tomorrow i'll excited tomorrow with georgio angelinei. it bridges the gap and the discriminatory housing policies. that's all in this evening. rachel maddow? >> i missed you last week. >> i missed you. it was nice to be with my fan. >> you don't even have to tell me you missed me. >> taking off the make-up. it is part of the ritual. i missed it very much. i'm happy to be back. >> i love you, my friend, welcome back. >> alive to have you here. happy monday. the former head of the national security division at the justice department will be our guest here tonight. i'm very excite with that. there's a whole bunch of news that has unfolded over the course of the last 48 hours but also the day to day and into the night to night. a whole bunch of news that is national security division at the justice department kind of

news. so i'm very happy that we have that guest on top. he'll be here in just a few minutes. that is a big deal. in august 2016, specifically on august 19th, 2016, the chairman of the donald trump for president campaign resigned. now, looking back on that moment now, it is important and strange for a whole bunch of different reasons. at the time it was remarkable that the campaign chairman of a major nominee for president was resigning under a cloud of allegations that he had received millions of thars in off the books payments from a political party operating in the soviet union. that was a moment in itself. in terms of the immediate electoral politics of it all, that august 19th departure of paul manafort was also remarkable because you know, after that candidate had just received his party's nomination just two and a half months

before the election, as the republican party's nominee for president, losing yet another campaign chairman. having to get a third campaign chairman. right? that moment in time, august 19, 2016, it ended up being an historical turning point because the new campaign chair who dial replace paul manafort was the super hard right wing website that was associated with the white nationalist movement in the country. it was also oddly associated with over the top passionate support for britain leaving european union. the brexit campaign and the trump campaign would of course both later come under scrutiny for having been illegally assisted by the russian government but at the time it was only one of a million bizarre story lines in the presidential election in 2016. looking back at that date, august 19, 2016 interesting day paul manafort left the trump

campaign, we can see one other very, very specific reason why that date, that occasion of manafort leaving the campaign was so important. ultimately so weird. because on that date, the exact date, he somehow found time that same day to set up a new llc called summer breeze. huh? you might think he would be busy that day being ousted from running the republican party's presidential campaign just days before the election. but no, he found time to set up this holding company. and i don't know why he set it up on the exact day he left the trump campaign but it later turned out to be a very handy little holding coil. in december 2016, so after the election, during the presidential transition, that company summer breeze, which manafort had set up on the day

he quit the campaign, that company received a $9.5 million loan from a little tiny bank in chicago that supposedly specialized in loaning to u.s. veterans. paul manafort is not a veteran. not only did he get $9.5 million loan from that chicago bank in 2016, the following month in january 2017, he got two more multimillion-dollar loans from that same bank for a total of about $16 million in cash from this one bank that again specializes in lending to veterans. the "wall street journal" was first to report on these transactions including the fact the holding company was literally set up on the day that manafort set up the loan. they were hugely outsized compared to the resources. that $16 million that the bank handed over to paul manafort,

those loans represented near hey quarter all the loanable assets for that little bank. in february 2018, nbc news reported that robert mueller's office, special counsel's office, was looking into those loans to paul manafort during the transition. and somewhat ominously for paul manafort, and for that little bank, nbc reported in february that, quote, the three loans to manafort were questioned by other officials at the bank. one source told nbc news that at least one of the bank employees who felt pressured into approving the manafort deals is now cooperating with investigators. eek! that same day "wall street journal" reported that the bank's decision to give all that cash to paul manafort during the transition might have been part of an almost too dig to be believed quid pro quo. around the time his bank made

the manafort loans in late 2016 and early 2017, steve calk was seeking to mr. trump's secretary of the earl. like the u.s. army. secretary doesn't always mean highest job in the company. but in this case being secretary of company means this guy from this little chicago bank who has given all this money to part of, he thought he was going to run the u.s. earl. quote, mr. calk was placing calls to the pentagon and specifically to army headquarters asking for briefings to obtain information and prepare himself for a possible job. he raised questions among military leaders as to how to respond. the "wall street journal" was first on this story out of the gate. they had initial reports on something unusual having happened between the trump campaign chairman who resigned under this weird cloud related to russia and in chicago. they had the first reports in the spring of 2016 not long

after the inauguration and the journal stayed on the story ever since. even still, even as we have seen the story slowly simmer and start to steam and boil over the course of more than a year, it is still rather astonishing that somehow the president's campaign chair duped this guy in chicago, not only into giving him $16 million, but he apparently duped him into doing that after the trump campaign chair had already been kicked off the trump campaign for being too obvious a russian stooge. months after that, he convinces this guy to give him $16 million. and persuades the guy that will result in him becoming secretary of the earl. this guy was allegedly not only going to get this quid pro kuo, he thought he had it. hey, this is steve. i'm the new guy had charge of the earl. can i speak to my office? i need my briefing materials.

