Bystanders in rural guadaloupe county, texas. Tonight, the local sheriff confirms that they recovered 15 ammunition magazines from the scene of the Church Shooting and he reports that all of them were empty. Now, it had previously been reported that the gunman used 30round magazines, so extended magazines. If he went through 15 fully loaded 30round magazines inside that church, that means conceivably he may have fired off more than 400 rounds inside that small building. In addition to the fbi and local Law Enforcement involvement in this investigation, the United States air force and the Inspector General of the department of defense are now involved and thats because of the nexus between the killers disastrous history in the United States air force and the question of how he was able to obtain the guns that he used in this massacre. In 2012, he was serving in the air force when he was courtmartialed for assaulting his wife and for assaulting his infant stepson so severely that he broke the boys skull. He was courtmartialed in 2012, convicted, served a year in san diego. The air force doesnt operate its own prisons or jails. When you get convicted of something as an airman you get sentenced either to an army jail or a navy jail. In this case he was sentenced to a navy brig in san diego. After the oneyear term he was reduced in rank and given a bad conduct discharge. But because of what he had been convicted of, because he was convicted specifically of a Domestic Violence offense, under federal law he was not legally allowed to own or possess any kind of gun. But the air force is admitting tonight that at the local level his Domestic Violence conviction was not entered into the National Crime information center, the ncic system, which licensed firearms dealers are supposed to check when you try to buy a gun at a gun store or Sporting Goods store or anyplace else where theyre supposed to follow the background check system. The air force has now launched a review into why his Domestic Violence conviction, which should have prohibited him from buying a gun, it was not entered into the ncic database. The Inspector General of the pentagon is going to investigate this as well, according to the pentagon tonight. The d. O. D. Inspector general will also review relevant policies and procedures to ensure records from other cases across the Defense Department have been reported correctly. The shooting in Sutherland Springs was one of the deadliest Mass Shootings in american history. In the past six weeks we have had two of the deadliest Mass Shootings in american history. First in las vegas, now in texas. The president responded to the texas massacre by saying that this was not a guns issue. He said, i think that Mental Health is your problem here. The president does not appear to be speaking from any verifiable Public Information in issuing that laymans diagnosis of what went wrong here. But if the president did believe that the Mental Health of the killer was the real issue here, then somebody should probably ask the president why one of the very first things he signed as president , the first meaningful thing that moved through congress that he signed as president was a change in regulations specifically and only to make it easier for people whove been adjudicated mentally ill to obtain firearms. I mean, if the president believes that theres no gun problem here, the only issue here is a mentally ill person obtaining and then misusing a gun, well, this president took overt action as soon as he became president to make it easier for mentally ill people to get guns. So in terms of what, if anything, motivated this latest attack, there have been reports that one of the victims in the church was the gunmans wifes grandmother. There have been reports that his estranged wife sometimes attended the church as did her mother. There have been reports that he sent threatening texts to the mother. Neither the estranged wife nor her mother was at the church yesterday when the attack happened. Local authorities are just not commenting on any potential motivation for the attack. So we dont know why it happened, to the extent that these things can ever be known, but we do know how it happened. It wasnt that this guy turned crazy on people. He turned a military grade semiautomatic firearm on these people in an enclosed space and then, according to what the sheriff said tonight, he apparently emptied 15 highcapacity ammunition magazines into the people of that church. Were told by local authorities to not expect further police briefings tonight. There will be one tomorrow but were not sure of the time. Well let you know more as we learn more. You know, even before news broke yesterday morning of this massive shedding of blood in Sutherland Springs, texas, we were already in a news environment over the weekend that felt a little overwhelming, didnt it . I obviously do this show monday to friday. On the weekends i try to stay up on whats going on but i try to tune out a little bit. This weekend i feel like i was never able to tune out because so much stuff happened over the weekend and specifically so many news stories broke over the weekend and over the course of today, too, that have been both big stories and surprising stories but theyve all had some degree of like opacity or density to them thats made them hard to absorb. Nothing simple has broken over the last few days and a lot of whats broken over the last few days is a