many people are paying attention to what happened in 2016. getting out now is super important, especially since we can shift the senate. we only need two seats. >> for democrats. thank you all. that does it for "all in" this evening. here from orlando. good evening, rachel. >> well done, my friend. hello, orlando! [ applause ] great job tonight. fascinating. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. happy to have you here. on september 2, 2016, which was the start of labor day weekend, right before the 2016 presidential election, the fbi decided that they would publicly release fbi agent's notes from their interview with presidential candidate hillary clinton. it was their notes from their interview with clinton that pertained to the clinton e-mail investigation that has become such a political hot potato during that election. they decided they were going to

release those fbi agent notes from that interview just weeks before the presidential election. >> the fbi took an unusual step today, releasing its notes from hillary clinton's lengthy recent interview with agents about how she handled her e-mails while secretary of state. the release is certain to fuel the controversy that's hounded clinton for a year and a half. >> and it of course did fuel that controversy. this is the sort of apex of the campaign, right? the fbi deciding they're going release their confidential interview notes from that investigation. the fbi doesn't usually do that. they don't usually release their interview notes from talking to people as part of an investigation. so this was a strange thing to do at any time, let alone at the height of the political campaign. but they did. and the fbi put out a statement at the time explaining why they were doing this very unusual thing. they said it was in the interest of transparency.

and in response to numerous freedom of information act requests. hey, there was a lot of interest. people really wanted to know. we, the fbi, we felt pressured to do this very unusual thing, because the public desires to see us do it. and so i guess we'll do it, each though it's kind of weird. if you really want us to, we will. the fbi does have their typical by the book way of doing things. but it's also true that they sometimes do things that aren't necessarily by the book. and they do those things in response to public pressure. and in response, in particular to political pressure. at that point in the 2016 presidential campaign, republicans and the conservative media were putting relentless pressure on the fbi and the justice department about that clinton investigation. the republican convention just wrapped up with people standing there at the lectern, people like chris christie and mike flynn, leading these chants

"lock her up, lock her up," and that was about the clinton e-mail investigation. there was all this pressure to be more aggressive, to tell the public what they're doing, to disclose documents from that investigation. and the fbi responded to that pressure. in part, with the public statements made about the investigation from fbi director james comey. but also with the fbi deciding that they would take this extremely unusual step of pub c publicly exposing their internal, confidential notes and documents from the investigation. the fbi doesn't typically release stuff like this. they don't release notes from investigatory notes, except when they do. because there was lots of political pressure to do it. then apparently they do it. that is worth remembering tonight, as we await word on the fbi interview notes, these same kind of documents, these 302

interview forms, that this time are related to the back ground investigation of would-be supreme court justice brett kavanaugh. they have been saying that the fbi is all done, all those 302s, all those interview notes from the fbi agents talking to people, interviewing witnesses, those 302s, those interview notes are duing to handed over to the senate any second now. and who know it is that really is true in terms of the timing? lots of things reported about the supposed speed and supposed scope of the fbi back ground investigation into brett kavanaugh have turned out to not be true over the course of this past week of reporting. we really don't know who the fbi has talked to. we don't know when they will be done. we don't though exact think what they're going to be handing over to the senate. but senate republicans have been hyping the fact that it's almost done, and they planted a flag today on the issue of secrecy,

saying that whatever is handed over from the fbi from this background investigation, and whenever the senate gets it, those material hs be handled with the strictest secrecy. not a single letter of a single word will be made available to the public. why are they insisting on that kind of secrecy with the kavanaugh back ground investigation? well, they insist that's the appropriate treatment we should all expect from fbi interview notes. the public never gets to see those. yeah, normally that would be the case. if the fbi always acted by the book, if the fbi wasn't susceptible to public pressure and political haranguing, theoretically that would be the case. fbi interview notes, they don't become public documents. however, we know from recent history, there are exceptions when the fbi feels like it. ask the hillary clinton

