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"Special treatment during his lavish travels"
00:41:07
July 9, 2026, 4pm: Alicia Menendez, in for Nicolle Wallace, on FBI Director Kash Patel coming under bipartisan scrutiny over whistleblower accounts that Patel has been demanding special perks from bureau employees across the country, like helicopter tours and jetski excursions -- you know, typical FBI Director activities.
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There's a lot of news to cover.
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Money.
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The economic fallout from the war. Is it temporary power? Is this White House for sale?
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Politics.
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What is your message to the country right now?
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Money, power, politics With Stephanie rule, weekdays at 9am Eastern on Ms. Now.
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Hi there, everyone. It is 4 o' clock here in New York. I'm Alicia Menendez in for Nicole Wallace. The questions surrounding Cash Patel's use of the FBI director title to apparently get special treatment during his lavish travels have reached a point where even Republicans who typically defend him are starting to demand answers. Patel has been under scrutiny by Democrats on the House and Senate Judiciary Committees who have received whistleblower accounts that Patel has been demanding special perks from bureau employees across the country, like helicopter tours and jet ski excursions. You know, typical FBI director activities. And now our colleague Ken Delaney reports that those Democrats have gained a key GOP ally. Ms. Now has, quote, viewed a letter to Patel from Republican Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley demanding that Patel turn over information about his flights on FBI aircraft and about the FBI's purchase of BMW vehicles. Grassley's letter asks Patel, quote, for each trip where you used an FBI aircraft for personal travel, have you reimbursed the FBI as required by law? If yes, please provide the records. Grassley acknowledged that FBI policy requires the director to fly in the FBI jet even when traveling for personal reasons. But he said Congress deserves an accounting of the director's use of FBI aircraft to conduct an independent and objective review. The senator also, quote, asked the director in the letter to please explain why you decided to purchase BMW vehicles instead of Chevy Suburbans. Ms. Now reported back in December that Patel broke with longstanding precedent by directing the FBI to purchase BMW cars for his use. Patel's spokesperson at the time said the move saved the government money, but the receipts have yet to be provided. Grassley joins the likes of Congressman Jamie Raskin and Senator Dick Durbin, the top Democrats on the Judiciary committees who wrote their own letter to Patel this week stating that they, quote, appreciate Chairman Grassley raising these concerns. As as for Patel's luxury vacations, they write, quote, your jet setting and the lack of justification for these trips are out of control. This is not the conduct of a committed and faithful public servant, especially one entrusted with ensuring the safety of almost 350 million Americans. The FBI has not responded to MsNow's request for comment. Kash Patel facing bipartisan scrutiny for his jet setting around the globe is where we start today with the reporter who broke that story. Justice and intelligence reporter Ken Delaney also With us, former assistant special agent in charge at the FBI and national security and intelligence analyst Michael Feinberg. And joining me at the table, law professor at Hofstra University, the author of the Substack, who Decides? Who Decides? James Sample is here. Ken Rare to see Republicans questioning the conduct of anyone in this administration. Take us through your reporting.
