them every time. tim miller and jonathan capehart, whose show airs right here every week and morning at 9 am eastern on msnbc, thank you both, gentlemen. appreciate it. that is all, all in on this thursday night. alex wagner's tonight starts right now. good evening, alex. good evening michael steele thank you to similar for putting the image of ron desantis image in my head, an image like no longer unsee. >> about to go work it out right now. >> please, do great show. >> and thanks to you at home for joining, us we have a lot to get to this evening. evening. in manhattan the grand jury hearing the trum;gñ hush money probe, that grand jury did not meet on that matter. "the new york times" reports prosecutors leading that case were seen entering the building where the grand juryi] meets suggesting that someci] activit may have taken place,ko■ but!u■

are no indications that an indictment has been handed upi]á today. where q grand jury is investigating the mar-a-lago documents case and the januaryi 6th rites.

one of the prosecutors was also spottedjf enterçót(ñiv hearing before thet( d.c. chief judge andxd thei] special couns ongoing battle tofá compel hisx testimony before that grand jury. now, if you are wondering why trump'st( attorneys were in the as a reminder,çó jack smithc subpoenaed pence for his testimony. anok abcñrt( now

way may explain why aides. testify against the man he served in office. - p. sps investigation. justice department prosecutors sought to learn")rqáher trump ever acknowledged losing the election and what specific efforts he took to block the certification of the election. prosecutors believe his private conversations with trump couldç shed light on either or both.w3

and that is all fairly essential information as far as this entire investigation goes. so if jack smith wins this fight and gets mike pence to sit before the grand jury and answer questions, it will be a>"%g development in the january ftf meanwhile, mr. smith is also one step closer to hearing from trump's attorney in theq mar-a-lago documents investigation. the attorney caught in the this document has often been called a statement but it is more than that. it is an initial version. the version wase1 provided to justice departmentñiñi in lieu official testimony by trump's attorney thati] includes seriou sounding language like this, i am authorized to certify on behalf of theok office ofok don

j. trump search a diligent was made. i swear or affirmr statements are true and correct to et best of my knowledge. well, we now know that wasn't the case at all and prosecutors the fbi found more than 100 classified documents when they searchedñi theçó premises two ms later.q prosecutors later asserted that5 into serious questionq theq representations made in the june 3rdt( certification and casts doubt on the extent of cooperation in this matter.xd in other words, perhaps obstruction of justice.r an÷d appeals court ruled that en corcoran must provide testimony to prosecutors as well asxd documents and recordings. mr. corcoran is expected toñi appear before the grand jury as early as tomorrow. so jack smith with theqq one-tw punch today.

everyosu is buzzing about alvin bragg andçó the stormy daniels probe, donald trump's legalçó ■ to special counsel appear to be multiplying. laura jarrett andçó michael moo, former u.s. attorney for the middle district offá georgia ar both joining me. laura, we jusiçó couldn't stop laura, we jusiçó couldn't stop talking to you last ézeu we needed more today.ñi i want+■ to hear yourñi assessm of the -- how compelled mike pence will be or can be to testify here. it sounds like he's privately or his attorneys are making peace with the concept. do you thinkústrj likely he will get pulled,uz this. >> the hardest thing, he has gone with a numbert(ñr of diffe interactions and reflections that he has had about really material events that happened before and after ther and the yet the argument that appears his lawyers want to be z -- his role

>> michael, i would assume if you're afx=i5■er vice president of the united states, you have handlers -- you havet( lawyezsvd one would imaginer embarkecb would have beençó some legal considerationi] about what he w talkingfá about publicly on abc% news and the pages of "the wall street journal" as laura points out and whatt( position that mit put him in in terms of further investigatiow5k @&h(lc% do you think that wasq not a consideration that was made? >> ñrwell, i'm dmad to be with u both. i think heko■ believes at the t he wasw3 selling his book he wa and was

