I would have got back into the business and why should i lose lots of opportunities . The special counsels office learned about trumps director to lie to congress through interviews with multiple witnesses in the Trump Organization and internal company emails, Text Messages and a cash of other documents. The president s lawyer denied a buzzfeed story and now after declining the comment and not commenting on the story itself, the special counsels Office Issued a statement. Buzzfeeds description of specific statements to the special counsels office and character zagsz of documents and testimony obtained by this office regarding Michael Cohens congressional testimony are not accurate. We should note other reporting on this exact topic went uncorroborated for months until it showed up almost word for word in muellers court filings. So its hard to know whats true this time. There is already public evidence supporting the latest report. Michael cohens own lawyers claim that in the case of his false statements, the conduct was intended to benefit client one and in accordance with client ones directive. That central allegation that the president of the United States told cohen to live, maybe the clear cut of all the crimes this president has been accused. So much so that came up earlier this week in the conformation hearing for his nominee of attorney general as an example of an obvious crime. You wrote on page one a person persuading a person to commit perjury would be an obstruction. Is that right . They yes. Any person who persuades another you also said a president or any person convincing a witness to change testimony would be obstruction. Is that right . Yes. Now in the midst of the longest Government Shutdown in this country, a president accused of crimes while in office. Quote listen f mueller does have multiple sources confirming trump directed cohen to lie to congress, we need to know this asap. Its time to show us his cards before too late to act. And ken, the special counsels office basically never says anything about any story ever. Theyve made an exception here. What do you make of the . Its a Stunning Development and a really Bad Development for journalism i think and youre right its unprecedented. I cant rememberthem ever commenting on a news story about their work. My take is theyre not refuting in its entirety their story. Theyre not saying this isnt Michael Cohens testimony, that Michael Cohen said trump told him to lie and theres this line in the Michael Cohen sentencing mmo that were now realizing says explicitly that he lied to congress at the direction of client one and client one is was donald trump. So that part appears to be the case. Its cohens contention. The issue, as you pointed out rksz t , the thing that got people interested was that there was all this corroboration. And by the time mueller got to cohen, they already knew donald trump instructed him to lie. It wouldnt surprise me what they were about was in fact the trump tower moscow project. While not informing the American Public and that Michael Cohen lied to congress about the timing of that. But clear lly they got that par wrong and after all day, mueller decides to put out this statement after business hours. Do we know thats the part they got wrong . That is the line that the mueller statement refers to. Thats the line that discusses information gathered by muellers office. I see. Youre saying that paragraph, the one that lept out at everyone in that piece which is basically that they learned of cohen being instructed to do this after gathering this evidence, the documents text, emails, testimony, the special counsels reference is to that paragraph in the statement . I think so. I said this on the air today. That seemed surprise the notion they would be eemailing andtectsing and discussing a directive to lie to congress. It doesnt seem like the kind of thing you would put in writing and where were left is the idea of wondering whether there is corroboration in any form for Michael Cohens story that donald trump directed him to lie. Its a completely plausible story. Its what he was saying he was directed to make Illegal Campaign finance but the question is it corroborated . Because the house is not going to impeach donald trump on the word of a convicted liar. You made mngz mention of this but the significance of the time. Buzzfeed writes this story. This thing gets lawyered and edited and they go back to their sources. These reporteders hars have a g track record. They go to the special counsels office and say what should we do . Heres your space for comment. They get a no comment. The story publishes and 24 hours latter we get the statement. Thats a strange thats a weird fact pattern. And its very frustrating. The behavior of the special counsels office. They pride themselves on not saying anything. Theyre not helping people get right and not pointing it out when people get it wrong. All theyll tell you is 50 of the things written are wrong. How does that help anybody . I understand their issue. But the government finds a way to help reporters get right and Robert Muellers office is not doing that and this is the result. Thank you so much for making time here at the top as were rolling with this crazy news day. For more on the consequences of buzzfeeds reporting, just wreet brand new oped calling for impeachment proceedings to begin. First as someone who wrote the special counsel regulations. And i want to refer you back to what chris murphy said today. There is an increasing sense i think of urgency and democratic tension building