audience. a ton of fun, really enlightening. wherever you get your podcasts, get this one. >> it's a great one. >> if you would be interested in going to a show in your hometown tweet us. that's is "all in" for this evening. "the rachel maddow show" starts this evening with rachel. good evening, rachel. i didn't know if you were in tonight and i see you there. >> look, it's me. or somebody hiding behind an incredibly life like max of me. not to give you an existential crisis or anything. did you say 5 million? >> we have 5 million downloads of the show, yeah. >> that's friekin fantastic. >> it's been great fighting. >> you're really good at being on tv, but you're also really good at that other thing you do. you've got a knack. >> thank you. >> well done, my friend. thanks. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. it is good to be back with you. there is a lot going on in the news right now. we've changed up our show like 17 times in the last hour and a half. one of the things we are watching tonight, which is not necessarily on the national radar in a big way yet, but it's

turning out that a very controversial trump judicial nominee may be hitting some turbulence tonight, and that is interesting on its own terms. it may also be part of a sign about turbulence to come in washington in this lame duck period before a lot of things are going to change in january. in is a trump nominee for a federal judgeship. he's seen as a sort of poster child for racial discrimination in voting rights. nevertheless, he was previously seen as a shoo-in because of republican control of the senate, but tonight it is a developing story that it looks like they may be yanking his nomination for lack of support. so that is an interesting developing story. we're going to have more on that ahead tonight. we're also getting the final races called from the midterm elections in terms of the house, and with these final races now shoring up, it's starting to look like the size of the democratic party's win in congress not only exceeded expectations, it may have been

an historic record. we'll have more on that coming up as well. in terms of the midterm elections in the u.s. senate, though, the very last u.s. senate race is wrapping up tonight as we speak. and we are going to be covering this over the course of this hour. i will tell you, as we're starting to watch these results come in the u.s. senate race in mississippi tonight, if you need further civic inspiration about your importance as a citizen or what a big deal your one lone personal vote could be, i want you to also know that today in the great state of alaska, the state division of elections certified the results of this year's midterm elections in that state in alaska. one of the races that was certified today by the state is for a state legislative district, so a state house district. i think it's in fairbanks. it's house district 1. and i believe we can put up on the screen the results of that state legislative race in alaska as certified by the state today. the republican bart le bonn got

2,061 votes. the democrat, kathryn dodge got 2661 votes. not a typo. the official state certified results in that house seat in alaska, it's an exact tie. and that tied race is for a seat in the state legislature. and the state legislature is also tied. so not only would the shift of a single vote determine who wins that seat, the shift of a single vote could also determine which party controls the entire legislature. i love this story out of alaska so much, right? when they realized the democrat and the republican were tied, in the initial count, they did a machine recount of the ballots. it turns out it's tied. after that, they did a recount by hand. after the hand recount turns out, yeah, it's tied. and then today it was certified as a tie. but here is the incredible drama in this one. this is from the anchorage daily news today. so after the initial results shows a tie and the machine recount shows a tie and the hand

recount shows a tie, and it becomes clear that this tie means that the whole legislature is tied, after all of that, they found a vote. what? they found one vote. quote, a single ballot remains uncounted. quote, that ballot was found in a gray secrecy sleeve on election night and was deposited in a ballot box normally used for absentee or questioned ballots. in conjunction with this story, the alaska daily news published this picture of the state review board considering this tied race in trying to figure out how to do a complete count of this race. i think in this picture in the foreground there, do you see the little hand holding that ballot? i think they're showing us the one lonely ballot here that they can't decide what to do with. you can see what it says there, from fairbanks precinct number 6. this ballot was found loose with the questioned ballot materials there was no questioned ballot envelope to account -- i think this might be the actual one ballot in question.

alaska daily news reports that this one loose mysterious ballot is a vote for the democrat in the race, but because of the weird circumstances under which this one ballot was found, they still don't exactly know how or if they're going to count it, according to the daily news, even though the vote has been counted and recounted and recounted again, and now certified. that single ballot, which could decide the whole thing is still legally considered to be on the bubble because of the strange circumstances in which it was found. it's as yet uncounted, quote, pending further legal analysis. so that one house race and partisan control of that state legislature look likes it come downs to a tie, or maybe that one ballot. and they're not mmm -- if that doesn't inspire you to vote and that your vote could matter, i don't know what could inspire you except for maybe the news that this is actually the second time this year that this has happened. at the beginning of this year in

