bob mueller is intense. bob mueller is driven by the mission, by what we must do as an organization to stop that next threat. it was very much bob mueller on the attack, and there was no easy day with bob mueller. >> so fascinating what you said. the fbi played different roles throughout history. at times focused on the mafia and crime families. no wider shift in the focus than on that terrible day on september 11 and robert mueller being in charge. this is a fitting setup to where we will go after the break, how bob mueller confronted this terror threat and why the man who is briefing the president every day is not going to be squared off by tweets when there was special security in place to protect his life. and we look at president trump's claims that mueller's team might be biased. the suv that dares to go beyond utility. experience amazing. what's going on? oh hey! ♪ that's it? yeah. ♪ everybody two seconds! ♪ "dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleas

mueller is also interested in an oval office meeting mr. trump had with russian officials in which he said the dismissal of the fbi director had relieved great pressure on him. the document request provides the most details to date about the breadth of mr. mueller's investigation and show that several aspects of this inquiry are focused squarely on mr. trump's behavior in the white house. "the washington post" has matched that report. just moments ago we're joined by michael schmidt who broke this story for "the new york times." first of all, i want to read to you something from the piece that caught my eye. in recent weeks, mr. mueller's office sent a document to the white house that details 13 different areas. on that list, i pulled out the flynn firing, the comey firing, the russians in the oval office but also the white house meeting in which they figured out how to respond to your paper about don jr.'s meeting with russians to get dirt on hillary clinton. what do all of those presidential actions sort of have in common from an investig

mueller just moves ahead. what is going on here? >> mueller is investigating himself in my view because the firing of comey led to his appointment. comey's leaking of information led to his appointment and sessions recused himself almost immediately from anything of substance as it relates to this whole russia scandal and so we are faced with a constitutional mess over at the justice department where rosenstein is being interviewed by the guy he is supposed to be supervising in theory. lou: but who he also appointed. >> right and the only reason he appointed him is because sessions recused himself so by rosenstein's own light he shouldn't be there either supervising mueller. let me say this i think the special counsel regulations and mueller's appointment are constitutionally suspect. mueller isn't really a u.s. attorney. he is not a u.s. attorney. he is not supervised on a day-to-day basis by rosenstein art anyone else at doj. at best he can be fired after-the-fact that he doesn't have to go to them for permission to issue a subpoe

my guess is that mueller is going to work on mueller's time. jeff: we have not heard much from don, jr. or jared kushner, two relatives that have been mentioned a decent amount around this investigation. what is your sense that their team is thinking right now and how to they figure into the future? michael: don, jr. is going to be interviewed by the senate in private tomorrow. we will not have access to what that looks like. it will be behind closed doors, and we won't really know. but of course don, jr. is at the , center of the meeting where russians reached out to the campaign, said we have information on hillary clinton. don, jr., kushner, and manafort met with them. the administration has told different stories about this. first they said it was about adoption, then it was more about derogatory information the russians had on clinton. that was only after they were forced to answer those questions, that they changed their story. don jr. part of this. is trying to understand, who were the russians they were meeting with, why were they doing

it has turned out manafort is personally a juicy target for mueller and a big place for mueller to look for a flip. >> that's exactly right. i mean two things from that story in the post today. first of all, two weeks before donald trump accepts the republican nomination, you have manafort proactively and sort of aggressively trying to brief a russian oligarch with ties to the kremlin about the state of the campaign, which is we know now is exactly what russia wanted. there's no evidence right now that shows that happened, but it shows manafort's state of mind. someone who was concerned about debts he was owed for his already shady consulting in eastern europe. and he was trying to leverage on the trump campaign. again, we don't know what happened. but if you're the russians and saying this is a guy we have a potential in and mueller is a guy saying we have a different in for different renes. >> does this look anything but robert mueller trying to flip paul manafort? >> i think that's right. paul manafort has so many volnblts here. so much prosecutorial pressure can be brought on him. i

