can't go into a studio, because that would be putting my coworkers at risk, because i do have a covid exposure. that's time at home, that's why the visuals a little bit weird, that's why i'm trying to fix stuff will also be live on tv. i apologize, i'm not great at this, apologize. i'm not great at this. but i'm really happy you're here because we have a ton to get to on tonight's show including what we've been working on for a long time. one of the stories we're going to be covering tonight concerns, sort of concerns these gentlemen. what do these four people all have in common? you might recognize some of them. you might not. but what they do have in common is something pretty specific. all four of these men were all found guilty of committing voter fraud in the 2020 election. the gentleman in the upper left is a republican from nevada, his wife died several years ago, he nevertheless filled out her ballot and cast it in the presidential election.

he then participated in efforts with the nevada republican party to claim that his dead wife's ballot being cast in the election must mean there was mass voter fraud by democrats. he is the one who cast his dead wife's ballot, he's a republican, he got caught, he was sentenced to probation. the guy in the upper right is a republican elected official from ohio. in his case, it was his father who died, and he cast his dead father's ballot in the 2020 election. that ohio republican official was sentenced to a grand total of three days in jail. keep going clockwise, the gentleman on the lower right is from pennsylvania. his case, it was his mother who had died. he nevertheless cast her ballot for donald trump in the 2020 election. he was caught. he got probation. and the last guy lower left, another pennsylvania republicans whose mother also died, apparently couldn't help himself, he cast a ballot in her name in the 2020 election.

he got caught. he got probation. there was no large scale fraud of any kind in the 2020 election. there were a handful of sort of pitiful individual voter fraud cases like this, voting twice, effectively, using a dead relative's ballot, that sort of thing. and in a handful of cases, the ones involving these republican guys that i just showed you for example and a handful cases we have seen those cases fully adjudicated already. they made their way through the criminal justice system and of those four cases we know one guy got three days in jail, and the rest just got probation. that's what those guise have in common. -- guys have in common. this is pamela moses of memphis, tennessee. this week, ms. moses was also sentenced for a crime related to her efforts to vote in the 2020 election. ms. moss had a felony conviction in tennessee that legally resulted in her not being

allowed to vote again in that state, but she says that nobody ever told her that that particular conviction meant that she couldn't vote. and her county elections board admits in writing that despite her conviction, they never actually took her off the voting rolls, a probation officer with the tennessee department of corrections, even wrote her a note filled out an official certificate saying that ms. moses was eligible to vote. ms. moses turned in that certificate from the probation officer, along with her voter registration application, and for that grave crime, she was just sentenced in tennessee. what was her sentence? she got six years in prison. that has just happened this week in tennessee. what's the big difference between pam moses in tennessee and all of those other guys, who actually cast illegalballs in -- illegal ballots in the names of relatives they knew were dead, all those were probation

and one case three days in jail and she got six years in prison for trying to register to vote after she received an official certificate from the probation department telling her it was okay if she registered to vote. six years in prison is her sentence. seriously. and this is not like some historic crime that we're uncovering. that just happened this week. we've got more on that story tonight, and you'll want to see that, it's an astonishing story to me. today, the "washington post" had a scoop about the scheme that trump and company relied on to use false claims of voter fraud, to try to overturn the real election results. to try to overthrow the u.s. government and keep the new dually elected president from being sworn. in the post obtained a previously unreported memo that directed the secretary of defense to use national security agency, nsa assets, to somehow

make claims that it was foreign governments that stole the election from donald trump and falsely installed as president of the post office described a previously unreported meeting two days before the attack on the capitol january 4th, a january 4th meeting at the trump hotel in washington, attended by at least three republican senators, kevin kramer of north dakota, who apparently brought his wife, senator ron johnson of wisconsin, who reportedly attended the meeting remotely. and senator sin that lummis of wyoming. that meeting two days before january 6th reportedly included those three sitting republican u.s. senators, and also mike lindell, the my pillow guy, and sidney powell and patrick, and all of these other people who have promoted the craziest trump conspiracies around the election. three republican u.s. senators apparently went to their meeting at the trump hotel on january

