new republican calls for special counsel mueller to resign. >> someone with bob mueller's integrity will step aside and should. >> why take aim at robert mueller now? governor chris christie is here to explain. >>> plus, pointing fingers. amid new revelations in the russia investigation, the trump administration blames a familiar foe. >> if any collusion took place, it would be between the dnc and the clintons. >> they made up the whole russia hoax. >> what's the strategy behind these counterattacks? we'll talk with senator angus king of the intelligence committee in minutes. >>> hello. i'm jake tapper in washington, where the state of our union is watching and waiting. in less than 24 hours, the first person could be taken into custody in the russia investigation. on friday, a washington grand jury approved the first charges in the probe into possible collusion with russia by the trump team, led by special counsel, robert mueller. while the charges right now are still sealed, sources say anyone charged could be taken into custody as early as monday. we do not know at this point who migh

it's much easier than firing bob mueller. and second, they interview papadopoulos in january and february of 2017. three weeks later the president fires jim comey. he knew jim comey was on his tail. >> a whole lot of people matching up a whole lot of calendars today. >>> when we come back, i'll discuss the major turn of events with a member of the house intel committee. this this this this is my body of proof. proof of less joint pain and clearer skin. this is my body of proof that i can take on psoriatic arthritis with humira. humira works by targeting and helping to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to both joint and skin symptoms. it's proven to help relieve pain, stop further joint damage, and clear skin in many adults. humira is the #1 prescribed biologic for psoriatic arthritis. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious alle

he'll go after bob mueller much harder. i think he may even try to fire bob mueller, provoking a constitutional crisis. i don't think the president being chagrinned in any way. even though as you noted, bob mueller has proven his investigation has borne the fruit of a criminal indictment and that could also put the squeeze on others to testify against people higher in the chain of command. >> so matt miller, for the last word here, there's nothing actionable that can come from -- by incidedint of the president's now that this has entered perhaps a different phase? >> there's nothing actually different in the president's words, but he can remove bob mueller if he wants it, it's complicated in the way that he can do it but he can do it. the important bills to look at are the ones introduced in the senate by senators like chris coons of delaware to try to protect bob mueller, codify his independence. if the president starts lashing out, whether you see any republicans get behind those bills and try to move them forward. >> we

they obviously know bob mueller, they know his team. these are lawyers very experienced in white collar criminal cases involving white house investigations that go back decades. so they would like to stay out of the controversial space, but know full well that donald trump with one tweet can really ignite this whole thing. of course as well with those donald trump tweets, that's fodder for mueller as well. donald trump's tweets going back years really could become questions that bob mueller might use to premise his questions ultimately when he does get donald trump, whether under oath or in a voluntary interview. >> i read in your article that there's also a level of risk for bob mueller pursuing this. what is that, darren? >> well, bob mueller has been threatened to be fired by donald trump. donald trump again with one tweet can really set off a whole army of his allies to go after him. at this point the donald trump white house has been holding back and not really training its fire very hard on bob mueller. if it becomes an aggressive

paul manafort and mike flynn, two people bob mueller is putting great pressure under. they have no interest to talk and you presume they'd take the fifth amendment but being forced to face down the barrel of criminal charges and a long jail sentence has a way of changing people's minds. that's a tool that mueller has to get to the bottom of what actually happened. those congressional committees just don't have. at the end of this, it's always been and continues to be bob mueller that's going to tell us what really happened in the course of the campaign. and not just in the course of the campaign but also to answer this obstruction of justice question which we know he's looking into. >> let's leave the campaign behind for a minute and talk a little bit more about how obstruction of justice might have taken place after inauguration and who might be involved in that. we know bob mueller sent over a list of five or six white house aides to whom he wishes to speak. are all of those aides going to be forced to speak under threat of, if they don't tell the truth they will per

