General flynn. I feel very badly. Hes led a very strong life and i feel very badly, john. I will say this, Hillary Clinton lied many times to the fbi and Nothing Happened to her. Flynn lied and they destroyed his life. I think its a shame. Hillary clinton on the fourth of july weekend, went to the fbi, not under oath, it was the most incredible thing anyone has ever seen, she lied many times. Nothing happened to her. Flynn lied and its like they ruined his life. Its very unfair. Thank you very much. So want to make one thing, james comey testified under oath about Hillary Clintons discussion with the fbi on july 4th. Let me read with you what james comey said. We have no basis to conclude to the fbi. His words under oath. Now, back to the matter at hand here which is the president and his fired National Security adviser now convicted felon mike flynn, the president in a statement over the weekend that he put out on twitter, seemed to hint that he knew that flynn had lied to the fbi before he fired him. This matters. Shimon prokupecz with us on that. Good morning, shimon. Good morning. So yeah, so there was a series of tweets right, and one of them included where as you just said, that the president was aware that flynn lied to the fbi. Pretty significant and certainly raised a lot of eyebrows because it goes to the heart of the obstruction case. Thats why the special counsel was put together. One way, was to look at a possible obstruction case and that when the former fbi director was fired, did the president do that because of the russia investigation, because, as we know, according to comey, he said, can you let this go. The president said to comey, can you let this go. So then the special counsel comes in. This could all be used as part of a conspiracy, as part of a bigger case, which it seems the special counsel is building on whether people were lying, whether people were trying to mislead investigators and perhaps it stretches not just to the president , but there could be other people who are in on this socalled conspiracy to obstruct to prevent the fbi. They were for months trying to figure out why were so many people in the campaign reaching out to russians. Why were the russians reaching out to the campaign. They saw this contact but people were just not being truthful about it. So the special counsel, you know, was brought in and continuing to look at this. Well see where it goes. One thing we have seen the president tweet multiple times about the weekend is the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the subsequent firing or not taking off of that investigation and the current mueller russia probe, high hp ranking fbi agent that is now known to have sent Text Messages showing a political bias toward Hillary Clinton. And those Text Messages came to light after during the Inspector General investigation of leaks and whether Hillary Clinton investigation politicized. This fbi agent, peter struck, is a very senior Counter Intelligence official. These texts seem to show a sort of negative view of the president during the campaign and were sort of prohillary. We dont know the nature of the texts. There was enough concern that when this information was brought to bob mueller he said we need to remove him and send him back to headquarters. This guy has been sitting in the Human Resources pretty much doing nothing. A senior Counter Intelligence official. Significant enough they had to remove him. Joining us our legal analyst and National Security analyst former fbi special agent so well get to some of this, you know, drama within the fbi, the president saying the fbi is in tatters in a moment, lets get to the president s tweet on his account, whether it was john dowd who wrote the tweet, it came out on the president s account, and it said that the president had to fire flynn because he lied to the Vice President and lied to the fbi. So not whats on your screen. Well get to that in a moment. My question to you is, how significant is it . If the president did know that flynn lied to the fbi and subsequently went to james comey, the head of the fbi and said i hope you can see your way to letting this flynn thing go, how significant . If what the tweet says is true, its very significant. Its a departure from the story that he had before, which is, that he just thought flynn is a good guy, he wanted to help out his buddy, his pal, you know, that while may be inappropriate to do, is not necessarily a criminally liable act. However, going to the director of the fbi and asking him to drop an investigation which you know is one that concerns an actual felony that has been committed definitely goes to what obstruction of justice is. Thats the problem for the president. And i just want to point out, john and poppy, that he continues to make the case for mueller himself. From the getgo this entire thing is unrelated to russia in the sense that it exists completely independently and completely selfcreated. Right. You can obstruct justice independent of whether or not russia tried to meddle the election, how you behave about that investigation, which may now be the subject of an investigation. John dowd, though, the president s attorney, is telling axios this morning that president cant obstruct justice its impossible for the president to obstruct justice and says that the president cannot obstruct justice because hes the chief Law Enforcement officer under the constitution