With us, msnbc contributor mike barnicle, president of the council on Foreign Relations and author of the book a world in disarray Richard Haass who has some nice things to say about john bolton today. Great to get to that. Especially on his input on north korea, the situation there. Former assistant director of the fbis Counterintelligence Division, frank biglusi. Former chief of staff at the c. I. A. And department of defense, Nbc News National Security analyst jeremy bash is with us and nbc News National political reporter heidi przybilla. Joe is off this morning. Willie and i have got it here. Theres a lot to get to. President trumps lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, went on television again last night and seemed to indicate that the Trump Campaign did get dirt on Hillary Clinton from the russians. I dont think he meant to do that, did he . Yesterday the Senate Judiciary committee opened up their books on their interyous of the top Campaign Officials on the june 2016 trump tower meeting between Trump Campaign officials and russians. Who knew what and when about the controversial summit that stayed secret for more than a year. Testimony from russian participants cast more doubt on donald trump jr. s original claim that the meeting was to discuss russian adoptions, witnesses said, he began the meeting by asking for information on Hillary Clinton. Trump jr. Was questioned about the email he received before the meeting telling him quote, of quote russia and the governments support for mr. Trump. Asked if he thought that would be problematic, the president s son replied, i didnt think that listening to someone with information relevant to the fitness and character of a president ial candidate would be an issue. No. It was an argument seconded by Rudy Giuliani last night. But thats not all rudy said. Remember june of 2016 . Thats about when i joined the campaign. Nobody is going to focus on a russian woman who says that she has, false information about Hillary Clinton. Turns out she wants to negotiate sanctions and they throw her out basically. When she wants to meet again, they dont meet with her. Who would, i would remember that. I had people coming up to me saying all kinds of things about hillary and im willing to believe almost anything about her. Get rid of them. When i ran against them they were looking for dirt on me every day. Thats what you do. Maybe you shouldnt, but you do. Nothing illegal about that. And even if it comes from, from a russian or a german or, an american, it doesnt matter. And they never used it. Is the main thing, never used it. They rejected it. If there was collusion with the russians they would have used it. They would have used it. What is it, willie . I thought they said they got nothing. So they got something . Im confused. The it is the dirt that they were promised coming into the meeting and they according to mr. Giuliani, they didnt think there was anything to the dirt so they put the dirt to the side. So rudy helps the mueller folks, i guess. The equation he made between Opposition Research on a president ial campaign, which we see in every president ial campaign. And every campaign ever. And a foreign entity, a foreign government, russia, giving him information. Are those two the same thing . At best here what we have is complete naivete and ignorance of how the world works and whats legal and not legal. So when Senior Campaign advisers agree to sit down with russian representatives under the premise of receiving dirt on a fellow american candidate, theres a problem. They dont alert the fbi. They dont seek counsel. But rather they become quite livid when the dirt doesnt materialize at the meeting and we have reports of Jared Kushner being indignant and leaving. Them not using the dirt, does that matter or the fact of them meeting in a room together, a problem. Collusion, the loose definitions that we have doesnt require the fact that its successful. Its that youre colluding with an adversarial government, possibly in violation of the law. Does rudy mess up the case . He said something that potentially harms the president every time hes gone on the air. There are other stories this morning. So well get back at that. Because we got to go to the definition of what it is. Think weve been there before. And there are new ethics questions for President Trump after disclosing on financial forms he reimbursed Michael Cohen for the Stormy Daniels payment. Disclosure came on page 45 of the 92page report it claims in the interests of transparency while not required to be disclosed as reportable liabilities, in 2016, expenses were incurred by one of trumps attorneys, Michael Cohen. The report claims that cohen sought reimbursement of those expenses and that trump quote fully reimbursed cohen in 2017. However, the government ethics chief disputes that cohens payment was an expense, therefore, not required to be reported. In a letter to Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein the acting ethics director writes that based on information froms president s disclosure, quote, the payment made by mr. Cohen is required to be reported as a liability. The ethics chief said that ends his letter by telling the deputy ag that hes providing him with the president s Financial Reports from last year and this year, quote, because you may find the disclosure relevant to any inquiry you may be pursuing regarding the president s prior report signed last year. So frank, the president of the United States declares on his financial form that he repaid Michael