Adam Entous

Adam Entous, national security reporter for The Washington Post. Entous was one of the first reporters to break the news that Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner wanted to set up a secret back channel communication between Trump and the Kremlin. According to the Post, Russia’s ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak told his superiors about Kushner’s proposal.  The proposal happened in a meeting with Kislyak in December of last year which Michael Flynn also attended. The FBI has considered the meeting, along with a separate meeting with Russian banker, Sergey Gorkov, of interest to them. Later Reuters reported that there were at least 18 known contacts between Trump and the Kremlin before the election.. Terrorism analyst, Malcolm Nance said this is what the intelligence community calls "covert communications" and it would be considered espionage.   Former acting CIA Director John McLaughlin also said this would be espionage. Former House Intelligence Committee staffer, Mieke Eoyang made the point that these kinds of leaks are coming from U.S. intelligence agencies because they could possibly be worried about people inside the Trump administration deleting evidence

Ben Jacobs

Ben Jacobs reporter for The Guardian. Jacobs became the story when he was assaulted by Trump-backed republican congressional candidate for Montana’s house seat, Greg Gianforte. When Jacobs asked him about the CBO score given to Donald Trump’s health care plan which would kick 23 million people off of their health insurance Gianforte grabbed him by the neck and threw him to the ground according to witnesses at the scene. In an audio recording of the assault Giamforte can be heard saying to Jacobs, “I’m sick and tired of you guys! The last guy that came in here, you did the same thing! Get the hell out of here!” Jacobs reported the assault to authorities however Gianforte wasn't arrested at the scene. As it turns out the Gallatin County Sheriff, Brian Gootkin who was overseeing the assault is a supporter of Gianforte’s who gave $250 to his campaign. It was only later that Gianforte was finally charged with misdemeanor assault.

Gianforte  released a statement accusing Jacobs of assault and called him a “liberal journalist.” The narrative on the right is that it shouldn’t be illegal or wrong to assault a person if they are liberal. Tonight Gianforte won the election despite the assault charge. In normal times breaking the law would be disqualifying for any political candidate. But in the Trump-era America’s standards have sunk so low that this type of behavior has not only become normalized, it’s celebrated on the right. 

Devlin Barrett

Devlin Barrett, national security reporter for The Washington Post. Barrett was one of the first reporters to break the news that an unnamed senior White House adviser close to Donald Trump is under scrutiny by the FBI's probe of Trump's ties to Russia. Barrett appeared on Maddow to discuss the new reporting. The unnamed adviser is rumored to be Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

Neal Katyal

A special counsel was finally announced for the investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia. It will be headed by former F.B.I. director, Robert Mueller. Former U.S. Solicitor General, Neal Katyal helped draft the special counsel regulations. In a more recent interview on Maddow, Katyal discussed some of the ways Trump could possibly try to sabotage the investigation and derail the special counsel.

Michael S. Schmidt

Michael S. Schmidt, Washington Reporter for The New York Times. Schmidt was first to break the news that Trump asked F.B.I. director, James Comey, to shut down the federal investigation of Mike Flynn.

Buried in the story: Trump said to Comey that he should consider putting reporters in prison.

Meanwhile it’s been revealed that the intelligence Trump leaked to the Russians was from Israel. 

Greg Jaffe

Greg Jaffe, Washington, D.C. Reporter for the Washington Post. Jaffe was one of the reporters who broke the news that Donald Trump leaked highly classified intelligence to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in the Oval Office. When Jaffe appeared on Rachel Maddow discussing how he wrote the story without divulging the sensitive information to the public I just wanted to hug him. The White House completely denied the story and later Trump admitted it claiming he had the "absolute right" to leak classified intelligence to Russia.

James Comey

Donald Trump fired FBI director, James Comey, who was investigating him for collusion with Russia. Trump then threatened Comey on twitter saying he would release tapes of conversations they had if Comey leaked anything to the press.

Clint Watts

Clint Watts, former FBI special agent. Watts recently spoke with Rachel Maddow about his testimony in an open hearing before the U.S. Senate concerning the links between the Donald Trump campaign and Russia.

Jane Mayer

Jane Mayer, staff writer for The New Yorker,  Mayer recently wrote this outstandingly fascinating article about Donald Trump's elusive dark money donors.

Steve Reilly

Steve Reilly, one of the investigative reporters for USA Today who exhaustively tracked down every property owned by Donald Trump's companies exposing his conflict of interest for America.