Toward that goal. Lets start at the white house. Nbc news Peter Alexander is there and lets start with the white house and the silence from Stormy Daniels. What else did we hear from Sarah Huckabeesanders as the press briefing took place. The news is that coming from the New York Times suggesting that john dowd, the former lawyer in the russia investigation, floated this idea. The possibility of pardons for two of the former aides. Paul manafort who served as the Campaign Chairman during the course of the campaign, and also Michael Flynn, the First National security adviser. We received a statement from ty cobb. He is the inhouse counsel for the president. He addressed this topic. He said ive only been asked about pardons by the press and routinely responded on the record that no pardons are under destruction or under consideration at the white house. There was some question then left about whether this is something at any point that was discussed or considered and my colleague Kristen Welker focused on that when she spoke to Sarah Huckabeesanders in this briefing. Take a listen. Ty cobb deals with the president so i want to ask you specifically, did the president direct john dowd to talk to the attorneys for Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn about potential pardons . Im not aware of any conversations of that nature at all. Did the president have a reaction to these revelations in the New York Times . Did you ask him specifically. I did not talk to him about it specifically. But again ive an bn in a num in a number of conversations and ty cobb who would be the lead representative for the white house has gone on the record to discuss and declare that these conversations havent taken place. She could not declaratively say whether or not they were discussed or considered but she did say they are not under discussion or under consideration. The New York Times as youve seen reports that this conversation between john dowd and those representatives for Michael Flynn, for Paul Manafort occurred as mueller was building the special counsel building his case and it does raise the question whether the white house was influencing the men, whether to plead guilty or cooperate in this case. Peter alexander joining us from the white house. And i want to talk about the new breaking news. President trumps former lawyer john dowd brought up the idea of pardons former top advisers, Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort last year. And joining me on the phone is one of the reporters, Michael Schmidt is with me. What do we know about the substance of the conversations today . Conversations with robert keener, would is flynns lawyer and what did they talk with john dowd who is now president trumps former attorney. These conversations happened last summer when mueller was building his case against flynn and Paul Manafort. Dowd has expressed to folks that he believes the case especially against flynn was very flimsy. There was nothing there and that was no reason for them to plead to anything or cooperate. The question is what did the president know about this . Was dowd an acting on his ownr at the direction of his client. People find it hard to believe he would do this without consulting with his clients. But at the same time, we dont know what the president s role was it . What are folks talking about the legal implications about this and how widely how ironclad the president s Pardon Authority is. That is the real question. If dowd was out on his own and didnt do this at the president s direction it is hard to tie this back to the direction but it he was trying to do this to get in the front of the russia investigation and stop people that is a more significant legal question. The thing you have to understand about dowd who left the legal Team Last Week is that he believed the president should all of the powers that he had to defend himself and that he was in a war and that regardless of the political consequences of how a pardon may look or not sitting for an interview with mueller may appear, that the president had to use what he had. The things like like the pardon power and such to protect himself in such an important investigation. Michael, you know this legal team very well. Help us understand the role here that john dowd played in it. When you look at that mechanism and it has gotten smaller over the last few weeks. What role is he playing. Dowd has the lead as the trump lawyer in the middle of last summer. Then he relied on Mark Kasowitz for the first few months and then dowd came in to take over. Dowd was the lead person. But hes working outside of the white house as the president s personal lawyer. He took the lead in dealing with kelner who is flynns lawyer and reg brown who was Paul Manaforts lawyer and dealing with the special counsel office, muellers office on the interview and negotiating the interview. Dowd was very concerned about the president sitting down with mueller for an interview. And he thought that very little to come out of it. He knew the president would often not tell the truth and that would be a very, very legally difficult situation for the president to go into. Last question, let me go back to what Peter Alexander was saying about the questions this raises about how worried the white house might be about what these two gentleman might say to Robert Mueller and his team. What are the biggest questions that raises, what might they know . Well, it is unclear what manafort may know. He was only part of the campaign for a few months and according to folks that i talked to, he did not want to accept any type of pardon because he believes hes done nothing wrong and the government has overstepped their bounds. And flynn is cooperating with mueller. He agreed to cooperate at end of last year and he knows a lot of things. He was around for the