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tv   Katy Tur Reports  MSNBC  February 15, 2022 11:00am-12:00pm PST

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november. rice is the 30th house democrat who will not seek re-election this november. that's nearly 14% of the entire caucus. on as we've said before that high number is not a sign of confidence for the party heading into november. that's all we have for us this hour. we'll be back tomorrow with more "meet the press daily." in an hour and a half we will be expecting to hear from president biden with an update on ukraine. also my colleague hallie jackson has a busy show. she will talk masks with dr. anthony fauci. masks, fauci, biden, ukraine in the 3:00 hour. my friend katy tur will tee it all up in the next hour right after this break. no, right now. sorry, katy. thank you, chuck. i'm katy tur. the allied west says it is doing everything it can to avoid a russian invasion of ukraine. with tensions, though, already high, there is increased
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intensity today at the diplomatic effort to get russia's president vladimir putin to back down. and now the white house wants to get on the record president joe biden will address the public on what is happening at 3:30. earlier today russia said it was moving some troops off the border and back to bases, but nato wants to see it to believe it and even if that is true an estimated 130,000 russian troops still remain along ukraine's borders. after meeting with ukraine's president volodymyr zelensky germany's new chancellor scholtz traveled to moscow, the latest to try to talk vladimir putin out of an incursion. they met over the 20-foot-long table amid covid concerns. afterward putin told reporters what he has been demanding all along, a guaranteed right now that ukraine will never join nato saying we have been told for 30 years that nato is not going to expand a single inch
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toward russia's borders, and today we see nato infrastructure right on our doorstep. back here at home both the president and secretary of state were working the phones. president biden spoke with france's emmanuel macron and antony blinken with his russian counterpart sergey lavrov. talks are ongoing but the warning is russia could invade anytime. "the washington post" was first to report and nbc news has since confirmed the administration is preparing for anything with a so-called tiger team staging table top exercises playing out multiple scenarios and outlining possible responses to an attack. deputy national security adviser jonathan finer said, quote, our hope is still there is a diplomatic path to avoiding all of this so we never have to use the playbook, but this is all about making sure we are ready to go if and when we have to be. joining me now is nbc news chief
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foreign correspondent richard engel and producer matt bogner, ashley parker, and professor of international affairs. richard, i want to start with you. tell us what it's like on the ground right now. >> reporter: well, it would be easy to say that people here are nervous because russian troops are surrounding this country on three sides with at least 130,000 and every day the united states making warnings they are at sovereign risk. frankly, you don't feel it. i've been speaking to ukrainians all day long for the last several weeks and many, frankly, don't think it's going to happen. maybe it's suspended disbelief. maybe they are buying into some of t says this is entirely hysterical, or they're following
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the tone set by president zelensky who has been both lashing out at moscow for encoaching -- creeping on its borders and lark out at president biden and other western officials for creating panic here. so most of ukrainians are trying to live their daily lives trying to ignore the situation perhaps at their peril and hoping that it goes away. tomorrow it had been rumored in the press that tomorrow was going to be the day that russia invaded. how anybody knew exactly that it would be tomorrow is difficult to know. even in matters of war and peace you can't predict the future. in response ukrainians are expected to hold solidarity marches including in the city and in several other cities around the country, holding up their flags, rallying around their government, expressing support and obviously opposition to any russian military action. >> so, matt, while vladimir putin was meeting with the
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german chancellor, there was a vote in russian parliament, a proposal. walk us through what that was and what it means. >> reporter: thank you, katy. this is an interesting development. we heard rumors of it a few weeks ago but no one would put they are name on it. it dropped into russian parliament and even then formulated as a suggestion, a recommendation to the u.n. foreign ministry to study the proposal. it passed right on through today and went to vladimir putin's office. he at that press conference as he was walking out hadn't heard about it before that seems unlikely. i think it's a new piece of the puzzle here. we've been talking a lot about will vladimir putin back down, will he invade ukraine? he could keep things going
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without committing troops but uncertain implications on it. russia hammered home the point that the path to peace is the minks 2 agreements. but if russia then recognizes it as two independent states it would invalidate that. european leaders will interpret it and a new tool by parliament. how he uses it we don't know. >> and what is the u.s. doing to prepare and in your reporting in "the washington post" all they think might happen and all that we are prepared to respond with.
