>> in terms of the president and what he has said about you, he said about you and mr. fruman, i don't know these gentlemen, i don't know about them. i don't know what they do. you're saying that was not a true statement from the president? >> he lied. he knew exactly who i was especially because i interacted with him at a lot of events. >> good morning. and welcome to a.m. joy. well, it has been quite a week needless to say. the preamble to the senate impeachment trial of donald trump began this week with the official delivery of the articles of impeachment to the senate in the swearing in of the senate jury. a solemn ceremony that has only ever happened twice before in american history. pu the pundents turned out to be premature. between the time of the impeachment in the house and the delivery to the senate new

information has been pouring out almost daily. house democrats detailed more. you know, parnas of the 11 egor wing of the crukraine conspirac who trump claims not to know but he's pictured with every member of trump world. he sure gets close to the family for someone trump supposedly doesn't know. first, rachel maddow's sitdown interview with parnas was the interview of the week. coming up i'll talk with rachel herself about that interview but here is a preview of what he told rachel. he was somehow both employed by and employing rudy giuliani who helped carry out the scheme to get the president of ukraine to announce an investigation into joe biden's son.

parnas has been indicted on campaign finance violations for allegedly funneling russian money into political campaigns. . he turned over documents to the house committee still investigating donald trump. those documents will make it a lot harder for senate republican to refuse to admit new evidence or call witnesses in the impeachment trial even as they are hell bent on acquitting the president. he implicated almost everyone in trump's circle starting with the man at the top who still is denying any wrong doing despite the growing mountain of evidence against him. >> president trump knew exactly what was going on. he was aware of all of my movements. he -- i wouldn't do anything without the consent of rudy giuliani or the president. >> and then there's the guy who would take over if trump were to be removed from office. vice president mike pence. parnas explained how he used

pence as a bargaining chip to try and pressure the ukranian president into announcing a biden investigation. >> in the conversation i told him that if he doesn't -- the announce t was the key at that time because of the inauguration, that pence wouldn't show up, nobody would show up. >> unless he investigated an investigation into joe biden no officials, particularly mike pence would show up. >> the day after that meeting you had. >> this suz wasn't the 12th. >> i believe it was the following day that in fact, vice president pence's visit to the inauguration was cancelled. >> well, it was after my phone call. >> you believe that vice president pence knew what he was -- knew that his trip to the inauguration was contingent on those investigations being announc announc announced? >> again, i mean, i know he went to poland also to discuss this

on trump's behalf so he couldn't have not known. >> so according to parnas, mike pence knew about the get biden scheme too, which of course pence denies and he also denies knowing parnas. right? parnas told rachel that attorney general william barr also knew what was going on in crew yan. >> do you know if mr. giuliani was afterin contact with mr. barr specifically about the fact that he was trying to get ukraine to announce these investigations into joe biden? >> absolutely. >> mr. barr knew about that? >> mr. barr had to have known everything. . giuliani tell you he had spoken to the ukraine? >> they were all best friends. i mean, barr was attorney general barr was basically on the team. >> of course the justice department says of course that's 100% false. what else are they going to say? and there's former national security advisor john bolton who

they really want to testify at the impeachment trial. >> when they say that mr. bolton may have things to say about this, did mr. bolton know that vice president pence was supposed to secure that agreement that zelensky would announce these investigations? >> i know mr. bolton was definitely involved in the loop because of the firing of ivanovich. they started butting heads. >> and then he explained how former secretary of energy rick perry was allegedly working in tandem with giuliani. >> i don't know what extent he knew about me but definitely he knew about rudy because he was told -- he called rudy on his way there to ask him what to discuss and rudy told him that -- to make sure to give him the message. >> mr. giuliani told secretary perry what you need to convey to

the ukranian government is they need to announce an investigation into joe biden. >> absolutely. there was another conversation that perry called after the inauguration telling that he spoke to zelensky and he's going to do it. >> parnas also told rachel that the secretary of state mike pompeo was privy to the plan to remove ivanovich. >> then rudy came back and he told them, go speak to pompeo. rudy went to speak to pompeo. they got into it. >> so the trump lackeys implicated by parnas extend beyond the investigative branch too. he had this to say about the republican ranking member of the house intelligence committee devyn nun es. >> does it strike you inappropriate a he would be one

of the lead investigators. >> i was in shock when i saw nunes sitting up there and i text my attorney, i said, i can't believe this is happening. >> because? >> because they were involved in getting all this stuff from biden. >> and surprise, the new documents released last night by house democrats show that nunes and his staff communicated extensively with parnas about ukraine aid. trump lawyers also knew about the pressure campaign. parnas mentioned trump's personal lawyers who represented trump during the mueller probe and jay sekulow as well as white house house pet.

>> he got rudy on the phone and basically they came up with the situation that said that because i worked for rudy and because i worked for victoria, and because rudy worked for the president we have three-way privilege and that basically pat was going to be writing a letter to congress saying nobody is cooperating and that would protect us under the same order and he would follow up with that. again, this was the president of the united states so i thought, okay. >> of course it all comes back to trump. >> when you say that the president knew about your movements and knew what you were doing, are you saying specifically, i want to sort of drill down on that, that the president was aware that you and mr. giuliani were working on this effort in ukraine to basically try to hurt joe biden's political career?

>> yeah, it was all about joe biden, hunter biden and also rudy had a personal thing with the manafort stuff. the black ledger and that was another thing that they were looking into, but it was never about corruption, it was never -- it was strictly about the hunter biden and joe biden. >> and so to sum it all up -- >> i'm going to use a famous quote by mr. sondland, everybody was in the loop. >> the trump world and the republicans defending it will try to tell you this man is nobody who knows nothing and no one but the pictures do not lie and rachel maddow herself on her ground breaking interview, you do not want to miss it. w, you do not want to miss it (woman) when you take align,

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interview with parnas wednesday night. the largest audience many the 11-year history of the rachel maddow show. i got a chance to talk with rachel and get her take on the interview moments after her show thursday night. take a look. >> rachel maddow, first of all, thank you.

thank you, thank you. thank you for extra time. i feel badly about not letting you get into your car but also extremely happy that you're still sitting in front of me. >> do not feel bad. the chance to be on tv with joy reid at the end of my life i'll tally it up and wish for more. >> you're the best. i got to tell you the interview, i have to congratulate you to start with. what an amazing interview. i want to just go through very quickly some of the things that struck me just from listening to both days of this amazing interview that you were able to get with parnas and the first of them was this description that he had of being in cult world around all of these figures as being like a cult. as i heard him describe it he remientded me of michael cohen. did you get the sense this is a guy that is a every man type of person who was intoxicated of being around that type of power.

