robert mueller. mueller's credibility and in the gutter tonight with the new discoveries. his conflicts of interest and biassed the corruption are on full display. mueller is a disgrace to the american justice system and put the country on the brink of the coming bananarepublic. mueller forme fbi director aurnd bush and obama appointed as a special council to the russia probe by attorney general ros rosenstein. rosenstein federal attorney able to appoint mueller because the attorney general, jeff sessions recused himself from the russia investigation that was a huge mistake. he may want to unrecuse himself after sessions and rosenstein encouraged president trump to fire fbi director comey over inappropriate action in the clinton e mail investigation. as it turns out james comey he is good friends with robert mueller after years of working in similar roles be some have described them as, brothers in aways. that is so cute. comey tweeting he is meeting with his book publisher. can't wait for that to come out when will he work for fake news cnn or msnbc. back to mueller his c

mueller is a republican. he was appointed by a republican deputy attorney general, rob ro rosen stein. he was appointed by president trump. an adversary in connection with the 2016 election. that's what's being investigated. members of congress continue to make this type of fuss are making themselves look vulnerable to this type of inquiry. there are serious questions about russian al garks. a second special counsel ougt to look into that. mueller doesn't have time to deal with the hundreds of congressional campaigns going on. these are very defensive about robert mueller. none of the claims have basis. those e-mails were already in the possession of the united states government, transition teams. our tax dollars are used to fund the transition team. obviously, robert mueller didn't get hold of those. i have never seen such arguments with executive privilege or the rest of it. i want to emphasize, the members of congress are going to be in serious trouble in the 2018 election if they keep behaving this way. i

mueller's intentions. i think they misunderstand the politicaly that the establishment both party have for the president. on their resolve to remove any pretext. to me a strategy of turning over of thousands of documents waving executive relying on the is foolishler strategy. i think that we have to see what of general flynn's plea deal. general flynn said that a senior of the president's transition team directed him to contact the russian ambassador to set up a meeting. onerfectly legal, action general flynn's part. ishaps, mr. mueller preparing an indictment of others. to me that ifng mr. mueller should proceed, any of the president or his associates to me it appears process be some kind of related indictment, perjury, obstruction. not relating specifically to collusion with the russians to affect the outcome of the election. >> do you think there's anything in the president's tax return that can lead to charges? not.do i have long thought that the president isn't putting his tax the totalt because incom

as mueller's legal pit bull. we are talking about the hard-charging prosecutor, andrew weissmann. he has a long history of using highly questionable, unethical tactics to get convictions. there is new information tonight and it highlights weissmann's rampant anti-trump bias. we'll get to that in a second. before we do, you've got to understand who is andrew weissmann. fox news legal analyst gregg jarrett has dug deep into his background.ck here's what he has found. back in 2,000, during the massive enron scandal, weissmann was one of the prosecutors on the tax force that brought a very controversial obstruction of justice case against the giant accounting firm, arthur andersen. this is important. weissmann's actions put the company out of business. tens of thousands of people lost their jobs. in 2005, the united states supreme court overturned weissmann's obstruction of justice conviction in a unanimous 9-0, nearly unprecedented ruling. but it was too late. he had already inflicted maximum damage to so many peopl

mueller's intentions. i think they misunderstand the committee the political establishment in both parties has for the president and their resolve to remove him on any pretext whatsoever. to me, a strategy of just turning over hundreds of -- relying on the innate fairness of robert mueller is a foolish strategy. i think we have to see what comes out of general flynn's plea deal. general flynn has said a senior member of the president's transition team directed him to contact the russian ambassador to set up a meeting. a perfectly legal action on general flynn's part. muellermr. comey -- mr. is preparing an indictment of others. it's interesting to me that if mr. mueller should proceed against the president, it appears it would be some kind of process related indictment, perjury, obstruction, nothing related specifically to collusion with the russians to affect the outcome of the elections host:. do you think there's anything in the president's tax returns the kavitha charges? stone: i do not. i have long f

the attacks on mueller, doj and fbi this week make it clear they plan to go after mueller's investigation aggressively and soon. by shutting down the congressional investigations when they discover evidence, the white house can exert tremendous pressure to end or curtail mueller's investigation or cast doubt on it. we cannot let that happen. the question that comes more clearly into focus every day that the president ignores intelligence and lashes out at facts is a simple one -- does russia's unprecedented attack on the american electoral process matter, and does it matter they'll try to do it again? to borrow a phrase from the president, we'll see. breaking news tonight about what's next for the mueller investigation. pamela brown joins us now with that. what have you learned? >> reporter: sources are telling us the president's lawyers are planning to meet with special counsel robert mueller and his team, and we're told this could happen as soon as next week. this is viewed as a key meeting for what the president's lawyers hope will be a chance to find out the next steps in the mueller

