Rachel a block every day. 60second digest at the top during the throw. You come into my office at any time. If you hide under my desk for any 15second period of time, i mumble enough to get most of it out. Thank, my friend. Have a great weekend. Thanks to you at home for joining us. This is one of those fridays. In is a triple whammy but different types of news were watching tonight. For example, were still getting in new reporting tonight about the mass shooting that took place today in aurora, illinois. What we know now is at least five people dead. Multiple others injured from this mass shooting that took place at manufacturing plant in auro aurora, illinois. Initial reports from major Mass Shootings are often later revised in our understanding of whatcaveat, preliminary reports make it seem like a single shooter, 45yearold man. He was ultimately killed by police. Authorities tell us of the people shot and injured in this mass shooting, at least five were Police Officers themselves. So again, that means we think were talking about five injured Police Officers, five nonPolice Officers, five civilians killed and the shooter himself killed on top of that. So were watching that story as it continues to develop. Well let you know more as we learn more. Today started of course with the president declaring a National Emergency to try to give himself a sort of legal way to take money, mostly from the military to build a wall between us and mexico despite the fact that congress will not appropriate the money that the president wants for that purpose. Immediately upon declaring this emergency today, the president in what appeared to be a littled a lib blurted out i didnt need to do this. I kid you not, thats an exact quote. I didnt need to do this. Thats not the right thing to say to convey the idea that you really did have to do this because this is supposedly an emergency forcing your hand. Almost immediately after he said i didnt need to do this, the president then went onto the rest of his president ial day, which cuwas getting on plane an flying to florida to, i think, go play golf for the whole weekend, which is fine. Nothing against golf but again, not on message when youre supposed to be proclaiming a stop, drop and roll everybody freak out crisis moment for the country. If its an emergency, is it okay that youre going to go golfing for the rest of the day . Shouldnt you be handling the emergency or is the emergency actually Something Like you said you didnt need to proclaim . Suffice to say there is a Near National consensus that the emergency the president proclaimed today does not exist in reality. Protesters outside of the one of the Trump Properties in new york city tonight proclaim they believe however there is an emergency. Their chant tonight was trump is the emergency. Trump is the emergency. Well have more on that later on in the show tonight. But in the front row of the National Emergency announcement today for what it was worth, there was a new face, one were going to see a lot of. Today was the first full day on the job for the new attorney general william bar confirmed by the senate yet. Upon him being sworn in last night in the oval office, the husband of a Top White House staffer posted this comment online. Quote, tomorrow will be the first day that the president will have a fully operational confirmed attorney general. Let that sink in. Mueller will be gone soon. I dont know what it means to be a fully operational attorney general. But since that comment is coming from a person who is married to a senior white house staffer, that serves as some evidence of what the white house may be expecting from bill barr now that he is taking over at the Justice Department. And it may be so, maybe that bill bar started. There was this dramatic ruling in a federal judge in dc. Declared that manafort did breach his agreement and lied about important thing master yell to their investigation including the extent of his contacts with someone who prosecutors say is linked to russian intelligence. So that ruling happened a couple days ago this week. After that ruling this week prosecutors and the special counsels office moved quickly to start the process of manafort getting sentenced for his crimes. Manafort is facing sentencing both in the Eastern District of virginia, which is where he had a trial, where he was convicted of eight felonies and also facing sentencing in washington d. C. Thats the court where he pled guilty to two felonies and started what was supposed to be his deal with prosecutors. Which he blew up by lying to them. Well, tonight, we just received the recommendation from muellers office as to how much time they think manafort should spend in prison based just on the eight felony counts for which he was convicted in virginia. Separate and apart from whatever he might get in d. C. Muellers proos c prosecutors recommend the chairman spend between 19. 5 years and 24. 