Updated
Summary
The Justice Department releases more information about the Mar-a- Lago top secret documents. Could Donald Trump`s lawyers find themselves in legal hot water? While Republicans still can`t bring themselves to break with Trump, are there starting to be some cracks in their loyalty? In Ukraine, U.N. inspectors head to the nuclear power plant where nearby fighting is causing international concern.
Transcript
KATIE PHANG, MSNBC HOST: If you missed the report last night, you can see the pinned tweet at the top of “THE BEAT`s” Twitter page, or go to YouTube and search Jay-Z and Melber.
That does it for me.
THE REIDOUT WITH JOY REID is up next.
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on THE REIDOUT:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MERRICK GARLAND, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Since I became attorney general, I have made clear that the Department of Justice will speak through its court filings and its work.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Well, the DOJ sure spoke loudly with its latest filing, revealing that the government believes Trump`s team hid the classified documents he stole when he left office, moved them to unsafe places inside Mar-a-Lago, resisted giving them back and lied about it all.
Also tonight, the Trump lawyer who could also find herself under the microscope. Who is Christina Bobb? And is this former OAN host really the best that a former president of the United States could do?
Meanwhile, Republicans still can`t bring themselves to break with Trump, although we`re starting to see some cracks in that blind loyalty.
We begin THE REIDOUT tonight with a footnote. In the Justice Department`s overnight filing full of stunning new revelations about Trump`s handling of highly classified material, the DOJ wrote: “This investigation is not simply about efforts to recover improperly retained presidential records. Moreover, 18 USC 2071 criminalizes the concealment or removal of government records, including presidential records.”
In short, this is an investigation about lies about deceit, and potential obstruction of justice. That is all spelled out in the DOJ`s 36 page response to Trump`s request for a legal — for a special master in what is nothing short of a damning report about the lengths to which Trump and his legal team went to withhold subpoenaed information.
Just remember, it took eight months for Trump to turn over the first 15 boxes of documents to the National Archives in January, including classified documents that should never have left the White House to begin, with the expectation that that was going to be all of them.
Of course, it wasn`t. And so the Archives turned to the FBI, which, after a protracted back-and-forth with Trump`s team, came to Mar-a-Lago on June 3, and with the aid of a subpoena received what was again claimed to be the last of the classified documents in Trump`s possession, this time, with one of his lawyers claiming under oath that all of the documents had been returned.
And yet we now know that too was a lie, with the DOJ stating in its filing — quote — “The FBI uncovered multiple sources of evidence indicating that the response to the May 11 grand jury subpoena was incomplete and that classified documents remained at the premises,” meaning Mar-a-Lago.
And perhaps even more alarming, the DOJ added: “The government also developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the storage room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government`s investigation. This included evidence indicating that boxes formerly in the storage room were not returned prior to the counsel`s review.”
That was clearly enough evidence to get a federal judge to sign off on a warrant leading to the search of Mar-a-Lago earlier this month, in which the DOJ indicated 13 boxes or containers contained documents with classification markings, and, in all, over 100 unique documents with classification markings. That is more than twice the amount produced on June 3, 2022, in response to the grand jury subpoena, were seized.
And those documents were found not just in the storage room, where the FBI had been told the remaining documents were held, but from inside Trump`s own personal office, including three classified documents inside his desk.
Take a look at this. This is a picture of what was seized from that office. And, as you can see, some of those documents include some of the highest classification levels, with additional markings indicated it included human intelligence.
It was so highly classified that the DOJ noted that even the FBI counterintelligence personnel and DOJ attorneys conducting the review required additional clearances before they were permitted to review certain documents.
The DOJ also says Trump`s request for a special master is unnecessary and would significantly harm governmental interests, including national security interests, and, simply put, the former president lacks standing to seek judicial relief or oversight as to presidential records, because those records do not belong to him. They belong to the government.
We`re still awaiting Trump`s legal team to respond to the DOJ filing, and they have until the end of this hour.
Joining me now is former CIA Director John Brennan, Melissa Murray, law professor at NYU and former law clerk to Judge Sonia Sotomayor, and Joyce Vance, former U.S. attorney and law professor at the University of Alabama. All three are MSNBC analysts.
[19:05:00]
So, I want to go through this.
I will start with you, Melissa.
This was a fascinating read. Now, this was my — my morning reading today was this. And, even as a non-lawyer, I found it very interesting. They seemed to make, in my view, four main points. I want you to correct me if I`m wrong, the first point being these are not Donald Trump`s records.
“Any presidential record sees pursuant to the search belong to the United States, not to the president — not the former president. When producing documents, neither counsel nor the custodian even asserted that he had declassified anything.”
