If its tuesday, whats the investigation end game . Good evening. As nicole just let the cat out of the bag, welcome to mtp daily we have a Major Development as Michael Bloomberg announces he is not running. With bloomberg out, the question centers on whether joe biden is getting in. We are thinking if bloomberg thought he was not rung, bloomberg wouldnt be out. Think about that for a minute. We will get to that. There is now more hard evidence that the president might have committed a crime while in office. The president s lawyer may have dangled a pardon for Michael Cohen. They are investigating possible Insurance Fraud being investigated in the Trump Organization. The white house is battling more investigations and bob mueller could drop his report any day now. We begin with a major dilemma facing not the president , but the democrats. They clearly telegraphed they could find a thousand smoking guns and it doesnt matter. They are not going to start impeachment proceedings if it looks like partisan warfare. Define that. The latest move publicly announcing a sweeping probe of 81 people and entities opened them up to the criticism that they are engaging in partisan warfare. The 81 requests are not coming from the oversight committee. They are coming from the committee where impeachment is supposed to begin. Judiciary. The crux of the president s strategy is to paint this as partisan warfare. Here he is this afternoon at the white house. 81 people or organizations got letters. Its a disgrace to our country. Im not surprised that its happening. They started the campaign so the Campaign Begins. The anger. They havent gotten used to the fact that we won a lot of states that havent been won by republicans in a long time. Essentially what they are saying is the Campaign Begins instead of doing infrastructure, instead of doing health care and so many things that they should be doing, they want to play games. Surprise, surprise. We learned that the white house is not going to cooperate. They are refusing to hand over documents in the House Oversight committees investigation into Jared Kushners security clearance. A move perhaps designed to delay things and paint partisan warfare as well. If the democrats have to keep asking for forms or papers or records, it just looks like they are nagging the white house, right . Mr. Trump was elected in part because his base views him as a straight tark. Are democrats being straight with their base . They seem to be moving towards impeachment . Should they just say it . The chief counsel to the house judiciary democrats in the bill clinton impeachment. He joins the panel and ab White House Reporter noah rothman and contributor and editor and author of the new book, unjust. Social justice and the unmaking of america. A former Clinton Campaign adviser. Julia, i will start with you. You had this role of being a committee lawyer. You have been on the you were on defense, if you will, when the majority was the republicans and impeachment was bill clinton. Looking at yesterdays ask, could it have been and should it have been done as publicly as it was . I think it was brilliant and exactly what the opposite of what the republicans did in 1998. In 1998 the republicans got way out in front of the facts and they were driven by politics. The entire thing was seen as a partisan exercise. They didnt have a strong case. It ended up backfiring on them in the congress and backfired on them legally. In terms of public opinion, here is exactly the opposite of that. What you do when you have a tiger by the tail here is you have to remember there is two parts of this. A Political Part and a legal part. On the Political Part, you have to keep your own caucus in line. The best way to keep the caucus in line i think this was a very effective way of keeping it in line. What they have done is satisfied the liberal and it is far left members and the moderates through what is going to be a very aggressive oversight agenda. The second thing is you have to begin to think about how to persuade republicans. Remember the Mueller Report may or may not be very detailed in terms of what it provides. This investigative process, you remember watergate was 14 months of investigations. If there is going to be a chance of persuading moderate republican that is something needs to be done about the various different abuses, you are going to have to have a very compelling forum and record laid out. What nadler is doing is very, very smart. He is saying we will be driven by the facts and driven by the law and not the politics. When you get into the legal side, there is a lot of things. A lot of the partisans see the legal case on republican and democratic side and respectively they see it in simple terms. Either trump is guilty of a slew of violations or he isnt. It will be much more complicated than that. The question on collusion and we should stop talking about collusion. Thats a terrible term. The 64,000 question and the holy grail is the question of conspiracy. Conspiracy requires that the president entered into an agreement with the russians on election interference. We have a lot of smoke about that, but not smoking gun evidence about that. If you are going to persuade republicans on the question of impeachment, you have to have more evidence than that. On obstruction of justice let me pause you there because i want to get other folks in there. I sort of want to get i understand the larger reason to do that. The question i have and im curious, it looks like nadler said i want to get everything. Im going to get all the evidence from every probe i know of. Rather than being surgical and saying okay, i understand this is an insurance policy on mueller evidence. That is first and foremost. Say that. That could have been step one. You sort of move