anyway, i could go on and on. i'm going to have so many chances tomorrow with our coverage. you can catch us tomorrow. you can catch brian, myself, the whole msnbc team coveraging the nevada caucuses. 2:00 p.m. eastern tomorrow we go on the air. good night from nbc news headquarters in new york. it is friday, which is awesome. that said, it is a friday during the democratic primary and the nevada caucuses are tomorrow on saturday. so if you are at all a political animal the way most all of us are having to become these days, even though it's friday this upcoming weekend doesn't really feel like a typical weekend, right? i mean, it is friday but tonight friday night as we speak, as you've been seeing all night long in our coverage here on msnbc, this is, you know, the down to the wire last chance for all the democratic candidates to finish strong in their get out the vote efforts and in their

campaigning before tomorrow's caucuses. all eyes on nevada tomorrow both for the ultimate results to see if the polling front-runner bernie sanders can make it three in a row or maybe 2 1/2 in a row after he shared first place with pete buttigieg in iowa. but beyond just the top line result, in addition the whole country is going to be watching to see what the turnout is in nevada because that is a key measure of democratic enthusiasm. turnout was sort of meh in iowa. it was pretty good in new hampshire. heading into nevada, the early vote turnout in nevada, those numbers were really, really good. we'll see if that ends up getting matched by big turnout tomorrow as well on caucus day. the caucuses themselves begin at 10:00 a.m. local time in nevada. and in addition to all of those things, because the iowa caucuses were such a logistical pig pile this year, such a mess, this is the first caucuses since then, and we're going to be watching to see how well the nevada democratic party does in terms of how well they can pull

off the logistics of hosting all of their caucuses tomorrow. the party in nevada appears to be absolutely dedicated to making sure that what happened in iowa doesn't happen tomorrow in nevada. but they also said a couple of days ago that they can't guarantee that tomorrow's results will actually be released tomorrow. so we shall see. and, you know, as the news proceeds, as the nevada caucuses get ready to start tomorrow morning, there was a curveball thrown into the late campaign by this front-page story in "the washington post" tonight. you see the headline there. "sanders briefed by u.s. officials that russia is trying to help his campaign." this, of course, comes on the heels of the news from "the new york times" yesterday that multiple u.s. intelligence agencies have concluded that russia is running yet another intelligence operation to try to target the 2020 election, the same way they did in 2016 to try to benefit president trump. the pro-trump effort from russia

in 2016 at times appeared to be driven as much by russia's hostility toward hillary clinton as it did by russia's positive preference for trump. so when the indictment of various russian entities for carrying out that operation and when the senate intelligence report into the russian attack both came out and documented in really granular detail how that russian operation worked in 2016, both of those -- both of those documents, both the indictment of the russians and the senate intelligence committee report on what the russians did, both of those also documented how the russians did in 2016 boost bernie sanders alongside president trump. and it sort of made sense, right, tactically. if the russians were trying to make sure that hillary clinton was not elected president, or if she was elected, that she would be in as weak a position as possible as president. i mean tactically it makes sense that they would want to support her primary opponent, senator sanders. they'd also want to stoke

resentment among sanders supporters after clinton got the nomination so as to deny her the strategic advantage of party unity, to deny her as many sanders votes as possible in the general election. it makes sense that the russians did that in 2016 to the extent they were motivated by just trying to undercut clinton. and of course they tried to promote her general election opponent directly, trump as well. in 2020 there's no hillary clinton running, and without getting too deep into what it is that russia might love about donald trump as president, i mean there isn't a hillary clinton factor that helps us understand what the russian motivation might be this time in them continuing their efforts to boost senator sanders' campaign. but this is -- i mean this is different than russia boosting trump, right? i mean when russia boosted trump, trump became aware of it at least at the time that we all

did, and he was positive about it. he kept promoting his positive things to say about vladimir putin and about russia in general. you know, russia, if you're listening, here's a thing i'd like you to do for me. denying that russia had any culpability in what was going on, trying to cover up for the fact that they were doing. donald trump overtly and positively engaged with what russia was doing on his behalf in 2016. russia also benefited -- russia also intervened to benefit senator sanders in 2016, but he did none of the things that donald trump did to try to capitalize on it and encourage it and work in a way that was cope stettic with their efforts. this time we do not have the benefit of a special counsel's investigation and that speaking indictment that they did for the russian entities that they charged in 2016. we don't have the benefit of the multi-year bipartisan senate intelligence review of russian actions in order to figure out why exactly they're trying to boost senator sanders alongside donald trump again in 2020. but we do have the benefit of

