Brian Williams examines the days top political stories and current politicalcampaign news. Already several witnesses in on just day two. All of it as the 11th hour gets underway on a wednesday night. Good evening from our nbc news headquarters in new york. This was one more in a string of extraordinary days in our country. Because this was what we woke up to from the president of the United States. Quote, Attorney GeneralJeff Sessions should stop this rigged witch hunt right now before it continues to stain our country even further. Perhaps just as extraordinary, Nothing Happened after that. It was wednesday in america and tonight Robert Mueller and his team remain on the job. The negotiations for a possible sitdown interview between Robert Mueller and President Trump. We report on the latest offer
from the Special Counsel Writing that mueller, quote, indicated this week that hes willing to reduce the number of questions his investigation asks. According to two people briefed on the negotiations. In a letter sent monday muellers team suggested that investigators would reduce by nearly half the number of questions they would ask about potential obstruction of justice. Two people said its unclear which topic or topics would be left out. Michael schmidt and Maggie Haberman wasted no time. They wrote, quote, President Trump pushed his lawyers in recent days to try once again to reach an agreement with the special counsels office flouting their advice that he should not answer investigators questions. Mr. Trump has told advisors hes eager to meet with investigators to clear himself of wrongdoing. In effect, he believes he can convince the investigators for the special counsel, robert s. Mueller, that this is a wish hunt. Hes always been interested in testifying but its us, including me, that have a lot of reservations. They sent us a proposal. We responded to their proposal. They took ten days and we got it back and now were in the process of responding to their proposal. Again, all of this comes as the president escalated his attack on the russia investigation. Heres what he said in this particular tweet, this is a terrible situation and Attorney GeneralJeff Sessions should stop this rigged wish hunt right now before he stains the country any further. This whole Obstruction Thing is nonsense. If he wanted to obstruct it, he would have obstructed it. He has a right to defend himself. If he believes hes innocent, he is innocent, he should speak out. White house also moved quickly to frame trumps words as nothing more than his own personal view. Its not an order. Its the president s opinion. The president is not obstructing, hes fighting back. The president is stating his opinion. Hes stating it clearly. Hes certainly expressing a frustration that he has with the level of corruption that weve seen from people like jim comey, the president s angry. Frankly, most of america is angry as well and theres no reason he shouldnt be able to voice that opinion. But remember what the white house once told us about how we should regard what this president says on twitter. Are President Trumps tweets considered official white house statements . Well, the president is the president of the United Statesso theyre considered official statements by the president. Hes willing to speak candidly about the reaction by many lawmakers in the capital. Every morning we wake up and he tweets something. Muellers going to finish his investigation. The truth is all going to come out. Thats the best thing that could happen for the president and for the country. After that from senator rubio let us bring in our leadoff panel on a wednesday night. Peter baker, jill colvin, John High Heilman and harry litman. Former u. S. Attorney, former assistant Deputy Attorney general under president clinton. Peter, id like to begin with you. Id like to read to you what sally yates wrote on social media. Today our president called on our reduced Attorney General as shocking as that is. Whats more dangerous is weve
gotten used to it. The rule of law wont evaporate overnight but it can slip away if we let it. There we have the president s own words to judge him by. This is on him. This is one of those lessons we get to see if words have consequences. What is fascinating is how much this plays out in public out loud. What we see from the president s tweets is him saying what would have been a scandal has like president nixon been found to have said it privately in a taped session in the oval office. The tape that finally undid him in watergate was hearing him order his aides to tell the fry to layoff the watergate investigation. Here you have the president saying on twitter the Attorney General who reports to him should shut down the investigation directly. And it is in fact both surprising and yet not
surprisi surprising. Its the kind of thing hes done for a year and a half. We have kind of as a society gotten accustomed to it to some extent. Harry, i dont walk around quoting u. S. Code. For gods sake i dont comment on that. Particularly on this argument you started hearing from someone late today as twitter still seems to so many people as a medium. This could still be kind of slow rolling obstruction In Plain Sight and the three words in the Obstruction Portion are if youre trying to influence, intimidate or impede an officer of the court. How is this not that . How is this not that . Exactly right. And in some ways the notion of whether its preparatory or a command almost doesnt matter although its a very, very tenuous distinction. Saying, would you look at this . Not only and they didnt just jump to it this morning. I mean, theyve been looking at the tweet carefully all the way through. The whole kind of pattern of tweets where he goes back and forth and seems to be dancing around the notion of the two other words