Show: THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW Date: October 31, 2017 Guest: Joyce Vance
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST, ALL IN: That is "ALL IN" for this evening.
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW starts right now.
Good evening, Rachel.
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Chris. Thanks, my friend.
And thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. We`ve got a bunch of news that has broken late today and into this evening, stories we`re continuing to follow as developing news stories. That includes the federal court in Washington, D.C., unsealing a new batch of documents in the special counsel`s criminal case against Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Trump campaign official Rick Gates. The 12-count felony indictment against those two Trump campaign officials, of course, was unsealed yesterday, alongside a guilty plea from a more junior campaign official who now admits he lied to the FBI about his Russia contacts during the campaign. That was all yesterday.
This new filing unsealed tonight by the federal court in Washington lays out the first overt Russia connections to the Manafort and Gates indictment as well as the Russia connections that were spelled out in the guilty plea for that more junior campaign official, George Papadopoulos yesterday.
So this new document about Manafort and Gates, it`s actually a new set of documents, a whole docket that`s been posted this evening. That means it includes arrest warrants, it includes the terms for the release from custody of Manafort and gates. There`s a lot, there`s a lot there. And we`ll have more on that new filing coming up shortly this evening.
As well as the new NBC News scoop that the Trump national campaign co- chair, the top policy official on the Trump campaign, has begun speaking with the Mueller inquiry, and he has now given testimony to the grand jury in that case.
So as I said, there`s a bunch of developing stories that are breaking this afternoon and into this evening. We`ll have more on those stories and more, ahead.
But our top story tonight, of course, is what local officials, including New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, are now calling an act of terror in the nation`s largest city. Tonight, eight people are dead and 11 people have been taken to the hospital with injuries after a man driving a rental truck apparently deliberately drove down a bike path that`s next to the West Side Highway in Lower Manhattan. He indiscriminately run down and run over pedestrians and cyclists.
I live right there, I can tell you that bike path is very, very well- utilized. It`s basically its own highway for people on foot or on bike or on skates. It runs alongside the Hudson River on one side and a six-lane highway on the other side.
Police say the driver turned his truck onto the bike path at Houston Street. He was then able to drive southbound down the bike path, which is supposed to be a no-vehicle zone. He was able to drive southbound 20 blocks, hitting people on bikes and pedestrians along the way. Then down at Chambers Street he collided with a school bus. That was at the first cross street that he hit, Chambers Street right near Stuyvesant High School.
Now, police say two adults and two children onboard the school bus were injured when the truck rammed into the school bus. After crashing into the school bus, the attacker got out of his truck. Law enforcement sources tell NBC News the man yelled "Allahu Akbar" before fire off what appears to have been a BB gun or a pellet gun.
A uniformed police officer responding to the scene then shot the attacker in the abdomen. Police say the attacker is currently being treated at a nearby hospital, although we don`t know exactly which ones.
The authorities have also not yet released the names of those killed today. Among those injured, some of the people who are in the hospital tonight are in serious conditions. As of now, we don`t believe that any of the remaining injuries are life-threatening, even though they`re serious.
Now, the suspect in today`s attack has been identified by NBC News as a 29- year-old man, Sayfullo Saipov is his name. He`s of Uzbek origin. Federal authorities tell NBC News tonight that Saipov came to the United States in 2010 from Uzbekistan. The driver`s license he was carrying tonight was apparently from Tampa, Florida. WNBC reports Saipov is believed to have been staying recently in New Jersey. He believed that he rented the truck used in today`s attack from a Home Depot in Passaic, New Jersey.
NBC news reports the suspect rented that truck at around 2:00 p.m. today, and then drove straight to Manhattan to carry out the attack. The attack happened just past 3:00 p.m. Now, New Jersey advanced media reports late tonight authorities surrounded a block in Paterson, New Jersey, in a parking lot at a Home Depot in Passaic, New Jersey. Police also surrounded a mosque and nearby apartments in Paterson, New Jersey.
Now, we mentioned that officials are calling this an act of terror. That`s apparently based on the mode of the attack and what the suspect said when he got out of the truck. But in the past hour, WNBC is reporting that in addition to all of that, a note was found in the suspect`s truck, and according to WNBC, that note claims that the driver, the suspect in the attack had done what he did for ISIS.
WNBC is sourcing that report about the note tonight to law enforcement officials. Now, the NYPD and the FBI have opened what they`re describing as a joint investigation into today`s attack. We`ll have more on what that means in just a moment. But there are still some basic unanswered questions. We don`t yet know what brought this suspect from Florida to New Jersey and how long he had been in the tri-state area. We also don`t know the details of how this New York City police officer came upon and stopped the perpetrator.
