The control o special Counsel Robert Mueller. The Associated Press is reporting mueller, quote, has taken over a separate criminal probe involving former Trump Campaign manager Paul Manafort and may expand his inquiry to investigate the roles of the attorney general and Deputy Attorney general in the firing of fbi director james comey. And nbc news justice correspondent Pete Williams has more on mueller adding hes quote already closely managing the investigation, receiving daily briefings, and weighing in on investigative tactics. Meanwhile, in russia, today president Vladimir Putin offered a new explanation when faced with questions about his countrys meddling in our countrys election. While all of our intelligence agencies have found russia took part in our electoral process putins equivocation is not all that far from Donald Trumps. In effect, hes saying a lot of people could have done it. Putins comments came during a forum and a one on one interview in st. Petersburg with our own megyn kelly. There is no specific evidence, no facts. Just assumptions, allegations, and conclusions based on the allegations. Nothing more. What the experts say is that this couldnt have been faked. That its not one factor that its 100 factors that pope to russia. The forensics, the digital id, the encryption keys, the specific piece of code that all them all of them ints point to russia and none of them point to anyone other than russia. What finger prints or hoove prints or horn prts . What are they talking about. Your girl that is 3yearold can perpetrate such an attack. You had said for months that russia had nothing to do with the interference of the american election. And then this week you floated the idea of patriotic hackers doing it. Why the change . Translator well, i hadnt said anything. Its just that french journalist asked me about those hackers. I told him the same thing i can tell. Hackers can be anywhere. They can be in russia. In asia. Even in america. Latin america. They can be by the way in the United States. Very skillfully and professionally shifted the blame, as we say, onto russia. Can you imagine Something Like that . In the midst of a political battle . By some calculations it was convenient for them to release this information so, so they released it, citing russia. Can you imagine Something Like that . I can. Hackers in Laltin America could be out to frame russia. The complete interview with Vladimir Putin will air sunday night on the broadcast with the same name on nbc. Lets bring in our srting panel. Intelligence and National Security rter end kennedy lanian is with us. White house reporter for politico matt news balm is with us in new york. And washington clmist in for the boston globe, and this is germa germane, a proud daughter of pittsburgh, pennsylvania. Well got moore on pittsburgh later on. Welcome to you all. Ken, im going to begin with you on the importance this Associated Press reporting. It mentioned the attorney general sessions, the deputy a. G. Rosenstein. But more importantly, it mentions that mutualer is now, i guess, taking over the manafort investigation. Does that become overarching . Does he does he have the ability to say share with me what you have learned. You can shut your effort down, ive got it from here . Brian, with all due respect to my former colleagues at the Associated Press where i worked as the intelligence writer not too long ago im puzzled by this story because we at the msnbc nbc news Investigative Unit have been reporting for some time that the Paul Manafort case and the Michael Flynn case are a part of the whole russia investigation even though they dont seem on the surface to be directly related to russia collusion. It seemed only natural to us that mueller would be taking both of those things over. There may be a tech knick callity that he had to assume. The bottom line is mueller is overseeing a sprawling fbi investigation that includes criminal as sfekts and kousht intelligence aspects. As Pete Williams reported today he is taking a active role in managing it. Pete has been trying for days to get muellers people to explain how he is going to approach the investigation. He could be a caretaker, chairman of the board delegating a lot of the decisions. It turns out he is getting daily briefings, he is involved in the details of the investigative tactics. He may sit in on witness enters. He is running it like a District Attorney would run in the Southern District of new york, which i find fascinating. Tell me about the manafort investigation. Perhaps people are being thrown off because a prong of it is being run out of the commonwealth of virginia, correct . Im not im not completely sure about that. But i but there are aspects of these investigations that are in multiple districts across the country is our understanding. And we had been led to believe that it was they all fell under the umbrella of the investigation that has now fallen into muellers lap. All right. Ken. Thank you. Matt, is there any way of gauging if the white house is more worried today than they were yesterday, more worried this week than last . This is kinds the nightmare scenario about special counsel is that these investigations tend to ma tas at that size and grow. An investigation like this, its so broad to begin with. Hes already looking at flynn, at manafort, at these different figures. And now we are hearing about sessionsnd rosenstein. And theres really no apparent limit to what mr. Mutualer and his team can look into. Thats whats so scary for republicans in the white house, for republicans on capitol hill is they dont know what direction