carole king, reverend al, thank you. >> earlier i had an opportunity to speak to aretha franklin's ex-husband who said not only could she sing but she could burn, referring to her cooking, which is a compliment, by the way. that means she was a fantastic cook. one thing he said to me that he would like female remember is that she had a great sense of humor and she was always curious. he recalled a time when she got him to buy a whole set of books related to the harvard business school curriculum so co-read them. that's it for this evening. the rachel maddow show starts now. i spent an entire hour after aretha franklin passed this morning talking about her on tv. for all the reasons to be thankful, i didn't stay name trump for an entire hour. >> maybe her first blessing, at least to you. that interview was so great. i've been listening to aretha

all day, at work and at home. hearing carole king and rev al talking. >> you hear others but you feel aretha franklin. >> i grew up in the san francisco area and it has always been the legend. the string of concerts that she did including bringing ray charles out of the audience. listening to that all day today, just weeping at my desk all day long. even that's more fun than saying "trump." >> thank you at home for joining us this hour. boy, has there been a lot of news today. the jury in the paul manafort case met for just over seven hours today before they ultimately broke off deliberations and they passed a note to the judge. there were four questions for the judge on that note. we'll get some expert advice in just a moment for somebody who used to be the lead federal

prosecutor in that district. we're going to talk to that expert, the person who has had that experience. seasoned prosecutors who know the district, who know the jflt they can look at moments like that with the jury asking questions, with the specific kinds of questions being asked. they can sometimes tell you what that might mean for how the trial is likely to turn out. so we'll have that coming up. i am super curious as to what somebody who might know, would think about that development m would think about it. we know there won't be a verdict in the manafort case because the jury has gone home. that said, i can't help myself. i can't stop myself. even though we know there isn't going to be a verdict tonight and we have to talk about the questions and everything, there is one thing i cannot stop myself from doing. i just want you to hear exactly

how the oddly co lly compelling in this case, how he sent the jury home tonight. i mentioned they have a day of deliberation and they stopped him to ask him these four questions. it all came back into the courtroom and the judge answered their four questions. and then this is what happened next. ready? quote, the jflt all right. do counsel need to come to the bench for any sfleen mr. andres, no, your honor, the prosecutor, no, your honor. the judge turns to the jury and says all right. ladies and gentlemen, i am also advised that you would like to cease today at 5:30 p.m. and return tomorrow morning at 9:30. am i correct? the jury, yes, your honor. the judge, okay, i will do so. it is now 5:20 p.m. so he will recess. you will leave your books and everything here in that room. the court security office her lock everything up and maintain security and then we will recess for the evening.

now, it's always been important and it continues to be extremely important that you not discuss the matter with anyone or undertake any investigation on your own by any means. put if you can, i will try, and you should try, to put the matter out of your mind. i think it will be easier for me to do because i have a boring dinner tonight. i would tell you where it is, but some of you might appear there. it's not even a restaurant. but put it out of your mind and i'll see you tomorrow morning at 9:30. thank you for your work in this matter. and then the jury is dismissed. the judge in this case is like, watching a parking lot where one person in the parking hot is trying to play bumper cars even though everybody is actually in a regular car. like, what is he talking about? i have a boring dinner tonight. it's not even at a restaurant. you jurors might show up. what is he talking about?

i love court transcripts no matter what because i am a dork but i am going to miss these judge ellis transcripts more than the rest when this is all over. okay. speaking of when this is all over, once upon a time, last year, the president of the united states confessed in an interview that he had fired the head of the fbi not because of any of the reasons his white house had publicly cited for that firing, not because of recommendations from other officials, that was the official cover story. no. he flat out confess that had the official cover story wasn't true. actually, he fired the fbi director, he said in an interview, because the fbi was investigating whether russia helped elect him and whether or not his campaign was in there. >> i was going to fire comey. there's no good time to do it, by the way. >> in your letter you said i semied their recommendations.

