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tv   The Rachel Maddow Show  MSNBC  August 27, 2018 9:00pm-10:00pm PDT

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and florida. good night from new york. happy to have you with us. there has been a bunch of breaking news late this afternoon and into this evening including the surprise ruling tonight from a panel of three federal judges that could have a really big impact on the democrats' chances of winning control of congress. winning control of the house of representatives this fall. as you know, the mid-term elections coming up very fast. they are ten weeks away. but there has been ongoing litigation in multiple states about whether or not the maps that define congressional districts in certain states have been drawn fairly. well, tonight the three-judge panel of federal judges concluded not only that the
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congressional districts in the state of north carolina were drawn unfairly, to help republicans, basically, to guarantee that republicans will win more seats in congress from north carolina than democrats will. but these federal judges appear to be indicating that not only should north carolina redraw its districts ask -- ask -- and fix this problem, they should do so right now. right away. before people vote in the mid-terms in ten weeks. this is from tonight's "washington post" report of this breaking news story. the judges acknowledge that primary elections have already produced candidates for the 2018 elections. the judges said they were reluctant to let elections take place in congressional districts that the court has twice found violate constitutional standards. quote, north carolina legislators are likely to ask the supreme court to step in. adding to the drama is the fact
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the supreme court has an even number of members. there are not nine members of the supreme court right now. there are eight because anthony kennedy has retired. but if this north carolina case about congress is going to the supreme court, and again, this might have national implications for who controls congress overall. if this is going to the supreme court, this is something the supreme court has to decide very, very quickly. if they're getting new congressional districts in time for november, any ruling on this has to happen like, now. so that is a very, very dramatic development with big national implications. tonight we do not know how this will shake out but you should expect fast-moving litigation and a little bit of a party politics freakout on both sides about that north carolina ruling tonight. everybody knew this was within the realm of possibility in terms of the ruling. the idea that the congressional districts have to be redrawn now, two and a half months
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before voting. i'm not sure anybody knew that was on the table. it has also been a remarkable day in the news today watching the white house and the president specifically absolutely bungle their response to the death of senator john mccain this weekend. the range of potential responses to the death of a singular american political figure like john mccain, you think the range wouldn't be that wide. right? but this white house has taken something that ought to have been simple and straightforward and they instead have found a way to repeatedly screw it up. first, lowering the flag at the white house to honor senator mccain. then raising it back up to full staff. then lowering it again after the president initially had refused to make any sort of statement about honoring mccain's legacy. the white house then instead started trotting out lots of other officials including the president's daughter to say nice
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things but pointedly, the president himself was not making any supportive statements. that eventually crumbled as well. and then the president did put out a begrudging positive statement and the flag went back down to half-staff. the country is essentially mourning the death of this singular figure in american politics. respecting the sacrifices that he made for this country. he was held as a prisoner of war and tortured for five and a half years. even people who disagree with him vehemently on specific policy matters, or on aspects of his record in politics. even people who dislike a lot of what john mccain did as a public figure, as a politician, have found a very easy path to recognizing his extraordinary, extraordinary service. except for the white house which has turned itself into a side show of, forgive me but just
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self-interested incompetence, petulant grandstanding, caving reversals and ultimately shame. i'm sorry to use such strong language. i try not to do that in general about anything in the news. but i think it is unavoidable given the debacle they made out of what should be the simplest governing task when confronted with a sad moment like this. all you have to do with a genuine fully minted american hero, all you have to do, if you can do nothing else, is just be decent and don't make it about yourself. that's all you have to do. if you can do nothing else, if you can accomplish nothing constructive, be decent and don't make it about yourself. but in this white house, just spectacular failure on both of those counts. so i imagine the failure will continue on this front. because it's not like they have
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a real history of getting their ducks in a row when they fail like this, in such spectacular fashion. especially with the condemnation they're having from across the spectrum. we will continue on watch them screw this up. we'll have more on both these stories tonight. we're in our usual groove of expecting more breaking and developing news over the evening. that's in part because of a big story that was broken late tonight by the "wall street journal." this story the "wall street journal" has broken tonight is something the legal experts are all telling us we should have probably expected. maybe that's true. maybe we should have guessed that this was happening behind the scenes. it doesn't feel like it. for those of us watching this presidency of late, and watching the scandal that envelops this
