Show: ALL IN with CHRIS HAYES Date: February 2, 2018 Guest: Amy Klobuchar, Gordon Humphrey, Jill Wine-Banks, Eric Swalwell; Nick Ackerman, Asawin Suebsaeng, Nancy Gertner
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CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on ALL IN.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think it`s a disgrace.
HAYES: #ReleaseTheMemo backfires.
TRUMP: A lot of people should be ashamed of themselves and much worse than that.
HAYES: Tonight, after weeks of hype, why the actual news from the memo strengthens the collusion case. Plus, is the President about to fire the man in charge of the Mueller investigation?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Does it make it more likely you`ll fire Rosenstein?
TRUMP: You figure that one out.
HAYES: Why Trump rejected the advice of his own FBI Director but listened to this guy.
SEAN HANNITY, HOST, FOX NEWS CHANNEL: It literally mirrors KGB style tactics.
HAYES: And what we`re learning about the man at the heart of the memo.
Did you meet Sergei Kislyak in Cleveland? Did you talk to him?
CARTER PAGE, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN AIDE: I`m not going to deny that I talked with him.
HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.
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HAYES: Good evening from New York, I`m Chris Hayes. The Nunes memo is out and it does indeed contain a stunning revelation. Unfortunately for the White House and the memo`s authors, the revelation is precisely the opposite of what they wanted to reveal. You see, the memo finally answers a central question, one of the central questions about the entire Russia investigation. What prompted is the U.S. government to open an official counter intelligence probe at the height of the 2016 election into the campaign of a major party`s presidential candidate? That`s a very big deal. That`s a big thing to do. What was the piece of information that set off their alarms that they would do that? We now know. We now know it was not the infamous Steele Dossier.
Instead, the memo confirms for the first time what the New York Times first reported late last year that it was information from George Papadopoulos which triggered the opening of an FBI investigation in late July 2016. Papadopoulos who is now cooperating with Robert Mueller`s team was reported to have told an Australian diplomat of all people, over drinks in a pub or wine bar that are Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton. We will talk about that specific revelation or at least confirmation of the reporting which has very profound implications. We`re going to talk about that in just a bit. But proponents of the memo are using it to advance a different narrative using a patchwork of incomplete information which the FBI led by a Republican handpicked by the President said it contains "material omissions of fact."
The memo`s backers want to portray Russia as the Russia probe as an anti- Trump conspiracy operating at the highest levels of the Justice Department. That supposedly began under President Obama and crucially and somewhat implausibly has been advanced by Donald Trump`s own political appointees. OK? That`s what they want you to believe. And they want you to believe in completely invalidates Robert Mueller`s entire investigation. The President having already tried and failed to fire Mueller himself, according to The New York Times has now set his sights on a different target. Mueller`s boss Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a long-time Republican nominated by the President himself.
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TRUMP: He`s highly respected, very good guy, very smart guy. The Democrats like him, the Republicans like him.
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HAYES: That guy. Today, ahead of the memo`s release, the president sung a very different tune about his Deputy Attorney General tweeting "the top leadership and investigators at the FBI and Justice Department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of Democrats and against Republicans," and he`s reportedly been very clear about what he hoped the Nunes memo would accomplish. According to the Washington Post, the President has said he thought the release of the memo would help build a public argument against Rosenstein`s handling of the Russia case suggesting to aides and confidants the memo might give him justification it fires Rosenstein. Asked about the memo today, the President declined to offer support for his Deputy A.G.
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TRUMP: I think it`s a disgrace what`s happening in our country. And when you look at that, and you see that and so many other things what`s going on, a lot of people should be ashamed of themselves and much worse than that. A lot of people should be ashamed. Thank you very much.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are not concerned that the FBI doesn`t want the memo out?
TRUMP: Thank you very much
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Does it make you more likely to fire Rosenstein? Do you still have confidence in him after reading the memo?
TRUMP: You figure that one out.
HAYES: You figure that one out. Senator Amy Klobuchar is a Democrat from Minnesota, member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. And Senator, why are you shaking your head?
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE: I`m shaking my head because it is the Deputy Attorney General who is now charged because of the recusal of Attorney General Sessions with heading up a major investigation about a foreign country`s interference in our democracy. And you, when you are the president, you support your Justice Department and you allow them to do their jobs. And that is with all the facts out there, Chris, what really bothers me most as a former prosecutor. You don`t undermine an investigation. You don`t send out tweets about it. And mostly, you don`t release classified information in the middle of investigations. I can`t tell you what that does for trust for those agents on the frontline, for those prosecutors working hard every day, and that is why I`m shaking my head.
HAYES: Your colleagues, leaders in the House and Senate, Democrats, they sent a letter warning Trump to use the Nunes memo as pretext for firing Deputy A.G. Rosenstein would be viewed as an attempt to obstruct justice in the Russia investigation. Is that your view? Is that the red line? Is Rosenstein a red line for you?