january, the exact same thing happened in virginia. republicans had had a big majority in the house of delegates in virginia, but democrats had a really big year in the off-year elections in virginia. democrats swept all the statewide races and made up all this ground in the legislature. ultimately the question of which party would control the legislature came down to the last race that wasn't called in virginia. it was the 94th house district. they count and recount and turned out that race was an absolute tie. the exact same number of votes cast for the republican and for the democrat. and the control of the state legislature riding on whether the democrat or the republican won. and the way they decided that one in virginia was by drawing straws. they pulled a piece of paper out of a bowl in a ceremony that would have been way more fun if they had cut cards or flipped a coin or something. but if the news gods of civic participation do this to you, right, do this to your country

twice in a year, right, where it's not just your local representative but your representation in your state is decided by a margin of zero votes, and ultimately has to come down to maybe the luck of the draw, because it's that close, or maybe one ballot that was put in the wrong box and nobody knows whether or not to count it, if you get that happening in your country twice in one year, those are signs from the news god heavens that your voter registration matters and your efforts to vote matter, and it may all come down to you. so tonight at the bottom of the screen you can see we are running this live ticker as we get in the vote and watch the results of the last u.s. senate race from this year's elections. we're watching this unfold in mississippi. it's a runoff between incumbent republican senator cindy hyde-smith and upstart democrat mike espy, a former cabinet official in the clinton administration and a former mississippi congressman. this, of course, is bright red deeply republican mississippi. cindy hyde-smith should win this in a walk. she should not even have to

contest this race given the partisan balance of the state. she has made it a contest herself in part with her own stumbles, but mike espy has also made it a race by running a pretty good campaign. so polls closed just over an hour ago. joining us now with the latest is steve kornacki, who tells us that things are looking interesting in the early returns. steve, mississippi senate races are not supposed to be interesting. >> yeah, i think interesting is the right word because the picture is still sort of starting to come into focus. if you look at the aggregate vote, what's been counted so far, that looks on the surface like oh, hey, what's the story here? hide smith. two things. it's only 9% of the vote in. we really don't have much from the delta. these are place, heavily black areas where mike espy is expecting to get -- i give you an example. here is one county where we actually have results coming in. espy is running at 89% so when

we get more in from the delta, we're going to find out more about two questions. one is black turnout, how high it is relative to the rest of the state. obama got 74% in this county in 2012, kind of the high watermark for a democrat in mississippi. early it may be disproportionately friendly to espy. running at 89% there. the reason i'm saying this comes down to this county early on. 78% of the vote is now in desoto county. what is desoto county? this is one of the largest counties in mississippi. it's a very republican county. this is the suburbs of memphis give you a sense here how desoto normally votes in an election. hillary clinton got 31% of the vote in 2016. barack obama in 2012, 33%. in 2008, he got 31%. now the benchmark statewide is mike espy needs to do six points better statewide than barack obama did in 2012.

barack obama in 2012 got 44% statewide in mississippi. if espy can do six points better than that, he is at 50%. you see in this large county, suburban county, why we stress this one too, because democrats said if they were going to have a chance in mississippi, they need surge a surge of black turnout, overwhelming support for mike espy, and they need white suburbanites wherever they can find them in mississippi to switch over and vote for espy. sitting at 44% in desoto county with about 20% of the vote to come in there, i think it's a very interesting moment here. does that number -- there it's interesting. we just went to 85% and dropped back to 43, because i was about to say 44 is a pretty good benchmark the previous way in desoto. if espy can jump up to 45 or 46, i think we have an interesting statewide story. it f it goes down to 43, 42, maybe not as much. 85% in desoto. that's why it's interesting, because this is one of those places where it's big, it's

suburban, and he's outperforming what you normally see a democrat there doh there in mississippi. >> steve, what you're looking at in terms of early returns, are we able to tell anything yet in terms of absolute numbers in turnout, in terms of how each side is happy about the numbers they're seeing turnout in a runoff election it's hard? >> i want to be able to compare. when we start getting counties in from the delta, heavily black areas where democrats are talking turnout, i want to look at that. i want to look at hines county, the biggest county in the state. jackson, heavily democrat. you expect espy to be getting 70, 5% of the vote here. i want to be able to compare that to some of the rural republican counties. i'm looking to see if it's updated. 10% of the vote is in. i think disproportionately from some republican areas, the completed counties we've gotten. here is another one. espy running at 55%. this is vicksburg on the mississippi river here. you can see just compare to it 2012. obama got 50% here. espy getting 55 tonight.

