hi there, everybody. it's 4:00 on the east. on this day, when our country celebrates dr. martin luther king jr., the human embodiment of the very best of what our country stands for when it is at its best, on this day of all day, it is impossible to ignore what is fast becoming arguably the worst of what the disgraced ex-president's party now stands for today. we are talking, of course, about george santos. the newly minted republican congressman from new york, his

professional resume, his education, even teeny tiny little details of his personal life have turned out to be either little white lies or outright pathological falsehoods in the last 72 hours, there has been a breathtaking avalanche of new reporting on the house of cards that is george santos' public life. where to begin? well, there is his secret resume unearthed by reporters at "the new york times" that reads like a detailed road map of his lies, including claims he attended baruch college, earned an mba from nyu and was a wiz kid at goldman sachs. and then today, santos has deeper ties than previously known to a cousin of a sanctioned russian oligarch. he gave tens of thousands of

dollas to committees linked to santos. msnbc has not confirmed that reporting, but it is worth noting that george santos has not addressed some of the accusations against him. he has apologized for what he calls, quote, embellishments and to say he's done nothing unethical. if we have learned anything from george santos thus far, there's no bottom, there's nothing too big or too small that he will not lie about. >> here's santos in 2020. >> i actually went to school on a volleyball scholarship. >> up did? >> i did, yeah. when i was in baruch, we were the number one volleyball team. >> did you graduate from there? >> yeah, i did. >> so did i. >> great school, very liberal, but very good professors who don't show their bias, which is very interesting, but that's a whole other conversation, but it's funny that we went to play against harvard, yale, and we

slayed them. we played them. we were champions across the entire northeast corridor, every school that came up against us, they were shaking at the time. and it's funny, i was the smallest guy and i'm 6'2". look, asacrificed both my knees and got very nice knee replacements from hss playing volleyball, that's how serious i took the game. >> that's how serious you're taking politics, as well. remember this name, folks, george santos. >> so, let's stop right here, okay? what you need to remember from that interview is the number two, that's how many knee replacements he had. but here's the truth. he didn't even go to baruch college, so, he did not play for their championship volleyball team nor did george santos get two knee replacements, because of his vaunted volleyball career playing there, because he didn't go there.

file it under, you cannot make it up, unless of course you're george santos. in which case, it is very clear you can and will make it up. and is shocking the right word? shocking, galling, audacious as all of this is, it is perhaps equally shocking and galling and audacious is the republican nonresponse. republicans seem consent to have santos serve out his term. now according to new news reporting in "the new york times," we're learning that his web of lies was on the radar screen for some very high-ranking republicans since at least late 2021, after a routine background study was performed on santos. quote, the findings were far more startling, suggesting a pattern of deception that cut to the heart of the image he had as a result cultivated. some were so disturbed he could

risk public humiliation by continuing. when santos disputed key findings, members of the campaign team quit. the episode, which has not been previously reported, is the most explicit evidence to date that a small circle of well-connected republican campaign professionals had indications far earlier than the public that santos was spinning an elaborate web of deceit and that the candidate himself had been warned about just how vulnerable those lies were to unraveling. the unraveling is where we begin today with some of our most favorite reporters and friends. our friend luke broadwater is back. also joining us, claire mccaskill and charlie sykes is here, he and claire are msnbc contributors. luke, your colleagues have an extraordinary body of reporting, and i know it is never this easy on the reporting side, but it looks like, as a reader, every rock you turn over has some more lies underneath. take us through what we've learned since we were last all together last week.

>> right, my colleagues, nick, grace and michael have done a tremendous job with this story. and really, as you dig deeper into george santos' biography and his public statements, it's becoming increasingly hard to find something he said that was true. almost everything he has said is easily disproved. i mean, the stuff he just brought up about being this all-star volleyball player at a college he didn't even go to, to be this wiz kid at goldman sachs is just lie after lie, compounded upon more lies. and it's -- you know, he's using different names at different points in time. he's -- i think he changed his name in a public appearance as recently as a year or two ago. so, who is this guy, really? and what has he said that's actually true? now, i think the most -- in my view, as a congress reporter, the most significant story that i saw was nick's story that

showed that top republicans knew about these misstatements and had serious concerns about george santos, much earlier than the public knew about it. and yet, they either said nothing, they didn't -- they didn't step in to stop him, or insist he pull out of the race and be -- try to replace him with a different candidate, and they sort of quietly did nothing and i guess just crossed their fingers, hoped no one else would find out about this and he would win this seat and help give them the majority and i think that's a very significant piece of information that we just learned. >> yeah, luke, let me read the two different pieces of reporting that "the times" broke about both mccarthy and stefanik knowing about it. in the runup to the 2022 contest, dan conston, a close ally of speaker kevin mccarthy, also confided in lawmakers, donors and other associates he was worried information would

come out exposing santos as a fraud, despite the financial resources he-ed marshal to the race, mccarthy had good personal reason to be wary of mr. santos. earlier in 2021, an aide to the candidate was caught impersonating mccarthy's chief of staff. you would think that would be enough for mccarthy to say, don't pretend to be my campaign adviser. but no. and then also, i think this is also nick's great reporting about stefanik knowing. around that time, santos began attracting the suspicion of a pair of friends and potential donors active in new york republican circles. mr. santos claimed to one of them to have secured the endorsement of trump, when he had not. that prompted her to express concerns about santos to plugged in republicans including associates of elise stefanik, one of santos' biggest early backers, whose top political aide was assisting his campaign.

later miss bianco said, quote, we're just so tired of being duped. she texted mr. santos in early 202 after he refused her request for his resume. charlie, this is -- to luke's point, moving from, you know, what is inside the wiring of a brain like george santos, if that even remains his name, when we get to the bottom of this story. and it turns into the republican complicity perpetuating a fraud on new york voters. >> yes. this is like peeling an onion of deception -- >> charlie, we're having a monday around here. charlie -- is he? >> yeah, sorry about that. no, i mean, this is like peeling an onion of deceit and corruption and it's testing the republican party's capacity for

lies and for sleaze, which we know is pretty considerable. but it is also going to test their capacity for this ongoing embarrassment, because this is just getting worse and worse and worse. i thought it was interesting that kevin mccarthy was not -- was worried this would come out, but he wasn't worried that he was a fraud. and i think this says something about the state of the -- the cynical state of political morality these days. people are more concerned about the publicity and the political fallout than they are about the underlining morality. and the bottom line here, and this is, you know, not terribly complex, kevin mccarthy and the republicans need his vote and they're trying to run out the clock, but what an extraordinary story. i have to say, nicolle, what i found most interesting about that soundbyte you played of george santos, if that is his name, going on that radio show, bragging about his volleyball feats, which were completely made up, were his enthusiasm.

the enthusiasm of a complete sociopath who was lying and embellishing, but we've gone way beyond simple embellishing here. than stor and this story is going to get worse and worse. it's going to test kevin mccarthy's capacity with going along with the 'em baersment. we already know with his capacity of tolerating lies and sleaze is. >> yeah, claire, just as a former prosecutor, what is the profile of someone who, you know, just pick up on charlie's point, there's a real, i mean, he's in the pocket, he's living this lie of a fabrication about two knee replacements from a volleyball career that doesn't happen at a school that he didn't go to at a surgery center that didn't operate on his knees, about knees that weren't replaced. what is that? >> well, so, first, i've got to tell you, i was listening to your introduction, nicolle, i shut my eyes and imagined that

every time instead of the word santos, you said the word trump. and it was amazing how well it fit. i mean, this is all the same stuff. why should we be surprised that the republican party is cozying up to a big fraud and a liar? i mean, this is no big shock. they've had one leading their party now for years. here's the thing as a prosecutor. it's the money. it's the money, money, money. that's the big story that has not dropped yet. keep in mind, this is a guy who was getting evicted from rental property, this is a guy who was part of a campaign that was accused of doing a ponzi scheme. this is a guy that we now know has some ties to russian money. through the nephew of an oligarch. and this is a guy who went from making $55,000 a year when he ran for congress the first time, to making millions and millions a year later. and loaned his campaign

