i have been very clear on my view of the regime and tehran for some time. i believe it should be the declared policy of the united states to overthrow the regime. >> it's an eye catcher. to stop iran's bomb, bomb iran. what do you mean? >> as israel has struck nuclear weapons programs in the hands of hostile states, i'm afraid given the circumstances that's the only real option open to us now. that's why before 2019, we here will celebrate in tehran, thank you very much. >> before 2019. iran, once upon a time, was on its way to building a nuclear weapon. you can build a nuclear weapon

using enriched uranium. iran appears to be denying it wanted to build any nuclear weapons at all. it appeared to be proceeding. to try to get itself to a bomb. nobody outside iran wants iran to have a nuclear bomb. during the obama administration, a negotiated solution was arrived at that would result in them not getting the bomb and nobody having to go to war with iran or bomb them to smimake su they didn't. it took years of negotiations. it was signed in 2015. it was not an american deal with iran. it was signed by the u.s. and iran but the uk and france and germany and russia and china and the eu. there was a deal. a ounanimous u.n. security council backing for the deal. the u.s. government has announced that we are breaking the deal. it's not a two party agreement. everybody else is staying in. this is turning out to be one of

the repeated tests of the trump era. what happens to all these areas of international concern and conflict where the u.s. used to take a leading role and now we don't or worse? when it comes to the u.s. breaking the iran deal, expert opinion seems to be that it might technically be possible for the deal to stay together with everybody else minus us. but not really. effectively, we are grabbing the ball off the field, popping it and telling everybody we're about to tier gas the pitch. it seems unlikely this game will keep going for long. if and when the whole deal now collapses because of president trump, breaking it today, bottom line, that will end up putting an end to international inspections of iran's nuclear facilities because of the deal international nuclear inspectors are in iran testing and inspecting their potential nuclear sites every single day of the year. when the deal ends, that will end. iran will likely get back on the path to start making nuclear fuel again, which is the main thing they need to do if they're

going to build a bomb. in the short-term, this announcement today puts the u.s. in the position of trying to unilaterally enact sanctions against iran. sanctions that nobody else is part of. in terms of our capacity to do that, you should know rex ti tillerson closed the sanctions office. the director of the sanctions office at the treasury department quit last week. his last day was friday. nobody is running that office. us against the world unilateral new sanctions regime against iran, where most of the people we're going to end up sanctioning are our closest allies who are still in a deal with iran, that's going to be awkward and difficult and sensitive. i have no idea who could even work on that or which office could try to handle it. that's what starts in short-term in practical -- by practical

means. john bolton is getting the war he has always wanted. took him less than a month as national security adviser before he started us down the panel th his beloved iran war that he missed by that much in the business administration. my question with this remarkable announcement today is pretty simple. is there some silver lining here that's not initially obvious, please? is there a secret plan b that we don't know about? does the trump administration have some idea what they're going do instead of this deal? also, in practical terms, people who understand this stuff, how long is the runway here? the u.s. broke this deal today. the other countries in the deal say they're going to try to keep it going. how long does that really last? if and when the deal finally breaks because of what trump did today, how long will it take iran to start building toward a bomb again? how long before bolton gets his war? hold that thought.

say you are north korea. you are about to have a summit with the president of the united states for the first time in history. you are about to have that because you are about to start talking about a deal, a negotiated deal to stop your nuclear program in exchange for something from the united states. what does it say to you that the united states just today unilaterally broke the last deal that it did with another country to try to stop a nuclear program? right on the precipice of the north korea summit the united states announces we're breaking the iran deal, we're out. that's like telling somebody, my neighbor took out a restraining order on me, would you like to hire me to house sit for you? joining us is a nuclear security analyst. it's nice to see you. >> thank you. >> i know you think that this was a bad decision by the president. how seriously bad a decision is

this? is there a possibility this deal might stay together with everybody else except us? >> this is the most devastating and destructive act of trump's presidency. it's impossible to overstate the seriousness of what he just did. it isn't just that he destroyed a key national security arrangement for the united states. it isn't just that he betrayed our allies. it isn't just that he damaged the credibility of the united states on the world stage. it's that he doesn't have a plan for how to replace this. i read the transcript for the state department background briefing today. the reporters were all over these briefers. it was a mess. it's clear they have no idea how to put back sanctions that they claim will now force iran to come crawling back for a better deal. it's clear that we have lost our allies, our credibility. so that gets to the point you were raising in your opening segment on this.

