Toward that goal. Lets start at the white house. Nbc news Peter Alexander is there and lets start with the white house and the silence from Stormy Daniels. What else did we hear from Sarah Huckabeesanders as the press briefing took place. The news is that coming from the New York Times suggesting that john dowd, the former lawyer in the russia investigation, floated this idea. The possibility of pardons for two of the former aides. Paul manafort who served as the Campaign Chairman during the course of the campaign, and also Michael Flynn, the First National security adviser. We received a statement from ty cobb. He is the inhouse counsel for the president. He addressed this topic. He said ive only been asked about pardons by the press and routinely responded on the record that no pardons are under destruction or under consideration at the white house. There was some question then left about whether this is something at any point that was discussed or considered and my colleague Kristen Welker focused on that when she spoke to Sarah Huckabeesanders in this briefing. Take a listen. Ty cobb deals with the president so i want to ask you specifically, did the president direct john dowd to talk to the attorneys for Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn about potential pardons . Im not aware of any conversations of that nature at all. Did the president have a reaction to these revelations in the New York Times . Did you ask him specifically. I did not talk to him about it specifically. But again ive an bn in a num in a number of conversations and ty cobb who would be the lead representative for the white house has gone on the record to discuss and declare that these conversations havent taken place. She could not declaratively say whether or not they were discussed or considered but she did say they are not under discussion or under consideration. The New York Times as youve seen reports that this conversation between john dowd and those representatives for Michael Flynn, for Paul Manafort occurred as mueller was building the special counsel building his case and it does raise the question whether the white house was influencing the men, whether to plead guilty or cooperate in this case. Peter alexander joining us from the white house. And i want to talk about the new breaking news. President trumps former lawyer john dowd brought up the idea of pardons former top advisers, Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort last year. And joining me on the phone is one of the reporters, Michael Schmidt is with me. What do we know about the substance of the conversations today . Conversations with robert keener, would is flynns lawyer and what did they talk with john dowd who is now president trumps former attorney. These conversations happened last summer when mueller was building his case against flynn and Paul Manafort. Dowd has expressed to folks that he believes the case especially against flynn was very flimsy. There was nothing there and that was no reason for them to plead to anything or cooperate. The question is what did the president know about this . Was dowd an acting on his ownr at the direction of his client. People find it hard to believe he would do this without consulting with his clients. But at the same time, we dont know what the president s role was it . What are folks talking about the legal implications about this and how widely how ironclad the president s Pardon Authority is. That is the real question. If dowd was out on his own and didnt do this at the president s direction it is hard to tie this back to the direction but it he was trying to do this to get in the front of the russia investigation and stop people that is a more significant legal question. The thing you have to understand about dowd who left the legal Team Last Week is that he believed the president should all of the powers that he had to defend himself and that he was in a war and that regardless of the political consequences of how a pardon may look or not sitting for an interview with mueller may appear, that the president had to use what he had. The things like like the pardon power and such to protect himself in such an important investigation. Michael, you know this legal team very well. Help us understand the role here that john dowd played in it. When you look at that mechanism and it has gotten smaller over the last few weeks. What role is he playing. Dowd has the lead as the trump lawyer in the middle of last summer. Then he relied on Mark Kasowitz for the first few months and then dowd came in to take over. Dowd was the lead person. But hes working outside of the white house as the president s personal lawyer. He took the lead in dealing with kelner who is flynns lawyer and reg brown who was Paul Manaforts lawyer and dealing with the special counsel office, muellers office on the interview and negotiating the interview. Dowd was very concerned about the president sitting down with mueller for an interview. And he thought that very little to come out of it. He knew the president would often not tell the truth and that would be a very, very legally difficult situation for the president to go into. Last question, let me go back to what Peter Alexander was saying about the questions this raises about how worried the white house might be about what these two gentleman might say to Robert Mueller and his team. What are the biggest questions that raises, what might they know . Well, it is unclear what manafort may know. He was only part of the campaign for a few months and according to folks that i talked to, he did not want to accept any type of pardon because he believes hes done nothing wrong and the government has overstepped their bounds. And flynn is cooperating with mueller. He agreed to cooperate at end of last year and he knows a lot of things. He was around for the entire campaign and met with russian officials did youing the ambassador during the transition and he is at the heart of the more curious events with the phone call with the Russian Ambassador around the Obama Administration decision to put sanctions in place to punish russia for election meddling. And flynn getting fired shortly after he joins the white house for misleading the president the Vice President about the nature of his calls with the ambassador. There is a lot of things that flynn knows. We dont know the full except of his cooperation but we do know in exchange for dropping charges against him or only charging with him a few things he agreed to talk to mueller. That is Michael Schmidt. His by line from the New York Times out just a few minutes ago. Thank you. Stormy danielss attorney wants trump to sit down for a deposition to find out what he knew and when. He is asking a judge to approve his request for no greater than two hours with donald trump and his personal attorney Michael Cohen. He said he paid daniels 130,000 just days before the 2016 election. Daniels signed a deal to stay quiet about her allegations of an intimate relationship with the president. And the attorney claims that is a violation of Campaign Finance laws but Michael Cohen said he did it with his own money and without Donald Trumps knowledge. Well the president is not responding and hes remained unusually quiet about all of this. The white house continues to deny the two ever had an intimate relationship. And as for cohen, his lawyer attacking Michael Avenatti saying the filing is a reckless use of the legal season to inflate avenattis ego and keep himself relevant. What is the likeliness this would work and could a judge order a president to be deposed. And from a fellow at pace law school, lets start with the filing in california. What did we learn from that filing . I guess Stormy Daniels lawyer is trying to go on the offensive here. Trump and mr. Cohen had tried to move the lawsuit or did move the lawsuit into