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>> this tiger team we've all been seeing play out publicly diplomacy, deterrence, these information wars. russia is doing this false flag thing. there was an entire other parallel track going on, the preparation for the worst case scenario. this is a team, the tiger team, an interagency team with about nine agencies. the goal is to say if all this other stuff doesn't work we need a plan on day one when russia invades. what do we do day two if russia invades? week one and week two. they gamed out a range of scenarios. they looked at those most high impact and a second order
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consequences. let's say russia does x, then what do we do? if russia does x and we do y, what could happen? it's sort of these war games but it is the u.s. and their top people running these exercises lasting two or three hours each. at the cabinet level going through the possible scenarios to find the best position possible if the outcome, which they don't want happens, if russia moves against ukraine. >> ashley, the president will speak in an hour and a half. he's expected to talk about where we currently are in this situation. what the united states is doing. what we have not heard from the president if we need to impose the sanctions talked about, the severe economic sanctions on russia. are we going to hear from the president what that might mean for our own economy? what sort of repercussions we might feel here? >> i think, to be honest, we're
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all sort of waiting to hear what we will hear from the president. russia has claimed they are scaling back and moving troops and folks i've talked to inside the white house say they are aware of those reports but they are very much in a wait and see posture in part because russia has previously scaled back troops and moved them somewhere else, has previously pulled back troops and added even more troops making it a net gain. so that's certainly one thing we'll be looking for president biden to speak to. sanctions, congress has been working on the vice president's sanctions -- it has not seemed to come together and there is some dissent among republicans and democrats what should be in the package and should they be levered before, after, a combination of both?
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and that is something the white house is grappling with. >> we're all trying to figure out what will happen next. i know it's a bit after tossup, nina, and hard to get into somebody like vladimir putin's head but you say he is an exhibitionist. how do you read the situation? >> well, unlike the rest of your panel, i don't read it as an independent. i read it as it is certainly russia's troops on the border but it does seem to be joe biden's war at this point. i would be curious about this 3:00 phone call to announce the invasion tomorrow during the full moon. i've never been a believer that putin has all three, means, motive and opportunity to invade. he doesn't have motive or an opportunity because the whole
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world is looking at him. it's a much greater political gain that he's playing and it is very interesting the united states chose the path of escalating the rhetoric to see whether that will somehow draw him out or put him down. so far we haven't seen either. >> so if he's using this as a leverage point to get what he wants out of the west, he said that he wants, nina, ukraine to never join nato. he said he has been promised for years nato would not encroach -- would not get closer to russian borders. he believes nato is getting closer and closer to russian borders. without that promise and the west has been pretty clear they're not going to promise nato will never include ukraine, they're not going to make that promise. without that is putin going to back away?
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is there something else he might want? >> what you saw with president macron and president scholz, both came out of the meeting with putin at this giant table saying there is some potential hope for negotiation and we heard from putin today, yes, demands of his have not been met, however, and minister lavrov, he kind of ordered him to continue diplomacy and himself said diplomacy should continue. with the agreement the douma wanted to pass to give them russian status, he said the minsk agreement had not been worked out. so this conversation is absolutely not over and it will not be over on february 17th.
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>> nina, thank you so much. ashley parker, matt bodner and richard engel, thank you. previously served as director of the cyber security and infrastructure security agency, chris, good to have you. we are also learning about a tiber attack on ukrainian banks. ukraine's government has confirmed there, a ddos attack, a denial of service attack. i know you can explain it much better than i can. how are you reading or what are you gaining -- what are you reading into this situation? >> well, first off, it's not exactly clear who is responsible for the attack. it's like the gif of the guy in the banana suit saying we all know who did this and many think it's probably related to some russian cyber actor. you flood a website to overwhelm the page, and so the service
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goes offline. that's a capability that's available, frankly, as a service on the dark web and is not just russian capability. in terms of severity it's more of a harassment technique more than a signal about an attack that will roll across the border next week. if this was an attack on the australian government, i wouldn't think much of it. the fact that it does coincide with an increase in hostilities, it's worth paying attention to and staying on top of. >> so what are you watching out for in terms of cyber as we see tensions escalate in the region? what are you looking out for? >> i think it's a combination of
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probably three information domain-related activities. first is cyber attacks, defacements, denial of service attacks like we're seeing now that are used to cut off the availability of information to the public and create a distraction so that instant response teams are hustling and trying to get things back up and running. the second would be electronic warfare and that's where you would see the jamming of television signals, radio signals, communication networks so people within the country cannot actively communicate. you can't provide the command and control to the forces in the field. and the third is what the russians have been doing frankly for a decade or so in ukraine is information operations. we saw reports from the intelligence community about the foundation for strategic culture that was generating fake news
