grand jury or challenge the justice department's authority about whether they can indict a sitting president? >> it can be a non-sitting president. every president becomes a former president at some point. if the president did that and you could prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, you could wait until a president is no longer president and bring that charge criminally. >> let me go to the jared kushner situation. it seems as if, and the back and forths on executive privilege are going to be tremendous. obviously some of it is a political strategy by the white house to delay, delay, delay and i understand that. what do you think will be the difficult case to get the information they need on jared kushner? >> it may be a difficult case. there is a legitimate thing called executive privilege. in 1974 when the supreme court ruled that nixon had to turn over his tapes which led to his downfall, of course. in that same opinion, there is a
consciousness that the president let loose. and again, as you correctly point out, after a difficult week politically, and perhaps even legally, with the testimony from michael cohen, with coming home empty-handed from his summit with the north korean leader in hanoi, the jared kushner situation where the president is reported to have interfered and overruled top officials in granting his son-in-law a top security clearance. so, all that added up to a very frustrated president trump. you saw him take the stage there at cpac, and you could tell right away, when he hugged the american flag that was at the side of the stage, that this, indeed, was going to be something unrestrained, even by president trump's standards. let's point out a couple of things. i think it's important to point these out. he talked about the comey firing and how he had had a conversation with his wife because he said comey was a bad man. of course, he had told nbc's lester holt shortly after that that he did it, he had russia in mind when he did it. and similarly when he joked, when he criticized the media for
my clients would never be considered for interim access in that situation. certainly a lot more detail we need to find out whether or not this was kline coming in trying to fix a logjam or if there were truly some serious improprieties here beyond the jared kushner situation. >> i'm worried the darker implication of what you're suggesting there is already spelled out in ken's reporting. he is saying this is at least 30 cases in which kline overruled security clearance experts for incoming officials despite unfavorable information. so it's not just he said short circuit this, i'm sure it's fine, approve these guys. this is there is unfavorable information for grant no clearance and they're granting it anyway. those kind of red flags, we don't know exactly what the red flags are, as you point out in case to case, but, boy, this is a big story. mr. moss, bradley moss, national security attorney. thank you very much for being with us tonight. >> absolutely. any time, rachel. >> lots to get to. genuine list busy news night tonight. stay with us. genuine list busy t tonight. stay with us
us, the taxpayers, gave us a briefing for the first time in a week. did you gain any clarity from it? >> no, we heard the talking points that we are familiar with. denying that the president has called the russia investigation a hoax, when he has repeatedly, sort of trying to find nuance there. saying it's only the trump involvement that he's called a hoax. we didn't get much clarity on the jared kushner situation. it seemed to be just more of the same information. we only -- the only thing we got is that little bit of information that the u.s. did something to russia and we have to wait a couple of days to find out exactly what it was. >> that was a curtain raison. kimberly atkins, phillip rucker, michael crowley, thanks for starting us off. appreciate it. coming up for us, what message was robert mueller trying to send, in any, with a guilty plea today of a dutch lawyer? we'll ask a former u.s. attorney. and later, what exactly is the top item that you'd say is on the trump agenda these days? and can the white house get out
i will say that the trump administration, the officials below trump have taken some steps standing up to putin's russia, and the white house could be taking more realistic credit for some of those steps. never mind the fact that trump himself seems to be completely out of step with some of these lower level officials implementing the policies. but sarah sanders' statement today, many people may describe that as a bewillering, gaslighting claim. >> kim, the folks who work for us, the taxpayers, gave us a briefing for the first time in a week. did you gain any clarity from it? >> no, we heard the talking points that we are familiar with. denying that the president has called the russia investigation a hoax, when he has repeatedly, sort of trying to find nuance there. saying it's only the trump involvement that he's called a hoax. we didn't get much clarity on the jared kushner situation. it seemed to be just more of the same information. we only -- the only thing we got is that little bit of information that the u.s. did something to russia and we have to wait a couple of days to find out exactly what it was. >> that was a curtain raison. kimberly atkins, phillip rucker, michael crowley, thanks for starting us off. appreciate it. coming up for us, what message was robert mueller trying to send, in any, with a guilty plea today of a dutch lawyer? we'll ask a former u.s. attorney. and later, what exactly is the top item that you'd say is on the trump agenda these days?