KLOBUCHAR: Of course Rosenstein is a red line and I think you have to make clear as other Senators including Lindsey Graham have done in the past that this would really trigger a constitutional crisis and you can`t have another Saturday Night Massacre. But I really like your point at the beginning of how when you really examine this memo which any American can do, it`s just three pages long, you get to that nugget where they pretty much admit what we already knew from testimony in front of the Judiciary Committee of Glenn Simpson that in fact, this investigation was triggered back in May when Papadopoulos met with an Australian diplomat at a London bar and told him that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton. This then got to our intelligence through Australian intelligence, triggered the investigation in July and the investigation was initiated well before people had that have dossier.
HAYES: One of the President`s spokespeople just said on T.V. that there`s no plans to fire Rosenstein. He`s safe, he`s fine, appearing to kind of clean up and walk back the President`s comments from earlier. Given that they denied strenuously they ever tried to fire Mueller or thought about it, do you believe him here?
KLOBUCHAR: Who knows? You know, you`ve got to take them at some moments at their word that they`re trying to clean things up. That`s a good thing. But at the same time, it`s just a game of political whack a mole every day where the American people are from one attack to the other. Undermining the FBI, trying to fire the Special Prosecutor, report after report, tweet after tweet. And at some point, you just have to say OK, let this guy do his job, this former FBI Director appointed by Republicans.
Let Rosenstein do his job against someone appointed by Republicans, let Chris Wray do his job, originally from the Bush Justice Department and now running the FBI. You`ve got to let people do their jobs. And when I just see the effect on agents to the point where it came out today that Director Wray had to send a memo to the agents saying I stand with you, I believe in the integrity of the FBI, it just breaks my heart because you know, we`re here in the Super Bowl where we`ve got security everywhere and you see these agents and security people out there in one degree weather. You got to let them do their jobs.
HAYES: All right, so last question. Given the sad fate of your Vikings and you`ve got-- you`ve got the Eagles and Pats. Who will you be pulling for? Imagine you`ll be at the game, who you pulling for at the Super Bowl?
KLOBUCHAR: Well. I couldn`t really afford a ticket to the game but I am pulling for a good super bowl.
HAYES: Oh my goodness. What a politician. I`m now convinced you`re running for president.
KLOBUCHAR: Our fans have had a hard time. No, no, no. Let me -- no. Our fans have had a hard time dealing with the Philadelphia fans but in their Minnesota nice way, they`re accepting them. It`s freezing cold, Chris. And if you were here, you would be walking around in a hat like this. That`s what we`re wearing.
HAYES: Enjoy the weekend.
KLOBUCHAR: It`s the bold north and we welcome you.
HAYES: It will be a blast. Thank you, Senator Amy Klobuchar. Thanks for your time.
KLOBUCHAR: Thank you.
HAYES: All right, Gordon Humphrey is a former Republican Senator from New Hampshire, a vocal Trump critic. And Senator, your response to watching the Republican Party, the House leadership, the committee leadership, Paul Ryan, the White House all get together to release this memo over the objections of the FBI, over the reservations of the Director of National Intelligence. What do you make of the members of your party?
GORDON HUMPHREY, FORMER SENATOR FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE: Well, I have to tell you I`m no longer a Republican. I registered as an Independent the day after the election of Donald Trump. But I was a Republican for nearly 50 years, still a conservative. It`s disheartening to see what`s happening to the Republican Party especially the leadership in the Congress. This is no longer the party of Ronald Reagan or Bob Dole or George Bush or John McCain.
And by the way, McCain weighed in today saying that we, meaning those who are collaborating with the President in attacking the Department of Justice and the FBI, he said -- McCain said we are doing Putin`s job for him. I thought that was the best comment of the day. But in any event, getting back to your question, it`s really disheartening. You know, more and more, the Republicans in Congress are -- the leaders more prominent members are drinking very large glasses of Trump kool-aid and it`s poisoning the party and it`s poisoning our country and it`s a very great tragedy.
HAYES: Let me -- let me read from that McCain statement just to put it on the screen for a second. "Our nation`s elected officials including the President must stop looking at this investigation through the warped lens of politics and manufacturing partisan sideshows. If we continue to undermine our own rule of law, we are doing Putin`s job for him." Now that was Senator McCain. From the opposite end of the political spectrum within the Republican Party, Paul Gosar, who`s from Arizona, I want to read you his comment and get your response. "The full-throated option of this illegal misconduct and abuse of FISA by James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Sally Yates and Rod Rosenstein is not just criminal but constitutes treason. I will be leading a letter to the Attorney General seeking criminal prosecution against these traitors to our nation.
