Watch The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell Highlights: April 29

well today Donald Trump's favorite judge who was of course appointed by Donald Trump judge Aileen Mercedes Cannon federal judge in Florida released the transcript of Donald Trump's co-defendant Walt Na's testimony to the grand jury which took place months before the FBI executed a search warrant at Donald Trump's Florida Club the grand jury testimony differs significantly from what Walt NAA had already told the FBI count 9 of the indictment charges Walt NAA with making false statements to the FBI in his voluntary interview with the FBI a month before his grand jury testimony this is one of the lies Walt NAA is accused of telling the FBI in that interview question does any are you aware of any boxes being brought to his home his sweet answer no the indictment says that that one word no was a lie and they crime in his interview with the FBI Walt NAA told them that the first time he ever saw the boxes at The Florida Club was when he was helping to move about 15 of the boxes onto a truck to send them back to the government question all right so so to the best of your knowledge you're saying that those boxes that you brought onto the truck first time you ever laid eyes on them was just the day when Trump employee 2 needed you to answer correct help him with the boxes the indictment says that that word correct was a lie then the FBI asked Walt NAA this more general question question Do you have any information that could that would that could help us understand like where they were kept how they were kept were they secured were they locked something that makes the intelligence Community feel better about these things you know answer I wish I wish I could tell you I don't know I don't I honestly just don't know the indictment says that answer was a lie and a month later wal walder's testimony to the grand jury also in effect says that his interview with the FBI was a lie Walt Nota admitted under oath to the grand jury that he moved boxes before he helped move the boxes to be sent back to the government question you've taken multiple boxes since January 2022 to the president's private residence answer correct that is what Walt NAA under oath that's him directly contradicting what Walt NAA told the FBI a month earlier another question in the grand jury question it's your testimony before the grand jury today that in fact you moved boxes up from the basement to Pine hall right answer weeks prior yes that under oath answer is again a direct contradiction to what Walt NAA said in his interview with the FBI at the end of his grand jury testimony the grand juror has had some good questions Grand juror was Pine Hall a skiff witness no that's a very important question important point to establish get on the record that the room called Pine Hall where many of the boxes were was not a secure location another grand jurer asked before you said that some of that you did not know what was in any of the boxes but some of them were labeled so I guess what I'm confused about is how is it that only the specific boxes with label pens are labeled but none of the others were wal na did not give an answer that made any sense and it remained a mystery how he knew what boxes to bring upstairs to the boss when the boss asked for boxes and so another grand jur picked up on that point grur so you're instructed to take some of these boxes up to Pine Hall yes witness correct Grand jur but you're not instructed to take any particular boxes witness correct Grand jur you just pick some off of the top witness yes gr juror so you don't know what the contents of the boxes you're taking witness I do not Walt out is credibility as a w witness in his own defense under oath during trial if he takes the witness stand appears now to be a major challenge for him another document released by judge Cannon last week shows that Walt NAA promised a pardon was promised a pardon for lying to the FBI according to person 16 in a heavily redacted 10-page FBI report of an interview with the witness identified as person 16 in this heavily redacted FBI report Donald Trump is referred to as fpus meaning former president of the United States the document says person6 has not spoken to NAA since the White House and did not know him NAA was told by fpus people that his investigation was not going anywhere that it was politically motivated and much ad do about nothing now was also told that even if he gets charged with lying to the FBI fpus will pardon him in 2024 Nowa still speaks to person 34 person 16 is clearly someone who worked in the Trump White House and told the FBI of the great quote risk for him in the Trump World because he was secretly doing a voluntary interview with the FBI the entire second page of the report is redacted most of the names of the people in the report are redacted in addition to person 16 there is person 14 person 34 person 37 person 38 person 47 and so on the report says while at the White House person 16 was generally aware through conversation with person 14 person 34 person 37 and the redacted was that the redacted was not getting records backed there was no process for f podus to designate records as personal records F podus routinely took documents from the Oval Office to the residents person 16 was not aware of fpus declassifying any records other than the crossfire hurricane documents according to person 16 there was no standing declassification order person 16 believed no one in the white house would testify that there was such an order with the exception of possibly person 24 person 24 was unhinged and crazy person 16 recalled the Kim Jong-un letters the Obama letter and the hurricane map being specific records that the National Archives and Records Administration was missing at some point person 16 learned that F podus had not returned them and multiple people tried to convince fpus to return the records in late October early no November 2021 person 16 made his own appeal to fpus person 16 was on a conference call with fpus told told fpus whatever you have give it all back F podus wanted to know how anyone knew about the issue fpus was informed it was all documented in writing the response was essentially we'll check and think about it person 16 spoke multiple spoke to multiple people around fpus to send the message that he needed to give the stuff back that it belonged to the US government and was was not worth all the aggravation on 21 November 2021 person 16 visited F podus and Margo F podus was dressed in golf attire person 16 told him whatever you have give everything back let them come here and get everything don't give them a noble reason to indou indict you because they will person 16 walked away from the 15minute meeting with the impression that F podus was going to return the records to the National Archives and Records Administration not once during any of these discussions did F podus or anyone else say these records had been designated as personal records or had been Declassified by F podus Andrew Weisman what are we learning uh by this document release and this is just a portion of 400 pages of material uh that judge Canon has released a number of things well first if uh Mr Nat had been represented by Mr Moss he would have asserted the Fifth Amendment uh in the grand jury and not given testimony that was going to be extremely helpful to convicting him