>> reporter: mr. parnas and mr. cohen have one very important thing in common that they're both facing very serious criminal charges and i think in that case i mean, i'm no lawyer but from cop shows i think it's helpful to be able to say to the intended audience whether it's the judge or the jury or the public at large if you're trying to make your case to them, listen, i was led astray, i was in an environment that felt normal to me at the time but now i realize it was a crazy cultish thing and the scales have fallen from my eyes and now i siee things as they really are. in my cop show version of how persons try to get themselves lean yens, that's one thing. parnas was a key fixer, had a key role in advancing the joe biden malfeasance allegation and

trying to turn that into an announcement of an investigation by the ukranian government. he was also super super involved in the marie ivanovich must be fired smear campaign. i asked mr. parnas if he believed the allegations against ivanovich and the allegations against biden that he helped effectuate and in both daises he said i realize they are not true but at the time i thought they were true. he apologized and he said he doesn't have to say that stuff. he could just say i don't know but i regret being part of it. he could just -- there's no reason for him to, you know, repent and recant on those things. having those views of ivanovich and biden isn't going to help him either in his court case or

in public opinion so i sort of believe him on that scale, but i'm trying to maintain healthy skepticism about all of it. >> yeah, absolutely. and believe they were true and was willing to work with knowingly corrupt officials in ukraine who were saying we will trade you proof or evidence of joe biden having done something wrong but we want one thing very specifically. we want this one person gone, marie van siivanovich situation. why couldn't donald trump just fire ivanovich? he had the power to do it but instead of just firing her there were all these steps that had to be gone through to smear her. it reminded me of these attempts to fire mueller. donald trump has a problem getting done what he wants because people who are supposedly loyal to him don't do what he says. >> and he won't do stuff directly. i mean, his catch phrase is

you're fired but he doesn't fire people directly. the closest he comes is firing people via his phone on twitter. he doesn't actually do it. he could have summoned marie ivanovich to his office and said you're fired. he could have directed for her to be fired in a way that was, you know, i've lost confidence in you and i don't mean to explain myself. he could have done any of those things. instead people would tell him bad things about vivanovich and he would rage behind closed doors and say you fire her to people who had no power to fire her and then it came through channels and filtering through the system as the president's wishes without anything real about why she was being fired. ultimately people found ways to stop it. this whole tale sheds light on two things. as you said it sheds light on why they needed the smear campaign. they thought if there was a public smear campaign in the

u.s. press about ivanovich that would both enable the president to potentially fire her by tweet and it might clear the way to sort of collapse all of the normal channels so that he could fire her regardless of whatever her ridiculous causes were. but the other thing that it sheds light on is the state department needs to turn documents over to the impeachment investigation. republicans should be interested in this and the deep state conspirator yal republicans should be interested in that too. got me thinking there were people inside the government who were working against the president's wishes. if the president was trying to fire an ambassador and unable to do it you guys should want to figure out what was going on in the state department when they were reacting to these outbursts that weren't followed up on. >> you would think that congress would be interested in looking

in their roan ranks because the other thing that was striking and kind of amazing to hear parnas talk about were actual le lekted and want to be elected members of congress who were shaw involved in this scheme whether it was devnunes or i wor if it complicates the senate. names someone who was potentially in the know or briefed on whatever dirt they were bringing with joe biden. >> and the question with senator graham, the way parnas tells the sor story, it was high level effort to try to get this corrupt you

cra -- ukranian a visa to come in so he could do a briefing on big bad joe biden to william barr and lindsey graham. again, this is one of these interesting things about the state department's role here who is murky and more interesting all the time. he never came to the united states. that in person briefing never happened but did senator graham know that he was supposed to get that? does that affect his thinking about this as a potential scandal whatsoever? who about attorney general barr? i mean, there were a number of people who. >> reporter: brought into this scheme by the core players who one of the core players is now willing to name names about and if those questions would answer questions about how they see it particularly under oath i think we'd all be further along in

understanding the reality. >> you mentioned bill barr. what did you make of him saying he's afraid of the doj? >> over the two parts of the interview his comments about william barr were among the things that kind of have stuck with me and kept me up. not only was he describing william barr as being fully apprised of what was going on in ukraine and mr. parnas said it was not at all surprising that the president on the phone with president zelensky said yeah, you need to do these investigation, parnas thought that was absolutely to be expected given the degree that -- given the degree of involvement that barr had of the scheme describing him as part of the team but then also once he arrested and charged federally in a department of justice federal indictment mr. parnas came to believe and came to worry that mr. barr was maybe the greatest threat to him not

just because he was facing federal charges but because he believed and he thinks that other people in the president's immediate circle believe that president -- that turn general bill barr is essentially a weapon, is using the justice department as a weapon to enforce things for the president and to attack the president's political enemies and that is mr. parnas stating his belief and his perception and should be taken just for that but it is chilling. >> it's chilling for anybody, we all live in a world where he is the top law enforce mts officer. before i let you go, for the three people who didn't read "blowout" we're talking more and more about the foreign corruption of our elections, how much of an eyebrow raiser was it for you for him to say i'll get you dirt and get me out of my charges and this is the guy he turns to for help.

>> some of this has been publicly reported before that the reason he appears to have gotten involved is some sort of plan quid pro quo involving his case, he's facing very serious federal bribery and corruption charges. they have been trying to extradite him to the united states to face those charges for years. he's hired the best legal help that money can guy to pro vent him from being extradited to face those charges. he's perceived to be the kremlin's man in ukraine. he is an upper echelon of organized crime. i mean, this is a powerful and connected guy and there's been reporting before as to how he ended up in this scandal but to hear somebody right in the middle decipher his handwritten notes and this trade that they

were promising him that he could get his case dropped and in exchange he would help with these allegations against biden, i mean, that is -- that's -- i mean, that's a movie, number one, but the fact that we know that they did actually succeed in getting an audience with the attorney general of the united states william barr to talk about the case is again, chilling and it should be noted that while mr. furtsash is fighting extra diagnosifight extradition he is still in vienna. rudy giuliani still appears to be involved with him. so you know, watch the space. >> watch the space. absolutely. well, i will say, first of all, thank you for being here. thank you for taking the extra time. >> of course. >> i think the senate could create the rachel maddow list of

witnesses because you've put them all on the table and if they can't get witnesses they could play the entire interview with parnas. that might be the best case they could make in the impeachment trial. >> anybody is free to use the material however they want. i do however, suggest real depositions. thank you, my friend. >> really appreciate you, rachel. >> how great is she? come on. coming up we love rachel maddow. well done. william barr as we just mentioned is accused of being a part of the ukraine scheme. more on that. f the ukraine schee more on that when you shop for your home at wayfair, you get more than free shipping. you get everything you need for your home at a great price, the way it works best for you,

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turns out that parnas' tie runs deep in the battleground state of florida. coming up in our next hour we'll take a closer look at the connection between parnas and the governor of florida ron desantis but up next parnas' interview revealed just how dangerous william barr really is. more a.m. joy coming up. really is more a.m. joy coming up.