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D
Yeah, that's right, Alicia. And one update. The FBI did respond after the story was published, I got a detailed email from FBI spokesman Ben Williamson taking issue with the allegations in the letter from the Democrats and answering in a very detailed way the questions that Chuck Grassley was raising, which I found interesting because he provided answers that he didn't provide to us when we first asked about, for example, the BMW SUVs back in December. So about those SUVs he now says, which he didn't say back then, that they had originally been purchased by the State Department and they were sitting idle in a warehouse. And the FBI, Cash Patel decided to purchase them and that the taxpayers actually saved money, 270,000 per vehicle, he claims, as compared to the armored Chevy Suburbans that they usually use to drive the FBI director around. Now, I don't have any documents that validate that claim, but that's what he's saying. And what's interesting is that Chuck Grassley, who's the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, is demanding and asking for those documents. And he, unlike the Democrats, he has the leverage to get them. And, and it seems to be having an effect on how the FBI is responding. So Grassley's concerned about those BMWs. He also is asking a series of questions about Cash Patel's use of the FBI jet, which is essentially an executive jet. It's a private jet, the kind of jets that CEOs fly around the country on. It's a luxurious travel experience. And Cash Patel, the FBI, point out that he's required by policy to fly on that jet for security reasons, anywhere he goes, even on personal trips. And that's true. But what the Democrats are saying is that he's obviously taking advantage of this rule to essentially attach vacations to these personal, to these official trips. And we all saw in Milan when he was in the locker room after the men's hockey team won the Olympics. That was allegedly an official trip, but he had a lot of personal time there. And he claims Cash Patel does that he's reimbursing the government by policy for the cost of coach fare for all of these trips, which is what the rules require. But Democrats say it's a matter of he's exploiting this. And they question whether he's actually creating official trips to sort of as an excuse to go on vacation. They're actually saying that he may have opened an office in Wellington, New Zealand, just as an excuse to go to Australia and New Zealand. Now, again, he's denying that. And they're saying that whistleblowers are telling them that when he goes on some of these trips, he's demanding that FBI personnel set up special excursions for him, including jet skiing and a helicopter tour. Again, he is denying that today through an email to us. But that's what the Democrats are hearing from whistleblowers. And I hear a lot of concerns, I have to say, inside the FBI about just what this looks like. They can't imagine a Robert Mueller or Chris Wray doing that, this kind of thing. Even though they flew on the jet, they sometimes flew to their vacation homes. They didn't do the kinds of things that Cash Patel is doing.
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Michael Feinberg, have you heard those same concerns? And what does it mean for the FBI, even just the appearance of impropriety?
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It means that the organization is going to be taken less seriously by the American public. And that's just not a reputational. The FBI is only as successful as its ability to talk to people on the street, whether victims of crime, witnesses to horrific events, or even putative subjects themselves, and establish rapport and trust and know that the conversations and interactions are going to be taken with the utmost seriousness. But if every other day there's a story about the FBI director, you know, trying to leverage jet skis out of a business trip, it's a. That's gonna bounce back poorly on the workforce who's out there actually dealing with the community. And you know, I just have to add, there's a real irony here in Chuck Grassley getting upset about this because Cash Patel was not a shoe in for this position. There was a lot of chatter, as you all know, that he might not make it through confirmation because in most Washington circles, including conservative ones, he was not viewed as a very serious person. But after the preliminary meeting prior to his confirmation hearings, Chuck Grassley effusively endorsed him and said that he was just the person to help reform the FBI and, and restore its reputation with the American public. Perhaps this effort now to suss out the jet issue is some form of a mea culpa. But we wouldn't be here today were it not for Grassley.
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Well, Ken, Senator Grassley said back in April of Patel, I've never had an FBI Director cooperate with me as much as Cash Patel has cooperated with me on my request for information, my request for documents. You made the point to me earlier, Ken, and I think it's a good one. This was not a letter that Chuck Grassley intended to make public. He was trying to thread the needle of maintaining his relationship with Patel, perhaps in the interest of actually extracting the information that has apparently now been shared with you. If they are sharing this with you, do you think it is one step closer to their sharing the same information, perhaps, with the receipts we also desperately want to see with Senator Grassley?
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D
Well, to be clear, Alicia, Chuck Grassley's office did not share this letter with me. I'm not sure they intended this letter to be made public. In fact, they took steps to keep it secret, which is interesting, because normally these kinds of requests are made public. And Grassley's a really interesting figure because he does for years. He's been around forever, right? And for years, he had a habit of and a reputation of conducting bipartisan, vigorous oversight and being a steward of the taxpayer dollar. But in recent years, he's become so partisan and so such a defender of Donald Trump and Cash Patel and everything the Justice Department and the FBI has done, that it was surprising to see that he's actually asking critical questions here. But he points out in the letter that he has a bipartisan history of doing this, and he feels like it's part of the role of Congress to oversee this kind of spending, and so he's doing it. Whether he'll actually follow through and demand these documents and then make them public after or have a hearing or that kind of oversight remains to be seen, I think. But this is the first step.
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If there were actually James Temple proper oversight, which, as you've made the point to me, only possible if there is bipartisan interest in that oversight, especially at a time when you have Republicans in control of the Senate. Is there then legal liability for Cash Patel if he is found to have misused government assets?
