A wire around President Trump, remember that. They said it was a joke. According to cnn sources, it happened. And then kaman even bigger development. Sure to enrage the right, but very important to process, Andrew Mccabe then the acting director at the fbi took the extraordinary step of opening an obstruction of justice investigation even before bob mueller was brought into the picture. Now, tomorrow the mueller team is expected to reveal more of what it knows about Paul Manafort and michael cohen, lets gavel cuomos court, it is in session with laura coats and ken cuccinelli. Its good to have you both here. Lets start with the rosenstein information. And really Andrew Mccabe, laura, because again, our sources say that rosenstein was kidding not kidding, about the needing to sur veil, now, thats backed up by the understanding that Andrew Mccabe felt after everything that involved comey and his dismissal by the president , an obstruction of justice investigation was warranted. Your takeaway . I think no one should be really surprised that when they have this very unceremonious firing at the head of the fbi, you had a con tem pain yously written memos about a pledge for loyalty. And this discussion of why he asked the question of letting this flynn issue go, even after sally yates had come to the white house to explain there may be a compromised National Security adviser, it should come as no surprise, that it was a personal response. They thought that one of their own had really got the raw end of the deal, it was a methodical and emotional situation. You get all the evidence early, you cannot wait for this speculative incoming of the special council. I think it was equal parts personal and prudent on their behalf. Legitimate response to the facts they had at hand . Or you see this as being motivated by Something Else . Well, no, i think it was certainly an element of circling the wagons among fbi folks. But also, i mean, look at what we know in hindsight. Andrew mccabe was overly aggressive in matters related to the president. I have never thought that mueller was seriously pursuing obstruction because the person overseeing him, who were talking about here would be right smack in the middle of any such investigation. And would have had to have recused himself. I dont think rosenstein would have stuck around in this for 19 months. I think were at 19 months now. Had that been a serious pursuit of the special council, because hes literally right in the middle of their theorys of obstruction. So i dont think thats ever been seriously pursued, we talked about it a lot on this show. I dont think in the special councils office, particularly in light of article 2, that they have seriously pursued that. I think we may learn some more tomorrow, but were going to learn it in the negative, much as we have in the past with the other things like flynn earlier this week, that didnt mention anything about russian collusion during the election. Theres a lot of redacted stuff, well know more about that by this time tomorrow. Well be talking about it, but one thing at a time. The idea that it cant be any real obstruction, because rosenstein would be conflicted, he would have been out if it were real. I dont buy that heres why, i dont think mueller is acting with regard to who his boss will be. I think hes acting under the direction of the mandate itself, not whoever occupies the position to oversea the carrying out of his mandate, if he were to do so, he would be a marionette and someone who would be compromised, an objective pursuer of the fact. He also has to get permission to proceed. That is true. But the idea that you would act only in regard to a way you could get permission would really be antithetical to his position. These are not the qualities you want in a general counsel. Im going to finish my point first. When you have these three issues, why the special counsel is appointed in the first place, there is accountability and objectivity to pursue justice. It would be antithetical to what youre suggesting. These people do serve under the pleasure of the president. He has his drudthers about who would no longer like to serve. You cant just expect everyone to evaluate an look at you and take the benefit of the doubt. Theyre looking at this and saying, listen is there any reason to believe this was not an article 2 dismissal, in fact, one that is tied to some other criminal investigation, and his own words indicate that. I think mueller is acting independently, i do still however think, as i said before, that mccabe, you called him very aggressive. I would not expect a deputy fbi director to be a shrinking violet. They should be aggressive in trying to understand whether there is a criminal violation. One of the things that got mccabe in trouble, is trying to secret out to the media his attempts to go after hillary clinton. Its always seen that, they dismissed him for lying, his lack of candor or whatever they want to call it within the doj. The premise of it matters as well. He wanted it to be known, he wanted to go after hillary clinton, but to remind people of why it seems so obvious that the president was motivated not by simple druthers, but by animous. What he said in an interview to lester holt, whether or not he was going to get rid of comey. Let me refresh your memory. Regardless of recommendation, i was going to fire comey. Knowing there was no good time to do it. And, in fact, when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made up story, its an excuse by the democrats for having lost an election that they should have won. Trump and russia. What was on his mind. Now, one