NARA stated the former president could not assert executive privilege because even a former member of the executive branch cannot assert executive privilege against the executive branch. These are executive branch people who wanted to review it. He used to be in the executive branch. You can`t have executive branch against yourself.
And he can`t claim any injury because he didn`t — he didn`t own this stuff. It`s not like — it`s like, if you stole a TV, and then the police came to get it, and you said, well, that`s my TV. It`s like, no, you stole that TV. It`s not yours.
Is that about accurate, in your view?
MELISSA MURRAY, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: That`s exactly right, Joy.
And, basically, they`re laying out the argument that there is no jurisdiction for this court to intervene here, because the president — the former president lacks standing to even bring this matter. He doesn`t have a possessory interest in these documents. They are owned by the current president of the United States, and that`s not him, nor has he been injured in this way, because they are not his, and this court really doesn`t have any reason to intervene here and to decide this case.
So that`s first a jurisdictional discussion. And then we will proceed to the substantive or the merits of the case, why this appointment of a special master lacks merit and fails for all of the reasons that the DOJ has identified.
REID: It`s hard for me to imagine, Joyce, a good reason why they would have a special master. Again, they have already reviewed these documents. They have already gone through what could be privileged.
There`s no lawyer-client privilege because there`s no lawyer`s office that was searched. It`s not like a Michael Cohen situation. They have already looked through the boxes.
By the way, and I want to get you to comment on this as well. One of the things that came through in this filing is that when FBI agents actually met with Donald Trump`s representatives in June, they were not allowed to look through these materials.
Christina Bobb claimed the lawyers showed the federal officers the boxes. They said they spent some time looking through the materials, but they were prevented from actually doing their job and looking through all the materials.
In addition to that, Donald Trump has claimed his passports were seized, and that`s wrong. Well, the location of the passports, per the DOJ, is actually evidence in the investigation of authorized retention. That just proves the passports are laying next to the documents. That means you had them.
Your thoughts?
JOYCE VANCE, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: So the special master requests made by Trump turns out to be a real strategic error, because it presents DOJ with the opportunity to present its side of the case.
And DOJ — you played that wonderful clip from Merrick Garland, the attorney general. He says DOJ only speaks through its pleadings and through its work in court.
And they`re speaking very loudly here. And one of the important opportunities that they had was to explain what their evidence means. So, Joy, this example that you cite of the passports, where Trump had expressed outrage, they took my passports, DOJ does a masterful job in this pleading of explaining that they were authorized to take items that were co-located with classified materials or with presidential records.
And DOJ goes a step further here and explains that, when you find these sorts of items in the same area as these classified materials, it can have evidentiary value.
Well, here`s what that means. It means that DOJ is just that much closer to showing that the former president knew that those items, the classified materials, the records were there, and that he had the ability to exert some control over them. And this is, of course, essential to establishing that he was in possession of them.
So DOJ is beginning to make its case not just to the court, but to the public as well. And it`s a persuasive case.
REID: Absolutely.
And, Director Brennan, just reading through this, the thing that was really shocking is the extent to which it appeared Donald Trump went to move things around, that each time authorities came to take the documents back, he didn`t give them everything, but he also seemed to move things.
For you — from you, from a national security standpoint, as somebody who was in the business of dealing with our national security, having those documents no longer in this storage room, which we don`t even think that was all that secure, but now putting them in his office, having these things in his desk drawer, in his office in a public club like Mar-a-Lago, what kind of a security threat might that have faced?
What kind of tradecraft might have been used by our adversaries to get at that information, if it was that insecurely stored?
JOHN BRENNAN, MSNBC SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, Joy, I think we know that both Trump at Mar-a-Lago were high-priority intelligence targets when Trump was in office.
And I think it became even more of an intelligence target of foreign adversaries after he left office, because there was probably a strong suspicion that there was information there that would have provided some insight into national security.
[19:10:07]
So, I`m sure the Russians were looking at it after January 20 of 2021, and trying to determine how best to gain access to Mar-a-Lago, having somebody go in there, either as a member of a cleaning staff or a caterer or a guest, to identify locations in that compound where documents might be stored, then access those rooms with those documents, probably at a time when Trump was not there, maybe when he decamped to Bedminster, New Jersey, last summer, because that minimizes the Secret Service presence on the compound.
Then you go in, and then you start making copies of all the documents that look important. And if they saw those cover sheets that say top secret, SCI, HCS, those the ones that they would copy. But they would put those papers and documents back exactly where they found them, and — which is makes this a nightmare for the intelligence community.
