he even said to aaron zelinsky, this is not the hill you want to die on.ose your job over this. so he does allege that this person violated professional responsibility, violated that provision i cited about not acting for political activity or association, and i think that he didn't name that person's name. but if i were a member of that congressional committee tomorrow asking the questions, i would ask for the name or names of those supervisors. >> and if i was one of those supervisors, i would get my -- as you said, i would get my own story out right now. i wouldn't want to be on the right side of history in this because the wrong side of history this is going to be dark. >> i'll talk your dms right now. >> thanks, barb. we'll check back in with you tomorrow on this. i can't wait to see this testimony. we'll be right back. stay with us. and ask your doctor about biktarvy. biktarvy is a complete, one-pill, once-a-day treatment used for h-i-v in certain adults. it's not a cure, but with one small pill, biktarvy fights h-i-v to help you get to and stay unde

the announcement came as aaron zelinsky was testifying in regard to roger stone.ing to dismiss the case against michael flynn because the justice department wished to drop the case even though flynn had pleaded guilty not once but twice to lying to the fbi. with me now, former acting solicitor general, professor of law at georgetown university, nbc news legal analyst. neil, it wasn't just aaron zelinsky that testified about one action. other people testified. i want to play an astonishing quote here that was unlike, aaron zelinsky was careful not to name barr. this next person wasn't. take a listen. >> i was privileged to serve in the department of justice under two republican and one democratic president, and i am here because i believe that william barr poses the greatest threat in my lifetime to our rule of law and to public trust in it. that is because he does not believe in its core principle that no spurn above the law. >> neil, we heard both in big ways and in minute ways how at least accusations basically of personal, political interference? >> absolutely.

aaron zelinsky revealed that he was testifying remotely today because he was being extra cautious, as cautious as possible, about exposure to the coronavirus because he has a newborn baby at home. and when louie gohmert finally got his precious five minutes to question witnesses, here is everything, and i mean the totality, of what he had to say to the biggest witness of the day, aaron zelinsky. >> and the fact that mr. zelinsky, i was going to ask him questions but -- and i understand family matters and by the way, i'm grateful for my wife for sticking with me for 42 years today, and there are family matters. yeah, she's a lot more fair than we're getting around here. but, so, 42 years. thank you, kathy. some of us have family matters, too, that are very pressing. but this is very pressing, too. and i won't try to compare those. >> that's it. that's everything he had to say to and about the most important witness in that hearing today. that's how louie gohmert used his valuable time. he did not ask a single question, not one. he did not make a single coherent point other than it was

she issued this opinion i think an hour before aaron zelinsky came on the committee. to say this place stinks to high heaven. saying this is not the case where a more searching inquiry is justified. what do you think of that? >> i disagree. i respect judicial process, but the court on its own sua sponte can have a full panel hear the case. but, again, i think the larger issue here is, you know, the president's being vindicated. mr. flynn can be prosecuted again under a more independent prosecution office if the department of justice. and i think this should be on the ballot box again. we have impeached the president. hi's impeached forever. the people know he puts his personal and political beliefs and priorities ahead of the country's. this will be on the ballot box in november. but right now we need to have as many ankle monitors on the president and his friends all and his enablers all the way to november. the final question here, he talked about the long-term damage down to the department of justice. there is both long-term damage, but also, as you colleague adam

attorney aaron zelinsky says the political influence he experienced in the roger stone case was "deeplynsettling," and virtually unprecedented. in a detailed 13-page statement, zelinsky says the team that prosecuted the president's longtime friend was pressured to water down and in some cases outright distort the events that transpired in his trial in order to secure a lighter sentence. "what i heard repeatedly" he wrote, "was that roger stone was being treated differently from any other defendant because of his relationship to the president." stone was convicted on seven counts, including witness tampering and lying to investigators. but when it came time for sentencing, zelinsky said, higher ups suddenly overrode his team's recommendations in court. "we were not informed about the content or substance of the proposed filing or even who was writing it." that led zelinsky to resign from the case. in a statement tonight, the department of justice says attorney general bill barr determined that the recommended sentence was excessive and that's why he intervened. they insist he did not dis