We also don`t know exactly why the perpetrator got out of his rented truck in the first place, which, of course, gave that police officer a clear opportunity to shoot him. New York police commissioner James O`Neill noted that in an issue of the ISIS magazine that came out a couple of years ago, ISIS not only gave detailed instructions to its followers to use trucks to kill pedestrians, they specifically suggested a gathering like, as you see on your screen here, New York`s Macy`s Thanksgiving Day parade as a good target for terrorists to target in a vehicle-borne attack.
This is not Thanksgiving, but it is Halloween. And as it turns out, New York City does have a big event going on tonight. The annual Halloween parade which you see here. New York City did not cancel tonight`s annual Halloween parade after this attack in Lower Manhattan this afternoon. But New York City`s mayor and New York`s governor, Andrew Cuomo, announced that revelers at the Halloween party tonight should expect an increased police presence, not just at the parade but around the city, as a precaution.
Joining us now from Lower Manhattan is NBC News correspondent Kristen Dahlgren, who`s covering this report, this story all day.
Kristen, thanks very much for joining us now. Appreciate your time tonight.
KIRSTEN DAHLGREN, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Thanks, Rachel.
Yes, you talk about Halloween down here, this is supposed to be a joyous time in this neighborhood, around Manhattan. Throughout this night, it`s been so upsetting to see all of the police activity and the flashing lights and everything, and you see a little kid walking by in their Halloween costume, parents pushing strollers with their kids out here, others headed off to the Greenwich Village parade tonight.
And so, people are still out there on the streets. But having to walk past this crime scene, and knowing what happened here, and that eight people lost their lives here. As you can see behind me, we`re still blocked off. There is an active crime scene investigation going on right now, because there are still those unanswered questions. So, police combing through the scene, trying to figure out exactly the path that this suspect took coming down that bike path.
We know there was like a 15-block area along the path that he came down, leaving victims all along the way, until he ultimately crashed and got out of that rented truck and began trying to run and evade police.
We`ve talked to eyewitnesses here who say they heard the shots, police taking him down, and they actually had to shield the kids that they were picking up from school at that time, because this happened around 3:30 in the afternoon. So telling some really terrible stories, and then the carnage that they saw afterwards, strewn along that bike path. Tonight also the investigation is going to Tampa, Florida, trying to figure out what happened there with this suspect, to New Jersey where he rented that truck and where he was apparently staying most recently.
So, a lot of unanswered questions, a lot of investigation going on. And then a definite stepped-up police presence here in New York tonight, both around this area, around the Halloween parade going on tonight. And then in other tourist areas, police and authorities say they`re going to be very visible tonight, Rachel.
MADDOW: Kristen, one question for you about that response. We`ve obviously heard it was a uniformed New York police officer who was able to confront and shoot the suspect which appears to have stopped the attack when he was out of the truck. Do we know anything about what the immediate police response was in terms of how quickly police were on the scene, where the police officer may have been stationed where -- I should, say, were he or she was able to make this confrontation? Do we know anything about the initial police response that stopped the attack?
DAHLGREN: We`re still learning more. That was apparently a patrol officer who was on duty at the time and happened to be nearby, I`m not sure exactly how close. But the eyewitnesses we were talking about to said that the police presence was almost immediate.
They said as soon as they heard something going on and saw what was going on, there were police around. You spend a lot of time around here, and in New York, there often is a police officer not very far away, a block or two blocks away, and the witnesses describing sort of the chaos that was going on. I imagine that they would have gotten here very quickly.
MADDOW: Kristen Dahlgren, NBC news correspondent. Kristen, thank you for helping us through this thing, much appreciated.
Joining us now here in studio is Bill Bratton, who was the New York City police commissioner until last year.
Commissioner Bratton, thanks very much for coming in.
BILL BRATTON, FORMER NEW YORK CITY POLICE COMISSIONER: Good to be with you.
MADDOW: You just heard Kristen say, describing that, in that part of the city, in that part of New York, you don`t have to go far to find a patrol officer. What do you know today, and what have you been able to learn in terms of the immediate police response, the way the police are handling this, and what it means for this to be a joint police/FBI investigation going forward?
BRATTON: On any day, New York City and particularly Manhattan is the most heavily policed place in America, probably more so than Washington, D.C. It`s something that the NYPD has consciously done since 9/11 in particular. And down in the World Trade Center area, this awful tragedy, the idea that it occurred within sight of those horrific events of now 16 years ago, it`s so ironic.
MADDOW: Yes, this was like a mile from the Trade Center.
BRATTON: If not actually planned by this individual.