so you had made the decision. >> gifts go to fire him. he made a recommendation. highly respect, very good guy, very smart guy. the democrats liable him, the republicans like him. he made recommendation. regardless of that, i was going to fire comey knowing there was no good time to do it. and in fact, when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made-up story. >> that actually happened a little more than a year ago. it was just -- it is surreal now but when it happened, it was just as surreal then as it still is now. >> back to james comey, your staff has been insisting all week that you didn't fire him because of his russia investigation. >> no. i didn't. >> wait, what? >> i fired him because of russia. i thought, he's investigating russia. i don't like that.

i should fire him. >> and you're just admitting that. >> uh-huh. >> but that's obstruction of justice. >> sure. >> did i get him? is this all over? no, i didn't? nothing matters? absolutely nothing matters anymore? fine. >> basically getting the truth more true than the truth. but you know, we can't, we have to refuse to believe that nothing matters. we can't believe that. obstruction of justice is a thing. presidents are not allowed to do that thing. the only question we're living through now is how this president might get stopped from doing it. i think that's part of what we're still sorting out as a country 15 months after the president really did just tell a report near live interview that that is what he had done. that he fired the fbi director to obstruct an fbi investigation

into him and his campaign. that was 15 months ago. now it has happened again. in a story that interestingly, the "wall street journal" has tried to bury online today, ever since they first published it. this is a heck of a scoop. they have already taken it off their front page. i don't know. why reporters peter nicholas and michael bender did get scoop. quote, president trump drew a direct connection between the special counsel investigation into alleged russian interference in the 2016 election and his decision to revoke the security clearance of former cia director john brennan and review the clearances of several other former officials. brnan was director of the cia and the democratic administration of former president obama and one of those who presented evidence to trump shortly before his inauguration that russia had interfered in

the 2016 election. mr. trump said in the interview, quote, i call it the rigged witch hunt. it is a sham of the and these people led it, he add. so i think it is something that had to be done. reading this in the "wall street journal," so we got him, right? this is all over, right? no? nothing matters anymore? john brennan was white house homeland security adviser, he ran the national counterterrorism center under george w. bush, he spent 25 years at the cia, rising to become craft director in 2013. in his capacity as director, he was directly involved, personally involved with the initial response to the 2016 attack by the russians. he run the agency right through the 2016 elections until the day of trump's inauguration which is when he retired. as such, president trump never got the opportunity to fire john

brennan. now the president is admitting in black and white that the reason he has taken away brennan's security clearance was because of brennan's role in the russia investigation. a lot of the reaction to this day is that this is unique. it has never happened before. but this isn't the same admission that we saw from the president in that nbc news lester holt interview about james comey last year. james comey was leading the fbi while the fbi was investigating the russia issue. firing him in the middle of that investigation might logically have had an effect on the investigation. since at the time he was head of that agency. in contrast, john brennan is already retired. and with the exception of bruce orr who still works in a senior role at the justice department, all the other law enforcement person he will who the president threatened and put on this list yesterday for security clearance revocation, they're all prior

officials now toorgs. they're formers. they're not running anything when trump fired him. and i got that distinction. there is one part of this that you should know. what brennan himself was saying right up until this whole they know blew up about how exactly he was using his security clearance these days. >> i don't know what will happen. they have a real flawed understanding that what the security clearances mean. i've gone back to the agency a number of times to review my files so i can be prepared for congressional hearings as well as by staff. i've never requested a briefing on any issue over the last year and a half since i left government. >> what he has used his security clearance for is to go back to the agency a number of times on review his own files so he can

prepare for congressional committee hearings and interviews by investigative staff. so everybody is saying this is a symbolic thing the president has done, right? maybe it is troubling but it doesn't necessarily have any material consequences for the ongoing investigation. so for the president's legal fate. but from the president's perspective, think about this for a second. what if the practical effect of taking away a security clearance from a former official who was involved in the formative stages of the russian investigation is that you enter gear that former official accessing his or her own notes and files? his or her own materials? from a former agency where those people worked. during their time working on the russia investigation. that's something that you need to do according to brennan. if you're going to be questioned

