Sentencing recommendation from Justice Department lawyers for the president s longtime ally roger stone. Sources tell cnn that more prosecutors are now considering resigning. The New York Times reports that others fear pressure from the president. Were on top of all of the news. Lets begin at the white house with john harwood. With more on the stunning comments. It goes so far beyond vindman. It goes beyond vindman, poppy. John kelly really let loose in the set of remarks. And he talked, in particular, about the sense of duty thats bred in people in the military that he brought to the white house that he used to try to constrain the president. Lets first look at what he said about Alexander Vindman. He said he did exactly what we teach them from cradle to grave. We teach them, dont follow an illegal order. And if you are given one, youll raise it to whoever gave it to you and saying this is an illegal order and tell your boss. There was, in addition, a quote on trumps intervention in the case of eddie convicted of murder in iraq. The president restored his rank in the Navy John Kelly said, if i was in the white house, i think i could have stopped it. Thats because kelly understands what is necessary for order and discipline in the military. And this is a president who doesnt value those things. And it is very clear at the moment, not just john kelly who is not there anymore, but no one in the white house or in the Republican Party at this point, guys, is willing to stop him. No, and hes removed those who have stood up to him. Weve seen it from experience. John, please stay with us. Lets bring in cnn legal analyst and former federal prosecutor himself, shan wu and clinton impeachment manager bob barr, who is also a former federal prosecutor. Whats the Legal Standard for an illegal order. Is there one . Is this up to the judgment of uniformed commanders . Theres not really going to be a Legal Standard thats relevant to them because theyre going to be in the field. Theyre making these decisions on the fly. There could be something that seems, again, its going to be their discretion. If theyre ordered to do something they feel is illegal in terms of military regulations or other law, theyre going to have to make that call at the time. He wasnt in a situation, vindman, where he had to make an instant judgment. He was able to go to a superior, which is exactly why kelly is saying he did the right thing to do. He didnt have to make a judgment on the fly. Bob barr, to you, you have criticized the impeachment of the president. Youve called it a democratic sham. But john kelly is hardly a democrat, and he is backing with these comments, the very foundation of the impeachment. Do you disagree with this take . It doesnt make any sense to me what the general is saying because vindman was not given an order to do anything. By all accounts, he simply overheard a conversation and then he so, bob, i would just jump in there with the context for people who havent read the entirety of the comments. The idea is, if you are, you know, a Lieutenant Colonel, if this is your position and you hear something, that you know is wrong, it is your duty to report it. Thats what hes saying. Report it through the chain of command. He overheard the president who is the commander in chief and who is, in fact, in charge of u. S. Foreign policy on a conversation with a foreign leader talking about u. S. Policy with regard to that country. The colonel apparently interpreted what the president was saying one way. Others interpreted it another way. I see nothing in this equation that equates to an illegal order. Guys, its not just Alexander Vindman who interpreted it that way. Gordon sondland, the president s appointee interpreted it that way. Bill taylor, the president s choice to be envoy to ukraine also interpreted it that way. Theres no misunderstanding what happened here. In fact, at the end of the senate trial, we know ted cruz told white house lawyers we all know there was a quid pro quo here. The only question being whether its enough to convict and put him out of office. But the facts of the case and the fact that it was an improper association, link the president made between those two things is universally accepted now. No, its not universally accepted now. Yes, it is. Its not. I disagree with what youre saying. And an awful lot of u. S. Senators did also, and i suspect that if there had been a fair proceeding not according to ted cruz. There would have been a lot of other witnesses that interpreted it very differently. Shan, you heard bob barr there talk about how the president s the commander in chief. Does that negate a uniformed officer from making a judgment to say, listen, to me to me, this sounds like an illegal order and, therefore, i will report it through the chain of command . Absolutely does not do that. The commander in chief is simply a higher commander. So if he were, lets say, in the field, in a war zone, and his immediate supervisor gave him an order he felt was illegal, something wrong to do, we want our Armed Services soldiers to not do that. To follow their training and to follow their own moral conscience. Thats what he did. We should be proud of what he did. Bob, Quick Response and then were going to move on. There was no order of any sort. This was a president talking about a u. S. Foreign policy with regard to another leader. That can be interpreted and characterized many different ways. Thats exactly the point. You want them to interpret it and to fall back on the technicality, there wasnt an order to do this. Obviously, he felt he was witnessing something wrong. There was an order issued. We saw that in the email traffic, the white house directed this aid to be stopped. But, please stay with us. Theres much more to cover this morning. There could be more exits from the Justice Department. This comes just days after four federal prosecutors completely up and quit the roger stone case over the agencys decision to