Caused by hurricanes, the rapid groetds a growth and sprawl in the houston area has created worse conditions for a storm like this. Its also created some insurmountable challenges in terms of trying to move people out of harms way and trying to rescue people when the effort to get them out of harms way is a failed effort. So were continuing to watch this story tonight. Were going to be getting a live report from houston in just a moment. Were also going to be speaking with an expert tonight who is an expert specifically on the question of what options houston has right now. What options texas has right now in the middle of the thing to cope with what has happened over the last four days and what is likely to continue to get worse over the next 48 hours. They have some very painful decision to make. And getting a sense of what options they have and what the consequences of the decisions might be at this point. Its very difficult stuff but were going to be covering that in detail tonight. Today has seen some stunning breaking news about the Trump Organization and the Trump Campaign about its tie to russia at the time russia was attacking the u. S. President ial election last year. One of the investigative reporters at the Washington Post who broke the story open both over the weekend and then today, carol is going to join us live in just a moment. Weve got a little news to break on the trumprussia dossier prepared by former british mi 6 agent Christopher Steele last year. The dossier of the alleged dirt published by buzzfeed in january, created such an uproar at the time. People who commissioned the dossier described it as a road map into the investigation as to whether or not donald trump colluded with the russian attack. People who commissioned the dossier stand by it saying that the dossier is direct. The dossier is now back at the center of what we know about the trumprussia investigation. Were going to break a little bit of news on that later on the show this evening. But you know, the day that we the public all first learned about the dossier was actually before the election. It was on october 31st, halloween, 2016. David corn at mother jones magazine was the first person in the country to break the news that a former western intelligence agent collected a series of intelligence reports that were potentially very damaging to donald trump, specifically in terms of his relationship to russia. David corn reported on halloween just before the election that the fbi had seen these findings and was looking into them. Nobody quite knew what to make of it at the time. I wish that i had known what to make of it at the time. I wish we all had, right . It really wasnt until the dossier itself was published months later in january, after the election, that we all learned how serious this thing was, that david corn had been describing in october. But on that same day that david corn published that story, right, the story that in retrospect now appears to be so important but at the time we didnt really get it. On that same day there was another really big hard to understand story that kind of landed the same way. It was written by Franklin Ford at slate. Com. Wrote a long piece published on halloween that described unusual computer interactions between a computer server in trump tower serving the Trump Organization and a computer server in Moscow Associated with a big russian bank called alfa bank. And what this slate article described is hard to put your finger on in terms of significance but the granular reporting was there as an unusually high volume of server to Server Communications of some kind between those two servers in 2004 and in moscow. There was no information about the content. There were explanations offered as to why the serves may have been communicated with each other but it was never explained in terms of what the significance of that information was. Because of that, because it didnt have a clear bottom line, it was just like a hmm, i think ultimately that story kind of withered away in the public consciousness. Whatever the reason was why the Trump Organization servers and the Alfa Bank Servers were talking to each other during the campaign, its interesting but we didnt know what it meant and there didnt seem to be any other connection between donald trump and alfa bank. So interesting story, we dont really know what it means and the whole thing went to the back of the stack in terms of things to worry about when it comes to donald trump and russia. Maybe that whole Alfa Bank Server was a coincidence or a technical glitch. That story came out october 31st on slate. Com. Then a week later donald trump won the election and then during the transition when he was president elect, there emerged the next weird inexplicable maybe coincidental thing involving trump world and a russian bank. One of the numerous contacts with russian officials that trumps soninlaw Jared Kushner did not disclose on his request for security clearance was a meeting that he took at trump tower during the transition where he hosted the head of another russian bank. Jared kushner met with the head of a russian bank called veb bank. Veb