We could learn today about the private company that we trust with so much of our information. But we start with new details this afternoon on the Justice Department raid on the office and residences of trumps personal attorney Michael Cohen. The New York Times reporting that fbi agents were looking for recordings abo records about payments to two women who claim they had affairs with mr. Trump. This, as news the president is embroiled in new controversy over his reaction to that raid. The president in that extraordinary display last night lashing out at the Justice Department, the fbi, the special counsel and his attorney general jeff sessions. So i just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys, good man, and its a disgraceful situation. Its a total witch hunt. This is the most biased group of people. These people have the biggest conflicts of interest ive ever seen. Democrats all just about all, either democrats or a couple republicans that worked for president obama. The attorney general made a terrible mistake when he did this and when he recused himself or he should have certainly let us know if he was going to recuse himself, and we would have used a, put a different attorney general in, and yet the other side, they dont even bother looking. And the other side where there are crimes. And those crimes are obvious. Lies under oath all over the place. Any concerns about what the f fbi might find, mr. President . No. Any concerns . Why dont you just fire the guy . Well, i think its a disgrace whats going on. Well see what happens. Im joined by Michael Schmitz from the New York Times, nbcs Geoff Bennett at the white house, nbc news Investigative Reporter tom winter here with me as well. Danny cevellas is standing by. Let me start with you, Michael Schmitz, on the phone, if i can. Nbc news can confirm it now but i know that tom spoke it first. What more do we know . Just getting a better idea of what federal authorities were looking for when they went into Michael Cohens residences and office yesterday. They were looking for documents related to payments that were given to women that had reached these agreements for Michael Cohen. They were looking for stuff related to the national inquirer. And this was part of this Court Approved warrant that they had been given by a judge in new york to go into Michael Cohens office. Extraordinary thing for agents, for fbi agent in this case, to be going into a lawyer of the president s office, very highly unusual. We know one of the women was Stormy Daniels, the adult film star. Whos the other women . The other woman was another woman that had reached a deal with the president , a former playboy model who had reached a deal with the president who had spoken publicly about this. They were looking for documents about payments that had been made to her as well. And this is whats in this larger trove of information that the fbi will now sift through as they see what is responsive to the warrant that they have. Michael, you indicated they were also searching for some stuff related to the national inquirer. What more do we know about that . We dont know a ton more about that. We do know there was stuff in there about the medallion, the taxi medallion that Michael Cohen had. These are the, you know, having a taxi in new york city. Michael cohen had been involved in that business, believed to be a cash business he operated. This was in the request for documents as well. They had approval to look for that as well. All right, Michael Schmidt here from the New York Times with some breaking news here, top of the 1 00 hour. Michael, thanks. Do come back in theres more news to share. Tom, we also learned that Deputy Attorney general Rob Rosenstein signed off on this raid himself. What does that tell us . That tells us frankly theyre following along with the guidelines that hed been given. If you want to look at this from a sports analogy, craig, Rob Rosenstein is the president and gm of this investigation and Robert Mueller is the coach. Hes the one thats kind of calling the daytoday plays, thats looking at the strategy. Rob rosensteins role here is oversight. The fact we know this investigation came out of the special counsels office, that theyre doing it in coordinate with prosecutors here, federal prosecutors here in manhattan, that tells us in this case rosenstein is saying, you know what, its a little bit better if we have and its more appropriate given what robert mummers been charged with looking into versus other crimes that have arisen out of this. Its more appropriate to have federal prosecutors in this, actively involved in this particular component of the investigation. We understand the heart of this is tied to possibly a payment that was made to Stormy Daniels. So in this case its Rob Rosenstein saying whos going to be the best players, the best team and most appropriate team to handle this. What does it tell us about the dojs reach into the trump empire . Well, it tells us that theyve been accumulating a lot of information over the yearplus that theyve been working on this investigation. It tells me that they are being extremely thorough, that theyre going step by step as far as what theyre learning. Okay, weve uncovered this bit of evidence. Now we can move forward with this particular evidence or this particular avenue of inquiry. This type of stuff goes back and forth all the time. But youre looking at an investigate here that is huge. Because youre looking into a campaign. Youre looking into a foreign governments efforts to influence an election here in