Watch Rachel Maddow Highlights: June 19

the New York Times today confirmed remarkable reporting that's set to appear in a soon to be published book it recounts a failed plot by the Kremlin to assassinate a former Russian intelligence official who became a CIA informant the remarkable thing in terms of modern Russian history is not that they decided that they wanted to go kill the guy it's that they tried decided apparently that they wanted to try to kill the guy here on U.S soil in the United States that Russian intelligence officer had disclosed information to the US government that resulted in the FBI uncovering a bunch of Russian spies who were living here in the U.S under Deep Cover not surprisingly the Russian government was not too pleased about that but what we learned today is that apparently in 2020 an attempt was made to take him out on American soil in Miami now that plot did not succeed um but still trying it here means something and in a way maybe this shouldn't be all that surprising given Russia's previous patterns we know what they're willing to do but it does open really a whole new can of worms in terms of our relationship with them and what the implications of this might be this is a new Rubicon that they have crossed here in the United States joining us now is Mark polymeropolis he's a former CIA chief of operations in Europe and Eurasia lots of experience dealing with the Russian government in all sorts of ways he can't talk about Mr polymeropolis I really appreciate you being on the show with us tonight thank you good to be here so as I mentioned um we know about Russian efforts to track down and kill people or try to kill them not just in Russia but in places like Germany and places like the UK as a former CIA Chief who was has real expertise in this field does it strike you as significant is this something new and important that they've apparently tried to do the same thing in the United States but well Rachel I I think so you know for a long time we saw Europe as kind of Russia's intelligence playground and as you you know very artfully stated there were you know successful and and unsuccessful assassination operations uh in the UK uh and in Germany um Russia never was deterred from doing this you know we always there was always would be you know Tit for Tat expulsions declaring Russian uh Intelligence Officers Persona nagrada from countries but they were never deterred and so as they've kind of expanded this hybrid Warfare it looks as though they tried to recruit a support asset to it in essence obtain pattern of life on a uh an alleged Defector who's living in Miami and what does that mean it means trying to figure out you know for a future assassination team you know you know where this individual lives uh you know how he parked his car um just you know everyday moves uh for something that a lot of us thought was kind of out of bounds which would be kind of Russian such Russian activity in the U.S and Rachel I'll say something and I think a lot of people don't understand this with Russian defectors with any defectors the CIA is allowed to in essence parole into our country uh up to 100 defectors a year it's a large number and and that's really not important but that also means that we give them permanent residence and that's a path to citizenship so in essence the Russians not only were trying to kill a a form a Defector a former officer of their intelligence service this is also a U.S citizen and that should alarm a lot of people is it also um I mean given that he's a Defector the CIA essentially takes responsibility for him brings him into the U.S brings him in and installs him here as a permanent resident potentially as a U.S citizen in a way that's supposed to be safe from reprisal by the country from which he defected is it surprising to you that the Kremlin was able to apparently dispatch somebody to get this close to him apparently as part of an assassination plot shouldn't he have been more protected well the answer of course is yes and I'm sure that the intelligence Community you know tightened up its its procedures and of course the operation was was not successful one of the things that we've seen over the years with the factors of course is that you know not they don't always follow the rules you know they miss home they contact relatives sometimes they do things um that open them up uh to uh to eventually kind of their home country finding out where they are but but really generally in the United States they still were considered Untouchable and that's what I think is so so troubling here look Vladimir Putin has a pathological hatred of of defectors he's a Former Intelligence officer this goes to kind of Hit the you know his DNA and uh he clearly has made the decision um to kind of cross that Rubicon and go after individuals in the United States and we have to now up our game and ensure that these individuals these were agents of ours you know we have a sacrosanct responsibility to protect them we've got to do that Mark polymeropolis former CIA chief of operations in Europe and Eurasia Mark invaluable to have your expertise on this story tonight thank you so much for being here we have seen as you've pointed out multiple times now uh various different false slate of electors from seven different states and what seeming seems to be a coordinated effort uh between the Republican parties in various different states we think this is a matter that is best investigated and potentially prosecuted by the feds and as such just today we referred this matter to the Western District the U.S attorney's Office for them to evaluate it that was Michigan's attorney general Dana nessel speaking on this show back in January 2022 wondering why Republicans in multiple States had sent in fake electoral votes from fake presidential electors as though Donald Trump had won their states when he had not um they clearly hoped that when vice president Pence went to certify the results of the election on January 6th he would use their fake votes from the fake electors for Trump instead of the real ones for Biden and in so doing he would make Donald Trump president well the Michigan attorney general told us that night in January 2022 so a year after the January 6th attack on the capitol she told us that this matter of the fake electors she believed was best investigated and potentially prosecuted at the