after this eventful day. michael flynn is now a felon. he pleads guilty to the fbi as the russia investigation reaches inside the trump west wing. jared kushner was the very senior member of the transition directing flynn to contact russia. >> also tonight, a west wing taken by surprise. and what this means for donald trump. what stories does flynn have to tell to avoid decades in jay. the 11th hour on a friday night begins now. good evening, once again, day 316 of the trump administration, it's one that will be remembered in history, it's the day president trump's former national security adviser, one of his first real allies in the game, publicly turned on him and agreed to cooperate in the mueller investigation.

mike flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi. he walked out of that same course a convicted felon a sign in the crowd today that red lock him up mueller's first conviction against someone who worked inside trump's white house. the plea agreement stems from phone conversations, flynn had with russian ambassador sergei kislyak. after the election, but before president trump took office. he lied to fbi agents who interviewed him about those conversations, through this process, there may have been many questions about whether flynn was ordered to make those phone calls or did so on his own. flynn had contacted the russians at the urging of two top transition officials.

three people familiar with the matter say one of the people referenced in the document is jared kushner. the other is k.t. mcfarland who served as deputy security adviser from january to may. here's how the president answered kristen welker's questions about whether he was involved. this goes two days back after flynn was fired. >> did you direct mike flynn to discuss sanctions with -- >> no, i didn't. >> 3r50ir to your inauguration. >> no, i didn't. >> wouldn't you have fired him if the information hadn't leaked out. >> i fired him because of what he said to mike pence. he was doing his job. he was calling counterparts. i would have directed him to do it if i thought he wasn't doing it. i doesn't direct him, but i would have directed him if he didn't do it, okay?

>> flynn released a statement saying, i recognize that the actions i acknowledged in court today were wrong, and through my faith in god, i'm working to set things right, my guilty plea and agreement to cooperate with the special council's office reflect a decision i made in the best interest of my family and our country. about his family, flynn's son was also the subject of the russia investigation. washington post now reports, as part of flynn's negotiations, michael g. flynn is not expected to be charged. so far we have not heard publicly from the president about this flynn deal. a source told nbc news the trump administration was blindsided by the news of flynn's plea deal. ty cobb released a statement

saying today michael flynn and a former obama administration official entered a guilty plea to a single count of making a false statement to the fbi nothing about the guilty plea or the charge indicates anyone other than mr. flynn. you may recall the obama administration fired mike flynn and president obama warned the incoming trump administration about hiring mike flynn. let's get to our leadoff panel on a friday night. julia ainsley has had a long day. matthew miller, former chief spokesperson for the justice department. and chuck rosenburg is back with us. former federal prosecutor, former u.s. attorney who worked on the staffs of robert mueller and james comey. julia, this was not necessarily a surprise.

but still stunning to watch talk about the impact of what we witnessed today. >> we got a lot more than we thought we might get from this. >> they did not have to give us a statement of offense and give all the details they did. they could have simply said he was pleading guilty to this one charge of lying to the nib and left it at that. these documents are clearly a warning shot to the trump administration, because they're naming senior and very senior transition officials that worked with jared kushner. this is a warning shot to them now, they have flynn who's willing to cooperate and turn on these people he worked with, to explain exactly who directed him to make these calls. we know that kushner was definitely behind the december 22nd call that flynn made to kislyak about the u.n. resolution.

>> what does being a convicted felon mean for mike flynn. and what does it mean to have this convicted felon on board if you're mueller? >> lots of times, federal prosecutors work with convicted felons. they investigate them, charge them, plead guilty or are convicted at trial, and they provide what they know about others. there's nothing unusual about having a convicted felling cooperating with investigators, happens all the time. what does it mean for mike flynn? it's not good, it's going to affect him for the rest of his life. he runs the risk of losing certain rights. not a good thing, but as he said in his own statement, it's an opportunity now for him to make things right.

