pruitt's trip was arranged by a lobbyist, richard smotkin, who accompanied pruitt and helped set up meetingsr him. as we drive through the streets of laayoune, everywhere are signs of occupation. the city was built up under spain's fascist dictator francisco franco and has been occupied by morocco since the mid-1970's. we pass the united nations' minurso compound, where just over 200 u.n. peacekeepers monitor the 1991 ceasefire between morocco and the polisario but are legally prevented from intervening to stop human rights abuses. and we drive past the high walls of the notorious black prison, where generations of sahrawis have been detained, tortured, and disappeared. one of them is sahrawi independence activist hmad hammad, who welcomes us into his home. over tea, he describes his torture at the hands of the moroccan authorities during his years spent as a political prisoner. >> they linked electrodes to my ears, and something to my underarms and to my tongue, and then other sensitive parts. i was bound. and when they used that manual generator, i would hear it cranking. rrr. rrr. rrr. ea

he rented it from the wife of an energy lobbyist who was lobbying pruitt's agency. on a private secure phone booth in his office. very "get smart." and a 24-hour security detail which he then tasked with getting his dry cleaning and tracking down his favorite moisturizer. he also used his staff to try to get his wife a chick-fil-a franchise. then it was trump's interior secretary, ryan zinke, who left in a cloud of investigations, including a suspect land deal with an oil executive. that investigation led the i.g. at the interior department to refer zinke to the justice department for possible criminal prosecution. we learned just last month that prosecutors wanted to file charges against ryan zinke in that case but senior trump appointees at the top of the department told them they could not. there was also trump's labor secretary alex acosta who was forced to resign after it wam to light when he was a federal prosecutor he engineered a sweetheart plea deal for millionaire pedophile and donald trump friend jeffrey epstein. acosta also got a pass from bill barr's ju

people would have called me a climate skeptic or a climate denier coal lobbyist such as scott pruitt and andrew wheeler worth pointing to had the environmental protection agency. the powerful business lobbies chalk this up as a success with millions of dollars at stake with shades of the wild west it seems the strongest and most powerful controlled along even in the shadow of the corona crisis washington has continued to cut back on environmental protection so who in the usa is really pulling the strings. follow the money trail. anima soliah does just that her workplace washington d.c. home to some 12000 lobbyists. muscly a works for an ngo that wants to see more transparency she looks through tax returns for example to find out who is paying which lobby groups and think tanks in order to shape laws and public opinion it's frustrating work with many facts and figures remaining anonymous and it's all completely legal. we have people operating behind the scenes without ever disclosing their identity having a significant impact on who is elected in the united states who is holding power

people would have called me a climate skeptic or a climate denier coal lobbyists such as scott pruitt and andrew wheeler work pointed to head the environmental protection agency. the powerful business lobbies chalk this up as a success with millions of dollars at stake with shades of the wild west it seems the strongest and most powerful controlled along even in the shadow of the corona crisis washington has continued to cut back on environmental protection so who in the usa is really pulling the strings. follow the money trail. anima soliah does just that her workplace washington d.c. home to some 12000 lobbyists. muscly a works for an ngo that wants to see more transparency she looks through tax returns for example to find out who is paying which lobby groups and think tanks in order to shape laws and public opinion it's frustrating work with many facts and figures remaining anonymous and it's all completely legal. we have people operating behind the scenes without ever disclosing their identity having a significant impact on who is elected in the united states who is holding power

people would have called me a climate skeptic for a climate denier coal lobbyists such as scott pruitt and andrew wheeler work pointed to head the environmental protection agency. the powerful business lobbies chalk this up as a success with millions of dollars at stake with shades of the wild west it seems the strongest and most powerful controlled along even in the shadow of the corona crisis washington has continued to cut back on environmental protection so who in the usa is really pulling the strings. follow the money trail. animists olia does just that her workplace washington d.c. home to some 12000 lobbyists. muscly a works for an n.g.o.s that wants to see more transparency she looks through tax returns for example to find out who is paying which lobby groups and think tanks in order to shape laws and public opinion it's frustrating work with many facts and figures remaining anonymous and it's all completely legal. we have people operating behind the scenes without ever disclosing their identity having a significant impact on who is elected in the united states who is holding p

people would have called me a climate skeptic or a climate denier coal lobbyist such as scott pruitt and andrew wheeler work pointed to head the environmental protection agency. the powerful business lobbies chalk this up as a success with. millions of dollars at stake with shades of the wild west it seems the strongest and most powerful controlled along even in the shadow of the corona crisis washington has continued to cut back on environmental protection so who in the usa is really pulling the strings. follow the money trail. anima soliah does just that her workplace washington d.c. home to some 12000 lobbyists. most oleo works for an ngo that wants to see more transparency she looks through tax returns for example to find out who is paying which lobby groups and think tanks in order to shape laws and public opinion it's frustrating work with many facts and figures remaining anonymous and it's completely legal. we have people operating behind the scenes without ever disclosing their identity having a significant impact on who is elected in the united states who is holding power in

