Up 10 points. That has now evaporated. Interesting to see who turns out, a testament to the excitement level. Thank you all. That is all for this evening. The Rachel Maddow show starts right now with ari in for rachel. Good evening. Rachel has the night off. We have a pretty big show. Today was day two of the federal criminal trial of the campaign chairman. The witnesses were several people who sold the defendant clothes and houses that he bought through secretive International Wire payments. One important thing we learned from what happened today, this judge is holding muellers prosecutors to the line, limiting their questions and how they present key evidence to manafort to the jury. A former prosecutor who tried these kinds of cases and inside that courtroom today joins me to explain if what the judge is up to could hurt muellers case. There are reports tonight about the russian woman charged with trying to carry out the government influence campaign through the nra in the u. S. And
The days top stories from around the world, from politics and money, to sports and pop culture. Crime. Colluding about russians. You start analyzing the crime, the hacking is the crime. The hacking is the crime. The president its a sign the president s legal team is is trying move the goal posts on the probe as the investigation moves closer to President Trumps inner circle, hes trying to distance him from manafort. He was never involved in intimate Business Relationship with donald trump. The president s lawyer is doing the talking for the president on all things russia. All things Michael Chone and hes doing quite a lot of talk ing. Jake. Jeff, thanks so much. Lets talk to our experts. Laura coates, our former federal prosecutor, i want you to listen about what the crime might have been. I dont know if thats a crime. Colluding about russians. Start analyzing the crime, the hacking is the crime. The president didnt hack. Before we get to the moving of the goal posts going on here,
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Rachel Maddow takes a look at the days top political news stories. Whether a person is too close to the subject of the probe, whether Jeff Sessions would beak be more of a Trump Campaign surrogate who happened to be Attorney General rather than acting as an independent Law Enforcement officer. If sessions didnt recuse after that statement, it would have made him look even more like he was doing trumps bidding. And trump apparently didnt know that making that statement would also as just a general matter of embarrassment, make him look weak and out of the loop about a decision that was already done. Because there were reports that show the Internal Doj Process had already resulted in sessions accepting that nonpartisan Recusal Recommendation from the career staff earlier that week and that Jeff Sessions was already working with doj officials op writing the very rationale they would soon release to the public. In fact, it was barely an hour after trump put that public pressure on session
comey, when he said he had the russia investigation in mind when he fired jim comey, the former fbi director. i think there s abundant evidence obstruction and intent to interfere with the ongoing investigation whether or not russia committed some conspiracy with the trump campaign in order to violate our federal election laws. that s been out there in plain view now for months. my answer why president trump did that this morning is a combination appealing to his base and delegitimizing the mueller investigation and he can t help himself. can t help himself. his lawyer said it was come from the top and didn t do what it did. sometimes it feels like we re all going through a type of law school together in this era. you would be one of our voluntary professor, i suppose.
a number of commentators have said so far this evening could be entered into evidence as something that suggests what his state of mind has been. i ll remind you this goes all the way back to his lester holt interview following his firing of fbi director james comey. whether he said that he had the russia investigation in mind when he fired jim comey, the former fbi director. so i think there s abundant evidence that obstruction and intent to interfere the ongoing investigation into whether or not rush yar committed some conspiracy with trump campaign in order to violate our federal election laws. that s something that s been out there in plain view now for months. frankly, my answer as to why president trump did in this morning is a combination of appealing to his base, delegitimizing the mueller investigation and he frankly partly just can t help himself. right, because as we ve reported his lawyer s reaction shows that this was coming from the top and that they wanted to