Watch Rachel Maddow Highlights: Jan. 30

Jeffrey Berman was the federal prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan while all of this was going on, and Jeffrey Berman was technically recused from directly overseeing this case, the hush money case, because he had been part of the Trump campaign before being named prosecutor. federal prosecutor and thought it might have seemed like a conflict of interest since the case involved allegations of campaign spending fraud, so he was technically recused from overseeing the case, but he was in charge of the U.S. attorney's office when this case came to fruition. the courts and in his book.

In this book, which follows the line that Jeffrey Berman published about his time as a federal prosecutor at sdny, he explains in detail that the top judge under Trump contacted sdny and intervened with the prosecutor's office in Manhattan to protect Trump. In this case, he says it explicitly. from page 24 of Jeff Berman's book quotes the first time the Maine Justice interfered I'm sorry, although I wasn't overseeing the Cohen case, I still had to deal with other issues related to it, all of them stemming from the same Source, the Chief Justice and his attempts to interfere with the The first time the Maine Justice interfered was when the information was being finalized.

Information is a term of art in this context after Michael Cohen agreed to plead guilty. The indictment against him became an information rather than an accusation, so that was the title of the document Berman presented. referring to here was information that was around 40 pages long, it says and cited a person identified as an individual who had acted in concert with Michael Cohen, it says quote, there was no doubt about the identity of the individual, it was Donald J. Trump Berman says the quote is consistent with Department of Justice guidelines: We first sent the information to Maine Justice's Public Integrity section, they approved it, then we sent a copy to the deputy attorney general at the time, Rod Rosenstein, informing him that the Cohen's guilty move was imminent next time.

The day the prosecutor in my office who was overseeing the case received a call from Deputy Chief Scientist Rosen, he was aggressive about why he wanted to know how much he wanted to know and argued that now that Cohen is pleading guilty we don't need this whole description of the crime. The prosecutor answered what exactly he is worried about. President Rosenstein's deputy proceeded to identify specific allegations that he wanted removed from the information. Almost all of them were items that referenced an individual quote from Donald J. Trump. It quickly became apparent that it was not the overall length or detail of the document that concerned him, it was some mention of an individual.

The two men went over a handful of these accusations, some of which the prosecutor agreed to cross out, others did not recognize the now revised document 21 Pages recalls that it had now started as 40 Pages 21 Pages maintained all of the charges to which Cohen pleaded guilty, but removed certain allegations, including those that Individual 1 acted in concert and coordinated with Cohen on illegal campaign contributions. Berman goes on to describe how Trump-appointed Attorney General William Barr personally intervened in the hush money investigation. I also later quote that while Cohen had pleaded guilty, our office continued to conduct investigations related to potential campaign finance violations when Barr Taking over as attorney general in February 2019, six months after Cohen pleaded guilty, Barr not only attempted to end the ongoing prosecution. investigations, but incredibly suggested that Michael Cohen's conviction on campaign finance charges could be retroactively overturned.

Barr summoned the prosecutor leading the hush money case in late February, so this is one of the first things Barr does when he becomes attorney general; he only becomes attorney general in February. before the end of that month he summons the lead prosecutor in the hush money case to question the basis for Cohen's guilty plea as well as the reasoning behind bringing similar campaign finance charges against other people, the prosecutor was told. to cease all investigative work on the case. campaign finance allegations until Maine Justice's legal counsel office determined whether there was a legal basis for the campaign finance charges to which Cohen pleaded guilty and until Barr determined there was sufficient federal interest in bringing charges against others , the directive given by Barr the prosecutor, which was amplified that same day by a follow-up phone call, was explicit, not a single investigative step could be taken, not a single document in our possession could be reviewed until it was resolve the problem and, if the Maine Justice decided that there was no legal basis.

For the Cohen charges, the United States Attorney General would order us to dismiss the guilty pleas of Michael Cohen, the man who implicated the Attorney General's boss, Chairman Furman closes with this, he says, I have tried not to make assumptions about the motivations. Barr or anyone else, I'm a trained lawyer, for that matter, but Barr's stance here raises obvious questions. Did he think dropping the campaign finance charges would bolster Trump's defense against impeachment charges? Was he trying to make sure that no other Trump associates or employees were accused of making hush payments to perhaps betray the president, was it part of an effort to undo the entire series of investigations and prosecutions over the past two years of those in the orbit of the president, people like Michael Cohen, Roger Stone and Michael Flynn Berman, says quote The goal was to ensure that the president himself could not be impeached after leaving office.

Jeffrey Berman then goes on to explain in his book that Barr later tried to take the whole hush money case out of sdny, get it out of his office and give it to him. to another U.S. attorney, Berman apparently successfully blocked that effort by Barr. Berman also explains that the standoff between his prosecutor's office and Maine Justice dragged on for months, while Maine Justice explicitly prohibited some federal prosecutors from examining a single document or taking a single investigative step of any kind, well, this guy, Michael Cohen , is sentenced to prison even though that same prosecutor's office had named another person with whom Michael Cohen committed this crime and therefore, no, they never charged that other person, they never charged Trump even though they concluded and they told the court. that he had committed the crime with Cohen, never accused him, never tried to accuse him, never tried to accuse anyone else and then it got worse because New York Times reporters William Rashbaum and Ben Protestas reported in the New York Times in August 2019 that, in addition from effectively botching this as a federal case and a federal prosecution Federal prosecutors in sdny also blocked anyone else from pursuing this case, whether I mean making illegal campaign expenses, whether or not they lie about on his company's books by calling it legal expenses, making illegal campaign expenses is a crime in every state, as well as a federal crime, and New York state prosecutors were interested when the details of this became known. crime, when Michael Cohen began telling Congress and the public what he had been involved in with New York state prosecutors. were interested in bringing possible state charges related to this crime, but as William Rashbaum and Ben Protesta reported in the New York Times quote, the New York District Attorney's Office initially considered mounting an investigation in 2018, but the office it halted that effort at the request of federal prosecutors.