about the nature of an inquiry being conducted in secret for in the midst of what is fundamentally a public matter of the utmost import that all of ous need to know about. Yeah. Thats obviously a problem with any criminal investigation. Its really important to have a criminal investigation because crimes were committed as mueller has himself shown by getting criminal convictions of michael flynn, the president S National Security advisor, the numero uno Campaign Chair and the like. But theres also this other public dimension youre foeng focusing on and this is where todays restraction of buzzfeed becomes so important. Were talking about a story in which the argument is of the piece is President Trump ordered muccal con to lie to congress, not to private investigators or federal investigators but to congress and i think that underscores underscores this is a political thing, about an offense that occurred if it occurred with congress and thats why you need congressional investigation and the mechanism is an impeachment inkwr ea. What we are saying is the accusations and so many other things it was a week ago the New York Times reported that trump was under investigation as a sitting president for being an asset of the fbi and the next day the Washington Post reporting all the stuff about the translator, Putin Meeting secretly with trump in the translator notes being soozed by trump the like. So all of those are the reasons why i think theres a public need for some sort of investigation that isnt just a Law Enforcement one. So the piece youve just published with general Michael Hayden basically says and other people have made similar arguments. Bob bauer, former white house counsel. Youre saying both of you are saying its time initiate the formal inquiry in the house to have some public fact finding undertaken . Exactly. And we come at this from very, very different perspectives. Hes a general. I was a solicitor general which is not a general. Its a lawyer. Whos far more conservative than i am. Were generationally different but on this single point which i think underscores what youre talking about, which is the publics need for some answers here. This is why i think congress has got to start this inquiry. Lets talk about the content of what is essentially alleged in this article. To ken delaneys point and the filing in his own sentencing memo that this is a thing cohen apoors says the president did. As for corroboration theres a bit of a question mark about that. This is from the barr memo and i know you object and the theory contained therein. When he talks about basically making the argument you cannot commit obstruction is basically to say lets just be clear if a president knowingly destroys or alters evidence or suborns perjury then he, libe anyone else, commits the crime of obstruction. Is that a consensus view . It is. Even when bill barr agrees with it, who has petty outlandish view of president immunity from criminal wrong doing, i think literally everyone agrees with it. Maybe giuliani. But anyone in the mainstream and the reason for that is simple, which is theres no princeful in a than no one is above the law. Hes written a memo that says he cant obstruct justice. So he fired comey, barr argus but the president can fire any executive Branch Employee so therefore no crime is committed. I have the righting to walk around and destroy my laptop anytime. I have the constitutional right to throw it in the river but i dont if the fbi is coming to seize it because it has dangerous information. But thats why this is so significant if the buzzfeed story has legs. And it may not but if it does, even barr agrees that is squarely a crime by the president of the United States. And whats the significance of that in the scheme of things . Because the president has already been names essentially individual one in a federal court filing in which he is nomed named as the person who directsed michael con to commit a felony. So thats already hanging out above us all. Whats the significance of this . Its big and different and about the president directly. Youve got arguments, well, the president s motives might be different. Maybe he was doing it because a family reasons, he wasnt doing it for campaign reasons. I dont think its a particularly good argument but its something out there. Its arguably lying about sex, which is different. The story yesterday, none of those defenses are available. Its a very serious felony to order someone to lie to congress. It is impactexactly what articl Section Three of the nixon impeachment was about. And Michael Cohen is going to jail for this very crime. So the anomaly of having the lackey go to prison but not the boss who orders it is pretty striking. Buzzfeed in response to the statement the special counsels office. We are continuing to report and determine what the special counsel is disputing. They published the dossier to begin with and they were sued by none other than Michael Cohen. So just keep that in the background of this. What would the so lets say we now have congress. You have congress saying were the victim s of the crime here. We deserve a right to know that if that knowledge is currently being held by the special counsels office and youre saying its time to start a formal inquiry. What does that mean . Its done with deference to the ongoing Law Enforcement investigation by mueller and by the Southern District of new york. Were certainly not advocating and i dont think anyone in congress would, some sort of investigation that tramples over the Law Enforcement ones. But