4th and heard them out. senator cramer says after that meeting he received this memo about unleashing the nsa to somehow bolster the fake fraud claims. so i mean say what you want about republican senators and members of congress and the whole in terms of how they participated in, or didn't, or how they stood by or didn't, during the whole overthrow the government scheme orchestrated out of the trump white house but you can't say republican senators didn't know how crazy it was at the time. it turns out senators like cynthia lummis and ron johnson and kevin kramer got live briefings as late as two days before the january 6th attack. cramer had heard. so craziest, the nsa to overturn the election, he got that in

writing after he went to that meeting with his wife at the trump hotel. these guys knew how crazy this stuff was. they just apparently never said anything about it publicly and waiting until it all gets publicly reported more than a year on in the waun today. in an interview with the "washington post" post, senator kevin cramer says he was very unimpressed with people who made their presentations at that meeting on january 4th. as to what they wanted, as to what they wanted at the time and why the meeting was held, he told the post in the interview for the paper, it was his perception what they wanted was to go out and grab election machines all over the country and he told them they wanted to get the machines. all of these greatest revelations about the plot to overthrow the elections, stuff about taking the election machine, taking the voting machine, it keeps coming up. and again, this is one of those things, like the fake slates of electors that they forged, it's one of those things that seems random, right?

it seems like a bizarre world, sort of inexplicable side bar to the overall plot but apparently they were really fixated on it and they worked really hard on it from five different angles in ways that are only starting to becoming clear. last week it was politico.com that obtained this executive order for trump that would have authorized the military to go around the country seizing voting machines. cnn then reported that it wasn't just the military that was the target of this draft executive order. there was another one, a similar one, that laid out essentially the same scheme but would have authorized the homeland security department to seize the voting machines instead of the military. "the new york times" newly reported this week that trump personally directed his lawyer rudy giuliani to call the homeland security department to try to get this enacted to ask that homeland security orchestrate the seizing of voting machines and election machines in multiple states. so we know this wasn't some out of left field freelanced hair-brained idea presented to trump that he never considered

or that he rejected. we know that from "new york times" reporting that somebody called to get this done. and the trump report is that he asked in a different department, in an oval office meeting per "the new york times," he asked attorney general william barr to have the u.s. justice department go fan out all over the country and seize voting machines. he made that ask himself. a lot of crazy ideas were circulating in trump world about what could be done to expose the, you know, the fraud of the election or whatever it was. and you can't i think legally, maybe morally, can't really pin blame on somebody for people around them having nutty ideas. i mean you probably have to answer for it at some point when you meet your maker but in terms of criminal liability and impeachable offenses and things

like that, people around you having nutty ideas is one thing, but when you are participating in those nutty ideas and enact them and making the ask yourself, well then it's on you. and it turns out this getting the voting machines thing is something they really were focused on, up to and including president trump personally. it wasn't a passing fancy, it wasn't something they molded and didn't try, they tried three different ways with three different powerful agency, try the military, try the justice department, try homeland security, put rudy giuliani on the horn with homeland security, but even that wasn't the extent of it. there was more. more that we knew a little bit about at the time, because of this guy in the airport in washington, d.c. randomly singing instead of answering questions from reporters. >> just having a delightful trip to washington, d.c. today. >> and you're meeting with

president trump, is that correct? >> it's a good possibility. >> what will you be talking about with president trump? >> i won't be sharing anything else with you. >> joe biden was just elected? >> did president trump concede? >> i will cling to the old rugged cross. >> nice pipe, right? nice voice. credit to the reporter, you're going to sing now? i'm going to keep asking you these question zls that man's name is mike shirkey, a state senator in michigan, the leaders of the republicans in the michigan state senate, and this video was taken november 2020 right after the election at the airport in washington, d.c. what was he doing in washington, d.c. when he was asked that, what are you doing here, why were you just at the white

house, why were you meeting with president trump, why were you, and he was initially engaged in questions but then turned to song. endearing. it is interesting, it wasn't that he was a secret that he was there meeting with president trump in washington, reported widely, publicly that president trump was inviting a whole delegation of republican lawmakers in michigan to meet with him personally in the white house. this was happening when he was publicly talking about the michigan election results and insisted he must have won that state and it all was stolen to him. officially what the house said and the michigan official said the meeting was to talk about covid, as the michigan officials were coming to the white house to talk to him about important covid issues. really? is that in fact why he summoned them there? again, this was november 20th, totally clear what was going on, right, this is right after the election, two and a half weeks after the election, trump was not only disputing biden's

