as well under another asylum deal. don't forget about the little things as well. you know, the now-charges on asylum applications as well that have been pushed by the white house. it's the little things as well in regards to the overhauling of the system. >> they have managed to sort of stack up a lot of obstacles that when stacked high enough essentially become insurmountable for tens of thousands of people. thank you both for joining me. i appreciate it. that is "all in" this evening. rachel maddow show starts this evening with ali velshi. >> thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. rachel's got the night off. hopefully you had the day off or at least you're getting some time off this holiday season. hopefully you do have a little time off, if you do, you can leave work behind. just not think about it and really relax. it's the worst when you're trying to escape work but it won't leave you alone. for instance, take president richard nixon in the summer of 1974. it's the mid-july -- the middle

of summer, kind of a rough time for him. the house judiciary committee was holding impeachment hearings into the president's conduct in the watergate scandal. it was widely expected that the committee would approve articles of impeachment and send them to the full house. and by the end of that month, they would do just that. the white house was anxiously awaiting a ruling from the supreme court on whether it would have to hand over tapes of richard nixon's secretly recorded conversations to the were you a were you a gait special prosecutor, leon jaworski. that would also come down at the end of july. for all those reasons in mid-july, 1974, richard nixon was less than a month away from resigning the presidency. though of course no one at the time knew that. even though all this was going on or more likely because all of this was going on, president nixon went on vacation. he boarded his specially branded air force one, the spirit of '76

and headed to california to leave the swamps of washington behind and take a break. but sometimes you just can't escape the office because more bad news from washington overtook nixon before he even made it to the west coast. >> good evening. john lickman has been found guilty of three counts of perjury and one count of conspiracy in the oldsberg break-in case. formally his domestic adviser was returned by a jury in washington this evening after only a few hours of deliberation. he could receive up to 25 years in prison. president nixon was aboard the spirit of 76 en route to a california vacation at the time the verdict was returned. the verdict was sent to the presidential zany they radioed the verdict to the plane. the house judiciary committee is spending the summer hearing impeachment testimony.

the president decides he's going to get away for a bit. he's barely cleared washington air space and they're calling over the radio with news that one of his longtime top advisers, one of his closest aides have been convicted of several felonies and is now facing 25 years in prison. just for the record, this conviction for john ehrlichman in july of 1974, that was just his conviction on one offshoot of the watergate scandal. ehrlichman and several other aides were still awaiting trial and conviction on their indictments for conspiring in the broader coverup. now, luckily for john ehrlichman, in the end he got to serve his prison time concurrently for his two separate convictions, but on that day in july 1974, richard nixon may have needed a vacation, but he was doing his best to put a brave face on. he was doing his best to look like a president who was not

engulfed in scandal and looming impeachment. in fact, just before he jetted off on his vacation. he gathered members of congress in the oval office and signed a major piece of legislation that would fundamentally change the way that washington spent money. >> at the white house today president nixon signed a new budget bill into law. the president described the new law as a major weapon in the fight against inflation, the most significant reform since congress began. the bill gives congress much more authority over the national budget than it ever has had before. the president, for example, no longer will be able to impound appropriated money without the approval of congress. the president saw the measure of a men's that congress can work together to keep the federal budget down. >> president nixon was trying to put on a brave face and also doing his best to put the most positive spin on this piece of legislation. this is a great bill that will do great things, and i am so excited to sign it.

in fact, the bill that nixon signed that day had been specifically designed by congress as a rebuke to richard nixon. nixon had a habit during his time in office of taking money that congress had appropriated for certain purposes and refusing to actually spend it, or deciding to spend it on something else. something that richard nixon would rather spend it on. and it was with your life for president nixon to do that when he was at the peak of his popularity, when he was coasting to re-election in one of the most lopsided electoral colleges in american history, but in his second term, with the president dogged by scandal, staring down impeachment, congress saw its moment to take more control. yes, the congressional budget and impoundment control act of 1974 may have, as richard nixon insisted, been a weapon.