people of the fed called me a climate skeptic or a climate denier coal lobbyist such as scott pruitt and andrew wheeler work pointed to head the environmental protection agency. the powerful business lobbies chalk this up as a success with millions of dollars at stake with shades of the wild west it seems the strongest and most powerful controlled along even in the shadow of the corona crisis washington has continued to cut back on environmental protection so. who in the usa is really pulling the strings. follow the money trail. anima soliah does just that her work place washington d.c. home to some 12000 lobbyists. only a works for an ngo that wants to see more transparency she looks through tax returns for example to find out who is paying which lobby groups and think tanks in order to shape laws and public opinion it's frustrating work with many facts and figures remaining anonymous and it's all completely legal. we have people operating behind the scenes without ever disclosing their identity having a significant impact on who is elected in the united states who is holding power

even with the trump nominees, we think about the session nomination or the pruitt, pretty much along party line votes. and sonny perdue, largely along margins. in georgia you're facing a closely controlled senate, the most important thing you have in the u.s. senate is floor time and the minority or really, any single senator has the ability to slow down your floor time and that's, i think, one of the challenges. every nomination, if it is contested and the time is dragged all the way out, is time that you're not spent doing other legislative business like getting bills passed along the way. yeah, whether you have 59 or 60 votes in the senate as we had in 2009, certainly affects who you put up versus if you have, as the biden team has, 48 or 50. that makes a big, big difference. >> sara, do you want to add to that? >> yeah, you know, i agree that there's a -- the game has totally changed. we're going 0 to see a lot closer votes because of the polarization that we're experiencing in the country. but the most important thing a nominee or a president-elect can do for his nominees, his o

at presidentook trump's nominees, we think a lot about the sessions nomination or the pruitt nomination, which were pretty much partyline votes. there were plenty of people, wilbur ross, sonny perdue, elaine chao who were confirmed by overwhelming bipartisan margins. regardless of what happens in georgia, you are facing a very closely controlled senate. the most important thing you have in the senate is floor time the minority or any single senator has the ability to slow down your floor time and that's one of the challenges stop every nomination, if it is contested is time you are not spent doing other legislative business like getting bills passed. so whether you have 59 or 60 votes in the senate as we had in 2009, it certainly affects who or put up when you put up 48 50, like the biden team has, that makes a big difference. mo: do you want to add to that? the game has that totally changed. we are going to see closer votes on these nominees just because of the polarization we are experiencing in the country. thing amost important nominee or president-elect candy for his or her nominee

and usher in the disgraced scott pruitt as administrator. on a personal note, i should thank donors trust for transmitting $769,000 for some anonymous donor or donors to a dark money opposition group called capital research center which has as one of its tasks to feed misinformation about me to right-wing media outlets. i think that's my reward for calling out this whole crooked dark money operation. and wouldn't you know they send out a dark money group to defend their dark money operation. i appreciate the attention and the irony. others in the donors trust dark money creep show include $4 million to project var veratas h cooked up sting videos in minnesota and other states to feed the false election fraud narrative of donald trump and the far right. also $1.5 million to a beauty called v. dare foundation whose website is a investigator for anti-semitism, xenophobia and white nationalism. i can see why someone would want to hide giving a million dollars to that. donors trust has a tag-along entity that sends a lot of money into the same pl

the team's jeremy pruitt is one who test positive.he cancellation of the independence bowl but now army going to face west virginia in memphis on new year's eve. iowa is halting team tactivitie for at least five days after positive tests in their program, the team hoping to play in the music city bowl next week. >>> the nba opened its new season tonight, 72 days after crowning the lakers champion in the orlando bubble, teams going to crisscross the country in a 72 game regular season into the playoffs. adam silver expects issues to arise during the season and prepares to adjust accordingly. >> i think i wouldn't be acting responsibly if i said it's full steam ahead. having said that, based on our experience in the bubble, we have a fair degree of confidence in our approach. the safety of participants is our number one priority. >> you can see the opening night games on our sister network, tnt. kevin durant making his nets debut against the warriors lakers, clippers after that. one other note for you laura, this morning, adam silver sa

administrator wheeler is my friend so is administrator pruitt. but they were both very, very committed to clean water as i know you were. does the world get it yet? is the world on top of the risk of the water supply and the necessity of keeping it as clean as we have brought it to the point of being in the united states now and continue to work on? >> i think the world recognizes the importance of clean water because they've seen the impacts of what happens when you don't have clean water. and just think that most of them think it's beyond their ability if we're talking about the average person to have any impact on it. and they also, many people don't understand that what comes out of the sky is not necessarily clean, that in fact there's a great deal that happens to it particularly in this country unless you have a well the way we do, that you have to clean it. anybody that cleans a car and looks at it knows it's dirty and that's because of the pm 2.5 that's in the atmosphere and that comes down with the rain. so people are understanding and t

and even if you look at trump's picks, and obviously there were some like scott pruitt that got by ony line votes. people like wilbur ross and elaine chao and sonny perdue were confirmed by large bipartisan margins. this is an important precedent that ought to be followed. that being said, we know another precedent and we know what happens when these people don't get confirmed, and we saw that with the trump administration, where he essentially ran an entire government with acting officials. at the homeland security department right now there has not been a senate-confirmed secretary since april of last year. so about 19 months right now. so having gone through the process, i think it's important for nominees to get prepared, to answer questions, to talk about why they're qualified. i think it's important for the senate to consider the qualifications. i don't like the idea of a government run by acting officials. i just don't think that provides the right level of accountability. >> but one of the things you're saying there -- and this is one of the most bizarre stories of the trump/m