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Potentially minimal legal liability. So, for example, the cost of coach airfare, which is what you're required to reimburse if, when you use the jet for personal purposes. But politically, the optics here matter more than the law. The politics matter more than the law. And there's a template, right? In Trump 1.0, Tom Price and Ryan Zinke lost jobs for essentially turning public service into private profiteering and sort of junket category. And so I think here, the tell is not the use of the jet. The tell is not the BMWS Although that is remarkable reporting, I'm convinced there are about six Candelinians, not one. The tell here is that the letterhead comes from Chuck Grassley, and that makes it meaningful.
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Michael Feinberg. In the letter that Congressman Raskin and Senator Durbin write of Patel, they write, quote, demoted personnel in Brussels because they failed to ensure you were adequately entertained. Stoking fear among rank and file agents that they must provide your demanded perks or face termination. Concerns and strains prompted by the prioritization of your personal entertainment on international trips may have led to the resignation of the head of the FBI's international operations this year. There is, of course, Michael Feinberg's on its face what this all means. There's also the extent to which his request the use of resources begins to muddle the focus and. And where resources inside the FBI should actually be going.
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I would push back on the notion that there is any focus at FBI headquarters right now, aside from carrying water for whatever Donald Trump and Stephen Miller's policy priorities of the day are. When I was in the FBI for, you know, over a decade and a half, there was actually a really rigorous process for most of that time where we prioritized what threats were most salient, where we needed the most intelligence analysis, where our short falls were in terms of facilities and physical stock, how we were going to get things as quotidian is ammunition for both training and duty. Carrying. I hear nothing from my friends who are still there except how all those processes have fallen apart and how where previous directors, they obviously felt some sort of affinity for the president who appointed them, they maintained a brick wall of propriety between how they conducted themselves officially and whatever those personal feelings were. The fact that Chuck Grassley and Cash Patel have this direct line of communication that you quoted earlier has not redounded to the benefit of the workforce. In fact, that pipeline of communication has been used almost exclusively to tar the names of FBI agents who investigated Trump and then fired them. So I'm just not buying that anybody in this entire situation is really behaving as an honest broker.
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Ken, your sense is that dubiousness warranted?
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Yeah, unfortunately. I mean, I talk to people inside and outside the FBI currents and formers all the time, and there is a deep sense that this is an institution that has gone to a place that has not gone in the modern history of the country and really ever. It's being used for political purposes. And there's no better demonstration of that than the investigation in Georgia, the seizure of ballots in Fulton county, and now the allocation of Resources of FBI analysts to go through ballots from the 2020 election that Donald Trump claims he won in the state of Georgia, where multiple investigations and inquiries have found that that's not the case. The idea that FBI analysts are having to take time away from terrorism cases or analyzing complex white collar frauds or whatever else we expect them to do, to spend time on this just says everything you need to know about what's happening in the FBI right now.
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I want to play there's a message. The former acting head of the FBI, Brian Driscoll, you recall he was acting director for a brief window there before Patel was confirmed. He had a message for Kash Patel and other leaders inside the administration. This is an interview from yesterday.
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Despite what people want to assign to
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me as far as my opinions and
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thoughts, my opinions are unproductive.
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I hope and root that he will
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be better every day. I hope that those in leadership positions,
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not just in the FBI, but everywhere else that serves our country, understands that having authority and being an authority are not the same thing. And surround yourself with people that are smarter and better and more experienced, and we'll all be better off for it.
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An important distinction.
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James Sample I mean, having authority and exercising authority properly, that is the difference between. I mean, everyone loves an authoritarian when the authoritarian is benevolent. Authoritarians are rarely benevolent. And so he's absolutely right that we want the director of the FBI. We should want the director of the FBI to be better, as he put it. We should want the FBI to do its mission to serve its mission properly. We shouldn't want the FBI to spend its resources investigating long disproven claims about elections from six years ago.
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Michael Feinberg I only got about 30 seconds left, but I just want to reiterate a point that you often make to me, which is like, these are not folks who enjoy coming out and all of a sudden having to have a public Persona and a pine on the inner workings of an institution they loved. It's a. It is a pain point for Driscoll to have to say what we just heard him say.
