now. i'm early and you're there, deep breath. >> there are a lot of nights where at this point, if you had come to me now, i wouldn't be here for another 30 seconds. >> i just jumped. i just jumped and then you're there on the split screen. we did it. >> think of me as your human safety net, my friend. i'm always here. not usually. thanks my friend. happy to have you with us. the great state of kansas is a red state, has been for a long while now. and the 2016 presidential election, kansas went for donald trump over hillary clinton by something like 20 points, 21 points. just a blowout in 2016, but two years after that blowout in the 2018 election, which just happened in november kansas voters elected a democrat as their governor. her name is laura kelly. on that same night that laura kelly was elected kansas governor, an indumb wacumbent c man lost his seat to a democrat.

he lost -- a native guy american woman. there is a democrat in the kansas delegation but shareece davis is that. and then it didn't stop on election night. since midterm election night in november, there has been a little mini landslide of incumbent republican members switching parties. since election night, four different members of the kansas state legislature ditched the party and proclaimed they are democrats. still nobody is going to argue that kansas should be called a blue state with the defections of all those state legislators since election night, both the state house and the state senate are still really bright red in kansas. but with shareece davids taking

the republican incumbent seat and laura kelly taking the governorship and with these four members of the state legislature flipping from republican to democrat, kansas is still red but it starting to take out a light purple ting around the edges. and here is another thing that has just happened in kansas. you might remember that before the midterm elections this year, our show actually spent a good amount of time in kansas, specifically in a famous and historic town called dodge city, which is fan gun smoke tastic. >> jackelyn, you take bill and the rest of your men and you get out of dodge. >> you get out of dodge. dodge city of gun smoke fame. dodge city is in southwest kansas. they do still celebrate the gun smoke vibe. there is a gunfighters' wax

museum there in coincidence with the kansas teacher's hall of fame. awkward pairing but they both pay rent. these days dodge's cities base is meat packing and attracted a lot of hispanic workers and families. it's majority hispanic and the reason we spent time there because of the midterm elections is because republican elected officials in red state kansas made some striking decisions when it came to voting in dodge city, which is the largest majority minority community in that entire state. when laura kelly, the democrat was running for governor in kansas, the republican candidate she was up against was chris, a national profile in part because he was the head of president trump's sort of bogus and now disbanded voter fraud commission. chris coback was trying to sell

other states on policies designed to make it as hard as possible for likely democratic voters to cost their vote and get it counted but while he was running for kansas governor this past november, he was simultaneously serving as the secretary of state in kansas as the top elections official in that state and under his leadership, it was decided that dodge city, the largest majority minority town in the whole state, it was decided that they would be relieved of their one voting place. their one polling location. there is like 13,000-ish registered voters in dodge city. they were already in pretty bad shape with access to the polls before this past election. for those 13,000 voters, there was precisely one voting place in all of dodge city. before this last election. but then for the midterms, for the november elections in which chris coback would be top of the ballot, for the midterms,

republican officials decide that one polling place in dodge city was one polling place too many. that would be shut. they said because construction would make that one polling place inaccessible so they close that one voting place for the whole town and opened another one inside the city limits. that the why we sent a staffer there. we sent a producer to go to dodge to see if there was any observable ground truth, any rime or reas rhyme or reason to this claim from republican elected officials from the state who decided that 13,000 mostly hispanic voters in dodge city, cancer should be afforded precisely zero places to vote in their town. the first thing we learned when we got to dodge is that the new polling place they opened outside the city limits was hard to get to with a car. it was impossible to get to without one. the second thing we learned by

visiting dodge city was that the reason for closing the one polling place in town did not really seem to be much of anything that was directly impinging on access to the polling place. there were plenty of other vents be -- events being staged. there was no mass disruption that might justify what they were trying to get away with. the whole thing seemed more say smois wh s suspicious when it was the wrong address. the situation seemed to get even worse than this when the aclu of kansas wrote to the local elections officials, the county official who had moved the polling place outside of town and who had sent out the wrong address. the aclu wrote to that official asking for publicizing a voter help line.