because bob mueller would do that. and the second thing i would look at is to see if the president of the united states is sending some kind of message to the potential defendant or other witnesses, and that's in two categories. one, is he sending a message of intimidation in some way through himself or his cohorts to suggest that people should not be talking, people should keep their mouths shut? and the second thing is whether or not he sends a message of reassurance. >> we're going to break it all down for you this morning with nbc's kelly o'donnell at the white house, former democratic congresswoman, and cnbc editor at large john harwood. quite a team right there. begin with kelly at the white house. kelly, good day to you. the president this morning firing off a series of tweets on the heels of mueller's indictments what all is he saying. >> reporter: it may be the president's reck ration this sunday. he is at the white house. used his twitter feed to respond more to the atmosphere than the specifics of the report

take a look at bob mueller's standpoint. we kind of get a daily barrage of this afternoon that happened. take a step back and look at the president's son had a meeting the a russian lawyer, pretext of which was to receive information about how the russian government wanted to help elect the government -- present. they were overheard on intercept either talking with russian intelligence officials or intermediaries. the president's national security adviser was overheard on intercept talking with the russian ambassador. we don't know exactly about what justicegh department of that it was inappropriate and warned the white house. the president himself in a public storm statement can be best described as being extremely solicitous of the russian government. so if you ask, why is bob mueller moving so quickly and this is not like a white color investigation but as a criminal enterprise and taking it like a drug trafficking enterprise, this is in some ways the most important investigation the department of justice has ever conduct

or the threat of firing bob mueller. the white house said in the past that the president has no intention of firing the special counsel at this point. where do we see this going? we can't predict, robert, but what are the consequences for either? >> i can't imagine the white house would fire the special counsel. i think it is within the white house's authority to do it, and you'd get into sticky constitutional questions at some point, about whether or not that can be an impeachable offense, something like that. i can't imagine. i think that whatever, for lack of a better term, establishment or traditional republican, kind of legal community would be, you know, fully off the train if mueller were fired in the middle of an investigation, or particularly after some indictments. i think that, you know, you might see more traditional criticism of mueller, the way ken star was criticized, how other special counsels have been criticized. that's probably more likely. i think there's probably some senior people that would advise

>> bob mueller has a big job on his hands, doesn't he? frank and renato, gentlemen, thank you so much for your expertise there. coming up next here, a member of the house intelligence committee, congresswoman jackie spear will join me live with her reaction to these charges revealed today and how the new details may impact her congressional investigation. stay with us. how long do you think we'll keep -- oooooohhh! you stopped! you're gonna leave me back here at year 9? how did this happen? it turned out, a lot of people fell short, of even the average length of retirement. we have to think about not when we expect to live to, but when we could live to. let's plan for income that lasts all our years in retirement. prudential. bring your challenges. won't replace the full value of your totaled new car. the guy says you picked the wrong insurance plan. no, i picked the wrong insurance company. with liberty mutual new car replacement™, you won't have to worry about replacing your car because you'll get the full value back including depreci

spshl counsel bob mueller charging three former trump aides and one pleading guilty. two stories emerging, one alleged and other not in dispute. bad news, one not in dispute is about russian collusion. breakdown tonight. first story more expected. two very well connected gop operatives. paul manafort and gates hiding work, money and tax bills. both pleading not guilty. manafort's lawyer saying ridiculous and denying collusion. alleging laundered more than $18 million. and stop in ukraine, leader paid manafort millions. >> viktor yanukovych denies embezzling state funds or hiding millions of dollars in bank accounts. night of the shootings, left kiev, never to return. following attacks on convoy, russian president sent special forces to bring him to safety in russia. >> manafort's client when he began offering services to trump for tree, insisting never worked for other clients and always careful. >> going to make a promise in the future if he's president you'll be careful what clients you take? >> i'm always careful what clients i take. >> that looks more suspect toda

i think he may even try to fire bob mueller, provoking a constitutional crisis. i don't see the president being sha grind in any way even though as you netted bob mueller has now proven his investigation has borne the fruit of a criminal indictment and that could also put the squeeze on others to testify against people higher in the chain of command. >> so matt miller, just for the last word here, there's nothing actionable that can come from by din of the president's words now that this has entered perhaps a different phase. >> there's nothing actionable that can come from the president's words, about it he can remove bob mueller if et cetera to. it's complicated the way he can do it, but he can do it. i think if you want to look for action from the hill in the come days, the important bills to look at are the ones that have been introduced in the senate like senator chris coons from delaware that try to protect him, codify his independence. if the president does react to these indictments and starts lashing out, whether you see any republicans get behind those

