Plus greing calls to the president to denounce white supremacist in the wake of christchurch. The president is not a white supremacist. Im not sure how many times we have to say that. Plus devyn nunes sues. Why trumps favorite congressman is testing the First Amendment by suing twitter. The latest big idea injected in the democratic primary. We can have National Voting and that means get rid of the Electoral College when all in starts roit now. Good evening from new york im chris hayes. Two monthinize s into his appoi of special counsel had reason to believe he was acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign power according to a twoyear search warrant released today and hundreds of pages of documents on the raid on cohens properties. It turns out the most sensational charges, that would be the Campaign Finance violations pu violations purp traited to cover up the affairs were an offshoot of a a much larger vez. We still dont know what if anything that yielded. And search warrants as early as july 2017, seeking evidence that cohen committed a number of crimes including acting as an unregistered Foreign Agent and violating the Foreign Agents registration act. They sought commune kazs, documents and other files involving essential consultants llc. That was created to funnel the hush money payments to stormy daniels. Instead what mueller was examining were another set of examples involving the llc. Its a major threat in the cohen story which remains unresolved to this day as we wait for the final mueller report. After the fbi raid we found out the Shell Company received millions of dollars with big corporations like at t a Korean Defense firm. Among those payments were hundreds of thousands from an American Investment firm linked to russianall garb. He was stopped on the tarmac after getting off private plane and questioned by federal agents who seized his electronic devices. We learned he met with cohen at trump tower to discuss u. S. russian Relations Just days before trump would take the oath of office. And then he and cohen later spent time together at the president s inauguration in washington. And we dont know what thats all about or why the firm started paying cohen shortly thereafter. What we do know is muellers probe of those payments started way before the hush money investigation. In the special counsel ultimately handed off the cohen case to the Southern District of new york, he did not give them the whole thing. The special counsel gave to the u. S. Attorneys office. Its one of many questions that remain unanswered as we continue to wait for the special counsel to show his cards in some form. Deputy attorney general who first appointed mueller and has been on his way out is planning to stay on at the Justice Department a little bit longer. To break down what we learned is White Reporter from nbc. And former chief spokesperson under attorney general eric holder. Youve been reporting on this stufr, particularly around the inauguration. What have we learned from these cohen files . What we learned is cohen had a very extensive foreign lobbying operation going that mueller was aware of it and looking into it much earlier than weve previously known. We learned that columbus nova, which is the american linked form ended up paying cohen north of 500,000. It was part of a Million Dollar contract signed with cohen. Within ten days of trumps inauguration. Another in the thats important to remember is not only did he attend trumps inauguration but he attended a candle lite dinner, very intimate event apparently for Million Dollar donors or over. Traditionally they wouldnt have been invited to Something Like this but they were. And they were seated with cohen at this very intimate dinner and ten days later signed him for a Million Dollar contract. And theres a bank thats doing Political Consulting work for. Often contracts will have vague language about consult as needed on topics as needed. One thing that became clear is these companies were paying him for access, for direct access, direct consulting on specific topics, on the at t time warner merger. He was making 100,000 in some case as month. So hes selling access to the president which is quite clear and whats striking to me is one of the in thes weve learned is fara violations usually go on unprosecuted. In this case theres a trip wire here that muellers team is freaked out by what theyre seeing going on with the bank account. I would suspect the fbi was already on to cohen before july 2016. He would have been one of the people they would have been investigating i would suspect as far as the 2016 campaign. Allegations that he attended a meeting in prague around the payment of the russian hacking. I would suspect that when mueller took over it was one of the targets they went after. This is the second day in a row weve seen evidence of someone in the president s inner circle being investigated for potentially being an unregistered Foreign Agent. Remember yesterday they reported that another rnc finance chairman like Michael Cohen was also under investigation by the Criminal Division because he was referred by mueller in the same way cohen was referred to sdny. There are all these people around the president being investigated for Money Laundering and acting as a Foreign Agent for other crimes. And year only now beginning to find out things theyre not necessarily charged with but have probable cause to get a search warnlt. Theres so much focus on russianau because russia is the foreign power that pulled off this massive criminal conspiracy sabotage. But when you look at