so there are sort of two big buckets mueller is looking at. one of them is obstruction, did the president try to obstruct the russia investigation. the other one is russian meddling in the election. in terms of the first bucket, comey is the central player in that. >> michael, did we lose you? >> i'm still here. can you hear me? >> let's talk about obstruction. today we have the news, first reported by axios, not confirmed by nbc news, but this idea that the white house, jeff sessions, are pressuring christopher wray, the now fbi director, to remove people inside the fbi. problems with some of that reporting, because andrew mccabe can't be fired. he is a career agent so he just can't be fired willy-nilly. there's got to be a cause there. but the "washington post" is confirming at least a portion of it saying that it does seem like this administration is trying to put pressure on the fbi director. we have seen it frankly publicly, michael, with the president's tweets saying andrew mccabe shouldn't be there. how much is that going to factor into

president trump did not fire mueller. mueller is still on the job. and -- >> that's not what has been alleged, stephanie. it's been alleged that he called for his firing, said i want him out, and that don mcgahn said, no, basically you're going to have to go through me if you want to fire him, i will resign. >> exactly. it was alleged. alleged. we don't know that for a fact. >> it's been independently confirmed. nbc news has confirmed it too. >> okay. well, a lot of these things have been independently confirmed and they end up having to be retracted and then we have all these news organizations apologizing for it. mueller is still on the job. if president trump had a private conversation, bouncing maybe these ideas, wondering if there was some sort of conflict with the mueller team, we know a lot of the mueller team had donated to the hillary clinton campaign, the full amount of donation than they possibly could. some of them were lifelong donors to the democrats. so there was question whether there was conflict. and we know one of the biggest scand

>> i don't think it matters whether it was mueller's investigators or mueller. from my reporting, i do not know whether mueller actually did the questioning himself. mueller typically comes in and will speak with the witnesses at different times. come in and talk to them, sit in on the questioning. i'm not sure how significant of a role mueller played in it. at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter. mueller's investigators are out there doing the interviews, collecting the information, sifting through things and figuring out what they're going to do. they're at the front lines of this. he can't, obviously, do everything. >> does sessions have an outside lawyer? >> yes. he has an outside lawyer. this long-time washington lawyer, chuck cooper, who has represented him since all these question came up over a year ago. mr. cooper is someone that has known mr. sessions for a long time. >> i know this is tricky, but i remember last week when steve bannon was speaking with members of congress, and there was this executive privilege. he could talk about things up

talking to mueller. the cnn learns that mike pompeo talked to the special counsel's team in the russia probe. and robert mueller will soon interview steve bannon. loyalty test. the white house isn't denying reports that the president tried to ask the top fbi official who he voted for. was it a loyalty test or a getting aquainted time? >> and starting all over again on immigration. can they reach a deal? and growing storm costly the special counsel look into the reported hush money payment to porn star stormy daniels following her alleged sexual relationship with donald trump? i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." >>> robert mueller's team has interviewed mike pompeo and will soon interview the chief strategist steve bannon about the firings of michael flynn and fbi director james comey as the russia investigation closes in on the oval office. our correspondents and specialists are standing by with full coverage. >>> this took place last year. the focus. questions were told by one source it is

robert mueller now knows from his witnesses that the president ordered don mccann to fire robert mueller. when they have an interview and mueller asks him, did you ask him to fire me, what does the president say? >> that's why the president is in a no win situation. whether he is under oath or just speaking to federal investigators not under oath, he has to tell the truth or he is subject to prosecution for making false statements. that's a federal felony. we also know that this president seems to be incapable of making statements that are consistent with what are known facts. he also doesn't know what evidence mueller and his people have from other witnesses present at those conversations or heard about them from others or may have seen documents that relate to this. so the president is going to be charging off going in some direction or another without knowing just how much trouble he is in with the statements he is likely to make. i think that's why he is in a no win situation. that's the situation he made for himself. he certainly has -- he can avoid a perjury trap as it's called by

he has no legal basis to fire mueller. there are specific regulations that govern mueller's conduct. the good cause that maggie reports on would not have cut it and rosen stesteen would have q. had the president not been sort of well-served by mcgann, he would be facing either respective indictment for obstruction of justice. a sitting president can be indicted or a referral for article of impeachment. i think this would have been a camel-breaking straw for even those republicans who are pretty much lined up in his favor at the moment. >> i just want to play, now that we have this new report from the "new york times," the president's friend, chris ruddy, the ceo of news max talking last june to pbs, the same month the "new york times" now reporting the president ordered mueller to be fired. let's play this. >> suggested, i think i heard you suggesting that there's a question about the purpose of his investigation. i want to ask you about that, because there are some republicans out there saying that robert mueller shouldn'

