drugs than any developed nation in the world. let me say that again. in america we pay more for prescription drugs than any developed nation in the world. there's no rhyme or reason to that. for years so many of us have been trying to fix this problem, but for years big pharma blocked medicare from negotiating lower drug prices. but not this year, not this year. this year the american people won! big pharma lost! now, medicare will have the power to do what so many democrats and republicans in the past talked about doing, lower prescription drug prices. seniors will see their out-of-pocket costs for their prescription drugs limited to $2,000 a year. they cannot pay a penny more than $2,000 a year, no matter how high their drug costs are, whether for cancer drugs or

other drugs that can raise up to $70,000 a year based on need. a maximum yearly cost of $2,000. if you're on medicare and you have diabetes, your cost of your insulin will be $35. we wanted to cut the cost for everyone, including the hundreds of thousands of children with type i diabetes. i bet a lot of you out there have diabetes or your children do. republicans blocked limiting that cost to $35 for children. it only costs $10 for the prescription to be made and packaged, $10! drug companies charge families about 30 times more than that for every vial of insulin. i'm deadly earnest about this. imagine being a mom or a dad, looking at your child, you know

the need of insulin to live and not having the money to pay for it. not a joke. think about what you'd think about at the time! think about how you'd feel if you didn't have the insurance and didn't have the money. it's wrong! it's not who we are! and we're going to fix that too! >> it's just two minutes after 4:00. we are listening from a feisty and fired-up president joe biden at the white house today, touting some legislative victories. he's talking about the inflation reduction act and how needed it is right now. it has become a signature accomplishment of his term in office so far. we'll have more on that later in the program. we begin with major new developments on multiple fronts in what is potentially an historic interconnected push to unearth and investigate the conduct of the twice-impeached ex-president and his inner circle, including a new

investigation by congress. let's start with the doj investigation into donald trump's handling of government records, including sensitive and critical documents involving the country's national security. the ongoing court fight between donald trump and doj other a special master is inching forward today. in a filing last night, the justice department said it would accept one of the candidates for special master that was proposed by donald trump's lawyers. that would be former chief federal judge raymond dearie. here's what the "washington post" reports. quote, it now falls to judge cannon to decide whether to appoint dearie to be the special master. she also must resolve disputes about who will pay for the special master's work, whether the review will include examination of classified documents and whether to lift the judge's prior restriction from barring the fbi from using those documents in its ongoing

investigation. all this as a letter from congress to the national archives floats a very important question. after months of pleading from the archives after a subpoena and court-authorized search of his private club and residence, is there more? you know, are there more records in donald trump's hands? a letter from the powerful house oversight committee asks the archives to answer that very question. they write, nara's staff recently informed the committee that the agency is not certain whether all presidential records are in its custody. over in the senate, bombshell allegations by veteran prosecutor jeffrey berman, who will be our guest at the top of the next hour, are now the subject of another newly announced investigation into the trump era justice department. the senate judiciary committee says it will look into whether bill barr and top doj officials pressured the us attorney's

office in manhattan prosecuting donald trump's critics. quote, senate judiciary chairman senator richard durbin of illinois, the number two senate democrat, made the announcement in a letter sent to ag garland. quote, these reported claims show astonishing deviations from the department's mission to pursue impartial justice, which requires that its prosecutorial decisions be free from political influence. of course the work of the congressional panel tasked with investigating the january 6th insurrection is also far from over. not only is another public hearing in the works scheduled for september 28th, as far as we know, committee member adam kinzinger said this morning that the committee is likely to make a criminal referral to the justice department, whose probes into january 6th took a massive leap forward this week with dozens of subpoenas to trump

allies. here's what congressman kinzinger had to say about that. >> we've got to hold people to account. if the rule of law says you can attempt a coup as long as you fail and you won't be held responsible, that is way more dangerous for this country than some, you know, fear of short-term violence or rise in the street. >> it's getting busy. there are multiple probes looking to the mountain of misconduct and potential criminal actions that went down during the trump term. joyce vance is here, former u.s. attorney, now law professor at the university of alabama. and the one and only john

heilemann is back, the executive editor of the recount as well as an msnbc analyst. these are all your beats, so we'll take them in order. the newest being dick durbin's decision for the judiciary committee to look into the barr era justice department. the themes in the probes are certainly all echoes of one another. i wonder if you can take us through where the back and forth is right now over the special master. it seems that doj has given an inch here, acquiesing to one of the names recommended by donald trump's lawyers. i wonder if your reporting suggests that will move this process along. >> certainly i think the justice department is invested in having the process move forward, because the investigation itself was moving quite quickly before it hit this roadblock. judge dearie, the person who the justice department indicated it would accept as a special master is very well respected by people

on both sides of the aisle. he has served on the fisa court, so certainly familiar with the handling of classified information and seems to be a well qualified pick. for the department this is somebody who they would not mind being the special master. however the question is whether the department would still be able to go forth with its investigation and whether or not the trump lawyers' own filings are something the department can live with, filings that insinuate but do not specifically claim that donald trump had, for example, declassified information. whether or not the justice department will let those claims stand or try to do an appeal, i think, is up for grabs. >> david, we've tried to at least in our coverage focus equally on what is perhaps the shinier object, which is the criminal investigation to donald trump. but perhaps the piece of it that

affects every one of us, that is the potential threat to u.s. national security. i wonder if you can balance those out for us in your examination of doj's response to some of trump's moves. >> right. so it's not uncommon for counter intelligence investigations to morph into criminal investigations and for the national security piece to proceed on its own track. you know, what's happening is what happens in any case involving the discovery of the unauthorized retention of classified documents in a place they're not supposed to be. the department is conducting a criminal investigation to learn what it can about whether trump willfully retained these documents in order to potentially prove its burden of proof under the espionage act to proceed criminally. at the same time, it has to undertake a classification review to confirm with u.s. intelligence agencies that originated this material whether these documents were properly classified, they remain classified and for a damage

assessment to take place, the premise of which is the notion that these documents were compromised so the ic can think about what sources and methods may have been compromised and take appropriate remedial measures. this is the anatomy of an investigation like this. it happens all the time. this one just happens to involve a former president of the united states, who believes he should be treats differently than anybody else whose home has been the focus of a search warrant authorized by a federal magistrate, where probable cause was determined that evidence of a crime would be found in the very place that evidence of a crime was found. the department has offered an off ramp to this district court judge to get this right one last time. that's why they've taken a scalpel to the court's order instead of a sledge hammer to try to get her to regroup in order to proceed with the criminal investigation to make use of these documents they

found at mar-a-lago. >> what the coverage has done in the last 24 hours is that suggest for investigations, you know, we cover them in different conversations, sometimes with different guests, the investigation into the insurrection, the investigation into the removing, hoarding and lying about returning classified materials on the part of the president at mar-a-lago. but they have of course intersected. all these bad and potentially criminal acts always seem to build on one another. that is in the form of questions whether people like trump attorney christina bob who was retained as trump's lawyer, she's the one who allegedly looks like she lied in attesting to where the classified material was stored and how much had been returned. she was present in the willard war room. remember that? it was the meeting that mark meadows was supposed to attend on january 5th and cassidy

hutchinson said, no, boss, that's not a good idea. given the front-line worker time times -- she was present in the willard war room. criminal exposure for mar-a-lago might lead to important cooperation regarding january 6th. it's not just pete strzok. a far right legal person has suggested -- what do we call him, a legal mind? very conservative. he has said that, yes, trump broke the law, yes, there's a good case, but you might want to wait and charge a president for his role on a deadly insurrection. we have a second not so dotted line between the mar-a-lago behavior and the insurrection. >> if there's not already a proverb that says all paths