to the extent you can start developing factual information, bring wngs witnesses before the committee to find out what happened. This dispute is example a of why you need this process to begin because these are offenses against the collegerengress and ultimately the American People. Thank you very much for oo make time tonight. For more on the implications of buzzfeeds story. Executive director of protect democracy. Cynthia, as someone whos worked in high stakes legal environments, lets start with your reaction to what we have presentd before us tonight which is the special counsels office speaking for the first time, though doing so after 24 hours of not speaking. What do you make of that . What i make of it is they dispute theres corroboration and there is no case if theres no corroboration. It may turn out theres corroboration. May turn out felix sader is corroboration. It may turn out theres lots of corroboration about the president and his children discussing this. Its a put the brakes on moment for everybody. Mueller hasnt spoken this whole time and now hes spoken quite clearly. Everybody should just take breath and just wait and see a little bit. Just let things settle down for a minute. There was a feeding frenzy today. Thats how sometimes when Congress Gets involved in investigations they mess things up. Oliver north and john poin dexer got off because things went wrong in the way investigation went in congress. If the president when hes acting as the president , not some preelection event, if when he is the president , he directed cohen to lie to congress, as it appears he did, lets not mess that up. Because it comes in the context of we know cohen lied and we know that president knew he lied because of what he lied about. So lets just slow down and get right. Thats a good point. Your thoughts. I think one thing were missing and this happens often with President Trump is look over here is that bill barr memo talking about what was clearly criminal wasnt just suborning perjury but intimidating a witness to lie. How did the president respond . He responded by trying to intimidate Michael Cohen saying watch his father in law. Hes like a russian of criminal activity. Where you open one, another appears, emphasis on russian. Lets not lose sight on the other thing happened today, which is also a serious offense. What im wrestling with the country is theres this secret Law Enforcement investigation that may or may not have explosive facts about either the culpability or excull puatory facts and this feeling here we are in a shutdown and they orbit around this thing that seems inert from a deep democratic standpoint. Our organization Dade Research paper on all of the independent investigations under the special counsel statute and regulations since watergate. If i ever have involved what the president knew orwas involved in. Four made surer there was a congressional investigation that went along with the special counsel one. The only one that didnt. Jummy carters peanut farm investigations. When the special prosecutor issued a public 180page report of his findings. Theres a kwquestion of whether theyll release the report, theres a precedent. And the reason for the hearings is the American People need be brought along to understand what happened. I remember my father talking about watching john dean testifying on television every day, slowly revealing the criminal activity of the president. Thats where they moved from place where there was hyperpartisanship to a place where they understood what understooded to happen. I agree with it in good time. Whats happened here is weve gotten over our skis. And i think we need to just slow down and make sure. We had all day this buzzfeed article which may very well be true. Theyve been right a lot of the time. But ewwe didnt have corroboratn from any of the other places. I would agree we have to bring the American People along, i would agree we need have hearings and theres a lot at stake besides just this. We also know that theres a real issue here about don jr. And what he testified to about this and there were really interesting questions the spence counsel asked the president about this, when did you discuss during the campaign this russian trump tower and who did you discuss it with . All these are out there and he responded to them before he knew cohen was cooperating. Theres so much with the special counsel and i want tago get to as bad as anyone but i want to make sure its done right. The subject of the duration of this deal based on the pleading of Michael Cohen about lying to congress, right and what the times eareported about the questions. That key question of how long were you engaged in the deal and why were you lying . Is obviously central here. And what was the rest of your relationship with the Russian Federation . This is the story from last week about counterintelligence investigation whether the president had inappropriate relations with the president. And you dont have to call them impeachment inquiries, but oversight. Because the special counsels office is looking for which the standard is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. But the standard which we can accept on behalf of a foreigned averse aerb, thats not beyond a reasonable doubt. The American People should be able to make that decision with information presented by the congress. Which is distinct. Thank you both very much. Almost a full day after the buzzfeed story dropped, the spence counsel is responding. Spence counsel is responding ways metal vibration therapy. At [heavy guitar lick] [glass shattering ] not cool. Freezing away fat cells with coolsculpting . Now thats cool coolsculpting safely freezes and removes fat cells with little or no downtime. And no surgery. Results and Patient Experience may vary. Some common side effects include temporary numbness, discomfort, and swelling. Ask your doctor if coolsculpting is right for you. And visit coolsculpting. Com today for your chance to win a free treatment. And i dont add trup the years. S. 