Transcripts For MSNBCW The Last Word With Lawrence ODonnell

Transcripts For MSNBCW The Last Word With Lawrence ODonnell 20180302 03:00:00

Former u. S. Attorney. Julia, this is your reporting. Youre part of the team at nbc news that discovered this approach. What more do we know about it . Lawrence, on the one hand it seems obvious. We know two weeks ago special Counsel Robert Mueller delivered a scathing indictment of 13 Russian Hackers not just hackers but influencers. Those were people able to get into social media and influence the way the election was being talked about to sow some distrust in the process. But what we have thats significant here is that a lot of information has recently been turned over to Robert Mueller from the Intelligence Community. This is information that includes the electronic signatures, malware the methods i dont think so. Theres never been a precedent for the United States indicting an elected foreign leader, even a country we dislike like russia. So i dont think were going to see that. I think its important to focus on the significance of this development. These wikileaks, these emails were the centerpiece of Donald Trumps fall campaign. There were 66 days in the fall campaign, he talked about them 146 times, more than he talked about infrastructure. These were core Trump Campaign weapons built in russia, deployed in the United States. They hurt the clinton campaign, a lot of them were released the day the Access Hollywood came out, as an effort to distract from that. So if the Mueller Investigation is a witch hunt, getting the people with the emails is capturing the broomstick. We are getting close to the heart of the matter. I think i learned the phrase unindicted Cocon Spospirator in would be implications for Intelligence Gathering and sources and the Intelligence Community will have real interest in what comes out and how its presented. Ordinarily the Justice Department might consult with the state department, the cia, other organizations in government and ultimately maybe the white house to determine if a course of action should be puffer sued in a case. Here because of the context which were operating because the president himself is the subject of an investigation it creates a difficult situation to figure out a platform for having those kinds of conversations. Julia, your reporting has some information about the complexities that paul fishman was just talking about. Tell us what you learned about how the special prosecutor is approaching what is really a complex decision whether to indict or not, in this situation, no matter what the evidence is. Thats right, lawrence. There are a lot of complexities, its not just wlrnt to indict, but also whether or not to unseal that indictment. It could be he decides to go forward with the charges and place them under seal in a way we would never know about them. It could be because a lot of the information that leads to the charges, especially if they involve someone like Vladimir Putin himself, they would have been gathered through such sensitive methods that to disclose that information would actually damage a lot of the capabilities of u. S. National security and the u. S. Intelligence community. Another thing when were talking about the president , in order to do this kind of indictment that would have National Security implications, one important one to the look at is an indictment against chinese hackers that the Justice Department filed in 2014, these are hackers that they knew theyd never be able to bring to the United States to put through our courts. But they did it in a way to say look we see the countries, we know the governments may be behind this and we want to make a stand and show all the information were able to bring. Its more of a statement. And they found in 2014, it was important to do that even aside from all of the diplomatic repercussions and that is exactly what they may do in this case, there are diplomatic repercussions for an indictment like this but they would do it in order to show russia that they can see everything theyre doing and its not going unnoticed and they think that might protect them Going Forward in future elections. Ron cline, one of the considerations you can imagine in some other administration is that other administration would have taken some sort of action against russia for doing this and, therefore, not welcome the indictments because they have another way of dealing with this. We have pretty clear Public Information at this point that this administration has done absolutely nothing about it. And is determined to do nothing about it. So it could be that Robert Muellers indictments might be the only thing that actually hit russians on this. I think thats right, lawrence. I mean, i think, notwithstanding what julia and paul said, this is a very unusual case. Congress has passed sanctions against russia, the president refuses to impose them. The head of the National Security agency was on the hill saying i dont have any orders to do something to clamp down on russia. Senators on both sides of the aisle were perplexed by those orders. So i think if america is going to make a statement that this conduct by the russians is unacceptable, the effort to hijack the elections, that statement has to come from the special counsel, it puts him in a difficult and unprecedented situation, but he is the person whos going to have to Stand Up For America if our president wont. Paul fishman i want to get your perspective on this as someone who made that decision, to pursue a federal prosecution or not. This is fascinating because if you do indict these Russian Hackers, indict them individually, high likelihood youll never have to go to prosecution, theyll never submit to the jurisdiction, come to this country so theyre never prosecut prosecuted. So, therefore, do you use a lower standard for indictment because in the back of your mind im thinking im never going to have to prove this beyond a reasonable doubt, or given the visibility of a case like this and the importance of it, do you use a higher standard for indictment . I think the Justice Departments practice is the right one and its the ethical norm to which all federal prosecutors are sworn to subscribe, which is the only time you can bring a criminal case is if you are confident you can prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury. Thats the constitutional standard. Thats not what you need to get an indictment, to get an indictment you need praobable cause. Thats not the way bob mueller was trained, the kind of prosecutor hes been in his career. If that happened, i would be surprised. I think as julia said there is a reason to bring an indictment like that in a case like this. If you think back to when this investigation started, back before bob mueller was appointed, the one crime that everyone knew had been committed was the hacking of the dnc. So it ap not surprising at all i think that bob muellers charter has included trying to figure out whos responsible for the hack, whos responsible in russia and whether anyone in america was a Chris Christocons before or after that hack occurred. Thank you all for joining the discussion tonight. Really appreciate it. Coming up, todays episode of white house chaos, the president surprised his own staff by declaring he is going to take Executive Action that could start a trade war and create a worldwide recession. 