>>. >> our friend chuck todd reminded us that donald trump went through three different campaign managers. flynn was one of the absolute constant's, how does that color this case? >> i think it helps explain why donald trump remains so loyal to him for so long. even after he left the white house, he continued to be so loyal to him, he asked jim comey to back off the investigation. today we got a clue as to why the president might have done that. did he do it because he thought flynn was a good guy as he told jim comey? or did he do it to cover something up. when mike flynn lied to the fbi, he wasn't just covering up his own actions, he wasn't acting at his own vow lace. he was doing that at the direction of the transition

team. you don't usually get direction from your deputy. i think it's a reasonable assumption, he was probably acting at the direction of the president when he called sergei kislyak. >> that will get sorted out. >> julia, i want to read you something from the editorial board of the new york times tonight, and just for clarification, for our viewers, it's not the news coverage side of the new york times, this is the institutional voice of the new york times, it's hard to find a precedent for how quickly mr. trump's inner circle has become consumed with scandal. he demanded loyalty from people to whom he gave nothing in return. he is not used to being on the short end of that deal. julia, i guess my question is, doesn't today mean there will now be more people who bump up against that kind of loyalty

test? >> of course, yes, we know, especially from president trump's conversations with jim comey, he's someone that demands loyalty, i've been looking back at this time line today, and it looks like president trump does not extend that same loyalty back at all. if you think about how he seemed to be defending michael flynn in those public statements saying, he was doing his job, he's a good guy, at the same time, the administration and the president specifically were throwing michael flynn under the bus they knew from this document we can tell that he was making those calls, they directed him to do so. and then they just stepped back and said, oh, he didn't tell the truth to the vice president. that loyalty was not extended back to michael flynn. now, michael flynn is not repaying it. >> just to underscore the stakes for flynn. today means he's a wholly owned subsidiary of team mueller, that

he must answer everything and that he best not forget even a tiny detail. if we come to the end of this, and he leaves something out, and they voitd his deal, he's looking at a whole lot of years behind bars, correct? >> correct. potentially correct. and let me explain why i say potentially, brian. nords to establish that he breached his plea agreement. he wasn't truthful, forthcoming, the prosecutors would need to go in front of a judge and prove thatpreupon -- preponderance of the evidence. that's not normal. you should expect two things, he will try his darnedest to help them and helping them means not making stuff up, it means being truthful, the prosecutors want

exactly that, they don't want to breach this plea agreement. they don't want to charge him with other stuff. they've reached a bargain they think is fair and they want him to fulfill his part of it. >> i want to play you a rather famous exchange. early on in the administratioad this is julie pace, who was then associated press, white house bureau chief now running their washington bureau. in an exchange with president trump. >> i was hoping we could get a yes or no answer on one of these questions involving russia. can you say whether you are aware that anyone who advised your campaign had any contacts with russia? >> well, i told you general flynn was dealing -- but he was dealing as he should have been. >> during the election? >> no, no. >> you're not aware of any contact

contacts -- >> how many times do i have to answer this question. russia is a ruse. russia is a ruse. >> how does that exchange seem now in the light of day? >> we already know that answer doesn't hold up, his son, the president's son, the son in law, campaign manager had this meeting at trump tower with the russian lawyer back in june of 2016, where they knew, before they took the meeting it was on behalf of the russian government. we know that paul manafort seems to be picked up on intercepts, that answer has already fallen apart. what we look at now, we got a lot more information than we expected in the documents that mueller put out today, we didn't get nearly everything that he knows from mike flynn. mike flynn's been talking to him

now explaining what he knows about what happened in 2016, what happened with any contacts with russia, and what he might have told the president, either then or during the transition, while he was in the white house. bob mueller has all that information now. we don't know it. we're going to find out if the president's answer was untruthful, if there are more damning contacts that are yet to come to light. >> briefly walk us through and be gentle for those of us who haven't covered every twist and turn. what flynn's vulnerabilities are on the subject of turkey? >> of course, brian, i'm glad you asked about this. i've gotten a lot of questions, why did we hear so much about flynn's involvement with turkey? >> we know that flynn, when he was head of the flynn intel group, worked on behalf of the turkish government, he at first said he was working for an

earner mediary, didn't understand it was part of the turkish government. later, probably a little too late, he filed he was lobbying on behalf of a turkish government. turkey's main goals was the extradition of the main rival, who was a muslim cleric living in the poconos. we have reported even as far as the presidential transition, mueller was looking into meetings that flynn had with turkish officials where they wanted to bribe him to use his position inside the white house to push for goulin's removal. we know these are cards that mueller has in his hands, we know that he's interviewed dozens of witnesses, related to fling's work on turkey.

it's easily something that could come up or be used going-forward. >> we can't thank you enough for boiling down a complicated day for us at the end of that day. our thanks for being with us. up next as we approach our first break, what does today's bombshell news mean legally now for the president and his inner circle? what must life be like inside the white house, say tonight? as the president waits for mueller's next move? the 11th hour, we're just getting started on a business friday night.

