new week. thank you for being here with us. good night from nbc news headquaters here in new york. nbs headquaters here in new york >> so for a few weeks now all the local headlines described it as a murder for hire case. and in part, it is. that is one very, very serious part of this case. here's how prosecutors in the eastern district of north carolina spelled out that part of the case in just one of the criminal complaints that has been filed in association with it. they say quote while living in the united states, leonid teyf employed a live in housekeeper that came from russia. the housekeeper, her husband, and their son all resided with them. at some point the couple's employment ended and they moved out of the teyf residence.

their son left as well. however in february of 2018, teyf told confidential human source number one that teyf believed his wife had been involved in a romantic relationship with the housekeeper's son. teyf wanted additional proof of the cheating. teyf first told the confidential human source that he wanted to pay someone to get the housekeeper's son talking and then overdose him on drugs. at another point he told the confidence shl human source he wanted the housekeeper's son to be kidnapped and taken into the woods and forced to admit to having sex with his wife on video and then he should have killed. teyf told number one that he had hired a private investigator to help obtain information regarding the whereabouts of the housekeeper's son. ultimately that private investigator would himself later be arrested and charged with multiple felonies in conjunction with this case.

but the phitman this guy allegedly hired to kill the housekeeper's son, that hitman ended up being a bad choice for that particular job because the alleged hitman is also described in court documents around this case as a confidential source working with the fbi. according to prosecutors, this past summer, this guy arranged for this would be hit man to pick up a 40 caliber pistol wrapped in tape under the auto wash express cash wash in raleigh north carolina. the gun was left there for the would be hit man to pick it up. that gun that was left there under that bush at the car wash, it also, according to prosecutors had it's serial number filed off. presumably to make it more difficult to trace that gun after it had been used to kill the housekeeper's son who this

guy thought was with his wife. he also allegedly paid this would be hitman $25,000 to carry out the murder. paying the hitman $25,000 to kill the guy using the illegal gun, that was only one of the alleged criminal schemes this guy pursued. he also paid a $10,000 bribe to someone that worked at the department of homeland security because he believed that $10,000 bribe could get this kid deported back to russia. >> teyf explained that if the housekeepers son was back in russia, he would be, quote, buried already. so it's actually really two different murder for hire plots,

right? he thought bribing someone from homeland security to get the kid deported to russia would be as good as murdering him because the kid would be killed once he landed in russia. according to prosecutors it was only when that plot was taking too long that the guy decided he would go the more direct route and just pay a hitman to shoot the kid. the housekeeper's son, though, survived. turns out both the hitman and the bribed homeland security employee were working for the fbi. >> and the defendant has been arrested and denied bond but what makes this just a story of national interest now is that apparently the fbi and federal prosecutors only stumbled upon this murder for hire, murder by

deportation bribery case, they only stumbled upon this by accident because they were looking at him for a money laundering and theft case. this looks like a government building, maybe a parliament building, this is his house. this is the house in raleigh north carolina that belongs to him. it was raided in the first week of december. it is a 17,000 square foot house. they intended to seek forfieture of the mansion and another condominium owned by him. that condo turned out to be a safe house where this guy was apparently storing ammunition and cash and large numbers of

guns. they're also seeking $400,000 worth of mercedes benz vehicles that belong to teyf and also more than $39 million stashed in dozens of bank accounts. all accounts associated with teyf and his family. so where did this guy get the 17,000 square foot mansion and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of mercedes and the spare real estate. it seems like he had a condo just for his guns and his cash, plus $40 million in cash sitting around in a gazillion bank accounts. where did he get all of that? according to the federal indictment against him, he accumulated all of that through an epic money laundering and theft operation and the alleged victim of this alleged theft was the government of russia.

this is from the justice department press release. the indictment alleges that between 2010 and 2012 he was the deputy director of -- i'm going to say this wrong, voentorg, i don't speak russian. deputy director of voentorg. a company which contracted with russia's minuistry of defense t provide goods and services. teyf arranged with subcontractors to fill the various services. he and others devised a scheme to agree that a certain percentage of the government funds it would receive would be paid back to teyf and others involved in the scheme. these kickbacks of government funds were paid in cash and amounted to more than $150 million over a 2 year span. >> $150 million over 2 years.