overrule their sentencing recommendations. New sources saying this morning that several federal prosecut hcussed resigning. Joining in these resignations in recent days. Laura jarrett joins us now. Weve already seen four resign from this case. One, i believe, from the job itself, from completely. You are hearing there are others who are considering the same . Just imagine trying to do your job every day and you have been there throughout multiple administrations. And you find out on fox news that now its going to be reversed for what reason . We dont know exactly what happened in those conversations, but weve seen this play out now in a way that i think undermines how theyre supposed to do their job. Its a morale issue. We talk to sources and things were really heated on tuesday. Well see how it plays out in the days to come. Maybe things calm down. And its not unusual for there to be policy disagreements. Thats happened. But in criminal cases, those usually dont get touched. What were seeing now in stone and other cases is different. How much of this, laura, your reporting in terms of the turmoil and the angst and the actual, you know, leaving of positions or cases at least that the Justice Department has to do with the attorney general himself . Theres no question bill barr, if anything, takes a handson approach to these cases. And it turns out that stones case is not an outlier. The reporting shows that its also in the case of the former National Security adviser michael flynn. We saw some Court Filings that were sort of discordon on the softening and it turns out he was involved in some of those discussions behind the scenes. Theres also so many more cases to go. That are in the queue right now politically sensitive that the president cares about. Look at just that map right there shows you what were facing in the weeks and months to come. So many we can barely fit it on one page there. For instance, on eric prince, betsy devos brother, if they dont indict him for lying to congress, how are people supposed to look at this and say, it was on the up and up. So the appearance of impropriety, even if weve giving them the benefit of the doubt and theres nothing wrong here, its the appearance some people arent getting a fair shake. Yooits why you have rules against conflicts of interest. If you have those conflicts you should not be involved. How do you respond to that . The president has an interest in all these cases. There are folks who advised him. Roger stone has been one of his most loyal advisers through the years gop you have any issue . Youre a former federal prosecutor. Imagine if the president interfered in a case you prosecuted to the best of your ability and said, i dont care what you did. This guy is a friend of mine. Aint going to happen. Theres something important to keep in mind here. While federal prosecutors have a great deal of flexibility in how they handle their cases, it is not absolute. And particularly with regard to cases involving public figures and corruption involving public figures, the u. S. Attorney or the line attorneys prosecuting the case are required by the u. S. Attorneys manual to coordinate that case with main justice. And, in fact, what happened here, apparently, is there was some disagreement between main justice and the attorneys handling the case. There was an understanding that they would follow the guidelines, and then they filed a paper with the court that did something very different. Not the question i asked. I asked if youd have any issue with the president repeatedly intervening in cases in which he had a personal interest as a former prosecutor yourself. The president is not intervening in anything. The decision here first and foresmoefor foremost is going to be made by the judge. Not by the line attorney or william barr. Its going to be made by the judge. The president can say whatever he wants. Thats not going to influence the judge. All right. I would just note, bob, in your piece in the daily caller you criticize the judge as an obama appointed judge and took aim at all of this saying stone was never charged with any substantive criminal offenses and youre talking about five counts of lying to congress, witness tampering and obstructing a proceeding. Shan wu, youve been in meetings like this when you were a former counsel to ag janet reno. Did you see anything like this happen . Absolutely not. Theres a very solid wall between the white house generally and the Justice Department. Precisely for the reason of the integrity of the process, not wanting Public Confidence to be undermined. In fact, the sort of interesting thing is usually when defense counsel are making appeals to the higher ups at the Justice Department, main justice, usually they have very little success if theyre going against the judgment of the operational people, the trial folks who have worked the case. The higher up you go, the less inclined the officials are to overrule the people at the bottom. So the idea here that this is a normal situation, its not. Its very abnormal. Well, were watching it unfold. Shan wu, bob barr. Well speak to a member of the House Judiciary Committee who will be asking barr questions, just ahead. Mike bloomberg picking up several endorsements from prominent africanamerican lawmakers, including one from new york, even as he faces all of these questions over his controversial stop and frisk policy in new york city. So what do those endorsements mean . Also, Rush Limbaugh recently awarded the medal of freedom by the president , now targeting a president ial candidates sexuality saying on his radio show that he wonders what would happen in a debate between, quote, mr. Man, President Trump and in limbaughs words, quote, gay guy Pete Buttigieg. Its difficult to even repeat his words here and the way that he clearly meant them. Much more on that ahead. Help ma, like. Pnc easy lock, so you can easily lock your credit card when its maximum limit differs from its vertical