this is a completed county. this is the only one where we got 100% reporting right now, and espy is running 5 points better with 100% than obama did in 2012. he needs six points on average statewide. >> that's fascinating. steve kornacki, thank you, my friend. please peep if there are any changes we need to know about while we continue our broadcast this hour. all right. to the other major story we've been watching unfold over the course of this afternoon into this evening. as you know, on the morning after the midterm elections, president trump fired attorney general jeff sessions and installed in his place mat whitaker to be acting attorney general. given whitaker's previous record of highly critical statements about robert mueller and the russia investigation, and mr. whitaker's otherwise thin and sort of troubled resume that by no stretch of the imagination would make him a contender to be the attorney general of the united states in any other circumstances, because of all that, it's been widely suspected since that appointment was first announced that the whole reason whitaker was installed at justice was to quash the mueller

investigation behind the scenes. with mueller now reporting to matt whitaker, the regulations that govern the special counsel's office essentially say that mueller has to run by whitaker any major decisions about the investigation. including the decision to bring new indictments, stick a pin in that. also, any decision to make any sort of public report or any other major steps. since whitaker was appointed, we have in fact seen no new indictments from mueller and his team. now if you're worried about the importance and the integrity of the mueller investigation, if you're worried about the possibility that it might be shut down behind the scenes given the importance of what that investigation is actually look into, it's a little unsettling to recognize that if matt whitaker is basically throttling the mueller investigation within the justice department, if he is blocking new indictments, say, we wouldn't necessarily have any way to know that. i mean, if mueller's team goes to the grand jury and gets the grand jury to issue an

indictment, and then mueller brings to it the justice department to whitaker to whom he reports for whitaker to sign off on it and whitaker says nope, i'll take that and he stuffs into it a desk drawer, how would we know? it's not like anybody has to make an announcement than. how would we know if that's what has been happening ever since matt whitaker arrived three weeks ago tomorrow? that's why it is all the more interesting that tonight we are getting a first look at what might be robert mueller's notebook, his sort of working file, because tonight nbc news has obtained a draft criminal information, which is the kind -- it's basically an indictment when you agree to plead instead of having a trial. also, a draft plea agreement, also a draft statement of the offense. all these documents appear to have been created by the special counsel's office, although we have no way of verifying that directly. the documents were reportedly created by robert mueller's office and sent by mueller to a man named jerome coursesy, a

long-time conservative activist and writer who has been getting a lot of press recently for telling anyone and everyone that he believes he is about to be indicted by mueller. i will declare my bias. i am not inclined to believe anything that jerome corsi says at face value. after all, he is one of the world's leading proponents of the fabulous conspiracy theory that president barack obama was secretly foreign and not born in this country. he was therefore secretly never really president, says jerome corsi. because of that past and everything else he is known for, jerome corsi says thing is no evidence to me that thing exists or is worth writing down, just as a general mathematical principle. but what nbc news has now obtained are apparently court documents that were prepared about mr. corsi by the special counsel's office to show him the way in which he was going to be criminally charged and the plea

deal he could choose to sign on to if he wished in order to avoid more serious charges or potentially even any jail time. so these are the documents. they were obtained by nbc news reporter anna schechter tonight who is a superstar. because we've got these documents, i can tell you, this is a draft of the charge, the criminal charge that the special counsel's office was offering jerome corsi to the one count he could plead guilty to avoid any further criminal exposure. they were bringing the charges in a district court in washington, d.c. you see there on the left, united states of america versus jerome corsi, defendant. the charge here would be one count of false statement. quote, on september 10th, 2018, defendant jerome corsi did willfully and knowingly make false and fictitious statements in the matter within the jurisdiction of the executive branch of the government of the united states. to wit, the defendant falsely

state and represented to the special counsel's office, including special agents of the fbi that he denied an associate's request to get in touch with an organization that he understood to be in possession of stolen e-mails and other documents pertaining to the 2016 u.s. presidential election. the associate -- excuse me. corsi also denied that the associate never asked him to have another person try to get in touch with the organization and that he did not provide the associate with any information about what materials the organization possessed or what it might do with those materials. so, again, those are the false statements as outlined in this potential criminal charge. this is from the draft criminal information that apparently was provided to jerome corsi from the special counsel's office. again, a draft, not filed with the court, but given to corsi. here what's we want to charge you with. here what's your plea agreement would look like. if you want to boil down all the nonspecific noun there's that make it sort of hard to read out