$700,000. now, i know one thing as a prosecutor. follow the money. and what those investigations are doing right now is -- you know, the money is going to talk. it's going to speak volumes. they're going to be able to track where the money came from that went into his campaign, they're going to be able to track where he got it. and, you know what they're going to find? that he's lying about him making money and he's lying about him having the money to loan his campaign and this money came from bad, bad places. so, this little thing is going to get much worse for kevin mccarthy before it gets better, i predict. >> so, luke, here is some of what we know from "the new york times" reporting about the relationship with the russian oligarch. the relationship between santos and intrater goes beyond campaign contributions. taken together, the evidence suggests santos may have had a business relationship with

intrater. it also shows, according to the s.e.c. filing, that intrater put hundreds of thousands into santos' one-time employer. their interactions in '16 and '17 with michael toen were probed during special counsel mueller's investigation of russian interference in 2016 election and possible links between trump and the kremlin. this is "washington post" reporting this morning. i wonder, luke, if you can speak about any angst about the money telling a disturbing story that gets in the way of all the investigations that jim jordan's new committee wants to run. >> justice is going to come from law enforcement, not from congress. kevin mccarthy and elise stefanik apparently had some inclination that santos was a fraud well before the public did.

they've been either quiet about his lies or -- or defended him. meanwhile, sort of -- it's been left up to sort of rank and file republicans, mostly from new york, to call for his resignation, so, they seem to be defending him as long as he is a solid yes vote for mccarthy, which he has been to date. but you know, for someone who lies this much, if you're willing to lie about everything in your life, one can assume that you have lied about other things, as well. and that's what the federal investigators, the state-level investigators, will be looking at, did he lie on financial forms, did he lie about his mortgages or houses, is there anything he filled out incorrectly? and i think that is the real legal exposure for george santos is, if you are lying this much to the public, are you also lying on financial documents? and remember, the last member of congress to be expelled was jim

trafican. so, if it does go down that path, then you could see perhaps an expulsion, but short of that, he is probably going to be a member of congress unless kevin mccarthy completely changes his views. >> which, charlie, as we've discussed, is highly unlikely. what do you make of this picture -- you know, there was no red wave, in part because voters just weren't that into the extreme stuff, the heavy stuff -- >> yeah. >> and that is exactly what kevin mccarthy's caucus has projected for three weeks, there's the elevation and the control of that chamber by matt gaetz and the other coup plotters, in order to get the gavel in the first place. this is week two of daily revelations about a pathological, sociological case of lying about literally -- as luke said, there's also some reporting that he's used other names at other events.

we're not even sure that this is his name. what do you make of the fact that we are in sort of full throttle chaos, extremism and fraud for the republican branding efforts? >> well, who could have seen this coming over the last four, five years? you know, in the era of trump. but you know, i think one thing that the reporting has made clear is that they knew. it seems to be to be pretty obvious that republicans in new york knew about this guy, they raised concerns about this guy, they shared the concerns about this guy. it was documented on paper. it's a reminder, by the way, of how vulnerable our democracy is that somebody like this can get this close to the -- to the center of power. but from kevin mccarthy's point of view, you know, he's clinging to a four-vote majority and the real -- the down side for him, of course, is that right now, the face of the republican majority is george santos.

it's marjorie taylor greene. and he is about to take the united states, all of us, to the brink of debt default, which, that is not an insider story. this may be a story that we're talking about, that the average american is not focusing on, except to be amused by, but when republicans run the risk of undermining the full faith and credit of the united states, people are going to look and say, who are these guys? and so, kevin mccarthy's political problem right now is that by looking the other way, toward, you know, a corrupt sociopathic liar, that the real risk is that he is going to be what americans are going to see when they finally begin to focus in on, who are these republicans and who is running the house of representatives and who is running it into the ground? >> yeah, i mean, claire, there are, to charlie's point, there are some washington stories, and i actually don't think there are many of them, i think voters are really smart and i think they

can suss out the facts and i think they look at the sources, but there are some stories that are convoluted. these are not among them. matt gaetz is an alleged child sex trafficker who has been under federal criminal investigation. he decided who would be the speaker. went on tv and said -- i got so much from kevin, there was nothing left to ask for. marjorie taylor green explains in her own words, qanon, quote, is my own people. george santos has used other names at political events. this is who they are and thrusting into the center ring. what -- what happens next? >> well, it doesn't feel luke it's a good political strategy, since thrusting -- you know, thrusting very extreme people into the spotlight did not work out for them, either in 2020 or 2022. so, i don't get it. i think kevin mccarthy was just so totally hypnotized by the

desperate need to be speaker, he was willing to pay any price he had to pay to get it. and i got to say, nicolle, one of the saddest things about this story, and first, let me just say, luke and his colleagues and other people in various national papers, have done a good job of exposing george santos, but let me tell you what would have happened 20 years ago. 20 years ago, this would have been reported a year ago. because there were more journalists that were being given the time and the resources to follow up on stories like this. some of this was pitched to newspapers and these newspapers, other than the great big ones, are so low on staff and resources, because the business model of journalism has shifted, that for many races, and if you think it's bad for a congressional race, wait until you get down to state representative and mayor and city council and county

legislator. the scandals that are going on are not going to be uncovered, because there aren't enough journalists out there that are getting paid a living wage to cover it. and i think it's important to talk about that in the context of this george santos case, because this wasn't hard stuff to find out. i'm not saying they haven't done a great job of reporting it out now, but there's a real sad note here that our journalism is failing us because it should have been reported out a year ago. >> i actually want to broaden the lens a little bit, because that isn't all that isn't happening. the other thing is that campaigns and i spent my career on campaigns, used to find something damaging and make sure that local reporters knew about it. now, it's almost oxymoronic have a damaging republican revelation, otherwise herschel walker wouldn't have been until it until 10:00 at night on election day. some of it is the death of -- it used to be called oppo. i wonder, luke, if you have any

thoughts on the reporting or, you know, any observations about what it's like these days to cover republican politicians. >> right, yeah, i think claire brings up a great point. we've really seen the gutting of state-level and local-level media that would have, in prior years, vetted this guy and exposed him as a fraud earlier. there was, i will say, i will credit, there was a local paper on long island that wrote that they believed santos was a fraud, early on, but it was largely ignored and didn't affect the campaign much. and i do think the dccc did produce an oppo document on him, you know, i wasn't involved in covering this race before the -- before the election, but that was, you know, made public. but maybe it didn't get that much traction. but i do think what we have here is perhaps we've entered sort of a post-shame congress or a

post-shame society. i think democrats can still be shamed into resigning. you saw that with katie hill, for instance, once party leadership lost faith in her, but it does seem like, on the republican side of the aisle, that shame no longer works. that, you know, exposes in newspapers showing someone to be a complete fraud doesn't -- doesn't affect anything. and, yes, there are, i think, 8 or 10 members of congress on the republican side of the aisle now calling for santos to resign, but negative news and public shaming doesn't seem to have the impact it does in previous eras. it seems that all that matters is trying to get the votes to win. >> and loyalty toll a twice impeached ex-guy. no one is going anywhere there's much more to tell you about on these newest revelations about george santos. the republican leaders who are protecting him. and what it all says about this political operating in what luke calls a post-shame world. former congressman debra

riggleman will join us conversation. plus, the mountains of information unearthed and released by the january 6th select committee. we'll get a closer look at what evidence is most prosecute call for doj in the use of debra riggleman, who was upclose and personal with it for months. and the big lie that won't die. a county in a key battleground state just now recounted its election results from 2020. more than two years ago. why the fight to protect democracy matters now more than ever. all those stories and more when "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere today. eak. don't go anywhere today.