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presidency, more and more on a daily basis. this news broken by the "wall street journal," it does feel like a surprise. you see the headline there. right to the heart of the matter. manner. manafort sought deal in next trial. that means trump campaign chair paul manafort sought a deal with robert mueller. with the prosecutors at the special counsel's office who are about to put how many trial for another round of felony charges in federal court. but quote, talks broke down. to understand why, at least to the nonlawyers among us, this is such a jarring headline. just stand back and look at the legal trouble and the legal investigations that are circling the president and his business and his children. the biggest news of the last week was the president's long time lawyer pleading guilty on eight felony federal charges. and his plea out loud in court in the information filed by prosecutors in question, his
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guilty plea, michael cohen not only admitted himself to committing eight felonies, he implicated the president himself, stating the president directed him to commit those crimes. it also implicated, including two specified employees, executive one and executive two at the president's business. cohen also implicated another business called american media which is the publisher of the "national enquirer," his plea also implicated people from the president's campaign. the court appearance last week and documents prosecutors filed in conjunction with that plea therefore appeared to be a sort of road map indicating other potential indictments in the future, or at least pointing to other co-conspirators in these felonies to which michael cohen pled guilty which related to him using illicit payments to
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influence the election. will there be further prosecutions of the people implicated in the plea deal? we don't know. will the allegations of other conspirators, will that lead to further investigation which may lead to other criminal cases? we don't know. but late last week we did get word the district attorney in new york is considering pursuing criminal charges against the trump organization. which is the president's business. and two senior company officials in question, the criminal acts to which cohen pled in federal court last week. the news also simultaneously broke the new york state attorney general has already sought a criminal referral under state law for new york state tax charges, in addition to the federal tax charges that michael cohen has already pled to. that same new york state
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attorney general has already brought charges against the president's foundation, the president himself and the president's three eldest children, don jr., eric and ivanka. they have already referred that case against the trump foundation to the public integrity division at the justice department, to the federal election commission and to the irs for federal prosecution. the federal prosecutors also recently brought a huge civil tax case against ivanka trump's business partner, from what used to be her luxury jewelry brand. trump organization executive allen weisselberg in the case relating to michael cohen is that the new york state case that relates to the trump foundation. reports of allen weisselberg's
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deal, at this point the reports are intriguing and a little hard to sort out. it is fair to say that we don't yet know how much trump organization allen weisselberg, how much he's cooperating, whether his immunity deal frees him up to talk with prosecutors. just specifically to michael cohen or whether his deal gives him immunity from prosecution on other things related to the president's business interests. that's all happening simultaneously. all of those things all at once. that's not even getting into the emolument cases which could result in production of the president's tax returns and all his business documents. if his family, his business, if they have anything to worry about, particularly when it comes to financial crimes. tax fraud, illicit interactions with russia that relate ultimately to russia's interference in the election to
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benefit trump. if they have anything to worry about in all those fronts, you might imagine that all of these related ongoing investigations might start to feel a little constraining to the president. they might start to seem a little worrying. there's no shortage of legal jeopardy right now for the president, his family, for the people and entities that are important to him. and honestly, i mean, i don't say it lightly. it is hard to know where the limits of legal jeopardy might be. not just for the president and his family but for the entities closest to him. i would single out one line here. i don't think this has had a lot of attention but it stuck with me over the weekend. the more i talk to people about the more -- especially the more i talk to people in the legal system about it, the more this sticks out for me. there is literally a line in the michael cohen plea agreement from last week where federal prosecutors spell out that michael cohen pleading guilty in federal court last week means
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federal prosecutors agree to not further prosecute him to the crimes he admitted in court last week. but prosecutors explicitly spell out in the agreement that they are reserving the right to cite those same felonies as crimes in case they ever want to bring a rico case in the future on this matter. code 18, usc 1961. that's racketeering. that's rico as in organized crime. federal prosecutors are reserving the right to charge something as an organized criminal entity under the rico statutes and that relates to michael cohen. what? that alone is probably enough to light a little fire under anybody who believes they might personally end up in the crosshairs of one or more of these investigations. but among all of these for the president's business and even
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his charity, even amid all of that, the paul manafort case really does stand out. it really does stand alone. michael flynn, the president's national security adviser, pled guilty. rick gates, the deputy campaign chair, organizer of the inauguration, pled guilty. george papadopoulos, pled guilty. paul manafort has not pled guilty. he stands alone here. things are happening to him fast. of course the same day that michael cohen pled guilty in federal court, almost exactly simultaneously to paul manafort standing up and pleading guilty to those eight felonies, paul manafort was convicted of those eight felonies.
