Chris Hayes discusses the days top news. Collude and corrupt the american democracy system in the 2016 election which the trump tower meeting was all about. But also, knowledge about the Computer Crime of hacking and whether or not mr. Trump knew ahead of time. Lanny davis will be joining me in just a moment. So stick around. The president s involvement of a federal crime. Despite having been caught, his role. Despite the audio tape we have all heard, the president and cohen planning the mcdougal payment. The president says he didnt know about the hush money until after the facts. Did you know about the payments . Later on, i knew. Later on i knew. But you have to understand ainsley, what he did, and they lawyer and assistance to tell a story. That is useful, but the legal question here is Michael Flynn pleaded guilty and cooperated and we never heard about it sort of on the outside. Just strange to me, our conversations already happening to mueller. Has Michael Cohen already talked to the investigators . I cant answer that question. I have to, unfortunately there are several key questions that i am not able to answer, chris. But i can say that his commitment is to tell everything he knows and tell the truth. He felt on july 2nd when this began that he wanted to hit the reset button for his life in telling the truth and expressing his concerns about donald trump as president. So he is committed in telling the truth whether it is the Special Counsel mr. Mueller, owning up to his responsibilities as difficult as it was to the Southern District prosecutors. And as you noted in the opening report, he has accepted the fact that he is responsible, pled guilty and he is going to go and be incarcerated. You think he is going to do jail time . Yes, i believe that is the case. There is no understanding to the contrary. When he says, he says he is doing this for his family, what does that mean . Is his family at all exposed legally . Well, they are suffering personally from two children about dad, wonderful wife looking at husband and father going to prison. They are also suffering deeply from economic adversity and absent resources. They are living in a hotel only because there was a flood in their apartment from the apartment above. Sorry. I want to zoom in on the question. Are there people in the family who face legal exposure . No i dont believe you. Im sorry i misunderstood your question. The economic distress is clear. He furnished the audio tape which has proved to be an important piece of evidence. Does he have in his possession other pieces of evidence whether they be documents or recordings that would implicate the president in Criminal Activity . I dont know the answer to that question. Even if i did, i couldnt tell you as the investigation continues, both mr. Mueller as well as the Southern District prosecutors continue to examine the facts now. Now we have the Attorney General in new york. And there is an awkwardness to my doing as you said, all of these Television Shows there, is so much that i cant respond to. I will ask you about Michael Cohens reputation which you say you are trying to defend. He pleaded to a federal crime that involved an extremely significant act in furthering the election of donald trump by committing felonies that help to get donald trump elected. Do you understand why people do not view him as some kind of object of sympathy or you know, heroism because what he did was extremely damaging to, in the views of millions of americans. I not only understand, that is the challenge of what i do as a profession. People dont come to me and say i have great news for you. They come to me with troubles. And i try to start with the basics of taking responsibility, explaining the reasons why mistakes were made and serious ones in the case of mr. Cohen and then try to set things right. The most important thing i have tried to do starting with july 2nd in the interview. To help understand the president s legal jeopardy, joined by jill winbanks and jeff ackerman. What is the legal applications. We dont know what i cant believe that he would have pled guilty to exposure of almost six years in prison without having some knowledge that he has got information that would be helpful to the mueller investigation. It is inconceivable to me that that would not have been discussed beforehand. Also, jill, what is striking to me, the trump orb shows up. Executives are named in there. What is the significance of that. Well the significance of that of course is that the corporation could also be found for tax violations. For example, if they reduced their payable taxes by claiming that the legal fees paid to Michael Cohen which were phony legal fees, and they were actually hush money, if they deducted that, that is a violation of the tax code. But you hit on the main question that i have about this whole thing which is if he really wants to cooperate, why is he doing it through the public . Why didnt lanny davis call up the Mueller Office and say hi, we would like to come up and make a proffer. That is the normal way to do it. When john dean was cooperating, he called and said i want to come in and make a proffer. He talked to us. And told us what he wanted to say. And that is when he started cooperating. The idea that he came a come to jesus doesnt stand for a second. He was forced for some reason. They were coming up with Major Bank Fraud charges. He was facing huge amounts of prison time just like paul that happened in watergate. They are deliberately trying, even if you cant prove that they worked with the russian government which seemed to me there is plenty of evidence of that too. Just on this alone, they were deliberately trying to conceal information that would influence the election and help him win election jill is absolutely on the spot there. You have to look at what happened in the context of Everything Else that was going on in the campaign at the time. The access Hollywood Tape. All of these women coming out of the wood work that was accusing trump. Trump was calling them