Iz rained during part of the weekend forcing mr. Trump to cancel golf with gregg norman, the australian golfer. Instead, mr. Trump stewed indoors. Worrying about mr. Comey and the russia investigation. Mr. Miller and mr. Kushner both told the president that weekend they were in favor of firing mr. Comey. Mr. Trump ordered mr. Miller to draft a letter and dictated his unfettered thoughts. Several people who saw mr. Millers multipage draft described it as a skreed. The New York Times is reporting tonight that Robert Mueller has obtained a copy of that. According to the New York Times sources the white House Counsel managed to prevent the president from sending it to comey. Again believing the letter was problematic. The white house staff were alarmed that the president made the decision on the unprecedented action of firing the fbi director after consultant consulting only his daughter, his soninlaw, and Steven Miller who has no Legal Training and like the daughter and soninlaw has absolutely no experience that would earn him a senior position in any white house other than the most out of control most incompetent white house in history. He identified several passages in the trump miller letter that he wanted deleted. Many mcgann then arranged for the president to meet with jeff Jeff Sessionss to discuss firing james comey. During that meeting with the president , mr. Rosenstein was given a copy of the trump miller letter. Mr. Rosenstein agreed to write his own memo about why comey should be fired. That memo was release bid the white house when comey was fired. There are several ways that the special prosecuter could have obtained the trump miller letter, but you dont have to think about it very long to realize that the most likely way and the easiest way is the deputy general Rod Rosenstein simply five mueller his copy knowing its relevant to the special probation reports investigation. Joining us now, david from, and also jed sugarman professor of law, and neer a tenra. Here is the confirmation that when the president made what is probably so far for him anyway, in his own future, the worst decision of his presidency firing james comey, it was on the advice of the junior most people in the white house in terms of experience who have the senior most positions, apparently. His daughter, his soninlaw, and Steven Miller. So the president has been given the lie twice today on this matter. The first is with this report. Hes been given the lie that the firing did not originate as we said at the time with the Deputy Attorney general who doesnt seem to play in a heroic role. The second lie the president gave himself when he tweeted earlier today that how angry he was that james comey had been too soft on hillary clinton. Remember, the reason for the firing was to punish james comey for having been too tough on hillary clinton. Nothing to do with trump or russia. The story collapsed. Not that anybody is surprised but its in ruins. And one of the things that when you look at an obstruction case you wonder about is not only did the person lie but if there is a lie, what is behind the lie . Because obviously you lie to protect something you dont want people to know. If you had something credible to say, you wouldnt bother to lie to conceal it. Professor sugarman, we discovered meetings with a wider circle once the president made the decision, and it wasnt just white House Counsel to saw the letter. Overs saw this. What happens to the people in the wider circle who were consultanted about this, even those advising the president doing it . Thats the biggest question to address. I think its the biggest news of the night. There are lots of people we suspected before that participating in obstruction of justice. The biggest name tonight is Vice President pence. So let me explain why this time line puts him in legal jeopardy. We know this letter was drafted on one day and after Steven Miller came back with the draft, it was read in a room of people including Vice President pence, and when that letter was read, it had, quote, the New York Times talks about a skreed. It identified all these other connections to the russian probe for why trump decided to fire jim comey. Then after this letter is edited, mike pence then tells the media that the comey firing was not connected to the russian probe and he said it was due to Rod Rosensteins implications. It implicates menace in conspiracy to obstruction of justice, aiding and abetting obstruction of justice, and misprigs of a felony. Thats 18 usc section 4. If one conceals knowledge of a felony and does not make it known to the legal authorities, one can be guilty. Also lets keep in find the nixon articles of impeachment included a provision for false statements for the public. Thats not a felony, but it was grounds for impeaching president nixon. It may be grounds for an impeachment of Vice President pence. And tonights new word for me, because i didnt go to law school is misprission. The trip wires for everyone involved in the case is there are more of them than they realize. I imagine mike pence might be hearing his possible jeopardy for the first time if hes listening to the professor tonight. All of these people now who are named in these meetings about this are all witnesses for the special prosecuter including white House Counsel because white House Counsel does not have an Attorney Client privilege with the president. The president is not his client. Absolutely. I think if we step back here and look at this, obviously there are lots of