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basically and articles about activities that were getting picked up by certain websites. the broader objective here, though, is just to distract, to disrupt and to create confusion out there to potentially down the road lay the path for an engagement. >> i know you dealt with this a lot in your old job. misinformation, disinformation that flooded us here at home for an election cycle. you're talking about misinformation and disinformation over there. anything you're watching out at home that americans might be affected by that russia might be using to its advantage given the situation? >> oh, certainly. some of the same articles and news sources for europe and ukraine, those can gain a
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foothold here as well. any sort of narratives pro-kremlin, pro-putin, sympathizing with russian-speaking folks in eastern ukraine, that tends to, if not be organically developed or could be organically developed by some russian-aligned actors, at the very least they'll start amplifying that. they want to generate a discussion about why do we even care about ukraine? we've seen this hit some of the big networks. why are we supporting ukraine? why aren't we pushing back against china? those are the sorts of narratives strategically align with the kremlin's objectives. >> sounds a lot like what my twitter feed looks like every time i do a story on what's happening in ukraine. thank you so much for joining us. i appreciate it. sandy hook families reach a giant settlement in their legal
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fight against gun maker remington. what could it mean for the rest of the gun industry? also ahead an accounting firm cuts ties with donald trump. why that firm says it can no longer rely on years of trump organization financial statements. and later prince andrew settles a sex abuse allegation. does this mean the royals' legal troubles are now over? royals' l royals' l troubles are now over? and he gets one-on-one coaching when he needs it. so ben is feeling pretty zen. that's the planning effect from fidelity
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the families of nine victims of the sandy hook elementary school shooting have reached a historic $73 million settlement with remington, the maker of the rifle used to kill 20 first graders and six educators in 2012. today's legal victory comes after a long legal battle over the gun maker's bushmaster ar-15. the families argued the company should never have sold that weapon to the public and that
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remington irresponsibly marketed to at-risk young men such as the sandy hook shooter through product placement in violent video games. remington has since filed for bankruptcy and denied the allegations has not yet commented on today's settlement. here is how the family of one victim reacted. >> nothing will bring dylan back. the closest i get to him now is kissing his urn every night telling him i love him and miss him. i made him a promise and i'll keep working to deliver that promise for the rest of my life. my hope for this lawsuit is that by facing and finally being penalized for the impact of their work, gun companies and the companies that enable them will be forced to make their practices safer which will save lives and stop more shootings. >> joining me is emily and chris
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brown, president of brady which provided advice and counsel to the attorneys throughout the proceedings. that was the mother of one of the children that was killed, unspeakably awful. this lawsuit has been going on for a long time. there have been other opportunities to settle. they did not come to pass. why today? >> i have the settlement agreement here. this has been going on for a long time, more than seven years. there was an offer from remington for about $33 million last summer. now, today, the settlement closer to $73 million. several things played out. first being they were able to get their hands on a number of internal documents from remington they say were able to prove their wrongdoing and held numerous depositions with some of the leadership with
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remington. >> it was about damages in the sense of forcing change. it was about damages in the sense of realizing the goals of these families to do whatever they can to help prevent the next sandy hook. these families would pay everything, would give it all back just for one minute. that would be true justice. >> and you know, initially experts even said this lawsuit was quite a long shot because they are protected from a federal law in the early 2000s. now this outcome this moment, could be opening up the door and making room for other victims to possibly place blame on more gun manufacturers. >> chris, that's what i want to ask you about. the gun industry has said they're not responsible for any
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of this, liable for any of this. this is a $73 million settlement. what's going to be different now? >> look, you have correctly noted here that congress attempted to provide immunity from all civil liability for gun manufacturers. brady has been poking holes in the law for the last decade. and there have been other precedents set. 30 years ago brady won a verdict against an assault weapon manufacturer with similar kinds of marketing. what's so important in this case is it's a work-around to that federal -- ostensible federal immunity law and provides a pathway with litigation for how you can hold companies liable for clear marketing. the information that was discovered clearly shows remington targeted young people
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with assault-style weapons, military style weapons. manufacturers, lenders, all those who are participating and putting these kinds of weapons of war in the hands of mass murderers need to take note of this litigation and certainly brady has. we have similar kinds of claims that are pending including one before the ftc. so these kinds of claims need to be brought in order to deter -- no one wants a situation where people are getting any kind of verdict after the fact. we have a preventable problem here and a big part of it is changing how gun manufacturers market and sell their products. >> is this going to be focused on specific weapons? i know for this one it was a bushmaster ar-15. is that going to be the difference maker here because that one was such a -- is such a high-powered gun, it is a gun that's used in war. it is a gun used in law enforcement that was part of the complaint from the families.
