Watch Rachel Maddow Highlights: Dec. 14

the washington post has just reported that former president trump's longtime accountant has started giving testimony to a new york grand jury that is investigating trump's financial practices this is the investigation that's reportedly looking at alleged tax fraud alleged bank fraud alleged insurance fraud by trump and his company this is the investigation that has already produced felony charges against trump's business and the chief financial officer of his business this is the investigation that has already obtained millions of pages of financial records related to trump from his accounting firm but now with his actual accountant responding to subpoenas and appearing before the grand jury as as the washington post puts it tonight this grand jury is now hearing testimony quote from a man who could serve as a human roadmap to that data his accountant in other words could serve as a human decoder to the millions of pages of financial documents that that investigation has already obtained about trump and his business what could be worse for trump than learning that his longtime accountant is testifying about him to the grand jury a grand jury that has millions of pages of documents to back up that testimony what could be worse for trump the only thing that could be worse is learning that his longtime banker is talking about him too and indeed the washington post was first to report tonight that rosemary vriblic trump's longtime banker at deutsche bank who has handled hundreds of millions of dollars in facially inexplicable loans to donald trump through the years through deutsche bank the post reports tonight that she is also talking to prosecutors now in the trump case his longtime accountant his longtime banker one of them appearing before the grand jury one of them just speaking directly with prosecutors in that ongoing criminal investigation of trump that has already resulted in felony charges against his business and all of that news for trump broke tonight before we got this new ruling later on this evening from a federal judge in washington d.c ruling that in fact yes trump's tax returns must be handed over to the house ways and means committee this was a trump-appointed federal judge who made this ruling for what that's worth but the law here appears to be kind of a black letter no wiggle room situation trump will certainly appeal this ruling and the judge's order that the tax returns have to be conveyed to the house that ruling is on hold while the inevitable appeal goes ahead but like i said kind of a bad day already for individual one right with his longtime accountant and his longtime banker both involved in the criminal prosecution of his the on the ongoing criminal prosecution and investigation of him and his company in new york a an adverse ruling against him in terms of handing over his tax returns to the ways and means committee that's been investigating that along a number of different lines it comes as his white house chief of staff is being referred to the justice department for criminal prosecution in conjunction with what we now know is a great guns investigation that is openly talking about trump in relation to at least one serious federal felony charge that brings with it a five-year prison term yeah how was your tuesday the vice chair of the investigation republican congresswoman liz cheney is making crystal clear now both both last night and again today that the turn the january 6 investigation has taken is toward criminal liability not just who's going to look like a bad guy in history but who's been caught potentially committing crimes here and i'll i'll show you what i mean i'm going to play you two clips of liz cheney one from last night one from today when she said this last night prosecutors all over the country law students all over the country anybody who's ever been a criminal defendant all over the country everybody did a do when she said this like wait a second what did she say there mr meadow's testimony will bear on another key question before this committee did donald trump through action or inaction corruptly seek to obstruct or impede congress's official proceedings to count electoral votes that was liz cheney last night we learned today that was not a slip of the tongue that was not an inconsiderate remark because she said it again today did donald trump through action or inaction corruptly seek to obstruct or impede congress's official proceeding to count electoral votes together now mr meadow's testimony will bear on a key question before this committee did donald trump through action or inaction corruptly seek or corruptly seek to obstruct or impede congress's official proceedings to count the electoral votes says liz cheney last night says liz cheney today the vice chair of the investigation is repeatedly asking that question to make the case for how important it is to talk to mark meadows she's repeatedly asking that question about the criminal culpability of former president donald trump and i'm saying the phrase criminal culpability here because the language she is quoting there and that clunky turn of phrase which she is deliberately repeating that turn of phrase is from a federal criminal statute 18 u.s code section 1505 whoever corruptly influences obstructs or impedes the due and proper administration of the law under which any pending proceeding is being had before any department or agency of the united states shall be fined under this title imprisoned not more than five years or if the offense involves international or domestic terrorism imprisoned by not more than eight years that's this is a federal crime that the vice chair of the investigation