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Saying right before we went on air around 7 45 this evening, disputing certain parts of the accuracy of the buzzfeed story. Your response . Yes, i think i got feedback from someone else. What was your final question . Obviously theres been an arc over the last 24 hours with reghoor regard to the story because its a punchant allegation. How are you taking this all in . I think a a shocking and stunning revelation for everybody precisely because of its historical res innocence. Which in turn brought him to his resignation and the basis for the house of representatives ilfated impeachment of bill clinton for lying about a sexual affair. But lying to congress and obstruction of justice are cardinal constitutional sins. On the other hand it fits in very nicely with what everyone understands about donald trump and his white house where lying is standard operating procedure. I thunk the Washington Post has tallied up more than 4,000 lies hes told so far. It doesnt take a lot ofert eff to imagine he coo corroborate would his lawyer and urge him to do that. I was listening to some of the other guests and i know everyone is eager for justice to be done because the government has been shut down and looks like year living through a fullblown assault on the american constitutional order. The democratic majority is ready to lead and we are extremely eager to get going on our constitutional oversight responsibility. We have a constitutional duty to fairt out corruption in the branch of government and year going to be doing investigationinize investigatios into obstruction of justice and all of the sins that the House Judiciary Committee should have been looking at over the last two years but all those opportunities were wasted by the gop majority in their wild goose chase to fairt out a deep state conspiracy to make fun of donald trump or what have you. Those days are behind us and were going to get to work. All those things are not just the begin oofg formal impeachment inquiry which is the kind of thing bob bauer and the atlantic. Have called for. Whats your difference in your mind between those things and not . And the significance of not doing that . Everybeddeody accused of us being trigger happy with impeachment. The gavel and the power, congressman. And were feeling it. But look weve got to Keep Congress together. We got to keep our majority together and we got to keep the country together and people understand were dealing with a very unusual situation yes. Where the corruption and criminality in the white house is pervasive. Impeachment is no fetish but no tap oo either. We understand its very much part of the kaunconstitution. It has played an important role. And self defense of the congress and the people about a president who insists on acting like a king. So when president s decide theyre going to set themselves at war against the constitution and rule of law, then impeachment may be the end of the road indeed. You mentioned the nixon article oz of impeachment, article one, obstruction of justice. Improve counsel to lawfully authorize investigative officers and employees in the United States and false or misleading testimony in dually congressional proceedings. I want to get you on the record here. If it twhwere the case any president would order a subordinate to lie to congress, would that be an impeachable ooffense . Nobody is above the law and number two, every citizen thecluding members of congress and the president , so the whole reason we have the rule of law is to control power. People who dont have power are generally subject to criminal control but the magic of the rule of wlau law is youre goin subject to constitutional requirement such as you have tothal truth when you testify, noyou cant organize conspiracies to lie to congress or the courts. Thank you very much. Still ahead as the special counsels office disputes the buzzfeed reporting. Buzzfeed reporting its absolute confidence in 30,000 precision parts. Or it isnt. Its inspected by mercedesbenz factorytrained technicians. Or it isnt. Its backed by an unlimited mileage warranty, or it isnt. For those who never settle, its either mercedesbenz certified preowned, or it isnt. The mercedesbenz certified preowned sales event. Now through february 28th. Only at your authorized mercedesbenz dealer. Discover. O i like your card, but im absolutely not paying an annual fee. Discover has no annual fees. Really . Yeah. We just dont believe in them. Oh nice. You would not believe how long ive been rehearsing that. 