Cohen between 100,000 and 250,000. This morning, how many points of peril does this put the president in in. I come up with three scenarios. Two of them are awful for the president. The first one, lacks cree dult. That is that the president knew nothing about the payments, hes a good guy trying to re pay his lawyer, cohen, who tells him after the fact, i need compensation. Weve gone beyond that because giuliani has said that the president knows michael takes care of such things. Scenario number two is the that president knew this was being done. He knew fictitious corporations might be set up. He knew a bank, a loan might have been set up fictitiously and there was Money Laundering or foreign governments involved. That makes him a coconspirator for those underlying violations. The third scenario is he found out later that things done were illegal and he paid michael back. That makes him an accessory after the fact. Hes in trouble. Just to be very clear, were really, i cant imagine anybody at this table is interested in the president s personal relationship with a porn star or anybody else. But at this point, theres definitely a clear line that is drawn between the president , and stop me if im wrong and Michael Cohen and money to a porn star, though ho claims that there was an affair. The president has yet to admit to the affair. But theres a line of money that goes to this woman right before the election and it appears to be to silence her for an affair. Am i correct . Yes, youre correct. And the question will become how much did the president know about the methodology of this payment. And whether there were illegalities underlying that payment. Thats what none of us know, including the president , because the president doesnt use email. So he doesnt know what the fbi seized in Michael Cohens offices. How did cohen document every conversation with the president . The fbi has that. So the fbi has that. But even more, jeremy bash, National Security issues would be that first of all, are there other women. Second of all, can this president be bribed or blackmailed. And the timing of these payments right before, this is, this is clearly an issue that the American People unfortunately, it matters to them. Its not a personal story of some cheap disgusting affair the president might have had. Unfortunately we have to talk about this, because the president might be a danger if there are multiple situations like this and he can be pressured perhaps give information away or be used by the russians, because a woman could shake him down for 130,000 or more. Thats right. The reason these Financial Disclosure forms in our government are so vital, so important, not just for transparency, we want to understand to whom a president of the United States is indebted. Because obviously that person has leverage, financial but also potentially political leverage over a president , over our elected officials, so if these forms are inaccurate, sometimes theres a clerical error and thats generally forgiven but if its knowing concealment, willful efforts to conceal or hide payments, places where the president is indebted, thats a federal crime. If we uphold the standard that the president is no more above the law than anybody else, anybody unless our government. Anybody else in our society, i agree with frank, the president has some explaining to do. Lets get to another layer of this story. Republican leaders on the Senate Intel Committee say they agree with u. S. Intelligence agencies that russia interfered in the 2016 election. And that moscow favored donald trump in the race. Committee chairman richard burr, republican, said in a statement yesterday, he saw no reason to dispute the conclusions made by the Intelligence Community. Senator burrs state is at odds with republican members of the house intelligence committee, who do not support the conclusion that russia sought to help trump win. Last month, the house Intel Committee released a report be a solving the Trump Campaign of aiding in russias election interference, describing contacts between Trump Associates and russians as illadvised meetings. President trump was quick to claim vindication when the house intel report came out, labelling the russia probe a total witch hunt and calling for an end to the investigation. Heidi przybilla as you watch this on the hill, how are they accounting for the discrepancies between the two reports, devin nunes has been a defender publicly and privately of President Trump. Senator richard burr, not quite as much. This is likely to be the first of several embarrassing revelations for nunes and the house intelligence committee. At the time they shuttered their investigation, there were groups such as the whoco project which looked at the gaping holes in that investigation. Up to 80 of the witnesses not even talked to or brought back for questioning, a lot of witnesses who came before the Committee Panel were allowed to invoke privileges that it was unclear they even have. Their conclusion that they saw no evidence of collusion, largely stemmed from the fact that critics say they didnt really look. They didnt really look too hard. So as this Investigation Continues, unabated on the senate side, we are seeing now, the release, for instance, about the information about the trump tower meeting. There will be additional revelations, as the Senate Intelligence committee continues, a thorough investigation, you know releases more information. And the beginning here for instance, that the whole premise of this trump tower moscow meeting as you