the United States. The amount of people that are involved in this. The overall scope of this is very large. So it makes sense that over time were hearing about different avenues that theyre starting to take. Obviously a search warrant, particularly one involving an attorney, particularly one involving the president s personal attorney, is a tremendous i would say avenue or leap forward that were hearing about, but it also fits the way that an investigation would typically go. This one is just obviously very high profile. Geoff, the issue everyone talking about today, that eightminute riff that the president went on yesterday about the raid itself. The president continuing the tirade this morning on twitter of course. Quote, Attorney Client privilege is dead. And this is a total witch hunt. What are you hearing from your sources at the white house about the president s comments, the president s tweets this morning . People close to the president describe him as seething. As being furious and indignant over these raids that targeted Michael Cohen, his longtime lawyer, his longtime friend and fixer. And i think theres one part of the white house response to all of this that is notable. Yesterday during that eightminute rant you pointed out that the president gave us from the cabinet room, he would not rule out getting rid of Robert Mueller. Now, in the past when the president has talked like that, the white house has oftentimes put out a statement pledging full cooperation with the special counsel. In this case, Sarah Sanders wouldnt do that. She said the president s comments stand on their own. So at the moment we also thought, by the way, that the president would weigh in when reporters were brought into the oval office. The president s hosting the emir of qatar. Usually at the end the president might take a question or two. In this instance, he was uncharacteristically disciplined. And not taking any questions. So at the moment, the president s tweets, his comments yesterday what we have to go on. Stand by for me. I want to bring you back to talk about another development, a Staffing Development at the white house. But let me bring in msnbc legal analyst danny now. Jill winebanks, a former watergate prosecutor. And former prosecutor seth waxman with me as well. Mr. Cevellos, a lot to break down here. Just in broad terms, how unusual is it for officials to raid an Attorneys Office . Its unusual, but its not unheard of. Its such a significant event though that the u. S. Attorneys manual has a specific section dealing with executing search warrants at an Attorneys Office. And thats because attorneys have privileged information. So naturally the concern arises that theyre going to get possession of clients Privileged Communications and documents which are not supposed to be seen by the public, let alone members of law enforcement. So what will typically happen is theyll put together a tag team. The government will put together a team of individuals who are both attorneys or maybe theyre agents, but the key is theyre not involved with the underlying investigation. They will review the documents, put them into three piles. Either privileged, not privileged or could be privileged. And then try to sort it out that way. I mean, criminal Defense Attorneys like me arent particularly thrilled with that process because the people deciding whether or not documents are privileged are ultimately the people that you dont want seeing those documents in the first place, law enforcement. Joe, this is a raid that was not carried out by the special counsels office. It was carried out by the sourp district of new york, officers from the Southern District. Why was this particular case handled that way . And what does that tell you . Joe . Oh, im associationsorry, i you were asking me. It is a very good thing that they turned it over. It means in viewing it, it was viewed outside the scope of the jurisdiction of the special counsel, so it went to the jurisdiction that has power over the offices of Michael Cohen. It also is a why to protect, although you have a taint group within the office that will look at these documents to make sure it really protects muellers investigation from any question of taint from having had any Attorney Client privileged documents. So it will protect the investigation of the russia focus by looking at the crimes possibly committed by Michael Cohen which involve paying off Stormy Daniels, karen mcdougal, by bank fraud, which may be involved in how he reported to the bank, what the 130,000 loan was. By checking whether he even got 130,000 line of credit for the payment to Stormy Daniels. Theres a lot of evidence that could be in his office, his home, and anywhere else that they searched. His hotel room. I know when you were at doj, you investigated attorneys for criminal conduct, a number of them, at least three. Give us a primer on that process. Yes, when i was at doj, i did three cases where attorneys got involved in wrongdoing. You have to make a submission in writing as a assistant u. S. Attorney at one of the satellite offices to the main justice office. Theres the office of enforcement operations. Theres a unit within main justice that considers these types of applications. And you have to come with real evidence. It cant be a he said she said. It has to be something substantial. Because doj, like everyone else, is very sensitive to breaching the Attorney Client privilege. Once you make that submission and its been approved, you can move forward. Of course, here, we have the president of the United