So, the fact that police response was so quick is not surprising. During my time as police commissioner, we created two new units, critical response command, SRG, almost 1,300 officers equipped with long guns, the ballistic vest, the helmets --
MADDOW: What does SRG stand for?
BRATTON: Strategic Response Group.
MADDOW: OK.
BRATTON: They deal primarily with crowds, demonstrations, et cetera, equipped, light, critical response command, which is a counterterrorism group.
The intent is that anywhere in New York City, within moments of a lone wolf gunman, or something along that line, we can have teams of officers there within five minutes with that equipment. But in anytime in New York City, you can`t look around without seeing a police officer. The city has invested a lot of money in that, 36,000 police officers.
As to the unfolding events down there today, the investigation is going to be multifaceted. Right now, it involves apparently three states, Florida, New Jersey, New York. The rollback investigations will attempt to recover, does he have a computer, does he have a smart phone, did he have one with him, try to get information from that.
Several news sources including the local news station here in network, Channel 4, are reporting a note or notes were recovered at the scene, indicating some type of allegiance to ISIS, which would be critical in the investigation, because so many of these things are inspired by, enabled by, or directed by, those are the three terms. This one would have been at a minimum inspired by if not enabled by.
The investigation will also seek to determine does anybody else know about this, was anybody else involved in the planning? And that`s critical to try very early on to see are there other threats we need to be mindful of, particularly with the half million people down there watching the Halloween parade, literally 300 yards from where this occurred.
MADDOW: What do you make of the decision to go ahead with that event tonight? Again, I`m somebody who lives in that part of the city, so I know how big and how celebratory and how edgy that event can be, I mean that in a positive way. To go ahead with that, I sort of feel like the spirit of New York is that you press ahead with things like that, no matter what happens. But the city did have to make a decision.
BRATTON: It`s the right thing to do. Boston Strong after the marathon, New York, resilience, and undaunted, all the time, since 9/11, resilience after every one of these incidents. And there`s been over two dozen attempted efforts, Times Square attempted bombing and others.
And, also, Jimmy O`Neill his first day as commissioner after succeeding me, he had a bombing incident down on 23rd Street.
MADDOW: Right. And the bomber just convicted in that case. Yes.
BRATTON: That`s correct. And now, 13 months later. The pace of these attacks is increasing, also, which is of concern.
MADDOW: Because of NYPD is so big and capable and a multifaceted force, it makes you ask different questions about the way they work than it would be in a smaller locality. And I ask specifically about working with the FBI. When the NYPD and the FBI work together, is there a force multiplier effect between those two organizations that they get done more together than they could separately? Or could the NYPD handle this on their own?
BRATTON: One of the things I take great pride in during my time as commissioner, and now, continuing Jimmy, you`re not going to find a law enforcement agency that does not say it works seamlessly with the NYPD. That was not always the case. These issues, it`s critically important that you have what you saw tonight at the news conference, Bill Sweeney from the FBI, Jimmy O`Neill, the Joint Terrorism Task Force. They`ll quickly determine whether this is to be led by the FBI, led by the NYPD.
But no matter who is leading, everybody is working all together. And that is a force multiplier, because the FBI has the capability to reach down to Florida, to reach to New Jersey. NYPD has the capability with 14 detectives, a program initiated by my predecessor, Ray Kelly, to reach out overseas, who will be notified about of this type of incident, asking, do you have information that might relate to this, and also giving information to our allies overseas about what we know at this time, preliminary, but trying to exchange as much information as possible.
MADDOW: Yes, New York City is -- yes, the kind of city that has overseas detectives.
BRATTON: A special place.
MADDOW: Bill Bratton, former New York City Police commissioner until last year, MSNBC senior law enforcement analyst -- thank you, sir.
BRATTON: Thank you. Great to be with you.
MADDOW: Appreciate it. Always see you in difficult times, sir.
BRATTON: Unfortunately.
MADDOW: Yes.
All right. We have a lot to get to tonight. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: Eight people were killed, 11 more taken to the hospital today after a suspect drove a rented truck down a very well-used, very popular bike path in Lower Manhattan. The suspect was shot in the abdomen by police. Tonight, he`s in a local hospital.
At this hour, WNBC in New York City is citing law enforcement officials and saying that the man left a note in the rental truck that he used as a weapon tonight, claiming that he was acting on behalf of ISIS.
Now, ISIS a couple of years ago did explicitly call in its propaganda magazine for its followers to use trucks, specifically trucks, not cars, not light SUVs, to run down pedestrians, to cause mass casualty events. Officials today in New York City described an effort they`ve undertaken in recent years to actually work with truck rental companies, trying to help them spot suspicious customers who might have an attack like this in mind. Over the past couple of years, officials said today they visited nearly 150 truck rental locations in the New York area.
