Summary
Rudy Giuliani is expected to fully cooperate with the January 6 Committee. Trump Org`s longtime accounting firm is now cutting ties with the Trump Organization, saying the financial statements it prepared for almost a decade can no longer be viewed as reliable. The United States and its allies continue to warn that Russia could invade Ukraine any day now. In a statement, Oshkosh Defense said "they would make 90 percent of the initial purchase gas vehicles and just 10 percent electric" which the Environmental Protection Agency responded warning that concerns with the Draft Environmental Impact Statement were not adequately addressed and that the final version remains seriously deficient. Sasha Abramsky detailed in his report how Sequim fought off QAnon invasion.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Yes. And unfortunately, as you said, there are states that are trying to set themselves up, a.ka. Free State of Florida and saying, bring that here, we`re OK with that here. And that is sad because there are people there who deserve to be treated better as well.
Larry Organ, Jason Johnson, thank you both very much. That`s tonight`s REIDOUT. "ALL IN with Chris Hayes starts right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voiceover): Tonight on ALL IN.
RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER LAWYER OF DONALD TRUMP: Let`s have trial by combat.
HAYES: Rudy Giuliani is expected to cooperate fully with the January 6 Committee. And Donald Trump`s longtime accountant dumps him.
Tonight, what may be a big step forward for the Capitol investigation and why the retraction of financial statements central to two Trump`s investigations is a pretty big deal.
Then, Julia Ioffe on what we know about what`s actually happening as Vladimir Putin threatens another invasion of Ukraine.
And the incredible story of concerned citizens who took back their small town from the grips of right-wing demagogue.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: QAnon is a truth movement that encourages you to think for yourself.
HAYES: When ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. This afternoon, we got huge news that Donald Trump`s longtime accounting firm is abandoning him. And we learned this news from New York Attorney General Letitia James who has been investigating the ex-president`s business practices since 2019.
Her office just released a letter from that accounting firm, Mazars, to the Trump Organization saying -- get this -- listen to this -- it`s work from 2011 to 2020 -- and I quote -- "should not be relied upon." And in a statement, Attorney General James asserted she now has legitimate reason to seek testimony from Donald J. Trump, Donald J. Trump Jr., and Ivanka Trump.
Now, it may be hard to imagine all those Trump`s testifying about their potentially corrupt business practices, it`s not a good development for the family business I`d say or if the man currently running the Republican Party. And it comes as we`re learning that Trump`s former lawyer is expected to testify before the January 6 Committee.
In fact, over the weekend, the New York Times reported this, that Rudy Giuliani is in discussions with the Committee about responding to their questions, and he has signaled to them that he plans to take a less confrontational stance towards its requests and some other members of Mr. Trump`s inner circle who are fighting the committee subpoenas or have otherwise refused to cooperate.
You might remember the committee subpoenaed Giuliani last month citing in their letter, credible evidence that he publicly promoted claims the 2020 election was stolen. Yes, I think there`s credible evidence. We all saw it happen. And participated in an attempt to disrupt or delay the certification of the election results. Again, pretty clear.
Now, Giuliani`s potential cooperation comes in stark contrast to the behavior we are seeing from one of the ex-presidents other key legal advisors in the lead up to the insurrection. That`s a man by the name of John Eastman. Giuliani and Eastman were two of the -- well, I guess you can call it masterminds behind Donald Trump`s coup plot with Giuliani taking on the more public role along with lawyer Sidney Powell, and Eastman working in advising more behind the scenes.
You`ll remember, Eastman was the author of this memo laying out a six-point plan for Vice President Mike Pence to essentially unilaterally overturn the election on January 6, install the loser over the winter over the will of the people. John Eastman was also among Trump`s allies who gathered in the so-called War Room at the Willard Hotel on January 6. You can see him here circled in white next to well, Rudy Giuliani sitting at the table circled in yellow.
And on the morning of the sixth at Donald Trump`s rally, John Eastman got up on stage and repeated lies about election fraud and laid out what Trump`s team was ordering Mike Pence to do.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN EASTMAN, LAWYER TO DONALD TRUMP: All we are demanding of Vice President Pence is this afternoon at 1:00 he let the legislators of the state look into this so we get to the bottom of it, and the American people know whether we have control of the direction of our government or not.
We no longer live in a self-governing Republic if we can`t get the answer to this question. This is bigger than President Trump. It is the very essence of our republican form of government and it has to be done. And anybody that is not willing to stand up to do it does not deserve to be in the office. It is that simple.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Well, he was actually right about all that, just on the wrong side of it. It was about the essence or republican form of government. And just hours later, as police were still working to clear and secure the capital after the mob had taken over beaten up cops, John Eastman appeared on Steve Bannon internet show bashing pence for his refusal to follow his and the President`s orders.
And now, more than a year later, he is fighting the January 6 Committee`s investigation. Eastman has been trying to keep thousands of pages of emails out of the Committee`s hands claiming attorney-client privilege.
