Yet another member of the president s inner circle has come under scrutiny in the russia investigation. Both the house and Senate Intelligence committees have requested information and testimony from one Michael Cohen, the president s personal lawyer and longtime confidant, someone not previously known to be involved in the russia probe. Cohen was alleged to have attended a secret meeting last summer in prague to discuss russian hacking of democratic targets, something he strongly denies. Cohen told msnbc hes declining to comply with the committees requests. The request letters first reported by abc news were the same ones initially sent to Michael Flynn, paul manafort, roger stone, and carter page according to a congressional aide. All onetime Trump Associates whose ties to russian officials are currently under review. Flynn, we found out tonight, will provide some documents under subpoena to the Senate Intelligence panel. Another former trump aide, Boris Epstein has received an information request from the House Committee and has yet to decide whether to comply. The fallout continues from the Washington Posts explosive report late last week that the Russian Ambassador told moscow that Jared Kushner, the president s soninlaw, wanted to open a secret Communications Channel with the kremlin. He reportedly made the proposal in a previously disclosed meeting with the ambassador during the transition. That followed on the heels of news last week that kushner has come under scrutiny in the russia probe. And now according to the New York Times, the investigation is focusing in on another kushner meeting, this one with a putin ally who heads a sanctioned russian bank. Current and former american Officials Say the meeting may have been part of an effort by kushner to establish a direct line to Vladimir Putin outside established diplomatic channels. Remarkably, the white house has not denied these latest reports. Instead, Administration Officials have defended kushners alleged conduct as perfectly appropriate. So generally speaking, about backchannel communications, what that allows you to do is to communicate in a discreet manner so it doesnt predispose you toward any sort of content of that conversation or anything. So, no, i would not be concerned about it. Its both normal in my opinion and acceptable. Any way that you can communicate with people, particularly organizations that are maybe not particularly friendly to us, is a good thing. By this afternoon, the white house strategy seemed to have evolve somewhat. In his first briefing in over two weeks, White House PressSecretary Sean Spicer repeatedly refused to answer questions about the kushner reports. Im not going to get into what the president did or did not discuss. What your question assumes is a lot of facts that are not substantiated by anything about Anonymous Sources that are so far being leaked out. Youre asking if he approves of an action that is not a confirmed action. Im not going to get into it, but your question presupposes facts that have not been confirmed. I think what ive said speaks for itself. Regardless of what was discussed, we know kushner omitted his meetings with the Russian Ambassador and the putin allied banker on security clearance forms. He joins attorney general Jeff Sessions and fired National Security adviser Michael Flynn on the list of close president ial associates who, before taking office, had repeated contacts with russian officials that they later lied about, concealed, or somehow forgot to mention altogether. All this while russia was being accused very publicly by the u. S. Government and others of having waged an Unprecedented Campaign of sabotage to disrupt the president ial election. Joining me now, former watergate prosecutor Jill Wine Banks and naveed jamali, former double agent. Jill, let me start with you. Are you surprised by the white house not denying the reports of kushner trying to set up a back channel and this secret meeting with kislyak . Almost nothing the white house is doing surprises me anymore. I cant believe anybody is surprised because its always unpredictable. It is strange that they arent denying it, but i think its stranger yet that he made such a request assuming that the kislyak conversation accurately reflects the conversation he had with kushner. Naveed, what i thought about what i saw the sort of first round of spin from the white house about this meeting, which was basically one was that they were talking about bringing peace to syria. People familiar with the meeting said the idea was to have flynn speak directly with a senior military official in moscow to discuss syria and other security issues. Lets say thats entirely true. Jared kushner still has a problem in that under penalty of perjury and felony, he omitted this meeting from his clearance security form, right . Thats exactly right, chris. I mean the point here and im sure jill can expand upon this. But the idea is as a private citizen, can someone meet with representatives of the russian government, and the answer is most likely yes. That may not even necessarily be a crime. What separates that action from the one that general flynn and Jared Kushner took was the omission lets just call it omission of those meetings on their sf86. The sf86 is a background form for which Security Officers can determine your eligibility to get top secret clearance. Its very much like apply forg a loan. They look for risk. Omitting something that would be considered something