Muellers investigators detained, questioned, and then served a subpoena to a trump ally named ted malic when he arrived at bostons Logan Airport from his home in england. Malik is an american, a trump ally and former advise histor w just finished a book called the plot to destroy trump how the deep state fabricated the russian dossier to subvert the president. Hes also a brexit supporter and has ties to that movement. In 2016 just days after the election she speak with the bbc about donald trump. Ive been involved in the campaign for over a year now. I think the media gets trump wrong almost constantly. I think when its all said and done, if were sitting here eight years from now, the world will be a safer and better place, the economy would have grown, and we would have rebuilt american infrastructure. Thats what trump will be known for. I think that there will be a very interesting relationship between russia and the United States now, between putin and trump. As powerful world leaders. Whether its a bromance i think is to be decided. But i think itll be a much healthier situation. Well, he got part of that right. Its an interesting relationship, at least. Fast forward to his encounter this week at logan up in boston with the fbi. According to a statement malic emailed to nbc news, well quote here, two fbi agents told him he was being detained to answer questions related to the special counsels investigation. They told him it was a felony to lie to the fbi and he said he would gladly cooperate. They offered documents to seize and search his cell phone. Malloch added quote, whom i communicated with, whom i knew and how well, he said they asked him about former Trump Campaign adviser roger stone, author jerome coursy and wikileaks. Malloch said he told them he met with stone a total of three times and always with groups of people. He said he was asked if hed ever visited the Ecuadorian Embassy in london, where Julian Assange has been living since 2012, and he replied no. He also said the agent served him a subpoena from muellers team that had been issued that day to appear for questioning on april 13th. Earlier on this Network Former federal prosecutor harry litman put this latest development into context. Its this breathless kind of development that shows muellers not thinking about the red line, the blue line, the yellow line. Hes just thinking about the finishing line and plumbing the depths of everything that is involved here, im sure to trumps great chagrin. Were back in tom clancy territory. With a very rich, complicated brew centering around the 2016 release of the wikileaks documents. And just to recap here on a friday night, what weve learned on the russia front as we close out another week, it was reported that john dowd, President Trumps former lead lawyer in this russia case, spoke last summer with lawyers for Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort about the possibility of president ial pardons. We learned from a court filing onetime Trump Campaign aide rick gates was in close contact with a associate tied with russian intelligence. And its being reported that muellers asking questions about contacts between the trump team and russians, out of all places, the cleveland 2016 Republican National convention. And the president s legal team got small they are week just as it was about to get larger by two. Attorneys joe digenova and his wife backed out after saying they would represent the president. In exiting they cited conflicts as the reason. The two are also representing an important witness in the mueller investigation. Former spokesman for trumps legal team named mark corallo. Its a lot and we turn to our lead off panel on a friday night. New york times reporter and msnbc contributor. Tamara keith white house. Thor for npr. Matthew nussbaum, White House Reporter for politico. Welcome and good evening to all three of you. Its a hell of a thing, im tempted to say on holy week, the terrible swift sword of the federal government. When feds act, when you witness it, it is striking to watch. I cant imagine what its like to be the guy surrounded at logan, your phone is taken. What its like to be the folks in that concourse that watched this go down. But its never uninteresting in the mueller investigation. Yeah, thats right. And the power of the federal government is very much on display here. Look, i think what all these developments these weeks show, at least for me, is the question of collusion or conspiracy or whatever we want to call it is still very much in play as far as bob muellers concerned. I mean hes asking about essentially contacts between or potential contacts between the Trump Campaign and wikileaks, which obviously we know was the vehicle that was used to disseminate those hacked emails related to the dnc and the Hillary Clinton campaign. The fact hes asking about that still, were going one year in, tells me hes absolutely not foreclosed the idea of collusion or conspiracy between the Trump Campaign and russian intelligence operatives. So that is very much a live issue even as republicans on capitol hill are saying its over and done with, weve got no evidence of collusion, hes asking questions. Lets not forget, roger stone, trump adviser, campaign adviser, we know he was in contact with the twitter account that was run by guse fer 2. 