ultimately cross one another, i think that we need one, because that's inevitably what happens in this investigation. you pulled exactly the right thread here. it's the possibility there are witnesses who have criminal exposure from one facet of the former president's misbehavior, who when confronted with the very real possibility that christina bob now faces, that she could become the target of an investigation, may decide to share all of the information that they have in an effort to save themselves. that's a very realistic probability. sometimes in these situations involving classified information, maybe there's not going to be a prosecution because national security equities weigh against that even though there's a prosecutable case. that's not the situation here. this is very widely known. we even have some inkling what

kind of documents are at stake. bob and other lawyers and other people in trump's camp need to think about whether they can be reined in as part of a conspiracy in this and whether this might not be a good time to show up with their lawyer to testify to what they know before the grand jury. my experience as a prosecutor suggests that in this situation these potential sort of defendant/witnesses know that the person who's first in to cooperate is going to get the best deal. there may not be deals for people who wait too long. if there hasn't already been a rush to see the justice department to sit down with the u.s. attorney in the district of columbia, one suspects that's not far away. >> john heilemann, there's almost too much to put on the table at once. we know our viewers can handing it. it's a platter of criminality and investigation. >> i want to do a little bit of

biblical instruction for joyce. joyce, there is a proverb that applies to this. it's from the book of proverbs. everything trump touches dies, i think is the proverb you're looking for. [ laughter ] all the streams are crossing, yes. >> you're on a roll. you've done this. you look at the january 6th probe both by congress and by doj. the doj one arguably far more opaque. you now have a clear case where because of the national security implications and because of the actors, the people that enabled the insurrection, some of them were around for the document hoarding. >> look, you got to go to sociology now. the reality in this key period after the selection, after he'd lost and everyone who was sensible around him and sane and

tethered to reality knew he'd lost. who was left? all the dead enders. the dead enders club, which was trump's senior tier of advisors at that point, of course they're going to be involved in everything, because it's that chaotic period when normally a transition would be taking place and a president would acknowledge that he lost the election. instead we have a president desperately clinging to power in ways that are illegal, extralegal, non-legal. he's using people from inside and outside the government to try to pursue obviously illegitimate ends. when you get to that point in this unprecedented period, of course there's going to be a lot of crossover. the people who are scummy enough, unconcerned about their legal liability enough, too stupid to know what this is going to mean for them down the line, those are the ones that are left. of course, they're the ones that

are going to be touching all these acts of malfeasance. i think the most meaningful thing i've seen in the last week has be that "new york times" piece that basically said, hey, look over here. the justice department has issued 50 subpoenas in the last week on the january 6th probe. there's another investigation racing down these railroad tracks at full speed. that, to me, tells you that there's going to be a lot to pay attention to over the next few months. >> that story broke 23 hours ago in our 5:00 hour yesterday. you and your colleagues reporting that 40 subpoenas have gone out. at least two telephones have been seized. pick up what john heilemann is talking about that certainly in the last four weeks since the mar-a-lago search, not as much public attention has been paid to that other very robust investigation. >> i think you're right. we're seeing the investigations happening, so much information coming to the fore in the public

in large part because people close to donald trump do talk about when they're subpoenaed and they do talk about when their property is taken. so we have a rich amount of information that is obscured this investigation into the document search. when you look at the investigations and step back, what's fascinating is that the investigation into whether or not donald trump took documents, as people like john eu have said is clear that it seems donald trump committed a crime by obstructing justice and he had things he shouldn't have had. for the justice department, it really is a matter of getting through the special master process, trying to figure out whether or not they will appeal, and then figuring out what other investigative steps need to be taken before they get to a point where information is submitted to the head of the national security division and then his superiors decide whether or not this evidence leads them to a decision to prosecute or not to prosecute donald trump for those

crimes. it's a much more straightforward case in some ways. there's already a theory of the crime that's been put out in public documents. now they need to make sure all the information is gathered. this is not new work for the department. it's just a matter of timing. on the other hand, january 6th, while there's a lot more smoke and activity, subpoenas, key names coming up again and again in multiple investigations, it's not clear that the department is actually on as clear a track toward the former president. they actually seem to have many other people in their sights. >> david, we turn to you next. is that because the january 6th probe is moving up? there's evidence they're moving closer and closer to trump in their scrutiny of rudy giuliani and others.

or is it because it may be less clear, less in plain view? >> i think it's many things. i think it's a broader gauged, more complex conspiracy to investigate some of the individuals who are attorneys themselves. authorities' search warrants have to be socialized at the highest level of the department, filter teams have to be established. back to katie's point. the mar-a-lago thing is like a christmas president with a bow on it. this is a very discrete type of criminal activity, which is not to say that the department is near to its ability to make a charging decision as. some may think. they really do want to engage in logical investigative steps based on what they seized among the classified documents at mar-a-lago. that means interviewing witnesses and asking questions derived from what they learned from those documents and fanning out and re-interviewing people.

not only do they have to meet the basic burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, in a case like this where you're charging a former president of the united states, there's got to be a plus factor, a quality of evidence so pulverizing that there can be no doubt when the department makes public his charging document that its case is just obliterating. that's what they're going to have to do. that's what attorney general garland is going to be expecting. they're going to have to pressure test it. there are complications, as joyce mentioned, when you are charging a retention case, because you've got to decide which classified documents are going to comprise exhibits that we're going to offer into evidence in a public trial. that's a complicated procedure to go through. it can be done. i did it in a case many years ago. but the government doesn't want to make things worse by compromising further the sensitivity of classified information, so it's going to have to come to agreement with

the intelligence community to decide which documents it is okay to use. that takes time. often times the biggest enemy is not the defendant, but fellow agencies within the government. it's a time consuming process and they need to be able to work through it unfettered. >> i had no idea we were going to call merrick garland the pulverizer or the obliterator. >> i wrote that down. speaking of reading doj documents, i was handed a new one while we were on the air. we're going to go through it. it is a newly unsealed portion of the affidavit that was used to go before the judge and win that judge's approval for the search of mar-a-lago. there are new sections that were redacted and no longer are that have been unsealed. our friend tom winter will join us to tell us what is new. all of our friends and panelists will stick around. we're going to keep moving

through the investigations. plus, if you thought republicans were extreme before, they're now pitching an even more treatment position on abortion, which is weird, because that's what's killing them. they're proposing a nationwide ban presented by the maga wing of the gop. later in the program, we will have our own chance to speak with former u.s. attorney jeffrey berman from the southern district of new york about the stunning revelations he details in page after page of his new book about the ex-president's pressure campaign and desire to punish his political enemies. his revelations now taking shape as a new congressional investigation. as a new congressional investigation. this is john. he hasn't worked this hard to only get this far with his cholesterol. taken with a statin, leqvio can lower bad cholesterol and keep it low with two doses a year. side effects were

