← The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
Lawrence: Trump files the most ridiculous lawsuit ever by the most ridiculous litigant in history
00:42:25
Tonight on The Last Word: An investigation by The New York Times finds connections between the Trump family’s cryptocurrency firm and an agreement granting United Arab Emirates access to A.I. chips. Also, Kash Patel testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Plus, the House Oversight Committee release more Epstein documents. And Donald Trump files a defamation lawsuit against The New York Times. Eric Lipton, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, and Andrew Weissmann join Lawrence O’Donnell.
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- [00:00]
Lawrence O'Donnell
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- [01:02]
Jen Psaki
The Last Word with Lawrence O' Donnell starts right now. Hey, Lawrence.
- [01:06]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Hey, Jen. I need your judgment about whether. Okay, I might be being too picky about something that I noticed today, and that is the first FBI director in history to testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee without being able to tie his necktie correctly. Now, J. Edgar Hoover would fire this guy. J. Edgar Hoover and longest director of the FBI was very particular about the way FBI agents had to dress in every way. And one of the things that Edgar Hoover didn't have to say to any of them is you button the top button of your shirt and you put your necktie all the way up to the top of the collar. Cash Patel doesn't know how to do that. Didn't do that today. And I'm old school enough to have been bumped by that because here's my justification. FBI director is supposed to be someone with a real sensitivity to detail, a real attention to detail in everything all the time. And how does he miss what his tie looks like? And how does he miss that it's the only necktie in the room that looks like that. How does he miss that? Jen? Have I gone too far?
- [02:39]
Sheldon Whitehouse
No.
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Jen Psaki
Okay, remember, just to let him give him a little ease, he was wearing versions of muscle tees on a podcast a year ago. Lawrence. So he's got a big, you know, it's training time to tie the tie.
- [02:53]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Yeah. Could you imagine either of the presidents you worked for being in a public venue in a suit and tie? Either President Obama or President Biden having that tie ever be anywhere other than perfectly placed and the top button buttoned on the shirt.
- [03:11]
Jen Psaki
No. Remember the tan suit scandal? They also would have lost their minds over the FBI director previewing his appearance on Fox News. So there's a lot of things to feel a lot of things about.
- [03:22]
Lawrence O'Donnell
All right. Okay. I just. I. I had to. I had to talk to somebody. You're not too picky.
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Jen Psaki
You're not too picky.
- [03:26]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Jen. I know you were going to say that anyway. You're very kind. Thank you, Jen.
- [03:33]
Jen Psaki
Thank you.
- [03:35]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Well, there is a new honor roll at the New York Times tonight with four names on it, and those four names appear in the defendant block of this crazy lawsuit filed by Donald Trump today, which takes its place now as the single most ridiculous lawsuit ever filed by the most ridiculous litigant in American political history, Donald Trump. No American politician has filed more frivolous lawsuits than Donald Trump. The Republican Party itself used to always have an item in the Republican Party platforms about Franklin. Frivolous lawsuits. Lawsuits like this stack of nonsense. The Republican Party wanted to pass legislation for decades to limit frivolous lawsuits filed by plaintiffs seeking what Republicans considered ridiculous amounts of money from corporations. And no frivolous lawsuit has ever asked for more money than Donald Trump's lawsuit against the New York Times and four of its reporters. Today, Donald Trump decided that today was the day to file a lawsuit suing the New York Times for. This is one of the things that this lawsuit is about, endorsing Kamala Harris in the presidential campaign last year. Donald Trump thinks you can sue for that. The three articles in this lawsuit that Donald Trump is suing about were all published last year before the election. And it took Donald Trump a year ago to decide to file this lawsuit today. Or did it? How many of these things, these stacks of paper, does the Trump lawsuit factory have ready to go on a day when Donald Trump thinks he really needs one of these? Today was one of those days. Donald Trump knew that the most incompetent FBI director in history, who is also incompetent at actually tying a necktie, would be testifying in the Senate Judiciary Committee and would be asked questions about Donald Trump's old friend Jeffrey Epstein. So Donald Trump knew he would want something to distract from that today. And Donald Trump knew that the New York Times yesterday delivered another massive investigative report of Donald Trump's finances, which Donald Trump desperately wants to distract from with the most ridiculous lawsuit he has ever filed. And so our first guest tonight will be the next New York Times reporter who Donald Trump will want to sue, whose Reporting shows the President of the United States was taking part in a deal, taking $2 billion in personal money for him and his partners in the form of an investment from the United Arab Emirates this year, while