[20:05:00]
Now, Eastman has been ordered to review more than 94,000 pages of e-mails the January 6 Committee subpoenaed from his former employer Chapman University. Today, he`s been set in a court filing that he has reviewed about half of them.
He turned over about 8,000 to the Committee. 27,000 were automatically withheld because they were considered boilerplate mass e-mails. And Eastman is attempting to shield the remaining 11,000. And that is prompting the committee to raise new alarms he is slow-walking or obfuscating their efforts.
The lawyer representing the committee told the judge that they are "operating at an urgent pace and finding out lots and lots of information from cooperative witnesses." The lawyer also said that Professor Eastman appears to be a central player in the development of a legal strategy to justify a coup.
Now, the person who would have a much more plausible claim to attorney- client privilege than John Eastman who was claiming it is Rudy Giuliani, although Giuliani doesn`t seem to be planning on asserting it. I mean, Rudy has been on Trump`s legal team since 2018 amid the investigation into his ties to Russia. He also played a key role in Trump`s attempt to solicit interference on the 2020 election from Ukraine, actions that of course led to the then-president`s first impeachment. And Giuliani was pretty frank about this. He admitted that he asked Ukrainians to investigate Joe Biden.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS CUOMO, FORMER ANCHOR, CNN: Did you to ask the Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden?
GIULIANI: No, actually, I didn`t. I asked the Ukraine to investigate the allegations that there was interference in the election of 2016 by the Ukrainians for the benefit of Hillary Clinton, for which there are already --
CUOMO: You never asked anything about Hunter Biden? You never asked anything about Joe Biden?
GIULIANI: The only thing I asked about Joe Biden is to get to the bottom of how it was that Lutsenko, who was appointed --
CUOMO: Right.
GIULIANI: Dismiss the case against --
CUOMO: So, you did ask Ukraine to look into Joe Biden.
GIULIANI: Of course, I did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: OK. Of course, you did, Rudy. Then, Rudy Giuliani was among the most prominent members of Trump`s team, of course, pushing wild and unfounded claims of fraud in the wake of the 2020 election. We all saw him do it.
He spent months spreading misinformation, setting up the basis for the President`s attempted coup. And he repeated those lies on the morning of January 6, on the same stage as John Eastman, as the president, and he urged the crowd to have trial by combat.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GIULIANI: If they ran such a clean election, why wouldn`t they make all the machines available immediately? If they ran such a clean election, they`d have you come in and look at the paper ballots. Who hides evidence? Criminals hide evidence, not honest people.
So, over the next 10 days, we get to see the machines that are crooked, the ballots that are fraudulent, and if we`re wrong, we will be made fools of. But if we`re right, a lot of them will go to jail. So, let`s have trial by combat.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Again, like John Eastman, he`s so close to getting it. I wonder if John Eastman thinks criminals are the ones that hide evidence. So, Rudy helps secure his clients second impeachment for inciting an insurrection. And in the wake of that second trial, in the waning days of his presidency, Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani had a falling out.
The Washington Post reported the relationship was "fracturing." Giuliani had been one of the strongest supporters working tirelessly to help them overturn the election, but Trump refused to pay him. I mean, who would thunk it, right, Trump refusing to pay someone?
Giuliani demanded he personally approve -- Trump demanded he personally approve any reimbursements for the expenses Giuliani incurred while traveling around the country on his behalf and reportedly did not appreciate a demand from Giuliani for $20,000 a day in fees for his work, which is I guess, nice work if you can get it.
We don`t know if Giuliani ever got paid. But, again, considering Trump`s track record, it seems unlikely. And Giuliani definitely appears to be looking for cash, let`s say. For instance, Deadline reports he`s a contestant on the new season of The Masked Singer.
So, none of that seems, again, great for Donald Trump, especially on the day that his accounting firm ditched him and the New York Attorney General is fighting to depose him and his two children, Don Jr. and Ivanka. His ex- lawyer, the guy who was kind of his bagman for a few years is struggling financially partly as a result of all his work for Donald Trump trying to overturn the election.
That guy would you rely on he is facing mountain lawsuits and expenses. His former client refused to pay him. He`s in both financial and legal trouble. His reputation per his monologue on stage, not great. He undoubtedly knows all sorts of information that would be helpful the January 6 Committee`s investigation. So, what exactly does he have to lose?
According to the New York Times, Giuliani was scheduled to appear for deposition before the panel last Tuesday, but they allowed him to reschedule his request. We don`t know yet when the new date will be set, but for now it appears he does plan to testify, which can be pretty huge for the investigation, and again, blow to the ex-president.
Luke Broadwater is a Congressional Reporter for the New York Times, one of the reporters digging into Giuliani`s plans to testify. Nicholas Wu is a Congressional Porter at Politico and he reported on John Eastman`s attempts to shield documents the January 6 Committee. And they both join me now.
Luke, let me start with you and on Giuliani. What do we know about what the level of communication has been, what his posture has been towards the committee, and also why?