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you never know about an ally. an ally can turn. you're going to find that out. >> an ally can turning. michael flynn was part of donald trump's traveling circle from the campaign to the transition and the early days of the administration. flynn's guilty plea makes him a dangerous man. in march, when flynn was trying to work out an immunity deal, with congressional investigators, you may recall his attorney said, general flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit. that was a rare public plea. the story could have serious implications for the president and the white house. here with us to talk about it further, joyce vance who spent 25 years as a federal

prosecutor. we're happy as well to be joined by saul wisen berg. independent counsel for the whitewater/lewinsky investigation. i'll give you a double. why did flynn lie about the things he lied about and why was donald trump so adamant about defending him? >> it's really hard to know the answer to that. i think bob mueller knows the answer to that now. for us it may take longer. here is a plausible theory. flynn clearly wasn't lying to cover up the logan act. the 200--year-old statute that makes it illegal for a private citizen to negotiate. the seems more reasonable the special counsel house investigating that it has something to do with campaign contact with russia which would be a much cleaner federal violation, a violation of federal campaign law and that the president's engagement is a result of the violation and desire to keep it from becoming

public. that's of course speculative but plausible based on the evidence that's come to light and intensity that the special counsel operation put on this particular situation. >> saul, given some of the spin from the president's team, when civilians tonight catch up with what's happened today, and hear it's one charge and it sounds pretty benign and minor, how do you explain that it's one innocuous looking charge? >> it is one innocuous charge. muller kept a tight lid on any leaking so there may be all kinds of things going on that we don't know about but joy said something very, very important. two things very important.

number one, this talk about the logan act is ridiculous. nobody is going to be indicted under the logan act and if they are, mueller should be fired. number one. number two there is nothing in the statement of the offense which is the key document or the criminal information or the plea agreement about collusion during the campaign. that is important because under the plea agreement, flynn is protected from future prosecution only for things covered in the statement of the offense. statement of the offense doesn't mean campaign collusion. doesn't mention campaign collusion. so that means one of two things. number one it means flynn knows absolutely nothing about campaign collusion or has given

mueller nothing of importance about campaign collusion. or number two, there's -- which would be very unusual, but that there is a second sealed standalone plea agreement with flynn that gets into that issue. it's really, really intriguing to me. >> joyce, quickly help me out. i'm trying to get to the nub of this. they pick a charge, something that will stick to charge him for a lesser matter, correct? >> i think that's right. the charge that's filed against flynn in this information is 18 u.s. code 1,001 referred to making a false statement to a federal investigator. prosecutors like to use that as a plea bargain charge for a defendant who has a lot more substantive conduct that could be charged -- >> okay. >> because there is a five-year cap so it produces a shorter sentence. >> a lot of viewers, joyce, have been interested today in the president's power to pardon. does it affect this now?

can a pardon stop or prevent testimony that has been compelled or subpoenaed? can a pardon just let flynn off the hook as a felon? >> i think after this plea agreement, it would be difficult both legally and politically for the president to proceed with a pardon. >> who needs to worry next because today happened as it did? >> well, it's not totally clear but there are two particular individuals who are mentioned in this statement of the offense, the people that presumably knew about and/or directed flynn to make the approaches to the russians and to other foreign governments. the question that joyce pointed out is what offense did they commit? it's not clear that they or flynn actually committed any underlying offense. so it's certainly may be embarrassing to be involved in

those communications, but it's again, unclear exactly who flynn's ultimate victim target that could be as a result of this. >> and joyce, last word to you, do you still agree with the phraseology we've heard from a couple people, the muller investigation is quote just getting started? >> i think that's right. it is certainly at the end of the startup phase but looks like they built up ahead of steam and ready to plow on forward to whatever the ultimate conclusion is. >> counselors, i can't thank you enough for coming on tonight. joyce vance, sol wisen berg, thank you both. coming up tonight, the white house was blindsided by today's news on michael flynn. more on life inside the west wing when we continue. all the time,

