Includes michael flynn, paul manafort, and carter page. All of whom under scrutiny. Muellers team is also scrutinizing kushners december meetings with two prominent russians, ambassador sergei kislyak, and a prominent and putinconnected russian banker gore could have been. The president up and at it early this morning on twitter this morning. 6 55 a. M. , quote, they made up a phony collusion with the russian story. Found zero proof, now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story. Nice. 62 minutes later, you are witnessing the single greatest witchhunt in american political history led by some very bad and conflicted people. Make America Great again. This afternoon, two more that reach backed to campaign and the clintons. They came before a story in politico headlined white house aides upset over feds russia probe obsession. President has sometimes injected im not under investigation into conversations with associates and allies. He has watch hours of tv coverage every day, sometimes even storing morning news shows on his tivo to watch in a the evening and complain nonstochl it is a basically all he talks about on the phone said one adviser. About those reports earlier this week that the president was considering firing Robert Mueller. Quote, he is totally in a box now, one friend said. And it might make him want to fire mueller more. While we have have more on this later couldnt was the big kong baseball game in wsh. With Steve Scalise remaining in Critical Condition there was much talk about lowering the rhetoric, bipartisan shp then this email from the trump pence team, they have sparked protests in the streets and used the media to spew vicious rhetoric against the president. It goes on to borrow a phrase from nixon asserting that trumps followers are the silent majority. We also have breaking news tonight. Lets first bring in tonights starting panel. News and finance writer at yahoo news, briana goal riga. And vivian salaamo. Welcome to you all. And i hold in my hand the breaking news. This is a press release that came out in the last hour from the justice department. Social media, where Attention Spans go to die is, losing its collective head. They are standing on a ledge with this. This is the associate attorney general Rod Rosenstein, americans should exercise caution before accepting as true any stories attributed to anonymous officials particularly when they do not identify the country let alone the branch or agency of government with which the alleged sources are supposedly affiliated. Americans should be skeptical about anonymous allegations. The department of justice has a longestablished policy to neither confirm nor deny such allegations. Michael, you are going to get the first crack at this. Again, the theorizing tonight on social media ranged from is this a cry for help by the number two guy at justice, or has doj been hacked . Well, its an extraordinary statement, brian, its kind of trumpian in its tone, which is not what ultimate expect from high levels of the justice department. Very political. Very combative. Doesnt have that sort of lawyerly cool we associate with the justice department. And i would say in substance, brian, you know, this is a recurring theme that these stories that have anonymous or sources should be treated skeptically. But the record of these stories has been very, very good. Americans should turn a skeptical eye to all the information they receive. But the Washington Post is a highly professional, credible news outlet. I just think this is kind of a weak attack to say that a story that is based on Anonymous Sources or background quotes is inherently not trustworthy, likely to be wrong. The track record does not bear that out. Time and time again the work of these papers that are breaking these big stories has been substantiated and is extremely credible. So i think its a very odd statement on multiple levels. Michael, you are right. And to underscore that, we have had your colleagues on from publications like the times, the post, in stories where they have quoted 20 to 30 source, sourcing by the dozen the likes of which we had never seen. Obviously people should be cautious with Anonymous Sources. Vivian, you cover this crowd. And michael went there. It sounded to a lot of people, the statement did, like it was somehow dictated. I mean there is no real way to tell if it was dictated or to the. But there has definitely been a major pushback by the administration, Rod Rosenstein not being unique here in terms of trying to push back against any of these stories that are making allegations against the administration. You know, Anonymous Sources are never ideal. Its not something that we choose to practice. We do it to protect source. My know my colleagues do, this i know i do it where we take extreme caution and only use Anonymous Sources when we obviously have to. And obviously we have to also raise the case that the white house also uses Anonymous Sources. Sure. They choose to speak anonymously very often and there isr this is something we have to deal with as well where we have to quote white house first that dont want to go on record. They make an excellent point that Anonymous Sources should be scrutinized by the public that is true, but we use extreme caution and dont take out lightly. Beiana, it questions the country the stories are coming from. Beyond reports here in the u. S. , you start questioning countries. The only country that has been in question when it comes to spreading false news in the United States and all 17 intelligence agencies have said they believe russia spreads false information. Its ironic that this administration is sort of the last one standing has not come out and said the russians are behind the spreading of false information. Now to use country as a sort of backdrop as a warning from