Hes said the word spy 17 times since last friday. Adam schiff who was at the second meeting said he heard no evidence of a spy in the campaign today. There is no evidence to support any allegation that the fbi or any Intelligence Agency placed a spy in the Trump Campaign or otherwise failed to follow appropriate procedures and protocols. Well, cnns chief Political Correspondent dana bash joins us now. Shes got new reporting on Rudy Giulianis takes on the briefings today. I know you talked to giuliani about emmitt flood and how he ended up in the briefings. What did he say . Thats right. I talked to him a couple of times tonight before coming on. I did ask him if emmitt went to these meetings at the behest of the president or maybe under orders of the president . He says he hasnt told him the answer is yes, but Rudy Giuliani tells me he assumes that was the reason why flood went, because
the president , his client, and the person who emmitt flood now works for inside the white house wanted him to be there. Now, anderson, you mentioned the context of this, of why this is even a story. In the beginning but i can tell you as someone whos covered capitol hill for many, many years, the protocol for most if not all socalled gang of eight meetings, when the Intelligence Community or the Law Enforcement community is briefing the top intelligence lawmakers and leadership about issues like this, the white house isnt there. And thats even under the most benign circumstances. This adds a layer of the fact that the white house, meaning the president , is part of the investigation that theyre talking about, which makes it so unbelievably unprecedented. Right, the idea that the president or what Rudy Giuliani believes, that the president would have told the president ial attorney, flood, to go along with john kelly and address both
investigation of the facts, which is what gang of eight investigations is supposed to be. And this is too rich. I mean if you look at the underlying allegation here, that the fbi sent someone into a scenario in order to gather information inappropriately, i think thats what you saw today. Like when you take a conflicted party like the president s lawyer who was hired to refute these allegations of russian collusion, hes obviously going to report back. I spent the better part of today giving the white house the benefit of the doubt. I described this as a perception problem. They dont understand this just looks bad to send someone in. But Rudy Giuliani to come out and say this is strategy, were going to learn what he said and incorporate that into the investigation thats the definition of inappropriateness. Flood was brought in for a possible impeachment fight was there for at least the beginning of the briefing today as far as we know. Look, weve seen so many examples of the norms being
shattered, and this is a pretty explosive example, i think. And the reason is because, as i said, this isnt just about kind of the protocols which were not followed in that they had to fight, they the democrats, and even some republicans had to fight for the Democratic Leaders and the lead democrats from the intelligence committees even to be briefed in the first place. This time yesterday we rurnt sure that was going to happen. Then when it happened the fact that it included somebody from the white house, whether or not he gave a statement at the top or he sat for the briefing its sort of not even relevant. It is unbelievably, really unprecedented. And this is again not just in covering it, this is from talking from people who have been involved in these kinds of briefings for years who have said theyve never seen anything like it. Jeff, i also dont understand
the rationale theyre giving that he was there to express the president s desire for transparency. That just seems also at this late stage in the investigation, they know what the president s position in transparency is. This investigation has been going on a long time. This looks what Rudy Giuliani said it was, which was an Information Gathering and Advocacy Mission by the president s Chief Of Staff and his lawyer about something, a factual matter that congress is looking into. But thats not where theyre supposed to be. Its a congressional investigation, and it is as dana keeps pointing out, the gang of eight, four democrats, four republicans, four from the house, four from the senate. Its a formal process that is meant to be neutral in its political orientation. And to have the president s lawyer in there is just wildly inappropriate. Jeff, what impact do you think it has on chris ray of the
fbi, dana coats, the fbi. For any officer of the government whos charged with running a human source their job is going to become harder to help convince someone to come to their side. You likely went into that meeting with eight members of congress who again are known to be a little loose lipped, knowing that anything you said in that meeting could make it to the air waves. Thats an unusual place to be in. But i think its interesting when you look at what may have happened. I think its safe to assume there wasnt some Giant Revelation of impropriety on the part of the fbi. And i think the reason we know that is we didnt see chairman Nunes Tripping Over the microphones racing to his colleagues to tell us what he learned. And all of this is from adam schiff so far. Right, and thats not much