. >> reporter: prosecutor aaron zelinsky resigned from the case, along with three other prosecutors. today, testifying by videoconference that barr's decision to reduce the sentencing recommendation for roger stone, who was convicted of witness tampering and lying to congress, was essentially abuse of power. >> we do not prosecute people based on politics and we don't cut them a break based on politics either. but that wasn't what happened here. >> reporter: zelinsky said his supervisor suggested that the odds were stacked in favor of stone, a longtime friend of the president. zelinsky said he feared he could be fired. >> and i was told that the acting u.s. attorney was giving stone a break, because he was afraid of the president of the united states. >> reporter: barr told me that the president was not involved. did you talk to the president at all about your decision regarding the recommendations? >> never. >> reporter: david, the justice department says zelinsky had no evidence of anyone pressuring him about stone's case, but this fight is far from over. house democrats demanding

attorney aaron zelinsky said his team was pressured to recommend a lighter sentence for longtime trumpy roger stone. >> and what were you told could happen to you if you refused to go along with this lower recommendation? >> we were told that we could be fired. >> reporter: d.o.j. lawyer john elia ht rs one dayerto investi prt complaed about them on twitter. >> personal dislike of an industry is not a valid basis upon which to ground an antitrust investigation. >> reporter: republicans defended barr. >> he's cleaning up the mess of the previous administration. >> reporter: but democrats argued it's part of a pattern, pointing to barr's recent firing of a u.s. attorney overseeing trump-related cases. >> he has a personal belief that the president should be above the law. >> reporter: former deputy attorney general donald ayer: >> the drumbeat of his misbehavior is accelerating as we get closer to the election. >> reporter: barr has insisted he took all of these actions on his own because he thought they were right, and without consulting with the president. he has repeatedly refused to

. >> reporter: aaron zelinsky is set to testify on capitol hill today. in his prepared remarks obtained by abc news, zelinskyiltell lawmakers he saw favorable treatment for stone with his own eyes and, quote, i was told that the acting u.s. attorney for the district of columbia, timothy shea, was receiving heavy pressure from the highest levels of the department of justice to cut stone a break adding that he was told that shea was afraid of the president. in response the justice department issued a statement saying mr. zelinsky's alles concern asarsay at best, not firsthand knowledge. zelinsky and his team recommended that stone receive between seven and nine years in president but following tweets from president trump describing the recommendations as a miscarriage of justice attorney general william barr stepped in reversing the team's recommendation. stone was ultimately sentenced to three years. stone is scheduled to report to a federal prison in georgia next week. now, the president hasn't said whether he'll pardon stone, but he did recently say tha

. >> we don't cut them a break -- >> in congressional testimony on june 24th of this year, aaron zelinsky, a prosecutor in this case, described significant political pressure in the justice department. >> the department of justice treated roger stone differently from everyone else. i was repeatedly told the department actions were not based on the law or the facts but rather on political affiliations, mr. stone's political relationships and that the acting u.s. attorney was afraid of the president. >> in response the justice department stated, quote, he did not have any discussion with the attorney general, the u.s. attorney, or any other member of political leadership. mr. zelinsky's allegations are based on his own interpretation of events and hearsay. >> i want to address today's sentencing of a man, roger stone. i want to see it play out to its fullest. roger has a very good chance of exoneration, in my opinion. >> even after stone's sentencing, the president did not relent and he targeted for criticism a private citizen who had served as a forewoman of the jury. >> it is my strong op