hindsight in terms of how this all played out in 2016. and to senator sanders' credit today, he responded to this headline in "the post," this story in "the post" by releasing a blunt statement that frankly felt like cold water on a hot day. senator sanders saying in response to this news today, quote, my message to putin is clear. stay out of american elections, and as president, i will make sure that you do. the reason that feels new, the reason you don't remember the trump campaign ever saying anything like that in 2016 or this year in 2020, as russia has been intervening again to try to boost trump's chances, is because no such statement was ever issued by donald trump or the trump campaign to tell russia to back off and get out of our elections. indeed, when president trump learned that multiple u.s. intelligence agencies have once again concluded that russia is trying to mess in our elections to get him elected again, his reaction this week was not to get mad at russia for them doing that or to even try to brush

them back in any way. quite the opposite. the president's reaction this week was to fire the director of national intelligence because u.s. intelligence agencies came to that conclusion and because they told congress that that's what russia is doing. the problem according to president trump is not what russia's doing. it's that the intelligence community is monitoring it and letting us know and letting our elected officials know that this is what russia is doing. the intelligence community is the problem. that's where the -- that's where the somebody needs to be fired. what russia's doing, no reason to complain. so we're going to talk a little bit later on with a senior member of the intelligence committee about what this means for the u.s. stance towards russia as russia mounts this operation. if the president is firing the intelligence chief simply for the crime of american intelligence agencies figuring out what russia is doing to benefit trump again, what does that opinion for the elements of the u.s. government, including the military and our intelligence agencies, who are

tasked with protecting us from foreign attacks like this? i mean is president trump effectively issuing a stand-down order to the u.s. government that this 2020 foreign attack on our democracy has to be allowed, that u.s. intelligence agencies, the u.s. military, the people charged with repelling an attack like this, they can't talk about it. he fired the director of national intelligence for warning other elements of the government about it this past week. does that also mean that we are not allowed to do anything to stop it? i mean let's say the national security agency or cyber command or the cia or the defense intelligence agency has a way to block what russia is doing to try to re-elect trump. what if elements of the military or the intelligence community have offensive capacity and defensive capacity to block russia from making this intervention in our election? is trump ordering them not to do it? if they do take action to block

what russia's doing, are the national security officials who run those agencies going to get fired for protecting the country? i mean i wish that were a hyperbolic question, but he did just fire the director of national intelligence for concluding that russia was trying to help him and telling other parts of the government. i mean i wish this was a crazy hypothetical designed to prove a point, but i mean it literally. is the president effectively issuing a stand-down order to the u.s. military and u.s. intelligence agencies to not protect us from this attack from a foreign antagonist? i mean just the events of this past week or so are so extreme in terms of where we might have ever imagined our democracy would slide to in our lifetimes. i mean here's just one little example. peter baker, veteran "new york times" white house correspondent. you see him a lot on "the 11th hour" with brian williams. peter baker, you recognize him. longtime "new york times" hand. he has circulated a reminder

from something that he wrote about in a book a bunch of years ago called "days of fire." it's a big, 800-page overview of the bush/cheney administration and what things were like in the bush/cheney white house. one of the things peter baker wrote in that book that he has recently reminded us he wrote about, was something that happened right after barack obama was elected to be the next president of the united states. it was just before christmastime in the presidential transition. george w. bushes folks were leaving office. the obama folks were about to come in. on the 23rd of december of that year, 2008, president bush released a list of people who he wanted to pardon or commute their sentences. it was a christmas pardon list. but then a remarkable thing happened. after george w. bush announced that list of pardons, a press release went out. people who were getting the pardons and commutations were notified. formal paperwork got processes. it was going to all the right lawyers' offices that you need to have do these things.

that goes out on december 23rd. on december 24th, the very next day after all these pardons had been announced and they'd all been set in motion, president george w. bush took one of his pardons back, which is not something that seemed to have ever happened before then, and i don't think it's ever happened since. this was the headline in "the new york times" that day. quote, "pardon lasts one day for man in fraud case." quote, president bush changed his mind on christmas eve, pulling back a pardon he had extended a day earlier to a brooklyn developer at the center of a real estate fraud case, adding a bizarre twist to the episode. the developer, isaac toussie, was listed yesterday as one of the beneficiaries of the president's constitutional power to wipe away criminal records. but he is not being pardoned after all. quote, based on information that was subsequently come to light, the white house said late today. the terse white house statement did not elaborate. but officials familiar with the