think about what mueller did. when i turned out the political opinions of these with particular political agents were expose in the texts, again, they're humans. they have opinions. what did mueller do? he immediately took they will off the investigation. which is probably exactly the right thing to do. but wolf, this is all part. and the famous house memo is just the latest and most dangerous installment of trying to save this president's bacon by damaging and throwing mouth a storied institutions. >> they are probe yg five months of text messages between those twoe individuals apparently have gone missing. do you have confidence the fbi ends up being fully transparent? >> i don't know. i have no way of knowing. we've seen a lot of these text messages. the fbi has produced a lot of text messages would indicate they're not trying to hide anything. it is hard to imagine. these people had opinions. they expressed them to each other. there's no scandal there. of course the right wing and republicans will do their bes

president, did you seek to fire robert mueller. >> fake news, folks. >> the plot to fire mueller. >> typical "new york times" fake stories. >> tonight new concerns the threat to the special counsel hasn't passed. and yet, one republican is backing off his plan to protect robert mueller and what all this means for the russia investigation. >> i haven't given it any thought. >> then. >> yeah, maybe donald trump wanted to fire the special counsel for conflict. does he not have the right to raise those questions. >> can trump tv sustain the president through his latest crisis. >> the president says it's fake news. what do you think? do you even care? >> the finance chief for the republican party faces new allegations of sexual

president, why did you fire robert mueller? why would you want to fire robert mueller? >> fake news, folks, fake news. typical "new york times" fake story. >> the report has been confirmed by nbc news, "the washington post," cnn, "the wall street journal," even fox news. it does raise troubling questions. is it obstruction or at least part of a pattern of obstruction to do what he did and where are republicans? hasn't the president crossed a line here? >> will trump try to do it again. if he was willing to before, why not now when it appears the investigation is sniffing close e er and closer to trump. then there's the question of honesty. if the reporting it true by multiple news organizations, president trump wasn't telling the truth, was he, when he said this last august. >> mr. president you thought about or considered leading to the dismissal of the special counsel. is there anything bob mueller could do that would accepted you in that direction? >> i've been reading about it from you people. i'm not dissing anybody. i want them to get on with the task. >> michael

president, why did you fire robert mueller? why would you want to fire robert mueller? >> fake news, folks, fake news. typical "new york times" fake story. >> the report has been confirmed by nbc news, "the washington post," cnn, "the wall street journal," even fox news. it does raise troubling questions. is it obstruction or at least part of a pattern of obstruction to do what he did and where are republicans? hasn't the president crossed a line here? >> will trump try to do it again. if he was willing to before, why not now when it appears the investigation is sniffing close er and closer to trump. then there's the question of honesty. if the reporting it true by multiple news organizations, president trump wasn't telling the truth, was he, when he said this last august. >> mr. president you thought about or considered leading to the dismissal of the special counsel. is there anything bob mueller could do that would accepted you in that direction? >> i've been reading about it from you people. i'm not dissing anybody. i want them to get on with the task. >> michael sc

i don't know where team mueller is on this. it would seem to me that at some point they would want to have a face-to-face interview with the president. trump's team talks about ronald reagan and what happened during iran contra, and ronald reagan gave written answers to questions during iran contra. so they clearly would like that to happen. i don't know if that's enough for mueller. >> jeffrey toobin, "the washington post" is reporting that mueller wants to question the president in the coming weeks, specifically about the firings of michael flynn, his former national security adviser, around former fbi director james comey. what does that tell you? >> well, that to me has always been the heart of the case. even more than collusion. collusion is not a crime. the president's supporters have been pointing that out from day one. there are possibly crimes associated with involvement between the trump campaign and russia. but it is difficult to shoehorn that behavior, whatever it might be, into the criminal horn. however, obstructi

why doesn't the president just fire mueller. here is what sarah sanders said. >> i think we all know what everybody in this room would do if the president did that. i don't think that's helpful to the process. >> oh, my, bianna, you're a journalist. she's saying part of the reason is because of how you guys, the press, would respond. >> we've been talking about this and speculating for months now as to whether he would or wouldn't fire mueller. i think a lot of people were surprised by hearing that mueller interviewed sessions and will be potentially interviewing the president in the next few weeks, how far along mueller has gone in this investigation and how many people he has actually interviewed, he and his prosecutors, over the past few months which maybe gives you a sense that mueller possibly thinks he's on borrowed time and wants to conclud ts sooner rather than later. >> the way, she may not be wrong. if the president did do it, there would be a reaction, but that's not the reason. >> she's certainly right there would be

