We can do this together. That does it for us tonight. See you again tomorrow. Now its time for the last word with lawrence odonnell. Good evening. Notes. On th im going have to rerun the tape. I didnt even get to whats going to happen to Michael Cohen on friday. Were going talk about Michael Cohen here in this hour and the worries within trump world about Michael Cohen. But rachel, you know, people have said, some observers have said that donald trump sometimes makes a mess of things, but the mess you were talking about earlier in your hour is actually a criminal mess. The federal record act says you cannot create a federal record and do that to it. Cant do that. Its a crime. Thats a crime, if youre the president or white house chief of staff and you write down notes of a meeting youve just had and you rip them up, thats a violation of federal records act. And i love that theyve tried to mitigate that criminal act by having other people grab stuff off the floor and out of his trash can
Well, good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 509 of the trump administration, and before we go too far, we mentioned a y night in five states tonight. Were going to cover this in a short time, but we have results already, and they include a prominent gop member of the house of representatives who has apparently been turned away by voters tonight with some help from the twitter feed of president donald trump. But to our lead story first. The presidt today has praised the leader of north korea, and he has attacked canada and Robert De Niro. The president is right now Onboard Air Force one headed back to washington after his summit with north korean dictator kim jongun. And while the president has insisted the summit was about denuclearization, his twitter feed tonight shows he is seeing the criticism of his performance at the summit and is sensitive to it. Quote, a year ago the pundits and talking heads, people that couldnt do the job , were begging
Outfront tonight, breaking news. Tax schemes and fraud. That is the allegation tonight in a bombshell report by the New York Times that digs deep into the into President Trumps finances. The more than a yearlong investigation by the times reveals a lot, including this. President trump participated in dubious tax schemes, they write, during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud. Trumps parents transferred over 1 billion in wealth to their children, which could have produced a tax bill of at least 55 milli 550 million based on tax laws at the time, according to the times, but the trumps, according to the research, paid only 52. 2 million, a tiny fraction, about 5 , of what they should have paid to the irs. According to a trove of confidential tax returns and financial records obtain bid the times, the president is not the selfmade billionaire that he has repeatedly claimed to be. The alleged fraud, according to the New York Times, includes trump receiving at least 413 million
Hundreds of Million Dollars in crucial military aid from ukraine. And emails obtained by the New York Times, the president s chief of staff Mick Mulvaney tried to freeze the aid nearly one month before the Infamous Trump zelensky phone call. At the time an adviser warned, quote, expect congress to become unhinged. But that did little to deter the president or the west wing according to the times. The Top National Security officials pompeo, mark esper and then National Security adviser john bolton tried to convince trump to release the aid during a private meeting in the oval office in august. Telling him it was in the countrys best interest to do so. But the president did not listen. Reportedly responding, quote, ukraine is a corrupt country, we are pissing away our money. And yet trump is now trying to rewrite history. I have never had a direct link between investigations and security assistance. No direct link . That defense echoed by the strongest supporters of trump. The democrats
Mulvaney deeply involved in the aid freeze and other senior officials pushing back. John bolton for one. Mark he is perfect aesper and a he facilitated the president s wishes. Quoting now from the times, the aide, robert b. Blaire, replied that it would be possible but not pretty. Expect congress to become unhinged if the white house tried to countermand spending passed by the house and senate. He wrote in a previously undisclosed email. And he wrote, it might further fuel the narrative that mr. Trump was pro russia. According to the times those carrying out the president s orders to freeze the aid for the most part did not know about the Pressure Campaign on ukraines president. However, his testimony in the house shows Mick Mulvaney could be the exception which is why Senate Democrats want to hear from him and three others, all four of whom the president has blocked from testifying. In a moment one of the times reporters. First Boris Sanchez outside of maralago. We know the president