case said presidential aides and perhaps president bush himself became concerned about appearances when they learned that mr. toussie's father had donated to the republican party last april. the 23rd they announced the pardon. the 24th they're like, oh, no, we didn't mean to announce that one. we're taking it back. the next day, christmas day, and "the times" had another follow-up story, this time with a more detailed message from the white house spokesperson at the time saying, quote, given that no one advising the president knew of the donation by toussie's father and because of the possibility of an appearance of impropriety, the counsel to the president withdrew his recommendation for this pardon. now, it turns out in the big picture, there were other things wrong with this guy getting a pardon. he had another criminal case pending against him. we were also in the middle of the catastrophic housing meltdown of the 2008 financial crash. this guy's crimes were directly

related to people getting cheated out of their housing, all of the stuff that was at the center of the crisis. clearly there was something wrong with the pardon process, the vetting process, that only after the pardon was issued did the president and his staff find out that this guy's dad had been giving tens of thousands of dollars to the republican parties just a few months before. whether or not they would have factored that into their decision, that's an unwelcome surprise after you've already given the pardon out. but just, i mean, look at this from a long lens, right if think about how far we have come. this little mini scandal on christmas 2008, not that long ago. this is 11 1/2 years ago. and the george w. bush administration was not like that ethical. the bush/cheney white house, their days of fire, which is the title of the peter baker book, a lot of that fire was self-inflicted because they did have a lot of ethical scandals in that administration. but even for them, even while george w. bush was already on his way out of office, they were so stunned and horrified by the appearance that this brooklyn

real estate developer might have gotten a pardon because of a political donation from his dad that they literally clawed it back. the white house chief of staff sent the deputy white house counsel, on christmas, to go sit on the doorstep of the pardon attorney to grab this guy's pardon paperwork out of the out box on the pardon attorney's desk so it wouldn't technically go out so they could claw it back. this is from peter baker's book. quote, figure out some way to undo this. quote, find out when a pardon is effective. has the president signed the orders? yes. have they been notified? yes. have we announced it? yes. josh bolten told the deputy counsel to research the matter. the lawyer came back and said the pardon would not be effective until it was delivered to the recipient. well, where is it, he asked? quote, it's in the pardon attorney's office. he's gone home for the weekend. okay. you call him up. you meet him as early as he's willing to come in on saturday

office. you don't let anybody in or out until you retrieve that pardon grant. deputy white house counsel then goes to the justice department and does as he's told. he physically retrieves the pardon. he door stops the guy and won't let anybody in the office until he can get that piece of paper and get out of there with it. the justice department lawyer who handed him those documents that day told him, according to peter baker's book, quote, this is a good decision because i don't know if anybody could survive this. yeah. i don't know if any president could survive the disastrous ethical scandal of being perceived to have given a pardon to somebody who they didn't even know the guy's dad had given $28,000 a few months earlier to the republican party. that used to be how we felt about presidential corruption not that long ago, again, in an administration that was not awesome and had lots of its own problems. how far we've come. this week president trump issued

his own list of pardons and commutations including one to a man whose family started making huge political donations to president trump's re-election campaign and to the rnc in recent months. once they started seeking a pardon for one of their family members. they'd never given before, but the family dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars on the president's re-election campaign and the rnc. and wouldn't you know it? bingo, the guy gets his pardon. president trump also attended the richest fund-raiser of his entire re-election effort that past weekend. he raised $10 million in one night, the most expensive fund-raiser of his re-election campaign. a typical high-dollar fund-raiser is like $50,000 a couple. this was over $500,000 a couple. the fund-raiser was held at the home of a billionaire named nelson peltz. how did nelson peltz become a billionaire? he made a lot of his money thanks to a convicted felon named michael milken, a financier for was indicted for

security frauds in 1989, banned from trading for life and ultimately sentenced to ten years in prison. so the fund-raiser was held by this billionaire. the fund-raiser was hosted by this billionaire, who made all his money with michael milken. that was saturday night. on tuesday, president trump announced that he was pardoning michael milken, and he explicitly said in the pardon announcement that the reason he was doing so is because this guy who just hosted the most expensive fund-raiser for his re-election campaign had asked him to please pardon michael milken because, again, michael milken is how he made all his money, and he just set up donald trump with millions of dollars for his re-election campaign. literally three nights before the pardon. and i know that a lot of stuff has happened this week and there were other people on the list of pardons and commutations who deserved their own afterschool special in terms of their wild corruption, you know, the wild corruption of their crimes and the wild corruption of their being pardoned by this president

