see over the last weeks. it's gone from a big medieval burly thing to slats. >> nancy pelosi had flowers. she pointed to that and said, he could call this a wall that's it. "the rachel maddow show" starts right now. >> thanks to you at home for joining us this hour welcome to another totally normal weekday in the donald trump presidency totally normal day when i went to bed last night i thought the big suspenseful of on the day, the event that had the biggest potential for drama was going to be the hearing in the criminal case involving president trump's campaign chairman paul manafort already convicted on multiple felonies facing a likely criminal sentence of 7 to ten years the drama underlying today's hearing is he could be facing an additional decade in prison.

on top of the seven to ten, which really, when you started thing it up, could be the whole enchilada if you're already 70 years old and not in great health he could be facing another ten years in prison if the the judge in his case concludes he breached his plea agreement by lying to prosecutors after he agreed to talk with them manafort was in court today. we have these great sketches manafort was allowed to wear a suit this time instead of his jail jump suit he is now white haired he is using a cane reporters at the scene described him as leaning heavily on that cane with all the prosecutors there and with manafort's defense team there and manafort in the courtroom, everybody in person today -- today the judge in his case ultimately elected to not

today make a decision on the substance of these current allegations against him, which are, again, that he broke his deal by lying repeatedly to prosecutors. manafort was there today he had to go back to jaille he'll be back a week from monday that will be the day that a judge conducts a hearing behind closed doors to determine whether manafort is going to be on the hook for all these extra years potentially tacked on to his sentence that's going to be a closed door sealed hearing a week from monday and it is going to be sealed because of the sensitivity around manafort's testimony thus far and how much of his criminal case still bears upon other still ongoing investigations and other people who have not yet been charged. remember, paul manafort has done at least nine interview sessions with the special counsel's office he has testified before the grand jury at least twice.

we will ultimately get some redacted transcript of that manafort hearing before they have taken out the sensitive stuff, but they're holding that behind closed doors because they're expecting it not to be suitable for public consumption because of the cases it relates to it tells you something about the president and this moment in history that the president's campaign chairman in court today turning one white hair using a cane trying to avoid the extra decade in prison that could determine whether or not he dies behind bars. tells you something about the time period we are living through that that doesn't make the front page today for this particular president doesn't make probably the first ten pages of the paper tomorrow morning. because on a day like today it just couldn't compete. when the government shutdown crisis finally started to end

today with the president appearing in the rose garden to announce that the government will re-open under its old funding levels with no policy change, no wall between the u.s. and mexico, no down payment on it, so sample portion of it whatsoever, when the president announced he would accept the exact same offer he rejected a month ago that started the whole catastrophe for the government and for hundreds of thousands a people who work for the government and their families -- when the president made that announcement that he said he would never, ever make, which is the shutdown will end for him getting nothing, when that dark cave opened up and swallowed all light and made it breezy and cold for a moment, what that moved off the front page of every newspaper in the country and every moment of tv knew in the country was not just what was going on at that moment with

his already convicted campaign chairman it also moved this -- the indictment of the president's long time friend and longest serving political adviser the self-promoting gadfly roger stone. we'll be talking about the shutdown tonight at the moment the president announced the shutdown it displaced momentarily this indictment roger stone was indicted yesterday under seal the special counsel's office requested that the court keep that under seal until stone could be arrested this morning quote, the united states of america by and through robert mueller iii respectfully move this is court to seal the accompanying arrest and indictment and delay public entry on the public docket of this motion to seal and all related matters until the

defendant named is arrested. it will. it is essential that any information concerning the pending indictment in this district be kept sealed prior to the defendant's arrest these facts present an extraordinary situation and a compelling governmental interest that justifies not only the seal of the indictment but also a short delay in the public docketing of these sealed pleadings and the accompanying order until the defendant's arrest that is dated yesterday from the special counsel. that's the special counsel saying to the judge, this indictment should be sealed. our request to seal is indictment should be sealed. this should all be kept off the docket until we've got him and the judge apparently agreed because the first sign we got today of roger stone was when