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the prosecutors who convicted manafort on those eight felonies, they'll have to tell the court whether they are going to bring manafort back to court to retry him on the ten felony charges for which the jury was not able to reach a verdict. remember, it was eight felonies, conviction, eight felonies, hung jury. couldn't come to consensus. the foreperson of the jury went out of his or her way to make it publicly known on the verdict sheet organization those ten charges where they couldn't come the a verdict, 11 of the 12 jurors wanted to convict manafort on all of them. only one holdout for the ten charges on which they didn't get guilty verdicts. prosecutors know that and they have the right to put paul manafort on trial again for the ten charges where they got a mistrial. they were just one juror away. we'll find out the day after tomorrow whether they'll try manafort again on those on those same charges. prosecutors are steaming toward the next trial for manafort. it is interesting. a few days ago, the federal court in d.c. that's about to start the second trial for
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manafort, they unsealed some of the earlier proceedings that we the public hadn't previously had access to in manafort's d.c. case. that let us see for the first time that even the judge who is overseeing the next paul manafort trial in d.c., that judge appears to be misystifiedy the fact that manafort didn't consent to all the charges against him just being consolidated in one jurisdiction so he could go on trial once. the reason, the trump campaign chair, the reason he had a trial that ended last week and he's now about to have a new trial that is starting within the next few weeks is simply because he decided he wanted two trials. government gave him the choice to consolidate them and only go on trial once. he chose to go on trial twice in these two neighboring jurisdictions. why did he make that choice? we don't know and neither does the judge in his case. this is from the newly unsealed
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court transcript in manafort's case from february 14th in washington, d.c. this is the judge in manafort's d.c. case talking to manafort's defense lawyers. and before this was just unsealed, this was a sealed proceeding at the base. now we know what happened. the judge says, quote, i understand you're hamstrung. is there any change in manafort's view about the eastern district versus the district of columbia? i think the only thing i can imagine that's more unusual than the government offering you that choice is the choice you're making. but is there any further discussion about that? manafort's defense lawyer says no. and then the judge says, okay, all right. the judge is saying, are you sure you want your client to go on trial twice? you want two federal felony trials? the judge is saying to the defense lawyers, listen, prosecutors never give anybody the option to drop one of their trials.
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they're giving you the option to swap -- drop one of the trials and only go on trial once. are you sure you're not willing to take them up on it? the defense lawyer is yep, your honor, we're sticking with the plan. two trials. the judge is like, okay, your funeral. here we go. so this second trial is about to start. and it's weird. and it will happen before the judge who finds it remarkable. in the judge's words, unusual that manafort has decided to have a second trial. incidentally, this judge who will be presiding in the d.c. trial is the same judge who ordered paul manafort held in jail instead of house arrest because of the allegations that he was tampering with witnesses while he was out on bail. so this next case for manafort is not promising for a lot of reasons. but it will also be significantly different from the case in virginia where he just got convicted on eight felonies. we know about in part from the
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1,500 pieces of evidence that the prosecution has filed for the d.c. case for manafort. one of the things that's different is that at least some of the evidence in this case that they'll be citing is apparently in russian. look. at least the subject lines of all of these e-mails that appear in the prosecution's evidence list are written in cyrilik. in the prosecution's list, this is the trial where manafort has a co-defendant on some of the charges. his co-defendant is konstantin kilimnik. he is believed to be associated with russian intelligence. he is believed to be hiding in russia rather than face these charges. in addition to being listed as manafort's co-defendant in the d.c. case, kilimnik appears here in the evidence list.