except that he indicated that there was nothing to suggest that there were nefarious spies as the president and his aides are suggesting. And nunlz and gowdy reportedly didnt see the documents, they wanted, right . Right. And thats a whole other issue, that this is not over politically when it comes to the pres allies on capitol hill. Everybody from mark meadows to others who kind of started the ball rolling demanding from the doj that they get to see information about this, they werent satisfied with the briefings that were set up in the first place. So youre right, the fact that they seem to have gotten even less access than they thought that they would means that the sort of drum beat is going to continue from capitol hill. Danas making an important point here because this conflict as she says is not resolved between the House Republicans in
the white house on one side and the Justice Department on the other is perhaps an attempt to force Rod Rosenstein to resign in protest or to fire him, which is something that the white house has been itching to do for a long time. So the fact that this Crisis Isnt Over is very significant. Thanks to everybody. A lot more ahead including more Breaking News. Were learning not only did the president turn down a meeting with kim jongun, his team also said no back enjanuary to Robert Mueller. More details on that. Also north koreas reaction after the plug is pulled on the summit. Were live in north korea ahead. Allergies with sinus congestion and pressure . You wont find relief here. Go to the pharmacy counter for powerful claritind. While the leading Allergy Spray relieves 6 symptoms. Claritind relieves 8, including sinus congestion and pressure. Claritind relieves more. Keep your insights from prying eyes, so they wont be used by anyone but you. The ibm cloud. The cloud for smarter business. The ibm cloud. Prepare for your demise, do your worst, doctor. I will. But first, a little presentation. Hijacking earths Geothermal Energy supply. Phase 1. Choosing the right drill bit. As long as evil villains reveal their plans, you can count on geico saving folks money. Fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. 3 toddlers wont stop him. And neither will lower back pain. Because at a dr. Scholls kiosk he got a recommendation for our custom fit orthotic to relieve his foot, knee, or lower back pain, from being on his feet. Dr. Scholls. Born to move. With tcalled audible. Le app
you can listen to the stories you love while doing the things you love, outside. Binge better. Audible. Looking for a hotel that fits. Whoooo. Your budget . Tripadvisor now searches over. 200 sites to find you the. Hotel you want at the lowest price. Grazi, gino find a price that fits. Tripadvisor. With Dell Small Businessout your Technology Advisors you get the oneonone partnership you need to grow your business. The dell vostro 15 laptop. Contact a dell advisor today. There is more Breaking News on the russia investigation to tell you about. Not about the briefings that happened today but a meeting that almost happened back in january between the president and Special Counsel mueller. Now, tonight were learning more about how it might have played out and why it ultimately did not. Our chief political analyst Gloria Borger and evan perez broke the story. This is the first time weve heard of any possible date for an interview between the president and mueller. What happened . Well, there was a meeting in early to midjanuary, and it was a very different time from the time dana bash was talking about just earlier. Because it was a time when the president s legal team actually wanted to get this all over with
and have the president sit down. So there was a meeting with mueller. He suggested lets get the president On January 27th and laid out 16 subjects, and the president s legal team listened to it. They met among themselves later on, and they were even thinking oh, maybe we can have this at kac camp david, might be a good place, we could do this on a saturday. And then after thinking about it, and there was some disagreement among the president s lawyers. But the lead of the president s team John Dowd On January 29th sent mueller a letter, a 20page letter which one source says the president read and approved saying theres no way we are going to do this both for constitutional issues, and we believe that you have all the information that you need from the millions of documents that weve handed over to you. And right around that time the president was actually sounding sort of enthusiastic about talking to special
counsel. He was. On january 24th when reporters asked him, and heres the quote, im looking forward to it actually. That he would have liked to have an interview, but and i think he probably was telling the truth at at that time. I think after the Michael Cohen ive been told the president said, no way, im not going to do it. And youve seen them ratcheting up their attack on mueller and his team and the investigators since that point. I also understand you have reporting about meetings between the president s legal team and mueller that happened two months later in march. Right. So, you know, after this happened in january there was kind of a lull. Because the mueller team and the trump team were on very different places. So they had a meeting on march 5th and another one on march 12th. But at the march 5th meeting, im told by a source, mueller reiterated that he needed to see the president , he needed to talk to the president because he