that top county elections official forwarded that e-mail from the aclu, forwarded it to chris coback adding her own caption to this help the aclu asked for, which she added her own commentary and it was i quote lol. this is what i got in the mail from the aclu. lol. which in this case means no, i won't give you help publicizing the true address. after all that, the aclu sued and argued what was happening in dodge city was illegal and for one thing disinfranchising hispanic voters. it was a very impressive young man, 18 years old. local high school senior. for his 18th birthday he said he was super psychosiked to vote i

town where he lives so he thought that was worth fighting for. >> my family is immigrants. my friends are immigrants. this community is made up of immigrants and many are undocumented or daka precrecipi and don't have rights like we have. it's very important that people who have the opportunity to vote exercise that right to vote, and do anything possible to make it easier or to make their voice heard about issues that are important to them. >> in the end, alejandro did not get to vote inside city limits in the 2018 election. despite the lawsuit, a judge said it was too close to election day to make any changes, the planned polling places for november's midterm elections. everyone that wanted to vote had to figure out a way to get to the out of town location. but now tonight we can tell you the next time there is an

election in dodge city, the next people will be actually will be allowed to vote inside city limits. the pressure, the fight caused the county election clerk to give in. they announced okay, fine, they will announce and open two new polling places inside the city limits in dodge city and they will be ready for this year's primaries. alejandro and the league of latin american citizens and aclu filed a voluntary mission to discuss the lawsuit because they got what they were after and so they didn't get it in time for the midterms but they got it. sometimes when you fight, you win. sometimes when you are fighting in an environment that seems absolutely unforgiving and impossible, sometimes the

environment checanges around yo and allowed you to win. one of the places laura kelly campaigned for governor, when she was on her way to winning the state house, one of places she campaigned was in dodge city. what did she campaign on? improving voters' access to the polls. now voters' access to the polls is improved and she's in charge of state government and chris is unemploy unemployed. this time you will no longer have to leave town before you vote. there is still a couple things to watch here. the case was dismissed without prejudice which means it can come back if plaintiffs come to believe they need to do that in order to hold the county and hold the state to account, right? to make sure hispanic voters will get equal treatment. it can come back. that's what dismissing without prejudice means and if you think about it, it is still a little bit nuts for 13,000 voters,

there is only two planned polling places in dodge city but it's better. at least two polling places is two more than they had, which is zero. it's not like that tice fight i permanently over but they did win what they were trying to get and a win is a win for alejandro and aclu and it does show you that things change, even in places where it seems like they cannot ever change, things change. kansas voted for trump by 20 points and two years later voted for laura kelly. that same night that laura kelly became the democratic governor 12 and othver the last several day

how it spends it's time and they call h.r. one and voting rights and anti corruption measures. this is legislation that hits all the high points on small democratic reform. it would stop partisan jer gerrymandering and instead of drawing up the congressional districts to benefit their party, it would be independent non-partisan redistricting so you don't have guaranteed republican seats or democratic seats and would be across the country. it would make election day a federal holiday so nobody has to skip voting. it would guarantee early voting days for every federal election in every state in the country. right now some states offer early voting, some don't. it would establish nationwide voter registration where you have the opportunity to opt out if you don't want to be registered otherwise you're registered. it would stop states from

dufferiduffe dumping off their roles and purges like the ones advocated nationwide by chris coback and make them subject to the same rules, ill mmagen that. when the democrats first introduced legislation, you pick something to be h.r. 1 to show this is the first rye priority. when they put forward the legislation, i don't think republicans worried too much about it at first but when democrats held their first hearings on h.r. 1 and remany p republican witnesses got roasted and had a hard time with sober sounding arguments against many elements of the bill, particular lay anti corruption stuff, the republicans started to take the

threat and appeal of the legislation more seriously. this is a house bill. but in response to this house bill, senator mitch mcconnell got up on the floor of the senate and called ate p ed it a grab. brian clapped back saying yes, voting is a power grab by citizens. one of the other elements of h.r. 1 that never would have been controversial as recently as a few years ago is a provision that would require candidates for vice president and candidates for president to disclose their tax returns to the public or they wouldn't be allowed to run. the donald trump presidential candidacy was the first time since nixon that a presidential candidate hasn't disclosed his or her tax returns, let alone an actual sitting president not disclosing his or her tax returns. but despite that stark break from bipartisan president and on going questions about what it is about his tax returns that he

did not want to disclose, republicans absolutely decided not to care. at least they decided not to do anything about that when they held unified control of congress for the first two years of the trump presidency. today we learned that will change under the new democratic leadership in the congress. next week, on thursdays, the subm subcommittee led by john lewis will convene the first hearing that's ever happened on candidate tax returns. the first tax returning hearing since donald trump became the first major party candidate to refuse to release his. the hearing will be called legislative propels and tax law related to presidential and vice presidential tax returns that would make it a requirement all presidential and vice presidentipres presidential candidate haves to disclose them. it will be thursday at 2:00.

