That the president could end the obamacare policy allowing dreamers brought to the u. S. As children to stay here legally. And were watching whats happening on the ground in texas. There were two explosions at the Chemical Plant in houston. Tonight there are more concerns that there will be more explosions. What officials are saying about the risk. The towns of port arthur and beaumont texas. And now beaumont has lost its water supply indefinitely. We begin with the latest reporting tonight about the trump russia investigation and new developments regarding that investigation into potential obstruction of justice by the president. Senator grazly serves as the republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee. One of the three main committees investigating ties between the Trump Campaign and russia. If you were watching this show last night, youll remember that senator grassley announced to his twitter followers yesterday, just had a phone call from President Trump and he assured me hes proethenol and im free to tell the people of iowa hes standing by his campaign president. Why the president seemed so interested in corn all of the sudden remained unexplained. But that call from trump to the charnl of the Committee Investigating his eldest son came less than 24 hours after grassleys committee announced it had set a date to hear private testimony from donald trump jr. Regarding that meeting that he helped arranged at trump tower last summer with the russians offering to provide the Trump Campaign with dirt on hillary clinton. That was the offer to which he famously replied, if its what you say, i love it. Now both the white house and senate grazlys office subsequently denied that either russia or the president s son were discussed on that call. But a look at the news reports of conservative publications shows the skepticism with which those claims were greeted. That skepticism seems warranted because as weve seen before this is not out of character for this president. Last week we learned that trump called two republican senators to vent his frustration with legislation that they were overseeing related to the russia probe. In one call trump reached out to republican senator bob corker to complain to him about a russia sanctions bill that corker had sponsored. Trump also dialed up senate todd tillis from North Carolina to complain to him about a bill he was working on that was designed to prevent trump from firing the special counsel, Robert Mueller. Said one senior republican aide quoted in the piece, quote, it seems hes always focused on russia. We also know that these were not isolated calls. That report came just one report after the the New York Times reported that donald trump had berated Senate LeaderMitch Mcconnell in a phone call that quickly devolved into a profane shouting match between the republican president and senator. Trump reportedly accused mcconnell op bung ling health care. But according to the report, he was more animated about what he intimated was the Senate Leaders refusal to protect him from investigations of russian interference in the 2016 election. That was a big deal. Pressuring the republican leader to tamp down the Senate Investigations could amount to, wait for it, potential obstruction of justice which applies not only to fbi investigations but also efforts to quote influence, obstruct or impede congressional inquiries. This came after the bombshell news earlier this summer that special counsel Robert Muellers investigation into russias interference in the 2016 election had widened to including potential obstruction of justice. That investigation, the post reported, was launched days after trump fired fbi director james comey on may 9th and days after the president came out and admitted in an interview with Nbcs Lester Holt that russia had been on his mind when he made the decision to show comey the door. 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 upsto story. So later coi manys side of the story would be revealed in testimony that transfixed washington as comey laid u out the numerous times the president pressured him to ease up on the investigation. I understood him to be saying that what he wanted me to do was drop any investigation connected to flynns account of his conversations with the russians. Why did he kick everybody out of the oval office. Why would you kick the attorney general, the president , the chief of staff out to talk to me if it was about Something Else . I mean this is the president of the United States with me alone saying i hope this. I took it as this is what he wants me to do. I didnt obey that but thats the way i took it. I dont think its for me to say whether the confers i had with the president was an effort to obstruct. It took it as a disturbing thing, very concerning but thats a conclusion that the special counsel will work towards to understand the intention. Obstruction of justice was the central focus of james comeys testimony that day. Also the focus of a hearing the previous day when dan coats and mike rogers angers lawmakers by refusing to discuss reports that the president appealed to each of them individually urging them to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election. So there are many reported instances of donald trump bringing pressure on top public official to trop the russia investigation and many of those attempts have been well documented. We also know theyre being investigated by the special counsel and