Today has been a more ridiculous than most day in the news. We have a busy show. The single most perfectly stormed story of the day and the single most sparkly story of the entire day is this scoop from reporter kevin pollson at the daily beast who said trumps favorite more trumpier than pucks tv network that the president has been promoting and telling everyone they should watch and is better than fox, turns out that network has a full time on air reporter who covers u. S. Politics who is simultaneously on the payroll of the kremlin. What . At the same time he works for trumps favorite one america news team, he is being paid by the russian government to produce government funded pro putin propaganda for a russian government funded propaganda outfit called sputnik that had a key in the intervention in the 2016 election to help trump according to the assessment of that attack. They are formally registered as an agent of a foreign power. There is a lot of news today, but among the jiblets that were dropped off to eat off the floor today is the actual news that this super right wing news outlet the president endorsed as a preferable alternative to fox news, but they are insufficiently pro trump and he like this is other outlet better. They share staff with the kremlin. What . Its an easy thing to throw out like an epitaph. That looks like russian propaganda. The most right wing news outlet in america literally is paid russian propaganda. The politics reporter is paid by the russian government to produce propaganda for that government. This is the kind of news we are supposed to take in stride these days. And we do our best. That is just one of the things we learned today. You just swallow that and you move on. We expect that they wont fire their kremlin staffer and expect that the president will keep promoting them and expect that other right wing news outlets wonder if they should have a kremlin staffer doing u. S. Politics reporting, too. It makes it easier to get the message. Anyway, lets get to it. There is a lot going on. And given all of the drama happening right now in washington and how much more dramatic its going to get in washington over the next two days, i want to start with something in washington that was a tremendously solemn occasion. The country started the process of laying to rest former Supreme Court justice, John Paul Stevens who was a republican. He was appointed to the Circuit Court of appeals by Richard Nixon and appointed to the Supreme Court by another republican president. Justice stevens was the leader of the liberal wing on the u. S. Supreme court where he served for over three decades. The author of the famous dissent in bush v gore outlawing the execution of the mentally dispayabled and two key rulings that tried to subject guantanamo, the lawless third country in prison. Justice stevens retired in 2010 where upon his seat went to elena kagan. Tomorrow there will be a private burial for Justice Stevens. As he laid in repose at the great hall of the Supreme Court, it was Justice Kagan who holds his seat who spoke for him in her remarks and singled out his law clerks. Law clerks who served with him in each of 30 plus years on the court. They all came to the court to honor him and she started addressing his law clerks, which was interesting. She started with a reference to his work ethic and how much the work of his own chamber as he famously shouldered himself. Justice stevens more than most justices did not need law clerks. Over the years and in these last few days about Justice Stevens, you all say the same thing. You all say that he was the best boss you ever had. You all say that you learned the most from him. That you learned the most in that year that you spent with him than in any year before or since. You learned how to lead a good and honorable life. You learned about treating people with dignity and with courtesy and with respect. And with kindness. And you learned about the importance of putting all your legal talents and gifts to use in serving others. And as you have lived by those lessons and as you pass them on to others after you, you perhaps do the most to honor Justice Stevens and to honor his legacy. Justice elena kagan at the great call hall of the Supreme Court as he lays in repose. Imagine somebody being able to say things like that at your funeral. Justice John Paul Stevens in addition his service, he served in world war ii. He enlisted in the military the day before pearl harbor. The day before. He was a code breaker. He won the bronze star in a private ceremony and will be buried at arlington. His passing feels like a powerful touch stone at this exact moment in our national life. The day after Justice Stevens is buried tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, Robert Mueller will testify to congress about the russia investigation he led and his report and his findings. There have been a bunch of interesting headlines all day about what to expect when his testimony gets under way on wednesday and how its already being fought over. First we learned today that he will make an Opening Statement of some kind. This means that in terms of your wednesday, you should plan to be in your chair and watching and ready to go at least by 8 30 a. M. Eastern time. Mueller is giving an Opening Statement in addition opening remarks from the chairman and the members. We do not know whats in muellers Opening Statement, but