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Yeah, FBI agents both, just as a sort of manner of our character, the sort of people we are before we join the organization and then the training and culture we are inculcated with during our time in the organization, are generally loathe to deal with the media at all. I mean, there are policies, you know, dozens of pages long, regulating that. And they serve a purpose in terms of spelling out the rules, but they also set a tone that no offense to anybody on this show and I guess myself now too, like the media is not your friend. For an FBI agent or even an FBI alum to reach out to the media to talk about what's going on at the bureau. I mean is Ken can testify this has not happened before. Nobody was doing this when Ray was director or Comey was director or Mueller was director or Free was director. Even when William Sessions, who was removed from the directorship for reasons very similar to the way Battelle is behaving like there was generally a lockdown on leaks and outside commentary. The reason that lockdown no longer exists is because within the Hoover building, within the 56 field offices, there is a five alarm fire about what is happening to the organization and people are freaking out and they're doing things that under any other circumstances they would never even contemplate.
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They are making sure that people outside of the building hear that alarm. Kendelane, thank you so much for bringing us your incredible reporting today. Michael, thank you. James, you are staying with me when we come back. Well, he did it. He got something with his name on it. How the newly named Palm beach airport could also stand to benefit him financially. Plus, the Olympian charged with damaging Trump's Reflecting poll was in court today. Supporters calling him a scapegoat for the administration's failures. Later in the show, the war on our elections. Democrats demanding answers on what they're calling abusive power of the highest office. Back to all of that and more when Deadline White House continues after this.
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Hey everyone, it's Chris Hayes. This week on my podcast, why is this Happening?
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A special crossover episode with the hosts
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of the Strict Scrutiny podcast.
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I think the Supreme Court massively misplayed this end of term.
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My solution would be more trying to
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address the underlying structural issues that allow us to get to a point where a minority faction that is not committed to and antagonistic to the rule of law can get power. The bigger fundamental problem is that we have never done the work in this country of actually wrestling with our deep seated antipathy for a multiracial, multi faith pluralistic democracy.
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That's this week on why is this Happening? Search for why is this Happening? Wherever you're listening right now and follow.
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So we are now officially in Donald J. Trump International Airport. How do you guys feel about this name change?
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I resent that. The name is on every institution that we have, this included.
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I think the efforts and the funds
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are better spent helping people than glorifying the president.
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I think it's disgusting, ridiculous, pompous and a lot of other bad things. How does that make you feel when
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you think about the fact that your
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airport now is named after the president.
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It makes me sick every time I even see the sign on 95. It is the moment virtually no one was waiting for and the latest egotistical grift we all expected. Starting today, Florida's Palm Beach International Airport is renamed the President Donald J. Trump International Airport. That is unprecedented, the first ever airport named for a president still in office. It's also the subject of two separate lawsuits and it sparked calls for Congress to ensure that the Trump family doesn't profit off the name change in violation of the Constitution. Today, NPR reports that a Trump Organization spokesperson says Trump and his family, quote, will not receive any royalty, licensing fee or financial consideration whatsoever from the airport renaming. But at the center of concerns is the Trump Organization's unprecedented move to register multiple trademarks for the airport's new name. Meaning, as the New York Times recently explained, quote, the Trumps won't profit from airport branded merchandise sold on site, but the agreement doesn't prevent them from profiting off such items sold elsewhere. It also gives the Trump family control over any biographical material presented at the airport or on airport materials. And it requires the airport to pick a vendor to provide any branded merchandise from a list approved by the Trump family business. We are back with Michael and with James. James, the Trump Org filed three different trademarks. President Donald J. Trump International Airport, Donald J. Trump International Airport and djt. Can the family make money off of this?