really big deal. Just take this story out of saudi arabia, for example. This is potential worldchanging stuff. Its certainly middle eastchanging stuff. And im quite sure we dont know whats going to happen next here but if what continues to happen in saudi arabia is anywhere near as momentous as what just happened there, this really could be the start of a whole new era in International Politics and in international economics. Last the last saudi king, King Abdullah, died in 2015. He was 90 years old. When he died, his halfbrother took over as king. So the new king of the saudi arabia is king salman. Right away, though, in that transition it was clear that may not be a longterm arrangement. And i dont mean that in a rude way. I just mean that King Abdullah was 90 when he died. King salman who replaced him was 79 already when he took over. That was two years ago. Hes now 81. In the couple of years that king salman has been king, hes maneuvered aggressively to install his favorite son as his formal and obvious and powerful successor. And he picked his favorite son for that role when his favorite son was only 30 years old. The favorite son, the crown princes Prince Mohammed bin salman. Mbs. Mbs is now 32 years old. Hes very young. Hes already been named the top economic adviser in the kingdom, the chief of the royal court in the kingdom, the defense minister of saudi arabia, and officially the guy whos next in line to be king. He had to jump over a bunch of his cousins in order to get that role. And we dont know what happened to set off what happened this weekend, but honestly, saudi arabia and the royal court and the line of succession turned into an action movie this weekend. It started off bizarrely with the Prime Minister of a whole different country resigning as Prime Minister of his country while he was in saudi arabia. The Prime Minister of lebanon on saturday announced he was stepping down as the lebanese Prime Minister, and lebanon is a whole separate country from saudi arabia, but mysteriously the lebanese Prime Minister announced in saudi arabia that he was stepping down. Why did that happen . I mean, if President Trump was going to resign from office, that would be momentous enough. If he went to mexico to announce it . Right . That said, that was really strange on saturday. Nobody knew what that was about. But nobody had long to wonder about that because hours after that super strange announcement the crown prince, mbs, announced he was taking over the one part of the Security Forces in his country that hadnt yet been brought under his control. Then the kingdom announced that the crown prince, mbs, was now in charge of a brand new anticorruption unit. And the first act of this new previously unknown anticorruption unit was to arrest and lock up 11 other princes, four currently serving ministers of the government, and dozens of exministers. They literally emptied out the ritz carlton in riyadh and locked up all the princes there. Indefinitely. All members of the extended royal family in saudi arabia, which is a lot of people. All of them have been banned from leaving the country. Private jets are being blocked at the airports and not being allowed out. And we dont know if this next part is related. In the movie version it certainly would be. But hours after all the princes got arrested, one of the princes, who was apparently not available for immediate arrest, this was another former crown prince, another guy whod been in line to be the next king at one point, hours after all those 11 princes got arrested and locked up this other prince, former crown prince, ended up dead in an unexplained Helicopter Crash in the middle of the desert. Just hours after all his cousins got arrested and locked up in the ritz carlton. So we dont really know what all that is about. We do know, however, that our government is totally on board with whatevers happening. The crown prince whos arrested all his cousins, locked them up in the ritz carlton, appears to be consolidating power in a way that hasnt been seen in saudi arabia for the last 50 years at least. He somewhat famously visited President Trump in the oval office in march. Thats President Trump and mbs. Less famously, he hosted Jared Kushner last week. When Jared Kushner took an unannounced under the radar trip to saudi arabia that we were not allowed to know he was on until he returned. David ignatius at the Washington Post, who always has all the best dirt on saudi arabia, today he reports that during Jared Kushners unannounced trip to saudi arabia last week jared spent several nights staying up till 4 00 in the morning plotting with mbs, with the crown prince. And jared came home and the crown prince launched his coup. So the lebanese Prime Minister shocking everybody by announcing his resignation in saudi arabia followed by the arrests of all of the princes, followed by the death of one of the princes. That all happened in very quick succession on saturday. President trump then called the saudi king the day after on sunday, and whatever happened in that conversation, the white house gave a readout about what that discussion was about and made no mention that anything unusual at all was under way. No mention of the arrests, no mention that the entire saudi royal family was being grounded and a large portion of them were now being held against their will. No mention of that. Just a statement of support from President Trump and an announcement that the