Say that. And did he ask you to pledge loyalty and there would be nothing wrong if i did say it according to everybody that i read today but i did not say that. And did he ask for a pledge of loyalty from you. Thats another thing he said. No, he did not. He said those things under oath. Would you be willing to speak under oath to give your version of events. 100 . I didnt say under oath. I hardly know the man, i didnt say i want you to pledge allegiance. Who would do that . Who would ask someone to pledge allegice under oath . Who would do that. It makes no sense. No, i didnt say that, i didnt say the other. If Robert Mueller wanted to speak to you about that. I would be glad to tell him exactly what i just told you. Seem to be hinteding there are recordings of those conversations. Im not hinteding anything. Ill tell you over a very short period of time. When will you tell us about the recordings. Over a short period of time. Are there take place, sir . You are going to be very
disappointed when you hear the answer. Also today, the House Intelligence Committee moved forward on its investigation into all things russia related. The committees Top Republican and top democrat, congressman mike conaway and adam schiff of california announced they have sent out some letters. The first goes to james comey asking for any notes or memos he may have about his discussions with the president. Second letter to white House Counsel don mcgahn. That letter asks, are there recordings or memos of trumps conversations with james comey. If yes, the committee wants copies, as would the mueller investigation, and the senate Intelligence Committee investigation. Both comey and the white house in this case have until june 23rd to respond. Busier than average friday. Lets bring in our Starting Panel for tonight. Rick stengel is with us, former underseth for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs at the United States state department in the obama administration. Practically anything but they are still voting for him. Some people have 10 loyalty mean if they sneeze in the wrong direction, they are gone. With me, i think i can do almost anything and you are with me. I have the most loyal people, did you ever see that, where i could stand in the middle of fifth avenue and shoot somebody and i wouldnt lose any voters, okay . Shannon, do you think he has a thing about loyalty . I think there are few mynx more important to him as far as qualities in a person than loyalty. You see it in his entire career. Coming up through his fathers business. Having family surrounding him in his business. This idea of family you can trust. They are loyal to you before all others. You mentioned roy coh his lon time lawyer. He said one of the qualities he admired most in him was his loyalty. Yes, i think loyalty is valued above all else for this president into rick, because of what the president kind of set up today, because of that valentine he mailed to mueller,
we may have to take on this question of what makes a better witness. Youve been around james comey in public life. Weve all kind of been around the president. Back when he was just donald trump. Who makes the better witness . Well, i think thats pretty obvious. I mean the fact that he also take contemporaneous notes. I was in many meetings at the white house with jim comey. The thing about jim comey, that he does speak truth to power. Its very hard people dont understand how hard it is to disagree with a president of the United States or tell the president something that he doesnt want to hear. Jim comey was able to do that. I saw him do that many times. And he does with it the utmost take the bark off the tree honesty. Matt, this was, i hasten to remind everyone, infrastructure week and the head of Goldman Sachs lloyd blank fine is a very serious person by day. You know the argument is that Goldman Sachs supplied a lot of
those Big West Wing jobs. But he delved into comedy this evening when he said just landed from china, trying to catch up, how did infrastructure week go . There is that subplot about this paralyzed west wing. Matt, is it true . I think its absolutely true. I think their Coms Director Resigned or was forced out about a week ago and we see they can push a consistent message. Yes some of that is because of the outside circumstances beuse of the investigations. But some of it is just thr ow incompetenc incompetence. They cant stay on message. The president doesnt seem to have interest in staying on message. As you pointed out, oh, i cant answer that question. He loves to jump into the scrum. Infrastructure week became laugh line this week. No one was talking about it. Mike pence said it was a banner week for infrastructure. Nobody took that seriously. Shannon, you like the others here work for a serious organization. Whats your belief, whats your knowledge about what donald