and try to fire mueller. i think that would send congress through the roof and go back to the special prosecutor and basically appoint someone to deal with this on behalf of the justice department. look, a few people thought trump could survive firing comey, i think even fewer think he could survive firing mueller. that would be a very aggressive move and i'm not sure what he would accomplish there. besides that, there are not really other ways he can move mueller along. his lawyers have met with mueller, provided him with documents to lay out an argument why trump couldn't be charged with obstruction of justice, because he could pardon anyone at any time. they can do that, but i guess that mueller is going to work on mueller's time. >> we have not heard much from jr. or jared kushner, two relatives that have been mentioned a decent amount around this investigation. what is your sense that their team is thinking right now and how to they figure into the future? jr. is going to be interviewed by the senate in

mueller might be able to do that. but he also has the option of rurpg a report to the congress to show how the case could be built for impeachment. >> jeremy last word to you, what are you looking for next? >> well when michael cohen the trump organization main lawyer and the one who was the architect to of the deal to billed the trump tower testifies in the house committee you'll sigh information come out about the financial ties. as we follow the money i'm looking at that testimony. >> jeremy, michael and jill thank you all three of you for joining me. >> with congress set to return to washington next week how could the latest developments in the investigation affect this white house? our political panel reacts when "the 11th hour" continues. hey you've gotta see this. c'mon. no. alright, see you down there. mmm, fine. okay, what do we got? okay, watch this. do the thing we talked about. what do we say? it's going to be great. watch. remember what we were just saying? go irish! see that? yes! i'm gonna just go back

the fbi and mueller can do it. i don't think congress can. >> they should be protecting -- >> the next time, yeah. let mueller worry about someone that breached a federal violation last year. >> today spoke to reporters afterwards. let's take a look at it. >> i think what's happening here is that the special counsel will try and manufacture a crime and then say, look, manafort we won't prosecute you for this if you simply admit you were colluding with the russians and donald trump knew everything. >> what do you think of that, what he said? do you think that manafort will turn on the president? >> well, it remains to be seen. what haz alluding to is this a witch-hunt with mueller trying to have a self-fulfilling prophecy come through by having the most leverage against manafort and use that leverage to make up evidence in the collusion investigation. but it sounds like this isn't a witch-hunt. also based on the conduct at least in part financially of paul manafort. so the idea what they're trying to manufacture evi

mueller. all of this unfolds as a current and a former trump ally gear up for the role they will play in this investigation. long-time lawyer for both trump and his business, michael cone, will testify before the senate intelligence committee tomorrow. he told vanity fair earlier this month he was taking his lawyer's advice and had not spoken to trump or his family in a few weeks. but he made his loyalty clear, telling the reporter, quote, i'm the guy who would take a but for the president. and there's a new legal defense fund for former nsa director michael flynn, who "the daily beast" reports is preparing for a million dollar or so legal tab. let's turn on our lead-off panel on a monday night. carolyn ryan is with us, assistant editor for "the new york times." sam stien, long-time political journalist, politics he had for for "the daily beast." and ron a dough measure ratty, a former federal prosecutor who wrote this piece for politico that got our attention today, titled how to read bob mue

mueller. first reported by "the new york times" under the headline mueller seeks white house documents related to trump's actions as president. the times and "washington post" both report mueller wants documents in 13 different areas, all separate categories. they include former national security adviser michael flynn's departure from the white house, his interview with the fbi and his conversations with the russian ambassador, and the warning the deputy attorney general saly yates gave the white house about flynn. mueller also wants all material receipting to paul manafort. he wants records related to that trump tower meeting set up by done junior. then there's the firing of fbi director jim comey. mueller wants all documents related to meetings between trump and coatroom and records of any discussions about comey's firing. and records about the statement sean spicer made the night comey was fired. he also wants information on that oval office meeting with the two russians the next day. the o

mueller might be able to do that. but he also has the option of rurpg a report to the congress to show how the case could be built for impeachment. >> jeremy last word to you, what are you looking for next? >> well when michael cohen the trump organization main lawyer and the one who was the architect to of the deal to billed the trump tower testifies in the house committee you'll sigh information come out about the financial ties. as we follow the money i'm looking at that testimony. >> jeremy, michael and jill thank you all three of you for joining me. >> with congress set to return to washington next week how could the latest developments in the investigation affect this white house? our political panel reacts when "the 11th hour" continues. ♪ if you've got a life, you gotta swiffer when heartburn hits fight back fast with tums chewy bites. fast relief in every bite. crunchy outside. chewy inside. tum tum tum tum tums chewy bites. >>> mr. trump, would you consider russia as a security threat? thank you. >> well i