Unless there was unfettered, continuous, 24/7 video surveillance coverage of every place that those documents were, the intelligence community will not know whether or not individuals made copies of those highly sensitive documents, which is why I think the damage potentially is incalculable, based on the failure to be able to understand exactly what might have been compromised.
REID: And to stay with you just for a second, Director Brennan, Asha Rangappa, the great Asha Rangappa, she had a tweet thread that chilled me to the bone even more than what you just said.
And she tweeted, essentially, the fact that Trump never formally declassified anything in real life, because he would have had to notify each and every agency that was related to what was declassified, so that they could take action to minimize any damage, because this was, of course, secret information that would no longer be secret.
And she said also because he never raised it to DOJ, but is now unofficially asserting that he declassified things — that was his defense, I declassified everything. It means, to her mind, that it means he wanted those secrets to still have value. He wanted those things to still be perceived as secret.
What does that say to you as an intelligence professional? He still wanted those things to be valuable, which is why he didn`t really declassify them the normal way.
BRENNAN: Well, two things.
One, his claimed that he declassified everything is absurd on its face. It`s just absolutely absurd.
Secondly, it makes me wonder why he selected these documents. What was it that was truly fascinating or interesting to him that he felt as though he could leverage in the future? There are thousands upon thousands of top secret documents that are generated every day. Only a small portion of them are brought to the president of the United States.
And it appears as though he decided, he selected some of those documents that he found so interesting that he wanted to retain them and to conceal them. For what use and what purpose? That`s the thing that I think is most worrisome about all of this.
REID: Absolutely.
And, Melissa, there is a bunch of whataboutism that`s going out in the world on the right, where they say, well, Hillary Clinton. That was the threat that Lindsey Graham made, that why doesn`t she get treated like Hillary Clinton?
Well, Hillary Clinton, first of all, was investigated for almost two years for having a server at her house. She never retained documents that she tried to keep and conceal. And here is the standard that was used by James Comey when they decided that she hadn`t committed a crime that they would prosecute her for.
This is the standard. You would have to have had clearly intentional and willful mishandling of classified information. You would have to have vast quantities of material exposed in such a way so as to support an inference of intentional misconduct, indications of disloyalty to the United States, and efforts to obstruct justice.
Hillary Clinton never attempted to obstruct, conceal, move her server around. They knew exactly where it was. She had things like records about a meeting that she was going to have with a foreign official, things that were — and there were things that were declassified after the fact. There was nothing anywhere close to this.
What do you make of the fact that they`re trying to use that as an excuse, when this was a completely different situation? We
MURRAY: Well, Joy, this whataboutism is a standard play. I mean, we have seen this over and over, over the last four years.
Whenever any criticism is labeled — or leveled at the former president, the response has always been to detract and distract by pointing to a less problematic episode from some other person. And Hillary Clinton`s server, I mean, again, problematic to have a separate server, but all of the information that she was doing there, as you say, was quite anodyne, and I think was commingled with e-mails about her daughter`s wedding, which she was planning at the time.
It`s not the same as retaining class — troves of classified information over the course of several months and going back and forth with the FBI and refusing to surrender them, even when asked to do so voluntarily.
So, to my mind, these are not the same circumstances. This is not an apples-to-apples comparison. And the whataboutism is going to go on, but it`s always gone on. And this is all they have to sing at this point.
[19:15:00]
REID: And, Director Brennan, the other difference is that Donald Trump has some associations, let`s just say, that were even raised as a concern before he became president, his strange fascination with people like Putin and MBS, the relationship of his son-in-law with having gotten $2 billion from MBS after he was his sort of all-in-one aid, and his associations in general, allegations of who he dealt with even back when he was doing business, his refusal to pay taxes.
You could go on and on — that made him a national security risk to be president at all. And so when you look at the idea that this guy was trying — he didn`t just take these things. He was refusing to give them back and seem to be taking active measures to conceal them from the FBI and from the federal government.
What does that say to you about what he might have had in mind?
BRENNAN: First of all, I worked very closely with Hillary Clinton. She worked tirelessly in — to advance us now security interests around the clock.
She didn`t do the things that Donald Trump has done, as you pointed out, as he has so many multiple interests, in terms of financial, personal, political, partisan, you name it. And the types of things that he`s doing, it reminds me of some individual U.S. government officials who were recruited by foreign intelligence services, who did their utmost to conceal their activities, to conceal the documents that they wound up taking and stolen from the U.S. government.
And so, therefore, it`s clearly that he had nefarious intentions, which is why I think it`s so important that the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the intelligence community gets to the bottom of this, because there`s nothing short of our national security that is at stake.
REID: Absolutely.