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They can absolutely make money off of it. And I think that the devil here is in the details, which is to say this is a carefully crafted agreement. And what it reminds me of, Alicia, is the deal for the Qatari jet, right? Oh, it's going to go to the library when it's done. It's not actually, by the way, nothing is free when it goes to the head of the United States. So, yes, they can make money. This agreement says that they can't make money off of merchandise sold, as you said, on site. They can absolutely make money off of merchandise sold off site outside the airport. It also has approved vendors. So if you don't think that Donald Trump, if the airport wants to sell something on site that is branded as djt, that is branded with one of those three trademarks. The airport can sell that as long as the Trump administration isn't making money directly from the sale of but the airport and the state, which is what this effectively is because it's a county owned airport and the state had to pass legislation to approve this if they Sell merchandise. That merchandise must be manufactured by Trump approved vendors. If there's anyone out there in our audience at this point who doesn't believe that he will get kickbacks from those vendors, they have not been paying attention. So yes, they can make money. And the other way they can make money is it says from merchandise, it does not specify services. So establish a Donald J. Trump lounge in the Donald J. Trump airport and charge for lounge access. Now, let's be honest, relative to making billions of dollars off of crypto while president, this is small change, but it fits the pattern well.
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And also part of what is different here is if you don't want a part in the cryptocurrency, you don't need to. You don't want a part of Trump Rx, you don't need to have a part of. There are lots of folks who don't like Donald J. Trump who are gonna need to fly in and out of that airport. There is no avoiding it. At which point does this become an emoluments issue?
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Well, I think it's an emoluments issue. The problem is, and this is, I rarely speak in emotional terms on programs. As somebody who cares deeply about the Constitution, the emoluments clause is one of the biggest missed opportunities by this Supreme Court ever. TRUMP 1.0 we were concerned about the foreign emoluments clause as opposed to the domestic emoluments clause. We were concerned about heads of foreign countries and foreign interest paying for hotel rooms. The Supreme Court had an opportunity to make the emoluments clause robust. They passed on that opportunity. And the reason that they passed, or at least the way they dodged it, is to say that the case became moot, which is to say presidents outlast lawsuits. If we cared deeply about the Constitution, we would care deeply about the emoluments clause. The founders put two of them in the Constitution. A four on emoluments clause, a domestic emoluments clause. And because of Donald Trump 1.0 plus the Supreme Court plus everything we've seen in 2.0, they effectively do not exist except on the parchment of the Constitution itself.
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Michael Feinberg Listen, a lot of this Trump gets to chooses to slap his name on things and he does that with, I don't know what authority. In this case it was Governor Ron DeSantis who allowed this to happen, pushed it through. So there are other people carrying his waters. And as alarming as the grift is, I also think it's notable, this idea that he is going to get to choose what biographical material is shared given the project that he and his administration have been conducting since the beginning of their first administration of rewriting American history.
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C
Yeah, look, there are a lot of policy and legal and even philosophical issues with what's going on here. But I, I don't want us to lose sight of how on the most fundamental level, it's just stupid. This is just Goshen obnoxious. This is the sort of behavior that like in a Scott Fitzgerald novel, the author would have the antagonist do to set up a counterpoint to the actual hero's general sober minded reflection and restraint. This is, this is just like a bad nouveau riche character out of a Real Housewives family type thing. Behavior like you're the president, just have some basic dignity. Maybe hold off having a branding strategy until you leave office. Maybe focus on the problems of the country. Like if you do a good job, you'll get an airport, you'll get an aircraft carrier, you'll get a highway. There's like, there's no shortage of things named after good presidents. So maybe just like give being a good president the old college try. Just try it on for size and see what happens.
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I really love when my most erudite guests are reduced to calling something stupid because that is in fact itself commentary. Enough. Michael Feinberg, thank you for joining us today. James, you are staying with me. After a break. Democrats have a plan to replace Graham Platner and defeat Susan Collins. We have the very latest that's next. For me, being a part of this
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place has always been about the people,
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not about the politics.
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From the field to the studio, Jacob is finding the heart of the story. Connect with Jacob souborough weekends at 10am Eastern on Ms. Now,
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Democrats in Maine are beginning to get a little bit more clarity of what comes next in their effort to unseat Republican Senator Susan Collins this November. Graham Platner suspended his campaign yesterday evening, just two days after being accused of rape allegations he has denied. In the wake of those reports, Platner's campaign imploded, sent the state of the race into chaos. Last night, in an emergency meeting, Maine's Democratic Party decided on a statewide nominating convention that will take place in the next 18 days. This November, Democrats must flip four Senate seats. And almost any hopes that Democrats have on taking control of the chamber hinges on a Democratic victory in Maine. Joining our table, former New York Democratic Congressman Mondaire Jones. Hello, Congressman. It is good to see you.