has mueller, has the mueller team done anything that you have been able to see to mitigate some of that? >> no, i mean that's been, the white house has taken a look at the folks mueller has fired-- hired and tried to see where they may be able to poke holes or get people disqualified or get them off the investigation, throw a few hurdles in mueller away and sort of find a way to maybe get, what they would think would be more impartial folks working on. there the thing we know about mueller he team, he basically went out and hired the best of the best. the best prosecutedders that the justice department had or folks that worked in the juses tis department r in private prarks know criminal law well. experts in financial stuff, folks that rex petters in counterintelligence. folks that know how to deal with a appellate appeal and filing the nitty gritiness of filings with the, you know, as part of trials. i mean when you look at the team, it's a team of about 15 prosecutors and it's largely the best of the best. one of the members of this team andrew weissman used to be the head of the en--

here he is. >> has the mueller team reached out to you at all? >> i'm not going to discuss that issue at all. >> have you hired a lawyer? >> i'm not going to discuss that issue at all. >> so you haven't been subpoenaed? >> i'm not going discuss that issue at all. >> did you ever hear inside the white house that mueller should be fired? >> i'm not going to discuss that issue at all. >> glenn, put this together, what they're trying to find out about trump, what he said on the airplane for dictating that cover story for that meeting lastdown a june and also the me with the russians, expressing relief that he was no longer under the pressure he was under when comey was fbi director. and now going after spicer for seeing how good of boswell he was, keeping records of everything he witnessed. he could end up being the john dean of this case. put it altogether. >> well, likening sean spicer to john dean might be a little bit of a stretch. >> all right, boswell. >> having been a colleague of mike allen's for seven years, he can text me any time he wants,

mueller has reportedly called in the irs. and paul manafort's notes from the scrutinized meeting with donald trump jr. and russians. "the 11th hour" on a thursday night begins now. >>> good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. day 224 of the trump administration brings new information about the russia investigation. specifically, what evidence special counsel robert mueller has in front of him, who he is enlisting to help his team of investigators, and how they are working with president trump's lawyers. the "wall street journal" reports trump's legal team has met with mueller several times in recent months and even submitted memos to try to make their case to him. they report one memo, quote outlined why former fbi director james comey would make an unsuitable witness, calling him prone to exaggeration, unreliable in congressional testimony, and the source of leaks to the news media. another memo laid out the case that trump had the inherent authority under the constitution to hire and fire as

>> i don't want to prejudge what bob mueller knows. i like to say he knows a lot more than i do and his team, they've got subpoena power. don't want to prejudge any of that. but what we're seeing in our reporting and interviewing witnesses gone before the grand jury or gotten questirequests f documents, woor seeing manafort in jeopardy personally because of his byzantine financial records, what he disclosed and didn't share about consulting contracts with companies that appeared to be interested in things that would benefit foreign governments and that he did not report. also issues about personal finances and whether or not he reported some of this material. that could run afoul of federal law. this story we broke today, with my colleagues, we're seeing part of the answer to the question, is there a connection between russian government, people tied to the kremlin, and the campaign? here you have the campaign chairman, days and weeks before donald trump is the gop nominee saying, you know, i would really like to find a way to get paid

dealing with the scope of mueller's investigation into russian meddling, mueller's investigators requested information on several people involved in the trump campaign including paul manafort and michael flynn, the former national security advise herb. and we're told by sources the irs initially had reservations because of what were seen as far reaching or broad requests for mueller's investigators. in the case of manafort the scope included possible tax and financial crimes dating back to january of 2006, ten years before the russian meddling of the presidential election last fall, don. >> so, pamela, your reporting also indicates this centers on the july raid of manafort's home. tell me about that. >> that's right. we learned there was tension of the irs and the special counsel going on behind the scenes, that fbi raid in virginia. the irs didn't participate in that raid because of objections the search would deputy attorney general rosenstein would need to sign-off given the sensitivity of the matter. as for manafort and flynn, given the scope of those investigations, it's more likely m