loud, what this charge says is that jerome corsi lied to the special counsel's office and he lied to the fbi when they questioned him about his contact with wikileaks. wikileaks had started to brag that they had information that had been hacked from hillary clinton and democratic sources. roger stone, who was associated with the trump campaign, although he never formally had a staff position on the campaign as far as we know, special counsel's office says that roger stone told his friend jerome corsi that he needed to get in touch with wikileaks about those stolen clinton documents. when the special counsel's office asked jerome corsi about that, what they're saying now in this draft charge is that corsi lied to them when he told them that he turned roger stone down. he said, no no, i won't get in touch with wikileaks that would get us all in trouble. special counsel's office is saying in fact that is not at all the way it went down. corsi lied to them. we get more detail in this document which is the draft statement of the offense which has also been sent to jerome corsi, which was also obtained by nbc reporter anna schechter

tonight. so i can tell you what it says here. and i will tell you, thanks to nbc news reporting about the context of this case, i'm able to swap in some of the specific identifying information that will make this make more sense as i read it. so just so you know, the code here is organization 1. that's wikileaks. person 1, that's roger stone. et cetera. quote, on or about september 6, 2018, the defendant jerome corsi was interviewed voluntarily by the special counsel's office including justice department prosecutors and agents of the fbi. a the time of the interview, the special counsel's office was investigating the russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, including, a, the theft of campaign-related e-mails and other documents by the russian government's main intelligence directorate gru to wikileaks for public release in order to expand the gru's interference in the 2016 presidential election campaign. also, c, the nature of any

connections between individuals associated with the presidential campaign of donald trump and the russian government, or wikileaks. quote, corsi was represented by counsel during the interview. at the outset of the interview, corsi was warned that intentionally making false statements to the investigators was a violation of federal law. corsi said that he understood. quote, during the interview, corsi said in the summer of 2016, an associate, roger stone, who corsi understood to be in regular contact with senior members of the trump campaign, including then candidate donald j. trump asked corsi to get in touch with wikileaks about materials it possessed relevant to the presidential campaign that had not already been released. corsi thereafter and knowingly made -- excuse me. corsi thereafter knowingly and intentionally made the knowingly false statements during the interview. corsi said he declined the request from stone and made clear to stone that trying to contact wikileaks could be subject to investigation. corsi also stated that stone never asked corsi to have

another person try to get in contact with wikileaks and that corsi told stone that they should just wait until wikileaks released any materials. special counsel's office is saying in this statement to the offense that all of those statements were from injury corsi. corsi further stated corsi did not know what stone did with respect to wikileaks and he never provided stone with any information regarding wikileaks, including what materials wikileaks possess order what wikileaks might do with those materials. and now here is the money. quote, in truth and in fact and as corsi well knew, after stone asked corsi to get in touch with wikileaks, corsi did not decline the request, as he stated in the interview. instead, he contacted an individual who resided in london, england, a guy who we know is ted malek to pass on stone's request to learn about materials in wikileaks's possession that could be relevant to the presidential's campaign. corsi thereafter told stone that wikileaks possessed information

that would be damaging to then candidate hillary clinton and that wikileaks planned to release damaging information in october 2016. so we just got all of that tonight. draft court documents, apparently prepared by the special counsel's office and sent to jerome corsi basically to let him know what he will be, might be, could be charged with in terms of lying to investigators. prosecutors also included this draft plea offer which corsi -- in which corsi would agree to plead guilty to that one count of false statements and in exchange they would agree not to prosecute him for other false statements he made to the special counsel's office and to the grand jury. they would also agree to not prosecute him for obstruction of justice or perjury either before the special counsel's investigation or the grand jury or congressional committees. they would also promise in this plea agreement that corsi, if he went along, prosecutors would support any recommendation to the court that he receive only a sentence of probation. they'd support a recommendation

that he never had to spend a day in jail. nevertheless, corsi now tells nbc news that he is rejecting this plea offer. but the fact that we've got these draft documents gives us all sorts of new information about what the special counsel apparently knows, including now we've got the documented fact from them that after russian military intelligence hacked the democrats during the election to try to help trump win, roger stone, who is associated with the trump campaign directed this guy jerome corsi to go to wikileaks and find out what they had stolen. this guy jerome corsi dispatched a guy he knew in london to go do that. julian assange lives in a embassy in london. about a week after corsi forwarded this request from stone that someone should go meet with julian assange, corsi reported back to roger stone that wikileaks had lots of information that was going to be damaging to hillary clinton, and oh, by the way, it will all start to come out in october, which it did. and the special counsel's got