says it is inquiring about when it comes to mr trump and they would like to question mr meadows about whether or not mr trump committed that crime right because if somebody if somebody corruptly obstructed or impeded congress's official count of the electoral votes that's a federal crime and crime shouldn't pay so whoever did it should be caught and punished this has basically been revealed now as the direction of the january 6 investigation the investigators the members of the committee basically revealed last night that this is the way the direction is heading toward uncovering and presumably of ultimately referring for prosecution serious felony federal misconduct crimes and and since this was basically revealed as the direction of the investigation last night the thing that's been going off like a fistful of bottle rockets inside a locked metal mailbox is the prospect that not only is former president donald trump in the crosshairs of the investigation along these lines but serving members of congress may be in the crosshairs as well including those who helped hatch the plot to falsify the election results here's an aggressive strategy also according to liz cheney one sitting member of congress was working with trump justice department official jeff clark on jeff clark's alleged part of the plot remember jeff clark's alleged part of the plot was that the justice department would be used to induce various states to falsify their election results jeff clark himself has pled the fifth in anticipation of prosecution on these matters well according to the investigation a member of congress was working with him on that and the investigation knows who that member of congress is but they haven't told us yet they say they will but they haven't told us yet the prospect that these sort of crosshairs potential criminal liability um is is is in line here when it comes to the former president and the prospect that members of congress who are implicated in what happened on january 6th um that we're getting the prospect that we're getting to the part with those members of congress may at least be subpoenaed that they those members of congress may have possible prosecution looming against them as members of congress that's maybe why things all of a sudden feel so nuts right now in washington i mean it turns out this january 6 investigation is getting somewhere somewhere apparently serious on january third mr meadows was exchanging text messages with a lawmaker about the pressure campaign to get state legislatures to overturn the results of the election in one text message to a lawmaker mr meadows wrote he he presumably being president trump quote he thinks the legislatures have the power but the vp has power too end quote the power to do what we could guess the power to overturn the election results the power to reject the will of the voters and days later a violent mob tried to get vice president pence to do just that we'd like to ask mr meadows about that congressman peter aguilar from the january 6th investigation there citing text messages between trump's white house chief of staff mark meadows and a member of congress messages that appear to be about how to throw out the election results state legislatures and the vice president that's how we'll do it right that was the plot that was that was the scheme by which they tried to do it congressman jamie raskin there also describing something sent to the white house chief of staff by a member of congress have republican-controlled state legislatures dissent trump electors even if biden won those states let the supreme court sort it out yeah yes that was the plot and that was sent from a member of congress to the white house chief of staff the day after the election when the election hadn't even been called yet again formally they are making the case to members of congress here hey there's all this very intriguing and interesting stuff that we have learned from mr meadows about the heart of our investigation we need to be able to ask them about these materials in real politic what they are doing is exploding one of these every few hours new information that in some cases can be tied directly to individual members of congress and with each of these things that are attributed to a member of congress the committee has made clear they know which member of congress it is senator rafael warnock of the great state of georgia is one of the best orators the united states senate has seen in a very very long time watch him on this today watch democrats have tried again and again to engage our republican friends in a discussion on this issue one that lies at the foundation of our democracy and time and time again because of a lack of good faith engagement the rules of the senate have prevented us from moving that conversation forward we could not imagine we could not imagine changing the rules that is until last week because last week we did exactly that be very clear last week we changed the rules of the senate to address another important issue the economy this is a step a change in the senate rules we haven't been willing to take to save our broken democracy but one that a bipartisan majority of this chamber thought was necessary in order to keep our economy strong we changed the rules to protect the full faith and credit of the united states government we've decided [Music] we must do it for the economy but not for the democracy so madam president i will be honest this has been a difficult week for me as i've pondered how am i going to vote on this debt ceiling question we're about to take i feel like i'm being asked to take a road that is a point of moral dissonance for me because while i deeply believe that both