i'm pete williams. welcome to "washington week." legislative sint, congress returns from its summer recess from a long agenda and a looming government shutdown october 1st. sofight over fire arms. will congress do something to address gunn violence? building wall. the pent gob is -- pentagon is diverting billions. and the house democrats are investigatingth wheer president trump is on those who do not remain fix sated on it. announcer: this is "washingt week." funding is provided by in-- ♪ >> whatever they went through, they went t tough together. life well-planned. see what a raymond james financial advisor is k do for you. announcer: additional funding fs patricia ewing cmitted to bridgingif culturalrences in our comnity, public broadcasting and contribtrions from viewers like you. thank you. announcer: once again live from washington, substituting for robert costa, pete williams of "nbc news." pete: f sirst wed other sympathies those left coping by dorian -- misery left by e hurricane dorian. we know that the gunman responsible f

lester >> all right, pete williams in our washington newsroom. thank you. >>> that mass shooting was the second to strike texas in a month after the massacre that killed 22 people at an el paso walmart. tonight in the wake of that tragedy and amid mounting pressure, walmart is announcing new limits on guns and ammo sales. with more on that, here's tom costello >> reporter: the first weekend in august brought two more mass massacres. 9 killed in dayton, ohiormer emi walmart shot and killed two workers. today walmart c.e.o. said the status quo is unacceptable announcing walmart will discontinue sales of ammunition for assault-style weapons and handguns, and discontinue hand gun sales in alaska, the only state where it still sells handguns and after panic at a missouri walmart -- >> male wearing a bullet proof vest and an ar around his neck has just walked into the store and is recording himself >> reporter: one suspect arrested today the company said, we are respectfully requesting that customers no longer openly carry firearms into our stores in s

our pete williams has details. >> reporter: the fbi says it was tipped off that a soldier stationed at ft. riley in central kansas talked before enlisting about wanting to fight with a far right terror military group in ukraine, and posted bomb-making instructions on facebook after joining the u.s. army in 2017, the fbi says, private first class jared william smith described how to use a cell phone to make a bomb detonator. beginning last month the fbi says smith told an undercover agent about possible attacks in the u.s. on members of the radical left group antifah blowing up cell phone towers according to a court document, smith said a possible target could be a major news network headquarters, not identified in the fbi says its bomb technicians determined his method for building a car bomb would not have worked and last friday the fbi says he was telling the undercover agent other ways to build bombs. agent asked do you got anyone down in texas that would be a good fit for an attack smith replied outside of beto, i don't know enough people that would be relevant enough to cause a ch

we'll see if the rest of the house democrats agree. >> pete williams, you had one more point you wanted to make about william barr and whatever role he played. >> just that the justice department says barr was never told about this white house call until this matter was referred here for criminal investigation, that the president has never talked to him about this, that he's never talked to anyone in ukraine about it and never talked to rudy giuliani about it. >> peter baker, kristcountriekr pete williams, that ynk you ver much. madam congresswoman, now that you've seen the notes that the white house has released, what is your reaction? >> well, i thought chairman schiff was very powerful in his remarks. i'm very worried about how divided this country is. that's deeply bothered met last few months. as we began to get reports of what was there, we know we had a whistle-blower. we know the inspector general determined it was something that was a potential threat to our national security and said that it was urgent, and that the report should go to the hill. and the administration blocked

lester >> pete williams tonight, thank you. >>> here in new york president trump attended the u.n. general assembly and found himself responding to new questions about his phone call to ukraine's president that's reportedly the center of a whistleblower complaint. our kristen welker has the new details. >> reporter: tonight, president trump dismissing new impeachment calls from democrats and defending his july phone call with the leader of ukraine insisting he never threaten to withhold military aid if ukraine didn't investigate accusations against joe biden and his son. at the time, the aide wa suspended, its since been released. >> did you tell the ukrainian leader they would have the aid if they invest gated joe biden and his family. >> i didn't. i did not make a statement you have to do this or i'm not going to give you aid. >> reporter: according to the washington post siting people familiar with the matter, a government whistle blower alleges the president did pressure the president of ukraine to investigate a ukrainian company which had given hunter biden a position on its b

