Watch The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell Highlights: July 26

well today Rudolph Giuliani confessed to crimes in Georgia he did not enter a formal confession in a criminal procedure but he admitted in writing under oath in a civil case that he lied about election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter sheamos they are suing him for those lies and Rudolph Giuliani admitted in a written pleading in that case that everything he said about them was alive those lies amount to crimes in the state of Georgia and possibly federal crimes currently being investigated by special prosecutor Jack Smith here is the video of Rudolph Giuliani testifying to the Georgia House of Representatives on December 10 2020. we now know that the video you are about to watch is a video of Rudolph Giuliani committing crimes that can leave the 79 year old man and possibly future criminal defendant in prison for the rest of his life I'm not sure I know the names of these people I think I do I think the woman in charge here is named Ruby Freeman and I think her daughter Shea Freeman Moss either was helping hero helping her early because earlier in the day these two were engaged in another apparent voter fraud in which they were passing out uh USB ports which were being used apparently you know to infiltrate the Crooked Dominion voting machines there it is there is the Smoking Gun that will determine where and how Rudolph Giuliani lives the rest of his life you just heard Rudolph Giuliani committing the crime of making false statements to Georgia officials it is also the crime of improperly influencing government officials which is a separate crime in Georgia and because he was soliciting the Georgia House of Representatives to overturn the presidential election what Rudolph Giuliani just said is the crime in Georgia of quote solicitation to commit election fraud which carries a mandatory minimum prison sentence of one year some of the other crimes Rudolph Giuliani committed in that video carry a maximum sentence of five years in prison Rudolph Giuliani wasn't finished it's a tape earlier in the day of Ruby Freeman and Shea Freeman Mars and one other gentleman quite obviously surreptitiously passing around USB ports as if they are vials of heroin or cocaine I mean it's outstanding it's obvious to anyone who's a criminal investigator or prosecutor they are engaged in surreptitious illegal activity again that day vials of heroin what was your mom actually handing you on that video a Ginger Man Rudolph Giuliani received a Target letter from Georgia's Fulton County district attorney Bonnie Willis Ralph Giuliani is very likely going to be indicted for what he said and did in Georgia and a Georgia jury is very likely to find that video proof Beyond A Reasonable Doubt and so tonight as Rudolph Giuliani clings to the wreckage of his life we will consider what he might be doing to save himself is he now a cooperator in special prosecutor Jack Smith's investigation of crimes leading up to and on January 6th including election crimes committed in Georgia is Rudolph Giuliani a cooperator with district attorney Willis's investigation in Fulton County Georgia Rudolph Giuliani admitted that the statements he made about Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shea Moss were defamatory were untrue and he made that admission in writing in the defamation lawsuit that they brought against him his lawyer says that Giuliani made the admission to save attorneys fees by streamlining that case to focus on his only remaining defense argument which is that he had a First Amendment right to lie about Ruby Freeman and Shea moss in any way that he wanted to including talking about vials of heroin our first guest tonight Andrew Weissman has another theory about why Rudolph Giuliani is admitting to the defamation that is the very essence of that case and we'll hear that theory in just a moment Giuliani is going to lose that defamation case he knows that his lawyer knows that but it is probably true that one afraid of giuliani's objectives tonight is to reduce his attorney's fees in that case as he hovers ever closer to complete bankruptcy in his filing admitting that his comments were defamatory Rudolph Giuliani said that his admission is quote solely for the purposes of this litigation and that too is a lie and it is a lie that much of the news media seemed to fall for it today real Giuliani was suggesting that he's only saying under oath in illegal filing that he lied solely for the purposes of that piece of paper in that civil lawsuit I'm sorry that's not the way it works and Rudolph Giuliani knows that Ruth Giuliani knows that the statement he made in writing today in this document in this civil lawsuit can and will be used by special prosecutor Jack Smith and district attorney fawny Willis as the equivalent of a confession to the crimes that he committed in Georgia but both of those prosecutors might already have Rudolph giuliani's confession in testimony to the grand jury in Georgia it is possible that Rudolph Giuliani gave up the LIE as soon as he was put under oath by fawny Willis in her Fulton County Special grand jury Donald Trump wrote something this morning with a classic trumpian misspelling about what he assumes will be the case of United States of America versus Donald J Trump with Jack Smith's January 6th for injury indicts Donald Trump for his attempts to interfere with and overturn the presidential election using spelling that indicates he wrote it himself Donald Trump said we'll have fun on the stand with all of these people that say the presidential election wasn't rigged and stolen the trial of the century one of the people testifying against Donald Trump that the election wasn't rigged and Stalin will very likely be his co-conspirator and partner in crime Rudolph Giuliani it is also somewhere between possible and likely that Donald Trump's last white house chief of staff Mark Meadows will be one of the people on the witness stand testifying that the presidential election wasn't