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never a dull moment around here. a judge has just unsealed more of the affidavit that was used to justify the mar-a-lago search of donald trump's golf club. let's bring in my colleague tom winter. tom, i was trying to read and talk and it didn't go well. tell me what is newly unsealed. >> i was reading and writing first. so we got essentially nine paragraphs of this search warrant affidavit that have been redacted, either in part or in full. it has to do with something we already know about from a high level, that there was two grand jury subpoenas issued in this prior to the search warrant at mar-a-lago taking place. we know that from the ongoing litigation involving the special

master. we've been hearing about that for the last couple of weeks. what federal prosecutors said today is, hey judge, we've already talking about this in another case. the judge that oversees the grand jury has approved us to disclose the information. so it makes sense for us to unredact it there. i think a couple of pieces of information here are new or at least new in the context of this search warrant affidavit that would be of interest. first off, we now know what was inside that red-welled envelope, specifically how the documents inside were marked. five were marked considerable, 16 marked secret, 17 marked top secret. then on those documents there were various markings, including some that appear to contain information that was derived from fisa sources, the foreign intelligence surveillance act. that's surveillance that occurs electronically on foreign adversaries to the united

states, as well as hcs, which is human information. that's new information. we know that was a certified letter provided to the fbi and doj at mar-a-lago on june 3rd. the person who wrote that, it doesn't say specifically who it was, but says that based upon the information that has been provided to me, i am authorized to certify on behalf of the office of donald trump the following, that they searched the boxes moved from the white house to florida. two, that the search was conducted after the subpoena to try to locate any responsive documents. i'm paraphrasing a little bit. and, c, any and all responsive documents accompany the certification and that we didn't make any notations or writings or reproductions of those documents. now, we now know based on the justice department's assertions that that was not the case, because obviously they went back and conducted the search warrant and found these things. on top of that, apparently

according to what was unsealed today from this fbi affidavit that trump's counsel stated that all the records that came from the white house went to this storage room in the basement of mar-a-lago and there were no records in any private office space or other location at mar-a-lago. again, we now know from what's been publicized by the fbi that that's not the case. they found documents in trump's personal office. i think those are kind of the key take-aways from this. the existence of these subpoenas talked about, known about, not new, but i think some of the surrounding color and detail today about those are potentially new. again, still going through this, so forgive me. twitter viewers,some of the stuff may be a little bit off. >> you were talking about this unnamed people who signed these documents, the lawyers. is that all what we now believe

is the christina bob stuff? is that what this connects to? >> it may be. i think those are some of the assertions made. >> i want to pull david and joyce into this. joyce, i want your thoughts on what's been unsealed. >> well, this does in large part make the information that's been revealed consistent between the d.c. and the florida investigations. of course, the mar-a-lago grand jury subpoena is issued out of a grand jury functioning in the district of columbia. if there's one take-away here and it's not certain, but there's more of an implication in this newly released information that the former president did play a role in the provision of information about documents to whoever the lawyer was who certified this information to the justice department. there's this implication that documents were stored in storage areas and that there was nothing

in personal offices. tha seems like the sort of information that would have been likely to come from the former president. this gives doj more of a basis to move forward. and of course because this involves the grand jury subpoenas and not documented ultimately seized in the search, doj is free to move forward without violating judge cannon's order. >> david, tom winter is a very meticulous reporter. this is his beat. joyce is a very careful lawyer. i am neither of those things so i want to put it a little more bluntly. is this more evidence or more information that suggests that trump lied about what remained and trump lied about where it was? >> i think it's more probable than not that trump lied to his lawyers, caused them to make false statements to the department of justice. i'm giving the lawyers the benefit of the doubt because i'm a lawyer and i like to think

lawyers don't typically lie to the united states government during a criminal investigation. they may have exercised some modicum of due diligence. but the problem with being a lawyer for donald trump is no lawyer can exercise client control. no lawyer can get the truth out of their client when their client's name is donald trump. so it's more likely than not that he lied to them, knowing they were going to transmit those lies to the government. there's nothing that antagonizes an fbi agent or a justice department lawyer than being lied to. that's why this correction piece is so prominent here. in cases involving the retention of classified documents among the variables that can tilt the balance of proceeding criminally or not is whether there are aggravating factors present. few factors are more aggravating than obstruction of justice in addition to the sensitivity of the documents that tom reported on. fisa derived collection, are you

kidding me? the reckless disregard for protecting national security interests was rife in mar-a-lago. >> i know that doj is driven by a legal strategy and the transparency supports a legal strategy. my thought is, are they also aware that by putting out and releasing and unsealing information as quickly as they have, they are keeping the likes of bill barr and chris christie constantly on right wing media sources attesting to the strength of the federal government's case, the strength of the federal government's evidence and the fact that donald trump appears to have broken the law and lied. >> i think they would always say they're putting out this information in response to activities happening in the court itself, that as more information comes out in court, it allows them to be more transparent with the public in its filings. certainly we would have to be blind and deaf to not understand the conversation happening in the public around this case,

particularly on the right. what's so interesting to me in this latest version of the filing is it also shows the justice department was worried about how donald trump would respond to the request for records from nara, the surveillance footage they requested for that period of time after nara had continued to request information and before the first 15 boxes was transmitted. i believe that's the timing if i'm reading this correctly. again, that reenforced this idea that whether it's john eu or bill barr that donald trump did do something wrong. the question is whether or not he should be prosecuted. the question is no longer whether or not there was wrongdoing. >> john heilemann, it's an important distinction. i keep pointing to barr and christie's comments about the strength of the government's case. i think the journalism suggests

there's a lot of consternation. the words pulverized and owe obliterated were set that high. >> i think that's right. i do also think there's a perception because merrick garland has been the way he's been and he is who he is. he was trying to steer the department away from the politicization of the trump era. was trying to get back to an older version of what the doj was like. somehow some of these considerations like the one you just talked about, the nature of -- katie is 100% right. they are driven by what's going on in the court, et cetera, et cetera. i know some people who work for merrick garland in that department who are political people, who understand messaging, who understand the

nature of the world we live in, who understand the power -- >> of facts. >> and the power of bill barr and chris christie and others of right wing media saying, these are very powerful claims, legal claims. the facts are bad for donald trump. they understand that. they understand that when they cross that rubicon, the moment that merrick garland decided i'm going to authorize this search of mar-a-lago, send the fbi down there, he knew he was crossing the rubicon and going a place he did not want to go, which is there was going to be a massive political war over this. once they cross that rubicon, i think they are not politicizing the case, but they know the war they're in and there's people in that department who are smart and understand that part of the way you illustrate the potency of the case, the obliterating nature of it is to have reenforcement like we almost never have in our politics now

of former trump allies on right wing media saying the same things people are saying on straight media, on msnbc, on cnn and other places. that's an important thing that speaks to the legitimacy of the case and to what the department is doing. >> i'm not saying it's causal. i'm saying everything they do in support of their legal strategy, which is in the bucket of transparency, has the effect of gaining more admirers or fans or endorsers of the strength of their case. we live in a climate where immediately after the judge approved the search of mar-a-lago, there was an armed attack on an fbi office. it seems that they're not fighting this war. this is a war on the right. this is not a war on fact-based america. but there is awareness that transparency certainly serves to dispel any information in realtime. >> the former president himself

has called for transparency. [ laughter ] i'm sure they would love to flow where the investigation is going or at least some of the people that are providing them information. from that standpoint, whether he means it or not, he's even asked asked for it. so they're giving to him what he's asked for. they're giving to us, the media organizations, which continue to press for more of this search warrant affidavit to be unsealed and we're representing you, the people at home, they're giving us what we want. i think there is definitely a strategy here. they're not wasting any time. they were raised by trump's own counsel. then they went to the judge and said, hey, can we now talk about it? they've talked about it. yes, they were able to do it. the key sequence i'm trying to understand and some of this is still redacted is what caused justice department counsel to go for the videotape?