hans nicol, jeff bennett, pete williams, katie bennett, thank you very much.e'll keep following all of the developments. ahead, i'll get reaction from one of the lawmakers investigating the president. ent. ♪ ♪ around here, the only predictable thing about the weather is it's unpredictable. so we make the most of it when the sun does shine. that's why bp is partnering with lightsource, europe's largest solar company. and should the weather change, yet again, our natural gas can step in. to keep the power flowing and the lights shining. no matter the forecast. at bp, we see possibilities everywhere. to help the world keep advancing. -excuse me. uh... do you mind...being a mo-tour? -what could be better than being a mo-tour? the real question is... do you mind not being a mo-tour? -i do. for those who were born to ride, there's progressive. -i do. i have moderate to severe pnow, there's skyrizi. ♪ things are getting clearer, yeah i feel free ♪ ♪ to bare my skin ♪ yeah that's all me. ♪ nothing and me go hand in hand ♪ ♪ nothing on my skin ♪ that's my new plan. ♪ n

nbc news justice correspondent pete williams has the details on this. convoluted story. break it apart for us here. >> well, he is a former official of the russian government and he was in a job, officials say, that had access to kremlin secrets and he's been living in a washington, d.c., suburb under his actual names, but now there are new concerns this morning about his safety. former government officials tell nbc news that the former senior russian official and possible spy for the cia is living in the washington area under u.s. protection. nbc news is withholding the man's name and other key details at the request of u.s. officials, who say reporting the information could endanger his life. >> if you spy long enough and take enough risks for the cia, as a russian official, the chance of discovery increases and they decided to bring him out. >> reporter: nbc news correspondent ken dilanian went to the man's home on monday. he wasn't there, but five minutes later, two young men in an suv came racing up the street and asked what dilanian was doing there

in the summary pete williams gave you, what we heard was the president of the united states asking theto investigate joe biden and his son. the quote from the president on that call on july 25th is this there is a lot of talk about biden's son, what biden stopped the prosecution. a lot of people want to find out about that whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great. biden went around bragging that he stopped prosecution it sounds horrible to me the upside is this new information you heard which is that the department of justice already looked at this and already made a conclusion that this is not a campaign finance violation. the reason for that is that this is not the president requesting a thing of value as defined under campaign finance law the other upside here for the white house is that the intelligence community is not turningthis whistle-blower complaint over to congress they are arguing under the inspector general statute, this is not about intelligence or about the actions of an intelligence community employee. this is high-level information between the pres

with us is nbc news justice correspondent pete williams. out the nuts and bolts about this? when you and i talked weeks ago about this story, the thinking was he was seeking more overtime. now prosecutors revealed much more than that. >> they said when they searched his phone, they found an isis video that showed a mass killing that he forwarded to someone else, he hoped allah would use his divine powers to harm non-believers. he also told a co-worker he had a brother overseas had been kidnapped and conscripted into isis. people familiar with this investigation say it's entirely possible that when he tampered with the plane in july, he did do it just to get overtime. his lawyer, in fact, makes much of the fact that after this man alani disabled the flight data sensor on the plane, he took the trouble to go to the dock pick to make sure the problem would be picked up on the instrument panel, verifying the sabotage would be discovered by the pilot once the passengers got on and the plane started to do a rollout is a strange thing to do if he

chief foreign affairs correspondent andrea mitchell in new york, and our justice correspondent pete williamspete, i'm going to start with you. the whistle-blower complaint. and what it does detail, it seems to be raising and the whistle-blower seems to almost be a reporter or their own investigator of sorts, gathered a set of facts, reported it to the inspector general and then this is where we are. >> well, that's a good way to put it because what is completely clear the whistle-blower says in his or her own letter to the inspector general which is the thing that was made public today that this person had no firsthand information of any of this. this was all related to the whistle-blower -- no n >> not any of it but on much of it i think is what they said. >> the other stuff is things the whistle-blower found out through his own research but in terms of firsthand accounts of what happened at the white house, that came from white house officials, from intelligence officials about how the call was classified and all of that so, yes, that's a good way to put it. sort of like a person gathering

