Drops, hillary says she is convinced she knows what happened between trump and the races. Its pretty clear youre the puppet. The head of trumps socalled Voter Fraud Commission caught redhanded. I said it appears that nonrecess dens may have tipped the results. When all in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. The white house once again went after fired fbi director james comey today as special counsel Robert Muellers russia Investigation Continues to widen. Comey who would likely serve as a key witness in a criminal obstruction of justice case against the president. And today for the second day in a row the White House Press secretary argued from the podium that it was comey and not the president who broke the law. I think theres no secret comey by his own selfadmission leaked privileged government information weeks before President Trump fired him, comey testified that an fbi act engaged in the same practice, theyd face serious repercussions. I think he set his own stage for himself on that front. His actions were improper and likely could have been illegal. Would the president encourage the doj to prosecute comey . Thats not the president s role, thats the job of department of justice, something they should certainly look at. That is something youd like to see . Im not sure about that specifically but if theyre ever a moment we feel someones broken the law, particularly if theyre head of the fbi, thats something that should certainly be looked at. While comey has admitted to leaking his own elmos to the press, there is absolutely no reason to believe that conduct was illegal. This comes after the wall street journal reported the president s attorneys have been making the case against obstruction of justice to the special counsel, submitting memos that call into question comeys reliability particularly as a potential witness. It comes amid efforts by republicans on both the House Intelligence Committee to discredit the infamous steel dossier. Efforts that according to new york magazines jonathan chape are ultimately aimed at attacking comey. Its not hard to see why the white house would have such an interest in wrecking comeys credibility. Mueller is burrowing in hard on the obstruction of justice angle, which helps explain comments by steve bannon in his 60 minutes interview. Someone said that you described the firing of james comey. You have history as the biggest miss istake in political history. That would be probably that would probably be too bombastic even for me but maybe modern political history. Theres reports bannon and others are increasingly worried about their own legal exposure because they were with trump during those frantic takes around comeys firing and nobody was saying and what was on his mind. More and more senior officials have reportedly lawyered up in recent days. That includes Communications Director hope hicks, former chief of staff ryans debris bus, and the president s lawyer white House Counsel don mcgann. Some of them may be preparing for a runin with the special counsel who, according to Washington Post, has given the white house a list of six aides he and his team expect to question in the russia probe. As muellers Investigation Continues to advance, the incentives for individual members of the trump circle to turn on each other original grow. According to multiple reports, some of the president s lawyers argued that his own soninlaw Jared Kushner should resign from the white house to avoid further legal applications for the man at the top. Carol leoning joins us now, Washington Post. Tell me what we know about the president s lawyers views on kushner. Within the white house, remember this is in june right after the special counsel has been nominated or named, forgive me, in may, a group of white house lawyers are talking about all of the emails and all of the records that theyre going through to respond to congressional inquiries and ultimately to prepare for bob muellers investigation. And what they find are things that worry them about Jared Kushner, the president s soninlaw. Hes a earn. Who had a ton of interactions with foreign officials and russians in particular. He did this during the campaign and during the transition. Theres no indication there was anything wrong about that except he didnt disclose those conversations. And in some cases he seemed to talk about things he also didnt come completely clean about. There were other meetings that he had with, as we later learned, the public didnt know it at the time, but he had other meetings in june 2016 with a russian lawyer. What the white house lawyers, the people who are supposed to be sort defending the president and the white house itself, what they were worried about was whether jared was going to complicate things by being in the office and whether he was going to draw scrutiny and draw the president further deeper into this probe by being somebody who was always there. Somebody who could casually bring up the probe or some element of the probe while he was doing his job. You know, one of the dynamics that appears to be emerging as the this begins to play out are questions about how high up it all went. One of the most outstanding questions is, did the president himself know about the nowinfamous meeting at trump tower that Jared Kushner attended in which the campaign was promised dirt on Hillary Clinton directly from the russian government . It seems that theyre going to be forced to make a choice in the story they tell that may come at the expense of people who are quite close to the president , including his soninlaw and his son. Absolutely. I mean, some key questions are going to be asked and all of those people are going to be in the parlance of prosecutors squeezed. Each of them are going to be asked to replay, what did they hear the president say . What did they tell the president . You know the president didnt use email. Trump donald trump as a candidate didnt use email. But he had close confidants around him at all times. His secretary. His