that would be a risky behavior and potentially preclude you from getting a clearance, one would interpret theres a motivation to keep that off because if you keep it off, you can now qualify for top secret clearance. I think that omission is really what separates and is frankly going to be the much more legally troubling thing for kushner and flynn going forward. Jill, if you were investigating right now this white house, what would you who would you want to talk to and about what . Well, first of all, id want to know what the actual conversation was that happened. Id also like to know what the planned conversation was going to be about. Id like to know why did they need a back channel . Why did they want to evade american intelligence operations and the setup that america has to communicate with russia . There must be a reason that theyre hiding these conversations. The other thing is an incoming president does not have the right to conduct foreign policy. So having conversations before inauguration means that we have a competing foreign policy, and that is not a good thing. So i think there are a lot of issues here that need to be explored. Obviously you need to talk to kushner. It would be lovely if we could talk to kislyak as well and to flynn and to find out what exactly they were planning to talk about and why they needed this back channel. And also i think it is absolutely true. Why would they conceal this . Why didnt they disclose it . If i had, in applying for the pentagon job that i had, not disclosed all my conversations, i would not have gotten my job, and i would have lost my security clearance. Thats a serious issue. It is the concealment again. Yes. At this point weve got to say the concealment that is almost confirmed and acknowledged. I mean thats what i want to just sort of draw peoples attention to here, that the response to the kushner story was not, no, of course thats preposterous. It was, no, it was to bring peace to syria. But whether it was, you know, to end world hunger, whatever the purpose, the fact is thats not a meeting you forget about, right . And, naveed, i want to get your opinion on this other story that crossed today that i dont quite know what to do with. It relates in some ways to some of the insinuations of that dossier that has been denied by many of the parties involved, including the president and Michael Cohen. But heres a piece that says, russians discussed potentially derogatory information about trump and associates during the campaign, the idea being that through monitored communications, russians said they had derogatory information. What do you make of that . You know, there are so many rumors about this floating around and we have to be very careful that some of this may be coming from the russians. But i know that cohen was mentioned in the steele dossier. Look, i go back to that stance about that i think probably the white house is falling back on, which is this idea that as a private citizen, these acts may not be illegal, but it does hint to this larger thing. You know, was there an attempt by the Trump Associates or people in the trump sort of inner wing to have a dialogue with the russians . And i can tell you, chris, that if we take this from the russian standpoint, if Jared Kushner called and im a russian intelligence calls me up and says, you know, the soninlaw of the future president of the United States wants to have a meeting with you, of course im going to consider this from a russian intelligence perspective how i can take advantage of it. Just from that alone, just to put yourself in a room like that, is just wildly, i want to say at a minimum, naive. It seems like these people were reaching out, and i have to believe the russians were going to absolutely take advantage of that. It also seems to me the facts that have been entered into evidence, the reuters piece about 18 contacts, the meetings during transition, when you put them all together, there was a focus, it appears on bilateral u. S. Russia relations with officials, that certainly seems to exceed their interest in basically any other matter of policy, foreign or domestic. Indeed. And, again, it just throws suspicion on the whole situation. The real question at the bottom line is what did the president know, and when did he know it . Its the same question we had during watergate. And i dont know that he knew that Jared Kushner was doing this. But after all, it was his soninlaw. He was one of his closest advisers. Its hard to believe he went off on his own to do it. But we need to know that because it changes our perspective of what happened. Thats right. That point is a really important one and sean spicer refused to answer precisely that question today. Thank you both. Im joined now by francesca chambers, White House Correspondent for the daily mail, and heidi przybyla, an msnbc political analyst. Heidi, the white house does seem to we seem to be in a new chapter of how they respond to this. First it was sort of the outright flat denial or lie frankly, things as trivial as the inauguration to things that happened later on. Then it was accept the basic facts but spin. Today it was youre not getting any. Francesca, you were in that room. Youre not getting any information. Has there been an evolution in how they deal with this . Well, that was exactly what happened today, but it wasnt just today. There were white house officials prior to today when that report first came out that also would not comment on Jared