realize they are self damaging. so, there is no loss for him, except the speculative one, by taking the fifth amendment. and of course, the complete turnaround where he has done this now, after saying the only criminals and monsters do this, it doesn t gonna bother donald for a second. donald creates his own reality, and so, whatever he s doing at the moment, that s perfectly okay. it s the right thing to do. after all, this is a man who calls himself a question, and when asked, when did you last ask god for forgiveness, which all questions do continually, if they are truly faithful? he said, well, never in my life. why would i? i ve never done anything that requires forgiveness. i wanted to take another big story. it feels like we have lived about 1000 lives this week. the d.c. court of appeals unanimously agreed that the house ways and means committee has the authority to obtain trump s tax returns from the irs. there is there gonna be some legal back and forth there, but i wonder
his deposition within new york ag. he is within his right to plead the fifth. this is a civil case. would there be a legitimate reason, given what you know about trump s business dealings, especially considering the relationship of this civil case to other criminal investigations? oh, absolutely. i m not a lawyer, but i have talked a lot for many years at syracuse university, college of law. i would have advised donald, if he was still talking to me, that you should take the fifth, because the only penalty he will face in the civil proceeding, potentially, as a jury could be instructed, because it is a civil case, that you can drawn adverse inference for his refusal to answer question. but donald answering questions could expose himself to further criminal liability, and donald has a long history, alicia, under oath, when some good interrogator gets under his skin, of saying things that are very self damaging, he doesn t
in a series of questions. but speaking of the term, a lack of shame, trump save america packs sent a fund raising email, urging people to stand with trump during this time, a fundraising email in this moment. really, just no opportunity wasted to raise money. that is exactly right. i mean, donald s father, who was himself a big cheat, ripped off the taxpayers in a single deal for around $40 million in today s money. he taught him that all that matters is that you get the money, and, then his second father, the notorious roy cohn, taught him how to evade responsibility, always attack law enforcement, always deny, deny, deny, never give an inch, even if they go to cold. and that s all served trump very well, up until now. yeah, one of the other big stories, trump pleading the fifth more than 400 times in
metabolize so much information and so much happening, so quick, i want to go back to merrick garland defending the fbi on thursday. take a listen. let me address recent, unfounded attacks on the professionalism of the fbi and justice department agents and prosecutors. i will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked. the men and women of the fbi and the justice department are dedicated, patriotic public servants. and frank, it s extraordinary that he felt he needed to do this. why was it so important for garland to make that statement even as republicans continue to attack the fbi? look, donald trump has done many things. but among them are an amazing erosion of the credibility of our institutions. he has attempted to really slander and erode their effectiveness. and when you lose effectiveness
him yet to say, i had nothing to do with that. i did not have direct access. it was so and so and so in so. because that would obviously put him in greater hot water than he is already in. so, we can t take that route. so, what is he doing? he s essentially saying, look, i declassify these, i tried to make them documents that weren t being categorized as classified and other things. so, i should not be held to the same standard or held, having broken the law. but, in fact, that s exactly what he did. the fact that he may say that i did not know that classification was a more intense, more involved process, does not absolve him from responsibility or criminal liability. and i think that that s part of the decision-making process that merrick garland is engaging in at this point. it s going to be a part of what he is thinking about, in terms of whether he decides to bring charges against donald trump, for this in particular. frank, i want to talk about another decision that merrick gar