Them for the last three months. Four months, five months. And theyre still here. Theyre still here. Meanwhile, bipartisan efforts to Shield Mueller and his investigation are moving forward in the senate, interestingly enough after much delay. Today republican Chuck Grassley, the chair of the powerful Senate Judiciary committee announced his panel will vote on a bill to protect mueller potentially as soon as tomorrow. That puts grassley on a direct Collision Course with the Senate Majority leader who says he will not advance the bill to a final vote. Theres no indication that mueller is going to be fired. I dont think the president is going to do that. Obviously a number of your colleagues fear it enough to say it should be in there. Im the one who decides what we take to the floor. Thats my responsibility as the majority leader. Well not be having this on the floor of the senate. Its possible mcconnell doesnt read the New York Times which reported on two separate occasions when the president has already tried to
order pluler fired. In one case backing down only after his own white House Counsel threatened to quit over it if he went through with it. Tonight concerns about mueller being fired are urgent enough apparently a Police Commander in pittsburgh just ordered detectives to bring riot gear to work in case people take to the streets. Thats happening in america. On capitol hill, a handful of republicans signed on to a House Version of the mueller protection bill. It is worth noting that of the six gop members we know, half have already announced theyre retiring from congress. Some of their colleagues are taking what could be considered the absolute opposite approach. Today in a letter to the Attorney General and other senior officials, 11 House Republicans called on the Justice Department to prosecute a long list of the president s political foes including james comey, Hillary Clinton and former Attorney General loretta lynch. Weve seen had kind of extraordinary breach of american political norms from the president himself but never before from members of u. S. Congress. Their move was hailed by the president s associates on trump tv. This is a Welcome Change here in washington. It looks like Members Of Congress are trying to finally bring to the American People the justice which they deserve. Hopefully the Justice Department will look into jim comey Lying Under Oath in front of congress. I dont understand why youve got a person gone for almost a year that has not been followed up with or prosecuted for that potential crime. Democratic senator Cory Booker A member of the Senate Judiciary committee and one of the sponsors of the bill to protect mueller good enough to join us live. Let me start on that. What do you make of Members Of Congress writing a Letter Calling for members of the fbi, the Justice Department and political foes of the president to be prosecuted . This is to me really a bad sign in our democracy. I think it starred in the last president ial election where you hear a whole Convention Center chanting lock her up, which to
me is things that dictators do that autocrats do is go after their little enemies not through the mechanisms of democracy but threat nick to throw them in jail and arrest them. This is a very dangerous sign. It is very antidemocratic that people want to try to be pushing to lock up their political opponents. So youre on the judiciary committee. Explain to me what the State Of Play is with this piece of legislation. Back in june, Lindsey Graham and started talking about hey, this is a problem not just in this moment in history, this moment in time. But for the longterm. If you have a president under investigation or has principal members of their team indicted, that that president should have a common sense check and balance on their ability to fire a Special Counsel. It just makes sense that you should not have that you should have checks and balances that you shouldnt have a president can be above the law or that could obstruct justice. So this is just a very common sense pragmatic idea. Lindsay and i started working on it, thom tillis and chris coons came up with their version. Weve married the versions. Im excited that Chuck Grassley understands that this is a bill of merit not only for now but in the ages and not only held hearings on it i mope will mark this bill up and vote it out of committee. What do you think has changed . It seemed there was a lot of interest last summer, we may have had you on to talk about it, that interest waned. It seemed stalled. If you had asked me to bet on whether it would get a vote on committee, i would have said no. Whats changed . A lot of folks of good conscience saying weve seen two separate occasions where were hearing reports the president was going to move to fire mueller. Weve seen consistent with his behavior that it can be impulsive, it can be unpredictable. I think we need this back stop for our democracy as opposed to