all that dead to rights. so, again, this is not a document that has been filed in court as far as we know. this has just been sent to jerome corsi, which is interesting. we'll see what happens here. this appears to indicate that the special counsel's office has found at least one bright link between the trump campaign and what russia did to mess with the election to benefit trump. congressman adam schiff is going to join us in just a moment to talk what this means and the prospect that this indictment of jerome corsi has been prepared, but it hasn't been filed in court. could that conceivably mean that it's being blocked by trump's new loyalist appointee at the justice department? so we are watching this story develop. tonight just within the last hour "the washington post" reports that the white house is very upset that president trump's name appears in this draft court filing, and they've lodged some sort of protest with the justice department than. again, this story continues to develop. well will have congressman adam

schiff, incoming chair of intelligence in just a bit to talk than. and actually, since we got on the air, a little bit more breaking news from this same story on what paul manafort has been telling the trump white house. "the new york times" just within the last -- within less than an hour has just broken the news of what may have led prosecutors to yank paul manafort's plea agreement. his communications with the white house apparently going way out of bounds in an effort to help trump fight this investigation. we'll have that story for you coming up. stay with us. my mom's pain from moderate

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after you have a few days off, you're a little logy, a little slow, don't necessarily have everything firing all at once. so naturally, as we're racing toward showtime tonight, all of these gigantic stories break all at once, including a series of bomb shells about the president's campaign chairman, paul manafort. already we had as of last night the special counsel's office saying that manafort broke his cooperation deal with prosecutors by lying to them after he plead guilty and agreed to cooperate. now tonight "the new york times" reports more of what happened after manafort made that

cooperation deal with mueller's prosecutors, the one that appears to have gone so badly wrong. i'll read you the lead here. this is just posted by "the new york times." quote, a lawyer for paul manafort repeatedly briefed president trump's lawyers on his client's discussions with federal investigators after mr. manafort agreed to cooperate with the special counsel. that's according to one of mr. trump's lawyers and two other people familiar with the conversations. the arrangement was highly unusual and it inflamed tensions with mr. mueller's office when prosecutors discovered it after manafort began cooperating two months ago. quote, some legal experts speculated that it was a bid by mr. manafort for a presidential pardon, even as he worked with the special counsel in hopes of a lighter sentence. so we started yesterday with the news that prosecutors say manafort broke their plea agreement. he lied to them so they're rescinding the deal. now we get the news that paul manafort while he was supposedly cooperating with prosecutors at the same time, he was feeding

information to the president about the investigation, including about his discussions with prosecutors and what prosecutors were asking him about when he was supposedly cooperating with them. first off, wow. secondly, is that legal? can you do that? joining us now is barbara mcquade, former u.s. attorney from the eastern district of michigan. barb, thank you so much for being here there has been a lot of news on this subject in the last few days, thank you so much for hechg us through it. >> oh, you bet. >> this is described in "the new york times" as something unusual. mr. manafort had plead guilty. he had a cooperation agreement with prosecutors. we know from yesterday's court filing that prosecutor says he blew it. he lied to them. he committed crimes after this deal by lying to them. he's thereby released from the deal and his sentencing should go ahead. now "the times" is reporting that while he was supposedly cooperating, he was secretly feeding information to other people who were actively part of this investigation, including the president.

is that also a violation of the plea agreement? >> you know, it's not technically contemplated by the plea agreement because i can't tell you how unusual this is. i don't know that i have ever seen this happen. i think this is even potentially an act of obstruction of justice. if it goes that far, then it would be, because he is prohibited from engaging in other crimes. but i don't know that it would be even contemplated that he would be then feeding information to the other side. a couple of things that ordinarily prevent this. when someone switches sides, you refer to it as flipping because you now assume they are all in. the agreement says you will cooperate truthfully, fully, completely in all -- and be forthcoming with all information. some prosecutors refer to it as joining team usa. so the idea that you would be double dealing and sharing information with other subjects of an investigation is really highly unusual. and the other thing is to the extent a lawyer was involved in the joint defense agreement where they're sharing information, usually that lawyer

says we have to withdraw once my client decides to cooperate because we recognize that our interests may diverge. and so ethically, typically the lawyer understands that he needs to be out of that picture as well. so incredibly unusual, and i think that it's quite possible if information is being fed in either direction that there could be an investigation for obstruction of justice here. >> are you suggesting the lawyer himself or herself who is involved in conveying this information to the president and the president's legal team, that lawyer could him or herself be in trouble for this? >> i think so. if the lawyer is sharing information that's sensitive to the investigation that he's learning from his client based on the questions that he's being asked and reporting back to people who are themselves within the scope of the investigation, i think one could argue that that's an effort to interfere with the investigation or similarly if people on the trump camp are feeding information back and instructing manafort not to answer certain questions or to lie about certain things, i that could be obstruction as