victory in michigan at the time, he was publicly trying to pressure local election officials in michigan counties that went for biden that they shouldn't certify the election results in those counties. it was widely speculated at the time that he invited those republican lawmakers from michigan to rope them in on the scheme he was pushing to overthrow the government, to pressure them to go back home to michigan and somehow use their authority as state lawmakers to undo the biden victory in the state of michigan. it was obvious that must have been what was going on, perhaps that is why the michigan republican senate leader did not want to talk about the fact that he had just flown to dc and had just met with the president. but he had just done that. here he is, this is the photo of him walking into the white house, with the gray hair there with the american flag mask decorating his left ear. those lawmakers spent nearly two hours with trump inside the white house that day, the detroit news reported at the time that they were all in quote, that they were all quote laughing and in good spirits when they left after their meeting with the president,

after their meeting republicans from michigan stayed naturally at the trump hotel in washington, d.c., here they are in the lobby that night, sipping what looks to be very nice champagne. and look at this. that same night, democratic activists actually projected photos of the michigan republican leaders who had met with trump that day while the president is actively and publicly trying to overthrow the election results in michigan, they projected their photos on the outside of the trump hotel almost as if to say we know what you guys are here and we know why you're here, and they projected the messages on the facade of the hotel, one says the world is watching and the other says volters decided. well, after their white house meeting, those two republican leaders who had their faces projected in the outside of the hotel, they put out a statement saying they had no information that would change the outcome of the election.

okay. but those michigan republicans, they never did give a full accounting of what actually happened in that nearly two-hour meeting they had with donald trump in the oval office. when again, he was in the active throes of trying to overturn the election results in michigan and other states that he lost. they never really said what happened in that meeting. same goes for a near identical meeting that trump held with republican lawmakers from pennsylvania around the same time. five days later, he brought in a group of pennsylvania republicans to dc, in late december, excuse me in late november as well. now, you may remember earlier this week "the new york times" reported when they were reporting on the seize the voting machines plan, they reported that not only had trump entertained and advanced these plans to have homeland security or the u.s. justice department go out and seize the voting machine, the times also reported that he had personally tried to persuade state lawmakers from michigan and pennsylvania that they should use local law

enforcement agencies to take control of voting machines in their states. maybe the military won't do it. maybe homeland security won't do it. maybe the u.s. justice department won't do it. but maybe i can lean on these michigan lawmakers to have michigan state trooper goes do it. or some local sheriff. in the times, telling this week, the state lawmakers refused to go along with that demand from donald trump. what we've been wondering whether there is a connection here, right? whether there was some connection between that reported pressure campaign from trump to get state lawmakers to get local law enforcement to go seize voting machines in those states, whether that was connected to these two weird meetings that happened in the oval office right after the election. meetings with again lawmakers from michigan, lawmakers from pennsylvania. if those meetings were not actually opportunities, to talk about covid funding but another prong in trump's scheme to try to seize voting machines in the swing states, couldn't we find that out?

well, we spoke with the "new york times" reporters who broke that story this week, and they gave us this, i think, important clarification, they told us that their sources confirmed to them that in fact that's what those oval office meetings were about. that trump did discuss this idea of seizing the voting machines in michigan, and seizing the voting machines in pennsylvania, during those two separate oval office meetings, with michigan and pennsylvania lawmakers in november 2020. and those lawmakers turned around and went back home to michigan and pennsylvania, they didn't talk much about trump trying to get them to get local law enforcement and states to go seize the machines. now the times has multiple sources to say that is in fact what happened at those meetings. this gives us a clearer picture of this part of the plot. i mean why they wanted the machines, why they wanted to seize the voting machines, who knows? but boy did they try, right?

department of defense. department of homeland security. the attorney general. the director of homeland security. now, you can add dragging state lawmakers across the country to come to the oval office to meet trump in person, you can add that to the list of ways trump tried to carry out this banana scheme to seize voting machines around the country as part of his plot to overthrow the government and stay in power. and this was a federally driven plot, right? efforts enacted and directed personally by the president himself, that those voting machines in swing states had to be seized. it does not appear that those efforts by, including president trump personally, doesn't appear that those efforts succeeded. those efforts he was running from the oval office. rudy, call homeland security. bill barr, go get those voting machines. the draft executive order telling the military to do it. having the state lawmakers come to his office and telling them they needed to do it. it doesn't appear that any of those efforts worked directly no matter how hard he tried. but here's the thing about