bank is a bank but its really just an entity of the russian government. The leadership of veb bank is hand picked by lad peer putin and veb banks connections with russian intelligence are not subtle. Sergei gorkov is the person that kushner met with. He is a grant of the fsb academy which means he went to kgb grad school. Veb bank was coordination of a spy ring, that was the russian spying investigation where carter page was found by the fbi to have been essentially a willing target for those russian spies. At least he was a source of information for those russian spies who were looking for americans to give them information to help them with their spying efforts against america from their home base in new york, where they were ostensibly working for veb bank but really, they were spies. So there was the Alfa Bank Servers communicating with the Trump Organization for some reason. Whats that russian bank got to do with anything . Then in the transition theres Jared Kushner meeting with the head of veb bank for some reason. Whats that russian bank got to do with it . Then not long after trump got inaugurated along comes another inexplicable seemingly random intersection between trump world and yet another russian bank. The next one we learned about was i think the biggest russian bank of all, a bank called sberbank which announced in march they hired new counsel to represent them in a big, complicated civil case that was filed in federal court in new york. Sberbank was accused of rigging the granite Mining Industry in russia. Why is that a federal civil case in new york . Its a long story. In march, sberbank in the middle of the case, they made a lot of eyebrows arch in the legal news when they announced they chosen their new counsel for that long, complicated, and peopleably very expensive case and they said their new counsel was going to be Donald Trumps personal lawyer, marc kasowitz. Right . Marc kasowitz heading followup trumps legal team on the russian investigation. If youre the lawyer coordinating defense for the president of the United States who is facing a major counterintelligence and criminal investigation from the fbi while he is serving as president , if you are in charge of that you think you would be too busy to take on other clients, right . But if there are russian interests who are concerned to know what is going on in the russia investigation it might be handy to have conversations under the cover of attorneyclient privilege with the lead lawyer on the trumprussia investigations. What is that big russian bank doing with trumps lawyer in maybe the alfa bank thing was a coincidence. Maybe the veb Jared Kushner meeting was a coincidence. Maybe the sberbank thing was a coincidence. Maybe it has nothing to do with President Donald Trump and whether or not he has some sort of illicit relationship financial or otherwise with russia that explains why russia tried to rig the election on his behalf. Maybe none of those bank connections, alfa bank, veb bank, sberbank, maybe none of those have anything to do with the question of whether trump and his campaign knew about or were involved with the russian effort to disrupt our election. If you want to talk about donald trump personally and specifically, honestly, until today the only suspicious banking relationship weve known about him recently isnt with any russian bank is with Deutsche Bank. Deutsche bank is the bank that donald trump owes hundreds of millions of dollars to. Deutsche bank is the bank that dealt with donald trump for years when no other banks would. Deutsche bank is the bank that continued to lend donald trump hundreds of millions of dollars for many deals even when he was unable to pay them back on loans and he went so far as to File Lawsuits against Deutsche Bank because he failed to pay them back. There are aspects of the donald trumpDeutsche Bank relationship that have seemed unexplained by the bounds of normal financial business dealings. Deutsche bank on the surface appears to have been uncommonly generous to him and forgiving of him. Deutsche bank gave Jared Kushner several hundred millions of dollars in loans in october of last year, right before the election. Loans that Jared Kushner personally guaranteed which made it all the more unusual that he failed to disclose those loans from Deutsche Bank on his Financial Disclosure state. Hundreds of millions of dollars. Deutsche bank has been plagued by its legal liability for a multimillion dollar russia Money Laundering scheme that was operated out of Deutsche Bank schemes in moscow and elsewhere. But you know after today, the Deutsche Bank russian Money Laundering case will no longer be seen as the connection between donald trump and it comes to the russia investigation. Because, all right, there was alfa bank with the server thing. There was veb bank with the carter page connection and then the Jared Kushner meeting. Sberbank hiring trumps russia lawyer. Theres all of these russian banks getting strange new starring roles in american politics. Theres another one, alfa bank, veb bank, sberbank and another one called vtb bank. Its a very Large Russian bank not as big as veb bank but it is very big. Vtb pabank is sanctioned by the u. S. Government as punishment for crimea because this bank is seen as the russian government. Its an arm of the russian government and thats how the u. S. Government views them. In fact if you go to vtbs website tonight, click on about vtb and theyll tell you in exact mathematical terms how theyre controlled by the russian government. The russian government owns and controls 60. 