mueller. hasn't told ounsel us how many other folks they have brought on, who are acting staff, so take that in context, not knowing exactly people that is supporting, a portion of being spent on folks who were hired from outside of that is kind , so of the money that you would see eing spent for private salaries, other folks are, coming from within the department of justice. their salaries would have been paid regardless, they are the special counsel other than working on other matters. mueller himself set the salary range? guest: when they hire from the government, sliding scale of government pay, you not see anything wildly outside of what works for the ranked along is experience level of what they have and folks brought back from outside of government had spent some time in government work before. was then another category about $733,000, labeled for equipment purchases. could you describe what those fall under? guest: we didn't get a breakdown line-by-line items, what is purchased, but it

mueller. it's happening largely on the right, friendly media. an article posted on politico today looks at a strategy behind this and says, "the purpose of the onslaught, according to people close to the white house, isn't to encourage the president to oust the special counsel, rather, these people said, the goal is to sow public doubt about mueller and his prosecutors in advance of upcoming criminal trials and give the president police officer cover if he wants to start issuie ining pardons." a new nbc news/"wall street journal" poll gives indication of how members of the public view the special counsel these days. 28% held positive views of robert mueller in december up from 24% in june. while 21% held negative views in december up from 11% in june. here to talk about all of it, julia anzly, jennifer rogers, former assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york, these days executive director of columbia law's center for the advancement of public integrity. welcome to you both.

he can fire mueller. what's the bigger, most explosive thing he can do that might cause a march to impeachment? >> if you're asking me, firing mueller i think would be a very big event that would put not just democrats but republican office holders in a spot to answer what they would intend to respond to that. i think that would be a more serious statement by the president, a more serious action than pardoning mike flynn. >> how much megatonnage? pardoning his son-in-law, pardoning flynn. or would it be firing mueller? >> firing mueller would be the most -- the biggest thing he could do to lead us into unknown territory and potentially a constitutional crisis. i don't get an indication that's something the president is seriously considering at this point, certainly not before the end of the year. but the clip you played where he's saying we don't want to talk about that yet, that was really interesting to mike flynn. >> that's a big yet. >> he might say now flynn's been indicted taking the deal. he was on

but is mueller safe? i mean, you know, the president has said he's not going to fire robert mueller, but then after something like this happens today, shimon, you wonder is that really going to be the case. >> you never know, right. we keep hearing there are people from inside the trump orbit he is not happy with mueller and how he could fire him at any day. that would just set off a chain of events that would be very difficult for the president to control. look, if he was to fire mueller, would it necessarily end this investigation? i mean i don't know. maybe, susan, you can probably talk about that better. but here is one option and one thing people have talked about, is perhaps he fires sessions, brings in a different attorney general. that attorney general is not recused like sessions is in the russia investigation. so perhaps the special counsel mueller would now report to this attorney general who has been put in place by trump, which then gives trump at least some control perhaps of the investigati

investigating, because flynn may have already told mueller i was told to lie, but mueller also knows that flynn is not the most credible witness he's ever going to have. one, he's already pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi, the defense counsel will use that first and foremost to say that he's already a felon in terms of lying and then, they will be able to introduce the deal, they will be able to frame the deal to the jury to at least suggest very clearly that he may have a motive to lie now, to set up this case for mueller. so, it's very important for mueller to substantiate in some or way though the witnesses he's talking to have to be quite worried why they might be lying. you can't only rely on flynn and mueller has to find somebody else, he has a lot of leverage for federal and as i said before, state liability to confirm whether or not in fact it's true. there's a strong obstruction case already based on what trump has said in public. look at the timeline. so trump decides he's going to fire comey and he and steven miller, i can't wait to see the miller versus mueller showdown

mueller's investigation. as chairman burr and i've noted on many occasions, the fbi is responsible foror determining ay criminal activities related to this inquiry. as such, mohler has only moved to indict to individuals and has negotiated two additional guilty pleas. there is an investigative path, this is an investigative path reserved solelyfo for law enforcement and it is essential that it be permitted to go on unimpeded. the country no doubt remains severely divided on the question of the last election. however, the national security threat facing us today should demand that we rise above partisan differences. no matter the political divide, surely each of us and all americans should want to know the truth off what happened during last year's election, and no doubt we all want to know that as quickly as possible. now, the president has long called investigation into the russian meddling into the 2016 election a witchhunt, and he's done much to discredit the intelligence communities unanimous assessment o