what? this is months after manafort had to resign in disgrace, right? we haven't seen that bank ceo, this guy, steve calk, since the allegations first surfaced. as far as we know no charges were ever brought against him in question, this allegation. it is no longer in the papers. it has made its way spoke the federal criminal case against paul manafort. this is from a filing in the case against manafort from earlier this month. quote, counts 29 through 32 of the superseding indictment charged the defendant with bank fraud and conspiring to commit bank fraud against a financial institution, lender d, in seeking and securing two loans, totally approximately $16 million. now, the financial institution in this filing, they called it lender d. we have every reason to believe that lenler d is steve calk's bank, a big sounding name but a tiny institution.

between april 2016, so during the campaign, and january 2017, the month of the inauguration, the defendant paul manafort made and conspired to make false and fraudulent al presentations to the bank of chicago to secure these loans. both loan applications ultimately were approved by among others a senior executive at the bank who sought the defendant's assistance to obtain a position advising the trump campaign which he obtained and later in the administration of president trump, which he did not obtain. so from reporting at nbc news and the "wall street journal" and other places, we believe that this bank executive from this little bank in chicago, we believe he did get a position on an economic advisory council that was supposedly advising trump. but if these public reports are true, he was also apparently persuaded by paul manafort that he was going to get army, too. he would be put in charge of the army. but he never did actually obtain job. in the list of evidence that the

special counsel's office has filed with the court showing what evidence they're going on cite in their case against paul manafort, there is a number of e-mails that reference this bank ceo steve calk, including one with the now very sad and retrospect line, need steve calk resume. do you? so he can go run the army? look at this one. august 4, 2016. two weeks before manafort gets kicked off the trump campaign. e-mail to paul manafort. read steve calk professional bio. at that point he's probably calling him mr. secretary. now today many court the judge in the manafort case started to show us the substance behind these allegations that thus far have mostly been spelled out in the press. first of all, the judge unsealed the fact not just one but two employees of this little bank in chicago have been granted immunity in exchange for their

testimony as witnesses for the prosecution. we knew heading into faye there were five witnesses who are all basically pleading the fifth. they are all saying they wouldn't testify to avoid incriminating themselves. the prosecutors got permission from a very senior official at the criminal division to grant those five witnesses limited immunity. use immunity. so their testimony can be compelled. they can be forced to testify and their testimony can't be used against them as long as they don't lie in court. the judge today accepted all of those immunity deals for all five of those witnesses, but then surprise, the judge also decided in court today, in a sort of a, it was one of those sessions, you've seen it in courtroom dramas on tv where the judge asked the counsel to approach the bench and it all happens there, that's how they had the discussion today. and in that discussion which again, people in the courtroom couldn't hear but we just got

transcript of it. the judge explains that yeah, he will grant immunity to these five witnesses but surprise, he is also going to reveal their identities. the prosecution wanted all their names kept secret unless and until they ended up testifying. the judge said no. i'm telling everybody who they are. that's not something that we knew would happen today. people who watched the hearing in court today didn't hear this happen but we now know from the transcript that this is how it went down. quote, the judge, i received a number of motions that were under seal, requested to be under seal for these witnesses. why do they need to be under seal? these are witnesses who have been granted immunity by the government and yet are reluctant to testify and don't want to testify. and therefore you're asking the court to issue an order because you've granted them immune. why in the world should all of that be under seal and exparte? from the special counsel's