Donald Trump's president. Now, that would be an impeachment offense for any other president in history. Donald Trump this year, as of the United States, took part in a $2 billion private transaction that will benefit him financially, personally. Money from the United Arab Emirates, from the government there. Just imagine what Republicans would be saying tonight if Joe Biden did that. Just imagine what Republicans would be saying tonight if any Democrat ever did anything like that. Donald Trump is trying to stoke fake Republican outrage right now over a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors allegedly falsifying information on a mortgage application for a second home. And Republicans went along with Donald Trump's demand for their outrage over the possibility that someone in government service claimed that a second home would be her primary residence on a mortgage application. And it turns out that that accusation by Donald Trump is false. As we reported on this program last night, the best state of the evidence at this point is that Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook plainly indicated that she was seeking a mortgage for a second home. And Lisa Cook managed to get an interest rate on her mortgage that was above the prevailing rate of mortgage at the time in that community that anyone could have gotten. And so there is zero evidence that Lisa Cook falsified any information. And there is zero evidence that she got any kind of a break on her mortgage rate. In fact, she paid a higher rate. Donald Trump has been able to summon Republican outrage and widespread right wing media attacks against a black woman who serves on the Federal Reserve Reserve Board by Donald Trump lying about a mortgage that she got for a second home. And Donald Trump's telling this lie about her. While Donald Trump was taking $2 billion personally as president of the United States from a foreign government, he just took it. A cash investment in one of Donald Trump's new businesses created while he was president. And the New York Times reporting on this is even worse because the United Arab Emirates got something from Donald Trump at the same time, something they couldn't get from President Joe Biden, something they badly wanted. And so if this were any other president, including any previous Republican president, there would be an impeachment investigation in the House of Representatives right now on the $2 billion Donald Trump got for himself and his family and his business partners this year while president from the United Arab Emirates. And whether that is a reason Donald Trump allowed the United Arab Emirates to obtain the world's most advanced and scarce computer chips from the United States. But there is no impeachment investigation of those transactions tonight because Republicans control the House of Representatives and Donald Trump controls Republicans. Donald Trump knows what he has done as President of the United States in this first year of his presidency. And Donald Trump is so desperate to make sure Republicans still control the House of Representatives next year and the year after that, he wants to redistrict every Republican state he can to retain and gain more Republican seats in the House of Representatives so that in the next Congress, there won't be a Democratic chair of the House Judiciary Committee conducting an impeachment investigation of Donald Trump for possibly, among other things, the $2 billion that the new York Times is now reporting on. The Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today was chaired by Senator Chuck Grassley, who will turn 92 years old tomorrow. Senator Grassley has spen more than half of his life in the United States Congress. 50 years. The last 44 of those years in the United States Senate, he went from being a hardworking member of Congress to being a hardworking, very conservative member of the United States Senate, deeply attentive to Iowa's interests in the Senate, to an embarrassment on his good days now and an utter Trumpian disgrace the rest of the time. Today's hearing began, as all Senate hearings do, with the Chair asking the first questions. Director Patel, was Jeffrey Epstein an intelligence asset for the United States government or the foreign government? And if so, which agencies or governments?
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Commercial Announcer
Mr. Chairman, I can only speak to the FBI as the director of the FBI, and Mr. Epstein was not a source for the FBI.
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Andrew Weissman
Okay.
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Sheldon Whitehouse
Would you commit to providing my office.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
With all classified, non classified records relating the Epstein matter?
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Commercial Announcer
I will commit to providing all records. I'm legally permitted to do so under the court orders.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
It seems to me that I accept your answer to my question, but the broader intelligence community ought to answer these questions as well. Victims deserve an answer. In reality, Chuck Grassley now accepts every answer that Donald Trump's witnesses give him on anything. Something he would never have done for President Reagan's administration or either of the President's Bush administrations, Republican administrations. In his opening statement, Kashyap Patel announced who is to blame, in his view, for Jeffrey Epstein getting away with sex trafficking and raping children for so many years, even after his first arrest, which ended in a plea bargain. Now, I know that there's a lot.