honestly planning to runc x/t president. i did no credence to his argument at é@■all. there are a lot of cowxd pastur down here full of the same types of ar■á]qm6 that's where it belongs. it's not going to go anywhereñr you know,c he did talkçó about publicly. he's repeatedly talked about it publicly. when he was trying to sell a book he talks about the subpoena being, you know, unprecedented and unconstitutional, hisñi refusal to honor it is unpatriotic. toçó hide behind these constitutional arguments he's making, it's not going to j8 anywhere. certainly i don't think they'll get anywhere with the judge but remember what the privilege is about. it's about a delivery process. it's about the ability to, you know, to talk through a problem without worrying about having to testify about the inner workings problem or reachinge1 a

solution to seachinge1 a national issue.ñi it's not herk( as it's attempte to overthrow the election to shield those from further çójf disclosure and the constitutional clauses is he in thet( executive versus the legislative and congressional branch, that's not going to carry the day for him either. >> is there a world in which there is a narrowly set ofq prescribed conversations that pence had in the context of him being the president of the senate that are off-limits, buy e'e)ything else including?;■ conversations that happened in the oval office, that has nothing to do with his ministerial role and those are not lpoff-limits. in other words, is therexd some versionko■ of this resolutionoke pence can get toq have his cake and that the nand debate clause conversations but the sort of important -- the mostok relevan conversation, very much are on the table as far as conversations with the grand juryxd or testimony in front of

the grand jury. >> that's a good point. there may be a way to split the baby in the circumstance. >é conversations that areñi protecd or at leastt( maybe off-limits fromçó the public questioning. i won't say they necessarily follow under the constitutional provision but the judge may say i'm not goingtñ(=■ let you go io this bute1 talk about that. bout what talk about that. happened. tell me about what you saw andq observed and what was said to you. tell me about, you know,t( thos types of things at the time that

>> laura, iqñ can't get past thv factjf that without talking abor two events, trump on january 6th and evanc corcoran in the mar-a-lago documents retention case, to me those are thexd witnesses you would end an investigation with.çócxd you are a creature of the doj.ok you understand how these things work. do you think -- should we infer anything from the fact that these very high-wattage important key figures are potentially testifying in the coming days in jack xdxdi]smithr dueling special counsel probes. >> this is not the beginning of the investigation. you wouldn't try tot( serve a on him

not be thelp opening move.n him this is the type of thing you would see when he feels, jack smith feels as though he's amassed enoughç?$q+idence and gotten to the end game where he really needs something to close it and sort of wrap up whatever a and sort of wrap up whatever court will be farc more sympathetic to a jack smith than perhaps to the january 6th committee. li testify fromq the grand jury, yu know, criminalfá case than they are in terms of sort of justé@■ legislative open hearing and )5at type of thing.e1 different trump -- executi mx branch people tofá testify in opening hearing. that's very different than going behind closed doors in front of a grand jury and i think a court will see what he does but may be far more sympathetic to hisb.■ entries than he would have -- >> another time line questionñr

because you seem to agree mike pence wouldn't be theçó3w■ starting --ko■ >> in mine. >> do you think these investigations, jack smith's probe into january 6th and mar-a-lago are happening in parallel tracks because i've always thought the mar-a-lago thing must be further along thai the january 6th casefá which ses massive and unwieldy and is going to take forever. how do you see them moving down the track? >> the facts of the mar-a-lago

once instead of sort of staggering them.t( >>q assigned them at the same time. the tangle, the thicket of lawyers involved. i've beenfá asking our wonderfu patient producer to make a graphic for me that shows -- yeah, we have it. can we pull it up? these are the lawyers, we had to color code. this. butñi there are so many lawyers involved in different cases as ju)u'esses, christinafá bobb is a potential witness. evan corcoran is a witnessi] bu is counsel to jump in the january 6th case. i mean, it is a -- it seems to me not a lawyer but this seems a nightmarish arrangementokzwbo a