entire campaign and met with russian officials did youing the ambassador during the transition and he is at the heart of the more curious events with the phone call with the Russian Ambassador around the Obama Administration decision to put sanctions in place to punish russia for election meddling. And flynn getting fired shortly after he joins the white house for misleading the president the Vice President about the nature of his calls with the ambassador. There is a lot of things that flynn knows. We dont know the full except of his cooperation but we do know in exchange for dropping charges against him or only charging with him a few things he agreed to talk to mueller. That is Michael Schmidt. His by line from the New York Times out just a few minutes ago. Thank you. Stormy danielss attorney wants trump to sit down for a deposition to find out what he knew and when. He is asking a judge to approve his request for no greater than two hours with donald trump and his personal attorney Michael Cohen. He said he paid daniels 130,000 just days before the 2016 election. Daniels signed a deal to stay quiet about her allegations of an intimate relationship with the president. And the attorney claims that is a violation of Campaign Finance laws but Michael Cohen said he did it with his own money and without Donald Trumps knowledge. Well the president is not responding and hes remained unusually quiet about all of this. The white house continues to deny the two ever had an intimate relationship. And as for cohen, his lawyer attacking Michael Avenatti saying the filing is a reckless use of the legal season to inflate avenattis ego and keep himself relevant. What is the likeliness this would work and could a judge order a president to be deposed. And from a fellow at pace law school, lets start with the filing in california. What did we learn from that filing . I guess Stormy Daniels lawyer is trying to go on the offensive here. Trump and mr. Cohen had tried to move the lawsuit or did move the lawsuit into federal court to push this into arbitration. And now i think avenatti didnt like the pace or the fact it might be in arbitration where the public couldnt see it. So now by filing this claim, hes trying to bring it back out in the open and trying to put it back on a faster time line which it seems like hes getting and put it back into the public eye. So lets talk about the april 30th date. He seemed dissatisfied and not happy with the pace this was proceeding. How much of a victory is that, just having a sense of the timetable. This is going to be heard by this judge on april 30th. It is a victory for now. I think there are still some hurdles for him to overcome. I think the hurdle about a sitting president being subject to a lawsuit, that one seems pretty clearcut to me. There is clear Supreme Court precedent on that. Specially since interestingly trump and coen did move this floor federal court, they might have had a better argument had it stayed in state court that the jones case didnt apply but because it is federal a court that is applicable. But the next hurdle is a motion to dismiss the claim. Which cohen through his lawyer has already said this is a frivolous claim. That is a very hard standard to meet. Trump is it is basically whether the plaintiff, which in this posture is Stormy Daniels, whether they have stated any claim under the law, whether the facts as stated could constitute a laegal claim so it is hard to get it dismissed which means discovery and the deposition would go forward. I want to get your sense of how effective Michael Avenatti is getting the president he hasnt talked about it or tweeted but from one statement from Stormy Danielss attorney, if shes not telling the truth, let the president take to the podium and call her a liar. Let the president come forward and say it never happened. This is part of the game and what hes trying to do, to draw the president out to weigh in on the issues, something hes had remarkable restraint at not doing. He started before this 60 minutes interview and followed up right afterwards. He clearly was trying to get both cohen and the president to speak out on this. In retrospect, now that hes filed this because it would have helped make a stronger defamation claim. And so the facts hes relying on now are not as strong as i think he would like them to be. But again, probably likely to survive a motion to dismiss. I want you to weigh in on the news from Peter Alexander and Michael Schmidt about the legal issues, what is your understanding of the graph it gravity, you had john dowd or with the guidance or the president to raise the specter of offering a president ial pardon, how remarkable is that to you . In terms of a criminal analysis, those details matter as to how remarkable it is and whether it is part of a criminal charge. So first you would need to show for sure certainly that the president knew if dowd was having these talks in order to tie it back to the president. And second, i think standing alone exercise of pardon would not necessarily be a great basis for an obstruction of justice charge. But if you put it altogether with the other efforts of the president aktding acting on own when he tried to get fbi director to drop the case against flynn it could become part of a pattern. And it is very interesting that it is dowd, his personal lawyer and not don mcgahn who is the white house lawyer who is responsible for the pardon process. So that sort of puts this in a whole different category when you are looking at it from the criminal perspective. And the one other point i would say that does make it remarkable, regardless of whether it could be part of a technical obstruction of justice charge, it goes to the whole consciousness of guilt that we keep coming back to of what are they trying to hide and why. What were they so afraid of