evening. and the rachel maddow show starts right now. you. just lived my nightmare. i know. this was going to come out while i was live on the air. your staff had a betting pool on it. we did. whoever won the betting pool was supposed to get tacos. you got tacos anyway. we got tacos for everybody at 8:00 anyway. i couldn t wait any more. it worked, because i got it. we brought the tacos, we did not bring your staff any tacos, we ll make that up to you tomorrow. usually when i start this show at 9:00 p.m. eastern, i have a script that i have written because there are things in the news that i would like to tell you about. tonight there is no script because i m going to go through what we just learned from the special council s office, i m going to go through it with you,
basically as i am learning this. this just came out within the last 30 minutes, god bless chris hayes who was able to very ably digest this, handle, go to the i think the key elements of it ri
Resolution sponsored by the obama administration. he basically said i was counting votes to see how they were voting. as we found out from the charging documents they knew he communicated and tried to get russia to vote against the resolution or block it or slow roll it. lie number one. lie number two they asked him when he contacted the russian ambassador again, this was after the obama administration imposed sanctions on russia for interfering in the election, including expelling diplomats, did he communicate to the russian ambassador, hey, guys, don t react, don t retaliate for this because there s a new sheriff in town, et cetera, he said, no, i didn t do anything, i don t remember really, when in fact they knew exactly what he had asked them to do, he said don t retaliate. you have one administration running defense against the outgoing administration there. those are issues of importance and consequence that he lied about to that fbi. the idea that he was tricked into it or went
Mike flynn calls the russian ambassador, according to the washington post and says, hey, hey, hey, don t worry about those sanctions. we re going to have a different attitude toward those sanctions, don t retaliate, et cetera. the washington post reports that, that ends up being relevant to the subsequent interview of flynn on that subject. the post s story queried whether the defendant s actions violated the logan act which prohibits u.s. citizens from core responding with a foreign government with the intent to influence the foreign government. subsequent to the publication of the post article, members of president-elect trump s transition team publicly stated they had spoken to the defendant and he denied speaking to the russian ambassador about the sanctions. all right, so that s what the fbi is facing, in the first week of the trump administration,
Spoken with russia s ambassador to the u.s. on december 29th, 2016. the day the u.s. announced sanctions and other measures against russia in response to that government s actions intended to interfere with the 2016 election. again, this is right after christmas 2016, so this is after the election, we know that donald trump is the incoming president, but obama is still president. obama after christmas, during the transition, orders new sanctions against russia to punish russia for what they did to mess with our election. between christmas and new years, mike flynn calls the russian ambassador, according to the washington post and says, hey, hey, hey, don t worry about those sanctions. we re going to have a different attitude toward those sanctions, don t retaliate, et cetera. the washington post reports that, that ends up being relevant to the subsequent interview of flynn on that subject. the post s story queried whether
Trump s behalf. specifically michael flynn admitted that he made false statements about his contact with the russian ambassador to the united states. the talks happened during the transition period when president obama and his staff were still in the white house. michael flynn admitted he spoke to the ambassador after the obama administration hit russia with sanctions for their interference in the 2016 election and michael flynn urged russia, don t retaliate. michael flynn said the members of the president s inner circle had directed his actions during that transition period. president trump at the time said he had nothing to hide. in the year since, flynn s confession, we haven t heard from either side about the details of his deal. we don t know what flynn told robert mueller s investigators or what he s set to receive in return. that could all change at any moment. catherine herridge reporting live from washington.