that's a lot of cash. that's a lot of kickbacks. i mean, that's -- i mean, if that's the kickback amount, that's a lot of contracts for which this guy was getting these kick backs, right? $150 million has to be a portion of the overall contracts that he's giving out if that's his cut. it's interesting, though. this is a u.s. criminal case. all of that money was allegedly stolen from russian defense contracts, but the government in russia does not much seem to mind. they have not been pursuing this guy for this. it's u.s. prosecutors who are pursuing him and it's u.s. prosecutors that are saying he did it. and that may be an important clue as to what's really going on here and the overall importance of this case. on its face this is just a riveting luring crime story which is a real focus for local news in north carolina for weeks now. the condo with no furniture in it stashed full of guns and ammo

and money and the hitman and the bribe for the deportation and the hiding the gun with the serial number under the bush at the car wash and the gigantic mansion, you can imagine like l.l. cool j. and chris o'donnell solving this one on ncis. this is really over the top. but now here's the big twist that makes this not just a crime story and not just a north carolina story. in russia independent media has been ruthlessly targeted and shutdown and basically criminalized under the putin government but independent media is not gone all together and one of the independent russian news outlets that remains, the journalists are regularly threatened and not infrequently murdered in vladimir putin's russia but they still exist and they still report out uncomfortable news stories that the russian government doesn't want anybody reading about and

they just reported something new about this murder for hire crime case in raleigh, north carolina. what they're now reporting is a sort of crucial alleged detail about how this guy got so lucky as to happen upon an insanely lucrative cash kick back scheme in russia where he was able to siphon out $150 million from russian defense contracts. $150 million in two years without anybody in the russian government batting an eye and with nobody coming after him. this guy now sitting in jail in north carolina while prosecutors make plans to seize his mansions and cars and guns and tens of millions of dollars that he stashed in dozens of north carolina banks, according to them, the way he got that money in the first place was yes, through this kickback scheme in which he was able to pocket tons

of money himself for dolling out contracts for the russian military but specifically what they're reporting now is that the contracts he was doling out, the person he was steering billions of rubles worth of business to in this scheme, was this guy. and the reason he looks oddly familiar to you is because he is becoming famous in the united states in his own right. he's the guy they call putin's chef. he is the billionaire oligarch close to putin and he became that because of these huge contracts from the russian defense ministry. reportedly from this guy arrested and sitting in jail in north carolina. he is believed to operate the mercenary operation in syria that put russian paid fighters into direct battle with u.s. troops. he is also famously the guy who ran the internet research agency

which resulted in him becoming a defendant in one of the major indictments brought by special counsel robert mueller last year. he was charged along with his companies and a whole bunch of russian military intelligence officials. they were charged with running the online social media operation of the russian governments campaign to disrupt our last presidential election and throw it to donald trump. now when mueller and his prosecutors brought that case against all of the russians, his companies and all the russian military intelligence officers last year, nobody thought that any of those russian defendants would ever see the inside of a u.s. courtroom, let alone a u.s. jail. everybody thought it was a speaking indictment to let the american public know what mueller found out about the behavior of the russians. nobody ever thought any of those defendants would ever even bother to enter a plea in conjunction with this case or otherwise engage with this case or the u.s. courts in anyway. it thus came as something of a

surprise when, in fact, his companies hired u.s. lawyers and engaged on this case. they entered a not guilty plea in that criminal case. it seemed like a sort of legal oddity at first, but it soon became clear that the point of hiring american lawyers and contesting this case in court was to try to use the case and use those lawyers to challenge robert mueller. to challenge the special counsel's investigation. to try to maybe even mess up mueller's inquiry. he had probably seen coverage about their tactics because they're designed to get headlines. their tactics include a whole bunch of increasingly snarky and propane court filings produced by his lawyers. they have quoted the movie animal house. they have quoted cartoon characters. they have used curse words and

make allegations about the special counsel's investigation more broadly and about robert mueller personally. you might have seen reference in the last week or so to a sort of joking reference to a nude selfie that may exist in the mueller case. that came from one of the deliberately provocative filings from his lawyers. but all the attitude from his lawyers and t i think, admittedly provocative nature of the way they argued this case for their russian clients, doesn't mean they aren't doing something serious here. they have attempted to mount a serious challenge to mueller's authority. they're trying to get the special counsel's investigation shutdown. specifically, they have structured their defense strategy in this case to get something that the russian government might want out of the special counsel's investigation. they have structured their defense strategy in this case to try to obtain massive amounts of information about the operations