HUMPHREY: That`s pretty poisonous stuff in itself. Listen, the heart of the memo, it`s a four-page memo, by the way, very short, not much in there. By the way, the first two words that jump out at you at the very top, top secret. Top secret stamped in big bold letters. The President declassified a top-secret document for in my opinion purely partisan political advantage or so he thinks. I hope it backfires in his face. But the number of it is they, Nunes and the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee are claiming that the Department of Justice pulled the wool over the eyes of that special court that authorizes monitoring of the communications of American citizens. Remember, this started because a foreign policy adviser to Donald Trump part of the campaign a volunteer to be sure, but part of an important body within the campaign has been suspected for four or five years of being a Russian agent or the target of Russian recruitment.
HAYES: Yes, the latter I should say. Yes.
HUMPHREY: Yes. The FBI has been on his case for some time. So in the last year or so, the Department of Justice on four occasions got permission four times from this special court to monitor Carter Page`s communications, this suspected person. So the Democrats, I mean the Republicans, Nunes, and company, would ask us to believe that four times the Department of Justice pulled the wool over the eyes of this court whose judges are highly trained and very skeptical for the most part. It just defies credulity to think that they could have been fooled four times, that they were presented faulty evidence that encouraged them to permit the monitoring of this Mr. Page`s communications.
HAYES: So then, what do you think this is about? Do you think this about laying the groundwork to get rid of Rosenstein? Do you think it`s about kicking out enough dust to distract? What is your understanding what they`re doing?
HUMPHREY: Yes, you know, Trump is a modern day P.T. Barnum. He`s running a different sideshow every day to distract attention from his own deficiencies and false in my opinion. It`s an effort, unfortunately, Republicans are collaborating and cooperating fully to distract public attention from the facts that the Russians made a very strong and substantially effective effort to influence our election. And it`s worth finding out whether there was an involvement of anyone in the Trump campaign or not. It`s that simple. So if there wasn`t, what is -- why is Trump trying to deflect the investigation? Why is he attacking his own -- the people he`s appointed? Sessions and Rosenstein and Wray, he`s attacking his own people. It`s crazy. The president is just he`s daft, he`s out of it.
HAYES: Well, former Senator Gordon Humphrey, it`s always a pleasure to have you. Thank you.
HUMPHREY: He`s also unprincipled.
HAYES: Jill Wine-Banks, former Watergate Prosecutor, MSNBC Justice Analyst Matt Miller is a former Chief Spokesman for the Justice Department under President Obama. And Since Matt, you were at that Justice Department where the alleged conspiracy was to begin, your response to what`s happening today.
JILL WINE-BANKS, FORMER WATERGATE PROSECUTOR: I`m sorry, the microphone went dead and I couldn`t hear you.
HAYES: We`ll go with Matt first and we`ll get your microphone fixed there, Jill.
MATT MILLER, MSNBC JUSTICE ANALYST: You know, it was a really remarkable - - kind of remarkable memo. I expected to read this memo today and find it was misleading because it left certain things out. What I didn`t expect was to read it and find that the claims it makes fall apart just on their face. I mean, they base this entire thing on this kind of legal theory of the fruit of poison tree. You know, if there was an unlawful or unethical interrogation or surveillance, that it means that the fruit of that of technique can`t be used. And so, what you see and read in this memo is not only do they not make that case with respect to Carter Page that that tree is particularly poisonous but that as you pointed out, there is this is entire other tree over here, George Papadopoulos case, and not only is that tree not poisoned but it has produced a lot of fruit.
It`s produced two guilty pleas already. It has produced two indictments. And so the idea that this memo was going to undermine the entire Mueller investigation I think completely fell apart today. What remains to be seen is whether Trump thinks he`s gotten the political space because he you know, finds -- because you know, he gets up and watches Fox And Friends and is sort of encouraged in this manner, to make a move against Rod Rosenstein, in that way kind of shut down or curtailed the Mueller investigation. I think that remains to be seen.
HAYES: Jill, watching this today I was thinking about you and your experience with Watergate having just recently really been immersing myself in the blow by blow details of that and I wonder what parallels you see today.
BANKS: There are so many parallels to this. First of all, Richard Nixon asked John Dean to write a Whitewash Memo saying he had fully investigated the accusations and that no one in the White House or on the committee to re-elect the president was involved. That`s what`s this memo was. It is a whitewash, it is outrageous, it misses so many important facts, it is so misleading and it is so partisan in its nature. It was intended to not give a fair picture and the outrageous and ironic part is its major point is that in applying for the FISA warrant, the Department of Justice left off material and relevant facts, whereas this memo is the absolute primer on omitting facts.
And so that`s one of the most significant things. And another is this question about whether people should stay on the job, should Wray resign, and based on the experience of Watergate where it looked like we had been abolished along with the firing of Cox, Cox met with us and said, it`s not clear you`ve been fired and if you haven`t, you must stay on the job.
