For months. His longtime lawyer, business associate, one of the men he is closest to is under investigation, has been braid the fbi, and could be indicted at any moment. And we just learned his own son held multiple meetings with agents of Foreign Governments offering help in the 2016 campaign. Thats just the tip of the iceberg. Now, it also turns out that the fbi back in 2016 was so alarmed by the Trump Campaigns various suspicious contacts with russia, it reportedly sent an informant to meet with three Different Campaign aides starting the summer before the election. And now the president , his lawyer, and his allies in congress are trying to use that incriminating fact in a kind of weird jujitsu move to discredit the investigation itself. Just a few weeks ago, the president warned us this moment might come. Ive taken the position, and i dont have to take this position, and maybe ill change, that i will not be involved with is the Justice Department. I have decided that i wont be involved. I may change my mind at some point, because whats going on is a disgrace. And hour Justice Department, which try and stay away from, but at some point, i wont. There. You go. At some point i wont. And that point seems to have arrived. The president tweeting yesterday, i hereby demand and will do so officially tomorrow. The department of justice look into whether or not the fbi doj infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for political purposes and if any such demands or requests were made by people in the obama administration. For now, the Justice Department has asked its Inspector General to review the issue instead of opening a fullblown criminal investigation. Rosenstein saying in a carefully worded statement, quote, if anyone did infiltrate or surveil participants in a president ial campaign for inappropriate purposes, key wording there, we need to know about it and take appropriate action. But this is not over, no, no,
no, no. Far from it. The president and his allies are going to keep escalating until they meet hard resistance or until they succeed in derailing the mueller probe. Theyve already signaled they wont accept the Inspector Generals findings. It will not be enough to have Rod Rosenstein and others of the department of justice investigate themselves. We got enough investigations where the Justice Department is investigating themselves. More than almost anything weve discussed in the past, this is a basis to appoint a Second Special counsel. For weeks the president s congressional allies led by House Intelligence chairman devin nunes have been pushing to expose the fbis confidential source over the strenuous objections of the Justice Department. Today with the president s backing, they won what could be another major concession. According to the white house it was agreed that Chief Of Staff john kelly will immediately set up a meeting with the fbi, doj and dni together with congressional leaders to review highly classified and other information they have requested. Joining me now is the National Security reporter for the waste
post for more on what happened in the meeting with the president and Justice Department officials. What do we know what happened in that meeting today . I think one point about what happened in the meeting today is President Trump personally wanted these guy theres to answer these questions. I think thats particularly significant. So what happened . Rod rosenstein, chris wray, Dan Coates Go Over to the white house there is some talk about this document request. Congress has been beating the drum for the Justice Department to turn over documents about this confidential source who brushed up against the Trump Campaign, as part of the Russia Investigation. They come to an agreement, which is pretty surprising. The Justice Department had seemed to draw a red line over turning over documents about this source. But the agreement doesnt exactly make them do that. They agree to come back for another meet which john kelly will apparently spearhead, and theyll provide information to some lawmakers, i guess, about this source that does seem to be the Justice Department going a little farther than maybe they
otherwise would have. But they have briefed lawmakers in the past. So maybe this is the department sort of playing bureaucratic, just making a bureaucratic move to get the white house off its back, fleece temporarily. That is how its being widely interpreted, i think. To circle back to the first point you make. This is the president of the United States whose own campaign is the subject of a counterintelligence investigation. Its well established. Weve known that for over a year. Summoning two of the people supervising that investigation to intervene in that investigation in the white house, right . Its really interesting. Look, the president is the chief executive. The Justice Department is a part of the executive branch. So hes got to meet with these guys. But in this context, its pretty weird. He is meeting with them a day after he has essentially ordered an investigation of the investigation of his campaign. Thats pretty weird. And its also fairly unusual for the president to have any kind of interaction about