trump, the president , president trump, wants to get done . Lets say between now and the July 4th Break for congress. Well i think he would like to get health care done, tax reform done, maybe get some money for wall in there. At this point, you know, everyone keeps talking about oh, they are creating distractions they are not talking about their agenda, they are not off message. At this point because they have a congress that they cant get to Work Together they dont have a great agenda. Health care is stalled in the senate. Et cetera a unclear they are going to come up with a bill that can pass the senate let alone the house. Tax reform is nowhere. They cant agree on that. Infrastructure if you want that, you have got to get money for that. You have fiscal conservatives in the congress who dont want to give you money and democrats who wont work for you. It would be great to be talking about message. They dont have a great agenda or message the talk about. Fine, Talk About Comey and russia, its better than talking about a Health Care Plan that kicks millions of people off of their insurance if you agree with the cbo report on it. Rick stingel, being an institutionalist has been fficult because of the deep state, the administrative state. I want to play something al franken said tonight about the institution of the presidency with this man in it. Look, i think he has devalued the presidency. I think that people go like, gee, anyone now could be president. Right now we have to take his word versus comeys word . Even his supporters said, well dont take him literally. Take him seriously. Right. This guy cant say anything with almost anything without lying. And that is a very sad state of affairs. Whether its hundreds of my friends died 9 11. We saw thousands of muslims
cheering. You know the whole litany. Right. And its sad. Just sad. Powerful message there at the end. Yes, he defined the presidency downward. I actually think Going Forward there will have to start to be new tests for the presidency. Can anyone just run for president . Do you have to take an exam the way a new citizen does . Do you have to have a Mental Health evaluation . I think now the standards are all thrown out the window. One of the things i would say to him is when you are a president you have to get over yourself. And he can seem to get over himself. Any moment in that job he is always answering as a personal grievance. And thats what hes responding to. President s cannot do that. And yet he is mired and bringing the whole office downward. Matt in your phone calls and travels, is ere a recognition a realization among all but say one guy in the west wing about how bad this is, agenda was . Look, there is an understanding this is not going well. I think there was a little bit of happy talk yesterday, but more like it could have been worse. Yes, it is could have been worse but it was a train wreck for them. You had the fbi director all but accusing the president of obstruction of justice. Now the president has come out today and accuses the former fbi director of lying under oath. None of this is advantages health care or taxes or any of that stuff. Its going to become hard and harder for republicans to stick with president trump. One more point on credible. Trump is saying that flynn conversation didnt happen. Almost no one else is saying that. Thats not going to work as coherent message if they are not even backing him up on what factually occurred. Shannon, coming off the point that it was infrastructure week was this week, what is the plan
finally. Hey ron theyre finally taking down that schwab billard. Oh, not so fast, carl. Oh no. Schwab,gain . Index investing for that low . Thats three times less than fidelity. And four times less than vanguard. Whats next, no minimums . No minimums. Schwab has lowered the cost of investing again. Introducing the lowest Cost Index Funds in the industry with no minimums. I bet theyre calling about the schwab news. Schwab. A modern approach to wealth management. State. Notes to a columbia Law Professor because he wasnt man enough to give the notes to give them directly to the media when he wanted them out to the media. The gop has got their villain in the russia investigation. It is the fired fbi director jim comey. Joining our conversation tonight charlie savage. Germane to this conversation, his piece tonight, trump calls comey a leaker. What does that mean. We are going to get to that in one seconds. And Peter Decidenberg is with us as well, former federal prosecutor and at the justice department, and deposit Special Counsel book in the Scooter Libby case during the bush 43 administration. Gentlemen welcome to you both. Charlie you saw the talking points. Theres a lot more where they came from. Interestingly, he is being called a leaker and his manhood is getting called out for the way he did it, through someone at columbia, putting a step between him and the material. Once and for all, doe this
reach the standard definition of leaking from your article tonight . And does he face any legal exposure . Well, there is different kinds of leaks. A leak would be a surreptitious dissemination of information to the public without authorization. But that most of the time that is not illegal. In this case, that is not illegal. There is an attempt in this attempt to smear mr. Comey, to conflate his dissemination of his recollections of his conversations with trump with illegal leaks, custom is a very narrow band of information that the law says cannot be disclosed without becoming a felony. That has to do with National Security secrets that could hurt the country, essentially, classified information, although its not perfectly overlapping with that phrase. This was not classified. This was not National Defense information. It was not illegal. And the conflation of that is just nonsense and misleading. Peter, i want to read you a quote from the new york times. Its an opinion on the comey testimony. It says, comey set up so many Perjury Traps for them said a veteran Democratic Operatedive who serve as mrs. Clintons Communications Director during the 2016 campaign. How so . Can you explain that . Well, if donald trump were to try and refute the comey statement by going under oath i think that, at least from my perspective, it would a lot of chance of catching him in a committing perjury. And charlie, if you are Robert Mueller, if you are watching that News Conference in the rose garden