about these ongoing investigations. look at the list. look at almost all the names on the list of people the president wants to do this to. brennan, craft director during the attack. clapper, comey, director of the fbi. mccabe, deputy director, strzok, susan rice, national security adviser, sally yates, attorney general during the russia attack. security clearances may not be anything they're using for their current work. but if they are stripped from their clearances or blocked the ever getting them again, what does that do for them to prepare for testimony and to testify if need be? >> we have good reason to think they might have important things to say provided they can speak about classified material in a classified setting.

>> do you think donald trump colluded with russia? >> it is a question i don't think should i answer in an open setting. >> miss yates, do you have any evidence? are you aware of any evidence that would suggest that in the 2016 campaign, anybody in the trump campaign colluded with the russian government or intelligence services and in a proper fashion? >> and senator, my answer to that question would require me to reveal classified information. i can't answer that. >> on the flynn investigation, is it not true that mr. flynn was and is a central figure in this entire investigation of the relationship between trump campaign and the russians? >> i can't answer that in an open setting. >> on january 24 ths, you just testified that flynn was interviewed by the fbi about his underlying conduct. what was that underlying conduct? >> i hate to frustrate you again but i think i have to.

my knowledge of his underlying conduct is based on classified information. so i can't reveal what that underlying conduct is. >> at the time of your departure from the fbi, was the fbi able to confirm any criminal allegations contained in the steele document? >> i don't think that's a question i can answer in this setting. >> what was about it the attorney general's own interactions with the russians, or his behavior with regard to the investigation that would have led the entire leadership of the fbi to make this decision? >> our judgment, as i recall, is that he was very close to and inevitably going to recuse himself for a variety of reasons. we also were aware of facts that i can't discuss in an open setting that would make his continued engagement in a russia related investigation problematic. >> i can't confirm whether or not those conversations

regarding sanctions occurred. that would require me to reveal classified information. >> guardian has reported that britain's intelligence service first became aware in late 2015 of suspicious interactions between trump advisers and russian intelligence agents. this information was passed on to u.s. intelligence agencies. over the spring of 2016, multiple european allies passed on additional information to the united states about contacts between the trump campaign and russians. is this accurate? >> i can't answer that. >> general clapper? is that accurate? >> yes, it is. it is also quite sensitive. >> okay. let me ask you this. >> the specifics are quite sensitive. >> there is what is referred to

as consciousness of guilt evidence. when somebody lies about a material fact and that fact, the fact of them lying can be used against that person because it would be in essence an effort to cover up what happened. if you were telling the truth, you wouldn't have anything to cover up. with respect to some of the contacts that you've referred to between russia and trump campaign officials, are you aware of them making false statements about the contacts or failing to disclose those contacts? >> i think that's something that you can pursue in closed session. >> this list of people the president is targeting in terms of taking away their security clearances, that would of course wall them off from here on out from any classified information. given what they know from their

previous involvement in the russia investigation, as senior intelligence officials, that might end up being a really important thing if and when this whole scandal ever gets adjudicated. whether it is in a court of law or impeachment proceedings or whatever. keep in mind, when the president blurted out to the "wall street journal" in this interview that he made this list of targets, and he went ahead and revoked brennan's security clearance because of the russia investigation, he didn't tell the "wall street journal" that did he it because he doesn't like john brennan's recent criticism of him or any other people speaking out against him. he said explicitly, the reason he did it is because they had a role back in the day leading the russia investigation. what he called the rigged witch hunt. he is not after his critics. he is after the witnesses. the "washington post" reports just tonight that the president is gearing up to strip more security clearances from more people on his list. and then there is this.

