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tv   Hallie Jackson Reports  MSNBC  August 15, 2022 12:00pm-1:00pm PDT

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breaking news as we come on the air out of georgia, becoming its own center of gravity on trump related investigations with nbc news confirming rudy giuliani is a target of an investigation there into possible 2020 election interference. coming up, what we're learning about what that means. and what giuliani's lawyers say he will not talk about. we're live on that. and on the chances a different ally of the former president will get his wish to avoid testifying in that fulton county investigation. then the other trump related
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inquiry back here in washington, with senate intel leaders demanding the fbi show them the receipts, formalry asking to see those classified documenting taken during the mar-a-lago search. plus, two primary elections that could tell us about the state of the republican party, all happening just hours from now. we're in wyoming and alaska with what might be the final stand for at least one former leader in the republican party. i'm hallie jackson in washington. we have a lot to get to. covering all of this for us, tom winter, msnbc political analyst greg bleustein, and kim whaly from american university, former white water independent counsel. tom, i'll start with you as the tip of the spear. you spoke with giuliani's attorney who confirms he's now a "target" in the investigation. what does target mean and how significant is it? >> great question, hallie, and
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one we're still trying to answer. robert costello is the attorney for rudy giuliani who has told nbc news within the last hour, that effectively, giuliani's local counsel in georgia, so giuliani has an attorney in georgia that's also working on this, as well. was told today that he's now a target of this investigation by a grand jury in fulton county, georgia. they're looking into whether or not anybody violated any laws tied to any sort of election interference involving the 2020 election. at that point, if this grand jury, when they come out with a report, they cannot indict themselves. it could be up to the district attorney, whether or not to charge anybody if there's any criminality that they have found. so that's something that could happen down the line. as far as what a target means, one of our colleagues here at nbc news, blayne alexander, is out to the district attorney's office, trying to determine what that is. if it was the federal system, i could spell it out for you,
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because there are actual definitions in the u.s. attorney's manual. what exactly is subject and the target is in the federal system and a target would potentially indicate somebody is about or is likely to face charges and there's criminality has been found. i don't want to go that far here, but that's at least what we know according to robert costello, the attorney general for giuliani, as far as this resignation. he had been called a material witness before, hallie, in court filings to compel giuliani's testimony. he's still expected to deliver that testimony and appear before this grand jury on wednesday of this week. >> tom costello, giuliani's attorney, says he thinks prosecutors, in his words, delusional, if giuliani is going to talk about conversations he had with former president trump? >> exactly right, citing attorney/client privilege. basically, when there is a clear
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attorney/client relationship, as there is here, rudy giuliani has been the personal attorney to donald trump and in the course of the former president's claims about election fraud in the 2020 election, claims that have been largely uncorroborated, in the course of that, there have been obvious connections between the two, and it was clearly his attorney in those filings. and we talked about that at length. so costello says it's very clear here, those conversations between the two, giuliani was acts on behalf of former president trump, so he's not going to get into that, period. >> tom, i'll let you get back to your reporting. but kim, help us understand from the legal perspective what this does and does not change as far as giuliani's exposure in this fulton county case. >> well, he's about to testify this week. he tried to avoid that. the judge said no, you've got to
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go, basically by plane, train, or uber i think. i'm paraphrasing. so here it sounds like the district attorney is letting him know that he might need to seriously consider his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination prior to his testimony. so as tom indicated, a target generally means, you know, the grand jury has found evidence that you probably or possibly committed a crime. that's different from a subject, which is we're concerned about you, and the lowest level would be a witness. with respect to attorney/client privilege, if he discussed things with donald trump that weren't about legal advice, it wouldn't apply. and then there is a crime fraud exception, which does not apply to communications between donald trump and john eastman. the judge says there might have been some crimes between them. so i think it's a bit of a distraction to talk about attorney/client privilege.