HAYES: Right.
BANKS: You know the case. You must stay as long as you possibly can.
HAYES: This seems a key thing, Matt, because when you think about Rosenstein, one of the -- you know, the President bizarrely actually doesn`t like firing people, like he doesn`t like firing them to his face. I mean, he didn`t -- he couldn`t even call James Comey. He didn`t even have the courage to call James Comey to tell him over the phone he`s fired. He sent his personal bodyguard to an empty building that Comey wasn`t in. Given how passive aggressive he is about this, it does seems to me that the fears about Rosenstein -- if Rosenstein and Wray just keep showing up to work, that may be enough, right?
MILLER: It`s worked for Jeff Sessions.
HAYES: Right, exactly.
MILLER: Look, the President has wanted him gone for a long time. And look, the personal bodyguard that delivered the letter to Comey is not around anymore. So there may be no effective way for Trump in this instance to fire Rod Rosenstein. I think that`s right. I mean, look, but the other thing Trump is trying to do is put pressure on the Justice Department. He seems to have this idea that if he pressures the Justice Department, people might quit or they might bend to his will. You know, to some extent it`s worked. I mean, he --we are -- we are really lucky that Jeff Sessions had to recuse himself, and it wasn`t really a choice. He had to recuse because he was involved in his campaign because you do Sessions bend into Trump`s will to a great extent.
Even today, Sessions who is recused from this investigation and shouldn`t have anything to say about this memo because it relates to an underlying investigation he`s recused from, putting out a statement sort of giving credence to the memo`s findings saying he`s going to refer it to the right people at the Justice Department to be looked at, you know, things he has no business saying when in fact in a day when he should have standing up for the people in the department. So I think what we`ve seen in the last week, I`ve really been impressed by Chris Wray. You know, the President not only has wanted to do something himself that`s unethical and I think he usually inappropriate releasing this memo but he`s really been pressuring the FBI and Justice Department to back down from their public and private objections. And we`ve seen Chris Wray stand really strong. And I think because of that, we really ought to want Chris Wray to be in this job because this is not the last time the President is going to ask him to do something unethical.
HAYES: Well, let me ask you this, Jill. You`ve got Nunes saying this is just the beginning. He`s going to do more of this. I guess the question is how effective is this? I mean, this feels a lot like just throwing stuff against the wall. They`ve been doing this for months now. Mueller is kind of doing whatever he`s doing. He`s going to find what he`s going to find. Do you worry that this is going to materially interfere or is it ultimately a sideshow?
BANKS: I think it`s a sideshow. I don`t think it will affect Mueller at all. I think he will continue to be the kind of person he has been to keep his own counsel, to keep the investigation going. I do think that I heard today from what you just played on air of the President saying people should be disgraced and it`s a shame what`s happening. And, of course, he speaks in such generalities that this is one time I could agree with him but I would say the people who should be ashamed are himself and Nunes.
HAYES: All right, Jill Wine-Banks and Matt Miller, thank you both.
MILLER: Thanks.
HAYES: Coming up, the now confirmed, the confirmed origin of the Russia investigation, thanks to the Nunes memo, how an Australian diplomat did what no one in the Trump campaign apparently did next.
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HAYES: -- House Republicans today does not help the Republican narrative, quite the opposite. And in confirming the real genesis at the Russia investigation, it highlights one of the strangest things, something that has always bugged me about the behavior of everyone in the Trump circle with respect to Russia, whether you think they colluded or not, whether they committed a crime or not. Here`s the thing, no one ever blew the whistle. No one ever called the FBI. No one ever says well, there are people connected with the Russian government who keep approaching us and offering dirt on Hillary Clinton and then oh, boy, it looks like the Russians hacked the DNC. I wonder if those two are related. Nothing like that, zero, silence.
The people who were supporting a candidate who was running for an office that he now occupies, that is supposed to protect and defend the United States, never, not once as far as we can tell reached out to U.S. authorities to sound the alarm. But now we have confirmation who it was that did sound the alarm. As was previously reported by The New York Times, it was an Australian diplomat who happened to spend time in a London wine bar with Trump Foreign Policy Adviser George Papadopoulos in May 2016. When Papadopoulos who since pleaded guilty according to the Times made a startling revelation. Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton.
OK, think of this for a second. You`re in the wine bar, you`re the Australian diplomat, you`re talking to this dude who you maybe know or you don`t know, he`s related to the Trump campaign. He`s drunk and he tells you he knows that Russia has dirt on Hillary Clinton. Then time goes by and you see that the DNC has been hacked by the Russians and when those hacked DNC e-mails started going online two months later, Australian officials alerted their American counterparts. The FBI opened a counter intelligence investigation all because of an Australian diplomat who was looking out for American interests. Think about that for a second.