this video from a cnn producer who was aseened by the network to stake out the house in the event that anything like this might happen and, you know, this in itself is a rackable milestone in the mueller investigation. we have seen a lot of people charged in this case and marched in and out of courthouses. we have seen them in suvs you will thing up in parking lots outside of buildings but nobody else got arrested by the fbi in this fashion. i mean, even when they raided perimeter. 's house in virginia -- remember all the drama about that they took away his files and computers and ipads and nice suits and ostrich jacket, at least then they left paul manafort behind. this is the first time we have seen them grab the dude from his house and take him into custody. now, we do not have to speculate toos why the special counsel's

office chose to do it this way they laid out their reasons in their motion to seal they said, they told that judge in d.c. yesterday, they believe roger stone would flee and or destroy or tamper with evidence if he knew he was being indicted surprise, they arrested him before dawn today. yes, if you are trying to snip every loose thread here, yes, you're right because that happened in the predawn hours today, hours before the proclaimed end to the government shutdown, it's likely the fbi agents who arrested roger stone today did so while not being paid but now we have got the unsealed indictment for roger stone that lays out seven felony indictments against him. nothing suggests stone had any previous contact at all with the special counsel's office, which is interesting doesn't appear mueller ever bothered to interview roger stone before indicting him

today, but stone is charged today with lying to congress and with attempting to intimidate another witness to either lie to congress or refuse to testify to congress all of the charges against stone today and the narrative that prosecutors lay out that supports the indictment, it all relates to stone's contacts and communications during the presidential campaign related to wikileaks. wikileaks distributed the documents that russian military intelligence stole from the democratic party be the clinton campaign roger stone is alleged to have lied to congress repeatedly about his communications with wikileaks personally and through intermediaries he's also supposed to have lied about whether or not his efforts with wikileaks were done on his own say so or whether the trump campaign put him up to it. i've got some expert help on this tonight a hot of people who follow this from a legal perspective are suggesting today and tonight the

stone indime is something that puts the central question of the mueller investigation closer to president trump and his campaign than any other indictment we have seen thus far again, we will get some expert help on that coming up in just a moment, including the significant of the fact that now yet another person close to the president has been charged with witness tampering in the mueller investigation. that is something the president himself sort of increasingly look, like he may have some legal problem of his own again, we will get to all of that but i'm quite sure you heard a lot about the case already today. the arrest happened before dawn. we got the indictment this morning. i'm not going go through it line by line. i'm not trying to fresh out the sordid characters partly because i can't stomach it but also because there's two things i want to focus on. they're both open questions for me in terms of where my head is at

and how it fits into the overall scandal and how close we are to getting the biggest and most important questions answered, these are the two things i am sort of stuck on the first one is a dynamic, a pattern, that we have seen over and over and over again in this scandal when it comes to people surrounding the president and even the president himself this is something we saw from the very beginning, from december 2017 when trump national security adviser mike flynn turned up in court, pleading gl and agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors what mike flynn admitted to lying about, remember, was his contact with the russian government during the transition his contact with the russian government about u.s. sanctions on russia. what never made sense about flynn and him pleading guilty is why he felt the need to lie to the fbi about his contact with

the russian government and him talking to them about sanctions. i mean, at the time he had that contact with the russian government he was the incoming national security adviser. yeah, maybe it was a little weird that before he was technically sworn in he was having policy discussions with another government, but it's not that weird had he publicly asserted, yes, i talked to the russian ambassador about sanctions. we in the trump campaign have been clear we have a different take on sanctions an the outgoing administration. had flynn said that that might have occasioned half a raised eyebrow, but instead, he lied about it multiple times to the fbi. what about those communications with the russian government were so -- what intrepid embarrassing linked to a larger thing you didn't want to have to explain what about those communications with the russians were worth lying about? why lie about snit why lie to