And the thing that was very — always very clear is that Hillary Clinton`s a patriot. Donald Trump, it`s — there`s a lot of questions here. Let`s just leave it at that.
Director John Brennan, Melissa Murray, Joyce — Melissa and Joyce actually are going to stay with us. Melissa Murray and Joyce Vance are going to stay with us.
Up next on THE REIDOUT: Trump`s lawyers assured the DOJ that a diligent search had accounted for all of the missing classified documents he took. Well, now we know better. And those lawyers, they could be in hot water too.
That`s next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:21:41]
REID: Yet again, another Trump attorney may need her own attorney for allegedly lying for Trump.
This time, it`s Christina Bobb, a name that may not ring a bell unless you watched One American News Network, one of the biggest purveyors of the big lie.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTINA BOBB, ATTORNEY FOR DONALD TRUMP: It`s becoming glaringly apparent that Donald Trump absolutely crushed Joe Biden in the election.
The Democrats and never-Trumpers installed the Dominion Voting system in key locations with the intent to rig elections. And it`s possible they have rigged elections in the past.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Wow.
That was Bobb, a former host for OANN. Of course, nothing she said there was true, but it does explain a lot about what this person has been up to lately. More on that in a minute.
Bobb is now a senior Trump attorney with a lot more name recognition, but not in the way you would want to write home about. New details have emerged about Bobb and the Trump legal team`s failure to fully comply with a subpoena for documents marked as classified. “The New York Times” report that, back in June, Bobb signed a statement attesting that all the sensitive material in Trump`s personal possession had been returned.
Her statement was attached to the DOJ`s filing on Tuesday. In it, the lawyer wrote that: “Based upon the information that has been provided to me, there had been a diligent search and all documents responsive to the subpoena were being returned.”
But law enforcement officials soon developed evidence that that statement was untrue. Now, none of this is surprising, given Bobb`s appearance on FOX News after the Mar-a-Lago raid. This is what she had to say when directly asked if the documents Trump was hanging on to were related to nuclear capabilities with national security implications.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BOBB: I don`t believe they were. And if they thought they were…
(CROSSTALK)
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS: Well, do you know for a fact? Do you know for a fact they weren`t? Have you spoken to the president about it?
BOBB: I have not specifically spoken to the president about what nuclear materials may or may not have been in there. I do not believe there were any in there.
The legal team had done a very thorough search, and had turned over — we`d been very cooperative with the Biden administration and the DOJ and turned over everything that we found we had.
So it`s my understanding, on very good belief, based on a thorough investigation, that there was nothing there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: When Laura Ingraham is the voice of reason.
Well, it didn`t age well, did it?
Back with me, Melissa Murray and Joyce Vance.
And, Joyce, I want to start with you on this.
Christina Bobb did make these attestations that had given everything back on June 3. That was not true, because she`d be in some legal jeopardy.
VANCE: She couldn`t be in legal jeopardy.
She had submitted this sign certification to the government. And it`s not true. The question is whether she knew it wasn`t true and made a willful false statement, which could subject her to prosecution, quite frankly, for making a false statement to the government.
So, if you`re the government, what you need to test here is her knowledge. Was she relying on someone else who told her that there was a complete search that revealed nothing? Or is she in fact the person here who`s trying to tell the lie?
And, Joy, what that ultimately raises the specter of whether she might decide to cooperate with the government in this investigation.
REID: Because wasn`t she — Joyce, to stick with you for a minute, wasn`t she the person who was kind of the person of record that was in charge of the records? Wasn`t that her function?
VANCE: It was.
In these situations, when a subpoena is issued for records, you will often see an entity appoint a custodian of records. And so, in this case, instead of going in front of the grand jury and going through the motions of saying, here are the documents you have subpoenaed, I`m returning them to you, she was permitted to submit this certification, in lieu of testimony under oath.
[19:25:19]
So, she is the person, in essence, responsible for those documents.
REID: And it`s not just her, Melissa.
So, Evan Corcoran and Christina Bobb, these are two of the people that are under scrutiny about this failure to comply with the subpoena. This was a legal subpoena requiring them to turn over documents.
Hugo Lowell of “The Guardian” has tweeted about another attorney named Alina Habba. Alina Habba told the New York state attorney general in May that she personally searched for materials in that investigation and searched all over Mar-a-Lago, raising the possibility that she may have come across classified documents without a clearance, making her a potential witness in the DOJ case.
One more item. Laurence Tribe has tweeted about some of these folks, and he says: “If Trump`s lawyer Evan Corcoran and his custodian of records, Christina Bobb, are charged with obstruction of justice, as DOJ`s midnight 8/30 filing implies they should be, the question is, will they — will they lie again, or will they point their fingers at their boss, Donald Trump?”
