all with terrible aim. it s been hard to field it all today. first of all, a federal judge in d.c. tonight has ordered the justice department to remove a bunch of the redactions from the james comey memos. you may remember the james comey memos were part of the way the whole existential trump presidency started to break open in the first place. when we first learned early on in trump s few weeks in office, fbi director james comey had kept contemporaneous memos of his interactions with president trump, including that the president had told him to end the criminal investigation into trump national security adviser michael flynn, and then the president fired james comey after comey agreed to do no such thing. when we learned he had contemporaneous memos documenting his interactions with the president leading up to his being fired, that was one of the things that opened up the whole scandal, led to the hiring of the special counsel, led to the whole obstruction of justice
was running this. he was holding that conference at donald trump s washington, d.c., hotel, of course, because, of course, he was. he had put over half $1 million into the pocket of trump s first national security adviser, but that guy got fired. so why not start putting money directly into donald trump s pocket through his hotel? that was may 2017. if may 2017 rings a bell for you as an important time, that s probably because just four days before that turkish lobbying conference got under way at trump s hotel, robert mueller was appointed special counsel to look into the russian attack on the 2016 election and any potential involvement by the trump campaign. not to mention all related matters. well, here s what we now know as of today. apparently that turkish businessman, the guy who paid mike flynn to lobby for the turkish government, after robert mueller was appointed, that guy s lawyers contacted mueller. contacted the special counsel s
eight arms throwing all at once all with terrible aim. it s been hard to field it all today. first of all, a federal judge in d.c. tonight has ordered the justice department to remove a bunch of the redactions from the james comey memos. you may remember the james comey memos were part of the way the whole existential trump presidency started to break open in the first place. when we first learned early on in trump s few weeks in office, fbi director james comey had kept contemporaneous memos of his interactions with president trump, including that the president had told him to end the criminal investigation into trump national security adviser michael flynn, and then the president fired james comey after comey agreed to do no such thing. when we learned he had contemporaneous memos documenting his interactions with the president leading up to his being fired, that was one of the things that opened up the whole scandal, led to the hiring of the special counsel, led to
desperate, and will be very, very powerful to americans if they ever see and hear john dowd himself as a witness in a house or senate hearing. why is it damning and potentially obstructive for a president s lawyer conveying to a witness who s about to turn state s evidence, about to start working with prosecutors. can you spell out why that is potentially obstructive, potentially inappropriate or criminal to have that expression. the president likes you, the president wants you to remember how much he likes you, that s still in effect. what s the implication of is that? really important to break it down. the best explanation is in the mueller report. because he presents it as one of those potentially obstructive acts that the president of the united states committed. and he says he can t really attribute it to trump because he doesn t know whether trump knew everything that dowd was saying,
voicemail from president trump s lawyer john dowd, dowd telling flynn s lawyer that he wanted a heads-up if flynn was going to provide information to prosecutors that would implicate the president saying that that might have national security consequences. we don t know what flynn might have been able to say about the president that would implicate him and have national security consequences, but that voicemail got a lot of people s attention this week, including senator richard blumenthal of connecticut who said this. quote, hearing the striking audio in the tapes released yesterday actualizes the pardon the president dangled in front of flynn. americans did he need to hear the evidence for obstruction. joining us is senator blumenthal of connecticut, member of the judiciary committee in the senate. thanks for being here. thank you for having me. what do you mean when you say this voicemail from john dowd actualizes the pardon that was dangled to flynn?