this is going to go in. The longer it goes on, the more people it touches the deeper this thing goes and the harder it is for them to talk about and certainly do anything else. And a big shoe drops next week unless there is some interruption in what we think is coming, thats the comey testimony on thursday . Exactly right. Thats sort of the big thing that all of washington, all of america is waiting for. James comey as weve seen before knows how to turn it on. He goes before the cameras and he can give bombshell testimony. We saw that when he discussed the famous incident during the Bush Administration when he rushed to the hospital to stop the attorney general from being forced to sign something. I think we are anticipating that kind of testimony this next week, something thats all the spotlights on him. And we discussed it doesnt look like President Trump is going to be able to block him from testifying. I know they said they are considering executive privilege. We deny know how that would work. We have two lawyers coming up for a whole segment to talk about that, talk about how that could be true or not. Indira, well get to pittsburgh. First i want to talk sanctions. Before that, i want to player mo of the megyn kelly interview. Lets listen to this and react on oer side. President putin, there are reports today in the American Press that the Trump Administration took active steps to ease sanctions on russia almost immediately after trump took office. Was this possibility ever discussed between the trump team and your representatives prior to President Trump being inaugurated. Translator thats just absurd what they are saying. I dont know where these people have come from that distribute this kind of information. What is an ambassador supposed to do . Thats what he gets money for. He has to hold meetings, have discussions about the current state of affairs. Seek agreement. What do you expect him to do . My answer is no, no agreements whatsoever we never ever get down to that, never had the time to start negotiations. Indira we could make out a couple of niets in there. Whats your reaction . Even from what Michael Flynn said, each before he was removed from his position as National Security adviser after what, three and a half short weeks it was, he essentially acknowledged that he had spoken to sergey kislyak, the Russian Ambassador to washington, about the possibility of lifting sanctions. You know, his words were different but it was along the lines of we will take care of that. Dont worry. You know, once we ar in office, we will smooth over and take care of these issues. What he was referring to of course was that that day the Obama Administration, the day when they had these many phone calls together when obama was still president , the Obama Administration was on that very day imposing sanctions on russia for its involvement in meddling in the 2016 campaign. So the idea was we are going to let that go. We now discovered this week that the Trump Administration was talking about giving back to russia those two facilities that were taken away, the use of which was taken away because they were being used as spy facilities. The tentacles of this go so far. As you were saying with ken earlier, or maybe it was matthew, that when a special counsel starts his investigation you never know where its going to ends up. Just has happened under the bill clinton administration, it all started with an investigation of whitewater, and it ended up with Monica Lewinsky and the impeachment. No one could have possibly foreseen that it would have gone that way. I just between say that the tentacles of this russia thing go all over washington to capitol hill. Just today, you know, we have news that devin nunes, who has been making such a huge deal as the republican chairman the House Intel Committee about unmasking, and parroting the Trump Administration view that no the real problem here is not russian interference, the real problem is unmasking by Obama Administration officials of American People who were on sbrel tapes. Now it turns out his own committee were requesting unof course maing of people caught in conversations. It gets curiouser and curiouser as they say in alice in wonderland. The president was outraged on twitter on that same subject. Kennedy lany, i want you to react to the next clip i want to play here. This is one of our colleagues really showing how its done today, pursuing a russian banker, a bank pretty much run by the russian government, keer simmons. Granted the brits have an advantage because they automatically sound more polite. Such was not the case today as he pursued the banker and tried to get an answer in st. Peertsdsburg. You are the subject of intense scrutiny in america bought of your meeting with Donald Trumps soninlaw, Jared Kushner. No comments about it. Conversation about bloch complain. Know, but there is confusion over what contactually happened. Slow down. Were you talking about business or were you talking about politics. Oh, it goes on from there into the hallway. Ken, reaquapt our viewers with t reacquaint us with the importance of that gentleman. That was a master class in journalism. Im glad he did that. That man, mr. Gorkov is a putin crony its been explained to us who pruns a russian Stateowned Bank that is under sanctions. That man had a mting with Jared Kushner, the president s soninlaw in december. We are sti trying to understand what the meeting was about about. The white house has one story, Jared Kushner was acting in his role as a diplomatic official. And another story is that it was a business meeting. This bank is under