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but one, what is rudy giuliani's exposure? and number two, what is donald trump's exposure? if some people, as indicated, if they are thinking about racketeering charges under the georgia election laws, not just election fraud or soliciting election fraud, we're talking about who else is part of this enterprise. this could be leading to not just rudy giuliani but others. so there's a lot going on here that's beyond just what happens this week with his testimony. and what happens to rudy giuliani's criminal liability potentially in the state of georgia. >> hold that thought for just one second. greg, i know you have confirmed the giuliani news here and there is another trump ally, senator lindsey graham. there's been some back and forth here. he was subpoenaed. he said he's going to challenge
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the subpoena. a judge said no, you can't do that. now graham's team says he's going to appeal. he's scheduled to testify a week from tuesday. can he avoid the subpoena? >> a federal judge said he can't, that because he was a federal lawmaker, that he had some privilege were thrown out the window. we know that rudy giuliani is just part of a widening investigation. we already know that georgia's 16 fake gop electors received similar target notifications that they were being potentially investigated for criminal charges, as well. so this is the most significant development yet as part of a widening potential probe into trump's inner circle. so we know it's not just donald trump that prosecutors are looking at and we don't have a subpoena of donald trump. but all they're question involves the former president. now we know members of his inner circle are being scrutinized. >> greg, it speaks to how your
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state, the area that you cover, and we have been talking for years about this, is becoming the center of the political universe as it relates to this election interference investigation. >> yeah. there's two things we think that prosecutors are specifically looking at when it comes to rudy giuliani. first is the state legislative hearings that he was the center piece, the showcase of, back in december 2021. he spewed lies and misinformation about georgia's election results and the election process in georgia. second, it's that fake gop elector scheme that he is believed to have helped quarterback in 2020. that helped put georgia at the center of the misinformation battle around the 2020 elections. that means georgia is still the senter of that fight. >> kim, you talked about the potential for a rico case, a racketeer, influence and corrupt organization kind of charge here. you i know were talking about in 2015, there was a case where 11
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teachers were convicted on rico changes and she is no stranger in using laws in less traditional ways. >> the georgia statute is built on the federal statute, which maybe ironically was signed into law by richard nixon when he was president. and frankly, rudy giuliani himself spearheaded a really important mafia rico case in new york when i was u.s. attorney for the state of new york. so the idea behind this rico statute is to get a criminal enterprise, this bigger scheme. it was traditionally around finance, around the mafia. and we have seen, as you mentioned in 2015, fannie willis was part of that. criticisms oh of that conviction just to put a pin in that. but the idea is that these criminal schemes themselves can be captured separate from any
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individual crime. but i just want to put a pin in something. we've been talking now for almost two years about the big lie, and the gop trump argument that the 2020 election was fraudulent. this is the fraud. sit a crime across the country in every state and the federal level to interfere in an election. as greg indicated, to go to a state legislature to lie before the legislature and ask them to hold a special election in that moment, to sort of get rid of the popular vote or the certification for georgia. it's against the law to submit false slates of electors. all of that is the fraud. so in this moment, we're climbing out of alison in wonder land's rabbit hole and coming back to the surface. this stuff is illegal, and it's illegal for a good reason, for the same reason people on the right are upset or purport to be upset about election fraud. we want elections to run smoothly, based on facts and
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people's votes. finally, the judicial system is catching up to a lot of things that happened in 2020 that are problematic for democracy itself. >> kim, thank you. greg, great to see you, as well. appreciate your time. a lot more to get to, including the latest documents that donald trump now says the fbi took from his mar-a-lago home, he claims. we've got more on that. and members of congress demanding answers from the biden administration. not everybody is unified in what they want to see. plus, later, on alert. the threats targeting fbi agents and their families. some even called out by name. we'll talk about what we know, coming up. w, coming up. and mine's unlisted. try boost® high protein with 20 grams of protein for muscle health. versus 16 grams in ensure high protein. boost® high protein also has key nutrients for immune support. boost® high protein. we just moved. so there's millions of - dahlias in bloom. over nine acres. when we started, we grew a quarter of an acre. now i'm taking on new projects on the regular.