campaign, that nice political kick in the teeth the fbi gave to the campaign right before the presidential election. there are two outstanding big problems for the brett kavanaugh supreme court nomination. the one that's got everybody on the edge of their seats tonight, because we don't know when we're going to find out about it, is this expanded fbi back ground check into the sexual assault allegations against kavanaugh. we really have no transparency as to what this expanded back ground investigation includes or what its ultimate work product also look like, or if we will ever be allowed to see it. from open source reporting, we know of dozens of people who have either said themselves they want to speak to fbi agents as part of this background investigation or people described to the fbi as potentially corroborating witnesses for other people who have spoken to the fbi or who have made allegations about kavanaugh's past conduct. in most cases, again, open

source reporting, indicates that these people haven't been spoken to by the tib. even when they themselves have proactively contacted the fbi by going into an fbi field office or calling fbi headquarters or hiring lawyers to contact the fbi on their behalf, these folks by and large have not been able to get a call back or find somebody in the fbi to take down their investigation. again, that's based on open source reporting from different sources. among the people who as of this evening haven't spoken to the fbi as part of this background investigation is dr. christine blasey ford. she did testify before the senate last week. her lawyers have repeatedly offered the fbi that she would give testimony by them. she offered supporting documentation for her allegations against kavanaugh. but as of this evening, the fbi has shown no interest in hearing from her at all. even as they supposedly have been assigned to investigate these latest allegations against

brett kavanaugh, hers of course, is the most prominent among them all. so tonight, we are waiting for the development in terms of the fbi investigation, and its extent and conclusions and what we will know about those conclusions. i will just say, as your pal here on cable news, i would advise you to be a little wary of all the breathlessly reported marginal new developments that are being described about that investigation tonight and overnight and into tomorrow. as i said, a lot of what has been reported from the last few days turned out to be contradicted by subsequent reporting. what's going on with that fbi investigation? we really don't know. it's been very opaque. all the reporting is anonymously sourced and a lot of it is self-contradictory, as far as i can tell. and the way i'm approaching i i at this point is we'll know when we know, and we should consider nothing about this appears to be set in stone. but in addition to that fbi

investigation hurdle for kavanaugh to the supreme court nomination, there's another last hurdle for kavanaugh, which is starting to emerge as maybe a real math problem for the prospects of him getting voted through the senate, when they finally take the vote. and that actually isn't directly related to the sexual assault allegations against kavanaugh, it's the issue of kavanaugh's behavior before the senate. and specifically when he was fielding that sexual assault allegation from dr. christine blasey ford. what is emerging on that front are two areas of concern about whether or not judge kavanaugh should be on the court. his truthfulness under oath from his past drinking habits to his high school nickname, to his work in the george w. bush administration on controversial issues that he denied ever playing a role in but the documents indicate otherwise. those concerns about his

truthfulness under oath and whether he's misled senators during the confirmation process, those concerns started before sexual assault allegations were ever leveled against judge kavanaugh. but they got much worse after, because of how he handled himself under oath while denying that allegation. and in addition to those questions about his honesty under oath, there is this related problem that he now has, which is starting to look like it may be the single most difficult hurdle for judge kavanaugh if he still sees himself as on the way to the supreme court. >> to be a good judge and a good umpire, it's important to have the proper demeanor, really important i think, to walk in the other's shoes, whether it be the other litigants, the it will gadg -- the other judges, to understand them and keep our emotions in check, to be calm in the storm. on the bench, to put it in a very income lanacular

vernacular, don't be a joke. to be a good umpire and good judge, don't be a jerk. >> that was judge kavanaugh speaking in 2015 at the law school of catholic university. a longer transcript of that speech was just published by david corn at "mother jones" magazine. that speech was already a little famous, because that's the speech where judge kavanaugh veered off script and said, what happens at georgetown prep stays at georgetown prep. that's been a good thing for all of us. that got a flurry of attention last week. in that same speech, kavanaugh goes on and on about how important it is for a judge to "keep our emotions in check, to be calm, to have the proper demeanor." all this stuff about how a judge must comport himself or herself if he or she wants to be part of the federal judiciary at every level. >> let me run through what i think a judge as umpire means. first, and probably most obviously, not being a political