As far as we know, Donald Trump Jr. never calls the FBI, Jared Kushner never does, Paul Manafort never does, George Papadopoulos never does, Carter Page never does, Jeff Sessions never does, not one of these people ever, ever, ever during this entire campaign smells something fishy and thinks they have a responsibility to the United States of America to protect the integrity of the election. No, none of them, but an Australian diplomat did. That`s who does it. And we have confirmation of that thanks to the Nunes memo. Congressman Eric Swalwell is a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Congressman, I have -- have you seen evidence of anyone in the Trump campaign ever contacting any officials of any kind to say something smells fishy here?
REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D), CALIFORNIA: Good evening, Chris, not a shred of evidence. And one of my concerns and one of the reforms that I think will have to be put in place is a duty to report law if a foreign adversary or foreign agent contacts a U.S. person and wants to interfere in a federal election, that you should have to report it to the FBI. There`s one other that I wanted to point out. Michael Cohn didn`t think it was odd in October and December of 2015 when Felix Sater was suggesting that in addition to putting a Trump Tower in Moscow, that they get Donald Trump and Putin together because we could, "engineer this and make our boy president."
HAYES: That`s another one I forgot. I had forgotten about that one. OK. So this memo is out. I think, you know, a lot of people have I think exposed it for what it is. It does not seem to materially affect the integrity of the Mueller investigation in any real substantive way. There is another memo that the Democrats have written. People who have read that have talked to some reporters, some of which has been published. What -- where does that go next? Is that going to come out?
SWALWELL: Hopefully it comes out on Monday. We`re asking for a vote Monday evening. It will not only rebut in ten pages with footnotes this memo that they`ve put out but it also will shine new and unseen evidence that we believe the door has been opened to, to put into focus what they`re alleging. We also believe immediately we must do all we can in Congress to pass legislation to protect Rosenstein and Mueller because clearly, the intent is to get rid of them. And Chris, one other point that I don`t think has been made is the Republicans by turning this over to the White House before publication, they revealed to the White House evidence in the investigation that is against the President and includes the White House Counsel as a potential witness.
HAYES: That`s a good point. So you`re concerned about the investigatory integrity essentially.
SWALWELL: It compromises your ability to question witnesses without them tailoring their answers to evidence that they know exists.
HAYES: I want to give you a chance to respond to the Chairman Devin Nunes who is responding to you today, so I want to give you a chance. You -- there`s a part of the memo that basically says nowhere in the FISA warrant do they say that the dossier which forms part of the material for the underlying warrant that the dossier was part of a political opposition project which at that time was being paid for by the DNC. You`re responding and saying that`s actually not quite true that there was information that this was politically motivated. I want to play what you had to say and Nunes` response and get to you to respond to the chair. Take a listen.
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SWALWELL: It was disclosed to the FISA court that part of the evidence was from a politically motivated source.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: True?
NUNES: No. I mean, this is things I said earlier. I mean, these guys tell so many lies you can`t keep track of them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That`s not true.
NUNES: No.
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HAYES: These guys tell so many lies you can`t keep track of them. What`s your response?
SWALWELL: Well, Devin Nunes has not even read the FISA application. He also said that in the interview. I`m not convinced that he`s read his memo. And Chris, there was evidence disclosed that demonstrated the political motivations. And to suggest otherwise is just false.
HAYES: I just want to be clear -- I just want to be clear out of fairness, you have you not read that underlying FISA warrant, as well, correct?
SWALWELL: We haven`t been given access to it. We`ve asked for access to it. Only Mr. Schiff and Mr. Gowdy have. I have been briefed on the contents of that memo by our staff. I`ve been briefed on the contents of the FISA application by our staff.
HAYES: Is your committee broken now?
SWALWELL: It`s not irreparable yet but it will be if that (INAUDIBLE) remains.
HAYES: Really? It`s not irreparable?
SWALWELL: If he remains it is. If he remains it is.
HAYES: He just -- Devin Nunes -- Devin Nunes just said these guys tell so many lies you can`t keep track of them.
SWALWELL: It`s irreparable if he remains as Chairman. But I still believe that we can become harmonious again and check you know, our political beliefs and our partisanship at the door.
HAYES: All right, Congressman Eric Swalwell, thank you.
SWALWELL: My pleasure.
HAYES: Coming up, the man at the center of the discredited memo and why he gave Paul Ryan a shout out on this very show months ago. The enduring mystery of Carter Page next
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HAYES: Did you meet is Sergey Kislyak in Cleveland. Did you talk to him?
CARTER PAGE, FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN ADVISER: I`m not going to deny that I talked with him.
HAYES: So you did talk to him?
PAGE: I will say that I never met him anywhere outside of Cleveland, let`s just say that much. HAYES: The only time that you met him was in Cleveland?
PAGE: What that -- I may have met him possibly might have been in Cleveland.