of the u.s. government and specifically, the operations of the special counsel's office. they have tried to use their role as a defendant in this case, to get information about what the special counsel's office has turned up. well it's been looking into russian int russian interference in our election. the russian government would love to get their hands on that information. there's been a very serious litigation battle going on where his lawyers have been arguing in federal court in washington that they want to use the discovery process in this case to obtain tons of information. like decades worth of information about the operations of the u.s. government. they want to obtain decades worth of information about operations of u.s. foreign policy, u.s. military policy, u.s. intelligence agencies, u.s. operations overseas. they want to obtain as much information about as they can about the u.s. government and the special counsel's office and what mueller's investigation has turned up thus far and

specifically one of the things they have been fighting about in court is that they want to not only obtain that information as part of this court case, they want to then provide that information to putin's chef, and he himself has no intention of coming to the united states and getting arrested and facing trial, but his lawyers are arguing that all of this information, all of this sensitive national security information, sensitive information about the investigation should be extracted from mueller and extracted from the u.s. government and sent to him, in russia. and that of course would be a serious thing, right? that would be just the same as sending all of that sensitive information correctly to the kremlin. so that's what this litigation fight has been about. the national security division is involved. special counsel is involved. the u.s. attorney in d.c. is involved. it's been interesting litigation. but that's what made it amazing today in federal court in d.c.

when the federal judge who was presiding over this case, presiding over all of this legal wrangling basically decided to stick a pin through his lawyers and pull the dude's wings off. we got the transcript from today's proceeding. the judge, all right, i scheduled today's status conference for several reasons. first i'd like to set a hearing date to hear argument on concord's motion for approval to disclose discovery. that's his company. so the defense council is representing concord management. second i want to discuss the firewall council process to make sure that we're on the same page. finally the pending motion to compel discovery which is now ripe. due to the grand jury material that is the subject of the motion i'll address the merits of the motion in a sealed proceeding. but then the judge says this, to the lawyer for concord management. the judge says this.

i will tell you now that i found your recent filings particularly the reply brief that you filed on friday to be unprofessional, inappropriate, and ineffective. in a few weeks once concord's motion for approval to disclose sensitive discovery is ripe, i will again consider arguments raised about the scope of discovery provided to officers and employees. i have issued several rulings on all of concord's pretrial motions and i hope to discuss the timing. you will prevail on your motion for release of sensitive discovery if and only if the facts and the law are on your side. meritless personal attacks on the special counsel, his attorneys, other members of the trial team and firewall council will play no role in my decision on your motion nor will inappropriate and what you clearly believe to be clever quotes from movies, cartoons, and elsewhere. your strategy is ineffective. it is undermining your credibility in this courthouse. i will say it plain and simple,

knock it off. direct quote from the judge. knock it off. and at that point in the proceeding the judge goes into a sort of lengthyish back and forth with prosecutors about whether certain proceedings should happen in open court or whether they should happen with the courtroom cleared and under seal. after that back and forth she then turns back to the lawyer for the company for concord management and says, why shouldn't requests to share sensitive discovery with attorneys, paralegals, translators, and other individuals why should that not be litigated in open court. >> he said, your honor, i'm not prepared to address this or any of the other issues you've raised without consulting with my client. you've accused me of being unprofessional and inappropriate. >> the judge. and i think you have been. >> all right. well that's what you have accused me of. i need to go now and discuss

with that my client and see if my client wants to continue to retain me in this matter seeing as there appears to be a bias on the part of the court against me. >> the judge there's no bias on the part of the court. >> well, when you personally say to someone in public that they're unprofessional and inappropriate i take that -- >> and what have you been personally saying about the special counsel and the trial team in open court? >> i have been telling the truth. every pleading i have filed before this court, i have told the truth. >> the judge, you have had many inappropriate remarks in your filings and you know it. >> your honor, that's your opinion. that's your opinion. i disagree with you. but that's your opinion. you're entitled to it. what i am entitled to do is discuss that with my client before i can go any further. >> you are certainly entitled to discuss that with your client but i'm going to direct you and the government to sit down and meet once you have spoken with your client and work through some of these issues with a