but he almost certainly would have vetoed that legislation if he had had any mojo left at that point because, well, what was it? >> the bill gives congress much more authority over the national budget than it ever has had before. the president, for example, no longer will be able to impound appropriated money without it approval of congress. >> the president no longer able to impound money. if agrees designated the money, the president cannot do whatever he wants with it. since 1974, that has been the law of the land and because history has a sense of humor , that law, a law president nixon agreed to, only under duress as congress prepared to impeach him a law he signed less than one month before he would be forced to resign in disgrace. that law, that law is now

playing a starring role in the impeachment of the current republican president 45 years later. of course this president has already been impeached, but a remarkable thing in this case is that since his impeachment less than a week ago we have continued getting new evidence, new evidence. we have never seen before that pertains directly to the case against the president. late on friday, the friday before christmas, the justice department produced nearly 150 pages of emails between white house and the pentagon regarding u.s. military aid to ukraine. the trump administration had been court ordered to hand the emails over to the center for public integrity, a nonprofit news organization, under a freedom of information act request. although the justice department heavily redacted the emails it handed over, the documents still managed to contain a few tiny

bombshells. for instance, here's an email from the white house budget office to the pentagon ordering them to suspend military aid to ukraine. it was sent at 11:04 a.m. on july 25th. that email was sent just 90 minutes after president trump finished his infamous phone call with ukraine's president that morning. the phone call in which ukraine's president brought up military aid and trump said, quote, i would like you to do us a favor, though. announcing investigations that would political benefit trump, including one into joe biden. so trump and the ukrainian president have their phone call in which trump appears to condition military aid on a political favor. 90 minutes later, a trump political appointee at the white house budget office emails the pentagon ordering them to

withhold military aid, and that email the official writes, quote, given the sensitive nature of the request, i appreciate you keeping that information closely held to those who need to know to execute the direction, end quote. here is where richard nixon and his reluctantly signed impoundment control act come in. because as we said, the white house is not allowed to impound money. they cannot stop money appropriated by congress, and they definitely can't do it without notifying congress. and these emails pried loose added to the congressional testimony we already have from budget and pentagon officials show that career officials across the government were freaking out that they might be breaking the law. the political appointee in the white house budget office who sent that email to the pentagon 90 minutes after trump's phone call, his name is michael duffey. he previously ran the wisconsin republican party.

he's a political appointee. mark sandy, the top career official at the white house budget office, told lawmakers in closed-door testimony last month that as soon as duffey ordered him to delay the ukraine aid, sandy immediately brought up with impoundment control act. he said basically we need to talk to the lawyers. but in an unprecedented move, the political appointee, duffey, took control of the process away from sandy, the career official. both mark sandy and a pentagon official involved in discussions at the time testified to congress that they repeatedly expressed their legal concerns to duffey and urged him to talk to the general counsel, the lawyer, because they thought they were breaking the law. mark sandy also testified the two budget officials quit their jobs over their concerns about the legality of what they were doing, specifically over potential violations of the impoundment control act. now, your level of excitement

about the congressional budget and impoundment control act of 1974 may vary. it is decidedly an unsexy title, but what's astounding here is, a, this new evidence corroborates the evidence that trump officials knew they were doing something wrong and quite possibly something illegal, and they were trying to keep this scheme quiet while ignoring warnings from career officials across the government. and b, we are continuing to get new evidence. michael duffey is already one of the four administration officials who senate leader chuck schumer has proposed as a witness. he said these emails show the senate needs documents as well. >> in the email, the top trump administration official, michael duffey, ordered the military assistance to ukraine be withheld, and he demanded the order be kept hush, hush.

why? if everything was on the up and up? if the call was perfect as president trump said, why does one of his top aides, who's a political appointee say let's keep it hush, hush? the new emails from mr. duffey and the trump administration show why it's so important for the white house to produce the documents we have requested. >> these new emails, we got them late friday thanks to a court order two days after the president was impeached by the house. so what else is out there that we haven't seen yet? joining us now, joyce vance, former u.s. attorney who has been following the story. joyce, thank you so much for being with us tonight. there's a lot of news for this week. let's first of all start with what you make of the fact that we've gotten this new evidence, these emails so late in the game, and we got them through a freedom of information request. >> right. i think that context is incredibly important because

this isn't information that the government produced. trump has famously said he won't respond to subpoenas. he might as well be advertising on a banner that he's engaging in obstruction of congress. these came through a freedom of information request by a small nonprofit newsroom. the government turned them over on the last day they were permitted to under the court order, sort of in the dark night on the friday before christmas. so this was not information the government wanted to turn over, and it's aggressively redacted. it makes you think of the mueller report as you look through it with these large blocks of black. there is a lot more here that we don't know yet. >> yet there were key pieces of information that are quite valuable, including this email from duffey to the defense department. we had heard anecdotally of mark sandy. obviously impeachment is not a traditional legal proceeding, but you have had 25 years as a prosecutor.