criminal conspiracy. for a conspiracy to work, it does not necessarily have to be the people who you directly told to do it. if you make it clear enough that you want it done, in this case if you make it clear enough that you want those voting machines seized, you want them physically taken, you make it clear enough, anyone can join in on your conspiracy. take a look at this. this is a piece of this puzzle that is worth scrutiny. thanks for an email obtained by a nonprofit new york city organization called bridge michigan, we know there is at least one person in local law enforcement in michigan who tried to carry out or who seems to have been trying to carry out trump's scheme that the voting machines needed to be seized. the man in question is the sheriff of barry county, michigan, which is about an hour west of lansing, and on november 20th, the same day those

michigan republicans flew to dc to meet with trump in the oval office and sip champagne in the trump hotel, sent this email to sidney powell so central to so many of these crazy plots. the lawyer for the sheriff of barry county, michigan, wrote to sidney powell, my client the barry county sheriff, called me and i instructed him to put the machines and the ballots in the evidence room. he's done that. we're trying to get the same thing to happen next county over. in kalamazoo. i don't know if we can get the sheriff in kz to seize voting machines and ballots in that county, but if we could, a comparison of the machines could reveal potential forensics. attaching the votes tabulation for barry county, my client has taken all of the machines and ballots into evidence. >> the local sheriff has taken all of the ballots and all of the machines into evidence? he has? somebody actually tried it?

the attorney for that sheriff put it in writing, put it in an email to sidney pow thal they had done that in barry county, michigan. we tried to contact the attorney who sent that email. he won't talk to us. maybe he'll change his mind and call us back. we did actually though manage to talk to the barry county sheriff himself. sheriff dar leaf is his name. he told us he has no idea why his lawyer sent that email to trump election conspiracy lawyer sidney powell. sheriff leaf denies that he ever seized any voting machines, or that he put voting machines and ballots into the evidence room, like his lawyer says he did. but sheriff leaf did confirm he reached out to other michigan sheriffs, in what appears to be a related scheme, or at least around related ideas, this is what he told us, he said quote, i made a phone call to see if there were voting incidents in their counties that could justify seizing the voting

machines. he says he didn't find any. but he was making phone calls to other sheriffs trying to find a good enough reason to do it. and it turns out he was not the only person taking action on the local level to try and seize the voting machines where they lived. trump was trying to arrange it federally. people who supported trump actually tried to carry it out locally in several places. i mean dar leaf, that sheriff in barry county, michigan, he wasn't even the only person in michigan who tried it. this story is just insane. it's playing out in part this week in court. this is out of cross village township in michigan, which is at the very, very tippy top of the mitten, if you think of the lower peninsula as the mitten. in january, 2021, right after the election, a woman from cross village township phoned out a guy who ran a computer technician business and calling from the election integrity

commission and voting to collect voting data from voting machines from across the state of michigan and needed her help and there was one voting machine in the state that she was having trouble accessing, the one in cross village township where she is from and said the machine was not connected to the internet so she could not access the data she r-she needed him to physically go to the machine, and make a copy of awful data on it and then bring that data back it her before the machine was quote wiped clean in routine maintenance. according to the local press, following this woman's instruction that computer technician and two other men actually tried to do it. they showed up in mid january, 2021, to the township community center, where the election machine was held, two of the men were inexplicably wearing bullet proof vest, one a gun, and the computer technician was brought to the room where the voting machine was being kept, he said it appeared as if the door to the room where the voting machine was kept had been

tampered with. he then proceeded, he then proceeded to remove the computer from inside the voting machine. he says he noticed that the screws on the computer had been stripped. it was then that he realized he did not have the right kind of connector to be able to download the data on to his thumb drive, so he was not able to make the copy of the machine that that woman who said she was from the election integrity commission wanted. here's the thing though. there is no such thing as the election integrity commission. this woman had no authority to send men in bullet proof vests with a gun to go manhandle that voting machine in michigan like that. but this actually happened. we know this because this woman has now been arrested in connection with this incident on charges of common law fraud and aiding and abetting the unauthorized access of a computer, and just in court this week and told authorities the reason she sent the armed men to get the voting machines in the town, she heard there was a data

on a satellite owned by the vatican and it would show there was voter fraud in the 2020 election and she needed that data on the voting machine to prove the vatican plot. that italy hacked the voting machines thing, that vatican satellite thing, that is one of the weirder conspiracies pushed by the people in donald trump's orbit to justify overturning the results of the election. she is one of the people who heard that conspiracy theory, and decided, you know, we got to seize the voting machines and she actually tried to do it. and dudes in bullet proof vests and a gun showed up and physically tried to do it. you see what i mean? you don't have to explicitly instruct your minions to carry out the conspiracy. talk about it enough and people will just join in. and this was not only a michigan thing. we've talked before about how in mesa county, colorado, a local clerk there, a local elections