9 of the vtb bank. The Majority Shareholder of the vtb bank is the russian government. What that means in plain english is that putin runs vtb. Putin controls the bank and what it does and what it spends on. And today we learned that up until last year, up until the middle of the president ial campaign, vtb bank was lined up and committed to provide hundreds of millions of dollars in financing to build trump tower moscow. The russian government was going to do that deal. Actually, even without the knowledge that the financing for this deal was going to come from the russian government, its still a heck of a bombshell. This is not some old deal that happened back in the past that people may have forgotten about. This is not something that trump worked on in the 90s and it fell apart. This was what he was working on during the campaign after he announced that he was running for president , months into his president ial campaign when he was fullon running for president , he was trying to do this deal with the russian government in moscow. Quoting from carols story in the Washington Post, trump posted numerous supportive comments about putin on the campaign trail setting himself apart from his republican rivals for the nomination. Remember when trump warned that a few weeks ago in an interview with the New York Times that if Robert Mueller wanted to go looking into any of his business dealings that would be crossing a red line because clearly none of those personal financial interests or business dealings had anything to do with russia, that would be crossing a red line . Well now we know that his business, the Trump Organization had everything to do with russia, even during the campaign. And we probably should have seen this coming. Back in may we should have seen this coming when Donald Trumps lawyers started hiring their own lawyers. Michael koen has been Donald Trumps lawyer, his personal lawyer at times, a Trump Organization executive and lawyer. When trump started flirting with and running for president in the last election cycle. He is trumps lawyer and he did hire his own lawyer this spring. He then confirmed the committees investigating the trumprussia affair asked him to give testimony and hand over documents to those committees. Michael cohens response was no, i wont. The committee subpoenaed him to testify and hand over documents. He is due as far as we know, to testify next week, in front of the House Intelligence Committee. But apparently today he handed over document to the House Intelligence Committee and some of those documents and a long statement about them found their way to certain reporters and publications upon the handover of these document to congress. And just to reads between the lines a little bit, it does not appear that what happened here is Michael Cohen handed stuff over to congress and Congress Leaked it. Im not speaking from direct knowledge here. Im speaking in terms of reading between the lines. The way that this is phrased and described in the reporting tonight is that Michael Cohen handed this stuff over to the House Intelligence Committee and in so doing gave some of it to reporters and a statement about it to reporters. To put the best possible spin on that information himself before investigators themselves can start chewing on it and putting it out in their own terms. And in this case the best possible spin is still pretty bad. The bottom line is that while trump was insisting publicly that he had no deals with russia and while he was questioned repeatedly about why he was being so bent over backwards positive about Vladimir Putin and russia throughout the campaign, he never thought to mention and apparently nobody in the Trump Organization or the Trump Campaign thought to mention that during the president ial campaign for five months of the president ial campaign the Trump Organization was aggressively pursuing the building of a gigantic real estate project in moscow that the russian government agreed to finance. An intent to proceed with the project october 2015. Michael cohen spoke with trump three times directly about the project. Michael cohen also wrote directly to the kremlin, last january. He wrote to Vladimir Putins spokesman to ask for direct kremlin help to restart discussions about the building project which by then he said was stalled. The other Trump Organization figure involved in these negotiations is someone weve talked about before named felix sater. He is a russianborn excon who was convicted of a 40 million mafiaconnected pump and dump stock scheme. In 2015 trump in a sworn deposition professed to not be able to recognize felix sater if he had been sitting in that room that day. Its a little hard to believe felix seder had been associated