it . I know you asked that and many people have weighed in on that and but it is certainly making it clear that they are afraid of what flynn and manafort and likely gates are talking about. So nice to speak with you. Thank you. Miriam rocca here in new york. And turning back to another major story, focuses on north korea and the president tweeted he he is looking forward to meeting with kim jongun and spoke with xi jinping and saying maximum pressure need to be kept. And they have been reporting kim pledged to denuclearize but little known about what will discussed. I want to talk with yale rab ort. And after this took place, we were rapped as we saw this photograph of the secret train making its way to beijing. What is the import of that meeting taking place when you look at these two leaders, kim jongun meeting outside of the country for the first time with a foreign leader. The visit is really intriguing and not entirely surprising. These two leaders have not met they have both been in power for six years and both have been consolidated power in their own ways and despite the fact there is a long standing reliance and relations have been at the lowest point ever in recent years. How bad have they been. That the leaders havent met. There is a deepseated alliance between the community parties of both countries and a defensive alliance on paper between north korea and china and yet the leaders had never met. But with the summit coming up, between kim jongun and south korea and most likely between trump and kim in may, it is interesting to both leaders to pivot and realess the re and suggest that they are rewarming the ties. The meeting took place and dont know about the substance of. It it is fascinating to look at the reporting from the north korea and the chinese side. Talk about president xis approach to this meeting. It is more of a by lateral or tri lateral and they are moving toward the meeting with north korea. What is the role of china in those conversations. One of the reasons why xi had a strongin senti incentive with kim jongun because the diplomacy have left china out of the picture. It is led by the south koreans who headed into the olympics for trying to diffuse tensions with north korea and then decided to follow on that olympic diplomacy as a promise with a summit between the north and south. And also south korea has engineered this perspective summit between the United States and kim jongun. It is a south korean negotiator who has come to the terms with kim jongun. Weve heard the north koreans say very little about it. So in that broader picture, xi jinping is cut out. No crucial place for china in that diplomacy. So given the long Standing Alliance and the ties between the two countries and the fact that kim and trump could meet and perhaps cut a deal in may, although it certainly wont be a deal that provides for full denuclearization and xi felt he could reassert the historical ties. And last question. How much has the calculus changed here . Mike pompeo will move from the state department and replacing mcmaster, again the meeting is if not on the calendar, it is pencilled in to happen in may. How could all of that change the prospects for that meeting or how they might be conducted . This is an essential point and maybe one of the reasons that both xi and kim sawin sentive to meet. And with mike pompeo being nom ated as john bolton, each of the new appointees is more hawkish on north korea than his predecessor and each of the appointees is on record as having count innocence the idea of military action against north korea. So going into a summit, kim knows that if this summit falls through and donald trump walks away unhappy, given this president s temperament, it is possible hell tap back in a dangerous direction and start considering military action again. And with mike pompeo an john bolton whispering over his shoulder, the threat could be realized and may have compelled him to turn to xi. Thank you very much. Senior research extol extolar at yale law school. And how pruzers can protect data to control privacy and security but is it too little too late. And tim cook weighs in and tells us what his company is doing to protect your privacy. It is an nbc exclusive. Dear greatgreat grandfather, you made moonshine in a backwoods still. Smuggled booze and dodged the law. Even when they brought you in, they could never hold you down. When i built my family tree and found you, i found my sense of adventure. I set off on a new life, a million miles away. Im heidi choiniere, and this is my ancestry story. Now with over 10 billion historical records, discover your story. Get started for free at ancestry. Com discover your story. You may be at increased risk for pneumococcal pneumonia, that can take you out of the game for weeks, even if youre healthy. Pneumococcal pneumonia is a potentially serious bacterial lung disease that in severe cases can lead to hospitalization. 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Fallout from the Cambridge Analytica scandal has put Silicon Valley on high alert and social media reconsider how willing they are to share private data. Cambridge analytica is the u. K. Based firm that acquired the personal data of more than 50 million facebook profiles. They already also contracted to do work for the Trump Campaign during the 2016 election. Chris hayes and cara swisher just spoke with the apple ceo tim dock in an nbc exclusive on that topic and others and lets see what he said about Third Party Apps and the larger topic of privacy as it relates to facebook and Cambridge Analytica. Were looking at every app in detail. What is it doing . Is it doing what it is saying it is doing. Is it meeting the Privacy Policy that they are stating. And so were always looking at that. Should we raise the bar more . Were always looking at raising the