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will we see similar things happen with different kinds of guns or only for these high-powered, high-capacity firearms? >> unfortunately, katy, what we have seen across the country is a change in the marketing of these ar-style weapons, assault style weapons, which are growing in popularity and marketed as america's favorite sporting rifle and the mass murderer's weapon of choice. anyone manufacturing these weapons and, importantly, with high-capacity magazines, there's a reason shooters pick these kinds of weapons, capable of taking sometimes 100 rounds into the weapon and shooting it rapid fire and killing as many people in a short amount of time. anyone who is manufacturing those kinds of weapons needs to
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take note of this case today. >> there have been a lot of mass shootings since sandy hook. a lot of mass shootings since sandy hook. more than i can count. a lot of them have targeted children, schools. are you behind any other lawsuits against manufacturers? >> yes, we are. we have a lawsuit pending. we've been litigating it for 15 years, katy. it's pending now in gary, indiana. we are moving forward with discovery against all of the major manufacturers of firearms today and the theory behind the case is the way that firearms are marketed to individuals is leading inevitably to a huge increase in gun violence. so, yes, we will kin to do just that. we won $60 million in judgments but what's more important is shutting down or reforming the
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dealers who are violating the law and putting them into commerce, into hands they know are unlawful and we won't ever stop until we stop the carnage. gun violence is preventable. >> kris brown, president of brady. it's good to have you. emilie ikeda, good to have you as well. in canada the prime minister has declared a rare public emergency in response to the anti-vaccine protest by truckers that have paralyzed ottawa. the emergencies act gives the canadian government broad powers to restore public order under circumstances that preserve the sovereignty and security and territorial integrity of the country. that could include freezing the bank accounts of protesters temporarily, even seizing vehicles used in the blockades without a court order, the first time the canadian government has
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taken such action in a century. a protest that is now in its second week. and coming up a controversial russian olympic skater competes and offers an explanation why she tested positive for a banned medication before beijing. and first, prince charles tested positive for covid and his wife camilla did lead to go heightened concern for his mother, the longest reigning monarch. moerth, the longest reigning moerth, the longest reigning monarch. how do they fit? i don't know, dad. i'm not comfortable trying on pants. aw, come on. i bet they look sharp. you don't know who else has tried them on. let me take a look. switch to progressive, and you can save hundreds. you know, like the sign says. oh, that's a handsome pair of jeans right there.
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no one thinks about their hearing until you start losing it. and then you think about it a lot. this doesn't help and the whole process of getting them is a royal pain in the ..... ear. if only there was a better way.
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this is eargo, yes right here. incredible right? what's more you get all the support you need all from here. sitting right here. prince andrew has reached a settlement in a sex abuse lawsuit filed by a victim of jeffrey epstein. she has alleged she was trafficked to prince andrew by jeffrey epstein and ghislaine maxwell when she was 17 years old n. a letter released today he vowed to make a donation and says he never intended to ma line her character. it included no wrongdoing. joining us now is royal commentator daisy mcandrew.
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good to have you. do we know anything more about the settlement that may have went directly to virginia? >> we don't nope the amount but there are rumors swirling in london it is about $10 million. that's what it seems to be. certainly lawyers i've spoken to who are split three ways, not equally three ways but will cover the legal costs, one split. it will also -- there will be a sizable donation to that charity. the lawyers tell me there is compensation that will go directly to jennifer jeffrey. now that's not really been flagged up and my understanding about that is there is a little bit of spin going on behind the scenes where prince andrew's team is very keen to say he's
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making a big donation to charity. less keen to say that he is giving his accuser a sizable compensation. certainly lawyers here believe he is but they also believe that an nda, a nondisclosure agreement, has been signed so the chances of us getting real details of what is in the settlement are looking quite unlikely. >> prince andrew's team has maligned, or she's argued, that they've maligned her character in this statement, the way they describe her was markedly different. >> a complete u-turn, i think some people would say reading, as you say, the previous comments and that is clearly what she wanted. she wanted it there in black and white in a statement prince andrew said she is a victim and she has been treated badly because, as you said some of the comments that have come out of his team previously have been
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things like she's implying that she just wanted a paycheck that she was after prince andrew's money that she had tried to turn a situation to her financial advantage. well, those words were not seen in this statement. equally there was no admission of guilt, but that would have been very difficult. i'm sure andrew's lawyers would have completely refused to do that. if he had publicly admitted any guilt he would have been open to criminal prosecution. there was no public apology and that is something his accuser had said previously she wanted if they were to settle. i think it is worth bearing in mind many brits and the american system of civil cases and so it's been important to remind brits this was almost always going to be given the outcome that 95% and 98% do settle.