with the Trump Organization for years. Carried a trump Business Card that described himself as Senior Adviser to donald trump even after trump said he wouldnt recognize him if he were in the room. He said that in 2013. By 2015 apparently felix sater was recognizable again because he was working with Michael Cohen to make the trumpmoscow thing happen and trump was signing off on the letter of intent to move forward with it. Michael cohen i think has to testify to house intel next week. He definitely seems to have handed over documents to house intel today. His strategy in so doing is to try to spin what hes handed over in the best possible way. It still looks very bad. It also appears to try to play down the importance of felix sater and his involvement in this project especially saters comments in the emails that have been handed over to congress now and to some reporters in which felix sater brags that theres something about this real estate deal in moscow that in the end will result in donald trump becoming president of the United States. Quote, our boy can become president of the usa and we can engineer it. I will get all of putins team to buy in on this. I will manage this process. Felix sater wrote this to Michael Cohen. Michael, arranged for ivanka to sit in Vladimir Putins chair at the kremlin. I know how to play it. We will get this done. Michael cohens strategy in releasing these documents to the press ahead of him giving them to congress involves him playing down whether or not felix sater would could have been serious about that. He said, quote, over the course of my business dealings with mr. Sater, he has sometimes used colorful language and been prone to salesmanship. That said, when the times today went to check out felix saters boast that he was so connected he could arrange for ivanka trump to sit in putins private chair at his desk in his office at the kremlin. When the New York Times checked out that boast today, the response from team ivanka was not exactly on brand. Ivanka trump told the times she did in fact take a brief tour of red square and the kremlin when she was in moscow with felix sater, but she insists she was only there, quote, as a tourist. I have to say, though, it does not seem she had a totally typical tourist experience, because, quote, she said it is possible she sat in mr. Putins chair. But maybe thats just a coincidence or dont all tourist visitors to the kremlin get to sit in putins chair . Alfa bank, veb bank, sberbank and vtb bank the russian government agreeing to finance to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a trump tower moscow project that no one ever admitted to prior to today that was happening during the campaign. Probably just a coincidence. A lot going on today. Lots happening in the news. Carol joins us next. Stay with us. Four seconds on th, down by one. Championship on the line. Erin the sharpshooter shanahan fakes left. Shes outside of the key, she shoots. She scores uh. Yes, erin, it is great time to score a deal. We need to make room for the 2018 models. Relive the thrill of beating the clock. The volkswagen model year end event. Hurry in for a 1,500 in available bonuses and 0 apr for 60 months on a new 2017 jetta or passat. Music Edible Arrangements for summer. Order in store or online. If youve got a life, you gotta swiffer i knew at that exact moment. Im beating this. My main focus was to find a team of doctors. Its not just picking a surgeon, its picking the care team and feeling secure in where you are. Visit cancercenter. Com breast trumprussia investigation is sort of built on three ideas, three questions. One is u. S. Intelligence agencies saying the russian government interfered in the president ial election to try to help trump win. Two, there are allegations about whether the Trump Campaign colluded with or helped the russians conduct that meddling during the election. And three, there are questions about the absolute denials from our now president that he has anything to do with russia beyond that one beauty pageant he held there. The reason while his dealings with russia and his statements about his dealings with russia are of investigative interest is because investigator need to figure out if there is some way in which he is compromised when it comes to russia. What that means is investigators need to figure out if russia holds something over him. Do they know something, do they have documentation of something that hes done that he would not like them to reveal to the public . Right . Thats the essence of being compromised. Being beholden, being in a position where for some secret reason you feel the need to ingratiate yourself to a foreign power or at least to not say no when they come calling. It boils down to this stuff. Russia interfered in the application to help trump win, proven. The Trump Campaign is alleged to have helped in that effort being investigated. And our now president says hes had nothing to do with russia, nothing. Thats why this is a heck of a bombshell. Top trump executive organization asked putin aide for help business deal. Top executive from trumps Real Estate Company emailed Vladimir Putins personal