[20:10:32]
LUKE BROADWATER, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Right. So, a lawyer for Mr. Giuliani has been in discussions for days with the lawyers for the January 6 Committee, and they`re trying to iron out exactly how much Rudy Giuliani will cooperate.
One model that they`re looking at is -- was set forth by a close associate of Mr. Giuliani, Bernie Kerik, the former police commissioner of New York who worked closely with Rudy Giuliani investigating all these wild claims of election fraud.
And what they settled on was they got the blessing of Donald Trump under the idea that they would put forward all this election fraud to the Committee and show them so much evidence. And so, Donald Trump endorsed the testimony.
Then, Bernie Kerik went in, sat for the hours of interviews, turned over a trove of documents, all of which their Committee found very helpful. And there were some pretty damning and explosive documents and testimony in what he gave them. So, if a similar arrangement can be worked out with Rudy Giuliani, which is under discussion right now, that perhaps can be a way for him to get around attorney-client privilege and do just with Bernie Kerik did.
HAYES: That`s interesting. And Kerik -- Kerik presence, just to follow up on that, seems key here. I mean, we know he sat with the Committee for eight hours. Of course, Kerik is there, you know, when we show the B roll of Rudy Giuliani at the infamous Four Seasons Landscaping. Bernie Kerik is behind them. In a lot of those meetings, you see Bernie Kerik.
So, they`re around each other a lot. And we know the committee got eight hours of testimony and documents from Kerik. It seems like that also puts Giuliani a little on the hook if nothing else.
BROADWATER: Right. And, you know, it`s very expensive to fight one of these subpoenas.
HAYES: Yes.
BROADWATER: And the Committee is hopeful that Giuliani is at the -- at the center of all of this, right. So, unlike Steve Bannon who was involved and maybe was a little more removed, and they`re happy to throw the book at, and he now has jail time hanging over his head, I think they really want to get Rudy in there.
And so, there`s even discussions for some of these high-profile witnesses that immunity, congressional immunity could be on the table.
HAYES: Right.
BROADWATER: And so, something like that possibly could be offered to get Rudy Giuliani`s testimony. Again, this is somebody who`s involved in the alternate electors plot, in the seizure of the voting machines plot, in the calls to members of Congress after the riot has already begun. So, he is with Donald Trump at nearly every step along the way during this plan. And he will be able to tell the committee just how much was at Trump`s direction, and additional details like that.
HAYES: Yes. And we should note, Betsy Woodruff Swan reporting that Kerik told the Committee that the name of the person, former Army Colonel Phil Waldron, who had originated this voting machine seizure scheme which almost certainly would have been illegal and I think is when you`ve sort of rank like most sci-fi level authoritarian, the Army seizes the voting machines, gambit is probably up near the top.
Nicholas, let`s talk about Eastman, who is taking a very, very different tack than Kerik took or Giuliani. He`s, he`s fighting this sort of tooth and -- tooth and nail. And the committee lawyer is clearly getting impatient.
NICHOLAS WU, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, POLITICO: It is. I mean, that really came out in a hearing today where the lawyer for Chapman University where Eastman used to work -- Eastman lawyer and a lawyer for the House of Representatives all went in front of a judge to provide an update on where things were going on.
And basically, the committee is saying that Eastman is potentially slow walking was going on. I mean, as we -- as you mentioned earlier, you know, he turned -- they`ve identified thousands and thousands of e-mails that could be relevant to the committee, but they already had to filter out quite a few of those because they were mass e-mails, you know, donor, solicitations, you know, political ads, that kind of thing.
And so, now we have the back and forth over what to do with these daily updates from Eastman that he wants to turn over to the committee. But he`s trying to claim these very wide attorney-client privileges over these e- mails.
And so, some of the frustration came out today when the House Counsel Doug Letter repeatedly pressed the Eastman`s lawyer who didn`t say like, OK, if you`re going to try to claim attorney-client privilege over all this, show us evidence that you actually were an attorney for the former president. You know, produce some piece of paper to show that. And so, this is part of the ongoing legal battle that the committee is waging here against Eastman.
[20:15:09]
HAYES: Yes, this seems like -- I mean, it`s not -- you know, attorney- client privilege is not a spell one can invoke as a kind of a penumbra that surrounds all of one`s consultations. It`s a specific form of privilege that emerges in the actual relationship of attorney and client.
And it seems like the committee is basically saying, like, show it-- if you`re sending e-mails, like just spitballing here, like, why don`t we have Mike Pence vote no. Like, it`s not clear that you`re the president`s attorney in any meaningful sense that would then allow you to invoke the privilege, right?
WU: Right. And, you know, House Counsel Doug Letter, you know, really laid it out pretty plainly today. He said, during this hearing, you know, we`re finding lots of information here. And to paraphrase him, he said that they, you know, placed Eastman at the center of the legal underpinning of the coup.
And so, the Committee`s interest in Eastman is very clear here. And they`re quite determined to get at all of these emails that he could provide to them that he was sending from his university e-mail account, by the way.