security agents. His children. His soninlaw. And each of them will be asked to give their account of what was said and those stories should all match up. To the point of the obstruction case, is it your understanding from your reporting as well that kushner was a key adviser close to the president , advocating for comey to be fired . Yes. Its our understanding that thats the case. And keep in mind, chris, that here are these lawyers, they were debating whether kushner should be removed from the white house in june of this year. Ultimately their idea was rejected. But i sort of am starting to see the wisdom of why they would have wanted to consider this. Because in july, kushner is also present with the president on air force one and right before that, when hes deciding and helping sculpt the story that will be shared with the public about that meeting at trump tower in june of 2016. Thats right. And as you know from our story which broke back at the time, the president was intensely involved in shaping that message. And Jared Kushner was present. What does Jared Kushner remember about the president sculpting a story that wasnt entirely true . Carol leoning, thank you very much. At the heart of the largely unverified, at least in independent terms, steel dossier, was the idea russia interfered in the 2016 election on trumps behalf in exchange or seeking out some kind of favorable policy outcome. Now a secret russian document obtained by buzz feed sheds light on just what outcome the russian government may have been seeking. Reporter john hutson got his hands on a kremlin proposal for a broad reset with trump, offering up the full normalization of relations between the United States and russia across all major branches of government. Buzz feeds john hutson is with me now. What can you tell me about the scope of what this document sketches out and what was ever proposed . This is a massive reset. It goes across diplomatic, military, and economic channels. And it really seeks to turn back the clock from before the syria Crisis Action before the ukraine crisis, to be frank before Edward Snowden asylum, to a time when there was a reset in relations. Certainly putin was looking to restore relations and sort of put aside all of the major geopolitical issues that the United States and russia have at the moment. Obviously the 2016 tampering of the elections at the forefront. Is the document are you convinced the documents are both authentic and that theyre actually something that were being considered at the highest level . I mean, this reflects this sort of roadmap for the thinking of putin and how he wants to approach trump. I am convinced that the document is authentic. And what russia analysts have told me, who i offered them to give their analysis, is that essentially the russians have long wanted these channels to exist. What surprised them is that they assumed that the russians assumed they would be able to let this fly and they wouldnt get laughed out of the room. Essentially thats because the u. S. russia relationship is in such a bad place right now. To assume that within a month you would be able to restore some of these incredibly sensitive channels, such as a meeting given a top russian Cyber Security official and his american counterpart, in many ways that would be seen as beyond the pale. Well, and what was fascinating about the document to me is first it sort of floats a kind of dup mattic jubilee, basically lets just wipe the slate cream crimea, ukraine, tampering, lets forget about that. Theres something to be said for improving u. S. russia relations. But second of all it seems they did not were not aware that their catastrophic success in terms of what they were able to do in the election made it politically impossible for them to actually pull this off. Absolutely. Its very clear that putin underestimated how difficult it would be for trump to carry out a rapprochement of this type amid congressional probes, amid fbi probes, amid Constant Media scrutiny. If you think about this chris, how this would play out, you would be having international meetings, youd have photo ops where u. S. And russian officials are seen together working together. In the climate that exists right now, you know, a political advise were kill this thing immediately upon hearing about it. And largely thats why this rapprochement hasnt really happened. If you go down the list of the different proposals that the russians had, very few of these meetings have actually taken place. Yeah, it should be we should be clear here in a substantive sense, the quo, if there was one, if there was any active collusion, has not been delivered on substantively. The president continues to rhetorically say nice things about duty putin, hes talked to him, he snuck russian ambassadors into the white house. In terms of substantive agenda items, is it your sense basically those asks have not been granted . Yeah, absolutely. The fears of a grand bargain between the United States and russia in which the u. S. Would sell away the farm and give ukraine to the russians, just forget about crimea, that hasnt happened. And especially if you look at some of the appointments that have happened in the trump administration. Youve seen fairly hawkish officials be appointed to senior positions in the nsc and in the state department. So by no means has trump installed a number of putin lackeys throughout the administration. And in fact, if you look at it, the white house hasnt even really pressured the state department or the pentagon to accelerate the kind of rapprochement that has been offered. John hutson, appreciate your time. Great to be here. For more on where the mueller investigation, potential National Security at the just did it department, and former federal prosecutor. Youve had thoughts on the developments over the last day or two. Ive been sort of tracking them. What jumps out to you most at this point . Well, one thing that has jumped out to me, ive discussed this a lot on twitter the