protective order. >> we tried to do that, your honor, early on and the governments answer to everything is no. >> the judge, i'm directing them to sit down with you again and try to work through some of those issues pursuant to my order, understood? >> yes. understood. >> so at a very basic level, the way the whole oligarch thing works under putin, if you're the right kind of guy, putin will let you get rich. really rich. fabulously rich. he will happily and profoundly rip off the russian people. rip off the russian government. rip off the assets of the russian nation to make you personally fabulously wealthy. but then he owns you and you serve him. you, as a fabulously wealthy person serve the interests of vladimir putin and the interests of russia and the russian government as defined by vladimir putin. in his case, a system was

devised mostly involving russian defense contracts that would make him spectacularly wealthy, and he is. the apparently bag man that ran that operation was allowed himself to skim off $150 million in cash over just two years. he is now sitting in a jail cell in north carolina where prosecutors are pursuing him not only for the double murder for hire plot that he apparently carried out against the guy, they're also going after him for the massive theft from the russian people and the money laundering that followed that allowed him to try to stash and spend it in the united states. the russian government is fine with that and u.s. federal prosecutors are not. now that they've got him, what threads does that guy's case pull? right? for his part, in terms of his service to vladimir putin and the russian government, he ran part of the election

interference intelligence operation for the russian go government in 2016. he ran all the social media stuff that targeted our election to try to swing it toward trump. he has since tried to turn his own indictment in that case to the advantage of the russian government by using the u.s. court system to try to extract sensitive national security information from the government and from the investigation of the special counsel. well, this afternoon, a u.s. federal judge, a trump appointee brushed that effort way back with a public dressing down and a public humiliation of the american lawyer who was trying to carry out that effort and make a public spectacle of it at the same time. depending on what happens next here, it looks like that lawyer is maybe out and that may indicate even weirder turns to come in this case. this is already one of the weirder story lines in the whole russia scandal, in the whole

mueller investigation. new weird stuff happens all the time. i'm sure we have not hit the bottom on weird. and for what it's worth, the federal judiciary as a whole is due to run out of money in four days. as of the end of today, the federal government shutdown we are now enduring is the second longest one in u.s. history. if it persists through the end of the week, the u.s. federal court system announced the u.s. federal judiciary will be out of money and will have to start triaging it's operations. if the shutdown persists beyond that, if it goes on through saturday, that will make this the longest u.s. government shutdown in american history. the consequences of the shutdown are becoming increasingly serious and expensive. as we head into our third week of this. that's not just for federal workers and their families, that's for the u.s. economy that basically crank down and stop working when the federal government does too. we have had government shutdowns

before but again, this is becoming one of the longest ones ever. one of the things we are learning in this one is that it matters when there's a shutdown whether or not the government is generally being well run or poorly run. that can make a difference as to howell the shutdown goes too. and that is why one particular white house proposal about the shutdown is putting a real shiver down people's spines. for how much worse this whole thing could get and quickly. that story is next. stay with us. t and quickly. that story is next stay with us to take care of any messy situations. and put irritation in its place. and if i can get comfortable keeping this tookus safe and protected... you can get comfortable doing the same with yours. preparation h. get comfortable with it.

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he will talk about the border and the shutdown. welcome to 9:00 p.m. eastern mr. president. come on in. the water's fine. as we get ready for that, there's rising concern that the president might decide that he might even use the speech to announce he's declaring a national emergency to theoretically set the stage for him to try to reallocate existing resources from the pentagon to try to rebuild the

wall on the southern border, even if congress won't appropriate any money for that. given the legal novelty of that approach, the controversy around that kind of approach if the president decides to go that way, what kind of a situation would that put the military in when it came to whether or not to cough up that money and whether or not to assign active duty soldiers to carry out orders related to that? if this emergency declaration from the president were ultimately considered to be illegal, would the actions of u.s. troops or officials who are ordered to carry it out also be illegal acts? this potential dilemma arrives at a time when things between the white house and the military seem to be hard to figure out. in the aftermath of the resignation of james mattis it was not clear whether there might be an exodus at the pentagon following him out the door. the chief of staff to secretary