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in just the last hour, former president trump is saying on his social media platform that his passports were among the documents seized by the fbi. mr. trump not thrilled about it, but keep in mind that those passports were not on the list,
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on the receipt for property unsealed by that affidavit last week. you can see what was on that affidavit. 11 sets of classified, top secret or other sensitive materials. nbc news has not been able to confirm the claim that he's making one way or the other. but it comes as members of the house and senate are hoping to learn more about the what's and whys of the search at mar-a-lago. there is a bipartisan push from the senate intelligence committee, both senator mark warner and senator marco rubio, calling to see the classified documents, or at least get access to them in a briefing. democrats want a damage assessment formally. republicans would like the doj, the fbi and others to base cli preserve communications related to the search. i want to bring in ryan riley, and former fbi general counsel andrew weissmann. so ryan, first, any significance
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about the idea that passports may have been taken, what that may say to you about where this case goes? and what is next as it relates to this search at mar-a-lago? >> yeah, i want to be careful about this one, because that's something we've only heard from the president so far, but i think andrew might be best to weigh in on the potential significance of that there. but it is significant, just as a fact that this idea that the president's passports were taken by the fbi. i think there's obviously different interests on capitol hill in terms of getting more information about the damage assessment, and then the communication side. i would point out that this has been a very by the book investigation in terms of the fbi side. remember that there was that initial meeting with trump in early june after the subpoena in late may, and all of the while that information held. the fact that the former president of the united states was subpoenaed by a grand jury held for several months. it was not leaked out at doj or
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the fbi. apparently the white house didn't know about it. the white house was very taken aback by the developments last week. so there has been a firm firewall it seems like thus far that we have seen in between the justice department and the fbi, which is really -- sorry, the justice department and the white house, which is really something that merrick garland, when he came in, wanted to reestablish and make sure things were only going through the official lines of communication between the fbi, doj, and the white house, and not some of these side missions that we saw happen during the trump administration, hallie. >> ryan referenced it here, that is the push from some members of congress to understand more about not necessarily the search itself, although you are seeing house judiciary republicans call for the preservation of any materials related to the prompting of that search. but specifically to what this top secret material was. >> that's right, hallie. there's a medley of requests coming from all quadrants of
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congress that could help shed life on the nature of the search of mar-a-lago and what was obtained. let's start with the senate intelligence committee. the chair and vice chair, mark warner and marco rubio, have di national intelligence, asking them to provide the committee with the classified documents that were seized from mar-a-lago and an assessment of the potential risks to national security. they did not provide us with a letter, but their offices told us that they have, in fact, sent us. then on the house side, there is a request coming from the democratic chairs of the oversight and intel committees. carolyn maloney and adam schiff to avril hanes asking for a damage assessment and immediate review following the reports that president trump had had classified information at his residence. they say it's important to evaluate potential damage to national security. they point out this is something
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the dni have done in the past and the fact that this makes it an appropriate request. then there's house republicans, led by republicans on the house judiciary committee. these are staunch trump allies, spearheaded by jim jordan, had issued demands for information to the justice department, fbi director chris wray, as well as ron klain asking for all documents of communications relating to the decision to seek a search warrant, as well as the execution of a search warrant. they want information involving communication between the doj, fbi, secret service, the national archives. of course, the fact that ron klain, the white house chief of staff, suggests that the republicans are fishing between a connection between the white house and execution of this search warrant. the white house says they're not partaking, they're not meddling in law enforcement. but republicans seem to think that they can obtain something
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on that front. they have given the administration, a deadline of august 29th to offer these documents, hallie. >> thanks to you both. andrew, let me bring you in. let me start with the passports. i want to bring a note of caution on this, because all we have is a truth social post from the former president saying the fbi took three of his passports, one of which was expired. we don't know if that's true. we don't know if that's the case. those passports are not on the affidavit, the receipt of property list that the department of justice asked and was unsealed. what does this tell you, though, what can you read into this where the investigation may be heading? >> so there are two reasons that you take the passport of somebody. one is because of a concern over risk of flight that they're going to leave the country. and so you take the passport. usually it's voluntarily with their lawyer being advised. and the second is because you're
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interested in their movements. and you want to know where they've gone. i have to say, neither of those seem like they're likely in this situation. so i'm a little perplexed about this story if it's true. of course, you know, i have to say that donald trump is very good at creating distractions that cause us to go off on tangents when he hasn't answered why did he have the documents there, why didn't he return them, and what was he planning to do with them? instead, he's talking about passports. the other thing, hallie, i would point out is that the inventory that the fbi gave is not specific sort of document by document. and there are categories in the inventory that's correct encompass things like passports. so although it's not specifically called out, there are lots of documents that are
