Donald Trump Russia Case 'More Than Circumstantial' | Rachel Maddow | MSNBC

and thanks to Rome for joining us this hour boy this has been a heck of a day in the news right we're gonna start with a mineral called bauxite B aux ite you mine bauxite basically it look basically looks like a cross between spumoni and dirt but it's a mineral and you grind up bauxite you process it with lime and caustic soda and a superhot solution and what happens when you do that to bauxite is that separates out from the bauxite something called alumina al u mi na alumina and you if you dry alumina out and you take it to your metal processing plant you take it to your smelters you process that dry alumina powder into liquid aluminum and the process by which you get that liquid sorry that that powdered alumina into liquid aluminum is is the smelting process and in big aluminium smelters it's it's one of the things we humans have created to most closely approximate the pits of hell on earth the pictures from aluminum smelters especially big big aluminum smelters it's basically sci-fi right it's hard to believe that this is on the surface of the planet when the Soviet Union collapsed and it's state-owned giant aluminum smelters we're becoming private property private businesses that heavy Russian industry like a lot of other Russian industries at the time basically turned into full-scale murderous gang warfare as various thugs and connected gangsters fought it out in many cases literally for control of what they all knew would be a multi-billion dollar private industry the Soviet the former Soviet now Russian aluminium industry I'm in Siberia at the time in the 1990s one of the contenders in that fight one of the guys who was trying to get control of this mammoth Russian industry famously he started sleeping at his smelters he but he would sleep at these Hellmouth that's right so he could be there 24 hours a day he could he would sleep in the middle of all those pits so that he would be there to be able to stop sabotage in his smelters so he'd be first to know he'd be the first one to arms if the Wolves he was competing against in that industry came to his door came to his smelters came to his factories to try to take off from him what he was trying to build was a very brutal start right sleeping in the smelters but you know what he won by the following decade he was the aluminum king of Russia it cornered the market he was a multi billionaire u.s. state department was describing him in cables as quote enjoying a favorable relationship with President Putin he was a more or less permanent fixture on Putin's trips abroad and he's widely acknowledged by our contacts to be among the two or three oligarchs Putin turns to on a regular basis that's from a US State Department cable from 2006 2006 is also when that same Russian billionaire the aluminum King the guy who was basically Putin's right-hand man never left his side took all his trips abroad with him 2006 the year that State Department Cable is also the year that that same billionaire started paying Donald Trump's presidential campaign chairman ten million dollars a year it's a contract that reportedly started paying Paul manna for ten million dollars a year starting in 2006 we don't know how long those payments continued we don't know when they ended or if they ended but The Associated Press broke this story this morning based on documents obtained from manna forts businesses and records of international wire transfers that the AP reviewed and if it feels like everything went nuts today in the news this story may very well be why according to the Associated Press Paul Manafort proposed in 2005 and started getting paid in 2006 in a contract arrangement with this Russian zillionaire where he agreed quote to influence politics business dealings and news coverage in the United States to benefit the Putin government for that contract he signed a deal that would pay him 10 million dollars annually beginning in 2006 according to a memo written by Paul Manafort proposing this arrangement to the Russian billionaire quote we are now of the belief that this model can greatly benefit the Putin government if employed at the correct levels with the appropriate commitment to success Paul Manafort in this document then explained that where he would exert his influence on behalf of the Putin government was that quote the highest levels of the US government at the White House at Capitol Hill at the State Department again The Associated Press obtained these documents today from mana forts consulting business they say they saw records of wire transfers of millions and millions and tens of millions of dollars to Paul manna for 10 million dollars a year starting in 2006 ending we don't know when I should note that it is also a matter of public record that when Paul Manafort was hired to run the Trump campaign last year he worked for free just kind of a sweet gesture when you think about it trying to follow the news today was like if you wanted to read a book you intended to read a book but instead what you were offered by the universe was a shower of thousands of pieces of shredded book which would make for an excellent ticker tape parade but it was made it kind of hard to follow the narrative today was just a blizzard of news and it seems like the news got more and more serious as the day went