overtime is getting a second look exposing a weak spot in aviation security our justice correspondent pete williams has late details. >>> tonight federal prosecutors say when they searched the phone of an american airlines mechanic who worked in miami, they found an isis video showing people being killed they say he forwarded that video to someone else and included a messaging saying that he wished that ala would use his devine powers to harm non-muslims. the judge called the new evidence disconcerting and said it suggests the mechanic could be sympathetic to terrorists >> reporter: he was arrested two weeks ago charged with tampering with a flight sensor on an american 737 he told investigators he did it as part of a pay dispute to force a repair and get more overtime court documents say after into the plane's cockpit to flight from miami to the bahamas never took off. >> we got to work a maintenance issue here just had some lights come on. >> reporter: he is 60, a naturalized u.s. citizen born in iran he has been an airline mechanic for 30 years american says tonight safety is its top priority an

exposing a weak spot in aviation security our justice correspondent pete williams had late details. >> reporter: when they searched the phone of an american airlines mechanic, they showed an isis video of people being killed. he wished that ala would use his devine powers to harm non-muslims. the nudge called the new evidence disconcerting and said it suggests the mechanic could be sympathetic to terrorists >> reporter: he was arrested two weeks ago charged with tampering with a flight sensor on an american 737 he told investigators he did it as part dispute to fr he went into the plane's cockpit to make sure it would show up on the instrument panel, so the flight never took t o work a maintenance here. >> reporter: he is 60, tu citizen born in iran he has been an airline mechanic for 30 years. american says tonight safety is its top priority and he's been fired. the backgrounds of people who service airplanes on the ground at airports worldwide has long been a security concern. >> that requires ongoing monitoring, ongoing security checks and background checks of all those touching th

joining me now nbc news justice correspondent pete williams. can you say emoluments, pete?you have to when you talk about this. the two emoluments clauses of the constitution say that presidents gain from officials. what the lawsuit claims is that when people come to town in new york or washington they tend to patronize trump facilities, the one in new york, the trump hotel here, the luxury five-star hotel a few blocks from the white house, and when they do that they do it because they know that president trump will profit from it. they want to curry favor from him, and that puts their facilities, these people that are suing, claim at a competitive disadvantage. they say it violates the emoluments clause. this case was thrown out by a judge almost two years ago who said they basically did not have legal standing to sue because what the emoluments clause says is the president cannot accept these things without approval of congress. where do the business owners fit into that, the judge said, but today the appeals court by a 2-1 vote said, no, they do have a dog in this fight

. >> pete williams, i appreciate you bringing us the breaking news. we're going to talk about that later in the show. we're also going to talk more about the big democratic slowdown, including a change in strategy who are now hugging barack obama. one of the senior advisers to the former president is joining us live. plus democrats are growing more and more frustrated at republicans and the president for what they describe as a failure to act on gun reform. we're taking you live right now to the congressional leaders that are talking about their next moves. we've got it. you should know the location of a decent bathroom.ation, my gut says, take new benefiber healthy balance. this daily supplement helps maintain digestive health naturally while relieving occasional constipation and abdominal discomfort. new benefiber healthy balance >>> right now house republicans are on their annual retreat up in baltimore and we've just heard from the house minority leader on an issue congress is feeling some pressure on and that's the possibility of some kind of act