5 years in prison. Again, just for the felonies for which he was convicted in virginia. Separate and apart from what hes going to get in d. C. For a man about to turn 70, that means prosecutors are recommending what is in effect a natural life sentence for Paul Manafort. You will recall that there is no parole in the federal prison system. So 19 to 24 years. Were going to get to that manafort situation in a little more detail in a second. But the sentencing recommendation from prosecutors not only spells out what theyre hoping to get from the judge in terms of manaforts sentence and what is worth taking a closer look at tonight is that they also in making this case to the judge, they summarize what they believe to have been manaforts crimes and their seriousness and whether or not hes done other things on top of those crimes that means he should have more of the book thrown at him. Its worth looking that the in detail and well get there in a moment. Before we do that, though, we shouldnt let the sort of magnitude of what just happened with the president s Campaign Chair, we shouldnt let that push aside a couple of other really important things that happened today before we got the manafort sentencie ing memo. There are a couple things that got ripe and when it comes to two other cases that derive from muellers investigation. The first one is about roger stone. President trumps longtime advisor arrested at his home in florida three weeks ago today. Mr. Stone has pled not guilty to seven felony charges. He says he wants to go to trial. He says he is innocent of everything he has been charged with. But one of the interesting things about roger stones indictment right from getgo is on the front page of the indictment, prosecutors notified the court they considered his case to have a sibling. They considered his case to be formally legally related to this other case that has this case number that you can see here. 18 cr 21cr 215. That case at the mueller indictment of 18 russian Intelligence Officers. Thats one of the core indictments of muellers investigation is the indictment from last year. In that indictment, mueller charged Russian Military Intelligence Officers with quote, conspireing to hack into the computers of u. S. Persons and entities involved in the 2016 u. S. President ial election to steal documents from those computers and to stage releases of the stolen documents to interfere with the 2016 president ial election. Thats how muellers prosecutors have nutted up that indictment. Thats what those gru officers were charged with. Roger stone and his attorneys had objected to the roger stone case being formally legally linked to the gru case. They had complained about it formally to the court. And why do they care . Well, one of the material consequences of having your case legally linked to another case is that all legally formally related cases all get heard by the same judge so when roger stone and his lawyers started complaining to the court that his case shouldnt have been described as related to the gru indictment, what they were really saying is they they didnt want roger stones case to be heard by the same judge who is dealing with the gru case. It was effectively arguing he wanted to be assigned to a different judge. Roger stone and his lawyers today failed in that effort, that same judge is keeping his case. That ruling from the judge came very quickly today after Robert Mueller and the dcu u. S. Attorneys office filed a response with the court laying out why in fact the roger stone case and the gru case are all about the same thing. And in the course of making that argument to the court, we learned from the special counsels office today that some of the gru defendants, some of these Russian Military Intelligence Officers that have been charged with mueller by interfering in the election, some of the defendants according to prosecutors quote interacted concerning stolen materials posted online. They explain how they ended up with evidence against roger stone when they seized material on the case. Quote, as alleged on the gru indictment, in 2016 they stole documents from the dnc, the democratic party, Congressional Campaign committee and from the Clinton Campaign chair. Those defendants then released many of the stolen documents including through a website maintained by wikileaks. In the course of investigating that activity, the government obtained an executed dozens of search warrants on various accounts used to facilitate stolen documents for release and discuss the timing and promotion of their release. Several of those search warrants were executed on accounts that contained roger stones communications. His communications with a if i can guccifero 2. 0 and the gru defendants hacked and stole documents for release through intermediaries including wikileaks and that stone lied to a Congressional Committee investigating among other things the activities of wikileaks regarding stolen documents. The same search warrant turned up the evidence that led to the charges against these Russian Military Intelligence Officers that they hacked and stole documents for release during the campaign and used wikileaks as part of the Distribution Channel for doing that. The same search warrant also turned up the information that led to stone being charged for lying to congress about their investigation of among other things wikileaks. So thats muellers prosecutors today telling a judge in washington d. C. They have the communications between stone and Russian Military intelligence and communication between roger stone and wikileaks concerning the stolen democratic documents that the russian hacked and staged for distribution during the campaign in a way that was designed to cause maximum damage to Hillary Clinton and maximum benefit to donald trump. Upon getting that argument and those decolorationk cloolor k decoloration,s they turned up from searches, the