bob mueller expected to hand down that first indictment in the russia investigation tomorrow. the big question, who's going to be charged and how will republicans respond? a la flake/corker. take a listen. >> i'll work with the president and support his policies when i think he's right, but i will not hesitate to oppose him when i think that he is misguided. >>> and from capitol hill to tinselto tinseltown, is sexual harassment just part of corporate culture in america? >> when i was growing up, i never heard about it, never knew anything about it. >> it has made me pay more attention to what's been going on around me more. >> this hour we're also going to go beyond the divide. the opioid crisis from addiction to recovery. we're going to talk to a survivor and tell their story. >> i have lost friends to it. and sadly, as it seems to get bigger and bigger of a problem, i don't really think -- honestly, i don't think kids really care. >>> all right, we start with the big story of the day. it is the one word dominating all conversations in washington this very sunday -- indictmen

central to the theory of bob mueller's case, is that there was a coverup. there was a deliberate attempt to hide the true story about what happened in the election. and i think central to that is the question of the firing of jim comey and the explanations given for it. what were the real reasons for the firing and who said what afterwards? and those are the two parts of mueller's case i think reince priebus can shed the most light on. reince priebus came out in february of 2017 and said flatly as chief of staff in the trump white house, there have been no collusion whatsoever with russia during the campaign, who told him to say that and based on what, why did he say that? then, of course, the whole firing of james comey, which i think mueller believes is in itself an act of obstruction of justice to fire the guy investigating the president. what did priebus know about it? what were the real reasons for it? what was the whole genesis of the letter that was september to comey? who drafted what? who said what? whose opinions were what? also, don't forget, rei

bob mueller will have a lot to say about there. his investigation is to find out did trump who sold his white elephant house in florida to a russian for an exorbitant amount of money, was that participation in laundering money? if that's the case, that's clearly an emolument. he got some money. the russian got some money. it was illegal. i think mueller will find out all this stuff. this case will not go away based on what this particular judge decides. it will come back again and again and again. >> well, governor, you're not a lawyer but you are a former public official. i'll ask you the plain english common sense question. when this government, the trump administration says it is not logical to think that people would try the curry favor by throwing money at his businesses, does that fast he test for you as someone who ran in state government and you had lobbyists and other people trying to get to you? >> well, the scale of trump's malfeasance is extraordinary. and the answer is this has been going on for a very long time. jared

team, that bob mueller's not done. so these are earlier indictments. it suggests that either feast he's found facts that he thinks warrant moving now, or as we've seen in other cases, there's an effort to use early indictments to get more information, to get potential cooperation, to get proverbally people to flip. >> let's talk about who could be the fartarget of this. >> we know paul manafort was already told by mueller's investigators that he is a target. that is one person who figures in here based on a range of conduct, including scrutiny for deals and activities that don't directly relate to his political activities as campaign manager for donald trump during a period of that general election. the fact he's on the list doesn't mean he's first on the list. so as i mentioned, it may be that mueller has people for other reasons he wants to move forward on and while he's warned manafort, that he's not the first one, that he's not on this special list. we would not expect this based on the schedule to be the end of th

what do you make of the breaking news of bob mueller an his team and the big reveal for an indictment. >> like you said at the top, it's certainly big news. it's going to put a lot of shock waves no matter who it turns out to be. obviously the higher up in the chain it goes, the more noise there's going to be. but one thing is for sure, we now see that this investigation is moving -- will be moving out of the speculative into the legal. that's where the donald trump team has to be very careful in how they proceed on this. they probably don't know anything right now or at least they're not supposed to. going forward, it's interesting we haven't heard a tweet from donald trump today. my guess is his lawyers are really putting it onto him saying just be quiet on this matter. >> when we think, susan, about donald trump, the team of folks that have been around him. we've got the former campaign manager of donald trump, cory lewin dow ski reacting to the mueller news today. other folks have remained suspiciously mum about what's going on. do you think that it will be the usual suspect for l