he has no right to fire james comey or bob mueller. he's already fired comey, he said because the russia thing is nothing. but in fact, if he fires mueller, because he similarly wants to stop an investigation, or intimidate witnesses or withhold documents, that's obstruction of justice. and the excellent summary that you've just given makes for a credible case of obstruction of justice against the president of the united states. >> so if that is true, then what? i guess the question is what more -- given what we already know, what more do you need to know? >> the first point we need to know is that this investigation will be permitted to conclude with completeness and integrity. that is why we need the bipartisan legislation that i and others have introduced that will stop the president from firing robert mueller, and protect thein teg -- integrity of the investigation. and that is second. and number one, we need to have the evidence subpoenaed and produced to the special counsel and the judiciary committee, including donald trump and

mueller. and the under oath portion, robert mueller is an fbi agent. >> so it doesn't matter? >> you can't lie to an fbi when they're questioning you. >> can you cut a deal before you go into that interview that, you know, not just that it's not going to be under oath but that you aren't exposed to that kind of criminality? >> sure. i'm certain you could cut whatever -- there are a number of options in terms of cutting deals. i think for the president's sake, he's got to go in, and he's got to show the american people that he's telling the truth, that he did not obstruct justice in this matter. >> he didn't have corrupt intent. you both usehat term. always a safe assumption that i don't know what you mean. normsen, corrupt intent, what does that mean? >> corrupt intent means that you're doing something for a wrong purpose. it literally, when you instruct a jury, chris, the jury is told was the reason that the defendant committed the action evil, wrong, or bad? examples -- if president trump --

you might see some analysts saying that, you know, even wanting to fire mueller or if you fired mueller would be itself an act of obstruction, maybe, but i think what it does is bolsters a case of what was going through his mind when he fired james comey because even after comey he wanted this investigation to go away, even if he didn't ultimately fire mueller. >> one of the reasons he was so furious with the attorney general jeff sessions for recusing himself from the russia investigation which led to rod rosenstein hiring mueller to do this. we know the position of the white house from what another white house attorney john dowd said a few months ago, the president cannot obstruct justice because he is the president and dowd argues that is a protection from article 2 of the constitution. the constitution doesn't lay this out. this would have to go through the courts all the way up potentially to the supreme court, whether the president can obstruct justice. >> right, this say tricky area because what is happening is the quote/unquote bad act actually overlaps with something that he ot

wanted robert mueller to be fired here. this is something the white house cannot move beyond here as he tries to address business matters here at davos. the reality here for the last six or seven months, the white house has said it is not true. the president did not want to get rid of robert mueller. this, of course, is not the case. so the white house lawyers are not commenting on this. they are saying they are cooperating with the office of special counsel. the reality here now is this potential obstruction of justice investigation still going on here is centering more on that moment last june when the president, we are now reporting, and told wanted the firing of robert mueller. christine. >> bombshell. you are right. the russian investigation -- every development casting a long shadow to davos, switzerland. jeff zeleny, thank you. >> joining us on skype is senior analyst areeva martin. thank you for staying up late. a lot to discuss regarding the president's desire to fire the special counsel robert mueller. his counsel

it will just be mueller's team and the president. who is going to stop donald trump from saying 16 times as he did in a recent interview, there was no collusion. trump can eat up a lot of time by simply talking about what he wants to talk about. and that's why i think the duration of this testimony is going to be extremely important. if it's just an hour, if it's just two hours. the president could just talk for that long and mueller could wind up with virtually nothing. so i think the amount of time is going to be a very, very important part of this negotiation. >> i want to quickly go back to our senior white house correspondent, pamela brown, who was in this extraordinary exchange with the president and other white house correspondents just moments ago. what are you learning, pamela? >> right, just more about what the president said regarding robert mueller, his willingness to sit down and do an interview with him and he actually said to the reporters, i'm look iing forward to doing it actually. that is a direct quote from him. sa

trump has made only one comment regarding the reports about mueller. >> did you fire mueller? >> fake news, guys. typical fake news. >> but it is not fake news. cnn has learned he ordered mueller firing last june. it didn't happen because don mcgahn refused to tell the department to do so because he disagreed with trump. two sources tell cnn that mueller wants to interview trump specifically focusing on the firing of james comey and michael flynn. is mueller now building an obstruction of justice case against the president? we know, according to "the washington post" that mueller is looking specifically at a quote pattern of behavior on trump's part. a pattern that began very early in trump's presidency. let's take a look. february 13, 2017, flynn resigns admitting that he lied about his conversations with the then russian ambassador kislyak. the very next day trump means with then fbi director james comey. comey takes notes of the meeting and writes that trump said, quote, i hope you can see your way to letting this go, to letting flynn go. comey does not let it go. may 9th,

mueller. mr. mueller is a republican and someone of the greatest integrity that everyone agrees to. and let him destied the best method of the investigation. >> we are also reporting tonight fbi director, current fbi director christopher wray threatened to quit. have you ever asked wray about this? >> no, we have not asked wray about this. but we saw in the last day or so i think this information came out. that makes wray the second fbi, wray personally handpicked a.ee of president trump makes him second fbi director in a row to be pressured improperly by the president on personnel matters to get rid of people who are in convenient to the president who may tell truths the president doesn't want to. and he was, i notice that the report says he was pressured by attorney general sessions who was discussed to be recused by this. so this is more evidence of a concerted attempt by the administration to discredit and dis able the russian investigation. >> so the president by the way has come out and denied that wray threatened to quit. i'm not sure what it is. but he's denying it. here he