specific investigations. Even if it didnt have to be the president , right . In terms of my understanding of the protocol, if barack obama were to summon the head of the fbi and the Attorney General of the white house to talk about the robert menendez, bob menendez investigation, democratic senator, that would be viewed as highly unusual, correct . Yeah. So there are protocols in the Justice Department. While the Justice Department is part of the executive branch, the president exerts his authority over it usually on big policy questions, you know, on immigration, on our policy for charging all sorts of suspects, getting involved in individual investigations is sort of frowned upon. If he thought there was great fraud or waste and abuse at the Justice Department, sure, i guess you would want the president to get involved. But when it touches him, that makes it pretty unique. And others would point out, look, there isnt quite the evidence to back up the charge that he is making, at least not yet about this informant. He is saying, well, this guy was embedded in my campaign and spied on my campaign. We dont quite see the evidence
for that yet. So he is asking for an investigation of the investigation of him, and does he even really have the predicate to do that . I think those are two interesting points. Right. Investigations cant be launched for no reason. They have to have a factual predicate. One more point that seems worth noting here, i just wanted to see where you are on this, we understand nbcs reporting the fbi did warn the president in 2016 that summer that the russians were trying to infiltrate his campaign. This is not the idea that were concerned there are people trying to get to you was not kept from him as far as we understand. Sure. Now that said, i do think there are some interesting questions that still have to be answered about this source, how the fbi used him, what the fbi directed him to do. But i would also say that the fbi using confidential sources, thats what they do when theyre running investigations. Thats a lot less intrusive than put aguirre up on somebody or kicking in the door to somebodys house. This is what they do. While i agree that i would love to know more information about this guy, this is the fbi does. And it doesnt necessarily mean there is anything untoward what they did. Washington post matt zabatosky. Im joined by chris murphy of connecticut. Lots of talk about words like constitutional crisis and things like that and saturday night massacre. Where are we today after what the president did today . Were getting really close. I worry that the Justice Department is starting to become complicit in the erosion of our democracy. They very clearly buckled here. Whether its to save individuals jobs, we dont know. But listen, the president is not to be afforded under the constitution any greater protection from investigation or prosecution than you or i, if there was an investigation occurring into either of us, and we had not been charged, We Couldnt Go to the fbi or to the Law Enforcement agency that was in charge of that investigation and ask for information about their sources and methods and information because that would be helpful to us in covering up
our tracks, as it will potentially be to the president as he starts to get information about a pending investigation into his wrongdoing. So im very worried about what happened today. Clearly the Justice Department still has to go through this internal investigation, but the very fact that they are beginning to crack greatly worries me. The president saying this about handing over documents, to your point. If fbi or doj was infiltrating a campaign for the benefit of another campaign, thats a really big deal. Only release or review documents the House Intelligence committee, or the senate judiciaries can give conclusive answers. Drain the swamp. Do you fear the president is trying to get the documents for his own defense . First of all a, there is absolutely no credible evidence that the allegations the president is making is true. So if the precedent gets set that the president can make a wild allegation and thus becomes and thus the department of justice is required to give him and all of his Friends Evidence and information about their investigation, then there is no
evidence. The president will get everything. And ultimately, be much more successful in stymieing the investigation. I really worry that once this precedent gets set, wh once the Justice Department starts to share investigatory information, well never be able to stop it. Youre up for reelection this year, arent you, senator murphy . I am. You were nominated a few days ago in the convention there in connecticut. What happens if the president tweets i demand the doj investigate chris murphy . Right. Listen, thats why there is a reference, there has been this very clear separation between the president and his Justice Department. And democracy starts to crumble when the executive can start to use his Enforcement Agency for political reasons. And if he can demand that they change an investigation into himself and into his friends, whats to stop him from using that power of the justice
department to come after the rest of us . So, again, there are really important walls being torn down today between the president of the United States and the Justice Department. And once they get torn down, i worry that you cant put them back up again. One of your colleagues, republican colleagues southern cornyn, he is the Number Two Senate republican, had this to say. I think the Special Counsel needs to wrap things up as soon as he can consistent with accomplishing the job he has been given. I would think so that he would finish before the midterm, saying millers team should avoid what happened with the clinton probe. This seems to be an emerging consens consensus, more and more republicans calling for this to wrap up. Mueller has to go until he has found the truth. And the fact of the matter is, as he continues to get more guilty pleas, as he continues to get more individuals close to the president who are willing to cooperate with him, he is likely finding new avenues of investigation that he has to pursue. So i think mueller has to