mueller investigation. the raid on paul manafort's house and the indictment warning from prosecutors to the former trump campaign chair. >>> plus, a late breaking urgent and fast exploding storm, hurricane maria suddenly a 5. and there's a state of emergency in puerto rico. we'll get a live update. >>> and after trashing the u.n. for years, down to its decor, donald trump addresses the general assembly hours from now as they say welcome to our world, as "the 11th hour" gets underway. >>> on a monday evening as we start a new week, good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. day 242 of the trump administration. this is suddenly a busy night. mostly because we have new reporting on the mueller investigation, "the new york times" tonight reporting mueller is using shock and awe tactics to intimidate witnesses and potential targets. the times tell the behind the scenes story of that forcible entry raid on paul manafort's house a few months ago. the raid and the warrant to allow it w

bob mueller will follow facts. i don't think they'll have him in the cross hairs if there is contact to support it. so looking at the pushback there team trump, i want to play the old pushback. well, flynn junior is not involved in things. here was the old pushback. >> general -- he has no involvement in the twlangs rans whatsoever. >> e-mail is something we've all heard about through the course of 2016. and then here just breaking in our hour, mike flynn back on twitter. mike flynn jr., he's pushed a lot of conspiracies. he says fake news media. we're done covering those pesky hurricanes, right? back to russia. and then calls this #nothingburger. what are we hearing from trump world? >> there's no doubt white house is distancing themselves from this widening russia probe. today the white house press secretary sarah huckabee sanders said she had not discussed this with the president and referred her quarters to outside counsel. but mike flynn jr. e-mailed during this transition and the vice president said he had no

mueller has reportedly called in the irs. and paul manafort's notes from the scrutinized meeting with donald trump jr. and russians. "the 11th hour" on a thursday night begins now. >>> good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. day 224 of the trump administration brings new information about the russia investigation. specifically, what evidence special counsel robert mueller has in front of him, who he is enlisting to help his team of investigators, and how they are working with president trump's lawyers. the "wall street journal" reports trump's legal team has met with mueller several times in recent months and even submitted memos to try to make their case to him. they r

legal help is here. >>> bob mueller is running his investigation the way bob mueller does everything, but -- two central questions, potential collusion with russia and potential obstruction of justice, we're joined on the phone by house intel committee member congressman eric swallwell. let me ask you, so jeremy bash who's here with us, and paul butler who is here with us, jeremy says that one of the things the investigation is going to have to answer in light of this manafort news, that two fisa warrants were obtained to surveil him is whether or not russia placed him in the donald trump campaign. is that of interest to you? >> it's certainly of interest of whether the trump campaign, people who had prior relationships with ukrainian or pro ukrainian groups continued those relationships when they started working on the campaign. so that's something that our committee is also seeking to understand. >> that was one of his clients, the pro russia side of what would amount to a domestic debate in this country. but in ukraine, paul manafort was on the pro russia side. so your committee is

mueller may adhere to. but this question of conflict, i know map u and he's a great reporter, but in terms of how the senate intelligence committee and the special prosecutors getting along, i think we will work through all those issues. >> but what you mentioned there about mr. manafort changing lawyers in the middle of this process, are you saying that whether or not mueller gets the transcript of that interview will depend on what manafort's lawyer decides in that matter? isn't the transcript the property of your committee to do with it what you want? >> well, rachel, we are going through these witnesses. we'd much rather try to go through these witnesses on a voluntary basis rather than using subpoenas because we want to try to get as much information as we can. i can assure you from the committee's standpoint, we're going to want to have mr. manafort back and have a chance for we as senators to question him as well. and we expect that to happen and, again, i can assure you on the macro level in that lo

while it's all a big investigation, is mueller first and foremost among equals, is mueller trying to race the hill to get to his evidence and his witnesses? >> i think that's exactly how he sees it. i mean, there are a few concerns, right? one is information would come out through the congressional investigative process, either be leaked or otherwise come out. the other is if the information becomes public, witnesses that he might be pursuing get a chance to line their stories up. so, there's a way that they can get ahead of him that would be injurious to his ultimate aim, which is to figure out what happened here. >> we happen to have a lawyer on board for this discussion, which is where we bring in renato. and i read enough about you, university of chicago undergrad, yale law school, a career in both public and private law, to know that you know your way around this case. so, tell us what you make of the tea leaves, the crumbs being dropped by robert mueller. >> wow, well, there have been a lot of crumbs lately. look, today's news from "the new york times" was certainly shocking an