clerk there in mesa county allegedly had a break-in, took a guy in there with her who was unauthorized to be there and copied the hard drives and the election management software from the voting machines and the election software from may is a county and passwords was posted online by pro trump conspiracy crack pots. mesa county colorado had to buy new machines because of the breach all at the taxpayers expense. that investigation into that clerk is being turned over to a grand jury. we will see if that results in an indictment. but that wasn't it. it happened in evert county, colorado, as well the county elections clerk in elbert county and two employees, they physically removed hard drives from election machine servers, they made unauthorized copies of the data on those drives and then they handed that information over to two unidentified attorneys that weren't supposed to have that kind of stuff.

they said the breach happened sometime before august of last year. the scheme to somehow, for some unknown reason, seize the voting machines, it was happening in so many different directions. it was coming straight from the top. from president trump himself. trying to order people working for him to carry out his this plot. it was happening from the bottom up, from the fringeyest corners of trump world, trying to seize voting machines, up the food chain to get those memos and potential orders on to the president's desk. then it was on the local level. all of these seemingly random people and local officials following donald trump's stated wishes and willy-nilly seizing and tampering with voting machines in their jurisdictions all over the country. it's one of the craziest parts of the entire plot to overthrow the government and prevent the new president from being elected but they pushed it nine different ways to sunday at the federal level, and people at the local level who supported trump

tried enacting it on their own. this is still just starting to crack open, there will be more here. stay with us tonight. re here stay with us tonight

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i can't believe this is not a bigger national story right now. it strikes me as absolutely, well, see you what think. a woman in memphis, tennessee, her name is pamela moses, just sentenced to six years in prison for trying to register to vote when she was in ineligible to vote. she was sentenced to six years in prison just for trying to register to vote. the reason she is in ineligible to vote legally is because she pled guilty to a felony in 2015 and that resulted in her voting righting being suffered. she says nobody ever told her that. and moreover, her county elections board never took her off the voter rolls.

in 2019 when she discovered she had been declared ineligible to vote, she sought formally to have her voting rights restored, as part of her effort to do that she went to the probation office and asked them if she was off probation and eligible to have the voting rights restored and if so, could she have a certificate saying so which she could submit with her voter application registration. this is what happened next. this is from reporter april thompson in memphis, tennessee. >> this application to have her voting rights restored was filled out for her and approved by the department of corrections officials. on september 3rd 2019. staff from the shelby county election commission even signed off on the application. until this letter came dated september 4th, 2019, a day later, saying, wait a minute, they were wrong. >> i relied on the election commission because those are the people who were supposed to know what, you know, you're supposed

to do. >> see how crazy this is? >> the department of corrections signed off on her voting application. so did the county election commission. but apparently, they screwed up. and technically she wasn't eligible after all. but for submitting that certificate, that they screwed up, and trying to register to vote, pamela moses was arrested and charged and convicted and is now sentenced to six years in prison for illegally trying to register to vote. the judge in her case i'm not kidding said in court that pamela moses tricked the probation department into giving her the certificate, saying she was eligible to vote. she tricked them. she's a sourceress, maybe? a trump supporter in nevada fraudulently, knowingly, fraudulently submitted a ballot in his dead wife's name, pretended it was somebody else, and then became the face of a nationwide effort by the trump campaign to overturn the entire

2020 election because somehow his dead wife had had a ballot cast in her name when he actually did it. he got caught. for him, probation. for all of these guys who were found guilty of committing voter fraud in the 2020 election. all illegally submitting ballots in the name of their dead relatives in order to cast extra votes for donald trump, in all of their cases, probation, or maybe a couple of days in jail. for pamela moses, trying to register to vote, while she was technically ineligible each though she had been advised otherwise, six years in prison. joining us now is associate director counsel of the naacp, legal defense and taking over as president of ldf next month. thanks for joining us. i appreciate you making time for being here. >> absolutely. thanks so much for having me. >> i am not a lawyer. i'm a person who reads a lot of news. i am surprised that this is not a bigger story nationwide because this strikes me as