until the few da in the few days they have been up and running, hiking the price of prescription drugs and the polling around the election time that showed that health care and health care costs were the single greatest motivating factor for americans that turned out to vote. those voters when returned out elected democrats by a historic margin and flipped 40 republican seats to the democratic party. democrats know that. they know anger and fear and concern about health care costs is a big part of what drove voters to pick them and put them in office and so the first full day of hearings in the democratic congress include aggressive hearings on drug companies hiking the price of their drugs. democrats have also convened hearings on the president's remarkable and as yet explicitly unjustified decision to send thousands of u.s. troops to the border right before the midterm elections. was that a presidential stunt that was designed to have a

political impact and for no other substantive reason? it's worth asking democrats have started already. next week on wednesday, for the first time in eight years, there will be a house hearing on climate change. actually, there is going to be two, one in the energy committee and natural resources committee. the chairs of the committees are democrats now. neither of whom believe that climate change say hoax invented by the chinese that's disproven by the existence of winter. next week for the first time in eight years, there will be a congressional hearing on gun violence. think about that for a second. eight years. there has not been a house hearing on gun violence in eight years? that means through sandy hook, and through aurora, colorado and the navy yard shootings and what happened in san bernardino orlando, the pulse nightclub and las vegas and sutherland

springs, texas and pittsburgh synagogue, those are off the top of my head. those are some of them, right? the house has held zero hearings. they have had zero response and paid zero attention to anything having to do with all of these gun massacres in the country. they actually thought about having a hearing on gun violence in 2017. they got close but then it was called off because of the congressional baseball game shooting. in 2016 after what happened at the pulse nightclub in orlando where 50 people were killed, another 53 were shot and wounded, after that one, which is when congressman john lewis led a sit in on the floor of congress. they sat in overnight for 25 hours demanding that the republicans allow some kind of vote on some kind of gun reform, some kind of response, anything.

republicans did nothing in response. nothing. not a hearing. not even a hearing to talk about it in eight years. well now next week with the democrats in charge, there will be a gun violence hearing in the judiciary committee. ted lou is on that committee. when that hearing was announced, he said the american people delivered control of the house to democrats. what does that mean? no more stupid hearings about hillary clinton's e-mails. gun violence and next thursday we'll pass a bill on background checks. and the house will hold all of these hearings and they will in all likelihood pass a tun of stuff. so when stuff comes to the floor, stuff comes to the floor. now, when they pass stuff in the

house, will any of that go anywhere, will any of this pressure change anything? the attention they can bring to stuff through hearings, will it change anything? will it make new policy? i know they will be able to pass bills in the house. can they pass new laws? there is the senate. there is the white house. i don't know. but the prospect of what they are doing already, all of a sudden makes congress way more relevant than it's been in a long time. democrats and some observer whose do not want to be quoted are already suggesting that even looking at some of the stuff in the h.r. 1 bill, some of the anti corruption measures in the bill, if broken out alone, some of those might be too hard for republicans to resist. some might get sufficient republican support. they could potentially become law. we'll see. there are real signs that things could actually change and maybe in short order on issues related

to foreign policy or republicans in the senate appear willing to break with the president from time to time. the number of republican senators that crossed over and voted with democrats to stop the trump administration from lifting russian sanctions on oc oleg cderipaska, in the house i was well over 100 republicans that joined to stop the trump administration on that, too. today senate republicans got behind a rebuke of the president on syria and afghanistan. the president has tweeted stuff that locks like potentially he's ordering u.s. troops out of syria and afghanistan. it his twitter feed and not clear what he's trying to do and might be actually doing but senate republicans said they are willing at least to rebuke him on issues like that. that will be fascinating to watch regardless of what you think about whether there ought to be more american troops in