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F
Thanks for having me.
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A
I'm not sure if you saw this earlier, but the executive director of the Maine Democratic Party, she talked about what's at stake when this process is ongoing. Take a listen. We are well aware that the eyes of our nation that we are hoping to serve well are on us. We are completely in charge of running our own process. That is not just our own preference. That is actually also what our state statute and our charter requires. We understand the responsibility that is on our shoulders and we take that incredibly seriously. We are facing fully qualified to run this process. We don't need to think about who else could do this better than us, because us Mainers know exactly what is best for us. I love a process. I love a good process. I know it can sound unsexy to a lot of people, but I actually think in this case it's incredibly important.
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It's super important. Especially given the propaganda that Graham Plattner and the people in his circle have been pushing instead of taking responsibility for their actions that got us to this place, that somehow it's the establishment that's trying to take over this process. Like, no, actually, if he had responded the way a normal human being would have to any number of other disqualifying scandals that preceded this latest ridiculous thing that happened, which is that he's been credibly accused of rape, then there would have been a robust primary with people who had not stepped aside because of Graham Platner's presence in the very race, and maybe even a progressive who didn't have the kind of scandals that we're now dealing with and who, you know, would have no association with the establishment, could still be that sort of insurgent hero that he and his supporters would have liked to see.
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A
If we take his campaign out of it though, right? Just to separate this out, if there are voters who really said, I am drawn to this campaign because I like what it is you are selling, and I want to make sure that the essence of that is captured in whatever candidate ultimately gets this nomination. What is the best way for voters, especially voters who may be suspicious of the party itself, to really feel bought in on the process? Because ultimately here it is about winning for Democrats. It is about beating Susan Collins, but it's also about building a party that people feel they can be a part of.
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F
It's about saving American democracy from people who are the most anti Democratic folks to have served in the White House and in Congress within this Republican majority, for example, in both the House and the Senate. And so I think that has to be top of mind too, for purposes of moving forward and getting this thing right. Between now and November is setting the stakes. The stakes. The stakes are super critical here. Now, the statute that governs is really something that you can't overturn. Right? I mean, there is a charter, a statute, as you just heard from the executive director of the main Democratic Party. There are approximately 600 and a few more people who are going to be lobbied, if you will, by progressives, moderates, and everyone in between when it comes to folks who are interested in getting the nomination now. And so make your case to those individuals. And you can do that in any number of ways. That's meetings, that's getting out in the grassroots, it's making phone calls to people, it's petitions. I mean, there's still an opportunity for people to get engaged. But I want to be very clear, those people who were supporting Graham Platner are in this position of having to go through this much shortened process and less democratic process because Graham Platner put them in that situation, not the establishment.
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A
I want to zoom out because as much as we're talking about Maine, what we're talking about is control of the U.S. senate. And if you talk with Democrats, they will say Ossoff needs to win Georgia in order to stay at 47. They expect Roy Cooper to win in North Carolina. That is a pickup for them at 48. Maine was very often seen as the 49th seat. After that, the math just gets a little bit trickier because you are in states that are slightly more complicated, where, yes, Donald Trump may have a high disapproval rate and yes, Democrats may have very strong candidates, but they know, I mean, if anything, this cycle, whether you're talking about platinum or swallow, has been a reminder that entire dynamics can change on a dime.
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B
Absolutely. And the strategy, whether you are in the establishment camp or the progressive camp, if you're in Maine, the strategy at this point is to turn this into a referendum on Susan Collins and a referendum on Donald Trump. It is unfortunate that we had 60,000 plus voters choose Platner in a primary. And now because of the statute, because of the structure, it'll be a few hundred delegates. That process is absolutely legal. It is absolutely consistent with the letter of the law. It is built. However, that machinery exists and is put in place for speed. It's not a primary, it's not democracy. And so you better hope, to Mondaire's point, you better hope that those delegates at that convention listen carefully and make clear that they are listening carefully to the voters that they represent and don't engage. Because, look, this is a populist moment. And you just sacrificed populism on your side. Maybe that's because clearly it's because of the particular candidate who represented it. But the populism can get lost if you now appear to be operating on an insider basis when everything right now is pointing towards outsiders.