it, the amount of foreign penetration of this campaign manafort and rick gates Michael Flynn whos taking undisclosed interests to turkey on election day. A gop lobbyist whos already pleaded guilty. Yuv rr got all of these foreign interests trying to get in the door in trump world and it feels like we dont know the full story about all of them. I dont think we do. The bottom line is foreign interests pay more money because its harder for them to gain access in the first place. I thin another thing we saw today was a portrait of cohen he would prefer we not see as hes testifying before congress, which is a guy who after ten years of sleping after trump and cleaning after his legal messes finally was going to begin selling this kind of access he was becoming the kind of guy who can charge 100,000 for a couple phone calls. There was an interesting detail in one of the filings that cohen spent more than 1. 5 million of his 3 million he took in 2017. But part of what he spent it on was membership at a super elite wall street club, called the core club, which has members like very private Billionaires Club and 50,000 initiation fee. Thats one of the things that cohen put his money towards. You have a picture of a guy coming out and ready to cash in. On the make. Theres also the other striking thing is the scope of what they got. This first warrant, information to be disclosed by google. Emails, drafts, metta data, pictures and files, search and web history, cookies, related records. They start hoovering up a lot of infoe about this guy early on. I know people outside the Justice Department are amazed when they see a search warrant documentation or a subpoena and see how much information the government is able to get. The mueller applications were the first and then you saw them go back for even more when they went back and executed the search warrant on his office. Everything about his fine ansz, his relationships with foreign individuals. And eventually one thch things the Justice Department has the ability to do is they may start investigating one crime but it they find others, theyre off to the races, which is what happened here with the Campaign Finance probe. That part of the search warrant application was redacted. Im going to talk about that in a second. Thank you both for joining me tonight. For more on what these tell us about the overall probe, im joined by the former attorney for the Southern District. On what matt just said, so theres an entire section. The one thing we thought was wrapped up in a neat bow was the Illegal Campaign donation scheme hes already pleaded guilty to. Theres an entire section thats under the heading Illegal Campaign contribution scheme. Its 18 pages and we dont get to see it. What do you make of that . Usually when something is redacted in a release wliek this, the yuls assumption is theres investigation still ongoing. So my take away is theres more conduct or both and the reason were learning about that now is these redactions were necessary in the points of view of special Counsel Office lawyers to protect the ongoing investigation. Some things have been farmed out and some things havent. We dont know what really has been retained. Although we know the manafort prosecution was retained. Do you have a sense of what it means ultimately that some things have been given to federal prosecutors and some things have stayed with mueller. Two points. I agree with joyce. And they told judge howell to protect the rights of individuals. I think elliott brody, maybe ea trump jr. , who are potentially involved. One of the most interesting things reading between the lines of the application is he was farming out over a year ago to the Southern District of norb. We conceive of this latter strategy to protect the probe but if that was right, he was thinking in those terms already. One, to try to protect and two, just sort affa distribution of resources. Hes got a core team and they were taking on a lot. I think its quite interesting and we didnt learn until today how early into the probe he begins to distribute materials to the other officers. Theres the essential question about was the work Michael Cohen doing a violation of law . We dont kind of know what becomes of the vexalberg part of it . Whether they concluded this was not chargeable . It seems unlikely. I think its frankly not possible for us to know right now. It could be they hit an evdengsiary barrier friendsh friendship this could be part of the reason that Southern District of new yorked would not enter into a cooperation agreement. Maybe it can could be this but that doesnt really feel right in this particular case. It seems they gave him too much credit that they wouldnt have give fn there was Something Big and looming. That again doesnt feel right. So my suspicion is we dont know what the deal is at this point. And it does seem to me theres a qualitative difference. The idea of people wuvorking fo Foreign Agents in an unregistered fashion. The former white House Counsel for barack obama for his involvement in the ukrain situation. Theres a way thats done in washington that skirts the law, which is hiring the law firms you dont officially do lobbying and you dont register. Its pretty clear from the timeline and the warrant applications, they were freaked out about churngs of money going from the llc to all kinds of places to the guy whos got the ear of the president. No kidding. And this is going to be one of the footnotes or fallouts of this scandal. The bipartisan lobbying efforts. Dave craig looks like hes in the sutd and previously tony podesta. Frantic. They