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not specifically called out. so it is probably not an oversight if, in fact, they took the passports. >> good point, andrew. you talk about the accountability factor for former president trump, as it relates to why these documents were at mar-a-lago in the first place. our team here suggests that for years, and i cover the white house at the time, there was a concern about what one former adviser described as carelessness with the way that then president trump handled some of this sensitive material. whatever he did, right, now it's back this the hands of the justice department, and there is probably some expectation setting to be done for sort of the wider viewing public on how quickly we may hear about the next step or the next development from the fbi, no? >> yeah, absolutely. so first, the point about this sloppiness, there's no question that the trump white house was not known for being rule
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followers. and that may come back to haunt them. but here, one of the things that's going to be i think probably damning for donald trump is the repeated quest by the justice department to get these documents back, and what appears to be on on few -- outright lying. f's a lot to do. first and a lot to do. first an >> first and foremost, the fbi and justice department will be looking to see where these documents went, who has handled them. they're going to look at this from a national security perspective. and then from a criminal perspective, there are lots of witnesses they'll want to put in the grand jury, witnesses who may be at mar-a-lago and these bogus defenses that we have heard, like there was some kind of standing order to declassify
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things when they were moved from one location to another, which of course everyone thinks is preposterous. but cash patel could find himself with a grand jury subpoena, because i would want to know everything i could about that potential defense if i was in the justice department. i would want to assess it, and if i thought it was not true, i would want to know how to defeat it so i wasn't surprised at trial. so i don't think there will be an indictment any time soon. but i think it's going to be on the list of things that merrick garland will want to pursue quickly. >> andrew weissmann, thank you. appreciate your perspective. coming up, former president trump says she's at the top of his list to unseat. liz cheney and her last-minute pitch in wyoming. plus, her plans past tomorrow's primary. and then in alaska, voters facing a new ballot system. how it works and who could benefit the most. we'll take you there live. 'll t.
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spurred on by president trump. two people considered by trump to be thorns in his side, lisa murkowski of alaska and liz cheney of wyoming, taking on challengers supported by president trump. neither of these women are in mr. trump's good graces. and then the new wrinkle in alaska where voters are dealing with a new voting system. with the prospect of sending their former governor, sarah palin, to washington to serve in congress. we have a couple of great datelines on the show today. vaughn hillyard and ali vitali who is in alaska, author of "electable, why america has not put a woman in the white house yet." vaughn, supporters of former president trump have circled this date on their calendar for months. people have talked about it for a long time.
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you know how it feels like the full force of the maga base rooting against liz cheney. what are her people telling you? >> reporter: right. this is it. let's look at the ten gop house impeachers. already we know that seven of the ten of them will not be returning to the next congress. now, this is the -- really the final major primary. it's liz cheney, the chief antagonist among them, who has taken this fight to the january 6th select committee. in talking to liz cheney, i think it's important the context here. they have remained in the same position ever since launching this re-election bid. and that was that liz cheney was not going to capitulate. she was not going to go and try to win over other gop elected leaders to come out and campaign with her. she was not going to try to win over gop donors. the same thing has been said to me over the course of the last year, is that if they wanted to get on board with her, then they could. and what you have seen her do is
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essentially outside of, you know, mitt romney, paul ryan, john boehner, who held fund-raisers for her, it's liz cheney that has gone at it alone here in wyoming. in the polling, she has an uphill bat toll climb. that's why you have seen them make the appeal to democrats, to reregister on election day tomorrow, and become republicans in order to help her out and vote as republicans. i don't think it should be lost on anybody either, that kevin mccarthy, who she used to share a leadership position with in the house gop caucus, he's in town today and tomorrow, holding fund raisers here in jackson, her own backyard here in wyoming, for the nrsc, as well as the congressional leadership funds, which is the right arm of the gop house operation here. and when you look at liz cheney, she said this is just the beginning of her fight to keep donald trump from ever getting close to the oval office again.
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while she may lose tomorrow in this primary to harriet hagerman, this should not be the last of what we expect to see from liz cheney. >> vaughn hillyard live for us in jackson. thank you. ali, let me go to you live in anchorage. there's a couple of threads to pull on in alaska. let me start with something that will have an impact, this new rank choice voting. we talked about it on this show, voters have had to get their hands around this, too. so have the candidates in these races. in the simplest of layman's terms, help us understand it. >> reporter: hallie, it help it is you're nice. that's the simplest way of looking at it. experts say this kind of a system benefits candidates who campaign with civility, but also who come at this not with a centrist idealogical perspective, by allowing voters not just to pick their only favorite candidate, but their favorite candidate and then two and three other people if their
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first vote doesn't get cast for the winner, it gets reassigned. that's why you are seeing candidates in the house race that feature household names like sarah palin. you're seeing those republican names alongside a democrat, and that same democrat when i spoke to her about an hour ago is praising the republican. and lisa murkowski, listen to what she said and i'll explain why it happened. >> we both came into politics during a time when compromise and consensus building was the most important job of a lawmaker. and i've been so proud seeing lisa doing the work that she's doing, that this nation has been high centered a number of times, and we have had federal shutdowns and lisa has been in the middle of the mix for finding solutions getting us forward.
