In 1972 the dnc sued the committee for the reelection of the president , aka creep, the fund raising arm of Richard NixonsReelection Campaign at the center of the watergate scandal. The campaign settled with the democrats for 750,000 on the very day nixon left office. Fast forward to today, and the democrats are suing over another breakin, alleging the trump campaign, wikileaks and russia conspired to disrupt the 2016 election by hacking dncs emails. Trump seems to think shes named wendy. The lawsuit comes as a group of House Republicans have formed a veritable committee to protect the president by attacking fired fbi director james comey. The republican chairs of several key committees forced the doj to release memos written by comey about his interactions with trump. The memos were promptly leaked to the press. Well, this attempt to discredit comey didnt quite work out the way the republicans thought. The memos are consistent with comeys testimony to the senate and with his book, adding only a few more unflattering details to his portrait of trump. He told you hed had a personal conversation with president putin about hookers . Yes. Did you believe him or did you think he was speaking hyperbollically. Didnt seem to be speaking that way. Instead of eating crow the committee to protect the president claimed vindication, saying the memos show former director comey never felt obstructed or threatened. Trump wants us to think the memos undermine muellers investigation. Generate a special counsel, question mark, council, rather than counsel, twitter did notice that. Therefore, it was established on legal act, question mark, really, does everybody know what that means, question mark. Joining me now nick ackerman, see seema iyer. Thank you for being here. Im going to come to you first on this, nick, analogies to watergate keep piling up for donald trump. Now you have the committee to protect the president , the group of lawmakers in the house doing whatever it takes to protect donald trump. Theres an article that talks about donald trump actually pressuring the attorney general to fire two fbi agents named stock and page who were tweeting things he didnt like, tweeting negative things about him, and to feed information to these allies in the house. Heres a quote, the president also pressed his attorney general fbi director to work more aggressively to uncover derogatory information within the fbi files and turn over to Congressional Republicans working to discredit the two fbi officials according to the same sources in the same article trump did this knowing that page could actually be a witness against him. Have we staken the watergate analogies too far, or are we on the right track . Youre on the right track. Instead of bringing a bunch of guys up from miami to break into the water gate headquarters, the democratic head quarters, they did it with the russians who did it electronically this time making it a lot more difficult to uncover. Its not like they could put tape on the door and a Police Officer would walk in and find a bunch of burglars. This made it very hard too detect in the first instance. But it also made it much more insidious in the sense that they were able to take a lot more, and you could see what they did with it. And it was all done for the purpose of getting donald trump elected. Yeah. So absolutely, this is like just go ahead 45 years, and its just now met up with the technology of what were looking at here. High tech watergate. Even with respect to the other pieces of it, using facebook and this microtargeting of voters in specific districts. Before they were trying to figure out how to go around to voters or keep the vote suppressed. They did that in New Hampshire when nixon was running and he had opposition with mccloskey. They had roger stone and donate money in the name of the young socialists to make republicans turn against mccloskey. Now they can do it with electronics with 60 million facebook users to target Hillary Clinton voters to keep them from voting. Roger stone appears again. Jill, theres the other couple watergate parallels, of course, the potential lawsuit here, or the lawsuit thats actually been filed by the democrats against the nixon campaign. At that time what did that yield and did it interfere at all with the official investigation of nixon . It didnt. I loved hearing the audio of that because it did bring back a lot of memories. But it didnt interfere. We worked very successfully, both with congress and werent involved in any way in the civil suit. Civil suits present some problems now for the Trump Administration and for cohen because it can lead to discovery depositions, the things theyre trying very much to avoid by dropping in the case of cohen, hes dropped at least one lawsuit. But the Stormy Daniels case isnt going away, and that could lead to discovery which could be a problem. Id say the more difficult challenge was Congress Demanding to get the investigative documents, the comey memos, which had absolutely no purpose if they had really thought it through. I dont know what they thought they were going to get. There is a theory that they thought they might be able to show that some of them were classified and had been leaked and that he lied about classified material, which doesnt seem to be the case. It seems to have totally boomer anged on them, to totally have backfired and it would have been an important thing for the department of justice to stand up to congress and say we have a protocol of not giving out ongoing investigative documents for a reason. We dont want to interfere with the investigation thats going on by revealing this. Other witnesses will now be able to conform their testimony because they now know, for