syria and afghanistan and for how long. the idea of the congress even the republican controlled side of the congress in the senate, that they might get up on their hind legs and express themselves and take back power on an issue like that, that would be a huge thing. war power and decisions abauthoriabaughnd authorizing the use accrued to the presidency for a couple of generations now. for every president since vietnam increasingly and it has been this one-way swing of u.s. military power being consolidated within the presidency. decision-making power and authority over u.s. military force being consolidated in the executive. i wrote a book about it in 2012 called "drift" in which i did not anticipate that the thing that might ever turn that drift around would be the election of a president who was so widely perceived on a bipartisan basis to be manifestly unfit to wield

those powers when it comes to force. that's where we're at. it taken a trump presidency to swing the pendulum back in the other direction to the point congress maybe wants to assert that just like the contusion says, actually, war and the use of military force is something congress is supposed to decide, not just the president alone. and so we will see. the realm of what is possible, the realm of what you might be able to achieve, if you fight for it, is something that is influx right now in america. just ask dodge city, kansas and their two new polling places and democratic governor and deep red legislature that gets bluer every day when one declares herself to be a democrat. i mean, we will see. things are in flux. and some of the things people have been fighting for that seemed like hopeless causes, all of a sudden are going to be

causes that win this year. we are in that kind of an inflection moment. but the one place the national politics where we don't have to wait and see where the change is already happening, where there has been a passing of the gavel in terms of who is empowered to make things happen and to say how things will end, that is in the realm of oversight. we broke the news here last night about the democrat who has just now newly been empowered as of now to take the glovavel. he's finally allowed to start his work and become one of the most powerful figures in washington and most powerful democrats in the country and he joins us live, next. in the coun joins us live, next. -morning. -morning. -what do we got? -keep an eye on that branch. might get windy. have a good shift. fire pit. last use -- 0600. i'd stay close. morning. ♪ get ready to switch.

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it's easy to upgrade. and you don't want to miss out on everything epix. congratulations america, we finally got a committee, a whole committee. republicans yesterday finally named the republican members who will sit on the house intelligence committee. they waited two weeks over the course of the two weeks, all they did was swap out one dude and just leave in place everybody else that was on that

committee so nobody knows why it took this long but regardless, here they are and being named to the insdwrentelligence committe that committee can finally start working. under their new democratic chairman congressman adam schiff. he said the first act of business on this newly constituted cop mimmittee will concern the chantranscripts fro more than 50 witnesses. he said under the leadership, the first thing house intel will do is get official copies of those transcripts into the hands of special counsel robert muller and his prosecutors and mueller of course has shown that he will bring charges for lying to congress. just ask michael cohen or roger stone. joining us now is adam schiff. thank you for making time for us tonight. >> good to be with you.

>> can you explain to us, what is the importance of these transcripts, the transcripts from witness testimony that's happened behind closed doors to your committee? that's the importance of the transcripts and them being conveyed to the special counsel now? >> for a couple reasons. it's important because if the special counsel brings perjury charges, they have to have the facts or they can't use them in the court proceeding. it may be important with the report bob mueller makes to the congress or attorney general he be able to use the facts he been able to uncover as part of his analysis. is this something we've been looking forward to dog bing butw that we have the final member appointed, we can get underway. >> are you fris raustrated it t this long and the reasons there

may have been this long delay? >> it does concern me because clearly they weren't going to make changes. they added a member, they had all that time to prepare for it. this looked like an effort to delay the investigation. i think it's a pointless effort but if it's an indication it's things to come or continue the role and an extension of giuliani's team would be regretful. i'd much rather go forward in a bipartisan basis if they are willing to work with us. >> on the issue of witness testimony, one of the things that's interesting here is that the republican majority in the lost congress essentially declared the russia investigation over. they put out a report that could be briefly summarized as no collusion and said it was done. you and your democratic colleagues indicated at the time

you did not think that that investigation was done. and clearly, under your hearer sh -- leadership that would be reconstituted. despite that, there are 50 witnesses that have come before your committee as you say, there is this issue with the transcripts and conveying them to the special counsel. does your committee have the ability to or indeed made any criminal referrals to the justice department in reference to any witnesses who you do believe lied to you in their testimony? >> we have not made criminal referra referrals. what we have wanted to do is really provide the evidence to the special counsel and let him make a judgment about who he thinks violated the law as it pertains to false testimony before our coal mitt mmittee. in the report you mentioned the republicans put out nine months ago, we believe every denial we heard. we completely believe everything michael cohen said and roger