They say they reached out again to those locations after the truck-borne attack in Nice, France last summer, then again after the Christmas market attack in Berlin that had some of these same hallmarks.
Tonight, Pete Williams of NBC News suggests that because the suspect in today`s attack had not just a regular driver`s license but a truck driver`s license, that suspect actually might have been more likely to get a truck rental without facing a lot of questions from these anti-terror campaigns.
Now, despite the continued efforts to stop this kind of attack from happening, tonight, those eight people have been killed, many more are injured. And we still await claims either from ISIS or from anybody else who may try to credibly claim this attack.
Joining us now is Rukmini Callimachi, foreign correspondent at "The New York times" and an NBC contributor.
Rukmini, thanks for being here.
RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Thanks.
MADDOW: What do you make of these reports that there may have been a note in the vehicle?
CALLIMACHI: That`s really telling. If there was indeed a note and if the note as my colleagues at "The Times" are now reporting, pledges allegiance to ISIS, it then really matches down to the T what "Rumiyah", the English language magazine of ISIS, called for in their issue of 2016. In that issue they said, like you said, to use a truck, not an SUV, to mow down pedestrians and to keep driving over them in order to cause the most carnage until it`s not possible to continue. So, we know that he ran into a bus that stopped him.
Then you`re supposed to go out on foot, use a secondary arm, whether it`s a knife or some sort of other weapon or a gun, to continue hurting people. And you`re supposed to leave a note behind. Those were the elements that they laid out.
And if indeed there is this note, that seems to, you know, very much be in line with that.
MADDOW: That sounds very much like the M.O of what happened at Ohio State in 2016.
CALLIMACHI: Exactly. Ohio State, Berlin, and Nice are the main examples that we look to.
MADDOW: And each of those had, at least some of those elements that were prescribed.
CALLIMACHI: Exactly.
MADDOW: Yes.
CALLIMACHI: So, it started in Nice, Berlin, and now New York, is using the large truck. Before, we`ve also seen with smaller cars. But in general, those are not as deadly.
MADDOW: Now, one of the things that I`ve learned from you in your coverage of ISIS is that ISIS typically does not like to claim responsibility for attacks when the attacker is still alive, particularly when the attacker is in custody.
CALLIMACHI: Exactly.
MADDOW: Explain again why that is and how that may apply to this situation.
CALLIMACHI: The reality, Rachel, is we don`t know why they do this. The speculation is they don`t want to do this because if they claim him now, then it complicates his case when he goes before a jury, which this young man will likely do.
MADDOW: OK.
CALLIMACHI: Think back to the Chelsea attack not long ago. That person wounded over two dozen. In the diary that we found on his person when he was taken in, it specifically referenced Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, who is the spokesman of ISIS and who is calling for attacks in the West. So, they had every reason to claim that attack, we knew that was terrorism. And yet they never did.
MADDOW: Right. They never did. He was taken into custody, he was just convicted.
CALLIMACHI: And he was just convicted, exactly.
MADDOW: And he claims he was acting on behalf of ISIS. ISIS does not claim him.
CALLIMACHI: ISIS does not claim him.
MADDOW: And in this case, we`ve had no claims of responsibility from ISIS or any other group.
CALLIMACHI: No, we`ve had no claims of responsibility. What is curious is just yesterday, ISIS put out a banner that they translated into four languages, French, Russian, English, and German, calling for attacks on Halloween. They do this quite frequently.
MADDOW: Attacks in the United States on Halloween?
CALLIMACHI: They didn`t say Halloween -- they didn`t say the United States. The picture showed the Eiffel Tower.
So, you can read whatever you want into that. But it was yesterday, and Halloween is an American holiday. What`s odd about that banner is number one, it was translated multiple times, so that shows they were really trying to get it out there. And it had a date, usually their banners say, attack Paris, attack London, and there`s no date.
This one said Halloween, October 31st. So, it was very specific. I don`t know if there`s a tie there. If this is indeed an inspired attack, perhaps he was responding to that.
MADDOW: And the suspect named in this case, they`re describing as a 29- year-old Uzbek-born man.
CALLIMACHI: Yes.
MADDOW: Does his Uzbek nationality say anything to you in terms of central ISIS affiliation or anything else?
CALLIMACHI: It does, in the sense that the most recent figures we have from a Soufan Group report that just came out a couple of days ago regarding the number of foreign fighters, they say that around 40,000 people from all over the world join ISIS, and the region that sent the most foreign fighters is the former Soviet republics.