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HAYES: The person at the center of the dubious allegations in the Nunes memo, someone very familiar to viewers of this program, Carter Page, who appeared on this show three times last year and who has maintained from the beginning, without presenting any public evidence, that he was the victim of a vast conspiracy to unconstitutionally and illegally surveil him.
Now, with the Nunes memo released, that claim that Carter has been a believer in since the very beginning, that became the official conspiracy theory of the White House and much of the Republican Party.
And the last time I spoke to Page was in October when he said something really weird that now seems, well, oddly prescient.
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PAGE: In the interest of really getting the truth out there, because I think when the truth comes out, when Speaker Paul Ryan says the FISA warrant or the details about the dodgy dossier and what happened and all the documents around that is going to be released, that`s what I`m really excited about. And I think the truth will set a lot of people free.
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HAYES: Wait a second. When Paul Ryan says that all the stuff around the warrant and the dossier can be released? Did Carter Page know what was coming? And if so, how? That seems like that would be a really big deal.
Well, we asked Page about that comment today. He sent a brief response, but it didn`t really address whether hehad been in contact with Paul Ryan or any other GOP lawmakers or their staffers about the public release of information related to his case, or about the Nunes memo specifically. We`ll certainly let you know if we hear back.
And Carter Page isn`t the only person whose involvement with this whole thing is under scrutiny. Reportedly, Sean Hannity has been advising the president on the Nunes memo as Hannity pushed for its release night after night after night on Trump TV. The Daily Beast reporter who broke that news joins me next.
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HAYES: President Trump ignored warnings from his own FBI director and Justice Department and the reservations of his own FBI director and Justice Department and the reservations of his own director of national intelligence when he decided to released the Nunes announce memo, but he most certainly did not ignore the advice of his most loyal booster on Trump TV.
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SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS: Release the memo, #releasethememo. Call the number on your screen, 202-224-3121, tell congress the truth about one of the biggest scandals in American history. And we have a right to know.
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HAYES: That was a few seconds. There`s been hours of that.
According to The Daily Beast, Trump has been in regular contact with Hannity over recent weeks as the TV Host relentlessly hyped the memo on his show. It reportedly got to the point that one senior White House official jokingly dubbed Hannity senior counsel to the president.
Hannity denied The Daily Beast report last night, tweeting "a total lie, fake news, phony anonymous sources. Amazing how the left-wing media just makes stuff up."
Joining me now the author of that Daily Beast report, White House reporter Asawin Suebsaeng.
Did you just make it up, Asawin?
ASAWIN SUEBSAENG, THE DAILY BEAST: No, absolutely not. And in fact I was a little bit surprised by Sean Hannity`s viscerally mad reaction to a factual statement that among other things he speaks often to the president of the United States, and is one of his closest informal advisers. That is just a fact that has actually been reported by us and many other outlets many times over the past year or two.
HAYES: It does seem like there`s a direct connection here, which is that this has been something really heavily promoted on that show, heavily promoted on that network, release the memo, release the memo. The president watches a lot of it. And it seems from your reporting that was he listening more to those folks on the television screen than his own advisers inside the White House?
SUEBSAENG: He was actually listening to people on his own television screen a lot more than he was listening to, for instance, his own FBI director.
I mean, some Fox News personalities, such as Sean Hannity, do speak to the president rather often, but the funny thing is you don`t actually have to get the president on the phone to influence him in a deep way when it comes to politics and policy if you`re on Fox News.
Our sources at the White House have told us repeatedly that before the president had ever seen the Nunes memo, his opinion of it had been shaped almost completely by conservative media and Fox News Channel that he had been absorbing, not at all close to how it was being shaped by his briefings or interrogation community.
HAYES: This seems key. So, one of the weird things about this campaign to release the memo is that it came out of nowhere and then pushed heavily without any of the people involved in it having read are the actual memo. What you`re saying is that kind of persuaded or primed the president before he himself had read it?
SUEBSAENG: Absolutely. And it was coming through what he was seeing on his shining TV screens within the White House residence.
HAYES: I want to play you a more sort of hedge statement from Sean Hannity about your report last night I thought was interesting, get your response. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HANNITY: By the way, people in the media were saying that I`m advising him on the memo. First of all, you can`t advise this president. He`s such his own man. You can`t tell him not to tweet. He has his own ways.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don`t know what`s happened.
HANNITY: But I`m saying it every night, call your congressman. Release the memo. Hello.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: It`s not really a denial of that one.
SUEBSAENG: No, not at all. And also Sean is actually being self- referential in that, because particularly early on in the Trump era, in early 2017, he actually advised the president over the phone and privately to tweet less and hate-tweet less. So Sean is actually speaking from direct experience on that. It was no accident that he said those words.
HAYES: All right, Asawin Suebsaeng, thanks for being with me.
SUEBSAENG: Thank you so much for having me.