partisan. you have to check those political allegiances at the door when you become a judge. you have to shed them. it's very important at the outset for a judge who wants to be an umpire to avoid any semblance of that partisanship of that political background of that background they might have had in a particular line of work. that's the first probably most fundamental thing for a judge who wants to be an umpire. >> that is brett kavanaugh's own standard for what the fundamentals are of a judicial temperament. of course, this is judge kavanaugh's own display of his would-be judicial temperament before the united states senate. >> the behavior of several of the democratic members of this committee at my hearing a few weeks ago was an embarrassment. but at least it was just a good old fashioned attempt at borking. those efforts didn't work. when i did at least okay enough at the hearings that it looked

like i might actually get confirmed, a new tactic was needed. some of you were lying in wait and had it ready. you have tried hard. you've given it your all. no one can question your effort. but your coordinated and well-funded effort to destroy my good name and destroy my family will not drive me out. what goes around comes around. this has destroyed my family and my good name. a good name built up through decades of very hard work and public service at the highest levels of the american government. this whole two-week effort has been a calculated and orchestrated political hit. fueled with apparent pent up anger about president trump and the 2016 election, fear that has been unfairly stoked about my

judicial record, revenge on behalf of the clintons. >> whether or not that display from brett kavanaugh at his confirmation hearing is unnerving to you or not in term ofls what you ex-effort from a supreme court justice, number one, it very violates his own explicit way for how a judge should behave, for what constitutes judicial temperament. and number two, the way that he behaved seems now to be bugging even some republican senators. here's the new audio we just got in tonight. this is reporter liz ruskin from alaska pub immedialic media tal togolesa murkowski. this is media we obtained but the first time this has been broadcast. the first time this hn broadcast.

>> lisa murkowski speaking. and you nave seen jeff flake's remarks on the same topic. >> i was very troubled. by the tone of the -- of the remarks. the initial defense that judge kavanaugh gave was something like i told my wife, i hope that i would sound that ig dndig nan i felt i were unjustly maligned. but then it went on, and that concerns me. i tell myself, you give a little leeway because of what he's been through. but on the other hand, we can't have this on the court.

we simply can't. >> so senator jeff flake and senator lisa murkowski both expressing concern whether brett kavanaugh is displaying the kind of temperament and demeanor that should be expected of a would-be supreme court justice. senator susan collins of maine is another closely watched vote on the kavanaugh nomination. she has not weighed in personally on this particular aspect of kavanaugh's behavior thus far, but this is the editorial view of her hometown paper on this subject in maine. you see the headline there. brett kavanaugh has shown he doesn't belong on the supreme court. the man who testified thursday can't control his temper. he's overtly partisan and doesn't always tell the truth. regardless of what questions the investigation can answer, we already know this, based on what he demonstrated, kavanaugh lacks the character and judgment to serve on the supreme court, and his widely watched appearance, kavanaugh revealed he has an

explosive temper. he was under stress and fighting for his reputation, but his temperament was tested during the hearing and he failed the test. we have never had a supreme court nominee who ripped off the nonpartisan mask the way kavanaugh did thursday and identified himself as the enemy of a political party that represents the policy preferences of millions of americans. he blamed his predicament on conspiracy theorys. after his rant, kavanaugh will never be able to judge a case without the -- what he expressed. this is not the road we want to take. again, that is coming from the hometown paper "the portland press herald," which is read by necessity and presumably avidly by hometown senator susan

collins of maine. tonight, i should tell you that "the new york times" published this letter signed by over 650 u.s. law professors, and counting. "judicial temperment is one of the most important qualities of a judge. a judge requires a personality that is even handed, unbiased, impartial, courteous yet firm, and dedicated to a process, not a result. at the senate hearings, judge kavanaugh displayed a lack of judicial temperament that would be disqualifying for any court. we have differing views about the other qualifications of judge kavanaugh, but we are united as professors of law and scholars of judicial institution believing he did not display the judicial temperament to sit on the highest court." that published in "the new york times." over 650 law professors signing on to it, including a dozen from

yale law school of which brett kavanaugh is a graduate. tonight, we await definitive word on the fbi background investigation. we await news of that fbi report without any clarity as to what the fbi actually looked at this that investigation. at this point, if the shoe was on the other foot and the fbi was investigating a democratic president supreme court nominee, and the head of the fbi was that nominee's law school classmate, like fbi director chris wray is to brett kavanaugh, and the deputy attorney general overseeing the probe is a co-worker of the nominee who showed up at his hearing to support his nomination, as rod rosenstein did for brett kavanaugh, if the shoe was on the other foot, you could imagine how nuts republicans would be going over the character of the fbi investigation at this point in the consideration of that nominee. but democrats don't pressure the fbi the way that republicans do.