example, what was said about the Reince Priebus conversation, there are things that could change in the investigation. So its very dangerous to give out an ongoing investigations documents. It was the wrong thing to do. The department has a policy for a reason. When youre talking about the Reince Priebus conversation, for those not up on the full comey memo, that is a conversation in which comey apparently asked is asked by reince, is it the private conversation, i replied it was, he said he wanted to ask me a question. Decided if it was appropriate. Do you have a fisa order on Michael Flynn, a question that might not have been appropriate to ask. I want to come back to you, paul butler, to this lawsuit, i can envision a lawsuit in which the Democratic Party says we would like to depose julian assange. We would like to depose everyone who was in that trump tower meeting. Thats jared kushner, Paul Manafort, thats donald trump jr. Is that possible that lawsuit could yield that kind of discovery . Absolutely. Theres a different standard, first of all, in criminal cases than civil cases. Theres a lower standard of proof. So civil cases are take longer, especially when theres an ongoing criminal investigation. But at some point you get discovery, which means all of the people who have relevant information are forced do come in and testify under oath what they know. Now interestingly President Trump is not named in this lawsuit, but all of the other relevant players are, and until we know that the watergate suit was decided the same day that the stuff went down in watergate. So, again, it takes a long time. Well eventually learn more from mueller sooner than well learn from this civil lawsuit. Lets go back to mueller, for a second, seema, with you. This constant threat of a saturday night massacre, donald trump will attempt to fire rod rosenstein, to everybody who plops the floors, until he gets to somebody that will end the Mueller Investigation. Jeff sessions has threatened to quit, or at least hes said he might have to resign if rosenstein were to be fired. What do you make of that . I think Jeff Sessions does not want to quit, but i think its reasonable because every friday night this is so maybe not a saturday night massacre, but definitely a friday night massacre. This is what happens every friday night. But at this point i think its too early to tell. But listen, i think the important thing here is the Mueller Investigation is still not at obstruction of justice or occlusion. This Democratic Committee filing a lawsuit seems like its being rushed number one, and number two, im not a political expert, you know that, but the democrats, shouldnt they be spending the money on the midterm elections instead of this frivolous lawsuit . Trump is no fan of sessions anyway, wouldnt trump say, okay, ill fire rosenstein, make my day, sessions, resign. I know youre still sticking to your no collusion. Let me tell you one thing, Savannah Guthrie interviewed james comey this week on the today show, and she asked him are we at collusion and obstruction of justice . He even pointed were still not able we dont know what mueller has found. We cant articulate the intent. What do you think hes investigating then . Investigating, yes, hes investigating it. But if james comey isnt at obstruction, how can we be . Its not part of the investigation. First of all, james comey set up the facts. He hasnt come to conclusions. The republicans have got it all wrong, totally backwards. Its not what james comey thought in his head. Its what donald trump thought in his head, what his intent was. Right. Did he have a corrupt intent to obstruct and drop the proceedings . Thats precisely what he admitted to lester holt. The comey memo comes out the and weve got all these memos. Contemporaneous notes he took after talking to donald trump, with donald trump asking him all these questions, also saying, can you please see your way to letting Michael Flynn go . Andrew mccabe, he told three people afterwards what happened in those one on one meetings with trump. He told Andrew Mccabe who has been fired had his pension stripped, he told baker and he told james rybicki. One more piece of evidence, a timeline of events leading to jim comey being fired, january 6, comey briefs trump on the dossier. Trump is inaugurated. Six days later, sally yates tells them Michael Flynn could be compromised. Gates is fired. Flynn resigns. Trump calls comey and lift the cloud over him by ending the investigation. Comey doesnt do it. He gets fired. Trump tells the russians he fired comey to ease the pressure on himself. Paul. First of all, whoever ends up impeaching trump, thats their opening statement. Ultimately if theres a criminal case, thats the opening statement. Thats obstruction of justice. Now, again, ive always said, unless theres evidence of collusion, that is conspiracy to defraud the United States, i dont think mueller brings the case of obstruction, but joy you just laid out the compelling evidence thats corroborated. I have to say i think collusion is coming. When comey had that conversation with priebus, comey told priebus that the allegations in the dossier had been substantiated. The dossier is about collusion. We love having you guys on to debate. This is our favorite debate. Nick ackerman, seema iyer. And coming up. Trumps got himself a new lawyer. What difference at this point does it make . What difference does it make . For all the eyes that get itchy and watery near pollen. Theres flonase sensimist. It relieves all your worst symptoms including nasal congestion, which most pills dont. And all from a gentle mist you can barely feel. Flonase sensimist. When heartburn hits. Fight back fast with tums smoothies. It