well. certainly facts would need to be learned about this before you could make such an allegation, but it is incredibly unusual and i can understand why mueller's team would have been very angry to find out about this, and to the extent they found out manafort was lying to them, to sever all ties. >> barb, i have an overactive imagination and i read too many spy novels. so when i read this story tonight, i immediately went to like the mellodramatic explanation for this, which is paul manafort faced two trials, one in virginia and one in washington, d.c., and the point at which he plead guilty was in between those two trials. so he got creamed in the first trial. he got convicted of multiple felonies. he was to be start trial in the second jurisdiction. and in the spy movie, you know, political thriller version of this that runs in my head instantly, somebody from the white house or the white house directly comes to paul manafort and says paul, put up a good fight. we know you thought you'd do great here, but you're getting cream and you're going get killed in court.

so here's what you do. we know you wanted to be a good soldier and not flip, and you criticized rick gates when he flip and all that we know your loyal. we know that's a very important thing for you, but flip go. ahead and flip. plead guilty. agree to cooperate. if you just become our mole, if you just tell us everything that you can learn from that position, don't worry about it. we'll hook you up with a pardon. you're already screwed. you're already convicted. do this now and that's your way out. this is the way that you can prove your worth to us. that's, again, i'm imagining that that's the way this could have gone in a very dramatic version of this. if anything like that happened, would that itself be a criminal conspiracy of any kind? >> again, i think it could be. it depends on the fax. the part that sounds borderline illegal is the part where you said go in and be our mole. if the purpose was to gather information about what's going on in the investigation and share it back with others who are potential subjects of the investigation so that they can take steps to ensure that the investigation does not come to

fruition, i think that could amount to obstruction of justice. if anything happened what you described, i don't know that it would be as overt as that. i don't know that they need to say things quite so explicitly. it might have been a musical mutual understanding. remember, there was that report that john dowd had had conversations with the white house or with manafort's lawyers about a potential pardon down the road. >> right. >> and so maybe there were discussions that would give them each enough of an idea about what was happening implicitly without having to have that explicit conversation. >> barbara mcquade from michigan, thank you so much for being was. >> thank you very much. my pleasure. much more to get to. a very busy night. we're waiting results from mississippi runoff. the congressman who will soon lead the house intelligence committee joins us live shortly. lots to get to. stay with us. when i first came to ocean bay, what i saw was despair.

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cholesterol lowerers cell phone silencers. the new lease on lifers, and the positive thinkers. here's to you all that see every day as an opportunity to thrive your way. last night i scared the dog when i got the news on my phone that the trump campaign chairman paul manafort had had his plea deal yanked. prosecutors and special counsel's office said he repeatedly lied to them after he plead guilty and supposedly started cooperating. i was at home because i had the night off. i was on the couch with the dog. i sort of -- this is what i do in my time off. i sort of idly checked the court docket, saw the filing. i yelped, scared the dog. scared the dog in a way that stuck. he jumped off the coach. he would not talk to me for the whole rest of the night until breakfast time this morning. then this morning we woke up to

this report from "the guardian" newspaper which the dog didn't care about at all. this report that paul manafort met with wikileaks founderer julian assange on at least three occasions at the ecuadoran embassy in london where assange lives now, including a meeting in march 2016 right as manafort was taking over the trump campaign. i should note right now that the guardian is the only outlet that has this story. nbc news has not confirmed it. paul manafort tonight is strenuously denying it. julian assange and wikileaks are also denying that any meetings occurred, for whatever that's worth. if it's true, of course, the implications are explosive, right? assange is the one who released the documents stolen by russian intelligence to help trump win the election. if trump's campaign chair was meeting with him right before he did that, that's really bad. in terms of the trump campaign being shown to have colluded with russia. that said, as i mentioned, manafort is strenuously contesting this reporting from the guardian, saying, quote,

this story is totally false and deliberately libelous. i have never met julian assange or anyone connect with him. muell mueller's office says they're going to release a detailed sentencing that will set forth manafort's cries. who among us the s not interested in seeing something like that, even if it does scare the dog? we actually called the judge's chambers in d.c. today to ask when we should expect to see that document from the special counsel's office. we asked if we should expect to see it before or after the judge sets a firm sentencing date for manafort, which both sides are now asking her to do. we didn't receive a clear answer from the judge's chambers. they just told us to keep an eye on the docket, which we always do. but mueller clearly says that he intends to release this detailed evidence of manafort's lies and crimes in a detailed sentencing filing of some kind. so provided that document is going to be public and not filed under seal, one major question