matt miller is a former department of justice spokesman has a very powerful op-ed that's just posted today at politico.com, lamenting this difference this the dynamic. do we have that op-ed? thank you. lamenting that difference in the way democrats and republicans handle these matters. so democrats don't pressure the fbi the way that republicans do. we're all waiting for the fbi investigation. republicans would be crowing about it like you can't believe. democrats appear to be just waiting for it. who knows if we'll ever see, for example, those 302s from the fbi investigation. who knows if the fbi at this point feels political pressure in terms of what they are doing and what they might report. other than the pressure they're feeling from the republican controlled congress and the out of its lane republican controlled white house. but tonight, we are waiting to hear about the outcome of that process. and while we are waiting that

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because republicans control

congress, that means they also control all the committees in congress. and that has granular, everyday consequences. including the very small and usually unimportant facts that the official twitter account for the senate judiciary committee is controlled by republican senators and their republican staff. well, yesterday that official twitter account posted this statement about previous fbi background investigations into brett kavanaugh before he became a supreme court nominee. >> tonight, democrats on that committee, on the senate judiciary committee, are disputing that account. they just sent off this little rocket --

>> again, the specific tweet that they're saying contains inaccurate information is this. this is the text of that one. nowhere in any of these six fbi reports was there ever a whiff of any issue at all related in any way to inappropriate sexual behavior or alcohol abuse. that letter to chairman grassley is signed by eight democratic senators on the judiciary committee. joining us now is mazie hirona

from hawaii. thank you very much for being here. >> good evening. aloha. >> can you tell us what this is about? you are one of the senators that signed onto this letter, asserting that there is something in that statement about the previous fbi background investigations of judge kavanaugh which is inaccurate. >> one thing that twitter feed should never have even gotten out from the republican staff, and that particular item wasn't accurate, and that is all i can say about it. >> so the confidentiality of these fbi reports is understood and respected by both sides at this point. and -- >> certainly it wasn't respected by the republicans who let it out. >> so you're saying that the tweet was inappropriate in this case, because it was a characterization of those fbi reports, and they're not supposed to be publicly characterized. >> that's right. >> now that democrats have said as long as you're going to

improperly characterize it, you better be accurate about it. are you prepared to go the next step and say what is inaccurate, if there was something about either alcohol abuse or inappropriate sexual behavior from those earlier fbi investigations? >> that was what i was hoping that the new fbi investigation would enable us to review. the interviews that they conducted, the inconsistencies between judge kavanaugh's testimony and the interviews that the fbi, i hope, would conduct with various people who contradicted judge kavanaugh's own characterization of himself. so that is what i was hoping. with that letter, i think it really was to the republicans, don't do this. and by the way, we also said in this letter that for the new fbi investigation that we need to come to a bipartisan agreement as to what parts of that report we can make public. that is how it's supposed to happen.

>> what do you think is going to happen in terms of the timing of the new fbi report, what sort of work product is going to be handed over to the senate, and whether there will be any public facing part of it. >> i've said that i hope we can be as transparent as possible, and that's why we requested that there be a bipartisan agreement as to what parts of the report we can make public. at the same time, we're already hearing from outside sources that the investigation was limited. it was under the control of the white house. the president said that it should be open and they should interview judge kavanaugh as well as dr. ford. but i don't think those things happened, nor were various leads followed up. we know of so many people, which i think you reported yourself, that a lot of people would like to have been interviewed by the fbi but have not been contacted. >> in terms of how this is all

going to resolve, i feel very unsure in terms of the timing here. we've had a lot of reporting that suggested very specific expectations in terms of when something was going to be handed over, when the senate was going to have access, what the restraints the fbi was operating under. it feels like there's been all of this specific reporting, a lot of which contradicts very specific reporting. i feel like i have very little visibility to what actually is happening here. the only thing i feel like i have clarity on is that there was an initial time constraint put on this investigation, which was friday, that has to be done by friday. i feel like at that point, that's the only real bottom line that i feel like i can count on. any other element here in terms of timing and scope and what we eventually see the senate doing that you feel like you have a firm grasp of and you can tell our viewers with confidence? >> as it turns out, not very much. even with a short time frame, i