HAYES: Coming up, all eyes on the attorney general as his deputy sits in the president`s firing line. But first, tonight`s memorable Thing One, Thing Two next.
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HAYES: Thing One tonight, Donald Trump spoke at a dinner for the RNC last night, a fund-raiser which was held at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, or in other words, it was yet another example of how the Trump family continues to line its pockets through the presidency.
It also presented the president with an opportunity to brag about his cognitive abilities. Trump had the White House press pool escorted out after just the first few minutes, but Breitbart says it obtained audio of the remainder of the speech with jibes of some of the notes we`ve heard from other reporters who had people inside.
They didn`t release the audio, but wrote about it. Trump said in the beginning of the test he had to identify sketches of animals which was pretty easy. Later in the test, he explained he had to repeat disassociated words as the test administrators asked him to repeat them at different points in the test.
Let me tell you, those last ten questions are hard. There aren`t a lot of people that can do that.
Now, just to be clear this is a test to just see if you have dementia or not, it`s not an IQ test or an aptitude test.
Anyway, that`s how the president did on the memory part of the exam. But here`s the thing, life presents us with memory tests every day. And he had a much harder time with one this week in West Virginia. That`s Thing Two in 60 seconds.
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HAYES: Hours before Trump reportedly admitted the memory part of his cognitive test was hard, the president made an appearance at the Republican retreat in West Virginia. At the beginning of his speech, Trump reading from a teleprompter, thanked Senator John Cornyn. Then seconds later forgot that he had just thanked Senator John Cornyn.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Senate Jajority Whip John Cornyn. John, thank you. Great job. House majority whip Steve Scalise. Again, Steve, thank you. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. Kevin. Chair John Thune and House conference chair Kathy McMorris Rogers.
Did they forget your name, John? I don`t know. What`s going on here? John Cornyn, everybody knows. I didn`t put his name up, but that`s OK.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn. John, thank you. Great job.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: President didn`t do much there to back up his very frequent claim of having, quote, "one of the great memories of all time."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I don`t have teleprompters here, folks. I don`t need teleprompters. It`s called like up here and it`s called memory and it`s called other things.
I have a good memory and all that stuff, like a great memory.
I have a really good memory.
And I have a very good memory.
I have a good memory, like a great memory.
I have a great memory.
I`m blessed with a great memory.
One of the great memories of all time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: just to step back a bit here, it`s worth saying in a single sentence what`s happening. We have the president of the United States now having issued to the American public a memo that the director of the FBI says is false. That has never happened in our democracy.
(END VIDEO CLP)
HAYES: An extraordinary times, Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, walks a careful line. He of course actively recommended James Comey`s firing. He was more or less forced in recused himself from the investigation and he`s hung on to his job despite the president`s bullying publicly and privately. Today, he even defended Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a man the president seems to be explicitly targeting.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEFF SESSIONS, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Those two are Rod and Rachel, are Harvard graduates. They are experienced lawyers. They -- Rod has had 27 years in the department. Rachel has had a number of years in the department previously. And so they both represent the kind of quality and leadership that we want in the department.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: But just hours later, Jeff Sessions said something very, very different about the people at the Department of Justice. That, and the potential for a new constitutional crisis next.
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HAYES: Earlier today, as we just showed you, the attorney general praised his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, holding up as a model of department leadership.
But in a statement just hours later, Jeff Sessions seemed to take a sharp turn saying., quote i have great confidence in the men and women of the department, but no department is perfect. Accordingly, and this is response to the memo, I will forward to appropriate DOJ componentsall information I receive from congress regarding this.
Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, seeming to take the president`s side, or at least splitting the difference, over his own department.
MSNBC legal analyst Nick Ackerman is a former assistant special Watergate prosecutor; Harvard law professor Nancy Gertner is a retired federal judge. And Nancy, let me begin with you, how do you read Sessions in all this?
NANCY GERTNER, HARVARD LAW: Well, I mean, I think he`s scrambling for a position of credibility here. It seems to me he`s going back and forth. It`s hard to see. I mean, the whole issue here is sort of fleeting alliances and fleeting allegiances. I don`t know where he has any credibility at all under the circumstances.
HAYES: Yeah, you mean in terms of defending the independence and integrity of the department as it comes under increased pressure.
GERTNER: Right. I mean, the danger here is that after all the attacks on the department, let`s assume Trump gets his way and there is a house- cleaning. The department then evolves from that will be a department that will not be independent, will be a department that is very different that is really captive of the White House, which is not what the constitution intended.
HAYES: Nick, let`s say this memo is basically blows over, which essentially I essentially think it was. It`s meant to kick up dirt. Is there going to be more of this?
