Summary
There are reports that Russian troops are shelling Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant, Europe`s largest nuclear power station located in southeastern Ukraine. According to the government, the Russians not only are targeting the plant, but a fire has broken out inside this nuclear power plant. And Firefighters cannot start extinguishing the fire at the Nuclear Power Plant because being fired upon by the Russians at point-blank rage. Today, Putin was on Russian television to lie and say that everything was going according to plan and announced elevated death payments to the families of soldiers.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: And frankly stupid racism. Tucker Carlson is once again tonight`s absolute, absolute worst. And that is tonight`s "REIDOUT." ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES starts now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST (voiceover): Tonight on ALL IN.
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY, PRESIDENT, RUSSIA: It`s not about I want to talk with Putin. I think I have to talk with Putin. The world has to talk with Putin because there are no other ways to stop this war.
HAYES: The bombs keep falling in Ukraine leaving a wake of destruction and death. And the humanitarian crisis grows. New signs the economic war being waged on Russia is taking a massive toll.
Then, Ambassador Bill Taylor on the American politics surrounding Ukraine that led us to this moment.
Plus, Congressman Jamie Raskin on his committees explicit declaration that Donald Trump may have committed crimes on January 6, and former prosecutor Barbara McQuade on the evidence of Donald Trump`s fraudulent intent.
ALL IN starts right now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES (on camera): Good evening from New York. I`m Chris Hayes. As we join you tonight at this hour, there are reports that Russian troops are shelling Europe`s largest nuclear power station in Ukraine. The Zaporizhzhia plant is located in south eastern Ukraine.
The Associated Press reports a spokesperson for the plant said in a telegram post, "We demand that they stop the heavy weapons fire. There is a real threat of nuclear danger in the biggest atomic energy station in Europe.
Task and Purpose reports this is a live stream of a firefight at the plant. It`s difficult to see much but there doesn`t seem to be a lot going on for three or four in the morning. We will keep you posted as we know more. Of course, this is now the war in Ukraine entering its second week. The outcome still incredibly uncertain which will be decided on three different fronts, what`s happening in Ukraine at a military level, the humanitarian level, what`s happening back in Russia as the impact of unprecedented sanctions become harder to hide, and what is happening in the Global Alliance that is responding and supporting Ukraine.
We`ve talked for days about that massive Russian military convoy heading to Kyiv. It goes on forever. Today, Ukraine general total Military Times their fighter jets have been able to strike the convoy and slow its progress. Senior U.S. defense officials said today, "We have no reason to doubt Ukrainian claims they have contributed to it being stalled by attacking it.
Now, that comes a day after Russian forces captured their first major Ukrainian city, the port city of Kherson. Many other cities across the nation of Ukraine are under sustained bombardment. This is drone footage that you`re seeing now. It`s from a suburb of Kiev. It`s a town called Borodyanka. And you can see what appear to be large clustered civilian high rises just completely destroyed, destroyed.
Already, more than a million people have fled Ukraine in just one week. And as things deteriorate, that is likely to get much, much worse. Today, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy challenged Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet them face to face to end the war.
NBC News Chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel asks Zelenskyy if he has anything to say to Putin.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD ENGEL, NBC NEWS CHIEF FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT: Vladimir Putin has so far not been willing to meet with you. Do you have a message for him now that Ukrainian cities are under attack, this city is under attack, a convoy is on its way here? Is there a way to prevent this war from escalating even further now?
ZELENSKYY: It`s not about I want to talk with Putin. I think I have to talk with Putin. The world has to talk with Putin because there are no other ways to stop this war.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HAYES: Of course, Zelenskyy is right, and it brings up the question of what will Putin do, the one man who seems to want this war as basically no one else in the world does. The first week of the invasion has clearly gone poorly for his military. What happened happens now back in the country he rules, Russia? There`s real uncertainty, signs are both hopeful and also extremely scary.
Today, Putin was on Russian television to lie and say that everything was going according to plan. He announced as well elevated death payments to the families of soldiers. That`s the first time he had publicly acknowledged Russian soldiers had been killed in the war, a war that was supposed to be easy, and asked for a minute of silence to commemorate their deaths.