was under the expectation, i certainly had the expectation that the fbi would provide the resources necessary to do a complete job, so that it's not a farce investigation. but i want to go back to, in addition to whatever may be gleaned from the -- what seems like a limited investigation by the fbi, that we do need to look at how judge kavanaugh testified in his initial hearing, and there was so many in my view inconsistencies and the pattern of not being supportive of reproductive rights and his expansive views of executive powers and protections for the president. there was enough concerns there that i was already against judge kavanaugh's nomination before all of these other reports came out. at the same time, i'm really glad that you focused on his temperament. the speech that he gave was reprinted as a law review article from which i quoted on

the floor speech i gave monday on the floor of the senate. i believe that he did not, of course, it's not even a belief, he did not follow his own advice in his law review article, which is a judge should not be partisan, and he went on to talk about his demeanor, and his temperament. clearly, he was so partisan, because he accused the democrats of some kind of left wing conspiracy to do him in. fortunately, he did not include dr. ford in that conspiracy, but it was bizarre that he would hold these kinds of conspiracy theory views. i expect a supreme court justice to think clearly. a conspiracy theorist is not somebody who is thinking clearly. not to mention, his temperament. he said a judge should be calm in the middle of a storm. he exhibited little of that. and i would say that any woman, if dr. ford, who also has been under a lot of pressure and death threats, having to move her family, she was under a lot

of pressure. but she comported herself with dignity and a very believable way. that certainly wasn't the case with judge kavanaugh. >> senator, i just have to ask you about one piece of news that has broken while we've been talking live here on television. kasie hunt is the lead reporter from nbc with the report on this. they're reporting on a specific schedule by which you and other senators are now going to be allowed access to the fbi's new report. senators will be reviewing the supplemental background investigation on a schedule tomorrow morning starting at 8:00 a.m. chairman grassley will go first at 8:00 a.m. senator feinstein will go second at 9:00 a.m. then all the rest of them will be allowed in at 10:00 a.m. and then committee democrats will be allowed to see the report at 11:00 a.m. that's just been reported by nbc news. had you heard that before i just said that? >> yes. there's definitely a schedule.

one of the things i hope we can disclose would be the parameters of the fbi investigation as put out by the white house. i don't see why that should be something confidential. >> okay. we'll find out more tomorrow. senator mazie hirona of hawaii, great to have you with us tonight. >> thank you. much more ahead tonight. stay with us. > much more ahead . stay with us with an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish, prevagen has been shown in clinical trials to improve short-term memory. prevagen. healthier brain. better life. the doctor just for a shot. with neulasta onpro patients get their day back...

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i do not know how or why this made the news in 1983, when i was 10 years old. but looking at it now, i have to tell you i'm not mad ant it. >> who says you have to be a pretty face to be a delicacy? consider the catfish. not one of mother nature's better moments. yet platter full to catfish finishes far ahead of anything that julia child would chip up uses all of her fancy sauces in the south of france. this report tonight, catfish farmers are working hard to spread the joy. >> behold the catfish. found throughout the south. until now, one of the few areas of the country where the ugly creature has been fit to eat. >> it tastes so good. we love catfish here. we eat it baked, fried, broiled,

we eat it baked with cheat on it. we eat it just about any way that you can think of eating catfish. >> pull in the net. >> reporter: as an added incentive for yankees to try it, he says that if any of them stop by his place for a mess of catfi catfish, he'll let them cook the hush puppies. >> let them pet the hush puppies. why was that on tv? since that nightly news story from 35 years ago, there's not been much else by way of that kind of national catfish news. but there is a story tonight that is catfish news of a totally different kind. i'm fascinating by this story. i cannot figure out the bottom line of the story, but i'm determined to get there. that story is next. stay with us. is next stay with us >> makes me hungry when they cam around like that. they look so good flopping. ike t they look so good flopping

