Were going to continue our breaking news live coverage of this. I wanted to amplify for you what andrea was just telling you about the Wadirector Comey former Director Comey found out about this, the New York Times account of this is just stunning. He was addressing a group of fbi employees in los angeles when the television in the background flashed the news that he had been fired. In response, mr. Comey laughed. He said he thought it was a fairly funny prank. And then his staff started securing around in the background, told mr. Comey that he should step into a nearby office. Mr. Comey stopped addressing the group. He proceeded to shake hands with the employees he had been speaking to and he stepped into a side office where he confirmed that he had been fired. At that point, he had not heard from the white house. Shortly after that, rachel,
after all of that, its been on television, a letter from the president was delivered to the fbis headquarters just 7 blocks from the white house, the letter arrives after its been on television, after comey find out that way. Yeah. So the idea that this is something theyve been cooking since last july and they rolled out in an orderly way today because they taken their time to get this right, it defies it really does defy belief. This is something they apparently had to get to right away, very suddenly with that kind of a roll out and were seeing it unfold tonight. We saw it unfold with that private plane on the tarmac at lax tonight. Rachel, just before andrea you had matthew miller, spokesperson, and he knows how it works there. I was really struck about how he said that these pieces of paper that we got today are so thin and so unlike the way theJustice Department normally works, everything in it dated today and apparently no prior thought given to it. When you look at the underlying firing document, which is the Rod Rosenstein document. Based on what he find, i think he should be fired. The president s letter said you should be fired, theres some stuff attached to this if you want to know this. Its all in this letter, which is very ry thin. And comes its titled the title of his memo is, restore restoring Public Confidence in the fbi. Thats the mission of this memo. And thats what were going to do today. Were going to have the president under investigation of fbi, fire the director of the fbi to achieve the goals of this memo, restoring Public Comments in the fbi. And to have that firing by the president who is under investigation by the fbi, to
have it be carried out as if he is doing it to defend the honor and the legal dignity of Hillary Clinton from last year, his opponent in the president ial election of lock her up fame. The idea that he would be acting as president because he was so concerned she might have been unfairly me lined by the fbi and thats why he needs to be fired in the middle of his Counter Intelligence investigation and trump ties with russia. Its astonishing and part of the way that well know whether or not its wise, that theyre trying to get away with this, is whether or not people credit what they say as being the reason for what they do. I have always believed that this administration is much easier if you cover them as a silent movie and you ignore what they say and watch what they do. So often what they say is its a smoke screen. And rachel, this home me is going to be really dissected, i think tomorrow. It tries to cite bipartisan support for firing comey. Theres no such thing theyre citing pieces by eric holder who disagreed with the way he handled the email investigation, but he never said fire him. In fact, he said in his that he Thought Comey was an honorable guy. Theyre going to be fair in their proceedings Going Forward. But the people that are being cited in here, some of these democrats that are being cited in this memo, never said that President Trump should fire comey. And, even if they had said he should fire comey in november or in january or, you know, all of these other dates on the things are cited, theyre from months ago. Theres no explanation as to why those firings might be happening now. Lawrence, the thing that i am the thing i am really hung up on and none of our guest have been
able to answer, theres no basis in American Jurs prudence and american politics to base an answer on, is what happens if this is about the trump Russia Investigation. This is about shutting it down and it works. They installed Deputy Director and make them the Acting Director of the fbi and maybe they ultimately make them the director of the fbi. The fbi and the Department Of Justice under Jeff Sessions leadership, they decide to ignore all the recusals, they kwaush the investigation if there are grand jurys or if theres or if theres on going questioning from the fbi, that stuff gets set aside by dick from this white house and from this administration. Whats the remedy for that. If youve got a Republican Controlled Congress that doesnt have any interest in overseeing the administration and the Justice Department and a way to stop that, is there any other remedy and weve never had to face that before. Weve never had to face that