americaniranic to create work d collect overtime, is getting a second look nbc news justice correspondent pete williams has the details. >> reporter: federal prosecutors say when they searched the phone of an american airlines mechanic who worked in miami they found an isis video showing people being killed they say he forwarded that video to someone else and included a message, wishing that a law would use his divine powers to harm nonmuslims. the judge called the new evidence disconcerting and said it suggests the mechanic could be sympathetic to terrorists >> it is the soft underside of airport security >> reporter: he was arrested two weeks ago charged with tampering with a flight sensor on an american 737 he told investigators he did it as part of a pe went sbolt plane's cockpit to be sure the problem would show up on the instrument panel, which it did so the flight from miami to the bahamas never took off >> the entire tower, american 2834, we've got a work and maintenance issue here the light came on. years.orter: alani is 60, a american says the safety is its top priority and he's been fired. t

and from our washington news room, nbc news justice correspondent pete williams also here with me the former acting solicitor general for the obama administration, neil catiahl. peter, the timeline we'll put up on the screen, july 18, decision to delay aid communicated internally within the white house. july 25th phone call between trump and zelensky. september 9th, whistle-blower complaint revealed to congress. september 11th, military aid released to ukraine. how does the white house explain that timeline? >> reporter: well, the president's explanation, obviously, as you've seen evolved over the course of the last 24 to 48 hours, initially at the time, according to administration officials the reason that money was with held is because they wanted to make sure there wasn't any wasteful spending being delivered to an ally in advance of the g7 summit. from the president we initially heard him saying that he wanted to make sure that there was proper vetting of ukrainian bureaucratic corruption and then 24 hours later just yesterday we heard from the president effectively saying that th

i'm pete williams. welcome to "washington week."lative sint, congress returns from its summer recess government shutdown october 1st. a fight over fire arms. after so many mass shootings, will congress do something to address gunnngiolence? wall. the pent gob is -- pentagon isd rting billions. and the house democrats are investigating whether prheeside trump is on those who do

three of those arrested are just 14 years old pete williams has the details. >> reporter: in southeastern oklahoma, 18-year-old alexis wilson is charged tonight with making a terrorist threat, accused of telling a coworker she wanted to shoot up mcalester high school, which she once attended court documents she recently bought an ak-47 assault rifle and said she was going to quote, shoot 400 people for fun she later said she didn't mean it, but the county sheriff is taking no chances with people who threaten schools. >> we're going charge them and the judiciary is going to prosecute them to the fullest effect this is something we can have zero tolerance on. >> reporter: in desert hot springs, california, three 14-year-olds, two boys and a girl, are charged with threatening on social media to shoot their high school. police say the teens had access to a semiautomatic pistol and a revolver, as well as this pellet gun that looked exactly like an ar-15 assault rifle. if they had brought it to school, police say it could have easily been mistaken for the real thing. >> our officers would have

nbc justice correspondent pete will j williams has a look at the transcripts. tell us what you heard. >> reporter: the so-called tr s transcripts, these are notes, not an official transcript, but as close as is available. it is the best record of this call. made july 25th, from the white house residence by president trump to president zelensky ukrai ukraine, the call lasted about 30 minutes. and let me walk you through the call after having read the notes of the call. trump begins by congratulating zelensky for his election victory and midway through the call says, quote, i'd like you to do us a favor those because our untry has been through a lot and ukraine knows a lot about it, i'd like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with ukraine. they say crowd strike. i guess you have one of your wealthy people, the server, they say ukraine has it. now, frankly, it is hard to tell exactly what the president means. jchlt doj officials weren't able to shed light on it. but perhaps he is thinking that somebody in ukraine has one of the missing clinton

nbc's justice correspondent pete williams is following this one for us pete, good morning. >> reporter: good morning to you, craig he is a former official of the russian government in a job with access to kremlin secrets and he was living in a washington, d.c. suburb under his actual name now there are new concerns this morning about his safety current and former government officials tell nbc news that the former senior russian official and possible spy for the cia is living in the washington area under u.s. protection. nbc news is withholding the man's name and other key details at the request of u.s. officials who say reporting the information could endanger his life >> if you spy long enough and take enough risks for the cia as a russian official, the chance of discovery increases. they decided to bring him out. >> reporter: nbc news correspondent ken dilanian went to the man's home and he wasn't there. five minutes later two young men in an suv came racing up the street and asked what dilanian was doing there. >> it was pretty clear they were u.s. government agents alarmed by the i