of the contextual things in this, did comey see it the way the president did . Heres what comey said. He fired comey because comey would not, among other things, say he wasnt a target of the investigation. Im sorry, obviously, thats rudy giuliani, everybody mixes together, but not that much. Ken, the point is this, you had the president s lawyer say, look, comey wouldnt say that the president wasnt a target, that upset the president , the president says, i didnt care what Rod Rosenstein said, i was getting rid of this guy, which blows the pretense of bringing rosenstein into the picture in the first place. Isnt that enough to say, it this isnt dismissing the head of the fbi. Its why he did it, musnt that matter . You can say it matters if obstruction was appropriate, there were a lot of reasons to fire comey. Youre talking to somebody who is advocating it as early as the previous summer, as did Allen Dershowitz on this very station, and, you know, that was happening almost a year before trump fired him, there were plenty of reasons for him to be let go, youve just named two. Because they came out of the president s mouth and his lawyers mouth, thats why. Right, but you could you quoted him for one sentence, there are plenty of other reasons, and he himself offered many other complaints over the course of the time running up to the actual firing, he being the president. Right, except ive already told you, i never thought this was appropriate, nor actually goingforward, because mueller to lauras point, this is not an independent council, it is a special counsel. The independent counsel statute died on a bipartisan basis 20 years ago, he has to get everything approved. Everything important by his oversight officer, who is not the attorney general, its the Deputy Attorney general. And it would be totally inappropriate for rosenstein to be addressing matters related to obstruction, when he is so unremovable from any discussion of the subject. It would be completely inappropriate. All right. Final word, laura, then we have to go. To operate that. I hear you, ken. I agree we have all thought recognizen stein has some conflicts of interest when it drafting the reasons to fire comey, which could have been quite extensive given the fact that he gave that press conference. Having said that, i think that people are misguided as to why the obstruction of justice issue is not the end game of mueller. Why would it be the end game. If you had a prosecutor come to you and say, my end game is to punish somebody for trying to prevent me from seeing something and it ended there. An obstruction of justice charge although it has been the foundation of a prior president , et cetera. The idea you would give someone a speeding ticket for running away from the scene of the crime as opposed to investigating the crime would be absurd. Mueller can have as much impact in the investigation as the obstruction, but i do agree, it cant possibly be an end game, and if it is, what were the 19 months for. We will see. More and more all the time, tomorrow is a big day. We will not know so much about this, i dont think. There will be more meat on the bones of why muellers doing what hes doing. Ken, thank you, laura, as always, appreciate it. When we come back, theres another big story were digging into deeply. There is new evidence of this alleged scheme to rig the vote results in North Carolina. There may have to be an entirely new election for that member of congress. We just had a huge move from one of the candidates involved. Ill tell you all about it next. I landed. I saw my leg did not look right. I was just finishing a ride. I felt this awful pain in my chest. 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I recently discovered that a good source of protein. Thats why theyre my goto snack while i get back in shape. That ones broken. The mess in North Carolina just hit a new level of crazy. Cnn has found problems with absentee ballots in a second county. This isnt made up, its messed up. So much so that the democrat in the one remaining uncalled congressional race just with drew his concession, its too close, theres too many problems. Whats the main allegation. People claim they were paid by a republican operative to break the law. Thats the simple truth. The focus is two counties, robeson and bladon. Four people signed off on multiple absentee ballots. Lesley mccrea hes been accused of messing with ballots before, two years ago, yet he was hired at the republican race mark harris, the alleged scheme included a practice called ballot harvesting. Whats that . A stranger knocks on your door, promising to deliver your absentee ballot for you, doing you a favor. Its against the law, some of those ballots may have been changed or never turned in. The signatures are what tipped this off. There are seven people who are witnesses more than 10 times each, only a relative or near guardian can deliver a ballot for you. You have two women who told cnn they were paid to collect ballots that they handed over to dowless. Listen. Like i said, i dont know what happened after i dropped them off. You dont know for certainty whether they were sent to the Elections Office . No, i dont. We were asked to pick up absentee ballots, he told us he would put gas in our car and a little bit of money during the week to help out. The state board of elections voted against certifying this election. What are they going to do about this . They could order a new vote, as i said, that would be a big deal, they may have to. Congress could also refuse to seat harris. Either way, its quite possible that this new election will need to