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it's almost like we've reached maximum idea si and he's such an example now of people that will do anything to win. it speaks to the unseriousness of the gop conference. to let somebody run through the field like this guy does. and for me, it's an embarrassment to our country. >> maximum idea si. for all of the hard to follow twists and turns in the mind-blowing web of lies that is the george santos story, those two words, maximum idea si explains it very well. denver riggleman, a veteran of the republican party, knows just how much of a new low the santos story really represents, and as a former adviser to the january 6th committee, riggleman is uniquely positioned to speak to just how insidious this information and bold-faced lies are in the hands of elected officials. how what george santos would have us believe are

embellishment are a knock-on effect of the normalization of deceit. joining our coverage, former adviser to the house january 6th select committee denver riggleman. we had to talk to you about this and i'm so glad you broadened it out to this picture of a party just completely enthralled by the tool kit relied upon not by great confident leaders of democracies, but weak, terrified leaders of autocracies. tell us how the santos story fits in. >> it's funny how you -- and you replaying that clip, i didn't know how brutal my assessment was, but i'm going to tell you this, nicolle, it seems like with the individuals, you have -- are being attracted to politics in a way we've never seen before. and when you look at george santos, right, and you look at this individual, right, you look

at somebody, i think, you know, i don't want to be too brutal, but it's almost like a boy cosplaying as an adult. and it seems that individuals that come up through this system, these are political hacks or grifters, or individuals who really had no career or background in doing anything for this country as far as holding a job, seem to be the ones that are willing to do anything, to lie, to pander, to appeal to the worst individuals in order to get e legged. and i think that's what scares me the most, nicolle, there's just this lack of professionalism and lack of care for the american people that's insidious. >> you know, denver, i couldn't have been a staffer in the white house if i told these lies, you fill out, what is it, an sf-286. i couldn't work at my current company if i told these lies. i worked at a power company, it had a nuclear plant. i had a background check and if i lied i wouldn't have been able

to work there. i don't know where you can work, draw a paycheck let alone paid by taxpayers, other than the republican party in congress. what does that say? >> oh, you know, i -- you know, it's -- when i was there in 2018 to 2020, we were already dealing with some individuals that i thought -- i would sail were morally, you know, questionable. i think what you're seeing with santos and it's other people, too, if you look at marjorie taylor greene, the lies have been so normalized, the base doesn't care. they just care about who is voting for what. lying doesn't matter anymore. i've always said the two-party system wouldn't survive social media. i thought the fringes would get their moment. i don't know how we get out of

this right now. because santos is voting the way he wants certain people to vote. he voted for mccarthy for speaker. his lies, his immoralities, his different names, all that stuff doesn't matter to these individuals, because it's about the party over country, every single time. and, you know, charlie did make me laugh when he said, gosh, how could we see this coming, it was beautiful sacasm from charlie. but if we don't start pushing back, i think we have a real problem. and i've always told people that i would rather set myself on fire than run for aufgs again. but i think it's people like me who hate it so much, who hate the political part of this, that needs to get involved again. in the last couple weeks, i'm wondering, should i get back in, just because of what i'm seeing out there and it scares the hell out of me, because my family is like, hell no, don't do it. gosh, didn't want people like sorj santos and these individuals actually making decisions for this country, i you this it's absolutely

disgusting. >> i mean, i hope you didn't think i wasn't going to pull on this thread. would you run as an independent also f you run again? >> yeah, i don't know if it's in my nature to be in a party again. it's just very difficult for me -- first of all, i'm awful and pandering. nicolle, i'm just awful at it. i can't do it, right? and i found myself even when i was in congress, a lot of people said, oh, my god, you're a congressman, and i've told people it's the worst two years of my life. if i had to sit in a committee with some of those on the republican side, i don't know if i wouldn't be absolutely confrontational with my own party every day. i don't know if i could be in the same room with them. i don't want to breathe the same air as these individuals, because they are not serious. they're unserious people. they're not here to reflect the will of the american people, they are here -- they are here actually just to try to burnish their own star, polish their own knob, shine their own brass to get to where they want to be. and that's the issue that i have, is just -- i'm just --

it's just disgusting. and me running as an independent would be almost impossible. i just don't know if i could be affiliated with a party, because i just feel like -- i really like another distiller in history, george washington wanted to stay unaffiliated. maybe that's what distillers are meant to do. those that are in the intelligence business maybe they should be unaffiliated. that's what whiskeymakers do, nicolle. >> listen, i think i'm a serious no. former republicans know what they're capable of, and i think that when you look at the trust and faith that democrats had in the norms and the institutions, it was misguided, because republicans are nilists, and there isn't special obligation of republicans who helped sort of the last phase of republicans gain power to help push back against this version of the republican party, because they are a threat. and i wonder what extra obligation you feel and if you could assess -- i mean, when you were on the committee, there were, what, 19 house republicans in your sights that you wanted to talk to.

they're now the most powerful members of mccarthy's caucus. what special risk does that pose? >> massive risk. you know, i wanted to track down, look at more data, you know, on these individuals, especially what i read and saw. and i had a background knowledge on conspiracy theories and other people did. i had 20 years, you know, in counterterrorism, targeting, and data analytics. worked in air force, in d.o.d., nsa, i worked with other government agencies, right, to do certain things. and i felt like i got caught up in the current. though i thought i was independent, you do get caught up in the current of the power, being in politics, you know, and i had sort of my, you know, my moment, you know, after i officiated the same sex wedding that i thought you would be a new type of republican, and i got my face smashed in. and, you know, after it was all over, my wife said, god, i don't want to do that again. and i said, i don't know if i want to, either. that was pretty insane. but just in the last two years, again, after being on the

committee and seeing the data and seeing that there's people like, you know, scott perry is actually probably the most powerful person in the gop right now. the head of the freedom caucus is the most powerful person in the gop. and that should give people pause, because they really don't have any type of sane decision-making abilities when it comes to actual policy for the united states of america. and again, that's why people like me who have seen it, who have been behind the door, who have seen the data, who has a background in these things, who knows what link analysis looks like and what terrorist atkives look like and things like that, i think we do have a unique, maybe insight and special responsibility to do things that maybe other people can't. doesn't mean i'm special, just means that the united states military and the government trained me in things that other people didn't get to be trained in and -- gosh, i just wanted to come back to my distillery and just make liquor with my life, but the last few months has even again reinforced to me that it is a service job and once you get caught up in service, it's hard to get away from it.

>> wow. charlie, let me pull you into this. i know the answer to the question, is there room for denver in the republican party, of course not, he believes in facts and he's not a fan of disinformation, but is there -- is there a swell around moving toward independent candidacies and an independent existence that could insert some of these politicians who are willing to tell the trust about what the republican party has become in certain instances? >> well, you'd like to think so, but i think as denver just laid out, you know, there's no place for him in this party, and why would he want to be there in the first place? why would you want to sit in a room with these people? it's just not worth it. the heart of his point, though, what denver just said, has been the normalization of lying, and it really goes back to that moment back in 2016 when

republicans decided that, after years of saying that character matters, they decided, yeah, maybe not. and it was one of the most dramatic flips that i've ever seen. when you normalize deceit, you normalize lying, you are going to get more of it. if you create a cult of a personality for someone like donald trump, why should you be surprised that these kinds of people are not attracted to poll sicks? and this is also the long-term legacy of all of this, because, you know, as denver mentioned, think of all the people that are now being attracted into politics, who are being drawn into this, the grifters, the crooks, the liars. and the tolerance of the party, because as long as they vote right, as long as they are loyal to the right things, they're willing to overlook anything. so, this is the new incentive structure, this is the new culture. and unfortunately, it repels good, decent, honorable men and women from wanting to serve.

>> also the voters. charlie sykes, thank you for starting us off. luke, thank you for starting us off. denver riggleman and claire mccaskill will stick around a little bit longer. and when we come back, with everything we've seen so far from the january 6th slikt committee's deep drove of evidence, what experts and denver riggleman say could be the most prosecutable by doj. much more to come on this "deadline white house" on martin luther king day. i brought in ensure max protein with 30 grams of protein. those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks. uhhhh... here, i'll take that. [woo hoo!] ensure max protein, with 30 grams of protein, one gram of sugar and nutrients for immune health.