. >> aaron zelinski was a prosecutor in the roger stone case, he quit during the investigation duringcommended sentence after he was convicted of lying to congress. >> roger stone was being treated differently from every other defendant and what i heard repeatedly was that this leniency was happening because of stone's relationship to the president and i was told that the acting u.s. attorney was giving stone a break because he was afraid of the president of the united states. >> that acting u.s. attorney was timothy shea. stone was supposed to report next week, he's pushing for a delay due to covid concerns. for democrats that hearing was really about bill barr and 2020. >> mr. boris work at the department of justice has nothing to do with correcting injustice. he is the president's fixer, he shown us that there is one set of rules for the president's friends and another set of rules for the rest of us. >> republicans turned the tables on democrats. >> the obama-biden department of justice, politics and the previous administration, bill barr is i doing the lords work trying to clean

aaron zelinsky was one of four attorneys, you may recall, who quit the case after they were pushed toecommend a shorter sentence. according to his prepared statement to be delivered tomorrow, zelinsky will tell the judiciary committee, quote, what i heard repeatedly was that roger stone was being treated differently from any other defendant because of his relationship to the president. we were instructed that we should go along with the u.s. attorney's instructions because this case was not the hill worth dying on and that we could lose our jobs if we did not toe the line. well, back with us again tonight is our friend maya wiley, who happens to be a former assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york, a veteran of the new york city mayor's office, who is now with the new school in new york. maya wiley, how significant is this, and forgive my pessimism. will it matter in the end? >> this is extremely significant, and let me just draw one comparison. we laid rayshard brooks to rest today. the nation watched that happen. it's called equal justice under the law, and rays

>> i would ask him why does aaron zelinski say all this cam from the highest levels if it's not true.right, that they sometimes disagree, but that is not what he is charging, he is charging something that if it's true, i think anyone would agre as the absolute derogation of what the department of justice is supposed to be doing, justic without fear or favor. he's a very well-respected guy and if he is telling the truth, it is a terrible blackeye for the department of justice. it's good that after skipping t hearings, the ag is coming forward next month to testify. >> tom, how do you think he handled that line of questioning ? >> i think what he will do, he will reaffirm his commitment to ensuring that dod charging decisions, sentencing decisions everything he does in his roles as attorney general is done in the best interest of the law go for political consideration. i expect them to get tough questioning on these lines, bu this is a man who served as attorney general, knows the department, knows what his role is, he has professed a commitment to being impartial administration of the

joyce, we'll start with you and aaron zelinsky testimony that there was pressure exerted to cut rogerstart because we've seen this stew of corruption over the last few years. how unusual is that kind of pressure, in your experience? >> i don't think unusual begins to catch what's going on here. it's unprecedented. i spent 25 years at doj. i can't think of a single case i was involved in where political pressure was successfully brought to bear. if there was even a suggestion of it, everyone in my office, from the u.s. attorney down through the supervisors to the line prosecutors would have slapped it down and found it to be unacceptable. and, you know, what we say at doj is we prosecute without fear or without favor, willie. now what we see is that prosecutions favor the president's friends and people who are opposed to the president have to live in fear of what he might direct his justice department to do. the justice department is meant to be independent of the white house. under bill barr it's sum succum to be nothing more than the president to use as a tool and that takes away fro

remarks for his testimony tomorrow at a house judiciary committee hearing, federal prosecutor aaron zelinskys when he was working on the roger stone case, there was "heavy pressure from the highest levels of the department of justice to cut roger stone a break, and that the u.s. attorney's sentencing instructions to us were based on political considerations. i was also told that the acting u.s. attorney was giving stone such unprecedentedly favorable treatment because he was afraid of the president." joining our discussion now, congresswoman mikie sherrill, a democrat from new jersey, a former navy pilot and a former assistant u.s. attorney in new jersey. congresswoman, thank you very much for joining us tonight. i want to get your reaction first of all to what is emerging as the testimony that we're going to hear in tomorrow's hearing about the attorney general's interference in the roger stone case. >> well, as you mentioned, i was in the navy and i've served all over the world. i've always been incredibly proud of our justice system, the impartiality of our justice system, free from polit