What do you make of this? Because this is multiple attorneys, all of whom potentially could become witnesses.
MURRAY: Well, I have said it on this channel before, and I will say it again. MAGA now stands for making attorneys get attorneys.
Like, all of these people need to have legal counsel going forward. Joyce is exactly right.
There`s incredible exposure here to criminal liability, certainly for all of the individuals who testified in some form or another that they were involved in dealing with these records and the securing of these records, and in the effort to collect them and return them to the FBI and the National Archives, and that, when they came to do the search of the property, they found twice what they thought they would find, because it was twice what they had been told by these lawyers.
So the real question here, as Joyce says, is the question of knowledge and intent. Did this happen inadvertently, without their knowledge? Did they think that they were representing the truth and, in fact, this was not the case? Were they misrepresented or misinformed? All of this is going to be incredibly important?
But all of this suggests that these are really likely targets for the government to probe as they seek witnesses, cooperators as they go forward in determining whether they`re actually going to bring criminal charges against someone higher-up, maybe even the former president.
REID: And I wonder about timing, Joyce, because there has been a lot of talk and a lot of sort of anger, rumbling anger, out there that it feels like main Justice would not go after Donald Trump before an election. He`s not up for any office. He is not on the ballot anywhere.
But there`s still a sense that there would be hesitancy to launch any sort of prosecution against him before the election is happening. Do you think that the same would go for any of these attorneys? Because, essentially, they would be one click away from him.
And do you think that it would make sense for Justice, the Department of Justice, to hold off on any kind of a prosecution related to this case, potential Espionage Act, potential obstruction of justice, illegally retaining government records, and push that back until after the election? Do you think that`s likely? And do you think it should be done?
VANCE: DOJ is guiding principle here is that it`s not supposed to take any action in its criminal cases or even in civil cases that could influence the outcome of an election.
And so, typically, what that means is you don`t take overt steps in an investigation. You don`t indict closer to — it depends on what office you`re in — 60 days, maybe 90 days out from an election.
Trump has really stretched the criminal justice system out of shape here. And it`s because he has so successfully imposed this narrative of political witch-hunt on everything that looks at scrutinizing his behavior. So, I think he puts Merrick Garland in a difficult position, where Garland might not want to force the Justice Department to just take unnecessary hits for engaging in political behavior close to an election.
I don`t think there`s anything that says he can`t indict, certainly not the lawyers involved or even the former president, if he makes a decision to indict. There`s nothing that says that they can`t continue with a very aggressive — aggressive investigation. But they may decide that it`s the better part of wisdom, given the mood in the country, to not do anything that could be viewed, rightly or not, as influencing the election.
And, frankly, the 60 days or so that are involved won`t really impede the investigation much. They have some documents to go through,some follow-up work that they can do quietly, and be ready to go on the other end.
REID: Yes, the election is 69 days away, just for those who are counting.
I mean, I think the most damning thing for Trump is not — is this. It is this picture. It is seeing these classified markings plainly all over these documents. Trump knew what he had. This is not a secret.
[19:30:01]
And, Melissa, I will go to you on this.
I mean, it is not as if he can pretend that he didn`t understand what he had, that he had classified secrets in his possession, in his office, not locked in a room, in his office. So, given the strength of the evidence and the strength of this filing from the DOJ today, how likely do you think it would be that Donald Trump will get, even from a judge he appointed, this special master, which would only be a delay, because they have already gone through these documents?
MURRAY: Well, Judge Cannon had indicated that she was inclined to appoint the special master. But, obviously, that was before the government had filed its response.
And, again, the government really did a lot of talking in its filings, and certainly in that pictorial evidence that was presented. And I think Judge Cannon has a lot to think about going into this hearing tomorrow.
Again, the whole idea of a special master seems redundant, a waste of judicial resources, when this review has already happened, and when the government has rightly pointed out that further review by an additional party would perhaps compromise national security. This special master would have to be — receive much of the security clearance that many of the FBI officers have had in reviewing this.
And, more importantly, because this is a review that would be going on within the executive branch, the whole idea of executive privilege, which is what the special master would be appointed to review on, really isn`t an issue at all.
So this may be a nonstarter, and she may start over and just squash what she initially decided to do as a matter of optics.
REID: And I will remind our audience that we are waiting for Donald Trump`s response to this really rather epic filing today from the DOJ.
That is supposed to come before 8;00. So, about half-an-hour or more, we have to wait to see what his lawyers will have to say. Ticktock, ticktock.