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that. >> lock her up! lock her up! lock her up! >> and you know why? and you know why we're saying that? we're saying that because if i, a guy who knows this business, if i did a tenth, a tenth of what she did, i would be in jail today. >> well, that was then. two summers ago at the gop convention, that man is now a convicted felon and this is now president trump has so far been silent. he met in the oval office today with the visiting libyan prime minister. typically for these meetings with foreign leaders, the news media is allowed in to see and speak to both leaders. today's media availability was cancelled as we have reported sources close to the white house are telling nbc news the administration was blindsided by this announcement. others are reporting that tonight as well. "the new york times" says that while most of washington expected an indictment, quote, the announcement on friday still hit the white house like a

thunder cloud. the president's legal team had no advance warning. his chief of staff john f. kelly learned about it from television. he called mr. trump in the residence portion of the white house to let him know he would be hearing about a flynn plea deal soon. the president's reaction is that mr. flynn quote is in a lot of trouble. with us tonight, two reporter whose cover that place every day. darlene superville, and shannon pettypiece white house reporter for bloomberg. shannon, the polite way to ask this, do we expect a twitter counter over the weekend? >> i personally don't because the president's lawyers seem to have been incredibly effective at getting him to retrain from tweeting about anything having to do with muller and the russia investigation. if you look back through the tweets over the past months, despite everything that's gone on in his tweeter feed. the one area you've seen him show restraint is in the russia

investigation in attacking mueller, and his lawyers have convinced him, hang in there, this is wrapping to a close. they said publicly things will be wrapping up early 2018. there is nothing wrong. nothing to do here. if they continue to be successful at restraining him, i do not expect a twitter rant in the morning. >> we'll talk to you monday. darlene, you cover this every day. can you remind the folks watching tonight how many of the president's troubles have been self-inflicted? for example, what of today was the result of self-inflicted wounds? >> well, after today, after learning about mike flynn's guilty plea, i count help but remember earlier last year after donald trump was elected and came to the white house to meet with president obama, sometime after that, we learned president obama warned donald trump about mike flynn and so the thought

immediately is does the president today regret not taking president obama's advice about mike fwlin? if he had taken the advice and not made michael flynn his national security adviser, we would be talking about something else today. that also harkins back to the president's decision to fire james comey from the fbi. there's widespread believe had the president not fired james comey, there would not be a special council investigation into his campaign's dealings with russia. >> shannon, all these reports out there tonight including our own about how this was a thunder clap, this was a surprise in that west wing, devils advocate side of that question, how could it have been? a lot of news organizations have been preparing their mike flynn packages of coverage in anticipation. >> absolutely. everyone knew -- not everyone. a lot of people close to the president certainly knew flynn

was in trouble. they expected an indictment. what was in it, financial crimes and false statements and knew he was cooperating recently when he called off the defense agreement. so those things we knew. the timing was a surprise. mueller does not call the white house and give them a heads up on these things. so the timing was a surprise. they did have to find out about it from tv news and the guilty plea element was a surprise. i would also say that muller is so crafty at laying these little nuggets throughout the court filings. the very senior white house official, the senior white house official, these little bread crumbs that catch everybody off guard we've seen now with manafort and flynn. >> chris matthews tonight said it was like a beautifully choreographed ballet. darlene, i hope you have a monitor where you are.

our graphics department has been shoveling a lot of coal tonight and put together a reminder of what we witnessed this week. monday trump uses a racial slur honoring native americans. democrats refuse to attend the tax bill meeting. north korea launches an icbm tuesday. wednesday, retweets an anti-muslim video. thursday rumors that he wants to replace tillerson made public. and of course, the other issue tonight is the vote taking place on the hill. darlene, we often see and again, not to make too much of the president's social media use but these are presidential statements now in 2017 and we often see a flurry of that prior to some anticipation bad news coming. >> that's right. and it's -- i think it's quite possible that over the weekend we could see him tweet about michael flynn. he's also traveling to new york city tomorrow to attend a series