from the statute, corrupt intent. Were going to put these altogether and see if we can make a case for his wanting to close it down basically to protect himself, the white house and his family. No doubt just like any other statement its sort of silly to say its on twitter or white house stationery. Its a statement from the president of the United States and its admissible and they are analyzing it. Jill colvin, tell us what you and your colleagues are reporting about this president and the atmospherics. The confidence of this president , he is definitely not happy right now. The president was watching television, watching coverage of the beginning of the trial of Paul Manafort this morning. Were told thats what sparked the flurry of tweets. One confidante said that the president is, quote, in a dark place. The president has been furious. Its been building over the last couple of weeks. He was furious at the media the way that he felt that he was not given enough credit for the meeting with vladimir putin. Putin was portrayed, he felt like he didnt get enough credit for meeting with kim jongun in singapore. And youve got a president who feels the media is attacking him and the government is coming in and attacking him right now. You have in addition to the
both democrats and republicans. There are a lot of things about twitter. Its a heck of a medium in some ways. Its beneficial in other ways. Its the same thing that the op ed is in the New York Times in 2018. Those words are hanging out there. Harry, are you a member of the club despite all of the great bylines. I may be a member. Youll believe a mueller trump meeting when you see it . In other words, ill believe it when i see it like i dont think its going to happen. Im a long term Card Carrying Member of that club. I think however much they pare it down, it will be questions if he answers them falsely hell be subject to criminal charges. There will be questions did you know flynn was under investigation . We have new reports that shows he was. There are probably half a doze other thing that Trump Doesnt Know and mueller does and, yeah, i dont see his sitting down with them under any circumstances where theres criminal penalty and i dont see mueller situation. We knew if we needed any help that the president s words were going to be impactful. The minute we learned how many News Organizations got what the president meant to say, phone calls afterwards, i know yours was among them. Absolutely. Theyre trying to make the part, this is an opinion, not a command. Thats because they understand there is a line. Thats where theyve drawn the line. He can express his opinion, they can say he wants to shut it down. There may be a moment he can change his mind. Hes been convinced and fired
rod rosenstein, Firing Bob Mueller would create such a blow back against them . What hes trying to do is in effect continue to shape Public Opinion to make sure his base and maybe some other people believe this investigation isnt legitimate. There isnt no reason to believe what might come out of it that might come out of this investigation and to prepare the ground with what will lay the groundwork when we hear about the investigation. Jill colvin, we mentioned three whole News Media Briefings for the month of july from the white house. They are, i should point out 10 for august so far. We had one today. The president is about to go down for ten days. Rush limbaugh was able to talk to him today. Is the philosophy going to be
acknowledgment, Deep Dark In The West Wing or in the residence dont that hed like to take that back today . I dont know on his part. In the residence . Probably not. A lot of people in the building wish he wouldnt have done what he did. When you get back to the situation with mueller and the interview, i think a lot of people are going to interpret it in a somewhat panicked the way. The notion that hes giving ground. To me it indicates a position of strength that he when you look at this new reporting. If its true that mueller has already talked to we know he has talked to previously mcbegan and they have already testified to him that, yes, trump has been presented with a time line and evidence of the fact that the fbi was investigating flynn before he had his conversation with comey telling comey to layoff. Theres memos, documentation
president s words, just days ago the times reported that mueller is examining all the president has said about Jeff Sessions as part of his wideranging obstruction investigation. He can throw this mornings tweet on the pile. Here with us to talk more about it, clint watts, former fbi special agent. His latest messing with the enemy, surviving in a social media world, hack eers. I have to ask you if you came across the type of behavior were seeing from the nations Top Executive in your old day job at the fbi, how would that alter your investigation . What would that do . It adds to the pile. It continues the time line. Several interesting thing about this obstruction angle, Hearing Negotiation from the mueller team about taking written
responses to questions and then sitting down for an interview. Im sure isnt that just to get him in the door . It is. It can play very much to the president s disadvantage because strategically, he doesnt like to leave very much. Hell be working with so hes going to have to go in and understand and know what the state said, the president is at a huge disadvantage. He doesnt know everyone what mueller has talked to, what they have told him and what documents, texts, also match up to a time line. Weve seen here on nbc news. Well, comey when i got rid of him, it was because of the russia thing. These republicans are very damning. Even dpe not actually obstruction. Its the attempt to be struck in
