they're playing to get mike flynn a presidential pardon. and there is evidence in fact they've got the president's attention with fox news coverage of this increasingly insane flynn defense theory. here's something i want you to keep an eye on, though. the very first time, we the public had any inkling mike flynn was going to be in trouble, well before the charges against him were brought, the very first time we had any sign there was going to be trouble with trump's national security advisor was actually a column in "the washington post" by a very connected very well sourced columnist named david ignaceous. when i first read that column back in january 2017 there was kind of a bolt from the blue. he said, quote, retired general michael t. flynn cultivates close russian contacts. he has appeared on russia today and received a speaking fee from the cable network which was described in last week's unclassified intelligence briefing as the kremlin's propaganda outlet. quote, according to a senior u.s. official flynn phoned russian ambassador se

eye toward winning with the president, the presumption is they're playing this now to try to get mike flynn a presidential pardon and there is recent evidence that in fact they have the president's attention with fox news coverage of this increasingly insane flynn defense theory. here is something i want you to keep an eye on though, the very first time that we the public had any inkling that mike flynn would be in legal trouble, before the charges against him were brought, before he was fired from the white house, the first time that we have any sign that there was trouble with trump's national security column, remember when i first read that column in january 2017, there was a bolt from the flu. this is what he said, michael t flynn, trump's choice cultivates close rub shan contacts. he has appeared on russia today and received a speaking fee from the cable network that was striebed in last night's intelligence briefing as the kremlin's criminal propaganda outlet. according to an official, he phoned kislyak several times. what did flynn say and did it under cut the sanctions? ignatius sai

look at what happened to general kel -- to mike flynn, to mike flynn on one hadn't, and you see what'sning with comey and brennan and clapper and strzok and page. and the list goes on and on with these people who are the bad actors within the fbi and doj and intelligence communities on one hand and on the other hand you have mike flynn in an incredible patriot, dedicated to this country, who was set up by the likes of a peter strong and james comey d peter strzok and james comey and others. we had roger stone get convicted the other day. you look at the unfairness of the system. david: you had a lieutenant colonel in the army today before the impeachment committee, there were some charges the republicans weren't treating him with respect, and the people making those charges had no trouble taking on general kelly and suggesting he was the worst enemy this nation has ever seen. >> these are the same people who attacked mike flynn all day long without question. colonel vindman is somebody who may not have been the best witness for the democrats today. yesterday. he did not help their case

>> i have not talked to mike flynn since the day he left the white house. i talked to him on the phone a week after to make sure he was okay. but i think mike flynn, something happened. i'm not quite sure what. i know him. i worked closely with him. something happened, either the intelligence community decided they wanted to get rid of him because he was going to reform the intelligence community and they were afraid of that. or because he was a weak link. how do you get to trump? let's look for any opportunity. we saw three years of how'd we get trump? russia hoechst, ukraine, whatever. i have think mike flynn might have been the initial weak link. >> martha: do you think he did anything wrong? >> i don't know. i wasn't in those meetings that he supposedly told the fbi agents one thing and then perjured himself. i think he did something wrong by not filing as a foreign agent, particularly in the turkish dealings. it's the job of the national security advisor to talk to foreign leaders prior to a president taking office. >> martha: i want to get your though

mike flynn, guilty of lying to the fbi. george papadopoulous, guilty. never have so many people been found guilty in service to the president. >> it's astounding. ken is absolutely right in his reporting, some of this was clearly implicated in the mueller report. go to page 54 of volume 1, anyone who wants to read this, which is very black, lots of redaction, but there are sentences in there from rick gates and michael cohen that are blocked out that make clear they were raising conversations with donald trump or things they had overheard with doesnnald trump h someone else. that directed li line to donald trump, that we're seeing in these hearings, republicans are saying, there's no direct line to donald trump, yes, we're seeing unfold lots of direct lines to donald trump. it's quick in the sense of the rule of law and the judicial process and due process. politically, unfortunately, it's been very slow. and i think that's going back to the issue of, you know, why impeachment matters right now is, the pattern of behavior of this administration, from ca