last couple of days, is the growing mounting attack on james comey by the president , not only the press secretary, but by his lawyers and aides and others. What we saw yesterday and today by the press secretary is literally an accusation that the former fbi director committed a crime and that doj ought to investigation that and consider charging him. That issal appalling to me. It is absolutely inappropriate for the white house and the president to suggest prosecution. There are walls between the white house and doj. What shes doing is making an end run by making statements to the press suggesting that he should be charged with a crime. Knowing that the press is going to report on those. And that people from doj are going to read those reports. Its absolutely inappropriate. Carrie, do you agree on that . I absolutely do, certainly. Theres been procedures in place for a long time. And my understanding is that these procedures are still in place under attorney general sessions. That theres not supposed to be certain contacts between the white house and the department of justice regarding ongoing investigations. If the White House Press secretary stands up in public and says there should be an investigation of something, then theyre bypassing the direction of the attorney general. So really she needs to not talk about investigations and not suggest that investigations take place. It goes to the heart of our rule of law. It goes to the heart of our justice system. That theres not supposed to be the politicization of ongoing investigations or of launching investigations or prosecutions. It also seems to me, im not a lawyer, so id like to hear what you think, that theres no criminal claim here. That this is essentially just kind of like, i know you are, but what am i . Kind of argument from the white house. Thats what makes really her comments even more abhorrent. This was clearly part of a calculated political strategy, you know. We heard recently that there were memos that the Trump Lawyers had prepared and sent to mueller attacking comeys credibility. A couple of weeks ago the president tweeted that comey was unfair and that the system was rigged. And now were hearing these attacks when there literally is no evidence whatsoever that comey committed a crime. You had referenced earlier, chris, that i thought you made the correct call, even though youre a nonlawyer, that releasing information to the press is not a crime if that information isnt classified. In fact, we have a First Amendment in this country. Right. And the default rule that is talking to the press is something that is protected by the constitution. Is it is just the suggestion that he committed a crime or that he did something even wrong is totally off base. Carrie, wasnt to talk about this obstruction. Reporting the concern of the white house increasingly, it does seem to me based on the hires that muellers made, the asks, that they appear to be working towards building an obstruction case independent of whatever theyre doing with manafort and flynn and investigation the sort of possibility of russian collusion. There seems to be a paradox, if anyone obstructed, it seems to be it was the president himself, he ultimately is the one who fired, he is the person who asked comey to lay off flynn, et cetera. And yet its really unclear that Robert Mueller could prosecute the president. And that seems like pretty sticky terrain for him. Well, so there is a legal question thats outstanding, that constitutional lawyers will disagree about, whether or not a sitting president can be indicted for a crime. But that doesnt mean that the special counsel cant put together the facts that would establish a case and then either decide to bring that to the grand jury and have a channeling document, or whether thats something that the special counsel would refer to congress as a political matter. So its an open question. Its quite possible that the special counsel could conduct a legal analysis and determine that in fact they could bring a case against the president. But certainly theres a lot of individuals in the white house who are witnesses, fact witnesses to this investigation. And so thats why were seeing reporting that the special counsel wants to interview all of these different people who might have different insights regarding what the president said, what discussions took place in the white house regarding his efforts to shut down, obstruct, derail different parts of this overall investigation. It seems whatever constitutional questions are, the president would also be bound up in anything mueller were to do if he were to attempt to charge anyone as essentially an accomplice, if the argument is the president had the constitutional power to do this and therefore definitionally cannot have been gained in obstruction . Yeah, i dont think that argument is very compelling. Essentially saying, you have the power to do something, so no matter how you exercise that power, its always legal. For example, the president has the power to end investigations. So would it be it wouldnt be obstruction of justice for him to take a bribe and end an investigation for that purpose . I dont find that very compelling at all. What i do think is that you talked about the heat ratcheting up earlier on and potentially going for the top. If the stakes are high enough, people who are investigated tend to do desperate things, tend to do more aggressive thins. What were seeing is unlike what weve seen earlier from the trump camp, we are seeing a very coordinated strategy against comey. And i think we dwrg to see more aggressive tactics to come. Now that they seem to have their act together and are working together. Many thanks to you both. Thank you. Coming up, one of the men leading President Trumps Voter Fraud Task force caught redhanded. What should i watch . Show me sports. Its so fluffy look at that fluffy unicorn hes so fluffy im gonna die your voice is awesome. The x1 voice remote. Xfinity. The future of awesome. Today the br