. >> why do you want to fire robert mueller? >> fake news, folks. fake news. >> "new york times" fake story, it's fake news, it's not true. the best we can ascertain is along the following narrative. we first started looking into this into the beginning of june, the newsmax ceo and a friend of president trump set on pbs about the president was "weighing" whether to fire robert mueller. i was told at the time that the president had a conversation with don mcgahn and other people in which the president said something to the effect of i have the authority to fire him, i can fire him if i want to but the conversation didn't go much further than that. in the last 24 hours, i've been doing some more digging and talk to a few more people who said the conversation likely bridged into the idea of should we think about getting rid of mueller and the president saying don mcgahn, could you go talk to rod rosenstein over at the justice department who is the person in charge of the special counsel and take his temperature on it to which don m

just as the trump firing let to mueller and the mueller firing would lead to somebody else. it's a practical matter for him to shut down the investigation. >> woodruff: the white house counsel saying i'm going to quit if you do this, other threats to resign from other up in justice as we know, there's a lot of clear disagreement, turmoil. what does all that say to you? >> it suggests it's very hard to work for president trump. chris ray, the f.b.i. director, this week threat topped resign. stories in the past about the attorney general and the deputy attorney general. the president is mercurial and engages in self-destructive actions and actions that violate norms that make it extremely difficult for people to work with him and the only leaf rang they have is to resign or threaten to resign. every instance so far the president's backed down and there's actually a somewhat happy story here in that despite the extraordinary attacks by the president, despite his attempts to impede the independence of the justice department and the f.b.i., they seem to have resisted so far. the

robert mueller was not fired, obviously. so in and of itself the act isn't grounds for obstruction or anything else. but could the intent, how does the intent tell you about the president's mind-set and might that seep in other parts of the investigation? >> well, first of all, you don't have to succeed in obstructing justice to obstruct justice. that he didn't ultimately fire mueller doesn't mean anything. in and of itself, it is a conclusive piece of evidence. it is one more piece in the puzzle as we try to discern what the president's motives, intent was. that is actually quite important because he does have the legal authority to fire government officials. and in this case it would be indirect. you would have to pressure somebody at doj to do it. but he can't do it corruptly. you would have to look at intent to see if he was trying to prevent himself from being further investigated. he certainly told us that was his intent in firing mueller -- comey. so this fits with that. he said i haven't even given getting rid of mue

i think the senate has been much more supportive of mueller. we have heard praise of mueller as fbi director in the past from the senate. however, in the house we have seen a lot of ans noimosity tow mueller. so it dependses what chamber there because there's a big differentiation there. and president trump tweeted last night, i offered daca and a 12-year pathway to citizenship. for two reasons, because the republicans want to fix the long-term terrible program to show that detectives do not want to be stalled daca. only viewed there. so what is going on here, kevin? >> this is a fascinating issue in the sense that 80%, think about this, 80% of the american people are on the side of d.r.e.a.m.ers. if you look at any poll, this is overwhelming support for d.r.e.a.m.ers. so look, we talk about republicans, we talk about the divide on them on the issue of the mueller probe, but we'll look at democrats for a second. i have interviewed several aids all week. just remember there was a government shutdown a couple days ago and they were frustr e frust

mueller is the one that's going to parse this. mueller is the one that's going to ask the appropriate questions. probably has asked the appropriate questions relative to it. and as we get closer and closer to the request for a discussion with the president, we'll see the facts continue to play out. >> if somebody tries to do something to impede an investigation into them and a criminal act, would you see that as obstruction of justice? >> well, they have to have criminal intent. you talked about -- you said it succinctly earlier. they have to have criminal intent. they have to corrupt intentions. >> right. they'd have to be doing it to disrupt that effort to bring them to justice, right? >> correct. correct. >> and that will be the question, and it is only one man's reckoning that we get of it, but it is the man. it's the president we're talking about. james schultz, i appreciate your mind on this matter, especially on a friday night. thank you for doing it. >>> so some lawmakers say mueller now especially needs to be protected fr

do we know what he might tell mueller? >> what i've been told is that the question eof the indication of the executive privilege is not something where bannon has been able to make decisions for himself. it's up to the white house whether or not to invoke privilege. so essentially, the standoff that we with saw today, even though it was between bannon himself and members and staffers of the intelligence committee, in reality was between the white house and members of the intelligence committee. perhaps a little overdramatic to say that bannon is a pawn in this situation. but he is not a character whose acting. he see not making the decisions about what he can and can't tell people. and that's why i this executive privilege question which again is something the white house invokes is such an important one. one person i spoke with pointed out to me that executive privilege, an important part of how executive privilege works is based on the constitutional separation of powers theory. the idea that the executive branch should

