Morning tv. The 11th hour on a busy friday night gets underway. Good evening once again. From our nbc news headquarters in new york, day 421 of the Trump Administration and we actually have two lead stories as we begin here on a friday night. The attorney general, Jeff Sessions, has just fired the former deputy fbi director, Andrew Mccabe a little more than 24 hours before mccabe was set to retire after over two decades as a federal employee. President trump was highly critical of mccabe, attacked him publicly a number of times and always the Washington Post points out, mccabe has become a lightning rod. It was about misleading investigators about conversations he had with the media about an investigation into the clinton foundation. Additionally tonight we have a Major Development on the Stormy Daniels front as the president s lawyers have come out with an allout attack looking for 20 million from the porn star, a first for a sitting president. But first, the dismissal tonight of Andrew Mccabe. It is very clear tonight he is not taking this dismissal lightly, nor is he going quietly. In a statement he says here in part, for the last year and a half my family and i have been the targets of a unrelenting assault on our reputation and my service to this country. Articles too numerous to count have leveled every sort of false, defamatory and degrading allegation against us. The president s tweets have amplified and exacerbated it all. He called for my firing and striped of my pension after 25 years of service. And all along we said nothing, never wanting to distract from the mission of the fbi by addressing the lies told. No more, heres the reality. Im being singled out and treated this way because of the role i played, the actions i took, and the events i witnessed in the aftermath of the firing of james comey. With that lets bring in jeff bennett, nbc News White House correspondent, danny zavalas, a legal analyst. Former attorney general joyce vance. 25 years as a federal prosecutor. Jeremy bass, former counsel to house intel. And importantly with us by phone, New York Times reporter matt apuzo. He spoke to mccabe. Matt, its your byline on the story breaking the news. You have spoken to the acting director of the fbi. Did we characterize it correctly that he does not plan to go quietly or softly . Well, obviously hes youre seeing hes unequivocal and blunt. Hes saying hes being fired as part of a career assassination in effort by the Trump Administration to under mine his credibility because and this is important because he is a potential witness in the special counsels investigation into whether the president obstructed justice. That is a bold allegation. Hes saying that this is part of the president s war on the fbi, war on the special counsel. And, you know, obviously we havent seen the Inspector Generals report that we are told accuses mccabe of showing a lack of candor and that is a kiss of death at the fbi. Lack of candor and official interview, theres really no coming back from this. This is all playing out under an extremely political backdrop, and Andrew Mccabe is upset obviously, and he is saying this was a political decision. Matt, lets balance this out. What were the forces internal who had concurred with this firing . What are the mechanisms, career people, not trump appointees who looked at all the evidence and came to the conclusion that he should go prior to his retirement date . Absolutely. There was an Inspector General report again which has not been made public that was done by a holdover from the obama era that faulted him for a lack of candor. And that was taken by career people in the fbis office of professional responsibility, thats the disciplinary office, those are career people. The recommendation was termination. Under the rules he can appeal that to the attorney general, which we did. This played out i will say this played out unusually fast. The disciplinary process is not known for great speed at the Justice Department. One of the things that im quite interesting in is why did this happen so fast. And mccabes lawyer said they were only given days to respond to this. It does appear that the Justice Department wanted to get this done quickly and im not exactly sure why. And so that while career people definitely were involved and they did the recommendation and that appears to have all been above board, the speed of it is certainly interesting. Matt, please remind us has he yet been called in to talk to Robert Mueller . Of course, their careers intersected at least once in life. Yeah, we dont know if hes been in to formally testify but as an fbi agent and someone involved in the russia investigation before it was the Mueller Investigation, any notes that we had, anything that he wrote down, anything that would have corroborated fbi director comeys allegations that would would have belonged to the fbi and mueller would have had access to that. Whether hes interviewed andy yet, i dont know, we do know he has access to all of the work product. Matt, without going near editorialization, which i know is not a danger for you, what else as we try to let you enjoy whats left of a friday night in your life after having written this piece for the New York Times, what else in your experience should we know about Andrew Mccabe . Ive known andy for a long time, he was a rising star of the bureau. It was very clear that he was being groomed for big things. Hes a lawyer, hes a duke undergrad graduate. Was very well respected at the Justice Department and elsewhere in the intelligence agency. He had his he had his friend and he had his detractors among the line agents in particular because he did rise so quickly, and because he has that law degree. But he was also seen as a real maybe a new model for that number two position. Not a sort of traditional line agent personality, somebody