Also, there was the sword dance. Look at him groove. It was quite a trip. And for the Trump Administration it had to be a really nice distraction because just days before that trip and that sword dance Robert Mueller had been appointed special counsel to take over the russia investigation and to look into trumps firing of the fbi director, jim comey, earlier that month. But it turned out the trump trip to the middle east and the Mueller Investigation were on a collision course. Shortly after trump got back from that trip to saudi arabia he completely upended his u. S. Foreign policy in the middle east by a tweet, by backing an aggressive move by saudi arabia against the nation of qatar, a staunch american ally that hosts a giant American Military base. And for many months that whole weird Foreign Policy shakeup remained just that, strange, kind of inexplicable, but solely a Foreign Policy issue. And then our understanding of the entire affair suddenly changed radically. What had been as far as we knew two completely separate stories, trumps seemingly seat of his pants Foreign Policy in the middle east and the everchurning Mueller Investigation, suddenly it turned out they were connected. In march of this year we learned muellers team was investigating whether essentially the Trump Administration may have sided against qatar in its fight with saudi arabia because qatar declined to invest in Jared Kushners troubled family real estate project at 666 fifth avenue here in new york city. Then we learned that mueller was focused on a guy named george nader, who had been lobbying the white house against qatar. And whether he may have funneled money from qatars enemies to trumps campaign. And then george nader became a cooperating witness in the mueller probe. This is a phenomenon were having to get used to in the trump era. Things we thought were completely separate stories, important and complex and dark stories in their own right turn out to be connected. Often in even darker ways than wed imagined. Well, today it appears to be happening again. Only the turnaround this time is apparently getting shorter. This time we did not have to wait months for two giant seemingly unconnected stories to merge into a larger trump scandal. This time it only took a week. Let us recall how this week started. On monday evening jane mayer and ronan farrow at the new yorker published this deeply disturbing report of accounts by four women, two of them named on the record, who said they had been physically abused by new York Attorney general Eric Schneiderman. And in what has to be some kind of land speed record for cause and effect, schneiderman resigned his office within hours. At the beginning of monday nights show rachel was reporting on the story, interviewing jane mayer about it. By the end of monday nights show rachel was reporting on schneidermans resignation. It was lightning quick. Now, i know that seems that was already months ago but that really was just monday night. So thats how the week started. Then tuesday brought new revelations about trump lawyer Michael Cohen courtesy of a document released by Michael Avenatti. The very able, very tvsavvy lawyer for adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who is suing trump and cohen to get out of a nondisclosure agreement covering allegations of an affair with trump. On tuesday Michael Avenatti released this document, which laid out several Financial Transactions involving cohens delawareregistered shell corporation, essential consultants llc, which was the vehicle that he used to pay 130,000 in hush money to Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election. Now, we learned from this document that essential consultants was apparently so much more than just an account to pay hush money to one porn star. It paid out over a Million Dollars to Michael Cohen himself. And it took in a lot of money too. Hundreds of thousands of dollars from Korea Aerospace industries, from at t, from global pharmaceutical giant novartis. And these payments were last year. While donald trump was already president. Some of them were even this year. And yes, there was the half milliondollar payment from an American Investment firm linked to a russian oligarch. And what has spooled out over the rest of the week is that all of these Big Companies have confirmed that yes indeed they paid Michael Cohen those amounts or in some cases much more than those amounts and theyve been frantically changing and updating their explanations for why they paid him and for what. As theyve come to realize that no ones buying the idea that Michael Cohen was retained by some of the worlds biggest corporations for his Health Policy expertise or his advice on how to restructure the internal Accounting Systems for Major Aerospace manufacturers. Oh, and also special counsel Robert Muellers team spoke to these companies about their payments to Michael Cohen months before federal investigators raided cohens office, his home, and his hotel room last month. Even tonight this story continues to unfold with the wall street journal reporting that Michael Cohen offered his ostensible Consulting Services to Ford Motor Company in january of last year but ford said no. The journal reports, muellers team has since requested information from ford about the outreach including emails and records and has interviewed fords