bar. Mark zuckerberg, what would you do . I wont be in this situation. I wont be that situation. And jo ling kent joins us. And the speculation by lawmakers and what else stood out from the conversation with chris hayes and cara swisher. There is the intensifying pressure to handle personal data responsibly and Mark Zuckerberg behind the scenes still dieding whether or not he will testify about congress. No invitation and there have been multiple have been accepted just yet. The Largest Social Network is also facing five new lawsuits in federal court as of yesterday. And including one from three Facebook Users suing the company for tracking your phone call and text message data through facebook messenger. And now apple ceo tim cook also saying it is important for users not to be the product. And in his exclusive interview with cara swisher and chris hayes. The truth is we could make a ton of money if we monetized our customer if our customer was our product. We could make a ton of money. Weve elected not to do that. [ applause ] our products are iphone and mac and if we can convince you to buy one, we will and you are not a product, you are a customer and you are a jewel and we care we care about the user experience. And were not going to traffic in your personal life. I think it is an invasion of privacy. I think its privacy to us is a human right. It is a civil liberty. And in something that is unique to america. This is like freedom of speech and freedom of the press and privacy is right up there for us. And so weve always done this. This is not something that we just started last week when we saw something happening. Weve been doing this for years. Now facebook continues to do pretty significant damage control. Today they unveiled a new way to find out exactly what youve shared with the company and in weighs to delete that information. But facebook has not committed to changing how much data it is collecting about you and now more members of congress are calling for Mark Zuckerberg to show up to accept those invitations and to testify next month. David. Great to speak with you. Jo ling kent from los angeles. More of tim cooks comments on privacy and government regulation on that msnbc recode special airing on friday earp 6 april 8th and hosted by chris hayes and cara fisher. And they are trying to slow the wave after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The facebook privacy officer and deputy general counsel said last week shows how much more week we need to do to understand how facebook works ant the choices they have over their data. The company will sim comp the will simplify settings and a new page will allow you to see the information gathered about them. These changed seem fine on paper but must next guest argues they dont go far enough. Quote, the changes are cosmetic, facebook isnt changing the way it collected your data and it was used before and scattered in different pages that made it tougher to see. Im joined by kirk wagner from recode. Lets start about going through what is changing. Im on facebook, four years ago i got off and i was given this cache of information and i have no idea what is in this and what is the result of these policy changes. If you are a Facebook User today, it is hard to figure out what data youve given facebook. What your privacy settings are and the company is redesigning the format that it puts all of that on website so you should hopefully be able to go on to facebook and more easily and clearly find out what does facebook know about me and what am i granting them permission and do i want to remove permission. So this already existed. Facebook is just trying to make it easier for people to find it. How valuable is all of this . I think what is there in the cache. Every record of a poke or a like or any Small Movement on the social media site. How difficult is it for somebody who uses facebook to understand the value of what he or she is forfeiting. Well facebook tells you the value of what you bring to the company because they have an arpu number which is average revenue per user and the amount of money they make per person through advertising and i think in the u. S. It is somewhere in the tens, 19, 20 per quarter from a user. And when you think about that and realize the information is giving facebook the ability to hyper target me with advertise, and it is massive and that is why they are in the business. And so this this information is valuable to the company. So if you were to take it and delete it and remove, it it would be detrimental to the business. Representatives are talking about simplification of privacy and one of the issues with the way Tech Companies like facebook collect personal data from people is that they often make it hard for those people to understand what theyre collecting and how to control it. How deliberate is that . In the case of facebook how much is on fis case another part of the game and notify you that it is happening and difficult to see i like the people at facebook a lot and so when im asked this question i want to say, well i dont think it is intentionally, certainly they wouldnt be deceptive on person at the same time weve been having this conversation for a number of years. This is not the first Time Facebook has revisited the way it shows privacy information to users and not the first time theyve come out and said we want to make it clearer and easier four to find this kind of stuff. So the fact that were still having this conversation and that we will probably at some point have it again down the line makes me think that there is a strong benefit to the company of making it not super easy for you go to in and delete your whole profile and this huge part of the business i can understand from a business perspective why that might be the case. Last question here. What is facebook most worried