Melissa Murray, Joyce Vance, always a pleasure. Thank you both very much.
And still ahead: unmistakable signs of panic in the Republican Party, with their dear leader embroiled in yet another huge scandal, and everyone else scrambling for whatever cover that they can find.
We`re back after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:36:50]
REID: Now that the Justice Department has spelled out that it believes that the Trump team was repeatedly lying to them, and hiding and removing governmental records, including state secrets, to obstruct the government`s attempts to get them back, Republicans are starting to get nervous.
Some are worried that the growing probe is bad for their midterm prospects and that they need to pivot away from defending him. Now they`re in the untenable position of having to choose between cutting him off and angering the hardcore MAGA base or continuing to suck up to him and make excuses for him to keep the die-hards on the bus as it speeds off a cliff.
Now, remember, the one rule that — the one true thing, actually, that Lindsey Graham has ever said, predicting the future in 2016, he tweeted: “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed, and we will deserve it.”
Despite the DOJ providing a damning photo of top secret documents found in the former president`s home office, MAGA loyalists in the party continue embarrassing themselves. House Judiciary Republicans — that`s Jim Jordan`s group — decided to conveniently ignore all the bad stuff, zeroing in on a framed “TIME” magazine cover, although some cracks were evident over the comfy — over at the comfy couch this morning at FOX News during an interview with South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEVE DOOCY, FOX NEWS: Those are the biggest secrets in the world. Why would he — and, apparently, the president, former president, went through them in January.
Why wouldn`t he say oh, you know what, I really need to turn that back over? Why did he have all that stuff at Mar-a-Lago?
GOV. KRISTI NOEM (R-SD): Well, that`s why I think it`s important that this is transparent. That`s the thing. You can see folders. You can see big words on the — do we know that that is really what President Trump brought to his home? Do we know that he put them there?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Well, welcome to the resistance, Steve Doocy.
Anyhoo, some other Republicans are trying to distance themselves from the former president and the party`s other glaring liability, the whole “Handmaid`s Tale” thing.
“The Washington Post” report that Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters has scrubbed from his Web site references to strict anti-abortion positions and lies about the 2020 election. At least nine Republican congressional candidates have scrubbed or amended references to Trump or to abortion from their online profiles.
Joining me now, Mara Gay mark, a “New York Times” editorial board member and an MSNBC political analyst, and Tim Miller, writer at large for The Bulwark and also an MSNBC political analyst.
And, Tim, I`m going to go to you first, because what you have seen among Republicans is kind of this one way or the other. It`s either Lindsey Graham screaming, we`re going to have blood in the streets if anybody touches Trump, or people kind of slowly backing away.
And the third thing is Trump going absolutely bat crap on his TRUTH Social fake Twitter screaming about QAnon, which, to me, that seems like fear. That seems like, oh, my God, I can`t use the Proud Boys anymore. I need new troops.
Your thoughts?
(LAUGHTER)
TIM MILLER, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.
I`m just laughing I`m at the nine candidates scrubbing their Web site, like that`s going to work.
(LAUGHTER)
(CROSSTALK)
REID: We don`t know Trump. Who`s that? Never heard of him.
(CROSSTALK)
MILLER: … stuff.
I think the best way to understand everybody`s actions, Joy, is their incentives, right? And so I think that blue — purple state people like Blake Masters, who realize this is going to be a tough sell in a state that Joe Biden won if I want to win the Senate, so I`m going to backpedal a little bit.
[19:40:06]
And then you have got people like Kristi Noem, who want to be maybe on — keep the option open to be on Trump`s V.P. ticket if he runs in 2024.
You have got people who are red state congressmen. You showed Jim Jordan, his committee. He`s safe. He`s in a red state. He just wants to keep the base happy, right?
So this is — this is the thing as it`s always been. It is bottom up, right? Like, the corruption within the party is the bottom up.
And if you are in a state or in a position politically where you want the Republican base voters to still love you, so that you might win reelection, so you might get nominated V.P. or so you might raise more money tomorrow with your crazy wheels-off text messages, well, then you`re going to toe the party line and make up some nonsense for why it`s OK for Donald Trump to have his passports and “TIME” magazine and the biggest secrets in the country all in one folder in his desk drawer of Mar-a-Lago, right?
If you`re a Blake Masters, you`re going to have a different calculation. And I think that watching the folks running in these swing states, I think, tells us a lot about where things are going. And watching the red state folks tell us about where things have been.
REID: Well, I mean, first of all, Blake Masters might want to worry about the fact that he wanted birth control to be illegal. So, Donald Trump stealing these secrets is the least of his problems.