and the way he did it. but just think about that moment in 2008 that peter baker documented in his book. just think about how far we have slid down the slippery slope of the mountain in just a handful of years, right? from the desperate christmas eve all hands on deck, freak out, take it back panic moment in the george w. bush administration where they door stopped the pardon attorney and took the thing off the guy's desk because they were so worried they might look like they were doing a pardon in exchange for a donation. to now, the full-blown advertisement that, yeah, we're giving you the pardon because of the money you gave us, because you're a donor or because your friends are donors and they asked after they gave us the money. i mean it's -- it's not like something they're trying to hide. this is what they're advertising they're doing. one of the prosecutors in the michael milken case actually wrote an op-ed about the milken pardon this week in which he described the listing of the campaign donors as the sponsors

of specific pardons as, quote, as guileless an admission i have ever seen of rich man's justice. so i feel like, you know, where we got this week between the new hampshire primary and the nevada caucuses tomorrow, as the intelligence community lets us know that russia is trying to elect him again and the president fired the head of the intelligence community for saying so, as the president told the justice department overtly they needed to let his friend off the hook despite his seven felony convictions and the attorney general tried to make it so. i mean as all of this stuff poured down on this week, i feel like at the very least, i think it calls -- actually, i think it calls for a lot from us as citizens. but if it calls for one little thing, it calls for us as a country, it calls for us as citizens to grow up and get real in one very specific way, which is that we need to stop talking about threats to the rule of law

or the appearance of impropriety or concerns about the compromise of our democratic foundations or suspicions that our small "d" democratic constitutional protections might be undermined or our foundations might potentially be eroding. i mean we need to stop pretending like this is christmas 2008 and there are concerns about whether anybody knew about the real estate fraud guy's dad making the donation. this is not that time anymore. this is not that country anymore. this is not the same government. this is not even the same bad government, right? this is not the fear of the appearance of potential impropriety. what we have now is the advertisement, the broadcast, the insistence of impropriety without consequence. do you want a presidential pardon? you need connections to me for that. you need to make donations to me or otherwise be recognized as a trump supporter or somebody who is connected to people who matter to me. that's how you get a pardon. there's no other process other than that. this is not a behind the scenes dynamic that they're ashamed of and trying to cover up.

this is out loud, on purpose, so as to attract more donations and more ostentatious displays of loyalty. it's designed to make everybody think twice about displaying any visible opposition to this president as well. i mean people who are against him get the law. people who are his friends or can help him out, merry christmas. and that is the thread that is tying this all together, right? this out loud, unabashed, braying broadcast of it all, and it's being enforced at all levels of the government on all levers of power within the government. in the justice department, if you are a trump ally or you were involved in his campaign or you have helped cover up bad behavior by the president that may have helped get him into office, the president will loudly insist that your prosecution is a witch hunt and that he will protect you. if you're a member of a jury, a private citizen who gets called to jury duty and your jury votes to convict somebody who the president has decided to protect, well you, as a private

citizen, you as somebody who will sit on a jury, you'll end up villain of the week on fox news. think about that when you go into your jury deliberations. if you're a judge overseeing a case that touches on president's interests or implications of the president's own criminal or otherwise bad behavior, judge, you're about to get famous too. you'll be attacked on fox news. you will be threatened to do what the president wants. think about that when you're deciding on your rulings, judge. if you're in law enforcement, if you're in the fbi or in the justice department and you end up somehow connected to an investigation of this president or his campaign or you've otherwise been witness to something he has done wrong, well, the weight of the justice department will be brought to bear on you. the president will insist on criminal charges against you, andrew mccabe, former fbi director. you, james comey, former fbi director. lisa page, peter strzok, bruce ohr, and any other official had

anything to do with investigation of the president's bad behavior. never mind you're in law enforcement, you're in the justice department, you will find your careers destroyed. maybe you'll end up being defendants too because he can make bill barr do that. watch. he'll say it publicly, and then bill barr will do it. i mean bill barr doesn't like the president talking about that out loud, but the president likes talking about that out loud because the threat, the promise is the point. and it applies everywhere. if you're in the military, same deal. lieutenant colonel vindman, not the whistle-blower, not somebody who went to the press. he's active duty military, decorated wounded combat veteran. he reported up the chain of command exactly as he was told to do when he saw something he believe needed to be reported up the chain of command. he testified in response to a lawful subpoena once and only once. he is frog marched outside of the white house along with his brother too, for good measure, who had nothing to do with it. the undersecretary of the defense for policy, john rood

