Russia investigation. Tonight, congressman adam schiff on matt whitaker. I dont know matt whitaker. Protecting Robert Mueller and the whiff of indictments in the air. Then, meeting the new class as more races are called for democrats. Th guys, there are secret underground tunnels. Between all of these government buildings. Where we stand after the di midterm rejection of Donald Trumps bigotry. And the latest on the California Wildfires as the trump delegation sidesteps the president s attacks. Not pointing fingers. When all in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. News from the Mueller Investigation into roger stone on multiple front seat tonight. Nbc news has exclusively obtained Text Messages between Trump Campaign adviser roger stone and his friend Randy Credico showing once againstones foreknowledge of those wikileaks email dumps. Big news, according to the Text Messages provided by stone, now pretend you dont know me. You died five years ago, stone replied. Create, he wrote back. Hillarys Campaign Died a week later. And this was not the only roger stone news today. The wall street journal and the latest on the California Wildfires as the trump delegation sidesteps the president s attacks. Not pointing fingers. When all in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. News from the Mueller Investigation into roger stone on multiple front seat tonight. Nbc news has exclusively obtained Text Messages between Trump Campaign adviser roger stone and his friend randy onfissrniacaiesonce gos. Againstones foreknowledge of those wikileaks email dumps. Big news, according to the Text Messages provided by stone, now pretend you dont know me. You died five years ago, stone replied. Create, he wrote back. Hillarys Campaign Died a week later. And this was not the only roger stone news today. The wall street journal reporting the special counsels office is now looking into possible witness intimidation by stone of that very witness, Randy Credico, something stone denies. Stone who has already said he expects to be indicted went on Laura Ingrams radio show to try, once again, to rewrite history. To date there is no evidence whatsoever of russian collusion or wikileaks collaboration, or any proof or evidence that i knew in advance the source or the content of allegedly stolen or allegedly hacked emails published by wikileaks. I never predicted anything of the kind, nor heard any such thing from jerry corsi who is a great researcher and a writer and a friend of mine. So its a witch hunt. Witch hunt. Get all that . He didnt know what, he didnt know, quote, in advance the source or the content of stolen emails published by wikileaks. That is, one should note, quite different from not knowing it was coming. Those texts provided by stone to nbc news ostensibly to vindicate himself show he knew it was coming. Quote, i think its on for tomorrow. October 3rd, 2016. Later that day, why cant you get trump to come out and say that he would give Julian Assange asylum. Muellers investigation is still firing on many fronts. Today it was in court where prosecutor from the special counsels office said they were not ready to yet sentence trumps former Deputy Campaign manager rick gates because he continues to cooperate with respect to several ongoing investigations. And this comes two days after Michael Cohen was in washington to meet again with the mueller team. It comes just one day after roger stone associate jerome corsi who was referred to above, abruptly cancelled an interview. Corsis lawyers stopped him from Going Forward with the interview, while at the same time fielding a call with the office from the special counsel. Theres an open question at this moment about how much latitude Robert Mueller has to operate and follow the truth where it leads since he is now reporting, lets remember, to this man, acting attorney general Matthew Whitaker who today received a ruling from the office of Legal Counsel inside the Justice Department stating his appointment was lawful and valid, this despite the fact that the only time in American History that an attorney general was even remotely appointed in this way was back in 1866, when he held the position for six days. But whitaker is not out of the woods yet. House democrats are preparing to investigate whitakers role on the Advisory Board of a company accused of scamming millions from its customers. Congressman adam schiff of california joins me now. Schiff and his democratic colleagues sent letters requesting information on whitakers involvement with that companys Advisory Board. Lets start there, congressman schiff. What are you asking for . What are your concerns about whitaker . Well, our concerns are that at a time when he was a paid Advisory Board member, this company is alleged to have been engaged in criminal conduct, were talking about the chief Law Enforcement officer of the country, if he was aware of this criminal conduct or implicated in any way, or failed to uphold his responsibility, that is something that we ought to know of the chief Law Enforcement officer of the country. And certainly it raises another recusal issue. Theres no way that he can or should be involved in any of the aspects of that case given that he was had such a close tie to those involved. Is it your understanding, its been publicly reported, is it your understanding as well the fbi has an ongoing criminal investigation into the activities of that very company is this. I dont know the answer to that. Thats not information generally they share with the congress. Let me