0 which was a front for russian intelligence operatives to disseminate hacked emails. So this is live. The question of collusion is still very much live. Tamara, as is the case with film directors, i dont imagine mueller is going in order. I think hes shooting out of sequence. And when you think about it, papadopoulos, flynn, gates cooperating, this tangent brings us back to the campaign era along with some other developments this week. Yes. So were back in the campaign, if you know, if they are in fact asking about Julian Assange, that does go back to that intelligence assessment that came out more than a year ago that said, you know, wikileaks was, you know, a venue to get these hacked emails out to the public via russia. And so as matt said, this is a live issue. This is ongoing, and i think the challenging thing with any one witness that you learn about or any of these little pieces is that we dont see the whole picture. And muellers team does, and we dont. And so it can be hazardous to read too much into any one data point along the way. As you and i have discussed, we see actually so little. And anyone whos had any contact with mueller on either side of the ball comes away saying he has everything, they have everything. Yeah. All right. Matthew nussbaum, we keep reading these accounts that the president is more comfortable in the job. But this white house now, the president s in florida. What could go wrong . The white house is functioning without a comms director, with a, if press connects are correct, a diminished chief of staff. Where is strategy going to emerge . I think thats hard to say. I think they were happy to make it to this weekend, this holiday weekend. The president and Vice President are both out of town on vacation. And like you said what were seeing from a lot of these staffing moves is that President Donald Trump is feeling a lot more comfortable to put together the team he wants. I think hes feeling a little bit emboldened. And the main thing to watch, i think, within the white house has been the departure of hope hicks. She was someone who was seen as could talk with the president , had a relationship with him that almost no one else had, and could sort of tamp down some of these more reckless impulses and tendencies that he had. And theres real concern in the white house with her departure he might be even more off message than weve seen in the past. Go ahead and couple that with john dowd leaving, someone who had urged cooperation with the mueller team, and i think you see a president whos more and more emboldened to maybe pushback publicly on this investigation, which everyone else in the white house knows is not a good move. Double down on your first answer, because your paper gave us the story of the potential pardons. And we repeat, its not illegal to mention pardons on the president s behalf. It being the most awesome exercise of president ial power. Its illegal to dangle them as a potential use for lessening damage or softening a case. What was the most in your view consequential single thing we learned this week, matt . These weeks all run together. Yeah, they do. John dowd quit, oh, what month was that that that happened . Look, i think the story that my colleagues broke about the dangling of the pardon is important because the white house has consistently said, were not talking about pardons, its not on the table. And manafort and flynn, these guys dont have anything to give thats harmful to the president. And so the very fact that the president s lawyer is dangling this, even if he was just doing this on his own, shows theres at least some consideration going on, or there was some consideration going on about about what is our exposure here and what do these former senior advisers have to tell bob mueller, and is there a way to get ahead of that . And whether thats illegal, part of an obstruction case, who knows at this point . But it certainly goes to the consideration thats going on inside the trump team. Tamara, were led to believe theyre still looking for lawyers. Imagine how difficult it would be to join at this point, say nothing of the client, but this is a mature, apparently leading to the final stages of the case. Theres so much catchup work to do. The previous point, muellers already seen everything so youre running behind by nature. Question to you is, are messer, sekulow and cobb enough to lead this effort . No. No. Basically Robert Muellers team are killers. I think thats what steve bannon called them. They are some of the best prosecutors that you can find in this country. Theyve been involved in everything from watergate to emron. And in jay sekulow you have someone who hes argued a bunch of cases before the supreme court. Hes best known for arguing on religious liberty, not white collar defense. He does have some people working under him who we dont hear that much about who arent the big names but who have been working on this case. And the thing with ty cobb in the white house, i dont think he sees himself as the president s lawyer. I think he sees himself more as a lawyer for the institution of the presidency and for the white house. And he sees his job more as, you know, facilitating a relationship with the office of the special counsel more than being part of the president s defense team. Matt apuzzo, you were agreeing with that. Yeah, no, thats right. And i actually think that ty cobb, who as tamara said, absolutely, hes a white house lawyer, he does not represent the president here personally. I actually think that cobb and sekulow could probably get through this next stage where the president has to interview with bob mueller or has to negotiate some sort of interview with mueller. The question is who is going to do the lawyering at the next stage, with whatever comes out of this investigation, whether its some sort of referrals, whether its something further where mueller wants to do more in terms of the president personally or other white house aides. Whos going to litigate that . And thats where you need both a constitutional lawyer and criminal lawyer. Thats why theyve been looking around for other lawyers. Whatever comes next, theyre going to need another lawyer. So matthew nussbaum, again to set the scene, the president in florida, we know not who hes going to see, talk to, Say Something on twitter, it could be explosive, it could be radio silence. He gets back to washington sunday night. How is the trump agenda supposed to get pushed forward on monday with the staff anxiety over potentially more departures . What can you speak about the inside mood in this place you cover every