fired this week. this is a very senior pentagon official. his crime was he was the official who certified that ukraine had met all its anti-corruption benchmarks and they should get their military aid. well, that doesn't match the white house line. that doesn't match the defense of the president. so undersecretary of defense john rood, you're fired too. even if the national security council, this week the deputy national security adviser was fired. there's so much else going on, it barely made a ripple, but this is a big deal job. you know ben rhodes from the obama administration, that's the job he had, deputy national security adviser. well, the trump deputy national security adviser was fired this week because she was falsely accused of being the person who wrote that anonymous op-ed that criticized president trump more than a year ago. by all accounts, it really seems to have not been her. she's not anonymous. and white house officials who won't put their name to the quote are telling reporters that the white house has not actually -- doesn't actually subscribe to the rumors that

it's her. but nevertheless, the suspicion that it might be her, that was enough this week to get her fired as deputy national security adviser. she now works in the energy department as an adviser instead. how nice. but think about that message. they don't believe it was her, but the suspicion is enough. it's not enough that you can't ever criticize the president or, you know, notice that he's done something wrong in the course of your duties. you can't even fall under suspicion of seeming like the kind of person who might criticize the president. that's enough to get you fired even if you didn't actually criticize him. also do you have a sister or brother? if so, they'll be fired too presumably. look at them. they kind of look like you. and now of course it's the intelligence community as well. the president is not mad apparently at the intelligence community's assessment that russia is intervening in this next election again to try to re-elect him. at least he's not mad at russia about it. he's mad at the intelligence community about it. he's mad at the intelligence community for warning other

elements of the government about the fact that it is happening. the director of national intelligence really was just fired this week because somebody in his office had the temerity to tell congress what russia is doing this time to get him elected again. the principal deputy to the director of national intelligence, a 30-year cia veteran, also ousted. i don't know if you've ever met anybody or if you know anybody who works in u.s. intelligence in any capacity, but think about what their jobs are like today. the president has just broadcast out loud, not hinting, no implications here, no worries, no qualms, right? there's no hiding it. the president has now broadcast here if you work in the u.s. intelligence community and you in the course of your job protecting this country discover an attack on our country, an attack on our democracy by a foreign adversary, you will be fired if you say that is what you have found. the director of national intelligence was just fired because u.s. intelligence agencies have found that and because someone in his office

warned congress. and again i think this turn of events just in the last week or so in our country calls on us as citizens to do any number of things. you tell me, right? these are very dark turns that this country has taken very quickly. if nothing else, literally what we can do at this point is stop talking about concerns, worries, the appearance of impropriety, the appearance of a conflict of interest, the appearance of improper political influence, concerns, distress, worries, right? i mean this is not a warning. the dark days are not coming. the dark days are here, and so those of us who have imagined times like this for our country, you know, who might have thought that the heroic thing for us to do as citizens if our country ever took these turns would be to sound the alarm, to articulate what's wrong with the direction our country is taking and to warn people about where

it's heading. for those of us who thought that would be the kind of heroism that was called for, we were wrong because at least now, that's no longer the form of heroism that we need. that time is past. these guys are not speaking around trying to get away with stuff, and the heroism is down to catching them and telling people what they're doing. they are proclaiming openly that the rules are gone. they will do what they want. the government will be turned against you if you stand against this president. that is not a warning. that is where we are. and so what do we do? hold that thought. (driver vo) when i started this commute, everyone said i was crazy. so fifteen years ago, i got my first subaru and i did it anyway. for more than five hundred thousand miles, my outback always got me there. so when it was time, of course i got a new one. because my kids still need me. and i need them. (vo) welcome to the all-new subaru outback.

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sir, is it your testimony before this committee that when you said you did not remember the president ever asking you to get involved with jeff sessions or the department of justice, you were saying you were being truthful? i'm sorry, i don't believe there's any reason to consult with your counsel. the special counsel has concluded that taken together the president's campaign, the purpose of the message was to

