michael flynn. but at the same time, the doj is dropping its criminal probe of a top trump target, the former fbi deputy director andrew mccabe. and it's all raising more questions about barr's motives and independence a day after he went on television to deny he is doing the president's bidding. i'll be getting the reaction from senator and former prosecute doug jones and our correspondents and other guests are also standing by. including three of cnn's top legal analysts. first, two shimone. and shimone, just walk us two these developments tonight. >> it's been a very busy week here in washington, d.c. certainly with the justice department. late today, we get news that the investigation into andrew mccabe, has been dropped. the justice department, the washington u.s. attorney's office is no longer investigating. it's been about two years since andrew mccabe got into some trouble with the inspector general, who was doing an investigation on whether or not he lied during an investigation that they w

you remember that michael flynn has pleaded guilty in 2017, and he has been awaiting sentencing since then, and more recently in recent months he fired his lawyers and changed the legal team, and waging a campaign arguing that he actually never lied to the fbi. that is what he pleaded guilty to. he says that essentially he was the victim of prosecutors of the fbi who were out to get him, and out to get president trump. this is a case that is sort of garnering some sympathy from the president, and some his supporters in congress, and we know that bill barr is somebody who consumes a lot of this stuff, and believes a lot of the stuff that you will hear in the right wing press. so we don't know exactly what is at work here. it appears that barr needed to see how solid the case is, and in court, they have made the filings that show that essentially they are preparing to defend the case. so may well be that this review is done so that in court they can defend against michael flynn who is trying to overturn and take back his guilty plea. so this is a lot more legal infighting going on behin

louis to look at the michael flynn guilty plea. well, michael flynn pled guilty. he put his hand up and swore under oath that he committed crimes. there is no legal reason to reexamine this case. it is another example of barr weaponizing the awesome power of the justice department to carry out trump's part sandal politics. >> let me get that specific bit that paul raised. about the fact michael flynn raised his hand and said i am guilty of what you're accusing me of doing. do you know legal system better than i do. how rare is it that the government comes to someone who says, i committed a crime and they say, hey, we're going to reinvestigate they. something doesn't look right on why you pled guilty to committing this crime. >> that's a softball question. let me tell what you a guilty plea hearing is. professor paul butler can tell you the same thing. when a defendant goes into a guilty plea hearing, they raise their hand and under oath, they say i'm guilty. michael flynn one of the best companies in the company representing him. there was a statement of fact that

michael flynn and more key players as we await the durham report. the doj announcing mccabe will not face charges but he is not out of the woods just yet. at the same time the attorney general was appointing outside counsel to look at the case against michael flynn.

we have the case of michael flynn, that sentence was changed seemingly overnight. we'll press for answers directly from the attorney general when he testifies in the house on march 31st. >> all this comes as the president is publicly thanking the attorney general for intervening and lessening the sentence for roger stone what are the plim casimplications? >> the fact that the president says these things, they're basically admissions of things that maybe the attorney general would prefer not to hear. him who said we did not do this because of the president, we're not intervening, in the ordinary course we were taking these actions because we thought the sentence was too high or some other such thing. they you have the president come out and say, hey, thanks, my friend, for getting involved and intervening in a particular way to help someone who is my close associate, close confidante, campaign adviser and long-time fr friend, which is not something anybodies y else in the countrys the benefit off. >> first of all, do you think the judge will comment and what will it

that would involve michael flynn. deputy assistant attorney general john you, good to have you on fox news at night. robert barnes, another attorney we had on the show tweets this today, they get tv deals, book deals, if a government official with an alleged crime, at an unprecedented level. they need an explanation. >> i can see why people think trump critics are being treated differently from trump supporters but they should keep in mind these are the results of actions of the trump justice department. it is true as donald trump tweeted today that he has the legal authority to direct all the prosecutions, to take care of the law is executed. he have -- we have tried to keep the white house and the justice department at arm's length, culminating in watergate and it helps donald trump in the end, it gets cleared by mueller. and donald trump allowed the justice department to be independent. >> he was frustrated by this. doing a deep dive, outside the original prosecution, want to look into the michael flynn case. micha

