Blumenthal and congresswoman Maxine Waters. And how we ended up in the crisis with democracy. Thats enough, put down the mic. When all in starts right now. Good evening from new york, im chris hayes. We have now entered a dramatic new chapter in the story of the presidency of donald trump. Two absolutely huge developments tonight, first, there will soon finally be a check on the power of this preponderate, a decisive electoral victory, a party reclaiming real power after two years in the political wilderness. Then today the president immediately moving the nation towards constitutional crisis by firing his attorney general in what appears to be the first step in an effort to kill or throttle the Mueller Investigation into him and his associates. At this hour democrats have already gained 28 seats in the house, four more than they needed to control the chamber. It could potentially go as high as 42 seats when they take power in january. Overall last night it was a dramatic national repudiation of donald trump. So far Democratic Candidates have received more than 6 million more votes than republican candidates with several million more to count, a lot of those in california. And they have won even more house seats, far more if it were not for gop gerrymandering. Today an aggressive and resentful president gave a postelection press conference in which he insisted all of this was actually a tremendous, unambiguous victory. He also sought to threaten House Democrats into foregoing their constitutional duty of conducting oversight of his administration. Youre saying that no, not at all. If they start investigating you, that you can play that game and investigate them. Better than them. Can you compartmentalize i think i know more than they know. Can you continue to work with them for the benefit of the rest of the country, or are all bets off . No, if they do that, all it is is a warlike posture. Warlike posture. Shortly after that press conference, the president fired the first missile in that war, announcing on twitter he was firing his attorney general Jeff Sessions who trump has never forgiven for recusing himself in oversight of the russia investigation. Now, the normal line of succession would be for the number two at the Justice Department, the Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein, who is protecting the Mueller Probe, to now serve as interim ag. That is not what happened. Instead, in a potentially illegal move, its not quite clear, the president tapped a man he has long regarded as his eyes and ears inside a department he considers an enemy institution. That man is former u. S. Attorney Matt Whitaker, a failed gop political candidate and conservative activist who is practicing law in iowa until a little more than a year ago. Last year whitaker became a legal commentator on cable news where he argue for the limits on the Mueller Investigation into the trump campaign. If bob mueller and his small u. S. Attorneys office, as ive heard it described today, does go beyond the 2016 election and get into Trump Organization finances unrelated to the 2016 election, and really unrelated to Russian Coordination if it even exists, i think that would be crossing a red line. I think thats when that the Deputy Attorney general, whos the acting attorney general for the purposes of the investigation, Rod Rosenstein, who i served with in the bush administration, he needs to step in and pull the reins back on bob mueller if he goes outside of his bounds of delegation of authority. Two months after that he was installed he has the power to potentially fire mueller, greatly limit the scope of the investigation or potentially keep his finding from the public. And that move prompted representative jerry nadler, who will chair the house committee, to demand key officials preserve all relevant documents related to this action to make sure the investigation and any evidence remains safe from improper interference or destruction. This is the moment that people have been warning about, the moment when the president moves to effectively place himself above the law. Nobody right now knows what comes next. Joining me now for more on that, what all this means, msnbc legal analyst nick akerman who helped the prosecute watergate, and elliott williams, Deputy Assistant ag for legislative affairs for the department of justice under president obama. Let me start with you, elliott, first of all its not clear legally if the president has the power to do what he did today. I wouldnt even begin to try to lay out in the minutes that we have here the legal framework. You have a Senate Confirmed deputy with a removed attorney general where theres no number three installed at the Justice Department. Its a mess. The simple fact is there the appearance of impropriety, the appearance of a conflict, is there the appearance of an attempt to obstruct justice . That seems abundantly clear right now, given an hour before the announcement of the resignation, the president was at a press conference saying i can fire all these people and shut this down right now. Theyre not even hiding their attempt to want to get in the way of this investigation and ultimately obstruct justice. Its flagrant, more than anything else. More importantly its an assault on the independence of the Justice Department. An assault on the very notion that when attorneys have conflicts they ought to recuse themselves and step out. And theyve they just sort of demonstrated a willingness to buck these norms of Legal Practice. Its really a shame whats happening to the Justice Department and the way theyre treating the administration of justice right now. So what is someone who is in archibald coxs office, how does he protect what he has found . He protects the evidence hes found and all of the reports hes put together. I mean, i know when we had when cox first appeared, october 20th, 1973, about a little over 45 years ago, he had a press conference that day where he basically took on the Nixon Administration for not providing the actual tapes of conversations that the court ordered. And so we had the feeling that day that he was going to be fired. And so what we did is we took the stuff with us, took reports out beforehand. Even when the fbi sealed off the office i had reports in my pants and my shirts. We took stuff out. Today its a lot easier. All they need to do is put this data onto a thumb drive and you probably can take the whole Mueller Investigation out in a few thumb drives. Im hoping theyre keeping this stuff safe and in a place where they can get it if something does happen. What do you think about the recusal question here . You just mentioned this elliott, its a cnn story two days ago the white house has been informed that whitaker would have to recuse from the russia investigation in light of past writings and tv appearances. What does have to recuse mean here . The question is, like says who, right . Look, its ultimately a judgment call as to whether there is a conflict. But nicks probably done this, ive had to do it and so on. Its not just whether theres a conflict, its whether theres even the appearance of conflict because the Justice Department seeks to appear to you know, to not have conflicts. And so its abundantly clear to everybody here that this smelling fishy, even if its not legally required he recuse himself. Hes been out talking about this investigation and the need to shut it down. Hes been out talking about, you know, how much its cost and so on and hes a loyalist to the president of the United States who has expressed that he wishes to shut the investigation down. If thats not even the appearance of a conflict then i dont really know what it is. And again it just gets