head of government affairs, who was the person who rejected cohens offer. Also tonight, Michael Avenatti continues to tweet teases about further information he claims to have about cohens finances. So just this week what started out as a story about hush money payments over an alleged sexual liaison became a story about some of the worlds biggest corporations pouring money into the president s lawyers. What do we call it . His slush fundy llc thingamajig. And today it turns out this whole sordid Michael Cohen consulting business now appears to be tied up with the story that started the week. You may have seen this tweet resurface this week. A tweet that looked like a really prescient 2013 era donald trump predicting the Eric Schneiderman scandal. Weiners gone. Spitzer is gone. Next will be lightweight a. G. Eric schneiderman. Is he a crook . Wait and see, worse than spitzer or weiner. Well, it turns out not only was that tweet predictive of the actual scandal but the way trump may have known to tweet that today became tied to the Michael Cohen case, too. Right now whats happening in the Michael Cohen case is that a special master appointed by the court is going through all the materials seized from cohens office, his home, his hotel room, and making determinations about whats protected by attorneyclient privilege and therefore should not be turned over to federal prosecutors. In fact, just today the special master notified the court that she has finished going through the first batch of material and now lawyers for cohen and trump have until monday to raise any objections to her decisions. But also today, new twist, this letter was sent today to the judge in the Michael Cohen case by a lawyer named peter gleason. And his story is a little convoluted. So stay with me here. But heres the bottom line. Gleason says that in 2012 and he was contacted separately by two women who claimed to have been victimized by the new York Attorney general Eric Schneiderman. Gleason tells the New York Times today that these two women are not among the four women whose accounts were reported in the new yorker on monday. These are two different women. Two other women entirely. Gleason says he did not refer these women to the Manhattan District Attorney because he did not believe or trust that the d. A. Would do anything about it. Instead, and heres where it gets weird, here is what he says he did. I discussed the matter with a retired journalist by the name of Steven Dunleavy who suggested and offered to discuss the matter with donald trump. Mr. Dunleavy did indeed discuss the matter with mr. Trump as evidenced by a phone call received from attorney Michael Cohen. During my communications with mr. Cohen i shared with him certain details of schneidermans vile attacks on these two women. The extent of mr. Cohen memorializing any of our communications is unknown. However, these two womens confidentiality as victims of a Sexual Assault should be superior to that of any unrelated subpoena. Further, it is respectfully requested that the court issue a protective order and seal any and all correspondence that mr. Cohen may have memorialized regarding our communications, which pertain to mr. Schneidermans assault on these two women. So this lawyer is saying to the court, if you find anything in Michael Cohens correspondence about these two women please seal it and make sure it does not get out. And i have so many questions. For starters, why would this lawyer tell donald trump of all people about these alleged Sexual Assaults . Well, just as a possibility schneiderman was going after Trump University at the time. So was trump collecting dirt on schneiderman . And if so why was this lawyer giving it to him and why is he admitting to it now . Why did this lawyer write this letter at all . Does he really fear that someones going to leak cohen materials about these womens allegations from years ago . Is there some other end game here . Honestly, what is going on here . Joining us now is emily jane fox, Senior Reporter at vanity fair, and paul butler, former federal prosecutor and professor at Georgetown School of law. Okay, emily and paul, if that was not complicated enough, i have to start with you on this, emily, because you of course are working on a book, a highly anticipated book about donald trump. The idea that if this lawyer finds out about allegations about schneiderman, who is investigating trump at the time, does it make sense to you that instead of this going to Law Enforcement it goes to the tabloids, who go right to donald trump . That theres a connection between the tabloids and donald trump is the least surprising part of this story. But there are two things that just dont make sense to me. Why this person would go to a tabloid in the first place. Perhaps to get it published. And the second more confusing thing is why didnt donald trump use it . If he knew about it, this is not someone who does not part with his money lightly, and i believe he settled for 25 million in the Trump University cases. He had this dirt on him, it would be very surprising he didnt use it to oust schneiderman earlier. And the other thing is this went through, according to this attorney, this went through Michael Cohen. And Michael Cohen is a selfdescribed fixer. So why wouldnt he have fixed that problem for donald trump . A couple things that dont necessarily