this is the first move from bob mueller. we have a lot more to learn. >> sandra: to go back to his criticism of the probe itself. the best way to think about robert mueller is a compliment to nunes. he earned hard evidence and domestic spying on trump campaign officials. where is that in this probe? >> we may see some of it. reports that bob mueller is considering looking at tony podesta who yesterday announced he was stepping down from his firm. so it may get to that point. there is so much that we don't know at this point about what bob mueller has, what he is up to. the fact that he indicted this george papadopoulos who nobody was talking about. the arrest came a long time ago. i think it suggests people making predictions about what we know based on the very little information we've seen publicly do so at some peril. >> sandra: let's talk about papadopoulos. we know he has been charged and he willfully and fully cooperating with the feds. brit hume on special report said it's not a good day when your former campaign char

bob mueller hand hit that wall. and for more on this, i turned to a member of the foreign relations committee who joins me on "the beat." i'll read this to you in full. since the time you sbukd our washington studio, this news broke. let me read this to you. investigators from robert mueller's office traveled to london recently to interview christopher steele. that dossier author. your reaction? >> i think this is important news that shows the special counsel is not messing around. he is tracking down all the leads. and based on various reports, it is clear at least some, or perhaps many parts of the dossier are in fact true. so i am very pleased that special counsel mueller had a chance, at least his investigators, to interview christopher steele. >> you say reports suggesting it is partly true, at least. your view of what this says about the mueller investigation view of the potential veracity and why did they go to london? why didn't they get steele on come to the town you're in? >> mr. steele probably didn't wan

right now, bob mueller's team are interviewing current white house staff. we have a pretty good idea of which ones based on leaks. that's happening but that's cooperative. ty cobb and others in the white house have publicly said they view this as a process and it is positive that it is moving forward. in fairness to the white house, what we're hearing from the lawyers is not about a pardon strategy, it's about what you might call an interim cooperation strategy. >> matt miller, to ari's point about current members of the white house staff being interviewed, it was reported last week that the president himself has offered to pay some of those exorbitant legal bills. >> yes, well, the president's offered to make a lot of payments over the years to charities, to other things. >> fair point. >> we'll have to see when that happens. but look, i think one of the things about this indictment that we have to remember, it does not touch on anything by the president, doesn't raise any activity by the president. the one thing we know the president is under investigatio

who might bob mueller target next. first, president trump famously told us he talks to himself about foreign policy. when he did finally name his advisers, one of them was a man now charged with lying to the fbi. we'll show you more of what the future president said in march of 2016. first, bill karins with a check on the forecast today. >>> the nice halloween, especially after we had a huge windstorm. at one point, million people without power. that number dipped significantly down. 100,000, 200,000. windstorm in northern canada. dragged down from very cold halloween air. 16 right now in fargo. only 15 in rapid city. of course the cold air over the warm great lakes caused snow and rain showers. numerous areas. umbrella weather, especially around the buffalo area southward: so the other story if you're going to be out late today, east texas, houston area. dallas even included. you koumtd have showers 6:00 p.m. not going to be a complete washout. showers and storms. all the way back to dallas. and then late tonight to t

that person who's saying that doesn't know bob mueller. hasn't worked for bob mueller. essentially accusing bob mueller of deliberately committing a criminal violation by leaking the existence of a grand jury indictment is really misguided. so i'm telling you as someone who's worked for bob mueller, he's not a happy camper right now. he's not pleased that this has been released. >> so how did it get leaked then? didn't it have to be somebody on the team? perhaps not with his approval. >> right. so with 25 years of fbi experience, i can tell you we've seen leaks occur out of grand juries from the actual grand jury members, from court clerks, from fbi agents, from reporters who work fbi agents as sources, administrative help, marshals who protect the grand jury room, there's any host of ways this could have happened. but let's focus on what we do know. there's going to be ultimately an arrest here. and i can tell you based on history that whoever is being charged is under surveillance right now by an fbi surveillance team, even if there's been negotiations with his defens