michael flynn pleaded guilty to lying to investigators. he's tried to reverse that plea, but that went nowhere. and now the attorney general saying new prosecutors will step in. trump and barr both say they don't talk about these cases. they insist there's no undue influence, but they see the cases the same way, and it den fits the president. >> terry, thank you. >>> new to what could be a new deal in afghanistan tonight. the u.s. and taliban announcing a tentative agreement for a seven-day reduction in violence. one that could affect troop levels. let's get right to martha raddatz. we've both been to the region. leaders have told us a deal with the taliban is a crucial first step. >> reporter: here's how it's suppose to work. there will be this seven-day reduction in violence. it's sort of modified truce. if that is successful, the u.s. and taliban could sign a peace deal that would lead to troop wi withdrawal. there is hope tonight, david, that a significant number of american troops could eventually be returning home. david? >> martha,

and this michael flynn thing. i can't imagine -- and roger stone. he's done so much for him. >> maybe he goes after the u.s. attorney in washington. it's the same office stone is -- >> thank you all. happy valentines day. how is the rank and file reacting to what barr is doing? i'll ask someone who worked in the same office as the for the stone prosecutors and knows two of them personally. 5g will change business in america. t-mobile has the first and only, nationwide 5g network. and with it, you can shape the future. we've invested 30 billion dollars and built our new 5g network for businesses like yours. while some 5g signals only go a few blocks, t-mobile 5g goes for miles. no other 5g signal goes farther or is more reliable in business. tomorrow is in your hands. partner with t-mobile for business today. the ups and downs tomorof frequent mood swings can plummet you to extreme lows. (crying) lift you to intense highs. (muffled arguing) or, make you feel both at once. overwhelmed by bipolar i symptoms? ask about vraylar. some medications only tre

flynn. coincidence? well, mccabe who's now a cnn contributor has been under the shadow of investigation over a leak to a reporter for two years now. i talked to him just a little while ago and asked him was it all worth it? >> it was absolutely the right thing to do then and i would do it again tomorrow if i was in the same situation and looking at the same facts. look, what we have seen through the multiple investigations so far, all of the work of the i.g. looking at everything each one of us did, the decisions we made, the communications around them, everything you could possibly imagine, millions of documents even the biggest critics have concluded that we were absolutely authorized and open in the cases we did. in my judgment it would have been a dereliction of duty not to open the cases we did under the constrains we had and the facts we had at the time. we are guilty of doing our jobs and nothing else. >> just a small part of that interview. you're going to want to stay tuned to. we'l

maybe it's okay to go after michael flynn. maybe there is a false statement but why didn't that happen with the hillary probes? the discretion that's being used by fbi add prosecutors is probably alarming an old hand like bill barr when he sees the possible consequence of stone or even in flynn's case. >> we were talking before this, there is house resolution 202. this is an important part. most people don't realize this but the owner of the two plus million federal employees that have an exemption from being investigated by the inspector general, attorneys at the department of justice. this bill from richman, the democrat from louisiana, jodie heist, a republican, it passed unanimously out of the house and i do hope the senate takes this up because the i.g. should be able to look at these individual attorneys at the department of justice as well. thank you so much for joining me. >> good to see you. >> that's one of the benefits getting to be the host. you get to sum things up. >> the fbi is an honest apolitical organization

flynn, changing the sentence recommendations for michael flynn, changing the sentence recommendations for roger stone, he can't continue to do this out in the open with trump tweeting the way he has been. it has been really disruptive. and so for skeptics, they feel he had to do this interview to pacify critics who feel the justice department has no credit ability at the moment and then that enables him to continue do trump's work for him. >> right. is this undermining the work of the justice department and is president trump trying to in effect undo the mueller investigation? >> that's what it seems like. and i really think that we have a real crisis here with the ruled of law. which means that everybody should be treated equally under the law. no one is above the law and there shouldn't be political interference into judicial decisions. but we're seeing that the justice department is changing its mind on things, where at one point you had the attorney's office of the district of clum bhee he columbia seem to agree on the sentencing for roger stone and then they changed their mind an