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mr. parnas came to believe and came to worry that mr. barr was maybe the greatest threat to him not just because he was facing criminal charges but because he believes and he thinks that other people in the president's immediate circle believe that attorney general bill barr is essentially a weapon, is using the justice department as a weapon to enforce things for the president. and to attack the president's political enemies. >> one of the biggest bomb

shells from the interview is the implication of attorney general william barr. parnas said it was virtually impossible for barr not to have known about the pressure came pain on ukraine saying he was basically on the team. and parnas suggested that he's speaking out now because he's afraid of barr who incident tally oversees the district of new york the very court that investigated charges against parnas. joining me is glen kushner. i saw his tweets and we've got to talk to glen. let me play you the part of rachel's interview in which parnas implicates william barr in the whole scheme. here it is. >> do you know if mr. giuliani was ever in contact with mr. barr specifically about the fact that he was trying to get ukraine to announce these investigations into joe biden? >> absolutely. >> mr. barr knew about that? >> mr. barr had to have known everything. i mean, it's impossible.

>> did giuliani tell you he had spoken to the attorney general about ukraine? >> not only giuliani. victoria and joe, they were all best friends. attorney general barr was basically on the team. >> to which you tweeted, glen, parnas just accused bill barr of criminal complicity in the zelensky bribery. the conflict of interest is staggering the doj's credibility is on life support. this travesty must end. is there any way for barr to be forced out of the chain of command in this prosecution? >> well, barr's superior is president. do we think that president is going to force bill barr to step away from whatever he's doing in connection with the parnas fruman investigation? heck no. and here is the problem. i mean, usually when prosecutors

meet with potential cooperating witnesses, right? the parnass of the world we're assessing their information to see if it's truthful and if it's helpful to our prosecution. i'm quite sure stny prosecutors have sat down and gotten all this information. some of the information we now know they must have gotten was what lev parnas told rachel. bill barr is in on the dirty ukranian deal. now, if they sign him up as a cooperating witness and they use that evidence, who do they end up bringing down? bill barr. who's overseeing the lev parnas prosecution? bill barr who oversees everything that goes on in the southern district of new york u.s. attorney's office and the 93 other u.s. attorney's offices in the country. bill barr needs to have his doj hall pass revoked because of this dramatic conflict and one of other thing about the bill barr piece, joy.

the way we assess if a cooperating witness is telling us the truth or just throwing lies in the mix to dirty people up for his own benefit is we look to see what other people have said about the same thing. who corroborates supports and affirms lev parnas' claim that bill barr is in on the dirty ukranian deal? how about president trump in his phone call to zelensky who says i need you to look in the bidens and you know who's going to help you out, my man bill barr, the attorney general. parnas and donald trump corroborate and confirm one another and they make it clear that bill barr is in the loop like everybody else is in the loop. who dislodges bill barr other than the american people come november of 2020? there's no good answer to that question. >> and i'm glad you brought that up because in the trump's claim perfect phone call he says talk to rudy and talk to bill barr and bill barr we know has

mounted and instructed one of his underings to mound this investigation that seems to track with what trump wanted done and meanwhile you're right. there's no way to dislodge him. we don't have an independent counsel statute. this sounds like the job for a special prosecutor. but a mueller type prosecutor would report to bill barr because the former ken starr that law is expired. >> i think what the founders envisioned is potentially a corrupt and criminal president. we have impeachment. there would be ways to deal with that if we had a law abiding president. i don't think they ever envisioned a corrupt criminal abusive president supported by a corrupt criminal and abusive attorney general. and that's why come january 2020, we need to wrestle this thing to the ground. we need to form a commission that is equal parts,neuriumberg

trials and truth and reconciliation commission and we need to hold all of these people accountable. i think trump crime commissions has a nice ring to it. these corrupt men have exposed the flaws in our system. >> and i mean, a previous attorney has gone to jail. here is another part of this interview in which parnas talks about being afraid of william barr. take a listen. >> right now the scary part and that's what i keep mentioning and people don't understand there's a lot of republicans that would go against him. the only reason, if you'll take a look and you know very well because you've been following, the difference between why trump is so powerful now and he wasn't as powerful in '16 and '17. he became that powerful when he got william barr. people are scared. am i scared? yes. because i think i'm more scared of our own justice department than of these criminals right now. >> we should note that the doj

put a statement it's 100% false. that's their satatement. this guy, william barr has his fingers on so much of this. he controls the prosecutors that are prosecuting parnas, he controls even -- i mean, you look at the jeffrey epstein case he controlled the prison. he controls so much and he has so much power and trump as empowered him so much and he's deelting with various russian entities that we don't know that are murky. he has good reason to be afraid, no? >> he does, because here is the catch 22 for parnas. if he is actively involved with discussions with the prosecutors in new york to see whether he wants to come on board as a former co-op ray tor, a-- coope. those will remain secret so he wouldn't be able to tell his story publicly. that must be part of the motivation for getting his story out because think about it, if he had been dealing with the

southern district of new york prosecutors behind closed doors, giving up bill barr, trump and others and all of a sudden something happened to him like happened to epstein, well, all of that information would then be put under wraps by bill barr the same way we really haven't gotten to the bottom of what happened to epstein and so i think this was a smart move and maybe for his own personal safety this was lev parnas' only play to get the information out to the american people so he doesn't get epsteined. >> and the reality is that he -- there's no guarantee he will get to testify in the senate trial. barr -- it seems slow -- maybe we don't know what his role was in how slow it was to get all this information. he's had this the whole time. he was initially he had donald trump's lawyers, he had john dowd and he said to rachel he fired dowd because they were telling him to keep quiet. there seem to be a lot of people trying to slow down or stop him