is why is mueller planning to do that. should this be seen as routine for this type of case to the extent there is this type of case? or is mueller choosing this upcoming court filing essentially as a vehicle to release to the public information about the russia scandal and manafort that might otherwise not see the light of day. if, for example, it's otherwise going to be blocked by trump's new acting attorney general, matt whitaker. could that be a factor here? is mueller planning on using these court filings to give the public information about what evidence they have collected and what happened in that presidential election. also, why was nbc news able to obtain these draft court documents from mueller's office tonight showing what appeared to be draft charges and a draft plea agreement for a trump campaign hanger on named jerome corsi. i have never seen a draft indictment made public before. why was this one made public? and with "the new york times" just moments ago breaking the news that mueller -- excuse me, that manafort may have lost his plea agreement because

prosecutors found out that once he was supposed to be cooperating with them, he was actually secretly feeding information to the white house about the special counsel's office and their investigation and their lines of inquiry. with all of these story news breaking all at once, how much reason is there to worry here? about this very important national security investigation potentially being messed with? and if it is being messed with, can the democrats in congress do anything about it now, now that they're taking over the house? the soon to be chairman of the house intelligence committee joins us next. ♪ ♪ the greatest wish of all... is one that brings us together. the lincoln wish list event is here.

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you don't mess around with bob mueller. the worst thing you can do when you're facing serious felony charges i think is refuse to cooperate, but even worse than that is agreeing to cooperate and then lying because you're

going to get caught. you're going to face all of the punishment and then some. so this is i think very serious business. you don't mess around with the special counsel. >> joining us now is adam schiff. congressman, thank you so much for making time tonight. really appreciate you being here. >> you bet. >> "the new york times" has just reported tonight that paul manafort funneled information to the white house, to the president's legal team during the time he was supposed to be cooperating with the special counsel's office after he entered into this plea agreement with them. what's your reaction to that news? do you see this as a serious matter? >> it's a very serious matter, and i think barbara is exactly right. it represents an effort to essentially double deal by paul manafort to pretend that he is cooperating with prosecutors but at the same time betray the government, betray the prosecution by sharing information with the president's legal defense team. i wonder whether one of the lies

that paul manafort told the mueller team was that he wasn't talking, wasn't sharing information with the president's legal team. certainly i would have to think that the mueller prosecutors would feel that as a complete betrayal of a cooperation agreement, and it also appears to be how giuliani and others have been obtaining information about what the special counsel is doing when the special counsel has made such an effort to keep a tight ship. i will say this, though, not only it is going to infuriate the special counsel's office, but it will also infuriate the judge. i mean, judges don't like having defendants that are lying to the government because they're also through the government, through that lying to the government, they're lying to the court. they're trying to take advantage of the court. so i think that mr. manafort miscalculated once before when he attempted to suborn witnesses or tamper with witness, and i think he just committed a another very serious blunder. >> if this turns out to have been not manafort's own idea

entirely, if this turns out to have been an effort organized by the white house or the president's legal team to try to compromise the investigation, to try to get inside information in from the investigation to advantage the defense for the president, would you expect that to become a matter of investigation for the intelligence committee and other intelligence committees of the house? >> absolutely. the first role i think for the congress in all of this is to try to protect the independence of the justice department and the integrity of bob mueller's investigation. that means learning, finding out, exposing whether there is any interference, any political interference by the president or his team in any way, shape or form. and if so, exposing it. and then there is a whole series of potential consequence. it would add to a growing body of evidence that the president is involved in trying to obstruct justice. that might mean the special counsel in his report makes those findings or recommends prosecution, either during the

presidency or when the president leaves office. it obviously would be something the house would have to consider in terms of whether it rose to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor. and it also may mean that this is merely information that is going to be provided to voters so that in 2020 they can decide whether they want a president who is willing to obstruct justice. but there are a lot of potential consequence that can flow from it and i think our ultimate obligation is to expose any interference in this investigation. >> you're also a former prosecutor yourself, sir. nbc news tonight obtained draft charges and a draft plea agreement that were apparently sent by the special counsel's office to jerome corsi. mr. corsi has chosen to share those documents with reporters. he's also said that he has rejected this proposed plea agreement. i don't necessarily believe everything that mr. corsi says, but it is unusual to see these documents. we can't directly verify them, but they appear to be work of the special counsel's office.