about . Is it your european regulator or u. S. Lawmakers, the ftc looking into the facebook activities. What gives the company the greatest pause at this point . I think if you are a facebook you have to be very concerned that you are going to be treated differently or held to a higher standard than others in the industry. So if the u. S. Government comes out and said, hey, we want to add more regulation around what you can collector how you can use it, i think facebook could be okay with that so long as others like google and amazon and twitter are held to the same standard. But if all of a sudden government comes out and said facebook we believe you have been the biggest instigator and were going to punish you individually, that is a big problem because all of a sudden facebook is taking a hit that others arent. So i think regulation is a concern. So long as they are the ones who are punished specifically. I think if it is industry wide it is easier to deal with that. Interesting to hear you say that. In light of tim cook about drawing lines between the companies. Kurt wagner, thank you very much. Coming up, outrage is growing in sacramento as a Community Mourns the death of Stephon Clark and an unarmed black man shot down by police in his grandmothers backyard. It has got to stop. Im sick and tired you have guys sit sitting up here talking about we need some training. But im not standing still. And with godaddy, ive made my ideas real. I made my own way, now its time to make yours. 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Prolia® can cause serious side effects, like low blood calcium; serious infections, which could need hospitalization; skin problems; and severe bone, joint, or muscle pain. If your bones arent getting stronger isnt it time for a new direction . Why wait . Ask your doctor about prolia. With respect, this seems to be an issue the entire company is grappling with, the tensions between communities of color and police departments. Does the president not need to show leadership on this issue . Look, we certainly when the president has talked about a number of issues, we want to find ways to bring the country together. Certainly not looking for anyplace of division. I think youve seen that in the policies that hes put forward. He wants to grow the economy and do that for everybody. He wants a better america for every american. And that has been a repeated thing out of this white house. But when it comes to the authority to on the rulings that have taken place in the last few days, those are things that have to be done at a local level and they are not federal decisions at this point in time. There are a lot of africanamerican moms across the country feel as though their sons are dying. Doesnt the president feel like he needs to do something about that . I think we should do every single thing we can every single day to protect the people of this country. I think the president , whether theyre black, white, hispanic, male or female, rich or poor, we look for ways to protect the individuals in this country. Particularly children. That is why youve seen the president take an active roll over the last several months in School Safety and looking at ways we want to do that across the board whether the kid is in a school or at home, no matter where they are in this country the Exchange Last hour between Kristin Welker and Sarah Huckabeesanders at the press briefing. Across the country in saxt sacramento, california, the family prepares for the public wake. He was shot and killed by police while he walked in his grandmothers backyard and he was holding a cell phone and police say they thought it was a gun. This body camera video was released and now the department of justice in california will independently investigate his death but that announcement has done little to quell protests across the city. They gathered at City Council Meeting to share pain. [ chanting ] his brother lashed out during the meeting at the mayor and the city. [ chanting ] does this look like a gun . The protesters made their way to the kings location and they blocked off access forming a ring around it. Joe fryer is in sacramento and joining me now. And were hearing the city council is not going to be meeting tonight out of respect for the clark family. There is a wake and a funeral tomorrow. What is the latest . For many really the focus today is on remembering Stephon Clark. So the wake is taking place this afternoon in the evening and then the funeral is taking place tomorrow with the eulogy by reverend al sharpton after the City Council Meeting. Hundreds showed up in chambers and many signed up to speak and make their voices heard. Now that meeting was supposed to last six hours. There were a couple of times when the city decided to take a recess because things got a little tense and eventually they adjourned the meeting early after only three and a half hours, the theory was those that didnt get to speak last night will speak today but for now the city is put that on hold out of respect for the family because the wake is taking place today and the funeral is taking place tomorrow. During that City Council Meeting a lot of passionate speeches and people calling for reform to the police department. They also want to see the two officers involved in the shooting either fired and or charged. The association that represents the Police Officers here in sacramento has said that the shooting was justified. Saying in a statement that the officers perceived this as a deadly threat and fired on clark to save their own lives. But clarks grandmother who actually heard the shooting and it happened in her backyard sees this very differently. We spoke with her about what happened. Take a listen. Why would you empty 20 bullets on a unarmed man . Why would you do that . Do you want to see charges in this