. >> wasn't mike flynn fired for the same kind of thing or less than that?> well, among other things. >> but sally yates said he could be a target. >> exactly. so once again vladimir putin is sitting there with compromising material on the president of the united states that he could leverage. donald trump knows in the back of his head that the recording of that phone call could turn up on a russian youtube channel at any time. that is very damaging to u.s. national security. it also suggests the pattern, right? another important thing about this impeachment that we have to recognize is what it tells about all of our foreign relations. is this the norm of doing business? is this kind of a corrupt quid pro quo approach to how we do business? we have every reason to believe that this is something that donald trump does regularly, engage in casual conversations about sensitive matters on nonsecure cell phones. how many compromising transcripts do the russians and the chinese and others potentially have on this president? and the last thing that i can't help but

flynn, rick gates, paul manafort, let's not forget the president's former national security adviser mike flynn. here with us tonight to talk about it, barbara mcquade, veteran federal prosecutor, former u.s. attorney for the eastern district of the state of michigan. barb, how significant was the verdict today? >> i think today's verdict was really important to just make sure the world knows that truth still matters. at one point, roger stone himself said that these lies don't matter, and i think with this verdict, seven counts out of seven counts, unanimous jury verdict in just a few hours of deliberation sends a clear message that truth really does matter. i also think that it could have an impact on other witnesses who are testifying in the impeachment proceedings, who are watching and who see that there is consequence for telling lies. >> we all, because we're journalists, say -- we use the same phraseology, barring appeal, pending appeal, what is the real-life likelihood that this conviction is somehow overturned? >> well, i think it's unlikely. i didn't watch every minute of the trial. i

after the election -- the same obama administration to get them on board for an iran deal that mike flynn aided. that same obama administration, by the way, that targeted president trump, via its intelligence apparatus, the same obama administration that works with hillary clinton's team, has money going through a law firm. ukrainians to feed information to go to a court to spy on trump. this is not two separate scandals. they are the exact same thing and the democrats have been covering it up. >> sean: this is the end of impeachment. the president says apologize for russia first. this is the end of it. >> sean: think you both. we are taking a break. rush limbaugh's take. he's next. straight-ahead. ♪ ♪ hi honey, we got in early. yeah, and we brought steve and mark. ♪ experience the power of sanctuary at the lincoln wish list sales event. sign and drive off in a new lincoln with zero down, zero due at signing, and a complimentary first month's payment. we go let's listen to rush limbaugh dissect how the democrats political stunt is backfiring. >> the democratic party has done more to desta

you can trash mike flynn, you can trash holly north, you can trash anybody who served in the military but not lieutenant colonel vindman. deep inside that "new york times" piece, it said that colonel vindman had provided advice to the ukrainian government mostly in english -- what the hell does that mean? he's on the national security council, he's an active duty lieutenant colonel, why are you giving advice to ukraine, nobody is following up on that. i'm curious, what was that all about? adam schiff, you are a key fact material witness. you hired those two obama staffers, your staffers or one of them met with the former national security staffer to the president of the united states, you are trying to protect your staffers and protect this phony whistle-blower and you are trying to protect the democrats from 2016 and what they tried to do to candidate trump. it's all in politico and "the new york times" even though they don't want to admit it. donald trump has been investigated by the southern district of new york, by the special counsel, he's been investigated by multiple committees

you see manafort, kilimnik, and general mike flynn, begin to tell the president, we don't believe this, we believe this is probably ukraine. >> do they care if it's true? >> hard to tell. our documents are reporting doesn't bear that out at the moment. it does seem they are acting in bad faith. there is quite a lot of evidence, at least some of -- like michael flynn, the intelligence services of the united states believe this is a russian hack. it's clear to us that he is attempting to shape that narrative to fit something that the trump campaign can use. >> why would it help them that much during 2016? if it's one country versus another? >> i think that the entire narrative was, russia is helping trump, they wanted to move away from that, they wanted to be a different country, a different set of actors. >> take a listen to adam schiff on how this fits in. >> the president enlisted the whole departments of government in the illicit aim of trying to get ukraine to dig up dirt on a political opponent, as well as further conspiracy theory about the 2016 election that he believed would be

remember mike flynn, trump's national security advisor, he wasn't fired until he was caught by "the washington post" in his lies after 24 days. same with stormy daniels. trump denied it and ultimately he was caught. and now we're seeing it with this, it's a pattern that's played out time and again in this administration. >> there's so much news today we've got the secretary of state mike pompeo over there clawing away and the same way that john kennedy, the senator from new orleans, from louisiana admitting he was not telling the truth the other day when he said it was ukraine. it's a war of attrition. how long is it going to take to stop them from lying? that's really the blunt fact here? malcolm? >> what you see happening right now is an information warfare technique, that they have sat down and thought about. this isn't happening that everybody's speaking about it spontaneously using the exact same words. they are using this meta narrative for their constituency, the fox news consumer that ukraine did this, and even knowing this is russian intelligence developed theme which fiona hill gave

