Investigation program of National Security adviser Michael Flynn and his conversations with the Russian Ambassador. Not getting his way, trump fired the fbi director. Again, thats the story out tonight. Its come on the tail of the news that trump himself gave classified information to the Russian Foreign minister and the Russian Ambassador when they met in the Oval Office Late last week. What do the American People make of this kind of news, that the president tried to get the fbi director to kill his investigation of trumps top security adviser, then proceeded to fire the fbi director because of what he called what trump called the russian thing . What do we think of a president who conducts his public presidency now in a twostep pattern of denial followed by defiance. If he cant get away with hiding the truth, they hunker down and defend what can no longer be denied. Well, first they denied firing comey, for example, over russia. Then the president admitted himself. Then the president denied having given classified material to the russians which turns out to be from the israelis. Now he says he has the right to give any material he wants to anyone he wants to. Tonight we find out, as i said, he tried to pressure comey, the head of the fbi into dropping the Russian Investigation and then failing that effort, he fired comey. Were in stage one now of the process this time. Heres the denial from the white house on cue. This is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the president and mr. Comey. Well see because its on record by comey. Im joined now by National Security reporter den ca lailan. We have a paper document, a memo, written in contemporary time after the meeting with the president by the fbi director, who we have to assume is good at keeping personal records and keeping them straight. What can the president do now to deny that that document exists . I dont think he can deny it, chris. And, you know, the document was written after an Oval Office Meeting two weeks after that infamous dinner where comey says President Trump asked him for loyalty. And, you know, the document is in possession of the fbi, so presumably congress is going to request it if it hasnt already. And, you know, im not a lawyer. I dont know if this is obstruction of justice, but it certainly raises a question about how it is that a president can think its okay to interfere with an fbi investigation. Now, i was told by a source close to comey that he did not feel it necessary to resign at that moment and go public. He felt he could manage the situation, chris. You know, he wrote this memo to document the situation and kept this information from the rank and file fbi agents who were conducting the russia investigation so they didnt feel chilled. And by the way, chris, this source tells me that comey documented nearly every conversation he had with the president either in person or on the phone. So there are other memos out there, and we can only wonder what they say, chris. What do you make of the interaction here, the president said a couple days ago be careful in a tweet in the morning. Ive got tapes. However this story became uncovered, well know how the reporting trade craft went, but the story came out theres a written memo now to counter this tape. I dont personally believe there were any tapes but what do you make of that . Are we going to have a battle between tapes and written memoranda . A friend told me that comey would be only too happy if there were tapes. By the way, he has a career of doing this, of memorializing controversial episodes for the record to make sure that his side is recorded contemporaneously. Its a powerful piece of evidence, and in this case, you know, hes saying that the president asked him suggested that they drop this investigation into the National Security adviser. Thank you so much. Its great to have you working with us. Nbcs den dilanian. Last week, President Trump delivered this warning. James comey better hope that there are no tapes of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press. But it might turn out to be comey who has the most comprehensive accounting of those interactions. According to the times, mr. Comey created detailed memos as ken just said about every phone call and meeting he had with the president. Wow. Im joined by the washington posts greg miller who broke that news yesterday, that President Trump shared classified information with the Russian Ambassador, and charlie savage, and nbc news and author of power wars, the relentless rise of president ial authority and secrecy. Of course, usa todays Heidi Przybyla is with us right now. A couple questions. Lets start with the obvious ones. Let me go to charlie on this question. What do we make of these this memorandum, that now we have a memorandum in the hand of, dictated perhaps, typed perhaps on a word processor. Why dont we go to craig on this. What do we make of that . It seems incontrovertible. This is starting to look like i mean when comey was fired by trump, people were starting to whisper the words, obstruction of justice. This just takes you so much closer. The idea that there are contemporaneous records sitting in a file that presumably represent accurate recollections of the fbi director, who is seen as a highly credible figure here. How do you add that up against the credibility of a president and a white house that has had so much trouble keeping facts straight . Heidi, it seems to me the fbi director is responsible to the law, not to the president. Hes not his lackey or his employee. Hes got a tenyear term. Hes meant to be independent of the president. Thats why he gets a tenyear term subject to cause, perhaps, but hes supposed to be there and be a watchdog on all lawbreaking in the country, including that of the president. Lets face it, the fbi tracked down nixon. And thats something that donald trump either doesnt realize or is willfully violating. This is the point now that i think this represents, which is that all