office, no, we have told them, excuse me. we have told them immunity from the court which i understand the court must grant under statute. the reason it is under seal, these individuals, their involvement in this case have not been made public and the department has a policy for uncharged individuals to not name them unless we have, and then the judge intervenes and says i don't have that policy and it is going to be public. once we're here, everything ought to be in open court. the prosecutor says, your honor, can i make one other appointment? one other point? the judge says yes. and he says, some of these witnesses we've prepared out of the abundance of caution, we're prepared to call these witnesses but there's a chance, depending on how the evidence comes in, that we will not call them. so unsealing these records for a witness who is essentially admitting at some level of criminal exposure and then we don't call them as a witness. we're trying to be thoughtful. the judge, if i do it here in court, issue an order, it's

going to be public. oh no, question, your honor. i understand for it wanting to be under seal but i think it is appropriate to identify. so that's all happening at the bench. the judge and the lawyers, and they're talking about whether or not these witnesses are going to have their names made public. the prosecutors were like, we don't think that's necessary. their names investment been associated with the case before. the judge is like, i'm making them public. so these are the five people whose immunity deals were unsealed today. these are not household names. these appear to be people who worked in banks or financial services of some sort. these two here are apparently current or former employees of an accounting firm called kwc, manafort's accounting if i recall. this one seems to be with an insurance firm that was involved in manafort getting bank loans that he got over the past two years. then these would guys, these would guys are current or former

employees of -- that little bank in chicago. federal savings bank in chicago. if all the public reporting about manafort and his interactions with that bank, him possibly offering to sell a fake job in the trump administration to that bank president in exchange for $16 million, if that public reporting is even close to accurate, that is a very bad sign for mr. manafort, that there are two people who have been granted immunity to testify for prosecutors in their case against paul manafort. but that is just one way in which things have continued to go very badly for mr. manafort in court. he sat there today in court in a rum mr.ed short sleeve, dark green prison jump suit. he was not called on to say anything and he didn't, but you can imagine he can't be happy with how it is going. he continues to lose in all or in part every single substantive motion related to his case.

today, for example, his lawyers tried exclude from consideration in his trial the nature of the work that manafort did in ukraine when he worked for that pro putin, pro ukrainian strong man president who was ousted in a pop hard uprising in 2014. manafort's lawyers said whoever that was, that would be prejudice information to the jury. would it turn the jury against him. it would be unnecessary to prove or disprove the charges that manafort is facing in virginia. the judge considered that argument today at length. there was a lot of back and forth about that today but the judge said no. the prosecutors said, listen, the jurors need to know where he made all that money and why he may have been in need of more funds after he got thrown out of office and went back to moscow to live in exile. the jurors will have to know about how he made his money and what happened to that big spigot of money that he was latched on

to in 2014. that's what prosecutors. . and then here's how that played out today in court with the judge. the judge says, quote, you're seeking to preclude the government from offering evidence about the nature of the work mr. manafort did for the ukrainian government of the ukrainian president. is that right? manafort's defense counsel. that's correct, your honor. the judge, and why wouldn't that be relevant? and why wouldn't that be relevant? the judge decides the prosecutors have won that, a utility. the jury will get to hear how paul made his money and who he worked for. paul manafort's lawyers today also tried to and chewed from his trial any reference to his time as chairman for the trump presidency campaign. the judge also rejected that from manafort's lawyers. basically saying, you know, there is this allegation that manafort getting $16 million from this little chicago bank in exchange for him promising this

guy he could run the army. right? the judge ruled, yeah, you know, whatever else we decide about this information about you running the trump campaign, that stuff has to stay in. quoting from today's transcript. the judge says, quote, the defendant steeks preclude argument concerning any alleged collusion with the russian government and defendant's affiliation with the trump campaign. what he said is we don't intend to admit any evidence with regard to collusion with you we said that in the trump pain that a very small portion of the trial relates to his bank fraud. one of the motivations of the cheryl of the bank to extend the loan, notwithstanding the fraud, was that the chairman sought and obtained a position in the trump campaign for mr. manafort and then sought but did not ultimately obtain a position in the trump administration. the judge says, did this person know that the information submitted was not accurate?