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F
And the vetting is going to be so important. Okay. Because there are going to be tens of millions of dollars, if not hundreds of millions of dollars between now and November spent to look into whoever the Democratic nominee is going to be. Okay. And to make a big deal of any misstatements, any infidelities, anything approaching like what we saw. Usually it's actually less egregious. The kinds of scandals that we see tank people's candidacies. And so it's remarkable that Graham Platner made it this far.
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A
All right, no one is going anywhere. After a break, an update to the Trump administration using the power of the government against ordinary citizens to help push the president's political narrative. Former US Olympic canoeist Davey Hearn has pled not guilty to a charge of destruction of property after the Trump Justice Department has accused him of causing more than $1,000 to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Hearn's defense attorney called the indictment an effort to scapegoat an ordinary American for the administration's embarrassing failure to renovate the pool.
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Watch
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if Mr. Hearn can be charged with a felony for touching the reflecting pool. Every American is at risk and every American should be alarmed about this prosecution. This indictment reflects the administration's effort to scapegoat Davy and to shift blame for their own failures. We will litigate these issues vigorously. We have confidence in our justice system to see through this misuse of government power against an ordinary American based on a false and politicized narrative.
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We are back with Mundare and James. Three other people, similar charges. How do you think this all plays out?
- [34:31]
B
What are we doing? I mean, charging someone with a felony for touching the water? Right. Claiming that he caused more than $1,000 in damage, which he claims, and we'll see. But he claims that he just touched a piece that was already loose. The difference, by the way, in him being charged with a felony for causing more than $1,000 in damage. And the other three individuals being charged with misdemeanors is the $1,000 threshold. So if we're going to prosecute people for arranging seashells on a beach and we're going to prosecute people for touching water at a reflecting pool, let's be clear what they have to prove. Here, let's get down to the brass tacks. They have to prove causation that he actually caused the damage. You have to prove mens rea state of mind that he actually intended to cause damage. Curiosity is not a mens rea for felony damage to the reflecting pool. This is a scenario where they poured $14 million into a pool. They had a no bid contract of insider dealing essentially, and it turned green and now they want someone to blame so they choose an Olympian.
- [35:39]
A
I mean, Jeanine Pirro, she was out there messaging this hard. She was teasing the fact that, don't worry, indictments are coming, charges are coming and here we are.
- [35:49]
F
Yeah, look, first of all, I agree with that legal analysis. I don't think that you're going to find a jury that convicts any of these now four people on the charges that have been made against them. It's also distraction from the embarrassment that I think this White House may still be capable of feeling with respect to how they have just bungled the renovation, if you will, of this reflecting pool. And it is so much more expensive than what they said it would cost taxpayers. People see this, and I'll be honest with you, on the list of grievances that I have with respect to this administration, and I think most people have with respect to this administration, this doesn't register really high given everything else that we've seen and stuff that we're continuing to see outside of this particular discussion
- [36:37]
A
because they're being graded on a curve. But yes, I take your point.
- [36:39]
F
But it comes up a lot. I mean, just yesterday I was at breakfast with someone who brought it up. I mean, this is a real thing that people are upset about. And I think it's because it's so easy to distill the ridiculousness of it and it's so emblematic of incompetence and the kind of weaponization of the Justice Department that the Republicans, including chief among them Donald Trump, have been talking about for years, even though it was always their own weaponization of the Justice Department and never a weaponization by Democrats at the Department of Justice.
- [37:10]
A
Here's what we've seen over and over again, though, which is even if it is a distraction on the part of the administration, the people against whom those charges are brought still pay the price. They pay it in time, they pay it in energy, they pay it in actual dollars to their legal teams. There is a real pain point. And you wonder at the end of this administration who's been so fond of bringing legal challenges, what's going to be all of these Americans recourse for the fact that their government was weaponized against them.