States. So we see an even much higher level of review going up to rosenstein. And of course now officials over at the Southern District of new york. It is never taken lightly when you go after an Attorney Client privilege piece of information. One because its sack sack row sankt in many respects. And from the prosecutors perspective, if they screw that up if they somehow see evidence theyre not supposed to be, that causes a huge problem down the line because theres something called the fruit of the poisonous tree, which any evidence that flowed from that, wrongfully obtained, can be thrown out and issues where prosecutors or fbi agents can be removed from the case if they are so tainted they cant otherwise function with untainted evidence. Its a very specific process. One that attorneys and fbi agents, prosecutors, take very seriously, and it is well established within the department of justice. Seth, the u. S. Attorney in new york is a trump appointee. The Deputy Attorney general, Rob Rosenstein, also a trump appointee. Robert mueller not appointed by trump of course. He is a religiousstgistered rep. The political bias the president has alleged time and time again, do you see that . Absolutely not. I dont see that occurring at all. For all the reasons you just stated, that these are republicans. The second point i would make is for the process i just described, theres a unit within the department of justice that has career prosecutors that are the initial reviewers of these kinds of applications in routine cases that im sure they were involved in this application as well. Those are prosecutors who have been doing this whether its 5, 10 or even more years. And they have no political bent. Just as a side point, when i was an assistant u. S. Attorney, i didnt know the political leanings of 99 of my colleagues, maybe my closest friends or one or two others. But it just wasnt something that came up in conversation. You have too much going on. You have too many thing to accomplish that are very important matters. In this case, of course, involving the president of the United States. It just wasnt something that came into the discussion. Danny, the president has called this a witch hunt on a number of occasions. So far, though, the investigation itself has yielded five guilty pleas, among the president s First National security adviser, michael flynn. 18 outstanding indictments including the president s former Campaign Chairman paul manafort. Could the investigation have gone this far without evidence of any wrongdoing . That is what we call a leading question. Because, as we know, you cannot get indictments without some evidence of the crime. And to even plead guilty to a crime, you need to put facts significant on the record to support that guilty plea. So we do know to date there has been evidence linking individuals to crimes. This most recent step, a search warrant executed at an attorney for the president s office, is so significant because given the levels of review weve already talked about, you can guarantee that agents and attorneys in this case went above and beyond the normal probable cause required. Because the law sort of it makes you rule out Everything Else. The u. S. Attorneys office will rule out Everything Else before they get a search warrant for an Attorneys Office. Even more so in the case of an attorney for the president. Jill, draw on your experience here. Personal attorney, richard nixon, ended up going to jail, parallels here with Michael Cohen . Him and also the tax attorney for president nixon, who helped him fudge up some tax claims that were not justified also went to jail. So yes, these are people who were advising in a personal capaci capacity. Mr. Combacks crime was related to hush money and not legal representation, so thats a slight difference. Although again cohen is involved in hush money. In terms of the search warrant, a judge approved it. It wasnt just a decision by the top of the department of justice, by the u. S. Attorney for the Southern District of new york, it was approved by a judge, a showing of probable cause had to be made, and as danny said, in a case involving the president or the president s lawyer, a prosecutor is going to take extra precautions before returning an indictment in watergate, we believed we had to have much more evidence than just probable cause. In order to ever get a conviction. And we wouldnt have returned an indictment if we werent assured we thought we had a very high probability of getting a conviction. The president gets an extra benefit of a doubt. So in this case, you can imagine how much evidence they had in order to go before a judge and argue for a search warrant of the president s lawyers offices, home, and hotel room. Jill, thank you, danny, thank you. Another highlevel departure from the trump white house. Homeland security adviser tom bossert. The departure just a day after john bolton started his job as the president s National Security adviser. Geoff is back. What more do we know about why bossert left . Hey, craig, in tom bossert, in most part, was respected, was a key adviser to the president on cyber security. So as you pointed out, his resignation coincided with the arrival of john bolton as the president s National Security adviser. So thats one sign that bolton really is intent on bringing in his own people. We understand that at certain points, bossert clashed with white house chief of staff john kelly. The thing is, his departure, bosserts departure, seems to have caught white house staff off guard. A source close to bossert tel