methodically so people dont view it as that is the danger they are running here. Being found guilty of overreach. Thats how the read is going to paint them. The two words we are hearing, president ial harassment. Thats his new trope and what he is going to say. This is all politics and nothing there. If you are the democrats, they could have been more clear on that. At the same time elections have consequences and this is what they told the voters they are going to do. They were going to investigate this president and his administration and business. That also means his family. They are going to move forward. If they had gone to tentatively to alienate the people who put them there and so much energy on the left right now and if you are trying to hold off impeachment, you want to show you are holding the president accountable without going to the more politically dangerous work. It is familiar territory among the house members if you went to 2010 to 2016 and house republicans. They were always in this. Some of the base wanted to do a lot more and they were like um, we will try a special committee here or that one there. Thats appropriate. There is an institutional problem if you are using impeachment as a platform to lay out the political case against the president. Its not moving the ball forward. Thats not a precedent we are familiar with. Establishing impeachment to investigate before he was the president does move the needle further. Thats something we should be fearful of. Thats a tool that will be used against the next president from the next party. It will be the status quo to use impeachment as a means to litigate a political case against the president. Democrats are saying this is premature. These investigations are ongoing. In the Southern District and the mueller probe. This is just another. If we talk about impeachment before those concluded, on democratss own terms, they are moving prematurely. This is part of the language problem. This is what they are doing. They are preparing for impeachment, just dont call it that yet. We have to think of two phases. Impeachment and removal are two steps. They are conducting oversight of the executive branch because republicans did not do it for two years. They took back control and they say we see potential misconduct in the areas and we will get all the do you means and go methodically and try to investigate. I dont think that the democratss goal is to impeach or remove the president. The goal is to be transparent with the American People about all of the corruption in this administration, lay it out on the table and that vote, that potentially would be in the senate and they would need 67 votes to remove. It doesnt have to be in the senate. You can have the American People remove the president in november of 2020 because you have them receiving all of the evidence. They are able to decide for themselves. That is interesting to me. The calendar. Both bill clinton and Richard Nixon heated up in the second term. There was no reelect to worry about. This is heating up in the first term and there is going to be a moment that is very pragmatic left and right. That said let the Voters Decide the case. For becomes too late to impeach. She is right. There is value in investigation and exposedure. I think also in the kind of media storm around this thing, we lost sight of the fact that impeachment is not the only remedy. There are a half dozen reforms that would be useful. For example, you can make it clear in a statute that a president can be prosecute and that prosecution should be upon under seal until he leaves office. That would be important. For example, you can provide enforcement in emoluments and statutory enforcement. Something in congress that can essentially force a president ial nominee, not president because of the executive branch, but a president ial nominee to put their businesses in some sort of blind trust and that way, its all right there by the time they get elected president. You can do that and the states can as a requirement for getting on the ballot in a general election. One of the problems that this investigation might face, for example, is enforcing a subpoena. What people dont realize is enforcing a subpoena in the courts always works in favor of the executive branch. They can run the clock. There is a variety of ways they can stall subpoenas and run through appeals and stall a subpoena for months and months and months. If you are going to do anything whether one of the reforms or if you get to the question of impeachment, that hinges on the question i got to before about was there experience . Was there an agreement with the russians . That was the thing that would move the republicans. If you are going to do anything, you have to persuade republicans. Watergate was 14 months. The Mueller Report and the nfl was widely criticized for how much it didnt say. We dont know what the Mueller Report is going to say. It will be public. The question about whether we will get access is a silly debate. We will get access, but the public hearing cross if you are going to persuade, that is what its going do. I want to put one more question to you. What could you in the minority do it gum up the works . Ken starr made so many mistakes. He was rebuked by the courts and held Monica Lewinsky without an attorney. There was so much overreach. The context of the extra marital affair and whether you should use impeachment. The overreach by the republicans and starr, the case for itself was easy. The republican minority, what could you do . There was a lot to shoot at. There was a confined set of facts in the clinton case and clear political overreach. The public believed that. You are in the opposite situation here. If i were the republicans right now, what i would be saying, you know what, lets