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Commercial Announcer
Of talk about Epstein, and I'm here.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
To testify that the original sin in.
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Commercial Announcer
The Epstein case was the way it was initially brought by Mr. Acosta back in 2006. The original case involved a very limited.
- [13:14]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Search warrant or set of search warrants.
- [13:16]
Commercial Announcer
And didn't take as much investigatory material it should have seized.
- [13:20]
Lawrence O'Donnell
So there's Donald Trump's current FBI director blaming Donald Trump's labor secretary from Donald Trump's first term for letting Jeffrey Epstein completely off the hook. Alex Acosta was the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Florida in 2006 who made that notorious plea deal with Jeffrey Epstein. And that was well known about Alex Acosta at the time that Donald Trump rewarded Alex Acosta with a Cabinet position during the first Trump term. Alex Acosta is scheduled to be questioned about all of this in a closed session of the House Oversight Committee on Friday. The New York Times is of course going to fight Donald Trump's frivolous lawsuit filed today. The Times issued a statement saying this lawsuit has no merit, it lacks any legitimate legal claims and instead is an attempt to stifle and discourage independent reporting. The New York Times will not be deterred by intimidation tactics. We will continue to pursue the facts without fear or favor and stand up for journalists First Amendment Right to Ask Questions on Behalf of the American People A team of New York Times reporters have been asking questions on behalf of the American people about how Donald Trump got much, much richer this year as president thanks to the United Arab Emirates. In a massive investigative piece by Eric Lipton, David Yaffe, Belloni, Bradley Hope, Tripp Mickle and Paul Moser reporting from Washington, New York, London, Dubai, San Francisco and Taiwan as only the New York Times can do, a dark story of personal enrichment is told. The sub headline of the pie says a lucrative transaction involving the Trump family's cryptocurrency firm and an agreement giving the Emiratis access to AI chips were connected in ways that have not been previously reported. The Times describes the sequence this way. In May of this year, one of the United Arab Emirates investment firms would deposit $2 billion into World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency startup founded by the Witkoffs and Trumps. Two weeks later, the White House agreed to allow the UAE access to hundreds of thousands of the world's most advanced and scarce computer chips, a crucial tool in the high stakes race to dominate artificial intelligence. Many of the chips would go to G42, a sprawling technology firm controlled by Sheikh Tanun. Despite national security concerns that the chips could be shared with China. The Times reports that Donald Trump's so called Middle east envoy Steve Witkoff, advocated to give the Emirates access to the chips at the same Time that his and Mr. Trump's family business was landing the crypto investment, despite an ethics rule intended to prohibit officials from participating in matters that could benefit themselves or their relatives. Some Trump administration officials tried to limit the chips deal. But an unexpected intervention by the conservative agitator, or a Loomer, changed the power dynamic within the White house in the UAE's favor. Today, as Donald Trump was leaving the White House, Australian reporter John Lyons asked Donald Trump about his business activity. That is an appropriate President Trump, that.
- [17:19]
Eric Lipton
A president in office should be engaged in so much business activity.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
Well, I'm really not. My kids are running the business. I'm here. You know, what the activity. Where are you from? I'm from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Four Corners program. The Australians. You're hurting Australia, right? In my opinion, you are hurting Australia very much right now. And they want to get along with me. You know, your leader is coming over to see me very soon. I'm going to tell them about you. You set a very bad tone. Leading off our discussion tonight is Eric Lipton, New York Times investigative reporter. Eric, thank you very much for joining us tonight with this very, very important report. I want to go begin at the Laura Loomer moment. What happened there?
- [18:06]
Eric Lipton
So Laura Loomer shows up at the White House in early April. She has a list of people that she wants removed from the National Security Council, which is the body that advised the president on foreign policy matters, including these negotiations with, you know, going on about what types of chips should be shared with foreign parties or should they be, you know, maintained internally to benefit the United States companies. And so she comes in with a list of folks that she'd like to see exited. And among them is David Fife, who is the son of Doug Fife, who was instrumental in the George W. Bush's administration and was considered, you know, an architect of the Iraq war. And Laura Loomer wanted David Fife, his son, gone. And so within a matter that, you know, within a matter of a day, David Fife lost his job. And he had been leading an effort to try to adopt something that was called the America First AI Plan, which was going to limit the export of the most advanced chips for at least a year after they were first introduced. And so that would have made the UAE's efforts to get access to these chips much harder. So Loomer kind of disrupted this process in a very consequential way.