and every right to express his view of any case. This seems to be like the nixon argument to david frost, its not illegal if the president does it, asia. The president is not above the law. Period. Its telling dowd is making this turn because i believe he can no longer argue the fact so he will challenge the law. This what is hes going to do as a lawyer, but as a legal matter, he is incorrect. In fact, he kind of makes the case against himself. Because it is true that the president can express whatever view he wants of a case, but precisely because of that, he cant interfere in them. The 14th amendment of the constitution guarantees everyone equal protection of the laws so you can have a president who has his own views directing investigations and shutting some down and starting them, we got rid of king george iii so thats how things work. Yes. Let me get your take because you worked inside the fbi, the president this weekend, multiple attacks on the fbi on twitter, including saying the agency is in tatters. The former u. S. Attorney for the Southern District of new york, pa the rebharara wrote this, praise to high heaven, putin, duterte, talking about dictators of the philippine, erdogan of turkey, keep scorn and contempt on your own fbi. This is called in his words assbackwards. How do you see it . I have to say i think its very poor form for the president to be making the statements about what is the premier Law Enforcement agency in the world, which trains other Law Enforcement agencies, but, you know, again, i think this is a signal the president gets nervous fingers whenever he feels something is creeping a little too close to him and the fbi has proven time and time again that it is not in tatters and, in fact, that it can objectively investigate president s, its done so with both administrations from iran contra to clinton to the Scooter Libby investigation. Theyve done it with professionalism and, you know, i think that this is him trying to delegitimize the investigation. These politically charged texts that may have been exchanged between an agent and lawyer working on investigations, the clinton email and the special counsel, how problematic are they . Well, theyre going to continue to be used against mueller as evidence that he has a biased investigation. But, you know, any agent knows that you can never ever create, even the perception of bias when youre working on a case and you never text or communicate on any public forum about a case youre working on. That was a poor judgment on his part and i think the fact that mueller took action immediately shows that he is being very careful about the objectivity of his investigation. Im sure its going to be, you know, used as evidence that hes not. Already is. Asha rangappa, great to have you with us. Thank you. New this morning the president is endorsing accused child molester and Alabama Senate candidate roy moore. The president says that roy moore has denied it several times and pointed that out repeatedly. Today he seemed to go further and wrote democrats refusal to give one vote for massive tax cuts is why we need republican roy moore to win in alabama. Remind you, eight women have come forward with credible accusations against roy moore, four alleging sexual abuse or assault, four more pursued by moore when he was much older and they were teenagers. One, of course, accusing him of child molestation when she was 14 years old. Joe johns is at the white house. What is the thinking behind this, why the president all of a sudden this morning ready to come out and say full stop, roy moore is in your man . He hasnt gives us a reason but i can tell you the polling has that has been all over the place, suggests at least the Washington Post polling suggests that doug jones, the democrat, in alabama is ahead in that race, though within the margin of error, a very close race, 50 to 47 , as the Washington Post has it. But there are a lot of concerns about polling in alabama right now for this race, especially because this is a special election, special elections dont occur regularly, so theyre hard to poll for. This one has the allegations of Sexual Misconduct, which could create a huge variable. Those allegations you just mentioned at the top. Alabama generally has been a place thats tough to poll in. Also, this is during the holidays, another variable, and the biggest one perhaps of all, is the bradley effect. Some people are embarrassed, perhaps, who they plan on voting for. Back to you. Joe johns at the white house, thank you very much. Former tv host billy bush breaking his pretty much yearlong silence, he was the other voice on that access hollywood tape. He is speaking up. Speaking out. In a new opinion piece. The president has reportedly on multiple occasions, questioned whether it was even his voice on that tape. The New York Times oped bush pushes back, yes, mr. President , it was you. Listen to those remarks. When youre a star they let you do it. You can do it. Whatever you want. Grab them by the [ bleep ]. Do anything. All right. Lets bring in senior media correspondent host of reliable sources brian stelter. Billy bush basically writing the president s not being honest if hes suggesting hes not on that access hollywood tape. And bush going further saying he believes the women who have accused trump of Sexual Misconduct. Heres part of the oped in the New York Times. Bush says, President Trump is engaging