just wanted to get your reaction to that. i feel like it's very unusual to see what is in effect a draft indictment, to see any court documents in a legal proceeding. >> it is. i imagine what would have taken place here is the special counsel would have presented this packet to corsi and his lawyers so that he could be sure, okay, this is what i'm prepared to plead guilty to, this is what the cooperation agreement will say. this is what i'm admitting. so it wouldn't be unusual to provide that in detail. it would be very unusual for them to make it public like this. and it does beg the question why is all of this happening all of a sudden. why is it all happening now that manafort is attempting to double deal. that corsi looks like he is attempting to double deal. is any of this related to the appointment of whitaker? has that changed the calculus of these witnesses who were willing to cooperate? do they now feel that they're going to get a pardon? and if they do, why do they feel they are going to get a pardon? we are obviously going to have to explore all of that.

i will say one other thing that leapt out to me about the statement of offense, and that is the discussion that corsi and roger stone had after our committee interviewed mr. stone. there is a lot of material that i think needs to be shared with the special counsel because as more and more of these facts come to the surface, it looks increasingly likely that witnesses committed perjury before our committee, and that's something the special counsel needs to consider as well. >> yeah, and in the plea agreement, one of the things they offer to not prosecute him for if he pleads guilty to that charge of false statements is anything related to perjury to a congressional committee. mr. corsi saying he's rejecting that agreement, means he's rejecting protection from prosecution for perjuring himself before your committee and others. >> yes. >> congressman adam schiff, top democrat on the house committee. thank you for being here, busy news night. >> thank you. >> thanks. more ahead. stay with us. e your future. your school.

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this is staying connected with xfinity to make moving... simple. easy. awesome. stay connected while you move with the best wifi experience and two-hour appointment windows. click, call or visit a store today. a little bit of breaking news. this is the senate's to do list today. they made some headway on it, but they did not get to an important and controversial thing. this was expected. they didn't get to the nominati nomination of thomas farr for federalship. maybe they'll get to it tomorrow. there may be trouble brewing with this nomination. it is not obvious thomas farr will have the votes to get confirmed. republican senator jeff flake said he will not vote to confirm any judicial nominations until

the senate votes on legislation that would protect special counsel robert mueller. there were reports today that republicans might be considering allowing a vote on legislation to protect mueller. specifically to get flake's vote for these judicial nominees. but late in the day the republican leader in the senate, mitch mcconnell, made clear that, no, he's not going to do that. he's going to continue to block any legislation protecting mueller from coming to the floor even if it costs jeff flake's vote. so that means for thomas farr and all other judicial nominees, it's a no vote from jeff flake. and thomas farr's case that means he can't afford to lose one more republican senator. thomas farr is exactly the kind of nomination, though, that might reasonably pose a problem for republican senator tim scott. republican senators mostly stick together like a bag of iron filings near a strong magnet. but over the summer, tim scott sunk a trump judicial nominee named ryan bounds when it turned out that bounds had written a bunch much racist articles when he was in college.

mitch mcconnell had to withdraw the nomination from the senate floor after he found that trump nominee with that kind of problem in his past was maybe too much. well, senator scott is not saying what he's going to do this time with thomas farr, but thomas farr has a history on the same issue that is a bigger deal than articles in a college newspaper. when thomas farr was a campaign counsel for jesse helms in 1990, he blasted out 125,000 post cards to black households in north carolina. the post cards were scary by design. they warned sternly about how strict the residency requirements were if you wanted to vote and how voter fraud is punishable by imprisonment. it was a clear attempt to intimidate black voters. thomas farr and jesse helms got busted for that. they filed a civil complaint against the helms campaign to settle that lawsuit and an official from the helms campaign had to sign a consent decree. the official that signed the consent decree for the helms campaign was thomas farr. thomas farr went on to a long

prolific career in north carolina, developing and implementing some of the most racially-specific voter suppressive techniques ever seen in this country. and that guy is now sweating it as he wait s to see if he can get the votes he needs to be confirmed. maybe the senate not getting around to thomas farr today was no big deal. maybe they'll get to it tomorrow. but there is a lot of pressure on this farr nomination and it is tonight looking a lot wobblier than this time yesterday. so watch this space. that does it for us tonight. we'll see you tomorrow. it's time for the last word with lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence. >> good evening, rachel. and the mueller investigation has taken so many twists and turns today. but the paul manafort dual cooperation, cooperating allegely with the special prosecutor, cooperating with the trump lawyers at the same time. no one saw that coming. >> you know, we knew about these joint agreements, these joint fe