multiple committee in congress. We know theyre serious and now tonight were learning how serious its become taken by the president and his legal team. Tonight the wall street journal is reporting that lawyers for donald trump have met with the special counsel to lay out their legal argument for why in their view the president did not obstruct justice. Quoting from the piece, the president s lawyers have met several times with special Counsel Robert Mueller in recent months and submitted memos arguing that the president didnt obstruct justice by firing former fbi chief james comey. One memo laid out the case that mr. Trump has the Inherent Authority to hire and fire as he sees fit and therefore didnt obstruct justice when he fired mr. Comey. Another outlined why mr. Comey would make an unsuitable witness call him prone to exaggeration and unreliable in congressional testimony in the leak to the news immediate what. Joining us now isnicolas, one of the reporters who broke to story. Thank you for being here tonight. Lets go through the legal arguments that the president s team is making as far as you know. Is it limited only to the firing of james comey . Because my understanding would be thats not the only element of obstruction of justice on the table. Well the memo that was submitted to bob mueller involved just the firing of james comey and why that dpsh in their belief that wasnt obstruction of justice. Theyre making the case that the president has a Constitutional Authority as the head of the executive branch to staff the executive branch any quay he wants. They cited case law and making the argument essentially that a president can do this and theres really nothing to prohibit him and therefore the obstruction of justice charge is invalid. But he went on to try to discredit comey saying hes really not a reliable witness, nobody they can count on. Its clear that obstruction of justice was on the minds of President Trumps lawyers that were interested in doing away were scuttling the part of the investigation. Im interested in the second piece, the part to try to discredit james comey. You had the memo used as the pretext to fire him. Is it your reporting that theyre going to drag in the rose rosenstein memo that theres smog wrong with james comey and it would make his untrustworthy as a witness . It sounds like theyre arguing that comey isnt that believable or credible. Theyre saying that he exaggerates and saying that hes leaked material to the press, something that he shouldnt have done. So its clear that theyre trying to say or make the case that basing on on instruction charge on the basis of james comey would be a foolish thing to do and nothing that would stand up. They have a client in President Trump who is somebody who is upset and unhappy about this investigation, repeatedly dismisses it as a witch hunt, seei seeing it as a drag. And the lawyers are proactively trying to meet with mueller and trying to get this behind them. Yeah. And he not only, you know, is unhappy with the investigation but he keeps telling people that. He keeps saying outloud hes angry about the investigation, wants to be protected to it, according to reporting in his conversations with Mitch Mcconnell. Do you get the sense that the president s legal team is attempting to craft his defense taking into account the fact that hes admitted why he fired comey . Are they just embracing that . Im not sure theyre dealing with that question, in particular. Theyre focused narrowly on whether the firing of james comey amounts to obstruction of justice. Theyre looking at it from a broad constitutional perspective. Im not sure theyre sgegetting into the nuances of who said what when were in the early stages of this. This there is no indication that mueller is embracing the argument. From what we see the obstruction investigation continues. Its not clear at all that theyve accepted the rationale that the Trump Lawyers put forward. Theres a lot of discussion about the tone and the way you approach a situation like that when your legal team is facing off against somebody like Robert Mueller. Are they adversarial or taking a friendly tone toward the potential prosecutor here . Thats an interesting question. President trumps tone has been dock bat tif, calling it a witch hunt, raising questions about conflicts of interest that mullers team might have, were seeing Something Different from the Trump Lawyers. Theyre much more respectful, differential to mueller. They say they want a relationship with him. They dont seem to be bringing up conflict of issues. Theyre trying to keep open a channel of communication. So were sort of getting a more contentious vibe and tone from the white house and a much more collegial perspective coming from trumps lawyers. Probably wise. Peter nicolas, White House Correspondent for the wall street journal. Thank you for being here. Joining us now is barbara mcquade, msnbc contributor. Barbara, thank you for being here. I want to pick up sort of where we left off with peter on the question of attempting to discredit james comey as a strategy to get out of the idea of obstruction. Is that, in your view, a smart legal maneuver . Well, you want to go after any element of the crime or any proof issues or evidentiary issues and thats one of them. But it seems to me a very uphill battle to discredit james comey. There are a few things you can use if you want to portray his sharing of documents as leaks as the like. But if you look at his