the fbi about it that became a question that was even harder to answer when we learned it wasn't just mike flynn that lied about the sanctions. "washington post" reported months later flynn's deputy also made false statements to the fbi about the same thing, denying the truth about those contacts with the russian government during the transition when they talked to them about sanctions she lie about it to reporters at the time we later learned she also lied about it to the fbi. and again, there was nothing weird about talking to the russian government about sanctions so why create a big cover story about it why create a cover story you stuck to to the point where you opened yourself up to criminal charges for lying about it and it wasn't just the two of them the "new york times" later reported later in the transition there were a bunch of trump officials who are all read in on the truth, which is that flynn was talking to the russian government about sanctions

during the transition. among the trump officials read in on that and sent documentation, was sean spicer who became the white house spokesperson sean spicer knowing the real story gave the public a false story. he publicly spread this lie about flynn's contact with the russian government when we know he was read in on what happened. why did they all tell lies about that telling the truth would not have been a scandal yet there was an elaborate coverup involving multiple officials, false statements in public, to reporters and even to federal law enforcement agents and we have seen that dynamic over and over again in this scandal with characters large and small. speaking of small, remember old george papadopoulos who already served his prison sentence in this scandal he's admittedly a minor character in this scandal,

right? we learn he lied to federal investigators about the content and timing of his communications with someone connected to the russian government whatever you think about george papadopoulos he was attached to the trump campaign him having conversations with somebody who reported to be linked to the russian government would not be crazy, would not be illegal. that's the sort of thing he could have admitted to without much need to explain further, but yet he lie about it to federal investigators. that's why he went to prison he's the small end of the food chain. he's the grub. the great white shark in this food chain is the candidate. we saw this same dynamic at work with trump himself now we know that through the presidential campaign, trump and his business were pursuing a very large real estate deal in russia a trump tower moscow deal that would have required the involvement and permission of

the russian government now we know that he and his business were pursuing that during the presidential campaign the president now says it's perfectly fine he was doing that afterall, he's a real estate guy. he pursues real estate projects. as he says, everybody thought he would lose the presidential election so why would he forego? there was nothing wrong with him pursuing that deal that's what he says now. whatever you think about that explanation frpresident trump, that explanation would have held the same amount of water during the campaign instead, for months he explicitly lied and said he wasn't pursuing any deals in russia it wasn't illegal for him to pursue a real estate deal. he spins a story about that that tries to make it sound okay but

for months he lied about it. tried to keep it secret. michael cohen went to congress and tried to answer questions knowing the exact truth about the project as someone directly involved in it he nevertheless under oath told congress lies about the project and how long it went on. that project wasn't illegal. why did they have to invent a fake cover story for it that included committing felonies and lying under oath in order to keep it secret what was it about that that you had to tell a fake story and it's all of them i mean, when jared kushner fi filled out his security clearance application, why did he leave off they he met muched times with the russian ambassador, that he had taken the meeting in trump tower with

russians all those things kushner has an explanation for, he and his well-paid spokesperson have given those explanations okay, then why did he keep them all secret in watergate they said the coverup was worse than the crime. in this scandal, the coverup is the neon flashing air roe that points at where the crime might be, because time and time and time again we have seen the same dynamic. all of them, up and down, have all been caught telling lies, even to the point of facing prison time for telling lies about things that on the surface are not worth lying about. things that aren't illegal things that could have a totally normal explanation and that is a neon sign shaped like an air rrrow pointing at w

must be neat that they took such risks to cover up. today we see that again with roger stone. you know, there's a lot of color in the stone indictment with him, like, threatening that guy's dog when he was trying to stop that guy from testifying before congress. there's him quoting the godfather. there's the headline, the allegation from the special counsel that stone did not make his overtures on his own initiative a senior campaign official directed roger stone to get him to find out what wikileaks had on clinton everyone wondering who on the campaign would have the authority to direct a senior campaign official. everybody's wondering if that would be the candidate himself maybe. i don't know we don't know. special counsel doesn't say. but if you set all that aside for just a second, consider the overall dynamic we have seen

with all these other figures in this scandal thus far. lying about stuff that on the surface it doesn't seem like they need the lie about. just look for a second in the stone indictment at the specific allegations that are spelled out about what stone lied about. again, with all the other peep in this scandal, we have seen them again and again and again in their security clearance applications risking prison time to tell lies about things that do not seem to be crimes. things that on the surface don't seem like they need to be lied about. in this case in this new indictment, what roger stone is alleged to have lied about under oath, threatened this witness that he needed to lie about it too or not testify if he couldn't commit to not lying about it, what he's accused of, the big lie at the heart of the stone indictment, is something