call had taken place. The president followed that up today on twitter with this pronouncement that he believes the saudi king and mbs, the crown prince, quote, they know what they are doing. They may know what they are doing but i wish we knew what they were doing. Particularly if this is the start of them going to war with iran or something, it would be good to know. Maybe the white house knows. Maybe theyll tell us. Maybe jared knows. So all that stuff broke on saturday, saturday afternoon, saturday night and into sunday. Just previously unimaginable news out of this incredibly important country in the middle east. And at the same time were trying to figure out whats going on with that story, we get the Paradise Papers. Huh . Youve heard of the panama papers. This is twice as much fun. The Paradise Papers this is something youll hear about in days, weeks and probably months ahead. There are hundreds of news outlets working on the paradise paper story all over the world. The reason so many news organizations are working on it, the reason its going to be lots and lots of stories and not just one story is because what the Paradise Papers are is a repository of millions of documents that were hacked or stolen or otherwise somehow leaked from a law firm, a law firm in bermuda that sets up intentionally complex, hard to follow and sometimes secret entities to help very rich people move their money around, make investments, buy stuff and generally avoid ever paying tax on anything. And as i say, theres going to be a lot of news that comes out of this trove of millions of documents that has just been spooled out to news organizations around the world. But for the Trump Administration, problem numero uno from these papers is wilbur ross. Wilbur ross, the 79yearold diminutive billionaire who President Trump appointed commerce secretary. This is not the first time that wilbur rosss financial and business dealings have has been source of controversy and intrigue since he joined the cabinet. Remember last week when Paul Manafort and rick gates got indicted and there was reference to offshore Bank Accounts in the nation of cyprus . When that indictment came out, when those details came out in their indictment, did that ring any wilbur ross bells for you . If it did, thats because it remains a source of great interest and controversy that wilbur ross served as the vice chair of the bank of cyprus at a time when banks in cyprus were like you know how like frisbee is a brand name but frisbee is basically like the brand name generic for flying disk . Or kleenex. Where technically youd say please, may i have a facial tissue . But nobody ever says that. The brand name generic is kleenex. That kind of dynamic. Wilbur ross became the vice chair of the bank of cyprus at a time when banks in cyprus were like the branded generic for im laundering money for Russian Oligarchs connected to Vladimir Putin and putins family. Its the kleenex. Its the frisbee of russian money laundering. And wilbur ross was vice chair of the bank of cyprus and hes long denied that there was anything shady or money launderish about his time at the bank of cyprus. Hes dismissed the simultaneous involvement of putin oligarchs at the same bank at the same time as him as just a matter of financial coincidence. But now thanks to the Paradise Papers reporting, weve learned that wilbur rosss financial ties to Russian Oligarchs are not only through cypriot banks and theyre not only things in his past. Wilbur ross was actually praised by some ethics watchdogs when he announced that he would be divesting himself from dozens of business partnerships and investments so as to avoid conflicts of interest in his new role as commerce secretary. Since then its emerged that wilbur ross maintained literally billions of dollars in assets that he never disclosed to anybody when he was being confirmed for commerce secretary and its now been disclosed that among the holdings he chose to retain even as he dropped all the other ones, among the holdings he chose to retain when he joined the cabinet, was a Significant Interest in a firm k5u8d navigator. And the way navigator makes money is because it has exclusive business deals with a Russian Oligarch linked to Vladimir Putin, one of the first russian businessman to be sanctioned by the u. S. After russia invaded ukraine. Also another oligarch linked to ukraine which has will not sanctioned by the u. S. Because of links to putin and putins invasion of ukraine. And the other notable shareholder in that firm, that right this second as we speak continues to enrich our serving secretary of commerce, the other notable shareholder in that firm is this handsome fellow. His name is kirilshabalov. Hes Vladimir Putins soninlaw. Hes married to putins daughter. The one who does the rock and roll aerobic dancing thing. Thats her husband. Commerce secretary wilbur ross insists there is nothing illegal or nefarious about this business arrangement with all these Russian Oligarchs and members of Vladimir Putins family. He insists he did not really need to disclose this stuff to the senate when he was confirmed. But he also doesnt deny that this reporting is true, which means that of all the different links between russia and major figures in the Trump Administration, this really is the first time weve had confirmation of an ongoing current Major Business relationship between a serving, highranking Trump Administration official and a me