HAYES: Yes. We should note that he said that his frustration with some of these categories that have been invoked by Eastman, that he wrote in a Friday court filing, that they`re vaguely labeled legal arguments or proposal to consider. So, it doesn`t seem like he`s met the bar at least in the eyes of the committee. We`ll see what a judge has to say as this moves forward.
Luke Broadwater and Nicholas Wu doing great reporting. Thank you both.
All right, tonight, a pretty stunning development. It`s got me scratching my head and asking a lot of questions, which were hopefully going to get answered in the investigations into Donald Trump`s financial dealings. Trump`s longtime accounting firm now says, you know what, the last decade`s worth of financial documents no longer reliable. And oh, by the way, they`re also cutting ties with Trump and his organization. Pretty bold.
What exactly is going on? What does this mean Joyce Vance and the great investigative journalist David Fahrenthold on what we know after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:20:00]
HAYES: A big blow for Trump tonight. His longtime accounting firm just retracted all of the annual financial statements it prepared for him from 2011 to 2020 and cut ties with him and the Trump Organization. Trump used those financial statements to obtain loans for his company. They are at the center two ongoing investigations from the Manhattan District Attorney and the New York Attorney General into whether Trump inflated his assets to defraud lenders.
In a letter filed as a court exhibit by New York AG`s office, Mazars USA said the financial documents "should no longer be relied upon, adding that we have come to this conclusion based in part upon filings made by the New York Attorney General, our own investigation, and the information received from internal and external sources.
A spokesperson for the Trump Organization responded, "Such statements of financial condition do not contain any material discrepancies." The New York Attorney General Tish James wants to hear about it all directly from Donald Trump himself and Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka. And she`s pushing for them all to testify under oath.
Joyce Vance is a former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama. David Fahrenthold is an investigative reporter for the New York Times and a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who has covered Trump`s finances extensively. And they both join me now.
David, let me start with you. I can`t remember ever encountering a letter such as this in any context, really. I saw it today and I thought it was a joke or like maybe someone had like, made a mock up as like a kind of cheeky thing, like -- but it`s real like what is this letter? What is it -- what is it saying?
DAVID FAHRENTHOLD, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: OK, so these statements of financial condition that they`re referring to, these were the things that Trump basically they were sort of a brag sheet. His accountants compiled and he would give them to people he wanted to do business with, he gave them to the government when he wanted the deal to lease the DC hotel. He gave him the potential lenders
It was basically look, how rich I am. Here are some numbers to show how rich I am. It`s very important to him. They help him get a lot of business. And Mazars is basically saying that you can`t rely on those for the last nine years. That they`ve gone back and looked and they don`t think that they`re at all reliable.
That`s important and it signals that the AG has sort of managed to peel away a pretty important layer very close to Trump in the financial architecture of the Trump Organization.
HAYES: Right, because Mazars is saying like, we -- based on what the AG has shown us and other stuff we`ve done in terms of due diligence talking to people, we can no longer stand behind these. We thought -- we thought they were true before, we now realize we were wrong and we can`t stand behind them, essentially.
FAHRENTHOLD: That`s right. And one of the important things that we`ve said all along about this case is that they`re going to have to prove intent. You know, if Trump misrepresented something about himself or his assets, the lenders, that you know that it was wrong, that he know he was misrepresenting something. And you know, without getting into his head, how do you prove that?
One way you might prove that is by showing that he lied to the gatekeepers, he lied to the people who represented him to the outside world. That would be lawyers, appraisers, and accountant. And they`ve gone after all three in this case. But the accountants are the most important. They`re the ones who had the most documents, knew the most and spoke the most for Trump in the context of matter.
HAYES: You know, from a legal perspective, Joyce, one of the issues that was very interesting to me about the Elizabeth Holmes trial, it happened in California, who is the founder of Theranos, was the was the kind of legal line between sales person talk, like sort of braggadocious and like, we`re going to change the world and fraud.
And you know, the former is legal. You can shave the truth and you can spend things. The latter is illegal. And the bar here for a legal case, it seems to me, is that latter category and what do you think today`s development means vis-a-vis that?
JOYCE VANCE, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: So, you`ve identified, Chris, precisely the reason that these sorts of cases are so challenging for prosecutors. It`s because you have to cross over that line from what`s arguably a legitimate business practice, may be shady, but still within the pale, and crosses over into an intent to commit fraud.
This is all happening in the context of Tish James, the New York Attorney General`s efforts to take depositions of the former president and Ivanka and Don Jr. And so, she`s saying, look, there was a lot of fraud, a lot of sketchy stuff going on. I need to depose them.
And some of the things that she pled in in her January pleading that she filed with the court are pretty remarkable. For instance, in regards to the Seven Springs property in Westchester County, she says they were told by someone who is valuing the property that it was worth between 29 and $50 million dollars. They turned around and they told Mazars it was worth $161 million. So, if this all holds up, this gives us some insight into the sorts of internal and external documents that Mazars has now seen that has caused them to take this step.