now close to mueller. there's a pattern of interference with the investigation, what he said to comey, what he said to coats, the national security adviser, what he says to sessions is a pattern of conduct. there's inconsistent versions of what's going on, inconsistent accounts. that connotes somebody trying to do something he shouldn't do. there's a pattern of conduct. but you know, it's interesting, mueller is quite right not wanting -- he wants to get to the bottom of this and not bringing charges until all the ducks are in a row. it is an enormous thing to make this accusation against a president and i think he wants to do it, he wants there to be, if there's anything with respect to the russian investigation, he wants those charges. if there's anything with respect to money laundering, he wants that. the best play here, the best charge here would be to obstruction of justice alongside other accusations. >> that is something a lot of people are talking about, what would happen if that was done in the a

remember, mueller has known about this for weeks. the real question is not obstruction because at this point, it seems clear that there was an attempt. why? let's keep our eye on that. why was trump willing to go by these extreme lengths to destroy and demolish the russia investigation. that's something he does not want mull tore find out and mueller probably does. >> matthew i'll take you back to the beat and repeat for the benefit afterwards the number of defiles about attempts to fire mueller. >> does the president commit to not firing robert mueller? >> the president has not even discussed that. the president is not discussing firing bob mueller. we are cooperating with -- he is not even discussed not -- he's not discussed firing bob mueller. >> is he going to rule out once and for all firing robert mueller. >> i'll address the second question first. the president said last week, i believe last week and several times before there is no intention or plan to make any changes in regards to the special counsel. >> is he setting the s

all the attention and energy is focused on the attention to fire mueller but what if it's not mueller he's after. >> listening to republican members talking about that encourage from my point of view fire rod rosenstein and put in place someone that will tell bob mueller privately you cannot look into these issues. you cannot follow the money. >> congressman adam schiff ranking member of the house intelligence committee on this program last month saying it would be even more evident to fire rosenstein than mueller. joining me is former acting general in 1999 when he worked under the justice department under eric holder. he helped write the very rules that allowed for the appointment of special counsels like robert muller and today has a new op ed in the washington post. a normal president would know not to try it. thank you for being here. appreciate you being here tonight. >> privilege to be with you, joy. >> let's talk about you wrote a couple points. the first point and i'll read a little bit, at this moment many wish for legal restrictions in the special counsel regulation that wo

if he fired mueller without cause. i mean, mueller's doing a good job. i have confidence in him to get to the bottom of all things russia. and don mcgahn, in the story is true in "the new york times" did the right thing. good news is the president listened. i know this, mueller should look at it. i have complete confidence in mr. mueller. when he found two fbi agents with a bias against president trump, he fired them. all this stuff about the fbi and doj having a bias against trump and for clinton needs to be looked at. i have never believed it affected mr. mueller. i'll do whatever it takes to make sure mr. mueller can do his job. we're a rule of law nation before president trump. we're going to be a rule of law nation after president trump. i haven't yet seen any evidence of collusion between mr. trump and the russians. the investigation needs to go forward without interference. and i believe it will. >> you believe the stories about mcgahn? about president trump? >> i don't know. i believe it's something that mueller should look at. we're not just goi

mueller. and the under oath portion, robert mueller is an fbi agent. >> so it doesn't matter? >> you can't lie to an fbi agent when they're questioning you. >> but can you cut a deal before you go into that interview that, you know, not just that it's not going to be under oath but that you aren't exposed to that kind of criminality? >> sure. i'm certain you could cut whatever -- there are a number of options in terms of cutting deals. i think for the president's sake, he's got to go in, and he's got to show the american people that he's telling the truth, that he did not obstruct justice in this matter. >> he didn't have corrupt intent. you both used that term. always a safe assumption that i don't know what you mean. norm eisen, corrupt intent, what does that mean? >> corrupt intent means that you're doing something for a wrong purpose. it literally, when you instruct a jury, chris, the jury is told was the reason that the defendant committed the action evil, wrong, or bad? examples. if pres

and mueller's team is questioning, why is that so? >> how close might mueller be to sitting down with president trump? are we talking about months, weeks, days? >> a lot of it depends on the negotiations with president trump's lawyers. we're expecting those to begin and increase as soon as next week. and then after that, you're seeing they reported in the "new york times," they interviewed jeff sessions. they're wrapping up some of the key figures in the probe. and we're expecting president trump's interview could be before too long. >> what are the biggest sticking points? time recorded? videotaped? whether there are notes, under oath? what exactly are they discussing? >> i think all the above. one of the president's comfort dantes, people close to him are saying it could be a perjury trap. to be very careful about an interview. we reported roger stone today, saying it would be a suicide watch to be interviewed with mueller. so it depends what the president wants and what he's willing to agree. to it is hard to imagine such a probe w