that is still, i think, a key component of this. the timeline of it, it's a couple of weeks after the assertions are initially made by trump's attorneys and these documents are handed over. then you have on june 22nd doj counsel advised the fbi that counsel for the trump organization confirmed that the trump organization maintains these security cameras. was it the fbi and the doj counsel when they went to view the storage room that said there's cameras here, we should check in on this? did somebody pick up the phone, did somebody drop a text, an e-mail that said there's something going on there? why the timing of that? what causes them to start to look into that after they received the assertion that, hey, here's all the documents. >> is that a witness, is that a whistleblower? what are the scenarios where that could be happening in the sequence that tom winter is

rightfully keying in on? >> i think it's probably a combination of those factors. witnesses' names have been redacted still in the search warrant affidavit who provided information to the fbi about what they knew about not only the presence of classified material, but how it was being moved like some game of three-card monty in this beach club resort. now they have a means to gain forensic evidence of the movement of boxes, again, consistent with the notion that obstruction of justice occurred here. the trump strategy is just so stupid. they think through more disclosure that public opinion is going to be galvanized on their behalf. instead they're raising the cost to people who continue to try to support them where the government is confronting them with more incontrovertible facts that make it harder for them to defend this conduct. >> the question that i have and

it's for joyce or david. i'm not a lawyer and i don't play one on tv. but what sort of legal responsibility or culpability is extended to the former president when an attorney says, hey look, this was represented to me and i'm allowed to tell you this, but is making it very clear in that statement that it seems to me i'm only relying on what i'm being told here? does that increase any legal exposure? >> joyce. >> it absolutely does. there are cases that have been prosecuted where someone has made a misrepresentation, someone has told a lie to someone that they know will submit that in the form of an official certification to the government. so if that's the case, if doj has evidence -- and we don't know that yet -- that it was the former president who went to his lawyer, went to his custodian of

records and said, listen, we've turned over everything,ing there's nothing else, you can sign off on this certiication to the government, then the former president is in a heap of trouble, if he wasn't already. >> something that tom pointed out to us in his analysis, in his reporting is that the filing includes this revelation that they know they were lied to and all of this public evidence of this obstruction, of this criminal probe -- there was objection in the mueller investigation into trump campaign ties in russia. we now know that top doj officials didn't believe obstruction was a crime separate from the underlying one. this is a new justice department and they seem to be putting forward a whole lot of public-facing evidence of obstruction of this criminal proceeding in addition to evidence of the criminal conduct

itself. >> absolutely. so i would say that while it's clear the justice department feels it has a strong case on obstruction and that certain people on both sides of the aisle have agreed with that assessment, i would insert a word of caution because you have mentioned the mueller investigation. when you see a lot of information coming out in the public over a prolonged period of time, it can raise expectations and the department can lose credibility if those expectations are not met in the end. so this strategy does come with some risk. setting that aside, yes indeed on the obstruction question, the new information not only gives us more information about the possibility that the justice department was lied to, but it gives us a window into a possible strategy for them. they have lawyers making representations to them that may not have been true. so the question will be whether or not the department decides they should go to the lawyers and ask for more investigation,

whether it's because they asked them to come in for an interview or because they put them in a grand jury box and lead the lawyers to believe they could be prosecuted to see if they could elicit cooperation or information into the president's thinking. that's something we don't know whether a decision has been made as to whether or not the department would take either one of those two tacks. certainly the new information revealed today shows that would be an investigative step that would be worth exploring. >> the "new york times" reported yesterday that christina bob has hired a lawyer. that strategy is very much under way. >> yes. again, i'll step back from this whole thing and go back to what i think is the central question we've been faced with, starting with the january 6th probe and then once the mar-a-lago search and seizure happened, which is is merrick garland going to indict donald trump or not? that's the question, right? as we saw the search and seizure happen and it turned out this wasn't a simple thing. there were lots of documents.

were they serious? yes, they were serious. you were talking about the cascading disclosures and how they've built the case stronger. now we have a new set of disclosures. there is nothing that's happened since the day the fbi arrived at mar-a-lago that has made me think there was less likelihood that merrick garland was proving toward indicting donald trump. do i think he's made that decision yet? i don't know, but nothing we've learned has made the case weaker. nothing is mitigating. it feels, as a nonlawyer, i've seen a few things in politics in my time. merrick garland looks like he's marshaling the case and he knows he has an indictable offense and you wouldn't do all of this if you weren't going to ultimately go through with it. because, my god, the backlash if

you stop short after all of this has been unveiled and we knew the lies and everything we now know to now then say, you know, the president doesn't need to be held accountable for that. i find it almost inconceivable at this point. >> not to bury the lede with this breaking news, but we did learn in this newly unsealed section that some of what was handed over contained fisa intelligence and human sources, so everything people have been sort of publicly worrying about in terms of national security is proven out again by another unsealing. >> this makes a mockery of when the trump kids said dad liked to cut newspapers. he was a big scrapbooker. this is all bs. uh-huh. now we know. >> i'm sure he does needlepoint too. thank you so much for starting

us off and for sticking around to deal with the breaking news. up next for us, republican hypocrisy and inconsistency at its finest, next level stuff. while some republicans are trying to run away from and down play their restrictive positions which are wildly unpopular now on abortion, lindsey graham went for it today, said he wants to see abortion controlled at the federal level by the feds after first saying it was an issue that should be left to the states. not all republicans agreed with him. we'll show you that, next. we'll show you that, next.

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learn how you could pay as little as zero dollars at ingrezza.com. republicans have a big problem on their hands ahead of november's midterm elections. voters now realize that they are too extreme on abortion. way out of the mainstream on abortion. so republicans got together and they're idea for a solution take a more extreme position on abortion than they had before. here is lindsey graham today. >> i think states should decide the issue of marriage and states should decide the issue of abortion. >> i think we should have a law at the federal level that would say after 15 weeks, no abortion on demand. >> so, that is then and now. that is lindsey graham before and after. that is from the recount. the republican senator

introduced a 15 week federal ban on abortion. joining us erin haines and joining john and me at the table, basil smikle and director of the public policy program at hunter college. bazil, it is like what low-hanging fruit and communicate to the voters first? >> so the lindsey graham move smacks of desperation. the spring and summer reflex was we got what we want from the supreme court but they found out horribly discord ant the trues with regard to the american people. so what you're hearing now, because of everything that happened in january 6 and subsequent to that, is that cack aco phony that leads to this point which is what seems to be a desperate move to say if we have nothing else, if we don't have someone like a donald trump bringing us altogether, let as see what we could do.

obviously there are tragic consequences to all of this. that democrats need to be -- sort of mobilized around. and they are. but this smacks of desperation. it is a horrific desperation. >> and it is -- it is on three levels. there is the human cost and the tragedy and the health risk for women. there is the political stupidity of being on the other side of a 63% question keeping roe v. wade, 63% of americans wanted to. and then when the republican replacement is bans that don't include exception for rape an incest. 83% of americans think we should have an exception for rape and banning all abortions if the life of the mother is in danger. and there is the political deadweight that donald trump's supreme court. erin, how do you message all of that? >> well, nicolle, i think that is just it.

you've got senator graham rolling out this bill today even as you have senate candidates that are absolutely rolling back some of their positions around abortion because they're seeing democratic voters and independents being absolutely galvanized in a post-bobbs reality. everyone was not at the same meeting because you are having all of the conflicting messages. i don't know if this is something that maybe some gop -- some in the gop think that might work for the primary but now we're in a different situation. less than two months from election day. you are seeing a very different electorate than the electorate that put a lot of folks who did hold the more stream positions on the ballot which is why their tempering their message. so i don't know how this federal legislation proposal is supposed to help those candidates on the campaign trail. >> to erin's point, bazil, you

have blake masters, is that the fellow's name in arizona, scrubbing the website of the abortion positions and while you have lindsey graham dropping a federal abortion ban. >> and they came out with very different ideas of what happened in that meeting. so, when you combine that with candidate quality and how bad that has been on the republican side, you know, this again, this seems to me that they're throwing anything they can against the wall to try to mobilize their voters. but they're unable to do that. but the consequences are so dire that as a democrat you can't overlook that. >> i think it is this simple. every republican candidate is being hit with the most extreme version which is total abortion ban, no exceptions for life or life of the mother or rape or incest. anybody out there on the campaign is getting hit with that because some republicans have pushed for that. that is become the headline extremist case that democrats are making as republicans.