rigged and Stalin today NBC cameras sparted spotted Mark Meadows in Washington D.C have you testified before the grand jury uh you know I don't talk about anything do you feel like it's appropriate the the investigation foreign is not going to have any fun at all when he is on trial in Georgia and in Washington D.C and the worst days of his life in those trials could be the days when the people on the stand testifying against him are his co-conspirators Rudolph Giuliani and Mark Meadows you will not find a better Book Festival this summer than the Martha's Vineyard Book Festival and Alan dershowitz is not happy about that the truth is they've blackballed me the Hebrew Center has blackballed me the book fair has blackballed me the community centers blackball me I have a thick skin I can speak anywhere I want the victims are the citizens of Martha's Vineyard who want to hear me speak instead of Alan dershowitz the citizens of Martha's Vineyard will be hearing from Seth Meyers and Kara Swisher on the opening night of the Book Festival on Friday August 4th tickets still available followed by a day of discussions with many of your favorite authors the highly egocentric Alan dershowitz has been very publicly shunned on Martha's Vineyard by many Vineyard residents including the Island's expert Schoener Larry David because of Alan dershowitz's Relentless and legally unhinged defenses of Donald Trump the shunning just may have worked Rolling Stone is reporting Alan dershowitz the celebrity attorney who was part of then president Trump's defense for his first impeachment has been declining recurring offers from Trump and his advisers to rep the ex-president in different cases since 2021 and did so again as recently as June top legal and political advisors have been privately calling the job of Defending Trump against an indictment in the election 2020 case a suicide mission Rolling Stone reports that the Trump team is bracing for all but certain guilty verdicts and at least some of the criminal cases with the only hope being to win on appeal Rolling Stone reports that some of the lawyers who considered accepting the suicide mission Dropped Out quote because of concerns from their peers Partners at their respective firms objected to taking on Trump as a client arguing The Firm would lose other clients as a result none of the lawyers turning down Trump admitted to fear of shunning by Larry David or not being invited to the Martha's Vineyard Book Festival the lawyer suicide mission is all the more suicidal because of the phenomenon of Donald Trump not paying people who work for him and the likelihood of trump criminal defense lawyers becoming criminal defendants themselves Andrew Weissman is back with us uh Andrew your reaction to this struggle that defendant Trump has been having uh for the last few months or more even trying to find lawyers including Alan dershowitz well the the struggle is of his own making um you know so as a prosecutor and as a defense lawyer I really believe every every defendant is entitled to legal representation they're entitled to have zealous advocacy the reason that you're seeing somebody who held such an exalted physician uh in the United States government where usually you have the very cream of the crop in terms of the caliber of lawyering that they that's available to them the reason you don't see that with Donald Trump is because of his own making um if you are asking your lawyer to commit a crime which is the allegation in the Mar-A-Lago documents case that is not something that endears you to get to deciding OMG this is somebody I want to represent at least a normal uh defense lawyers um if you are a Tim parlatore you don't want to have other lawyers interfere with your ability to do your job or as we were just talking about Barrel Howell and the Rudy Giuliani case Tim parlatore was somebody who was the subject of a potential fine for Discovery violations because of what was going on in that case all of that means that you're you're buying just a heap of trouble when you have a client who doesn't listen to your advice and just goes about doing his own business up to and including continuing to commit crimes that he wants you to be a part of and so that is the reason that you find so many lawyers unwilling to represent him even though he used to be the president of the United States the Israeli Army is publicly acknowledging that there has been an increase in requests to abstain from military service since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu forced through a law to restrict the power of Israel's Supreme Court Reuters reports 42 year old Israeli Army reservist avishai Cohen says his decision to stop reporting for Duty was perhaps the hardest of his life but he is ready to face the consequences including possible jail time he says he thought about his late grandmother and Auschwitz Survivor as he weighed up his decision I remember she told us that it is our duty to serve to protect our country Cohen told Reuters but then I also remembered the lesson about Humanity about the duty of soldiers to refuse to serve in a non-democratic army joining us now is Ben Rhodes former deputy National Security adviser to President Obama and MSN MSNBC political analyst he's the author of after the fall the rise of authoritarianism in the world we've made Ben thank you very much for joining us tonight uh what is your assessment of where things stand tonight in Israel well Lawrence I think it's pretty dark uh I think these changes that prime minister netanyahu's ran through with the most far-right Coalition that we've ever seen in Israel's history essentially remove checks and balances that are Central to Israeli democracy Israel only has a single legislative body the knesset it's not like the housing Senate where there are two bodies that can check one another there's a prime minister that's leading a Coalition in that knesset and the Supreme Court has been the only check on that kind of power and what prime minister netanyah is trying to do following the same kind of