were looking for everything, as matt says and thats what the feds do. You have this straightforward start with the bank records, then g mail and apple, then enough to get his email and down the line until the big search in april of last year. So it was really a very by the book, methodical probe. Everyone thought at first was cohen in prague or was that all about . And that looks to be a dry hole. What do you think . Is there any conclusion to be drawn about where things are based on the filings of the mueller folks that weve got in terms of this release and the filings weve seen over the last few days. We uncconsistently hear muel is holding up shop. Its easy for folks to forget that doj is literally the largest law firm. Its a little bit artificial to talk in terms of the mueller investigation. We have National Investigation in u. S. Attorneys offices, in main justice because weve learned there are pieces of this probe in the National Security division the criminal divisio division its not over. Still to come congressman devin nunes is filing a lawsuit over the people super mean to him on twitter. Super mean to him on twitter allergies with sinus congestion and pressure . You wont find relief here. Go to the pharmacy counter for powerful claritind. While the leading allergy spray only relieves 6 symptoms, claritind relieves 8, including sinus congestion and pressure. Claritind relieves more. Sitting United States congressman nunez is suing twiter for a quarter of a billion dollars because people made fun of him on the internet and it hurt his feelings. Hes saying he has been defamed. But it makes it difficult to take the lawsuit seriously. The complaint literally reads quote in her endless barrage of tweets, devyn nunes mom atabbed every aspect of his honesty, integrity, ethics and ability to perform his duty as a conressman. We live in a free society almost literally founded on the idea that you could make fun of politicians. Last night he tried to explain his case to a friendly audience. So people were targeting. There were anonymous accounts that were developed. And theres not these accounts arent supposed to exist. Twitter says they dont have accounts that do this. So this is the first of of many lawsuits that are coming. But there were several fake news accounts with regards to the russia investigation or me and we have to hold all of these people accountable because if we dont, our First Amendment rights are at stake here. Joining me for her first interview since being named in the lawsuit is republican strategist, liz mare. Devyn g. Nunes and his mom and cow. Did you know this was coming . No. I actually was sitting at my kids karate practice not paying attention to my phone and when i got home prepared to eat dinner i started getting phone calls from people about a lawsuit. So, no, i didnt. But here we are and i guess life moves forward, right. People say mean things on the internet about other things or joking or snide things. Why you . Why are you named in this lawsuit . I dont think im personally equipped to have any real insight into what goes on in devyn nunes mind. You would probably have to have him on your show and ask him point blank. I also am not going it get into discussing the lawsuit itself or his pleadings. Obviously im a dftd in this and we will have a response forthcoming. But i dont want to get into the actual lawsuit itself. Very happy to talk about the First Amendment implications of course. Just so people know the kind of thing that he is saying is defamatory, that hes suing you over. This is a tweet literally a headline from the fresno bee and the headline is a yacht, cocane prostitutes and you tweet that with all craps holy crap. Which is what hes trying to sue you for. Given how much talk weve had, particularly from conservatives of the First Amendment and the snowflakes on campus who dont like any counterveiling ideas, what do you think of a sitting member of congress suing a private citizen over a mean tweet . Im a libertarian republican and i believe extremely strongly in the bill of rights and our republic, not just parts of it, all of it and i hope that includes the First Amendment. Hes sworn an oath to support and uphold and protect the kaungs tuesday and that does include the First Amendment. I do think the First Amendment is incredibly important. On my read of the situation the reason that the framers put that in place is specifically to protebt the ability of citizens to criticize their government. And in this case what we appear to have is a sitting member of the u. S. House of representatives, an actual Government Official trying to use litigation to stifle free speech. Hes trying to use if it to stifle speech. As a libertarian republican as someone who believes extremely strongly in Civil Liberties, i have a problem with that, of course. Youre going to have a lawyer up and defend yourself in this suit, right . The main cost, frankly has been a lot of and im not going to get into discussing what were doing with the litigation. But personally i think its important that everybody stands up and advocates for the First Amendment and not selectively but across the board. I would strongly urge anyone if you agree with me and agree that Civil Liberties are important, please consider donating to the swamp accountability project which is probably going to be paying for part of my legal fees. I would also say you can do your part by tweeting mean things at public figures or retweeting headlines because i believe the First Amendment for tects that and it would be crazy to watch them whacamole on t