himself, and mueller's team, highlighting donations that members of mueller's team gave to democrats. it's all an effort to lay the groundwork for either firing mueller, which seems unlikely at this point, or more likely to lay the groundwork for undercutting any findings that he may have that are critical of donald trump, and you see this working in some ways, you see polls showing that republican voters are amenable to the idea of firing mueller. and that they are suspicious of the russia investigation. interestingly, right now, donald trump has this tremendous reservoir of good will among the house and senate republicans who would be the ones who would potentially block the firing or would react in an aggressive way to the firing of bob mueller in a way we haven't seen before, that is causing concern. this is all an effort to pave the way, in some way undermining or pushing out bob mueller. >> now, mr. ken dilanian, join us, and listening to a snippet from the president from about a month ago. we'll talk about it on the other side. >> you want to look at hillary clinton. i'm reall

mueller's office. but people familiar with the probe say that such assurances are unlikely and that the meeting could trigger a new, more contentious phase between the special counsel and a frustrated president. people with knowledge of the investigation said it could last another year, pointing to ongoing cooperation from witnesses such as former trump campaign advisor george popadopoulos and former national security advisor mike flynn, in fact investigators said they expect to work through 2018 at least, according to the post reporting. also today, a stunning account of donald trump's very thin skin from "the washington post." reporting that donald trump was so angry at his own supreme court nominee neil gorsuch for a perceived slight that he thought about pulling back the pick. earlier this year, trump talked about rescinding gorsuch's nomination, venting angrily to advisors and legislators. all of this as republicans finally celebrate a legislative victory, the tax bill passing the house, on its wa

but rosenstein appointed mueller. and also, he, generally, oversees mueller. so not day to day, but mueller has to come to rosenstein every 90 days, report on the progress of his investigation, get his permission to say, bring charges are take major steps, expand the scope of the investigation, and rosenstein has been agreeing to all of this. if he hadn't, he would have had to report to congress. so, trump, theoretically, could remove rosenstein and put someone else in the place of him that may not be as willing to facilitate mueller's investigation. and he could do that without removing mueller at all. so i think that is something to consider. and it's a way that would not draw as much political ire or backlash, because he appointed rosenstein, he could theoretically take him out, you know, for not doing a good job. >> and "the washington post" reporting that he's mocking him behind closed doors, which is sometimes a sign of things to come. asha rangappa, great to have you with us, thanks so much. so the president thinks the investigation will wrap up some ti

robert mueller is secretly made of canadian uranium. then they tried to make the christopher steele dossier into the real russia scandal. and then last week they picked a new new scandal. texts between peter strzok, the deputy assistant director of the counterintelligence division at the fbi and lisa page, who's an fbi lawyer. page at one point had worked on the mueller investigation, but she'd been off that team for months. peter strzok had initially been part of the mueller investigation and then had been removed this summer after the justice department inspector general turned up a bunch of his text messages that showed strzok and page communicating with each other at a personal level and expressing various strong political opinions. mueller saw those text messages from the inspector general's office. he respond the by taking strzok off his team back in i think june of this yar wp strzok no longer works on the mueller investigation. no longer works in counterintelligence. he's now in human resources. but the texts themselves have bee

mueller's credibility as a fair and independent investigator. mr. president, i stand here as the vice chairman of the senate intelligence committee. we are in the midst of our own investigation into russian incursion. and i'm proud of the way the chair -- that chairman burr and our committee has taken on this very difficult task. we've made tremendous progress uncovering the facts of russian interference in our elections. our committee's work helped expose the dark underbelly on many of our social media platforms. we successfully pressed for the full accounting of russian cyber efforts to target our state electoral systems. and despite the initial denials of any russian contact during the election, this committee's efforts have helped uncover numerous and troubling high-level engagements between the trump campaign and russian affiliates, many of which have only been revealed in recent months. we've got a lot of work to do yet, but our committee has gone out of its way to ensure continued bipartisan backing for this effort. and i'm committed to seein