really, really small and specific what is spelled out in the indictment today is that roger stone appears to have concocted a cover story which says the way he tried to get information through wikileaks was through this guy, a guy roger stone knew, a guy who had a radio show on which he interviewed julian assange from wikileaks stone thought he could be a good contact. if a guy would interview him he could reach him to get information on what wikileaks had about hillary clinton clinton. that was the cover story that roger stone concocted and tried to sell to the special counsel according to prosecutors that story is false and that stone actually dispatched a different guy, this guy to, figure out what wikileaks had on hillary clinton. can we put those two guys upside

by side? this is the big lie that's spelled out in the indictment. roger stone says it's the guy on the right. actually, it was the guy on the left okay who cares? why does that matter why would the difference between those two paths to wikileaks be worth not only lying about it to congress, but doing back flips and making all these floor id baroque threats against another witness to prevent that from unraveling roger stone goes nuts that the cover story will be exposed as false. quote, stone wall it plead the fifth. anything to save the plan. he tells this witness he's going give up the cover story. he tells him to refuse to appear plead the fifth. do a frank pentangeli. he shows up to testify, but then

pretends he doesn't know to protect everybody else okay, what the heck was so important about the difference between those two stories, honestly i used a radio host, versus i used jerome corsi, conspiracy theory guy who cares? but that distinction was enough to risk all of this, which is resulting in seven felony charges and getting arrest on cnn. now we have a neon arrow pointing out what otherwise does not seem to be illegal or particularly scandal louse behavior what is it about this story that you have to go to these lengths to protect this story, which doesn't seem to be anything scandal louse has

nevertheless cause grown adults to risk years if not decades in prison to try to keep it under rap wraps. in this case, what the red arrow is pointing at is the line of communication from trump to stone to corsi to wikileaks to russian intelligence i have never cared about that before, but boy do i now boy, do i now now that i know the lengths to which these characters were willing to go to make sure that stayed secret and briefly, there's just one last point to know about the roger stone indime, which i think points us to what we may be able to expect next or where to look to figure this out there was a way to know this indime was co-- indictment was coming in mid december "the washington post" requested an official transcript of stone's testimony.

rewe reported that on december 19th because it was "the washington post" suggesting that that request from mueller might be a sign that mueller was about to indict roger stone for lying in that testimony. that would explain why mueller needed a official transcript of what mule stone had said that prediction from carol less lentic and her coworkers proved to be exactly right. he did get indicted in the testimony that you will mooer got the official transcript of in mid december. because of that, we spent today trying to figure out who else has had their transcript peeked at by special counsel robert mueller. what we found is not necessarily what you would kt kp, but i do think it tells us where we should look. stay with us mercedes-benz factory-trained technicians. or it isn't. it's backed by an unlimited mileage warranty,

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you can control from anywhere on any device. and it protects you with 24/7 professional monitoring. i guess we're sleeping here tonight. xfinity home. simple. easy. awesome. call, go online or demo in an xfinity store today. here was the advanced notice we got that the president's long time adviser roger stone was going to be indicted and arrested today one of the reasons we got this unsealed today was because of action the house intelligence committee took last month. last month, we think december

14th, the special counsel robert mueller made a request to congress he wanted an official transcript to the roger stone's testimony the committee said yes just before the president shut down the government that committee voted unanimously to turn over roger stone's testimony to the house intelligence committee which has taken place in december of 2017. now, in mid december "the washington post" flagged that as a sign that mueller might be moving soon to charge roger stone with making false statements in that testimony otherwise why would he need an official transcript of stone's remarks? "the washington post" was right. today the special counsel charged rojen stone with making five false statements to congress, which raises the question of whether or not mueller asked to look at anybody else's testimonies interesting question we have a single source tonight,