spokesman during the president ial Campaign Last year to ask for help advancing a stalled trump Tower Development project in moscow. That is submitted today by a trump executive who has been trumps personal lawyer and who served as trumps political adviser for the start of his campaign. While he was having trump sign a letter of intent to go forward with trump tower moscow to be financed by a russiagovernment run bank. Nobody thought to mention this before now. Joining us now is carol lenning, reporter for the Washington Post. Thank you for being here. Its great to be here, rachel. Congratulations on the scoop. You broke this story yesterday about the Trump Organization trying to build a trump tower in moscow early in the campaign. What you report in this story and what the president said about his dealings with russia seem to me to be very much at odds. Do you feel like what youve been able to report really contradict the way the president has characterized his own dealings in russia . I dont think it catches him in a horrid absolute lie. I think what it shows is that he hasnt really been forthright about just how eager he was while a president ial candidate to let his at least Trump Organization and his executive Vice President pursue a very potentially lucrative deal in moscow. There are debates about how valuable it would be to him. But i think that theres something bigger behind what weve learned in the story that we broke on sunday night and the news story that we broke this afternoon. I think theres something much bigger in the fabric here and you kind of only learn it as each piece comes. But the bigger thing is while Donald Trumps sort of third son, Michael Cohen, a long time friend, ally, not his son by birth but while this person is working, negotiating a deal in moscow to develop and license moscow trump tower, a russianborn friend of his is saying, hey, if we make this deal the president can get elected. Its going to make him look like such a great incredible negotiator. And hey, im connected in russia and i can get Vladimir Putin to start saying nice things about this, you know, kind of distant horse gop hopeful. Then we learn in our more recent story that at the same time, Michael Cohen, this longtime ally of Donald Trumps is reaching out to extremely highranking friend of Vladimir Putins and saying id like your help. Were stalled. We would like to get this deal done, nudge nudge wink wink we know how it works in russia. You need to go to putin. And says wed like your help. So thats a pretty dramatically different thing than what the president has said which is i have zero interest in russia, i have zero deals. Ive got nothing going on there. When felix sater connects this deal to trumps chances at becoming president , is it clear the why he sees those two things as connected . You just mention head said, wow, this will really make him look like a great negotiator. Im not sure i get his argument or the credibility of his argument in terms of why he thought these things were connected. Its very provocative to see somebody saying were doing this deal and it will result in trump becoming president. Were doing a financial deal and it will result in his winning the election. But i dont get why he was connecting the two ideas. It could have been incredible braggadocio commentary or it could have been somebody doing something a little bit different. But remember at this time Vladimir Putin is pretty angry with the u. S. He views himself on a bit of a Revenge Mission and he also wants to look like he has some sort of detente. It appears that he thinks he can create a nonadversarial relationship with donald trump. A kind of iconoclastic relationship. And felix sater, again, this russianborn broker long connected with donald trump and has introduced him since 2013 to fairly significant russian money men, this guy is saying look, this is good for putin and this is good for you, donald. Hes telling this to Michael Cohen. You will look like you have negotiated with one of americas toughest adversaries. It happens that that would also be beneficial to Vladimir Putin. He would look like he had sort of a detente, a happy relationship with the u. S. It is a bizarre reading of how it would have been greeted had that deal gone through. Thats the in terms of just understanding how the news works and how people were treating trump once we started learning about russian bids to get involved in the election. This is such a puzzle here that the fabric is absolutely stunning. And i have a feeling theres a lot this feels like the start of a lot of reporting in terms of us getting to understand this part of the campaign. Carol lenning, appreciate your time tonight. Congratulations again on this scoop. Thanks, rachel. The. The city of houston today has been making hard choices on how to imagine the epic flooding thats inundated the american city. Weve got an expert to ask about this stuff. That story is ahead. Plus the little bit of news were going to break on the russia dossier. Thats all ahead. Stay with us. Each year sarah climbs 58,007 steps. Thats the height of mount everest. Because each day she chooses to take the stairs. At work, at home. Even on the escalator. That can be hard on her lower body, so now she does it with dr. Scholls orthotics. 