judge promptly ruled against roger stone. No, she is not giving up that case. She will be hearing that case. Because it is related to the gru case. These are related matters. That happened today. And then soon thereafter a curve Ball Development in the criminal case that derives from the Mueller Investigation that concerns President Trumps longtime Attorney Michael Cohen. Cohen is about to start a federal prison sentence early next month for multiple felony charges including two Campaign Finance felonies, going to prison for three years. The finance felonies concern about a quarter million in hush money that was paid to two different women ahead of the 2016 election to prevent those women from going public about allegations they had extra march til affai Marital Affairs with donald trump. All the things trump is inch kat implicated in, the hush money to the ladies thingimplicated in, o the ladies thing , of everything, that doesnt seem like what should follow him home every night looking like a grim reaper but think about everything that that alleged crime, well that confessed crime when it comes to Michael Cohen, think about the things that have fallen apart and that are in jeopardy because of that one pair of felonies. Its longtime personal Attorney Michael Cohen is going to prison for that and he has effectively flipped against the president and become a cooperating witness for the special counsels office on the way to that prison sentence and as part of that prosecution of that case when it came to Michael Cohen, prosecutors identified the president as individual one, as the person who not only benefitted from those Campaign Finance felonies but who directed that those felonies committed. They touch on the president s campaign since the president s campaign was the beneficiary. It also touches on a Company Called a. M. I. Supermarket tabloid. They were involved in the commission of one of those felonies. That firm and its executives are being looked at for having potentially violated the Cooperation Agreement they entered into with prosecutors to avoid being prosecuted themselves for their role in one of those felonies. Ami agreed as part of the nonprosecution agreement they would commit no other crimes for at least three years. Prosecutors are now reportedly looking at whether in fact ami has committed other crimes since entering into that agreement. If so, that nonprosecution agreement with ami is blown up and that company and its executives may be liable not just for their confessed role in that Campaign Finance felony that is sending Michael Cohen to prison but for anything else they disclose to prosecutors over the course of their cooperation, as well. That same crime however small it may seem, it also implicates the president s business, the Trump Organization since the Trump Organization appears to be the entity through whichwere effectively laundered. The chief Financial Officer has been coop ratin cooperating to and may have secured an immunity deal in relation to the cooperation and on top of that still deriving from the same felonies, now, tonight, congressman Elijah Cummings, the chairman of the House Oversight come h committee in the house published these 19 pages of notes. Some of them are typed. A lot of them are redacted. Some are hand scrolled and hard to believe. These are notes from the Office Government of ethics. Congressman coreleased these nos and a letter to the Trump Organization letter and another letter hes sent to the new white house counsel. Those letters demand information related to the hush money payments and those letters make the explosive allegation that its not just Michael Cohen that two additional trump lawyers, one who worked in the white house and another lawyer who represents trump in a personal capacity, she was actually the one that orchestrated that stunt during the transition where trump sat there by the big piles of papers and supposedly handed over control of his business to his son. The lawyer that orchestrated that and another lawyer that worked in the white house according to Elijah Cummings tonight they may themselves be in trouble for making false statements about those hush money payments. Quote, new documents obtained by the committee from the office of government ethics described false information provided by the lawyers representing President Trump including sherry dillon, President Trumps personal attorney and Steven Passantino who left the white house to represent the Trump Organization. President trumps former Attorney Michael Cohen is now going to prison in part for his role in these hush money payments. During the guilty plea, mr. Cohen said he did this in coordination with and at the direction of the president for the principle purpose of influencing the election. Congressman comings tonig cummi, it appears the other attorneys may have provided false information about these payments to federal officials. This raises significant questions about why some of the president s closest advisors made these false claims and the extent to which, they, too were acting at the direction of or in coordination with the president. One of the president s lawyers is already going to prison for his role in covering up those hush money payments. Now here is a couple more. Elijah cummings says are potentially on the hook related to the payments, as well. And not just the payments in that case but the coverup of the payments. So