day . Well, i think theres a lot of concern like you said about more staff turnover with these controversies at the cabinet level. People arent really sure whos going to go next. Theres really no legislative agenda to speak of. There are these confirmation fights that are going to be happening in the senate. But i think the main thing is seeing how trump now operates that to some degree hes a little bit unchained now with both hope gone and feeling more confident and like hes fit for the job and is ready in the job. I think seeing how he acts with a little less of a filter is very much on the mind of everyone in the white house. And the fact hes had any filter so far is probably surprising to a lot of your viewers, but that is what hope hicks was for him. Matt apuzzo, whats the one question youd like to lob to Sarah Huckabee sanders during the next briefing that youd actually like answered . Thats a tough one. You put me on the spot. I mean, look. The problem is that, ill be honest with you, brian, we havent consistently been able to rely on answers from the white house. And thats whats been really frustrating. You get denials like when it was reported that the president was preparing to fire the secretary of state. And theres outright denials, its absolutely not happening. Then he does it and the president turns around and says, you all know ive been considering that for a long time. At least for me covering this investigation i havent really relied on the official podium statements. I know thats been a frustration for both my colleagues at the times and probably for every other journalist in the city. I know two estimates, number crunchers, amateurs both, have done the study that a major figure departs every nine days in this administration. That is just an incredible rate of change. Yeah, we have had about one a week for the last five weeks of really major bigname departures, cabinetlevel, toplevel staff. It is the highest change in the highest echelons of white house staff. 48 have already departed according to brookings numbers. And that is double the rate of departures that happened in president obamas full first two years. And were at 14 months. On this friday night our thanks go out to matt apuzzo, tamara keith, matthew nussbaum. Really appreciate you guys showing up to help us out with our leadoff conversation tonight. Coming up for us, as march closes out, a look at the volume of departures we were just talking about from this white house and the deeper meaning for the president and actually for our country. On this night when there are new headaches for donald trump when it comes to his cabinet back home. And then later the Korean Peninsula learning curve for President Trump as he prepares to sit down with the dictator of the north. The 11th hour just Getting Started on a friday night. I know the best people. I know the best managers. I know the best deal makers. I know people that will make us so i know guys that are so good. I know the best people. Weve got the best people. I have the best people. So were going to get the best people. Despite those mentions as you may have heard of the best people, thus far in just the month of march we have witnessed the departure of Six Administration officials, including the secretary of state, National Security adviser, comms director, and the white house turnover continues. New reporting tonight from the Washington Post sheds new light on the huge number of open positions in this administration that just havent been filled. According to the post, 387 of trumps appointees have been confirmed. Compare that to 548 of the obama folks, 615 by the george w. Bush folks by this time in their administrations. The responsibility of filling these positions falls largely on something called the president ial personnel office. But according to the the post the obscure White House Office responsible for recruiting and vetting thousands of political appointees has suffered from inexperience and a shortage of staff, hobbling the Trump Administrations efforts to place key to place qualified people in key posts across government, documents and interviews show. The article describes the office as something of a social hub where young staffers from throughout the administration stop by to hang out on couches and smoke electronic cigarettes. It describes a night in january when they played a drinking game in the office called icing to celebrate the deputy directors 30th birthday. Icing outside of the world of hockey involves hiding a bottle of smirnoff ice, a flavored malt liquor as they describe it in the newspaper world, and demanding that the person who discovers it, in this case the deputy director, guzzle it. Earlier on this Network Steve schmidt, republican political strategist and veteran of the Bush White House and mccain president ial campaign, characterized the chaos in this white house in his own unique way during an appearance with nicolle wallace. From a personnel perspective weve never quite seen the assemblage of crooks, outright weirdos, wife beaters, drunk drivers, complete and total incompetents, thats been assembled. If you took the ten greatest hr managers in the history of the world, put them together and said we want to form a 1927 yankees of incompetence, its not possible they would have done a better job. The gentleman does have a way with words, doesnt he . Here that talk about it owl, indira lachman, boston globe. And jonathan allen, Nbc News National Political reporter, veteran journalist himself, coauthor of the book on the hillary campaign. So jonathan, these are not the headlines you want. And just a reminder to all, Steve Schmidt is a republican. Absolutely. The transformation in what you hear from Steve Schmidt has been incredible. But the thing is, steves still a republican. He still has those republican values. I think what weve seen in this white house is really its something weve never seen before, the tumult. You go back in history and thi