from talking. >> there's this recent ledder that the chairman sent over and this letter is january 14th of 2020 just a few days ago and here's what we learned about just how intimately donald trump knows lev parnas because we've seen on an endless loop, donald trump don't know him, maybe a picture, never met him. let's see what this let every tells everybody is the truth about the relationship between donald trump and lev parnas and i'll read this sentence rel quakely. on october 2nd, 2019 jay sekulow, trump's lawyer informed president trump's former attorney, john dowd that he had discussed with president trump the issue of representation and that president trump consents to allowing your, mr. dowd's representation of lev parnas. jay sekulow, his lawyer, president trump's lawyer, went

on record and said i've spoken in great detail with the president about lev parnas, your relationship with him and the president consents to let one of your old lawyers, mr. dowd, represent him. so i got to tell you, if president trump standing up and looking at the camera and saying i don't know lev parnas, if he's being honest to himself and he thinks he doesn't know parnas then we better talk about the 25th amendment because he's unfit. >> why is he letting his lawyer -- he had to give his consent for his lawyer to represent this guy and he's saying he did this for a stranger and he's going to represent trump in the senate. >> lawyers are obligated by our rules of ethics not to perpetrate a fraud in court in an impeachment or against the american people. >> who is going to enforce any of these laws? thank you very much. more amaril.m. joy after the br. .m. .

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coming up, my super panel will examine the upcoming impeachment trial. more a.m. joy after the break. when you shop with wayfair, you spend less and get way more. so you can bring your vision to life

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i think ken starr is a lunatic. i really think that ken starr is a disaster. i hated the way the president handled it. it was a long and terrible process. i think that ken starr was terrible. >> good morning and welcome back to "a.m. joy." when donald trump called ken starr a lunatic during the impeachment of bill clinton decades ago he probably didn't anticipate eventually needing starr's services in an impeachment trial of his own. but that's what it came to this

week as donald trump announced his version of the dream team for his senate impeachment trial. it includes ken starr and tv defense attorney alan dershowitz. both of whom represented jeffrey epstein in his lenient plea bargain in florida in 2007. also among trump's impeachment defense team, pam bondy. who faced scrutiny for declining to investigate trump university after receiving a campaign donation. the dream team will be led by white house counsel pat cipollone and jay sekulow. both named by lev parnas for being in the center of the ukraine inquiry.

>> i was brought to john dowd's house and he got jay sekulow on the phone and also rudy and basically they came up with this situation that said that because i worked for rudy and because i worked for victoria and because rudy worked for the president, we had three-way privilege and that basically pat cipollone was going to write a letter to congress that nobody was cooperating and that would protect us under the same order and he would follow-up with that. again, this was the president of the united states so i thought, okay. >> so, yeah, kind of a weird amalgamation of characters. these are the people defending trump in front of the united states senate. which might have trump supporters nervous if the senate was planning a real trial of the president, one with witnesses and evidence and jurors who hadn't already decided to acquit. joining me now is neil katia.

thank you for being here. ken starr is an interesting choice. not only did he prosecute the impeachment of bill clinton for lying about a sexual affair. he's had some weird sort of issues in his past regarding baylor university pushing him out because of his sort of -- or push for light treatment of someone accused of a sexual offense there. and hen he also said that donald trump exhibited poor judgment in a tweet when he, essentially, threatened ambassador marie yovanovitch when she was testifying. ken starr said i must say the president was not advised by counsel in deciding to do this tweet, extraordinarily poor judgment. he said the president follows my instincts, sometimes we have to control our instincts. talk about your thoughts on ken starr that donald trump turns to as his counsel. >> i'm not going to like join the chorus of those who say

because trump has hired ep seen the's lawyers, that's somehow bad. i think it's dangerous thing in this country to attack the lawyers for the clients that they've represented in the past. we don't want to incentivize great lawyers not to take hard cases because of fear of personal attacks later. i think if i were trump, i'd be worried about hiring ken starr because of all the things starr said 20 years ago. for example, he said that president clinton abused executive privilege, and, therefore, should be impeached and removed from office for it. and what everyone thinks about what clinton did, it's nothing compared to the abuses by president trump, it's 100 times worse and on steroids. every time starr gets a defense for trump, he'll be compared to

starr of 20 years ago. and with dershowitz, his defenses are frankly silly. yesterday he went on tv and saud abuse of power is not an impeachable offense. i don't think you'll find anyone to agree with that view, it is what impeachment is about. if you have any doubt, look at what a congressman in 2008 said, he said what a high crime and misdemeanor is, it's when a president puts his personal interest above those of the american people, that congressman in 2008 was. mike pence. >> it's fair to say that just representing a bad guy is not anything that people should criticize a lawyer for, because that is what lawyers are supposed to do, and even bad guys deserve a defense. that's true. what people are pointing to and what i find weird is that donald trump seems to have picked from

two buckets of attorneys that he thought best to work with. one was dershowitz -- i'm sorry, was with jeffrey epstein's lawyers and the other prominent voices on bill clinton's impeachment. those are the two places he seems to have gone, but florida. that's my comment, not yours. dershowitz, he's claiming that the constitution was written by men who didn't think abuse of power was an impeachable defense, but another thing he said which i think is weirder, i'm not really trump's lawyer. here is alan dershowitz not being clear on whether he is donald trump's lawyer. here it is. >> i think it overstates it to say i'm a member of the trump team. i was asked to present the constitutional argument that i would have presented had hillary clinton been elected and had she

been impeached. >> i am part of the legal team, a specialized role. my specialized role is to present the constitutional argument. the same argument i would present if hillary clinton had been elected and she were being impeached. >> if he's -- if he is not the president's lawyer, then is he a witness? and if he's a witness and he's only going to present an argument like a witness, doesn't that mean that the democrats now get to call the witness to match him, right? >> totally. the whole thing makes no sense. this is like pregnancy, you either are or aren't. you're either a lawyer for a client or you're not. the simple test is do you share attorney/client privilege with the person or not. if dershowitz is saying no, that's fine, anything said to dershowitz can be discovered in the process of a real trial proceeding. it seems like he's saying he's a witness to arguing this is not

an impeachable offense. if so, absolutely, i think the democrats should have a similar witness. i can think of lots of different people who would qualify for that role. i don't think you get to have a witness with -- and call them kind of member of the legal team. that doesn't seem to work. >> i think it's now worth asking, i hope reporters who have access -- i'd love for him to come on the show -- i'd love to ask him if he's being retained because if he's not donald trump's attorney he can't take a retainer. which means, as you said, he's a witness, he's sort of a jonathan turley. and jonathan turlly testified as a witness then the democrats could argue, fine that's your witness. we want ours to be and they can name any member of donald trump's cabinet who are also not his attorneys, right? >> absolutely. this whole idea that the republicans are trying to have a senate trial with no witnesses is absurd. we've had two impeachments of the president in the past,

