Friday night gets underway. Good evening once again. 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 a number of times. As the Washington Post reports mccabe has become a lightning rod. And political battles like the russia investigation. Mccabes firing was recommended by the fbi Disciplinary Office over 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 my reputation and my service to this country. Articles too numerous to count have led of any false defamatory and degrading allegation against us. The president s tweets has afternoon tied 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. 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 bennet, White House Correspondent. Danny zavala a legal attorney former attorney general joyce vance. Jeremy bass former counsel to house intel. And with us by phone, New York Times reporter matt appuzo. He spoke to mccabe. Matt its your by line 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 . Obviously hes youre seeing unequivocal and blunt. Hes saying hes being fired as part of a career assassination in effort by the Trump Administration to undermined 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 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 extremely political back drop. And Andrew Mccabe is upset obviously, and he is saying this is 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 which has not been made public that was done by a hold over from the obama era that faulted him for a lack of candor. And that was taken by career people in the fbis Office 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 thing im quite interesting in is why did this happen so fast. And mccabes lawyer says 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. 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 have he yet been called in to talk to Robert Mueller . Of course their careers intersected at least once in life. We dont know if hes been in to testify, but as someone involved in the russia investigation. Before it was Mueller Investigation, any notes that we had, anything that he wrote down, anything that would have corroborated comeys allegations that would have been longed to the fbi and mueller would have had access to that. Whether hes interviewed 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, 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 him 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. Very was 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 whose make a little bit more intellectual managerial than somebody whose lock them up, cops and robbers kind of guy. I heard him once described as a gman but circuit 2018, a modernized version. Do you concur with that . Yes, this is not the fbi of pre9 11. This is a complicated agency that is a big part of the intelligence infrastructure of the United States. As the Deputy Attorney general, he was in the front and center of the heart of that. Tonight is why we always tell folks to look for your by line. Matt apuzzo who is at the crust of news. If not a friday night massacre, certainly a friday night take down in washington. Matt, thank you for making times for us. Thanks, brian. Lets go to 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 before wen 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 whose called repeatedly on twitter for mccabes firing. Earlier in this week in the White House Press briefing, Sarah Huckabeesanders was characterizing mccabe as a bad guy. On the other hand we have career people in the department, folks like michael horwitz, 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. What we have is a conflict of that professional process with this very political context. Theres no reason that the attorney general had to fire andy mccabe tonight on a friday night at 10 00 at night. In fact, 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 barber if you need more proof were in differing time, the story after we conclude this is a sitting president s lawyer is trying to get 20 million out of a porn star. Well put that out as the background. Before i show you this on the screen, think about the the christmastime that the mccabe family had around their tree and in their house, because on december 23rd, the president of the United States took to twitter to say this about andrew mccake. How could and rue mccabe and leaky man or the fake Hillary Clinton investigation be given 700,000 for his wifes campaign by clinton puppets during the investigation. Just for clay clarity it was a Terry McauliffePolitical Action committee. Next frame which says, fbi Deputy DirectorAndrew Mccabe is racing the clock to retire with full benefits. 90 days to go . Three exclamation points. Jeremy bass out if america, if a defendant gets a bad dose of publicity a talented lawyer will move for a change of venue, get it out of there and then try it in a nearby community. You cant go anywhere in this country with a president who has openly attacking a Civil Servant on twitter. Thats right, brian. And for you to believe that andy mccabes firing is on the level, you have to believe it was entirely coincidental that he was fired by 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 thing are happening at the time. And then of course, nobody in america believes that. It is clear as day that the president of the United States directed the attorney general to fire andy mccabe to undermined him as a witness in any upcoming proceeding in which mccabe can corroborate James Comey Testimony that the president of the United States obstructed justice. It is mccabe and not trump who knows and worked with comey and mccabe who has worked with mueller who also knows the quality of his work product. If you are mueller, and the 16 or 10 cocounsel on muellers team, how are you looking at this tonight . There are a lot of implications. 