have you tell the attorney general to move forward with investigating election meddling for future elections. do you have any basis to dispute that conclusion by the special counsel in his report, sir, about your conduct? >> again, i've answered this question. asked and answered. >> i would ask you to answer it, sir. >> the gentleman will answer the question whether he's answered it before or not. >> i have stated to the best of my knowledge, most of the information in the mueller report is accurate. >> that was september, a few weeks before the impeachment investigation was opened into president trump's behavior toward ukraine. that was the special oversight counsel from the judiciary committee, a lawyer named barry berke cross-examining a very hostile witness in corey lewandowski. mr. lewandowsky had spent the whole first half of the hearing that day sneering at members of the committee, talking about how fake the whole russia hoax is. but by the end of his time being cross-examined by barry berke, he was admitting to his own lies

about what he did in the russia investigation, the fact that he pled the fifth and asked for immunity in order to testify against the president, and he also, as you saw, had to spit out this chewy little bit of gristle. >> to the best of my knowledge, most of the information in the mueller report is accurate. >> barry berke, the lawyer who conducted that cross-examination and extracted that from mr. lewandowsky, he joined the judiciary committee staff about a year ago. he ultimately served through the impeachment of president trump. this week mr. berke announced that he's going back to his old job as a lawyer in private practice. joining us now for his first interview is barry berke. mr. berke, it's a pleasure to meet you. >> great to meet you. thanks for having me. >> how was your year on the judiciary committee and how do you feel about it in terms of how things have gone since? >> you know, i feel great about it on many levels but you won't be surprised to hear not on every level. i feel great that through the

great work of the committee members, chairman nadler, the intelligence committee, the house managers, what we were able to do is expose the president's conduct, expose the pattern of conduct and predict exactly what's happening. now, while ultimately the jury of the senators did not do what we thought the facts and the constitution required, and that is to remove the president, a couple things happened. there's another jury, and that's the jury of the american people. they were able to see the facts. also the senators themselves, they went from saying this is a hoax. we agree the call is perfect as the president claimed, and nothing bad happened here, to having to admit the facts because the facts do matter, and they rise to the surface. so they had to admit that he did, in fact, leverage his powers in office to hold back vital military aid to a key ally, key to our security, in order to further his political interests by having them investigate a political rival. they had to admit that, and they had to say, but, he learned his lesson. he won't do it again. and i think it's so important

because we in our articles of impeachment in the house judiciary focused on two things in addition to the conduct. we focused on the pattern of wrongdoing. >> mm-hmm. >> and the risk of future harm, right? because if you look at the pattern, in the campaign as you've mentioned, he welcomed russian interference in the election. then when he is elected president, he used the power of the office to try to cover up and obstruct that investigation, including telling his white house counsel to lie about it and create false documents. then when he thought he finally got off and was not going to be held accountable after bob mueller testified, the next day he called the ukrainian president to pressure him to investigate his rival to interfere with the 2020 election. and then he proceeded to try to cover it up again. when i gave the opening statement in the house impeachment hearings, i said in support of what the committee was saying, that if the president was not held blthdable for this blatant disregard for all constitutional norms, the only limit to what he might do

next is our imagination. >> mm-hmm. >> then sure enough, right after the senate voted not to convict, they said he's learned his lesson, he won't do it again, he proceeds to again attack the rule of law and take action that you'd expect from a mob boss as opposed to the president of the united states, punishing people, telling people that if they reveal his misconduct, his future misconduct, they will be fired. they will be hauled off, telling people that if they report on russia's efforts to interfere and help him in the 2020 election, they will be taken out. they won't get positions. and then trying to help the people who cover it up. this is not sequel to a movie. this is one movie, right? because if you remember, roger stone, he was convicted for lying about the mueller investigation to congress. lying to say that he did not have these contacts to wikileaks. these were the same lies that the president said. the president said publicly he never talked to roger stone about wikileaks. he said it in written answers he didn't recall doing that to the special counsel. the president couldn't be prosecuted and go to jail. roger stone could.

so he's telling people if you help me, if you cover up now or in the future, i'll try to help you. dangling a pardon and other things. he did the same thing to paul manafort. >> when we see the behavior go from something the president is trying to cover up to something that he is braying about out loud to make it even more threatening, that's the sort of -- i feel like that's the sort of hill that we have started descending down since the end of the impeachment trial. i want to talk to you about the sort of -- the way our options change in that setting. we're going to take a quick break. we'll be right back with barry berke, who is special counsel to the judiciary committee until about five minutes ago. we'll be right back. [ applause ] thank you.