stone had to say. we don't need to go any further. we don't need to get dock tumen or records. you can't conduct a credible investigation that way. we had wanted to look into for example the issue of the use of the nra as a potential back channel. their view was there is nothing to see here. well, apparently there was something to see here. this was a russian asset working trying to infiltrate the nra. so we are determined to get to the truth of this. there were also great many witnesses rachel who came in and sam simply said we're not going to answer questions. steve bannon refused to answer questions and don junior refused to answer categories of questions among others and you can't conduct an e investigatio if you let the witnesses pick the questions. >> it was reported on the senate side, investigators have obtained and it's vague language

and i don't want to be more specific than they are saying and reporting, this is not msnbc reporting and nbc has not conif i recall -- confirmed but said senate investigators including donald trump junior in the leadup to the 2016 trump tower meeting, he made a couple calls to blocked numbers and you suggested that was a thing that was important for your committee to figure out, whether blocked numbers might have indicated or might have been an indication mr. trump junior was calling his father, potentially talking to donald trump the candidate about that trump tower meeting with all those russians. what do you make of this new reporting and what do you think about the importance of that incident now overall? >> well, the problem is that we are not in a position to be able to confirm the reporting because the republicans wouldn't let us get the phone records. it was such an obvious investigation step and one we will take very early on now that

we are underway and that is find out who don junior was talking to about that meeting at trump tower. those conversations could have taken place over the phone or taken place by don junior walking down the hall to talk to dad, but it's key to understanding the president's involvement in all of this, and if we look at what we already know, we already know that the president and his son misled the country about meetings the campaign was having about russians. they denied they took place and then when they were confronted with meetings like the meeting in trump tower, they misled the country again about what took place in the meeting. the president and his son, it is reported helped fabricate together this false statement that the meeting was about adoptions, it wasn't about getting dirt on hillary clinton or an effort by the russian government to help the trump campaign when in fact that's apparently what that meeting was supposed to be about. so we're going to get to the bottom of this. why all the lies? why the coverup?

what more was going on here and a key part is to find out what the president's role was in all of this. >> congressman adam schiff, the chairman of the house intelligence committee. i know your life is about to get busy. thanks for taking time to talk to us tonight. >> you bet. thank you. >> we got lots more to get to to believe the -- tonight. stay with us. more to get to to believe the -- tonight stay with us ohhhhhhh! i ordered it for everyone. [laughing] (dad vo) we got the biggest subaru to help bring our family together. i'm just resting my eyes. (dad vo) even though we're generations apart. what a day. i just love those kids. (avo) presenting the all-new three-row subaru ascent. wave to grandma, everybody. (avo) love is now bigger than ever.

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eight years, one tree that might shake a little bit is the national rifle association, which congressman adam schiff, chairman of the national intelligence committee mentioned. it's an organization like the classic modern american case study in terms of political power, money and lobbying force. but it turns out if you shake the nra's tree these days, it kind of falls over on top of you. timber. whatever is going on with the nra is not what it used to be. their finances have apparently collapsed in the last couple years. they started an nra tv network, which is a high profile thing. that's imploding. there are reports they are trying to save money even by taking away the free coffee machine. their spending on the last election was upside down from previous history. in previous elections they dominated spending for donating

money on gun reform and gun rights. this year they were vastly out spend by people on the other side of the issue but then there is this, quote, nra seeks distance from russia as investigations heat up. from "the new york times" this week. quote, when the delegation of donors, boosters and board members travel to russia in 2015, they visited a gun factory in moscow and met with members of vladimir putin's inner circle but now the nra is seeking to distance itself from that trip after revelations that a russian woman who helped arrange it was conspireing to infiltrate the organization. the nra's lawyer saying the chief executive wayne la pierre was opposed and forbid staff members to go he says now. the nra president at the time of the trip said i was opposed to the russia trip like wayne was. we both knew it was a terrible

idea. "the times" says given mr. la pier pierre's power it's unclear how a trip would have proceeded at all despite his opposition to it. you can you believunderstand wh might want to disocho vow the trip. the nra guys went to moscow to make connections with a russian gun rights group that mysteriously had been blessed by vladimir putin's political party. now, in reality, here on earth one, there is no gun rights movement in russia certainly not one sanctioned by the powers that be. right? not one that would be headed up by high-ranking members of putin's political party like the people that hosted the nra delegation in russia. so the cover story never made sense in the first place. and of course, now we know for certain the trip was a russian