this bill is extreme. and out of step with the american public. but it is less extreme than that and they're trying to get everybody out there to point and say, hey, we allowed there to be some abortion. as long as it is within 15 weeks. they see this as the moderate path that will be a life preserver for candidates that have more extreme positions. >> the problem is not just that, there are 10-year-old victims crossing state lines. thank you so much for spending time with us today. up next for us, the interview we've been waiting for. former u.s. attorney for sdny, jeff berman will be here on set to talk about his blockbuster new book about how the ex president sought to weaponize and take control of his office for political gain. it is something that is now the subject of a congressional investigation. don't go anywhere. don't go anywhere. 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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what mr. berman is disclosing in this book is outrageous conduct by the trump administration. i think that is significant disclosure and i think it should be followed up, i've contacted merrick garland and get a reaffirmation from him about his definition, for the president and i don't know the possibility of some later date to bring mr. berman in for testimony. >> hi, again. it is 5:00 in new york. there have been so many books written about the trump era, for better or for worse. i read most of them. so you don't have to read all of them. most are chilling accounts that told the story of the unprecedented way that trump ran the country. the norms he took a wrecking ball to with glee. he tried to manipulate and many

of them until they broke to benefit him. but few of these tombs if any have prompted what you just saw. an immediate call for a congressional investigation. like we are now seeing with this new book out by former u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york jeffrey berman. last night the senate judiciary committee announced it will investigate claims made in the book that a justice department attempted to prosecute critics of former president and protect the former president and his allies. the book is chocked full of so many bombshells. we're going to spend more time later in the week. it exposed in riveting detail the attempts to weaponize doj by donald trump. here is a little of berman describing what was demanded of him. demands came down from main

justice that were political. among the most outrageous, pressure to pursue baseless criminal charges against john kerry who has served as secretary of state. we were badgered without success to remove all reference to individual one, president trump, from the charging document against michael cohen. in a case involving what questions could properly be asked as part of the u.s. census, we were pressured not to reveal evidence indicating that a member of the president's cabinet had omitted relevant information and testimony to congress. that one is a -- wow. berman details his battles to uphold the rule of law at sdny, in spite of an political campaign. he described walking a tight rope that he said eventually snapped. berman was fired first unsuccessfully by barr and then by trump in june of 2020. following that failed attempt, bill barr forced him to step

down. last night berman spoke with rachel maddow about why he was targeted. >> you say that you believe he were forced out was based in politics. how were you a threat to the trump re-election. >> at the time i was fired, the southern district of new york was working on a couple of politically sensitive cases. one of the cases is the steve bannon we build the wall case and we were very close to indicting that case around the time i got fired and barr knew about the case. that is one of the cases that we were investigating and we were very close to indicting and the other case was the ukraine investigation arising out of the leave parnas and igor fruman indictments and that was something that we had been investigating for quite a while and we continued to investigate for a while and both were sensitive. >> at the end of the book he delivered a warning, what i felt and continue to feel is worry.

the southern district stands for all that justice in america should be. barr and others tried to take it down. without some of the reforms i've suggested, and whatever smart changes others might propose. it could easily by attempted against by future administration or elements of this same gang. it is important to understand how fragile the system is and how vulnerable it could be when powerful people attempt to use it for political game. we start the hour with jeffrey berman. author of the new book "holding the line, inside of the nation's pre-eminent attorney's office and the battle with the justice department." this is the copy of the galley. i read it in a flight with my hands over the pages, i put stickies and underlined all of it. but the opening starts with a bill barr lieutenant, let's start at beginning and go

through it. >> sure. we're investigating greg craig, a prominent democrat, a former wouse counsel to president obama and we're investigating him and then, you know, we get pushed by main justice to say that it is time for you guys to even things out. we want you to indict greg craig before the midterm elections. the person said, hey, you know, you've just indicted two major allies of the president, chris collins, a republican congressman from upstate new york and michael cohen, the president's lawyer and fixer and it is time to even things out by indicting a democrat before the midterms. it was one of the most -- probably the most outrageous thing i've ever heard in the history of my working for the doj and the people who were privy to that statement also thought it was, you know, just horrendous. >> it doesn't stop there,

though. tell our viewers what happened with the greg craig case. >> so we're investigating greg craig and there was a fair charge and some related false statement charges. and we determined that, you know, greg craig was completely innocent of the and that the false statement charges were just so weak that to bring an indictment would be inappropriate. so, the midterm election came and went. and then i declined the case. >> so means you call back to main doj and we looked at everything as you requested, there is nothing there, it is a very weak case, we're not going to prosecute. >> inappropriate to prosecute. >> and what happened. >> it should have ended there. when the southern district of new york, with the talent that we have, investigated thoroughly and determined there is not a case to bring, that is where it should have ended. but it didn't. they shopped the case to another district.

and the district of columbia. and district of columbia indicted greg craig on false statements. >> did they look at different evidence than you did. >> they couldn't have looked at different evidence. we had thoroughly investigating the case. there was no evidence beyond what we had. >> and so what happened with that prosecution? >> before it was brought, i spoke to the u.s. attorney in the district of columbia. >> who is that? >> jesse lou and tried to convince her not to bring a case. not to bring a farrah case, or a false statement case. it was just too weak and it was inappropriate. but they brought the case anyway. and by the way, the day after he was indicted, donald trump tweeted his pleasure in the indictment. so it was a case that obviously donald trump was following. the case went to trial. the jury deliberated less than five hours before it acquitted

greg craig. the case should never have been brought. >> in your view, he was wrongfully prosecuted. >> yes. john kerry is also investigated. tell us that story. >> john kerry, a former secretary of state for president obama, presidential candidate, extremely significant figure in the democratic party. president trump attacks john kerry in two tweets. saying that john kerry engaged in possible illegal conversations with iranian officials regarding the iran nuclear deal. the very next day, the trump justice department refers the john kerry criminal case to the southern district of new york. two tweets by the president and the john kerry criminal case is now a priority for the department of justice. and the statute that they wanted us to use was enacted in 1799 and had never been

successfully -- >> the logan act. >> the logan act. >> tell us what -- where this came from again. did you get the same call from the same official? >> originally, two of the chiefs of our -- of our national security unit were in d.c. that is where the referral was given at the national security division and they brought it back to the office. >> there have some characters that repeat over and over, and one is ed o'callaghan. tell me what your experience was with ed. >> he was messenger. he was the one that the office was often at antagonistic with. so for example, it was ed o'callaghan who said you guys got to even things out. it is time to indict a democrat before the midterm elections. it was ed o'callaghan who tried to get all reference to

individual one, donald trump, out of the michael cohen indictment. it was ed o'callaghan who reiterated to my deputy that there was -- that no one should be touching any document or reading any document in connection with the investigation arising out of the cohen conviction. he repeatedly is at odds with the southern district of new york and in a highly inappropriate kay. >> did ed o'callaghan edicts to you or your deputy ever get appealed by you. did you ever go to bar and say this is totally inappropriate to make the cohen indictment nonsense cal. >> the cohen indictment was appealed. and there were numerous meetings with barr, when barr shut down the cohen investigate, it was the investigation arising out the cohen conviction, it was campaign finance investigations.