case . Yes. Now the County District attorney will ultimately decide if charges should be filed in this case. But as you mentioned, david, the state is also conducting an independent review of this. And the state does have the authority to file charges in this case. If it feels that is necessary. David. That is my colleague joe fryer out in sacramento. Thank you very much. And this just in on Cambridge Analytica and facebook, it turns out those breached profiles that were supposed to be destroyed were not. The u. K. Partner channel 10 discovered that things were not deleted as Cambridge Analytica claimed they have been. And this comes as the chris wylie, the whistleblower revealed there is far more than 50 million profiles accessed. And for more on this, anna schechter. Lets start with the case of colorado. What data is still out there and what does this say about what people are worried about at this point . This data is still floating around. Absolutely. Over 130,000 people have data personally about their personality, are they agreeable, open, neurotic. That kind of information on those voters helped Cambridge Analytica develop messages that would work for them to switch their vote to whichever candidate they were working for. You look at what facebook said since then, and tried to crack down and get this data deleted or reclaimed. What does this say about how the process is and how difficult it will be. It is extremely difficult for them to verify that in fact all of this data is under wraps and has been deleted. Clearly it has not been. Our u. K. Partners have seen the data. In fact they used the data to find voters in colorado. They went knocking doortodoor. Some of those voters say it is very unsettled to know that this kind of personal information is out there. And really who knows how many people have access to it . And i mentioned chris wylie at the reporter from our parters in the kux in the u. K. And its extraordinary testimony. What did we learn from him yesterday that we dont know before about the expense of this and the reach of this data operation . He had given us the number 50 million. What he testified to u. K. Parliament yesterday was that it could be many, many more than that 50 million number. So it is really extraordinary, the scope of this breach. We look at colorado here. And i know oregon has been invoked. There is still a lot yet to be determined. So there is a lot of forensics happening at this point about where this data is. That is exactly right. Cambridge analytica said they are deleting and now blaming rogue employees who have taken the data and it clearly still exists but weve learned that Cambridge Analytica had employees imbedded either with state republican parties or with campaigns across the country. So you have foreigners working to help republican candidates get elected in the 2014 midterm elections. And thank you very much. Appreciate that. That is anna schector from the investigate team here at nbc news. And up next, the story of how some Chinese Companies take advantage of weakness in u. S. Laws to defraud stock holders here in the u. S. Of billions of dollars and behind the documentary revealing the stock scam that wall street cant stop. 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Com gas, bloating, constipation and diarrhea can start in the colon and may be signs of an imbalance of good bacteria. Only Phillips Colon Health has this unique combination of probiotics. It helps replenish good bacteria. Get fourinone symptom defense. As the Trump Administration continues the push for more deregulation my next guests are warning about a hidden threat Chinese Companies could pose to americans. If you buy shares of a Company Listed on the New York Stock Exchange that is valued at 100 million and it could turn out they were lying about the figure and it is worth significantly less. But when you try to sell your shares you find that they are relatively worthless. That is the reality unveiled in a new documentary called the china hustle focusing on reverse mergers flying under the radar for years. It starts when Chinese Companies get on major u. S. Stock exchange and fake finances. The company in china that is really worth a few Million Dollars might say it is worth way more than that. It finds a defunct stock and merges and then publicly tradeable here in the u. S. There arent regulations to stop this from happening so some investors have been shorting these stocks. Betting their stock price is going to go down. Joining me now is the short seller at the center of the china hustle, dan david from geo investing and roth stein directing that film the china hustle. Let me start with you and dig into the finances. What was appealing about it to you here in the wake of the financial crisis. What stood out to you . Two things stood out to me and i talk about this in the film. When i met dan he told me about this scandal that happened just on the heels of the last enormous scandal that we all lived there and i didnt know anything about it. So that to me was really something that caught my eye and ear and i thought this would be a great story to make people aware of. And then even more importantly was dan himself. He was a reluctant hero and he didnt want to be in the film. But dan, when i met him, really talked about this scandal and talked about what he was trying to do about it with moral conviction. Even though and dan, you can speak for yourself, you were conflicted about short selling to expose the frauds and to me to follow one person for a moral conviction to look for the truth is a great way to make a complicated story like this with so many moving parts accessible. Before we get into the short selling and how you uncovered there were frauds here. Lets go back to after the crisis to the swoon oren thuz ax there was for china. It was, as you say, a