Putin also continued to lie about Ukrainian leadership and soldiers calling them all Neo-Nazis, accusing them of using human shields. Human shields is what he`s saying about those bombed-out civilian structures that we just showed you a moment ago. He also put to rest any lingering notion I think this attack was due to specifically NATO expansion, that that`s the trigger cause saying once again as he keeps repeating that he will never go back on his idea that Russians and Ukrainians are the same people and explicit and completely revanchist position.
[20:05:14]
But the economic war that has been declared on Russia in response to their shooting war on Ukraine is having a devastating effect. And there have been real cracks in the Russian economy. You`ve seen long lines at ATMs as a ruble hits a record low against the dollar. The Russian stock market has been just closed all week, and they`re trying to avoid the truly massive sell-off which eventually will have to come.
In fact, on Wednesday, a Russian economist toasted the death of the Russian stock market sarcastically on live TV, joking that he will go back to working as Santa Claus like he did 25 years ago. The New York Times reports that high-speed trains leaving Russia for Finland -- of course, those two nations border each other, that they`re full with a Finnish railways official saying this, listen. "They are leaving for good. You can see that from the luggage they carry."
And in a show of tremendous bravery and solidarity, Russians, ordinary Russians and famous Russians have been pushing back against their government. Russian athletes like tennis star Andrey Rublev and hockey great Alex Ovechkin have both called for an end to the war. Ovechkin has been a staunch Putin supporter up until this point.
There have been huge anti-war protests in cities across Russia since the war began and continuing and notably no-pro war protest to counter them. This even as folks are arrested and face very, very dire consequences.
This video shows someone who appears to be a somewhat famous woman in Russia, Yelena Osipova, who is a famous survivor of the Siege of Leningrad, one of the most brutal moments in Modern Warfare, being detained at an anti-war protest with her anti-war signs, exactly the kind of person that you don`t want to make an example of.
Today, Lukoil, which is Russia`s second-biggest oil company called for a fast resolution to the crisis, which is very close to criticism, about as close as you get, and that`s a big deal. Obviously, oil and gas dominate the Russian economy. A major Russian oil company saying to stop goes a long way.
Putin`s Russia has functioned on this kind of authoritarian menace that hangs over everyone. And while it`s oppressive, let`s be very clear, it`s considerably more free, much, much more free a place in the totalitarianism of the Stalinist peak or Soviet life where there was no opposition media. There were no opposition candidates.
But here`s the thing Putin is now cracking down. According to one online Russian newspaper, lawmakers have submitted a draft law that would conscript anti-war protesters into the military. Today there were loud echoes from the last time there was an upheaval in Moscow. The state-run Soviet TV station during that time, played a recording of the Swan Lake ballet on loop as that attempted coup d`etat proceeded. That`s the one that came to be the end of the Soviet Union as we knew it in 1991, leading to Boris Yeltsin on the tank and all that.
So, today, when the last independent TV station in Russia shut down, shut down by the government, no longer essentially allowed to be an independent station, its founder announced it was shutting down surrounded by the employees. Again, the people you`re looking at are remarkably courageous individuals. And after they left, a few seconds of Swan Lake played.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Not only was there a State of the Union this evening and a war across the world --
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HAYES: I don`t think that was right. So, playing Swan Lake, of course, has an immediate and profound meaning in Russia. Everyone in Russia knows that that was playing at that moment when the Soviet Union came to an end. And it was playing because the government couldn`t admit what was happening. It was playing because the government built on lies and denial was lying and denying until its last few moments. And to play it now, at this moment is an ominous SOS about the state Russia is in.
David Remnick is the editor of New Yorker has written extensively on Russia and Ukraine. His latest piece looks at how the Nobel Peace Prize-winning independent Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which is in danger of getting shut down as well, has been covering Ukraine. And David Remnick joins me now.
David, I know you`ve been in contact with colleagues over there that are part of the small but incredibly brave and important Russian free press. And from what I can tell from what I`ve read, they are under pressure unlike any they have encountered thus far. What is your sense?
DAVID REMNICK, EDITOR, NEW YORKER: They`re not just under pressure, they`re getting shut down. And any number of them have gotten on airplanes and left the country because they fear for their -- for their liberty, they fear for their families. And there`s rumors in Moscow -- again, rumors, I emphasize, of possibility declaration of martial law.
[20:10:03]
And you saw that proposal -- it`s funny to call it a proposal because it`s almost inevitable then that it will become law -- that people that dare to demonstrate on the street won`t just get broken up or arrested, they will be conscripted. This is -- this is what passes for high comedy in the -- in the Russian regime of today.