So federal prosecutors are exploited by the Trump Justice Department, by Maine justice under Trump, even for just bringing a case against Michael Cohen. They are ordered not to investigate anyone else for these crimes. They are threatened that even Cohen will also be fired despite the fact. that he pleaded guilty to the federal prosecutors in the face of that pressure and simultaneously they tell the state prosecutors that they can't see the case either, you can't see this either, in reality, this is, it's the feds and us. We're handling this, yes, the feds weren't handling this, at least they weren't handling this well, but while they were screwing it up, they were impeding other prosecutors who could have carried it out on their own terms without pressure from the Main Court and that brings us to today's news.

This is finally starting to become clearer for us as a country, to finally start to get out of the mess that President Donald Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr made of American law, particularly when it comes to public corruption, these things don't just go away in the , create a precedent, undermine the integrity and basic functions of the US Department of Justice and unless and until they are fixed or corrected, it simply rots the system, these things cannot be left up in the air, there are to even tie them. If federal prosecutors are not going to do it themselves, someone will have to do it and today New York Times journalist William Rashbaum and his colleagues at the time were forced to report that New York state prosecutors as of today have began presenting evidence to a grand jury. related to this case and this time it's not about Michael Cohen, this time it's finally about Trump's quote, the Manhattan district attorney's office today began presenting evidence to a grand jury about the role of Donald J.

Trump in paying hush money to a porn star during his 2016 presidential campaign laying the groundwork for possible criminal charges against the former president the grand jury was recently empaneled the beginning of witness testimony today represents a clear sign that the District Attorney Elven Bragg is close to making a decision on whether to charge Trump. This has been a strange Saga, this has been an on-and-off criminal case, in essence, it is a simple crime, it is a very understandable crime, one in which the The evidence is really clear and for years I want to say that we have been seven years since the crime. five years since people started going to prison for it, for years people have been doing backflips to make sure there are no charges or consequences for the guy who prosecutors say committed the crime and who is the only one The person who benefited from it for the purpose of this crime was to help Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

He became president, which apparently gives you carte blanche to not be handcuffed for four years while you occupy the Oval Office, but not after it doesn't last once you get out. once you leave the Oval Office you are supposed to go back to being the kind of person who is not allowed to be caught committing crimes without having to pay. It's taken all these years. I'm happy to say Stormy Daniels is fine, he's better than fine, but we're about to find out if we can say the same about the rule of law and the justice system, which they really screwed up during his tenure.

Her name is Galena Timchenko. She was the editor-in-chief of a Russian news website called lintaroo and she was very good at that job, which is why she was ultimately fired from that job in 2014, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine and Crimea in 2014. Goleta Timchenko was fired from Lenturu after under her leadership Lentenru published an interview with the Ukrainian leader that criticized the Kremlin uh in response to her dismissal, more than 60 of Timchenko's grassroots journalists published a statement of protest on the newspaper's website and then everyone followed her. They all left the door in protest of her dismissal. 60 of them Galena Timchenko and her former team from Lenteru decided that they would build their own site, a new independent news organization, news written in Russian for the Russian people and decided to call themselves.

Medusa, their motto is news, which makes sense once you know the history of why they were founded. Medusa decided that they would establish their headquarters not within Russia but next to Latvia, hoping that this would make it more difficult for the Russian government to meddle. their operations or to pry into their finances, they posted Medusa content on their website, which is Medusa meduza dot IO, that's their website, but they also posted it on an app that's a little harder for the Kremlin to block, and it worked. in Medusa for which he worked. Anyway, for a time in 2021, Russia labeled Medusa a foreign agent.

That label was designed to scare away and threaten anyone who might advertise on Medusa, and it had the desired effect: it made it nearly impossible for Medusa to play paying her bills through it, although and and at great personal risk, Medusa journalists and its editors somehow managed to stay afloat, but even more than that, they actually managed to succeed. Medusa is the most read independent news source in the Russian language, which of course brings us to the moment the Kremlin has now. gave another blow, a big blow to Medusa, labeling them no longer just asa foreign agent but is now what the Kremlin calls a rogue organization that effectively bans the very existence of Medusa within Russia, meaning anyone within Russia who visits the Medusa website, anyone who likes or interacts with any content of Medusa's social networks, anyone who tries to share a link to one of its articles could be imprisoned for that in Russia, the designation that the Kremlin just gave to this news organization gives authorities the power to imprison anyone who try to give money to Medusa or imprison anyone, even if you agree to talk to them for an interview, since it is not clear how Medusa will continue to do her job, they say they will keep trying, they say they will keep trying and then some of the Medusa staff just issue this public letter. to your readers I only want to read you a part they say quote we would like to tell you that our new undesirable state does not worry us that it does not mean anything but that would not be true we are afraid we fear for our readers and For those of us who have collaborated with Medusa for many years, we fear for our loved ones and our friends, but we believe in what we do.

We believe in freedom of expression and we believe in a democratic Russia the greater the pressure against us and our values, the stronger we will resist foreigners. -u-z-a Medusa dot IO you can find them online right now, we don't know how long they will be there but they are fighting aliens