by and and that's not just because of deliberate distraction I mean there really are a lot of very substantive things going on the terror attack in London today was a very big deal one police officer and three civilians dead in addition to the attacker himself we're going to have more on that attack coming up including the latest from the Metropolitan Police today in Washington there was another day of Supreme Court confirmation hearings for nominee Neil Gore's neil Gorsuch the the substance of these hearings is increasingly getting overshadowed at least on one side of the aisle by what are basically now louder and louder calls for the Democrats to stop participating in these hearings they try to just stop the process instead if for no other reason than the fact that this president's campaign is the subject of a counterintelligence investigation by the FBI to see if they colluded with a foreign power in an attack on the United States last year maybe in the in at aftermath of the FBI confirming that investigation maybe that's not the time to be acting on a far-reaching an irreversible action by that president and to that point tomorrow Congress is set to vote on the president's Obamacare repeal which will throw 24 million Americans off their health insurance if they get it through it's it's it's all happening at the same time so it's all happening right now and into that confetti maelstrom today we also got the political equivalent of like a flashbang grenade to mix my metaphors right we got this huge showy confusing break in the news this afternoon when the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee man who was supposed to be leading one of the two bipartisan congressional investigations into the Russian attack last year in the possible Trump campaign collusion with that attack today that congressman Devin newness held not one but two fairly breathless press conferences alleging something he couldn't quite say what about the intelligence community and the Trump transition of which he was an executive member things that he had seen but he could not describe that made him feel alarm that made him feel concerned that ought to make us all feel alarm and concern and they certainly wouldn't make us feel those things if only we knew what these things were but he would not tell us in fact he did not even have these things in his possession and he had not shown them to the rest of the people on his committee are who were participating in this investigation he's supposedly leading and we're gonna have more on what he did today in just a moment with a reporter who really understands these matters more than almost anybody else in American journalism but for the moment suffice to say that the only new information the only advance in our understanding that came out of what congressman Devin Nunez did today the only granular thing he gave us that means anything other than the big distraction this all cost today the only thing new to come out of what he did today is new uncertainty as to whether or not there really is going to continue to be an investigation in the House of Representatives under his leadership about what happened to our country last year and what the Trump campaigns role was in it if any the only concrete outcome of what house Intel since Chairman Devin unis did today was raised the question of whether or not he just blew up his own investigation and you know maybe that's not the most important thing in the world right I mean in the Senate they're also doing an Intelligence Committee investigation and we know that the FBI is doing their own counterintelligence investigation and you know how you feel about the competence and the Independence of that FBI investigation will depend on where your personal James Comey tea leaves are today you know whether you think he is trustworthy or not whether you think he is running a trustworthy FBI or not whether you think the Justice Department under Jeff Sessions is going to allow for an untrammeled FBI investigation to go wherever the facts lead it up to and including potential criminal prosecutions if necessary but regardless of how many investigations there are regardless of who does the investigation today there is new reason to be convinced that a real investigation is necessary but this is this stuff is a big deal and and part of that is this absolute bombshell drop by The Associated Press today about the Trump campaign chairman reportedly being paid tens of millions of dollars annually to covertly advance the interest of putin's government inside the united states in an effort that started ten years ago and we don't know when it ended or if it ended that's part of it another part of it is what we learned today from the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee what we learned from him on the central question not the the existential question the question that will end the Trump presidency if it turns out to be true on the central question of whether or not the Trump campaign helped Russia whether they knew about and cooperated with Russia's attack while Russia was attacking the United States congressman Adam Schiff top Democrat on the Intel Committee on Sunday morning he claimed on Meet the Press that there that there is in fact evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians last year but he said that evidence was