It seems to me, Chris, there are two things, two things very vital that Vladimir Putin has always feared. He`s always feared his own people, a popular uprising. He fears being either Mu`ammar Qadhdh or Mubarak, or something like that. And to ensure that that is suppressed, he has crackdown on independent media, demonstrations, opposition of any kind.
And then, of course, the other thing he fears is any kind of uprising that resembles a palace coup. So, there are no politics. He has slowly but surely eliminated what you and I would consider politics. And to demonstrate how severe he is with any possible scintilla of opposition, he has televised his meetings with the Security Council in which he humiliates leading members of the Security Council.
And you remember that performance where he said that he was ordering his top general and Defense Minister to go on high nuclear alert, those two look like they had swallowed a fish when they heard that. But of course, they performed their obedience.
So, how is one man`s adventure to come to an end? That is -- that is to me the great question here because in pure political terms, he is committed not only an act of horrendous inhumanity, but also a tremendous, tremendous miscalculation. How does he reverse that or how is it reversed for him, that`s what we`re going to find out. And I don`t know that we`re going to find out all that quickly.
HAYES: Yes, I mean, these sort of levers of civil society, again, the remaining ones, the kind of hold outs that have, you know, increasingly been under pressure over time and the sort of remaining bits of an active political life, right?
I mean, it is remarkable that you have people going in the streets. It`s remarkable to see them there with their cell phones and when you consider what they`re up against. It`s remarkable to hear your -- to read your interview with the head of Nova Gazeta -- Novaya Gazeta given that one of their journalists was murdered on her way back from groceries quite famously.
I guess the question is, what does it all add up to? I mean, if this sanctions regime is to shake -- is to shake Putin, is to say this is the punishment -- and again, this is not a regime change sanctions regime I think at this point, this is a stop the war and we`ll pull back. Like, what`s the mechanism on him from it?
REMNICK: Yes. Well, one of the interesting items you had in your excellent report that led him to the show was the executives have Lukoil, the second- biggest oil company in the country. This is -- this is basically an oil based -- oil extraction base and natural gas extraction country. The entire economy depends on it.
When executives for Lukoil say, well, you know, maybe this is not such a great idea, that is -- you know, if you`re searching like a pig for truffles for something, something good, something promising, that to me was one of them. The idea that somebody in the oligarchic structure would whisper even a suggestion that this is not a good idea, that is a possibility. But everything else is overwhelming those possibilities.
Now, look at look at these -- the destruction that`s been inflicted on Ukrainian cities. And this is just the beginning. This is just the beginning. I beg you to remind ourselves of what the city of Grozny looked like in 1999-2000 after Vladimir Putin got finished with it. He flattened it. It looked like Dresden during the Second World War. I don`t know yet what`s to prevent him from inflicting similar damage. I hope to God that he doesn`t.
HAYES: This is the other question I keep having. And the Grozny option is the one that looms over all of this, was one of the most brutal, and what Assad and Putin`s forces did together in bringing the Syrian war to a conclusion which was similarly just indiscriminate and brutal in almost beyond comprehension.
You know, Zelenskyy seems to understand. It`s very interesting to hear him say we need to talk face to face. I mean, Zelenskyy very much understands there is no military victory in the offing here. They are -- they`re simply out outmanned and outgunned, that they`re --diplomatic solution, and that the only binding constraint on the savagery here from Putin is essentially, to be in front of the world -- the front of mind of the world`s attention.
[20:15:26]
REMNICK: Well, I think one possible break on Putin`s actions in the end is does he want to crash this entire country?
HAYES: Yes.
REMNICK: Does he want to bring Russia into a situation where it`s a pariah state where it`s a gigantic version of what Venezuela was or is? And you know, does he -- is that what the modern world, what a modern Russia is going to be? Is that going to be Putin`s legacy? Is that really what he wants?
He seems hell bent on it right now. He seems hell bent on creating this mystical, imperial notion of Russki Mir, the Russian world, but it`s folly. And quite frankly, also, if he -- if he wins the standard military victory in coming weeks, then you`re going to see Ukraine, an enormous country of 43 million people turn into the scene of an insurgency.
HAYES: Yes.
REMNICK: And we Americans know very well how that goes in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and all the rest. So, that is the future that awaits Russia and the Russian people to say nothing of first of all, the Ukrainians.