mueller is not going to issue any final conclusions until he sees they can -- if mueller gets convicted, is he then willing to tell his story? absolute sent hearing an accounting for mueller, he'll keep the door open. same goes for mike flynn. we don't know what he's telling. mueller will want to get a full debrief from george pap pen done poe louse. that's where the collision is coming from. they're telling trump, hey, hold on. this is clear and upstream. that's where you have a problem. >> michael, great to have you. >> sure. >>> for more on the mueller investigation, i'm joined by evelyn farkus. let me start with you, evelyn. we've been watching this sort of growing chorus of members of congress intimating there's corrupt bias, corruption, i will legit ma sis shooting through the fbi. here's francis rooney saying he wants to know the political contributions. >> we should look at all of the totality of fbi leaders, reporters. >> and why do you want to do this? >> well, if you're going to -- to make -- >> because you don't trust the investigation. you don't trust the team? >> i have a

has been ordered by sessions to look into how mueller and the f.b.i. handled the hillary clinton, bill clinton, uranium one probe that stemmed from the clinton cash book. there's a lot going on. robert: so many swirling issues. the president has so many people in his ear, his lawyer, ty cobb, john dowd. they're telling him he should be patient. then you have devin devin nunez, the chairman, and his own son saying, fight, fight. where is the president tilting? eli: so far he's listening to ty cobb and has been restrained in terms of attacking robert mueller but a lot of people out there carrying water for the administration, republicans, members of congress saying mueller should be fired. several members of congress are saying this, too. one of them, freshman representative matt gates from florida was on air force one with the president when they went to pensacola. they discussed it and gates revealed that the president was encouraging so there are all these questions about, is the president behind the scenes doing this. i think deep down this agitates

hannity calls mueller the head of the snake saying he is disgraceful. this kind of language repeated over and over again i think of it as a feedback loop. i was speaking about this to nicole hammer who says a feedback that the president wants to hear and the president says things that reembolden the pro trump hosts and something to pay attention to as we hear this drum beat about mueller. the polls show they are in support of the mueller probe and they want to know what happened with russia meddling in the election last year but hosts like hannity are skeptical of mueller. a reap example of the divide in the country and how conservative media is fueling that divide right now. >> it's also to point out the president is not alone. we heard testimony, at least the questioning by some of the house members when the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein on the hill this week quoting some of these reports and some of these fox hosts and their stories about mueller and his probe. >> it's one thing to wonder about certain members of the mueller team. look. ther

we know the special counsel removed peter strop from the mueller team. we know yes was removed and we have a clear picture of his previous assignments and why mueller did everything he could to avoid the reasons for strock's removal. he led the investigation of hillary clinton's email server. he took part in the drafting of comey's statement on clinton's email case. james rosen as our report. reporter: as a form deputy director for the fbi peter strzok participated in mrs. clinton's lone interview with the fbi in july 2016. and he reportedly helped persuade james comey to forego prosecution of mrs. clinton. and which the fbi may have used to launch an intelligence probe on a cam opinion trump advisor. then he became a top figure in the probe of russian collusion led by robert mueller until july of this year when mueller learned strzok sent an email to a colleague critical of trump. >> there were pro hillary people at the heart of the investigation. >> this was one of the lead agents on the hillary clinton email investigation. if trite's disturbing and po

is new reporting about the mueller investigation. that could create new challenges for the president's legal team. the daily beast writing in a special counsel, may indict paul manafort again. the beast reports "in washington legal circles there's a broad expectation that mueller will file what is called a superseding indictment of paul manafort and rick gates -- to our leadoff panel on a tuesday night. tamara keith, correspondent for npr, welcome, tom lobianco, for the associated press, and frank figluzi, counterintelligence, in the past worked for robert mueller and nbc news national security analyst. frank, let me start with you. you heard representative gomer talking how robert mueller would love to be a hero to the left. a republican for most if not all of his adult life. what is this conflight ingconfla fbi and mueller investigation all about. >> the president would have us believe if he attacks the fbi, attacks the deputy director of the fbi, then some how he is undermining the special counsel investigation. we need to remind

official who mueller removed from his post last summer after mueller learned of messages exchanged with another fbi employee that were overtly critical. one message he sent said, god, hillary should win 100 million to nothing. republicans in the media have used this development to impugn the entire mueller investigation. >> i call on my republican colleagues to join me in calling for the firing of bob mueller, and look, it's time for mueller to put up or shut up. if there's evidence of collusion with russia, let's see it. >> we're now beginning to better understand the magnitude of this insider bias on mr. mueller's team. >> if one person can be persecuted by an instrument of the government at one standard and another can't, what does it mean to all of us? should we fear our fbi? >> there is a cleansing needed in our fbi and department of justice. it needs to be cleansed of individuals who should not just be fired but who need to be taken out in handcuffs. >> mueller is corrupt. the senior fbi is corrupt. the system is corrupt. >> his conflicts of interest, his clear bias, the corruptio