federal level she told us that night that she had referred this matter to the U.S justice department January 3rd excuse me January 13 2022. January 13 2022 that was a long time ago now whatever happened to that we covered this story intensively at the time we had the documents we had the fake slates of electors because the Republicans who are involved in this scheme actually sent them in to the National Archives which is where real electoral votes are supposed to be sent um you can see here the real elector documents you can see every state does them a little differently they all come up with some variety of certificate they all have their own quirks their own fancy or not fancy paper or decorations and seals this is what the real ones look like look at the forged Republican documents instead they do not look quite so fancy in fact they match same formatting same font same spacing and as you see here almost the exact same wording on every single one because of the similarities the obvious similarities between all these forged documents from all of these different states it just really didn't seem like this Republicans and all all these different states all independently have the same idea that they were all going to try to commit this kind of fraud all in the same fund right if that was happening independently in all of these states they all would have sent in documents that looked somewhat different or at least that sort of matched what the proper format was supposed to look like in their state instead they all matched from all the different states it really did appear to be some kind of coordinated effort somebody telling all of these Republicans in all of these different states here's what you're going to do put your name here the fake elector scheme apparently a centrally organized scheme operating through multiple states it is now part of at least three criminal investigations that we know of one brought by a prosecutor in Georgia Fanny Willis another on the federal level out of the U.S department of justice under special counsel Jack Smith and also in Michigan the Michigan attorney general announced earlier this year that she was taking back this case and reopening it in Michigan since the doj hadn't yet acted on her referral to them um a year earlier what we've now learned today is confirmation that at least the federal investigation took a really really really long time to get going on this matter and in the Washington Post today we learned some of the reasons why the Washington Post has a kind of Blockbuster report today it's like 8 000 words describing in detail what's been going on inside doj since January 6th as fears of seeming partisan or seeming overly aggressive essentially stalled big portions of the Justice Department investigation into Trump for more than a year the post says today that the justice department was alerted to the fake elector scheme right after it happened in early 2021 quote officials at the National Archives had discovered similarities in fraudulent slates of electors for Trump that his Republican allies had submitted to Congress and the archives the National Archives inspector General's office asked doj's elections crime election crimes Branch to consider investigating the seemingly coordinated effort in swing States according to two people familiar with the decision the justice department declined that investigation suggested to them by the inspector General's office at Nara they declined to investigating it citing its Prosecutor's discretion doj had instead decided that they were going to start with the small fry they were going to work their way up to the bigger fish they were going to arrest and prosecute individual rioters from January 6th and not worry so much about the people who had orchestrated the riot and everything else as part of a weight of overthrowing the US government so in early 2021 doj declined to investigate the fake electors and instead focused on the people who physically personally attacked the capital that was 20. 2 well the national press has started to pick up the story uh Dana nessel announces live on our air that she wants the justice department to investigate this the January 6th investigation in Congress starts very publicly looking into the fake elector plot themselves well now thanks to this new reporting today in the Washington Post we know that those things combined finally got the justice department interested in the fake electors again quote one person directly familiar with the Department's new interest in the case said It felt as though the department was reacting to the house committee's work as well as heightened media coverage and commentary only after they were embarrassed did they start looking the person said the process did not go quickly lawyers of the FBI and justice department launched into what became many weeks of debate over the justification for the investigation and how it should be worded one time consuming issue became whether to name Trump as a subject finally as public pressure mounted quote in April 2022 more than 15 months after the attack FBI director Christopher Wray signed off on the authorization opening a criminal investigation into the fake electors plot it has been a year and a half since we began talking about the fake elector scheme on this show almost two and a half years since the justice department was first advised to start looking into it still no federal charges but now we at least have an idea of why it's been taking so long to reach this point thanks to this great reporting from The Washington Post today we've posted a link to the story at Matt oblog tonight I commend it to you it is worth reading for yourself Florida in the 1950s Florida governed very much as a deep south State Long series of segregationist Governors at that point even in a state with the fastest growing population in the country and an increasingly diverse population particularly getting more and more more and more diverse all the time in Florida cities that state in the 1950s was effectively run by Hardline conservatives just from the rural parts of the state very very conservative state in terms of its governance in the 50s and and in the 1950s the most powerful politicians in the really hardcore conservative Florida state government they decided that they were going to go after the NAACP and they were going to make a big show of it