let s discuss now richard painter is a o an ethics lawyer. and amanda carpenter and scott jennings. richard i want to start with you being that you know ethics. epa chief embro broiled in multiple controversies. notably the rental agreement he signed with two lobbyists for $50 a night. the top ethics watch dog is clarifying his analysis from last week. which appeared to clear prurt of wrong doing. he is now saying he didn t have all the facts when evaluating the lease according to the campaign legal center. his conclusion was based on the assumption that pruitt followed the lease terms as written. in case pruitt is watching, i mean, do you want to give him a little guidance on this? well, what happens from time to time is that people go get the ethics opinion from the ethics lawyer and give the ethics lawyer about half the
town done business a different way and this agency, the epa, has been the poster child of it. so do i think it is because we re leading on this agenda and there are some who want to keep it from happening? absolutely. do i think they will resort to anything to achieve that? yes. what are you talking about? let s just get something clear. when we re talking about nothing to do with the epa s agenda. the beltway swamp and pay for play, people would say swamp-like activity would be to live in the condo of a lobbyist and pay wildly under market rent, and then the organization that that lobbyist represents, their deal getting approved. that is the swamp that people don t like about washington. if scott pruitt would stop talking about the nonsense, we would have less reason to stay on his story. he s doing bad things, and he s talking nonsense about it. let s bring richard painter into the conversation. former chief white house ethics lawyer under president george w.
going to go to jail, that s what s going to happen. richard painter, thank you. former white house ethics lawyer under george w. bush. today we are honoring martin luther king jr. on the 50th anniversary of his assassination. he was supporting the memphis sanitation workers strike in memphis. the same group marching today to honor dr. king and his legacy. you re watching velshi & ruhle live on msnbc. regularly with our ameriprise advisor. we plan for everything from retirement to college savings. giving us the ability to add on for an important member of our family. welcome home mom. with the right financial advisor, life can be brilliant.
former cia chief for russia operations and richard painter, white house ethics lawyer under president george w. bush. richard, this appointment of the right-hand man, ed o callahan to rod rosenstein, involving the russia investigation, also comes as the first sentence is handed down in the mueller probe. do you think that this new appointment makes mueller s position more secure or not? i don t know if it makes a difference. it s clear that rod rosenstein s taking this seriously and he has thus far not been willing to interfere with robert mueller. he appointed robert mueller. there s no indication here that he is going to try to interfere with robert mueller and the investigation. and that s what s important. that robert mueller continues to have independence to pursue the investigation. he already has indicted several people. he has people cooperating with the investigation. he is under attack in the right-wing media, fox news and
president trump of ref sieving improper payments or emoluments from foreign governments through his washington hotel. this is from democratic attorneys general from maryland and d.c. the argument is the president s hotel and event spaces have an unfair advantage over their own convention centers because of their ties to the president. they do bear his name. the department of justice says the harm is speculative. here to talk about it, peter baker, chief white house correspondent for the new york times and msnbc political analyst. and richard petyr, former chief white house ethics lawyer for president george w. bush 43. we should tell you richard is involved in three emoluments lawsuits against the president, including today s. we should also tell you, full disclosure, he is contemplating a run for al franken s old senate seat in the great state of minnesota. gentlemen, welcome to you both. peter, i ll begin with you. sooner or later, this president s going to be facing real legal pro