our democracy and our economy are important i believe that it is misplaced to change the senate rules only for the benefit of the economy when the warning lights on our democracy are flashing at the same time madam president in light of the conniving methods of voter suppression we have seen enacted into law since the january sixth attack on the capitol i come to the floor today to share with the people of georgia and the american people the message that i shared with my colleagues over the weekend and earlier today during our caucus meeting i said to my democratic colleagues over the last several days number one unfortunately the vast majority of our republican friends have made it clear that they have no intention of trying to work with us to address voter suppression or to protect voting rights while we cannot let our republican friends off the hook for not being equitable governing partners if we are serious about protecting the right to vote that's under assault right now here is the truth it will fall to democrats to do it and if democrats alone must raise the debt ceiling then democrats alone must raise and repair the ceiling of our democracy how do we in good conscience justify doing one and not the other some of my democratic colleagues are saying but what about what about bipartisanship isn't that important i say of course it is but here's the thing we must remember slavery was bipartisan jim crow segregation was bipartisan the refusal of women's suffrage was bipartisan the denial of the basic dignity of members of the lgbtq community has long been bipartisan the three-fifths compromise was the creation of a putative national unity at the expense of black people's basic humanity so when colleagues in this chamber talk to me about bipartisanship which i believe in i just have to ask at whose expense who is being asked to foot the bill for this bipartisanship and this liberty itself the cost i submit that that's a price too high and a bridge too far to my democratic colleagues i say while it is deeply unfortunate it is more than apparent that it has been left to us to handle alone the task of safeguarding our democracy the judgment of history is upon us future generations will ask when the democracy was in a 9-1-1 state of emergency what did you do to put the fire out did we rise to the moment or did we hide behind procedural rules i believe that we democrats can figure out how to get this done even if that requires a change in the rules which we established just last week that we can do when the issue is important enough well the people of georgia and across the country are saying that voting rights are important enough i think the voting rights are important enough once we handle the debt ceiling the senate needs to make voting rights the very next issue we take up we must do voting rights and we must deal with this issue now senator you said in your remarks today that you have spoken with your democratic colleagues about this and that point that you were making that republicans have plighted their trough on this and they shouldn't be let off the hook for that they should be held to account for it but when it comes to acting it's never been more clear that it must be democrats who act now that there have been these two exceptions made in the past couple of weeks on the filibuster rule now frankly that the january 6th investigation has revealed so much terrible backstory in terms of how serious the plot was to overthrow the election and to pervert the administration of the election in 2020. do you do you sense any any movement any shift among your democratic colleagues to your way of thinking on this we've been having some encouraging conversations i've been talking to many of my colleagues including senator manchin and i've been talking to leader schumer others throughout the weekend and i'm going to continue to make the case because again i think this is the most important thing we can do this congress we make a terrible era of judgment if we behave as if these are ordinary times these are no ordinary times and if we don't do something to protect our democracy here's my fear rachel i i fear that we may well have crossed a rubicon that will make it difficult for us to get back what we uh imagine what what we take for granted uh as a democracy democracies don't die all at once uh it's a little bit at a time and anybody who's paying attention right now ought to be concerned the good news is we have the power to act we can do something about it we proved it last week because why if we didn't act the economy would be in crisis and i i thought seriously about voting against raising the debt ceiling but i was thinking about the people back home i was especially thinking about the most vulnerable members of our community who were not resilient who who would suffer a loss that that perhaps is unimaginable if we didn't do the responsible thing well i shudder to think what will happen to our democracy if we don't defend it we changed the rule last week we ought to do the same live up to our duty you know politicians make a lot of promises when they're running for office but the one thing that i swore to do when i put one hand in the air and the other on the bible i swore to defend the constitution and i'm determined to do that and i hope that my colleagues will live up to this moment [Music] you

Channel: MSNBC

Views: 465,053

Keywords: MSNBC, Politics, News, mark meadows, trump, meadows, january 6, january 6 committee, january 6 investigation, liz cheney, meadows text, warnock, filibuster, maddow, rachel maddow, raphael warnock, us news

Id: GOimxFhJ4Pk

Length: 20min 26sec (1226 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 15 2021