Analysis and discussion of the days top stories and compelling issues from Lawrence ODonnell. The meeting was, so get information on Hillary Clinton. The original trump lie about this meeting was that the meeting was about russian adoptions. But the president s lawyers were forced to admit in a letter to the Special Prosecutor that President Trump dictated a false statement to the New York Times about that meeting knowing it was false, a statement saying the meeting was about russian adoptions. The legal implications of the president s tweet are gravely threatening to the president s son. This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics. But it is not done all the time in politics, and its totally, totally illegal. If it is a meeting with foreign citizens trying to help the Trump Campaign. Federal law makes it a crime for a Foreign National to, quote, directly or indirectly help an American Campaign with financial contributions or, q
Rachel Maddow takes a look at the days top political news stories. And his time working with manafort was laid out by the prosecutors, the next thing was the Plea Agreement with the government and then more discussion later on of the same basic theme. Prosecutors seem to want to get that out on the table very early. Folks may remember the defense brought this up in the opening argument that gates had stolen money from manafort or from manaforts firm. And the prosecution definitely wanted that laid out before we quit court today. They wanted that out on the table and brought it out before they went through chronologically the different crimes that they may or may not have been involved in. They were cleearly trying on inoculate him. I think it is what giuliani called hanging a lantern around your problems. Covering the manafort case for politico, thank you for covering it for us as well. Now lets bring in our legal power panel. Barbara mcquaid, also in court today, and chuck rosenberg,
the campaign, that they re also asking him lots and lots of questions about contacts with russia and the roles not just of the president but other people. this is a guy who was around the campaign for months and months. he traveled with the president. he was there for conversations. he may have listen in the on phone calls. so you re exactly right. the government could convict him without gates. gates put some meat on the bone but he will be important in lots of other ways. i found this interesting, subjecting him to revealing what he got the deal for. having to say in court that he committed crimes. it seemed obvious that he is a part of this.
joining us now is lee, the aclu attorney who has been arguing this case. thank you for joining us. help me understand this. they now welcome your help and your expertise, but the federal government hasn t turned over the files or the personal information about all the parents they deported without their parents; is that right? we said, look, it is the government s responsibility. the court made clear of course it is the government responsibility. but they tried to wash their hands and say you do it. that s not right. they need to take steps to find the parents. but we are more than willing to help and we want to help. how can we help without information? the government is sitting on many, many phone numbers. we could have been calling these parents for the last weeks or months and they re not turning over the information. and they have the judge basically said what are you doing? get a plan, turn over information to the aclu so they