what would you do? how do you handle this if new evidence comes to light in the midst of a case or a trial? >> well, you need to hear the evidence. this just isn't a matter of politics. this is a matter of the search for the truth, which is what a process like a criminal trial or impeachment is about. we need to know what's going on. so this witness in this scenario may be good for the president, it may be bad for the president. omb has already come forward and said this is nonsense, that the timing here is just coincidence. let the witnesses testify. let them tell their stories. let them be cross-examined. >> we have a court filing from the house judiciary committee in its ongoing effort to compel the testimony of the former white house counsel, don mcgahn. the house says the fact that they already have impeached the president doesn't reduce their need or lessen their need for mcgahn's testimony because if

mcgahn's testimony produces new evidence supporting the conclusion that president trump competed impeachable offenses that are not covered by the articles approved by the house, the committee will proceed accordingly including, if necessary, by considering whether to recommend new articles of impeachment. that's quite remarkable. can you parse that argument that's unfolding here for us. >> sure. you know, this is a longtime civil appellate lawyer who's gone over and is serving as counsel in the house. and he's making the point here that this is not a game. there's not some kind of an artificial deadline cutoff. just because you decide you have enough evidence to move forward with one proceeding doesn't mean that there might be other as a prosecutor crimes as in the case of impeachment, other articles of impeachment you can add to an existing article of impeachment, or perhaps bring a second one.

we can already hear in response to this trump's people talking about the endless witch hunt. but this is a president who's gone out of his way to obstruct justice, to make it hard for congress and for prosecutors to find evidence. no big surprise that it's coming out in drips, that it sometimes comes out only when a court forces the president to release it it may be when don mcgahn testifies, much of the information in the obstruction of justice in the mueller report been freshened up to see that there's a article of impeachment that needs to be brought against the president. >> if i don't see you again before christmas, please have a merry christmas. joyce vance is a former u.s. attorney. thank you for your time. happy holidays to you. the fact that we have new evidence in the ukraine scandal, these heavily redacted emails between the white house and the pentagon about withholding military aid, and we have gotten it after the president has already been impeached, the

drama is heightened by what's playing in the background. the articles of impeachment approved by the house haven't been sent to the senate. today was another day of attacks and recriminations on all sides as house speaker nancy pelosi continued to insist that she would hold onto those articles until the senate announces what kind of trial it has planned. senate republican leader mitch mcconnell called her position absurd, and the president weighed in with a crazy nancy tweet. but given that the impeachment articles do not appear to be leaving the house anytime soon and given that yet more evidence may come out in the weeks ahead, the standoff feels very unpredictable. what should we expect? joining us is congressman raja krishnamoorthi, democrat of illinois and a member of the house intelligence and oversight committees. congressman, thank you for being with us tonight. >> same here, ali, thank you. >> congressman, i want to get your response initially to these emails that were released late friday night as a result of a freedom of information request by the center for public

integrity that underscore and reiterate mark sandy's testimony in the impeachment hearings. how big a deal are these emails? what do you think they tell us? >> i think they're significant. here's why. all of us who are part of the depositions, who were part of the public hearings in the impeachment inquiry were of the understanding that on july 18th a full week before a hold had been placed on military aid and had been communicated to all of the heads of the departments at issue, state department, defense department, et cetera. and so then for us to see this email in which mr. duffey is basically putting almost like a re-hold on this military aid really begs the question why. was the initial hold merely contingent perhaps on the phone

call and what transpired during the phone call? did president trump ask mick mulvaney and duffey to put a hold on this again skprefrm what he wanted to hear on that phone call? those are the types of questions that come out of this email disclosure, and that's why i think we need more documents, especially from the office of management and budget and mick mulvaney. that's why we need witnesses. >> mick mulvaney was a member of congress who i would imagine took the congressional budget and impoundment control act of 1984 very seriously. even if you don't know about that act, you know about article i of the constitution. when congress appropriates money, it is not legal for the executive to do something else with that money. >> correct. >> kind of interesting that the office of management and budget and mick mulvaney are in the middle of something that mulvaney would never have stood for as a member of congress. the idea that the president, the