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Today with this huge, huge storm they tried one of their more desperate measures. There are two big dams on the west side of houston that hold back reservoirs, reservoirs that are designed, basically to keep water upstream from houston proper, to keep water from rushing into what are now the already flooded bayous in downtown houston. This is how the reservoirs looked before the storm. After the storm the water had begun rising high enough and fast enough that officials feared the dams themselves would be overcome. To save the dams to keep holding back the gigantic quantities of water held in those reservoirs, they opened the spillways enough to let some of the water out of those reservoirs. In so doing they flooded the neighborhoods in the path of that water that they had to let out then they dont do it gratuitously. They did it as a way to save the dams, to save more people. Its a difficult choice that no mayor, no engineer ever wants to have to make. Might have been the best choice they had today in houston, though. How do you manage a catastrophe like this when it is not only underway it is not ending any time soon. What are houstons options right now in responding to continuing flooding . Were going to be joined next by somebody whose job it is to grapple with these exact questions. Stay with us. I no longer live with the uncertainties of hep c. Wondering, what if . I let go of all those feelings. Because i am cured with harvoni. Harvoni is a revolutionary treatment for the most common type of chronic hepatitis c. Its been prescribed to more than a quarter million people. And is proven to cure up to 99 of patients who have had no prior treatment with 12 weeks. Certain patients can be cured with just 8 weeks of harvoni. Before starting harvoni, your doctor will test to see if youve ever had hepatitis b, which may flare up and cause serious liver problems during and after harvoni treatment. 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Boo 83 try to eat healthy, yet up to 90 fall short on getting key nutrients. Lets do more. Oneaday 50 plus. Complete with 100 daily value of more than 15 key nutrients. Oneaday 50 plus. Rositas family was rescued by boat this afternoon. The house is flooding and its rising way too fast. They live west of houston where in an unprecedented move the army corps of engineers is doing controlled releases from two reservoirs before the storm even moves away. Its an effort to reduce the risk of destructive flooding and lessen the chance of dams bursting. We were fine until they started releasing the reservoirs. Everything started happening really fast this morning. You werent flooded before then . Not yet, no. The waters were rising but we werent flooded. I understand they have to do what they have to do to save houston but that accelerated the process. They have to do what they have to do to save houston. That was reporting on nbc nightly news about a family directly affected bring the controlled release of the reservoirs today. Even on day four of this disaster in houston, people who are not flooded yet may yet find theyre flooded tomorrow or the next day as the effects of the storm continue to crescendo and as officials make hard decisions. Joining us now is jim blackburn. Codirector of the speed center. It was established ten years ago to address severe storms and their impact on the gulf coast area. Professor blackburn thank you for joining us tonight. Im glad you were able to join us. Thank you. Today the army corps of engineers decided to open up the spillways west of houston, west of the downtown. As far as i understand its basically a way to save the dam to preserve the integrity of the reservoirs, to save a greater amount of people. The short term result is that some neighborhoods face new or worsened flooding. Youve studied these things. What do you make of that decision they made today . That decision is based on these dams being evaluated as two of the six most dangerous in the United States by the corps. Thats both in terms of risk of failure and the population affected downsteam. Weve never seen this much rain before and they made i think the prudent decision, although very difficult decision to go ahead and begin to release water while also filling up the reservoir. But i dont think the reservoirs are intended to be used at full capacity which is a tragedy because we need every ounce of Flood Control that weve got . In terms of the Flood Control options that local officials have, what kind of tools do they have at their disposal . What kind of decisions are they going to be making today, tonight, tomorrow as the storm continues to play out . I think weve really got some of the most difficult decisions id say these are decisions that frankly will be facing every coastal city in the future. Weve never seen a rain like this. On the other hand, theres a lot of options that houston has never really seriously considered before. Weve always approached flooding from the standpoint of quote