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>> reporter: so we have to emphasize the fact that that's the democrat in the house race. but it hammers home this idea in a rank choice voting system, that kind of language can go pretty far for voters who may not want to vote democrat in their first position, but maybe open to her because she sounds like someone they could potentially get behind if palin or begich gets eliminated early on. that's the strategy that these candidates are thinking about now, as they look at the house race, which is going to be happening with a rank choice voting system for the first time. >> how much is the name reck nation that sarah palin playing into this? >> reporter: well, name recognition is huge. but, again, she's not the only person who is a household name. she's going against nick begich, who is part of a political dynasty in the state, those in his family linage, there are some democrats. again, this is a moment where it ends up -- it really does matter
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who ends up in that third of the three positions in that primary. for murkowski, she's running in a little bit of a different race, because hers is still in the primary. there's double digit candidates on the republican senate prime minister side of this race. we expect that murkowski is going to make it to the top four, which means she advances to the next stage. but her primary and palin's primary, they each say different things what it means to be a republican. palin running with trump's backing. murkowski the opposite of that, hallie. >> ali vitali, live for us in anchorage, thank you. news coming in from the white house. joe biden set to sign that climate and health bill known as the "inflation reduction act," into law tomorrow. the white house is setting the stage for what is basically a victory lap, calling it, in their words, coordinated august travel blitz. with joe biden deploying his cabinet to more than a dozen events across the country, to show off a little bit, to flex
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some democratic muscle. show the wins. white house correspondent care a lee joins us now to talk about it. when you look at what the white house is looking at, if you're coming from their perspective and the white house is counting up the wins, you have this "inflation reduction act" he's set to sign tomorrow. you have him signing the pact act, expanding health care for veterans. the chips act, which boosted u.s. computer chip manufacturing. you have the infrastructure law that he signed last november. so talk about the strategy from the white house here, deploying the cabinet, and trying to do this sort of summer blitz. >> reporter: yeah, hallie. what they're trying to do in their own words is to make august, as they said in a memo today, a momentum builder, not a mmentum killer. august is the type of month every year where americans aren't paying that much attention, and they really want to get credit for what he's done here. they feel like they have a good
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story to tell, and they want to be able to tell that story, regardless of the president and vice president are on vacation, which they are. so that's why they see a number of cabinet officials hit the road and fan out and try to keep that momentum up to tell americans what is in this legislation and why they think this white house thinks they should support democrats. we'll see the president sign this piece of legislation that democrats will bring down inflation tomorrow, which is another key step. and so he's also doing a little bit in the month of august. but this is really the precursor to the big push that he plans to make this fall. the vice president and other key democrats to make the case that he's working for them and democrats are getting stuff done for them. and they have a number of things to point to, as you noted in a series of bills. a large number of them just coming in recent weeks. victoies the president didn't
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expect to get, with respect to that legislation he signs tomorrow. there is going to be -- i think they're doing 18 events over nine different cabinet officials. and then they're going to build on that. the white house is creating a website that will point to some of this, and there will be other things they're doing to try to, in the words of white house officials, meet americans where they are to give them this message. and so americans largely aren't paying that much attention in the month of august, but hoping to get some attention here. >> well, you sure are. thank you, carol. good to see you, as always. developing news coming in from pennsylvania where we just learned that somebody is in custody facing charges for allegedly threatening to kill fbi agents last week after that search in mar-a-lago, according to a federal complaint just filed today. it comes as the secret service is "hardening" in other words, beefing up security in d.c. and
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field offices around the country according to two officials. the move coming to a bulletin from the fbi and dhs that has warned in this spike of threats against federal officials. it washes these threats are happening online where they say it's specific addresses, names of agents, of family members getting posted. joining me now is ben collins. ben, setting aside like, again, we were just on the air as this developed out of pennsylvania. yet another federal complaint here filed against somebody who has been charged with threatening basically federal law enforcement. this is exactly what this intel bulletin warned about from the fbi and dhs. and the thing of this specific bulletin is that they're talking about how precise these threats are. this isn't general stuff, but naming names. family members, et cetera. >> that's true. and this specific guy in