rosenstein does raise a few eyebrows to say the least. Michael, the wording and tone, especially of todays twitter performance by the president , there is a siege mentality. We are hearing that and seeing that even from some surrogates. The one of the talking points has been to call this a witchhunt. Some victimization. Some persecution. And thats thats becoming increasingly prevalent in the last couple of days. Yeah. You know, brian, i think if you are President Trump there are two kind of tracks that this is happening on. There is the legal track and then there is the political track. It may be that the strategy he and the who is are pursuing is effective in the sense of speaking to his base and feeling like hes got to hold that Republican Base together and make sure that members of congress kin to more or less defend him. They are not doing it with very much enthusiasm but basically republicans are on trumps side. And i think he recognizes that and is playing a political strategy of keeping the base together. Thats part of it. Its not always consistent with the smart legal track. And i think thats what is upsetting white house aides and laws who are trying to help trump out who feel like he is not paying attention to the legal track. He is ten points above about george bush was when he was at rock bottom in the gallup poll. He is in the high 30s, maybe 40. You get a picture of a guy who is completely consumed by this. We had a story in politico. It is a stark contrast. Bill clinton when he was going through impeachment did a good job keeping his cool and compartmentalizing and it looked like he was doing the business of the United States and it doesnt feel that way from this president right now. Vivian, i want to quote from the politico piece that says aides fear the tweets have chief strategist steve bannon has told others that he believes the fbi is now out to get the trump administration. Vivian, weve seen bannon come in and out of favor. That now, in Looking Glass effect blames what the president is sing, a threaweve had before, for the leaks. Thats right. Steve bannon has come in and out of favor, as you said, as have a number of other aides. It seems to be this whole palace intrigue that weve seen play out since this administration has come to office. But there is something really important that we have to observe here. That is that a couple of weeks ago President Trump gave his blessing into this russia investigation. He said i have nothing to hide. I have been told im not under investigation. And so i i welcome them to go ahead and see carry this investigation out, see whatever they fine. Then for him to backtrack and call it a witchhunt and really lash out whether or not he is hiding anything. Of course its too early in the investigation to know, it doesnt look good. It makes it seem like hes getting paranoid. You know, these very Early Morning tweets, you know, show that he is possibly alarmed and reacting in haste and emotionally reacting to what he is seeing. This is something thats going to be playing out for many, many months. Possibly for years to come it is a long and bulky investigation. For President Trump to have to kind of find his inner peace, inner accident and go with this if he really, truly believes that there is nothing to hide and that this investigation will vindicate him as he said numerous times. Beiana in an anonymously sourced piece last night we heard the first reference of money laundering. Then we have the investigation into kushners finances in the Washington Post. Kushners attorney has responded tonight, quote, we do not know what this report refers to. It would be Standard Practice for the special counsel to examine financial records to look for anything related to russia. Mr. Kushner previously volunteered to share with congress what he knows about russia related matters. He will do the same if he is contacted in connection with any other inquiry. This aspect, though, this tranche s where it gets very complex. This goes back to that questionable meeting between kushner and the ceo of the sanked bank along with the russian ambassador, why would kushner have met with these two men, why would he not disclose it. Explain why that would be a big deal . Because this is a sanctioned bank. He would have no legitimate reason for meeting with this banker, sanked by obama administration. Even more shocking is that he would have this meeting and not disclose it publicly. Then when asked about it, the russian bank and Jared Kushner had two different answers and two Different Reasons for having meeting. Kushner said it was about administrative decision possibly related to syria. The banker said no, this had to do with personal financialish would you say the Kushner Family and their business. Cant get a square answer out of the two of them. But of course the summation being why did we not know about this and and something about it just isnt kosher. And this is all happening while mueller hires experts in various fields, financial, legal, and so on. Which raises the question about this statement coming from Rod Rosenstein tonight. Why issue it tonight. Its coming on the backdrop of Rod Rosenstein being the one who can decide the fate of basketball mueller. He said listen, it falls on me as to whether he stays. One has to wonder how much if any pressure he is feeling from the administration right now and why out of all nights to issue the statement tonight. Thanks to our leadoff panel, thanks to, along with birthday wishes to beiana goal riga, Michael Crowley and vivian salmano. Thank you. Come up, the donald trump a nightmare client . Are his troubles of his own making . Is he making new troubles every day on twitter . As a defense lawyer, he is your nightmare client, because he is saying all the wrong things. He is contradicting every defense that he