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Talk to your doctor about mavyret. Ed gets copays as lowlily go to as zero dollars on Medicare Part d prescriptions. Ed gets labels clear as day. And, lily. Lily gets anything she wants. Ed knows he could just have us deliver his prescriptions. But whats the fun in that . Switch to cvs pharmacy. Making the extremely rare move of issuing a a Public Statement about that big buzzfeed story everyone has been talking about over the last 24 hours. Saying buzzfeeds description of spiff statements is not accurate. Just a little while ago ben smith responding in response to the special counsel spokesman. We stand by our reporting and the sources who informed it, we urge you to make the special counsel make clear thanks for having me on, chris. I think your description was accurate. And the special counseli issued this very vague statement. Were eager to know what hes talking about. Do you stand by the reporting that is a scoop no one else has or has confirmed . Yes, we have two federal Law Enforcement officials, no game plan with those titles, who have told us that President Trump directed michael con hen to lieo congress about building a trump tower unmoscow. As you know the same two reporters who reporteden the trump tower in moscow was at the heart of the indictment. Im on with you because jason and anthony are still reporting. Do you have any indication ken delaney floated the theory that the situation is that the Michael Cohen is making this contention he was directed by the president but the existence of corroboration is what is in dispute. You know i dont know anything beyond what is in that statement and as you say very hard to understand. Did they not communicate with you off the record . You did go to them with a story or absolutely. We went to them 24 hours ago and they declined to comment on it. And what do you make of that time frame . I dont know. Year still reporting and i think obviously the special counsel prefers to control the timeline and for reasonable reasons wants to operate on his own timeline and without revealing a lot of details. I think hes made these statements and wed really like to know what hes talking about. Ben editor and chief of buzzfeed news. Jouning me is a correspondent for gq and has been reporting on the trump russia relationship for a long time. Putting aside for a moment the facts in dispute, the buzzfeed story. What we do know is the trump tower Moscow Program went on way longer than it nilinitially had been said. He was charged for lying about that to congress and there were other details. There was higher Level Communications about the nature of the deal than had been revealed by the president. What do you think importance of those connections are to the overall story . I did some reporting early on in the cycle of the drama about why donald trump in 30 years of trying to build something in moscow and no one took him sooriously and they thought he was too sketchy and when the russians think youre too sketchy, you have a problem. Suddenly things took a sudden shift and people on the russian side suddenly started taking them seriously. When did that happen . Around the summer of 2015. Suddenly the russians were interested in doing business with him. One of the things we know for certain because of Michael Cohen plea is Michael Cohen lied under law toso senate. I want to play a little sampling of what he talked about when hes on the campaign trail. Zero. I mean i will tell you right now i have nothing to do with russia. They said maybe donald trump is involved in projicects with the russians. I have no deals that could happen in russia because weve stayed away. I have nothing to do with russia. To thebu best of my knowledge n person i deal with. I have no investments in russia, none whatsoever. All of that was a lie. Yeah, yeah it was. And what else they were lying about is also interesting. It turns out not only was donald trump lying, donald trump jr. Ent with to russia many times trying to get a deal and said this place is kind of scary and corrupt and i dont really understand it. And the New York Times did corroborate this part of the buzzfeed story that donald trump jr. Was briefed on this ongoing deal and he sounds like he lied to congress about this as well. When he said that he was only pu periferally involved. Ivanka has denied she knew anything when a lot of the reporting suggestests she knew a lot more than a little. One of the key things he i find clarifying when youre thinking about the campaign the motivations of candidate trump in say his refusal to ever say a single bad thing about Vladimir Putin is it is a lucrative deal. Its not luke oh, you talked to the moscow planning bord. The person who gives dwlou thumbs up and signs off on the deal is ultimately Vladimir Putin, right . That story broke that they offered pute an 50 million penthouse at the top and they said that cant be right because Vladimir Putin would get half the building. Too little. We know for instance demetri, a key lieutenant of Vladimir Putin, since i repeat again we dont react to such business topics, we left the unanswered. Thats him basically saying we got call from trumps people and we didnt respond. But we know thats a lie too. We know Donald Trumps denials are very similar to putins denials. When he says no, he means yells, when he says hes not going to do Something Like invade crimea, hes probably going to do it. And while all of this is happening, theyre helping donald trump win the election, right . We know this from the american intelligence community. From a unanimous report that came in january 2017 and donald trump gets briefed on the before hes inaugurated and continues to lie about business dealings. The hotel thing or trump tower thing, that is problematic but thats happing on top of when he says i thought i was going to lose anyway, well, the russians were clearly helping him to not lose at the same 250i78. Time. What is your current understanding . Youre someone who speaks fluent russian, has reported on this and other stories. I just want to see i dont