he fired mueller. he said so very clearly on this network, on nbc that he did so because of the russia investigation. now we learn that he continued to fire mueller. and so that should be very concerning. they should move this week on protecting the mueller investigation. >> but victoria, let's look a lot what we have witnessed the last year. the president has made all kinds of threats that he does not follow through on. if it fair to make the case that it is just his actions or lack of actions that should matter here? >> well, let me back up a minute. the highlight of public opinion is really divided partisan wise in terms of whether there is something between the trump campaign and russia. about 50% is there is a there there and the other 50% doesn't. this week we again saw the majority of the country, a majority of republicans put country before party. even if half the country doesn't think there is collusion between the trump campaign and russia, close to 80% of the public thinks that donald trump

to fire mueller. in fact mueller may already have, just like ralph nader there, a legal challenge written to his own potential future firing, after all, this is news tonight, but the times reports mueller himself learned about it long ago during his interviews and if don mcgahn didn't personaler himself, he presumably would have told mueller about it in his own november interview. and the battle took a lot more turns, another prosecutor replaced cox and because that prosecutor had a different law that he was operated on than what mueller is operating on today. it is possible that the court could interpret it this way on the facts and on the president. just like nixon era, the -- mueller can only be removed by the personal action of the attorney general, which is now rod rosenstein, since sessions is recused and he can only fire him because of misconduct, dereliction of duty or for cause which has to be in writing. that part is important too, because if righit's in writing, court is more likely to rein

>> well, initially, mueller does. now, not many people think he could just be indicted based on the public record so far, right? so there seems to be kind of a consensus in a way if you don't do it secretly, then it doesn't seem like collusion, right? you just do it on national tv, how can it be collusion? maybe it can be collusion, but i think mueller would recognize that's a hard sell, what he said on national tv was, you know, was going to be collusion or conspiracy. but that still doesn't make it easy for trump to handle that question. what did you mean, exactly, when you invited the russians. that's a very hard question for him to answer, which is why i think any lawyer representing him would look upon the prospect of his testimony as a nightmare but it's a nightmare they know is coming sooner or later. >> as you said, mueller will decide whether he wants to interview the president or not. it's likely he's going to want to. and if you look at the scope of his investigation, there's sort of two that we assume he w

frank, i'll ask you to look at this idea of mueller being -- the firing of mueller being ordered even though it didn't ultimately happen, is this an example of obstruction of justice? >> yeah, i think it's important to understand that the statute that talks to obstruction of justice federally includes the word endeavor. so you don't actually have to go through with the event to obstruct. just trying or attempting can satisfy the elements of the statute. so ordering the firing, wanting to do it is part of a long list now that we have of everything that the president has done that points toward obstruction. whether it's firing jim comey, whether it's telling the attorney general not to recuse himself, whether it's writing a letter that says that the meeting at trump tower with the russians was all about child adoption. this attempt is just yet another piece of evidence toward an obstruction case. >> frank, there's a good chance that robert mueller knew -- already knew that the president wanted him fired. what does that do for this investigation? what does he do with that information? >>

they both -- they're no longer on the mueller investigation. and it was a joke, it seemed to me it was a joke anyway. it was written on the day of the morning after the election and she said something like, this is depressing. maybe we should make this the first meeting of the secret society. johnson is saying separately told by an informant fbi agents were meeting surreptitiously. the implication here, which is heartily believed by a lot of people in this country, nicolle, there is a corrupt conspiracy in the fbi first to go easy on hillary clinton when she should have gone to jail, and then to subvert the trump administration through the mueller investigation. and i spoke to one of my long-time sources today, former fbi official who was with the bureau for 30 years, who believes this. so, it is believed out there in the land. it just seems to me to be ludicrous to a lot of people. >> listen, the fbi isn't above criticism nor are they above being investigated. my concern is where they go off the rails for the bless your heart coalition of the

mueller has to be allowed to do his job. i have faith in him as long as he goes forward everyone will abide by where he comes down. he should not be thwarted in any way and the diversion they're trying to do with mueller and others is not good for the country. >> this is part of a package,. >> it was the first thing the president and i talked about. he said tuesday night, three days on the thought was we could come to an agreement that afternoon the president would announces support in the senate and house we get it done and it would be on the president's desk. he didn't do that. we will need to start on a new basis. the wall offers off the table. >> president trump said this pr is a big one for republicans and democrats caved, what's your thought? >> we advanced the ball for the dreamers. if they're proud of the role thwarting to dreamers, most americans would disagree with it. >> special counsel mueller to interviewed jeff sessions, what's a significant of interviewing a member of the president's cabinet? do you think pres