Uzbekistan is one of the nationalities of the Istanbul airport attackers. And around five or six people from American that went to join ISIS we know were Uzbek nationals.
The thing I cautioned is we know that this person immigrated here legally in 2010. I don`t want to suggest that this person joined ISIS and returned, only that there is a preponderance of people from that part of the world that seem to have been taken in by the message of this group.
MADDOW: Rukmini Callimachi is foreign correspondent from "The New York Times" who focuses on ISIS, al Qaeda and Islamic terrorism -- Rukmini, we always see you under terrible circumstances, but thank you for being here. Appreciate it.
CALLIMACHI: Thank you, Rachel.
MADDOW: All right. We got much more to come tonight including the latest on a batch of documents that was unsealed by a federal district court tonight in the criminal case against the Trump campaign manager. We were not expecting this docket to get unsealed tonight. It was unsealed tonight, it is very substantive. And that story is ahead.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: So we`re continuing to monitor the situation in Lower Manhattan tonight, where an apparent terrorist attack has claimed eight lives and a suspect is in custody. Eleven people are in the hospital.
We do want to let you know about some other news that broke late this evening as we were preparing to get on the air, though. Somewhat unexpectedly, the federal court in Washington, D.C. tonight unsealed the docket in the federal criminal case that`s been launched against Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Trump campaign official Rick Gates. Now, the indictment against Manafort and Gates was filed with the court on Friday last week and sealed on that day. It was unsealed yesterday morning, which is how we all learned about the government`s 12 felony charges and the narrative of the special counsel`s case against Paul Manafort and Rick Gates.
But then tonight, without warning, they unsealed a whole bunch of other documents in relation to that case. And the unsealed docket, as of tonight you can now see the arrest warrant for Paul Manafort and the arrest warrant for Rick Gates. The two of them were taken into custody yesterday morning.
But then they were not put in jail. They were released. And it turns out they were released on very different terms.
You can see here on this document, this is the one that relates to Gates. This is defendant Richard Gates here. He was released on his own personal recognizance. Richard Gates was allowed to go home. The terms of release are that he is not allowed to apply for a passport. He is required to stay at home. That`s the phrase there, permanent home confinement you see handwritten there.
He is allowed to leave home if he needs to meet with counsel, meet with his lawyers or attend religious services or attend to any medical emergencies. He also needs to check in daily by phone with the court in the eastern district of Virginia. So, those are the terms of Rick Gates` release after he was taken into custody. He`s released on his own personal recognizance. He has to stay home, has to check in by phone once a day.
Those appear not to be the terms on which his co-defendant, Paul Manafort, has been released. As you can see, Paul Manafort`s release form looks quite different. Paul Manafort is not described being released on his own personal recognizance. His form says he was released into a high intensity supervision program of the pretrial service agency at the district court in D.C.
Now, the handwritten instructions on his release form for Manafort, they are similar to those on Gates` form. Manafort is instructed to remain on permanent home confinement. He`s allowed to leave home only for visits to attorneys or visits to court, or medical emergencies, or religious services. He`s also, like Rick Gates, he`s instructed to report daily by telephone.
But for Manafort, this high intensity supervision program appears to be the kind of program that includes people wearing an electronic monitoring device, which presumably means an ankle bracelet or something. It`s not explicitly clear from this form that Manafort has been assigned an ankle bracelet or some other kind of electronic monitor. But that is definitely the kind of program that he has been signed up for.
Now, in addition to getting the reach warrants for Manafort and Gates and the terms on which they were released, the government also made public a new, very substantive, 17-page document we`ve never seen before. And in this document, the government notifies them about the terms of the speediness of their trial. It tells them that foreign bank records are going to be used in making the case against them.
Then it also makes the case at length for why these release terms should be this strict. Why these guys might represent a flight risk and need this kind of supervision. And the document is kind of a doozy.
Here`s how the special counsel`s office opens up this case. Here`s how they explain why they think Manafort and Gates are flight risks. Quote: The defendants pose a risk of flight based on the serious nature of the charges, their history of deceptive and misleading conduct, the potentially significant sentences the defendants face, the strong evidence of guilt, their significant financial resources, and their foreign connections.
OK, financial resources and foreign connections. The special counsel`s office then lays out a whole bunch of new information that was not in the indictment against Manafort and Gates about their foreign advertise, about them having the financial means to flee the country, to evade this prosecution if they wanted to. You know, a lot was made in the press yesterday, a lot was made by the White House yesterday about the fact there was no mention of Russia in the indictment of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates. But here in this indictment unsealed tonight, there is definitely mention of Russia.