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I would just open by saying i have almost no right to be up here on this stage. I was in the department you have every right to be here. Thank you. I miss every one of you every day. Truly, at six months the last thing i wanted to do is walk away from one of the great honors of my life being the secretary of Homeland Security but i did something wrong and god punished me i guess. John kelly became white house Chief Of Staff after Reince Priebus failed to contain the chaos. Since john kelly took over the job the chaos has only gotten much, much worse. Axios report that President Trump is in a bad place, mad as hell about the chaos wiand the sense that everything is unraveling. Nbc news reports that another top official may be leaving. The white house is preparing to replace h. R. Mcmaster as National Security advisor as early as next month. And reports that gary cohen, could also be headed for the exit after the president defied coh his advise and announced today he plans to have tariffs on imported steel and aluminum. Were going to be instituted tariffs, perhaps some of you folks will be here. Unlimited period. 25 , sir . It will be 25 for steel, 10 f10 for aluminum. And it will be for a long period of time. 25 for steel, 10 for aluminum. Its being written now. If that looked to you like the president was making up on the spot, thats the way it looked to some white house staffers who were surprised by that. The plan was not to announce that, according to some reports. The only way the president can raise tariffs by Executive Order is to cite a National Need to do that, otherwise congress could pass legislation to block the president s action if the president actually does take this action that he announced today. The stock market reacted badly to it today, dropping 420 points because wall street knows that tariffs are taxes. Thoand those taxes are not p by countries theyre paid by american consumers, in effect. Wall street knows that tariffs increase the cost of imported goods and increase the cost of goods in the United States. The president got zero support, not surprisingly, in congress today. Here is the reaction of senator orrin hatch, who has jurisdiction over International Trade and tariffs. This could turn everything the other way. Thats going to bite the american citizens with higher taxes, higher costs, and its going to affect the whole International Trading system. Im very upset about it as you can see. Joining us now Kimberly Atki Atkins and david frum. And, kimberly, this report from inside the white house that the president is upset about the chaos situation as it was revealed today and has the feeling that things was unraveling, which was a feeling i think available to him on day one of his presidency. Look, this is a chaos president. It was a term i believe coined by jeb bush. In a way the president likes that. He likes doing things differently, keeping everybody and everything on their toes. He even likes some of the internal push and pull that can happen, but i think what weve seen over the last week really exceeded that. And if the announcement of this tariff was meant to change the subject, it actually has done quite the opposite. It seems to have caused a lot more consternation both within the white house with gary cohen, someone who contemplated leaving and was urged by republicans to stay in there because they didnt know who else would come in and tl and they wanted him to stay on and be a stabilizing force. Possibly leaving over this again because of the impact its likely to have on a lot of u. S. Companies and potentially cost u. S. Jobs in that sense. So it doesnt seem to be getting any better. Its also worth noting that the ultimate decision in the very hasty announcement was made while general kelly was at the Homeland Security department participating in this event. He sort of was out of the office and all of a sudden this came down while he wasnt there to sort of oversee and keep things in order. So its just every day it seems to be a new series of crises within this white house that is keeping the president from sticking to the agenda that he wants to stick to. David frum, theres two ways to talk about the tariff announcement today. One is the policy of it, which hasnt been thought through by the president. But the other is the chaos. The chaotic way which it all tumbled out and no one in the white house was planning to do it that way. Coupled with the chaos of the churning of personnel, hope hickss departure, now National Security advisor seems to be on his way out. The president likes surprising but there will be nothing less surprising than the outcome of what hes done. The last time the United States experimented with Steel Sherita in 2002, they lasted 30 months. The best estimate of the impact of those Tariffs On Americans was a loss of 200,000 jobs which was greater than the total employment in the Steel Industry at this time. At this point steel employs fewer people. The aluminum, it hits beverages, cars and construction, too. The consequences of this inside the United States are going to be tough. The consequences for the world are going to be the tougher. The president , i think, imagines that hes hitting china. But china exports relatively little steel to the United States. The biggest exporter of steel to the United States is canada. In third place is south korea. And just to think about this, yesterday on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal proposed a plan for a preemptive attack on north korea, which has to weird people in south korea out. But the second thing is what they got today, which is a trade war attack on a south korean industry by their supposed friend and protector, the United States. Kimberly on the national security advisor front this is a position when filled does not require Senate Confirmations so its a job that can go to anyway, of course, we all remember that President Trumps first choice for that job, Michael Flynn has now pled guilty to federal crimes of lying to the fbi. Its a job that doesnt require senate confirmation, but as weve seen from that should require some vetting because its an important position and you dont want to get a warning from the Justice Department that your National Security advisor is susceptible to blackmail the way President Trump did and you dont want him getting indicted but this is an example the president putting someone in who he thought would be good, a general, but that seemingly not working out and general mcmaster sort of seeking an exit and the white house sort of helping facilitate that. Whats coming now, rapid departures. Look in any president ial administration, there is some turnover, particularly at the beginning, but this i

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