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so it's not such a shock perhaps that they've settled but as you pointed out the wording has been very strong in that statement. >> very different from past statements. the queen, a lot of concern about her health as she came into contact with prince charles who tested positive for covid. his wife camilla has tested positive for covid. not getting any word from the palace, though, whether or not the queen has tested positive or negative for covid. what do we know? >> what we do know today which has come as a great relief to most royal watchers on this side of the pond is the queen was up and about and was fulfilling some of her royal duties. she was shown publicly doing a conference call, if you like with two ambassadors. they can expect to have an audience with the queen. the queen has been doing these audiences right through the
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pandemic virtually as you would expect and she did that today. it is the first time we've seen her since this scare bubbled up and as you rightly said prince charles visited the queen in person last tuesday so that's a week ago now. he then subsequently on thursday came down with covid, tested positive with covid. now, as we know, camilla has tested positive. a lot of people say that's seven days. hopefully she's dodged that bullet. >> daisy mcandrew, thank you for joining us. appreciate it. and a controversial russian figure skating phenom delivered an emotional performance. kamila valiyeva was cleared to compete despite testing positive for a banned heart medication before beijing. today her team offered a new explanation for that positive test. blaming her contamination on her grandfather's medicine. joining me now is nbc news correspondent. she can compete but she can't medal, right?
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>> again, when it comes to that justification all we're really hearing it's contamination from her grandfather's heart medication. not how that alleged contamination happened, not whether she accidentally took a pill or shared a plate or anything else that would explain what contamination means. but that seems to be the crux of the russian defense for kamila valiyeva. meanwhile, katy, the only way to really describe what we're seeing on the ice is an emotional shame. it's a shame because valiyeva, the 15-year-old prodigy, has been absolutely brilliant. she's been dominating the competition with a charged performance of this dark sadness, coming to tears after she skated. and now we're looking at the near certainty of no medal ceremony for the foreseeable future and soap the way that it's set up, as unintended as it might be, everyone is effectively being punished because of two things, that positive test that should have
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disqualified valiyeva and her consistent greatness. if she wasn't coming in top three, katy, this wouldn't be an issue but her skating is so far ahead of the pack, it has put this glaring asterisk over one of the biggest, most beautiful of all winter events we heard from scott hamilton say what so many in the skating community are feeling right now. take a listen. >> i've never seen anything like this. i think a positive drug test, you don't compete. and the fact this is going on and everybody else has to sacrifice their olympic moments for an athlete that came in testing positive seems ludicrous to me and is massively unfair. >> reporter: we heard from adam rippon describing how many are told not to even take multivitamins or cold medicine to test as clean as possible, this coming from a country not even allowed to compete under
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its own name because of prior doping scandals. he described what that event is now as a joke. >> very quickly, nobody gets to medal if she's in the top three? >> reporter: nobody gets to medal for the foreseeable future. they are waiting until all of this is settled which could be months and months away. they don't want to give a medal and take away a medal during the olympics. they're waiting for it to make its way through the investigations, months. all those athletes, gold, bronze, silver, doesn't matter. they will have to wait until the later ceremony. the olympics for them will be very different than anyone else. >> the heart medicine was considered a performance enhancer. thank you so much. up next, the trump organization's longtime accounting firm cuts ties with the former president's family and the family business.