the prosecutor says yes, he did. the judge says, doesn't that present with you a problem of fraud? since he knew? meaning he was in on it? the prosecutor says, it doesn't present with us a problem because the fraud was on the bank and not just the individual. and the judge says all right. the prosecutor says mr. manafort, it was prevalent throughout. it is hard to take out those facts if not impossible. the judge says with respect to the affiliation with the trump campaign, that motion would be denied in part and granted in part. it is denied as to what you just referred to. the bank loan with respect to the bank here went along with the fraud so he could get a job. the judge's ruling that that part of manafort working for the trump campaign, that will be in the trial. paul manafort also today asked for a long delay in this trial. specifically he asked for it to be delayed until after his other felony trial many washington,

d.c. this september. now, one reason he's asking for that delay is that he only got access to his own bookkeeping records just recently. manafort made, manafort's lawyers made the case in court that he needs more time to go through his own bookkeeping records. the judge in this hearing today did not seem impressed with this line of argument. the judge, you're telling me you didn't have any access to your own bookkeeping records? correct, your honor. the judge, really? yes. the judge, it's your own bookkeeper. mr. downing, it's your own bookkeeper until your book deeper gets a subpoena from the united states government and demands -- the judge says what? mr. downing, manafort's defense lawyer says, the bookkeeper got the subpoena from the u.s. government. at which point the bookkeeper was demanding that rerei will burst for the subpoena collection. we didn't do that and they refused to turn the records over to us.

the judge says and what steps did you take? the lawyer says we have communications with the bookkeeper on more than one occasion to get files back. the judge says, well, go to court and get documents. they belong to your client. manafort's lawyer says we thought we would get them in discovery. it is a lot cheaper. the judge says no. no. it depends on how you calculate the expense other than dollars and cents. so the judge today considered that request from paul manafort to delay his trial in part because he hasn't reviewed his own bookkeeping records. why has he not reviewed his own bookkeeping records? because his bookkeeper wants to charge him to get them back to look at them. the way evidence under fold in addition case like this, if the government will use the evidence, the government has to show you what they're going to use so they need on provide copies to the defense. paul manafort decide that had rather than pay his bookkeeper and he get his own records back, he would just wait until the

prosecutors looked at and it then he would get a copy from the prosecutors. and that has created this big delay. so now he wants to delay his whole trial until november. because please cheap about his own records. so the judge is like really? are you sure? just because it was too expensive? are you sure? the judge ruled on that and said yes, you can have your delay in the trial. you want a four-month delay? you can have a delay. you want a delay? you go have six days. i'll see you tuesday next week. the judge says, i have before me a motion for continuance. there are equities and good reasons on both sides. in the end what i've decided to do is postpone the commencement of this case until the 31st of july. it gives you another week and then we're going ahead. we'll start tomorrow with the juror questionnaires. quote, you'll simply have to work hard. so jurors will start showing up tomorrow. the judge says he'll fick four

jurors and four turn alternates. that means the trial is on. we don't know how much the president is paying attention to that. whether or not he is at all rattled by that. whether or not the trial of his campaign chairman is causing what it seems like we've seen in the past few days with the presidency seeming a little more volatile than usual. alongside his escalating attacks on the fbi and the intelligence agencies over the past few days, the president has also threatened war with iran. today he said he would maybe revoke security clearances from all the national security officials who have criticized him in public including a bunch of specifically named individuals who don't actually have security clearances now so there is nothing for him to revoke. the president also today at the white house in front of reporters won't an unscripted rant about globalists.

whatever you think of that, it was definitely unhingtd from the specific top tick president was supposed to be making remarks on at that moment. the legal cases keep unfolding here regardless of the president's complaining and regardless of what he says and does. we're saying as these legal cases proceed, that may generate more. in terms of what to expect over the next few days, we thought maria butina would be back. the hearing has been moved until wednesday. but maria butina received significant support in her allegation from a russian billionaire oligarch. a nameless description of him in

the butina indictment but he is now named in the "washington post." it was noted his son worked on the donald trump campaign. so the russian guy who apparently funned this alleged illegal russian government influence operation related to the 2016 campaign also had his son working for trump. i know that feels like a marginal new development of the kind we've been hearing a lot of lately but that is a remarkable new thing. especially because over the last few days, that kid, the oligarch's son, is at least the second person tied an alleged government spying operation who was actively working in 2016. the government took multiple applications against a foreign adviser named carter page. that raised a whole lot of national security questions about why they did that. why we can see that material, whether it is dangerous that

that stuff has been forced into the open. we'll get on more of that later in the show tonight. but even though president responded to that fisa warrant being declassified somehow it vipd indicated him. what it actually showed in black and white is that the president named somebody as a foreign policy adviser to his campaign who was believed to be a foreign agent. a russian foreign agent. advising him on foreign policy in the campaign. one week ago today, the president had his summit with russian president vladimir putin. since then his public statements and his public behavior have been volatile and erratic even for him. as we watch these legal cases continue to unfold over the course of the next few days, i think it is reasonable to expect things will probably get weirder before they settle down, if they ever do settle down. buckle up. we've got lots to come tonight. stay with us. it takes,