know if youve ever seen the documentary icerous and he laze out in great detail that the russian government dopes the entire russian team that sochi olympics and when you see the details, youre like how can you think of that . You can reverse engineer it like that makes sense. We have this gap. Its time for mueller to drop what he has. Because were all guessing, year all speculating but ultimately i think what we do find out is going to be beyond what we could have ever imagined because the russians are really sneaky and inventive. Thank you very much. Much more on this. Developing story. Develongpi story its easy to move forward when youre ready for what comes next. At fidelity, we make sure you have a clear plan to cover the essentials in retirement, as well as all the things you want to do. And on the way, youll get timely investment help to keep you on the right track, without the unnecessary fees you might expect from so many financial firms. Because when you have a partner who gives you clarity at every step, theres nothing to stop you from moving forward. Who gives you clarity at every step, turn up your swagger game with one a day gummies. One serving. Once a day. With nutrients that support 6 vital functions. And one healthy you. Thats the power of one a day. 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The mother oof a 5yearold and the wife of an enlisted coast guard petty class in. There was absolutely no paycheck which was shocking. Weve reached out to creditors. Some are a little bit more understanding, others not so much. We definitely did not think it would come to this. We get up monday morning still checking our Bank Accounts hoping theyll be in there. You never think of those Little Things until you cant afford them. Its tough when your livelihood is affected this way. Politicians need understand we are people and we are hurting through no fault of our own. Critical Government Services are deteriorating. Food safety inspections are curtailed. Theres been a slow down in planning for hurricanes and other disasters. Trump today promised a quote major announcement tomorrow about the shutdown, though we have no idea what it will be. So far president for 28 days who said he would proudly take the mantdal up, has refused to do anything to end it and the only other person who can open the government has blocked repooted votes to do just that and that has left some to conclude the own e only way out of the shutdown is a stressed out airtraffic controller causing a crash. This is what donald trump has wrought, where some now believe the own ely way to end one disaster is to wait for another disaster to strike. Strikehomes. And every time we move, things change. Apartments become houses, cars become mini vans. As we upgrade and downsize, an allstate agent will do the same for our protection. Now that you know the truth, are you in good hands . I was thinking. D clot could there be another around the corner . Or could it turn out differently . I wanted to help protect myself. My doctor recommended eliquis. Eliquis is proven to treat and help prevent another dvt or pe blood clot. 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Included with Many Medicare plans. Call the number on the screen now or visit getsilversneakers. Com it would do more than haul. If i built a van, it would carry my entire business. Id make it available in dozens, make that thousands of configurations. It would keep an ey my fleet. [ beeping ] and an eye out for danger. With active brake assist. If i built a van, id make it available in diesel and gas. And id build it right here, in south carolina. Introducing the all new sprinter starting at 33,790. Built in the usa. Mercedesbenz. Vans. Born to run. Tonight, the special counsels instituting aspects of buzzfeed reporting. The president of the United States directed his attorney to lie to congress. What is not in dispute is the president keeps on intimidating the key witness in this whole affair. Trump spent months attempting to intimidate cohen. Last month on twitter, trump said cohen makes up stories to get a great and already reduced deal for himself and get his wife and fatherinlaw, who has the money, off scott free. And cohen should serve a full and complete sentence. Trump made similar comments in an interview last week regarding cohens upcoming testimony. And then today trump tweeted cohen is lying to reduce his jail time, watch fatherinlaw. Joined by our guests. You know, the thing about trump is if we caught him doing things behind the scenes he does in public there would be scandals. Right now, he really is engaged in a fullscale campaign of witness intimidation right in front of everybodys faces. Lets put aside the buzz feed story for just a moment and talk about other ways this administration is destroying the foundations of justice and certainly having a president insist on prosecution or investigation of someones family member, someone whos a key witness, is one way. Ill tell you another way, i was check out perjury law and across the top in bold letters it says essentially thanks to the shutdown, were not going to be updates this website. I thought, this is another way, you know, the foundations are crumbling. Lets not forget about that as we talk about the news of the day. Were living in, like, some kind of weird republican goal post moving, right, where were always trying to figure out what is it going to take for mcconnell and graham got em to do their job. Thats why people were excited about the buzzfeed story. It was something mcconnell couldnt get away