liars. You had lots of controversy just before the comey tape came out. So all of this happened in that context and it wasnt only when he was running for office but after he was elected, they are still going through this. Phonying up documents. While he is the sitting president. Reimbursing him on monthly basis. Phony documents, phony invoices. This is something that is right out of the organized crime book. This looks more like a mafia family than it does the president of the United States and the first family. Not only that yeah. Go ahead. I cant understand how congress can let this happen and do nothing and for any congressman to say it is up to the legal system, it is up to the legal system but it is also up to congress. This is clearly impeachable offenses. A president that is out of control and conducting himself that is hurting america dramatically and something has to be done about it. They have a neat twostep they do. The president cant be indicted and then they say no charges. Bounce back and forth. Great to have you both. How will congress proceed in simple, easy, awesome. In many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40s. Now the president s long time Attorney General and closest associates admitted in court that donald trump directed him to exit a felony. Congress is left with the question what to do with that information. Republicans have the power to open an investigation of course into trumps alleged involvement but no indication they will do that. Democrats on the other hand want to use the opportunity to delay the confirmation process of Supreme Court nominee brett kavanaugh. The Kavanaugh Hearing should be postponed. I choose not to extend the courtesy to this president. We should not be right now confirming any Supreme Court justice. The Senate Judiciary should immediately pause the consideration of the kavanaugh nomination. Joining me now is chris murphy democrat. Do you agree with your colleagues . There are lots of reasons we should be pressing the pause. There seems to be a reason why republicans are holding back some of the most Important Documents from his time in the white house. And clearly some important questions to be answered. We need kavanaugh to be open with us. And whether he believes that president s need to answer subpoenas. The most likely question that is going to come in a Supreme Court is going to be over an argument on whether donald trump needs to testify to mueller. It is increasingly unlikely that trumps lawyers want him to get into a position to perjure himself. Seems to be one that kavanaugh has to answer and i would hope republicans and democrats would agree he has to answer that Question Affirmatively before getting confirmed. There is a broader question about how you take the facts that you are learning and the questions, the profound questions about the president s legitimacy to be quite frank and deal with being a member of the senate. Is there a fact pattern at which everything should stop . Yeah, so i think that is a really important question and one that i am grappling with in real time. It is somewhat of an arbitrary distinction to say the Supreme Court hearing process should stop but the president should be able to go on appointing other judges, running the armed forces and making all sorts of decisions. Ultimately the Founding Fathers gave the power, the power of impeachment. So i guess i do worry about congress deciding that the president has lost legitimacy absent an impeachment conversation. And so listen, we will get a report from mueller and when we do, we will have that conversation. But before that, i think the difficult thing to decide. Let me ask you this, there are people who say, and i think they have a decent argument that what was alleged, sworn to in Federal Court yesterday and seems to be endorsed by the Southern District is itself is an impeachable defense. Are they right . Well, i think it is important for us to have in front of us, the evidence that leads the prosecutor to that decision. Now we have cohens testimony but we may other evidence whether it is documents or audio tape to that affect as well. The reason that some of us are punting on that question a little bit today is because we take the indictment at face value and we think that we need all of the evidence before us. You are punting on it because you are worried about the politics, isnt that the sub text here . A good reason why want mueller to provide us with a report. We want all of the facts in front of you. Republicans are wrong because i think it is important for us to have all of the facts in front of us. And mueller, has to think at this point about giving us preliminary findings. I mean, there is nothing that stops mueller from saying here is what i know right now and continue on other things. From a transparency stand point, im a journalist. With all of us operating with some big thing in a black box that we cant see seems almost maddening. There are some set of facts that we need what happened one a or another. Process to give us information and what happened yesterday probably compels him to show some cards. Not all, but some cards to the extent of what is a proper address to congress. And that need will increase because as we were talking about, it will be hard for congress to decide what functions are legitimate Going Forward and what are illegitimate. The president tweeted this morning some kind words. Justice took a 12yearold tax case among other things and applied tremendous pressure on him and unlike Michael Cohen he refused to break. What signals have to be sent from your colleagues to be sent. And i think republicans need to say to trump effectively what they said on the mueller investigation. Republicans give clear signals to trump about six months ago that the red line was the firing of mueller. And that is in part why the investigation proceeds. They have got to say the same thing about a pardon to manafort and that tweet makes it clear to everyone what the reason for that pardon would be. Manaforts success in refusing