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 or removing anybody as he perceives as add adverse airily how about trolling them publicly on twitter . Patrolling them publicly, which also could infringe on their free speech. Anything. If nothing else, exceedingly quickly end a situation like this because we know that investigations generally move slowly. There may have been a good cause to terminate mccabe but the speed at which its done alone raises the doubt. Ultimately obstruction, even if its not a criminal action is always an Impeachable Offense. You do not need an Impeachable Offense to be a crime at all. These are thing that special counsel is going to look at, especially with the shadow of obstruction hanging over this. Geoff bennett, lets show our homework since we work for the same news organization. We have a broadcast done and written and it was written in our lead story was after this 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 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 that i was particularly struck by something in andy mccabes statement where he mentioned the unrelenting assault he was subjected to at the hand 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 him as a bad actor this past week without any evidence. And as we reported earlier, the president directly and private asked mccabe who he voted for in the 2016 election. In a separate instance, the day after the president fired comey, he called mccabe to ask why comey was allowed to fly back from los angeles to d. C. On a fbi plane and when the president wasnt satisfied with his answer, he said ask your life what it is like to be a loser. He was referring to the to his wife and she was running as a democrat. 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 already described to friend as a life long republican. Joyce, same questions i asked danny. You know something about the dynamic in a building commandeered by mueller and his team and then how everyone sign out. They have been free of any leaks, watching this unfold on a friday night, reading this statement from a proper mccabe, what are you thinking if youre the special counsel . To go about it in a deliberate way. Theyll look at the Inspector Generals report. We havent seen that yet so we dont know whats in it. And then theyll look again 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. Its important to so many people to not have noted that even if the firing was justified, its this political context that was force the special counsel to contemplate whether this is more evidence of obstruction. Mccabe was the person that jim comb my came back to and shared his impression and initial meetings with the president , with mccabe. Mccabe will be a key witness of comey as the Mueller Investigation moves forward. The president with this consistent twitter against mccabe is perceived by special counsel as an effort at the white house to marginalize a witness, to destroy a witnesss 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 applauded in the legal community, had recused himself to the president driven to distraction by that decision from all things dealing with russia. This against mccabe not only bumps up against the subject of russia, it kind of collides with that subject so is there anything big enough to supercede a recusal, even if you are the boss. This is entirely a question by the attorney general, i dont there is anything to supercede it. I think the career was recounted open with the fact that he began his kier investigating russian organized crime. So, almost dangled a hit if this was connected to the russian matter, the attorney general should not have ruled on this matter or not ruled in the fashion that he ruled tonight. You have to believe in coincidences. Brian, there used to be a show on tv called thats incredible to be this iss entirely a could a coincidence do with the events of the russian investigation. You were nodding your head as jeremy spoke. Absolutely. I have a teary that statement was drafted weeks ago because it was very well written to begin with. Second the direct references to russia and other things that are relevant today, even though they are how mccabe started out his career, those were no accident listing as his accomplishments and career, russia and other thapgs that were talking about now. Everything that we cover on this broadcast night in and out has to be considered against a back drop of politics and against a back drop 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 crystal, a veteran of the ray ban and bush ray began and bush administration. 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. Ive been trying to think and this has been a very good discussion i think. Lets assume sessions hasnt gone ahead and fired mccabe, despite a report claiming that he lacked candor that he be fired which is pretty weighty. 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. Sessions has been captured by the building and the deep state. Im going to make pruitt or Something Like that the tornado the attorney general and that he would have gone ahead and fired mueller. 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 argued out in the court of Public Opinion in a couple of weeks. I dont think its impossible sessions thought he was protecting not just himself but mueller at this point. In the reporting, it was yesterday it came out that kelly called pruitt and told him to stop campaigning for sessions job. It is hard to believe he did this today without talking to kelly. I wonder if kel