the republicans. >> paul butler, what do you make of that supposition? >> this comes from the top, so president trump does not encourage rational evidence-based thinking. he spouts these conspiracy theories, so no wonder that they trickle down. we can think of the president saying that president obama was not born in the united states or that ted cruz's father was somehow part of a plot to kill jfk. and so again, it's not about rationality, and we know in july, president trump said some of the scariest words ever from a u.s. president. he told the veterans of foreign war, don't believe the news. what you see and read is not real. and then there are other folks like ann coulter who have to know better but want to use this tragedy as a way to stir the base or deflect attention from the president and his poisonous and violent rhetoric that kra z creates the kind of atmosphere for this to happen. >> yeah, the groucho marx line. are you going to believe me or your lying eyes. let me ask you about the option we have here. were these bombs purposely defective o

joining the conversation, msnbc legal analyst and former federal prosecutor paul butler. let me start with you. your reaction to jim comey's words. >> you know, the fbi has 35,000 employees. if they are allowed to do their job, they can get this done in a week. this is a background investigation, not a criminal investigation. and so president trump is the fbi's client. he gets to dictate the terms. but i've never heard of an investigation being micromanaged in this way. originally four witnesses. one week. it creates the unsettling impression that the republicans in the senate and president trump don't want an objective investigation. they want one that will clear judge kavanaugh's name. it kind of sounds like the fix is in, unless the bureau is allowed to do its job. >> and so it sounds like there was an understanding at the white house today that that was the impression that set in over the weekend. do you think the correction to expand it and say the fbi can talk to whoever they want, is that enough or is this still under the microscope. >> i think it's still not clear

let's bring in msnbc justice analyst mark matthew miller, and eric holder, and msnbc legal analyst paul butler, a former federal prosecutor. paul, let me start with you about the activity we know that they have been up to, including keeping that grand jury impaneled, which is hearing testimony, and these hearings that are sealed and motions that are sealed. what is that? >> so the mueller team is interviewing witnesses, is meeting with the grand jury every friday. and it's doing a lot of secret stuff we don't know about. i think these meeting with paul manafort are very significant. he's met with them nine times since he agreed to cooperate. so part of this is about obstruction of justice, mueller finally has an inside man at this meeting at the trump tower with the russian lawyer, a meeting that don jr. and sr. have repeatedly lied about. that shows consciousness of guilty to our prosecutor. more important, manafort also has information about collusion. we know that when manafort was running the campaign he was in constant contact with constantine -- and the other thing we know, chris, when t

i'm joined by former federal prosecutor paul butler. happy friday night to you. is there a right in the constitution to collude with a foreign power that i just didn't know about? >> no, ari. you went to law school and you know the law. you know that you can't use the first amendment to hide from criminal activity. the trump defense now is that wikileaks is kind of like the new york times or msnbc. all it does is report the news. his director said wikileaks is a hostile nation. this is biggie smalls commander number seven, never mix family and business. this is about donald trump. he was the campaign liasion to wikileaks. it's clear they coordinated. wikileaks sends a tweet to don junior. don junior tweet about these hacked e-mails. we need reporters to pay attention to them. two days later, don junior sends that tweet. ari, it's a crime to provide substantial assistance to a foreign national that's trying to make an illegal campaign contribution. you can't aid and abet a crime. that's what donald trump did. he can't use the first amendment as his defense. >> i d

here to talk about this, matt miller, and former federal prosecutor paul butler. matt, begin with you. i am still sort of gob smacked that that happened last night. >> yeah, me too. and it was -- you know, you saw really until today kind of a complete abdication by everyone in the administration. didn't see the attorney general out until today. there's a white house homeland security adviser, a former admiral, the currently serving white house homeland security adviser, haven't heard from him all week, that's the person typically taking information from the department of justice, from the fbi as it's coming in. and feeding it to the president. we didn't hear from him. we didn't hear from the secretary of homeland security. didn't hear from anyone today until this plot was all wrapped up. what we did hear was the president spinning conspiracy theories this morning after you have to suspect the fbi and the justice department already informed him they knew who the suspect was and they knew his political leanings. >> paul, in some ways it's a testament to the ways in