>> the other question that i have is, where does this end? what is to stop president trump from, say, suspending the eligibility for access to classified information of bob mueller and his entire team? and they have to -- they can't operate without access to classified information. >> james clapper, long time director of national intelligence, he is facing vs having his own security clearance revoked by the president. he raised this last night that what the president is doing opens the door to him yanking security clearances from special counsel robert mueller and his team of prosecutors and investigators. if youing who at the mueller indictments thus far, particularly against russian intelligence and russian operatives, it seems way more than likely the people working in the special counsel's office

have had to have clearance to work on this case. vice chairman mark warner is now raising the same alarm. >> i guess to me, this has an eerie memory of an enemy's list. these people are being singled out to have clearances revoked or in the process of being revoked, to me it smacks of nixonian practices of silencing anyone who criticizes this president. i wonder if it will lead to the president trying the take away mueller and his whole team's security clearances. this is clearly an effort to not allow the mueller investigation and our senate intelligence committee investigation -- there would be nothing this white house would do that would surprise me at this point.

>> the security clearance raid here, this is not just talk from the president. this is action by the president. and number one, it may really have legal consequences if he is targeting witnesses. if the people he's targeting will be witnesses in the investigation or in future investigations or impeachment proceedings. walling them off from classified information may affect their performance as witnesses. also, since no other president has done anything remotely like the before, we don't know where this will end now that he has started it. if the "washington post" is right, brennan was just the first one, the one to break the glass to get us all prepped for more to come. the number two on the senate committee and others are warning about it is as much in line with what the president has just done as anything else. why wouldn't he do that? but i think it is worth considering finally here, that

the response to what's going on right now may end up being just as historic as the action itself. john brennan himself punching back with brass knuckles on today in this op ed in which he uses a neat little double negative. the president's claims of no collusion are hog wash. do you see the double negative? he says there was no collusion? well no, to that no. that denial is bunk. the collusion happened. he said the only questions are whether the collusion that took place constituted criminally liable conspiracy, whether obstruction of justice occurred and how many members of trump incorporated attempted to defraud the government by laundering and concealing money into their own pockets. the collusion, that took place. john brennan is not cowed in the least by the president going after him in this unprecedented

way that he has. we'll hear more from john brennan at this time tomorrow. he will be here in the studio tomorrow for an extensive interview. his first live interview since this whole thing broke open. as i said, the response to what has just said to brennan and the list the president has created. the response may be as much a part of history as the ref. including this. this remarkable gauntlet thrown down by admiral william h. mcraven. the super hero name, the legendary commander of jsok. it infiltrated the navy s.e.a.l. team in pakistan to take out bin laden. this is not someone you would expect to weigh in on any political matter. but oh my god, has he. quote, dear mr. president, former craft director john brennan whose security clearance you revoked on wednesday is one of the finest americans i have

ever known. few americans have done more to protect this country than john. his honesty and caring have never been in question except by those who don't know him. therefore i would consider it an honor if you would revoke my security clearance as well so i can add my name to the list of men and women who have spoken up against your presidency. like most americans, i hoped when you became president you would rise to the level of a great president. a good leader tries embody the best qualities of his or her organization. a good leader puts the welfare of others before himself or herself. your leadership has shown little of these qualities. you have embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage and worst of all, divided us as a nation. if you think your mccarthy tactics will silence us, you are mistaken. the criticism will continue until you become leader we prayed you would be.

that's the whole thing. i would consider it an honor if you would revoke my security clearance as well so i can add my name to the list of people who have spoken out against your presidency. we covered the security clearance raid by the president last night as something that i said did have echos of nixon's enemies list from 47 years ago. when the nixon enemies list was exposed 45 years ago, it became a public point of pride in the watergate era. it became an honor to be hated and illegally targeted by this disgraced president before he was forced from office. i said last night during our coverage that the trump list of enemies, first published by the white house yesterday, might eventually be treated the same way. now with this from admiral mcraven, i didn't think it would take less than a day. honestly, i just want to add, i don't know what happens after this.