ask you this. Maryland has filed a motion basically asking a court to declare Rod Rosenstein the real attorney general, basically saying whitakers appointment is unconstitutional. Do you agree with that argument . Or what remedies or courses of action do you want to see happen here . I do agree with that lawsuit, and i think that his appointment does violate not only constitution, but other statutes as well. He is a principle officer, the top Law Enforcement officer in the country. The fact that he is serving it for a temporary period doesnt make him somehow inferior. We look at both the letter of the constitution, which requires that that position be senateconfirmed. But we also look at the functionality. That is, if you interpret it the way the Justice Department is, what does that say about the function of that office by somebody whos an acting attorney general as compared to someone whos a permanent attorney general . And by that test there is no difference in the function. He has no greater, no lesser responsibilities than if he were the permanent attorney general. Theyre identical. So it makes no sense to treat them differently. And finally, and i think this is very persuasive, it was also pointed out by the Maryland Attorney general, and that is we have a succession statute specifically for the department of justice. In other cases, with other agencies that have a succession statute, they specify when you can also use the vacancy reform act. Right. This statute does not do that, and the strong implication is when Congress Passed this statute and said this is the succession, it meant what it said. And when you have a conflict between a specific statute and a more general one its the specific statute that governs. So theres a situation right now, the special counsels office is doing its work, it now reports up to, as far as we know, mr. Whitaker, the acting attorney general, theres a question about what is happening in those interactions, what can you and the Democratic Party do once you gain control of the gavel to find out whats happening and ensure that theres no untoward interference . Well, the first thing we can do is bring mr. Whitaker before the congress. I think thats exactly whats going to happen. And we can demand answers in terms of what actions hes taking in the investigation, what communications hes had with the president , whether he sought an ethics opinion, what that ethics opinion told him to do, whether he is violating the terms of the ethics opinion. Now, i would fully expect that on some of these questions the white house is likely to fight us. But nonetheless we are going to persevere, and the truth is going to come out. Theres just no way to avoid exposure if mr. Whitaker does anything unethical. And we ought to expect everyone in the Justice Department to abide by the highest ethical standards. That includes particularly the attorney general. Theres been some theorizing, a miss was written the other day on this, that essentially the Mueller Investigation is far enough along that it will find what it will find and that at this point theres not that much even a can do to stifle it. Not my view at all. That presupposes all the work has been done. Lets remember that he cannot only in this position interfere with what bob mueller is doing, he can interfere in what the Southern District of new york doing. To the degree bob mueller has more work to do, lets say the mueller team has decided it needs to subpoena the president to force him to testify, thats something that can be prevented. That may very well be the best evidence, an interview with the president on the issue of obstruction of justice. Theres a great deal he can do to harm the investigation. We in congress are going to do everything we cannot only to protect the investigation, but to assist where we can. And, you know, in light of what you were discussing earlier, one of the things we ought to do immediately is provide the transcripts of these witness interviews to bob mueller because in light of the disclosures in the last 24 hours of these Text Messages that mr. Stone apparently had provided to nbc news, both the existence of these Text Messages and their content raise a very substantial question about mr. Stones truthfulness, under oath before our committee, and that evidence should be provided to the special counsel. I should note in the other house of congress in the senate today jeff and senator flake are attempting to bring to the floor a bill that was written and cosponsored, and they were objected to by leader mcconnell. See how that goes. Congressman adam schiff, thank you very much. Lets bring in jill winebanks, and nick akerman, nick, ill start with you, what is roger stone doing, to your mind, watching his behavior, the interviews sort of selectively leaking different, you know, messages, changing his story, whats he doing . I think hes he knows hes in trouble, he knows hes a key target of this investigation. I think he knows hes going to be indicted. Hes definitely going to be one of the people. Hes already been named by virtue of his messages with the 13 russians. Roger stone is a little bit crazy. Like a fox. Exactly. This is more of a pr thing because roger stone is directly connected to only one person in this entire thing, and that is donald trump. Hes the one that basically talked trump into running for president , has been friendly with him in new york over the years. He put up this big charade of being fired from the Trump Campaign so he could go under cover and do all of these things that