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pennsylvania, he's 46 years old, he said my only goal is to kill more of them before i drop. he was talking about fbi agents. he said anybody that works at the fbi, including janitors, are people that they would target. that's the level that they're operating at. that was on gab. the guy in cincinnati last week who tried to nail gun his way into the fbi office, he was on truth social. this isn't like the deep dark web. these are websites that you can access easily. and that's where they're making these threats. some of them are doing them in their own name. they are out and about, very easy to find out. garrett ziegler, former white house aide, he posted the social media profiles, facebook profiles of people related to fbi agents who did that search at mar-a-lago last week. so the trump orbit knows what they're doing. they could call off the dogs at
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any moment, and they have chosen not to do so. >> what makes this moment, ben, feel different to you based on the reporting you have done from other times when you have covered heightened states of tension related to online rhetoric? >> very specific target. fbi agents, people around the fbi, sometimes even the very specific fbi agents. second of all, this idea that there -- a civil war has the other side, right? previously, their civil war threats and their idea that doomsday is coming, those were vague. not any more. they have their enemy, they think it's specific people within the federal government directed by merrick garland. before january 6th, the enemy was people in congress, people who certified the election. that's why you had that very specific insurrection, because a guy told them to go there on january 6th. and that guy was donald trump, let's be very clear about that.
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if donald trump and his people are directing people to, you know, hate people in the fbi, either directly or indirectly by releasing unredacted warrants, for example, through their political allies at breitbart, then they know what they're doing here. that's the difference, is that instead of this time of being specific dates, this time there are specific people to go after. >> ben collins, thank you very much. . good to have you with us. coming up, he's been convicted once, and now r. kelly is facing a second federal trial. we'll go live to chicago, in just a minute. try boost® high protein with 20 grams of protein for muscle health. versus 16 grams in ensure high protein. boost® high protein also has key nutrients for immune support. boost® high protein. i started screening for colon cancer because of my late husband jay. i wish he could have seen our daughter ellie get married,
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in russia, brittney griner's legal team is appealing her conviction. she was sentenced to nine years in prison after pleading guilty for drug possession and trafficking. a senior russian diplomat confirms prisoner swap negotiations are still happening. singer r. kelly is back on trial. jury selection is starting today in chicago. he's denied any wrongdoing. neither lawyers or prosecutors have responded to requests for comments. nbc's maggie vespa joins us live from chicago. so bring us up to seed what's happening today and help us understand the idea that r. kelly is getting a second trial after having been convicted in the first one. >> reporter: it's natural to want to compare this to the last federal trial, but we want to note that a lot of legal analysts are more likely to compare it to a state trial that r. kelly also was charged in, in 2008. he was acquitted in 2008 in
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chicago on child porn charges. that case, people might remember, hinged on a tape. and this is really graphic, but a tape that basically investigators said showed r. kelly sexually assaulting an underaged girl, they believe she was about 14 at the time, and then urinating on her. at the time, investigators said they found the girl, it was clearly her. but during interviews she told them that's not me. that's not me on the tape, i don't care what you see and she refused to take the stand. fast forward 14 years, federal investigators now say they believe that r. kelly and two employees at the time paid her to tell them it wasn't her, and paid her not to testify in that trial. so those three men r. kelly and two former employees, now facing new obstruction of justice charges from that case. and also facing new receiving of child pornography charges. they also paid those three men
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someone to go out and find the tape and bring it back to them. so that's what's happening in this case. that's where those charges are coming from. compared to the last federal trial, a lot of people saw it. it was huge in the news at the time. that dealt with the abuse itself. a lot with the abuse itself, human trafficking and racketeering charges and r. kelly earlier this summer was sentenced to 30 years because of that trial. so it's a lot to deep track of and it's worth noting he's also still facing charges that are pending in illinois and minnesota so this likely won't even be the last trial. as far as what's been happening today and what's gotten a lot of the headlines and r. kelly's team asked the judge to let them excuse anyone who had seen, if you remember, what's called "surviving r. kelly." a lot of us saw it or saw press about it. the judge said today, you know what? so many people saw it i don't think you can excuse them
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automatically, but you can question them about it and kind of say, like, it you watch every episode, did you watch every minute and were you interested in it. so far by our account they have close to 90 people and only seven of them said they saw the series, but it is a big point of conversation today during this jury selection process. >> maggie vespa, thank you very much for that. one year since the fall of kabul and the taliban takeover. the new crisis now unfolding in afghanistan. n. conventional thinking would say verizon has the largest and fastest 5g network. but, they don't. they only cover select cities with 5g. so, for me and the hundreds of drivers in my fleet, staying connected, cutting downtime, and delivering on time depends on t-mobile 5g. and with coverage of over 96% of interstate highway miles, they've got us covered. (vo) unconventional thinking delivers four times the 5g coverage of verizon. and it's ready right now.