i think there's a great likelihood depending on the sentence. >> and michael flynn. both of whom were prominent cases brought by robert mueller. we know how the president feels about the mueller investigation and the fact he has been attacking the stone conviction, the michael flynn conviction, which was a guilty plea. i think a pardon is a virtual certainty. >> i want to get both of your thoughts. when the president calls himself the chief law enforcement officer of our country. those are his words. what do you think? >> that's not how we think about it. we usually think the attorney general is the chief law enforcer. every one is supposed to be equal before the bar of justice. as jim acota posted, the white house's own website refers to the attorney general as the chief law enforcement officer of the country. beyond that, the knif language e president uses doesn't matter. if he wants to declare himself the king of spain, i guess. the president thinks whether he has the right and authority to do it or not, if he thinks it's his privilege he's going to enjoy, to sing

what makes it different what michael flynn did versus chris murphy's michael flynn was speaking on behalf of another administration, the incoming administration and that was the delineation but we see this all the time. congressional delegations of foreign nations, john mccain was famous for, lindsey graham, nancy pelosi, congressional leaders go across the world and have conversations with foreign leaders, i see nothing wrong with this and the senators clear saying i cannot conduct us foreign policy but i can definitely go and talk to get a better grasp of the situation and asked to legislate on these matters. >> one other thing to read. there was some transparency to it but didn't mention who else was involved in the meeting and it is recorded that former senator john kerry was also participating in these meetings. chris murphy did not appreciate it when republicans wrote an open letter to iranian leaders at the time donna -- president obama was trying to negotiate. >> not appreciating it and -- >> your beef is with chris murphy who has a different view of these things depending on whet

michael flynn pled guilty by his own admission to lying, and now this whole thing gets reopened. it's important to remember, mccabe is connected to that because he and comey actually okayed the attorneys and went over and talked to flynn. he, harry, could still be involved in some way because of that probe, now, tied to the flynn case. >> i think that's unlikely. i think they are not standing down with respect to mccabe. and remember, they did try to bring those charges before, and it appears very likely that either the grand jury declined or they told the prosecutors, and this will sometimes happen, we don't see enough here. i take your point about the lies that horowitz found, but in terms of actually making out a criminal case, i think it was going to be a stretch. now, it's interesting, however, since they could have folded up their tent back then, or in a couple more months, when he was just sort of, you know, hanging in the wind. so it is connected, it seems to me, and i understand the confusion of the public, there is a little bit of mixed signals here, but i think the bot

flynn. the justice department recently opening an inquiry into flynn's interview with the fbi where he lied to investigators and later pleaded guilty for it according to two people familiar with the inquiry, barr last time privately asked an outside prosecutor to re-examine the flynn case around the same time, senior justice department officials pressured career prosecutors to recommend probation for flynn, instead of up to six months in prison that they had called for >> sources say this is another example of attorney general barr politicizing cases involving close associates of the president. >> reporter: it comes n for the case of the president's friend, roger stone. pushing for a lesser punishment for stone a decision announced after president trump blasted the original sentencing recommendation, seven as v ny and tonight, one day about the department of justice criminal cases. >> reporter: president trump rejecting that rebuke, returning to twitter reasserting his authority, insisting d

attorney general william barr intervening in the criminal case of another trump associate, michael flynn. what barr has now ordered and the president rejecting barr's calls to stop tweeting about the justice department after his explosive comments on roger stone. the president saying it's his legal right to interfere if he wants to the mixed messages as the case against a former top fbi official and frequent trump critic suddenly dropped. >>> thebreak thru in afghanistan a potential truce with the taliban. e way to end america's longest war? >>> the surging deaths from the flu, 14,000 in the u.s ungrieving mother's warning to other parents. >> if i could do one thing, i would have made sure she was at the hospital sooner. >> why this season's flu is especially deadly for children. >>> the body cam video sparking outrage police officers taking a 6-year-old student to be involuntarily committed after she threw a tantrum without telling her mother >>> the dramatic video of a burning roof collapsing the firefighter trapped underneath seconds later he crawls out his condition tonight. >>> and