executive branch, can get involved in holding back money approved by congress notwithstanding this was approved military aid for a country in a hot war with russia. >> you might have mentioned this before, but the career public servants throughout the defense department, the state department, and even the office of management and budget as mr. sandy mentioned were freaked out by what was going on. they were looking at each other like, is this legal? can you even not spend this money once it's been appropriated? and the testimony from the depositions and even the open hearings corroborated that. so i now think that these folks knew at the highest levels that what they were doing was not only wrong, but probably illegal, and that's why they wanted to keep things hush, hush. keep this, quote, unquote, closely held, which is just a fancy term for don't tell anybody about it. >> talk to me about what you are saying to your constituents who

are asking what the strategy is that nancy pelosi is employing. that must mean the president is not actually impeached. >> well, i don't think anybody in america really believes that the president hasn't been impeached. if you want to hang their hat on that technical argument, they're welcome to do so. but that's not what people are saying out in my district or in others. i think the real issue here is are we going to have a fair trial or not, and i think it's understandable for the speaker to hold these papers or articles for a few days, figure out is there going to be a fair trial, what are the rules, how is it going to be devised and how do we proceed after that. >> congressman, good to see you. congressman raja krishnamoorthi, a democrat of illinois. thank you for your time tonight and happy holidays to you. >> hey, happy holidays. >> thank you, sir. coming up, the standoff on the impeachment trial in the

senate could depend on a handful of persuadable republicans. we'll have more on that next. a. so you can bring your vision to life and save in more ways than one. for small prices, you can build big dreams, spend less, get way more. shop everything home at wayfair.com

the last time this happened, it started like this. >> will all senators now stand and raise your right hand. do you solemn anily swear in aufrlgds pranting to the trial of president clinton, president of the united states now pending, you will do impartial justice according to the constitution and laws, so help you god? the clerk will call the names and record the responses. >> that was the opening of the senate trial in the impeachment of president clinton. the constitution says the supreme court chief justice presides over an impeachment, so we will see this part again, only with the current chief justice, john roberts. so in terms of procedure, certain things about the senate trial for president trump will stay the same. but in terms of bipartisanship, just look back at this moment from the clinton impeachment. here are senate minority leader tom daschle and senate majority

leader trent lott emerging from a meeting negotiating rules for the impeachment. looks like they're getting along. the deal they worked on would later pass in the senate by a unanimous vote. fast forward 20 years. here we are with the articles of impeachment that are being held in the house while democrats wait to see how senate republicans intend to run the trial. house speaker nancy pelosi saying today, quote, the house cannot choose our impeachment managers until we know what sort of trial the senate will conduct. the impeachment managers act as prosecutors during the trial that takes place in the senate. in the senate democratic leader chuck schumer is pushing for witnesses, specifically schumer wants to hear from four administration officials who were blocked by the white house from testifying in the house. the list includes the acting white house chief of staff, mick mulvaney, and the former national security adviser john bolton. majority leader mitch mcconnell sounded reluctant last week about calling witnesses. today he sounded a note that was

closer to maybe. it could be that public pressure from senate democrats would be enough for them to get some of what they want in an impeachment trial, but with republicans having a narrow majority, democrats could conceivably get support for rules that they like by persuade inging a handful of republican senators too good along, senators like mitt romney of haurkts lisa murkowski of alaska, and susan collins of maine. they could ged get it the rules they needed. joins us is former north dakota senator buy rondorgem. good to have you with us. >> thank you, ali. >> do you think those senators i just named, three republican senators, could be persuaded to push for witnesses and convince mitch mcconnell to allow that nobody is asking them to vote

for the impeachment of donald trump. this is just about how that trial would go. >> well, i hope that they would consider that. i think mitch mcconnell believes that he has his entire caucus with him, and yet i cannot believe that that entire republican caucus in the senate doesn't take a look at what this president with respect to the ukraine call and over things and thinks this is just wrong. my hope is they set this trial up. they'll find ways to insist that the coverup that has existed on data and witnesses, that that coverup cannot continue. you have to have testimony that describes exactly what this administration did. if i may make one other comment, the chief justice of the supreme court plays a very limited role here. there's not much of a role for the chief justice of the supreme court. he's there and he reads the questions that senators send to the house managers or the president's counsel. the fact is the party that