cross-pollinating things as counsel orok witnesses. >> the only thingok surprising m■ willing to get involved in these cases.ó [ laughter ] with the former president. and i think trump has done this masterfully at times. he has açó wayw3 of putting peo as a buffer between him and the law an, often does it with lawyers and you can see thattv with michael fácohen, how he handled him there andçói] what asked him to do and, you know,5 we know how the story wound up there.xm even here with mr. corcoran, he's writing a letter as opposed to trump signing ai] letter because it's his property and residence and could have done that.xd he builds in degreesxd of separation. whenlp you'relpq trying to dela things and one of yourñrxdi mai tactics to usexd ae1 md inquiries anda5■(t%s(eachments everything else, you make the ì(lc% in there that somebody has to unravel. you do see that and the diagram

helps withr i don't think at the end of the day that it shieldse1 him from f inquiry he will have to give information in and certainly not meant and would not because you had lawyers that are involved in different cases. that doesn't prevent t talking about things that would typically be covered in thei] i'm happy to see him come in and (u5■ the pedal down and get things moving along. this is something,xd an5a■ investigation that has taken far too long. thinking about this, we talk about these cases, somehow we're

trying to send a rocket to the moon. these arer and criminal investigatous. i mean, did somebody have documents they weren't allow/df to have. a pretty simple inquiry. you may want to get witness testimony but the facts and the underlying allegation is fairlyr supple. did somebody pay, you xdknow, me a payment legal and recorded wrongfully on -- that's pretty simple. was there a call made to pressure somebody to changewm+■ election count? that's a pretty simple thing. it's good to see thingslp movin forward and i think at least in my opinion overdue. >> maybe michael moore should head ux■ e1 the special counsel. he makes)8u sound so ñisimple.ñi michael moore, thank you both for your time and wisdom.lp ie1 sincerely appreciate ñiit. we have so much to get to including the logical outcome of florida governor's ron desantisi backwarde1 educationals7■ polic

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as we await the likely first ever indictment of a former u.s.

president, the first indictment in american history, we are already seeing another first. republicans in congress led by house judiciary chairman jim jordan using their power as congresspeople to act as quasi-defense attorneys for a former president in a potential criminal case. and not just in the court of public opinion which needless to say is also happening, in addition to the normal fox news hits, congressman jordan took it upon himself reportedly at the request of one of president trump's lawyers to send this letter demanding the testimony of manhattan district attorney alvin bragg. the prosecutor, of course, investigating trump's alleged hush money payments. what congressman jordan was asking for here for a state prosecutor to testify before congress to lay out all of his evidence and internal communications about an ongoing criminal investigation in front of a bunch of allies of the very person that investigator might be trying to prosecute.

well, that is a five-alarm fire in terms of the separation of powers. it is what congressman jordan himself might call the weaponization of the federal government. now, mr. bragg politely declined his request saying in a letter bragg's office will, quote, always treat a fellow government entity with due respect and requesting a meet and confer to understand whether the committee has any legislative purpose. sort of seems clear what the committee's purpose is. unfortunatelily, jim jordan isn't some letter writing, congressman and chair of the house judiciary committee. he has subpoena power and he is likely to at least try to use it. so, exactly how district attorney bragg responds to these house republicans and how democrats respond, all of that really matters because this is likely just the first indictment against president trump. the odds are pretty good the leading republican candidate for president in 2024 that he will be actively fighting multiple criminal indictments while on

the campaign trail. and that candidate seems to think so too. today trump called for all of the prosecutors in all of the investigations into him, he called for them to be removed from office. alvin bragg, as to that, he referred to him as an animal and referred to it as the gestapo while criticizing calling for protesters. he is trying to refrain this from being an investigation into his alleged crime and instead trying to make it an investigation into the investigators. republicans in congress are using the power of the federal government to help him. joining us now is democratic congressman jamie raskin, ranking member of the house oversight committee. congressman raskin, thank you so much for being here. you are a scholar of the law. we have heard the phrase

investigate the investigators many times in the trump era but this feels different and is this even legal for jim jordan to ask alvin bragg to come before congress in the middle of an open investigation? >> well, let's start with this. i mean, we actually have jurisdictional authority over the department of justice in house judiciary committee but it is very well established that even there with the doj where there's real jurisdictional oversight responsibility that we cannot intervene this an ongoing case. then you take it from the federal level to the state and local level where we have no jurisdictional power over state investigative and pross skew electoral authorities and this is just unheard of and outrageous. it's clearly an attempt to elevate donald trump completely above the law, completely above the constitution and that's what's so scary about this, the gop has turned into a messianic