flynn case. one of the president's earliest advisers. and it comes amid criticism the president applied pressure on the justice department in the roger stone case. the attorney general denying that in our abc news interview. >>> the major development that could affect thousands of troops in afghanistan. martha raddatz standing by. >>> the college football player under arrest. video showing him lifting a police officer over his head. allegedly body slamming him. >>> and the valentine's day surprise. the moment that had everyone moved. who is our person of the week? >>> good evening. great to have you with us on a very busy friday night. and we begin tonight with the coronavirus emergency. this evening the cdc now revealing new measures being taken in the u.s. today, we learned americans in five major cities with flulike symptoms will also be tested for coronavirus even if their flu tests are negative. it's a preemptive strike here at home coming amid increasing global alarm. passengers on a flight

you know, if michael flynn and roger stone did not want to get charged with lying to the fbi, a good way to do that is to be a member of the fbi. that said, and i think it's kind of amusing to listen to any mccabe talk about political persecution when you step back and look at the larger picture, i would argue that the entire investigation was applicable investigation and at the least of paul manafort but in the case of roger stone, and michael flynn, those are by definition political persecutions because the only reason any of them were prosecuted is because they got involved with a guy who wound up becoming president. three to this would've happens, plus the attorney general and doj realized investigation into michael flynn and the guilty claim he makes. so a lot of stuff is happening this week at the g.o.p. in the doj. >> i'm going to make a statement about the mr. biden later in the show, they can over leap this week. you've got kb, you got the attorney general calling in saying ease up on the tweet so i can do a job. it raises the level of intelligence, practically for democrats

if we get the michael flynn one at when the lawsuit, the inspector general will crop up the rest. we were wrong. we got the interview, but they double down and did not want to release the rest. we filed another lawsuit and they started trickling them out bit by bit. it took three years for them to release all the material. we are still in court to get more interviews and get the names of the people who were interviewed by the inspector general. identify 100to people who had given interviews flynn, but the majority of them, the inspector general redacted the names, did not want to make them public, were in court -- flynn we are it and we are optimistic we will win. we think it is important that people who are in charge of the work, people who played a key role, if they were critical about the strategy and how the american people are not told the truth, the public deserves to know, there is public interest in knowing who those people are so they can judge for themselves the merits of what they say. sarah: i want to open this to both of you. , one ofector general the last things you

forme national security advisor michael flynn and wther that was done appropriately. and the sentencing with roger stone. where is he with this president? >> he has as josh and amna said, he's had a very strong relationship with the presidente been trying to walk this fine line, tight rope that may noctlly exist between being the president's personal lawyer which is what he wants from his attoeneral, and it leaves maintaining a big leaf of respectbility -- and he is a true believer of executi power. he's given a lot of speeches to this effect. he does think that the president can do almost whatever he wants. an he has justified a lot o actions of the president's on that basis. but he doesn't see himself as a mignon. he doesn't see mississippi himself as doing the president's bidding. so when the president is outn public doing things like these tweets, it undermines not onl you know, barr's credibility in say, you know, i'm acting on the basis of the law. i'mot acting on the president's whims. it makes it much harder for him to have credibility when he says that. when

he basically accused michael flynn of selling out his country, which shocked all of michael flynn's allies in the room. they expected something quite contrary, but your point about the purge is really something striking because here you have secret memos written under dark of night shared with the president, almost like a whisper, trying to in a mccarthy-like way tell you about how somebody isn't trustworthy enough. jessie liu has a reputation of being a pretty solid prosecutor who didn't exactly, you know, go against the president's wishes. she was a political appointee who served him, and he or she's being cast aside as somebody who wasn't hard enough on the president's enemies. >> there's also -- one of the more worrying aspects to me, and that's my editorializing here, it's just the nature of barr in all of this. it seems that barr is kind of of a type with some of the folks like the guinea thomainnie thom barbara ladines, he feels he's a warrior on the president's behalf -- current and former justice officials describe an attorney general who doesn't rhode island take advice and prone