and any attempt to remove bob mueller will not be tolerated. these are bs attacks on him/his staff that are blatantly political- 69ed to hide the real wrongdoing. country not party. wow. joining me now is attorney allen gersoswitz and author of trumped up. and how political differences endangers democracy. great to have you with us, professor. >> thank you. your assessment much that little tweet from eric holder? >> i think most americans don't want to see the justice system infected with bias or perceptions of bias. and this is not whether a person is democrat or republican. i am a liberal democrat and voted for and contributed to hillary clinton and i think i can be fair because i never expressed politically any views of hatred toward donald trump or anyone else who is investigated. when you have people tweeting and sending e-mails and expressing hatred and prejudice against the potential subject of the investigation, you have a real problem about the perception of bias and mueller has to to something about that. and i suggested he bring on h

mueller's intentions. i think they misunderstand the deep enmity that the political establishment in both parties has for the president and they're -- their absolute resolved to remove him on any pretext whatsoever. to me, strategy of turning over hundreds of houses of documents, waiving executive privilege, and relying on the fairness of robert mueller is a foolish strategy. i think we have to wait to see what comes out of general flynn's plea deal. he says a senior executive directed him to set up the meeting, a perfectly legal action on general flynn's part. so, perhaps mr. mueller is preparing an indictment of others. it is interesting to me that if mr. mueller should proceed against the president or any -- to me it seems like it would be a process related indictment of perjury, obstruction, nothing relating specifically to tolusion with the russians affect the outcome of the election. host: do you think there is anything in the president's tax returns that can lead to charges? to affect the outcome of

to not fire bob mueller. and i think that if he attempts to do so that you're going to see legislation move if there's any hint at all that bob mueller's job is in jeopardjeop >> all right, senator ed markey, thank you, sir, we do appreciate your time on this very busy friday. >>> and just ahead, there's more breaking news on the michael flynn plea deal. the possible legal risks for the president. parts a and b and want more coverage, guess what? you could apply for a medicare supplement insurance plan whenever you want. no enrollment window. no waiting to apply. that means now may be a great time to shop for an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. medicare doesn't cover everything. and like all standardized medicare supplement insurance plans, these help cover some of what medicare doesn't pay. so don't wait. call now to request your free decision guide. it could help you find the aarp medicare supplement plan that works for you. these types of plans have no

and robert mueller can have them. we have a congress that spent millions of dollars going through hillary clinton's e-mails. that's my taxpayer money. they are arguing that robert mueller can't take a look at e-mails from the trump transition team. that argument makes absolutely no sense. and what he is investigating is collaboration with the russians. this is critically important to our national security. robert mueller stays in place or donald trump is going to have to go. it's that simple. >> two things, then, on the issue of mueller being removed. that would be a really big problem. there are lots of rumors floating around. and then the e-mails. richard says it's not illegal and that it's not private property as the transition team alleges. you do see a problem in which it may have been obtained. >> i am critical of how the special counsel handled getting the e-mails. i think the gsa, government owns the e-mails. i don't think there is an expectation of privacy. >> the transition team says there was an understandi

robert mueller investigation. at the same time, there are people who believe that if the president firing robert mueller, that it will set into motion a political chain of events that will be even more damaging to the white house than when the president fired former fbi director james comey. it's a thought that perhaps instead of firing robert mueller there will be this consistent effort to try to discredit every aspect of this investigation in the same way that we've seen that these claims that the e-mails were obtained illegally. i think lawyers would know that e-mails that are served by a third party don't have the same protections as other e-mails. they would also know that someone like robert mueller who has done this for a long time and is a pro would not go and seeing in evidence a way that he couldn't use it in court. and you can tell, they didn't go to a judge, they didn't go to the deputy attorney general, they went to congress with this complaint. it seems more of a messaging and discrediting campaign t

i'm ari mueller and you're watching a special edition of "the beat." >>> breaking news tonight, bob mueller charging three former trump aides and one pleading guilty. that guilty plea means there are actually two news stories. one alleged. the other is not in dispute. in bad news for the trump white house, the story not in dispute is the one about russian collusion. let me give you our breakdown tonight. the first story more expected. two very well connected gop operatives turning access into a fortune and gave them power which they strangely risked by allegedly hiding work, money and tax bills and not pleading guilty today and the manafort said the charges are ridiculous. and the money trail with links to russia and putin oligarch allegedly funded the work. >> accused of complicity in the killing of protesters. he denies allegations of embezzling state funds or hiding millions of dollars in foreign bank accounts. night after the shootings, he left kiev and never returned. the russian president sent special forces to bring him across the border to safety in russia. >> that was manafort's cl

