How Coronavirus Transmits helps save their season. All in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. The first ever second Impeachment Trial Set to start a week from tomorrow, we have a whole bunch of developments in the case against the former president. And was one of the most reckless acts of any president in american history. First, there is the unsurprising upheaval in the former president s legal team. At least three lawyers left the team in recent days after trump asked them to focus their defense on continuing the big Poisonous Lie hes been pushing that the election was fraudulent, stolen. This comes just days after one of those lawyers, butch bowers of columbia, south carolina, said he did not hesitate to defend trump, saying, quote, it is who i am, it is what i do. Former president now has two new attorneys named just last night, bruce castor jr. Who previously declined to prosecute bill cosby and bill schoen who represented a whole bunch of folks including
It is absolutely stunning. We just got thumped. I mean, i know that everybody got a lot of snow and this was a big storm, but i feel like somebody played a joke on me. Yeah. This is an insane amount of snow. I will pack some of it into cooler and send it to you. Rachel, you had Jim Rutenberg on talking about that New York Times article which is just amazing, and by the way, must be said, beautifully written. I think it may be the best written yeah. Of the trump investigative pieces. Andrew weissmann is going to join us on the same subject to pick up where you left off which to me is are there new crimes in this reporting that were looking at . Yeah. The times uses the very gentle word, extralegal. Does that mean illegal . Andrew weissmann is going to take us through it and tell us what he sees in that reporting. Excellent. Its really well timed. Tomorrow were going to see the response from the president s defense team, such as it is, to the Impeachment Charges and the Impeachment Charg
Rachel, you had Jim Rutenberg on talking about that New York Times article which is just amazing, and by the way, must be said, beautifully written. I think it may be the best written yeah. Of the trump investigative pieces. Andrew weissmann is going to join us on the same subject to pick up where you left off, which for me is, are there new crimes in this reporting that were looking at . Yeah. The times uses the very gentle word, extralegal. Does that mean illegal . Andrew weissmann is going to take us through it and tell us what he sees in that reporting. Excellent. And its really well timed. Tomorrow were going to see the response from the president s defense team, such as it is, to the Impeachment Charges and the Impeachment Charges are about him inciting an insurrection against the u. S. Government. And what rutenberg and his colleagues just filled in is a lot of the details about how they knew exactly what they were setting up. How they organized it and how it was a coordinated t
He clearly intended to use whatever means were at his disposal, whatever levers he could find to overturn a free and fair election. And it was a project, lets be clear here, that almost the entire Republican Party signed on to before some of them got a little freaked out and tried to distance themselves. The times Reports Trump was enabled by influential republicans motivated by ambition, fear or misplaced belief that he would not go too far. Hm. Mitch mcconnell was okay with the plan because he feared alienating a president whose tee his control of the chamber. He also heeded misplaced assurances from white house aides like jared kushner, mr. Trump would eventually cede to reality. Remember that texas lawsuit challenge the Election Results that 18 republican State Attorneys General signed on to . Right . That was ghostwritten, drafted by lawyers close to the white house. The lie that the election was stolen propelled forward by new and more radical lawyers and financiers including the
News chief white house correspondent, peter alexander. Nbc news foreign correspondent, matt bradley in eastern ukraine, jonathan la mir, Politico White House bureau chief as well as host of Way Too Early here on msnbc. And he lane cooper, the New York Times pentagon correspondent. Both jonathan and helane are msnbc contributors. Peter, what more can you tell us about the president s decision to u. S. Moves troops already on standby to europe . Reporter thats exactly right. We have now learned that its a total of 3,000 u. S. Troops who will be moving, about a thousand of them already in europe will be going to romania, a native member nation. Another 2,000 presently here in the u. S. Will be going to germany and to poland, as well. This comes, according to a Senior Administration official at the president s direction, and following the recommendation of the defense secretary, Secretary Austin. I think youre going to hear this officially from john kirby, the Press Secretary at the pentag