m mattis was re-signing. but now the journal is reporting it wasn't voluntarily. he did not leave on his own accord. he was forced out. the chief of staff for the pentagon has been forced out of his post by the defense department's new acting head, said multiple u.s. officials. sweeney worked along side mattis in his career. the bond was a source of concern to the white house, u.s. officials said. adding that the appointment of pat shanahan as acting secretary by president trump last month was seen as an opportunity to remove mr. sweeney. he expressed a desire to stay on as recently as last week. as redecrcently as last week an they pushed him out. we all wondered if one of the consequences of mattis leaving would be that officers and senior staffers might go in his wake as well. and we have seen some high level departure since mattis left but

if that's not the full story, if part of what's happening now is the white house and the new trump appointing acting defense secretary, they're instead going off and picking off people at the pentagon that are mattis-like and getting them out of the pentagon behind the departure, that's an entirely different dynamic, isn't it? joining us is adam smith. congressman smith, thank you for being with us. it's nice to see you. >> thank you. i appreciate it. >> wall street journal reports that the pentagon chief of staff didn't re-sign. he was pushed. i wanted to ask your response to that and if you're at all concerned about senior staffing at the pentagon in the wake of secretary mattis's resignation? >> i am. i'm concerned about secretary mattis departing. he was the adult in the room. he could check some of the president's worst impulses, but he had so much credibility with

the military and our national security and just as a person that his word carried a lot of weight. he has a lot of allies and friends in the pentagon and when secretary mattis re-signed he could no longer work for president trump. i think the more important part is he didn't agree with the way the president made them in such a chaotic off the top of his head way that were not well thought out and didn't seem to have any plan behind them. so the last table people that are at the pentagon, the more nervous we should all be. secretary mattis leaving is a huge blow. but we need to keep as many people there as possible to understand the way things are supposed to work. >> with the government shutdown now becoming the second longest ever and no real end in sight, the president has announced this primetime address to the nation as first from the oval office tomorrow night. how serious do you take the discussion that we're hearing

considering a declaration of an emergency so he can take funds from the pentagon and essentially use those funds to build his wall or do whatever else he wants to do. >> i take it very seriously, precisely because this president is so unpredibctable and he changes his mind based on who talked to him last or what story is done on fox news. the fact that he might want to do this is a distinct possibility and would be a waste of money. the building a wall is not even going to help with border security and we don't have a border security crisis. so, we're talking about 5 billion, 6 billion in this dispute that the president has shutdown the government over. but if he's actually going to build this wall he keeps muttering about, it's going to cost between 20 and $30 billion and if you take that much money out of the pentagon, and it comes specifically, the

emergency clause that he's referencing would come specifically out of the military construction budget in the pentagon. this would undermine the readiness of our national security. it would take money away from building the facilities that our troops need to be equip and prepare for the mission we want to send them on and spend it on the wall. the president makes decisions like this all the time. there's a risk that he could do it and it would be a huge waste of money. now he would be subject to a court challenge very quickly. as i understand it, this authority has been used to build things in iraq and afghanistan. once money is obligated within the pentagon, the president can't decide to change it. unless he declares an emergency. so in iraq and afghanistan, a few times, the presidents did that because they needed to build something in those places in light of our troop presence there but to do it for a wall on the southern border, where's the emergency? the courts would overturn this

quickly except for the fact that as we all know, the supreme court is a rubber stamp for trump's agenda and they have forgotten about the fact that they're supposed to be a judicial branch. there's a risk they would let him get away with it and a distinct risk that he would do it. >> sir, you have a big weight on your shoulders and a huge responsibility with that new job. thanks for talking to us tonight. i hope you'll come back in weeks and months ahead. you'll have a lot on your plate. >> any time. >> much more ahead, stay with us. any time. >> much more ahead, stay with us [indistinct conversation] [friend] i've never seen that before. ♪ ♪ i have... ♪