of these iterations, sally yates firing, the timing of yates firing, the denials, all of these things the public and even us in the media have been willing to say, okay, this could just shall incompetence. This could just be being clumsy. Now like greg says, people are starting to whisper those words, obstruction. Was this intentional . Was this intentionally trying to stop the fbi director from pursuing an active investigation to put his thumb on it . Charlie, pick up here because weve all watched courtroom drama. I think its the best drama there is besides boxing movies. We all know about obstruction of justice. We know what it looks like. Heres a president who has a guy who knows a lot from his conversations with him, Michael Flynn. If theres been any conversations about russia involving the president , they probably involved Michael Flynn. Michael flynns under serious heat from the government now. Hes talked about getting immunity. Obviously getting immunity means he wants to testify to somebody higher up than him. That would be. The president would then want to get the heat off flynn so he wouldnt be pressured into giving up the boss, meaning him. It does fit together. It wouldnt be a matter of compassion, whether he likes flynn or not he probably does like flynn. Theres flynn dancing around him there. But the fact is that flynn was very dangerous to him, and to go in january or february to the fbi director and say, can you let my friend off, hes really letting off the guy that was going to rat on him. Well, youre putting your finger on it there, chris. Ive talked to several former federal prosecutors who are experts in white collar criminal law over the last few days, starting with the comey firing and leading up to this now, and who knows what may be next after this. But ive seen an evolution in their thinking, some of the smartest people on this topic. When comey was fired, it was like, well, maybe it was. Maybe it wasnt. The problem is obstruction of justice is that you have to prove it was the specific intent of the person committing the act to impede the investigation. Its not just enough that they might know that might be a side coincidence, so trump could say, well, i just thought he was doing a bad job running the fbi in general, and it would be hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt. But then you have the threatening tweet at mr. Comey, and now you have apparently a written contemporaneous record of a conversation which, as one former prosecutor put it to me, looks like the president himself suggesting he had improper intent in terms of wanting to interfere with that investigation. Of course all of this may just be theoretical. Its hard to envision the Trump Justice Department charging the sitting president. Let me go to u. S. Senator angus king of maine, an independent in the United States senate. Hes on the Intelligence Committee. Senator, look at this. If this were a perry mason case or some sort of Television Drama where the person was going to rat out the boss man, if you will, in some sort of conspiracy, that guy was talking about getting immunity because he had something to say and he wanted to protect himself from prosecution himself, get a lighter sentence or no sentence at all. All of a sudden you find out that the boss man goes to the prosecutor and says, you know what . I want this guy off. I want him off. I want you to drop the case. Of course im in a position to continue your employment here as fbi director, so why dont you do what i want you to do and when he doesnt and doesnt drop the case, he fires him. I mean this is a simple drama to people watching it, including, i would bet, your constituents. Thats the way people that read the paper see this story developing rather clearly. Trumps protecting himself. Well, chris, if were going to talk about courtroom drama, im going to go back to a show you and i remember, dragnet, where joe friday always started out by saying, just the facts, maam, just e facts. I think we need to take a ltle bit of a deep breath re. We havent even heard from jim comey authenticating this memo. Weve heard accounts of people who said theyve read it, and theyve talked to reporters. I want to slow down a little bit, get more of the facts and get the facts of what happened that day in the oval office. Now, clearly a contemporaneous note that he wrote is pretty credible, and jim comey is a guy who goes by the book. I cant hear right now. Im not getting this. Oh, there he is. Go ahead. I can hear now, senator. Okay. Jim comey is a guy who goes by the book, so a record he kept is pretty powerful evidence. The white house apparently, a few minutes ago, said that it never happened. Theyve categorically denied it. I think its up to them now to come forward with what evidence they have that the conversation didnt take place. And if there are tapes, we want those tapes. And i think the president is the one who brought tapes into the discussion. We want to know if there are tapes. If there are, i can tell you that congress and i was in the Intelligence Committee this afternoon. We want to know what went on in the oval office that day and also last week in the meeting with the russians where classified intelligence was released. Why do you want to know what the conversation was between the president and mr. Comey . To what effect . Because, you know, i want to know whether, in fact, the president said what mr. Comey says he did. What would you do with that information if you got it . Well, i think then we have to go forward and try to understand what the context, what else was said in the conversation, and then the congress is going to have to assess that material. This is very, very serious stuff, chris. Well, youre investigating, in other words, what youre describing is a program, an agenda for discovering whether the president committed obstruction of justice. Well, thats certainly a question thats been raised by this whole matter thats come out just in the last few hours. You