uh and I think the answer is that in public corruption cases very often people speak when they should not uh because of s of the general repercussions of it being known that they took the fifth or they they think they can get away with it and something that I saw in the Mueller investigation which is um this sort of pernicious uh sort of waving around of um the potential for pardons which makes it very hard to flip people to get them to cooperate and here it's you know there's at least one witness who's going to say there was s of an overt use of Pardons um to do just that um to sort of thwart the ability of the Department of Justice to be able to bring a case in its normal course because normally somebody like Mr NATO would be somebody who would cooperate and just tell the truth and would would rarely be charged for for what he knows because given how lowlevel he is um but or you know he would plead and not do do jail time so this to me there sort of everything you read is sort of a real sense it gives people an inside look not just at sort of corruption in public corruption investigations but really a window another window into the Trump presidency and post presidency and it makes you understand why there's so many people who work there who would never endorse him in a million years uh Bradley Moss Andrew has just raised a great question for you uh which I I hadn't framed until I just heard him say this which is that so you let's let's put you in the position of Defense counsel you're representing Walt NAA Walt NAA has gone in to do that voluntary interview and he has said what he has said now it's time for the grand jury and you know he can't say that again you know that he can't go in there again and say hey I had no idea about these boxes until I was loading them on the truck to send them knew nothing that story is not going to hold P up uh obviously he goes into this what he did choose to do is go into this grand jury and give different answers what is there a way to do that is there a way to go into the grand jury and steer away from the answers you gave before uh in a way that will avoid this kind of indictments by saying now that I've thought about it I've you know in some way refresh my memory or as Andrew suggests given what he said in the FBI interview was this a case where you go in there and just hang on to the fifth amendment in the grand jury and see what happens yeah so it's difficult looking back on this trying to imagine you know putting yourself in the seat of the you know the shoes of the lawyer you have to almost wonder how much did his lawyer actually know about what his client had or hadn't done you you're GNA assume that they were you know certainly competent they had asked questions but did they know the full extent of what had actually occurred compared to what Nat had told the FBI just a month before because based off we what we know now there's no way I could ever imagine agreeing to let that client walk in there and testify without some kind of arrangement or agreement in advance with the justice department lawyers saying coming back saying look I've been retained I'm handing list now here's what we want to clean up we want some Ty of immunity discussion we're not go we're not going to talk to the grand jury at all unless we have something in place otherwise you bring him in there he's just going to plead the fifth and you get nothing so you know we don't know what was told the lawyers back then but it was certainly risky to put Walt NAA in there saying what he did and you read to the grand jury testimony you know all I could think of was Sergeant Schulz from you know Hogan's Hero he's like I heard nothing I saw nothing I know nothing and of course as we know from text messages from photos he knew a lot and he wasn't providing accurate descriptions there is something worse than a king of course there is there there are lots of Kings ruling lots of perfectly Democratic countries right now in in Europe um our our tradition coming from the Declaration of Independence holds that there is natural law but also British law which George III violated and that was the basis for our Rebellion it's not our tradition that there are people who can be Above the Law as such the con basis of the Constitution is that every office is is given a firm basis of Regulation there's nothing in the Constitution which suggests that there are people whatever office they might hold who can be above the Constitution outside of the rule of law and that is the danger which I think hasn't been quite specifically expressed here that the idea of immunity means that there could be a person who is outside the whole system I I you know it Supreme Court arguments fascinate me because they are limited of course to Legal practitioners and yet they involve so much more so much of the time uh sometime it involves science sometimes it involves Medical Science sometimes it involves history obviously a lot of history American history other history and so I'm wondering I'm often wondering uh what people who have a lot of the authority that the Supreme Court wishes it had what their reaction is to Supreme Court arguments which is why I I'm thrilled to have you here tonight and I'm just wondering what was going through your mind uh as a historian as you were listening to it what did you wish you could have told the court if you had a chance well number very basic points number one in holding a hearing on the idea of immunity you're calling the concept into existence where it hadn't existed before number two the US History point would be if you are a textualist or something like that there is nothing like immunity in the text of the Constitution but number three most fundamentally what the history of comparative law teaches us is that there is a tradition in which you say the Constitution is just there for us to wait and find out who is going to break it and then we're going to endorse that person and give them special rights and that tradition again this is history of comparative law is precisely the Nazi tradition and this is what worries me that on January 6 2021 and the weeks before that we encountered an individual who tried to put himself Above the Law and now we're flirting with the idea that perhaps that might be all right yeah that that it's um that's one of the things they never do is is look beyond the narrow borders of American law to figure out their own guidance forward and I mean I think this is a very good example of how this is a mistake if you if you read the 193 Pages or whatever it was um of that hearing you find a lot of backing and forthing but you find you know no real conceptual challenges except by Council and a couple of the justices to the idea that there is such a thing as this sort of personal immunity and uh you know in our Traditions either in the Constitution or not but in other Traditions it's something that you're drawn by you celebrate it you find that person who will break the law and that person becomes the leader that's precisely the definition of the fascist leader the person who was outside the law and so in this as in a lot of other cases I sometimes worry that Americans don't really see what they're flirting with um because we're not looking around

Channel: MSNBC

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Length: 17min 35sec (1055 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 30 2024