who is maybe a little bit more intellectual managerial than somebody whose lock them up, cops and robbers kind of guy. Yeah, i heard him once described as a gman but circa 2018, a modernized version. Do you concur with that . Yeah, i think thats right. The fbi is not the fbi of pre9 11. Theyre not going after bank robbers. This is a key, complicated agency that is a big part of the intelligence infrastructure of the United States. And as the Deputy Attorney general he was in the front and center at the heart of that. Tonight is why we always tell folks to look for your byline. Matt apuzzo, who can at the cresting wave of this. If not a friday night massacre, certainly a friday night takedown in washington. Matt, thank you so much for making time for us. Thanks, brian. Lets go to our panel. Joyce vance, joyce, tell folks perhaps how they should feel about this news. I think matt makes a key assessment, which is the speed of this process is very troubling. Ive watched this process happen before when people have been disciplined and its never a process that moves at lightning speed. You never have someone interviewed by the Decision Maker and then have a decision the next day. So, we know that we have a president whos called repeatedly on twitter for mccabes firing. Earlier in this week in the White House Press briefing, Sarah Huckabee sanders was also characterizing mccabe as a bad guy. On the other hand we have career people in the department, folks like michael horwitz, who although hes a political appointy, hes worked for both administrations, a straightforward kind of guy and the folks in the office of professional responsibility, people in the Deputy AttorneyGenerals Office who really look at these issues with the long view, consistency in the department across a long period of time. But what we have is a conflict of that professional process with this very political context. And theres no reason that the attorney general had to fire andy mccabe tonight on a friday night at 10 00 at night. In fact, you know, this whole idea that this firing was done this late on a friday night makes it look very rushed, very politicized. It might have been wiser for the attorney general simply to let the time clock run out to avoid making the Justice Department look like a place where the president can go to condemn his political opponents. Its a deeply troubling development. Jeremy bash, if you need more proof were in differing times, the story after we conclude this is a sitting president whose lawyers are trying to get 20 million out a of a porn star. Well put that out as the background. Before i show you this on the screen, think about the krmgtime that the mccade family had around their tree in their house, because on december 23rd, the president of the United States took to twitter to say this about andy mccabe. How could mccabe the man in charge of the leak b james comey of the phony Hillary Clinton investigation including her 33,000 illegally deleted emails be given 700,000 for wifes campaign by clinton puppets during investigation. Lets go to the next one. Andy mccabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits 90 days to go. Question mark three exclamation points. Jeremy bass, out in america, if a defendant gets a bad dose of publicity, a talented lawyer will try it in a nearby community. You cant go anywhere in this country with a president who has openly attacked a Civil Servant on twitter. Thats right, brian. And for you to believe that andy mccabes firing was on the level, you have to believe it was entirely coincidental that he was fired by attorney general Jeff Sessions 24 hours before he was able to retire after a career of distinction with honor and it is entirely coincidental that the two things are happening at the same time. Nobody in america believes that. It is clear as day that the president of the United States directed the attorney general either implicitly or explicitly to fire andy mccabe to undermine him as a witness in any upcoming proceeding in which mccabe can corroborate the testimony that the president obstructs justice. Danny, of course, its mccabe and not trump who knows and has worked with comey and its mccabe and not trump who has worked with mueller who also knows the quality of his work product. If youre mueller and the 16 or so cocounsels on muellers team, how are you looking at this tonight . There are a lot of implications from a firing like this. In every situation like this you have to think about obstruction of justice, just off the bat. To what degree could you make a case that the president by firing people, by removing anybody as he perceives as adversarily how about trolling them publicly on twitter . Patrolling them publicly, which also could infringe on their free speech. Anything. And if nothing else, exceedingly quickly in a situation like this because we know these investigations move slowly. There may have been a good cause to terminate mccabe but the speed at which its done alone raises the specter of doubt. Ultimately obstruction, even if its not a criminal action, is always an impeachable offense. And you do not need an impeachable owe against to be a crime at all and these are things that special counsel is going to look at, especially with the shadow of obstruction hanging over this. Jeff bennett, lets show our homework since you and i work for the same news organization. We have a broadcast done and dusted and it was in and our lead story was the legal case pending the president s lawyer against the porn star to the tune of 20 million. I had written something to say at the top of the evening like, we have made it through a friday night with no further personnel changes and, jeff, here we are, sir. And here we are. Ill tell you based on our conversations in the white house booth with white house officials they couldnt even