andrew johnson, in which there were 41 witnesses that testified in the senate. and bill clinton, in which there were three witnesses that testified in the senate, and a whole slew in the house in the investigation before the impeachment trial in the senate. here the president has said i'm not going to give a single witness, a single document to the house, which no president in our entire history as done and now turns to the senate and says you didn't have any of my witnesses in the house, now you can't get them later on. the whole thing is -- it's one of those shell games. and, you know, ultimately the people who suffer are the american people at the end of the day, because we can't find the truth out because the president is so scared. he's so scared of any witnesses coming forward and telling the truth to the american people, including members of his own cabinet. and that tells you all you need to know. >> indeed. and now he has the witness who's

called himself, apparently, alan dershowi dershowitz. thank you very much, appreciate your time. joining me now is curt bar dell low. jill wine-banks, former prosecutor. legal analyst, maya wiley. and elly mustal. thank you for being here. i want to go back to what neil katyal talked about. the absurdist argument of alan dershowitz. not the one he says he's not trump's lawyer, that's just weird. the one he says abuse of power is not an impeachable offense. i'll play it for you now. >> abuse of power, even if proved is not an impeachable offense. that's what the framers rejected. they didn't want to give congress the authority to remove a president because they abused his power. they have to prove treason,

bribery or other crimes of misdemeanors. i'm arguing on behalf of the constitution, i'm arguing for a terrible precedence to be set for future presidents here. >> i'm going to the lawyers first. make sense of that argument. >> i have to remain silent because you cannot make any sense out of it. it is an absurd argument. it is the standard we impeached in the house. three out of four said that is an impeachable offense. the articles against richard nixon included abuse of power. it is clearly what was intended by our framers. it's what the federalist papers say, and it's the thing that makes sense. other high crimes and misdemeanors are exactly that. it isn't under the federal statutes that they were talking about. bribery isn't under the federal statute because there was no federal bribery crime when the

constitution was passed. it was whatever people thought it was. >> indeed. maya wiley same question. he's saying unless you have actual treason or bribery and other crimes and misdemeanors but those cannot include abuse of power. does that make any sense to you? >> no. i any neil katyal was dead on, jill is dead on. i just want to share -- first of all, andrew jackson, the president president of the united states to face impeachment and have a trial -- >> andrew johnson. >> i'm sorry, andrew johnson. he was being impeached for abuse of power. there was no criminal offense underlying his impeachment. so that's number one. but the second is i want to pull out an argument that alan dershowitz made during the mueller probe, which was that

even if donald trump went to putin when she was a candidate and said, hey, putin, you know what, i'd be a great president for you, because i don't agree with sanctions against russia, i don't agree with the magnitsky act so you help me, i help you, we're good. alan dershowitz wrote that would not be impeachable. when you hear him make this argument, he is literally saying that even if everything mueller found he could prove in a court of law, donald trump would not be impeachable. >> nothing he does is impeachable according to the alan dershowitz. i'm three for three, it falls to you elly, you break the threeway tie? you are the justice correspondent for the nation,

sir. >> of course it's an absurd argument. i would like to point out alan dershowitz -- i also went to harvard law school. i feel he's so far past the point he should be considered a serious person. because he stopped making serious legal arguments a decade ago. be okay. this is not -- there's no abuse of power? this is not if the glove doesn't fit you must acquit argument. this is double murders don't matter if you score touchdowns s argument. there's a reason alan dershowitz was the constitutional lawyer during that trial. and i want to contrast. val demings, hakeem jeffreys, silvia garcia, jason crowe. so nancy pelosi, has come at

this like there is going to be a serious trial. and donald trump came at this like this is an episode of "law and order" he has the reality tv team of lawyers, puck from the real world would make the argument that alan dershowitz is making right now. >> that brings me to former republican strategic guy, curt bordello, this lands in your lap. it is like the reverse of the oj trial where the dream team were the defense lawyers and the prosecutors were this hapless bunch of people who, you know, couldn't figure out what to do. and in this case it's kind of reversed. you have pat cipollone, jay sekulow who's named as being part of the scream. patrick fillburn. al alan dershowitz, pam bondi, jane raskin.

here's a picture of pam bondi with lev parnas. she's one of the many florida pals fooled up some how with lev parnas. here she is asking about being pictured with him in photographs on the "today" show. >> so now we have multiple pictures of president trump with lev parnas. his family members with lev parnas, his top associates, you're even in one of the photos. it also includes an electronic calendar entry by parnas of a breakfast meeting with president trump just days before parnas was arrested. does the president still maintain he does not know who lev parnas is? >> i haven't spoken to the president this morning, but i can tell you as a former florida attorney general in a state with almost 22 million people, we took pictures constantly, constantly with thousands of people. and clearly lev parnas liked to take pictures with a lot of people.

>> curt, why -- give us the thinking behind -- we love having you on the team, welcome to being a new member of the msnbc family. we like having you because you can explain how these folks think. why would you cast, as your legal team, pam bondi, who has past scandals with trump having received money from his foundation that was supposed to be helping charity but was giving her money. she's in the photos with lev parnas herself. why cast this group of people, two of jeffrey epstein's lawyers -- nothing wrong with lawyers should take clients -- but it's a weird story line for him to have to deal with. why? >> i think, joy, if you were to go to the fox news audience and ask if they've seen on the air any of the pictures with lev parnas with just about everybody in the trump orbit, i bet the

answer is minimal. so i think that trump is doing and what republicans are doing is relying on the fox news audience to continue carrying the day. they have the mindset, if it isn't broke, don't fix it. it seemed to work in the mueller trial with all the talk about how the mueller report would hurt the presidency of trump, and it ended up falling flat. they're using the same tactics they're using then right now. they're banking on the fact that they see this solely as a television production. the characters they cast in this trial show they perceive it to be will outdo the serious, substancive, legally correct team nancy pelosi put together. and they're hoping that democrats don't realize they're fighting a different battle. democrats right now are in a knife fight, it's a street fight, that's what they're up against. it's not about robert's rules of orders, senate policies and

procedures. because trump believes if that's a direction democrats go, they'll win that argument. trump knows if he loses a fraction of that fox news audience, he's done for. everything rides on keeping the republicans in line, that's why he put together this fox team to defend him in prime time. >> his audience is not just the fox news audience. it's people like this senator who's in trouble poll wise, martha mcsally in arizona. she's fighting to keep the seat after being appointed. and she's one of the people trump has to keep on line in terms of witnesses, et cetera. here she is this week. >> should the senate consider new evidence as part of the impeachment trial? >> you're a liberal hack. i'm not talking to you. >> you're not going to comment, senator? >> she's now raising money off that. so is that what the point is, to get all the senators who were in

trouble on their re-elects to act like that? >> you've seen, joy, over the course of the trump presidency, republicans have begun to adopt more of the trump characteristics than push it away. despite the clamoring we've heard, we don't like what's going on, they're disgusted by trump's tactics, but at the end of the day they continue to adopt his posture, tactics, rhetor rhetoric, they believe that's the only way to survive. they would rather tie themselves to trump and have that be the first line of their policeman n obituary. and that fear has infected the whole republican party. they're trying to mimic what trump has done. despite the midterms 40 republicans got shellacked.