great growth, a story and investors were infatuated with the prospect of making money in what was a very booming economy. If you are a Value Investor coming out of 2008, all of the value was purportedly coming out of china. Especially if you are pointing to financials and pouring through guidance and outlook and growth. And we really bought into it. And in a very big way. And we got everything back in 2009, betting all long on china. So we were trying to you were all in . You thought it was a good story and bought in. Following our investment matrix, it was everything that was china. So anything here was going to grow by 10 and it was growing by 30 or 40 in china. And we had the same kind of belief that everybody else did. That if it is listed on our exchange and if it is if it has a top four auditor and has there are sarbanesoxley and things to comply with, they must be fine. And we invested all in in china and picked up up 229 in 2009, long china. You look at this story. It seems like it would be hard to illustrate, hard to tell in pictures something that you, dan, so effectively do is surveil some of these companies and i want to you talk about one in particular. You look at an Agricultural Company and you come up with a ploy here to say that youre offering tea to employees of the company and through that youre able to determine what . That they have, i believe it was 10 of the employees they claim they have. Its hard because everything is gated. And in china, doing the kind of Due Diligence here that we take for granted is not legal. Theres no such thing as public property in china. You cant stand across the street and say, im on public property and im surveilling you. Doesnt exist. So, you have to be very creative. And these people really risked their lives and some have gone to jail for doing this kind of work. Let me play a little clip here from the film in which you are talking about the surveillance you were doing. Dan figured that if the company was doing what it said it was, wed have hundreds of employees and dozens of drivers. So, what we do is we have our investigator pose as a tea salesman. So, he shows up and hes got a suitcase full of tea samples, says his a tea salesman and he wants to give free tea samples for everybody. [ speaking Foreign Language ] so, tell me how many employees you have here so i can give you enough samples. We get that answer. [ speaking Foreign Language ] what did it mean that they only had one truck driver . It meant their volume was vastly less than they had claimed. We talked at the beginning about short selling. Yeah. You said you entered it with some trepidation. Talk a bit about that. Your sense of what short selling is able to do. There are a lot of people who look at it negatively. Well, its true there are a lot of detractors of short sellers and im sure there are, no offense to dan, im sure dan is not included in this, but there are people who short companies that perhaps dont deserve to be shorted. So, they get a bad reputation. But i think it is an important function of the market to weed out some of these problem overvalued companies, fraudulent companies, not just in this china space, but in general. And, you know, one of the things that balances that we have to strike as a society when were thinking about how to regulate markets and how to create fair play, how do we want to have regulators create a fair playing field. Where we dont, how much do we want short sellers to find the truth in the absence of another way to do it . Its a great film. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for coming in as well. The film is china hustle. I recommend you to watch it in theaters friday. Someone with ties to russias intelligence, during the final months of the president ial election. That is according to Robert Muellers team. Rick gates knew about the persons ties to the gru intelligence agency. An associate of gates and former Trump Campaign chair Paul Manafort was also made aware of the connection. Both gate and van der swan pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi. This comes as the New York Times is reporting just hours ago that one of president trumps lawyers john dowd floated a potential pardon for Paul Manafort as well as a pardon for former National Security advisor Michael Flynn sometime last year. The white house said in its briefing last hour that the president is not currently considering any pardons. Im joined by clint watts, former fbi special agent, senior fellow at the Foreign PolicyResearch Institute and nbc news National Security analyst. Lets talk about the import of this, the potential import of this. This came out in the filing about that lawyer who had pleaded guilty to lying to Robert Mueller and his team. Right. What have we learned from it and what does it tell you about the relationship that may have been there between the campaign and russia . This is what were talking about from the beginning. We get excited about subpoenas and we finally have a russian agent that has entered into a document. Everybody is like, were overlooking it. The significant thing was we never really had a russian direct connection thats been filed by the mueller team that goes to somebody on the trump team and it seems as if gates knew who he was talking to and did that during the campaign period. That is a major advancement there. In terms of moving this forward, we dont know who person a is or at least it hasnt been declared. Theres a lot of speculation about that out there. Opposed to saying here its Paul Manaforts assistant at his office right. We just dont know. It could be somebody else and weve been surprised before in this case. What it would reveal to us is that maybe theres more investigative steps being taken on the manafort case and maybe were looking at more charges down the road. Or flipping other