i mean, i know the next step here is that the president and presumably the fox news channel will now start to try slime admiral mcraven, the special operations commander. because of what he's done. i know that inevitably will be what that next. for the life of me, in all honesty, i don't know what happens after that. we're talking about going after admiral bill mcraven? i honestly don't know what happens once they start to go after him, too. -morning. -morning. -what do we got? -keep an eye on that branch. might get windy. have a good shift. fire pit. last use -- 0600. i'd stay close. morning. ♪ get ready to switch. protected by flo. should say, "protected by alan and jamie." -right? -should it? when you bundle home and auto... run, alan! ...you get more than just savings. you get 'round-the-clock protection. ...you get more than just savings. with my bladder leakage,

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if paul manafort's defense lawyers could wave a magic wand, they would mind meld to think about one person and one person only as they try decide whether to convict the president's campaign chair on 18 counts of federal felonies. but it is probably not who you think it is. it wouldn't be the star witness, rick gates. i don't think it would be the president, donald trump. if paul manafort's jurors could think about just one person, it would be rob mueller.

that's because yesterday the defense lawyers kept bringing him up all over the place even when they weren't supposed to. this from their closing argument. so ladies and gentlemen, we need to take ourselves, you no you have all the evidence, and pull the lens back and begin to reexamine here. what have you seen in why has the case been presented the way that it has? let me point out saying there are a lot of charges of bank fraud. you're familiar with those now. the prosecutor went through they will. there's not a single bit of evidence that any of the banks came to the government and complained about a fraud. these are frauds that were discovered in the course of the special counsel's investigation of mr. manafort. they claim they're frauds but this is basically a group that has come along and looked at every financial angle, pored through documents and tried to find any place doesn't match up and they've done a good job pulling it together but it has been a selection. quote, to the extent that you

have a problem at a bank, there is a process. well, nobody went through with that process. nobody came forward and said, we're concerned about what we're seeing here. not until the special counsel showed up and started asking questions. ladies and gentlemen, i submit to you if this were fraud, we would have courts across the country filled with bank frauds. people do not get prosecuted by typical prosecutors when what they've done is had some issue about whether their property was represented or personally owned and it changes. this is going through each piece of paper and adding it up. not until the special counsel showed up and started asking questions. it's interesting. that is actually not an argument the defense was allowed to make to the jury. but they did it anyway. they kept bringing their closing argument back to the special counsel. the only reason it turned up is

because the special team going through all the stuff trying to nail him. just because the special counsel's office is doing it. they weren't supposed to make that argument to the jury and they did it anyway. after they did it anyway, the judge in the case tried to make the jury pretend they had never heard any of that because they weren't supposed to. the judge instructed jury to ignore any argument about the jarell's motives or lag of motives in bringing the prosecution. so we don't know if the jury was thinking about the department of justice or the special counsel as they deliberated for 7:15 today. we know they caused a lot of excitement when they sent a note to judge ellis with four questions. two questions about financial terms. one provocative question reasonable doubt. also a request to have the indictment added to the exhibits. here's something to look forward to. today judge ellis said he will make the jury's physical note a

part of the public record. so we will get to see their note as well. which probably means i will act it out. but after their first 7:15 of deliberations today, what should we read into the jury's questions if anything? should we be thinking about how this will ring for all the other cases that are connected to it? we know that manafort's defense team will be representing him at the next public trial next month. that's already chugging along. there was activity in that case. frankly tomorrow special counsel is due to be back in court giving the court their sentencing recommendation for good old george papadopoulos as well. as all of these move forward on different tracts. what do we make of it?