tell us for sure if anyone would be fired by the end of the day or who that person might be. But ill tell you, i was particularly struck by something in andy mccabes statement where he mentioned the unrelenting assault that he was subjected to at the hands of the president. You mentioned the tweet the president sent back in december where he said times running out for mccabe to leave with full benefits. Joyce mentioned the fact that Sarah Sanders referred to mccabe as a bad actor during a press briefing without any evidence and as we reported earlier, the president directly in private asked mccabe who he voted for in the 2016 election. In a separate instance, the day aftered the president fired comey, he asked why comey was allowed to fly back to los angeles on a d. C. Plane. When the president wasnt satisfied with mccabes answer, he said ask your wife what it feels like to be a loser. She ran as a democrat and got during the process of that some Campaign Contributions from then Virginia GovernorTerry Mccullough who is a friend of the clintons and the president often points to that as a fact suggesting that the fbi or mccabe is somehow biased in his role although the facts dont support the president s theory in that mccabe has often described himself to friends as a lifelong republican. Joyce, same questions i asked danny. You know something about the dynamic in a building commandeered by mueller and his c cocounsel and his team and how everyone signs in and out. They have been free of any leaks, watching this unfold on a friday night, reading this statement from the very proper mccabe, what are you thinking if youre the special counsel . To go about it in a very deliberate way, theyll look at the Inspector Generals report. We havent seen that yet so we dont know whats in it. We dont know how different that is from andy mccabes version but theyll get that and theyll know and then theyll look at what andy mccabe says, his justification for his conduct and i suspect that theyll make a sort of baseline decision as to whether they think the firing was warranted. But its important for so many people not to have noted that even if the firing was not justified, its this political context that will force the special counsel to contemplate whether this is more evidence of obstruction. Mccabe was the person that jim comey came back to and shared his impression and initial meetings with the president , with mccabe. Mccabe will be a key witness in support of comey as the Mueller Investigation moves forward and if the president s drumbeat, the insistent twitter and just this constant press barrage against mccabe is seen by special counsel as an effort at the white house to marginalize a witnesses, to describe a witness credibility this again will be another act of this obstruction that we watched play out over the past few months. Jeremy, the last thing i knew the attorney general had recused himself, something that was actually applauded in the league community, had recused himself to the president driven to distraction from that decision for all things leading to russia. This against mccabe not only bumps up against this but is there anything big enough to supersede a recusal even if youre the boss . This is entirely in the discretion of the attorney general. I dont think there is. I think the career was recounted open with the fact that he began his career investigating russian organized crime and russian activities inside the United States so almost dangling a hint this was very much connected to the russian matter, the attorney general should not have ruled on this matter or not on the fashion he ruled tonight. Again, i think its just you have to believe in coincidences. Brian, there used to be a show on tv that you and i watched called thats incredible. You have to call that show thats incredible and believe that it has nothing to do with the events of the russian investigation. You were nodding your head as he spoke. Absolutely. I have a theory that statement was drafted weeks ago because it was very well written to begin with. Secondly, there are references, very direct references to russia and other things that are relevant today, even though they are how mccabe started out his career. I think those were not accident listing as his accomplishments and as his career russia and other things that were talking about now. Everything that we cover on this broadcast night in and out has to be considered against a backdrop of politics and against a backdrop of the contemporary history we are making and witnessing. There is one guy we wanted to talk to tonight since this word broke and thats bill kristol, an editor of the weekly standard. Bill, how do you feel about your country and this administration about this news tonight . Say nothing of the story we have yet to get to. Hi, brian, not great. This has been a very good discussion i think. Lets assume sessions hadnt gone ahead and fired mccabe, despite a report that he lacked kang dhoore and the recommendation he should have been fired. I believe trump would have fired session and said look at this, the career people of the fbi and doj says mccabe should be fired i was right all along. Totally captured by the building, by the deep state. Im going to make pruitt or someone like that attorney general and then he fires mueller. I really wonder whether sessions felt and im not in the business of making excuses for sessions, i have a lot of issues with what hes done before, but it is at least possible to me that sessions felt he was doing what he had to do to prevent himself from being fired and mueller from being fired that he felt with the career officials recommending the firing. It may be unfair and unjust to mccabe, this will be litigated and maybe literally litigated and argued out in the next couple of weeks. Well see in the report. I dont think its