sanctions. Americans are forbidden to do business with banks under sanctions. That was an attempt to get an answer to what that meeting was about. Although unsuccessfully. Can he read from those contemporaneous notes, former fbi director comey . No one doubts those are an accurate of what happens this the day of his life. Uhhuh. I think it will be hard for President Trump to stop james comey. Its not like he is trying to stop the release of certain documents, not trying to stop a current federal employee from speaking about these things. He fired comey. He is a private citizen. As legal experts weighed in on this, its hard to she how he stops comey, especially when we know from the people around comey he wants to get out there, wants to give his side of the story. As the memos show, he is ready for this. Indira, i promised you a word of defense from your hometown, a grt american city, pittsburgh pennsylvania, which faced really an existential threat to its economy and a downturn. They did what pittsburghers do and they gutted it out. How did it feel to have pittsburgh name checked twice alongside paris. I was shocked when i heard the president say he was elected to represent the people of pittsburgh not paris and using pittsburgh as an excuse for pulling out of climate stalks did and the climate accord. The reason this is so shock is pittsburgh has completely turned around and reinvented its economy since the 1980s when it had stunning job losses from the collapse of the Steel Industry because of foreign competition. Today, pittsburgh stands as a hightech, a medicine, a knowledge economy, a city where it has 45,000 more jobs today than it had at the height of the Steel Industry, a place that has 7 higher per capita income than the national average. And so Donald Trumps idea of some imaginary halcion past where everyone was whistling on their way to work to these fabulous steel jobs thats just a fantasy. For example, coal jobs which donald trump is completely fixated on. There are 51,000 coal mining jobs total left in all of america. That is fewer jobs than at whole foods and you dont see donald trump demanding more jobs in the arugula aisle. You know, this is really about politics and just you know what he thinks sounds good. Paris and pittsburgh, they rhyme aliteration, whatever, but its not real. United Steelworkers Union president actually came out last night and slammed donald trump for that statement. He said we the steelworkers now work in green energy. We want to be in the climate deal. And the mayor of pittsburgh came out and said we actually didnt elect you, donald trump, 80 of pittsburgh voted for hillary clinton. I think they need to rework that slogan. But amazingly enough politico reported that he is planning to have a pittsburgh not paris rally in Lafayette Square across from the white house. So he seems not to have got ten memo. No oneidheiresearch on the true story of pittsburgh which is a rust belt reinvepgs into a green energy economy. Hes not telling the real story of pittsburgh. I had reason to believe you might have something to say on the topic. Well said. And thank you as we thank our starting grid tonight. Kennedy lany, matt news balm, and an deara much balman. Next, this topic of executive privilege. When the 11th hour continues. Thanks for the ride around norfolk and i just wanted to say, geico is proud to have served the military for over 75 years roger that. Captains waiting to give you a tour of the wisconsin now. Couldve parked a little bit closer. Its gonna be dark by the time i get there. Geico®. Proudly serving the military for over 75 years. Working on my feet all day gave me pain here. In my knees. So i stepped on this machine and got my number, which matched my dr. Scholls custom fit orthotic inserts. So i get immediate relief from my foot pain. My knee pain. Find a machine at drscholls. Com. Are made with smarttrack®igners material to precisely move your teeth to your best smile. See how invisalign® treatmentrs can shape your smile up to 50 faster todayr teat invisalign. Comsmile. Hour. As we mentioned, the New York Times has posted this, trump appears unlikely to hinder comeys testimony. To talk about all this, we have two attorneys of counsel for us tonight. Joe wine banks is back with us, one of the special prosecutors during the watergate scandal. Former general counsel to the United States army. And vie yawn wise is with us who helped turn over the decision of tom delay as well as other courtroom achievements. Tom, i want to start with you. Can you give us the briefest explanation for folks who havent heard the term since the watergate era, perhaps, or are new to it of executive privilege. And is it that everyone is saying President Trump has lessened his own possible executive privilege claim because of what he has said and tweeted about comey . First of all, you should never ask a lawyer for a brief answer. I know. I will try. I could hear as it came out of my mouth i knew that was wrong. First, what executive privilege is. It is a legitimate privilege that a president has to protect political conversations, policy discussions with his top aides. He wants to get honest and open advice, so he needs to protect that. It does not and i stress, does n include any conversations about committing crimes. So that if weve learned anything from history, and of course you have to know history to learn from it, you cannot protect a conversation that is an obstruction of justice. Thats what the court said in watergate. That would apply here, too. So when the president , in addition to the fact that the allegation is that this is a