HAYES: All right, David Remnick, you`ve been very, very helpful and generous your time throughout this night. I really appreciate it. Thank you.
REMNICK: My pleasure, Chris.
HAYES: Don`t go anywhere. We are going to get the latest on that breaking news we brought you at the top of the hour, the Russian troops are shelling Europe`s largest nuclear power station in Ukraine. The latest right after this.
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[19:20:00]
HAYES: All right, as I mentioned, we are of course following the developments of a reported Russian attack on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in southeastern Ukraine. That`s the plant there, you can see it on the map there in the southeastern corner of the country. It`s not terribly far from the so-called breakaway provinces Donetsk and Luhansk that Vladimir Putin first use as his excuse for invading Ukraine.
NBC News Correspondent Cal Perry joins us live from Lviv in Ukraine with the latest. Cal, what can you tell us?
CAL PERRY, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: So, look, about 24 hours ago, our viewers will remember civilian stopping to tanks and two armored personnel carriers. This is in the town of Enerhodar. And those were Russian troops moving in on this power plant.
This is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. It supplies a quarter of the power here in the city of Ukraine. At some point -- sorry, in the country of Ukraine. In the last 24 hours the situation disintegrated. It started as a small arms firefight, that according to the National Guard here, and has in the last few hours become a full-fledged firefight.
According to the government here, the Russians not only are targeting the plant, but a fire has broken out inside this nuclear power plant. The situation escalated. First, the mayor sounded the alarm. Then we heard from the Ukrainian military. Just in the past few minutes, this from the Minister of Foreign Affairs, he writes, "the Russian army is firing from all sides on the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the largest power plant in Europe. Fire has broken out.
And he writes, this is his words, if it blows up, it will be 10 times larger than Chernobyl. Russians must immediately cease the fire, allow firefighters, and establish a security zone. I know where that tweet is coming from because this According to Reuters, and I just want to be clear on the sourcing, this is from Reuters. I am 600 miles from the plant. "Firefighters cannot start extinguishing the fire at the Nuclear Power Plant. They`re being fired upon at point-blank rage -- point-blank range, excuse me. There is already a hit on the first power unit.
This was in many ways a military target. What`s been happening in the north of the country is the Russians are choking these villages, these towns. They`re indiscriminately shelling them, and they`re hitting the local power grids. With this power plant controlling a quarter of the power supply to the country, you can see why the Russians would want to take it.
But what`s happened in the last few hours is certainly alarming. The Ukrainian government is trying to raise the alarm to the world that not only is there a fire at the plant, but there`s this ongoing fighting in which they cannot seem to push the Russians back any longer. And the situation, as they would say, is really alarming and out of control, Chris.
HAYES: All right, Cal Perry, you`ve been doing great reporting there. Thank you for joining us in last second, and please stay safe there. We appreciate it.
I`m joined once again by Jon Wolfsthal. We just had him on this leak. He served as Senior Director for Non-Proliferation and Arms Control at the National Security Council in the Obama administration, currently a special adviser to Global Zero, an international movement for the elimination of all nuclear weapons. And he joins me now.
John, you and other nuclear experts I`m watching live -- real-time response to this about how freaked out should we be? What do we know about how dangerous this is? How should we think about this?
JON WOLFSTHAL, SPECIAL ADVISER, GLOBAL ZERO: So, what I just tweeted out when I heard about the story was everybody needs to take a deep breath. I know there`s an instinct to jump to is this Chernobyl? How much a danger are we? But we do know a little bit. There are live feeds from the reactor that actually are showing the radiation levels in the area. They are not increasing.
The video appears to have a fire inside one of the buildings. But what we can see is that the containment building itself remains intact. And it`s important to know that this is a totally different design than the reactors at Chernobyl. It is designed so that if it shuts down and has no power, it doesn`t burst into flames and can be safe and actually has a cement containment system.
So, while we obviously concerned about -- any time you see fire and nuclear power plant, God forbid, arms fire or shelling a nuclear power plant, we get worried. But right now, it doesn`t seem to be a disaster in the making, but it`s a horrific situation. And of course, it is all at the feet of the Russian invasion. And they have a moral, national, and legal responsibility to cease operations around the plant and let the Ukrainian authorities access, put out the fire, and accept international support, which is now on offer to go and help and make sure that this doesn`t become a disaster.