despite the red wave never materialized. >> i guess that's the difference between this and previous impeachments. it was a genuine mystery what was going to happen with bill clinton because there were ahgrh him for the affair and lying about the affair. for republicaichard nixon it to republicans turning on richard nixon. you now have lev parnas saying he had breakfast with donald trump. and then the evidence turns up to back him up. he has his calendar, which says breakfast with trump at 12:00 to 1:00 p.m., then you go to trump's schedule at that time and it shows that donald trump was, in fact, headed to a restaurant and event space here in new york having, you know, gotten there between 10:00 and 11:00, so the time is slightly different but he did have breakfast in new york. you have evidence on the table, jill, but that is not seem to be

what scares these republicans. it seems to be the optics of in any way stepping away from trump. >> it does. and evidence and facts matter. that's what we have to hope for. that's what today's jill's pin is, stop closing your ears and eyes to the facts. we have to get out the evidence. and it is very frequent that new evidence is presented in a trial. so there is nothing wrong with saying that lev parnas should testify. there's nothing wrong with introducing all the documents that are now publically available and the american people are going to be outraged if the senate closes its eyes and ears to these facts. because they are real. and that's what matters in a trial, ultimately, are the facts. and i still remain an eternal optimist that there will be some republican senators who will say, these facts are really appalling. they really show what the president did, that he act d

against our national interest and he should be convicted. >> can you imagine republicans being able to get away with doing a trial without these witnesses that are obvious that rachel maddow brought forward just in that interview? >> you're seeing the republicans are getting so desperate they realize they might have to call witnesses. they're trying to find ways to scare the democrats in other ways. i think to curt's point about how this is really a knife fight. the democrats cannot be scared so when ted cruz and rand paul threaten, if you call john bolton then we're calling hunter biden. then hunter biden can take one for the team. call hunter biden, joe biden, ray ray biden. at the end of the day i want

bullt po bolton and mick mulvaney. and bidens did nothing wrong. we're trying to diffuse a bomb in our country and john bolton and mick mulvaney have part of the answers. i'm willing to sacrifice what i have to sacrifice to get them in the chair. >> would you agree, you have bolton, pence, mulvaney, pompeo, hard to get through the trial without speaking? >> one thing true of the american public is they get that a trial means witnesses and it's hard to explain to the american public no matter what the public thinks -- that's why we're seeing 37% of independents and 39% of republicans agreeing that there should be witnesses. and that should be a problem, particularly for senators who are in close races. i would say to elly's point, i'd actually say give them nancy pelosi and adam schiff.

they want the witnesses for the prosecution, let them have them. i would pay money for adam schiff to be a witness so he could better elevate the arguments that the house managers are bringing, based on the evidence he's seeing. >> i'm not a lawyer, i can tell you what i know. they think they want adam schiff to testify. they don't want adam schiff to testify. adam schiff would be the worst thing that could have happened to the republican party. put him on the stand, do it. you're living in the post oj trial world. americans know what a trial is supposed to look like. okay. yes, i agree with all of you on that. great panel. thank you guys very much. up next the absolutely bonkers, banana-rama developments of the trump world's efforts to oust marie yovanovitch. (mom) were you planning on mowing the lawn today?

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around 1:00 in the morning, she called me again and she said that there were great concerns, there were concerns up the street, and she said i needed to get -- come home immediately. get on the next plane to the u.s. and i asked her why. and she said she wasn't sure, but there were concerns about my security. i asked her, my physical

security? because sometimes washington knows more than we do about these things. and she said, no, she hasn't gotten that impression that it was a physical security issue but they were concerned about my security and i needed to come home right away. >> back in november former ambassador to ukraine, marie yovanovitch, revealed there were unspecified questions about her personal safety at the end of her tenure in kiev. now because of the damming evidence released by lev parnas we have a better understanding of why. according to the evidence released, what's app messages from robert hyde that implied that yovanovitch was being surveilled. quote, they are moving her tomorrow and she's next to the embassy. new text messages released last night. suggested hyde, this wannabe congressman, was passing information on he received from another trump supporter about yovanovitch's whereabouts. since this has come to light,

ukraine has opened an investigation. and now secretary of state mike pompeo has finally agreed to have his department investigate too. joining me is michael mcfaul, former ambassador to russia. these messages from hyde to parnas, one of those messages was, they are willing to help us if we, you would like to have a price. guess you can do anything in ukraine if you have the money is what i was told. when you read that and combine that with trump saying that marie yovanovitch was going to go through some things, does that sound like a threat to you? >> it sounds very threatening. we don't know if it's real, we don't know if this guy was some drunk at the bar, right, obviously. but that language is very threatening. people are assassinated in ukraine. i had friends of mine killed there. you can get things done for a price. i'm glad you played that clip, joy, because i think a lot of

americans forgot about just how i remember listening to it, i've known ambassador yovanovitch for three decades now, she's a colleague and friend of mine. when she said that, it was really jarring at the time, but it didn't make any sense, right. security, she says, what threats are not physical security threats? now we have more context to it, and, of course, it needs to be investigated. >> does it make sense to you why it seemed that, you know, the whole crew of giuliani -- trump's whole crew he had operating in ukraine, trump could have just fired her. why not just fire her if he was displeased with her? he had the power to do it. why or t why torment her? >> i don't know. it's reprehensible activities. maybe they needed further excuse. remember we learned they thought they fired her many times and it seems there must have been a struggle between president trump

seeking to fire ambassador yovanovitch and the state department was rightly saying, hey, what's the cause? so maybe there were having another cause about some physical threat to her that she had to get home right away. again, there's still lots of dots that are not connected here. wouldn't it be great if secretary pompeo testified and told us what went down there. there's another piece that's important here. it was always mysterious in the impeachment trial in the house why yovanovitch had to be removed. >> yeah. >> at least it was for me. now it's crystal clear. it was yuri lutsenko making that demand a quid pro quo because yovanovitch was so critical of the way he was operating in the prosecutor general's office. and lutsenko, remember, was hoping to stay on after the election of president zelensky.