michael cohen, mike flynn, paul manafort, rick gates.ecedent in the american history for this many close associates of a president convicted of serious felonies. of all the cases against those men, this trial came the closest to going to the heart of the trump campaign's embrace of russian interference in 2016. what prosecutors said is that roger stone lied to congress, intimidated a witness and obstructed justice because he wanted to protect donald trump. the mueller report didn't pass judgment on all the contacts between the trump campaign and russia, these prosecutors absolutely did that. they made donald trump a central character in this trial. they said the behavior that roger stone was lying about looked terrible for donald trump because it was the trump campaign trying to get information about what wikileaks had in terms of the hacked democratic emails. even those these prosecutors go to work every day with a picture of donald trump on the wall, they were very critical of the president. if stone is convicted, it would affirm all t

how hard donald trump was pushing to get hillary clinton's emails himself and the extent to which mike flynn, donald trump's first national security adviser, was willing to obtain them. from the mueller notes, gates recalled a time on the campaign aircraft when candidate trump said get the emails. flint said he could use his intelligence sources to obtain the emails. flynn was adamant the russians did not carry out the hack. joining me now, midwin charles, a civil trial and criminal defense attorney, cynthia oxney, msnbc legal analyst and former federal prosecutor. paul butler, also an msnbc legal analyst and former federal prosecutor and jennifer rubin, msnbc political analyst and my colleague at "the washington post." all, thank you very much for being here. this is a treasure trove of information that we have found out as a result of this lawsuit from buzzfeed news and cnn. i'm going to go around the table and get reactions. midwin since you're here, i'm going to come to you last. >> that's fine. save the best for last. >> exactly. paul butler, let me start with you. let's get your reacti

right, and when i started to talk i realized that few f you are called gates, paul manafort, all mike flynns of dollars and the moment that gates broke down was really the day that he learned that the double charges as you remember, maria, against him and manafort and he didn't have the millions that manafort had. maria: interesting because the whole ordeal shows you what your own government can do to you, when you look at the -- when you look at the story around general michael flynn where they, you know, said we want -- we have agents in the white house, they are around, they'd love to talk to you for a few minutes not realizing that this is was an official interview by fbi agents that they we wanted to entrap him and wanted him relaxed that wrote in mueller report. >> did you notice that neither flynn or gates haven't been sentenced yet. when we started to plan the book, i'm talking to you, the book is out only a few days ago, we saw that rick gates would be sentenced long ago, if you remember michael flynn went to sentencing last december, still not been sentenced. rick gates sentenced

a crash out of the altamont at north flynn slowing things down. pack to you. >> thanks, mike. >>> in parts of the bay area, voters head to the polls today. san francisco in particular has some important issues hanging in the balance. even if you don't live there, you might be impacted. pete suratos is live in san francisco with the details for us this morning. good morning, pete. >> reporter: good morning to you, laura. several propositions up for a vote here in san francisco covering a wide range of important and familiar issues for voters in san francisco, and really all across the bay area, so we're going to touch base on a few of the top propositions, let's start with proposition "a." if it is approved it would allow the city of san francisco to sell $600 million in bonds for affordable housing, which would be the largest in san francisco history. there's also proposition "c" that is also on the ballot today and it aims to overturn san francisco's rule suspending the sale of ecigarettes not approved by the fda. now this is capturing a lot of interest nationwide, with citi

mike: tens of millions of fellow americans spending at least part of this day online or in actual stores in the shopping extravaganza known as black friday. one estimate puts it at 71/$2 billion. matt flynn tells us what black friday look like in chicago. >> reporter: black friday is the busiest shopping day of the year. bargain hunters hitting the web and working in more stores in search of deep discounts. dropping big cash on big-ticket items. >> a new computer for college. >> see what catches our eye and pick it up. >> reporter: the national retail federation says last year, 165 million people spend $313 between thanksgiving and cybermonday. they will spend 4% more. >> the stock market is on fire, that translates into spending, that is what we will see. >> reporter: on chicago's michigan avenue, what seemed less busy than previous years, reflecting the trend of americans taking advantage of earlier deals and online offers. >> is this something you ever do? >> i used to starting midnight friday and now that it is thursday going in at 3:00, 4:00 i don't do it anymore. >> reporter: there is some uncertainty, the president's tariffs on chinese imports, prices on toys and electronics could