needed to know his intent before making certain decisions in his presidency. And of course we know what that refers to, is the firing of james comey. And at this Point Mueller has not changed his mind, and the trump team remains pretty entrenched about not having the president testify as you keep hearing publicly from giuliani. Gloria, thanks very much. More legal aid now. John dean. He has seen these things from the inside. He was white House Counsel to president nixon. What does it say the president was even one time closer to sitting down with Robert Mueller . Not only his legal team in terms of the personnel has changed and been a revolving door but the strategy has changed. So at one point with a different set of players it sounds like they were negotiating and they
were perhaps had one set of constitutional concerns and now maybe theres a different set of constitutional concerns. So the legal strategy, the legal analysis and then the actual approach in dealing with the Special Counsels office just constantly seems influx. And john, certainly things are not what they were back in january to say the least. A lot has happened since then including the raid on Michael Cohens office. What do you think the odds are of the president sitting down to an interview without a fight at this point . I think there will be a fight. I dont think its his option either, anderson. I think what were witnessing is very trumpian. Where he is on all sides and all moods at different times and different stages of his thinking. And i think its only going to be resolved as it has been with other president s who had to appear, the threat of the subpoena will bring him to a decision very quickly. And im not sure he can win in court. I think indeed the law favors
the Special Counsel and the Supreme Court. I looked at the number of Precedent Setting Instances where ken starr went to the Supreme Court and how quickly he got those rulings, for example, on the protective privilege for Secret Service testifying. He broke that privilege and did it very quickly. So these things can happen faster rather than slow. I wonder what you think about that, because the argument the president s legal team is making is because they believe mueller is following the Justice Department guidelines and that a sitting president cant be indicted, that the president cant be subpoenaed for something which is an unindictable offense. There is no specific case on point about whether or not a sitting president has to appear before a grand jury to give oral testimony. So theres document cases, but
theres not something on the specific issue. So it could be litigated. It seems like the president s team is leaning towards trying to drag this out and leaning towards perhaps forcing the Special Counsels office to make that decision to serve a subpoena and fight it out in court. The irony is that the longer they drag this out, they increase the chances that the president will do more things that could add to the obstruction case. So the longer this drags out he could fire more people. He could sort of verbally or through twitter intimidate witnesses. He could do other things in terms of his coordination with congress, trying to unearth things about the investigation that have the tendency to disrupt it. So there is actually i think a jeopardy in them dragging this out as well. John, cnn reported this week that the president s legal team, theyre trying to narrow the scope on any possible interview to russia related matters. No questions on possible obstruction of justice. Can you see any possible
situation in which the Special Counsel agrees to that . Its an interesting argument that they would have no ability to restrict what happened before he became president and then have an ability to restrict under an Executive Privilege Theory once he became president. Its never been litigated as weve just noted. I dont think itll play either. I think that once they get it in there theyre not going to agree to the questions. Weve seen the breadth of the proposed topics they want to discuss, as glorias reporting showed earlier today. And theyre all over it, and trump is not going to be able to control that. John dean, just curious given that you lived through watergate, what do you make of the president s efforts to tag this using the term spygate clearly having a reference towards watergate and basically saying if its true its the biggest political story ever. Well, it seems hes taken got his hands on the fog machine that Rudy Giuliani has been handling. And hes just trying to put smoke out there, and its not going to hold up. I think the briefing today pretty well showed this was Standard Operating Procedure by the fbi, and if anything the fbi was protecting him and not spying on him but rather being cautious in how they proceeded, trying to see if these people even knew they were dealing with potential russian infiltration of some kind. So the Spyigate Doesnt Work for me at all. Coming up north korea has just reacted to the president calling off the summit with kim jongun. Theres been a lot of Question Marks and anxiety what they might say given the stakes. A rare live report from Inside North Korea as well. How do you win at business . Stay at laquinta. Where were changing with contemporary makeovers. Then, use the ultimate power handshake, the upper hander with a double palm grab. Who has the upper hand now . Start winning today. Book now at lq. Com. Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens brown paper packages tied up with strings these are a few of My Favorite Things these are a few of My Favorite Things and we got to know the friends of our friends. R the friends. And we found others just like us. And just like that we felt a little less alone. But then something happened. We had to deal with spam, fak