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repeatedly told the president in no uncertain terms that i did not see evidence of fraud, and, you know, that would have affected the outcome of the election. >> i overheard the president say something to the effect of, you know, i don't effing care that they have weapons, they're not here to hurt me, take the effing mags away, let my people in, they can mar notch the capitol from here. mr. ingle grabbed his arm, said, sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel, we're going back to the west wing, we're not going to the capitol. mr. trump then used his free hand to lunge towards bobby ingle. >> those were just a few of the buckets of evidence in front of the select committee that led them exactly four weeks ago today to determine there was

enough prosecutable evidence against the twice impeached disgraced ex-president, the central cause of january 6th, to say that he could be and should be criminally convicted for it. the committee's four criminal referrals against the ex-president including insurrection, have since been backed by a massive trove of tran skrafts from 255 witnesses, transmitted directly to the united states justice department, and an attorney general who regularly talks about the rule of law. as well as 30 gigabytes more of evidence, including disclosures and exhibits that do not appear to have been released publicly. we're back with denver riggleman, full of surprises today, and claire mccaskill. denver, break this down for me. where is doj? >> well, right now, i think, with the amount of data they have, i think they're looking through every single link and every single individual or group that might have something to

with january 6th. i don't want to talk about or try to guess what doj or fbi are doing right now, but i think what the doj are also looking at, i don't know all the data, but i know a lot of the data i did, if they are looking at the links and the people are involved, they are looking at the second, third, and fourth layer behind the president. the president is the why and the how, you look at the transcript and what i think is the most damning piece of testimony in the whole year and a half is really cassidy hutchinson talking about removing the mags. i think, nicolle, that is, for me that's the thing, as somebody who has been in counterterrorism for so long, that's an eye-opener, right? that's an eye-popper. i think they are looking at those sort of centers of gravity. there's critical touch points in these groups that helped organize, fund, and then execute the attack on the capitol. that's what i think they're looking at right now. >> denver, this is sort of like the former government worker, i think, piece of both of us and we've talked about this, it's

remove the mags and it's the radio traffic, not from the police, but from the presidential protective detail that's spotting all the trump supporters in the frees with ar-style rifles. it's not just take down the mags, it's that they knew what would come in, ar-15 style rifles would come in and trump knew they weren't there to hurt him. help me understand why doj, as far as we know, will be second to interview cassidy hutchinson and not first. >> oh, goodness. you're asking some great questions nicolle. i don't -- you know, that -- when you look at what happened with the congressional investigation, i think the doj was so involved in each of the doj charged defendants, i remember, that was a huge chore for us, nicolle, right? it was, how do you actually look at all the data from 800-plus doj charged defendants? we probably requested, i know what we received, and it was

almost 30 million lines of data. so, i can't imagine what the fbi was going through and they're looking at all these charged defendants. maybe they weren't looking at the big picture. they were looking at the specific instances of those that got into the capitol that day. so, i'm wondering -- here's the thing i always wonder about is information sharing. i deployed right after 9/11, i think i deployed on september 21st. and i remember, you know, the issues after the fact, right, with intelligence and information sharing. and i guess the thing that i didn't know, i really didn't know, i was so into the data, i didn't know that all of that wasn't being shared with doj immediately. and i think in hindsight, if i had to strongly encourage or suggest something, is that the data was being shared up front between the congressional investigative team and the doj. i think data is perishable. i know a lot of people out there, i know there's a lot of twitter experts that say that data can be forever, you always get it that's just absolutely untrue. and if you wait too long, people

can conveniently forget and it's really hard to rebuild that case. so, i think it was the amazing job the doj and fbi were doing with those doj-charged defendants on the ground maybe it got lost in translation there was a much bigger game afoot and that was the command and control elements and the funding elements, the follow the money things they needed to look at earlier. >> claire, denver is being differential. the truth is that the data tools that the committee had, it was an extraordinary use of data for a congressional investigation, but it is par for the course for an fbi investigation, so, again, we're talking about the inversion of roles, and we're talking about -- we're asking these questions about doj, because it is now abundantly clear that none of this was happening before the congressional probe, and i wonder if, you know, any of the explanations that you've heard over the last few days ring true to you or what you make of where we stand now.

>> well, i -- sometimes i feel like a one note choir on this show about doj, but it -- i will never understand, when you have a department of justice, and i know they had a lot of low-level crimes to prosecute. in the grand scheme of things, if i'm thinking of the court system that the felony stuff is in one court and the misdemeanor stuff is in another court, not that what these guys did in the building wasn't serious and awful and to be prosecuted, but you always keep your eye on the prize, and that's the guy that's running the whole operation. that's the guy that's pulling the strings, that's the guy that's making it happen. and the tools that justice has dwarfs the tools of a congressional investigative committee. dwarfs them. do you think anybody can ignore a doj subpoena without consequences like kevin mccarthy

ignored a congressional subpoena? of course not. you don't think that there are hundreds of fbi agents that are very trained in a way that denver's been trained, to analyze data and figure out how to get to the most pertinent people quickly and get their testimony on paper, on record, as quickly as possible? so, i'll never understand it. and i don't know where they are right now, but i do know this, the easiest case, the low-hanging fruit case, as much as i hate to say it out loud, we cannot pretend that the biden documents aren't going to impact what i think was the open and shut case of the documents at mar-a-lago. yes, they're different, one was trying to hide, one was trying to keep documents, one was being pursued and was being pursued as lying about documents. the other one found documents and immediately turned them over. they're not the same. but if you're trying a case to a jury, sometimes those differences fade when the jury

knows in the back of their mind oh, both of them had documents they shouldn't have had. so i think now it's really incumbent on the special prosecutor to continue to focus on the next ring down from trump. the ones that -- giulianis and the proud boys and all the ones that they are working on to try to get the connective tissue that establishes trump's intent to allow harm to happen that day. >> yeah. i just need to fit in a break. but i want to come back to you on this, denver, because i remember harry dunn in the very first public hearing the january 6th select committee did said, you know, when a hit man kills somebody we go and find the person that hired the hit man. find the person that hired the hit man. so it's been abundantly clear to everybody from the beginning. i'm going to ask both of you to stick around through a quick break. we will all be right back. don't go anywhere. l all be righ. don't go anywhere. hey taste what we've got ♪ [ tires squeal, crash ] when owning a small business gets real, progressive gets you right back to living the dream.

now, where were we? [ cheering ]

we're back with denver riggleman and claire mccaskill, two truth tellers in their own league. denver, speak to harry dunn's point at the very first public hearing in the january 6th select committee, to find the people behind it, find the people who sent the hit man to the capitol. >> yeah, i think that's exactly correct. and i've gotten to know harry pretty well, you know, since then. you know, a good man. and i think what you have are some of the things i didn't get to track down were all the communications with white house phone numbers. you had handsets that were

connected to bad actors or people connected to bad actors that were calling in or texting in to white house numbers, whether they were white house cell phone numbers or whether they were numbers that were being masked through the switchboard. and we just really couldn't take that final step. claire made an incredible point. and by the way, she'd make an incredible strategic planner. the point was that we needed to he see at that second level, right beneath the president, who was actually coordinating or talking to rally planners, were actually texting with oath keepers, which we have that now, or actually calling, why were phone numbers actually calling out to handsets that belong to doj charged defendants? you he know, even though we knew that it had happened point to point, we could never really get down to the point where we knew what the content was, and that was something that was so frustrating to me. and the doj and fbi do have muchish, you know, more -- not just more resources but they also have more authorities. we were looking at a public trust investigation. we don't have law enforcement authorities. and claire's exactly right.

we couldn't even really get anybody to show up that we needed to on the congressional side. they just ignored the subpoenas. so i think what we have here is harry dunn is exactly right. we never got to the data at those levels of the giulianis, the pouls, the lynn woods, the roger stones, the alex jones, the patrick burns, mike flynns, all those individuals that were around president trump feeding him things that, you know, were just on this side of qanon. and you almost have to wonder, president trump talks -- former president trump talks about his big iq but he was so credulous to believe things that were deranged. and i think finding out how those were coordinated, how the money was coordinated especially on january 6th which the committee did a great job on that part, is fantastic but we never really got to who the coordinating elements at that second and third level beneath the president and what did he know about it. it was just very difficult to get that last line of data. >> difficult for congress.

quite achievable for doj if they're so inclined. denver riggleman, claire mccaskill, thank you very much for being part of our coverage today. it's wonderful to see both of you. the persistence of the big lie is making the fight to preserve and protect voting rights in our democracy all the more urgent on this martin luther king day. we'll tell you all about it the next hour of "deadline: white house" starts after a quick break. don't go anywhere. a quick break. don't go anywhere. i'm bill lockwood, current caretaker and owner. when covid hit, we had some challenges like a lot of businesses did. i heard about the payroll tax refund, it allowed us to keep the amount of people that we needed and the people that have been here taking care of us. see if your business may qualify. go to getrefunds.com. ♪ what will you do? ♪ what will you change? ♪ will you make something better? ♪