the cohen prosecution on the hush money payments, cohen being pr prosecuted for those Campaign Finance felonies and naming the president as the person who directed him to commit the felonies is dramatic enough on its own terms but that case is turning out to be a legal nightmare for lots of other individuals and entities that surround the president from his business life, from his political life before he got elected and even now from his life as president. This is all today. [ laughter ] dramatic developments today on the roger stone case, Michael Cohen case and related cases. But as i mentioned, the really big one tonight is what just happened at the president s Campaign Chair, to Paul Manafort with prosecutors telling one of the two federal judges who is due to sentence him soon that they want a 19 to 24year prison term for him plus potentially tens of millions of dollars in fines and restitution. The implications of this are not just bad for Paul Manafort in some cases, they are revolutionary and that story is next. Stay with us. Lutionary and that next stay with us of how your skin feels. So, when the world expects you to follow the rules, write your own. Because no one gets an opinion on how you live your life, why you shave, or how you show your skin. My skin. My way. To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best to make you everybody else. Means to fight the hardest battle, which any human being can fight and never stop. Does this sound dismal . It isnt. Its the most wonderful life on earth. I cant tell you anything about myself. Wonderful life on earth. But believe me. Im not your average consumer. Thats why i switched to Liberty Mutual. They customized my Car Insurance, so i only pay for what i need. And as a man. Uh. Or a woman. With very specific needs that i cant tell you about say cheese. Mr. Landry . Oh no. Hi mr. Landry Liberty Mutual customizes your Car Insurance so you only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. As the new attorney general william barr started his job leaving the husband of one senior white house staffer to proclaim william barr starting as ag says william will be gone. As william barr took the reigns for his first day today, this is what prosecutors in Robert Muellers office told a federal judge tonight who is starting the sentencing process for President Trumps Campaign Chairman Paul J Manafort. This is what they told the judge. The United States of america by and threw special counsel robert s. Mueller files this submission to address the sentencing of Paul J Manafort junior. As an initial matter, the government agrees with the guidelines and presentence investigation report. And its calculations of the total Offense Level as 38. With a corresponding range of imprisonment of 235 to 293 months. Thats 19. 5 years to 24. 5 years in prison. A fine range of 50,000 to 24. 4 million. Restitution in the amount of 24. 8 million. And forfeit. And tax fraud, bank fraud and failing to file a bank account report and manafort was a direct beneficiary of each offense and while some of these offenses are commonly prosecuted, there was nothing ordinary about the millions of dollars involved in the defendants crime, the duration of the criminal conduct or sophistication of his schemes. Footnote one, footnote one reads quote, manafort was being investigated prior to the may 2017 appointment of the special counsel by prosecutors in this district, meaning in the Eastern District of virginia and by prosecutors in the Criminal Division of the department of justice. Oh, they were already pursuing manafort before mueller was ever appointed. Quote, manafort committed those crimes over an ex end theed pte of time and his decisions were not momentarily, they were retune and the repeated misinterpretations were brazen when he was the subject of Significant National attention. Neither the Probation Department or government was aware of any mitigating factors. Manafort did not commit these crimes out of necessity or hardship. He was well educated and professionally successful and well off. He nonetheless cheated the treasury and public out of more than 6 million of taxes. Manafort committed bank fraud to supplement liquidity because lavish standing exhausted his cash resources when his overseas income dwindled. Finally, manafort pled guilty in 2018 for the district of colombia to other crimes committed over an even longer period. The government references those crimes below because they demonstrate the defendants concerted criminality. Including the conduct to which he pled guilty to the early as 2005 and continuing in an obstruction of justice conspiracy between february and april of 2018. A crime manafort committed while under indictment in two jus dictions and bail convictions, conditions, excuse me. Quote, in the end, manafort acted for more than a decade as if he were above the law and deprived the federal government and various Financial Institutions of millions of dollars. The sentence here should reflect the seriousness of these crimes and serve to both detour manafort and others in engaging in such conduct. Oh. No mitigating factors. In addition to there being no mitigating factors, prosecutors tell the judge manafort deserves an enhancement of the sentence because he was effectively the leader of other people in committing this criminal scheme, quote, man afort controlled the issue and he claimed a larger share of the