starts dissolving the instant it touches your tongue. And neutralizes stomach acid at the source. Tum tum tum tum. Smoothies. Only from tums 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. You know, youre really beautiful. And a woman that looks like that has to have her own special set. Oh, thank you. Maybe you could show me what you think of this set. I like that. This may be the best of all. Oh, you dirty boy, oh, oh. Donald, i thought you were a gentleman. Okay, if that is a real video, in case youre seeing it for the first time. Its from a campy spoof that then new york mayor Rudy Giuliani did with his good friend donald trump back in the year 2000. Its real. Rudy and donald reunited on the campaign trail in 2016 when he became trumps shoutiest surrogate. This is a man with a big heart who loves people, all people, from the top to the bottom, from the middle to the side. What i did for new york donald trump will do for america. We must commit ourselves to unconditional victory against them. Well, now rudys about to star in a new role as trumps new lawyer, seriously. The former mayor and federal prosecutor brings his own baggage, along with him giuliani was vice chair of the trump transition team, which the special counsel is investigating. On thursday jim comey told Rachel Maddow that as fbi director he ordered an investigation into the sort of leaks that may have led giuliani to make this cryptic comment two days before the fbi reopened the clinton email investigation. Then i think hes got a surprise or two that youre going to hear about in the next few days. I mean, im talking about some pretty big surprises. I heard you say that this morning. What do you mean . Youll see. Stay tuned. Well, lets bring in my panel. Barbara rez, and thank you were being here. Barbara, you worked for the Trump Organization f quite a long time, several periods of time. Yes. Can you talk about the ways in which donald trump as a businessman interacted with the leadership of the city of new york with the mayor . With the mayor, you know, there was several mayors. He had a problem with mayor koch over subsidies the trump tower was trying to get. They were warring. But in general, it was about raising money for the campaigns and, you know, schmoozing and that kind of thing. He even allegedly lobbied the city to make sure that he didnt have to add sprinklers above the 50th floor of trump tower. Did he have a sense he could muscle city officials around orsome mo or he had so much influence, dont forget, his father had a lot of influence, and some of his employees were there because they had influence. As far as that sprinkler thing is concerned, i dont think he led the charge on that. I think that that was something that other developers, too, wanted. Lets talk about Rudy Giuliani, david k. Johnston, what was the relationship there between the two of them, the video is pretty priceless, back in 2000, what was that relationship like . Lets go back to when Rudy Giuliani was prosecuting mobsters, one of the items specified that sent to prison for life was donalds purchase of concrete for trump plaza apartments on 61st street. It goes back to there. When he was mayor of new york, donald, like mayor Rudy Giuliani wanted nothing to do with black and theyve now been shown sometime ago to be actually innocent. Yet donald clings to that and rudy has backed him up within the past week. Yeah. Its an interesting investigation. Theres also, barbara, this reporting the great Wayne Barrett reported extensively about Rudy Giulianis ties to the new york fbi, one piece of it, hours after jim comey sent his letter about renewing the probe on the Clinton Emails and after that was released, giuliani went on a radio show and attributed the directors surprise action to the pressure of a group of fbi agents who dont look at it politically. Quote, the other rumor that i get, this is giuliani speaks that theres a kind of revolution going on inside the fbi about the original conclusion not to charge clinton being completely unjustified and a slap in the face to the fbis integrity. I know that from former agents, even from a few active agents. Somebody whos operating in new york city, there is a sense that Rudy Giuliani had this special relationship with Law Enforcement and with the fbi. Did you get the sense that as mayor, i dont know, what do you make of this whole thing, of him being so tied to donald trump, and seeming to know so much about what was going to happen to Hillary Clinton . I think that giuliani has ties from the old days to the prosecutors and to the fbi. The relationship between him and donald President Trump is interesting. You know, it sort of died down after the election. But clearly giuliani is his apologist. He loves him. Yeah. And what he is now doing, david, is he told the New York Post that this is what he said about him believing he can actually end the mueller probe. He says i dont know yet whats outstanding, but i do think i dont think its going to take more than a week or two to get a resolution. Theyre almost there. Him seeming to pretend he has foreknowledge its going to end. Heres my question. How is he going to be the lawyer when he seems to have had some knowledge of what was going on behind the scenes . Here is Rudy Giuliani on a raid show saying russia has Hillary Clintons missing emails. The day after donald trump said the same thing. The russians have those emails. Theyve had them for some time. How does he do both . How is he potentially somebody mueller might want to talk to and also the lawyer that ends it . He cant be donalds lawyer in court if hes also a witness. That doesnt mean he cant advise donald. And rudys not a practicing lawyer at this point. Hes a rainmake