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to russia political entities, another left too. carter page had been part of the trump campaign's foreign policy team but in september 2016, the month after manafort left, michael isikoff reported that carter page was being investigated by u.s. intelligence agencies. three days later he resign saying he was taking a leave of absence. he didn't want to be a distracti distraction. immediately they were distancing themselves from him. they said he had no role. he was never really part of trump's circle. well, this week the government declassified portions of four applications for court ordered surveillance warrants for carter page from after his time on the trump campaign. these are fisa warrants which were made public over the weekend. the government used to not even acknowledge these things existed let alone let us look at parts of them but these applications for fisa warrants starting in 2016, continuing into late 2017.

they bluntly describe carter page as an agent of a foreign power. the fbi believes page has been the subject of targeted recruitment by the russian government. for months, the president and republicans in congress have called the carter page fisa surveillance a gross abuse of power. some sort of prime example of fbi overreach. but in these newly released documents, you can see not just the fbi considering the steel dossier, christopher steel, as a reliable and credible source. you can see the fbi telling the court that steel was hired to do this digging on the trump campaign in russia for political reasons. something that republicans denied the court had been informed about. but more substantively than that, leaving the republicans out of it, we have this mountain of other evidence that went into the fbi calling carter page a russian agent. everything from the meetings he had in moscow to investigative reporting stateside to the

russian spy harpring really did try to recruit him if new york. tonight they're calling for even more of the fisa warrants to be revealed, for more to get unredacted and released. i'm not sure they want it as much as they say they could given the parts that we can already see. very few people who have dealt with identifiesa ploikss a day-to-day basis who have personally signed them for approval. joining us now, one of those people, with the national security division of the justice department. he has personally signed many applications for fisa warrants. he literally wrote the book on prosecutions for the u.s. government. it is really nice to have you with us tonight. thanks for your time. >> thank you. >> for lay audience, can you explain the difference between a fisa warrant and a normal barnlt a court might sign off on? >> yeah. a identifiesa warrant for electronic surveillance or a physical search is focused on

dealing with agents of foreign powers. national security threats to the united states, rather than ordinary crime. so fisa is focused on spies and terrorists, whereas ordinary warrants are typically focused on drug dealers and the like. >> i think a lot of people seeing these this weekend were struck by their heft. we got about 400 pages released this weekend. 412 pages. given that focus of fisa warrants, as you just that, spies and terrorists, in order to prove somebody is a foreign agent, is that sort of typically the amount of volume that the prosecutors have to provide to the court in order to cross that threshold so the warrant can be approved? >> yeah. fisa applications are typically quite long. they're big enough that you don't want to drop them on your foot and they contain a lot of information and detail.

because the statute is quite exacting in what it requires the government to establish in order to get warrant granted. >> in terms of this release this weekend, this is obviously the product of some wrangling in terms of trying to get this made public, for political reasons and for giving the public the right to know, before this, the public has never had access to anything close to this kind of information about fisa warrants or applications for fisa warrants. this is an unprecedented disclosure, isn't it? >> it is unprecedented. fisa applications are not even released to defense attorneys in criminal prosecutions of people who have been wire attempted under fisa, let alone revealed to the general public, even with these heavy redactions. so this is an extraordinary event that has occurred here. >> do you think it is dangerous? are you concerned? >> by the time we got to these

particular fisa applications, a lot of water was already under the bridge thanks to the back and forth by nunes and his disclosures. what i see in these redacted fisas, the government has revealed things were already in the public domain, thanks to that prior activity but they haven't added any new information, or not very much that i see. >> the current calls in congress to reveal even more of this application. they're obviously trying to create political pressure even from the white house to expose more of this application. i wanted to ask, your reaction to that and whether i'm right to wonder if anything further to result in more evidence that carter page was a foreign agent. >> well, a couple things. first, you are that's right