what is mueller looking for, do you think? >> you know, he may be looking for e-mails between staff members scheduling the meeting. he may be looking for eye tin aers that were set up or agendas for the meeting. he might be looking for things like recordings, transcripts, summaries of things that were said in the meeting. the bottom line is he's using those things to try to find some connection or to see if there's a connection between the firing of jim comey and any promises or representations or deals that were made with the russians. that would be my guess. and so when i think about the scheduling and think about the cal dagger, he mie be looking to see, well, how close in time was the meeting scheduled versus when the firing took place or when the memos came out and so he's just putting pieces of the puzzle together. sometimes you don't know what the puzzle looks like until all the pieces come into play. so i think this is just another piece of his puzzle. >> ken, mueller also wants more information on the president's invo

>> i don't want to prejudge what bob mueller knows. i like to say he knows a lot more than i do and his team, they've got subpoena power. don't want to prejudge any of that. but what we're seeing in our reporting and interviewing witnesses gone before the grand jury or gotten requests for documents, we're seeing manafort is in jeopardy personally because of his byzantine financial records, what he disclosed and didn't share about consulting contracts with companies that appeared to be interested in things that would benefit foreign governments and that he did not report. also issues about personal finances and whether or not he reported some of this material. that could run afoul of federal law. this story we broke today, with my colleagues, we're seeing part of the answer to the question, is there a connection between russian government, people tied to the kremlin, and the campaign? here you have the campaign chairman, days and weeks before donald trump is the gop nominee saying, you know, i would really like to find a way to get paid

>> you should join mueller's team. i think those are very good questions and questions that people on mueller's team are going to be asking. we've heard this term collusion thrown about. it doesn't mean anything legally. but what i just talked about, aiding and abetting, that does. same with conspiracy. conspiracy is when you agree to commit a crime. you don't have to know about every aspect of the crime. you don't have to know everyone involved, but if somebody here in the united states agreed to be part of this in some way, they are criminally libel. so the time will tell what mueller finds, but as you point out, there's a lot of digital evidence that mueller could look at, like for example, the targeting information in terms of how to target these ads. he might be able to match that up with communications and show that americans were helping russians target those ads. obviously i don't know, i'm not part of mueller's team, but for the first time we could see a path to that happening. >> thank you very much for givin

the irs sharing information with special counsel robert mueller. plus, trump under fire for his response to millions of americans in puerto rico suffering after hurricane maria. suddenly today, he says, oh, he's going to go to puerto rico. doing it because he got called out. and the president claims he's not preoccupied with the nfl anthem debate, so why tweet 24 times about it? let's go "outfront." >> good evening, i'm erin burnett. "outfront," the breaking

we now know that mueller is taking a much broader look at white house activities. some of the most controversial decisions, documents related to the flynn firing, to that -- those two very important meetings that sally yates the acting attorney general had when she went to the white house and said, look, flynn is compromised with the russians. they loorking at the trump tower meeting that don junior had. they've asked for records about the statement that was crafted on air force one, that misleading statement when we first asked about that meeting and that white house, that oval office meeting where the president right after firing james comey told the russian foreign minister the pressure is off. i fired comey and the pressure is off. >> matt, let me bring you back in time to everything that happened around that meeting because one of the crises that ensued immediately after that meeting, he was in there with sergey kislyak and lavrov, right, the russian ambassador to washington and the russian foreign minister, right? >> correct. >> he said to both of them, comey

mueller obtaining trump's secret letter. a move trump took to try to stifle the russia investigation which only served to intensify it. you can apply the atlantis morissette test isn't it ironic to fire someone to stop the russia inquiry only to trigger a larger inquiry. we're learning that trump's own counsel tried to veto his own rationale. isn't it ironic the good advice you just didn't take. mueller is tapping a secret squad for trump's taxes. the daily beast reporting that scoop. it strongly indicates mueller uncovered evidence of a tax crime. also learning more about the notes paul manafort took in the secret trump tower meeting with russians. those notes typed on smart phone. that's important. the phone part is key and here's why. >> the whole contact took how long? how long was the meeting? >> 20 minutes or so. >> jared left after five or ten? >> yes. >> paul manafort was on his phone? >> yes. it was pretty apparent this is not what we were in there talking about. >> on his phone the whole time. that may have been tr