You`ll recall in the indictment yesterday, the special counsel`s office laid out a big long list of foreign bank accounts. Those foreign bank accounts are a key player in all the criminal charges that Paul Manafort and Rick Gates are facing. Everything from not reporting their foreign bank accounts to the IRS, to using those accounts to shield their foreign income from taxes, those foreign bank accounts are also key to the allegations of money laundering, using expensive pieces of real estate and money moving in and out of those foreign accounts.
Well, what Mueller`s office has unsealed tonight with this federal court in D.C. is a new allegation that it was not just Paul Manafort and Rick Gates who controlled those foreign bank accounts, it was also, quote, a Russian national. I`ll quote to you from what the court unsealed tonight, quote, the indictment sets forth and charges the defendants with engaging in a long running and complex scheme to funnel millions of dollars into the United States through various entities and accounts in Cyprus, the Grenadine, Seychelles, and England, owned or controlled by the defendants worldwide and passed through a series of foreign accounts.
Manafort, Gates, and a Russian national who was a longstanding employee of Davis Manafort Partners served as the beneficial owners and signatories on these accounts. Russian national.
I think we can surmise from news reports that the Russian national in question here may be Konstantin Kilimnik, who is a Russian-born associate of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, who is lovingly nicknamed Kostya from the GRU. Kostya, meaning a shorthand name for Konstantin, from the GRU, meaning he used to work for the Russian military intelligence service.
Konstantin Kilimnik used to widely brag about his background in Russian military intelligence, before he went to work for Paul Manafort. The government`s unsealed documents that have just been released tonight allege that this Russian national who work with Paul Manafort and Rick Gates was also an owner and signatory on their foreign bank accounts that are detailed in the criminal indictment against these two officials.
Two pages later in the section of these documents tonight, the section that`s marked ties abroad and frequent travel, special counsel`s office tonight makes another brand-new and sort of eye popping allegation against Paul Manafort and Rick Gates.
Quote: Both defendants have substantial ties abroad including Ukraine where both have served as agents of its government. Davis Manafort International which Manafort owned and where Gates worked had staff in Kiev, in Ukraine, and in Moscow, and both Manafort and Gates have connections to Ukrainian and Russian oligarchs who have provided millions of dollars to Manafort and Gates. The foreign connections of this kind indicate that the defendants would have access to funds and an ability to live comfortably abroad, a consideration that strongly suggests risk of flight.
So, this is the special counsel going on record in court filings saying Paul Manafort and Rick Gates were paid millions of dollars by Russian oligarchs.
And I may be wrong about this, but I think this is also the first official representation by the government that Manafort`s business was staffed up in Moscow. Manafort himself has always described his business as operating in Ukraine. He`s always described himself as having no Russian business ties. But the special counsel is now saying in this court filing that Manafort was paid millions of dollars by Russian oligarchs and that his business had staff in Moscow.
Now, again, the purpose of this document is pretty specific. This is listing the special counsel`s evidence that Paul Manafort and Rick Gates should be strictly supervised, that they should be on permanent home confinement, as it says in the terms of their release. Part of the way the government argues for that is by describing the financial resources that Manafort and Gates have at their disposal if either of them ever did decide to flee.
What`s interesting about this declaration from the special counsel is that it sounds like they have tracked down every last iota of financial information about Manafort and Gates. And part of what they have turned up thus far is that Manafort and Gates have each made wildly different public representations as to how much they`re worth, as to how much money they have.
Well, start with Gates here, and then we`ll do Manafort after. Here`s what this document unsealed by the court tonight says about Gates. Quote, recently, in a February 2016 application for a line of credit, Gates listed his and his wife`s net worth as $30 million. He listed his own liquid net worth as $25 million.
That said, other documents provide conflicting information. One month after that credit line application in March 2016, Gates made a residential loan application in which he listed his total assets and that of his wife as 90 percent less than that, listed his total assets and that of his wife as approximately $2.6 million, one tenth of what he had said just the previous month.
In connection with the loan in 2011, Gates estimated his total assets to be approximately $2.2 million. So wildly different representations by Rick Gates as to how much money he had, whatever that means.
But check out what they say about Manafort. Quote, Manafort`s financial holdings are substantial if difficult to quantify precisely because of his varying representations. Manafort has represented the value of his assets on loan applications and other financial documents in divergent amounts.
For example, in November 2016 and January 2017, he said his net assets were approximately $25 million. But before that, in August 2016, he listed the value of his assets as $63 million. And in a different application, also that same month, in August 2016, he listed his assets as $28 million. Three months before that, he represented his assets to be $42 million. The month before that, he represented his assets to be -- excuse me -- his assets to be $48 million. The previous year in April 2015, he said he was worth $35 million.