- [19:23]
Lawrence O'Donnell
And the person she was trying to knock out there, who was one of the people resisting this deal that Donald Trump was trying to make, she was Actually knocking him out because of what his father did, in her view, not what he did.
- [19:38]
Eric Lipton
That's right. We did engage with Mrs. Loomer, and that was the explanation that she offered. I mean, we did ask her whether or not someone had put her up to this, and she just said that that was not the case. We did not find any evidence that she had been, you know, pushed to take this action. But it was a question that we had in our minds.
- [19:57]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Everyone is wondering how this can happen. We thought we had, prior to Donald Trump, that we had a government where this was impossible. I would have told people, you can't do that. There's all sorts of rules against that. Your report says the back to back deals violate longstanding norms in the United States for political, diplomatic and private deal making among senior officials and their children, according to three ethics lawyers interviewed by the Times. And also, Eric, there's the problem that White House ethics are policed in effect, by the White House and which is to say by the President.
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Eric Lipton
That's right. I mean, you know, we've seen a period now where there is almost, you know, no division between the President's personal financial interest and, and his actions that as a government official, and particularly as it relates to cryptocurrency, where he has taken a bunch of actions to, through his appointees, shut down enforcement of crypto rules that the securities and Exchange Commission had been enforcing at the same time as some of the same companies are investing in his crypto company and bringing money effectively to himself and his business partners. And this story was really focused not just on the President, but on Steve Witkoff, who helped set up this crypto company, World Liberty Financial, and his son, Zach Witkoff, is still helping run the company. And what we learned just before the story was published was that Steve Witkoff continues to have an interest in World Liberty. At the same time he was there during these discussions about the chips, and he had a financial interest in the World Liberty part of it. And, you know, there's a question as to whether or not he should have been a part of those conversations.
- [21:46]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Eric Lipton, thank you very much for this invaluable reporting. Thank you for bringing it to us tonight.
- [21:53]
Eric Lipton
Thank you so much.
- [21:54]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Thank you. And joining us now is former federal prosecutor Sheldon Whitehouse, now the United States Senator from Rhode Island. He serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, the Senate Finance Committee and Senate Budget Committees. The top ranking Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. And Senator, I just want to read you a passage from the Times report, which I think you might find to be understatement. It said in the middle of both deals was Mr. Trump a president who has used his power to enrich himself in ways that have little modern precedent. At least in the United States. It is more reminiscent of business customs in the Persian Gulf, where money making and governance are blended in the hands of the ruling families. Senator, this does appear to be a story about a family that certainly thinks it's a ruling family.
- [22:51]
Sheldon Whitehouse
Yeah, undoubtedly. And this is really good reporting. You've got these two deals taking place at the same time, one in which the US is giving chips to that Emirates company, G42, and then separately, the Emirates sovereign fund is putting money into a Trump World Liberty Financial deal. And you'd like to think that those two things were separate, but the Witkoff family and the Trump family are involved in both of those deals and they're involved both personally and professionally. And the two deals are so tight together that the young Witkoff who is running the World Liberty Financial operation, really doesn't know what he's doing. And so they borrowed from G42, a guy named Larkin, who is the technical expert. He's on the G42 side of the chip steel, and yet he's in the World Liberty Financial Company running the business for the young Witkoff who doesn't know how to run it on his own. This is such a massive operation of self dealing that I don't think we've really seen anything like it before in America.
- [24:12]
Lawrence O'Donnell
No, we never have. The Times uses that phrase, little precedent. There's absolutely no precedent whatsoever. Nothing like it's ever happened.
- [24:23]
Sheldon Whitehouse
I mean, maybe way back in ancient history when there were, you know, people involved in Teapot Dome or something like that. But you're going back to massive political scandals, you're not going back to moments that the US Is proud of. So this is a neck deep mess. And it is telling to me that Trump chose to file his harassment complaint against the New York Times, seeking billions of dollars in damages within days, perhaps on the day he found out about this story. So, you know, you've got him suing the Wall Street Journal over the Epstein.
- [25:05]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Drawing that he did.