his spokes people said his Opening Statement didnt have to be cleared with the Justice Department and has not been cleared with the Justice Department. Thats important and interesting because nobody know what is hes going to say. It also means that even though the Justice Department has been trying to pressure mueller about his testimony and the constraints they want on it, if mueller is planning an Opening Statement he is not planning on showing the department ahead of time, that at least means he is retaining independent control over his remarks regardless of what the Justice Department is telling him to do. Just before we got on the air, jake gibson was first to report on this letter that the Justice Department sent to Robert Mueller today, trying basically to cirque um scribe his testimony on wednesday morning. Doctor mr. Mueller, i write in response to your july 10th, 2019 letter concerning the testimonial subpoenas you received from the judiciary and intelligence committees in the house. It quotes from what mueller said in his one public press conference at the end of may and pulls up the guillotine in terms of muellers testimony. The department generally does not perm prosecutors such as yourself to appear and testify before Congress Regarding their investigative and prosecutorial activity. Should you testify, your testimony should not go beyond the public version of your report to the attorney general. There should be no testimony concerning the redacted versions of your report. It is the departments long standing policy not to discuss the conduct of uncharged third parties, named trump. The Department Policy precludes comments on the fact develop and legal conclusions by the special counsel with respect to uncharged individual. The president. He is not allowed to say anything about investigative steps or decisions made during your investigation, claciming they are covered by privilege. I trust this information is helpful. It is signed by associate Deputy Attorney general, bradley wine shimer. He was appointed to that job by Jeff Sessions last summer. In a typical for the Trump Administration misspelled press release, the announcement of getting that job, literally the second paragraph contained both a typo, wine shimer will began serving. As acting associate turn general and right there in black and white, in this position he will have no role in overseeing the special counsel. He will have no role in overseeing the special counsel except now, there he is signing this new letter that directs mueller to not say anything at all to congress about trump or about any of his investigative decisions saying that Everything Else he did is covered by privilege and otherwise stuff at the department expects him not to talk about or wants him not to talk about. A senior official told us that muellers july 10th letter to the Justice Department which this letter said it is in response to, apparently that letter from mueller to justice was a oneparagraph letter sending them the subpoenas he got from congress and asking for guidance on what he could say. Now we know from the publication of this letter that the Justice Department took 12 days to respond to mule eller and gave order to not tell anything at all, not about the president or anyone else and signed by a Justice Department official who is supposed to have no role in this matter at all. We are going to get expert help on that in a second in terms of the implications of this letter and what mueller might do about it. You should also know that the president appears to already be freaking out a bit about muellers wednesday morning testimony. Whether you see the letter that was sent to mueller as part of the freak out is up to you, but he is saying directly online that mueller shouldnt be allowed to testify wednesday morning and claiming that Robert Mueller has terrible conflict of interest that nobody has been able to explain. One thing to keep an eye on one day ahead of mueller, chris wray is due to testify at an oversight hearing in the Senate Judiciary. Even if Robert Mueller follow this is letter he received and says basically nothing, he and his team, muellers investigation included a whole team of high level fbi agents. His team was handed ongoing open fbi investigations for them to fold into their work. If the fbi has thing that is it should answer for in this scandal and the director has quiet he should answer when it comes to the investigation that mueller led when it comes to the Counter Intelligence into whether or not the president was by a foreign power with the warrants that show them seeking from the court to get evidence of Michael Cohen communicating with trump and the Trump Campaign in the process of committing the felonies. If they take questions on any of that, his testimony in the Senate Judiciary committee tomorrow might be a worthy warm up act for Robert Mueller testifying the following morning. The democrats on the Senate Judiciary committee that chris wray will have send to be on top of it. This is in all of them, but you recognize these folks. Not to be weird, but three of the four people on screen here are right now running for president. They are in the senate and not the house. These senators, harris, booker, klobuchar are never going to get a chance to ask mueller anything, but will ask chris wray with mazie hirono and all the other democrats led by senator dianne feinstein. As we close in