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and it's secret, so it works all day. spray fresh. stay fresh. secret. an accounting firm that has worked with the trump organization for years is cutting ties with the former president's family business. in a disclosure released as part of the new york attorney general's civil investigation nearly a decade of trump org financial statements can, quote, no longer be viewed as reliable. the firm noted it had not concluded that the statements as a whole had material discrepancies. the trump organization responded saying mazars' work was performed in accordance with all applicable accounting standards and principles and that such statements of financial condition do not contain any material discrepancies. this confirmation effectively renders the investigations by
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the d.a. and ag moot. joining me now is nbc news investigations correspondent tom winter. i don't understand, though, mazars -- it's an awkward pronounceation -- >> i've pronounced it every which way. >> they say they can't stand by but found in material discrepancies. kind of a contradiction. >> i don't think this letter was written without the input of an attorney i think a lot is going on behind the scenes we're not necessarily privy to. i think one of the most important passages of this, katy, a section they said the reason they came to this conclusion, the documents couldn't be relied upon anymore, and that is because they conducted their own internal investigation, paid attention to the attorney general's filings which we've talked about often, and they also received information both in house and outside of their firm that led them to get to this point. it sure appears there's more here. it's not as if -- i made this
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analogy earlier today. it's not as if they found all this extra cash or money or gold bars sitting around trump tower and this is such a better position. i don't think you'd see the advisories to ignore these statements at this point if that was the case. >> what is this going to mean for latisha james' effort to get ivanka and don jr. to testify or have a deposition? >> the reason the letter came out they included this in a court filing saying, hey, by the way, even more reason why our civil investigation should go on, judge, even more reason we should be able to depose essentially most of the trump family. eric trump has spoken with them. >> invoked the fifth a number of times. >> approximately 500 according to the attorney general's office. they want to speak to the former president, to ivanka trump, to donald trump jr. this, they say, is yet another brick in the wall and the evidence get to go that point. >> when will we find out? >> we're at least a couple weeks
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away before all the legal machinations play out in court. >> any bearing on the criminal investigation? >> well, you know, it's certainly possible. if you've got the accounting firm saying we're not standing by these statements anymore and we know the criminal investigation is the criminal i is looking into whether or not trump misvalued certain assets or properties or his own financial condition and these are statements of his financial condition, it's possible this could have bearing on the criminal investigation. is there anybody inside mazars that is in a talkative mood? that could change what has been a quiet period. >> you say mazars. i say mazars. tomato, totomato. >> mazars. >> it's an awkward pronunciation of that word. appreciate you understanding and clearing that up for us. up next, it was called the heist of the century. billions in bitcoin laundered. what a crazy story this is. new details on the case against
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the duo known as the crypto couple made their first appearance in a federal court. the husband and wife ilya lichtenstein and heather morgan are charged with conspiring to launder nearly 4 billion in bitcoin. $4 billion in bitcoin. they're accused of using a network of internet aliases and digital wallets to siphon and hide the currency. joining me now is jake ward. this is the absolute wildest story i've seen in a long time.
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>> it is. as this couple was living a vivid and public life, it turned out, prosecutors say, they were sitting on billions. >> reporter: a day after celebrities like lebron james and larry david appeared in cryptocurrency commercials during the super bowl -- >> call your own shots. >> reporter: -- this new york duo, dubbed the crypto couple, appeared in court, charged with laundering billions in bitcoin. 34-year-old ilya lichetenstein and 31 heather morgan are tech entrepreneurs. lichtenstein describes himself as an occasional magician and is the founder of a digital wallet company designed to stop fraud and terrorism. morgan, who once wrote that strong personal branding is essential as a founder, dispensed advice on tiktok. >> i'm going to tell you my secret for making dreams a reality. >> reporter: wrote about how to avoid cybercrime and even rapped. ♪♪ but all that time, according to the doj, the couple had the proceeds of a 2016 crypto theft
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of nearly 120,000 bitcoin worth millions when they were stolen. over the years, the couple allegedly moved the money around, trying to hide the origins. but unique passwords were stored online where the authorities eventually found them. >> today the value of that bitcoin has grown to over $4.5 billion. >> reporter: the doj seized $3.6 billion of it, the largest grab in department history. bitcoin, like all cryptocurrency, relies on a blockchain, a public record of transactions which allowed authorities to trace the money. the couple could face 25 years in prison. but their personal brand will continue to grow. netflix announced friday it's ordering a documentary series about the couple. the doj says it will auction off the seized billions. now, in court the prosecutors argued that these two are a flight risk. they could go to russia where lichtenstein is a citizen and reactivate about 24 unique
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identifiers to their bitcoin, basically making off with millions. they also say when they tried to arrest the couple, the couple claimed to be going into grab and save their cat, but wound up locking their phone and underneath the bed, authorities say they found a bag that was marked burner phones, a $40,000 stash worth of cash. it just goes on and on. no wonder netflix is taking an interest. it's one of the wildest stories i've heard. >> sorry for laughing, but a bag marked burner phone? >> it's the rap video that really did it for me. i don't know. quite a story. >> i don't think you had enough of it in the package. i wanted to see more. gosh, jake ward. why were they here? why didn't they leave already before they got caught? any way. jake ward, here's the video. >> it's all up in the air. thank you. >> thank you, jake ward. appreciate that. and on that note, my friends, that is going to do it
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