but it is a source close to the investigation that tells us the special counsel has viewed a number of transcripts from witnesses appearing before the senate in the russia investigation. we believe mueller would have to formally question transcripts in order to file charges based on the transcripts in witnesses lied we saw that in the testimony of sam patten he was charged with lying to investigators. his deal included lies to the senate his transcript was formally conveyed from the senate to mueller so that his lies in his senate testimony could be included in his plea agreement but as for other people who transcripts have just been reviewed by mueller, whether or not he's gotten an official copy -- again, a single source tells us close to the investigation that has happened in the case of a number of different witnesses who testified on the senate side

we are trying to the number, not just a number. on the house side, roger stone is the second person in the president president's orbit that have been arrested adam schiff said today he's happy to convey all the transcripts from all the witnesses that have appeared before his committee in this investigation thus far he's happy to convey all those transcripts to the special counsel's office as soon as possible chairman schiff saying today, quote, the first order of business for the committee will be to relouis all remaining transcripts to the special counsel's office here's the thing, though did you notice the tense of the verb he used there the first order of the business for the committee will be to release? here's something to watch. we have two people indicted for lying to house intelligence.

mueller had to obtain both of their transcripts from the house intelligence committee before he could file those charges is house intelligence sending mueller anybody else's transcripts? the thing to watch here is that it turns out they actually can't. they can't until they have the intelligence committee up and running and they cannot do that until they have a full list of members for the house intelligence committee and so far, republicans are not naming any member for the intelligence committee really by our count, republicans have managed to name members for 23 different committees everything from agriculture to appropriations to veterans affairs to the joint committee on the library, but thus far they have not named anyone for the intelligence committee, which means the intelligence committee cannot act at all, including to send mueller the transcripts of further witnesses who have lied to them. a democratic aide tells us tonight if republicans finally get around to naming people for

the intelligence committee, if they were able to do that by monday mueller could have all the transcripts from all the house intelligence witnesses on wednesday. schiff means it that it will be their first order of business, but the republicans can stop it by not giving him any republican member for his committee that's called small ball we'll be right back. your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. great news for anyone wh- uh uh - i'm the one who delivers the news around here. ♪ liberty mutual has just announced that they can customize your car insurance so that you only pay for what you need. this is phoebe buckley, on location. uh... thanks, phoebe. ♪ only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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joining us now is congressman eric swalwell. he has a seat on the james comey in the house great to have you here thanks for being here tonight. >> thanks for having me back. >> what's your reaction to the indictment of the president's long-time advisor roger stone today? the white house said this has nothing to do with the president at all do you believe that it does? do you know how this fits into the larger scandal >> it certainly has all the markings of something the president would be involved in, and so you see here an intense interest by the trump campaign and the president's decades-long friend to get the russian hacked goods that would help donald trump. and so, rachel, what we want to know next, it's a follow the shovel's theory, i think, what you laid out earlier, which is why would they lie about something they have later on an explanation about. and i believe they are lying and burying the evidence because the

truth goes to the underlying crime in question, which is working with the russians, and we now are in a position to find that out and the republicans can sit on their hands and not name people to the intelligence committee. this will be the last gasp of republican obstruction because for two years they set to protect the president and act as his counsel on our committee we'll find out in short order. >> one of the things that struck me as sort of vindication is for you and your fellow democrats, roger stone lied to your committee in his testimony, and had there been a subpoena of his communications that followed or accompanied the testimony, the committee could have known he was lying. one of the things they laid about in your interim report in the investigation was that there was no interest by republicans on the committee in subpoenaing documents and doing anything to check the testimony of witnesses who appeared to be

lying to you am i following that right? stone's lies that were the basis of the felony indictment today could be evidence to the committee had you obtained those materials? >> you are we take no pleasure in being right, but the cost to our country has been grave because for two years, we've sought to test mr. stone's story and mr. kushner's story and donald trump jr.'s story and they were protected by republicans that wouldn't allow to subpoena outside do you means that would approve this much earlier. people inside washington, they say nobody outside washington really cares about the russia story and sure, it's not as fatal as a near -- as fatal as the shutdown we experienced, but i find it fundamentally unamerican that the trump campaign is so eagerly embraced an adversary that never has our interest in mind and i think our country will suffer until we get to the bottom and know what russia did and how many americans worked to help them.