[20:25:34]
HAYES: Yes, I mean, obviously, the laws of war so often honored in the breach. And we`ve seen the -- what appears to be indiscriminate targeting of civilians in contravention to the laws of war just in the first week of this. But there are -- there are -- there is international law around nuclear sites and war, right. I mean, that there is an obligation here for obvious reasons to allow this -- the safety issues to be addressed first and foremost.
WOLFSTHAL: There are legal requirements here, but there`s also just national self-interest.
HAYES: Yes.
WOLFSTHAL: The winds are blowing from west to east. If there is, God forbid, a release of radiation, it`s going to blow into Russia. So, you know, not that Vladimir Putin cares about the Russian people, but if he has any -- you know, a shred of morality left in him, and if he`s worried about what will happen to him personally being held responsible for what is happening in Ukraine, at the very least, they need to stop operations around this plant.
It`s just -- it`s just abhorrent in every level that a country that`s already suffered the Chernobyl disaster that`s already being inflicted with this invasion is now going to have to deal with this. And I think you`re going to hear calls immediately tomorrow for people to say, well, we have to have a no fly zone around this area so that people can get in.
This is why we`re concerned about any conflict in Europe, that any conflict with Russia and the United States or NATO. Things can get out of control quickly. And we have to be very cautious about what`s going to happen today, tomorrow until we can get this conflict to end.
HAYES: I want to just stress a thing you said at the beginning in case it went by people because you gave us a lot of information. Obviously, Chernobyl still exists. It was sited in Ukraine, which was then part of the Soviet Union. This is a different plant design. There was a specific kind of defective nature to the plant design there, born in some ways of cost- cutting that was part of the long chain of causation that gave the world that horrible nuclear disaster.
Just to reiterate, this is not that design and the fails. We have every reason to believe the engineering and fail-safes in place are what they should be in far superior Chernobyl.
WOLFSTHAL: It`s absolutely correct, Chris. And what we`re going to be looking for is one, is there any damage to the plant itself, the actual nuclear components to the plant? If not, then there`s no immediate cause for concern. What we will then immediately start to look for is does it have external power.
These plants power themselves, the pumps, the cooling systems are powered by the nuclear plant. If they fail, then they should have secondary and tertiary power sources which allow that cooling to take away the heat and make sure that the nuclear reactor and the nuclear fuel doesn`t melt. So, that`s what we`re going to be looking for and watching over the next 24 hours.
HAYES: Okay, Jon Wolfsthal, thank you. That was very, very, very useful. I appreciate it.
Up next, the former Ambassador of Ukraine who testified in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump. Bill Taylor will be here in just a moment.
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[20:30:00]
HAYES: We are falling a number of breaking stories right now. There is, it appears, according to reporting and according to Ukrainian officials, a sustained a firefight at a nuclear plant in southeastern Ukraine, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant that`s actually supplies a quarter of all the electricity for the nation Ukraine and is the largest nuclear reactor in Europe.
There are calls from Ukrainian officials for immediate end to that firefight so they can bring firefighters in and safety units because there appears to be a fire there. We also just heard just moments ago that President Biden is at this moment speaking with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Here to make sense of these developments, Ambassador Bill Taylor, who served as the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine at various points during the previous three administrations. He was a key witness, of course, in the first impeachment of Donald Trump. And he joins me now.
Ambassador, thank you so much. I`m so grateful to have your expertise in the midst of this. Let me ask you this. First of all, just on this narrow question of the story, we`re filing right now about the nuclear plant, the possibility of, you know, in the midst of this conflict and combat to create some safety corridor to prioritize putting the fire out getting safety personnel there.
BILL TAYLOR, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE: Absolutely, Chris. This would be high priority. So, you`ve reported that there was some progress on humanitarian corridors when the -- when the two sides got together earlier today up on the border between Belarus and Ukraine. They made some progress on these corridors. This would be an obvious place for them to agree, to move back, to pull back from the hostilities at that point, and allow the firefighters to move in there and contain the fire.
HAYES: You worked in this part of the world. You`re the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine in different points for different administrations. Did you think we would be at this point or did this come as a shock to you?
[20:35:09]
TAYLOR: Total surprise -- total surprise, total shock. In particular --
HAYES: Really?