in some revisionist history. He says, reportedly telling allies including one u. S. Senator, that the voice on the tape is not his. This has hit a raw nerve with me. I can only imagine how it has reopened the wounds of the women who came forward with their stories about him and did not receive enough attention. This country is currently trying to reconcile itself to power abuse and Sexual Misconduct and its leader is wantingly poking the bear. Billy bush presenting against trump as he starts to mount a comeback. He would like to be back on tv. Some think it was weird he was fired by nbc while trump elected president. Tonight going on the late show with Steven Cobert and trying to start a comeback. Thank you very much. As we said, the president endorsed Alabama Senate candidate roy moore, his daughterinlaw making phone calls going into alabama. The full trump support now in that race. And donald trump, jr. Will testify this week before the house Intelligence Committee. It will be behind closed doors for now. We are speaking with a member of that committee who will question the president s son. Also, after a big national fight, the president is set to shrink two national parks, monuments. Why, and why is it so controversial . We are there live. Crohns disease. Youre more than just a bathroom disease. Youre a life of unpredictable symptoms. Crohns, youve tried to own us. But now its our turn to take control with stelara® stelara® works differently for adults with moderately to severely active Crohns Disease. 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At tmobile, when you holiday together, great things come in twos. Right now when you buy any of this seasons hot new Samsung Galaxy phones, you get a second one free to gift. Thats one samsung for you. One to give. Tmobile. Holiday twogether. Youve probably seen me running all over the country in search of our big idaho potato truck. But not any more. I am done with that. Ooh, ooh hot just gonna stay home on the farm, eat a beautiful idaho potato, and watch tv with my dog. Tv anncr the big idaho potato truck pulled into town today and its really a sight to see. Oh man. Lets go. distant you comin, boy . Sfx dog gulp woof. This morning President Trump throwing his weight behind roy moore despite credible allegations of child molestation against the candidate. Want to bring in Amber Phillips political reporter for the Washington Post and our cnn contributor National Reporter for the Washington Examiner and a columnist for the New York Post and with us. So very busy. Selena, start with you, why do you think the president said it in words out loud this morning . Hes implicitly done this a few days, danced around it and now saying, go vote for roy moore in alabama . I think what possibly never know whats in the mind of the president , but what opened this door up for him was that the Majority Leader Mitch Mcconnell said on one of the sunday shows, im not sure which one, that, you know, its up to the voters of alabama to make this decision. Technically hes right. Probably mcconnell is thinking look, if people dont get to take my word, you know, im not the most beloved person in alabama, part of the reason why people in alabama voted for moore over strange is because theyre very antiestablishment. So i think that the president saw an opening there, you know, and he saw the fight and all the drama that went down with trying to get the senate to pass the tax reform bill and he thought, ukno uyou know, what the heck, im going to throw it out there. The alabama voters certainly didnt listen to him in a primary election. They voted, they supported moore over strange, the president into alabama and supported strange and did a big rally for him. So i guess well see. The polling i believe has been all over the place. It has. I dont know i dont think any of us really know where this is going to go even though we can speculate, you know, depending on the day where this election or this race is. So amber, the president s reasoning this morning on twitter, be why he is endorsing fully full stop out loud Robert Mueller is because of in his words, quote, democrats refusal to give even one vote for major tax cuts. Is there any other way for the American People to read this, other than you should not believe eight women who have come forward with the credible accusations against roy moore, and by the way, you should vote for him despite what they say because we want our agenda through . I think you hit that spot on, poppy. Not only that, the president has been really open, thats exactly what he feels. He has consistently expressed his disdain for the democrats before he officially endorsed the republican in this race saying hes a democrat, wouldnt help us pass tax reform, hes not going to help us on any of our issues, we dont want a Nancy Pelosi Chuck schumer type of democrat in the senate right now, its very clear the president has put politics as his priority in the senate race. That being said, there is some Senate Republicans who feel like its a greater Political Risk to have roy moore in the senate. Like a lot of them have to answer for every tweet the president says, will they have to answer for, you know, how they feel about having a man accused of making sexual advances against a 14yearold in the senate with them. Do they want to expel roy moore. What if one works on a bill with roy moore, could that be called in question. This could