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2015 and 2016. she was interested in politics. she represented several wealthy republican inclined political donors. some of whom she said had given money to support carly fiorina's campaign. and one of her clients was a british billionaire interested in donating a lot of money to american political causes through his american born wife. in late 2015 and early 2016, right at the height of the republican primary for president, this megan lancaster got in touch with members of a never trump super pac, a group of republicans against trump and working to stop him from getting the republican nomination, to stop him from getting elected. she got in touch with those republicans. she was very nice, friendly and helpful and offered these never trump people access to her rich donors and their money to help fund their never trump republican super pac and all their other efforts to stop trump. that said, in the end, megan

lancaster never wound up arranging any nominations to the never trump movement, because megan lancaster, it turns out, was not real. fake persona. this is such a good story. and now it is a great story with a big surprise ending. okay. august 2016, so late during the presidential election. once trump had the nomination and is running against clinton, this scoop of how anti-trump activists in the republican party were being targeted by a catfishing campaign. it's kind of an annoying term, but what it means is these anti-trump republicans got a bunch of friendly and inquisitive e-mails and phone calls from appealing fake personas, like the lovely and tall edged and well connected and totally fake megan lancaster. the point of the megan lancaster scam was to get those anti-trump

republicans to tell the person who made up that fake persona all their secrets. to tell all about their anti-trump activism, including their plans for anti-trump super pac. so there's the fake persona, an effort to get information that would be helpful to opponents in that campaign. but then it got more dramatic. after the whole fake e-mail buddy scam, one of the anti-trump republicans who had been targeted in that scam, also discovered that her e-mail had been hacked. she's a person who appears on cable news sometimes. but after this catfishing campaign, targeting her and other anti-trump republicans, after that campaign ran through late 2015 and through the primaries into early 2016, she ended up reporting that catfishing effort to authorities. this fraud that seemed like an effort to get valuable political information from her and other people she knew under false

pretenses. she reported it to federal authorities that spring, in the spring of 2016. federal prosecutors in new york actually responded by locking a guy up for doing that. the guy who they believe did it was a convicted con man out on bail already, awaiting the start of a 4 1/2 year federal prison sentence. part of his bail conditions were that he wasn't allowed to use a computer at all. federal prosecutors in the southern district of new york found out they believed this guy was not only using a computer, he was using a computer to carry out this catfishing draud campaign against these republican activists and they remoeked his bail and ordered him to start serving his sentence immediately. so spy story, gets dramatic, guy gets locked up. then it gets weirder. because a few months after that, after the guy who has been in prison for months, in august of

2016, that is when somebody hacked sherry's e-mail account and deleted thousands of e-mails. there's already a guy in prison because of his apparent effort to trick anti-trump republicans to give up their information about efforts against trump during the campaign. while that guy is in prison, one of those anti-trump activists gets hacked as well. unless the guy had unsupervised federal prison time with a computer, that timing implies that somebody else besides that imprisoned convicted con man might have been in on this concerted effort to hack and attack anti-trump activists within the republican party. now, publicly at the time, sherry jacobis said she believed allies of trump and his campaign were behind that campaign. she reached out to the fbi, the fbi's cyber division, to ask them to investigate this hacking of her inbox in the middle of a presidential campaign. that was two years ago.

and since then we haven't heard much from this interesting case, until now. i said this has a surprise ending. this is the surprise ending. now politico.com reports that this case, that this catfishing effort, and the hacking of one of them thereafter, this case has now become part of the robert mueller investigation. why is that? the fbi cyber division, prosecutors from the southern district of new york, have apparently referred this case to the special counsel's office, according to sherry jacobis herself who says that's what the fbi told her. she told politico that fbi agents and the bureau's cyber division informed her this month that they had -- excuse me, in september, they forwarded their investigation to mueller. "it is not clear what led the

fbi to conclude that mueller has jurisdiction over this matter." yeah, not clear indeed. mueller's mandate is to investigate russia's attack on the election to help trump win. and the related question of whether the trump campaign was aware of and helped in that russian attack. and now the fbi has concluded that that investigation should expand to include the hack of a never trump republican activist during the campaign. what is it about this case and what don't we know about what the special counsel is working on that made the fbi look at this and say hey, you know what? this one belongs to the special counsel, give it to him. i'm desperate to know the answer to that question. joining us now is the politico reporter who broke the story and he broke the news about the catfishing sque ining scheme in place. thank you very much for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> let me ask you first, if i got any of that wrong.