mueller may adhere to. this question of conflict, i know man you, he's a great reporter, but in terms of the senate intelligence committee and the special prosecutors getting along i think we'll get along. >> what you mentioned about mr. manafort changing lawyers, are you saying whether or not mueller gets the transcript of that interview will depend on what manafort's lawyer decides in that matter? isn't the transcript the property of your committee to do with it what you want? >> rachel, we are going through these witnesses, we'd much rather go through the witnesses on a voluntary basis rather than using subpoena because we want to try to get as much information as we can. we, i can assure you, from the committee's standpoint we're going to want to have mr. manafort back and have a chance for we as senators to question him as well. and we expect that to happen. and again, i can assure you on the macro level in that long list of what you've gone through just tonight on your program on the things to be conc

that would be extraordinarily important evidence for mueller because it would tell mueller what advice the president was getting from the white house counsel before he fired comey. so that would be very important to the obstruction case. i would imagine that, you know, mr. mcgahn might want to keep that from others to try to minimize the extent to which knowledge of that came out if he was going to try to, you know, assert some sort of privilege. but i will say the enact that you have one lawyer on a team that is keeping information from other lawyers is very unusual. both when i worked in the government and when i worked now in private practice, you typically have information sharing amongst people on a team, and that suggests a lot of distrust and division within the trump team. >> what are the chances that this could be some sort of matlock aw-shucks moment to get mueller to bring stuff into the investigation or into evidence that would not necessarily be so that could work out for the president and the trump administration? i mean, because it just seems so unbelievable that these g

mueller had developed. so i'm suggesting that before that happens, that there be an understanding that all of the information that is thus far been gathered will be made available to the congressional committee, so they can take on this much heavier burden from high point of development of the evidence. >> let me play for you some of what the allies of the president have said when pressed on this key point of whether there could be further tampa tampering or obstruction. >> do you think the president would be ad lib berity to fire robert mueller? >> the president as we all know is a unitarian executive. i won't speculate on what he will and will not do. >> i think he's considering perhaps terminating the special counsel. i think he's weighing that option. >> does that meaning that firing the special counsel is something that's on the table for this president? >> i have answered this question several times before, although the president has the authority to do so, he doesn't intend to do so. >> number one, t

something mueller will look at. both things they did and things that they attempted. >> that's right. they said we didn't actually do something. they did try. and the fact he was considering this is definitely something that mueller will look at. and i do think that he considered doing it. they backed off and kept him from doing it until his attention was focused elsewhere. again, it does point to the fact there's not a lot of planning going on. they're just dealing with things as he decides to dewith them on the spur of the moment. not a great way to run a railroad that has giant nuclear weapons. >> and here was donald trump on that fateful day on an aircraft carrier making it even harder. because when the president says, the attorney general should not recuse, it is exactly the kind of evidence of interference that makes for the recusal case. take a look at this moment in history. >> mr. president, do you still have confidence in the attorney general? >> total. >> mr. president, should sessions recuse himself in t

sources say that mueller's team looking into things from turkey. the irs special counsel all declined to comment for the story, wolf. >> thanks, guys, very much. excellent reporting for us. let's get some more on this. the ranking member of the house intelligence committee, adam schiff of california is joining us. congressman, thanks for joining us. >> you bet. good to be with you. >> do you know would the house intelligence committee have information to this? >> we won't have it in terms of getting information from bob mueller. through our own investigation. i do think that many of the financial issues are within the scope of what we need to investigate. my primary concern is the allegation that you didn't discuss just yet, and that is the issue potential money laundering through the trump organization. that is i think among more serious allegations because what concerns me is, frankly, anything that could continue to be leveraged the russians might have over the president. now we don't know that that's the case. but i do think prudently we have t

robert mueller is playing a very tough game here. in addition, we learned this week his team requested a vast number of documents from the white house as you mentioned earlier in the program, 13 different areas. many of them are focused on the president's own actions. mueller wants documents related to the president's firing of comey, the fbi director, the firing of michael flynn as first national security adviser. mueller wants documents related to the meeting the president had in the oval office in may with russian officials in which he that said comey was a nut job. he wants documents related to a trump tower meeting in june 2016 with russian officials and trump campaign officials and also, as you reported earlier, he wants documented related to a drafting misstatement on air force one about that meeting that was extremely misleading. this leads up to an extremely aggressive investigation, squeezing people like paul manafort and really, really, really pressuring the white house. >> robert, the journalism this week by elisabeth's p