TAYLOR: Yes, absolutely. In particular, when the Russians invaded Ukraine in 2014, total surprise. We didn`t predict this at all when they moved in and tried to annex, illegally annexed Crimea. It`s the first time Chris since World War II, that an armed force moved into a neighboring country and change the -- trying to change the borders. So, yes, we were surprised.
HAYES: And this time around, I mean, it seemed like U.S. intelligence was far more prepared. In fact, the President and Antony Blinken and many essentially saying precisely what they were going to do. How do you make sense of what appears to be a just horrific folly on the part of Vladimir Putin that is causing just unbelievable suffering, damage in essentially every single direction, including to Russian people?
TAYLOR: Including the Russian people. This is the key, it seems to me. We looked -- many people looked at the intelligence. I know that the intelligence directly, but we know what was in there. And we concluded that the costs to President Putin and Russia of an invasion was so high, that the cost would be unbearable in terms of the economics, the sanctions that were very clear to him, well spelled out, and the casualties that he would face of Russian soldiers coming back to their villages and towns to be buried.
The combination of these things as well as all of the effect of his isolation in the rest of the world, we thought that those costs would be -- would be too high. He would look for a more -- look for a way to negotiate, a way to negotiate and come out with something, and he didn`t there either. So, he`s unpredictable.
HAYES: If you take a step back, Ukraine, obviously, is a large nation, largest landmass in Europe, 44 million peoples. It`s a large nation in terms of population and landmass. It`s an important nation, but it is not a nation the U.S. has particularly strong trade relationships with. It`s not like a, you know, a stalwart ally. It`s not Canada, U.K., it`s not Israel. It doesn`t have resources like some of the Gulf nations that we have these very intense and fraught relations with, and yet it has been at the center of American politics in many ways since 2016.
The political operative who worked for the guy that was turfed out and sent running from his mansion, Paul Manafort, who worked for Yanukovych, right, at the Maidan in 2014, takes a leave to voluntarily manage the campaign of Donald Trump. He meets with his ex-operative in which they discuss a peace plan in which Yanukovych would be the president of the -- of the breakaway republics in eastern Ukraine.
We had the first impeachment about U.S. policy towards increate. Ukraine. You were involved in that. We now find ourselves here. Is it clarifying to you that Putin is play on Trump and the American electorate was primarily about exactly this point of friction?
TAYLOR: Chris was clear to me is that Putin has this obsession with Ukraine, and he`s willing to do anything to have it back under his control. He thought he could do it through that invasion of Ukraine, first Crimea, and then Donbas. He thought he could -- if he controlled Donbas, that two little stateless, that he might be able to then control all of Ukraine`s foreign policy and not let Ukraine get out of his grasp.
He was concerned that Ukraine was moving to Europe. He was concerned that it was moving away from -- away from Russia, and he was absolutely right. The Ukrainians want to be European. The Ukrainians want to be an ally of the United States in a formal sense. The Ukrainians want to be that special, special place, special country in that crucial part of the world. And Chris, they are on the frontline of us.
The reason that we care about them is they`re on the frontline of the West, they are the frontline of fighting that a war that they didn`t start. The Russians clearly started, as you say, in 2014, and then in 2016. That`s what -- that`s what`s going on. He wants Ukraine.
HAYES: All right, Ambassador Bill Taylor, thank you so much.
TAYLOR: Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: Next, has the January 6 Committee found evidence of criminal activity from Donald Trump and his allies? Committee Member Congressman Jamie Raskin on that stunning new filing that draws the most direct line between the former president and the criminal conspiracy after this.
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[20:40:00]
HAYES: For the first time, the January 6 Committee just laid out the criminal case against Donald Trump specifically related to what happened on January 6. The revelations were made in a court filing in California where lawyers for the committee argued that Trump Attorney John Eastman should not be allowed to withhold e-mails under attorney-client privilege.
And Eastman, you may recall, was the lawyer who tried to provide a legal basis for Trump`s efforts to overturn the election. The committee`s lawyers argue that Eastman`s documents should be reviewed privately by the judge to determine if they fall under the, "crime or fraud exception to the attorney client privilege rule."
And in the filing, they revealed that" the evidence provides, at minimum, a good faith basis for concluding that President Trump has violated Section 18 of the U.S. Code, specifically that he obstructed, influenced, or impeded or attempted to obstruct influence or impede an official proceeding United States and that he did so corruptly.