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alright now... have a good weekend. (co-worker) but it's wednesday... (co-worker 2) see you monday! (co-worker 3) am i missing something? (hero) it's the weekend baby... see you later. (vo) like getting things two days early? when it comes to payday, you can with wells fargo. (co-worker 4) what are you doing this weekend? we face another inflection point in our nation's history. one that's going to determine what this country looks like several decades from now. you know, this is a time for

choosing. will we choose democracy over autocracy or community over chaos? love or hate? these are the questions of our time that i ran for president to try to help answer and that dr. king's life and legacy in my view shows the way forward. >> hi again, everybody. it's 5:00 in the east. it's a holiday, right? it is officially a holiday today. maybe your kids are home from school. maybe if you're lucky you've got the day off work today. but today martin luther king jr. day is in truth entirely unlike any other holiday that we observe as a nation because today's the day we celebrate and remember an unparalleled american icon, an all-time champion of human rights, of freedom, of good, who earned his place in the pantheon of america's most essential historic figures as a result of tireless difficult brutal efforts to elevate the wrongfully oppressed. he saw our country for exactly what it was, what it really was.

he was murdered for trying to help it become what it could and should be. undoubtedly one of the best ways we can honor his legacy today is is to look around and think about it. if dr. martin luther king jr. were alive today, what would he see? what would he say? would he he see a fully functioning democracy in good health where all voices carry equal weight, with easy access to the ballot box? or as he did decades ago would he see us for exactly what we are, what we're struggling with right now, a nation in the midst of a bombardment, besieged by anti-democratic forces, some of them holding our nation's highest political offices. there is a brand new voter i.d. law in ohio. there are a pair of new bills in texas that would make it easier for that state's attorney general to prosecute what he considers, quote, election-related crimes even though he couldn't find any. and in wisconsin an official sent out an e-mail to 1,700

people bragging about a decrease in voter turnout among black and hispanic voters in heavily blue milwaukee. all that just happened in the last week. crucially the right's endeavor to make it harder to vote in america, an endeavor that disproportionately hurts black and brown voters, has surged despite even a shred of evidence suggesting widespread voter fraud. and yet still more than two years after the most secure presidential election in our nation's history, pro-trump forces are still blaming fraud for trump's landslide defeat. just last week in pennsylvania under pressure from conspiracy theorists and election deniers there 28 wycombing county employees did a hand recount of nearly 60,000 ballots. three days later the results are in. donald trump gained, weight for it, eight votes on president joe biden. changing the final tally by .01 of a point.

republicans might spend today sharing the only martin luther king, quote, many of them seem to know. that we ought to judge a person by the content of his or her character, not the color of their skin. but their ongoing assault on our democratic freedoms is antithetical to everything dr. king fought for and stood for. so as ever it's all hands on deck for pro-democracy forces. so let's take some advice from dr. king. >> life for none of us has been a crystal stair, but we must keep moving. if you can't fly, run. if you can't run, walk. if you can't walk, crawl. but by all means keep moving. >> keep moving. that's where we begin this hour, with some of our favorite friends. democratic congresswoman jasmine crockett of texas is here. also joining us former republican congressman david jolly. and jason johnson's here. he's a politics and journalism professor at morgan state university. david and jason are msnbc

contributors. congresswoman. i love calling you that. congresswoman crockett, we thought of you. we watched that together as a team this morning. and you literally physically with your colleagues moved from texas to washington to do something. it wasn't just what you said about the voter suppression law in texas. it was about what you did. and i wonder how you plan to bring that to washington. >> first of all, it's great to see you and to finally be sworn in. you know, it's interesting because you talk about them giving a quote, and the quote that comes to my mind oftentimes is injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. and that's exactly what we see. that's exactly what we saw when we decided to flee the state of texas. it wasn't just a texas thing. there was an injustice. there was a threat to it right there in the state of texas. but as you covered, we saw these bills actually move and maneuver their way through state houses throughout the entire country.

and most recently we saw what happened in brazil. and so for whatever reason we need our mlk of today, which is really sad because these are fights that so many of those civil rights warriors talk about, we thought we'd won certain fights. but instead seemingly we have turned back the hands of time and we are starting all over. >> congresswoman, i said this on the show before. when georgia passed its voter suppression law, they called it an election integrity law. but as we know, as is well storied now, there was no fraud in georgia. that's why brad raffensperger on the other end of the -- you know, other perfect call with trump, refused to find 11,780 votes. all the same, they were pressured by the political tides of trumpism to pass a voter suppression law there. now, gabe sterling and others are really quick to point out their great turnout numbers. and that is a good thing. but the fact that republicans moved the goalposts predicated

on a lie about fraud, forcing democratic activists to reeducate their voters every two years about how to vote, is a slow-moving voter suppression. i mean, it is still moving away from where a healthy democratic should go, which is to make it easier to access the polls. and i wonder how you fight something that was so offensive at the time. major league baseball moved the all-star game out of the state of georgia. and then like all republican wounds and assaults on democracy they do such a volume business the country moved on. but there are more than 400 voter suppression laws winding their way through 48 states. how do we push back against that? >> yeah, so obviously we've got a dysfunctional u.s. house right know. so obviously i'm working really hard to make sure we take the majority back in two years. but the question is what do we do right now. and so for me what i'm looking at and what my team is studying

is the states that have maybe small portions, things such as same-day voter registration, how many states have that. or looking at online voter registration. how many states have that. and see if we can get some bipartisan support and say hey, you know, congressman such and such from whichever republican state, why don't you stand with me and say that this is a good thing, this is a healthy thing for democracy. and so i don't think that we're really in the best position to get an am anybodyus bill. we had that amaing omnibus -- we had two major omnibus bills that went through the house but unfortunately got nowhere in the senate. and so right now i am just going to take out whatever little bites i can take out and i hope and pray that that will absolutely make voting more accessible in states such as texas. these very small things definitely make a difference when it comes to increasing voter turnout. and you talk about georgia and really wanting to i guess like their victory lap and claim hey,

see? we did the right thing. but as far as i'm concerned there absolutely was still voter suppression. we know that some of these crazy bills about how you can kick people off the rolls or challenge them, i went down to help warnock in his election, and so i was actually calling and telling people that their ballots had been rejected and teaching them how to cure those ballots. there were a lot of extra steps for people who had never been rejected before but all of a sudden they were rejected, most likely because somebody decided to challenge them because they were voting in, say, a black area or voting in a democratic area. those are the kind of challenges that we're dealing with. and the fact that georgia is organized enough to fight back doesn't mean that the fight isn't on. and we need to make sure that we're not fighting but we're providing accessibility. >> jason johnson, your thoughts on all of this. >> so yesterday we know that the president gives this big speech at ebenezer and he talks about

voting rights and all these sorts of important things. this is where i am on this, honestly, nicolle. we talk about this every mlk day. we talk about what would he he think about what's happening in this country now. what would he think about voting rights? he'd be sad. of course he'd -- he was sad when he died. he was sad when he was killed because he saw that america was not nearly as close to his dream as he wanted it to be. and i think we consistently sort of downplay how far off we really are from what mlk hoped this country would be. i'm sure he would be shocked and disgusted at what happened on january 6th and equally shocked and concerned that so many people haven't been held accountable. i'm sure he would be uncomfortably familiar with the voter suppression that we see in georgia and florida and texas and think goodness gracious, it's been 70 years, hasn't this stuff gotten better? those the are kinds of things i tend to think about on mlk day. so when the president gives a speech or when republicans send their random disingenuous gaslighting tweets i just sit back and say it's going to be

the exact same thing next year. unless there is a radical change in how americans decide to see their government, and that comes from the ground and that comes from the people in office. unless people recognize that our current democracy isn't just under threat because of terrorists, isn't just under threat because of a former president, but is under threat because you have a significant number of people in the house and senate who don't actually believe in a functional multicultural democracy, then we will continue to have these conversations on mlk day about what we wish was happening but the people in the position to make the change don't have the strength and the ideological creativity to make any of those dreams come true. >> jason, let me just follow up with you. and i know this isn't what you're saying. we talk about this every single day. not an annual conversation on this show. >> yes. >> and i just want to press you to flesh this out. i mean, i -- when we cover the unsuccessful push for federal voting rights legislation, one thing that people would say is marc elias will deal with it in