it's a little bit of a winding pass, but tell me if i missed any of it. >> that was an excellent summary of what is a bizarre year's long saga. there's all sorts of other aspects to this right there. >> you've been reporting on this from the beginning. do you have an answer or do you have any informed suspicion as to why this might have gone to be part of the special counsel's office investigation? >> i have a number of informed suspicions and theories, none of which i'm ready to air on national television. the reality is that it's very unclear what exactly triggered this referral. we'll keep looking into this. because it is really at this point a mystery. >> you wrote back in 2016 that while you were reporting out the cat fishing part of the story, but before you published your piece, that is when sheri

jecobus' e-mails got hacked. that appears to be when the guy who was catfishing her was in prison. is it fair to look at that timing that way? >> i think it's absolutely fair to look at that timing that way. and this scheme involved multiple personas, phone calls from multiple personas. so it suggests as well that he was not alone in doing this. >> is there anything in your reporting on this both from 2016 and from 2018 now that suggests that there may have been russian involvement in this attack on these never trump activists? either russian involvement directly or that people who were sort of in cahoots with the russian attack in this country might have been involved in this effort. >> there is nothing direct that i know that suggests that.

the closest thing is some of the similarity in tactics in terms of what jecobus was hit with. e-mail hacking we know is something the russians engaged in during the campaign. the social media trolling and harassment that she was subjected to that's been covered by a number of media outlets at this point. but all of that is quite circumstantial. and if there's a smoking gun direct link to russia here, it has yet to emerge. >> ben, reporter at politico.com who's been on this story from the beginning and who has absolutely got me sort of on the edge of my seat about this. i can't wait to figure out what lies under this latest reporting on this case. really appreciate you being here tonight. call us as far as you figure it out, okay? >> yeah, absolutely. will do. thanks, ben. we will be right back. do. thanks, ben. we will be right back. then you might have a common condition called dry mouth...

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i mentioned right at the top of the show to be wary about new reporting about the fbi background investigation into brett kavanaugh, when it's coming out, what its scope is. i'm saying, like, listen, we don't have any transparency into that at all. just be wary. since then, since the top of the show we've naturally had a whole bunch of that new reporting. i mentioned just a moment ago nbc news now reporting that senators will get that fbi investigation report on kavanaugh tomorrow morning. as i've just reported we're expecting that to begin at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow with a strict

pecking order. the chairman of the committee chuck grassly was reported going first at at 8:00 a.m. he'll have access to the report. then diane feinstein, she gets her turn at 9:00 a.m., and then all the rest of the republicans at the committee get their turn at 10:00 a.m. and all the democrats get to go last at 11:00 a.m. and all the rest of them not in the senate can come in. that was the news tonight on one part of the process. and as soon as we reported that and verified it life with senator hiroano, senator mitch mcconnell just got on the floor of the senate and said that's not true either. he announced that the senate is getting the fbi report tonight. maybe. you should also know while we're watching this chaos in the senate and capitol hill that there are stop kavanaugh vigils across the country tonight. from brooklyn, new york, to clayton, missouri, from west virginia home of democrat joe

mantion, people have been on the streets trying to sway senators against this nomination. but the white house is getting the fbi background investigation on kavanaugh to the senate. so big day tonight, big day tomorrow. e senate so big day tonight, big day tomorrow [ telephone ringing ] -whoa. [ indistinct talking ] -deductible? -definitely speaking insurance. -additional interest on umbrella policy? -can you translate? -damage minimization of civil commotion. -when insurance needs translating, get answers in plain english at progressiveanswers.com. ♪ -he wants you to sign karen's birthday card. it's a high honor.

that does it for us tonight. we will see you again tomorrow. now it's time for "last word" with ali velshi in for lawrence tonight. good evening. nice to see you. >> rachel, nice to see you. and you've just reported that the white house has the investigation. will be submitting to the senate tonight, and i think the response from anyone on the receiving end of that would be from mitch mcconnell is great, we've got a report, let's read it. but he's already announced he plans to hold the first procedural vote friday before which he says the senate members will have plenty of time to review and be brief