flynn. >> i see the rule of law being undermin undermined, attorney general barr the driving force behind the one institution in our society most responsible for reserving the rule of law. >> circular firing squad. the democrats turn on each other ahead of the high-stakes nevada caucus with mike bloomberg under fire for his

we are back with general michael flynn's attorney, sidney, i want to go back to that moment. it has been about three years and a few days since general flynn re-signed. he has been put through hell by any definition in the prosecution by these justice department attorneys. where are we with the case? bring us up-to-date very quickly. >> we are in the process of trying to get his guilty plea vacatur or the case dismissed for the government's outrageous and egregious misconduct, from the time they started the investigation to the prosecutor after recent breach of the plea agreement it has been one thing after another. the investigation was based on a pretext to begin with, there is no valid basis to investigate him and they have violated his rights in every single turn, they interviewed him in an ambush without telling him what they were doing, or that he was the subject of the investigation. he didn't have a lawyer present. they didn't advise him of his rights because they literally schemed and planned. the next step is to file a reply brief tomorrow on the misconduct motion.

michael flynn in his interview gave a good story. he would say, each year, we get a new brigade or battalion team with the army or come in for 12 months into the war zone. they had the same mission. which was to take the fight to the enemy and protect the population. every single brigade or battalion commander would come in, they say, it is a mess, this war, this is going to be tough. by the time they left, every single one of them said, i accomplished the mission. we took the fight to the enemy, we protected the population, we are winning. who is going to want to say at the end of their tour that they are losing? that they did not accomplish their mission? this is against the mindset of the military. who wants to admit they failed? that looks bad, that is not going to go over well with the higher reps. routinely in these reports, accomplish the mission. the next guy comes in, takes over, goes, what a mess. i can't believe things are so bad. the next guy, same thing. 12 months later, i accomplished the mission. are those people tryin

idea that the justice department is take agnew look at michael flynn. you'll remember michael flynn lied to the fbi. he admitted, he pleaded guilty to it. but in the last few months he's waged a campaign saying he was essentially a victim of malicious prosecutors and so this has been a feature certainly in the right-wing and we know that bill barr the attorney general consumes a lot of this stuff. he believes a lot of it. and so the question is, is this what is the result of this? is this the result of the fact the attorney general is buying into these conspiracies or is there something else at work inone of the things we do know from court filings is that the prosecutors do have to get ready to defend this case. this could be also a review in order to prepare for that. but, look, the atmospherics that are at work in washington right now and at the justice department, you know, play a role in all of this. we know that the president, you know, wants certain things done. bill barr has done certain things including the roger stone reversal of prosecutors a

flynn. flynn is awaiting sentencing for lying to the fbi. this reexamination is surely muse to music to the boss's ears. >> they ought to be ashamed of themselves, what they did to general flynn. what they did to general flynn is unfair in my opinion. look at flynn, it's a shame. >> now here we are. for the second time in basically as many days, barr appears to be caving to trump's bidding. and the fact is that barr's move to order the case reexamined is highly unusual, and it comes on the heels of his attempt to overrule career doj prosecutors for pushing for another trump crony, roger stone. this is the sort of thing that happens in a banana pub rick which is may be why judge walton added the damning and sobering thought about the president of the united states, the integrity of the process is being dually undermined by inappropriate comments and actions by the people at the top of the government. i think it's very unfortunate, and i think as a government and as a society we're going to pa

but when you look at michael flynn, he's been out there saying flynn was treated unfairly. he was according to james comey's notes, he asked james comey to let the matter go about michael flynn, who was being looked into and charged because he was lying to -- he lied to the fbi, over contacts he had with russians in the lead-up to the inauguration. so can you make sense of where the president's head is at and how he might be -- you know, there's reporting out there from your paper as well as others, that he has been having discussions or trying to have influence i should say over the department of justice on what investigations they pursue and what investigations they do not pursue. >> well, that's exactly right, and that's why this is such a fascinating moment right now. if you cover the white house to watch the president's relationship with his attorney general. and as of this morning, it's a little unclear where that's going to go. the attorney general came out and on the one hand he said something fairly inokay wows and obvious, that the president's tweets, not all are