[20:25:25]
I think the bottom line here is this. You know, there may be some way to suggest it was a legitimate business practice, as you point out. Or if not legitimate, at least, that banks didn`t rely on these documents too much, that they knew that puffery was going on.
But when it comes to filing taxes, you can`t make that argument about Uncle Sam. And DOJ has a practice every year. Every April, there`s a targeted suite of tax prosecutions designed to create deterrence. And one of the focuses in U.S. Attorney`s offices across the country is prosecuting people who are in positions of trust who cheat on their taxes. Well, this is the poster child case.
HAYES: That`s a very, very good point. And also, I`m curious what the fallout here is both for the firm, Mazars, David, and for what happens next in terms of depositions. Obviously, this filing is in pursuit of deposing Trump and his -- and two of his adult children. Also, it feels like not the greatest reputational day for Mazars just as a business.
FAHRENTHOLD: Well, yes. I mean, they`ve been tied to Trump in public for so long. Think of that long Supreme Court case that was about getting Mazars` records on Trump. One of the interesting people to watch here is a guy named Donald Bender. He was the lead person at Mazars. He was Trump`s account for years and years and years. And he basically only did Trump`s tax.
And so, we`ve talked a lot about Allen Weisselberg, a guy inside Trump Organization, who`s the CFO, who`s under indictment for some other alleged crimes, and you know, the efforts by prosecutors to turn him. Outside of Allen Weisselberg found Bender, this guy who worked for the outside vendor, the accountant, may know Trump`s, you know, falsehoods, may know the reality behind them better than almost anyone.
So, that guy we know has already spoken to the grand jury in New York. This action by Mazars today sort of indicates that Mazars` isn`t holding him back or telling him to protect the client anymore.
HAYES: Final thing for you, Joyce. I mean, I`m always a little -- again, that there`s a lot here that`s unique, I think, in terms of this joint investigation about whether we`re watching is something civil -- of civil case being mean or a criminal one, and how we know which terrain we`re in.
VANCE: It`s always difficult when you`re running parallel civil and criminal investigations. It can be messy because the civil side folks can`t look at anything that`s being discovered in the grand jury. This is a little bit more complicated than even when you have, for instance, a federal prosecutor`s office running parallel investigations because you`ve got to County DA and the New York Attorney General. They`re married up a little bit and they`re separate in other regards.
One of the focal points that I keep returning to and looking at the civil case here is remembering that the penalties there, although they don`t involve indicting anyone and perhaps putting them in prison at the end of the case, the penalties are serious. We saw in the case regarding Trump`s charitable foundations, that they were put out of business in the state of New York because of unethical practices.
That same sort of, you know, broad basis that the Attorney General house to restrict businesses engaging in inappropriate conduct in the state of New York, could well come into play in this civil matter. So, I think it`s as important to look at the civil cases, the criminal one.
HAYES: All right, Joyce Vance, David Fahrenthold, that was enlightening. Thank you very much.
Still ahead, the latest on the situation in Ukraine as the U.S. closes its embassy in the nation`s capital city. What we know about Russia`s plans after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:30:00]
HAYES: As the United States and its allies continue to warn that Russia could invade Ukraine any day now, the U.S. is closing its embassy, moving remaining staff from the capital Kiev to Lviv over on the western side of Ukraine, much further from Russia. The Ukrainian president today criticize the move.
Russia indicated they are still open to diplomatic efforts. But with 130,000 Russian troops in the border of Ukraine, the U.S. says Vladimir Putin could launch an attack at any moment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN KIRBY, PRESS SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE: I won`t get into a specific date. I don`t think that would be smart. I would just tell you that it is entirely possible that he could move with little to no warning.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: I`m joined now by Julia Ioffe, founding partner and Washington Correspondent for Puck News, who`s been covering the looming Russian threat at length, and Josh Letterman who covering the White House and National Security for NBC News.
First, Julia, let me -- let me start with you. There was -- I mean, one of the things we should say here is I don`t think there`s much dispute about the facts of the build-up, right. I mean, the Russian military buildup is basically visible by everyone. You can`t move that amount of artillery and material and troops around without seeing it, right? We got satellite photos, like everyone knows they`re there. That`s not the question.
I was talking to someone about today about this when I thought that maybe the war had started. And they were like, why? Why now? And I guess I still don`t have a good answer to the question of the why now. I understand, you know, Putin`s desire for (INAUDIBLE), his belief that Ukraine is part of Russia anyway, his fear NATO, yadda, yadda, yadda. But what is the why now?
JULIA IOFFE, PUCK NEWS, FOUNDING PARTNER AND WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, that`s the million-dollar question. But I would like to point out, you know, you`re absolutely right. And I think there`s a reason. I mean, other than that, you can`t move tanks and missiles and, you know, tens of thousands of troops without it being noticeable, but you`re also seeing, you know, videos on tick tock and social media. They`re not trying to stop people from filming it or publicizing it, like they did in 2014 and before 2008 when Russia invaded Georgia.
And I think part of the reason, as you`re seeing on the screen, is to show that Russia has these big guns and these big tanks, and it can do a lot of damage. And it`s, you know, part of the pressure is to make it very visible.