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joining us now, chuck rosenberg, former justice department and fbi official. thank you for being here. >> my pleasure. >> the jury came back after deliberating for just under eight hours today and they had four questions that they posed to the judge in note form. first of all, do juries often ask questions of a judge early on in the deliberations? >> they ask questions all the time. it is reasonably common for jurors to ask questions and always in note form. >> that doesn't -- does that necessarily indicate good news or bad news for the prosecution? >> so it is a parlor game.

we have little information to go on so we overindex on the information we have. we study the notes and we look at their faces and try to divine some meaning from it. >> we do know the content of the four questions. the jury asked, not in order but they asked for a definition of reasonable doubt. >> which is a very common question, by the way. >> why is that? >> because it is not apparent what reasonable doubt is. particularly to the lay men and women. if i had to fick one question that gets asked the most often, it is probably what the heck is reasonable doubt? >> the defense counsel talked about it a lot in their closing arguments to the point that they made a chart to show all the places you might find reasonable doubt. so i think people saw it as a victory for the defense that the jury was asking about that term in particular because they made it such a center piece. >> here's what i want to know. is it one juror hung up on one

count? is it 11 jurors hung up on 18 counts? the answer to those two questions matters a lot. but i've had that question in my trials time and time again. not every time but time and time again. and i think in every case we ended up with a conviction. that doesn't mean we'll have one here but i wouldn't overindex on it. >> in terms of the other questions from the jury, this has been fought over, was whether or not the indictment itself is something that the jurors could look at. whether it is an exhibit that they could look at and they asked, could they please have a copy of the indictment and the judge said no. >> i think they'll get a copy of the indictment. my understanding of what they wanted was tell us of all the exhibits now in trial and sitting on a big stacks on our desk, which exhibits to go which counts? >> so they wanted an index.

>> exactly. this is why during the trial prosecutors want to get the judge to permit it. so there was some question that whether or not the judge had admitted stuff, he had, and whether or not he would per in it government to publish it to the jury and he did not. now you're seeing the ramifications. the jurors want a road map. what stuff goes to what count? >> this helps me. we focused around the intrigue of the federal savings bank and the supposed job offer to the secretary of the army, to the ceo of that bank, and a lot of most provocative physical evidence we saw, e-mails and such, one with jared kushner where he said he was would it the job recommendation. we knew we could see the pieces of evidence because they were published by the court. we couldn't tell if the jury had seen them. and it was judge's decision, you're saying, to not show that stuff to the jury during the course of the trial.

they have it now. so now they don't know which count it ma'amaps to. >> and he refused to do that, because would it put his perimeter on to each of the exhibits and telling the jury which counts to consider them for. he says you have the stuff, the indictment, the exhibits, sort it out. >> wow. giving them extra work. i have a feeling i know how you'll answer this but when you were talking about us overindexing, overstrap hating from the little date we have, is your best counsel is that we should stop trying to figure out what the jury should say and just wait? >> it is interesting. when you're waiting on the jury which is an an tiesing time for everybody involved. inunavoidable that you will do this. i found you really can't tell. if they send a note that says we

are hopelessly dead locked, that's a pretty good sign. >> i will keep reading them despite that. thank you, john. >> we'll be right back. stay with us. paying too much for insurance you don't even understand? well, esurance makes it simple and affordable. in fact, drivers who switched from geico to esurance saved an average of $412. that's auto and home insurance for the modern world. esurance. an allstate company. click or call. paying too much for insurance that isn't the right fit?

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which is where he sits now. not telling the truth in an earlier confirmation hearing, that's the kind of thing would sink any number of nominees. even for minor jobs. the senate really as an institution doesn't like being lied. to particularly under oath. when it comes to a supreme court nomination, it is completely unheard of but definitely getting close to unbelievable that the senate might move forward without fully examining whether or not this nominee lied to the senate judiciary committee the last time he sat before them. beyond sifting through records from his past, and that question of his last confirmation, there is also a search for clues about what kind of justice he would be. how he would rule on the most divisive issues in the country. we haven't had many clues because he is very careful with his public statements. but tonight we have one. a bit of a scoop. that's coming up next. r accideng deal, right?