they were going to bring the power of the state government to bear on going after and exposing and running to ground the NAACP because they said the NAACP was a bunch of communists the NAACP was of course at the time fighting for civil rights fighting for desegregation among other things Florida conservatives and Florida state government at the time they decided that this was Marxism this was communism and they were going to end that in the State of Florida using the power of the state government and so in the 50s they convened hearings in which they planned basically to you know harangue and and make a public example out of some of these NAACP commies and they called up NAACP members as their Witnesses for these live hearings and what survives on tape from that history which we have the benefit of today is that those NAACP Witnesses were having none of it they were not going to take this lying down they were not going to be used for some political stunt and when push came to shove and it was time to do those public hearings they just ran rings around the politicians they ran rings around this Florida Inquisition That was supposed to shut them down listen to this I protest against this committee I think I think I am an American citizen I believe in the heritage of America I believe in the principles of the Constitution of the United States I would not permit this committee or any other committee to intimidate me nor to deny me my lawful constitutional rights these poised defiant Witnesses they seem to really flummox the Johns committee and Charlie Johns himself I want to say that the we the witnesses defied our legislative committee when we were down at Mama were simply ridiculous and I feel this committee should go back down there and call those Witnesses before to testify as they refused we should put them in jail and let them stay there we should put him in jail they didn't cooperate with us at all we should put them put them in jail um that sound from uh today's episode episode number two of my new podcast Deja news um I promise I won't talk about this forever there's only six episodes all together of this series um I'm really proud of it I'm really happy with the way it came out there's six episodes all together this second one just posted today which is where that sound is from you heard my co-host Isaac Davey Aaronson there along with pansy flum and uh Theodore Gibson from the Florida NAACP uh and also the conservative Florida legislative leader Charlie Johns complaining so bad about these Witnesses who had humiliated him at his own hearing that was him at the end there so the the reason we just did a podcast about this about the Florida inquisitions in the 1950s and the 1960s and those inquisitions going so poorly for Florida state government conservatives who thought they were going to be great um the reason we just did this podcast about this time in history in Florida is because it does give you kind of a Deja news feeling uh when you realize that this today is the most powerful guy in Florida and he really is singing the same kind of tune that means we're required to wage a war on woke and that's exactly what we are going to do whoa some people say oh I don't care about woke I don't care about this there's huge value in recognizing that this is a form of cultural Marxism when woke ideology and the forms of things like ESG take over our economy when woke ideology takes over our education system when woke ideology takes over the criminal justice system so woke ideology the woke in the schools to woken the corporations awoke in the halls of the Congress surrender to the woke mob woke ideology the man has a theme the man has a theme and he is sticking to it now this Republican Presidential Contender and Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis showing off his rhetorical skills as a campaigner this weekend in Nevada but this this line this constant iteration of the word woke and attacking all things he can call awoke this really is what he thinks is going to propel him to the White House I will tell you right now it did not work out that way for the last Florida politicians who tried to make a big Florida show out of attacking civil rights groups and attacking gay people and attacking schools and trying to make hot politics out of teachers lessons plans this has been tried before in that same state not that long ago and it had a very unhappy political ending for the politicians who tried it it yes worked for them for a little while and they got very excited about that and they thought they could ride it forever but then it really crash landed when people decided they were sick of it as we head into this new odd season of presidential nominating politics with the Republican party's presidential front runner indicted and facing trial in two jurisdictions on more than 60 felonies combined and maybe more to come consider also that the runner-up to the front runner in Republican polling right now is really pitching his whole tent on this Crusade against wokeness well meanwhile today in Florida the NAACP the same NAACP that ran rings around the last Florida politicians who tried to run this playbook in the 1950s today they launched a five-day bus tour a five-day 15 city bus tour in Florida on what they're calling the stay woke tour stay awoke Florida how funny they don't think of that as an epithet a rolling protest they started off today rolling the stay woke Buffs uh into the state capitol in Tallahassee and then they went on to Gainesville they're going to hit 15 cities in Florida over the next five days again they're calling it these stay woke Florida tour from the NAACP Justice Ron just as Governor Ron DeSantis is is traveling the country to all the early voting States perhaps assuming that he doesn't have to ever become a good speaker if he can just waggling his finger if he can just keep waggling his finger at audiences like he's mad at them and saying the word woke over and over again and that's all he'll need that will do the trick for him it's funny not everybody hears that word the same way you do [Music]

Channel: MSNBC

Views: 435,646

Keywords: msnbc, MSNBC, Specials

Id: 9Rj0X9ex_Hs

Length: 20min 24sec (1224 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 20 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/Ace_Marine]

... wait a second...

Are you guys reading my Twitter?