to cooperate. He effectively admitted in that tweet why we would pardon him. So i havent heard that definitively from republicans today and what we know is unless republicans draw that line, is trump is going to take advantage of that. Thank you. We know of two apparent criminal conspiracies that both worked to get donald trump elected. The Uncharted Territory the country is in next. Hacking the dnc distributing emails. To help trump get elected. Michael cohen says he was directed by donald trump to illegally cover up damaging information in order to help get trump elected. I am joined by Charlie Pierce who compared what happened to watergate and jess mckintosh. And i want to start with you jess. We learned yesterday in Federal Court that there was a criminal conspiracy to cover up damaging information. And i wanted the timing here. The Wall Street Journal ran a story the the release of that made it more urgent that those stories not come out. What do you think about that . I think that Donald Trumps president is illegitimate. It means if you break u. S. Laws to get the white house you are not a legitimate president. What does that word mean . Chris murphy said i am uncomfortable about using the word illegitimate. I am using it rhetorically. I know the founders didnt put anything in place. That is what we are dealing with right now. That is the reality of the situation. It is upon all of the democrats that are in office to make a lot of noise and for americans to make a lot of noise. It involves being in the treats and very loud. Especially if we know that he is trying to appoint one who believes that a president cant be investigated or indicted and will probably have to rule on that. Very soon. Charlie, you compared this to watergate. And nixon trounced mcgovern by such a margin, that they didnt run the conspiracy, but it is not to run that Thought Experiment in this case. You are absolutely right. And i want to point out and i think Jeffrey Tubin was the first to point it out. But what Michael Cohen did in court yesterday which is basically to incriminate the president , none of the watergate guys did that. Even john dean didnt do that in front of the senate. He laid out the fact and let you draw out your own conclusions. But Michael Cohen went under oath and accused the president of the United States of violating the law. And that is a step up from watergate. You are a Campaign Finance expert and have reported on it for a while and an argument you have seen floated and emerge, oh, everybody is breaking Campaign Finance law here and there. Does that stand for you . No. No one does this. This is super rare. There are lots of Paper Violations of Campaign Finance laws and they are civil and it is like speeding. They are often accidental. People give too much money by accident because they send in three checks instead of two. And we have a totally different thing here. Knowful and Willful Violation of campaign. People go to jail for that. It doesnt get prosecuted as often as you think. And somebody sets out, lets hide this money. That is against the law and it is criminal. It was hiding a scandal so nobody would know. The money was being hidden but what really was being hidden was the multiple mistresses. And reported it, then it would be reported. So not like an accident and we decided to do it this way. Speaking of coming at it from the Hillary Clinton campaign perspective, that day, that the access Hollywood Tape drop, which we did not realize that that was the day Michael Cohen Stormy Daniels payments. Both criminal conspiracies that were in the works to elect donald trump saw what happened with the access Hollywood Tape and saw that it was going to take him down and republicans were fleeing and they both went to work to stop it. If they had padded these payments into the legal payments, and had don mcgahns law firm to pay it, no one would have none and it is bone headed. Yeah. Charlie . A couple of things if you take a step back that is going on here. Without our completely ben jaxed campaign system. You wouldnt have this lagoon of Money Sloshing around. Everything that happened yesterday including the utterly amazing Duncan Hunter indictment. All of that has to do with a rotten to the core Campaign Finance system and the other thing is, and chris, you may have mentioned this on twitter, and i say this in context of the prisoner strike today. We do a rotten job prosecuting white collar crime. Yes there, is a National Prison strike happening right now. Millions of people behind bars day in and day out for all kinds of offenses. Manafort and cohen were doing these things for years. The way that White Supremacy works is it starts by saying who laws are applicable to. You set a law and only certain people have to follow it. Law and nothing happens. Right now we are seeing a president who has broken the law and his inner circle who has broken the law and they are taking babies away from parent who is have committed misdemeanors crossing the border without documentation. I cant help but wonder how many unprosecuted Paul Manaforts and and Michael Cohens are out there. Are a distinct kind or a larger cohort that gets away with it because they are not close to the president of the United States. My suspicion is this kind of Money Laundering and shell moving, is ubiquitous. And by understanding how ubiquitous it is, those mechanisms are everywhere. And not only for criminal charlie, what one thing strikes me is how much the language of Mob Movies And Cop Dramas are the language of this president and inner circles. Flip, he didnt break, rat, all of that stuff. It is remarkable. It is the argot. They want to talk like these guys. You have Rudy Giuliani out there behaving like one of the crazy Defense Attorneys from law and order. At least the president has defined his persona by the character he plays on television. Borrow are dialogue from cheap mob movies. I wait for Rudy Giuliani to come on somebodys show and drop a dead fish on the desk. Thank you all. Still ahead, congresswoman Maxine