have the investigation. We embrace the investigation. I would try to get the facts out on the table. I think if you want to take one example on the obstruction of justice, this is when i say when you get into the legal case, this is more complicated than we realize. Everybody thinks that james comey and his firing was obstruction of justice. A classic case. I believe it was obstruction of justice. The president and the president s defenders will say yeah, he fired james comey not because of the russia investigation, not because he was obstructing justice, but he was leaking. He has the right to do it. When you get into the debate, it gets more complex than we realize its going to be. If i were the republicans, i think its just the fact that they look like they are so cravenly defending the president and trying to prevent an investigation, i dont think it works for them. We had a dozen tactics that worked against ken starr in 1998 and it worked effectively. The white house is going to slow up. We have seen is that with the kushner example. They are not going to turn over the documents. They hired 17 yore attorneys and theyll slow the process down. They want to run out the clock that not only do they want to put it to the voters, but this allows the president to have the backdrop for his reelection campaign. The more the democrat dos that, the agenda will be snarled because they will be responding to all these requests. The president can play the victim. He can play the overreach card and say i came to washington to change things and we got things done and now we dont because the democrats do. Hillary clinton tried that. There was a point where it seemed to work and then it didnt. Harassing her worked. It did and republicans are in jeopardy here. If you were being machiavellian in terms of the judiciary, you are lobbying and establishing that this is not an effective investigation and once you Start Talking about evidence and witnesses who are involved in the Southern District of new york examination, then you are going to interfere with that investigation. You could possibly damage that investigation. Thats interesting. I think the Jared Kushner piece is separate. That is specifically about security clearances and precedent for the fact that they are approving 30 folks that the professionals denied. I see that as something separate and a lot of these investigations you can extrapolate them out and these set of facts have nothing to do with russia or collusion or anything to do with the election, but misconduct by this approximate the and his administration while he has been president and congress is simply doing the job they were elected to do. That could be an effective message even though republicans will scream overreach. They would have done that anyway. The best thing going for the president is there are so many investigations. I hate to say that. So many crimes. One would be more lethal. Its not too many investigations, but 14 crimes were enumerated by Michael Cohen under oath. Thats why there are so many investigations. If you cant keep it together, that is boiling it down to a sentence. Democrats have to figure out how to do that. Good to see you, sir. You guys are stuck with me for the rest of the hour. Coming up, as more evidence emerges with Michael Cohen and the alleged hush money payments, they were ongoing discussions of a possible pardon for cohen. Plus, taking on trump. I will speak with the man who is looking to challenge the president in a republican prima primary. Prima primary. With the most lobster dishes lobsterfesof the yearred lobster like lobster lovers dream and new ultimate lobsterfest surf and turf. So come lobsterfest today and now for a limited time, get ten percent off red lobster to go. Its easy to move forward when youre ready for what comes next. At fidelity, we make sure you have a clear plan to cover the essentials in retirement, as well as all the things you want to do. And on the way, youll get timely investment help to keep you on the right track, without the unnecessary fees you might expect from so many financial firms. Because when you have a partner who gives you clarity at every step, theres nothing to stop you from moving forward. 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As first reported by the wall street journal, an attorney for the former fixer discuss the possibility of a pardon with one of the president s attorneys last year after federal agents raided cohens home and office. We learned there was more than one conversation about a pardon and congress is looking into whether or not the us used a pardon to coax cohen to continue lying about the payments. Meanwhile the house chairman is accusing the white house about lying by refusing to hand over documents into the security clearances including Jared Kushner. They called the demands unprecedented and intrusive. We never had a situation like this with a security clearance before. They also claim he is over10 stepping his authority on his committee. A senior fbi official is now an msnbc contributor. Mr. Rosen berg, i will start with the pardon story. Heres where im trying to figure out the legal issue here. Pure legal issue. If the president has this power to pardon, ultimately whether he broke the law or not is not up to the Justice Department, its up to congress. Is there a legal investigation to be done thats different from congresss investigation into the idea of dangling a pardon . I think there is, chuck. Its a hard legal question, but heres how i think it would play out. The constitution gives the president extraordinarily broad pardon powers. There is only one limitation which is in cases of impeachment. Lets say a president sold a pardon. Chuck todd is in trouble and coughs up 5 million we had a g tennessee that sold pardons a