- [37:38]
B
I often say to my students that they should learn a lesson as they go into law, which is that in law there are no minor cases. Minor surgery is when the surgery occurs on someone else. The same holds true if you are a defendant in a criminal case. There is no such that DUI might be the most important thing that happens to a person. These cases cost real money to defend. They cost extraordinary time and stress for the individuals involved. And they're not being brought by serious people. They are being brought by people who have an audience of one. Right. That is over and over. And to Mondaire's point, by the way, why does it keep coming up? Because we are a visual society. This actually resonates more than a billion dollars in crypto money, which is crazy because they're not even remotely on the same scale. But a green pool we can. It resonates.
- [38:34]
A
Former Congressman Mondaire Jones, James Sample, thank you both for joining me today. Ahead for us is the White House about to start another major renovation project, this time kept out of the public's view, a live look at just what's going on there. Stay with us. It looks like Donald Trump, renovator in chief, is starting another White House construction project. I want to bring in senior White House reporter Vaughn Hilliard with more. What do you see in there, Vaughn?
- [39:04]
E
Alicia, pretty much every day you come up with a new surprise here in terms of the renovation and construction projects at the White House. I first want to set the scene before I tell you about the new development here today of where we're standing. We're along the West Wing. And Kyle, our man, is going to pull up here and you can see the crane, right. Lingering over the White House. That's the crane that is being used on the other side of the White House to actively construct the ballroom and the East Wing that is turning into the ballroom. But this was the new development here. Earlier this afternoon, I was inside of the West Wing in the press area when we started hearing some hollers about the drapes that were being dropped literally in real time down over the north portico columns. This is the north lawn of the White House. There's that fountain out there. There's the flagpole that the president installed a year ago. And we had seen scaffolding over the last day be added over the columns. And I am told by a White House official that they are doing stone maintenance work and they are fixing cracks and dings inside of the column standard repair, they say. But of course, the issue is, is that the White House has not been wholly transparent over the course of the last year about exactly the renovation projects that they take. I'm told that the plan is to keep the columns white for now. But of course, this goes to the heart of the issue here. The fact is that the president last October we reported to Ms. Now that the president fired six members of the US Fine Arts Commission that typically oversees these types of renovation projects. If you go to the Rose Garden, he ripped out the grass, put in that Mar A Lago esque patio. He added the Presidential Walk of Fame and added gold plastering along the West Wing walls and inside of the Oval Office, added the gold there. Currently, the grass on the South Lawn, we're on the North Lawn, the South Lawn has been ripped up because a helipad is being added. So, of course, Alicia, there is the balance between maintaining the grounds of the executive branch of the US Government, but then also understanding that Congress is not getting updated. These commissions that typically help with these renovations, innovation projects and ideas, they are not being consulted here. And so it's sort of us on a daily basis kind of coming out and trying to examine exactly what project is next. Of course, I'm gonna have Kyle Beck turn around, folks. This is the Executive Office building, the Eisenhower Building, where a lot of the White House staff actually works on a daily basis. The president has talked it about painting over that stone, that original stone, and making it white. That hasn't happened here at this point in time. But again, this really hits at the heart of the questions around the lack of transparency. And of course, this is what the White House is telling now about the plans for the North Portico columns. But with that draping that was dropped down, it makes it a little harder to see hour by hour exactly what is taking place by the construction teams under there. Alicia.
- [41:44]
A
Vaughn Hilliard, you would make a great HGTV reporter if this whole White House thing does not work out. How wild. And I appreciate the fact that you are bringing us this visual and these questions. I remember the first time I went to Washington, D.C. after the president had taken an axe to USAID and there were plastic bags over the naming of that building. Vaughn Hilliard, as always, thank you for bringing us your report.
- [42:09]
E
Thanks, my friend.
- [42:10]
A
After a break, the Trump administration continuing to push dangerous lies about our elections. What's being done about it? We have the next hour of deadline. White House starting after this quick break. Home to the Rachel Maddow Show. Morning Joe, the briefing with Jen Psaki and more voices you know and trust. Trust Ms. Now is your source for news, opinion and the world. Learn more at Ms. Now.