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item number 1194. kk we believe is the nickname for him and that's the way manafort referred to him. there are also these couple references who we believe may be to a russian oligarch who is known to be very close to vladimir putin and is known to have extensive business dealings. his name is oleg deripaska. we'll have more on his role. this was always going to be a difficult prospect for him. you don't have the wind at your back if you're coming off eight convictions. eight felony federal convictions right before you start a new trial on seven more counts. in terms of the president's legal jeopardy, though, this second manafort trial has got a lot of russian stuff in it. it is a lot closer to the original concerns related to russia that started the special counsel's investigation in the first place. after initial reports last week stoked in part by the president himself that he might be considering a pardon for paul manafort, following his conviction in virginia, tonight gabriel sherman reports at
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"vanity fair".com that the president is so committed to the idea of pardoning paul manafort now that he is willing to do it even over the objections of his white house counsel don mcigan. the president has said he is considering bringing in a new lawyer to draft a manafort pardon if mcgahn won't do it. in that context tonight, the "wall street journal" reports that he was trying to do a deal. manafort who would not flip. manafort, the guy going all the way to trial of not once but twice, the one guy implicated in the trump/russia scandal who absolutely would not do a deal with prosecutors and was praised by the president for that, manafort has apparently trying to do a deal with prosecutors. according to the reporter at the "wall street journal," manafort's defense team started conversations with mueller's prosecutors about a potential plea deal while the virginia jury was deliberating over manafort's fate in his first trial. quote, paul manafort's defense team held talks with prosecutors to resolve a second set of charges against the former campaign chair. the plea discussions occurred as a virginia jury was spending four days deliberating tax and bank fraud charges against manafort. the talks between the defense team and prosecutors were aimed at forestalling a second trial for manafort which is scheduled to begin on september 17th. although paul manafort and his defense team started those talks with the special prosecutor's office, it did not result in a deal. and this is where it gets very intriguing. as the president openly mulls
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the prospect of pardoning paul manafort to get him out of this legal corner of a mess that he's in, does this mean that paul manafort was offering to cooperate with prosecutors for the first time ever? could this mean that he wasn't offering to cooperate but his defense team was nevertheless, trying to make his second trial go away? if they weren't operating, if they weren't offering his cooperation in exchange for making those charges go away, what else would they have to offer? quote, paul manafort's defense team talks with prosecutors to resolve a second set of of charges against the former trump campaign chairman. the plea discussions occurred as a virginia jury was spending four days deliberating tax and bank fraud charges. the talks were aimed at forestalling a second, related trial for mr. manafort, which is scheduled to begin on september 17 in washington. the talks did not result ultimately in a deal. and this is where it gets very intriguing.
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quote, the plea talks stalled over issues raised by special counsel robert mueller. what issues? quote, it isn't clear what those issues were and the proposed terms of the would-be plea deal could not be immediately determined. as the president openly mulls the prospect of pardoning paul manafort to try to get himself out of this corner of this giant legal mess he's now in, this new reporting of the "wall street journal" tonight, does this mean that paul manafort was offering to cooperate with prosecutors for the first time ever? could this mean that he wasn't offering to cooperate but his defense team was nevertheless trying to make his second trial go away? if they weren't offering his cooperation in exchange for making those charges go away, what else would they have to offer? there's ways to figure out the answers to these questions. we'll take our best shot at it next.
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so we've been following this breaking news tonight from the "wall street journal." manafort sought deal in next
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trial, but talks broke down. the journal says tonight that paul manafort's defense team held talks with prosecutors from the special counsel's office to try and resolve a second set of charges, the ones he faces next month, in washington, d.c. manafort's lawyers reportedly tried to talk this out before he was convicted last week on eight felony counts in virginia while the jury was deliberating. talks stalled, according to the "wall street journal." the plea talks on the second set of charges stalled over issues raised by special counsel robert mueller, one of the people said. it isn't clear what those issues were, and the proposed term of the plea deal couldn't immediately be determined. the effort to make a deal apparently didn't work out, but what does it mean for the mueller investigation that trump campaign chairman, newly
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convicted felon paul manafort, is now apparently trying to get himself a deal with the prosecutors in robert mueller's office. joining us now is chuck rosenberg, a senior fbi official, also a former u.s. attorney for the eastern district of virginia, which is where the first manafort trial was held. mr. rosenberg, chuck, thank you very much for your time tonight. >> my pleasure, rachel. >> is it normal practice for a defense team to come to prosecutors to try to cut a deal for their client literally while the jury is out and deliberating on their client's fate? >> no, because it's highly unusual for someone to have two trials that they're facing, one in virginia and one in d.c. it's not unusual, however, rachel, for defense lawyers to explore with prosecutors the possibility of resolving a case short of trial. >> they reportedly, according to the "wall street journal," were trying to lessen or eliminate the felony charges that manafort was facing in the second trial of seven felony counts.