he didn't. >> no. >> and neither has bob mueller. we will bring in "new york times" reporter robert smith who has traced the russia investigation every step of the way. we'll be right back. my advice for looking younger, longer? get your beauty sleep. and use aveeno® absolutely ageless® night cream with active naturals® blackberry complex. younger looking skin can start today. absolutely ageless® from aveeno®. accused of obstructing justice to theat the fbinuclear war, and of violating the constitution by taking money from foreign governments and threatening to shut down news organizations that report the truth. if that isn't a case for impeaching and removing a dangerous president, then what has our government become? i'm tom steyer, and like you, i'm a citizen who knows it's up to us to do something. it's why i'm funding this effort to raise our voices together and demand that elected officials take a stand on impeachment. a republican congress once impeached a president for far less. yet today people in congress and his own a

nbc news reported that bob mueller's team had traveled to interview christopher steele. steele is the former british intelligence officer who compiled the dossier. the dossier which contained some salacious material also contained unsubstantiated examples of possible collusion between donald trump's campaign and russia. we have learned in recent days that multiple investigations are working to corroborate some of the dossier's contents. this afternoon, nbc's ken delanian reported more, that steele is also in talks with the senate intelligence committee to meet with them and to assist them in their investigation into potential collusion between trump's campaign and russia. ken will join us in a couple minutes. with steele availing himself to mueller and to the senate intelligence committee, it becomes more likely that the contents of his original report will be further investigated and potentially some of them confirmed. for a glimpse into how that might make the president feel, here's a look at his first public reaction to the dossier. >> i saw the information. i read th

so, it will depend on the negotiations, but i think that is a logical step in bob mueller's eventually completing his investigation. >> do you believe that bob mueller has, or will see the president's tax returns? >> that, i don't know. it would be a logical step, but it really depends always on the evidence that you have, and then your assessment of the evidence with your able team, not only of lawyers, but of analysts. and my experience in whitewater, we really depended on superb financial analysts from both the fbi and the irs. these are professional people. they're not motivated by partisan politics. they're simply trying -- whatever their politics are, they leave that and the way to work, i have every confidence that bob mueller will see to it that politics are left at the door. bob happens to be a republican. but he is a fact and law person. and i think that's what we're going to get. we're going to get an ounce assessment of the facts. >> a legal hypothesis, but one that you had to deal with, can a sitting u.s. president be indicted? >> the justice department has an informal pol

jay was out this morning saying the president is denying firing bob mueller. here's what he said. >> the president has not indicated to me or anyone else that i work with that he has any intent on terminating robert mueller. and the way it would work is, you can only terminate a special counsel for cause. and we just don't see any basis for cause. >> what does that mean? >> well, what it means is that the president in the white house acknowledged that the president can't fire mueller, but he needs a legitimate reason to do it. >> what would that be? >> well, one possibility could be if he legitimately felt that mueller was exceeding his authority. that the justice department granted that. of course, we all know that the authority he has is fairly broad. >> pretty wide, right? >> pretty wide. that will be a challenge for the white house, but that certainly would be a basis. if he also felt that mueller had engaged in some conduct, that would provide a reason. i don't think we have seen anything like that yet, but those are the types of reasons to support the te

what do you think might the effect of that be were the president to fire bob mueller? >> well, again, you know, we saw what happened when richard nixon engaged in the saturday night massacre in the hope that somehow that might stem the investigation into watergate. that didn't happen. it -- it actually created even greater momentum in that investigation. so i think if the president were to make any effort to go after bob mueller, any effort like that would be viewed as indicating that the president really does have something to hide and probably would result in an even more vigorous investigation of just exactly what was involved here. >> former cia director hand white house chief of staff, leemtia, always a pleasure to have you on the show, sir. thank you. >> good to be with you. >>> how did we get here? we'll connect the dots that led to two huge indictments and a guilty plea in the mueller probe. stay with us. (avo) when you have type 2 diabetes, you manage your a1c, but you also have a higher risk of heart attack or stroke. non-insulin victoza® lowers a1c, and now