he does in the campaign. He is out there so you think hes a direct connection. Thats the key to me. He is. Jill, heres where i see this going. Theres going to be an effort, if, in fact, stone is indicted, and again that is what he expects. Jerome corsi expects it, theres lots of evidence. Theres this effort to say donald trump barely knew the guy. Do you anticipate that . Is that a similar play that was used back in the watergate days . Its not so much that it was used in the watergate days is that its a traditional pattern for donald trump. I know him well. Until think get indicted, i never met him. Thats his pattern. He does it every time. He said it about every single person. Whitaker, he knew. Until he didnt know him. And so we can expect donald trump to say that very much. The thing that does remind me of watergate really goes back to the fact of the attorney general. And you mentioned the acting attorney generals under investigation for a scam for a board that he was on. And the watergate breakin was planned in the office of the attorney general. He was also serving as the head of the committee to reelect the president as the Campaign Manager but he was still the attorney general. So the actual planning happened in the attorney generals office. Thats crazy. Which to me is really crazy. I hope we arent seeing a repeat of that. Well, having gone through the saturday night massacre and watching whitaker now theres this battle over him, news the white house is surprised by all this, active fbi criminal investigation into the company, not clear that he is part of that investigation. But he was advisor to it. What do you see her in terms of his grasp on power and his legitimacy . First of all, he is a political hack. Donald trump put him in there for one reason and one reason only, as a get out of jail card free. I mean, this is precisely the problem that Elliott Richardson and ruckles house foresaw before the saturday night massacre occurred. They preplanned to make sure that a political hack wouldnt be put in charge of the department of justice. They both knew that they had to resign, but bourque was prevailed upon to fire Archibald Cox so they wouldnt put in some hack from the white house whats so striking, the doomsday scenario we had with the saturday night massacre is what we have with whitaker. Dont let nixon just put in some guy to run the department. Exactly. Trump has just gone all around that. Hes basically circumvented the whole succession law and hes put in a guy who he thinks is going to get him out of jail free. Wall street journal reporting, jill, as i mentioned earlier that one of the witnesses before that grand jury, the mueller grand jury was asked questions about roger stones intimidation of Randy Credico, this person he has a strange relationship with, hes a new york radio host who stone claimed at one point he was his sort of connection to assange, who was then berated publicly and privately, trying to apparently intimidate him, or the supposition here. What do you make of that . Well, knowing roger stone, and ive had the pleasure of being on a panel with him where he is quite charming in person, but if you look at his history in an odd way, but yes. Definitely in an odd way, yes. But i would say based on everything that weve seen and heard and everything that we know from the days of watergate on, he is very likely to be a person who thinks that he can get away with anything and that he would intimidate witnesses without even thinking that he was doing it. So i think its quite possible that thats something that has happened. I think everyone underestimates how much mueller knows. Yes. And so they go in there giving their story, not realizing that everything that they say, there is some contradictory statement under oath by someone else or some document. I mean, all of the Text Messages and emails contradict what roger stone says. And people need to really Pay Attention to all of the things that get triangulated in any investigation. Yeah. Thats what we do as prosecutors. We take conflicting statements and we triangulate and then you come to the truth. I think that thats going to catch roger stone. What you just described is what jerome corsi by his own words happened to him. They went in to talk to investigators, all sorts of documentary evidence contradicting things hes said. In his own telling thats precisely what happened. Jill winebanks and nick akerman, thank you both. Thank you. I want to give you this news from los angeles tonight, the lapd is confirming at this hour that michael avenatti, the attorney for Stormy Daniels and others has been arrested on suspicion of domestic violence. In a statement avenattis wife said she was not involved in the alleged incident. Senior Law Enforcement officials tell nbc news avenatti is expected to be booked into a local jail later this evening, meaning he is currently in custody, as i understand it. Avenatti has been exploring quite vocally a 2020 president ial run as a democrat. In a statement tonight he calls the allegations quote, completely bogus and said he would be exonerated, adding i have never been physically abusive in my life, nor was i last night. Any accusations to the contrary are fabricated and meant to do harm to my reputation. Where america stands after the blue wave midterm election, plus, block buster New York Times reporting on the insane Tactics Facebook used to navigate the russian interference scandal. And next, congressman Hakeem Jeffries in a remarkable first day for a remarkable freshman class orientation