And maybe all of this is true, maybe between March 2016 when he joined the Trump campaign and two months later, Paul Manafort did triple his net worth and then somehow three months later, by the time he was getting kicked off the Trump campaign, he lost $100 million. Maybe it`s true and it`s been a mad rollercoaster of Paul Manafort in terms of his net assets.
But these new filings unsealed by the special counsel`s office and the court tonight show you at the very least, the special counsel has got valuations of the assets and holdings of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates from multiple different sources going back years and years and years. They`ve got their loan applications. They`ve got other kinds of loan applications. They`ve got credit line applications. They`ve got it all.
The government in this document unsealed by the court tonight, they argue that the case should be treated as a complex case. It shouldn`t be rushed to a conclusion under the constitutional requirements that you get a speedy trial. It doesn`t seem like they had a hard fight on that, they note in one footnote that Manafort`s counsel has agreed that the case should be treated as a complex case.
But in making their argument to the court for why that should happen, the special counsel explains that this is a criminal case in which the government will be relying on, and I quote, hundreds of thousands of documents, quote, both from the United States and abroad. And an assertion that is probably blowing like a cold wind through the White House tonight, the special counsel`s office also asserts their case against Manafort and Gates will include not only bank records but also tax filings.
So, we don`t know exactly if the president`s campaign chairman is wearing an ankle bracelet tonight. We think he might be. We know that he`s been released to a home confinement under a high intensity supervision program. The special counsel`s office has now declared Manafort has a history of receiving millions of dollars from Russian oligarchs. And they say their overseas bank accounts are shared with a Russian national, who elsewhere we believe to have bragged that he had Russian military intelligence background.
And the special counsel has put Gates and Manafort and by extension anybody else involved in this case, put them all on notice now that their -- the special counsel`s efforts to track this stuff down includes them going through both foreign and domestic bank records and also tax filings. They`ve got their taxes.
So, these documents just unsealed by the court tonight, we`ll get a little bit of help later this hour as to whether or not this is a normal looking declaration from prosecutors, but from a layman`s perspective, A, this is a lot of new information, and B, this seems brutal.
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MADDOW: So, as we`ve been reporting, new documents unsealed tonight by a court in Washington, D.C. concerning the arrest warrants and the terms of release for the president`s campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his long time associate Rick Gates, both Manafort and Gates are confined to their homes, we now know. Gates was released on personal recognizance. Manafort was released under a high intensity supervision program which may include him wearing an electronic monitoring device. Remarkable on its own terms, just to have the sitting president`s campaign manager in that situation, right?
But it`s remarkable in a smaller way because Gates and Manafort have worked together for years and years and years. They`ve just been indicted together in a 12-count felony indictment. But they`re not necessarily handling their legal jeopardy in the same way.
Here`s something to know about these guys. At his indictment yesterday morning, Rick Gates does not appear to have had a lawyer. He was not represented by counsel. Just in case you were wondering if this indictment had come as a surprise. We expect Rick Gates will be represented by a lawyer when he turns up to court on Thursday. But when he was indicted, he was alone.
Here`s something else we`ve learned tonight as well. The president today did his best today to downplay the role and importance of the campaign official whose guilty plea was also unsealed by the special counsel in the court yesterday. Although the president himself had unveiled George Papadopoulos as a foreign adviser to the campaign at a meeting with "The Washington Post" last year. Today, the president derided Papadopoulos, as a, quote, young low level volunteer who few people knew.
That distancing strategy is something we`ve seen repeatedly from the president. It`s about to be tested in this case. Whether or not George Papadopoulos was himself an important figure on the campaign, the documents unsealed by the court appear to show him reporting to senior campaign officials frequently about his ongoing interactions with Russians during the campaign.
The documents that Mueller`s team have appear to show Trump campaign officials encouraging George Papadopoulos to keep up those contacts with Russians.
Well, tonight NBC News reports that the person who is described as George Papadopoulos` campaign supervisor, a man named Sam Clovis, who was national co-chair of the Trump campaign, chief policy adviser to the Trump campaign, Sam Clovis last week met with Robert Mueller`s investigators. And NBC News reports tonight that Sam Clovis has also testified to the grand jury in this investigation.
So, if the Trump White House decides they want to keep distancing themselves from people who have turned up in the Russia investigation, distancing themselves from Sam Clovis is going to be particularly difficult, given not only that he was a national co-chair of the campaign but also that they have nominated him to a senior position at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, for which Sam Clovis is supposed to face Senate confirmation next week, which is probably going to be very, very awkward now.