lurching us into a constitutional crisis. Sober minds see this as not at indictment of the president but as A Sign Of The Times and something were worried about and a responsible thing for us to do as stewards of the republic, as stewards of our democracy. And look, i would be i want to state it plain, clearly, there are republicans now that are worried that this eventuality might happen. I think thats why were getting good people, good heart, good nature stepping up to say lets do some things to create an Insurance Policy against a constitutional crisis. Isnt. Mitch mcconnell just going to put this bill where he stored the Merrick Garland flom nation in his office . I think that is a well earned skepticism. But this is something that i think is gaining momentum. I think that Mitch Mcconnell is right it, his rights to do what hes doing right now but hes
within his rights to change his mind. As we get more bipartisan support, as more activism happens around the country and if trump continues with the kind cuff bluster weve been seeing, heres a president that has been undermining the Special Counsel, attacking his integrity, undermining the investigation. I think at some point people have to choose from a tribalism Party Politics between that and sort of a faithfulness to their country and our institutions. Im hoping that Mitch Mcconnell will come around. But right now, were step by step. We wrote a bill. We got the bill hearings. We got the bill now ready to go into committee. Every step of the way as you said, people didnt think we could make it the next step. I have a feeling we might get this to the floor. Do you think the president s a criminal. Im one of those folks that says lets go where the evidence leads. And right now, we have a Special Counsel that is doing a thorough
investigation. Lets not get ahead of our skis. Lets make sure we support the Special Counsels investigation. If the president , like he says he has nothing to worry about, he should back off on the rhetoric and the things hes doing to undermine the investigation and let it take its course. Lets draw our conclusions from the evidence Gath Perpendicular i think its politically peril oust way we are throwing things around and getting ahead of this investigation. I think we need to let this prosecutor, let the Special Counsel rather do their job and draw conclusions after the evidence comes forward. Is that a reference to talk of impeachment when you say politically perilous. Yeah, i think that we undermine our position as democrats if we are reaching out now for impeachment which is just going to whip up more of the political divisions, the political debates. Ill take criticism for that but its okay. We need sober minds, factbasesed conclusioned drawn
from evidence presented. This, if we protect are the Special Counsel especially, this investigation is going to come to a conclusion. There are going to be facts and we can base our actions based upon those fantastics. Senator cory booker, you for making time tonight. For more on threats the jut departments independence, im joined by two former federal prosecutors, Jennifer Rogers who worked in the same Attorneys Office investigating Michael Cohen and harry lipman who worked at the doj. Let me start with you. The president very pointedly didnt say no, im not going to fire them. Theyre five and im innocent. He could have said that. He could have but he likes to keep us guessing, of course. If he flat out said im going to fire him, then maybe they hurry up and pass this bill and that puts impediments in his way. Or if he said im not going to do it. What he said was this coy like, you keep saying this and theyre still there. He said theyre going to do
their job. The white house said that before. Sarah sanders said that before and now shes backing off that which is getting some people nervous. Harry, i want to ask about some of the theres all these machinations happening as we watch this bear down. One of them is that adam schiff is introducing a pardon bill, legislation to prevent abuse of president ial pardons which understand the impulse particularly as there is some evidence that perhaps the president might be dangling them or some fear he might be dangling in front of people that could incriminate them. Is that even constitutional . Doa. The pardon power is plenary. Its a very interesting theory by the way that the dangling of a pardon might constitute obstruction because the sort of secret ill pardon you, just keep quiet now, wouldnt be subject to the one check we have on pardons which is the political collect that theyre in in plain air. But theres the pardon power,
more than even the Discharge Power which at issue in the booker bill, is completely within the president s Control Subject only to as has happened here arguably, improper purpose and it being the possibility of obstruction. Ditto, by the way, on the booker bill. There are going to be constitutional arguments on either side. Notwithstanding the precedent that the senators rely on. And i actually think if it passes, this will au kind of play out at the District Court level in the first instance and whether the District Court will enjoin the bill or not until it goes up because if the District Court says lets keep it as it is, that law is in place, that will be four, five, six months till the Supreme Court decides thats four, five, six months for mueller to make a lot of hay. Thats a very good point sort of concrete terms, is there even