proceeds. Further, manafort was plainly the leader involved numerous individuals both knowing and pa game and manaforts tax preparers and bookkeepers and others in cypress involved in originating and maintaining the defendants overseas accounts. In the factors set forth, the leadership enhancement is warranted, which means there is something that gets referred to as the leadership enhancement that makes the sentence worse. They say he should get that and prosecutors say he deserves another sentence enhancement for using sophisticated means to commit crimes. On page 19 of the submission, prosecutors say manafort should be given zero credit in his sentencing for accepting responsibility for his crimes. They say he should get no credit for that in part because he didnt plead guilty to anything in the virginia case and part because he breached his Cooperation Agreement in the d. C. Case and lied to prosecutors after he did plead guilty there. They say he also shouldnt get that in part because even now he still isnt handing over the financial materials hes supposed to hand over as part of the sentencing process. Here is the big windup. Quote, manaforts history and characteristics are aggravating factors. Manafort had every opportunity to succeed. Hes well educated and a member of the Legal Profession attending georgetown university. He was a successful political consultant both in the United States and abroad. There they footnote rick gates talking about how brilliant manafort was at his job. Quote, manaforts age does not eliminate the risk he poses given his pattern occurred over more than a decade and that the most recent crimes he pled guilty to occurred from february to april of last year. When he conspired to tamper with witnesses at a time when he was under indictment in two separate districts, further, as judge jackson in d. C. Found, manaforts misconduct continued as recently as october 2018 when he intentionally lied to the government during proffer sessions and during the grand jury. He repeatedly violated the law considering only the crimes charged in this district, they make plain that manafort chose to gauge in a scheme to hide millions of dollars from u. S. Authorities and when foreign income stream disappoisipated i5 he chose to engage in bank frauds in the u. S. To maintain his lifestyle at the extension of various Financial Institutions. Manafort chose to do this for no other reason than greed. Evidencing his belief that the law doesnt apply to him. Manafort solicited numerous professionals to reap his ill gotten gains. The sentence in this case must take into the account the gloveglove gravity of this contact and detour manafort and those who would commit similar crimes. Thats signed on behalf of the special counsels office. They are recommending 19. 5 years to 24. 5 years in prison and fines and restitution of up ts. This is just the filing from the prosecutors. Well expect quickly to see a filing from manaforts defense team that says seriously, you guys, dont be crazy. Hes a boy scout who missed a few merit badges, Community Service would be more than appropriate, your honor. Im paraphrasing what i expect. Given these guideline ranges and felonies that manafort is convicted of in this case and given the fact that this is the first of manaforts two federal sentencing processes, this is only the first judge that will sentence him, i think tonight what may be important for all of us here, not just for Paul Manafort as a person in this case, not just for the president s Campaign Chair in terms of what this says about the president s campaign, what may be important for the country here is that this is very much looking like the end of the line for Paul Manafort. I mean, what was he think income blowing up his plea deal by lying intentionally to prosecutors from the special counsels office . He had to know they would catch him given Everything Else they caught him on. Well, the judge says one of the things manafort intentionally lied to prosecutors about was the extent of his communications with the guy who prosecutors say is linked to russian intelligence. Just think about that for a second. Thats what he deliberately lied about after he entered into a cooperation deal with them and he knew lying would be essentially a fatal offense. That means at great personal expense at the cost of potentially dying in prison, Paul Manafort, the president s Campaign Chairman lied to cover up the channel of communication or at least a channel of communication between the Trump Campaign when he was chairman and russian intelligence. During the time that russia was interfering in the u. S. President ial election to help his candidate. To help President Trump. He was deliberately lying to prosecutors about that. That is the lie that is going to cost Paul Manafort his last free breath. To cover up that channel of communication between the Trump Campaign and russian intelligence during the campaign, Paul Manafort is willing to die in prison. Is his effort to cover that up something that President Trump will see as worthy of a president ial pardon . Again, today was the first full day on the job for william barr as attorney general of the United States. This is his second time serving as attorney general of the United States. The one thing hes famous for doing the first time he was a. G. In the administration of george h. W. Bush is he was the driving force behind the infamous Christmas