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they are similar, too, in some ways but also they depart from the kinds of charges that he faced in virginia. why would they have thought that they had leverage with the special counsel's office at that point to get prosecutors to drop those charges? what could they have been offering? >> they don't really have leverage unless they're willing to offer full and complete and truthful cooperation. and that doesn't seem likely to me. so there really isn't a lot of leverage. and i'm not surprised that defense counsel would try this. i'm also not surprised that prosecutors would balk. look, would prosecutors like to have the finality of the conviction? absolutely. but they go into the second trial in d.c. with a very strong hand, rachel. >> obviously the prosecutors in this case want conviction of paul manafort. presumably they would also like any information they could get from paul manafort about the ongoing investigations. the judge himself at the virginia trial said in open court to some controversy that he believes the prosecutors in
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this case are interested in what paul manafort might be able to contribute to a case that involves the president or other high-ranking federal officials. once the prosecutors knew that their case was in the hands of the jury in virginia, they presumably had some ideas to the strength of their case, what they put forward, the likelihood of getting convictions. wouldn't it sort of, then, be, i guess, having their cake and eating it, too, if they could get eight felony convictions against him but then also get his cooperation to make other charges go away? >> you bet. and they absolutely want his cooperation. again, as long as it's truthful. we always think of plea deals, plea agreements where both sides come to some understanding and both sides get something out of it. it's also the case that mr. manafort could simply walk into court in d.c. and plead guilty straight up, as we call it, to all the charges. and the prosecutors would be left with really just the convictions but not the cooperation. they absolutely want the
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cooperation and that is the small bit of leverage that mr. manafort has. but in order for him to trade that, he's going to have to give the prosecutors everything about everyone and that may be a painful road for him to walk. >> one last question for you on this, chuck, and i guess this is less a pure legal question and more kind of like a real politic question. the president has publicly praised mr. manafort for not being a rat, in the president's terms, calling him brave and saying he wouldn't break, he wouldn't cooperate. the manafort defense team has publicly thanked the president for his supportive comments about mr. manafort. that's led to a lot of discussion that both sides may be sort of signalling to each other through the press that mr. manafort is ang liling for a pan and the president may be signalling to manafort that the way he gets that is by not
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cooperating. if that dynamic is, in fact, at work here, how do you think this report from the "wall street journal" that manafort sought a deal with prosecutors might affect that? >> i read it the way you do, and i think these are strong signals to manafort to do what the president said, stay strong and there may be a pardon in your future. if that is, in fact, the case, then the deal might only be something as simple as which counts manafort pleads guilty to, or how much in forfeiture he would have to sort of give to the government. it may not be about cooperation at all. frankly, as i sit here and think about it, i think cooperation still remains highly unlikely. so you can plead guilty, as we saw with mr. cohen, without agreeing to cooperate. and that seems to be the way we're going here, rachel. >> chuck rosenberg, former u.s. attorney in the eastern district of new jersey, former fbi in the justice department. thank you very much. always a pleasure having you here. >> my pleasure.
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500 kids who had been separated from their parents by the trump administration. 23 of those kids are five years old or younger. these are toddlers and babies who have been taken away from their parents. for most of the kids who are still being held apart from their parents, 343 of them, their parents have been deported, have been sent out of this country while the kids are still being held here by the trump administration. the trump administration is essentially admitting now those kids are at risk of never finding their parents again. which means that the trump administration taking those kids away from their parents will be an irrevocable act. they will never see their parents again because of what the trump administration did. the "washington post" editorial said this will be trump's legacy of orphans. as this policy process slowly grinds along, a group of administration officials have apparently been meeting weekly at the white house to supposedly try to fix what the administration has done, but according to some remarkable new
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reporting from the new yorker's jonathan blitzer who spoke with one of those officials, white house officials are expressing very little contrition about what's happened here. quote, i asked the current administration official whether the outcry over family separation had caught the government by surprise. it had, the official said. the expectation was that the kids would go to the office of refugee resettlement, that the parents would get deported, and that no one would care. it's a currently serving administration official admitting to a reporter that that's what they were counting on, that they could take kids away from their parents permanently and no one would care. they were surprised anybody did. joining us now is deputy director of the aclu immigrants rights project. he is one that led to that last court-ordered deadline. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me again. >> when we first reported on this deadline, we thought the
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government would have to abide by it. >> right. >> the government said they are abiding by it but these kids are not eligible for reunification with their parents. that's still the position that we're in? >> the government took certain kids and said you're not eligible because we think your parents have a serious criminal history. we completely dispute that. but that's only one segment. as you said, there's 343 parents sitting in other countries waiting for their kids. the government tried to say, well, they're not part of this lawsuit because they were deported. we said, but they're the most harmed. they're sitting in another country. they are worrying about their kids and they are so far away. the judge said, no, they are a part of it. you have to find them. we are desperately trying to find these parents to reunite them, and every day that goes by, the kids are harmed. >> is the trump administration working diligently to move this along? i mean, we're talking about a known universe of people here. this is not some amorphous
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thing. these are known kids, known parents describing deportation procedures. is this an aclu project at this point, or is the government trying to get the work done? >> i think it largely is. the government said, we're washing our hands of it. the judge said, no, no, give them information. but we're the ones out there looking for the parents. the government says they've called them. maybe thai called them. we don't know what kind of conversation they had with the parents. we are now calling the parents. we are looking for additional parents. and it's clear when we're talking to these parents, so many of them were misled or coerced into giving up their own asylum rights thinking that's the way to get their children back or being told, you don't have an asylum claim. i think the point you made up front is critical. there is no contrition here. every single day we're fighting with them for little crumbs. i mean, they should be saying, look, we never should have done this.