today, is there any mechanism where you can do you rush this thing . Do you hurry up and get that invitation over to the white house saying id like to take you up on your offer . And you were so forceful in agreeing 100 to come talk to us, perhaps we can interview you the first of several times, you dont mind if we call you back with more questions . I think you are putting your finger on the tricky issue that bob mueller the Special Counsel leading this Russia Plus Obstruction probably investigation is going to have to weigh. You dont get a lot of shots at the president when you are in that position. You are lucky to get one and to get him under oath if the president follows through on what he said. But trump may have just said some words off the cuff that he didnt really mean once his lawyers get to him and explain to him that that might not be such a good idea. I would imagine that mueller thinks he is only going to get one shot at that. And he probably wants the know everything he can learn from everybody else before he goes into the oval office and sits down with the president to bounce what he thinks he knows off of the president s recollections. And peter, do you think if the president had run that by
his defense lawyer, any lawyer would have advised him in a public forum to go out and freely offer his sworn testimony under oath to the Special Counsel looking into his affairs and administration . No, im sure his attorney was cringing to ar him say that. I have to agree with charlie on this, though. I dont imagine that bob mueller is going to take up the president on his offer at this time. I think he will in due course. But like charlie was saying, he is going to have one shot at this and he is not going to be asking him exclusively about those conversations with jim comey. Thats one aspect this case. He is going to want to ask him about everything. He wants to do that at the ends of his investigation, not at the outset, which is where we are at right now. Peter, what are your
questions after this week . We have learned a lot in the public forum. What questions do you think they have gotten to right now in the investigation . Well, i would be very interested in getting a statement under oath from the dni, coats, and Admiral Rogers. They were the ones who were ducking the questions by the Senate Committee earlier in the week. And their responses to those questions, getting their answers on the record about whether the president asked them to intercede with comey regarding flynn is really important. Because right now the way some are spinning it, this is a he said he said type dispute between comey and trump. I dont really see it that way. With comey, you have one, you have contemporaneous notes. And also, lets say tha coats and Admiral Rogers basically
corroborate what jim comey has to say. Well at that point it isnt really one persons testimony against another. Its one persons testimony against the other, buttressed by a lot of corroborating evidence. At that point it is a very plausible case i think for mueller to make another Obstruction Case if trump were to say that for instance in the grand jury. Gentlemen, we thank you for joining us on a friday night after a long week. We commend you, charlie savage, on your piece in times on a very timely topic now that comey has been labeled a leaker with a certain percentage of the population. Thank you both so much. When we come back, why some words from the president at the lectern today sounded so familiar to so many who have covered him. Think again. This is the new new york. We are building new airports all across the state. New roads and bridges. New mass transit. New business friendly environment. New lower taxes. And new University Partnerships to grow the businesses of tomorrow today. Learn more at esd. Ny. Gov a trip back to the dathe doctors office, just for a shot. But why go back there, when you can stay home. With Neulasta Onpro . Strong chemo can put you at risk of serious infection, which could lead to hospitalizations. In a key study, neulasta reduced the risk of infection from 17 to 1 . A 94 decrease. Applied the day of chemo, Neulasta Onpro is designed to deliver neulasta the next day, so you can stay home. Neulasta is for certain Cancer Patients receiving strong chemotherapy. Do not take neulasta if youre allergic to neulasta or Neupogen Filgrastim . Ruptured spleen,
sometimes fatal as well as serious lung problems, allergic reactions, kidney injuries, and Capillary Leak Syndrome have occurred. Report abdominal or shoulder tip pain, Trouble Breathing or allergic reactions to your doctor right away. In patients with sickle cell disorders, serious, sometimes fatal crises can occur. The most common side effect is bone and muscle ache. So why go back there . If youd rather be home, ask your doctor about Neulasta Onpro. Let us be lovers, well marry our fortunes together ive Go Rt Someeal tate here in my bag so i looked at the scenery. She read her magazine. The allnew volkswagen atlas. Covered from coast to coast with americas best bumpertobumper limited warranty. Of romania. It is something he has done repeatedly since election night. Sometimes when asked by reporters about completely different topics. And sometimes in completely unexpected places. We had a massive landslide victory, as you know in the Electoral College. We were unbelievably successful in the election with getting the vote of the military, and probably almost everybody in this room voted for me. We are you know, very honored by the victory that we had, 306 Electoral College votes. We were not supposed to crack 220. You know that, right . I like the state of south car