cult of personality around one guy who has proven himself to be a one-way crime wave and wrapped their careers around donald trump. >> joe tacopina reportedly suggested that the house judiciary committee do this and they have in turn followed suit into what moass that you suggest could be unconstitutional and then the reality if they did this, you told "the washington post" and, again, i agree, it could completely backfire even if they managed to get alvin bragg up to the hill. can you talk about the ways in which democrats see this as a potential danger zone for republicans if they do, in fact, go through with all of this? >> well, alex, the emperor has no clothes at any level. during the impeachment trial the rhetoric was, well, if there's a

real problem, you don't need to impeach and convict him, just prosecute him when he leaves office, that's fine. now all of the prosecutors are saying, there are these criminal offenses and they say how dare you prosecute a former president, someone who has put himself forward to run for president again, they will devise any argument to guarantee the immunity and impunity of one donald trump so they're taking us into completely unknown territory as a society today. >> i do wonder, i mean, when you talk about terra incognito and new territory it's not just what trump is asking congress to do in this extra due jishl fashion but the threat that he is directing at prosecutors and in particular the manhattan district attorney calling him a soros-backed animal and shared a post that is a link to an article that shows a picture of trump holding a bat next to alvin bragg's face.

i mean, does that rise to the level of a threat of violence against a prosecutor? >> well, some of the people who are in the d.c. jail right now as january 6th convicts were suspects are people who wielded baseball bats and batons and flagpoles and metal poles and other weapons like that, so donald trump is obviously sending a not very subliminal subtle signal to his most avid followers out there. i trust that the good district attorney has sufficient security, but it's a very dangerous moment when you have people at his level giving license to violence and to violent attacks including on law enforcement. i mean, this is something we'll be dealing with tomorrow when marjorie taylor greene is going to be leading a delegation from

the house oversight committee to go to the d.c. jail to visit the january 6th defendants who she describes as political prisoners like nelson mandela in south africa or navalny today. these are not political prisoners. there are 20 of them, 17 have been charged with assaulting federal officers including with baseball bats and batons and confederate flagpoles and spraying them with noxious chemicals and so on. they are the people they will visit and, by the way, they are being treated just fine in d.c. jail. there are two facilities there. there's the central detention facility and a central treatment facility. they are in by far the better facility with open area. they're guaranteed four or five hours a day outside of their cells, they get to go outside,

weather permitting. they have access to recreation and computer tablets available to them for more than 12 hours a day in an institution that's been fully accredited by the american correctional association, so they've got it pretty good as prisoners and detainees and suspects go. now, some of them have still not pled guilty yet or been convicted of anything. they're entitled to the presumption of innocence but a lot of people that they're visiting tomorrow, i think, eight or nine of them have already pled guilty to serious charges like assaulting federal officers, and all of them are being charged with very serious offenses like seditious conspiracy, conspiracy to assault federal officers, you know, staying in excluded facilities with a dangerous weapon, disobeying the officers, you know, wielding weapons against officers and so on so my

republican colleagues don't talk about any single case. they will not name any of these people because they don't want the media looking into what they actually did, but i highly commend to you a report that was done by just security which goes through the cases of the people there and the media should keep that in mind when touring the facility tomorrow of these so-called political prisoners and, by the way, while they're calling for the release of political prisoner, i would love it if marjorie taylor greene and chairman comer and lauren boebert would call for the release of alexei navalny who is a real political prisoner held by the war criminal vladimir putin in russia right now for his stand against the corruption of the russian government. will they call for the release of a real political prisoner, mr. navalny? i challenge them to do that while calling for the release of many of these people already convicted of violently assaulting our officers. >> i think we know whether

they're going to defy putin and call for navalny's release but i sincerely appreciate, a, the invocation of navalny's name and the work he has done to try to bring justice and transparency to russia and also, b, the invitation for republicans to do the right thing. always good to see you. thanks so much for your time tonight. when we come back, explosive new reporting about how kyrsten sinema actually feels about the party she left behind and what democrats are prepared to do about her. how did masterpieces of art lead to the firing of a school principal? the answer is, isn't it always, florida. we'll explain coming up next. ♪breeze driftin' on by...♪ ♪...you know how i feel.♪ you don't have to take... [coughing] ...copd sitting down. ♪it's a new dawn,...♪ ♪...it's a new day,♪ it's time to make a stand.