the courts. marc elias would tell you he's playing legal whack-a-mole. and that is a slow process as well. >> right. >> another thing people would tell me is we'll just teach our voters -- as jasmine's saying -- and jasmine will do this. we'll sit with them and we'll tell them why their ballot was rejected and tell them where to go. that is the republicans winning too. even if you sue them and win, even if you teach a hand. of voters how to vote anyway, they have already won. they've already changed the game. and i remember republicans called me after 2020 and they said well, what kind of voter integrity law would you be happy with? i said none. there isn't any voter fraud and it's already a crime. we have criminal statutes in every state and every locality and at the federal level. if you vote illegally it's a crime. and you know who commits those crimes? republicans. trump voters. so how do we inject reality and how do we make the democracy agenda -- i mean, it's insane to me that only democrats are fighting for voting rights in america. how do we make that -- how do

you take the partisanship out of access to the polls? >> i don't think you can take partisanship out of it because really the partisanship is just a proxy for racism. i mean, let's be clear. when you have voter suppression laws in a place like ohio, you have and we've seen this sociologically, that there's a certain segment of white people in america who would rather have their own lives inconvenienced than run the rix of black people being on an equal plane. because frankly all these voter suppression laws they hurt white people, too. right? the intention is to keep black people from voting but it inconveniences everybody. i am very sure that somebody living in lorraine, ohio doesn't like the fact that their i.d. cards and things don't work the way they used to as well. so the way you solve this problem is that the party leadership, now, whether that's joe biden or formerly nancy pelosi or chuck schoouk schumer, any of these people, they have to start saying this is not an issue of compromise. the rhetoric has to start there. it has to say voting rights is fundamental. this is not something we can negotiate. this is why i was saying,

nicolle, we would have these conversations on this show. start calling out joe manchin. because you know what? coddling him didn't get niche. we still won't get any voting rights laws passed. but if leadership is ready to compromise, if the leadership was always willing to tell activists make your own bricks, make your own straw, make your own bricks, as long as leadership is willing to put this on the shoulders of activists rather than saying this is not something that we will compromise on anymore, that is why you have these problems. you have too many people -- you have democrats right now in the house and in the senate who say yes, yes, yes, voting rights are important but look, we won anyway. you can't keep winning that way. you can't keep winning on last-second field goals because at some point you're going to miss. and that's where i see the real concern is. i don't see urgency. the first thing joe biden should have said is hey, we've got the senate now, i know we lost the house but let's start talking about voting rights. it's not even on the tip of their tongues until it's time to go to a historic black church and have this conversation. and that's why people get frustrated and that's why you have low turnout and that's why

milwaukee ends up the way it is and that's why mandela barnes didn't end up winning and why black candidates in north carolina didn't end up winning. it's almost as if democrats don't realize this is the methodology you need to engage with to win and instead they -- >> david jolly, this is where i wish democrats would fight like republicans. so what republicans do is even the acceptable republicans, right? even the brad raffenspergers and gabe sterlings and that kind of republican who are acceptable in the eyes of some people-i know not jason johnson's eyes -- >> not at all. >> but they push back against trump. they passed voter suppression legislation predicated on a lie. and what republicans do, and you and i know this because we were in the party, is they take these extremist positions so that the compromise with democrats is all the way over here. what democrats have going for them is, one, it is the only democratic thing to do, expand access to the polls.

two, we already have protections against fraud. they're crimes everywhere. as i said, at a local level, state level and a federal level. three, 65% of americans think it should be easier, not harder to vote. what is in your view the political legislative plan to pass federal voting rights legislation? >> democrats right now have to play defense and offense. and i think that's important. jason's words are absolutely right. there's also a lens, though, to recognize the success democrats have had in being a backstop at the federal level to prevent further republican inroads into voter suppression because the natural tendency of republicans is to suppress the vote in communities of color. they don't want as many black and brown people voting as actually turn out. so they start out each cycle trying to determine how to suppress it. and they do it in race-neutral ways. even brad raffensperger, for instance, can embrace voter integrity legislation because it's race neutral. but the reality is it does have a disproportionate impact on

communities of color when you eliminate weekend voting, when you increase the i.d. requirements, when you put restrictions on who can transport a voter to the polls. it does impact everybody, as jason said, but it has a disproportionate impact on communities of color and republicans intend for it to be that way. so democrats step into this moment of history and what are they doing? first, understand that the accomplishment of playing defense and of being that backstop to at least thwart the worst tendencies of today's republican party. and the reason you don't have partners at the federal level, particularly among republicans but even calling out conservative democrat joe manchin is because the states are having voter suppression. and the republicans want it that way and joe manchin buys the federalism notion that somehow states need to keep control of this. states only have control of elections until they begin to violate people's voting rights and civil rights and where the courts have refused to step in the congress and the senate have an opportunity to.

good for joe biden for staying on message. good for democrats in the house like the congresswoman and the senate for staying on message. the votes aren't there, but you can't stop now. and that's probably the lesson of today. most of all for where we are. you can't stop now. you've got to keep going. >> congresswoman, i'll give you the last word. >> i'm sitting here -- you know, i'm having church right now. so thank you to this entire panel. noyou know, the idea we go out and celebrate how amazing mlk was. i don't really need your words. i need your actions. you talked about how the texas house, how we made sure that we followed through with actions. i don't want to be coddled. i want to see actions. if you believe that you were legitimately elected, if you believe that the people really want you there, then you should not be afraid of the people having their say-so and being able to participate in the election process. if you believe that the civil

rights movement was something that it was worth mlk dying for and that we really made progress in this world world, then we need to go ahead and honor his legacy in what we do, not what we say. and my last thing that i'm going to say is that i need people to understand how much mlk did in his very short life. he was younger than i am today when he was assassinated. and so i don't want anyone to ever believe that they are too young to be involved and get out there and fight for what they know is right. i think that's what we saw with young people when they pushed back and made sure that they showed up to the polls in record numbers. and i'm counting on that next generation to keep up this fight and keep the fire going. >> congresswoman jasmine crockett, david jolly, jason johnson, thank you so much for having this conversation with us and for starting us off this hour. i'm grateful to all of you. a programming note. our colleagues joy reid, chris hayes and trymaine lee will be holding a town hall tomorrow on the national day of racial healing. it's on msnbc at 10:00 p.m.

eastern. don't miss it. still ahead for us, one of these classified documents investigations is not like the other. our next guest says only one was looking for a criminal. plus speaking of the twice impeached disgraced ex-president, a newly unsealed transcript of trump's sworn deposition in the case brought by e. jean carroll reveals that he sounds depraved even under oath and that he may very well be in some deep legal jeopardy. we'll tell you all about it. also ahead, this weekend in ukraine they suffered one of the deadliest attacks against civilians since the war with russia began. a residential building in dnipro was hit with a missile strike where at least 40 people were killed and the rescue efforts are still under hour this way -- under way this hour. ambassador michael mcfaul will be our guest. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. se" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. ♪ just till they taste what we've got ♪ [ tires squeal, crash ] when owning a small business gets real, progressive gets you right back to living the dream. now, where were we? [ cheering ] get ready to say those five little words.