body of work, a jury or any fact finder is going to find him to be a highly credible person iep im not sure that particular argument is going to carry a lot of weight with Robert Mueller and his team. Lets talk about the inherent power to pardon. Thats what the trump team per the wall street journal reporting is hanging their hat on. Is the trump team has the ability to fire whoever he want to fire. Is that enough of an argument to get out of an obstruction of justice charge . I dont think so. I mean he does have the power to fire anyone he wants. Even jim comey himself said i accept the fact that the president can fire me for me reason or no reason at all. But that doesnt mean that theres no obstruction of justice here. I think theyre taking a narrow view of the obstruction. That was sort of just one example of a long litany of things that might contribute to an obstruction case. Theres the february 14th meeting where the president allegedly asked jim comey to let this thing go with flynn. There are similar requests to other leaders in the intelligence community. There is pressure on Mitch Mcconnell to protect me from this investigation. So i think mueller and his team are likely looking at the Bigger Picture of all of the examples of efforts too obstruct justice and the firing really is just but one example. And although the president has the pow tore do it, the fact that he did it could still be evidence that his goal was to obstruct justice. And im wondering if you know probably the toughest witness against donald trump might be donald trump. I go back to that lester holt interview where he explained in detail why he fired jim comey. Is there any way to back out of that in. I dont think so. Especially because we awe saw it in living color and on videotape. I think one thing thats probative about that is he says its the russia thing but just a few days earlier he had relied on the memos, the rosenstein memo to say it was because the way jim comey handle the clinton email investigation. When you have those conflicting stories, that is what prosecutors refer to as consciousness of guilt. I came up with one story and i changed my story because the first story didnt look good. That in itself, the fact that the story e vochls could be evidence of whats going on in a persons mind. If you were bob mueller building a case, would it be the firing of jim comey that would be the central element in the obstruction or would it be the other things you mentioned, going to Mitch Mcconnell saying why wouldnt you protect me about that, the constant complaints about the investigation within reaching out to members of congress saying lets have a schat abwhat you want in your state. Would all of those be elements tore firing . I think the firing is just one piece of evidence in this. I think its the totality of the circumstances. Because the key element in obstruction of justice is the corrupt purpose, why was the person doing this thing. And if you can show all of these different efforts to try to persuade various people to stop this nftinvestigation, then youn build the case. Looking at the firing allow is far too narrow. Does there vb on the an underlying crime . Meaning there was no underlying crime and you were trying to stop something politically embarrassing, is that obstruction . It is obstruction of the investigation. Now the nib or any investigative body has to be a legitimate purpose for investigating. They may conclude at the end of their information that no crime was committed. But regardless if there was an effort to impede or obstruct the investigation itself, regardless of the ultimate outcome, that is obstruction of justice. Barbara mcquade, thank you so much for joining us tonight. Thanks, joy. Lots more to come tonight, including special Counsel Robert Mueller partnering with another government agency. An expected policy shift from the administration when it comes to protecting dreamers and the latest developments on Hurricane Harvey, including that Chemical Plant in crosby, texas, on the ground conditions in beaumont and port arthur. Much more to come. Stay with us. If you have moderate to Severe Ulcerative Colitis or crohns, and your symptoms have left you with the same view, it may be time for a different perspective. If other treatments havent worked well enough, ask your doctor about entyvio, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohns. Entyvio works by focusing right in the gitract to help control damaging inflammation and is clinically proven to begin helping many patients achieve both symptom relief as well as remission. 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In a story posted late this evening, the daily beast reports that mueller has enlisted the irs in his investigation. Citing sources familiar with the probe the daily beast reports that the criminal Investigations Unit of the irs is helping the special counsel. Thats the part of the irs that deals with financial crimes, tax evasion and Money Laundering. Enlisting the irs gives the mueller Information Access to the president ears tax returns. The thing hes fought since the campaign to keep from becoming public. Nns h nbc has not confirm the daily beast story but it makes sense that Robert Mueller is asking questions about the finances of the vary players in and around the white house and campaign. On the other side, as weve been talking about is the reporting from the wall street journal about the way that the lawyers for the president