intelligence operation because the woman who ran that supposed gun rights organization has pled guilty in the united states to acting as a secret agent of the russian government using gun rights as a pretense to infiltrate american conservative circles through the nra. maria butina pled guilty. court filings seem to indicate she's testified multiple times before at least one grand jury. her american boyfriend who is essentially her unnamed co-conspirator and indictment, he is also reportedly in prosecutor's sights and received a target letter from prosecutors. there are inquiries into the nra's ties to russia from congress and from the fbi and special counsel robert mueller. and, you know, it's one thing and it might explain a little freakout happening now at the nra if these innocent nra folks that want a tour of a russian gun factory and trip with the

nice russian lady, if it turns out they were duped and had no idea what this was about, but the more we learn and the more we learned today shows us that actually there is really no chance they were duped at all and the more we see about what happened in that relationship, the more we can see about whatever was going on with america's great gun rights group and the russian government, it is weirder than they ever admitted to before. we got that story next. stay with us. before we got that story next stay with us

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in 2015 an american activist wrote an e-mail to a member of an nra delegation heading on a trip to moscow. he was the boyfriend of maria butina, the russian scitizen tht pled guilty to the republican party on behalf of the russian government using the gun rights movement as a pretext.

she had played a key role in organizing that nra trip to moscow in 2015 and so her boyfriend, ericsson sends this e-mail to a member of the delegation, just before that trip departs. reporter bet eer betsie has quo new priestiece "the beast" publ today. he said the former nra president leading the delegation to moscow was angling on the trip to get a private interview with russian president vladimir putin. he said that the russian official organizing the trip, maria butina's handler and russian government dangled the possibility of such an interview and that therefore the nra delegation really needed to impress their russian hosts. quote, high stakes all around. ericsson also appears to spell out in this e-mail the trip to moscow was much more than a gun rights networking event. he wrote this to a member of the nra delegation who is about to head to moscow. wrote, as we discussed over lunch in iowa, russia believes

that high level contacts with the nra might be the best means of neutral introduction to the next american president. this simple goodwill trip would have enormous diplomatic consequences for a future u.s. russia by lateral relationship to the world. certainly appears from that e-mail that paul ericsson and at least one member of the nra delegation had a shared understanding of what russia wanted out of this trip bringing these nra guys to moscow was political access in the united states. and they appeared to have been on board with that as they set off for the trip. well, now the nra's leadership is like oh, we definitely weren't on board with that. we tried to stop that. we didn't think people should do it. the nra trying to distance itself from this trip that happened to moscow in 2015 appears to be happening amidst a meltdown. we don't understand the significance of what might have happened on that trip and around

that trip that they are so worried about, but clearly, you can see from their behavior and long after the fact denials they at least believe this is a big deal. i mean, it makes you wonder what they know and and what these re are on to who have been digging into this story and turning up new details about it all the time. joining us now is the reporter who broke the story, daily beast political reporter betsy woodruff. it's great to see you. thank you for being with us tonight. >> sure thing. >> i feel like there's two things happening at once. the nra appears to be kind of falling apart. appears to be kind of in meltdown. and they appear to be freaking out about whatever happened between them and russia. is it your understanding that this is about their worries about the moscow trip in 2015? is it about the arrest and the cooperation agreement of maria butina? do you have a big picture sense of what is so concerning to them? >> what i can tell you is that ironically the trump administration time period has been a surprisingly challenging

window of time for the nra. historically the nra is at its most successful. it gets the most members and the most money when democrats are in power because the nra can push the narrative that a democratic president is going to steal your guns and use the regulatory power to drive up the cost of ammunition. so often when democrats become president or when they expand their political power we see conservative americans who perhaps would buy into some of these theories rushing to buy ammo, rushing to support the nra and to help fund, it out of fear that their right to have any sort of weapon whatsoever is on the line. so when trump became president, surprisingly enough, even though the group had an ally in the highest levels of the american government, many of their grassroots supporters and at least this is the view in the american gun rights community, have become a little complacent and a little less invested in supporting the nra simply because as long as trump is in office they're not worried that anyone is going to try to grab

their guns. >> betsy, this paul erickson e-mail you obtained about the moscow drip of all these nra honchos in 2015, it makes it seem like it trip to moscow was a really big deal for the nra, that this was something connected to big geopolitical aims. why do you think the nra is now reframing how this trip happened and claiming that actually all their leadership was very opposed to it and they didn't want it to happen? >> there's no doubt that part of the reason they're reframing it is they're expecting things to get significantly worse. we've reported that the senate intelligence committee has been receiving e-mails from the nra related to their trip to moscow as part of that committee's investigation into russian efforts to influence american politics and senator ron wyden has also been helming a robust investigation of this same thing. so within the nra there's an expectation that ultimately everything is going to become public in one way or another, that these senate investigators are going to present to americans a broader view of how russians tried to use the nra to influence american politics.