- [25:06]
Sheldon Whitehouse
And that's going to end badly, I think, because she clearly was filing that for purpose of harassment. It clearly was ill founded. This is a little bit the same way, depending on how the Times and the Wall Street Journal choose to play this out, they could stick him to those complaints and say, no, no, no, you can't voluntarily dis. We want sanctions for the harassment. We want to investigate what your motive was. Here we've got Rule 11 that gives us the authority to do this. So stand by if the Wall Street Journal and New York Times stick to their guns and have any guts at all for this to get really convoluted.
- [25:47]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Senator, please stay with us. We're going to squeeze in a commercial break. Want to get your reaction to the FBI director's testimony today to your committee. We'll be right back with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse.
- [26:01]
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- [27:04]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Today, Democratic Senator Adam Schiff asked Donald Trump's FBI director the question that Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell's survivors want the answer to. But they did not get an answer. Right after she gives this testimony in front of an FBI agent, among others, she's transferred to a minimum security prison not suitable for a sex offender like herself. Who made that decision and why?
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Commercial Announcer
The Bureau of Prisons.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
The Bureau of Decisions made it Prisons. The Bureau of Prisons decided on their own, without any consultation with Blanche or anyone else, that they were going to suddenly, after this interview, completely unrelated to this interview, completely unrelated to anything she said, move her to a prison not suitable for a sex offender. You want the American people to believe that? Do you think they're stupid?
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Commercial Announcer
No, I think the American people believe the truth that I'm not in the weeds on the everyday movements.
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Sheldon Whitehouse
Oh, you're not in the weeds.
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Lawrence O'Donnell
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse is back with us, Senator. He claims not to be in the weeds. Is that the. The answer to everything for him?
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Sheldon Whitehouse
You know, he just makes it up as he goes along. One of the topics that we took up with him was that he wouldn't disclose his own grand jury testimony in the Trump Mar? A Lago case the last time he was in. And he said then that there was a court order that prevented him. And he challenged me when I asked him for. He said, you want me to violate a court order? And then we found out from the actual judge who he mentioned there was no court order. He was making that up. So when I asked him, well, tell us now, will you let us know now what you said in the grand jury? He said, I've already made that public. He has not. I mean, he just can't tell the truth. And it's really distressing when you see an FBI guy. As you say, they're supposed to be sticklers for detail. They're even more supposed to be sticklers for truth, but not in this case. He'll say virtually anything that gets him through the moment.
- [29:25]
Lawrence O'Donnell
What did we learn today about the actual. This is a hearing about oversight of the FBI operations of the FBI. What did we learn today about how the FBI is actually operating, how the forces in the FBI are being deployed?
- [29:42]
Sheldon Whitehouse
Well, we learned from a lot of the questioning that there's a whole lot fewer staff because so many people have been run out or fired. There's a whole lot worse expertise because some of the people who run out and fired had technical expertise in national security areas that really matter. And we learned that people who did complicated things like money laundering and corporate fraud were being pushed out to do really simple, plain vanilla immigration cases just to pump up Trump's numbers. So when you take people, when you take expertise away, when you take numbers away, and when you reassign people away from the complicated cases, what you do is you endanger the American people.
- [30:23]
Lawrence O'Donnell
We, we had an exchange there where Cash Patel said that there was absolutely no evidence that Jeffrey Epstein trafficked any women or supplied any women for anyone else. That is, of course, not true. JP Morgan official Jeff Staley, Jess Staley actually said in a lawsuit under oath that, yeah, he, for one, definitely exploited one of those women.
- [30:54]
Sheldon Whitehouse
Yep, without a doubt. And then you have the whole enterprise that Ron Wyden, Senator Wyden, the chairman of the Finance Committee ranking member, now, has been looking into of the billions of dollars in Jeffrey Epstein transactions going through multiple front corporations that he ran, facilitated by a very big bank. And how many of those payments went to different women? And what was that for? Why were those never investigated? Where was that work when Pam Bondi and Kash Patel said they were going to get to the bottom of the XD and scandal. This was stuff that they had. And the reports that divulged it are called suspicious activity reports. How much more of a clue do you need to give the FBI chief that something is suspicious than to hand him a report that says on the top of it suspicious activity report. It's like the Keystone Cops over there right now.
- [31:53]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, thank you very much for joining us tonight.