before. One of the differences youve been talking about Water Gate Tonight and the nixon administration, they had a Democratic Congress but it was really a bipartisan effort in the congress to get at the truth of what was happening there and there was a point that no republican found defensible. There was a line to cross where they said, thats it. This is indefensible. And what is in defensible to the republican congress. What is indefensible to the republican senate. We dont knoat tonight. But we had been looking at the fbi. I certainly had, rachel. We look at this menu of investigations going on up there, the house committee, senate committee, judiciary and intelligence in the senate, i was always saying, well, the Criminal Investigation by the fbi is the most important one, theyre the best equipped. They have all the right ammunition to do this. They will be the silent one, we wont know whats going on, but thats the thats the one that really matters and the senate and House Investigations matter less. Well the senate investigation
just became possibly the most important investigation going, that looks like possibly the most bipartisan one, mark warner is going to join us later, he is the democrat who is the koe chair of the Senate Intelligence committee. The pressure is on him now. The pressure is on that committee now in a way that it wasnt before. Yeah, and theyre right in the middle of it. Right now today was their deadline for documents they had requested for four Trump Associates from mike flynn, manafort, paige and roger stone. Yes. That today was the four the deadline for them handing over documents. As far as we understand it, at least three of those people did not hand over their documents to the Senate Intelligence committee by that deadline today. I think its also crucial. You can talk to senator warner about this, they made a request today to the financial crimes
unit which investigates things Like InternationalMoney Laundering asking them for documentation that they got about President Trump himself or People Associated with him. That request went into treasury today. Mark warner made public disclose sure of that request today. It was hours after that that we got word that the fbi director had been fired. This is its a fast moving story, hes right in the middle of it. But its very hard to know where the investigate sort of the accountability, authority, and accountability comes from here on out if they keep canning people to get close toyota. Please stay with us for a few more minutes, well bring in experts who know a little bit more than we do, you can present some of these questions to them. Justice correspondent is joining us now. Clint wauts, hes a fellow at the Foreign PolicyResearch Institute and former fbi agent. Hes also an msnbc contributor. Pete, where do we go from here, what does this do to an on going fbi investigation. We know that the director has to
oversee a lot in the course of the day and theres someone at the fbi who is overseeing that Russia Investigation nonstop. Does this in any way inhibit how that investigation proceeds . Well, in a very practical way, no, but it cant help but delay the investigation. Its going to stretch it out some for a couple of reasons, one, is that the conclusions have to be reported to the head of the fbi who right now is Andrew Mccabe, who was, until a few hours ago, the deputy fbi director and now the Acting Director. But its going to have somewhat of a ripple effect. For right now the fbi is stunned. There was a Conference Call tonight with all these Special Agents in charge. The executives have been meeting. I can guarantee you that at the last several hours, nothing has been happening on the Russia Investigation because everybody is just stunned by what has happened here. Its going to take a while for the engine to get back up to
speed. I mean, the investigation will still go on. The agents that have their tasking will still do it. The extent to which Court Processes use to gather evidence, that will all go on. And its not going to stop. But i think in the short term it will delay it a little bit and then, of course, the political questions about whether whatever it concludes now will have a cloud over it. Pete, if there is a grand jury that has been impanelled in this investigation, is that something that is now given with the grand jury underway, is that beyond the reach of interference from above. Grand jurys are used at early stage in an investigation, mainly to gather evidence to subpoena, to issue a subpoenas, thats what you use grand jurys for. Thats just basic day in and day out work of the federal prosecution. But somebody takes things to the grand jury. Prosecutors take things to the grand jury. Thats all going to go on. So the russia information is not going to stop and theres a certain amount of momentum here, even if somebody tried to stop it, it would go on for a while and there would be a huge push back if anybody actually tried to stop it. I cant imagine that thats going to happen. So it will go on but it will, i think, the inevitable conclusion of whats happened here is that its going to delay it some. Clint watts, tell us what we need to do, pete was talking about him. He met with the president tonight before the president decided to make him the Acting Director. He was the Deputy Director until this afternoon when the director was fired. Yeah, mccabe is a veteran of the Counter Terrorism. Has an excellent reputation. Hes very wellknown and inside the fbi. And hes one of those people thats been running things like