back to the point i was making earlier, this is so central to the basic principle of Legal Practice and the basic of legal ethics more than anything else. Theyre flying in the face of it right now. And the rules seem to not apply anymore. Our department of justice should be run by somebody who is fair and impartial, who doesnt have an ax to grind, has no preconceived notion, hes taking justice is supposed to be blind, youre supposed to look at facts impartially, without prejudice and fear and make a decision. The problem here is you have somebody now who is effectively our attorney general who has already made up his mind on what the Mueller Investigation is about. Chris, i would even question whether any political appointee in this administration at this point can oversee this investigation given how out there the president and now his new attorney general have been. Its abundantly clear. Im not clear he can be installed in this position. Theres intersection of department of justice directives and vacancies reform act. Its not that clear to me you can make a guy chief of staff who is not Senate Confirmed the attorney general of the United States because you clearly have a corrupt intent to use that position to shut down an investigation. Absolutely correct. Im sorry. Yeah, you have a deputy there in place. Even if the statute didnt say it, its common sense that when you have, you know, a boss and a vice boss, or whatever, the number two ascends to the role in the absence of the individual. Theres a statute that lays it out. Exactly. Thats what happened to the saturday night massacre, they went down the chain of command. Elliott richardson, the attorney general. He didnt say heres some guy i saw on tv that i liked. I think he should run the department of justice. By pecking order set out in statute and it should have been Rod Rosenstein, Deputy Attorney general, hes the number two man in the department of justice. That tells you everything you need to know. Thank you both for being with me. Im joined by democratic senator Richard Blumenthal of connecticut, a member of the Judiciary Committee. Is this the power play it appears to be in your mind . It is a break the glass moment, an attack on our democracy, and it should precipitate exactly the fire storm we saw in the wake of the saturday night massacre under richard nixon. Its a slow motion saturday night massacre. The reason theyre doing it in this slow motion way is to avoid that jouproar and uprising that think now my republican colleagues have an obligation to show. So first point, he must recuse himself. Whitaker has not only demonstrated hostility to this investigation, hes also provided a road map for strangling the funds necessary for it. Ultimately the congress has the power of the purse and the democratic victories just last night demonstrate that the American Public wants checks on this kind of abuse and overreach. So my democratic colleagues and i on the Senate Judiciary committee and on the house Judiciary Committee should press for an investigation and for legislation. Im going to be proposing legislation that will stop the defunding or cuts in funding for the special counsel and also require a report. So all of those thumb drives that were referred to earlier are made public. Through a report prepared by the special counsel. Even better, indictments and charges brought by the special counsel which he may be on the verge of doing. I want to play for you what the Chuck Schumer who, of course, is the minority leader in the senate had to say on this today. Take a listen. We would hope, if theres a constitutional crisis, that our republican colleagues would join us in thwarting the president from creating that crisis. Well see. I just want to say there are people watching that clip and they are screaming at the television, have you not been paying attention for the last two years . And they are right to be screaming at the television, and theyre right to be screaming at our republican colleagues. They have a constitutional duty, which they have been avoiding. They have been succumbing to the apparent political advantage of avoiding this crisis. But theres a reason that the president waited until after the midterms to fire this attorney general. He knew how deeply unpopular it would be. Right. And my republican colleagues have to recognize they are going down a very, very dangerous path here. Well, what do you mean by that . Well, they are embarked on a policy of undermining the rule of law, thwarting the will of the American People. The American People want this investigation to be completed fairly and fully. And the special counsel is just finishing a kind of quiet period, which everyone expected before the midterms. There are reports and reasons to believe that he may be on the verge of indicting some of the president s closest associates, maybe even members of his family, so those indictments will speak louder than any of our words. And i think that the special counsel has always been one step ahead of the rest of us. He has prepared for this moment. It is a break the glass moment and im hoping that all of my colleagues will rise to the occasion. All right, senator Richard Blumenthal, thank you for being with me tonight. Thank you. Coming up, the trump loyalist and political operative, donald trump installed to oversee the Mueller Probe, what you need to know about your new acting attorney general, Matt Whitaker, next. Executive transport manager, and a beverage distribution supervisor. 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Senate and lost the race, worked on iowa state treasurer campaign of the one and only sam clovis, a person interviewed in the Mueller Investigation. Why would he be the west wings eyes and years according to the New York Times . He sees the Mueller Probe as a lunch mob perhaps. As a cnn commentator said if mueller kept looking into trumps fans finances it would raise serious concerns, a mere witch hunt. Jeff sessions is replaced with a recess appointment and that attorney general doesnt fire bob mueller but he just reduces the budget so low that his investigation grinds to a almost a halt. The fuller implications, julie ainsley, Nbc News National Security and justice reporter and natasha bertrand. Julia, i cant imagine how this is landing at justice. Thats a great question, chris. Weve called around to a lot of people. There today. There wasnt too much surprise that the attorney general would be out. They knew he was probably short lived there, especially after midterms. It was quite abrupt, you know, less than 24 hours after the results were in last night. Theres a lot of talk about Matt Whitaker and what it means that he is the acting attorney general rather than following the normal line of secession which would appoint Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney general who has a lot more experience than Matt Whitaker in these issues, been there longer, been part of the daytoday. From what i understand Rod Rosenstein has also been someone who the white house has gone to other agencies have had to go to get things done at the Justice Department for some time. Hes more than just a number two there. He really takes over a lot of daytoday operations and does more in a lot of cases than Jeff Sessions. So to really pull the rug out under him, not just on the Mueller Probe, but on other things, and hand it over to someone that so clearly has this political position has a lot of people who are these career servers at the Justice Department, career lawyers who are already worried about theo there is an idea here, a Silver Lining that shes short lived. He doesnt seem like someone who could be confirmed by the senate. No. That