As to why now, it`s a good question. I think the Russians feel like, you know, this a good opportunity in terms of the U.S. because Biden is somebody they`ve dealt with before, they know he`s serious. They know where Ukraine is on a map unlike maybe a former president. And that he cares enough about this issue that he`s willing to negotiate with them. Also, unlike the former president.
And I think for Putin, you know, he`s getting older. This is -- this year, he`s going to turn 70. Never underestimate the importance of a jubilee year for a big Russian leader who thinks he`s a modern tsar. And I think this feels like, you know, the missing jewel in the crown is renegotiating European security post 1991, renegotiating finally, the terms of surrender, which he`s been wanting to do for decades.
HAYES: Yes. And I guess the question now is what the diplomatic channels are, Josh. I mean, we know that there was a call over the weekend directly with Putin. Obviously, Blinken has been talking to Lavrov. There were some noises Lavrov made in the last 24 hours that seemed a little bit of creating a permission structure for some climbdown when he said like, we`ve gotten a lot out of what we wanted from the West just by this show, right? That maybe that was something opening some diplomatic channel. What is the state of the diplomacy channel right now?
JOSH LEDERMAN, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT: Well, the White House and the U.S. feel like they have really worked this, Chris, from every diplomatic angle possible and in every format that there is. You laid out some of them.
But when it comes to conversations between the two leaders conversations between their top diplomats, the Normandy format which involves a bunch of countries other than the U.S., the United Nations, the OSCE, and they really hit a dead end that each one of these and none of it is really moving the ball towards anything that would look like a de-escalation.
You mentioned that moment today with Lavrov which certainly felt choreographed and intended to signal something exactly what it`s hard to know. But essentially, the President of Russia allowed state media to come in and film this moment where his top diplomat, his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was saying, you know, Mr. Putin, I -- you never want to wait forever or leave the door open forever.
But it seems like there might be some reason to continue to stay at the diplomatic negotiating table with the Americans for now, which as you point out, was read as some type of signal because anything that goes out on state media in Russia is something that is essentially Kremlin sanctions, that they were trying to show that they are taking, for now, the diplomatic path.
But we`ve been told all along by the U.S. don`t always take what the Russians are saying in this situation at face value. So, you sort of don`t know if it`s a head fake to make. It look like the Russians are seeking off ramp here when in fact, you know, in the other direction, they are continuing the military buildup even in the last 24 hours according to the Pentagon.
And that has left us officials pretty frustrated and pretty openly acknowledging at this point that they don`t know what President Putin is going to do, that they have done everything they feel like they can to lay out exactly what the costs are going to look like, as well as what the opportunities there are for an off-ramp if Putin wants to take it. And essentially, at this point, the ball is really in his court with some really significant consequences.
HAYES: I mean, I keep coming back to this very obvious and simple point, but it is worth restating Julia. Like, the scale of catastrophe of 100,000 troops invading a neighboring country on the European continent -- I mean, happening anywhere, it`d be terrible -- but given the history there, like, it`s really horrifying to contemplate. It really does seem like an obvious calamity in the making.
IOFFE: Yes, absolutely. And, you know, I don`t know how much American viewers realized is just how interwoven Russia and Ukraine are. How many people on both sides of the border are partially Ukrainian and Russian? How many families are partially Ukrainian and Russian? So, in addition, just to the gore, it would be tragic in that sense.
Again, I think, you know, why would they escalate now. They still haven`t gotten what they`re asking for. The off-ramp is clearly there. Today, Lavrov announced that they`ve drafted a 10 page response to the Americans proposal which had been delivered in late January. It`s too early to drawdown.
And the U.S. on their side is also ramping up pressure with the -- you know, as much as they can which is informationally by moving -- by unmasking plans they think Russia may have, for example, to invade this week, by announcing that they`re closing the embassy. This is the way that the U.S. can build pressure because we`re not willing to send troops on the ground. So, I think it`s too early for anybody to take an off-ramp, because the negotiations are still happening.
[20:40:12]
HAYES: Well, I really do hope we get to the off-ramp. That seems the sort of obvious -- I mean, just for stalling this calamity and avoiding it seems just of the utmost importance for everyone. Julia Ioffe and Josh Lederman, thank you both.
Coming up, what the country can learn from a small town that managed to reclaim their local government from right-wing extremists. A remarkable story you don`t want to miss. We`ll be right back.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The first-ever all-electric Chevy Silverado, a whole new truck for a whole new generation.
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HAYES: I got to say, that to me was the strangest and yet most memorable Super Bowl ad last night depicting the grown-up kids from legendary Chevy Sopranos. Meadow driving an all-electric Chevy truck to go meet up with the brother AJ for tearful reunion 15 years after the show ended while the car charges.
It`s just one of many ads for electric vehicles that aired on TV`s most expensive night. And this push for electric vehicles is good environmentally. Also, it`s where the market is headed. A Bloomberg analysis from last year suggested 2017 may have seen the peak of gas- powered vehicle sales with alternative fuel vehicles taking greater market share from here on out.