had. All of his tweets are terrible. His attack on mueller saying these are bad people. These are not helpful to the defense at all. That was a former watergate assistant prosecutor weighing in on just how tough it might be to represent this president in this investigation. We have two very capable lawyers with us here tonight in the studio to weigh in. Richard painter, who was the chief ethics lawyer for the bush 43 white house. And mika owe yang is back with us as well an attorney and former staffer on the house intel and House Armed Services committee. Counsellors, welcome to you. Richard, to jills point, is this the nightmare client . And in light the vp lawyering up, is this going to end up costing so many people some real money . Oh, yes. This administration is creating a lot of jobs in one industry for sure, thats criminal Defense Attorneys in washington, d. C. A lot of people are lawyering up. Theres this investigation is going to a lot of different areas. It started with russian interference in the election. And who was assisting the russians. But theres now clear evidence of obstruction of justice by the president and perhaps others in the administration. This is going to be a very serious investigation. The problem is the president cant put his twitter away. He cant keep his mouth shut with respect to the investigation. He is president of the United States. He should be focusing on health care, on jobs, on the International Crises around the world. Let it alone. Ifu he would let the whole russia investigation alone, he probably wouldnt be anywhere near as much trouble as hes in now. So its very unfortunate. Hes becoming obsessed with it. Now his soninlaw is wrapped up in it. The other thin is they wont be transparent about their finances. If the Trump Organization were to disclose where they are borrowing their money, the president were to disclose their tax returns, if we had more transparency there would be more confidence in this administration, but they wont do it. They are buckling down, they are not disclosing what they need to disclose and they are calling it a witchhunt. Its not a witch hunt. It is an attempt to find out who was assisting a foreign country in attacking the United States and our system of democracy. Mika our colleague are medical better said today on the air, mr. President , today begins the first day of the rest of your life because starting today, if these reports are to be believed, and his morning tweet was kind of a tacit confirmation, he is under federal investigation. Tell our audience what happens to your life no matter who you are when you come under the glare of a federal prosecutor. So when you are under a federal prosecutors glare like this what happens is everything that you do is unt scrutiny. They can get warrants to listen to your communications, they can look at all of your documents. Politically it makes it very difficult to get any of your agenda done because no one wants to work with you for fear of working with someone who is going to be under criminal investigation. It really makes his life very difficult. The wording of these tweets, not just tempting fate but already trying to criminalize robert mutualer. Mueller. Hess reputation for integrity and professionalism is unmatched on either side of the aisle. It is really a mistake to go at him this way. But its really all that the president has left because you cant argue the facts thim. Richard fisyou are mike pence what worries you enough to hire a personalawyer . How does this get splesh splashed up against him . Well its absolutely critical for to have a good personal lawyer, to talk with that lawyer about what he may have known about what was going on with respect to russia during the campaign. If he did know. We dont know what he knew at the time. But also to get good advice, to distance himself from the president with respect to the president s tweets, the president S Communications about this investigation. The president is making all of the wrong choices for someone who is under criminal investigation. And the Vice President needs to steer clear of that and make absolutely sure he focuses on the agenda, he focuses on getting bills through congress and on policy issues and stays away from the russia investigation. No comment should be his approach to this investigation. That should be the approach of the president. Yeah, deflect every time when asked. Mika, as i said loose night, deliberative is a word independent could of attached to Robert Mueller. Hes designate anified, hes taciturn. Hes earned his reputation over the years. Are you surprised that they are talking about bringing into muellers office, admiral rogers, dni coats as early as next week . Is that not faster than normal . I dont think so. This might not be the last time he talks to those individuals. But given their testimony before congress the other week its important he actually speaks with them and find out what they know and what the president said to them. Which they said they would cooperate with the special prosecutors office. How do you sit down if you try to get them to shut down parts of this. Your colleague and mine, micolle wallace speaks with great affection about how tough you were in the Bush White House and how many receipts she had to bring to you to prove every purchase and prove she hadnt accepted a cup of coffee from anyone. If you were appointed, the off chance that you were appointed ethics lawyer in house in this white house what would you want to get done. A better relationship with the office of government ethics. Im tired of hearing the white house badmouth the government of ethics. They work well with the Bush Administration as they did with the obama administration. And the white house needs to listen to experienced ethics lawyers about what the ethics laws required. I w