add up to me, but as with many things in this story im sure well have a drip, drip, drip of information and possibly get an answer at some point or possibly not. But having written a lot about donald trump and just for those who are not familiar with new york, the trump new york of the 90s, the late 80s and early 90s, when he was really in his heyday. How did he interact with the tabloids . And how extensively did he . Very extensively. This is someone who used to pretend had a pseudonym, or several pseudonyms john barron. Exactly. Calling in stories about himself to the tabloids. And he had a very public divorce. Mostly because he would plant stories about the divorce himself. Right. So this is someone who had a very close relationship. Theres one story i came across in my reporting for the book where reporters had to stop talking to him as a source at one point because his name was quoted so often that people worried that their readers would have fatigue seeing Donald Trumps name. He was such an easy guy to get to comment on the record about anything. He was like that during the campaign. Yes. But they had to stop calling him. Just lastly, would Michael Cohen have ever been involved . Was he in the middle of those transactions . Since trump had a direct relationship with these tabloids. This lawyer finds out the information. He goes to a tabloid, who goes to cohen. Was it typical for cohen to be that kind of fixer, in the middle of the tabloids giving dirt on essentially an opponent, a prosecutor who could be out to get him and being a gobetween between that person and trump . Michael cohen has a very thick rolodex of reporters that he also knows and as we know, he had conversations with in touch and david pecker who owns a. M. I. , national enquirer. This is someone who also grew up in new york in that world in the 80s and 90s and 2000s too relating to tabloids and other reporters and news outlets. And so it wouldnt be shocking if there was a relationship there. But the way it is described, this relationship, i have more questions than answers. And you know, paul, lets get to this. During this period donald trump obviously is embroiled in a pretty big legal case, the Trump University for which he as emily pointed out settled big bucks. Theres also the question of whether or not some donations that went to pam bondi, whos the attorney general of florida, was related to the fact that florida was starting to look into Trump University as well. If donald trump is solving his Trump University problems potentially that way with one d. A. And potentially has kompromat basically on his local hometown d. A. , it does beg the question what did he do with it, did he use, it is there something illegal about i dont know. It is just a strange case. Its very strange. One of the other people schneiderman is going after is trumps own son. So hes got real beef, trump does, against schneiderman. If hes got this really damaging evidence, why wouldnt he use it . The only thing that makes this juicy, it is kind of like a page turner, is how did trump know to lump schneiderman with weiner and spitzer . Right. He does that in 2013. And part of the big story about snyderman is still recently, nobody suspected this about them. But weiner, spitzer, their sexual improprieties. Trump lumps schneiderman in there. How did he know . So that provides, i dont know if youd say credibility to gleason. Gleasons wacky, colorful, weird. But some kind of way trump knew something was up. And publicly tweeted about it. The other question then would be this question of asking the court to seal the information. We already now know about these other four women. What do you make of that request to seal the information about these two women . The judge was like you want to give me some law . Because its not attorneyclient privilege because cohen wasnt representing any of these people. What gleason is saying is that these women have privacy issues. Thats not a legal claim. So the judge says the letters fine, even though you did misspell schneiderman, but put some law on this because the judge doesnt know what to do. The question would be then given the fact that we do have a record of Michael Cohen being the gobetween to pay women in certain cases, because this is now connected to the cohen case, could these womens identity be discoverable . Would it be relevant in any way since cohen is now involved . So collusion collision. This is like way messy because this llc is just doing all this stuff. So we knew it was about these payments to Stormy Daniels. Now at t is involved. All these other corporations. And this russian oligarch. So, again, thats the connection to collusion. We go from stormy to cohen to russians to trump because cohens the fixer. How are all these stories related . It doesnt seem possible. And yet theyre all related all the time. Emily jane fox, Senior Reporter at vanity fair, thank you very much. Paul butler, thank you very much. Former federal prosecutor and our very own msnbc contributor. Thank you all very much. Much more to come tonight. Up next the republicans latest plan to try to shut down the Mueller Investigation and what some democrats are trying to do to stop it. Stay with us. And the safey for most parallel parallel parking job goes to. [ drum roll ]. Emily lapier from ames, iowa. This is emilys third nomination and first