They also say the committee also has a good faith basis for concluding the President and members of his campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States. They suspect that review of the documents may reveal the president and members his campaign engaged in common law fraud as they tried to overturn the election.
[20:45:06]
I`m joined now by one of the members of the committee investigating January 6, Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland. And Congressman, I`m very pleased to have you specifically because I know in your previous life, you are a law professor. And this is almost like a law school final exam. There`s a lot going on in this in terms of the filing and in terms of what`s happening.
So, I wonder if you could just sort of explain to us what this is. I mean, let`s start with Eastman. What was his role and how is he attempting to fight the committee`s subpoenas?
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Yes. It`s like a law school final exam where the whole fate of democracy is robbing us the answer. But look, John Eastman was operating as a freelance legal political operator. He was speaking all over the country at rallies and so on. And he was making the arguments that Donald Trump came to absorb and integrate into his approach, which is that Vice President Mike Pence had the unilateral authority just to quash and nullify Electoral College votes.
And Eastman was running around saying that the Electoral Account Act was unconstitutional. And under the Constitution, the Vice President had heretofore unknown extra constitutional powers to nullify Electoral College votes that had been certified from the governors of Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania.
So, we have demanded to get all of this information and all of these e- mails from him that he engaged in as part of this campaign against the election. And he is asserted that they`re covered by the attorney client privilege. The problem with that is that there`s no evidence that he was acting as the president`s attorney or that they`ve formed an attorney- client relationship.
If they had formed one, it had clearly been waived both by the President in telling him to go out and to make all of these arguments and by him in terms of his conduct. But then finally, we say, if a court somehow were to find that there was an attorney-client relationship and it had not been waived, then very clearly, it is not covered by the attorney-client privilege because of the so-called crime-fraud exception which is that attorneys and clients are not covered from discovery if they are involved in criminal activity.
And here, we identify at least three different kinds of criminal conspiracy and activity that were afoot. One, conspiracy to obstruct the Federal proceeding, the joint session of Congress to count Electoral College votes, two, a conspiracy to defraud the United States by sending in these counterfeit slates of electors, and then using that as a pretext for shutting down the proper counting of electors under the 12th Amendment in the Constitution. And third, just common law fraud.
So, the whole thing was basically an attempt to perpetrate a scam. The President was talking about stopping the steal. He was trying to perpetrate a steal of the election, and John Eastman was very much part of those plans.
HAYES: You and your colleagues strike me is fairly savvy about all this. You know, what you`re doing. Yesterday, when this filing was filed, when it became public, it made huge headlines because the committee is saying we have a good faith reason to believe the ex-President engaged in a criminal conspiracy. Is this just an argument that is -- you`re using in this filing to sort of in that kind of lurly way argue with the alternative and try to get these documents? Or is that -- should we take this seriously as the current -0 reflecting the current beliefs of the committee based on the information that`s gathered?
RASKIN: Well, before we even spelled all of this out in our pleadings, Chris, this was raised sua sponte by the judge. The judge himself raised it in the case. And so, we of course, had an obligation to address it. And, you know, the judge reasonably raised the question of whether all of this could be protected by attorney-client privilege when it was meant to pull a fast one and overthrow the presidential election.
So, we think we just followed through on the judge`s invitation, and again, because we`ve argued sequentially in the alternative, there are lots of ways of deciding it before you get to the crime-fraud exception. And of course, this still is within the realm of civil law. It`s not a criminal prosecution, but I think it is fairly raised under these circumstances.
HAYES: All right, fascinating explanation. Always have a good sua sponte. Congressman Jamie Raskin, thank you for your time. I appreciate it.
RASKIN: Thank you, Chris.
HAYES: Ahead, the former U.S. attorney who really saw this coming like down to the letter. Because last week, our friend Barb McQuade laid out the same potential charges against Trump or at least same potential filing that appeared in this week`s court filing. She`s here tonight to tell us where she thinks investigation goes from here after this.
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HAYES: Last week, former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade wrote what she called a model prosecution memo. It summarized the evidence and analyze potential criminal charges against Donald Trump for pressuring Mike Pence to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
In her memo, McQuade argued that quote at least two federal criminal statutes may even be violated in this episode alone, conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of an official proceeding.