so that's why this information can be passed to mueller. obviously what we don't know is what was the basis for the warrant. you know, what went into the statement that the fbi made to the judge to grant the warrant. and most importantly, you don't know what was said. we don't know what manafort said, we don't know who he was speaking to. but the fact that they got two warrants suggests that the first wasn't totally useless because it allowed them to get a second one. >> two fisa warrants? >> absolutely. based on evan and pamela's reporting, there were two separate warpts, one after the other. >> what do you make of that? >> so when you get a fisa order on a u.s. person, the standard is slightly higher than for a nonu.s. person. so you have to show a court not only that the person is an agent of a foreign power but they're pgel engaging in clandestine intelligence activities, knowingly being a spy. and once you get that order, you have to go back to the court every 90 days and show the court that you are in fact getting foreign intelligence

>> they've met with robert mueller in person and his team. it is unclear whether it was at mueller's office -- presumably. >> and these memos, these are sort of trying to make the case ahead of time that the president didn't obstruct justice. >> that's right. there were two memos, at least two memos we know of. the first was submitted with regard to -- it was a legal argument by the president's lawyers concerning what they see as an argument why he can't be charged or investigated for obstructing justice. and the second concerned their questions about comey's -- jim comey's reliability as a potential witness. >> so the first one indicates to me they have some reason to think that -- i mean this has been reported, but the existence of the memo coming from his own lawyers would seem to agree with the reporting this is something mueller is in fact investigating and pursuing. >> i suppose you could interpret it. >> presumably they're not just writing these. >> presumably. >> i guess my question, is it normal for this kind of interactions in these

and he's emerged as a focal point for mueller and mueller's team. manafort's spokesman declined to comment on this story. but mueller has denied any financial wrongdoing. >> why all the way back to the period of 2006? >> well, this was a period mentioned in the search warrant. and it covers much of the decade that manafort worked as a consultant for u.k.'s party. the party was accused of corruption, and the fbi was just trying to figure out whether the american consultitants were involved at all. so that investigation is clearly ongoing here, don. >> i understand you have new details, too, about the july raid on the manafort home. what do you know? >> that's right. my source says it was an unusually hard-nosed approach. it began before dawn as manafort and his wife laid in bed. and they insisted searching his wife for weapons. that is a standard of fbi searches, but it was something that was jarring to the manafort's according to our sources, don. >> there's been a lot of pressure on the manaforts. is there a sense he's going to be charged with anyt

investigation. >> would not have the mueller investigation, would not have the mueller investigation in the breadth that clearly mr. mueller is going. >> reporter: special counsel robert mueller's team of all- star prosecutors speaks to that. 16 in all, they bring experience in long-term investigations, going after organized crime, money laundering, cyber- terrorism, and foreign bribery. some even speak russian. >> this is a group of people who have a deep, deep level of experience with complex federal cases. >> reporter: former federal prosecutor sam buell: >> there really isn't anything that this team is going to come across that they're not going to be equipped to deal with. >> reporter: andrew weissman headed up the fraud section at the justice department. in the '90s, he worked on a case linked to the mafia and russian organized crime that involved felix sater, a trump business parter who is now of interest to mueller's investigation. andrew goldstein moved to washington this summer. he's with the u.s. attorney's office in manhattan, where he was overseeing an investigation into

investigation. >> would not have the mueller investigation, would not have the mueller investigation in the breadth that clearly mr. mueller is going. >> reporter: special counsel robert mueller's team of all-star prosecutors speaks to that. 16 in all, they bring experience in long-term investigations, going after organized crime, money laundering, cyber-terrorism, and foreign bribery, some even speak russian. >> this is a group of people who have a deep, deep level of experience with complex federal cases. >> reporter: former federal prosecutor sam buell: >> there really isn't anything that this team is going to come across that they're not going to be equipped to deal with. >> reporter: andrew weissman headed up the fraud section at the justice department. in the 90s, he worked on a case linked to the mafia and russian organized crime that involved felix sater, a trump business parter who is now of interest to mueller's investigation. andrew goldstein moved to washington this summer. he's with the u.s. attorney's office in manhattan, where he was overseeing an investigation into fo