bold-faced in its outrageousness and unfairness and as an attorney, somebody who knows this very very well, given your work is, there something here that i am missing, is there some subtlety, or some nuance or piece of this that makes this less outrageous than it seems? >> no, it absolutely is outrageous as you describe it. it points to everything that is wrong in our democracy. it's a confluence of racial discrimination and voter suppression, and we have to ask the question, why do we have laws that prohibit people with felony convictions from voting in the first place? this case is emblematic of all of the reasons that we need to do away with those arcane andrea conian laws that ultimately disenfranchise 5.2 million americans. and black americans in particular are disenfranchised at a rate four times every other

race combined. and what you just pointed out in terms of the individuals who are known to have committed voter fraud, blatant voter fraud, not because of misinformation, not because of a clerical or administrative error on the part of the state, as we've seen in so many cases, but people who intentionally committed voter fraud, they are sentenced to probation and crystal mason out of texas, whose case was similarly troublesome in this way, like another person out of texas hermiss rogers, sentenced to prison out of texas because of a mistaken belief about his right to vote. it shows there are two system, two criminal justice systems, two sentencing systems when it comes to these issues and you could not ask for a more stark contrast in justice in our country. >> in the case of ms. moses in

tennessee, she's a voting rights activist, she has been an advocate for the african american community, a candidate for office, somebody who shows up at public meetings and sort of a well known public figure activist in memphis, and i also took note of the fact that in this case, despite the facts of it, which as i just, as we have been talking about, the prosecutor in this case has been press releasing the heck out of this, in terms of the prosecution itself, the revocation of her bond, so that she has actually in jail, they held her through the holidays, in jail since december, awaiting sentencing for this terrible crime and then when the six-year sentence was handed down, the prosecutor has been crowing about this. with press releases as if this is something that deserves national attention in a positive way. i wonder if there is some element of this that we should see, not just in terms of its

strict legal consequence, but the way this fits into efforts to hype claims of voter fraud in order to justify the kinds of voter suppress ive tactics that you were describing. >> yes, i think there is an absolute campaign to drum up the idea, the notion that there are individuals out there who are attempting to vote intentionally when they don't have the right to vote. but if we look at the record of amy, she has a record that is riddled with allegations of misconduct. and if you look at, back to this case, and look closely at all of the evidence about the efforts that mrs. moses made to clarify her status and her ability to vote, there are many questions that i have about whether these are charges that should have been brought in the first place, whether this prosecution should move forward, and certainly, whether the sentence she received is an appropriate one. everything in this case smacks

of overreach and an effort to make an example of someone, and as i said, we've seen this in many cases before, and you have individuals who like the tera county justice of the peace out of texas, who admitted to forging signatures, to get on a primary ballot, and he received probation. you contrast that to individuals who are trying to exercise the fundamental right to vote, and we want to criminalize that effort. there's something very wrong with the democracy that seeks to ex ice people to the electorate, as opposed to welcoming people back and giving people second chances and welcoming them into the electoral process. >> janai nelson is the incoming president and director counsel of ldf, the naacp legal defense and educational fund. first of all congratulations,

and good luck to you, it's a major responsibility you've got there at ldf and big shoes to fill. thank you for being here tonight. >> thank you, rachel. this case again that we are talking about is pamela moses in memphis, tennessee, and it ought to be front page news all over the country. we'll be right back. stay with us. e countr y. we'll be right back. stay with us

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well i don't want some hippy medicine! is genexa right for me? yes! -well i have a gluten thing. -yes! -well... -yes! -us? -yes! is this just another stupid big pharma ad? -no! look for genexa, the first clean medicine company. we woke up today to news that the u.s. military has killed the head of isis. the former head of isis, was killed in the u.s. military raid in 2019. you might remember from that that al-baghdadi reportedly detonated explosives in that raid as u.s. forces closed in on him and that's how he died. the biden administration has said, that the guy who has been running it worldwide since baghdadi's death has been the one today, and he was living on the top floor of this

multi-family residence in syria, they apparently started detailed planning for a mission to go get him at that point, and president biden reportedly gave final approval to the mission on tuesday this week, and then last night they went in. and u.s. forces reportedly went in loud. and announcing their presence, telling people to get out of the house, and to get away from the house. when the isis leader detonated a suicide bomb on the third floor, that is what u.s. officials attribute to the civilian casualties in this raid to. no u.s. forces were reportedly injured or killed. but there were civilian cashes. and again, the administration said those were caused by the suicide bomb set off by the isis leader himself. the news of that raid and of the guy's death was announced early today. president biden addressed the country mid morning to describe the raid. this is obviously the highest profile counter-terrorism operation of the biden administration thus far. but again, this was reportedly months in the making. up to and including the creation of a tabletop model of the isis