Eve 1992 pardons for six Senior Administration officials who were caught up in the iran scandal. Including the secretary of defense. Six iran figures partened on Christmas Eve by president bush after bush had already been voted out of office but before the next president could be sworn in. William barr recommended those pardons in iran contra. The day he started as attorney general, this president s Campaign Chairman received a sentence recommendation from pros c prosecutors of 19 to 24 years in prison plus tens of millions of dollars to pay. Like i said, its all happening at once now. Like i said, its all happening at once now. When the world expeu to follow the rules, write your own. Because no one gets an opinion on how you live your life, why you shave, or how you show your skin. My skin. My way. In addition to sen digs tdi they think Paul Manafort should serve 19 to 24 years in prison. In addition to that recommendation from prosecutors tonight, we also within moments of that got a transcript tonight from a previously sealed hearing where separate federal judge ruled this week that manafort in fact intentionally lied to prosecutors and the grand jury so cover up contacts with a political operative who prosecutors say is tied to russian intelligence. Here is the judge. We spent considerable time talking about multiple clusters of false or misleading or incomplete or needed to be prodded by counsel statements all of which center around the defendants relationship or communications with mr. Ka limb in this case and as paragraph b, shes wro shes quoting the appointment order. She quotes that order where mueller is assigned to look into quote any links and or coordination between the russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign. Joining us now is barbara mcquaid, former u. S. Attorney from michigan. Barb, thank you for being here. I have a lot of things i want to talk to you about. Thanks, rachel. Busy day. Man, it happens all at once. In the manafort transcript we got out of d. C. , the reoccurring theme, its like a 70page transcript, manafort lied a lot. He breached the deal and did it on purpose and hones in on this guy who the government says is tied to russian intelligence. You were talking about why manafort might have lied and specifically what he was lying about. Now that you see the judge spell it out, what do you make of this . He took on great risk by lying knowing he was risking a substantial prison term to lie and more than half of it relates to his statements about his contacts with cher and says he was connected to russian intelligence and that was what he went out of his way to lie about and she points out, these were not lapses of memory or failures to recollect. He created fathers and mothers narcot false narratives. He was certainly very deliberate in lying about that. There is still mystery there for us but those redacted bars may reveal the rest of the story. And barb, when you see the prosecutors ask for 19. 5 to 24. 5 years in virginia, the judge ruled he lied, that judge is yet to start the sentencing pre ing. That wont happen until next month. In the virginia case, he should be looking at 1924 years. Does that mean we should expect hell get 19 to 24 years . Thats sentencing guidelines and a starting point where judges are supposed to look to crack rate calculate a sentence. You mentioned things that go into that sophisticated means and leadership and all these things and come up with a math score and go to a table and thats where you get the range of 19 to 24 and the judge is allowed to consider mitigating and aggravating factors to see if the sentence should be above that or below. They cant think of any mitigating factors. There are aggravating factors for someone that is very wealthy and highly educated and yet, based solely on greed decides to commit crimes. The defense will file something certainly that tries to point out mitigating factors. If you can stick with us, there is one other matter i wanted to ask you about raised by congress. Two more lawyers associated with the president being accused by congress of lying to officials, federal officials about that hush money crime for which Michael Cohen is going to prison next month. If you can stick with us, id like to get your take on that before we go. You bet. Shell be back with us when we come back. Stay with us. L be back with us n we come back stay with us dont fence me in. Let me be by myself in the evenin breeze, listen to the murmur of the tall concrete, send me off forever, but i ask you please dont fence me in. Special offers available at your local mini dealer. Dealing with your insurance can be frustrating. Lets be honest but with esurance, just snap some pics and you could get back on the road fast well, not that fast. This editor made this commercial fit in 15 seconds. When insurance is simple, its surprisingly painless. Back with us is barb mcquaid. Elijah cummings, chairman of the Oversight Committee leareleased budge of documents that some handwritten notes, typewritten notes that are predicted, this is what that release from Elijah Cummings looks like but he says what these documents show is a couple lawyers working for the president , one who worked for the white house and one who worked for the president in a personal capacity gave false information about that hush money payment, the hush money payment that was the basis for the felony charges, the