terms of how the investigation progresses. The mueller team probably has all of the data it needs to ask the questions, have the president come in, its very difficult for the president to be consistent with the written statement and the bottom line. Any acknowledgment by those around the president that his tone isnt always that of an innocent man . Reporter absolutely. His lawyers, his legal advisors, you know, around a year ago when he first started building up the legal team really emphasized to him that you cannot be making public attacks against mueller or against this investigation. They were successful. Last time trump would say no collusion and he pretty much tamped down in the personal attacks on mueller but that strategy he felt wasnt really working for him and there was a
moment there was a particularly activist michael could he heen raced and he had already been intesting the water and the rhetoric. He had been told this investigation would be done by 2018 with his lawyers. He continues to see voompt from people in his administration and campaign. That was the moment he said, forget this. Im going on full attack mode. Rudy giuliani was brought in to be the public attack dog of the client. It is a major share we were when the latest advice. You wrote about the latest stage and looked at it in another way, it looks like mueller is trying to say
whatever you need to do to get the guy in here, get him in the door. Thats typically how these negotiations work. Yes. To the point the guests were making earlier, doesnt look like mueller is caving. Mueller really knows the answer to a lot of his questions and the point clint was making, to some extent, the trump does know what the documents are out there. They know what the witnesses have said to some extent. Mueller has more, many, many more pieces of this puzzle than the president s team does. He knows the answer. He wants to get those on record. Around obstruction, one of the main ones was to determine the presss impact. They want to give us and that is typical for how things go. Any of these sort of, you know, carefully Core Rio Graphed negotiations. Hes agreed to stick around and were going to put his web
training to use. Clint, our thanks for now and shannon, our thanks for coming on. Coming up, incredibly expensive mens wear, wire homes. Why are transfers from Bank Accounts in cypress. When the 11th hour continues. Friel much Paul Manafort enters tomorrow. Prosecutors talked about how manafort made his money in the u skran and how they contend he presented it to the United States. They have piles of evidence on how he paid for things largely through foreign bank transfers. Were guessing not a lot of members of our audience have paid for things through foreign bank transfers. The president who has sought to distance himself from his former chairman did weigh in today writing, quote, looking back on history who was treated worst, alfonse, killer or paul than ford. Darling now serving Solitary Confinement although convicted of nothing. Where is the russia collusion. Thats our president. Here to talk about it, daniel goldman. And rachel is with us. Im sorry for the long day this makes for. Talk about what was presented today. The judges theory that hes not allowing photographs to be displayed in court but hes going to allow the jury photos when they go off some day to deliberate. Thats in part because he wants the trying to move quickly. Hes been adamant and theyre able to move. They were supposed to take three weeks and the government says they will fin next week. You might not want a person knowing how much Media Coverage this case is getting, but it seems like he might not let them show the jury. In the end they came in, they came in at the end of the day but they did get pictures of the 650,000 ostrich jacket and i think an 18,500 python jacket and all sorts of other very
expensive suits. Man likes jackets. Counselor, a couple of questions for you. First of all, this is a nonsee questered jury. The president is tweeting about the defendant in a way that they can all see proclaiming his innocence. Where do we find that . What do we do with that . The judge will inspect the jury. Do not read about the case. Do not watch television about the case. This is a different world where were dealing with twitter. I dont know if the judge has instructed the jury not to read twitter but thats what they need to do. Were not see questered like the simpson trial, for example, but they have obstructed the two not to read any newspapers. We have to interrupt our conversation to ask rachel, have you heard such a charge from the judge . No. Im not sure he knows what twitter is. At 78 he will admit it. He always says i would say dont look it up in an encyclopedia, but im the only person who does that. Dont look it up online. Assuming they hold to that, they havent heard the trump tweets. You could be in a coffee shot and it might come across your vision. Dan, we did hear he gave the government roles a couple of brush back pitches, shim movement. They keep showing the lavish lifestyle. You can over play that hand. Not a time to be a rich guy, but you have to understand the
context of this. Its not just that he lived a lavish lifestyle although that is sort of his motive, particularly when the money dried up after he stopped working for kovich in 2014, that he wanted to continue this lavish lifestyle. You also have to be able to show in a Tax Fraud Case that what you declared for your income tax is less than what you actually earned. One way to do that is to show what we call in prosecutor world, unexplained wealth. How can you be playing out 6 million in cash, if, for example, you only declared that you made 1 million. It is very relevant evidence. I think what the judge is getting frustrated with is dont try to over sell it. Thats not really whats relevant. Whats relevant be is the money not the p