he's now cooperating with mueller. the president also had the chance to answer questions about the man he so vigorously supported. >> reporter: would you consider a pardon for michael flynn? >> i don't want to talk about pardons more michael flynn yet. we'll see. >> trump lawyer ty cobb said, "for the record there is no consideration at all for a pardon of michael flynn at this time." meanwhile one other report could you tell our attention. "the wall street journal" reports deutsche bank mass received a request from the government for any transactions that could be linked to michael flynn. earlier this month several media outlets reported the special counsel had sought information from deutsche bank related to people or entities affiliated with president trump. and as for mr. trump's dealings with vladimir putin, we know they spoke by phone yesterday. today the president elaborated on that conversation. >> it was great. he said very nice thing about what i've done for this country in terms of the economy. he said also

. >>> breaking news, bob mueller filing papers we just got in newsroom, approach signed by bob mueller is a request to cancel paul manafort's bail deal. reason, prosecutors allege as recently as thursday of last week, before the flynn came out. say paul manafort was working directly with a russian in russia with ties to russian intelligence service. just got that. manafort was trying to secretly ghost write op-ed to defend his past work in ukraine. reading this filing from mueller, says that paul manafort was working with long time russian colleague currently based in russia and assessed to have ties to a russian intelligence service. this is a breaking story. going to speak to senator sheldon whitehouse about this and other items. but former ethics chief richard painter. i just got this as i know you did. your view of what bob mueller is saying in this document, which is signed by him. not all documents are. and whether you see this as grounds to adjust paul manafort's bail agreement. >> i secertainly do see it as grounds, put him back in jail or house arrest. when judge says don't ha

mueller's team. first we have fbi agent peter strzok and fbi lawyer lisa paige showing extreme bias against president trump. >> what happens when the people who are supposed to cure the conflict of interest have even greater conflicts of interest than those they are replacing? that's not a rhetorical case. we would not sit peter strzok on a jury knowing what we know now. why didn't we know it ahead of time? >> how with a straight face can you say that this group of democrat partisans are unbiassed and will give president trump a fair shake? >> this is unbelievable! i am hear to tell you, mr. rosenstein, the public trust in this whole thing is gone. you have two things can you do. you are the guy in charge. you picked mueller. you wrote the memo saying why you needed to fire comey. you are the guy in charge. you can disband the mueller special prosecutor and appoint a second special council to look into peter strzok. >> sean: you heard it here first. we have been doing this for mongst. -- months. rose

because, he fires mueller, even worse. he fires mueller. it means that the state attorney general already has a witness and can continue with that witness. and even if flynn were provided with a pardon, it wouldn't absolve him from having to cooperate with snyderman's office. >> with the new york prosecutor. >> right. >> so does this tell that you bob mueller is potentially thinking ahead? and what do you think about get outing of the deal? >> flynn is somebody who has information on trump. kushner, ivanka, and don junior. when you get that close and the president is that close, the odds increase that he's going to do something. he'll pardon or try to fire mueller. and this really acts as insurance. there are crimes in the code that are just gas if not better than what's in the tool box of the feds. >> and here's a former federal prosecutor who was speaking to our own rachel maddow about these issues and how mueller is doing things a little differently. take a listen. >> ordinarily, a plea agreement says you plead guilty to a, or a, b and c

i this i they had a concerted effort to go after mueller and undercut mueller's credibility. the president is saying i think i'm going to be treated fairly by mueller and there's no reason to take any real action. that kind of struck me in the sense that he was sort of backing off. the republicans in the house have really painted mueller as he's basically out to get the president in this very out-of-control investigation. the president seemed to be ratcheting that back and sort of striking a new tone there. i don't know if that's part of a larger strategy or if the president wants to put distance between himself and the republicans that have led this charge. i'm not sure. but he certainly was nicer about mueller than he was before. >> michael, david ignatius has a question for you. >> michael, great scoop. i'm just wondering about the body language in this conversation. was it your sense this was an angry man who as he heads into the new year is going to be pushing hard on issues like the mueller investigation, whatever the details of what he said, or did he seem content, at