aaron zelinsky is expected to testify as well. he resigned from the roger stone prosecution after barr took a wrecking ball to the u.s. attorney's office in d.c., sidelined the real u.s. attorney, inserted his own handpicked flying monkeys instead, and then swiftly intervened to roll back prosecutions of stone and one other of the president's friends. so i mean this is the last three weeks. i know time has no meaning anymore and it's hard to figure out what day it is let alone what week it is. but over the course of three weeks, all of this has been rolling downhill faster and faster. and then friday night, late friday night, just days before this upcoming hearing about bill barr intervening in the course of justice to try to benefit the president, late friday night, classic friday night news dump, attorney general barr rolls out this absolutely botched effort to try to fire the head of the other most important federal prosecutor's office in the country. he succeeded in decapitating the u.s. attorney's office in d.c. and getting r

attorney aaron zelinsky of maryland will say that senior justice department officials pressured him toat roger stone differently because of stone's close relationship with the president. that case now is up in the air after the appeals court decision dropped the prosecution altogether. that was actually on the flynn case, a little confusion there. joining me now, kasie hunt, host of "kasie d.c." here on msnbc. kasie, sort it out for us, a lot going on up there. >> reporter: indeed there is, andrea. this is a pretty remarkable moment, obviously the roger stone story, the investigations into what's been going on has tracked through almost the entire trump presidency. this has been going on for years. but in this case, the prepared testimony from mr. zelinsky was remarkably explosive, frankly, for prepared testimony ahead of one of these hearings. as you know well, oftentimes we get the more explosive moments in a q&a or something that comes out unexpectedly. but here this prosecutor was extraordinarily state forwary i. the background being prosecutors wanted to give roger stone a much lo

evidence showed today in the hearing, roger stone got special favors according to the prosecutor, aaron zelinsky, that no one else ever could. he got a reduced sentencing recommendation because donald trump went nuts on twitter after the first recommendation was made public by the darrel of justice. >> is that a legal term? he went nuts on twitter? >> that is a legal term and we've seen it unfortunately happen quite a bit with this president. >> let me play. you bring up stone and what he was in trouble for. there are things he was convicted of. so a jury of his peers found that. and there were other things that and he the white house and the trump campaign had made about what mueller was investigating. which is how much foreign coordination was there. and even if it didn't rise to the level of a crime, congress has an interest in pregnanting against the foreign interference in our free democracy. take a look at this exchange from today. >> there were dozens of calls between stone and the top trump officials. correct? >> correct. >> witnesses testified they were present when trump spoke to then

aaron zelinsky, the lead d.o.j. prosecutor in thwa case, said told to back off a tougher sentence recommendation for stone. he ultimely quit over the handling. >> the acting u.s. attorney for e district of columbia w receiving heavy pressure from the highest levels of the department of justice and that his instructions to us wer based on political considerations. and i was told that the acting u.s. attorney was giving stone a break because he was afraid of the president of the united states. >> desjardins: for stone, zelinsky had recommended seven to nine years. ultimately a jge disagreed, sentencing stone to three years in prison. but former attorney general michael mukasey, who served under former president george w. sh, said the doj and barr operated with integrity. >> the justice department is not politicized because senior officials disagreed with the sentencing recommendations for mr. ste. plosecutors are supposed to seek justice, not to the sentencing guidelines like some sort of pinball machine to see how ma

the witness list includes two current doj officials, including aaron zelinsky who prosecuted presidenttone. he testified there was pressure if from high-ranking officials to cut roger stone a break. >> what i saw was that roger stone was being treated differently from every other defendant. he received breaks that are in my experience unheard of and all the more so for a definiendant his circumstance. what i heard immediately this relin yensy was happening this was because of his relationship with the president. having pressure from the highest levels of the department of justice and instructions to us were based on political considerations. and i was told that the acting u.s. attorney was giving stone a break because he was afraid of the president of the united states. >> the justice department responded to his allegations in a statement, it reads in part, that mr. zelinsky's allegations concerning the u.s. attorney's motivation are based on his own interpretation of events and not firsthand knowledge. william barr will be asked about this when he appears before this same committee ju