people in the white house who knew what was really going on, and they all basically lied to the public. But lets just say whats happened here. We have evidence that the president fired director comey because of the russia investigation. Everybody knew it was because of the russia investigation, and then a lot of people basically conspired to come up with another reason which was the rosenstein memo. They knew it wasnt the real reason. They heard directly from the president the real reason was because of what he was doing with the russia investigation. The president wanted to stop that. That investigation of himself. And then they came up with an excuse for the public. And an excuse for the media. And the fact that the white House Counsel and other people around the president were perfectly comfortable with a lie to the public for the rationale of this firing says to me that they knew there was illegality. This is how you act when theres something wrong. You come up with a cover, and this whole episode is a bunch of people coming up with a cover. In the Nixon White House we had john dean, among others, crack, and tell the truth about what he experienced in the nixon coverup. Lets listen to the first person in the Trump White House who cracked and apparently told the truth about why james comey was fired. He actually told that truth to lester holt on video in the white house. Lets listen to this witness. He made a recommendation, but regardless of recommendation, i was going to fire comey. Knowing there was no good time to do it. And, in fact, when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made up story. Its an excuse by the democrats for having lost an election that they should have won. David, that will surely be an exhibit or certainly be maintained as an exhibit at this point in the files of special prosecuter. Whether its used in court is another matter. Theres donald trump basically turning in donald trump. Well, to lift this out of the legalities into the politics a little bit. That incident thats beautifully quoted there illustrates a problem we have in responding to this appropriately. Because donald trump lies all the time, because hes lost so much credibility, when his white house tells lies, people are not actually fooled. No one actually ever believed for even thirtyseconds that this all happened because of Rod Rosenstein. No one believed that story. Weve lost the capacity to be offended and shocked if the story turns out not to be true. We werent fool sod we dont feel like we were deceived. The lie, however, remains a line, remains hugely improper for a president to do even if the president had already by then so trashed his reputation that no one was fooled for a moment. Again, can i just say go ahead. Sorry. The issue here is, of course none of us trust i mean, i dont trust President Trump in the things he says, but the issue here is that they all came up with an alternative story. They were at least for a period trying to explain this, and to offer another explanation that wasnt illegal, that wouldnt have bought an obstruction of justice charge. The fact that don mcgann recognized that the skreed basically condemned the president tells us that his skreed was an issue, the special prosecuter should be obviously examining as obstruction of justice. Professor sugarman, what are the prosecuters looking for in that skreed that they now process and may have possessed for quite a while. For all of trumps lies, hes already confessed, as you showed with lester holt, to the basic he told the truth to lester holt, that he fired jim comey because of the russia investigation. That could be the nixon articles of impeachment there. He also said in his letter, explaining the firing of jim comey, he said while i appreciate you telling me on three separate times that i wasnt under investigation, i nevertheless am firing you. Thats an amazing confession. The first part of that sentence explained what he was thinking about which is thanks for telling me i wasnt under investigation. Now we find out what the letter, and this is what youre asking, lawrence, what mueller is looking at is the rest of the skreed there which is President Trump wanted jim comey to tell the public that trump was not under investigation and really what trump wanted was to stay not under investigation, and thats why he fired jim comey. Thats pretty thats amazingly significant. I do also want to be clear, theres another news event today, or yesterday that President Trumps lawyers had met with Robert Mueller and tried to make the argument that because a president has the power to fire an fbi director, this cant be obstruction of justice. That basic argument is so wrong that it shows why theres so little that the Trump Lawyers have to argue. A president has the power to order a military strike. But if the president is ordering that military strike with the intent of lets say killing someone who slept with his wife, thats still murder. A president can pardon someone, but if the president pardons someone because he received a Million Dollar describe, thats still a felony of bribery. Just because the president has the power to do something, it doesnt mean that it excuses any exercise of that power because intent matters. Professor sugarman and ne re a, thank you for joining us. David, stick around. Coming up, special prosecuter Robert Mueller is using irs agents from the criminal investigation of the irs. These are the irs super agents, the a team. You dont want them on your case. There is