take place in North Carolina. The question becomes, where are the republicans in the state, what dony have to say about this mounting evidence . What are they going to do about this. Lets find out. We have dan bishop, hes the vice chair on the committee of elections, he joins us now. I appreciate having you for two reasons. One, this matters, and two i cant get any republicans to talk about this. You know, i couldnt get voter fraud out of the mouths of your fellow Party Members when it comes to blaming it on mysterious latinos in california. Thank you for taking this opportunity, what do you think should be done with the allegations that we just laid out. We had a press conference today, chris, fellow senators, and myself, to say that look, the allegations are very disheartening, they need to be investigated thoroughly, promptly, and without any partisan bias. As you point out, the gentleman weve heard about, mr. Dallas in bladon county, has been involved in ballot solicitation activities that have given rise to allegations in 2016 and 2014 and 2010, there were complaints. Those obviously have not been adequately resolved by the efforts to date of the state board of elections, and prosecutorial authorities. We have to get to the bottom of it, theres no doubt about it. I hear you, thats the right thing to hear. The problem is in context. We understand that there are also issues during the primaries and they were voiced and there was nothing done. It becomes a little bit of a crisis of confidence that anything will be done this time. How can you guarantee there will be a fair outcome . Well, i think thats exactly the point, chris, its not im not in position to guarantee it, were in the general assembly. What we have been saying over the last couple years have been a bit of a tug of war with the democratic governor making the point that the board of elections, the elections mechanism, enforcement mechanism should not be a partisan operation. It needs to be bipartisan. And unfortunately, we havent been very successful in gain his ear on that point. But this is the weve got actually a over 3 different administrations, this state board of elections has not resolved this problem, and so youre right, it extends into the primary this year, and into the general election. You have two issues, who fixes it, and ill ask you about that in a second. Just to keep the record clear, harris paid dowless. Its not about your states infrastructure, this is about a decision he made, with a man who is a known quantity. And now theres a chance that he gets rewarded for his efforts with a congressional seat. Do you think that should happen . Or do you think that under no circumstances, should this man be seated until this is certified . Well, i say follow the facts wherever they lead. My understanding is mr. Dowless was involved in the 2016 election. Hes not new to this. In which there was a similar issue in the Gubernatorial Race then. Interestingly enough, the same Elections Official that made the motion not to certify here, which might have been the right decision for the time being, also voted to dismiss a similar complaint in 2016, involving similar activities. So, you know, that its hard to know i dont know who knew what about mr. Dowless. My understanding is, various people recommend him or something. There are legitimate activities to do. Not the ones we heard about. By definition, its illegal. And whether or not people who he paid to do it allegedly, if they knew that, its different. It doesnt sound from their interviews they knew what they were getting into. They were trying to make some pocket money. That takes us to the ultimate question, who is the final word here, where does the buck stop. Who has the power to figure out what needs to happen here . Well, we think in the first instance its up to the governor, weve asked him to establish a Bipartisan Task force to examine, to augment the members of the board of elections in its entirety as far back as it goes. Perhaps to 2012, and not just in bladon and robinson counties, by the way, wherever it may lead. It may be important to inform the absentee ballot mechanism by mail as it is. We face obstacles any time we do something to increase ballot security from various sources, but i think that may be something we have to pursue. We have to know what the facts are, not just in one particular snapshot or from a biassed or partisan point of view, lets see what the full picture is. You cant let this man become your congressman until you figure out whether he cheated in the race, right . Well, and i havent argued, as i said a moment ago, its probably the right decision. I think its certainly not the right decision until we certify whats going on. What we do need to do, we need to have a full picture of it, and it needs to be done as promptly as possible. If it seems the race is effective, do you back the idea of a new election . Look, i think its one of the things that can be done. The what else could you do . The board needs to approach that decision in an even handed matter, pursuing it in the way that they the same sort of analysis theyve undertaken before. But youve got 285,000 votes that have been cast in that race by lawfully, and youve got to give that has a significant. Well, its you dont know exactly the number, what were talking about from what weve heard sao far the numbers pale in comparison to that large vote. Have you to make the right decision about that, and the state board needs to do it with the possession of all the facts, and they need to get to it as quickly as possible. Were going to stay on this story, and i look forward to h