flynn. thank god. you might remember, james comey bragging on camera about setting flynn up, and, oh, i sent my guys in there. i would never do that in the trump or bush administrations or ever get away with it. decorated military hero, 33 years. they forced of him to plead guilty to one charge, lying to investigators. but the investigators actually didn't think he was lying. why did he doti it? because they threatened to go after his family and kid and couldn't sell his house because they couldn't pay the lawyers.hi in their initial reports, the agents wrote that flynn didn't appear to be lying. they made him life so he could save his son. what father wouldn't do that? good for general flynn. here is how i interpret that action. general flynn will be vindicated. i can i believe tonight, and i have to believe tonight, that the durham-barr probe will deliver a devastating blow to the deep state which has to happen. or we might as well take our constitution and spread it. equal justice under t

michael flynn has not been sentenced. there may be particular concerns with respect to michael flynn's representation. i think his current counsel has raised some interesting questions about his past counsel. but there's been a number of theories floated about flynn, what he was told, his attorneys were told with respect to the interview that happened with him and two fbi agents. one being peter strzok. and the interview where that was the interview where he lied. and remember, he pleaded guilty to lying. he said he did it, and he said he had no reservations about the guilty plea. so it's very unusual in a case where there is a guilty plea and involves the direct behavior of the person that's charged, i'm still trying to figure out what exactly is being reviewed here. particularly because the government asserts that any sort of notes and apparently there are parts -- there were notes placed in the 302 and notes by the agents involved that said they thought that, in fact, michael flynn did display can cover in his intervie

today it's michael flynn. it would appear to gloria's point that they are slowly undoing the mueller investigation. play this forward with me. what would your biggest fear be if this is how the top law enforcement officer in the country is running the doj. >> i mean, it appears as though the department of justice is now being run by people who are enthrall to gratifying the white house. it is unheard of to be conducting not just one but multiple investigations of prior investigations, without any substantive basis. keep in mind, in the flynn case there is a pending criminal case before a district judge, and here the department has just commissioned new investigations of the people carrying out a pending criminal investigation. it's unprecedented. it's deeply disturbing, and it requires the attentions both of the inspector general of the department of justice and congress. >> we also know david and then gloria i want to come to you on the white house's response to barr's comments. barr goes on tv, talks to abc

we are back with general michael flynn's attorney, tom fitton, president of judicial watch. i want to go back to that moment. it has been just about three years and a few days since general flynn resigned. he has been put through hell by any definition, in the prosecution by these justice department attorneys. where are we with the case? bring us up-to-date very quickly if you would. >> we are in the process of trying to get his guilty plea vacated or the case dismissed for the government's outrageous and egregious misconduct from the time they started the investigation through the prosecutor after recent breach of the plea agreement it has been one thing after another. the entire investigation was based on the pretext, there is no valid basis to investigate and they have violated his rights in every single turn, interviewed him in an ambush without telling them what they were there a that he was subject of the investigation, he didn't have a lawyer present, they didn't advise him of his rights because they literally schemed and planned. the next step is to file a reprise be

he is laying the groundwork and when it is coming to roger stone and others like michael flynn, it is a continuation of the series of pardons. this is such a gross abuse of power and a very dangerous moment for our country in the aftermath of the impeachment trial, and you had republican senators saying that the president had learned his lesson. you damn right he learned the lesson. he learned the lesson that he can abuse the power with impunity. impunity. so this is a very dangerous and rocky time for the country, especially when it comes to theed a menstruation of -- the administration of justice where the president is acting like the justice department is the president's personal playground. >> he called himself the chief law enforcement officer of the united states. what does that tell you about his mindset? >> well, it tells us that he thinks that he is king, that he can call all of the shots at the justice department, and what that means and why that is so dangerous is lady justice is supposed to have a blindfold. you are supposed to administer impartial justice without fear or