he won't fire robert mueller. he knows, many in his administration and his political advisers know that would be a death nail. he can't do that. he won't do that. so they're trying to control and spin the narrative as much as they can. >> and highlight perceived potential bias among the fbi. donald trump jr. criticizing the fbi over these messages that trashed candidate trump during the investigation. let's listen. >> there is and there are people at the highest levels of government that don't want to let america be america. >> all right. so the idea is that -- basically they're saying that the fbi officials can't leave their political opinions at the door. does donald trump jr. even have a point here, jonathan? does it cast a shadow on the mueller investigation at all? >> no. not to put too fine a point on it. everybody has their own political opinions. if they seem to be causing a problem, then you have what bob mueller did last summer. you get rid of some of the people who may have caused a problem or perceptio

i think director mueller can do it. and i think this thing can go forward resolute ly to a logica end and i think it's going to be soon. >> well, we don't have any idea of the timing. we know there's an urgency on the part of the white house. we'll see where it goes. only one man knows right now. michael caputo, thank you for your perspective. >>> there is a lot of news this monday morning. what do you say? let's get after it! >> as you said, there's no clau collusion. no collusion whatsoever. >> the fix is in against donald trump from the beginning. >> you' see a concerted effort out of the white house to undermine the investigation. the question is, what are they afraid of? >>> people said we wouldn't get this done. we're on the verge of getting it done. >> senator mccain, i hope he comes back, but i'm confident we will pass this bill. >> what we're seeing here is a massive attack on the middle cl

will trump fire mueller? >> not a betting guy but i will say no. >> paul fishman, if edward pfsz wrong and the president fires mueller, who will you text about it first? >> you. >> perfect. we'll be right back. patrick woke up with back pain. but he has work to do. so he took aleve. if he'd taken tylenol, he'd be stopping for more pills right now. only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. aleve. all day strong. ancestrydna can pinpoint where your ancestors are from... and the paths they took to a new home. could their journey inspire yours? order your kit at ancestrydna.com >>> you know those magic eight balls you shake them and they tell you the future? we have assembled the equivalent of a twister of magic 8 balls and we promise we won't shake them. we were talking about it prausz pect of the president trying to end mueller's investigation by firing the spelshz counsel. aside from the prospects of how exactly the president would have to go about that and who he wo

mueller's team next week. hoping to gain a clear understanding of the next steps in mueller's investigation tan what that means for the president. this as mr. trump launches new attacks on the russia probe, bashing the fbi, while he headed to a graduation ceremony over at the bureau's academy. the president again insisting there was no collusion between his campaign and russia, but just 24 hours ago two key democrats on the house and senate intelligence committees told me they believe there is evidence of an intent to collude. also tonight the president appears to be leaving the door open to a possible pardon for his fired national security adviser, michael flynn. pled guilty to lying to the fbi, and now is cooperating with the special counsel. when asked about a flynn pardon, mr. trump told report exhibit and i'm quoting now, we'll see what happens. this hour, i'll talk with congressman ted lui democrat, and our specialists are also standing by. >>> first let's go to our phil with the latest on the tax bill a

mueller. >> look at that and the playbook. you're student and author of history, this is one of the themes in last days of nixon. even a private eye who covered this book "silent coup" tried to argue that nixon was forced out of office. roots aren't pretty malcolm. >> no. they aren't at all. i find it disturbing that elected officials in the united states are using this type of rhetoric. my problem with regard to what's being said these days is far more fundamental. it's not they're just saying it. fox news broadcasting this. we have a president who is very susceptible to believing every word that they say. and may get it into his mind there actually are nefarious plans that equate to a coup. god know what's he will do. may not get cooperation of the military but way he culls favor with the police and border patrol. this needs to stop, unconstitutional and connecticutionable. a get dictionary, look up definition of coup, and stop talking about it the way they are. could manifest through a small rebellion of guys with guns or p

and bob mueller. today former bush white house aide and mccain presidential campaign senior advisor steve schmidt in this studio called out these attacks on robert mueller with perhaps the most robust defense of robert mueller you will ever hear. >> prosecutors in this country have tremendous power, and they should not be beyond criticism. but this isn't criticism. this is a premeditated, deliberate, dishonest smear of robert mueller, a man who has spent his entire life in public service, who is known if nor nothing else his probity and his rectitude and we should talk about his war record. he's put himself on the line for this country and conducted himself taumts as an honorable servant of the american people. he is a recipient of the bronze star with the valor device. he is a recipient of the purple heart. he was wounded in combat for the united states. what you're seeing on fox news is indistant from the type of propaganda that you would be subjected to if you lived in belarus, or if you lived in r