leader's house that they apparently used to game out possible scenarios for the raid, including the one he reportedly effectuated when he blew himself up rather than be captured. that was very dramatic news to start the day but in terms of military and intelligence news, we got literally cinematic news from the administration that doubled as a sort of counter-intelligence operation that the administration carried out live and on the news today in public. that very, very unusual story is next. y unusual story is next

we know that this is an option under consideration that would involve actors playing mourners for people who are killed in an event that they would have created themselves that would involve the deployment of forces to represent bodies purportedly killed, people purportedly killed in an incident like this. >> the deployment of corpses,

actors playing mourners, that is dep ny national security adviser john finer speaking today with andrea mitchell here on msnbc, a truly surprising turn in the news today, when the biden administration put out this news that u.s. intelligence say they have learned of a plot by the russian government to fake something terrible in ukraine. now, as you know, russia has over 100,000 troops massed on the ukrainian border, menacing ukraine and threatening to invade for weeks now and u.s. intelligence has apparently uncovered evidence of an elaborate false flag operation that russia was apparently working on to fake some supposed atrocity to blame on the ukrainian government and justify russia invading. and as insane as that sounds, it is exactly the kind of thing russia has done in the past in ukraine. in july, 2014, a few mons after the last time putin invaded ukraine, russian state

television ran an absolutely alarming story, an interview with a woman who claimed she was an refugee in eastern ukraine and said she was an eyewitness to an atrocity carried out by ukrainian nationals who were against the russian invasion, in her very dramatic telling of the story, these ukrainian forces had descended on the town's main square and they had crucified a child publicly, forcing the child's mother to watch, she then said once the mother passed out from shock, the ukrainian forces tied the woman to a tank, and dragged her around the square, and totally shocking. absolutely grotesque. deeply disturbing story. and it was entirely made up. the next day, journalists from an independent russian news outlet, remember them, they visited the square where the supposed tragedy had happened and talked to lots of people and could not find anybody who had seen or anything that russian state tv had described, no one anywhere had corroborate any

aspect of the story but it was made up completely out of whole cloth. no evidence at all. russia's biggest state run tv program ran the story and had a big impact and one young russian told the daily beast at the time that he was planning to join a nationalist organization that would train him to fight in ukraine. he told them quote, when i hear on television how ukrainians are killing children, my blood boils. the story about killing children was not true. the story didn't need to be true. it just needed to help convince russians that the war they were waging in ukraine was justified because ukrainians are monsters who crucify babies. the u.s. state department is warning that we should expect something like this again from russia in the next few days. russia intelligence is planning to literally shoot fake corpses and fake mourners like a movie and use it as pretext for why

they needed to invade, to stop the ukrainian government from carrying out more of these face atrocity, fake massacres, whatever. the u.s. in a remarkable decision has decided to go to public with what they know as a counter-intelligence operation that they're conducting in public to inoculate the public against that fake pretext they say russia was cooking up. so it would at least be harder for a fake story like that to get us into another very real war. that's insane. watch this space. r very real war. that's insane. watch this space so you both sleep just right. and it senses your movements and automatically adjusts to keep you both effortlessly comfortable. so, you can really promise better sleep? yes! you'll know exactly how well you slept, night after night. we take care of the science. all you have to do is sleep. and now, during the ultimate sleep number event, save 50% on the sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. plus, 0% interest for 24 months on all smart beds. only for a limited time

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all right, that's going to do it for us tonight and that is going to do it for me for a little while. ali will be here in the anchor chair and i will have a much needed hay atus working on some things, and i will be back for the state of the union and news events and sooner than you can

miss me, i can promise, you will be in great hands in the meantime and the stuff i am working on, i am cooking up a whole bunch of new stuff that i am completely obsessed with and i think you're going to like, and i just need a little time to do it. bottom line, i will see you soon. watch this space. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is up next. this morning, new signs of former president trump's hold over the republican party. today, the rnc will vote on censuring two of the most vocal critics of the ex-president. liz cheney and adam kinzinger. the question is, what does this say about the state and future of the gop? plus, new details are emerging about the u.s. raid on the isis leader in syria. the biden administration is calling the mission a success. but the question is what kind of threat remains? and the united states accuses russia of planning to film a