from aaron zelinski is an assistant u.s. attorney for the district of maryland. previously coming he served as a special assistant to the u.s. attorney in the district of columbia, as an assistant special counsel and special counsel robert mueller's office and as an advisor in the state department. previously come he clerked for justice kennedy before his retirement from the supreme court. and for stevens after his retirement, as well as for judge griffith. rom yceived his b.a. fo ale. zelensky's personal counsel is participating in the hearing on the webex software platform. attorneyes is a trial in the antitrust division of the department of justice. since joining the department into thousand six, he has served in a variety of roles, including acting chief of staff. in 2015, following a detailed to the white house's presidential personnel office, he joined the office of the associate attorney general, where he had served as counsel and chief of staff. he received his j.d. from stanford and b.a. from yale. michael mukasey served as a u.s. as the u.s. attorney ge

attorney aaron zelinsky described how his team was pushed to recommend a lighter sentence for longtimerump friend roger stone. >> i was told there was heavy political pressure from the highest levels of the department of justice to cut roger stone a break. >> reporter: republicans argued barr was being maligned. >> now they're targeting administration officials. in this case, attorney general barr, for merely acting within the scope of their duties. >> reporter: barr will have a chance to defend himself next month after several false starts. he has agreed to testify before the house judiciary committee on july 28th. but the chairman of that comittee, jerry nadler, now says he may pursue impeachment charges against barr. anthony? >> nancy, thank you. >>> a grand jury in georgia has handed down murder indictments against three white men in the killing of ahmaud arbery. a black man shot while prosecutors say he was out jogging. gregory mcmichael, travis mcmichael and william "roddy" bryan face nine separate charges but could face life in prison if they are convicted. the suspects allegedl

in a damning statement to congress in just a little while, aaron zelinsky, a key prosecutor in the roger stone case, will say his bosses at the justice department were, quote, afraid of the president and that he felt pressured to give roger zelinsky's recommendation for a long sentence was overturned by attorney general barr raising questions of favoritism for the president's political ally. barr said that zelinsky's recommendation was overzealous and points out the judge in the case agreed with his assessment and this morning doj is pushing back hard saying there was never any direct pressure on zelinsky and that he provides no specific evidence to back up that claim. we'll see shortly what zelinsky has to say. a dramatic day ahead. george. >> extraordinary situation, pierre, thanks very much. will increase the pressure on the attorney general to testify as well. thank you. michael. >>> george, now to the surprising result of that investigation into the apparent noose hanging in nascar driver bubba wallace's garage. nascar and the fbi finding the driver was not the victim of a hate crim

from aaron zelinski is an assistant u.s. attorney for the district of maryland. previously coming he served as a special assistant to the u.s. attorney in the district of columbia, as an assistant special counsel and special counsel robert mueller's office and as an advisor in the state department. previously come he clerked for justice kennedy before his retirement from the supreme court. and for stevens after his retirement, as well as for judge griffith. rom yceived his b.a. fo ale. zelensky's personal counsel is participating in the hearing on the webex software platform. attorneyes is a trial in the antitrust division of the department of justice. since joining the department into thousand six, he has served in a variety of roles, including acting chief of staff. in 2015, following a detailed to the white house's presidential personnel office, he joined the office of the associate attorney general, where he had served as counsel and chief of staff. he received his j.d. from stanford and b.a. from yale. michael mukasey served as a u.s. as the u.s. attorney ge

this testimony from aaron zelinsky, the pressure the justice department put on this flynn case on behalff president trump? in other words, out in the open we're hearing the attorney general and the justice department is working as a political arm of donald trump. have we heard from the white house on this? >> what we've heard from the white house consistently is that michael flynn is some sort of the judicial victim and he was targeted by the federal government unfairly. so the white house in some way is sticking to that line. i will say, though, of course, there is this idea it was the justice department that essentially was the one who got michael flynn to say, yes, i did lie. i am pleading guilty. so there is this idea that i think as this case moves through the courts, attorney general barr is feeling like okay i need to do this. i need to make sure that i am continuing to do the things in some ways that president trump has said on twitter in. >> in person, which is that michael flynn was targeted unfairly. but in reality you see with the court, the white house is going to in some wa