so my sense is that people in the gun rights community and the nra are certainly concerned about that and trying to get out ahead of it and sort of start to shape the narrative. and that's part of the reason this e-mail is so important, is that it shows not what the nra is saying right now as they try to craft the way we view their place in the american political sphere but rather what paul erickson, who was a long-time n rachlt insider and very influential member of the american gun rights community, was saying at the time when he though the was having a private conversation. one detail in this e-mail that i find really striking was the fact that paul erickson, and he's not the world's most reliable narrator, but he claims that david keane, who at the time was a former nra president, was absolutely irate that alan kors, who at the time was the nra's president, made a last-minute cancellation of going on the trip. and according to erickson, and to be clear i reached out to keane and to kors, i didn't get any pushback from them about the claim they'ricse that erickson .

according to him david keane the ex-president considered ending his friendship with alan kors, the group's current president, because keane was so concerned and so invested in this trip to moscow being a success. we know keane was hoping to get? face time with putin out of the trip. an important detail is part of the trip was funded by a group supported by a russian oligarch. we know keanes with very invested in this trip being a success, having a successful trip and the emotions were really high. >> and so now for the nra trying to say like oh, this trip, this is nothing and we probably shouldn't have done it and we knew at the time it was a bad idea, it's fascinating to see they have oflg story. betsy woodruff, political reporter at the daily beast. great work, betsy. great to see you. thank you. >> thanks, rachel. >> we'll be right back. stay with us. hel. >> we'll be right back stay with us what?! i'm here to steal your car because, well, that's my job. what? what?? what?! (laughing) what?? what?! what?! [crash] what?! haha, it happens.

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leave no room behind with xfi pods. simple. easy. awesome. click or visit a retail store today. today some new breadcrumbs were dropped in the mystery case that has been winding its way through the federal courts in d.c. since last august. it's a case that is very intriguing. in part because what we don't know about it. we know it involves robert mueller and the special counsel. we know it's being handled with alacrity in the federal court system. but we otherwise don't know what it's about. it involves a corporation. we don't know which one. a corporation that is wholly owned by a foreign country. we don't know what country. it appears this mystery corporation has been fighting a subpoena from mueller. and we think we know now that a federal judge is he fining this corporation $50,000 a day for every day that they refuse to comply with that mueller

subpoena. well, late last night we got a few more breadcrumbs in this case when the court unsealed a redacted version of the docket for this case. from that we can now see that a few weeks ago the mystery corporation filed a motion asking the court to find that its prior order saying that the corporation was in contempt for not responding to the subpoena, that order was "unenforceable" and that blank property is immune from execution or attachment. what we think this means is because this mystery corporation has been skipping out on paying their $50,000 a day in fines for not complying with the subpoena we think that the justice department, the special counsel's office, may be entitled to go get that money some other way. for instance, by seizing the mystery corporation's property here in the united states. so this part of the docket is the mystery corporation telling the judge hey, don't let mueller take our stuff. our redacted property is immune from execution or attachment.

on january 24th we can now see the judge denied that request and basically told the special counsel's office he's more than welcome to go seize stuff from this mystery corporation. we can see that ever since the judge gave mueller the green light to seize their stuff the mystery corporation has not tried to pump the brakes. they have not filed an appeal. so it looks like from this docket that mueller and the justice department still have the judge's blessing to go take stuff to account for the 50 grand a day that this corporation apparently isn't paying. now, we still don't know who the corporation is or what country owns them. but they apparently have property or assets in the u.s. that appear to be fair game for the justice department to seize to cover these $50,000 a day penalties the court has imposed. what this means for you is that if anybody has seen federal marshals cuttinging off the gold doorknobs from some foreign-owned corporation in the united states please snap a picture of that for us.