>>> meeting with mueller. cnn learns president trump's lawyers will be sitting down with special counsel robert mueller as soon as next week. where is mueller's investigation headed now? >>> blaming the bureau. president trump renews his attacks on the fbi while on his way to speak to a graduating class of law enforcement trainees. the president tells reporters it's a shame what happened under previous leaders and insists people are very, very angry about what happened. why is he attacking the bureau at the same time his own people are under investigation? >>> and kim's missing man. a top north korean general believed to be second only to the leader kim jong-un hasn't been seen for months. did he offend his notoriously fickle leader? i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." >>> this is cnn breaking news. >>> we're following multiple breaking stories. this hour, congressional republicans are set to release the final version of their tax cut plan. among the last-minute compromises, an increase to the ch

trye1 to discredi robert mueller. [vo] quickbooks introduces rodney. he has a new business teaching lessons. rodney wanted to know how his business was doing... ...so he got quickbooks. it organizes all his accounts, so he can see his bottom line. ahhh...that's a profit. know where you stand instantly. visit quickbooks-dot-com. >>>e1 cnn çóexclusive. the president thinks he'll get a letter of exoneration in the russia investigation. let'slp discussok that now. good evening to alyo three of you. john, you first, president trump was asked yesterday if he is planninge1 toxd firing robert mueller, his answer was no, i'm not. for the white house, they're discredited mueller and his team even better than -- is that even better than firing him? >> i think it's of the same thing. i think if trump was allowed to be trump hec would have fired hm ages ago and i think that's always a possibility. i think they convinced him byçó attacking mueller ine1 any way they can, maybe they'll diminish his effectiveness or make him go a

i'm not going to fire mueller. they have the second track, if things do go to hell for him, if he gets nailed by mueller, they can discredit it. i don't think they'll bring the public fully over to their side, they understand that, if they can sow enough doubt, they can perhaps get 40% of the public to think it was tainted from the beginning. i think it's working better than we would have imagined so far, in the sense of creating doubt. i do think that this e-mail controversy is very political. it's not legal. if -- >> on the texts. >> the e-mail -- >> the e-mails that mueller has these e-mails, first of all he went to the gsa, he did everything right, the right way, if you have any blame it ought to be the gsa, not the person doing the law enforcement investigation. beyond that, you know, if you've got these kind of complaints, there's something called the courts. that's where you go to resolve these. even trey dowdy said you have to go to the courts. >> that's not where they went. they went to congress with this

mueller. held have to jump through hoops and get a bunch of people at the squus department fired before they would be handgwilling in r to fire flynn. it is not in his interest politically politically legally to do so. northbound but the presidehan think of the timeline. we know on january 24th, general flynn four days into his job hi lied to the fbi about contacts with russia. two days later, sally yates tells the white house flynn is compromised by the russians. and the white house doesn't do anything at first, but the next day the president has a private dinner with james comey, the head of the fbi right after comey's men and women have interviewed general flynn. he reaches out to the fbi, why? after that ding he says, i want your loyalty. then he tells mr. comey i hope you'll go easy on flynn, he's a good guy. >> this is all according to comey. >> sworn testimony by mr. comey. he keeps coming back to it each time. and we're going to find out because general flynn is cooperating. he's not c

flynn got a very sweet deal from bob mueller. he's only getting that kind of a package given the nature of his offenses if he's going to testify up the ladder on somebody else. i did this for 20 years. you don't get a deal like that when you've done the things that flynn did unless you're -- you're willing to flip on somebody more senior. and so the fact that we now have flynn in the mix suggests that he may have something to say about this question of corrupt intent and obstruction during the key window, like trump telling him to lie or him telling trump he had lied to the fbi agents. i don't know if either of those are the case, but those are the kinds of things that might excite a prosecutor. >> barb? >> well, i'll agree with norm that robert mueller now has a potential treasure-trove in michael flynn because he knows about all the conversations. he knows what was said. and robert mueller would not have given him that deal, a plea to false statements with an advisory guideline range of 0 to 6 months with the likelihood of serv

so it's surely true that mueller is looking at that. however, this tweetstorm, this event with the president tweeting something that was drafted by his lawyer john dowd, is not the beginning and the end of this investigation. it is not the single piece of information upon which an obstruction charge could hinge. it's just too infinitesimally unimportant ultimately. there have to be other pieces of evidence if someone was going to bring an obstruction charge. and just to remind everybody, don mcgahn, the person at the center in a way of this story, the person who's receiving information from the attorney general, warning, warning, michael flynn has provided an account that is not correct to the vice president, that person was just interviewed by bob mueller's team on thursday of last week and again this week, is supposed to be interviewed again for another day. so he has been surely asked a lot of these same questions. that's more important than what the president tweeted on saturday. >> and carol, to that last point in terms of mcgahn b