- [31:56]
Sheldon Whitehouse
Thank you.
- [31:57]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Coming up today, the House Oversight Committee released more documents related to the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, including the transcript of the committee's deposition with Donald Trump's former Attorney General, William Barr. Andrew Weissman will join us on that next.
- [32:18]
Andrew Weissman
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Lawrence O'Donnell
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Lawrence O'Donnell
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Sheldon Whitehouse
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- [33:47]
Lawrence O'Donnell
The House Oversight Committee today released new documents related to their Jeffrey Epstein investigation, which include the transcript of a deposition with Donald Trump's former attorney General, William Barr, who was Attorney General when Jeffrey Epstein was arrested for the second time and being held in federal custody in New York City, where he died. The Democrats on the committee released this statement. Attorney General Barr testified to our committee that he had limited knowledge of the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein or the facts of the case. He could not exonerate President Trump of wrongdoing. However, he confirmed that the contact between Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Ghislaine Maxwell and her subsequent prison transfer was extremely unusual, which raises serious concerns. He could not recall any non prosecution agreement comparable to the one given to Epstein by Alex Acosta, Trump's former Labor secretary. And he confirmed no laws prevent Attorney General Bondi from releasing the files. Joining us now is Andrew Weissman, former chief of the Criminal Division for the Eastern District of New York and former FBI General counsel and an MSNBC legal analyst. Andrew, what do you make of William Barr's testimony?
- [35:15]
Andrew Weissman
So I think the biggest part that is important here is the idea that this is what was released. You have somebody who admittedly, and he said he did not do the investigation, he was not steeped in the investigation, he didn't even review the investigation after the fact. So you have somebody here who is not a sort of percipient witness, somebody who doesn't know all the information, doesn't know the files, didn't interview the witnesses, didn't even do it afterwards, who a few weeks ago gave a deposition. Why are you releasing that? And why are you not getting Maureen Comey, who you just fired, to testify, or other people from the Southern District of New York, or career people not beholden to Trump, or career FBI agents, if you haven't fired them yet, but you could still call them, those are the people that you would want to hear from, let alone we're releasing the file. So that's sort of like point one is that this is such an oddity and there's so little that he actually could add. The one thing that I thought was sort of possibly relevant is he said that he looked at the videotape in connection with was this a murder or is it a suicide? And he said looking at the videotape and seeing sort of the configuration that it would be, although it was not definitive, there was a little bit of a blind spot. It would have been very difficult for somebody to have come in and done this sort of through foul play, so that he thought it was a suicide. That's like the one thing that as a sort of former prosecutor, you would say, okay, that at least is some piece of evidence. But other than that, the whole thing was, to me, just highlighting how much has not been released.
- [37:07]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Yeah, it's choosing to interview people who are actually far from the center of the story. Attorneys general generally don't know these kinds of details that you'd be interested in in the investigations taking place under them.
- [37:22]
Andrew Weissman
In fact, here the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York at the time, Jeffrey Berman, has written that he actually didn't brief the attorney general. That's not uncommon. That's not something doing something wrong. Assuming that is accurate and frankly, you have now Bill Barr saying that he wasn't really briefed on it. He sor was aware of it but didn't know the details. It is just so odd that this is the person that you're going to call. And to me, it's really sort of assuming that the public is stupid. I mean, it's so dismissive of their intelligence.
- [38:02]
Lawrence O'Donnell
But what the Democrats have yielded from it is, first of all, here is a Republican attorney general who's telling you what Todd Blanche did down there in Florida was really weird. Never seen anything like that before.
- [38:16]
Andrew Weissman
Yes, that is absolutely true. Look, you really do not have that. And the thing that wears to this day, we do not have why in God's green earth was this woman moved from, you know, from sort of being in an appropriately designated prison to a camp and you know that the record is going to show that she was or let's just say there's a, there's going to be lots of, lots of people who can testify that Ghislaine Maxwell lied during that two day interview and then she got a benefit for it. So to me, that is the story here is like how is Todd Blanche getting away with that when he has taken an oath of office to represent the people of the United States, not to represent the President of the United States?