there were numerous meetings with barr in d.c. and ultimately it was shut down for two months and ultimately audrey straus, the deputy u.s. attorney, was able to open it up again. >> let me dig in on the michael cohen. you're recused from cohen. >> that is right. >> so this is your deputies running this case. there is a 41-page document that repeatedly invoked individual one and that was donald trump. he's described as an unindicted co-conspirator. >> let me stop you there. >> by analysts who read the document. >> okay. >> but what you're book reveals an investigation into the activity around cohen was stopped. was donald trump under investigation and main doj stopped that investigation. >> i can't say who was part of the investigation, the campaign finance violation investigation. but what i can say is, the

investigation was stopped. but the office persevered and it was opened again. and audrey straus was in charge of that investigation and there were no charges brought ultimately but i have every confidence that she handled herself in traditional southern district fashion with integrity and independence. >> so she was able to take the michael cohen and pursue the hush money. >> yes. >> and nobody put their finger on the scale and told you to look at donald trump. >> that is correct. >> what is the impact of the meddling in the cohen and the documents in the case, the prosecution of greg craig and the investigation into john kerry, what does that do to sdny? >> well the pattern is horrendous. it is the politicization of the department of justice the department of justice is supposed to be independent.

the cardinal rule that partisan political concerns are not supposed to enter into any decision making and that rule was repeatedly violated. now we managed to push back every attempt to interfere in our cases and we were successful every time. and i tried not to let, as i say in the book, i tried not to let the junior prosecutors know what was going on because i wanted them to concentrate and not be distracted. but it was -- it was difficult. it was two and a half years of kind of unrelenting. >> pressure. >> push back. >> a man who you found not worthy of being prosecuted was still prosecuted. he stood trial. john kerry, a democratic candidate for president was criminally investigated for violating a law from the 1700s. and then the interference, the unprecedented interference of michael cohen. what did you do with the pattern.

who you could call if it was coming from doj and the white house? >> we handled it ourself. we took care of it. and with the greg craig case, the southern district doesn't have control over another district. if another district gets a case and makes an analysis that it is a good enough case to indict, they have the authority to do that. with the john kerry case, i was pretty certain that when that case was referred to another district, i would get a call from the u.s. attorney in whichever district it was sent to and in fact, i did get that call and i spoke at length with the u.s. attorney explaining why the case had no merit and at the end the u.s. attorney agreed with me and the case was dropped. >> i guess my question is, the pattern doesn't end. every single chapter is a new exhibit of political corruption at doj and you're telling sulgts that a lot of them are coming straight from the white house twitter feed and i wonder if you were ever so concerned that you asked your inspector general to

look into main doj, to mr. ed o'callaghan, and you write about brian rabbit. did you ask anyone to look into what you describe as a pattern? >> we handled the interferences, the attempts to interfere ourselves and we didn't have the need to refer it to the inspector general. >> so the first time an inspector general would read about this kind of political interference would be in this book? >> we never took it to the inspector general. we didn't have the need for it. >> did you sit as a group and wonder if you should go to the over sight committee, or senate or house judiciary? >> we handled it. and if we weren't successful in handling it, and maintaining the independence and integrity of the southern district of new york, that was my job. that was my sole job. to make sure that we did things the southern district way and we always did. if we weren't able to do that, then there might have been either methods.

at end of my tenure there was a situation where barr was going to impose an outsider who he trusted in charge of the southern district of new york. and at that point, i went public, i was noisy, i don't think -- >> played some killer office politics. >> i don't think there is a precedent in the department of justice for what i did. a sent out a press conference and i told the entire country what barr was trying to do and how he crossed the liern and i used the language from the obstruction of justice statute. and it was because of that very noisy exit that barr backed down and audrey straus, a person of highest integ rit, took over as the acting u.s. attorney. >> i'm sure it hasn't been lost on you about that bill barr and mr. donahue, could be viehed as a rehabilitation tour.

a witness in the january 6 public hearing and he has a different role. he is someone that you like and respect, but bill barr trusted him to investigate what. tell us this story. >> this was the campaign finance violations arising out of the michael cohen guilty plea. and you know, the -- while the case was shut down during that two-month period, i get a call from one of bill barr's aides and -- >> who was that. >> seth sharm. and he said, jeff, um, i spoke to the attorney general, rich donahue is going to be overseeing the campaign finance violation cases that you're recused from and rich donahue, a u.s. attorney from another district is going to come into your district and essentially take the supervision of those cases away from the southern district. and he said, you know, the

attorney general barr has spoken to rich and rich has agreed to do it and the briefings are going to start in two days. he's going to come into the southern district and the team is going to beef him on where the case stand. i said, seth, that is not going to happen. and he said, jeff, you don't understand. this is not a request by the attorney general. this is a directive from the attorney general. and that is a word we could get into that bill barr liked to use a lot. and i said, seth, rich donahue is not stepping foot in the southern district of new york. and the conversation ended. >> what do you think bill barr thought mr. donahue would do that sdny would not? >> bill barr clearly trusted rich donahue more than he trusted me or anyone else at the southern district of new york. rich donahue went to join bill barr in d.c. later in hisure. so there was clearly a close

relationship there. >> what do you think when you see these people present themselves publicly as bulwarks against a coup plot when you experienced such a perversion and assault on the rule of law under their thumb, i think we should look at people prior to the 2020 election. trump, when trump lost the election, i think a lot of people went through a personal calculus of their personal self-interest. and after the election and after trump lost, barr and others scurried off the ship. but i think we should examine, i think we should examine whether they followed their oath prior to the election. that is the inquiry that is important to me. and prior to the election, barr did the bidding of the president. and he politicized the department of justice. and barr couldn't have done what he did without the help of others in the department of

justice. >> and you name names. the senate judiciary is going to investigate this chapter, who should be retaining defense counsel. >> that is not for me to say. >> who was the group to sought to politicize the work of your office. >> well, bill barr is the person who had ultimate responsible for -- bill barr should have been standing in front of those magnificent doors of the department of justice, stopping political interference from entering and instead he was the chief architect of that interference. >> wow. i'm going to put my glasses on and read from what is not just a revealing but a very well written chronicle of this obstruction of justice really that seems to emanate from main doj or attempted to obstruct. and i want to get your opinion as someone who ran an office that has a robust national security division at the prosecutor level and a very

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we're back with jeffrey berman. author of the new book "holding the line." i want to read some of the sections that we pulled. this could go on for two hours but we tried to pull some of the most provocative things. this is about the ukraine investigation and something we haven't talked about yet.

you write this about barr -- i think barr wanted to put the ukraine probes into the hands of u.s. attorneys who he knew and trusted more than me. i had already engaged in the long push and pull over involvement in trump v vance which he ran through rosen. i had confronted him on hulk bank, and going back to the beginning we clashed in the aftermath of michael cohen's guilty plea. talk about the ukraine probes and what bill barr's vision was and why that mattered. >> that is just crazy, right. i think he wanted to keep control, he didn't want the cases to spiral out of control. >> just remind us what the cases were. >> sure, the southern district has indicted associates of rudy giuliani and they had various dealings in ukraine and we were investigating those dealings and it was our case. the investigation was ours.

but bill barr, he set up this system, what he called the intake system in the field as if it was some recognized thing. i asked my senior staff, have you ever heard of this before. they hadn't. and i asked bill squeeny, the fbi, he hadn't. it was crazy. because usually if an individual has information about a matter, they go to the u.s. attorney's office, that is handling that matter. but barr set up the u.s. attorney in pittsburgh to take in evidence including evidence that rudy giuliani was given. we were a cab ride away from rudy giuliani. in this situation, rudy giuliani was required to drive all the way out to pittsburgh to provide whatever evidence. we wanted to see the evidence. and when we asked for the evidence that pittsburgh was collecting, and when bill sweeney, the head of the fbi in new york asked for that evidence, he was -- it was declined and we're talking about

an fbi, what is called a 302, a summery of interview. we wanted to see it. >> with whom? >> that was i believe with rudy giuliani. and we wanted to see it. it was relevant to what we were looking for -- into. and sweeney wanted to see. it sweeney asked for it and he was declined. i talk about this in the book. he was declined access to it. >> i mean, what is clear in the book is that it wasn't just -- the corruption interference with fbi's ability to function as you said. and ukraine caught my eye for multiple reasons. one, because john bolton has an account from the foreign policy side from the perversion of diplomacy and normal government order by inserting rudy giuliani into u.s. foreign policy. it was also testified to in impeachment one. you have a very parallel account of the perversion of the rule of law with rudy giuliani inserted by bill barr. why do you think he did that?