(LAUGHTER)
REID: Mara, I mean, I think we just want to live in a world where people don`t think it`s OK to do this.
I think most Americans just want to live in a world where a former president of the United States can be trusted not to take human intelligence material that could get our spies killed. And I think that`s unfortunately too much to ask, and for politicians, no matter whether they`re in a red or purple state, to say, yes, that`s wrong.
Your thoughts?
MARA GAY, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: That`s right, because I think all Americans of pretty much every political persuasion at this point feel that, at one time or another, politicians seem to be above the law.
And I think there`s no greater example of that than here with the former president of the United States, who we do finally see the wheels of justice turning. And, clearly, the A.G. has been extremely methodical. So I don`t want to take away from that investigation. It`s ongoing. It`s very important that Donald Trump be prosecuted, if that is necessary and there were crimes committed.
But I think that that disgust is really what turns so many Americans off of politics. And that`s something that you see when you talk to voters, Democrats, Republicans, everybody: Oh, they`re all crooks.
Well, that`s not true, of course. But it is true that, when you don`t hold people accountable, you encourage that kind of corruption, and you make it very difficult to maintain a democracy. And that`s really what`s at stake here.
So, every moment that Donald Trump, if he did commit a crime, is not held accountable is a perilous moment for our democracy.
REID: Yes, I mean, and you think about Lindsey Graham, Tim, who`s probably the single United States senator who`s been the most short of his dignity over the last many years, saying there`s going to be blood on the streets.
Well, he`s basing that on Hillary Clinton and essentially saying, treat them the same. Well, Dana Milbank had a great piece today and he said, OK, treat them the same. If you`re going to treat Donald Trump the way you treated Hillary Clinton, the FBI would have to “undertake a sprawling, multiyear investigation into Trump`s conduct, grilling him and his staff, running extensive forensics, examining whether his actions allowed hostile foreign actors to compromise your U.S. security.”
The FBI should continue to keep him under investigation while he runs for president and essentially not end that investigation until 11 days before the election, because there is no equal treatment when it comes to this Democratic former secretary of state and this guy who literally took national security documents and might as well put them under his bed, because they were in his insecure office in his house.
MILLER: Yes, well, not to trigger everybody to relitigate 2016, but it was only two days before the election that he closed that file.
REID: That`s right.
MILLER: It was 11 days he wrote that letter, right, a letter…
REID: That`s right.
MILLER: So, this was live — this was a live ball 11 days.
REID: That`s right.
MILLER: And so, no, absolutely, yes, the FBI could do that.
And there was another big difference between the way Hillary dealt with the FBI and the way Trump is, is that she cooperated with that investigation, was interviewed, whereas Donald Trump has been clearly obstructing the investigation, to the point where they had to go and seize these documents.
So, Lindsey Graham is full of it. And I wrote about this in the book about this time back in 2015, where I think I misjudged him, right, because we were — he supported Jeb at the time, and we were at the bar after a campaign event. And he was ranting about Trump, how he`s a racist, how he hates him, he`s going to ruin the country, he`s going to ruin the party.
But the thing is, was back then, he thought — you showed the tweet — he thought Trump was a ticket to losing. And that`s what he cared about. And now that he recognizes that he needs Trump supporters to stay in good graces to win, he changes his tune.
And I think that just — I think it has been revealed over the last seven years that — what Lindsey Graham truly cares about.
REID: Yes, absolutely.
And, very quickly, Mara, I`m going to end this with you. What do you think ends up having more impact, or maybe they have equal impact, the abortion ruling or the fact that the former president of the United States is a thief of national security documents?
[19:45:00]
GAY: I actually think — I think that — I`m going to give the American people the benefit of the doubt here.
And I believe that both things will motivate people to the polls. I mean, nothing like the specter of Donald Trump coming back from the political grave or not being held accountable will motivate Democrats to show up to the polls. And, of course, abortion is a universal issue.
REID: Absolutely.
Mara Gay, Tim Miller, thank you both.
Up next: big developments in Ukraine, as U.N. inspectors head to the nuclear power plant where nearby fighting is causing international concern.
We will be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:50:13]
REID: Mikhail Gorbachev, the man who oversaw the end of the Cold War, died yesterday. He was 91.
As general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, Gorbachev sought to revitalize the USSR by introducing greater political and economic freedoms, including freedom of speech, which was unthinkable in the communist country.
Many resented the changes he ushered in, including his current heir, Vladimir Putin, who called his reforms the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of this century. In 2018, Putin said that he would reverse the Soviet Union`s disintegration brought about by Gorbachev.