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we're back with barry berke, who was the special counsel to the house judiciary committee during the impeachment of president trump. thanks again for doing this. >> of course. >> since the impeachment trial ended and the senate voted to acquit the president, i feel like anything that the president might have been doing before that he tried to cover up, the difference is now he doesn't try to cover it up. he believes that no matter what he does, whatever he gets caught for, he's not going to get in trouble for it anyway, so why not be as out loud about it as possible. it's all the more threatening to anybody who might stand up against him, which feels disheartening in terms of the effect of the impeachment. how do you see that. >> well, i think you're absolutely right. what i'd like to think is we helped to both condition the american people to better understand what's happening and also we've taken it to a point where there's very little runway

left for his supporters to offer the same kind of excuses. we were at the point where we warned throughout in the judiciary hearings that we had when we passed and recommended the articles of impeachment through the house, through the senate trial, that there has to be action because otherwise the risk is too great of how the president will continue to put his personal and political interests over the interests of the country, its national security, the integrity of its elections and the things most dear to us that are sought to be protected by the constitution. we made that case again and again, and i think we presented the facts so clearly, the supporters' defenses were he learned his lesson. he won't do it again. >> yeah. >> if the president thinks his re-election is in the interest of the country, then he can do anything he wants. it's not so bad. so that's where we stand. now, when he continues to engage in this conduct and in many ways keeps getting worse when he's not held accountable. he can't be prosecuted for crimes while he's sitting as president under doj policy.

>> he's openly retaliated against witnesses who stood up to them, thus cowing anybody who might do so in the future. >> the hope is congress will continue to do the extraordinary job in does in conducting oversight, bringing to light the extent of the conduct and the american people will understand it. one of the things that's most odious about in is the president's cover-up is obstructing people from coming forward to talk about it. it makes it harder for people to hear about it. the people didn't want to hear don mcgahn, his white house counsel, tell the story is because then the america people could hear it with all its gory details, what it's like when your boss, the president comes into your office and says, you need to lie. you need to create a false document. you need to do it even though it's a crime. people would understand that. john bolton testified through fiona hill. john bolton told her i don't want to be part of whatever drug deal. the reference to drug deal could only mean one thing, something illegal. the president knows if bolton

comes in and tells it again, when he's there telling a story that's harmful to the president and what the president said to him, they know that's something the american people would understand and see as a story. so the challenge today is for everyone to keep working to get the facts out. how bad this conduct really was, how harmful and to see that it's not only continuing but it's getting worse every time the president is not held accountable, his conduct gets ratcheted up. we can only imagine what might happen if he gets re-elected after doing this and again continues to refuse to act to block the foreign interference we see happening before our eyes. >> and we have to have faith that exposing this and telling the story and making people understand what's happening is something that will engender a response. >> absolutely. >> barry berke, thank you so much for doing this interview and thanks for your service at the judiciary committee. we'll be right back. stay with us. timulate the nerves in your colon. miralax works with the water in your body to unblock your system naturally. and it doesn't cause bloating, cramping, gas, or sudden urgency. miralax. look for the pink cap.

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on the day of the midterm elections in 2018, the national security agency launched its only known offensive cyber operation against russia to date. the nsa knocked out the power at the russian troll farm that was known to have spread disinformation online to affect our elections in 2016. on the day of the 2018 midterms, they knocked out the power at that place in russia to stop russia from interfering in our elections that day. "the washington post" later reported that u.s. intelligence agencies have developed further offensive cyber capacities to target russian leadership if --

if moscow tried to meddle in our 2020 election as well. now we know that russia is trying to meddle in our 2020 election as well, interfering again to help donald trump. multiple u.s. intelligence agencies have concluded that and lawmakers have been briefed about it. the officials in our government who hold the plans for a counterattack against russia now face the question of whether or not they get to use those tactics, they get to use those capacities. i mean if in fact u.s. intelligence, u.s. military believes that russia is attacking us in this way again and the united states government has the capacity to stop it, to retaliate or to block it, will they be allowed to do so? i mean president trump himself has already declared that the intelligence community finding this about what russia is doing in 2020, he already is saying that's a hoax. he literally fired the director of national intelligence, joseph maguire, once somebody in maguire's office briefed congress about these findings. maguire's last day as dni was today. his deputy, andrew hallman, a

30-year veteran, was also shown the door. now one former official tells nbc tonight that the office of the director of national intelligence is, quote, nearing a meltdown. what does that mean for the intelligence officials and military officials in our government who are responsible for potentially deploying our own offensive capacities to counter russian efforts, to defend the u.s. election, to defend the american people? are they effectively ordered to stand down here? does that machinery still work as intended under circumstances like these? a member of the intelligence community joins us next. stay with us. so what are you working on? >>i'm searching for info on options trading, and look, it feels like i'm just wasting time. wasted time is wasted opportunity.