authoritarian Playbook we've seen in other countries is to neuter the Supreme Court so that he can push through a far-right agenda and that is why you've seen tens of thousands of Israelis take to the streets in protest for months and you've seen enormous acts of courage like the one you just detailed from Israeli citizens they understand that they're very democracies on the line because once you remove checks and balances and Israel doesn't have a constitution like the United States so once you remove this you can't necessarily really get it back you you can't necessarily get democracy back those are the stakes that we're seeing in the streets of Israel right now the Israeli Army really is a citizen's Army it's unlike the American Military where you have about one percent of the population of the United States ever has uh any responsibility uh or involvement with the American Military uh in Israel it's very widespread a sense of responsibility and Duty uh to help support the military to serve in the military so what does this mean uh to the Israeli military when you have such a widespread protest that includes so many members of the military well it's hugely damage against Real security ultimately in the long run and and keep in mind this kind of far-right government the Coalition the nanyas put together this did not even receive a majority of the votes in Israel and what they're trying to do is create a system in which they have all the power and so if you are somebody who doesn't see themselves represented in this Coalition then you feel like you have no agency in this democracy you have no voice essentially you have an autocratic prime minister governing with a far-right extremist Coalition trying to dismantle the checks and balances of the state and therefore the kind of national identity that's wrapped up in the Israeli Defense Forces suddenly you have people who are saying over and over again as you detailed and as we've heard from people who are protesting the streets I signed up to serve a democracy I didn't sign up to serve a far-right agenda I didn't sign up to serve a a legislative body that might take away rights from certain Israeli citizens you have people in the Coalition who've described themselves as a proud homophobe in in one person's words in the scholarship you obviously have agendas that want to Annex the West Bank and eradicate any possibility of a Palestinian State and so for there to be a democracy in which all Israelis feel like they can see themselves in their own government they can see themselves in institutions like the military there has to be representation for people other than Bibi nanyana's Coalition that's what's at stake Lawrence that's why this is so fundamental to Israeli identity and that's why these people are in the streets protests if you're still working in the white house should be in a position to make recommendations to the president on this what would your recommendations be I think we have to start to introduce the idea that there are going to be consequences here Bibi nanya was extended an invitation to the White House at a time when he was running this play uh to essentially roll back Israeli democracy we all know this he's told us what he's doing I would rescind that invitation uh frankly I would indicate Lawrence that they have further proposals on the table to essentially say that the knesset the legislative body could overturn any Supreme Court binding with a simple majority I would say we're going to start to look at our assistant's relationship you know we we want to support an Israeli democracy not because we want to punish Israel but because we care about Israel we care about Israel it's democracy and I think if you do care about those things American politicians love to talk about how much they care about Israeli democracy then we should be saying we're not going to essentially write a blank check of four billion dollars a year to a government that is rolling back democracy at precisely the time when the United States is saying in this country in the United States of America and around the world the central challenge for our time times is the battle between democracy and autocracy Ben as you know uh Israeli uh officials most emphatically Benjamin Netanyahu say have been saying for decades that you don't understand what it's like to live in the middle of the neighborhood a neighborhood where everyone around you is your enemy the United States has no idea what it's like to be in the position that this country is in uh what is your response to that well as that IDF Soldier because he was ready to serve he understood the dangers that Israel faces it is not necessary for Israel's security to dismantle the checks and balances in Israel Israel's democracy part of what's been so inspiring about Israel Over the decades Lawrence is that they've been a democracy that's been able to defend their security and stand up for themselves right it is not necessary to become an autocracy to stand up against threats Israel has proven that time and again the the founding generation of Israel was intent people like Golda Meyer and yitzek Rabin and Shimon Perez and David Ben-Gurion these were people who understood that part of the strength of Israel part of what could knit it together the diversity of Israel even among Jews in Israel part of that strength was democracy and I don't think that the lesson from that history is we have to take away the checks and balances embedded in Israel's democracy in order to defend ourselves in a tough neighborhood I think the opposite lesson can be taken from Israel is three and that's what we're seeing again from so many Israelis who are showing a lot more guts frankly Lawrence and a lot of American politicians in getting out in the streets day after day after day facing and in some cases we should be looking to them foreign [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: MSNBC

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Length: 20min 45sec (1245 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 27 2023