>> i think barr did it because he wanted to keep control of all things ukraine. >> why? >> and didn't want it to spiral out of control because it could effect people, it could effect people perhaps, friends of the president. >> well friends of the president were already effected. there were pictures of lev and igor with the trump family. do you think he was protecting trump? >> i don't know. i think that bill barr's modus operandi was to please the president. >> did he try to protect anyone other than trump. the cohen is clearly about stopping it before it reaches trump. >> i didn't see an indication of bill barr trying to please anyone but president trump. i think bill barr tried to be the most valuable player in the trump cabinet and i think he succeeded. >> until he became -- until he flips on the president around the time of the coup. >> well it was really after the

election. >> correct. >> the president lost the election. >> and i think there is a temptation and we try not to fall for it here, to take that at face value. but it the not. your point is bill barr could tell the truth about the mar-a-lago search because there is nothing more to gain from donald trump? >> i'm not really going to go into what bill barr's motives are right now. you know, i don't really want engage in that. >> it is clear that you view it as crypt and wrong. and i'm going to have you tell us the story of how you were -- how he tried to fire you and couldn't and didn't. but again, what do you think the appropriate recourse is? are you hardened by a congressional investigation into the politicization of doj? >> i'm happy that congress is indicated that it is going to be inquiry into this. the reason i wrote the book was i wanted people to understand the full extent of the egregious

political intervention by trump's justice department into the cases of the southern district and to the extent that the congressional inquiry is going to shed light on that, think it is a good thing. i think that transparency here is great because it might be able to stop this from happening again. >> transparency and an airing of everything that happened under barr and trump. >> particularly with this congressional inquiry. i think that is a great venue to really get at the truth. >> do you believe that -- everything that is in here is documented like the attorney that you are. do you believe that there are emails and records that will back up your story? >> i was going to say that. what we have is the interaction between main justice and the southern district. right. we have those exchanges. we were never privy to what the conversations were behind the curtain at main justice. and i think that is what is

going be very interesting when the -- when congress comes in and starts reviewing those documents. >> it seems that the inspector general's office, mr. haro witz is still there, but he did a lot of investigations about the last justice department he investigated comey and looked at andrew mccabe. would you like to see the doj ig investigate these as well. >> i know mark horowitz and i respect him a lot. but there is a big difference. there is a world of difference between a congressional inquiry and you just heard they want these documents in a matter of weeks. an ig inquiry to take years to complete and your access to information is not the same. i think, i believe an ig doesn't have authority to compel the testimony of someone who is not -- who has left the department. and that is, i think, that

congress is going to want that ability. because all of the players here have left. they were all political appointees and now they've all left. >> you take a scalpel to the main doj team. you carve out rod rosenstein for some praise. you said he let you do your work. >> well he let us, he let the cohen search warrant go through and he was behind us on the hawk bank prosecution. >> i want to you ask you about the hawk bank prosecution. this is wonky but our viewers will be there with us on this. it is again, a parallel in u.s. foreign policy where this was pervert the based on donald trump's businesses and you tell the legal story for the very first time about how prosecution was perverted in your telling for political purposes. but i just want to ask you one more question about a congressional probe and about barr's team and the interference you faced. do you believe that -- i mean some of these people were there before barr arrived. ed o'callaghan ran the national

security division and sessions is there. he's a through line in interference. bill barr writes in his book that his one biggest regret was not giving ed o'callaghan your job. u.s. attorney for sdny. >> and by the way, that confirms something that is in the book that i heard through an ally, an anonymous ally at main justice. we were in the midst of the hawk bank conflict, i mean were butting heads, barr and i were really butting heads. i didn't agree with anything he wanted to do on that case. and i got a call from an ally who said, you know, jeff, you know, you keep pushing the way you're pushing on hawk bank and the attorney general is going to fire you and replace you with ed o'callaghan. so it is interesting that -- >> barr writes that in his book. >> with trump most things are in the open. i want to ask you one more question about barr's team.

it was the -- brian rapid was his chief of the staff. do you believe that rod rosenstein tries to balance those types out or tell me how your interaction were so heavily weighted for those comfortable putting so much pressure on sdny. >> you know, it is really a mystery to me. how that behavior could have been modelled and by the higher ups there and the only thing i could think is that they must have had authority from very high up in the department for the things that they did. >> and you think a congressional investigation will answer that question? >> i do, yes, i do. >> i want to you ask you to tell us the incredible story about another foreign country's -- in turkey the bank is not separate from the state. you were investigating the bank. there were real questions of political interference. they go all the way to the oval office and i want to press you on that on the other side of a

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comcast business. powering possibilities. ™ we're back with former u.s. attorney jeffrey berman. so we've been talking around hulk bank. let's get right at it. you write this, the doj is not supposed to operate according to the president's impulses, personal relationships an business interests. whatever factors were at play with hulk bank, they flowed from

trump and through whit acer and then the barr through high place doj officials an came to me. as attorney general barr should have stood in the way of interference and he should say no that is not how justice worked in america, instead every indication is that he was open to it. it he was looking for clever and visible ways to let trump undermine our rule of lawond behalf of a foreign head of state. explain who that foreign state bank was and what the bank is. >> to turkey owns 51% of hulk bank. so for all intents and purposes, it is a state bank. and we were looking into, we had already gotten convictions against officers of hawk bank for sanctions of invasion,in advantage of iran sanctions. >> a priority for trump, right. >> exactly. exactly. and at the time, that is when the government was trying to put maximum pressure on iran to

bring them to the table to get the best deal possible. and here is hawk bank funneling money to the iranians. so, it really undermined a huge diplomatic effort by the united states. and we were -- we had already gotten a guilty verdict against a bank official and we turned our attention to the bank and we were looking at criminal charges against the bank and this is where, you know, my conflict with barr became, i think, the most intense. i talk about it in the book as a breaking poin. because barr wanted to pursue what he called a global settlement which was not only a sweetheart deal for the bank, but letting -- giving non-prosecution agreements for all of the other individuals who were involved and part of our investigation. >> and the motive, it is clear

that the motive is trump's business interests in turkey. john bolton writes it about it as well. >> john bolton writes about that. but what is clear is that a resolution of this case was being pursued that didn't have justice in mind. because you don't hand out non-prosecution agreements like candy. you getting? in return. and here we weren't getting anything in return. this case was just going away. and barr suggested they should be secret non-prosecution agreements that we wouldn't even tell the court that we had them and we were filing them and they were part of a larger agreement with the bank. and that is why i said, i want to say at that point i said, well, well that would be a fraud on the court and i think the conversation in the room stops for a few minutes after that. >> you were asked to lie to the court on a couple of different

occasions and you write about that. why was bill barr okay with that. in this case you refused to do what bill barr wanted you to do. for what you said it would have been a fraud on the court. >> two weeks from then, by the way, and it is interesting when i was writing the book, i saw it conflates the various events the cases that i was working on, we arrested jeffrey epstein two weeks later. who was the beneficiary of a secret non-prosecution agreement in the southern district of florida ten years earlier. >> do you think it is coincidence that people that did the sweetheart deal that you malign as leaving so many of epstein's victims without recourse and ends up in trump's cab innocent and that is a just a coincidence. >> i think it is a coincidence. >> no, i'm talking about the agreement. >> it was an abomination.