joining us, msnbc legal analyst paul butler. i took this piece as a thought piece. this is -- help me explain it. this is a former federal prosecutor looking at a bunch of public data points in the filings in the u.s. district court saying somebody -- somebody had these interactions that he described there and it could have been, one of the possibilities is it was a subpoena for the president. >> yeah, so thought piece but also a hardy boys/nancy drew "who did it." part of it is we already know when you are a prosecutor during a serious investigation you always try to interview the subject. that's how we know that the fbi investigation of justice kavanaugh was rigged because they could have interviewed him, but they didn't. so, of course, mueller has to try to issue a subpoena if trump doesn't come along voluntarily. he'll win. it will go to court but the precedent, u.s. versus nixon, the president has to turn over documents in a criminal case and then jones, the clinton case, the president has to appear in a civil case. ifr the profit to comply with a subpoena and

i am joined by former federal prosecutor paul butler. happy friday night to you. i will start with the question coming out of this. if folks haven't heard about it, it is to our minds a big story, is there a right in the constitution to collude with a foreign power that i just didn't know about? >> no. ari, you went to law school and you know the law. you know that you can't use the first amendment to hide from criminal activity. so the trump defense now is that wikileaks is kind of like "new york times" or msnbc. all it does is report the news. there are two problems with that. first, trump's own cia director has said that wikileaks is a hostile foreign national, and second, and this is biggie small's commandment number 7, never mix family and business, so this is about donald trump, donald trump junior. donald trump junior was the campaign liaison to wikileaks. it's clear that they coordinated, for example, wikileaks sends a tweet to don junior. don junior, please tweet about these hacked e-mails. we need reporters to pay attention to them. two days later don ju

felipe ryan, christina greer is professor of political science and paul butler is legal analyst with msnbc, former federal prosecutor, he teaches at georgetown university. christina, i will start with you and tease out some of that polling data during the course of the segment. let's look at the generic ballot. democrats have 50, republicans have 41. what does that tell you two weeks ahead of the election? >> we know a few things. one democrats tend not to turn out in midterm elections in the same rates as republicans, democrats tend to be a younger base. we know that most voters nowadays are not split ticket voting, they are going at the top of the ticket and voting partisan, straight down. we have a lot of really interesting races across the country, especially for senators and governors, which are really pulling people out and we know that some people are motivated by kavanaugh, some will be motivated by what's going on in saudi arabia because most of the time voters aren't think about international issues, but especially certain democrats are, so the reason why the president is g

paul butler, let me get you to weigh in. pick up on director brennan's real clear articulation of the importance of having critics not just of the president's policies, not just of the president's affinity for autocrats, but of the conduct. i mean i'm surprised by the timidity with which some people approach this idea. a president, if he does nothing else, he sets the tone for the political conversation in this country for better and/or for worse, no? >> absolutely. so i like to join director brennan in giving the shoutout to the fbi that the president did not. you know, the last time the fbi was in the news was when it was badly misused by the president in the kavanaugh investigation. and today it demonstrated to the world why it remains the preeminent law enforcement agency in the world. and so, you know, one of the concerns is when it does investigations, whether people have confidence that something bad happened. and, you know, yesterday and today, there were all these conspiracy theories that this was something that the

also with me is former federal prosecutor, paul butler. i want to start with the court here.ator mazie hirono from hawaii said this morning about the court with kavanaugh now on it. take a listen. >> he's going to be on the supreme court with a huge taint and a big asterisk after his name. the partisanship he showed was astounding. and behavior was bizarre. >> how are americans going to perceive decisions that come out of the court with kavanaugh on it? is everything going to be tainted or the american public at large is going to discern every decision on its own merits. >> given the aggressive outburst that judge kavanaugh made at the hearing, i think that his opinions will be seen in some instances as ill legitimate. he talked about the allegations of him being payback for the clintons and the election of trump. we never heard such partisan comments bay nominee for the supreme court so when we look at what's coming up not this year, but soon, abortion. senator collins has this fantasy that he's not going to vote to overturn row versus wade. we have four votes on the supreme

joining us former federal prosecutor paul butler and john carlin, senior counsel to robert mueller ander assistant attorney general to the doj's national security division. his new book, yt dawn of the code war, america's battle of russia, china, and the riseing global cyber threat." manafort's sentencing, any significance to it being so far out? >> again, mueller is a cold-blooded relentless prosecutor. so basically he -- >> cold-blooded in all the good ways? >> in all the good ways. he made this deal with manafort. he said you're looking at 20 years in prison. you're 70 years old, so your choices are you can die locked up or you can bring me someone's head on a platter, and then cut to these scenes of manafort showing up at mueller's office six hours a day, nine times. he's punching our clock, so he's got the goods on somebody, and again, it's in his interest to deliver either obstruction of justice because now he is mueller's inside man at that meeting with the russian lawyer or collusion. again, we know when manafort was running trump's campaign he was meeting with this ex-russian