these applications already substantially undermine the president's narrative and that of his proxies. and it seems to me very likely if we get below the tip of the iceberg into the submerged parts and more is revealed, it will get worse, not better. but it would also potentially be dangerous to disclose additional information because some of this obviously pertains to ongoing investigative activity and intelligence sources and methods and that's why the government kept the information back which means that we'll be in a posture of asymmetric political warfare with the president free to make up whatever facts suit him and the fbi limited in what kit today? response. >> former director of the national security division at the justice department. thank you for joining us tonight. a real pleasure to have you here. >> thank you. >> much more to come. stay with us. nick was born to move.

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they were back out there tonight. a smaller group but still loud on purpose. now w drummers and now with organized singing to help reach the president's ears. they also sang the national anthem which they said was meant to launch the start of paul manafort trial. the president stood alongside vladimir putin and questioned whether russia interfered in the election. now these post putin protests across the street from the white

house are no longer reserved for across the street from the white house. in philadelphia, preventers decked. they out in a very specifying costume greet vice president mike pence who was there to campaign for a republican senate candidate. there they are in the hand maid tale red. this might be a one night only event in philly but across from the white house, there very determined group is telling us they are gearing up for another night of protests tomorrow. and i guess, every night from here on out. as allowed as possible. using all possible means of generating noise. have we ever seen anything like it? did it end? am i asking the right questions here? that's the heart of the matter. do i have that right? am i right to see that it way? how are we supposed to know? is that accurate? is that weird?

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stay at la quinta. where we're changing with stylish make-overs. then at your next meeting, set your seat height to its maximum level. bravo, tall meeting man. start winning today. book now at lq.com when "the new york times" first reported on one of the most consequential decisions in the history of the u.s. supreme court, it didn't make the front page. instead it was right here on page 3 in teeny, teeny, teeny tiny font.

zwrmt affirmed with costs. that was it. that was how "the new york times" reported on the case in 1896, the day after the ruling. it was the ruling that upheld racial segregation in this country and racial law, separate but equal. it took almost 60 years for that precedent to get knocked back when the supreme court unanimously ruled in brown v. board of education that separate but equal was unconstitutional. there are very few big supreme court cases in our country that are not just legal landmarks. they're also now considered consensus cases. cases where everybody agrees that the decision made by the court was either definitely the wrong one, like plessy or the right one like brown v board. not many of those big consensus cases. one of those involved a u.s. president in 1974. 1974 the supreme court ruled

unanimous reply sitting president richard nixon had to turn over the audio times he made from the oval office. the tapes that ultimately confirmed his case in the watergate case. that put the seal on it case. the supreme court. unanimously that not even the most powerful person in the country is above the law. days after the public learned what was on the tapes, richard nixon of course resigned in disgrace. u.s. v nixon. nixon has to comply with a court order to hand over the times. that's one of our nation's consensus cases. it is almost impossible to find someone who says, yeah, the times should have stayed secret. the president should have defied court order. presidents should be allowed to evade the justice system and get away with what he did. it is almost impossible to find someone who disagrees u.s. v nixon. here's someone, quote, maybe u.s. v nixon was wrongly

decided. heresy though it to say so. nixon took u.s. v nixon took away the power of the president to control information in the executive branch by holding up the courts had power toer to president to disclose information in response to a subpoena sought by a subordinate executive branch official. maybe the tension of the time led to an erroneous decision. that's a transcript from 1999. a transcript of an interview with brett kavanaugh who was then a hair in private practice. he is now president trump's nominee to fill the vacancy on the supreme court that would be created by the retirement of justice anthony kennedy. that cancer krimt turned up in a bunch of documents that turned up ahead of his supreme court confirmation hearings. now that we know this about our next supreme court nominee, now that it is right there in black and white, maybe u.s. v nixon was wrongly decided, what are the odds that questions whether a president has to comply with