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i know! i know! when did brian move back in? brian's back? he doesn't get my room. he's only going to be here for like a week. like a month, tops. oh boy. wi-fi fast enough for the whole family is simple, easy, awesome. in many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40's. okay. here is a piece of tape i don't think many people have seen. this is from a speech that brett kavanaugh gave in 2016, two years ago, at an event honoring justice scalia. in the course of his remarks, brett kavanaugh brought up two landmark supreme court cases. the first one was planned parenthood v. casey, which affirmed the right to have an

abortion. it is sort of part two of row versus wade. but the other case he cited is much more recent. that's the case that ruled that same sex couples in this country have the same right to get married that straight people have. he dissented in both of those cases. he voted against an equal right to marriage. so what you are about to hear is brett kavanaugh talk about those two supreme court rulings and specifically scalia's dissents. if you are wondering how brett kavanaugh might vote if abortion rights or marriage votes came before him. here more clearly than anywhere else we have found he spells it out. again, he is talking about scalia's dissent here, against abortion rights, against marriage rights. watch what brett kavanaugh says

about that. >> justice scalia was a fierce guarantor of rights. he upended settled practices that infringed on those rights. no deference there. but on the flip side, courts have no legitimate role, justice scalia would say, in creates new rights not spelled out in the constitution. on those issues he believed in complete deference to the political branches in the states. deference because the constitution gave the court in legitimate role in the case. think about his dissents in casey on abortion and on same sex marriage. his opinions on the constitutionally of the death penalty articulated by some of his fellow justices over the years. for justice scalia, it was not the court's job to improve on or

update the constitution to create new rights. >> what he is suggesting there is that scalia was right to say no in both those cases, those so-called new rights don't actually apply here in this country, which could extend to a lot of modern life, if you think about brett kavanaugh's remarks about scalia giving us more than a hint as to how he would vote on those two issues and what legal reasons he would use. this recording would suggest that as clear as anybody might feel about that, you should also probably feel about as clear about what a justice brett kavanaugh would mean in terms of same sex marriage rights. the warnings are having an effect. the latest polling shows the percentage of americans who would like to see him confirmed to the court is only 37%.

the per -- better off than borke is not a great place to be. but the constituency that's dragging bet cavanaugh down is women. the percentage of women that want him confirmed is 28%. less than three in ten women across the country want to see him on the bench. for all the super important fighting that's now going on over access to brett kavanaugh's records, this is the kind of public fight this nominee presumably knows he's walking into. there is no reason to think that the nomination should be anything close to easy.

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two things to keep on eye on tomorrow's news that you might not otherwise know about. first of all, the guy who put model un on his resume, he pled guilty to lying to federal officials. he's apparently been cooperating with prosecutor ever since. it was his apparent advanced knowledge of the russian government's hack of democratic e-mails that started the fbi

russia's investigation. the government is due to tell the court how much time he should get, what they are recommended in terms of his sentence. part of the drama is that his wife, who appears to play a key role in the whole drama of him and his contact with the trump campaign and all the rest of it, he has been making noises that he might need a new lawyer and that his plea agreement might be a bad deal with the government that should be torn up. most people believe if he tries to tear up his plea agreement with the government at this point, that would essentially be a legal act of i don't want to say suicide, but it would be an ongul. we will wait to see if the plea agreement survives and how much time the government suggests he

should get if it does. that's one thing. i mentioned on the top of the show we will have a big night tomorrow night. we will be joined by john brennan, who is the author of this incredible op ed. he will be here tomorrow for his first live tv interview since the president revoked his security clearance. now senior national security and intelligence analyst. we will be with me tomorrow night at 9:00 p.m. that does it for us tonight. now it is time for the last word with lawrence o'donnell. >> good evening, rachel. and can't wait to hear what john brennan has to say tomorrow night. last time he was on tv was right here and the next day he got his security clearances revoked. what is going to happen after your interview? what happens on saturday? >> i have not had an interview with joh