Campaign Finance felonies hes going to prison for next month, the Campaign Finance felonies he implicated the president having directed him to commit, cummings said he gave false statements about the payments to the office of government ethics when working on the Financial Disclosure about these matters. Is this something that is slap on the wrist or illegal if they made false statements about the statements . Yes, making a false statement to anyone in government is a crime, its the same statute, section 1001 false statements, its the same crime that weve seen Robert Mueller charged many times for lying to the fbi or lying to congress. It is similarly a crime to lie to a government agaency about some matter they are looking at within their jurisdiction. If the office of government ethics is looking into this and someone makes a false statement to them, that is a prosecutable offense. Am i right that this is one of those cases where there is a popular perception it only matters if you lied if you were under oath but lawyers will tell you it doesnt matter if youre under oath if you were lying to federal officials in that kind of a context, its a crime regardless of whether or not you ever put your hand on a bible . Absolutely right. Its a different crime. If you lie under oath, its a crime of perjury. If youre not under oath, its a different crime. Crime of false statements but both punishable of up to five years in prison. You helped us so much over the course of Production Day working on these stories and great to have you here. Barb, thank you so much. Pleasure. Much more to get to, busy, busy friday night. Stay with us. Busy friday night. Stay with us so, when the world expects you to follow the rules, write your own. Because no one gets an opinion on how you live your life, why you shave, or how you show your skin. My skin. My way. You might or joints. Hing for your heart. But do you take something for your brain. With an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish, prevagen has been shown in Clinical Trials to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. Liberty mutual customizes your Car Insurance so you only pay for what you need. Great news for anyone wh uh uh im the one who delivers the news around here. Liberty mutual has Just Announced that they can customize your Car Insurance so that you only pay for what you need. This is phoebe buckley, on location. Uh. Thanks, phoebe. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. Liberty. For each Family Member . So with Xfinity Mobile i can customize each line yup. And since it comes with your internet, you can switch wireless carriers and save hundreds of dollars a year. Are you pullin my leg . Nope. You sure youre not pullin my leg . I think its your dog. Oh its him. Good call. Get the data options you need and still save hundreds of dollars. Do you guys sell other dogs . Now thats simple, easy, awesome. Customize each line by paying for data by the gig or get unlimited. And now get 200 back when you buy and eligible smartphone. Click, call, or visit a store today. This will go down in the history of the Trump Presidency as the day he declared a National Emergency, a National Emergency, a National Emergency that requires him to build a wall between us and mexico. Because of immigrants crossing the southern border. What will also hopefully go town in history is the fact that right after he declared that National Emergency he immediately got on a plane and flew away to go to one of his private clubs to play golf for the weekend. One of his clubs where he and his business are under increase scrutiny, including possible legal scrutiny for hiring lots and lots of Illegal Immigrants to come work for him. It is not new for president s to play golf. It doesnt help the sense of emergency that he needed to go golf urgently as soon as he declared this emergency. It didnt also help that while he was in the middle of declaring this supposed emergency he couldnt help himself from literally saying, i didnt need to do this. I didnt need to do this. The whole idea of that emergency is that you did need to do this. You did need to. Hence the emergency. And then he hopped a plane to florida to go hit a few balls. Even if the president is not doing his best work to make anybody take this idea of an emergency seriously, democrats in congress signalled that they are taking the declaration today quite seriously. House judiciary chair jerry nadler has already announced an investigation into the president s actions today. By next friday he wants the white house to make white house and Justice Department officials available for a first hearing on the subject. Theyre also already demanding legal documents about what processes went into making this Emergency Declaration today. That should be fascinating. Remember, it was the Emergency Declaration right before the golf trip. I mean, the lawsuits on this thing are already falling like rain. However long the duration is of the Trump Presidency, should we expect this matter to be tied up in court for that entire duration of his presidency . Or should we expect that this, for all its faults and its weaknesses, might be actually something that is going something. Joining us now is dalia lit wick. Im glad you recovered from the hard time you had watching the president make this announcement today. When i tie and go to heaven, im going to demand that 50 minutes back first. Why