the law, comply with court orders, what are the odds that it might come before the court again at a time when brett kavanaugh would get one of those nine votes, now that we know he is one of the only people could you even imagine in america who would think that actually nixon should have gotten away with watergate. joining us now, joyce vance, for the great state of alabama. thank you for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> as a nonlawyer, i look at u.s. v nixon and a handful of other cases that i can name off the top of my head and i see that as a consensus case. in the legal community, in the legal world, is u.s. v nixon a controversial thing? it was a unanimous supreme court ruling, right? >> it is not controversial. and much like brown versus board, it is a consensus case that people agree on. that is why it was so shocking recently to see federal judicial nominees refusing to affirm the

principles of brown during their senate confirmation hearings. same for nixon. it is universally revered as a case that was correctly decided. >> and this transcript that has just transcript that's been put forth as part of the documentation around judge brett kavanaugh's confirmation hearings, this is not whether he agreed with that. this is not him dodging the question or avoiding saying what his opinion was on it. this was him volunteering that he thought nixon was a bad case. are there other people in sort of mainstream judicial circles who make that same argument? >> so to be fair, i think it's not really clear whether he was throwing this out as an argument prompt for the round table he was participating in or whether it was his own view. it is largely consistent with

his juris prudence over time and it would be a unique view. >> obviously there is enough significant political controversy around his nomination, given what happened with the scalia vacancy in 2016. it is hard to predict what's going to happen in terms of his confirmation hearings. do you expect that this will be the central issue, at least a central issue for democrats when it comes to questioning him, if it gets to that point in terms of whether or not he sees this president who is nominating him as somebody who ought to be subject to criminal inquiries, subpoenas, potentitpotentially o give testimony, is this the fulcrum on which he is viewed? >> it should be a central issue that every senator considers. the senators have the constitutional duty to advise and consent with the president on this type of decision. and nixon, you know, that case

about the tapes is really important because it establishes that the president is not beyond the reach of the law. that's something that we all fundamentally understand, whether we're lawyers or not, that we are a rule of law country. no individual, even the president, should be be beyond the reach of the courts. this is something that every senator will need to have the opportunity to fully consider. >> former u.s. attorney for alabama. thank you very much. good to have you with us tonight. >> thanks. >> we'll be right back. stay with us. rodney -- mastermind of discounts like safe driver, paperless. the list goes on. how about a discount for long lists? gold. mara, you save our customers hundreds for switching almost effortlessly. it's a gift. and jamie. -present. -together we are unstoppable. so, what are we gonna do? ♪ insurance. that's kind of what we do here. ♪ here's a trip tip: when you search hotels on tripadvisor...

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head's up about something that will infold in the next couple of days. we are hurdling toward a deadline imposed on the trump administration by a federal court. the administration faces a deadline to get all the kids that the trump administration forcibly took from their parents at the border. they're facing a deadline to get those kids back to their parents. that said, the administration has already blown the deadline for reunifying kids under the age of 5 with their parents. just under half of those kids were given back to their parents. but nearly half of those kids are now, quote, deemed ineligible to be given back to their parents. so that's how the administration handled the last deadline for kids under five. nearly half of the kids they just decided to not give back. well, the next deadline, the one that's upon us now is for kids

over the age of five. that deadline is thursday. we got a new progress report on how that is going. for this group we are talking about approximately 2,500 kids. the government says of the 2,500 there have been just under 1,200 reunions, quote, or other appropriate discharges, which we think might mean kids went into another family member or another sponsor. this process has been marked by total chaos and uncertainty. here's the thing to focus on. another 900 plus kids are being called by the government not el i believe for reunifying with their parents or not yet known to be eligible. we believe those kids will eventually be released at some point maybe. but something like half those kids have parents who might have already been deported, and the kids are here and in limbo. it's not clear how this is going to get worked out, but the deadline is coming. the next hearing is going to be

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add-on advantage. only when you book with expedia. tomorrow the process of jury selection starts in the felony trial of the president's campaign chairman, accused russian agent will be in court not on tuesday, not tomorrow, but on wednesday. that's been delayed now from tomorrow. it is almost like the news gods are trying to piece these out so we have something overwhelming happening every single day. that does it for us tonight. we will see you tomorrow. now it is time for the last word with lawrence o'donnell. >> so i'm a little torn on this. should we be grateful that federal trials are not televised so we actually don't have to spend the entire day glued to the tv on jury selection and everything else in the manafort case? >> i got to say