on bob mueller, lots of pressure on bob mueller, lots of flak from the republican side about hillary clinton, uranium one, then this from the wall street journal saying the best thing he can do is probably stand aside, resigned to prevent further political turmoil over his convict of interest, the suggestion that some on his team had been donors to the democrats. did you get a sense today from sarah sanders that maybe bob mueller's position is a lot safer than it was la st position is a lot safer than it was last week? there are two camps in the white house, from my understanding of people i have spoken to. one camp that has tried to put pressure on the president of fire bob mueller, another that has said this would look terribly bad. i think today, after these indictments and after we had papadopoulos pleading guilty, it would look even worse if the president might turn around and fire bob mueller. that's what you had sarah huckabee sound is coming out and pouring cold water on that idea. this investigation will continue. the other interesting thing she said in a press conference wa

they have taken a little bit of a back row compared to what bob mueller is doing. there was a role from them to play. don't prematurely end this because you think it's just a witch hunt, this is a serious issue across the political spectrum. come up with some recommendations. >> harris: at this level. multiple investigations, spending so much money and we are going to get that price tag eventually because that will become public knowledge. >> marie: we had dozens of congressional investigations into benghazi, clinton's emails, everything under the sun that hillary clinton ever did have the state department. i'm not saying those were all wrong to be undertaken the congressional investigations have been all the time for every reason. we have two go, only to go into russian interfering in our election gimmick that doesn't seem high of a bar. >> katie: everyone is asking what can be done and actually state run elections and if you look at the state level, they are the ones who are doing things to prevent this from happening in any kind of interference from a local leve

head of the fbi at the time, bob mueller, the man now appointed special counsel to connect donald trump to russia. the fbi agent handling the case? andrew mccabe. he's the man who was handling the seem investigation of hillary. and you may remember his wife got $675,000 from clinton pal terry mcauliffe, also connected to the clinton foundation because she ran with hillary in 2016. she lost, but under virginia law she can keep whatever cash was left from that oh so generous contribution. at the time of the approval of the transnever our uranium to -- the transfer of our uranium to russia. republicans worried that russia helped iran build its nuclear resack tore and that the takeover of united states nuclear resources by a russian government-owned agency would be against our national security interests. why does this all matter? at the time that the obama administration green lighted this sale, republicans in congress objected. and they didn't even know about the criminality and the money laundering. so you ask yourself, what happened to that criminal case? the criminal case was plea barg

so he does believe that the president should if after bob mueller in appear attempt to, you know, simply throw this all up in the air here. so there is an internal discussion. so far the president has not for abhiel gone after the special counsel here. we'll see if he does in the coming days. anderson, all of this, of course, a major distraction as this week was supposed to be the time to talk about the tax reform plan. and of course he's leaving friday for a foreign trip as well here. but this, of course, so front and center tonight. >> it's fascinating that the president was actually watching tv for hours and didn't go to work until did about 12 or 1230. so the papadopoulos that came as a surprise. >> it did. we were told by several people that he was not expecting this and of course most people around washington weren't expecting this. he had pleaded guilty more than a month ago and this was something that was sealed and kept confidential here. no one pz who he spoke to as he was wearing a wire. if anyone had a conversation with him i can imagine they're rethinking what they said to h

if paul manafort has anything on president trump you can expect that bob mueller will be putting the pressure on very strongly to bring that information out. manafort has pleaded not guilty in court. rick gates has done the same thing. here?do things go from perhaps we will hear from attorneys. where in terms of process do we go now? >> the special prosecutor continues his work. they made it quite clear this has no affect on the congressional investigation. one of the key things is george papadopoulos bullis cooperation with the indictment. these are not necessarily finite. could find out new information and have further of them or others. it will be interesting to see whether or not there are more charges brought forward to these individuals are new ones. that's the process. sanders sayingy he expects miller's probe to continue very soon. is wishful thinking given how much it seems to be expanding. >> definitely. she did not provide any information about why she going tothe probe is be wrapping up soon. the white house has sort of herod this line for summer months saying this is jus