what is the real plan here? the fear is that it's john bolton's plan. it's a plan to actually go to war with iran. i wouldn't say that bolton is manipulating the president. but john bolton operationalizes trump's worst impulses. that could get us into the biggest conflict yet in the middle east. >> joe, on this point of what we're going to do instead of this -- instead of the deal, instead of the plan, now that we have broken out of the plan, what they're saying is that the united states is now going to embark on a sanctions regime against iran and we're going to do it after the state department closed its sanctions office. i have questions, even if you take them at their word and they have some plan that what's going to replace what we got out of, i have concerns the u.s. government couldn't just as a

capability, couldn't institute new sanctions plan against our allies even if we wanted to. >> i think that's right. the state department officials had a great deal of difficulty of explaining how this would work. we don't do -- the united states doesn't do business with iran. you can't sanction our companies. that means you have to sanction european companies, japanese companies, chinese companies, people who are doing business. really? you think our allies are going to put up with that? that's your plan? even if you did have a plan to do this, how are you going to operationalize it? this is why you are worried about where this path leads. as you increase tensions in the region -- israel had new strikes against iranian positions in syria. you are worried that donald trump has poured gasoline on these conflicts. whether he wants to or not, the u.s. will be drawn into the conflicts that saudi arabia and israel are having with iran. >> joe, nuclear security

analyst, i know that we knew this day was coming. it is -- it's hard to get your head around it now that it's here. it's nice to see you. >> thank you.joe. it's nice so to see you. >> thank you, rachel. all right. >> all right. we'll be right back. stay with us.

friday prosecutors working for robert mueller and the special counsel's office went to federal court in d.c. to get a continuance, basically an extension in the case against 13 russian individuals and three russian businesses who were all

hit with felony charges by robert mueller in february. none of the russian individuals who were charged by mueller have responded formally to the fact that they've been hit with these felony charges, but one of the corporate entities that was charged, a company that is owned by a russian oligarch, that company actually hired american lawyers who did file a response to the indictment. what these american lawyers have filed for is tons and tons of discovery, which is legal speak for oh, okay, if you're going to prosecute our client, you have to show us your evidence. you have to show us what you've got. well, the first hearing in this case is scheduled for tomorrow. the basis of the mueller filing trying to delay tomorrow's hearing was basically twofold. mueller's prosecutors were saying we're not sure that these lawyers are even going to show up. we're not really totally sure that these lawyers actually represent this russian company. but meanwhile, you 000 should know that what they've asked for in terms of discovery is seven decades of sensitive american foreign policy and intelligence information about russia.

seriously. quoting from the discovery request to prosecutor, this is what they're demanding, quote, the government is requested to turn over to defense counsel and to disclose from 1945 to present each and every instance where any officer, employee, and/or agent of the u.s. government engaged in operations to interfere with elections and political processes in any foreign country, including but not limited to information relating to whether any such activity utilized propaganda in any format, including but not limited to the use of social media. this disclosure should include any and all information regarding the use of computer infrastructure inside and outside the united states, false foreign identity, goals to sow discord in a foreign political system, attacks on a foreign elected official or candidate, assassination or conspiracy to assassinate a foreign elected official or candidate, buying political advertisements, posing as foreign persons or failure to honestly identify to forney employee or agent of the united states government. from 1945 to the present.

oh, is that all? prosecutors in that filing on friday said, basically, to the court, we'd rather not hand all that over at least until nhl we're sure this is actually legal representation for the defendant and not russia using the courts to extract sensitive information that is going to go to the russian government for their own purposes. we'd like a little more time, please, to sort all this out. well, the judge who is hearing this case said no to mueller's prosecutors. oh. the judge said actually, the first hearing in this case is going ahead as scheduled tomorrow. discovery can proceed. presumably, mueller's team knew what they were doing when they decided to bring criminal charges against russian individuals and entities in this case. but one of the things it has now done is it has made russia a stakeholder and a legal combatant in this fight now. and so now we're seeing what they want to do with the access that that gives them in our

legal system that court hearing tomorrow should be fascinating. watch this space.

in what is easily the most surprising news on a day of very big news, today the lawyer for stormy daniels, michael avenatti, released a seven page document in which he alleges that the shell company used by michael cohen to pay off porn star stormy daniels for the president, that company was used much more extensively than has been previously reported. almost $4.5 million appears to

have passed through that account after the 2016 election, including hundreds of thousands of dollars paid into that company from at&t, from the novartis pharmaceutical company, from a korean aviation company, and half a million dollars from an american company linked to a russian oligarch who was close to vladimir putin and is now sanctioned by the u.s. government. financial documents attesting to these same payments have now been pored by msnbc news and "the new york times." tonight the lawyer, michael avenatti says, quote, we are just getting started. curious to know what he means by that. my curiosity is about to be satisfied because mr. avenatti is lawrence's guest coming up now on "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." good evening. >> good evening, rachel. we heard michael avenatti say "we're just getting started" several times in the past.