bill barr says he's ordering a review of the criminal case of michael flynn, president trump's former national security advisor, who pleaded guilty to lying to the f.b.i. the announcement came just as the justice department said it was dropping its investigation of andrew mccabe. he's the former dep he's the former deputy f.b.i. director and frequent target of the president. paula reid reports tonight from the white house. >> reporter: attorney general bill barr's decision to review the criminal case against michael flynn will be seen as another favor to the president who has long felt his former national security advisor was treated unfairly. >> they ought to be ashamed of themselves, what they've done to general flynn. >> reporter: there are reports tonight senior justice department officials pushed for a lighter sentence for flynn than prosecutors originally sought, which is also what happened in the case of roger stone, the president's longtime friend who tonight, once again, asked for a new trial. >> i'm not going to be bullied or influenced by anybody. >> reporter: barr has publ

on friday we learn that he has ordered this review of the michael flynn investigation. optics are terrible. if you're trying to assert your independence. do you see a direct contradiction, though? >> i see a lot of contradictions. first i'm trying to figure out what exactly are they going to review about the michael flynn case. he was prosecuted. he pled guilty. the case was set for sentencing. his cooperation didn't turn out maybe as well as the government had expected. so they were going to recommend some prison time. that's fine. happens all the time. what does not happen is what we saw in the stone case where main justice, the attorney general comes in and says, look, i understand you're handling the case, you're the front-line prosecutor, i don't agree with what you're doing anymore. i don't wanted the attorney general's involvement in the flynn case by picking some prosecutor from outside of the district, having him come in and review a case that's already been handled. it's already been completed. >> what did you make of the interview with the attorney general th

whether you are martha stewart or michael flynn saying something that's not necessarily untrue but that somebody else disagreed with you on. we need to take a look at the whole issue of perjury, false statements. get one person to look at it and make sure the department has a single nonpartisan policy. if you got one person looking at flynn and one person looking at mccabe you are going to get different results. >> sean: let me go to sarah at the other side of what is going on at the doj right now. what i think is happening is the decks are being cleared. we have now been vindicated. you, me, our entire ensemble team premeditated fraud on a fisa court happened. and now the justice department confirmed it two weeks ago here's my question, what is happening at this point. what do you think the clearing of the decks we are observing means? my sources are telling me that it is real. that those that did the premeditated fraud on fisa, the phoney dossier they know was phoney and used it as a bulk of information they are about to see their worlds rock. is that true? >> that's what i'm hearing

michael flynn in his interview give a good story. he would say, each year we get a in thegade or battalion army. they all had the same mission which was to take the fight to the enemy, protect the population. he said every single brigade or battalion commander would come in and say, it is a mess this war. this is going to be tough. by the time they left 12 months later every single one of them said, i accomplished the mission. [laughter] we took the fight to the enemy, who protected the population, we are winning because who is going to want to say at the end of their tour that they are losing? that they did not come push the mission? this is against the mindset of the military but other branches of government as well. who would admit a fail? that looks bad. that is not going to go over wealthy higher-ups. routinely in these reports -- accomplish the mission. in andt guy comes says, what a mess. 12 months later the same guy says i accomplished at the mission. levelose people at that trying to deceive the american public? i think ther

didn't tell michael flynn or candidate trump miranda rights on this. mainstream media, cnn, "new york times," makes this group 2,000 doj officials, trying to make like it is not partisan. in fact it is an anti-trump group. it is called protect democracy. kt, has a long list of former democrat staffers who worked for adam schiff, chuck schumer, elizabeth warren and former obama administration officials. this is not a non-partisan group trying to get rid of ag barr. >> no. it is a very partisan group. former attorney general mike mukasey probably better than anybody. he says this is the same group of people who for two years sat around in panel discussions on cable news and they inhaled their own exhaust fumes and they got high on it and they kept saying there was collusion, there was wrongdoing, trump would be hauled out of the white house in chains. none of it came to pass. now this same group is taking their last swing. they tried the russia hoax. they tried the mueller investigation. they tried impeachment. they are now going to try to get rid of att