know, obstruction of justice is a legal term. Its 18 usc 1503, and it talks about corrupt and what your state of mind was. Im not ready to act as judge, jury, and prosecutor here, but i think we do have to get to the facts. And the white house has now denied it, and i want to know what basis they have for that denial. If it turns out that the evidence is solid, that the then fbi director had contemporaneous and accurate notes of a conversation he had with the president of the United States in which the president of the United States asked him to drop a case against his then National Security adviser, if thats the case and later on he fires that fbi director and the causality is very implicit there, is that a case for obstruction of justice, senator . If it doesnt lead to a prosecution or an impeachment, why are we studying this case at all . Well, i dont want to practice law on tv, chris, but let me just say it certainly appears to meet the definition in the statute, and its its a very serious matter. Its been one thats been part of proceedings around here for many years. Let me ask you about this other matter that came up the other day, which is the president basically sharing with the foreign minister lavrov of russia information which we now learn has come from the israeli intelligence, from assad. And doing so at his own whim if you will. What do you make of that . Well, its clear, and the white house has said this, the president has the power to declassify whatever he or she wants. Thats true. But usually it ought to be, and it ought to be a process where you check with the intelligence agencies. You talk about the consequences. You weigh the pros and cons of releasing the information. The problem in this case, again apparently because we dont have all of what went on in that meeting. But apparently this material was released just in the midst of a conversation without that kind of thinking it through of what the consequences. And there are two problems. Number one, it telegraphs through the russians to isis or whoever else how we got that information. Right. You dont have to talk about sources and methods. If you tell people youve got information, quite often, particularly if theyre as sophisticated as the russians, they can engineer it backwards and figure that out. The second thing and perhaps even more serious, its going to chill our allies, and i cant confirm whether it was israel or anywhere else, but its going to chill our allies from passing information on to us because if we burn them or burn their agents, that you know, thats going to end up cutting off the flow of what could be lifesaving information. Thats why this is so serious. This is you know, i work on the Intelligence Committee. We deal with this kind of material all the time, and this is the highest this material was at the highest level of classification. And to just in the middle of a conversation, for whatever reason, to share it with somebody who by the way are allies of assad and the iranians, ive got a real problem with that. I dont blame you. Thank you so much, senator angus king of maine. Let me go back to greg. Congratulations. You broke the story, but i hate to trump it with this new one. The senator just said hes an independent. He said the evidence theyre looking at right now is serious business. This is going to be an obstruction of justice charge, an article of impeachment basically. These stories of the last few days, they take you in similar but slightly different directions. This story about what hes disclosing to the Russian Foreign minister and ambassador, that gets to sort of his fitness for office. What is he doing . His comfort with the russians, to me, back channels us all to the last six or seven months. If these that comfortable talking with them, why wouldnt Michael Flynn be just as comfortable chatting with kislyak on the matter of sanctions . Its an astonishing blind spot. How do you go into this mighting with the russians let alone start bragging or boasting about this intelligence you have, put a really critical intelligence ally in jeopardy . Its just astonishing the sort of behavior. Its astonishing and its not because i bring you back to the fact that we all pointed this out at the beginning. Trump is an experiment. Hes an experimental president. Hes the first president in our history who has no experience in the military, no experience in the government. What do you learn in the military and the government . Among other things, handling of classified information. You combine that with sorry to bring this word back from the hillary km paint, but temperament. Lets jump to where we were with the senator. He is a member of the United States senate, and they get to convict, not just impeach. Hes asking for evidence. Hes not sure of the evidence of the memo being true or not. But if its just a matter of getting that, and i would bet the New York Times as the story. I would bet we have it, that there is such a memo where comey really did say after meeting with the president , he just asked me to drop the flynn case and has the wording of it. And if thats the case, if the senator is right, then, its just a question of nailing that down. We already nailed down the fact he fired the guy afterwards for not playing ball with him. Theres a lot of evidence here. It seems it would take a reasonable person in the direction of perhaps wanting more information, but clearly were on the trail there to an impeachment. If there is a memo, it is the property of the government, and congress will demand it and get it. Another piece of this puzzle could come into play. I sat down with senator durbin today, and he said on thursday when rod rosenstein, the deputy a. G. , comes before us in a closed session, i believe that he was set up. I believe that he was set up to write that memo. What does that mean . English . What does set up mean . That someone in the white house or higher up in the Justice Department he didnt give me names, but who is his