controls their caucus in the senate, in this case, it's mitch mcconnell, will have significant sway if he can keep all of his people. mitch is a pretty ruthless guy. look what he did to merrick garland. so he's going to try everything he can to prevent eerosions from his caucus. >> here's a question. nothing is a foregone conclusion but the bar in removing a president is very, very high. it's 2/3 of the senate. >> right. >> so at this point, why does mitch mcconnell go on fox news? why does he come out and say i'm aligned with the white house, i'm working lock step with the white house, i don't need to hear witnesses and i don't need to see testimony. the appearance of a fair trial in america, in democracy, is as important as a fair trial. >> i don't understand what he's doing and i don't understand why he would have said i'm willing to take an oath and the oath requires impartiality, but i'm telling you i'm not impartial. what does that mean? the american people have to look

at that and say wait a second, this cannot be a fair trial if the leader of the republican caucus that controls the senate has already described himself as not being impartial. >> are we just in a different time than we were during the clinton impeachment? is it possible -- i mean, why is it so difficult for agreement on rules? we're just not talking about the impeachment, but the rules that are going to be can you look at the. can you see what's happening today in your day? >> the rancid angry politics is vastly different. doesn't mean there wasn't some of it then, vastly different than it was 20 years ago. and i remember going -- 100 of us went into the old senate chamber and just had a discussion a private discussion. no one else was allowed in. how should we hold this trial because we didn't have a template. at one point ted kennedy stood up and phil graham from texas,

vastly different people in terms of how they think about things, stood up and the two of them kind of realized they were kind of saying the same thing and all of a sudden somebody said let's where write this down and that is how we would proceed with respect to that trial. so i don't think that would happen today so easily. it's a very different time. >> what different times we live in, senator. good to see you. thank you squr joining me on this holiday. former inside senator, author of a new book called "the girl in the photograph: the true story of a native american child lost and found in america." sir, we appreciate your time. when we come back, vladimir putin tightens his grip on ukraine. more ahead, stay with us. h us getting more for getting away. traveling lighter. getting settled. rewarded. learn more at the explorer card dot com.

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time. it's comically difficult. there is a tectonic plate right under the kerj straight. there's also dozens of mud volcanoes on the sea floor. while you think this screen is one way, it's not. i can see you, i can read your lips saying -- what's a mud volcano? mud volcanoes are exactly what they sound like, volcanoes that spew mud. there's more. in the winter the strait is inundated with big ice flows, one giant sheet of sea ice actually took out a temporary bridge in the 1940s. mother nature has been a bear in terms of getting this project down, but over the past few decades, there's also been the tiny matter that crimea isn't actually part of russia. it's part of ukraine. small matter, though. in march of 2014, putin solved that part of the equation. he had russia invade ukraine, and the day after he invaded

ukraine, the very next day, in fact, he announced he was going to build a bridge over the kerch strait. president putin sat up front in the first train car. the bridge is now complete, having also opened to vehicles last year. already ukraine is feeling the effects. ukraine is complaining that its larger ships are unable to get under the bridge's rather short arches. it can't get out of ukrainian ports and that's having an effect both strategically and economically. on top of all that, the crimeaen peninsula slipped even further under putin's grip. it is an important reminder as to just how much is at stake for the key u.s. ally caught in the middle of everything.

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they called it the national ballot security task force. the national republican party created knit 1981 for the governor's race in new jersey. and it turned out to be trouble. >> several of these signs were reported at polling places in newark's north ward. republican poll watchers, some of them off due to policemen were also near the polls. all part of the national ballot security task force set up by the republican national and state committees to guard against vote fraud. but democrats charge it was a scare campaign to intimidate voters, primary in minority neighborhoods. >> the republican candidate won. but the republican party soon found itself in federal court over its poll-watching operation by 19822, the republican party entered a legal agreement that barred it from engaging in any kind of ballot security activity

for the next 35 years. however, that agreement expired in late 2017, and a federal court chose not to resign it. and that opened the way for this startling headline. trump advisoer, expect more aggressive poll watching. they have a plan for getting back into the business of poll monitoring. citing a senior trump campaign adviser, the a.p. reports, quote, the new rules will allow the rnc to use its multimillion-dollar budget to handle those tasks and coordinate with other republican groups on election day. this news comes on the heels of new reports across the country of republican-backed effort to say purge voter rolls ahead of the 2020 presidential election. last week in wisconsin a county judge sided with a conservative legal group in a lawsuit that will remove more than 200,000 voters from that state's voter rolls. the same week in georgia the