joining us, former federal prosecutor paul butler and john carlan, former chief of staff to robert mueller former assistant attorney general for the doj's national security division. his new book "dawn of the code war -- america's battle against russia, china and the rising global cyberthreat" is one that only one of us here has finished reading, matt mueller. but we're all going to finish reading it. manafort's sentencing. any significance to it being so far out? >> again, mueller is a cold-blooded, relentless prosecutor. so basically -- >> cold-blooded in all the good ways. >> in all the good ways he made this deal with manafort. you're looking at 20 years in prison. you're 70 years old. so your choices are you can die locked up or you can bring me someone's head on a platter. and then cut to the scenes of manafort showing up at the mueller's office, six hours a day, nine times. he's punching our clock. so he's got the goods on somebody and again, it's in his interest to deliver either obstruction of justice because now he is mueller's inside man at that meet with the russian lawyer or c

felipe ryan, christina greer is professor of political science and paul butler is legal analyst

>>> we are nothing without our guests so i thank john heilemann, eddie glaude, tim o'brien and paul butler. that does it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts right now. hi, chuck. >> what are we without guests? >> nothing. you've got political analysis. i've got nothing. >> no, no, no, stop. thank you, nicolle. >>> if it's wednesday, it's almost the witching hour. ghoul evening, i'm chuck todd here in washington, happy halloween. six days to go, think about that. right now it looks like they're giving out full-size candy bars on the democratic side with nancy pelosi going as the next speaker of the house. in fact i think that's her costume this year. here she is all but declaring victory. >> we will win. we will win. we will win. >> please don't say that. do you want to say that on hillary's fireworks barge that she cancelled? please, please, please don't say that. >> we will own. we own the ground. >> and how long the curtains that you're measuring right now. >> we're not measuring, we're just walking precincts. if everyone votes, we'll have even a bigger victory. >> folk

. >> paul butler and ellie, thank you so much. >> the fight of kavanaugh may have ended in the senate ended. we'll talk about that next. >> i think his merit and criticism and the senators should pay attention for it for a good of the court and it is not healthy to get a new justice that can only do a part-time job. [ doorbell rings ] janice, mom told me you bought a house. okay. [ buttons clicking ] [ camera shutter clicks ] so, now that you have a house, you can use homequote explorer. quiet. i'm blasting my quads. janice, look. i'm in a meeting. -janice, look. -[ chuckles ] -look, look. -i'm looking. it's easy. you just answer some simple questions online, and you get coverage options to choose from. you're ruining my workout. cycling is my passion. you're ruining my workout. michael vasquez! come over here. i've heard such good things about you, your company. well, i wouldn't have done any of it without you. without this place. this is for you. michael, you didn't have to... and, we're going to need some help with the rest. you've worked so hard to achieve so much. perhaps it's ti

in a region where so many people have already been affected but i should butler al-jazeera paris the co-founder of microsoft paul allen has died at the age of sixty five he was suffering from cancer the other was also a prominent flung for purse too invested in conservation space travel and professional sports why for soft c e o's a tie and a dollar said his contributions were indispensable. the follow writings of world famous physicist stephen hawking have been compiled in a book catherine stansell was that it's launching in london science museum. how do we do it. where did we go is there anyone out there he has unraveled some of the greatest mysteries of the universe and in his final book stephen hawking takes on ideas larger than the universe itself brief answers to the big questions brings together some of his final writing before his death in march its launch was celebrated at the science museum in london where he received a fellowship on his seventieth birthday hawking in thrall of the world with his groundbreaking work on black holes and cosmology and in his final months he wrote how science and technolog

butler al-jazeera paris. the co-founder of microsoft paul allen has died at the age of sixty five a statement was released on behalf of alan's family saying that he suffered from complications of non-home lymphoma in seattle alan was a prominent technologist philanthropist and one of the world's richest individuals his sister jodie described him as a remarkable individual on every level. and now let's take a look at the main stories here on al-jazeera a source from the turkish attorney general's office has told al jazeera they found evidence that missing saudi journalist. was murdered inside the saudi consulate turkish investigators are currently inside the consulate in istanbul looking for clues to his disappearance thirteen days ago they entered the building more than six hours ago after finally being allowed in by saudi authorities in what is a major breach of normal diplomatic principles meanwhile u.s. president donald trump has sent secretary of state might pump ale to meet the king of saudi arabia trump says he has spoken to king sound man who denied knowing anything about what happened to shush algy t