>> congressman, i'm going to ask you two questions here neither of which i believe you can answer in detail because of the nature of the intelligence committee and the way you do your work, but i'd like you to consider answering them at least in broad terms that still preserve the work of your committee. the first one is this, has your committee made referrals to the justice department for other witnesses that you believe have lied to you? i'm asking because stone and cohen are now two people who have been charged with felonies for lying to your committee, both of those charges have come from the special counsel's office it obviously conducts its work with tight lips and they do not explain necessarily the background work they did to get there. but can you tell us if intelligence made criminal referrals? >> what i can tell you is that we are very, very eager to get all of our transcripts in the hands of the mueller special counsel team because we saw other witnesses give conflicting

accounts or invent privileges or just outright refuse to testify. and we saw the republicans tell them that if they didn't want to continue a voluntary interview, they could just walk away. and so we weren't able to pursue our lines of inquiry, which i think would have shined a lot of light on who worked with the russians and what we could do to protect against future interference by the russians >> my last question -- again, i'm pretty sure you can't answer this, but i'm going ask -- has the special counsel's requested transcripts from intelligence whether or not the committee has been able to convey them to mueller as of yet? >> i can't go into that, rachel. but again, what i can assure people is that right now, we see that at best, the trump team are trying to say, welsh there's no evidence of collusion. and we think you have seen now a number of high-profile,

high-level individuals with shovels in their hands and dirt all around them because they have been working for two years to bury evidence as to what they were doing and the interest they had to work with the russians during the 2016 campaign, and we think that's important enough to shine light on and hold those accountable who sought to work with the russians. >> congressman eric swalwell, democrat of california i'm looking forward to you learning who your republican colleagues are going to be on your committee so you can work much more to get to tonight. stay with us man: i'm here with the cortezs, lawsons, carnevales,

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long, and that's not just a quantitative thing, but a qualitative thing in terms of fix of the shutdown. it went on for so long, among individual families of federal workers on bread lines, government agencies themselves have been monkey wrenched. how do you restart agencies and reup government functions that haven't just been paused, haven't just been stalled, they were actually hurt by how long this went on. we're going to see what this looked like for the first time the office of management and budget told federal employees they should quote expect direction from their agencies as to when to report for duty, yeah, don't go too far out on a limb there the state of the union had been planned for tuesday but nancy pelosi said she and the president need to work out a mutually agreeable date, so that means not tuesday. that remains up in the air despite the uncertainty, there

is some relief in sight for those federal employees who have been working all of this time without pay and for everything that means with their families right now, the best estimate when they will get back pay is sometime next week "the washington post" reports it will likely be next thursday, friday, or even saturday before employees are paid workers will then expect to see their usual paycheck as of february 8th so that does mean that things will grindingly and, you know, as best they can try to get back to normal but this isn't normal. this isn't even normal for a shutdown stay with us to make you everybody else... ♪ ♪ means to fight the hardest battle, which any human being can fight and never stop. does this sound dismal? it isn't. ♪ ♪ it's the most wonderful life on earth. ♪ ♪

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quote from page 20 ready? quote, you are a rat, a stoolle, you backstab your friends, run your mouth my lawyers are dying to rip you to shreds. according to the latest indictment today from the special counsel, these are tender greetings from longtime trump associate roger stone to a man whose testimony could reportedly have shown that roger stone lied and told a bogus cover story to congress. the indictment continues, quote, stone also said he would, quote, take that dog away from you, referring to the potential witness' dog also subtly, quote, i am so ready. let's get it on. prepare to die, expletive. prepare to die, you expletive. drama much special counsel's office today laid out those threats and other