remember he was appointed by pa pereshenko not zelensky. he needed to get her out of the way to keep his job. now we know that was the quid pro quo, i won't investigate the bidens unless you remove yovanovitch. by the way, the trump administration did remove yovanovitch. so one of their arguments about military assistance, nothing happened, it was a few weeks. well, in this quid pro quo they did take that action, which was not in the interest of the united states. >> the president claimed he did not know lev parnas, never met him. did not know about surveillance. you have the robert hyde character, congress wannabe, supposedly involved in the surveillance saying parnas and other people involved with him were conmen and scum bags. everybody is denying everything. is it possible that the secretary of state was unaware what was happening to his ambassador in the state

department and who was involved? >> well, what underlines how he must have known is the clip you just played. you know, when i was a u.s. ambassador in russia, i had to deal with physical threats to me, including death threats. these are difficult, horrible times and happened, by the way, my first year in moscow was the year that ambassador stevens was killed. we were on high alert about any kinds of threats against any ambassadors. and in the clip you just played, they used the word, your security is at risk. so if the secretary of state did not know about that, he wasn't doing his job properly, but that came from the state department. and the question, of course, is what was the security threat they were talking about that was so scary, so immediate that foggy bottom, the state department back in washington was saying ambassador yovanovitch you need to get on the next plane now. that sounds like an imminent threat and maybe this is tied to

it. we need to connect those dots. we need to know what the threat was. >> mike pompeo should testify in the senate trial, i think that would be helpful. ambassador michael mcfaul, thank you very much. appreciate your time. coming up, he said/she said, what's behind the latest show down between elizabeth warren and bernie sanders. w down between elizabeth warren and bernie sanders when you shop with wayfair, you spend less and get way more. 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,

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who controls the present controls the past. that famous line from george orwell's '1984" could describe this story from the "the washington post." it made original alterations to this crowd at the 2017's women's march. signs referencing women's anatomy were blurred, as well as some signs that were critical of trump. what a weird story as the resistance continues today with women's marches being held in several cities across the country. though the numbers may be smaller than in 2017 we hope

their role in the trump era will be recorded properly and correctly in history. more "a.m. joy" after the break. y more "a.m. joy" after the break.

have you spoken to senator warren since the debate? have you resolved anything? >> no, we haven't spoken. >> have you spoken to senator sanders since the debate? >> i don't have anything else to say on this had. i have said all i'm going to say on this. you can keep asking the question

but i'm not making an additional comment. the pact between bernie sanders and larn endelizabeth w ended in a big way this week when warren's campaign said sanders' volunteers were making warren into an e llite cyst. and then elizabeth warren said bernie sanders said a woman couldn't be elected at all. and sanders denied it on tv during the debate. while warren was cool about it on air, she let sanders have it on an open microphone. >> i think you called me a liar on national tv. >> let's not do it right now. you want to have that discussion, we'll have the

discussion. you told me -- all right. let's not do it right now. >> okay. and then there's one more aspect to this mini war. sanders supporters have used a tactic in calling warren a liar and bad friend for telling her side of the women can't win story besieging warren and her supporters on twitter with snake emojis. joining me now is brittany pack cunningham, cofounder of campaign zero. during the obama administration brittany was appointed to the ferguson commission and president obama's task force on 21st century policing. also janine driver and erin haynes. thank you all for being here. this is a great panel to talk about this. i'm going to start with you janine, i know you do a lot of

public speaking that has to do with kind of women operating in the work place. >> yes. >> when i saw the both on -- during the debate, warren was cool about it, she's like bernie is my friend i'm not getting into it, after ward she rolled up on him, we're not going to handshake, you called me a liar. that's feels to me how women have to operate in the working environment. >> most of us want to deal with it afterwards instead of going for it. the fact that elizabeth warren came forward, scared her body, she said i think you called me a liar on national tv you go back to all the political arm get ags when it comes to deception, no one calls someone a liar like this and she said, wait did you call me a liar. this is indicative of someone that is telling the truth. if she was lying it's unlikely she would confront him in that

moment. >> the story story was ability a multiple tiered break down in the nonaggression pact between these two. at some point they had to fight it out, that's politics. but the way this alliance has broken down, has it surprised you the way that it -- how quickly it's happened and how harshly it's happened? >> good morning, joy. i mean, look the gloves are off with 16 days to go until the iowa caucuses. and i think, you know, it's interesting that the conversation has shifted to gender now that really the formidable candidates of color are really out of the race. look, we are getting down to the wire here with primary voting about to get underway. and these campaigns are looking to differentiate themselves and better or worse, gender is a way to do that in this country. >> brittany, you know that is a good point. it reminds me of the fact that one of the challenges hillary clinton had, when i would go around the country and talk to

women, particularly younger, white women, there wasn't an urgency that we needed a woman president, and same for black voters who were here nor there on kamala harris until she was out. is that what we're seeing, maybe not just gender members? >> i think we're seeing that. and we're seeing this electability conversation is turning into a self fulfilling prophesy. when people start that conversation i hear them doing one of two things, masking their own bias, and they're worried someone won't vote for a person of color or woman or they're unintentionally or intentionally validating the worst biases in our society, the idea that a woman can't win, a person of color can't win are things we

ingest all the time. so that electability conversation can actually really start to infuse all of our thinking if we're not really careful. >> the thing about the -- this dust up between the two of them is that scandals hurt you more when they seem plausible. bernie sanders does have a sort of physicality, you know, when he talks. a shaking your finger at hillary clinton, shaking your finger, sho shove-y weird-y. his physicality could be, yeah -- >> first of all, i think bernie is lying. he slouches forward anyway, but here he turtles. if you look at his eye level, when he makes the denial, his shoulders come um like a little kid getting caught. this is trying to hide in plain sight and many of us don't know what to look for. if you look for this out of the gate. the strongest denial is saying no. women in particular i think we

want to believe human beings. he literally said, well, as a matter of fact i didn't say it. that's nine words, unnecessary. did you vote for donald trump in the last election? >> absolutely no. >> did you dress up as an easter bunny on easter? >> absolutely no. >> absolutely is not the stronger denial. you're playing with me here. at least you're getting the know. and bernie has numerous hot spots lie yars like to say well, and laugh. we're focussed on the laughter and it's supposed to send a message it isn't serious. it is serious. if he said it, which i believe he did, he would have been better to own it. barack obama wrote a book years ago, he tried cocaine and marijuana and never touched the stuff again. we never talked about it when he was president after that. >> he did the opposite.