- [39:05]
Lawrence O'Donnell
We're going to squeeze in a commercial break here. Senator Whitehouse mentioned the possibility of sanctions over the Trump frivolous lawsuit. Is that something that the Trump lawyers filing these frivolous lawsuits have to worry about? We're going to find out from Andrew Weissman after this break. Federal cases are randomly assigned to judges in jurisdictions. And today when Donald Trump's federal lawsuit against the New York Times was filed in Florida, it was assigned to Judge Stephen Merry Day, who was appointed by President George H.W. bush in 1992. Andrew Weisberg is back with us. Andrew? So it is now Judge Merry Day who will have to take what is by far the most frivolous lawsuit I've ever seen, all 84 pages of it filled with nonsense on every page to decide is this not only this will be dismissed at some point. There's no doubt about it, it'll never get to a trial. But, but does the lawyer involved, does the plaintiff involved, Donald Trump, face the possibility of sanctions for filing such a Frivolous lawsuit.
- [40:19]
Andrew Weissman
Yes. And this is not just sort of speculation because we have a really great precedent to look at, which is when Donald Trump, with Alina Habba were suing Hillary Clinton and many other people in Florida before Judge Middlebrooks, he imposed nearly a million dollar sanction against Trump and Alina Habba, the embattled US Attorney in New Jersey. So the answer is yes. As the Senator, Senator Whitehouse pointed out, There are Rule 11 sanctions. There can be slop suit sanctions when you file a frivolous lawsuit. And, and part of the reason for these kinds of sanctions, when you're dealing with a First Amendment issue where you're suing a newspaper for publishing something where youlet's assume you can't show actual malice, is you're trying to deter the use of lawsuits to hurt the press and to hurt First Amendment rights. So the court has done that in the past and they have the power to do that going forward.
- [41:30]
Lawrence O'Donnell
So on page, page three of this lawsuit, this is a quote from the New York Times that Donald Trump is saying is defamation. And this is what the New York Times said. It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as President of the United States than Donald Trump. A version of that was repeated in newspapers all over the country.
- [41:57]
Andrew Weissman
Well, without getting into the merits of whether you believe that or not, just remember that First Amendment law requires there to be actual malice. And you need to remember that many, many people have said the same thing, not just New York Times reporting. And let's remember that Donald Trump, whether you like it or not, is the first President of the United States who is a convicted felon. And that's leaving apart all of the things he's done in office and the numerous ways in which people have reported that he has lied both sort of before, during and after, and faced other criminal charges that weren't brought to fruition, but really through his being able to delay things. So you can understand exactly where the New York Times is going to go here in terms of, of defending itself, as it should, and I hope they do because it's so important to the freedom of the press. But this to me is a president who I think doesn't understand the importance of the press. You may not like what they have to say, but that's part of what it means to be in a democracy. And if you weren't planning on being attacked and held up to ridicule and to be second guessed, then you know what? Don't run for office. That's sort of part of the process. And so I think this is a case that, you know, let's keep an eye on it. But I think, as you keep on saying, the idea that Donald Trump will sit down for a deposition in this case is one that seems fanciful.
- [43:42]
Lawrence O'Donnell
He'll drop the case. If it ever gets to the point where he has to show up for a deposition, he'll just drop the case.
- [43:48]
Andrew Weissman
Yeah, I mean, you know, we have seen already that when he is deposed, it has not gone well. You know, just ask E. Jean Carroll and the jury that was played his deposition, you know, where there were many, many damning statements that he made. And so I don't see that actually happening here. But again, to keep our eye on the sort of big picture, it is done to chill. But not just the New York Times, but other papers without those resources, thinking, and that's the reason to do this kind of tactic is to have that kind of chilling effect.
- [44:24]
Lawrence O'Donnell
Andrew Weissman, thank you very much for joining us tonight. And tonight's last word about Robert Redford is next. Today, Amanda Kelso, the acting CEO of the Sundance Institute, created by Robert Redford, issued this Dear friends, today is a sad day for the Sundance Institute community. Our founder, mentor and friend, Robert Redford has passed away. Bob's vision launched a movement that over four decades later has inspired generations of artists and redefined cinema in the United States and around the world. The vibrant storytelling landscape we cherish today, both as artists and audiences, is unimaginable without his passionate drive and principled leadership. Beyond Bob's enormous contributions to culture at large, we will miss his generosity, clarity of purpose, rebellious spirit, and his love for the creative process. Robert Redford was 89 years old.
- [45:53]
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