Joining us is Joyce Vance. She`s a former U.S. attorney for the great state of Alabama.
Ms. Vance, thank you very much for being with us. I really appreciate you being here.
JOYCE VANCE, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY: Thanks for having me, Rachel.
MADDOW: So reading this document tonight that was unsealed by the court, this is a representation -- first, there`s the warrant, then there`s the terms of confinement under which Gates and Manafort were released. But then there`s this 17-page document from the special counsel`s office in which they make the case that they believe that these terms of release are warranted, that Gates and Manafort both represent a flight risk.
Is it surprising that the special counsel makes a whole bunch of new allegations and representations of fact in that filing?
VANCE: So at this stage in a case, the government can ask the court to detain defendants pending trial. They didn`t do that here, noting that the case law didn`t support it because they`re American citizens. But Mueller`s prosecutors do make a full-court press in an effort to put sufficient conditions upon the release to ensure that the defendants will show up at trial.
It`s not an unusual type of approach for prosecutors to take. But the information in this document -- I think you did a great layout. You probably could have convinced a federal judge to impose these conditions the way you went through the information in the opening.
The specific facts are really remarkable, including the new news that Paul Manafort had three different passports with three different numbers, that he was using a phone that he obtained in an alias name for foreign travel. This is a real effort by Andrew Wiseman and the other lawyers on this team to tell the judge that without monitoring and other significant steps, they fear that these defendants will flee the country before trial.
MADDOW: I was struck. I read these documents in the order in which they came out. So, I read the arrest warrant first and then the terms of release, and then I read the government`s argument about it. I was surprised at first that there were different terms of release for Gates and Manafort.
Manafort appears to be subject to more intensive monitoring, including what appears to be an electronic device of some kind. By the time I got the end of the government`s case, though, I was surprised that they would release Manafort at all given what they say about his means and motive to flee, to get away from this prosecution.
VANCE: It is a little bit surprising. But because the case law talks in terms of citizenship in assessing flight risk, Manafort has significant ties to this community. The government apparently felt certain that it could obtain his presence with these conditions. It`s hard to tell if it is in fact an ankle bracelet monitoring system. There is some different technology involved.
But typically, these bracelets send a signal to a phone so that the probation officer is aware simultaneously if you get a little too far away from the telephone system in your home. And apparently, they felt like they had the capability to monitor that system and assure that he didn`t leave his home, flee the country.
MADDOW: Just remarkable that we`re talking in these terms about the sitting president`s campaign chairman.
Joyce Vance, former U.S. attorney from Alabama, thank you very much for helping us understand these new documents tonight. Really appreciate it.
VANCE: Thanks.
MADDOW: All right. We`ll be right back. Stay with us.
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MADDOW: We do not yet have the names of the eight people who were killed and the 11 more who were seriously injured in the apparent terror attack today in New York City. We don`t have a timeline for getting those names either. But we are beginning to get some general information about the victims, because of the location of this attack and how that bike path is typically used, there were worries early on that some of the people killed and hurt would end up being tourist or at least visitors from abroad. Those worries are bearing out.
The foreign minister of Belgium tonight says he is saddened to announce that one Belgian was among the eight people killed. He says another three people from Belgium were among the injured.
We`re also now seeing unconfirmed media reports from Argentina that four people from Argentina were killed in today`s attack. Again, that`s unconfirmed reports from the Argentinean media.
Because this is New York, though, part of the citizen response has been to get out there and carry on. There is extra police and security in place. But the annual huge hundreds of thousands strong Halloween parade in Lower Manhattan is out in full force tonight, as you`d expect in this city.
We`ll be right back.
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MADDOW: Despite unified Republican control in Washington, the new administration has not been able to pass anything substantive through Congress since President Trump has been in office. They had tried a lot of different stuff. They tried over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, and they failed every time.
This week was supposed to be their next big push, the most important push of all, tax reform. That was supposed to be this week. Tax reform week.
So far, this week has been about the Trump campaign manager getting indicted and arrested and the special counsel investigation, along with a guilty plea from a Trump foreign policy adviser for lying to the FBI.
But the White House has soldiered on. They`ve been insisting they`re going to get their tax bill out there. It`s coming out on tomorrow. The deadline is Wednesday. It`s coming out on Wednesday.
It`s now no longer going to be out on Wednesday. They now say they`re pushing the deadline back until Thursday maybe. We don`t know exactly. It`s their own deadline. We do know they`re going to miss it. We know they`re trying.
That does it for us tonight. We`ll see you again tomorrow.
Now, it`s time for "THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O`DONNELL".
Good evening, Lawrence.
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