Last August, as President Joe Biden signed an executive order pushing for electric passenger cars, he highlighted a way the government could accelerate adopting them.
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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: That means spurring demand by converting the federal government`s enormous fleet of vehicles -- we have over 600,000 of it. We have a lot of vehicles, 60,000 of them, I should say -- into an all-American made clean vehicles. So, that`s what we`re going to do as we -- as we rollout and get rid of the existing fleet.
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HAYES: It`s a great plan because the federal government is, of course, a huge consumer of vehicles. Right now, it does have more than 657,000 cars, vans, mostly trucks. And a great place to start that electric pushes the U.S. Postal Service which holds more than 225,000 vehicles just over a third of the entire federal fleet.
And the sheer size of the Postal Service`s fleet, the primary use for most of those trucks, make it a good fit for going electric, particularly in urban and suburban areas. Think about it for a minute. These are areas with pretty small routes, generally light terrain. The trucks returned to the same home base after relatively few miles, making them easier to charge.
But now, there`s a big bureaucratic fight over the future of electric vehicles in the Postal fleet. You see, about a year ago, the Postal Service announced it would buy between 50,000 and 165,000 new postal trucks from the Wisconsin defense company. And in December, per environmental laws, it released an environmental impact statement.
In that statement, they said, they would make 90 percent of the initial purchase gas vehicles, just 10 percent electric. Now, a major force in that decision, they say, was the conclusion that making an all-electric purchase would cost $2.3 billion more than the 90 percent gas-powered purchase.
In response, the Environmental Protection Agency sent the Postal Service a letter this month warning that concerns with the Draft Environmental Impact Statement were not adequately addressed and that the final version remains seriously deficient. In other words, you guys are wrong. Buy more electric vehicles.
Now, I can`t adjudicate who`s right and who`s wrong here. But one thing seems clear is that it is madness to buy 45 to 65,000 gas vehicle for the U.S. Postal Service in the year of our Lord 2022. And the planet cannot afford it. And it would be like buying 65,000 typewriters for your office in 2002.
Postmaster General Louis DeJoy cites the Postal Service`s dire financial situation as a region for the large gas engine purchase. Fortunately, the Senate is working right now to finalize a bill already passed by the House that will relieve a lot of that financial strain on the USPS. But as with just about everything else in the green transition, the real answer is that you just need to spend the money now. No one ever wants to hear that. But as with any real investment, you need to commit with dollars and we need to get this done now.
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HAYES: Small town of Sequim, Washington has a population of about 8,000 people and sits beneath the Olympic Mountains. Sequim has traditionally leaned Republican at least back to the 1990s but Joe Biden won the town in 2020.
In fact, Clallam County, where Sequim resides, has a distinction of supporting every general election winner since Ronald Reagan in 1980. But for years Sequim has been tested by the same partisan battles playing out all over the country.
William Armacost, a local hairdresser, motorcycle enthusiast, and right- wing demagogue was first elected to the City Council in 2018. He was an appointed Mayor by that same Council in 2020. His tenure as mayor first made the news when he publicly endorsed the far-right call conspiracy theory QAnon.
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WILLIAM ARMACOST, MAYOR, SEQUIM, WASHINGTON: QAnon is a truth movement that encourages you to think for yourself. If you remove Q from that equation, it`s patriots from all over the world fighting for humanity, truth, freedom, and saving children and others from human trafficking.
Exposing the evil and corruption of the last century in hopes of leaving a better future for our children and grandchildren. I want to encourage you to search for Joe M on YouTube and watch his videos starting with Q: The Plan to Save the World.
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HAYES: That is a yikes situation. He also generate controversy when you use his official City Council phone line to advertise herbal supplements he was selling as well as one incident when he was caught in public wearing a particularly profane shirt.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: An anonymous person posted this picture of Sequim Mayor William Armacost on Facebook. The shirt he`s wearing reads, "This is the USA. We eat meat, we drink beer, we own guns, we speak English, we love freedom. If you don`t like that get the expletive out."
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Armacost oppose local public health measures to fight the Coronavirus culminating in the harassment of local public health official name Dr. Alison Berry who supported temporary business closures in the early days of the pandemic and later vaccine requirements for indoor dining. Berry got death threats and face calls for her public execution.
And in response, the mayor as well as other members of city council who were appointed under his watch sided with the people sending the death threats. The Council passed a resolution condemning the doctor and her efforts to save lives.
These are just a few examples of how as my next guest puts it, "Armacost ran Sequim like his personal fiefdom. Which is why last year Sequim residents decided to take their city back. They formed a bipartisan grassroots group called the Sequim Good Governance League, an old-fashioned political movement knocking on doors, handing out pamphlets. And together, an alliance of progressives and conservatives took over the city council and ousted the mayor.
Sasha Abramsky is the Western Correspondent of The Nation where he told the story of Sequim in a new article titled The Town That QAnon Nearly Swallowed. And he joins me now. Sasha has a great, great piece of feature magazine reporting. I loved it. Tell us the story of this town and how the movement to take it back starts.