nbc's justice correspondent pete williams is following that investigation. hey, pete, good morning. >> reporter: good morning to you, the fbi says there was no specific plot or attack plan, and this soldier is not charged with possessing explosives, but investigators say he told others how to make bombs and talked about wanting to carry out attacks in the u.s. federal prosecutors say a u.s. army soldier stationed in the ft. riley, kansas, has been putting bomb-making instructions on social media. jarrett william smith posted in a facebook group chat how to use a cell phone to make a bomb detonator. investigators say last month he began communicating with someone he thought was like-minded but who was actually an undercover fbi agent. according to court documents, smith talked about attacking members of the radical left antifa and a car bomb attack could be major news network headquarters, though the document doesn't say which one. the fbi said his bomb technicianing determined his method for building a car bomb would not have worked. last friday the fbi says

pete williams. >> we learned that the fbi arrested a soldier in kansas. a u.s.d has charged him with disseminating information on how to build explosive devices. that's the charge here. according to the fbi, they first got onto him in march when he was making remarks on facebook about how to construct improvise explosive devices and talked on a facebook posting about wanting to go to ukraine and fight with the far right military group and then it says there were series of conversations between the soldier whose name is jared william smith and an under cover officer and most of the court documents describe his dealings with the you shouunder cover ofe talked about a plan to conduct an attack inside the united states, he was looking for morad cals. he wanted to go after members of the far left group, anti-fall or perhaps a local news station or news network which was not identified in the court documents. i suspect it is a cable news network. at one point he's talking about wanting to build improvise grenades and other kiends of bombs or maybe make a homemade gun.

nbc justice correspondent pete williams is poring through what's in that complaint. i have a copy of it here, pete, i've only had a couple second to look at it. what do you see? >> it's dated august 12th, when the complaint was originally made to the inspector general, originally intended to go to congress and as you know it was stopped. we know the basics of it. he's complaining about the nature of the president's call with the president of ukraine. he says he doesn't know who initiated the call. we now know, as we were told yesterday for sure, that this person, whether it's a man or a woman in the intelligence community, didn't know this firsthand but was told this by what's described in the letter as multiple white house officials with direct knowledge of the call. and then the letter goes through what we now know was in the call. the asking for help in looking into the crowd strike issue and the biden family. and the way the letter describes it it says the president used the call, the remainder of the call after congratulating president se zelensky to advance pers

joining us now is justice correspondent pete williams. how new is this?d of approach and what will they be doing? >> in a sense, brand new. the focus on home grown extremism is existed for several years. extremists radicalized by terrorist groups overseas, radical islam. now the department of homeland security acting director is saying we have to focus as well on the threat of white us is premise schism and racism and anti-semitism. this is hit dhs hard. shooting at the walmart in texas, he said six of the people who were killed in that attack were family members of dhs employees. he said the majority of dhs employees in the el paso area do come from hispanic families. so he said this is something that dhs has to focus on a lot more to realize that this is part of the threat picture. this is going to require, he says, more money from congress to try to counter. how? but better understanding the problem. the secret service does some analysis. more needs to be done this more training for local law enforcement and active shooter training to respond when thes

nbc news justice correspondent pete williams has been following this and joins me now with details of the latest. what do we know about the story? >> doesn't appear to be specific attack plans and this soldier talked about possible targets and never had any actual plans. he's 24 years ole. his name is jarrett william smith. a private army first class at kansas and according to court documents the fbi said he started talking three years ago about fighting in ukraine with a paramilitary group and joined the army two years ago and even after joining the army the fbi said he was posting on a chat room on facebook instructions on how to make homemade bombs, improvised explosive devices and instructions to use a cell phone to detonate such a device. according to the fbi, he then in august began talking to a man who he thought was a like-minded person. but who turned out to be an undercover agent for the fbi. and according to the fbi and the court documents, he said that he might want to attack -- smith said he might want to attack members of the antifa or a major news network headquarters.