Today, that man, Putin, is overseeing a modern geopolitical catastrophe. Putin`s forces invaded Ukraine, a sovereign nation, and orchestrated indiscriminate murder of thousands of innocent Ukrainian civilians, while seeking to oust the duly elected president.
Just last week, the Department of Defense confirmed reports of 18 Russian filtration camps, where Ukrainians are forcibly being interrogated, detained and deported into Russia. Russian forces are also playing a dangerous game of chicken with Europe`s largest nuclear power plant.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant was captured in Moscow — captured by Moscow in March, but is still being operated by Ukrainian staff under the forcible supervision of use of Russian troops. Territory around the plant has come under repeated shelling, fueling fears of a nuclear disaster on par with Chernobyl.
A team from the International Atomic Energy Agency led by the director general, Rafael Grossi, have arrived in Zaporizhzhia city, 70 miles from the plant.
NBC`s Josh Lederman was in — was with them in Ukraine tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOSH LEDERMAN, NBC NEWS WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After weeks of delay, tonight, U.N. nuclear inspectors are finally in Zaporizhzhia on an unprecedented mission, next stop, the sprawling nuclear power plant that`s become a major flash point in the war.
(on camera): Do you believe that the Russians will let you see what`s really happening at the plant?
RAFAEL GROSSI, DIRECTOR GENERAL, IAEA: Well, we are — we are a team of very experienced people. And we will have a pretty good idea of what`s going on.
LEDERMAN (voice-over): The team will spend several days at the plant and hopes to have a permanent presence there.
(on camera): Are you confident you can conduct this mission safely?
GROSSI: Of course.
LEDERMAN (voice-over): As Russia and Ukraine accuse each other of more shelling near the plant, Russia welcoming the delegation, saying, the IAEA must stop Ukraine`s nuclear extortion.
(on camera): The inspectors now face a perilous journey about 30 miles down the Dnipro River to the power plant in Russian-occupied territory, where there has been constant shelling for weeks.
(voice-over): Further south, Ukraine claiming successes tonight in the Kherson region, as part of its new counteroffensive, while Russia insists it`s been a failure.
But this former Marine now fighting alongside Ukraine disagrees.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I`m confident and hopeful that, soon enough, all of the currently occupied villages all the way to the Russian border will be liberated.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
REID: That was NBC`s Josh Lederman in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine.
Still to come: One hundred and fifty thousand people are without safe drinking water after their city, already crumbling — their city`s already crumbling infrastructure is hammered by flooding.
More next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:57:59]
REID: The city of Jackson, Mississippi, is in a full-blown water crisis, with many residents having zero access to safe drinking water at their homes after flooding disrupted a major water facility.
Here`s a disturbing photo of what the water looked like coming out of the tap from a company in Jackson yesterday. Mississippi`s Republican Governor Tate Reeves has declared a state of emergency. Schools have gone virtual. And residents` lives have been entirely disrupted, many waiting in long lines for water.
Officials hope that the water will be restored by the end of the week, but this is not a new problem. Jackson residents have been dealing with this for years due to failing infrastructure. The city was already on a boil advisory for the past month, and they went weeks without drinking water last year after freezing temperatures almost shut down the water system.
Here`s what residents have been experiencing while still having to pay their monthly water bills.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We have had to boil water to cook, to wash dishes, pretty much to brush our teeth. So, it`s been — it`s been hectic.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now the free water that they`re giving, hell, you can`t get two because the line be so damn long. I have to work.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is a complete shame that this is not a new thing. Water challenges have been there for years.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: As they mentioned, there is no long-term solution insight.
As Vox points out, Jackson`s water infrastructure has languished for decades because there isn`t enough tax revenue or state funds to pay for essential upgrades. Wealthier white residents fled Jackson starting in the `70s and `80s following the integration of public schools, which eroded the city`s tax base; 83 percent of the people in Jackson are black, with 25 percent of its residents living in poverty.
Today, President Biden pledged to support the long-term effort to rebuild Jackson`s infrastructure, which Jackson`s mayor said he was very encouraged by. But he`s said in the past that it would take more than $1 billion to fix the system.
For prospective, Biden`s landmark infrastructure bill allotted $75 million for water to the entire state of Mississippi. It feels like Flint, Michigan, all over again.
As “The Washington Post” notes, Governor Reeves and other officials have repeatedly opposed efforts to fund water treatment upgrades. But it`s worth noting that Republicans, what they have been up to, with this — with Tate Reeves signing a bill banning Critical Race Theory earlier this year, and saying the state would move full steam ahead on draconian abortion restrictions.
Ah, priorities.
That`s tonight`s REIDOUT.
“ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES” starts now.