probably nothing about Robert Muellers investigation that scares donald trump more than having these irs agents on the case. A former director of the irs criminal Investigations Division will join us next. But there will still be pain. It comes when your Insurance Company says theyll only pay threequarters of what it takes to replace it. What are you supposed to do . Drive threequarters of a car . Now if you had Liberty Mutual new car replacement™, youd get your whole car back. I guess they dont want you driving around on three wheels. Smart. With Liberty Mutual new car replacement™, well replace the full value of your car. Liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. When heartburn hits fight back fast with tums chewy bites. Fast relief in every bite. Crunchy outside. Chewy inside. Tum tum tum tum tums chewy bites. So find a venus smooth that contours to curves, the smoother the skin, the more comfortable you are in it. Flexes for comfort, and has a disposable made for you. Skin smoothing venus razors. Im not releasing the tax returns. Theyre under audit. You should go down to federal elections and take a look at the numbers. The irss best agents are on the case as Betsy Woodruff reported to us here last night. Special prosecuter Robert Mueller has added special agents from the Irs Criminal Investigation Division to his Team InvestigatingPresident Trump and his Campaign Associates including his family. Measured strictly in terms of money, irs auditors are the most valuable players in government. Senior auditors working on the biggest cases are paid close to 150,000 per year, and on average they each find and collect for the government 19 million per year in tax revenue that the government was never going to see if those irs auditors didnt find it. Of course, hating the irs is an article of faith in republican politics and cutting the irs bumgt is a republican favorite. And no one will want to cut it more than donald trump now that the super agents from the criminal Investigation Division are working with special prosecuter Robert Mueller. Joining us now, martin sheel former branch chief of the Irs Criminal Investigation Division. Mr. Sheel, thank you for joining us tonight. Tell me what this means to the investigation that Robert Mueller has your old team on the case. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me here, lawrence. Its a great compliment. I appreciate the offer to be here. What it means in a nutshell is the finest Financial Investigators in the world are now focusing on members of the Trump Organization and possibly trump himself. You know, theres now a change of the focus of the original counterintelligence investigation. Its now morphed into a financial investigation, and certainly fbi has some tremendous people involved in doing their financial investigations, but irs criminal investigators focus only on doing financial investigations. They dont do much of anything else. They do some things like Identity Fraud and Computer Forensics and things like this, but there are 2200 agents focussed on doing financial investigations, focusing on tax fraud, Money Laundering, and Bank Secrecy Act violations. This would be an indication that mr. Mueller and his team think that theres a real good possibility that there may be some potential financial violations along the lines of tax violations, Money Laundering and currency violations. One thing id like to point out is that while many federal agencies have the authority to investigate Money Laundering, irs is the only agency that has the authority to pursue criminal tax violations. So thats an important thing. And just to point out too, the quality of their investigations, since 1919 when the Intelligent Unit was established which turned into ci around 1978, ci has had a success rate, a conviction rate of over 90 every single year since 1919. In fiscal year 2014, i believe the conviction rate was 93. 4 . So when criminal investigation comes after you, theyre going to do a very thorough comprehensive financial investigation, and if i was on the other end of that, i would be pretty nervous. The whole idea lets talk about one of the people who is on the other end of it, donald trump, and the documents he doesnt want any of us to ever see, his tax returns. Is it a fair assumption that the special prosecuter has his tax returns now and those agents are studying them . You know, thats a rebuttable presumption. I dont know. If irs is involved, its easier to obtain the tax returns. Is there any need for a court order . Is it automatic that any of the agents can obtain them . You know, special agents can apply, obtain them through the service center. But in special circumstances, certain designated sensitive type areas like the president of the United States, thats going to require authorization right up the ladder. So now, the point one important point here is if it was just fbi investigating mr. Trump and they wanted to see mr. Trumps tax returns, they would have to get a court order, and ex parte, or a 6 e that the u. S. Attorney will get a judge to sign off on. That used to be years ago when i started. That used to be a simple one or two paragraph form letter, but that 6 e has now morphed into pretty much like a search warrant affidavit where you to v to show the connections to your investigation and the potential criminal violations. Its a lot easier to have irs involved to get the tax returns, but there are still internal hurdles that they have to jump over to get them. But its a lot easier, much e