if he wanted to fire mueller, he would have sacked mcgahn and fired mueller. i'm curious to know what else happened around this situation that the president didn't go through with it and ultimately -- >> he wanted to give an order of ban of immigrants and sally yates refused. that doesn't mean just because he didn't -- it didn't happen that he didn't try to do it. his intent was to do it. >> i'm not disputing the reporting but i would also say he has gone through with other things. he obviously fired comey. there are moments when he did things and moments he didn't do things. i think the interplay there is important context for this conversation tonight. >> on comey, he had someone on the justice department as a fig leaf and excuse to do it, the rosenstein memo. he was probably hoping to get the same thing here where mcgan could go through it and say my white house counsel did it and said it was fine. >> go ahead, i know you want to weigh in. >> first of all, the fact that the white house is lying about something that happened, that's not news, but this is ano

. >> are you going to talk to mueller? >> i'm look forward to it, actually. there's been no collusion, whatsoever. there's no obstruction whatsoever. and i'm looking forward to it. i do worry when i look at all of the things that you people don't report about it, with what's happening, if you take a look at, you know, the five months worth of missing texts, that's a lot of missing texts. and as i said yesterday, that's prime time. so you just got to look at that and say what's going on? you do look at certain texts where they talk about insurance policies or insurance, where they say the kinds of things they're saying, you got to be concerned. but i would love to do that, as soon as possible. good luck, everybody. so here's the story. >> do you have a date set? >> i don't know, i guess they're talking about two or three weeks, but i would love to do it. like i say, subject to my lawyers and all of that, but i would love to. >> again, don't under estimate donald trump. you have been in those things, we call them scrums some

and by the way, robert mueller used to run the fbi. he is in no position to do an investigation over this kind of misconduct. lou: all of this as robert mueller has gone on the defensive over the past few days. the special counsel office showing brazen a toward presidet trump and his administration. and as questions mount about the political corruption of mueller's conflicted team of partisans, the leaks from the special counsel's office have become more frequent, as evidence of the highly partisan leadership of both the justice department and the fbi spill into the public arena. the house intel committee, the senate homeland security committee among those revealing names of a number of justice and fbi officials who were working in the interest of president obama, hillary clinton and against donald trump. both as can date an candidate a. we'll be talking with christopher rel of judicial watch and greg jarrett >>> also tonight within president trump issuing a straightforward warning to cryin' chuck, the same senator who renege on his pl

we went back and looked. >> this special counsel mueller needs to be shut down immediately and mueller and rod rosenstein recused themselves, resigned immediately. >> he should recuse himself. he's incapable of carrying a fair and inpartial mpartial investigation. mueller needs to end it now. >> that was back in june. it's been similar rhetoric, not just in june but vent recently g from republican lawmakers. i want to know how that affects things on capitol hill. joining me say democratic congressman member of the counter intelligence and ranking member of the subcommittee on the cia. i wonder, congressman, how it affects how you do business on capitol hill when you have colleagues trying to undermine and tear down the investigation. >> the president doesn't have to fire mueller. in directly, we see the credibility under attack every day on the house intelligence committee by republicans and house judiciary committee. what i hear from colleagues is words that are parroted by sean hannity. the efforts to perpetuate conspiracy theories and go after somebody who received the bronze star a

lawyers have met with robert mueller and his investigators. now, we do not know what happened at this long awaited meeting between the president's legal team and the special counsel's legal team. but cnn notes, quote, the trump lawyers are no longer putting dates on when they expect the mueller investigation to end, after previously predicting an end by thanksgiving. and then christmas. and then by the end of this past year. so, you know, there were two big developments today on the republican effort to block or stymy the mueller investigation, or, at least to politically bloody the fbi enough so that the investigation may get hurt in the process. i said a lot happened tonight, a lot has happened today and into tonight. but on this, what we seem to be seeing in terms of a concerted effort by republicans to try to derail or stymy or somehow deride the mueller investigation, first thing i want to tell you about was this surprise tonight. this moment. you'll remember that back in march, actually, a week before trump fired all the u.s. attorneys,

and i think bob mueller will give them a lot of credit. first of all, bob mueller and his team know that jim comey is a career professional, a straight shooter, a person with honesty and integrity that's informed everything he's ever done in his life. secondly, if they don't have those views of him, he actually wrote down what happened and i think that's going to carry a lot of weight with the special counsel. >> chuck, i saw you today with niccole wallace, and you talked about the major print stories today that revealed both schmidt and comey had been interviewed, and you said this was a revelation more than a development. can you explain that and have i quoted you correctly? >> you did, and i hope i can. what i meant, brian, was there was nothing surprising about it. it's not a development that we shouldn't have anticipated. i meant by revelation that now we've learned it, too. jim comey, as i understand it, was interviewed at least several months ago, and there's nothing surprising about jeff sessions being interviewed. one of the reaso