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we traumatized these kids. let's at least give them farrah si -- fair asylum proceedings now. i don't think these kids can ever be really whole, but let's get them back. i got off the phone talking with a counsel. the government came back with something about asylum hearings. they're not giving farrir asayl hearings to these families. >> the government making these excuses for kids that don't fit the class and slow-walking these reunifications, even the ones they're ordered to do. is there any other leverage that canning brought to bear on this administration? i feel like people watching are wondering what else can be done for these kids. >> i think at this point the judge has said to them, let the
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aclu and other groups try and find them. the government is going to try and do some stuff. i think the judge has made clear he doesn't want to hear from the government about washing their hands. whether there are additional steps, we'll have to wait ask s -- and see. we're not throwing in the towel. we believe we'll find these parents. we have to remain hopeful so we're out there every day trying to find these parents. we hope the government would do the right thing and give them meaningful asylum hearings. when we find all the families and all the children trying to get meaningful asylum hearings. every second we're fighting with them, you would think they would have learned their lesson and said, let's remedy this situation. but they're not. they're proceeding with, we got caught off guard but we're still not going to acknowledge that what we did was horrible. >> and hoping people don't care enough. >> the government's acl uru.
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thanks for being with us. u. thanks for being with us
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ask your healthcare professional about the risks and benefits of bexsero and if vaccination with bexsero is right for your teen. moms, we can't wait. ♪ that's confident. but it's not kayak confident. kayak searches hundreds of travel and airline sites to find the best flight for me. so i'm more than confident. how's your family? kayak. search one and done. but let's be honest, nobody likes dealing with insurance. which is why esurance hired me, dennis quaid, as their spokesperson because apparently, i'm highly likable. see, they know it's confusing. i literally have no idea what i'm getting, dennis quaid. that's why they're making it simple, man in cafe. and more affordable. thank you, dennis quaid. you're welcome. that's a prop apple. i'd tell you more, but i only have 30 seconds. so here's a dramatic shot of their tagline so you'll remember it. esurance. it's surprisingly painless.
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from a personal standpoint, when you saw george w. bush take that oath of office yesterday, did for a microsecond you wish, gee, i wish i was up there doing that? >> every day. >> on saturday, the eulogies at john mccain's memorial service at the national cathedral in washington, d.c., the eulogies will be delivered by two former presidents. george w. bush and barack obama. john mccain, of course, ran against both of those men for president. bush in the primaries, obama in the general. now both of those presidents, both political points of john mccain, will praise him and remember him and help lay him to rest. senator mccain will be interred on sunday at the u.s. naval academy secretary in annapolis. arizona's republican governor doug ducey has said that out of
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respect for senator mccain, he is not going to name mccain's successor for mccain's seat in the senate until mccain has been laid to rest which again will happen this weekend. thereafter, the governor will announce who he has chosen for mccain's seat. once that person is named by the governor of arizona, that person will serve as an appointed senator for a couple of years until 2020 when the special election will be held for mccain's seat. now, we don't know who governor ducey will pick to hold that seat for two years, but we do know by arizona law, the governor has to appoint a senator from mccain's own party. not that there would be any ambiguity about this anyway, but by law the governor has to appoint a republican to mccain's seat. i want to spell that out a little bit. understandably, there has been a little confusion as to what's happening with senator mccain's
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seat and it is largely because of a big quince on the calendar. tomorrow voters in arizona are going to the polls to peick republican candidate for u.s. senate from arizona. but that's not for john mccain's seat. tomorrow's primary in arizona is to pick candidates for the other u.s. senate seat. the one that is currently held by jeff flake who is retiring. so democrats will pick somebody to run for that seat. as will republicans. and the favorite on the republican side, a three-way race. current republican congresswoman martha mcsally, also, former sheriff and trump pardoned resippen joe arpaio, and mccain's last primary point, kelly ward who senator mccain beat easily in 2014. it depends a little on who gets nominated. but that general election contest for u.s. senate in arizona, but not the mccain seat, the jeff flake seat, that's expected to turn out to be one of the most competitive races for the country this fall. we know that person will serve alongside a two-year place holder whose name we will learn in the next week after john mccain is laid to rest.