circumstantial he said that on Meet the Press on Sunday morning there's circumstantial evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia this evening on the daily version of Meet the Press with Chuck Todd in the middle of the Chuck trying to sort out all this mishegoss about what happened with Devon newness today and whether Chairman newness was saying anything substantive or whether this was just a distraction or whether there were any verifiable claims there and whether there is still going to be an Intelligence Committee investigation afternoon as did this today in the middle of sorting all that out today on his five o'clock show this afternoon congressman Adam Schiff joined Chuck Todd for part of that discussion at the end of the hour and listen to what he said tonight you admit it's a circum all you have right now is a circumstantial case actually no Chuck I can tell you that the case is more than that and I can't go into the particulars but there is more than circumstantial evidence now so again I think do you have seen direct evidence of collusion I don't want to go into specifics but I will say that there is evidence that is not circumstantial and and is very much worthy of investigation so that is what we ought to do that is a serious and specific new allegation like just just I know there's a lot of noise around this subject today and around lots of subjects today but just be clear on this one point just to be very clear on Sunday morning congressman Adam Schiff top Democrat on the Intel committee said there was circumstantial evidence of the Trump campaign colluding with the Russians last year during their attack the following day on Monday morning that's when the FBI confirmed that there is an ongoing counterintelligence investigation into whether or not the Trump campaign colluded with Russia that night Monday night I asked congressman Schiff on this show if he could elaborate a little bit tell me what he meant on Meet the Press when he said there was circumstantial evidence tell me what he meant by the phrase circumstantial evidence when he said that's what we've got on the issue of collusion and when I asked him about that on Monday night here's how he answered that congressman on on NBC yesterday you said that you see there being an accumulation of what you described as circumstantial evidence that there was collusion between this Russian operation and associates of Donald Trump during the campaign can you just expand on that a little bit what you meant by circumstantial evidence and the both the limits of that but also the extent of it well you know I know when you use that term a lot of people think that circumstantial evidence isn't very telling it isn't very powerful but it all depends on what kind of circumstantial evidence I can't go into a lot of specifics here they're probably the best example for your viewers is if you go outside in the afternoon and there's no snow on the ground and you wake up the next morning and there is snow on the ground you could pretty well conclude that it snowed overnight that's circumstantial if you see the snow coming down then you can say I have direct evidence that it snowed so circumstantial evidence can be very very powerful and indicative of something that's happened so that's as much as he was willing to say on Monday night congressman Schiff again he has access to everything the Intelligence Committee is seeing and on on Monday morning he said there's circumstantial evidence of collusion Monday night is giving a little more descriptive elaboration about what he means that by their being circumstantial evidence of collusion now tonight he has moved on from that he is he is now saying something new he's now saying it's not just circumstantial evidence anymore it's more than that I can just play that that little piece of it real quick do we have that I can't go into the particulars but there is more than circumstantial evidence now so again I think do you have seen direct evidence of collusion I don't want to go into specifics but I will say that there is evidence that is not circumstantial that's new we reached out to congressman shift's office tonight to find out what this means to make sure that the congressman did not misspeak that he's actually intending to move the ball forward like this with what he is asserting his office told us that the congressman meant what he said he did not misspeak his office also told us that the congressman not only intended to say what he intended to say but that he wouldn't give us any further elaboration on it tonight we asked further if this new evidence that he's seen this non circumstantial evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia we asked if that had anything to do with what Chairman Devin unas was talking about today his office told us no had nothing to do with that at all it's a separate matter so whatever congressman Schiff is describing here has nothing to do with this sideshow from Devan newness today on Capitol Hill and at the White House so whether or not the intelligence committees continue their investigations the top Democrat who was part of that investigation in the house says there is something new and big that has just arisen since Monday that is evidence of collusion between Trump and the Russians during the Russian attack that's a big deal and so whoever is going to