from. We all kind of already know that trump told cohen to lie because theres no other reason for cohen to have lied. Theres no other reason for cohen for trump to keep lying about cohen, right . We know cohen lied. We know trump lied on the campaign trail. We know cohen was consulting with trumps people before he did his testimony. All thats established. Theres no chance that the buzz feed story is wrong. The question is simply, can they prove it. And thats always been the question up in the air. When we say can they prove it, were not really talking about can they prove it in a court of law. Can they prove it to lindsey graham. Can they prove it to mitch mcconnell. Can they prove it to the point where the republicans have to do something about the crazy liar that happens to be running the country. That point about waiting for the got em moment has been this kind of perennial issue here. I think that you know, ultimately all does turn on what Lindsay Graham and the Senate Republicans you know, ken earlier was speaking and i totally feel his pain about how frustrating it can be to work on muellers time. He has the ball at least until some congressman decide to move impeachment. A point about Michael Cohen and why the buzz feed issue of corroborati corroborations so important. Without it, youre left with Michael Cohen testifying. Of course. Hes no john dean. Just going to say it. No, hes a liar. Invettorate liar. Thats a huge problem. Thats precisely why this is so important, right . Like, what is reported and what is disputed and why its so important in the broad scale of thing. Ultimately, there will be a question of what the public evidence says about what happened, right . Well and that goes to the core of the issue of what will be either adjudicated in courts of law, if its people not having to do with the president , or ajust dated in essentially the United States congress and thats another issue. I wasnt super impressed with the congressmans answers earlier on the program. I like buzzfeed too. I trust them. I also want to know which game of thrones character i am most like. But at the end of the day, we are outsourcing whether or not the president of the United States is a russian asset in lots of ways to the news media and to a secret investigation. Very good point. Thats not how its supposed to be. This is supposed to be done in public. The public is supposed to have an opportunity to know if their president is a crook. Like thats an actual thing were allowed to know. I understand the congressman and democrats, and the reluctance to do this because it didnt work on bill clinton or whatever. Were well past the point where Congress Needs to act and bring these allegations and the evidence out into the public. What will be really interesting in the normal course, and these are not normal times, doj and congressional, you know, hearings, committees, can work together. That was the ambassadors point. This has happened before. The parallel to congressional inquiries. The point of it, it is public. Its still the case, if i may, that if the issue is someone who lied to congress, then congress ought to be a little motivated to get to the bet tm of it. I thought i saw a turn in the initial response of the the story on precisely those grounds. Members of congress all say, and i think this is a consensus to you. Everyone has said this, even william barr. It is a black and white impeachable offense. If you say to someone, go lie for me in front of congress. So lets bring hope hicks down. Lets see what she has to say in front of congress. There are so many tendrils that were constantly grasping. We dont really know whats going on. Empty wheel makes this really good point about whether or not the corroboration that buzz feed has is coming from sdny as opposed these are all closed black box investigations and it needs to be out in public. Congress really no longer has the kind of i understand the politics of it, but for the legal good of the country, this stuff has to start happening in public. Or we let Robert Mueller finish on his own time. Those are two views. Theyre two contrasting views presented. I personally i think as a journalist, as a member of the Fourth Estate and citizen, i always err towards the public. When you talk to former prosecutors, theyre all, like, no, this is the way it has to be. But i do think the terrain is extremely treacherous. Day 27 or 28 of this shutdown. Theres sort of a seeping sense of unease that has only deepened, particularly in the wake of the revelations weve gotten this week. Ultimately, presentations of public fact will have to be how this is sorted out. I put myself on the side of the public or at least the public presentation of fact. The other thing is the question of the time line. When you say wait for mueller, its one thing if thats two weeks. Its another thing if its four months or six months or a year. Lisa green and ellie, thank you so much for joining us. Rachel maddow show starts right now. Much appreciated, have a great weekend. And thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Happy friday. This weekend will mark two years since the inauguration of this most unusual presidency. It turns out if you want to think of this as kind of a weeklong celebration that weve been having, leading up to that twoyear anniversary, its been an intense week. I mean, think about what has happened over the past week. The New York Times reported a week ago the fbi opened an inquiry into whether or not the president was secretly working on behalf of russia while he was president of