to talk to mueller? >> i'm looking forward to it, actually. >> you want to. >> just so you understand, there's been no collusion whatsoever. there's no obstruction whatsoever. >> you have a date set, mr. president? >> i don't know. no. i guess you're talking about two, three weeks. i would love to do it. >> in person? >> i have to say, subject to my lawyers and all that but i'd love to do it. >> would you do it under oath, mr. president? >> like hillary -- who said that? >> would you do it under oath? >> you did say it. you say a lot. did hillary do it under oath? i think you have an idea. wait, do you not have an idea? you dou-u really don't have ani? i'll give you an idea -- >> wyou would? >> she didn't do it under oath. if you didn't know about hillary, you're not much of a reporter. >> are you going -- >> say it? >> you would do it under oath? >> i would do it under oath. >> you think robert mueller will be fair to you in this larger investigation? >> we're going to find out. we're going to find out.

mueller made also clear it is seeking a sit down. pamela brown and gloria borger join us now. >> sources tell my colleague and i that special counsel robert mueller has made it clear that he wants to do a sit-down interview with the president. you heard the president say, he would be more than happy to sit down with robert mueller, but the lawyers for the president are in ongoing negotiations. and sources tell us that an in-person interview would be a last resort. we are told robert mueller has made clear any of the topics he would like to discuss. under the umbrella of the firing of james comey. and national security adviser michael flynn. they also want to learn about what they told james comey when he allegedly asked them -- and also another topic we are told by sources that robert mueller is interested in is when the president reached out to the intelligence chiefs of various agencies asking them reportedly to intervene. we reported that mueller has interviewed three of the top intelligence officials so far. these are things that

bob mueller. decorated war veteran. he's looking into potential criminality in the administration and with respect to the election. it just seems to me it's a pretty low ethical bar for the president to be available to answer questions and if he's not, the question will be what he hiding. >> he said he could do it within the next two or three weeks. does it concern you that the president says he's simply fighting back in the midst of these allegations from the special counsel's investigation. and he says that people consider his fighting back obstruction. >> well, the reality is he has calleded this a witch hunt from the beginning. the fact is people have pled guilty. i mean you've got a number of people who pled guilty, a number of people who have been indicted. we still have a long way to go on this. i'm focused on the follow the money issues. the fact is counterintelligence 101 is really looking at these follow the money issues because if you want to induce somebody, it's with laundering. is that at the heart of this

president, why did you fire robert mueller? why did you want to fire robert mueller? >> fake news, folks, fake news. typical "new york times" fake story. >> fake news, says the president. two sources told the "times" of what trump saw as three conflicts. first, a dispute years ago over fees at trump national golf club in sterling, virginia, that prompted mueller, the fbi director at the time, to resign his membership there. the president also said mueller could not be impartial because he had most recently worked for the law firm that previously represented the president's son-in-law jared kushner. finally, trump said mueller had been interviewed to return as the fbi director the day before he was appointed special counsel in may. joe, that's just the tip of the iceberg in this "new york times" piece that, again, has been confirmed by nbc news. we talked about it last hour. the idea that president trump might fire mueller was viewed by a lot of people as wild. people would come on our show and say it would set off a constitutional crisis, there's no way he could cross

and protect mueller from being fired by the president. let's go now to cnn white house correspondent boris sanchez. boris, is it likely that the republicans will support the plan to protect mueller and team? >> hey there, fred, yes, i actually just heard from a republican operative close to the leadership who told me the chances of them taking up these two bills are low and, in part, because it could lead to a debate that would split party. on one hand, you have the two co-sponsors of these bills, lindsey graham, as well as tom tillis, and on the other, you have people like mitch mcconnell who back in august when these bills were first introduced said it simply wasn't a priority for republicans. and back then, rumors were swirling that robert mueller was going to be fired by president trump. when there was assurances made by the white house and others in the administration there was no such plan in place, the push died down. in light of this new "new york times" reporting, democrats are picking up the push yet again. here's senator mark w

that enough or his anticipation to fire mueller? and was that enough? the investigation was ongoing at the time that both men were either contemplated as being fired or actually fired in comey's case and that is the crux of the scope of what mueller's investigation is about. it's not about whether or not the president can choose at his prerogative to not have people under his employment who does not serve what his policy objectives are. it's quite another thing to be dismissive about the idea that the president can commit a crime and merely his office will insulate him. >> all right go ahead, robert. >> i think michael's got it right. the real relevant question here is one of whether or not the conduct would constitute abuse of office. and that's a determination ultimately that congress makes under its impeachment authority. i remain of the view despite how many times others can say it, the president is constitutely entitled to have who he wants as the attorney general, the deputy attorney general, the director of the fbi, and also