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in the name of parental rights parents, send your kids out of the room or avert their eyes, what i'm about to show you might upset your children and frighten your family. i'll give you a moment. okay, are you ready? this is a 17 foot tall statue of david made by one of the greatest artists of the renaissance, michelangelo in the early 1500s, arguably one of the most famous sculptures in the

world and, yes, for the record david is totally nude. more than a million people visit the statue of david every year, the most iconic piece in one of the most visited museums in florence in italy and david's nudity comes with history. soon after michelangelo completed that he also made the christ the redeemer statue in rome and the creation of adam fresco for the sistine chapel. both of those works of art are also featuring nude subs. when the catholic church caught wind of the nudity the church banned it launching the fig leaf campaign. some members of the vatican called for the figure of adam on the ceiling of the sistine chapel to be censured. those nude figures got underpants. christ the redeemer statue got a permanent bronze girdle and statue of david got a fig leaf.

that was the 16th century. around 20th century his detachable fig leaf was removed. according to historians it happened in 1912. today, a school board in florida appears to be channeling that 16th century fig leaf campaign. a charter school in the state capital called tallahassee classical, the school began teaching michelangelo's masterpieces to its sixth graders needing a school mandate to teach them about the renaissance but one parent complained the lesson which included michelangelo's david along with the birth of venus, that parent complained that the lesson was important graphic. two other parents complained that they were not notified in advance that the lesson included nudity that might upset their kids. seemingly inspired by governor ron desantis' parental rights/don't say gay legislation, they passed a rule requiring two weeks' advance

notice for parents of any curriculum that is potentially controversial. the chairman of the school's board who wants tallahassee classical to be on the cutting edge of desantis' education agenda saying rights are supreme, protecting one, 10, 20 or 50. in this case the interests of the three parents who spoke up about michael many angelo's masterpieces was enough to force the school principal out of her job. last week the school's board voted that the principal would be fired if she did not resign over this renaissance history lesson. in a statement released after news of her ouster was published, the principal said the chairman of the school's board was more concerned about litigation and appeasing a small minority of parents rather than trusting my expertise as ang educator for more that 25 years. they might already be on the

cutting edge because just a couple of weeks ago the florida legislature introduced bills to expand the state's parental rights don't say gay law which bans instruction in public schools on sexual orientation and gender identity and age inappropriate content like nudity, those regulations which are currently in effect through third grade and now seeking to extend those regulations for older students, as well. the governor's board of education is now considering its own expansion of the law through 12th grade. teachers who violate the board's proposed rule could be suspended or have their teaching licenses revoked. the state board of education will vote on the proposed rule next month, so get your fig leafs ready. we have still more ahead tonight. one of her colleagues calls her the biggest ego maniac in the senate. how do they handle the problem of kyrsten sinema. that is next.

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11:00 a.m. on a tuesday. that is right around the time that senate democrats hold their weekly caucus lunch to discuss important legislative matters during the week ahead. now, listen to what the newly independent senator sinema has been saying behind closed doors about those democratic lunches according to a new report from politico, quote, those lunches were ridiculous, sinema told a small group of republican lobbyists at a reception in washington this year in explaining why she stopped attending her caucus' weekly lunches and boasted she had better uses of her time than those, quote, dumb lunches, better uses of her time like selling used designer shoes to strangers. according to politico it was more than long lunches she complained about to those republican lobbyists. during the private meeting she reportedly boasted that she had helped block tax increases for the wealthy, she derided senate majority leader chuck schumer and raised a middle finger when talking about white house chief of staff ron klain.