. >> rose: there has been much talk about bob mueller's team about bob mueller's integrity. you work with hims achieve of staff. you know the team he has assembled. how would you characterize them? >> i would just say starting at the top, that that the first word that comes to mind with former director bob mueller is integrity. this is someone from when he volunteered to sign up as a marine to go to vietnam, through his long service as a prosecutor, through multiple administrations, three different u.s. attorneys offices, high ranking role ntion multiple administrations including head of the criminal division and lastly as the director of the fbi, has earned the respect of everyone that has worked with him on both sides of the aisle. and has always been the ultimate nonpartisan, hard-charging investigator. >> rose: and what would you say the people he has chosen to be his principal attorneys in this. >> he has picked a team in the same mold. andym make no mistake, nothings going to happen at the end of the day on this team without bob meulter asking hard questions and decid

mueller or member of bob mueller's team. did you find that surprise sng and do you expect that's something that will change? >> that was a very interesting exchange. he was under questioning by senator patrick leahy. first he paused and was very awkward and didn't want to answer and finally says, no, i've not been questioned about three topics that senator leahy asked him about, russian interference and comey and so forth. but then later senator coons asked him about other conversations he may have had with mueller. and he suddenly says he's not going to answer at all. suggesting that there have been other conversations. and i wonder if what that means is perhaps he's had conversations with mueller's office about being interviewed and the interview just hasn't happened yet, that's my speculation. but that would be one way to square the circle of why he got squirrely at the end there about some conversations with mueller even if he hasn't been interviewed yet. >> john, also we found out that sean spicer, former press secretar

a theory bob mueller is making this up as it goes along, random. another theory closer to what we know about bob mueller. everything has a thought-out strategy. he could have legally released this early early or held it to later. he made a decision to basically offer up in concert these two things together, communicating through what he believes to be facts. again, manafort and -- and -- i'm blanking. >> gates. >> and gates. manafort and gates are denying this and presumed innocent. he says these factsz show, a., campaign, people's use of mrn and b. separate problem, caught, that relates to how russians offering dirt on clinton were dealt with by the trump campaign. obviously, released this in an explosive way in one day showing his work isn't done and he's pursuing both avenues. >> ari, following it all day. work's not done for you. we'll let you prep to your show in an hour from now. thanks for stopping by. let's bring in ken delanian and kristen welker. seemed the main name is paul manafort. reporting he was likely to be indicted. the campaign c

and then news broke that steele is talking to bob mueller. continuing many months of fbi scrutiny of the explosive claims in the trump russia dossier. and then last night rachel maddow reported that steele is happy to talk to senate investigators. >> an associate of steele test us that in fact very recently, in late september, christopher steele in london related to washington through this associate that mr. steele in fact would be happy to meet with richard burr and senator mark

and in some sorts that's testament to bob mueller's team and the way they're operating. second, plooes arrested or pleas guilty to lying. what we did when he was first involved with the fbi is try to be protective of others. so, i think that this guilty plea to lying has to tell anybody else who has or is going to be interviewed, you better think long and hard about what you're going to say to mueller. you can't protect anyone but yourself, because if you do lie in an effort to protect somebody, a mistaken effort to protect somebody you're going to end up with a thousand and one lying count against you, it's a five-year felony and easily proved. >> laurie you agree but you're big thing is whether george lab wearing a wire for months. >> absolutely. proactive to me means he was actively trying to have the discussions with people, to in some ways make mueller's team aware of what had happened over the months prior to that. so being proactive there are a lot of people he could have had conversations with. remember, washington, d.c. is one of their one party jurisdiction. yo