federal court to push this into arbitration. And now i think avenatti didnt like the pace or the fact it might be in arbitration where the public couldnt see it. So now by filing this claim, hes trying to bring it back out in the open and trying to put it back on a faster time line which it seems like hes getting and put it back into the public eye. So lets talk about the april 30th date. He seemed dissatisfied and not happy with the pace this was proceeding. How much of a victory is that, just having a sense of the timetable. This is going to be heard by this judge on april 30th. It is a victory for now. I think there are still some hurdles for him to overcome. I think the hurdle about a sitting president being subject to a lawsuit, that one seems pretty clearcut to me. There is clear Supreme Court precedent on that. Specially since interestingly trump and coen did move this floor federal court, they might have had a better argument had it stayed in state court that the jones case didnt apply but because it is federal a court that is applicable. But the next hurdle is a motion to dismiss the claim. Which cohen through his lawyer has already said this is a frivolous claim. That is a very hard standard to meet. Trump is it is basically whether the plaintiff, which in this posture is Stormy Daniels, whether they have stated any claim under the law, whether the facts as stated could constitute a laegal claim so it is hard to get it dismissed which means discovery and the deposition would go forward. I want to get your sense of how effective Michael Avenatti is getting the president he hasnt talked about it or tweeted but from one statement from Stormy Danielss attorney, if shes not telling the truth, let the president take to the podium and call her a liar. Let the president come forward and say it never happened. This is part of the game and what hes trying to do, to draw the president out to weigh in on the issues, something hes had remarkable restraint at not doing. He started before this 60 minutes interview and followed up right afterwards. He clearly was trying to get both cohen and the president to speak out on this. In retrospect, now that hes filed this because it would have helped make a stronger defamation claim. And so the facts hes relying on now are not as strong as i think he would like them to be. But again, probably likely to survive a motion to dismiss. I want you to weigh in on the news from Peter Alexander and Michael Schmidt about the legal issues, what is your understanding of the graph it gravity, you had john dowd or with the guidance or the president to raise the specter of offering a president ial pardon, how remarkable is that to you . In terms of a criminal analysis, those details matter as to how remarkable it is and whether it is part of a criminal charge. So first you would need to show for sure certainly that the president knew if dowd was having these talks in order to tie it back to the president. And second, i think standing alone exercise of pardon would not necessarily be a great basis for an obstruction of justice charge. But if you put it altogether with the other efforts of the president aktding acting on own when he tried to get fbi director to drop the case against flynn it could become part of a pattern. And it is very interesting that it is dowd, his personal lawyer and not don mcgahn who is the white house lawyer who is responsible for the pardon process. So that sort of puts this in a whole different category when you are looking at it from the criminal perspective. And the one other point i would say that does make it remarkable, regardless of whether it could be part of a technical obstruction of justice charge, it goes to the whole consciousness of guilt that we keep coming back to of what are they trying to hide and why. What were they so afraid of it . I know you asked that and many people have weighed in on that and but it is certainly making it clear that they are afraid of what flynn and manafort and likely gates are talking about. So nice to speak with you. Thank you. Miriam rocca here in new york. And turning back to another major story, focuses on north korea and the president tweeted he he is looking forward to meeting with kim jongun and spoke with xi jinping and saying maximum pressure need to be kept. And they have been reporting kim pledged to denuclearize but little known about what will discussed. I want to talk with yale rab ort. And after this took place, we were rapped as we saw this photograph of the secret train making its way to beijing. What is the import of that meeting taking place when you look at these two leaders, kim jongun meeting outside of the country for the first time with a foreign leader. The visit is really intriguing and not entirely surprising. These two leaders have not met they have both been in power for six years and both have been consolidated power in their own ways and despite the fact there is a long standing reliance and relations have been at the lowest point ever in recent years. How bad have they been. That the leaders havent met. There is a deepseated alliance between the community parties of both countries and a defensive alliance on paper between north korea and china and yet the leaders had never met. But with the summit coming up, between kim jongun and south korea and most likely between trump and kim in may, it is interesting to both leaders to pivot and realess the re and suggest that they are rewarming the ties. The meeting took place and dont know about the substance of. It it is fascinating to look at the reporting from the north korea and the chinese side. Talk about president xis approach to this meeting. It is more of a by lateral or tri lateral and they are moving toward the meeting with north korea. What is the role of china in those conversations. One of the reasons why xi had a strongin senti incentive with kim jongun because the diplomacy have left china out of the picture. It is led by the south koreans who headed into the olympics for trying to diffuse tensions with north korea and then decided to follow on that olympic diplomacy as a promise with a summit between the north and south. And also south korea has engineered this perspective summit between the United States and kim jongun. It is a south korean negotiator who has come to the terms with kim jongun. Weve heard the north koreans say very little about it. So in that broader picture, xi jinping is cut out. No crucial place for china in that diplomacy. So given the long Standing Alliance and the ties between the two countries and the fact that kim and trump could meet and perhaps cut a deal in may, although it certainly wont be a deal that provides for full denuclearization and xi felt he could reassert the historical ties. And last question. How much has the calculus changed here . Mike pompeo will move from the state department and replacing mcmaster, again the meeting is if not on the calendar, it is pencilled in to happen in may. How could all of that change the prospects for that meeting or how they might be conducted . This is an essential point and maybe one of the reasons that both xi and kim sawin sentive to meet. And with mike pompeo being nom ated as john bolton, each of the new appointees is more hawkish on north korea than his predecessor and each of the appointees is on record as having count innocence the idea of military action against north korea. So going into a summit, kim knows that if this summit falls through and donald trump walks away unhappy, given this president s temperament, it is possible hell tap back in a dangerous direction and start considering military action again. And with mike pompeo an john bolton whispering over his shoulder, the threat could be realized and may have compelled him to turn to xi. Thank you very much. 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