carry on with this investigation it seems more important than ever that this investigation carry on and there's just one last point here in terms of the importance of there being at least one credible real investigation of what has happened here and the Trump campaigns involvement with it if there was any yesterday in Moscow this man either fell or was thrown out of a fourth floor window in a Moscow apartment building miraculously he survived he has serious head injuries he's in intensive care in a hospital in Moscow that was yesterday today he was due to testify in a case about Russian money laundering he's also due to testify in May in New York in a Russian money-laundering case brought in federal court bry Preet Bharara --zz office Preet Bharara the US attorney who is very controversial II fired by the Trump administration two weeks ago even though he had previously been asked to stay on both of those cases both the new york federal court case and the case in russia both of those cases in which this man was due to testify are about a very famous quarter billion dollar fraud scheme in russia it involved a western capital management firm that was operating in moscow and basically what happened is they got squeezed by russian authorities and ultimately it was a a tax fraud scheme that resulted in Russian government officials apparently using this Western company to ripoff two hundred and thirty million dollars from Russian taxpayers and the firm was aware of what was going on while Russian officials were doing this at their expense and the firm tried to blow the whistle when that happened and the auditor for that firm was a guy called Sergei Magnitsky and the Russian authorities and the Putin government they grabbed him and they threw him in prison and you can hold somebody in Russia for a year in prison before you bring charges against them they held him in prison for almost a year and then one week before that year was due to be up he mysteriously died in prison he was 37 years old his name was Sergei Magnitsky after he was dead Russian officials blamed the whole fraud scheme on him Asuma see there was a Magnitsky act in US law that prohibits all sorts of Russian officials who were implicated in that guy's death and implicated in that fraud there's a there's a US law that prohibits Russians who were implicated in that scandal from coming into the United States it's essentially targeted sanctions on people who were involved in that fraud and what appears to have been that murder we reported last month on this show on a Russian activist former journalist who had lobbied in this country to expand the Magnitsky Act to expand it beyond just people involved in that one crime it would be expanded to impose sanctions and penalties on all sorts of different Russian officials who were involved in wide scale corruption and crime and murder and we reported on that Russian activist last month here on this show because for the second time in two years he narrowly survived being poisoned his name is Vladimir Komarov he is now out of a coma he may yet survive the second attempt to kill him with poison Sergei met Nick Magnitsky's family lawyer is in intensive care today with severe head injuries he may yet survive whatever it was that saw him fling off a fourth floor window ledge yesterday in Moscow headfirst he may yet survive but he certainly wasn't able to testify today Sergei Magnitsky though he did he did not survive he was dead at 37 they raided that Western company where he was working in 2007 they threw him in prison in 2008 they killed him in prison in 2009 and in 2006 2007 2008 and at least through 2009 Paul Manafort Donald Trump's campaign chairman that's when he was being paid 10 million dollars a year to promote the interests of Vladimir Putin's government secretly in the United States without registering as a foreign agent without declaring who we was working for and without ever before now having to defend publicly his real intentions and his real paymaster's while he was doing what otherwise appeared to be American political work there's a lot going on some of it is deadly deadly deadly serious we've got Charlie Savage here tonight one of the best national security and justice correspondents in the country we have one of the AP reporters here tonight who broke this story on Paul Manafort contract to promote Putin's government secretly in this country we've got the latest on what happened today in London slots ahead tonight stay with us hey there I'm Chris Hayes from MSNBC thanks for watching MSNBC on YouTube if you want to keep up to date with the videos we're putting out you can click subscribe just below me or click over on this list to see lots of other great videos

Channel: MSNBC

Views: 672,151

Keywords: Rachel Maddow, The Rachel Maddow Show, Rachel Maddow Show, Maddow, TRMS, MSNBC, MSNBC news, MSNBC live, MSNBC TV, news, breaking news, current events, US news, politics, politics news, political news, elections, news channel, news station, world news, top stories, pop culture, business, health, liberal, progressive, cable, cable news, Donald Trump, Russia, Russia Case, More Than Circumstantial, Circumstantial, Rachel Maddow reports, developments, investigation, coordination, Paul Manafort

Id: 8U9e3wAFb8Q

Length: 21min 33sec (1293 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 23 2017