continue this investigation into it reaches its logical end. I understand republicans want it to go away. I understand the president wants to it go away as more of his friends are being rolled up. But thats not the job that he was given by Deputy Attorney general rosenstein. His job was to find out whether there was any collusion between the president and the russian government. And i have a feeling he is not close to the end. I want to ask you also before i let you go, ten americans, ten people murdered on friday with a gun in a school three months or so after parkland. This is an issue that you have been incredibly forthright on and focused on. Is congress any closer to doing anything now than in the days after the Parkland Massacre . I think a shooter could walk into a school and kill 100 people and republicans wouldnt bring a debate on gun violence before the house of representatives or the senate. I think republicans have made it very clear that they have no intention to debate the issue of
gun violence in the senate or the house before the mid terms because they dont want to expose their members to votes that would make them very unpopular as they head to the polls. What i do know is that congresss silence is giving an effective green light to these shooters. I really do believe that these troubled young men who are contemplating acts of violence have noticed that the highest levels of government have offer nod meaningful condemnation to the acts of previous shooters, and in their minds that pervert that silence into permission. So i do believe that there is blood on all of our hands if we dont step forward and pass meaningful legislation to try to stop this. These are copycat killings, and these killers are taking some very strange and unintentional signal from our silence. Senator chris murphy, thanks for your time tonight. Thanks. All right. Here to break down what all the of the days news, Nancy Gertner and paul butler, a former
federal prosecutor. Ive seen debate in legal circles about rosensteins reaction from the president s demand to this action. I want to get your reaction. Paul, ill start with you. What do you think of kind of saying yes but shunting it over to the ig in a punt . The president has ignored all of the ethical and procedural guidelines of the department and hereby demands an investigation . I know Rod Rosenstein. He knows better than this. This is not how the system is supposed to work. So in the worst case scenario, Rod Rosenstein is being played by President Trump just like President Trump played him to get him to write that memo justifying the firing of james comey. The best case is that hes trying to appease the president to avoid a saturday night massacre. But chris, you cant apiece a
tyrant. You cant mollify a despot. All you do is embolden him. Nancy, what do you think . Well, i think he is trying to do by indirection what he knows and has been told he shouldnt do by direction. In other words, what he wants to do is fire rosenstein. What he wants to do is fire mueller. So i think what he is doing is setting up trip wires, you know, that if you dont do this, then that provides the justification to take action against ros rosenste rosenstein. I agree with paul that its unfortunate that rosenstein complied, although it is a sort of halfbaked compliance, as you said at the top of the hour that looking for inappropriate influences through an informant rather than appropriate inferences. So its a little bit of a weasel, and sending it to the ig is also not having not distorting the department of justice to do this kind of investigation. But it really is sort of
manipulating it by indirection and accomplishing the same task. Again, im not a lawyer. Im following this very closely and talking to a lot of people both sort of anonymously and who work in government. I think were watching the president rattle the cage. And its a question about whether its going to break at this point. Paul, you worked in the public corruption unit, right . I did. I worked with Rod Rosenstein. And again, thats why i understand that he gets it. You know, he said that the department of justice will not be extorted. Today we got pretty close. And the concern, chris is Rod Rosenstein and bob mueller are all we have to ensure that the rule of law continues in the United States. Rod, please protect us. Save us from the despot you are working for. Nancy . When you step back from this, again, you have to sort of keep on thinking about what the usual response should have been. So if there was a concern that people that he has described as lesser functionaries in his campaign, he didnt know carter page, he didnt Know Papadopoulos very much, if that were true, then why shouldnt this matter . Why wouldnt you say yee gee, lets goat to the bottom of this that some peripheral character was talking to the russians and im glad you got to the bottom of this. Thats not the way he is doing this and he is creating more smoke. Yes, this is not about National Security or the integrity of our justice system. This is about the president s criminal defense. Rudy giuliani said today that any secret documents that are turned over to congress, the president s defense team should also get them. Again