messages from roger stone in making the case for the seventh felony count in the roger stone indictment today, which is for witness tampering. i have a question about that if roger stone's alleged wannabe gangster style of pressuring a potential witness, if that's setting off a not very distant bell ringing for you, it may be because of other witnesses we've seen along those lines about other potential witnesses, onl those other messages, those are ones that weren't conveyed in private text messages or e-mails, they're were conveyed in public. ones like this quote, lying to reduce his jail time, which the president tweeted last week about michael cohen when it looked like mr. cohen might offer new testimony to congress. quote, watch father-in-law watch father-in-law for what what is going to happen to father-in-law? here's my question roger stone got hit today with a felony charge of witness tampering for text messages and e-mails he's alleged to have sent in private to a potential witness who reportedly could undo this cover story that stone

was trying to sell about wikileaks and the stuff that russian military intelligence stole from the democrats and the clinton campaign for that witness tampering charge, does it matter in legal terms whether a message -- whether the witness tampering message is sent in private or whether that message is broadcast to millions of people over twitter does that legally make a difference to prosecutors? can you tamper with witnesses really, really, really out loud? joining us now is barbara mcquade, former u.s. attorney in michigan barbara, thank you so much for being here. >> oh, thanks for having me, rachel. >> i see a tonal relationship between the witness tampering messages that mr. stone was charged for today and the sorts of things that the president has said in public about michael cohen. does it matter whether these things are said publicly or in private? >> no, it really doesn't the law doesn't say so i mean, other than the fact that they both clearly watch too many gangster movies, there's a lot in common between the statements that roger stone is making and that president trump is making

the witness tampering statute says that it's a crime to knowingly intimidate, threaten or corruptly persuade another person with intent to influence or prevent or delay their testimony in official proceedings. so seeing what they did is usually the easy part. the harder part is usually determining someone's intent but here, the mere fact that this is done out loud versus quietly and privately i don't think should throw prosecutors off the scent. you know, certainly it's unprecedented that somebody's using twitter to make thee kinds of statements, but if you look at the elements of the offense, the fact that they're done in an open and notorious way doesn't make them any less fitting of those elements >> does it matter, barb, if the attempted intimidation or pressure -- does it matter if it works? >> it does -- >> i'm asking because of michael cohen cancelling his testimony this past week before congress, saying that he was too intimidated by the president's remarks.

he felt that his family was in danger >> yeah, actually, it doesn't matter whether it works or not even the attempt alone is enough so even if the person stands firm and decides to go through with it anyway, what the person did to try to intimidate them, to persuade them not to testify is itself a completed crime. >> when you look at this indictment today, barb, obviously one of the things that jumped out for me is that it appears that mr. stone had never had any contact with the special counsel's office before this indictment today he was charged with lying to congress and with witnessing -- tampering with a witness who could potentially undo the allegedly false cover story that he gave to congress. that really leapt out to me in terms of how this fits in overall. what seems important to you about this >> well, i think that the language in the indictment that talks about the senior campaign official being directed to have these communications, i think as you pointed out suggests very strongly that that is only a select few of possible

characters in this story it's someone at a very high level of the campaign, if not trump himself directing this coordination i think another really telling statement in this indictment is in paragraph two where it goes out of its way to say that a month earlier in june the dnc publicly announced that it had been hacked by russia. so when it talks about these events occurring in july, it makes it clear that the trump campaign officials knew that it was russia that was working with wikileaks. >> so when they were interacting with wikileaks about this stolen material, it was already a matter of public reporting that that stolen material had been stolen by russian intelligence >> yeah, exactly which i think brings that conspiracy full circle. >> barbara mcquade, former u.s. attorney in michigan barb, thanks for being with us tonight. super helpful. >> thank you, rachel. >> thanks. we'll be right back. stay with us e confidence in 30,000 precision parts. or it isn't. it's inspected by mercedes-benz factory-trained technicians. or it isn't.

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tonight as we sign off, i want to say good-bye to a wonderful producer on this show, julia nutter, who is leaving "the rachel maddow show" for greener pastures after today and, you know, every show has turnover people cannot stay forever but julia started here as an intern and my assistant. she worked her way up to be one of the most valuable people on staff. i also have to tell you that the ten years she has work on this show literally make up a third of her natural life on this earth. so, julia, we are all going to miss the h-e double hockey sticks out of you. good luck.