limit. And clover flex, for when you need to take credit cards when no one carries cash. Or requesting a call to help get a new credit card one that hasnt followed the family goldfish. Pnc make today the day. As the Bloomberg Campaign scrambles to contain the fallout over the former new york city mayors comments on stop and frisk, the campaign is responding to another racerelated controversy. This is first reported by the associated press, former new york city mayor Michael Bloomberg once blamed the end of red lining for the 2008 housing crash and financial crisis that ensued. So what is redlining . Its an historically discriminatory housing practice that deemed largely minority neighborhoods too risky for mortgage lenders drawing a red line on maps around those areas. Listen to this. It probably all started back when there was a lot of pressure on banks to make loans to everyone. Red lining, if you remember, was the term where banks took whole neighborhoods and said people in these neighborhoods are poor. Theyll not be able to pay off their mortgages. Tell them, your salesmen, dont go into those areas and then congress got involved, local elected officials as well, and said oh, thats not fair. These people should be able to get credit. And once you started pushing in that direction, banks started making more and more loans where the credit of the person buying the house wasnt as good as you would like. The Bloomberg Campaign is responding this morning saying that the mayor, quote, attacked predatory lending, and they also say that he has plans to, quote, help a million more black families buy a house and counteract the effects of redlining. Joining us is reverend a. R. Bernard, where bloomberg apologized to the congregation for his stop and frisk policy. Thank you for joining us. According to the times, bloomberg called you back in october to talk about an apology. Can you tell us ab sure. Weve known each other for 20 years. I served him when he was mayor. And we had a conversation, and he was expressing a period of reflection on what he had done, why he was in office, what was good, what was bad. And this was an issue that continued to stick with him. Now i understand the timing is suspect because he announces that hes going to run for president right after that. But i think he was genuine in this whole thing of stop and frisk. Let me say this to you because we have to understand that communities of color live in a tension between the need for safe communities, safe streets, and overpolicing. Without police presence, crime becomes a problem. With overpolicing, the innocent suffer for the guilty. So there has to be a balance that we strike with this. But stop and frisk did not begin with Michael Bloomberg. Stop and frisk as a racial profiling policy goes back to 120 years of explicitly racial policies in america from a federal, state and local level. We should remind people that President Trump has called for a National Stop and frisk on that issue. Thats what i was going to say. Even as recently as last year, the president called for National Stop and frisk. But mayor bloomberg has seen a dramatic up tick in his support from the Africanamerican Community nationally in the twloolast two weeks. Up 15 . Thats really important for him. That was before this audio came out of just in 2015, him talking about stop and frisk. Lets let people listen to that and i want to get your response on the other side. The cops in the minority neighborhoods. Yes, thats true. We do we do that . Because thats where all the crime is. And the way to get the guns out of the kids hands it to throw them up against a wall and frisk them. I think its wrong. Its inexcusable and any other comments that may come out like this. But i do think that bloombergs insensitivity to the negative impact of stop and frisk on community of color was providential. It allows him an opportunity to now craft a black agenda as part of his campaign. To deal with racialized policing system. Racialized criminal justice system, inequities in education and economic opportunity. Thats a black agenda. He has an opportunity to craft a black agenda and push forward so he can do something about it. Tell us about his record. President trumps record in 2020 is saying hes done well for africanamericans. Lowest unemployment rate. Tell us about Michael Bloomberg, has terms as mayor here. Was he good in some ways for africanamericans . When he went into office, it was on the tail of 9 11. We were in economic crisis, along with the emotional crisis. We were a grieving city. We needed someone to be the ceo of the city of new york, corporation of the city of new york. He came in and he did what he did very well to stabilize things. In terms of developing relationship with the community, that was an ongoing process for him. Look, hes a wall street banker. He comes from that world. Now you become a politician. You represent people that you did not really know their context. Thats a learning curve. Theres so much to that statement about knowing communities and spending time in them. I worry about saying the Africanamerican Community as a monolith, we have to be very careful of that. And politicians have to be careful about that. But there was another harlem pastor, calvin butts who made the point this week that bloombergs Financial Support for important causes to largely africanamerican minority communities helps alleviate concerns over what he has done and said with stop and frisk. What about critics who say thats him throwing all this money at problems to try to get votes. Thats not enough. Look, we cant judge his heart. We dont know what hes feeling inside. But we can judge his actions. We can go back to the bible. John baptist said, if youre repentant, bring me the fruit. Show me evidence. Show me change. Hes in a position if he wants a black vote to craft a black agenda. But just those four things i named. If he does that, he can grab the attention of black people in th