pipe l towards the manafort case. This is a Big Development actually. At this point, clint, as were looking through this filing, looking at all the questions this raised, i imagine one is what constitutes ties. You have somebody with ties to the russian intelligence organization. How important is it going to be how integral those ties are . I think its super important because if you look at the time line and the email chain, going all the way back to about may of 2016, youre seeing Communications Going from Trump Campaign members back to russian ties, which are saying, how do we make ourselves whole through this . What do we need to do . The guy with the black cat who gave you the black caviar wants to talk to you. We need to talk in the next two weeks. This is that back and forth relationship. If its once or twice, okay, maybe thats a coincidence. If its an enduring pace through emails, inperson meetings, now were talking about some real investigative leads here that cant be explained with no collusion. And we should remember that the russians, they like to work influence a lot of different directions. There might have been multiple and parallel efforts going on. Definitely want to get your reaction, clint, to the New York Times piece Michael Schmidt reported. John dowd who was the president s attorney was floating the idea of pardoning Michael Flynn or Paul Manafort. What do you make of that potential that happened last year . Its not surprising, but also this is the other part of the mueller investigation, which is obstruction. And when you look at that, how do we normally go about obstruction case to build it . Was there evidence that was tampered, suppressed or omitted . Were there witnesses that were pressured or offered quid pro quo. A pardon could be a measure and so you start to dig into that. When was this brought up, what were the discussions maybe with manafort and i think flynn was the other one noted in there. And how might have that have been used as bait to keep them from really working with the mueller team . If thats the case, if thats what they were considering, that could be very substantive to an obstruction case. Last question, the time we have left, we havent yet talked about the new attorney who has joined the Trump Legal Team who is a medieval studies ph. D. In atlanta. Doesnt have a background like the rest of the legal team, more diminished than as of last week. What do you make of that appointment, jay second lkulow bringing on board someone to contribute to the legal efforts of the president . It is just interesting. I mean, theyve gonna roue aroua lot of different lawyers. I dont think theyre worried about the case as much as the client. The client is hard to twork with. He doesnt take advice. That seems to be why dowd left. If he doesnt take advice why do you want to work with him . In such a high profile case you dont want to go out and flop. You have to take whoever you can get or friends of whoever you can get. Thats where we are now. Thank you, clint. Clint watts, former fbi special agent with joint Terrorism Task force. Before we go, a quick check of the markets. Minutes before the close after a volatile day of trading the dow up 600th of a percent. Joining me is cnbcs bill griffeth. The focus has been on tech the last couple days. When you look at trade what role has tk tech stocks played . Very big role, david. This is one of those days where its so clear where the laggards are in this marjket. Just in the last two Weeks Technology as a group has lost about 500 billion in market value and thats just five companies, most of them that have lost that. Alphabet, microsoft, facebook, netflix and apple. Also amazon has been a big laggard today as well, down about 5 on word the president was looking to find ways to get them to pay more in Internet Sales taxes. So, if youre looking for the laggards, thats where they are right now, and were just looking for new leadership in this market. The dow as you saw there just a fractional gain, very different from the last couple of days weve seen here. A lot less volatility today. Lot less volatility. Is volatility babbling . Were seeing moves here larger than weve seen in the last few weeks. Are we . Absolutely. Dont forget as the market goes higher and higher, were talking about bigger numbers. That means that when you see a 200point move one way or the other, percentagewise its not as big as it was maybe ten years ago when the market was sharply lower. Definitely we are seeing more volatility right now as the fed is raising Interest Rates and congress is lowering taxes. So, a lot of changes affecting the markets that are trying to adjust to right now. Macro issues. Cnbcs bill griffeth. Thank you very much for the time. That does it for me at this hour. Ill see you tomorrow. In the meantime look for me on social media on twitter and instagram. Thank you very much for watching. Deadline white house with Nicolle Wallace starts right now. Hi, everyone. Its 4 00 in new york. We start with breaking news from the New York Times this afternoon. Jawdropping revelations about the president s lawyer in discussions with the attorneys representing mike flynn and Paul Manafort about pardons last summer before both men were indicted and before mike flynn pleaded guilty. The report may also offer insight into just what kinds of questions bob mueller is asking witnesses about whether the president may have obstructed justice. From the times report, quote, trumps lawyer raised prospect of pardons for flynn and manafort as special counsel closed in. The five Reporter Team writing, quote, the talk suggests that mr. Trumps lawyers were concerned about what mr. Flynn and mr. Manafort might reveal were they to cut a deal with the special counsel robert s. Mueller in exchange for leniency. Mr. Muellers team could investigate the prospect