on what we all expect to be the key moment in our democracy this week, simultaneously we are also seeing an almost unimaginably outbreak in puerto rico. You saw this today. These were the largest protests ever in the history of puerto rico. It shut down the city streets and everything on the island as a significant portion of the population turned out to demand the resignation of the governor for corruption and leaked messages that showed in unvarnished language what they think of the people of puerto rico. For the botched response to Hurricane Maria and the thousands of deaths that entailed. The crowds were just absolutely stunning. And the governors own stumble into an interview for which he clearly was not prepared on fox news with shep smith, honestly may have nailed his own political coffin shut today. Of the Oversight Board that controls puerto ricos finance, go f yourself. When your representative said he is salivating to shoot the woman, he said you would be doing me a grand favor. Attacks on women and gays and dead residents across the island and who is left to support and you is it safe for to you continue to attempt to govern . Again, i apologized for that. I am making amends for the efforts. You apologized for what . For the comments i made on the chat. Why did you say those things . What inspired you to say those things to other officials in such a cavalier dismissive way . Do you remember what it was . It wasnt just a day or a week or a month. It was two months. 900 pages in december and january of that sort of language from the governor, by the way, about his own people. Again, some of that is not mine. Some was discussed. Thats true because someone else said youre right. I want to clarify. Someone else said i would like to shoot the female mayor of san juan and you said you would be doing me a great favor. Shep smith is good at his job. I dont know if he thought he was going on a different part of fox. I dont know if he doesnt think he would get the questions about why a million Puerto Ricans are in the streets demanding has resignation and shutting down that capital. Im sure that did not help. He said he will not run for reelection and resigned his leadership role, but has not resigned his office which is what all the people in the streets are seeking. Honestly, it has been a remarkable day in the news. These images today of violent mobs of men wielding metal bars and bats, attacking people and wounding dozens of people. These men in white shirts and many of them the victims said they believe them to be organized crime members. Many said they believe the men were bis tached by the Chinese Government and many beating people in the train station in hong kong were carrying the flag of mainland chine as they did so. These images, terrifying as they are, follow a report in the Financial Times that President Trump recently advised that the u. S. Would back off and say nagano matter what president xi did to crack down on the protesters. He could do whatever he wanted and the u. S. Would not bother him. As we all saw the images from the protests and from these violent attacks, there was no response. The president was asked about the attacks by masked gangs of men and the president told reporters he had seen the footage and said you know, it has been relatively nonviolent. That was his response after the reports that the president assures shina they could do what they want. President trump hosted the president of pakistan at the white house today. Remember when he attacked the khan family, the parents of the man killed in iraq fighting for the u. S. . His parents spoke at Democratic National convention and the president attacked his family and his parents specifically. The parents said if you look at his wife, meaning his fathers wife, captain khans mother. She was standing there and had nothing to say. Maybe she was not allowed to have anything to say. You tell me. That was how the president attacked them. They are pakistaniamerican. The president attacked mrs. Khan has not being allowed to speak because she is muslim and pakistani. She explained she was too grief stricken by the loss of her son to speak and stood next to her husband as he gave remarks. The president said maybe she is not allowed to speak. Who knows. You tell me. Take another look at what President Trump posted to the president of pakistan. Notice anything . Who knows. Maybe the women are not allowed in there in the United States. Who knows. You tell me. So there is a lot going on. On top of everybody being on uj with muellers testimony, there is a lot going on. This is no time to check out. We just obtained this remarkable letter from the Justice Department tonight and the letter said he cannot talk about anything in his testimony on wednesday morning. Noah r now that we received that letter, i feel like we need expert help on what mueller might do in response and how it might change your expectations for muellers testimony this week. Thats next. For muellers testis week thats next. Lling performance. Now, at the lexus golden opportunity sales event. Get 0. 9 apr for 60 months on all 2019 models. Experience amazing at your lexus dealer. Liberty mutual customizes your Car Insurance, hmm. Exactly. So you only pay for what you need. Nice. But, uh. Whats up with your. Partner . Not again. Limu thats your reflection. Only pay for what you need. 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