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joining us now is congressman jim himes, democrat of connecticut. thanks for being with us on a friday night. >> hi, rachel. >> the intelligence director is fired by the president apparently because u.s. intelligence agencies have figured out that russia is intervening in our election again and they told your committee so. number two man in the agency, a 30-year intelligence veteran also canned. don't even get me started with who they have replaced them with. but you've been on the intelligence committee for seven years now. how bad is this? >> it's pretty bad, and it didn't just start this week, right? of course the dismissal of dan coats, who was widely regarded as a guy who was fair, old-school republican, the dismissal or resignation of sue gordon, who was dan coats' deputy, probably one of the most respected figures in

intelligence. of course for whatever roinl, and i think we know the reason, didn't feel comfortable sticking around. so this is pretty bad. if there's a silver lining here, rachel, it is that the director of national intelligence sits atop the intelligence community, but the real action happens within cia, happens within nsa, and inside those organizations you have literally thousands of people who could be doing other things, making a lot more money than doing what they do. these are patriots. these are people like marie yovanovitch. these are people like lieutenant colonel vindman, who are really at the controls. and so when you have an ambassador grenell, you know, who has zero intelligence community experience and his main qualification is his dogged loyalty to the president, there's not a lot that individual can do without the assistance of some very patriotic people who live in the hierarchy below somebody like that. >> one of the things that is, i

think, a little bit hard to grasp for those of us who aren't on the intelligence committee, who aren't serving in these kind of positions but we read spy novels and so we hear about it, is the fact that the intelligence agencies like the military have offensive capacity. they have the ability to carry out covert actions. it's been reported publicly that the united states developed specific cyber capacities to try to have recourse in case russia tried to interfere in our election again. are you concerned that essentially there will be a stand-down order from president trump that the military and intelligence agencies who have the capability to protect us from something like this will be told not to? >> well, you know, in this administration you're concerned about everything, right? there is nothing too fantastical that it's off the table, particularly as to your previous conversation when this president feels completely unchained and able to do whatever he wants. but i'll go back to what i just said. you know, were there to be an order to stand down from

offensive action or defensive action against election meddling, hundreds of people would know that. and i know there are a lot of lieutenant colonel vindmans out there who would raise their hand and say this is not right. what i worry a lot more about, and i can't get into specifics, but we have an awful lot more information than we had going into 2016 about how meddling happens. and, yes, our offensive capabilities are the very best in the world. what i worry a lot more about is that congress and the public may be prevented from getting information, right? and that was the message that was sent if it happened, i wasn't in the oval office, but by donald trump, you know, apparently berating an admiral, admiral joe maguire, who gave his life to this country, in service of this country's national security, berating admiral maguire and i guess ultimately replacing him sooner than expected because he wasn't happy about a briefing. you know, if congress isn't getting information, there's no way for us to look over the shoulder of the intelligence committee to know the answer to your question, which is, is

there political interference? are things going in a way that is inconsistent with our national security? >> congressman jim himes, member of the intelligence committee. sir, thanks for being with us. much appreciate it. >> thank you, rachel. >> we'll be right back. stay with us. ♪ ♪ 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 ♪ all we needed somebody to lean on ♪ the new xc90 plug-in hybrid electric. xc90. recharged.

it is nevada caucuses eve. get a good night's sleep. you got to get up early tomorrow. it's all very exciting. that does it for us, at least for right now. now it's time for the last word with lawrence o'donnell. >> i know your friday night ritual is of course to rush home and immediately rewind the dvr so you can watch every minute of this hour. i have to warn you tonight there's something that might not be the right way to start your weekend that's going to be coming up in the middle of the show. and that is, well, you know the russian medal of freedom winner rush limbaugh? i guess it's the american -- it's the american medal. >> the presidential -- >> yeah, that one, the presidential. he actually explained today in

full the trump supporter theory of the case of why it's absolutely certain russia did not interfere to help donald trump in 2016 and is not doing it doing it now. and it is a very elaborate theory. it actually takes him a full two minutes which i'm going to play later in the show. and i've got to say i just have a feeling it might not be the right note for the beginning of your weekend after the work week you've put in. >> if there's anybody who can figure out something that's true that is the opposite of what u.s. intelligence has concluded over a period of four years of study, it is probably a talk radio guy. >> yeah. >> so, that's where i would go to for the answers to the hard questions. pretty hard sell. >> the division of labor is that donald trump doeshe