unquote, controlling it, primarily with engineering solutions. And there are a lot of nonstructural alternatives. Were going to have to pull out a whole new bag of approaches that require creativity and that require you know really trying to come up with new and different ways of solving these problems. We cannot solve these problems by thinking the way that weve been thinking. Weve got to come up with better, new ideas. Given not only the size of houston but its critical location, things like the Houston Ship Channel and the Oil Refineries there and all of the infrastructure there, some of which can be dangerous to human beings and other forms of life when it is put in danger. Given what houston is and whats at risk here, whats been in the way of houston coming up with better decision to deal with flooding . It is striking that a city with that much chemical and Oil Infrastructure is also the most flooded locality in the United States. Well i think first of all, its sometimes difficult to get the officials to really envision the magnitude of storms that we actually are foreseeing. Weve foreseen, for example, something that didnt happen in this storm, which would be a hurricane with a large surge, perhaps 20 to 25 feet come in and hitting the Houston Ship Channel. Ive had several people tell me thats unrealistic. If we had modelled and presented the scenario that is unfolding, we would have been accused of coming up with unrealistic future scenarios. So i think one thing is trying to get people to really be openminded about what the risks are. Because i think were really at a time of unprecedented risk with the heat, the gulf of mexico is extremely warm, among the warmest if not the warmest of the oceans of the world and it is a virtual heat pump into a hurricane. And that is a huge source of power for these storms. Professor blackburn, i read in propublica, that since 1989, what they call a 100year storm, a storm thats only supposed to happen once in 100 years, since 1989 thats happened six times in houston. Are you saying this isnt just a houston issue, this is a Climate Change issue in terms of how we anticipate the magnitude of storms and flooding . Its the type of things that theyve been predicting in the sense that our normal distribution of storms is changing and will be skewing to more severe events. That is i think exactly what were seeing. Weve seen two 500year storms in the last two years in certain parts of town. And i have no idea what this storm is going to evaluate as but certainly way beyond a hundredyear storm. I think the term hundredyear rainfall is virtually meaningless today. And the federal Emergency Management agency is the ones who come up with the storm evals. And i think this affecting everybody in the United States. I think houston has a chance to be a trend setter for the country in figuring out how to cope and deal with these kind of new unprecedented storm events. But its going to take every bit of creativity that we have. Jim blackburn, co director of the speed center at Rice University in houston. Thank you for helping us understand this. This is very sobering coming from you. Really appreciate your taking the time, rachel. Thank you. All right. Weve got more ahead tonight. Stay with us. Music Edible Arrangements for summer. Order in store or online. Find fast relief behind the counter with claritind. 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But at the height of fridays hurricanethemed news dump, we learned that President Trump was granting a pardon to former arizona sheriff joe arpaio. That was friday. By late saturday morning, new reporting opened up a whole new question about that for the white house. The Washington Post cited three sources in reporting on saturday that last spring, months before sheriff arpaios case even went to trial, the president looked into quashing the arpaio prosecution altogether. He, quote, asked attorney general Jeff Sessions whether it would be possible for the government to drop the criminal case against arpaio, but the president was advised that would be inappropriate. A short time later, the New York Times published its version of the story citing four sources, reporting that the president brought up the possibility of quashing the arpaio prosecution not just with attorney general Jeff Sessions but also with the white House Counsel. Okay. Heres my question. If the president asked the a. G. And the white House Counsel if they could maybe drop the arpaio prosecution somehow, is that potentially a legal problem for the president . Wheres the line between, hey, im just asking for a friend and obstructing justice . We got some expert advice on that today. Former u. S. Attorney barbara mcquade. Shes an msnbc contributor. Youve seen her here on our show numerous times. Tonight she tells us that this could be a separate count of obstruction of justice against the president if the president tried to interfere with the prosecution thats being investigated in terms of the comey firing. Conceivably that could be investigated or pursued in this case. She also told us this, quote, if sessions or anybody else explained to trump that it is inappropriate