state's republican secretary of state purged more than 300,000 voters from that state's voter rolls. democrats for their part are doing everything they can to push back against these republican efforts. in wisconsin the state democratic party plans to use the open records law to find the names of everyone who's been purged and then work to reenroll likely democratic voters. wisconsin democratic chairman ben wick ler tells nbc news, quote, this is an organizing effort. it's a reason to work, not to freak out. joining us now is ben wick ler, chair of the wisconsin democratic party. thank you for being with us. >> thank you so much for having me, easterly. >> let me ask you about that quote. you call this an organizing challenge as opposed to a crisis. that's a different way than a number of democrats with whom we've spoken characterize this.

do you think this is a better way for democrats everywhere to look at these efforts, these voter purges and other things that suppress the vote? >> there's no question we're in a crisis tfor democracy. as democrats i think often we have a tendency to oscillate between object despair and euphoria. you take what's in the world and you turn it into energy to win the election. if we get the list of purged voters and reach out to folks, we text them, we call them, we make sure they know exactly what they need to bring to the polls. in wisconsin we have same-day voter registration. we can get them back on the rolls and get them voting again in the spring of 2020 and in the fall of 2020. that's what trump doesn't want us to do. part of how voter suppression works is you intimidate people into not even trying to vote. so our message is no matter what the republicans do, show up. come to the polls, be prepared

to wait in long, we will be there to support you and help you and make sure there's plenty of pizza on hand and get your vote counted. >> i know you're not a psychologist, but does that carry the same weight as the photos, the images i showed my viewer from 1981, the idea of people in an intimidating stance, the threats, the idea that you're not going to be able to register? in other words, does the positive message that you will send somebody perhaps on their phone, does that outagenweigh t efforts to intimidate people into not voting? >> all the research about fear is that the opposite of fear, the way you drive out fear is affirmation about your power and ang earning a about what the other side is trying to do to you. hope and righteous anger fuel the energy that we need. and so that's where my head is. i hope that's where other folks are. when you see republicans pulling these shenanigans, purging voters, saying they're going to

ramp up voter suppression activities, turned that into organizing energy. that's what we're doing on wisconsin. we knocked on 54,000 doors in one weekend this past november. that's more than all of 2015 and all of 2017 combined. so i think folks are getting that message. and the key thing is to keep fueling that all the way through election day next year. i think if you let republicans convince you that they're going to tale tsteal the election, thy will. we still have the power to win. we threw out scott walker in wisconsin last year despite a ton of different attacks on voting, including harsh voter i.d. laws, and we can do it again with donald trump in 2020. >> with all the talk of suppression and voter i.d. laws, with all of the purging of voters, does it make your job when you go to somebody to register them or encourage them to vote, easier or harder? does it mean you have less explaining to do with the fact that your democratic right to vote is being meddled with by

people? >> the fundamental thing, the idea that americans of all races have fought and died for generations is the idea that it should be one person, one vote. that every person should count in a democracy. when someone attacks that, whether it's russians or the trump campaign or the two of them working in tandem, that pis pisses people off. any voter in this election has more power to shape human history than almost anyone ever has or ever will, especially in a place like wisconsin. a handful of voters could make the difference for every human who will ever live again. that's a huge amount of power. that's why republicans are targeting so intensely. we have to remember that we have that power and thank you, your honor into the kind of organization, the kind of energy, the kind of turnout that the country has never seen. >> that sent chills down by

spine. any voter has the power to shape human history. you're exactly right. you're 100% right. we're seeing people in the world today taking up arms for that right. we have it. and you're just telling people they need to use it. ben, thank you for joining me. thank you for your efforts. >> thank you so much. ben wick ler. more news ahead, stay with us. blended and aged again. it's the reason our whisky is so extraordinarily smooth. dewar's. double aged for extra smoothness. steven could only imaginem 24hr to trenjoying a spicy taco.burn, now, his world explodes with flavor. nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for all-day all-night protection. can you imagine 24-hours without heartburn?