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lawyers for president joe biden have revealed to the national archives, the justice department and the general public that additional classified documents were found at the president's delaware residence this week and returned to the archives. white house lawyer richard sauber uncovered five more additional pages on thursday after the president's personal lawyer stopped the search because they did not have a security clearance. the new documents are the third set that have been disclosed by the white house. the news of the classified material has caused angst on the political left and glee on the political right. republicans are using this moment to cry crocodile tears about a double standard. and the reaction between president biden and his predecessor all but guaranteeing partisan investigations are on the near horizon. but already a few brave men and women are urging us to remember just how very different each of these cases actually are.

here's representative jamie raskin highlighting the major difference between these two cases. >> we were delighted to learn that the president's lawyers, the moment they found out about the documents, that day turned them over to the national archives and ultimately to the department of justice. that is a very different posture than what we saw with donald trump, where he was fighting for a period of more than eight months to not turn over hundreds of missing documents that the archives was asking about. i'm hoping that we will keep a sense of symmetry about our analysis of these situations and a sense of proportions about the underlying offenses. there are some people who are trying to compare having a government document that should no longer be in your possession to inciting a violent insurrection against the government of the united states. and those are obviously completely different things. that's apples and oranges. >> joining us now, former fbi

counterintelligence agent pete strzok. also joining us harry litman, former u.s. attorney, former deputy assistant attorney general. pete, what do you make of congressman raskin's admonition to not lump every examination of classified documents into one broad category? >> well, i think it's wise guidance. look, the reality is that on a routine basis classified information is mishandled across the government. unfortunately. i mean, on a monthly basis, sometimes on a weekly basis. when i was at the fbi we'd get calls from various agencies saying that an employee had mishandled classified information in whatever way, shape or form. so i think it is wise to sort of pump the brakes and slow down. we are still finding out information. the things that we know to date look radically different between the classified information president biden had vs. the classified information that former president trump had. now, the good news is i think at least as far as the special counsel looking at president biden this isn't a particularly

complex investigation. the three sites, what looks like now, you know, an office space, two residences, to go out there, figure out if all the classified information has been recovered, who the people were who had access to it, all the circumstances by which it came to be placed there, shouldn't take a lot of time. so i think hopefully we'll be able to get to a very decent point of knowing, one, whether or not there's a prosecutable crime here, and i don't think there is. and two, we can put to bed a lot of the sort of ongoing speculation on what is or isn't out there when it comes to the material that president biden had. >> harry, i know we probed this last week but just help me understand why there is a special counsel in the first place. i mean, if this is something that can be done quickly, if this is something where the source of the existence of the classified document was the current president himself and there doesn't appear to be any obstruction investigation under way on the biden side, nor would there be, why is there a special

counsel? >> it's a very fair question, and just picking up on what pete said there's just no indication of any criminal predicate. and that is a requirement of the law. you have to find that a criminal investigation is warranted. and it does pump the brakes in a different way. it's likely that hur will take some time to start up, will consider his job to be thorough and comprehensive, and until biden gets what till now seems like must be an inevitable clean bill of health, it's going to take a while. and we have this unfortunate washington dynamic where it sort of started oh, there's a problem with the superficial similarity and then through the self-inflicted wounds of the white house you have it comes out two or three times and there's -- that permits republicans to scream double standard and there's just a way in which that gets a purchase on the notion, did biden act like trump. but what pete says just must be

borne in mind at all times. there's a policy issue to think about. why do these things come out so easily, how frequent is it? there is zero, repeat zero, basis for thinking there's anything criminal here. and garland's appointment of a criminal special counsel is going to have some down sides for that very reason. i suspect he did it because everybody thinks it was required for basically political rather than legal reasons. i'm not taking -- i'm not criticizing that per se but just noting we really, really have to keep in mind there's just zero -- we don't get out of the starting gate on criminal stuff unless things are very different from what we've learned to date. >> i mean, pete, harry chooses his words pretty carefully. and to say this was rooted in politics is fair. as a former political person it

seems obvious to me that merrick garland may be a very wise man, he may be a very deliberate man but he can't stand the feel of a hot potato in his hands. and as somebody who's written a book about the justice department, who's lived and worked inside the fbi, what do you make of sort of -- do you think it's an overreaction? and can it be be political to not do something as much as the last administration was criticized for being political for all that it did do? >> well, nicolle, i think it is a reasonable question to ask, but i think as soon as you found a second spot that had classified documents it is a reasonable thing to do to try and understand why that information is there. and so if you want the fbi going out to interview people, to say hey, where did this stuff come from, did you pack it up, if you want fbi agents going out there to recover information, you are doing investigation. and to do that investigation you have to have an open investigation. the fbi jut can't send agents around to do interviews, to

collect evidence, to you know, look at records without an open predicated investigation. so if you're going to have an open predicated investigation, on the person who is the current president of the united states, i think the special counsel regulations kind of -- i understand that the line in there saying there's potentially no criminal violation of the law. but if you want the fbi engaged in any way at all the fbi's going to have to eventually report to somebody at the department of justice and i think the attorney general appropriate liv decided that based on the potential conflict of interest he couldn't be -- or he needed to appoint a special counsel to do it. again, i think we're maybe dancing around this issue a little too much about whether it's a political issue or by the books issue. but when you get down to the nuts and bolts of what's going on, i don't see how you can do it without an open investigation and if it is on the president you've got to have an independent special counsel leading that. >> couple of quick points if i might, nicolle. >> go ahead, harry. yeah. >> first it's true that more

normally a criminal. but you don't have to have a criminal investigation to have the fbi ask questions. look at the kavanagh situation, for example. but pete's point, i just want people to understand it does look as if the white house writ large has kind of tripped over itself, made some mistakes. i've been there in this situation. as soon as there's the whiff of anything potentially criminal we think of it as one entity but the white house, biden's personal lawyers and the doj go to their separate corners and they become somewhat antagonistic and starchy and that's what makes for some of these mistakes. there's a genuine frozen dilemma on the part of some people like what if we give this up, we're going to be interviewed later, how does this all play out. so that gives part of the understanding for what -- again, pete's right. there is a policy issue here. the fbi could be part of the investigation. we just shouldn't misunderstand

this since that's what special counsel regs are about, to be seeing this as oh, biden is now under criminal scrutiny. that's true in only the most technical sense. >> harry sticks around. pete strzok, thank you for joining us on this today. coming up for us, just when you think he has gone as low as even he can go, he goes lower. trump viciously attacked a woman who has accused him of rape. the latest unbelievable details from trump's sworn testimony in the e. jean carroll defamation lawsuit is next. stay with us. t is next. stay with us

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the twice impeached disgraced ex-president's legal woes continue to mount. after a judge rejected his attempt to throw out a lawsuit by writer e. jean carroll, who has accused him of raping her in a dressing room in the 1990s. miss carroll was able to sue trump under the adult survivors act, which was created -- which has create aid one-time waiver of the statute of limitations for survivors of sexual assault to sue the people they claim assaulted them. trump claimed that the law violated new york's constitution, which the judge called, quote, absurd. on friday the judge unsealed a portion of the deposition in the case, putting on full display trump's now infamous callousness and vulgarity. in the deposition trump referred to the alleged assault as, quote, swooning and falsely claimed ms. carroll said in an interview she enjoyed the

assault. quote, "well, sort of that's what she said i did to her. she fainted with great emotion. she actually indicated that she loved it. okay? she loved it until commercial break. in fact, i think she said it was sexy, didn't she? she said it was very sexy to be raped. didn't she say that?" a lawyer for ms. carroll then asked this. "sir, i just want to confirm. it is your testimony that e. jean carroll said that she loved being sexually assaulted by you?" and trump responded, "well, based on her interview with anderson cooper, i believe that is what took place." >> well, we have what she said. a warning to our viewers, the next clip contains a graphic description of sexual assault. >> he pushed me, held me over the shoulder, and i was wearing a coat dress and tights. and he pulled down the tights. and so that's -- >> with -- he pulled them with

both hands? with one hand? >> one. and that was when it turned serious. i realized that this was -- this was -- this was a fight. >> fighting -- were you scared? were you -- >> no, i was too panicked to be scared. >> too panicked to be scared. okay. >> you know, it was against my will, and it hurt, and it was a fight. >> trump has denied carroll's allegations. he's due to appear in court in april of this year. joining our coverage, msnbc legal analyst katie faang show, the host of the katie faang show on msnbc and peacock. harry litman is still with us. katie-u know the case. you know e. jean carroll. tell me what you thought of this unsealed deposition. >> well, you know, nicolle, i really kind of wanted to start from a procedural standpoint because i think it's really important. this deposition, first of all, it was a videotaped deposition.