Kushner, would not comment on whether the back channel did or did not happen the way that the Washington Post article said it did. The point i was making in the White House Press briefing today was that the president tweeted out an article from fox news that relied on an anonymous source that said that kushner wasnt the one who suggested the back channel. It was the russians who wanted the back channel, and it was to talk about syria. But the Washington Post article had relied on Anonymous Sources, and those were the Anonymous Sources that sean spicer was slamming and saying theyre completely unreliable. How could we trust them . When the president was relying on an article based on an anonymous source to support Jared Kushners side of the story. Yeah. And to the point there, heidi, to francescas point here, whats remarkable is that the president himself tweeting this article that says essentially the meeting happened but not the same way again gets back to this fundamental issue that Jared Kushner has, which is if the meeting happened and it is this level of significance, its hard to believe that Jared Kushner forgot about it when he filled out that form under penalty of perjury. Which is why sean looks so exhausted, because its really hard to go out and do that job when youre constantly getting undercut by your own boss. To answer your question, initially as well that, yes, i think the strategy is evolving in that the now Communications Director and main spokesman for the white house wont even answer the questions. That is now where were at. The thing that i thought is he is now basically under a trance of the legal team that tell him you cant deny it. You cant confirm it. You go out there and spin your way through. You give a tenminute introduction on the president s trip which, you know, nobody in that press Briefing Room had intended to ask any more questions about the trip. It was all about russia and kushner. And the main question that were trying to get at here is probably going to go unanswered for a pretty long time, which is what your previous guest said, is because spicer wont acknowledge anything, which is what did trump know . Are we to really buy that both in the case of flynn and now kushner, there were these highlevel discussions going on with the russians, including a russian banker who was under sanctions and that the president knew nothing about it . That point, i think, is an important one, francesca. You know, the president gets back. This is him tweeting, you know. He gets back from abroad, and it was almost like someone when you have a friend who goes abroad but then they dont spring for the International Data package. Then they get back. All of a sudden there was tweet after tweet. Today it said russian officials must be laughing at the u. S. And how a lame excuse for why the dems lost the election has taken over the fake news. This is similar in line to what Vladimir Putin said today. That tweet said to me that whatever discipline sean spicer is showing at the microphone, the president himself will not be able to show such discipline, which is probably why we havent heard from him in such a long time. The difficulty for sean spicer, as heidi was saying, is when you have the president tweeting things that undercut your message. Weve seen that happen often. So sean is also at a point now where you referenced not giving us any information. He will say things like, the tweet speaks for itself. He will just refer back to the president s tweets, and oftentimes those tweets dont speak for themselves. Theres a lot of unanswered questions, which is what came up in the briefing today, which is did the president know about the back channel, the alleged back channel that was being set up with russia . When did he know about it . And going back to that fox article that the president tweeted out today, he seemed to be affirming that it did happen. Thats right. He just disagreed with the version of events in the post article, that he was saying that the fox article would have been the one that was right, which is that the conversation did happen. It just it just did not happen the way that the post said it did. So in the White House Press briefing, one would think that sean spicer would be able to say whether or not did or did not know about this other time, or it did or did not happen given the president tweeted about it, but he wouldnt do that. Heidi, is this the strategy from here on out . Refer to the lawyers. Theres an investigation and basically try to move off it . I think so. That was the key sound bite that you were playing and a lot of other hosts were playing, which is that this is an ongoing investigation. I cant comment. At some point Jared Kushner will speak. I think theres also a bit of i mean look at sean spicer. He looked physically pained. I think for these officials who may or may not be hanging out that much longer, we dont know, theres also kind of how many times can you get burned in terms of being put out on that podium, saying things that wind up not being true . So its better you know, lets be fair. We would slam him if he said things today that later this week we found out not to be true. So its better i guess in his case in terms of survival to not answer the question. Thank you both. The president s personal attorney now included in the expanding russia probe. Some breaking news on how hes handling requests from congress after this twominute break. 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