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new year's eve 1987, "the new york times" ran this little piece about real-life spy games

here in the united states. two chinese diplomats detained and sent back home. the culmination of a year-long fbi sting involving a double agent and fake classified documents. the state department said the two men had engaged in "activities incompatible with their diplomatic status." in other words, espionage. that was 32 years ago. chinese diplomats suspected of spying and expelled. nothing like that has happened since. until this past september. when the american government secretly expelled two chinese embassy officials after they drove onto a sensitive military base in virginia. and not just any military base. one that is home to u.s. special ops forces. the diplomats, including one man suspected of being a chinese intelligence officer, evaded military personnel who were in pursuit. the chinese diplomats were only apprehended after fire trucks physically blocked their car. the episode raised concerns that chinas is expanding its spying

efforts in the u.s. and that chinese diplomats "have become bolder about showing up unannounced at research or government facilities." now, that can't help but ring a bell with recent events at the president's home in florida. in march when a chinese national just showed up at mar-a-lago and talked her way inside by saying she wanted to use the pool. she just hatched to ppened to bg four cell phones, and a thumb drive infected with malware as well as something called a faraday bag which blocks electronic sblsz. she also had a device to detect hidden cameras and eight grand in cash back at her hotel room. she was convicted of trespassing and lying to federal agents. last month a judge ordered her

back to china. and then just the other day it happened again. another chinese national showing up at mar-a-lago under suspicious circumstances. she too was arrested at mar-a-lago for trespassing after being turned away by security. the woman snuck through a service entrance and started taking pictures. she eventually fled on foot. but police apprehended her. she refused to hand over those pictures. now, we should say neither of these two chinese nationals has been charged with espionage, but we might also note that the president is spending the next two weeks at mar-a-lago surrounded by, how would you describe it, a who's who of impeachment scandal. rudy giuliani, acting chief of staff mick mulvaney and pat cipollone, who's expected to lead the president's defense in a senate trial. more members of trump's impeachment team are expected at mar-a-lago in the coming days to keep the president up to date on the potential senate impeachment trial. with one caveat. at mar-a-lago aides say, "there is less control over who gets

face time with the president and who might be able to whisper an idea in his ear." so who knows who'll be whispering in trump's ear this christmas? the usual suspects, all the president's men, or just an enterprising someone taking no chances at mar-a-lago? man: sneezes skip to the good part with alka-seltzer plus. now with 25% more concentrated power. nothing works faster for powerful cold relief. oh, what a relief it is! so fast! (air pump motors) (lamp crashes) ♪music

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briny breezes was once a 43-acre strawberry farm on florida's atlantic coast just south of palm beach. during the great depression the property was turned into a trailer park, albeit with 600 feet of pristine beach. now, about ten years ago a real estate developer swooped in on briny breezes and dazzled the residents, who reportedly called themselves brinies, with some big money.

he offered to buy the whole town. the brinies agreed to sell. they stood to make more than a million dollars each, but the deal eventually fell through. enter, i kid you not, vanilla ice. briny breezes is about 12 miles down the beach from mar-a-lago. you may remember that trump recently changed his primary residence from new york, new york to palm beach, florida this fall. and that apparently gave a local real estate broker who lives at briny breezes an idea. he thinks trump should buy briny breezes and turn it into his presidential library. and he thinks the sale price should be a billion dollars. according to the "palm beach post," "james aaron arks an avid trump supporter, says he thinks he can convince the president to buy the land and turn it into a personal monument. arena says has the ball rolling by reaching out to his friend, rapper and palm beach county resident vanilla ice, who is close to the trump family." "vanilla ice ran it by donald

jr., arena said of the president's eldest son. he called me back and said, man, i think they're really into it." but briny should not get too excited. the dally beast reached out to donald trump jr. and got a denial. "don hasn't spoken to anyone about building a presidential library and has never even met vanilla ice." ouch. that's ice ice cold, baby. meanwhile, mr. ice himself has also tweeted a denial. "i don't know donald trump junior. i don't understand why they said that. but if they want me to build a library in palm beach on the oaths, i'm in." and then he took the opportunity of all the new eyeballs on his twitter account to append the following hashtag. vanilla ice project. never let publicity go to waste. notably, no one appears to have demanded a correction from the palm beach post. and this is trump, and this is vanilla ice. and this is florida. so who knows? that does it for me tonight. it's time for