NICK ACKERMAN, FORMER WATERGATE PROSECUTOR: There is going to be a lot more. This is just the beginning. I mean, this has been in a whole string of incidents that we`ve seen right from the beginning talking about this unmasking where Nunes goes to the White House and makes like he got this stuff himself, but yet he really got it from the White House. I mean, there is a whole pattern of this. And I think it is going to get worse, and this is why, it`s Michael Flynn.
Michael Flynn has told Mueller`s group all kinds of things. He`s laid out a whole scenario of conspiracy and crime --
HAYES: You think. You think. You don`t have anyway to know that, but you think.
ACKERMAN: I know. I`m positive. It`s based on his guilty plea, because he plead to a lie that relates to sanctions.
At any rate, what is happening here is they are going back to people in the White House. They`re going to people around Trump. They are asking questions based on what they are learning from Michael Flynn. And all of this is circling back to the president.
So he knows that the jig is up. He knows that they are moving in on him and they`re getting closer and closer. And so he`s not going to stop. He is desperate to get this investigation stopped and out of the way.
HAYES: Nancy, does that square with what your theory is at the moment?
GERTNER: Well, no, I agree. And I think that this attack on the FISA warrant is sort of the most extraordinary of all.
I mean, the implication that if the FISA court had known about Steele`s biases, that it would have made a particle of difference is frankly absurd. From one end of this country to the other, there are search warrants that are executed based on the testimony of, you know, drug dealers who are trying to get off the charges in order to better their situation. So it doesn`t -- the premise of what he was trying to do doesn`t make sense. And if they are prepared to do this, who knows what else they would do.
HAYES: This is an important point, because you were a federal -- you were a district judge, right, so oversaw criminal trials. And what you`re saying, the theory of the Nunes memo is, well, this is all messed up, because one of the things that was entered into evidence in support of the warrant was someone who had a bias against the target. And what you`re saying is it turns out in federal criminal court and in local criminal courts the evidence for warrants often comes from people who are biased against the target.
GERTNER: People who are biased against the target, who are testifying in order to get off charges that could be the estranged wife of someone who sees drug dealing going on. The bias is irrelevant. The issue is what other corroboration.
And it has -- it can`t be said enough times, FISA applications are 50 to 100 pages long. The Steele memo had to be a very small part of this overall picture. So, this is a complete contrivance.
HAYES: So, there is this question about where is all this going, right, and there are all these things Mueller is zooming in on obstruction. It`s very unclear what he`s going to do with it. And there has been a lot of people say there is no way he indicts the president. It`s extremely unclear whether he legally can. There is OLC decisions, precedents saying no.
But then this piece comes out in Politico with a lawyer apparently working for someone who is a target of the Mueller probe saying they think he`s going to do that, which was sort of weird to me.
ACKERMAN: Yeah, but I don`t see how they would know. I mean, the only way they could assume that is from the questions that are asked of his client as to what Trump`s involvement is. Obviously, they are going to be asking that.
I mean, at a minimum, Trump is going to be an unindicted co-conspirator in the big indictment that ultimately comes out here, but whether he`ll be indicted is a whole different story and whether or not --
GERTNER: Whether he can be indicted is a whole different story.
HAYES: Right, whether he can --
GERTNER: That`s a whole separate question.
ACKERMAN: Right. There are two separate questions.
GERTNER: But you know, you got to dial this back and say if this really was nothing why didn`t he go before the American people and say the election was hacked, let`s get to the bottom of this. He`s done more to basically incriminate himself by what he`s saying than he he simply step back and let the investigation proceed where it would proceed.
HAYES: Well, this is the problem at this point for anyone who is trying to be at all charitable read the president`s behavior charitably is that the Occam`s Razor is that he`s acting like this because he`s guilty. I mean, that`s not the slam dunk, that`s not the threshold to convict or impeach someone. But just as an observer of the conduct, it`s hard to make sense of the conduct.
ACKERMAN: The conscienceness of guilt here is overwhelming. I mean, you can just go through a whole litany of things he`s done right from the start with Comey trying to get his loyalty, asking him to stop the investigation into Flynn, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
HAYES: Nancy, let me ask you this, do you think that Wray and Rosenstein and to some way to a lesser degree Sessions, they can just stick it out?
GERTNER: I think that they are being advised to stick it out. I don`t know so much about Sessions, but certainly everyone else.
There is a wonderful -- you know, there`s a question about if they leave, as I said, they cede this department to a very politicized department. I`m not sure that`s in their interest.
You know, in one sense it`s easier because there are many of them that he`s attacking. It`s clear he`s doing a blunderbuss attack on the department. If it was one person you can say, well, I`m not sure I have the president`s confidence, perhaps I should leave. But he`s doing everyone. It`s clear what he`s doing.
HAYES: Strength in numbers.
Nick Ackerman and Nancy Gertner, thanks for your time.
That is All In for this evening. The Rachel Maddow Show starts right now. Good evening, Rachel.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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