so there is audio and video of donald trump being quelled by e. jean carroll's attorney robbie kaplan. it was taken in october of 2022. and the reason why the timing is so important, nicolle, is the falling. there's two lawsuits that e. jean carroll is currently pursuing. the first one was brought for the original defamation that was perpetrated by donald trump back in 2017, when he was still serving as the president of the united states. that lawsuit is currently up on appeal, and the question that is being answered by the appellate court is whether or not donald trump made his defamatory statements when he called e. jean a liar and he denied raping her, whether he made those statements during the course of his employment as the president and whether that actually gives him some type of immunity where he can be defended by the department of justice and he will not have to actually, you know, face and deal with that civil litigation. but the reason why there's a genius that came from e. jean carroll's second litigation, which is another defamation lawsuit, and the rape claim that's being brought under the adult survivors act you just

mentioned in the intro, nicolle, is because that was brought in november and that was after trump in october of last year, before his depo, issued a statement on truth social where he denied once again raping e. jean and defamed her again and called her a liar and said it was all a hoax. and so the reason why that's important is as you mentioned, nicolle, there's a trial that's going to happen and this deposition was taken as a part of the discovery process for that trial that's going to happen in april. so no matter what happens in that appellate court for that original defamation case that was brought by e. jean, because donald trump was stupid enough to defame her again on truth social and because he was stupid enough to step in it repeatedly at his deposition, he's going to go to trial in april and he is more likely than not going to be found liable for the claims that are brought by e. jean. and that is why this videotaped deposition is so important. >> it's amazing. he committed one of the things

for which he's being sued a second time, the defamation. i want to read more of this transcript. it -- i mean, i'll let you offer me analysis. it just sounds so devastating for the ex-president. this is an excerpt. so trump, "it's a big fat hoax. she is a liar and she's a sick person in my opinion. really sick. something wrong with her." e. jean carroll's attorney, "okay. in addition to the russia hoax, the ukraine hoax, isn't it true that you also referred to the use of mail-in ballots as a hoax?" trump, "yeah, i do. sure, i do. i think they're very dishonest, mail-in ballots. very dishonest." e. jean carroll's attorney. "and isn't it true that you yourself have voted by mail?" trump's attorney, objection. trump, "i do. i do." other than making him sound like a jackass, what is the legal significance of that? >> the legal significance is he

steps in it over and over again. and more importantly later on in his deposition, nicolle, he basically denies flat out that he's ever touched a woman in any part of her body -- specifically it's denying touching a woman on her breasts or buttocks or any other sexual part without her consent. he says no under oath. you and i both know, the whole world knows that on that "access hollywood" tape he boasted about he would grab them by the blank and he could do it when you're a star. i mean, he's caught in repeated lies throughout this course of this sworn videotaped deposition. we all think and we all know his credibility is suspect, but when it comes to the particular facts of this case the more that you're painted as a liar the more that you are a liar and the jury's going to determine that. and it's ridiculous that he wants to call e. jean a liar when the facts militate toward the truth, which is what she said happened. >> here he is admitting to granning women between the legs. as you said. on camera in an interview.

we don't have it. but he says this. "i better use some tick takz just in case i start kissing her. you know, i'm automatically attracted to beautiful. i just start kissing them. it's like a magnet. just kiss. i don't even wait. and when you're a star they let you do it. you can do anything. grab them by the p. you can do anything." so he's admitted to being a sexual assaulter and, quote, "i don't even wait. i just start kissing them. it's like a magnet." can that be used against him? >> absolutely. it's prior statements. anything that's a prior inconsistent statement or any admissions by a party opponent that are against your self-interest can be used against you. and the problem for donald trump is you and i both know that the lawyers -- i don't know, elina hall probably didn't even try. but normally as i alawyer you try to counsel your clients that are sitting in the deposition, you tell them keep the answer short and sweet, don't volunteer any information. you and i both know even if he prepped for it, which i don't

think he did, he clearly didn't heed any advice that was given to him because he ran his mouth off. and every time he does even now he runs his mouth off about the mar-a-lago documents. anytime he posts anything, anytime he says anything, he just creates more and more exposure for himself. no pun intended. right? and so because of that he needs to stay quiet. but from e. jean's perspective and from america's perspective in some perverse way keep on talking, buddy, because the more that you talk the more that you step in it and the more exposure and the more culpability you create for yourself, donald trump. >> yeah. harry litman, i want to bring you in on this. i'm brought right back in time to when i was covering the mueller investigation and many people close to trump in and out of the white house said they would lay their bodies down on the railroad tracks before they would let trump talk to mueller because to katie's point he would talk and talk and talk. and he yes, i love putin and yes, he's such a strong leader and yeah, so what if i -- you know. what is it about -- you know, we

covered the trump presidency as though he kept getting away with things. maybe it's everything that happened before, and i'm thinking of trump university and the charity, i mean, he always lost legally. we covered those four years as an anomaly where he had this incredible shield of the justice department. but do you think it's more likely that he reverts to form and starts failing and being held accountable in the judicial system again, harry? >> worst client of all time. and as katie said, anything he said under the rules of evidence. but this shows how potent these civil lawsuits are, nicolle. in a criminal case or with mueller he could hide behind the fifth amendment. that's what the lawyers were saying. but in civil cases, and there are more of them. there's the swalwell case, others brought by women. if he takes the fifth, it will come out, the jury will hear it. and that's why he thought he couldn't. even so, he was incapable of not

saying the stupidest stuff ever, redefaming her and being a total jerk. that's going to go to the jury, and it's not simply they'll be more likely to hold against him. they can do punitive damages. those will be driven in part by his wealth. and it could be a really huge pricetag. so just important to understand the special threat that these civil lawsuits pose for him among the sort of, you know, dozen daggers that are now pointed at him. >> dozen daggers. i like that. katie phang, it's so nice to see you in longer than a hand-off conversation. thank you for being part of our coverage. harry litman, thank you for joining us today. after the break, for us, heartbreaking scenes out of ukraine following a missile strike on a residential building where dozens were killed. now with the war nearing its 11th month mark renewed calls for russia to be charged with war crimes. stay with us.

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that is according to the associated press. search and rescue teams continued to search the rubble for any survivors and up to 30 people have been reported missing. the attack comes as russia and the air force of belarus began exercises. mosque outlooks to change tactics after humiliating losses on the data field. let's bring in the former u.s. ambassador. so ambassador mcfall russia is engaged in a campaign of terrorism against the civilian population of ukraine. we often rotate around the axis of what we can do and if we can do it more quickly. is there a different framework that we should be discussing the assault on ukraine and the civilian population? >> i think so. it is a hard step but we have a designation for state-sponsored terrorism. currently there is four countries on there. one of them is cuba. look at

what cuba is doing in the world and terrorizing or not civilians in other countries compared to what russia is doing. by that standard it seems crystal clear to me that russia deserves to be on that list. in doing so that would embolden other countries to take a similar course. it has been debated a long time by administrative officials and officials will tell you about the complicated diplomacy, but i think you cannot stand by and watch these horrific attacks. doesn't it remind you of 9/11? it does me. you cannot just stand by and say this is not terrorism. i think it is time to give russia that designation. >> i think the decision for the public has to be you will let russia play us for fools. in the beginning civilians were

targeted because they was aiming for infrastructure and the energy grid. there is no military sku structure for targeting civilians and killing family and children. i wonder what you think the ukrainian should do to shift the focus to put a toll on their civilian population? >> you are exactly right to describe it that way. this is terrorism and they are trying to defeat psychologically the ukrainian people. public opinion will suggest it is not working. they want to had the designation that i just described. they think that would be a signal to the world that would begin to increase sanctions on all kinds of entities in russia and individuals that are still not sanctioned. secondly they want to go on the offensive. right now they are in this protracted stalemate. we had a lot of action in the fall and there hasn't been action recently. if you listen to the ukrainian

generals he says that give me 300 tanks and i can go on the offensive and pushed the russians out. i think that is the second big debate that we need to be having in the united states and within the nato alliance. >> what is happening inside of russia? what is public opinion looking like around putin and the conduct of the war? >> first he just changed his general in charge. if you are in a war you don't change agent when you are winning but when you are losing. i think that is a very important signal. on the public opinion polls we need to be super careful. sometimes the ones that are quoted in the west have a 90% now respondent rate. the way i look at it and i look at a lot of different indicators is yes there is support but it is very thin.

70% would say they would support a piece negotiation tomorrow if putin announced it as well. third economically you see increasing signs of despair. they don't see any way that it will change anytime soon. even among the propaganda television station for russia, and these are people that i used to know personally, you hear the despair in their voices. one of the most famous ones did a end of the year take stock of what happened in 2022 and said the united states of america was the big winner in 2022. that is not the opposition leader in jail saying that but a pollutant propagandist. i think there is a lot of discontent if you add that up with a way this war is unfolding inside russia. >> ambassador mcfall i will

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