is most prominent of which is the michael flynn case, at least of those public that we know about. and so, they are looking at this, looking at the past investigative actions, the fbi interview, about prosecutorial steps like the sentences recommended if we have gotten that far and they're in a position now to second guess the line career prosecutors and micromanage their decisions going forward on that case and many other cases, as well. >> ken, i want to talk about barr saying, you know, that -- giving the reasons in the abc news interview why he intervened in the sentencing of roger stone and sounds if you listen to in it a vacuum reasonable. they wanted seven to nine years, his team. he didn't think that was right. the lawyer came to him and told him. you have to change the recommendation. it's not actually normal at all. there's no part of this that is normal about the attorney general intervening with senior prosecutors of a recommendation they have already made about a case. >> that's correct. that was so frustrating about the interview is barr never explained why of all the

>> so it started with an old-fashioned we got a tip, the tip was, this it was about general michael flynn, a recently retired army general in 2016 he was gaining some notoriety in public for campaigning for donald trump and appearing at republican rallies, chanting locker up that rally, so we were doing background reporting on general flynn and how he had gotten involved with the trump campaign but also his record in the military. the tip we got about him is that he had given a long interview about the war in afghanistan with a kind of obscure federal agency with the inspector general for afghanistan reconstruction. i was interested in this because i had covered the pentagon in the military and general flynn when he was in the military he was this well-known figure for speaking truth to power and would be critical of people in his chain of command for military intelligence matters. i thought that could be really interesting if flynn gave an interview about the war in afghanistan we would like to know what he said. so we went to the inspector general and we said we would like to have trans

fox news learned an outside prosecutor will review the handling of michael flynn's case. he's trying to withdraw his guilty plea in the russia investigation. this is happening after bill barr publicly pushed back on the president's tweeting.

it's meant for foreign citizens, not american citizens like carter page and michael flynn. the what it was abused here is beyond the pale. lou: it seems to be the same values and sat students that allowed the courts to be defrauded and whimmingly so. >> they were warned two years ago there was a problem and the court did nothing. we asked for hearing transcripts, and the courts told us there were no hearing transcripts. the government took up warrants to spy on president trump. i know it doesn't happen all the time, but i'd should happen in those circumstances. the best fisa court reform is to put someone in jail for lying to the courts. in this case the court did an institute on its own to figure out who is responsible for this criminal defrauding of the court. if you were doing that back in the day, they would have called you or your attorneys into the court to say why should i put you in jail right now. that's what the judge needs to do. the law prohibits what happened. we don't need new reforms. lou: when i look at what happened over the course of this president's term

flynn case. flynn who as you may remember briefly served as president trump's national security adviser, was caught up in the mueller probe. abc's kyra phillips is in west palm beach where the president is spending the weekend. kyra, good morning to you. >> reporter: good morning, dan. well, the theme here since trump's acquittal is clearly loyalty. the president is definitely saying and making it clear that loyalty is everything. otherwise you may pay the consequences. however, there is one friend that we know the president isn't going to throw under the bus and that name is twitter. after a stunning show of dissent from the president's inner circle this week -- >> i think it's time to stop the tweeting about the department of justice criminal cases. >> reporter: this morning, attorney general william barr again making a controversial move. the justice department has hired an outside prosecutor to conduct a review into the case of former national security adviser michael flynn. >> well, i feel b

and we'll get to michael flynn in just a second. first the decision not to charge andy mccabe. why announce it now, and was this at all expected? >> the mccabe case was difficult as john has hinted. there's a lot of problems with it. it was always going to be a very difficult case. brooke, i think one of the things that you have to remember is just a couple of months ago they had indicated to the mccabe team that they thought charges would be coming. so the question is what has happened in intervening period that has caused them to reverse course? and we still don't have an explanation for that. we know that this is a case that came out of an inspector ygenerl investigation. today is valentine's day as you know, brooke, so this is a bit of a valentine's day surprise, i think, for the president's supporters. the idea that mike flynn who has been campaigning with the idea that he was maliciously prosecuted, that his case is now going to get this review, is i think, being welcomed by some of his supporters. but at the same time one of the things that's happening in the court dob c