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i know we're just out of the holiday and everything, but this is important. for the past couple of weeks, including over the holiday, we have been watching what looks like a concerted effort by the democratic leaders that now control the u.s. house of representatives. a concerted effort by them to overturn a bit of conventional wisdom. i'm not sure if people are picking up on the importance of this yet. leading democrats in key positions of the new congress are actively trying to disabuse us the public of the notion that a sitting president cannot be indicted. on this show last month, the chair of the judiciary committee, he told us on this show that he doesn't believe that justice department guidance on that question is correct. that's a big deal, right? he's the guy that would take the

lead on any impeachment proceeding. he runs the judiciary committee and he's saying no, no, no the president doesn't have to be impeached. that's not the only remedy. the president absolutely can be indicted. then just last week, the new democratic speaker of the house, backed him up on that. nancy pelosi saying that whether a president can be indicted is an open discussion in terms of the law, saying that the memos from the justice department that say that a president can't be indicted, she does not believe those are conclusive. this is something people have been treating as a settled issue, right? justice department rules say a president can't be indicted. but the new speaker of the house and judiciary committee, they're saying they disagree. now another top democrat has joined them. >> there's an office of legal council memo in the department of justice, i think it dates back to the nixon years but maybe i'm wrong. it sits the sitting president

shouldn't be indicted. it's not a rule. or a law. it's from the justice department. >> there's a powerful case being made that you can indict a sitting president. it's more difficult to make the case that they should be tried while they're in office because that would be disruptive of the president's responsibilities but the only argument and it was not the focus of attention in those prior olc opinions, the only argument was that it was stigmatize the president. the justice department already crossed that when they said individual number one, the president was implicated in these two crimes. so that has already -- that bar has already been passed. >> the chair of the intelligence committee is speaking there about the two crimes. the two campaign finance felonies to which the long time lawyer pled guilty last year. president trump directed him to commit. the congressman went on to say if prosecutors have a solid case

against the president on those felonies, not only can the president be indicted but prosecutors by rights should go ahead and indict him now to make sure that he doesn't run out the clock on the statute of limitations of any crimes he has been charged with while he is in office. meanwhile, democrat congressman of california has been saying in recent days that he thinks it's possible that prosecutors in the southern district of new york may have already indicted the president and it is a sealed indictment. so top democrats are going out of their way to signal that when it comes to the criminal investigation surrounding the president, you shouldn't rule out an indictment for president trump while he is b still serving as president. that could have major implications as to whether they're planning on starting impeachment proceedings against him. if they have decided that indicting the president is possible after all, that is a way of getting impeachment questions off the table. are we seeing the democrats punt

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that provide all-day comfort. to keep him feeling more energized. dr. scholl's. born to move. >> the united states has never had a president as unfit for the office as trump. it is becoming clear that 2019 is likely to be dominated by a single question. what are we going to do about it? >> new york times editorial page went big, 3,000 words big this weekend with a long and potent argument from the columnist making the case that the president's, as he argues, unfitness for office should call to question now as to how the president should be removed from office, now. quote, the easy answer is to wait to allow the various investigations of trump to run their course and ask voters to deliver a verdict in 2020. that has one great advantage that would avoid the trauma of

overturning an election result. ultimately, however, waiting is too dangerous. the cost of removing a president from office is smaller than the cost of allowing this president to remain. joining us now is columnist for the new york times. thank you for being here. >> thank you for having me. >> this is provocative and powerful as an argument. i felt like i had heard every argument about the damage that could be done from this president remaining and you have put this out there very potently. i wanted to ask you, why not? what makes you feel like you need to break in case of this energy? >> i feel like the last two months, since the midterms of 2018, we started to see more of the risks, what feel like the begins of the tail end risks of the trump presidency come to the fore. some cable tv news hosts, and nothing against cable tv news hosts but they shouldn't be running the government. >> if i ever tell anybody to shutdown the government, feel

free to ignore me. >> he has pulled the troops out of syria and he's seen as one of the last of sanity leave and criticize the president on the way out. the risk of the damages that he can do are growing. so i'm not suggesting that we may talk about this, impeach him now. we need to come to terms with the fact that we can do anything we can to get him out of this very important job. >> do you think when you talk about these tail end consequences that we can see, do you think that some of the danger that you're describing there, some of the increased danger is because of the president's increased liability of the investigations that surround him. >> there's this fiction that existed for awhile. it was unprovable there was fiction until the midterms. and then we saw the midterms and

he got trounced. the senate is tricky because so many of the races were on republican oil. the democrats won by 8 percentage points. so what you're starting to see if he realizes he has some vulnerability. republicans have some vulnerability. and mueller seems to be to one degree or another closing in. what i worry about are one, as mueller continues to close in or as he fights for his re-election, he could do many worse things. we're not paying attention to the possibility that something terrible external happens in war, a financial crisis, a terrorist attack. a terrible national -- >> a nonself-inflicted. >> i'm not the biggest fan of george w. bush's presidency but george w. bush remained a competent president to the end and he had none of the ethical issues that trump does and if you think about what bush did in his last two years, he managed the disaster in iraq responsibly