of fundraisers and that's the audience where he would or he could and i would expect him to, i would be surprised if he didn't talk about the flynn situation and the russia investigation at large because we know just how much that investigation gets under his skin. >> i believe both events are closed to press coverage so if a tree falls in the woods, i guess we'll test that tomorrow. thank you both so much for being with us on a friday night at the end of another long week. coming up, there were a lot of good things on michael flynn's resume before trump made him national security advisor. we know the story from there. we will talk to a retired four-star general and a former ambassador to russia about all of it when we continue. e. she had so many children she had to buy lots of groceries. while she was shopping for organic fruits and veggies, burglars broke into her shoe. they stole her kids' mountain bikes and tablets along with her new juice press.

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appointed director of the defense intelligence agency under the obama administration. he was the white house national security advisor for 24 days and left a mark on the still young administration. with us tonight, someone that has known and known of general flynn for more than a decade, retired four-star u.s. army general, barry mccaffrey, decorated combat veteran of vietnam and msnbc military analyst 37 and we welcome back mike mcfall, ambassador during the obama administration. these days senior fellow at stanford. i'll start with you. you called general flynn the best intelligence officer of his generation. something i think you still hold

to if we set aside that time. you later, however, turned on him when his public uttering started to change and you said you feared he was demented. retired general mark hurtling who was i believe in the service said on television tonight, something is genuinely wrong with general flynn and demons got ahold of him. gentlemen, what do you think went wrong with general flynn? >> hard to say. first of all he clearly was one incredibly courageous effective intelligence officer. we oh a lot to him and general stan mccrystal. my guess is we would have had a dozen 9/11s if it wasn't for the special operations group this flynn is such an important part of. then he got into the defense intelligence agency, and i think he started to get target fixation. chasing the white wheel. he started to selectively select information. they thought he was a little off

his game. when he was fired he went into a dark zone. his behavior retweeting pizza gate with pedophile rings and basements and hillary clinton chanting at the rnc this was pretty nutty stuff. i think it's a sad day for mike flynn and then, of course, the subsequent behavior in the white house where it looks as if he was working on private business and public office, that starts to veer into clearly illegal behavior. >> ambassador, in your days since you were a diplomat, you have tried on this and other broadcasts to flush out this russia fascination, some people are convinced it's russian collusion. did that become any clearer for you today by what he's been charged with? >> yes and no.

yes at the question is there something bigger here? the answer is yes. remember what general flynn is being misleading about is rather surprising. brian, we talked about this way back when. why was he being so elusive. there must be some other reason for it, beyond the logan act which we talked about. there's got to be something bigger here. the second piece to that, we talked about other things that general flynn did with the russians and turks and other things. this was a very small piece today and very clearly special counsel muller made it clear they are talking about much bigger things that suggests that this is just the beginning of something much bigger, not the end of a process. >> general, when you read his statement, this is a guy who signed up to fight for his

country and did, saying now that he's going to do what's right for his country. do you think this is a guy capable of getting back on true north and truly serving the muller staff and rooting out what went wrong? >> i think part of the answer is yes. emphatically. add something i said at the time when general flynn was fired after his three-week stint. i worked directly with several advisors at the white house in three administrations. there is no way that he wasn't daily hourly reporting his contacts to the president of the united states. that's speculation. and i have evidence of that. but it would be ridiculous for him not to be doing that proudly, saying, look at the contacts i've gotten. i think at the end of the day,

we will see quite clearly it wasn't senior white house officials, it was more than likely directly with the president of the united states. >> okay. ambassador, let's agree we're without proof yet but do you concur based on your experience that he had at minimum air cover to be doing what he did and at most reporting back on a regular basis to the boss? >> again, it's speculation so you said that at the outset. i agree with general mccaffrey. i was part of the 2008 transition. i worked at the counsel for three years. you're not going to reach out to negotiate with ambassador kislyak about something quite sensitive without being in touch with the transition team. and i would speculate at the very top. now, i don't know that. but i remember our transition in 2008, we first of all, tried to avoid all contacts with all foreigners. we were focused on trying to get our team together. to the extent you're talking at all. talking points for the president, as he makes his

courtesy calls, that's something i did for president-elect obama. you're coordinating that with the very top. and that's why i just suspect we're going to learn more about exactly who was coordinating these interactions with ambassador kislyak. >> always so happy to talk to you both. thank you both so much, have a good weekend to both of you. up next, as we approach another break. a late live report on the down to the wire vote on a piece of legislation that will effect every american. and upon discovering handwritten notes in this huge tax bill, one senator's outrage that's getting a lot of attention tonight. >> i want you to take a look at this, folks, this is your government at work. can you tell me what that word is?