talked about earlier, was in fact to get dirt on Hillary Clinton, is now confirmed by those documents, there will be more to come. Mike in. Richard, you know its quite easy for all of us, in the News Business to get carried away with the focus on donald j. Trump and everything that happens to him, every day, multiple times a day. But russia, russia is a huge story today in this world. I would hope that you would address that. I mean given their role in the middle east. Given their role, their growing role in world order, in interfering. Not just in our domestic politics, but allegedly in other countries. Where is russia headed . Russia has emerged in some ways as the great outlier. It is the great opponent. What we used to call the liberal world order. Whats so interesting about it is how little russia has to play with. And the returns they get. This is essentially a poor country with a shrinking population. About 142, 143 million people. No economy to speak of, other than they produce oil and gas. But look what theyve doan. Theyve interfered in elections around the world. Vladimir putin is like an investor who puts down 50 and walks away with 5,000. Talk about return on investment. Russia has gotten oversized returns with very little. And theres no reason to think theyll stop. This is working for him. He has nothing to point to at home. His domestic legacy is he inherited a country and hes going to leave a wreck to whoever that is. But internationally he has basically had outsized gains for very modest capabilities and investments. Were going to go back now this is going to bring us back to Rudy Giuliani. Who i actually just personally, have not ever seen a more undisciplined big mouth, except for the president himself. Who is actually time he speaks on television, seems to create more problems for the president of the United States and helps out the investigators looking into everything surrounding the president. Speaking on behalf of Donald Trumps legal team, giuliani says special counsel Robert Muellers office told him that they cannot bring criminal charges against the president. Giuliani told nbc news that the reason is due to Justice Department rules. Quote they know they dont have that power, so their function is to write a report. We would like it to be the fairest report possible. But even if it isnt, were prepared to rebut it in great detail. So wed like them to do it. Giuliani told the Washington Post robert costa, that mueller was coy when discussing an indictment. He didnt seem to want to give the answer. One of his assistants broke in and said of course were bound by Justice Department policies. According to giuliani, mueller looked at the assistant as if to say, dont interrupt me. Giuliani said, they confirmed they would not indict in a call a day or two later. On fox news last night, giuliani said he wouldnt give much credence to a negative report from mueller. Theres no reason for this investigation. There never was a good reason for it in the first place. This was engineered by comey. Im still hopeful that when it comes down to it, theyre not going to impair their reputation with a bogus report. If youre going to write a fair report, fine, write it if you write an unfair report, write it and well combat it were ready to rip it apart and were ready to rip them apart. Jeremy bash, Rudy Giuliani, is he helping the president s case at this point . And does he understand what this report is really about . No. And i think he revealed, mika, something that weve been discussing but hasnt been confirmed by someone who has talked directly to the special counsel, which is that the special counsel is indeed writing a report. That was a question some folks minds. Some people said if bob mueller found nothing upon which to file criminal charges, woe just basically file a short memo with the Justice Department declining prosecution. Sort of a declension memo. If the special counsel writes a very fulsome report about all the conduct at issue going back to russian interference in the election, extending through the obstruction of justice issue, that is what will be teed up for the congress to consider as it weighs the weighty issue of impeachment. Rudy giuliani in the last couple of weeks has said out loud all the things we assume but are not supposed to say out loud. Were prepared if this is negative to tear it down. All these interviews were doing, everything weve said about the fbi and implied about bob mueller and said about the Justice Department is to delegitimize whatever is reported and comes out of bob muellers office. He doesnt know what bob mueller is working on specifically. We dont know what bob mueller has exactly. We do know there have been indictments, there have been plea deals, weve seen outcomes from this investigation. Whatever comes out it seems to me, unless it completely exonerates donald trump, the white house and Rudy Giuliani and their team as he said out loud on fox news last night, will be torn to shreds by the white house. The phrase tear it down is telling. It says we dont have substantive legal strategy, well continue to tear down the institutions and the people who got us here. Thats number one. Number two, the kinds of words and phrases were hearing from mr. Giuliani are not the words of a substantive serious lawyer. Theyre some kind of desperate pr spin hes hoping people will latch on to. Throwing out Something Like they cant indict because theres policy against it, he wants people to actually believe that. And actually believe that mueller wont challenge policy if he