i want to go to pete williams on this who got a first look at this complaint and the inspector general's report ask see if you can put this in lay terms for us and help us understand what happened here, pete, because we -- the whistle-blower submits this through proper channels back in august. it goes to the inspector general. of the department of national intelligence. at some point the inspector general, now we have his letter right here, says this is an urgent and credible concern. and forwards it on to the director of national intelligence, mr. maguire who we're about to hear from. at what point and on what basis does that whistle-blower complaint not then get transmitted to congress as dictated by law? at some point the department of justice comes in. explain how that all came together. >> urgent concern is a term of art in the law. under the law when someone makes a complaint like this it must be passed on to congress if it involves an intelligence community activity or an intelligence community people. what the justice department said here is, and you may view this as an overly cr

nbc justice correspondent pete will j williams has a look at the transcripts.

pete negron. >> and nelson. >> david william nelson. >> ginger nelson. >> james nelson. >> michelle nelson. >> peteren nelson. >> oscar francis nesbitt. >> renÉ newell. >> christopher newton. >> christopher newton carter. >> nancy ngo. >> my father john christopher henwood. it has been 18 years since you were taken away from us and yesterday would have been your 27th wedding anniversary but i'm thankful for the loving mother and sister that i have. i'm lucky to have people like pam and david in my life. i look up to you every day and hope you're proud of me. we love you dearly. >> my cousin judy fernandez. and maria. we miss you judy, we will always love you and always be in our heart. >> khang ngoc nguyn >> jody niccolo. >> kathleen nucosia. >> martin niedermayer. >> alphonse niedermayer. >> frank john nedsadt. >> gloria newves. >> tori nelson. >> paul nimbly. >> john ballantyne nevin. >> katherine noack. >> curtis terrence knoll. >> michael noeth. >> curtis nolan. >> robert walter noonan. >> jacqueline norton. >> robert grant norton. >> daniela notaro. >> brian christopher novotzny. >> brian nunez

pete negron. laurie neira. ann nelson. david william nelson. ginger nelson. michelle nelson. peter allen nelson.ar francis nesbitt. gerrard terrence nevins. renee newell. christopher c. newton. christopher newton-carter. nancy ngo. >> and my father, john krifr henwood. it's been sl years since you were taken away from us and yesterday would have been your 27th wedding anniversary. but i'm thankful every day for the loving mother and sister that i have. and i'm lucky to have people like dud, pam and david in my life. i look up to you every day and hope that you're proud of me. >> clo >> and my mother. and maria theresa santillo. we will, we miss you, judy and martes, we will always love you and always be in our hearts. >> nagoyan. >> jody nichilo. >> kathleen ann nicosia. >> martin niederer. niedermeyer. frank niestadt. gloria nieves. juan nieves. troy nilsson. paul nimbley. john niven. katherine noack. curtis noel. michael a.noeth. >> curtis nolan. >> robert walter noonan. jacqueline june norton. >> robert grant norton. >> daniela notaro. >> brian christopher novotny. >> soichi numata. >> brian

pete buttigieg slamming the gop in iowa. >> there is no good faith in congressional gop when it comes to dealing with this issue. >> this is disgraceful. >> this is william barr trashed a plan to expedite the death penalty for mass shootings. congress will see it when they return. rob: joe manchin will decide to run for governor, he held a position from 2005-2010. his senate reelection bid last year, he will face the republican incumbent jim justice. >> a shocking upset at the u.s. open tennis tournament. the defending women's champion knocked out in her fourth-round match. >> a new world number one. carley: bench -- croatia tomorrow. rob: a grim search operation happening overnight after a scuba excursion ends in tragedy. >> i can't breathe. >> there is no escape hatch for any of the people on board. rob: a chilling made a call and what they revealed about this doomed ship in california. juan guaido carley: the bahamas are in the midst of a historic tragedy as the storm inches toward the united states. a group of veterans ready to answer the call. the veteran leading the effort. ♪ introducing a razor that works differently. the gillette skinguard. desig