[20:55:27]
SASHA ABRAMSKY, WESTERN CORRESPONDENT, THE NATION: Chris, first of all, thanks for having me on. Sequim is fascinating. It`s a tiny town. It`s filled with retirees, people who`ve come for the climate, people who come for the scenery. It looks quiet on the surface, which makes it all the more surprising that you`ve had this absolute political turmoil around Armacost.
And so, what happened was Armacost was doing as you said, he was announcing his support for QAnon, he was coming out against public health mandates, and the city was spiraling into chaos. And a group of people basically got together and said this has to stop.
And the thing that coalesced, the thing that brought them together, was when -- was when Armacost and his colleagues went after the city official who was in charge of making decisions like whether or not zoning permits will be approved. And he approved a drug treatment facility.
And you think that will be fairly sensible. The area has high rates of opioid addiction, high rates of overdose use -- overdoses. And so, he approved this drug treatment facility, and QAnon and various other right- wing groups decided that this was just beyond the pale and they drove them out of office.
And in the wake of this, a whole group of people, as you said, bipartisan, said this is called a stop. And they formed this Good Governance League and they recruited candidates who would come in and they`d run for the City Council, they`d run for the school board, they`d run for the hospitals, Commissioner`s offices, all the officers were these right-wing forces were trying to put down a footprint.
And they spent a year doing this. And the result last November was this fabulous election result where rational good governance actually drove Armacost and his colleagues completely out of power. It was an absolutely marvelous example of what a good citizen-organized, good governance effort can do even in this polarized age.
HAYES: Yes, you had this quote that I thought about, you know, that power is wielded by those who show up often and this is true for anyone that`s ever covered, you know, local governance. If there`s like a school desegregation hearing or a zoning hearing, right, it`s the people in the room that show up.
You said, all these conservative people snuck onto the city council when nobody oppose him, said Ron Richards, a rugged 77-year-old one-time Clallam County commissioner. And they appointed their friends to government and results of the most right-wing people you can imagine running the city of Sequim.
Like, there was this kind of takeover that produced this huge gap between the ideological disposition of the people running town and the people that lived in the town.
ABRAMSKY: That`s right. I mean, Sequim, as you said, is a blue city. It`s a city that voted for Biden is a bellwether County. Clallam is the only county in the United States now that has voted for every winning presidential candidate going all the way back to Ronald Reagan. It`s not an extremist place.
The only way it became this sort of epicenter of extremist government was a lot of people just sat out the elections. They weren`t thinking. They weren`t voting locally. They came out to vote for Biden in 2020. But they sat out all these local elections. And what we`ve seen all around the country in the last few months, especially, is the right-wing is getting really good at mobilizing people at a county level, or city level, a town level, a school board level, and they`re causing all kinds of governmental chaos as they do this.
So, for people who care about good governance, it`s time to wake up. It`s time to say, well, you know, it`s not good enough to just vote in the presidential election. I`ve also got to pay attention to what`s happening at my city council. I`ve got to pay attention to who`s running for judges. I`ve got to pay attention to who`s running for the school board. And that`s what the Sequim example showed that if people pay attention, you see this pendulum swing back away from the extremes and back towards the middle.
HAYES: One thing I also found striking is the -- is the kind of ideological coalition that`s form. I use, you know, the term popular front a lot to sort of talk about the kind of broad coalition in American life that is essentially pro-democracy, right, that has a huge, you know, wide ideological spectrum from Liz Cheney to Noam Chomsky.
And, you know, in this case, you had people that were Republicans or conservatives who have different views on a number of things who had kind of come together on this, like, fundamental belief that these people were extremists and not invested in good governance in this town.
ABRAMSKY: Yes, that`s right. I mean, you had a scene of Dr. Allison Berry. Now, she`s this wonderful public health official. She has put a lot of time and energy into trying to ensure that her local Western stay safe in the pandemic. And the QAnon folk and the right-wing folk out there were calling for to be publicly hung because he was calling for masks mandates in schools and vaccine requirements when you go into a local restaurants.
And this really transcends left-wing, right-wing, this is about civil decency. And so, you`re absolutely right that there were conservatives out there who said, look, we can`t have a society discourse in this truth. We can`t have a mayor running around spouting the kind of nonsense and dangerous nonsense that Armacost was spouting. And they did come together.
And so you had conservatives like Brandon Janisse, who`s on the city council, and then you had more liberal councilmen. But they all came together because they realized that this was about the future of American democracy. It`s a really interesting story.
HAYES: It`s a great story, a great piece of reporting in my old home The Nation. Sasha Abramsky, who has been a writer and journalist I`ve read and admired for years, thank you so much for your great reporting. I appreciate it.
ABRAMSKY: Always a pleasure. Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: That is ALL IN on this Monday night. Get this. "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now with guest host, drumroll, as I live and breathe, Alex Wagner in the house. Good evening, Alex.