>> and you seek to find a narrower wear to hold jeffrey epstein -- >> barr didn't interference with our jeffrey epstein prosecution. i didn't have any communications with him at all. >> did he celebrate the guilty verdict? well he killed himself in jail. was everyone on board with your pursuit of justice? >> we handled the epstein case very quietly. we were interviewing witnesses, if word got back to epstein's lawyers or anyone who knew epstein that the southern district of new york had opened this up, and was interviewing victims, he would have been gone to the wind. he would have taken his money and his jets and gone somewhere we could never have gotten him back. so we were very quiet.

there was zero leaks about this until we got him on the tarmac. >> as he landed at teterboro. i want to ask you about the mar-a-lago case. sdny has one of the largest national security divisions, most expertise in this kind of case. would you charge donald trump based on the evidence that is public facing. >> it is always frustrating me when i was u.s. attorney for southern district when outsiders would opine on something or add comments when they didn't have any evidence or a sliver of evidence so i'm not going to speculate about that. but what i will say is, what strikes me is the most significant revelation is that the department of justice is investigating donald trump and those around donald trump not just for the mishandling of classified information, but for obstruction of a subpoena requiring the production of that classified information. that is a very, very serious charge and if that were in the southern district of new york,

that would have a highest priority and we would be moving on it very, very quickly. and you see that kind of urgency in the filings of merrick garland in this case. the department of justice wants to move forward very quickly. >> we should tell our viers this is part one. we'll speak again later this week. you write about some incredible prosecutions and into stolen art, into ceo's and more about your time running sdny, what you describe as a love affair between some of the career prosecutors and their mission and purpose driven approach to work which is so refreshing in this time of pretty factured politics. so we'll have the second part of this conversation later in the week. >> i look forward to it. >> i'm grateful for you to taking all of our questions. they were pent up over years watching the very secretive and competent work of sdny. thank you very much. the new book "holding the line." this is my ugly galley. this is the real book cover. there it is. on your screen.

jeffrey berman, thank you for spending time with us. there is so much to talk about from our discussion. our friends andrew weissmann and joyce vance are here to do that. we'll hear from them on the other side of a short break. don't go anywhere. t break. don't go anywhere.

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and joyce vance, professor at the university of alabama. andrew weissman, this is my brain fried. i feel like we watched bill barr and it was like covering the back of a crocodile for the time he was there, but the berman book is the belly of the crocodile. you see what's there and it's so much darker than what we surmised. >> i agree with you. you have to remember -- my first reaction to the berman revelations were, it's not surprising. remember, this is bill barr who replaced attorney general sessions because attorney general sessions, as loyal as he was, was not going to sacrifice the integrity of the justice department to donald trump, and that's why bill barr was put in. and you have him acting to dismiss the michael flynn case, to reduce the sentence of roger

stone. so this is all -- everything that's being recounted is again -- i won't say shocking. it is completely in keeping with what we knew, and one thing that sort of to me was remarkable is ed o'callahan who takes quite a drubing in this book is a former sdny senior prosecutor. so for jeff berman to really be calling him out to me sort of means something that this is really trying to add to the historical record as to what the justice department should not be. >> joyce -- >> having said that. >> oh, yeah, go ahead. >> i know joyce might have similar issues. i do think there are some things that jeff talked about where i would take some issue, because i think they're a little more complicated. i think the individual one story is more complicated. i think the greg craig story is more complicated, although it doesn't undermine the general thesis of his book. >> joyce, i reached out to ed

o'callahan, he referred me to his categorical denial in the "new york times" about the jeffrey berman book last week. in that denial he concedes he hasn't read that book but upped that response today. there is, and i describe it as a scalpel. he does reserve -- i think this lends some credibility to jeffrey berman. i worked in politics for a long time. there is an earnestness he brought to his post we didn't get to get into. he gets to the office, knows they're skeptical and seeking to win over these nonpartisan justice department young prosecutors on a mission. and so he's trying to prove himself. so he's got this heightened awareness of who he is how he got the job, and his reaction to the incessant reaching in from main doj to these very sensitive cases, both prosecuting the president's adversaries and

interfering in the cohen case certainly rings true to anyone who watched from the outside, joyce. >> so, in a justice department that consists of 94 u.s. attorneys' offices that just religiously protect their independence from main justice, no local u.s. attorney wants to see the attorney general for instance inserting their assessment about the evidence in a case and replacing the office's assessment of the case. but the southern district of new york above all other offices is known for maintaining a strict fire wall there. so i think it's important to read the berman book and see these allegations. i think it's great there will be some form of congressional oversight. but i have to confess, nicole, that i read this and part of my reaction is to wonder why it's only just coming now. and i hear berman's explanation that he felt compelled to not

reveal more detail at the time, but he had an option, and that was going to the doj's office of professional responsibility. they're the office that handles any allegation of misconduct by prosecutors, which is essentially what berman is raising here. they would have been well suited to hear these allegations, and if they rise to the level that berman very credibility suggest they do in his conversation with you, then my next question is, why didn't you go to opr at this time and perhaps spare the american people the trauma we went through? >> to that -- i put that question to him less artfully than joyce did, but his response was, we had them under control. but to joyce's point, if what he's alleging is a pattern of corruption of justice at doj, it does beg a reasonable question

about why he didn't -- because arguably that was happening other places so why not try to do something about it at the time? >> yeah, i don't see the "i've got it under control" making any sense. if ed o'callahan for instance is one example, was doing something improper, doing similar things with the sdny or other offices -- for instance, his concern about the kerry investigation going elsewhere, the greg craig case elsewhere. so i do think that -- i agree with joyce that i do think it's a -- it is a hard position for him to be in to live through this, to deal with that pressure, so i have a lot of sympathy for the position that people are going through, but i -- what they did and maybe could have done better. i just want to return to -- because it is sort of a nuance, but for a main justice to push back on what's being said about an individual one, that actually

could be entirely in keeping with justice department policy, which is, you know, the policy is you put up or shut up. you name people and charge them or they're not suppose to be denigrated. i'm not saying this is the motive, but could have been a motive for taking out details related to individual one. when i read that charge i remember thinking, how did they get permission to do that? because it seemed like it was really close to the line in term of doj policy, and especially with a current president. it's just something we don't do at the department. and similarly with the greg craig case, which really grew out of the special counsel investigation, so i'm quite aware of it, my understanding is that let's just say reasonable minds could differ in terms of prosecutorial assessments of that case and whether it should or should not be brought. >> we appreciate you both

especially on a day like today. thank you for watching and for being here for us at the end of the show. quick break for us. we'll be right back. towards taking charge of your health. centrum gives you 100% of the daily value of key nutrients. so every day, you can say, ♪you did it!♪ with centrum ♪ ♪ we believe there's an innovator in all of us. ♪ that's why we build technology that makes it possible for every business... and every person... to come to the table and do more incredible things. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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they didn't write it for the homeless. they wrote it for themselves. thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these truly extraordinary times. we are so grateful. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. hi, ari, happy tuesday. >> happy tuesday. thanks, nick cole. welcome to "the beat." i'm ari melber. we are tracking more than one story and a big interview.