it led someone to tell her she is the biggest ego maniac in the senate. this is her new brand. the progressive turned moderate turned independent senator has taken on a new role as defender of america's wealthy financial elite. what you might call the private equity class. as politico notes it's hard to overstate her closeness with private equity in particular and spent part of her summer recess interning at a sonoma winery owned by an executive in the industry. they've concluded the way to win her vote on a nominee is have private equity executives weigh in with her. and after her taste of high finance on the fund-raising circuit she's become like the ee 'tis cole priest in the humble rectory who is surrounded by money in the pews who wanted a cut.

jamel, i know you read this like i did and i just want -- my eyes, i had to put them back in my head. one of the things i found most disturbing perhaps with george santos in my rearview mirror in the way it seems increasingly like higher office is being seen by certain people as a springboard to personal wealth like a kind of legal grift they can pull to rake this cash at some point. is this more kir kyrsten sinema strange psychology around money? >> i think it's always been the case there have been people who have seen higher office, public office generally as a pathway to self-enrichment but this is going to sound a little crazy, but in the past, those people were often a little less obvious about it. they had some interest,

something they wanted to pursue, political power or winning for their party, whether that was accomplishing some sort of project. these things were kind of in dialogue with the desire for a■z self-enrichment and what is so striking about senator sinema is first the other -- the absence of shame about her desire to ingratiate herself with private equity executives and sort of the heights of the american financial system and her apparent disinterest in actually doing anything beyond insisting that class of americans, that she's more than willing to obstruct large parts of the democratic party agenda. the agenda she ran on in 2018, two goals -- affluent people. for people and evidence of not just her independence but to her

colleagues. >> you know, jamelle, i think you're right to point out the shamelessness and the sense that she thinks others should be like her. in the story she says she's kind of amazed that other senators haven't taken the narrow, narrow majority that the democrats hold in the senate to offer themselves up as the most important votes in the senate and to similarly, you know, basically hold hostage the party for demands that are untethered to any particular policy agenda, but are completely self-serving. do you think there's a risk that people look at sinema's example of impunity and selfish this is and say, i want to be like that. i like the power that comes along with becoming the irascible swing vote if that's what you want to call her? >> i don't think so. senate democrat -- who called

her an egomaniac. others -- there are others basically may have a case will act in that role and may also understand they are part of a collective effort and so they want to further the collective effort barring some extraordinary desires that they have, they might suppress some of the things they want to do in favor of that effort. i'm saying this as a novel idea but teach it in team sports. this is what you're supposed to learn when you're 8, 10, 14 years old playing soccer or football or whatever, and the senator from arizona doesn't seem to have picked up lessons. >> i just wonder what democrat -- what you think the democratic play should be because in some ways, i mean not in some way, they need her vote, right, to pass anything, and yet

she's out there, you know, stomping grapes with private equity investors and only listening to them. what do you think democrats do in the meantime? >> well, i think it's clear that the strategy so far has been to kind of just like stay on her good side, humor her, that sort of thing. you'll notice she's up for re-election next year. there is no real indication at this point that anyone in the senate democratic caucus or leadership intends to campaign for her independent bid. she is clearly hoping that the arizona democratic party holes off on putting a nominee splitting the vote three ways and possibly electing a republican, possibly electing kari lake, for example, but right now in three-way polling involving a hypothetical democratic candidate, a hype et cal -- not only is she at the bottom but the democratic candidate is at the top so

whatever her strategy or hope seems to be for negotiating the politics of this, may not be playing out the way she hopes. now, it's possible that it will next year long time before the vote is held in november 2024 but i think she is playing a risky game politically, electorally and not one that necessarily will play out in her favor. >> yeah, it's a curious political strategy being the candidate of the explicitly the candidate of the private equity class. jamelle bouie, thanks for your time. >> the least popular people in the country. >> exactly. thank you, my friend. we'll be right back. need a backup plan? get plan b one-step. plan b helps prevent pregnancy before it starts by temporarily delaying ovulation—and you can resume your regular birth control right away.

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that is our show for this evening. we'll see you again tomorrow. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next.