was is so upsetting to you . I mean, first of all, theres no evidence, right . He says theres an emergency, he says he has his own data that doesnt necessarily correspond to his own governments data. He just knows and the angel moms want this. I mean, the degree to which he just insists that everyone, including his own crime statistics, including, you know, his own experts are lying. And nancys lying and chuck is lying. Its almost like this strange parallel universe where youre dragged into his brain and sort of thrash around in this reality of, you know, the rapists and the women with the tape. Its been debunked and debunked and debunked. You just have to hear it again. Its crazy. But legally, isnt he free to free associate like that and to call everybody a liar and to negate all factual information to the contrary, because if a president , not just him, any president calls something an emergency, legally its an emergency . The National Emergencies act in this sense is the worst thing that could have happened to the republic because it was trying to constrain at the time, 1976, postwatergate, the declarations of emergency, but what it in fact did was not define what an emergency is. Not enumerate what the qualities might be. It essentially gave the president Carte Blanche to say this one is an emergency. Youre right. It plays into that. So when nadler and the judiciary committee, i find it interesting that they are already demanding documents about the legal reasoning and the decisionmaking process that went into this declaration. That will not necessarily be helpful in any legal sense in terms of the National Emergencies act. That will be helpful in terms of political accountability if they can show the decisionmaking process here was nut ball. Two answers here. One, it will matter at some point to some courts whether under the National Emergencies act this is any kind of emergency. Really . That will matter, i think, to some. Okay. Certainly when he says i didnt need to do this, there are judges i think who are going to say, boy, whatever this emergency was, and its important to say and he said it several times. There are 50some current National Emergencies that have been declared. Its not a, you know, it is a fairly trivial thing to declare an emergency. Often they have to do with, you know, banking and foreign countries. They dont usually have to do with building a wall. But hes going to say, look, people to this all the time. He will be right. But the fact that this is it in no way, shape or form an emergency, that his own National Security team testified a month ago and forgot to mention the crisis of immigrant of Illegal Immigrants on the foreign border they were testifying about every threat to the nation. Every emergency. Except this. That will be material. I think the other thing that is important about this is that the lawsuits that are going to come are not going to be necessarily hinge on this question of whether it was an emergency. I think theyre going to come from land owners. Right. Ones already been filed. A Public Citizen filed a suit on behalf of three folks in texas whose land is going to be taken by eminent domain. Those are going to be i think easier questions for the courts. I think the courts generally defer to the president when they make claims about National Security, right . Thats what the hawaii trump case was. They tend to defer, but i think that on cases that have sort of these hardhitting questions of, you know, not did the president lie, but can they take land away from people for a pretextual emergency . Thats when its going to become material. What did you make of the president today singing a little diddy that ended with him getting to the supreme court, which will definitely ratify this decision, even though he expects other bad decisions in other districts and circuits . Again, its a maddening attack on the ninth circuit. He explicitly attacked the ninth circuit. He does that all the time. I know. But remember when we used to care . Remember when the rule of law some respect. Judges in general. So there was that. But then also this sort of, you know, touchdown dance where my court is at the end of the day going to vindicate because ive got five conservatives. So ill get there. Ill get whatever i need out of them. I wrote today about neil gorsuch wrote before he came on to the court about how damaging it is to try to do Public Policy in the courts because all it does is undermine and delegitimize the judges and the justices. This is kind of made to order what he was cautioning us about. Dalia ligt wick is Senior Editor and Legal Correspondent at slate. I feel like this has been junior law school Rachelle Maddow show. Aplus. Thank you. I paid for that. Thought does it for us tonight. Well see you again on monday. Its time for the last word where ali verbally is in for lawrence tonight. Good evening, ally. I feel like the last two years has been junior law school. Rachel, have yourself a great weekend. Thanks, ali. Just hours after the president declared it. The Watchdog Group Public Citizen filed a lawsuit in federal court in washington challenging the president s announcement today that he will redirect billions of dollars of federal funding to build a border wall because of his socalled National Emergency. Democrats in congress are also making plans to fight the president s dec
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