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it's the night where we're going to be voting on the tax bill. i just got the tax bill 25 minutes ago. this is the tax bill. see how thick it is? here's the bill as it's written. here's the modifications that are in it. i can read one word, it's called add this language. can you tell me what that word is? if you can, you have better eyes than me. >> john tester expressing his frustration. as republicans race to bring their tax bill to a vote. democrats have complained they haven't had a chance to read the thing, which is almost 500 pages thick, and includes handwritten editions, this is the nation's business, folks. mitch mcconnell says republicans have the support to pass the

bill when the senate does vote. he means they have the math. correspondent garek haake is our man on the hill. a couple potential profiles in courage on the republican side, let's speak english here. got what they wanted and they're now yes votes. murkowski of alaska got what she wanted. they lost corker of tennessee, with the math, think can afford to lose him? >> it does sound like bob corker will be the one no vote here, he knew it this morning, i talked to him 9:30 this morning, he knew this was a bill they could pass without his vote, republicans still wanted him, he's still very much a respected figure in the republican caucus. a number of other senators said they hoped they could convince him to be part of this, and present a united front. corker himself said, this

evening he talked to the president and he talked to ivanka interrupt a couple times. he decided to stick to his deficit hawk credentials, and couldn't stomach the idea that this bill would add so much money to the deficit. he's likely to be the one republican no vote in what's otherwise going to be a straight party line split when they get around to actually votes on this bill sometime early this morning it looks like. >> what happens for the american people? >> the house and senate getting together to make their versions of this bill match, has a lot of unanswered questions. the two bills don't agree on how many tax brackets americans are going to have. the bottom line, the one unshakable part of this from the beginning has been the massive corporate tax cut part of it,

this is a corporate tax cut with individual -- stuff for american families attached to it as well, the president has said that 20% number can't change. a little while ago, one of the more interesting votes tonight. in the dozens and dozens of amendments that was considered, is an amendment by marco rubio and mike lee, let's add a little big. let's bring the business tax, something like 24%. so we can add a lot more money to the child tax credit. even that got voted down. when you put child tax credit on one side and your party sides with the corporate tax side of it, that's the key part that's going to come out of this bill. >> we showed mitch mcconnell on his phone. your government at work ladies and gentlemen. garek haake covering it well into the night. coming up after our final break, with everything else going on this week.

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speech that day in st. charles, missouri. using these last few minutes of the week, we wanted to make sure we bring it to you, or at least notable pieces of it. here are some of the points which the president made, which in fairness at times were in no particular order. >> i will tell you this in a nonbragadocios way. there's never been a 10-month president that has accomplished what we've accomplished. we have the greatest people. our country was not treated properly for a long time. we're treating it properly. we're treating it with love. and with this. we've got to treat it with this. we're going to have the wall.

some people say, failed on health care. we failed? what are you talking about, we failed. the people that like me best are those people, the workers. they're the people i understand the best, those are the people i grew up with, those are the people i worked on construction sites with. these massive tax cuts will be rocket fuel. little rock et man, he is a sick puppy. >> governor, i don't care what they say in missouri, we're going to keep winning and winning and winning. we're winning again. you don't say merry christmas any more. with trump as your president, we are going to be celebrating merry christmas again. and it's going to be done with a big, beautiful tax cut. thank you, everybody. god bless you. >> some of the highlights the

president on the road in missouri, this past week, helping us bring this week officially to an end. that is our broadcast on a fli night. thank you for being with us. have a good weekend. they were so happy at first, sharing a lover's perch high atop a cliff. but romance turned to danger. she fell from the edge, i would call this an accidental death opinion. >> was it? >> she said that, if anything happens to me, you'll know who did it. >> a mystery of nearly 20 years heads into court. and the husband is on the precipice. >> did you kill your wife jodi? >> i did not hurt jodi.