with the two of them on stage, with the cnn moderators pushing them to fight it out, that's what everyone was expecting, it was sanders who said, i didn't say that. he put her on the spot. it was the moderator who then turned around and said to senator warren, well, when he said that to you, just sort of ignoring what he did. what do you make of the fact he chose that moment, basically, to call her a liar? >> i don't know exactly what happened in that meeting. but i do know i have felt and experienced that very same moment that we watched elizabeth warren experience where you hear somebody articulate a moment, memory, experience, very differently than how you experienced it. you give them that look like she gave him and later on you're clasping your hands because you're so deeply frustrated that this is a conversation you have to have. the truth of the matter is, for marginalized people, women, people of color, there is no winning here.

you are losing by carrying the additional cognitive burden of not speaking on it or you're losing because you're going to be called a snake when you do speak on it. there's no upside for elizabeth warren here. i'm sure she wishes she could have avoided it. >> the snake emojis, that was jarring to see happen at all. any evidence that the way this played out is helping or hurting either one in particular? >> i think that remains to be seen. i think looking ahead to the caucuses we may see how it does play out. but i think this is an important conversation to have because bernie sanders is not the only voter in america raising this issue. i heard it myself on the campaign trail. the fact is in 2020 women and candidates of color are still running campaigns of belief. senator warren brought up something that both she and amy klobuchar have talked about on the debate stage and the campaign trail which is that neither one of them had lost a

race, neither had kamala harris by the way. really as you mentioned, remarking the women's march this we could, the anniversary of the 19th amendment, the 100th anniversary this week. the fact that our political imaginations are not expanded necessarily to think about whether women can win the highest and best offices in the land is really an open question. >> it is extraordinary, the day of the women's march anniversary we're still asking whether a woman can be elected president and people are doubting it still. even some women. that's really depressing. brittany, welcome to the msnbc family. janine and erin, thank you, thank you. more "a.m. joy" next. , thank you. more "a.m. joy" next ♪ all around the wind blows ♪ we would only hold on to let go ♪ ♪ blow a kiss into the sun ♪ we need someone to lean on ♪ blow a kiss into the sun

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florida's republican governor ron desantis has been dodging reporters all week after he was named as someone with whom lev parnas exchanged taeex messages. leave and igor furman were indicted for funneling funds during elections.

once parnas and fruman were arrested desantis returned their donation. he's been insisting ever since he doesn't know lev parnas like. although picture after picture proves otherwise. including this picture released last night. joining me is the political editor for the tampa bay times. i'm glad you're here, steve. for a lot of people this story about all that was happening in ukraine is a new york ukraine story but it's also a florida story. these guys live in florida, operate out of florida. what have you been able to find about the relationship between lev parnas and igor fruman and ron desantis. >> the governor and lev parnas were introduced in may at a

pro-israel event. we don't know how or who introduced them. i tried to ask him that question. but over the next several months they had several run ins over the course of his campaign for governor. there was fund-raisers in the final days before the election, parnas and fruman were seen at several campaign events with rudy giuliani. and then, on the night of his victory they were there and governor desantis hugged them both. we had a photographer at the event. we went through our archives and found a series of photos of him hugging both of these men and then later found out they were vips at his inauguration. the governor says he knows parnas, barely knows fruman at all. there's a lot of questions we don't know and the governor won't answer them, including why

there were text messages between him and parnas that were included in documents turned over to impeachment investigators, according to "the wall street journal". >> they clearly knew and were hugging the current governor of florida. they're pictured with pam bondi, the attorney general of florida. they seem to know donald trump, his kids, his son-in-law, on and on and on, have you in your political reporting history known of anyone in that position to be taking pictures with people at vvip parties and with top officials in the state of florida and not know any of these people? just wind up in pictures with them? >> that's a good question. i think we've seen in the social media era a lot of people trying to get selfies with -- they get access to these events and then they want a picture and use these photos to sort of portray themselves as powerful people or connected to powerful people. the woman who was arrested, cindy yang, the woman at

mar-a-lago who penetrated there, she had a very similar story as well. so there are sort of ways these unsavory sort of unknown figures can get access to politicians by making donations. the difference here is we know that governor ron desantis had several personal meetings with the individuals, had met them, had them at campaign events and they were vips at his inauguration. there was a memo i reported on several months ago, the night before his inauguration they were added as vips at this event. the governor's office said he didn't know they were added. but there was someone within his organization who specifically added them. >> very quickly, is there any evidence that some of this foreign money funneled into american elections is the money funneled to the current governor, ron desantis, by mr. parnas? >> we don't know. it's funny, the indictment includes allegations out of

nevada and also texas, but for all the money thrown around in florida by these guys, they also gave to rick scott, gave to a congressman, there are no allegations in the indictment related to florida. but we do know there was an insinuation of a multi-state marijuana scheme that included nevada and there are some reports that they may have tried to penetrate in florida as well. as for the source of their money and any sort of wrong doing, there hasn't -- there's not any allegations thus far. >> we hate to do the what would have, i wonder in andrew gillum won a narrow race in florida and then was tied to somebody like this, i wonder how it would have gone to him. because ron desantis, other than your reporting, has pretty much skated by the thank you for being with us. more "a.m. joy" after the break. more "a.m. joy" after the break.

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simple. easy. awesome. call, click or visit a store today. that is our show for today, "a.m. joy" will be back tomorrow. alex witt has the latest. it's a huge news day again. what happened to the weekend when they used to be normal? >> i don't know. when we could chat about fun things. not any longer. big news day. >> yes. >> thank you for the set up, i'll see you tomorrow. high noon here in the east, 9:00 a.m. in the west. welcome to weekends with alex witt. new deadlines on the hill ahead

of the president's impeachment trial and fresh revelations about his made-for-tv legal team. more bombshell documents and pictures again from lev parnas. loud and clear why women are hitting the streets in if cities across this country. sharing their stories, why a prominent congresswoman and the wife on a presidential candidate are coming forward. we begin with uncertainty on capitol hill today after house democrats dump another round of documents provided by lev parnas, the associate of rudy giuliani who has been indicted, accused of breaking campaign finance law and arrested this fall at a washington airport with a one-way ticket out of the country. this appears to tie devin nunes more closely to ukraine and gives more evidence to support the idea that former ambassador marie yovanovitch was under surveillance. all this as the senate plans to continue the impeachment trial on tuesday. here's a report from k