involvement that he's called a hoax. we didn't get much clarity on the jared kushner situation. it seemed to be just more of the same information. we only -- the only thing we got is that little bit of information that the u.s. did something to russia and we have to wait a couple of days to find out exactly what it was. >> that was a curtain-raiser. kimberly atkins, phillip rucker, michael crowley, thanks for starting us off. really appreciate it. coming up for us, what message was robert mueller trying to send, if any, with a guilty plea today of a dutch lawyer? we'll ask a former u.s. attorney. and later, what exactly is the top item that you'd say is on the trump agenda these days? and can the white house get out there and sell it amid time putting out fires? "the 11th hour" on a tuesday night continues.
jared kushner's name came up because i think -- do we still have ken dilanian here? ken, there was a line in the "washington post" story about how mueller now has people on his team who are expert in investigating financial crimes. and i wonder what that means. >> well, you know, as we said before on the show, the fbi is not going to ignore any financial crime that comes across in the course of this investigation. and we already know that paul manafort and mike flynn are under scrutiny in connection not necessarily with russia collusion,s but wi but with oth financial activities. flynn lobbying for turkey. manafort for various real estate deals. so it stands to reason, and now we have the jared kushner situation, the meeting with the bank we talked about before. of course, the fbi's going to look at that. and nobody wants to be in the cross hairs of an fbi investigation. and now multiple people are and who knows where it's going to go, nicolle. >> ari, let's talk about just building off what ken said, if someone looking at financial
signs of strain. we know that donald trump's sons met with dprgop leaders last we. they're vocal on twitter. we haven't heard them weigh in on the jared kushner situation. are there real signs that president trump is distancing himself in any way from jared? >> i don't think distancing is the right word, buthaty lleagues have learned is that the president is lashing out at his whole staff. jared used to be exempt from that, those kind of tongue lashings, but now he is in the room. interestingly, one of the reasons is his sister's dangling these eb5 visas to chinese investors who might be interested in one of his family's real estate projects. but jared had nothing to do with that. a more serious matter was his advice to the president that it would be a political win to fire
it's usually the reverse. ste it's not usually that a president feels the need to speak with a senior staffer/son-in-law in this case to the press. >> they gave that statement only to the "new york times." that's been the official reaction that the president has still great confidence in his senior adviser, his son-in-law jared kushner. lindsey graham, it's interesting, the senator from south carolina, he has his own doubts about the veracity of the entire story saying that, you know what, this could simply -- suggesting this could be the russians sending out some disinformation to confuse everyone. >> he has an interesting perspective. i'm not necessarily targeting or identifying lindsey graham but i think it's worth noting as you listen to people from capitol hill talk about the situation, while we didn't hear a lot from the white house about the jared kushner situation, many calls were placed to senior leaders on capitol hill to make a couple things clear. first and foremost they don't
professionals, political operatives, a war room that's being set up within the white house to handle this jared kushner situation, smart move on their part or not? >> this is exactly what happened back when we were in the clinton administration, where people decided you got to section off these controversies, put them in a box so you can get back to the other issues of governing or else they take over everything, they have to create something to handle this. >> interesting. >> my concern instead of dealing with russia, answering question, what you're doing is using taxpayer money to do this war room, and i think it's just avoiding something that's really important. this is russia we're talking about. >> you know what readers, joy is joining us now. >> oh, no! >> it's official. joy reid is here. >> she's here. >> and national republican consultant indicateon dawson and amandi joy you were on "meet the press" when i hope we get to show the epic read you did.