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Now, as you may be thinking right now, as you listen to this, as we found out last night, those are the same arguments, almost verbatim that lawyers of the January 6 Committee just made in their latest court filing in California. They say they have a good faith basis for concluding that "The President and members of his campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States." That Donald Trump "obstructed, influenced, or impeded or attempted to obstruct influence or impede an official proceeding in the United States."
Turning now to the author of that model prosecution memo, Barbara McQuade, former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, co-host -- co- host of the Sisters In Law podcast. And she joins me now.
Barbara, it was pretty striking some of the -- you know, the echoes of your memo. How was -- what was your response when you saw that filing last night?
BARBARA MCQUADE, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I was pleased to see it, I`m glad to see that somebody in a position of influence had the same ideas, but I don`t think it takes unique insights to see this here. I think to anybody who`s got to trained prosecutors eye these crimes are actually pretty apparent.
You know, it might be in the same way, Chris, that if you`re at all familiar with the night sky, you can walk outside and see the Big Dipper. In the same way, I think any prosecutor who looks at the evidence here will immediately see a very strong case for these two crimes.
HAYES: Yes. And I think, you know -- I guess the big question now is what that means, right? So, you have -- it doesn`t mean that those have been proven. And as you say in the memo, right, this is about what you would conceivably prosecute. And as Jamie Raskin just pointed out, this is -- their inclusion was in a civil proceeding to try to get access to these documents. But if you take this seriously, what should follow from it, I suppose is the question.
MCQUADE: Well, I think at the very least, we have to expect that the Department of Justice should be looking at this very seriously. As Congressman Raskin said, you know, this is not a criminal charge. Their standard is much lower. It is evidence of to make a good faith belief that a crime may have been committed. So, it passes that standard.
And I submit that standard is also enough to open a criminal investigation. But it requires digging deeper, putting people in a grand jury and locking them into their story, cross-examining them to make sure their story holds up, gathering records like the content of emails and text messages and banking records and other kinds of things to put these things together and corroborate the testimony you`re hearing. So, that takes some work.
But I think at the very least, is suggest to me and obligation by the Justice Department to be looking at this seriously as a criminal matter. Now, whether they actually result in charges is a different question. But certainly, it seems to me enough to begin an investigation so much so that I think there`s a responsibility to investigate.
HAYES: Yes, I mean, what it would sort of turns on, right, at the criminal level, the level of prosecution, is about whether what was happening was essentially just a good faith dispute about the facts whether the election was stolen or not, and or the law, what was allowed and legal, or an attempted fraud, right, a corrupt intent to obstruct a proceeding.
And to that end, I think, you know, some of the evidence that we have, for instance, is this e-mail that we got access to yesterday. I don`t know if we have it, but basically, it`s a lawyer in the Vice President`s office saying to John Eastman like, this is B.S., and thanks to your B.S., we are now under siege. Stronger than just like I disagree with you, but like what you`re doing here is essentially fundamentally fraudulent.
MCQUADE: Yes. And I don`t think you even have to say that your cockamamie legal theory is wrong. I don`t think it has to come down to whose theory is right or wrong, but I think it comes down to is there was never any evidence of fraud to suggest that this theory could win out the day.
And the amassing of evidence in that filing I think makes it very persuasive case that Donald Trump knew there was no fraud, and it lists all the people who told him within his own administration --
HAYES: Right.
MCQUADE: -- and the memory had and the 60 lost lawsuits, all of those things. And in fact, one judge in the suspension of Rudy Giuliani`s law license said there`s not a scintilla of evidence at all that there was fraud that changed the outcome of the election. They made it up.
And at some point, I think a jury would be convinced that this is simply either willful blindness or insisting on a lie. And that is sufficient to prove an intent to defraud.
HAYES: Yes, a certain level, insisting that there`s evidence of fraud when there is no evidence of fraud for a fraudulent purpose is itself fraud, ironically enough. At some point, you probably get there.
Barbara McQuade, I really, really appreciate you coming on tonight.
MCQUADE: Thanks, Chris.
HAYES: All right, a very busy news night. And of course, we`re monitoring those developments in Ukraine. And at this point, I will turn it over to "THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" with Ayman Mohyeldin which starts right now. Good evening, Ayman.
AYMAN MOHYELDIN, MSNBC ANCHOR: Hey, good evening, Chris. And yes, it is a busy night with breaking news out of Ukraine. We`re going to follow that. Thank you very much. my friend. I greatly appreciate it. To you -- and thanks to you at home for joining us this hour.