whats called i toss and the Counter Terrorism division. Hes got a wealth of experience and hes moved up progressively through the ranks. Hes a no nonsense guy and i think hell be an excellent choice for the job. And, you know, you were talking before about will the investigations continue. The investigations will absolutely continue, but the piece that i think most people are missing in terms of the connection here. Anything thats going to put in terms of charges, if its something that comes from the Russia Investigation, ultimately will be given to a prosecutor, u. S. Attorney to the Department Of Justice. And so when you look at this letter, this firing tonight, it comes from the doj. So the gap isnt so much about will the investigation continue, its what aggressive action can be taken or what charges can be levied when you have a doj thats going around removing people selectively in this case, comey. Rachel, what do you make of the political response from the democrats tonight, which is not
completely organized yet. But Chuck Schumer stepping out their early, putting all the pressure on Rod Rosenstein, but he has the power to name a Special Prosecutor and that was where Chuck Schumer was tonight, that we now must move to Special Prosecutor, that will be the only way to restore confidence as this move to fire comey today is allegedly to restore confidence, according to this memo. You know, that has been the democrats line and handful of republicans line from the very beginning that an independent investigation separate and apart from this Department Of Justice, Special Prosecutor ought to be the one looking into this because this idea that Jeff Sessions can recuse his way into independence on this and the way hell make people feel confident about prosecuting decisions as clint was just saying, is farfetched. Its hard to get there. This ought to be pursued
independently. When you pull the public on this, people will say you would prefer that there was a nonpartisan investigation on this, not something from one of the agencies and frankly not something from the partisan committees in congress. So theres an impotence for that. Right now, though, with its sort of all different as of tonight because now weve weve got the Department Of Justice, including the Attorney General who said he would recuse from this matter, removing the fbi director in the middle of this investigation. And no, we do not know what the Practical Impact of that is going to be. Well have to watch it happen. Now that theyve done that. For only the second time in American History, weve got an fbi director being removed in the middle of his term for an explanation that frankly makes no sense in terms of its timing. Now, i think, theres no way that this Justice Department can be seen to be independent of the partisan wins that have buffeted the thing from the very beginning. Having a Special Prosecutorappointed will become almost unbearable. I will expect that republicans who are taking a patriotic view on this will start joining those democratic calls, at least, by the morning. Thank you very much for going into over time with us, i really appreciate it. Pete williams, on the Rod Rosenstein memo about restoring Public Confidence in the fbi as it says. It refers exclusively to the Hillary Clinton email investigation and how that was handled and theres not a single reference in there to the Russia Investigation. And it seems a relevant point even if you are considering firing the fbi director for the way he handled the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Wouldnt it be reasonable in the current climate to include a factor of that he is running an investigation that is about the current president ial administration and that might be
perceived as being part of this issue of restoring confidence in the fbi, that this might hurt confidence in the fbi if we then fire him over this thing that were thinking about firing him over. I know what you mean. That seemed to be the sub text of the rosenstein memo. I want to pick up a point that you made earlier, lawrence. Which is the first part of the memo is a bill of particulars going through all the things thathe thought was wrong. The way in which he criticized Hillary Clinton and said he shouldnt be charged. He thought that was too much. He thought it was completely wrong that the fbi director in his words, put himself above the Justice Department by taking away from Loretta Lynch the authority to make the decision on prosecutions or effectively under cutting the decision, of course, to make the letter in late october, send that to congress about reopening the email investigations, all of
those things he thought were wrong that didnt follow Justice Department guidelines. And after that, though, he said im not alone in my assessment here and then he refers to a letter that 100 or so fbi and former Justice Department, former fbi people signed around the time of the comey letter saying they thought it was wrong. As you point out, those are that is not a contemporary endorsement of rosensteins