Waters on the president s collection of indictments. Speaking of endorsing, no one does it better than the president. That is tonights thing one, thing two. Next. Thing one tonight Donald Trumps rallying in West Virginia was a bit muted for obvious reasons but found one thing to get excited about. In my record, look, i dont want to brag about it, but man, do i have a good record of endorsements. They said if you get an endorsement from ronald reagan, it was a wonderful thing to have but it didnt move the needle. I am not saying it from my standpoint, they are going 20, 30, 40, 50 points. Its crazy. And then you watch the news. Will this endorsement mean anything. It is going to mean a lot. Its true. Donald trump is really good at endorsements just ask this guy. Wyoming has smiled on me and my family. And now i am running for government. I know what it takes to foster to raise taxes. How did foster fair with trumps complete and total endorse amount, think two in 60 seconds. They are going 20, 30, 40, 50 points. Its crazy. So last night was the big election. Did Foster Friess win . Billionaire Foster Freiss falls short. Beaten by mark gordon in the gop primary. I dont want to brag about it, but man, do i have a good record of endorsement. Each of us is different. And each cancer is different. How it reacts, how it evades and adapts. And how we attack it. Thats why at Cancer Treatment centers of america, we use diagnostic tools that help us better understand what drives each persons cancer. This is what we mean by outsmarting cancer. And for some, it may uncover more effective treatment options. Like christine bray. 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They golfed, they bought makeup, they paid for Airline Tickets for friends and relatives and invested in Tequila Shots and gourmet steaks. The hunters overdrew their Bank Accounts more than a thousand times. Some details are bananas. When hunter told margaret that he was planning to buy my hawaii shorts they could falsely describe it later as some golf balls for the wounded warriors. Calling the prosecution a Witch Hunt Led by a corrupt justice department. This is the new department of justice. This is the democrats arm of law enforcement. Thats what happened right now. It happened with trump and with me. Fact check, Jeff Sessions does run the justice department. Ill ask another member, congresswoman Maxine Waters about the Corrupt Trump criminal, has surrounded himself with criminals. I would wonder about your thinking after yesterday. Im thinking this is just the tip of the iceberg, that, yes, manafort was convicted on eight counts and cohen came in and pleaded guilty to eight counts. I have felt this, basically taken a look at this whole crowd, these allies of the president , their relationship to putin, their relationship to the kremlin and oligarches and relationships that will come out with Money Laundering. I expect this to unfold. I think it will keep unfolding and we will find theres more criminality among this group. There will be more convictions, and, yes, the president is involved. I want to ask you a political question. Theres a certain line of thinking that says people couldnt care about the mueller probe, they dont care about the russia stuff or even manafort and stuff. I thought this was interesting, two polls from forks today, muellers Approval Rating is quite good. 59 approve and 37 disapprove. The congressional ballot gap is 49 to 38 . Do you think democrats should talk about these issues on the Campaign Trail in the midterms . Ive always felt we could walk and chew gum at the same time. I know some of the democrats are saying, please dont mention the word impeachment, dont worry about the investigation, Let Mueller Take Care of that. We have to talk about our issues. We can do both, talk about healthcare and obamacare and medicaid and medicare, we can talk about the infrastructure and how it needs to be built up. We can talk about all of these things at the same time. We cant turn a blind eye to this president who is destroying this country. This president , the leader of this country, comes to us with a reputation. This is a man who comes with a reputation of not paying his contractors, cheating subcontractors with a fake university, where he cheated students who thought they were going to learn how to become developers. This is a man who has come with the kind of reputation, racism, Coding Applications for apartments that so they would not have to rent them to africanamericans and people of color. This is a man who has demonstrated, in more than several ways who he is. He is a flawed character. I think for us to sit blindly by and pretend we dont have to deal with it, somebody else is going to sit it in our laps, really does not speak to what were thinking about our responsibility in the congress of the United States of america. And so i think we can do both. Thats what ive been doing. There are two members of Congress Republicans have been indicted, Chris Collins and Duncan Hunter, early supporters of the president. Obviously the president has people around him indicted or pleaded. As democrats take a message about corruption to voters, i want to ask about menendez, a sitting senator from new jersey. Backed by the democratic party, had a federal trial that evolved around corruption charges. Was it a mistake for democrats to anonymously back menendez given what youre seeing on corruption developed . Let me say this. Both on the democratic side and republican side, these are individuals who have decided to take certain actions that are criminal. I dont say that trump was somehow, you know, in collusion with hunter, i say that he was in collusion with putin and with the kremlin and oligarches. These individual problems that pop up on either side of the aisle are basically that. Individuals who decided to make bad decisions about how they handle themselves. In the case of menendez, he was exonerated. He wasnt exonerated, it was a mistrial. Mistrial, all right. Congresswoman, Maxine Waters, thanks for your time