mueller has reportedly called in the irs. and paul manafort's notes from the scrutinized meeting with donald trump jr. and russians. "the 11th hour" on a thursday night begins now. >>> good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. day 224 of the trump administration brings new information about the russia investigation. specifically, what evidence special counsel robert mueller has in front of him, who he is

they're much more respectful with mueller. they don't seem to be bringing up conflict of interest issues. they're meeting with him, keeping open a channel of communication. so, we're sort of getting a more contention vibe and tone from the white house and a much more collegial perspective coming from trump lawyers. >> probably wise. peter nicholas, white house correspondent for the wall street journal. joining us barbara mcquade, former u.s. attorney and msnbc contributor. i want to pick up where we leaf other on the question of attempting to discredit james comey as a strategy to get out of the idea of obstruction. is that, in your view, a smart legal maneuver? >> well, you want to go after any element of the crime or any proof issues or evidentiary issues. that's one of them. it seems to me a uphill battle to discredit jim comey. there are a few things you could use i suppose, if you want to portray his sharing of documents, leaks, if you like, but if you look at his whole body of work, a jury or any fact finder will find hi

mueller knows a lot. other lawyers something, don mcgahn a lot about certain things like efforts to out of people over russia. when criminal counsel says get it out quick, cobb and others in the "times" article suggesting might be done quickly, don't know everything that don mcgahn knows. >> and extraordinary to see from leaks and indiscrete restaurant conversations coming out, seeing a legal team divided in strategy and in some cases at odds with each other. obviously all in service of ultimate client but don't agree or appears much like each other in many instances. now see bob mueller going into with facebook warrant, just another signal this investigation is really focusing -- don't know what evidence he has for that warrant but to have a warrant you have to persuade a judge there's probable cause of crime being committed. investigation appears to be heating up but lawyers at odds at what to do now. >> you make important point. any communications medium can be used in crime. pick up phone and do activ

mueller's investigation growing in scope and intensity. nbc news breaking the story today that former national security adviser michael flynn's son is the subject in a federal investigation into russian meddling in the presidential election and possible collusion between moscow and the trump campaign. michael g. flynn, the son of mike flynn, has come under scrutiny at least in part for his work on behalf of flynn intel group, his father's firm. let's get right to carol lee, national political reporter and one of the bylines on the big scoop, as well as jeremy bash, former chief of staff at the cia and pentagon. now a national security analyst. carol, talk about your story. >> well, as you mentioned, we -- four current and former u.s. officials say that robert mueller is zeroing in on michael flynn's son and his work in particular with flynn intel group. michael flynn was someone who has always been by his father's side. he has traveled with him on trips, including one to moscow in 2015. he served as his chief of staff and was very deeply i

robert mueller is playing a very tough game here. in addition, we also learned this week that he -- his team requested a vast number of documents from the white house that you had mentioned earlier in the program in 13 different areas. but many of them are focused on the president's own actions. mueller wants documents related to the president's firing of comey, the fbi director, firing of michael flynn, his first national security adviser. mueller wants documents related to the meeting that the president had in the oval office in may with russian officials in which he said that comey was a nutjob. he wants documents related to a trump tower meeting in june 2016 with russian officials and trump campaign officials and also, as you reported earlier, he wants documents related to a drafting of a statement on air force one about that meeting that was very misleading. so all of this adds up to an extremely aggressive investigation, squeezing people like paul manafort and really, really, really pressuring the white house. >> robert, the jo

this there is no indication that mueller is embracing the argument. from what we see the obstruction investigation continues. it's not clear at all that they've accepted the rationale that the trump lawyers put forward. >> there's a lot of discussion about the tone and the way you approach a situation like that when your legal team is facing off against somebody like robert mueller. are they adversarial or taking a friendly tone toward the potential prosecutor here? >> that's an interesting question. president trump's tone has been dock bat tif, calling it a witch hunt, raising questions about conflicts of interest that muller's team might have, we're seeing something different from the trump lawyers. they're much more respectful, differential to mueller. they say they want a relationship with him. they don't seem to be bringing up conflict of issues. they're trying to keep open a channel of communication. so we're sort of getting a more contentious vibe and tone from the white house and a much more collegial perspective coming from trump's lawyers. >