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every year we try to exercise more, to be more social,
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to just relax. and eating healthy every single meal? if only it was this easy for us. a year ago today the taliban swept to power in afghanistan after the u.s. pulled troops out of the country and now a year later the house gop is set to release a report on what they say went wrong in the withdrawal. we are already now this afternoon getting a new response from the national security council saying the report is in their words, rather riddled with inaccurate characterizations, cherry picked information and false claims. what about what's happening on the ground in afghanistan now? a year after the withdrawal, girls are barred from going to school after the sixth grade. women are forced to wear head to
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toe clothing in public and the country's economy collapsing and half the country faces serious food insecurity. they just don't have enough to eat. i want to bring in nbc news pentagon correspondent courtney kube. what's happening now? the lives of the people in afghanistan now. >> women and girls don't have the rights they had a year ago. many of them not going to the schools that this time last year they were able to go into. reporters like us, women, can't go out on television and can't go out uncovered. the economy has collapsed as you mentioned mainly because it was so reliant on foreign aid and now with the taliban in control of that government, many nations simply aren't giving them the money that they need to survive and because of that, government employees, many people are not being paid and there's rampant starvation and problems with food, food insecurity throughout the country. in addition to that, though, there's also the overall
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security piece. this is where there's been some back and forth between the biden administration and members of congress is where is the securitization right now? the biden administration arguing that in fact, al qaeda has not been able to regenerate since the u.s. withdrew last summer and there are a small number of al qaeda fighters there. what they aren't talking about is isisk and before the taliban took over the country they released some hundreds and we don't know how many, potentially more than a thousand isis fighters into the country. well, now a centcom spokesperson is telling me they believe there's somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000 isis fighters that are there in afghanistan, but the reality is they just don't know since the u.s. left, the intelligence picture has really degraded there, but the truth is the united nations report earlier this summer said these terror groups enjoy freedom of movement and safe haven there, so the reality is even if al qaeda has not been able to
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regenerate and isis may not have grown much longer, they have the safe haven to still do so potentially in the future, hallie. >> you are seeing the house republican report set to release it's pretty scathing and you have the new report from the nsc with the pushback. tell us more about it. >> that's right. i read this report over the weekend and it's a blueprint for what house republicans plan to do if they take back the house after the midterms and what they want to do to bring members of the biden administration on the hill before congress to answer questions about the planning of this withdrawal. so the report essentially argues that the biden administration that they did not prepare for or plan enough for the ultimate withdrawal of all u.s. troops and u.s. diplomatic personnel from that country and they argue that there was not urgency in the administration's planning. so the military, the u.s. military, they pre-positioned troops in afghanistan planning for a non-combatant evacuation,
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but the report argues that literally up until days and even in some cases hours before kabul fell to the taliban, biden administration officials were not planning. they didn't have that same sense of under enzi that the u.s. military did. as you mentioned, hallie, the national security council is pushing back on this report and saying that they had planning meetings throughout the spring and into the summer planning for how this withdrawal was going to take place and in many cases the biden administration continues to point back to the fact that look, this was an agreement that the trump administration made with the taliban in doha in 2020 and they were simply carrying out that agreement. >> courtney kube, our pentagon correspondent, thank you very much. thank you for watching this hour of msnbc. find us on twitter over on @hallieatmsnbc and at 5:00
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eastern. good to be with you. i'll see you tomorrow and for no "deadline: white house" picks it up right now. ♪♪ ♪♪ aloha, namaste john heilemann in for nicole wallace. at this very hour fbi agents were on donald trump's mar-a-lago conducting the unprecedented historic search and seizure operation that yielded a trove of documents some classified as top secret with profound legal and political implications for donald trump and the party and perhaps america today amid mounting concerns with violence with the department of justice probe with the sense of information and the political firestorm ignited by the search shows no signf

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