and managed the financial crisis extremely responsibly. i'm not saying that he doesn't deserve blame for what happened before but imagine donald trump trying to manage a natural disaster or a war or a financial crisis. i find it frightening and i worry we would look back and say how did we not get rid of him beforehand? >> there's one element of how this is or may be proceeding that i want to ask you about which is a new spin on how the prospect of impeachment and the prospect of indictment are interacting with each other? can you hold on and have that discussion when we come back? >> of course. >> we'll have that discussion when we come back. urse. >> we'll have that discussion when we come back. that's why at safelite, we'll show you exactly when we'll be there. with a replacement you can trust. all done sir. >> grandpa: looks great! >> tech: thanks for choosing safelite. >> grandpa: thank you! >> child: bye! >> tech: bye! saving you time...

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joining us once again this is new york sometimes columnist that wrote this column in supd's paper. it's about the urgency of the need to remove this president from office and in part, i think you're trying to change the common wisdom about whether or not republicans would ever support the removal of this president from office. >> yes. >> you think that's something that is sort of ticking in the direction of removal? >> potentially, right? i think there's a lot of conventional wisdom that his approval rating is 40%. it's never gone below that and it's not going below that. that's wrong. if you look at the history. you know the history better than anyone at this point. if you look at nixon, they had unbelievably solid support in '73 and then it went away. so i think as more allegations

and more revelations come out, i think it's possible that republicans will decide it is no longer in their own personal political interest to support trump. i wish i thought they would do it on the merits. that's probably unlikely but i do think it's possible that they'll look at this and they'll say this is a bad deal for us. >> so you're describing a couple of different times just since we have been talking, describing continued revolutions from the mueller investigation, from other criminal probes as being an engine driving broader political considerations around the president. whatever the investigation can do in it's own terms, when it exposes potential wrong doing by the president, that will change the political realities on the ground. there's a serious question as to whether or not the investigation itself might produce an actionable eject button from this president. whether the president could be indicted or has been indicted under seal.

what do you take that dynamic as democrats in positions of leadership increasingly highlight their view that they think the justice department policy procolluding an indictment might be soft and overturnable. >> there's enough debate about whether a sitting president can be indicted. i don't think there's any good substantive debate about whether donald trump is fit to be president. he is not, right? so i guess i would rather see the attention focused on the things he has done wrong. the ways he has violated his constitutional oath and broken the law and i think pressure needs to be put on republicans to eventually get rid of him and i'm then open to the question of whether a sitting president could be indicted or whether he could be indicted when he left office. his sins have been so bad i'd rather keep attention on that rather than on the procedural questions of what do we do about the terrible things that president trump has done. >> columnist at the new york

times calling the question on this in a very eloquent way. thank you for being here. we'll be right back. stay with us. r being here we'll be right back. stay with us but what i do count on, is staying happy and healthy. so, i add protein, vitamins and minerals to my diet with boost®. boost® high protein nutritional drink has 20 grams of protein, along with 26 essential vitamins and minerals your body needs. all with guaranteed great taste. the upside- i'm just getting started. boost® high protein be up for life. walking a dog can add thouswalking this many?our day. that can be rough on pam's feet, knees, and lower back. that's why she wears dr. scholl's orthotics. they relieve pain and give her the comfort to move more so she can keep up with all of her best friends. dr. scholl's. born to move. state of the art technology makes it brilliant. the lexus nx, experience the crossover in its most visionary form.

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[ singing in spanish ] >> that does p.m. eastern tomorrow is going to be giving his first address to the nation from the oval office. you will want to be here with us for that. now it's time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. good evening. >> good evening, rachel, and we now know exactly how far behind you i am. >> what do you mean? >> i mean six years. i mean you were on the simpsons in 2013, and i was on the simpson's last night. >> yay. >> and that is -- that is how far behind rachel maddow i am, six full years. rachel, tomorrow night. >> that was so good. >> tomorrow night we're going to leave that picture up later in the hour. tomorrow night how much time do you want? because apparently the presidt'