believe that bob mueller has or will see the president's tax returns? >> that, i don't know. it would be a logical step, but it really depends always on the evidence that you have and then your assessment of the evidence with your able team not only of lawyers, but if analysts. and my experience, in whitewater, we depended on superb financial analysts from both the fbi and the irs, these are professional people, they are not motivated by partisan politics, they're simply trying -- whatever their politics are, they leave that, the way it's to work and i have every confidence that bob mueller will see to it, that politics are left at the door. bob happens to be a republican. he's a fact-and-law person. and think that's what we're going to get, an honest assessment of the facts. >> a legal hypothetical, one that you had to deal with can a sitting u.s. president be indicted? >> the justice department has an informal policy that the president, the sitting president cannot. that is not embodied in any regulation of the like. it is an understanding. there have

you can bet bob mueller is taking notice. and that's not all. the other part of trump's mitigation defense he is that whatever his rookie staff did, he didn't know about it. trump has some experienced defense lawyers and they are ready to flip. senator howard baker's famous question on its head. >> what did the president know and when did he know it? >> if donald trump didn't know, or didn't know until later, they can argue he didn't know about any solicitation of this foreign help pirgts looks like some of which occurred. and his own solicitation would remain in the sarcasm vault. that may sound dodgy but it could be a decent legal defense. conspiracy doesn't require that your plot was successful but it does require you knew about it and you plotted it. and that's why the news tonight that another trump adviser might land on this list is so significant. the new report making waves. that he the trump digital adviser,ed will rebecca mercer, that any e-mail could be turned into a searchable document. so this looks bad for trump because it suggests

this indictment is coming in a little over five months since bob mueller was appointed. and we kind of went back, checked the history books. in the nine previous indictments or independent or special counsel investigations dating back all the way to the carter administration, the average for first charges filed was about 17 months. so, this is considered by anything lightning fast. does that tell you something there that the indictment has come down so quickly, within five months? >> you know, it tells you a couple things. one, i think anyone that's ever worked with bob mueller knows he's one of the most aggressive prosecutors in the last 50 years to work inside the justice department. so this follows a pattern of his time at d.o.j.. the second thing i think we can draw, we'll see tomorrow when the indictments are unsealed, is it's likely the core indictments are not going to be -- are not going to answer this big question about whether any americans helped the russians or coordinated with russians to influence the election, but there are a number of related charges as p

bob mueller is six steps ahead of this president. we saw that today with the

mueller who is his buddy. and what was the mission of the special counsel? to investigate russian undermining of our presidential election in relation to the trump campaign. and what do we find out this morning? paul map for the is charged with not disclosing his foreign bank account. >> sean: 2006 to '14. >> right. 11 years ago. that's how far they have to dig. and not registering adequately as a representative of foreign

this shows that bob mueller is moving quickly. there are a lot of people that thought he might pursue this investigation into next year and wrap it all up at one time, with a series of charges or a report to congress about actions by the president, but it appears he's decided not to take that course of action but at least bring one indictment, maybe more than one set of indictments early in this case while he continues to investigate other things. this is important to note. this does not mean we are at the end of the investigation. this is the first indictment, first set of indictments, we'll see when the charges are unsealed. and there are more to come. >> part of the reporting that cnn has done tonight which is more background rather than it is sort of some new fact that they've dug up. the way they're characterizing their report tonight is that the deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein, who's overseeing all matters related to the russia investigation because of the recusal of attorney general jeff sessions, rod rosenstein as

. >> this suppose bob mueller is working quickly. there are a lot of people that thought he might pursue the investigation into months. maybe a report to congress about fwakss president that wouldn't result in criminal charges. >> at least one indictment, maybe more than one set of indictments early in the case. this does not mean that we are at the end of the investigation. i think i think the first seventh indictments. there could be more to come. >> from a doj perspective. part of the reporting that cnn has done which is more background rather than something had, some new fact they dug up. the way they're characterizing the report. the deputy attorney general, rob rosenstein who is overseeing all matters related to this, as the person overseeing the mueller investigation, would he have had to see it? would he have had to be infwormd these proposed charges for the mueller investigation to go this far? >> technically, he would have to see the indictment. it would be up to the relationship that he and mueller worked out under the ter