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so taking those apart, it is a coincidence in terms of the timing. we'll have a name for mccain's successor next week. we will have candidates for flake's seat as of tomorrow night. watch this space. we'll have primary returns for you tomorrow night from arizona, also from florida and oklahoma tomorrow night late into the evening. stay with us. stay with us that's why there's otezla. otezla is not an injection or a cream. it's a pill that treats differently. for psoriasis, 75% clearer skin is achievable, with reduced redness, thickness, and scaliness of plaques. and for psoriatic arthritis, otezla is proven to reduce joint swelling, tenderness, and pain. and the otezla prescribing information has no requirement for routine lab monitoring. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. otezla may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. tell your doctor if these occur. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts, or if these feelings develop.
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linked in pass words got hacked. 20,000 linked in users were published on a forum. the company reported it actually wasn't 6 million linkedin users, it was more like 100 million users whose information got stolen in that private mack. and in late 2016, shortly before our presidential election, we got this announcement from the u.s. justice department. the justice department announced it was charging a suspect in the linkedin hacking case. he was in his late 20s, he was from russia, he was accused of that cyberattack on linkedin, also charged with hacking a dropbox, also charged with hacking a site called
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formspring. this isn't one of the cases that russians indict a russian hacker, but nothing comes of it because they're in russia and this guy will never actually see a u.s. courtroom. this guy is russian, but at the time that the justice department indicted him, he wasn't in russia, he was in the czech republic. and police in the czech republic arrested him. and in march of this year, they extradited him to the united states. and he is now in jail in federal custody in the san francisco bay area awaiting trial. so i'm sticking a pin in this story for a couple of reasons, because it turns out to be a weird and interesting story. first of all, they are not lumping this hacker with the other big russia cyberattack prosecutions that we've got going on right now, right? we've had hacking indictments brought by the special counsel's investigation being operated out of washington, d.c. this has not been lumped into that.
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they're keeping this one in the jurisdiction of the u.s. attorney and the federal prosecutor based in san francisco. this guy is facing 30 years in prison in the case that's being brought against him in california. there are other emerging details about this case that make it worth watching. bloomberg news now reports, based on the reports from the suspect's lawyer, that ever since ni krrkulin was extradited brought to the u.s., russian officials have been interested in his case, including going to the jail when his attorneys are not present. that makes sense that a citizen is being held in the u.s., but talking to him without his lawyers there? and it's not just russia that appears to be interested. bloomberg reports they also talked to an official at the u.s. justice department who said
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this russian is of great interest in the case of russian meddling. prosecutors are as eager to find out what, if anything, nikulin knows about election meddling. they're as eager to know about that as they are eager to get to the bottom of the licnkedin and dropbox hacks. we don't know exactly what this means, if mr. nikulin has any information that could be helpful in terms of russian involvement and the russian election, or whether he knows about any of it, but there's something going on here with this case that we don't yet understand and it is worth remembering this guy's name. here's gthe guy's name again. yevgeniy nikulin. go ahead and set up that google alert. we'll be right back. ♪
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which can lead to coma or death; decreased white blood cells, which can be fatal; dizziness upon standing; falls; seizures; impaired judgment; heat sensitivity; and trouble swallowing may occur. you're more than just your bipolar i. ask about vraylar. >> it was a great experience i loved doing it i would love to come back again. it was great spending time with your staff have a great evening prosecutors to discuss a possible plea deal to resolve the second set of charges against manafort