to interfere with a criminal investigation before trump attempted to do so with former fbi director james comey, that could help establish that trump understood that what he was doing in firing james comey was illegal. Ah, so in other words, this might get rid of his ignorance defense. If the president was told explicitly that hes really not allowed to interfere in a criminal investigation of joe arpaio, then he was in a position to know explicitly that he shouldnt interfere in the fbi investigation of Michael Flynn by pressuring james comey about that. So thats what we heard from former federal prosecutor barbara mcquade. We also asked bob bauer today, former white House Counsel under president obama. He cited the unusual nature of the arpaio pardon coming before sheriff arpaio was even sentenced. He told us, quote, should the president ever face impeachment on obstruction related grounds, this will color the case against him because its a pardon that does not meet the standards for granting one in the normal course of events. So, again, asking about the arpaio pardon could be trouble for the president. We also heard from a former top official in the justice department, walter dellinger, who led the office of Legal Counsel under president clinton. Walter dellinger told us, quote, no president should be interfering in a criminal prosecution on behalf of friends or supporters. It fundamentally violates equal justice under law. Blunt from walter dellinger. So obviously a pardon is a president ial prerogative, but can a president try to quash a prosecution . Is that legal . It turns out its a good question. So stay tuned on that. We also have some exclusive new reporting tonight on the dossier of alleged russian dirt on President Trump and the ten hours of testimony by a key player in the production of that dossier. Weve got that story next. Stay with us. My sweethearts gone sayonara. This scarf all thats left to rememb. What. She washed this like a month ago hows a guy supposed to move on . the long lasting scent of gain. 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Get 0 apr financing for 63 months on all new 2017 Subaru Outback models. Now through august 31. Last week, the head of the Senate Judiciary committee, chuck grassley, got asked by a very persistent, very bright constituent at an iowa town hall. The question that he faced was about the controversial dossier that first detailed collusion between the Trump Campaign and russia. The head of the company that commissioned that dossier, the cofounder of fusion gps, glen simpson, he spent ten hours giving a transcribed interview to Judiciary Committee staffers recently, all about the dossier. Ten hours of testimony. Afterward, glen simpson said he stands by the dossier. He also said, quote, the committee can release the transcript if it so chooses. The transcript of ten hours of his testimony on the dossier. At that town hall in iowa, senator grassley told his persistent constituent that he was open to releasing that transcript of those ten hours of testimony if his committee voted to do that. Heres what we can report tonight. Judiciary has 11 republicans and nine democrats. We think all nine democrats would likely vote to release that transcript. We reached out to all of them as well as the republicans on the committee. One of the republicans who isnt the chairman, senator orrin hatch of utah, tells us now that he would vote to release that transcript. Quoting from a statement that his office gave us, quote, the senator, like chairman grassley, believes we should make as much public as possible and as soon as we can. Barring additional and unexpected developments, he would vote in favor. So says orrin hatchs office. Thats interesting. It means if one more republican votes to release that transcript, that would mean those ten hours of testimony about the dossier by the guy who commissioned it, who stands by the dossier absolutely, those ten hours of testimony may soon see the light of day, which would really be something. Watch this space. This does it for us tonight. We will see you again tomorrow. Now its time for the last word with lawrence odonnell. Good evening, rachel. Let me add one sort of senatorial courtesy point to what you just said, which i think makes it a pretty certain proposition that youre going to see those transcripts. Orrin hatch is the senior most republican serving in the senate. Hes been there for 40 years. Serving republican senator in history, and he believes in senate traditions, protocols, courtesies. He would never have said that without checking with chairman chuck grassley. So you think that hatch saying that and saying it the way he did means that both hatch and grassley would vote to release the transcript . Well, what it absolutely means is grassley has no problem with orrin hatch saying that. It doesnt necessarily mean that grassley is going to join him, but it probably means there are others who will come along. Also orrin hatch used to be the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Right. Chuck grassley has complete respect for orrin hatch in this matter and, and hatch would never, never do something that