a legislative it statutory solution to this. Some legal scholars argue Alan Dershowitz and a lot of them on right argue the president has a constitutional power under article two to fire anyone in the Executive Branch essentially so you cant undermine that power by statute or any other reason. That will be the battle if this gets passed. Theyll be duking it out in court. Another piece of legislation this legal gim protect. Eric schneiderman wrote a letter to new York Lawmakers urging State Lawmakers to close new yorks Double Jeopardy loophole to. To prevent the president from avoiding Double Jeopardy. It only applies as Double Jeopardy would once somebody has stood trial. Now, sneiderma knows better. Jennifer probably knows better being from from new york. My sense of it is, it comes into play only when somebody is first
put in jeopardy in the federal system. But if that happens, it would apply to many of the crimes the vet financial crimes that it looks as if cohen, manafort and others are going to have to stand try for. So it attach as soon as someone pleads guilty or a jury is sworn in a trial. So flynn. Youre saying is Double Jeopardy does. Correct. So flynn, hes already pled, gates has already pled. For them if theyre pardoned by the president , then the new york Double Jeopardy statute would the prohibit sneiderma or any other new york prosecutor from bringing charges against them. This would rectify that in view of sneiderma. It would. New york is along with about half the states with a stricter Double Jeopardy policy than is strictly necessary. Theres no constitutional reason they cant pass this and scale back that extra protection. Its interesting to watch everyone try to figure out how to sort of shore up all this. Then theres the civil suits
happening. One thing that happened today Karen Mcdougal was released from her settlement with ami, American Media inc. Basically saying you can tell your story. Do you see that as having effect on everything happening in the lane of Michael Cohen and robert mueller, harry. Totally. Its quite a story really. Everyone has been focused to date on mueller. Understandably. Hes got the big guns. He can really bring the biggest charges against trump. In the meantime, trump is fighting and losing on these different fronts in individual courts. Where he has to, in fact, stand in front of the law and the law buys back and says look, i dont care if youre the president. So far, judge wood, judge odoro and i think mcdougal, the National Enquirer read the writing on the wall. What we had seen as sort of
nuisance suits in fact are proving very potent especially if cohen is right, by the way. Thats a fact question, that the stormy suit actually was instrumental in the Search Warrants being served on cohen. And Karen Mcdougals lawyer as i realized is going to be on rachel maddow. Next, after the bizarre 72 hours of back and forth whether the white house is enacting russian sanctions the president halted his departure from the president conference with the Prime Minister minister of japan to weigh in on public feud. That story in two minutes. At ameriprise financial, we cant predict what tomorrow will bring. But our comprehensive approach to Financial Planning can help make sure youre prepared for whats expected and even whats not. And that kind of Financial Confidence can help you sleep better at night. With the right financial advisor, life can be brilliant. But their nutritional needs remain instinctual. Thats why theres Purina One True Instinct. Real meat 1. A different breed of natural nutrition. Purina one true instinct. Now, try new Purina One True Instinct treats. You might or joints. Hing for your heart. But do you take something for your brain. With an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is the number one selling brainhealth supplement in drug stores nationwide. Prevagen. The name to remember. You know whats not awesome . Gigspeed internet. When only certain people can get it. Lets fix that. Lets give this guy gig really . And these kids, and these guys, him, ah. Oh hello. That lady, these houses yes, yes and yes. And dont forget about them. Uh huh, sure. Still yes xfinity delivers gig speed to more homes than anyone. Now you can get it, too. Welcome to the party. Tonight President Trump caud the russia investigation a hoax repeatedly claim is as he often does anytime this comes up, no collusion. At the same time, the president appears to be blocking his own administrations efforts to sanction russia. Over the weekend, the white house informed surrogates it would impose specific additional sanctions against russia in direct response to moscows support for Bashar Al Assad in
the wake of the syrian governments chemical weapons attack on syrians as the u. S. Alleges they did. U. S. Ambassador to the United Nations nikki haley announced the sanctions on tv. He grew angry and yelled at the television. The white house insys there had were no new sanctions claiming she had just been confused. Tonight at a Press ConferenceWeapons Japanese frirpt shinzo abe, trump offered a