i asked christopher wray, did robert mueller only hire people who hate the president? every day we are firing more and more people who expressed their dislike of the president. but hillary clinton never faced a serious investigation it seems as though hillaries folks were the ones making the decisions about her outcomes. and it's still hillaries folks persecuting the president. lou: i think the american people are awaken together reality about the claims against robert mueller. not a single republican on the team anywhere at least that we could find. >> it's not like there is not enough prosecutors in our system. we have a bevy of highly qualified people. they just don't happen to be the people investigating our president. mueller was praising people who were actively defying the president of the united states. this is ludicrous. the american people cannot accept a rigged system where you have got people biased against the president. the fact that today christopher wray wouldn't tell us whether the fbi paid for the dossier against the president with taxpayer money. he

it is interesting sort of how robert mueller has played this, right. certainly there was a proffer agreement in which he explains, you know, lots -- michael flynn explained lots and lots of facts. now he's pled guilty. imagine the president pardons him. mueller's team could still hold him to the agreement. if he has been pardoned he no longer has a fifth amendment right to not talk. if he pardons flynn, he could still use the sworn grand jury or proffered testimony to get him to testify against all of the facts he has already revealed. this is sort of an interesting and pretty clever position they've now put flynn in the larger trump -- >> so the president could pardon flynn but still use flynn to potentially prosecute others is what you are saying? >> right. because as part of the plea agreements, you know, you proffer very, very detailed sets of facts, you know, in order to show exactly what your cooperation might look like. >> what your value is. >> oftentimes those are offered before a grand jury, so it is actually sworn statements. >> wow. so, of

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

he is very good friends with robert mueller. after years of working in similar roles while some have even described the duo as brothers in arms. it is that so cute? comey also tweeting tonight, "he is meeting with his book publisher. i can't wait for that to come out. when is he going to start working for fake news cnn or conspiracy theory tv msnbc? a lot more on that later. back to mueller. his conflicts of interest did not end here. while serving as the fbini director and the obama administration, mueller stood by and did nothing while the controversial sale of uranium was approved by hillary clinton and others in 2010 to that state owned russian energy company. keep in mind, and you are in the house before, the fbi had serious evidence of russian bribery linked to the uranium one sale, and a confidential informant was providing them further proof for six years of a potentially illicit deal. 20% of america's uranium was at stake. we don't have enough uranium. another important mueller conflict. from president trump. he reporte

the next question is if jared robert mueller? indeed. the next question is ifjared kushner directed flynn, who directed jared kushner? hopefully we will learn more about that. james comey is another name we hear quite a lot during this latest news. he has been tweeting as well. tell us about that. james comey was the former director of the fbi. one of the reasons why, if you're wondering why the name michael flynn sounds most familiar, it's because whenjames comey was fired, he gave testimony to congress that president trump urged him to drop the investigation into michael flynn. the conversation that he recounted in notes he had taken straight that he recounted in notes he had ta ken straight afterwards that he recounted in notes he had taken straight afterwards was that mrtrump taken straight afterwards was that mr trump asked taken straight afterwards was that mrtrump asked him taken straight afterwards was that mr trump asked him to let the investigation go. to let michael flynn go. james comey has tweeted and has been incognito on t

and argued that robert mueller should resign. democrats in response have made the case that the special counsel is not partisan, that it remains politically independent, though they are speculating that the president is now planning to fire robert mueller. two democrats, both on the house intelligence committee, made the case this weekend that was the case. first adam schiff, on twitter, saying he believed the firing of robert mueller would happen before the end of the year. the other jackie speier also made the case to a san francisco tv station that robert mueller's firing was imminent. cnn reached out to white house attorney ty cobb for a statement and he gave us a statement writing, as the white house consistently said for months, there is no consideration of firing the special counsel. so you have the white house denying there is any kind of plan to remove robert mueller as the head of the special counsel, you have some democrats that are saying that that is the case, that his firing is imminent, and then certain republicans

or even complicates the ongoing mueller investigation. >> do you believe robert mueller is safe in his role as the special counsel? >> i think it's important to make it clear that there are bipartisan efforts to make sure that the independence of the department of justice, respect for rule of law is moving forward. as you know, senator until list alist -- tillis and i introduced a bill a number of months ago. we've had a hearing on the judiciary committee. we are working out the differences in language and i hope we will soon be reintroducing a consensus bipartisan bill that would strengthen some of the protections for any special counsel. >> would it -- if it were to pass, and i don't know if it would pass, even though you do have bipartisan support. but let's say it were to pass, would it guarantee that mueller could not be fired? >> no. but it would ensure that a special counsel, robert mueller or another, could only be fired for good cause. in department of justice regulations, it calls out what those are. sort of gross impropriety or a conflict of interest, dereliction of duty. it

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robert mueller is a loyal american. he's a republican, and it's a lie being perpetrated by president trump and his supporters in congress. nobody who knows robert mueller buys into any of it. it's just fox news and the president's twitter feed. >> but it's clear what they're trying to do here, not maybe say okay, robert mueller himself, you know, has some agenda, but perhaps it's his judgment. he brings on people who donated to the democratic parties. peter strzok, who he took out of the investigation, was texting anti-trump bias texts. do you see that kind of -- do you see that play, richard? >> no, i think he took him out as soon as he found out about the texts. he got rid of him. of course, you're going to have people who contributed to the campaigns who work at the justice department and elsewhere. every u.s. attorney is going to be a supporter of president trump, and would have been active in his campaign, and the u.s. attorneys under president obama were supportive of democratic campaigns and mepamericans are inve

more clear conflict of interest in robert mueller's witch hunt. why are not republican leaders in the senate and house calling for the special counsel to be shut down. why arept they holding mueller in to account. we take that up with officials and they have a brand new book and they have a brand new book with a great they appear out of nowhere. and they have a brand new book with a great my secret visitors. appearing next to me in plain sight. hallucinations and delusions. these are the unknown parts of living with parkinson's disease. what stories they tell. but for my ears only. what plots they unfold. but only in my mind. over 50% of people with parkinson's will experience hallucinations or delusions during the course of their disease. and these can worsen over time, making things even more challenging. but there are advances that have led to treatment options that can help. if someone you love has parkinson's and is experiencing hallucinations or delusions, talk to your parkinson's specialist. because there's more to parkinson's. my visitors

are you confident in robert mueller's investigation? caller: every confident, more so than i am with the president and his tweets. he is getting too close to the truth, i think and they are trying to stop them in any way they can. i agree with the republican from texas. believablemuch more than the president that gets up at 5:00 in the morning with all of the tweets. he is worried he is trying to get rid of him. --t: is there a concern robert mueller was tasked with looking into russian meddling and it seems like he is looking into other things, the president's financial records and other things. do you think the probe is getting too broad? caller: that is the problem. we do not know any of donald trump's financial records except for one year somebody got in the 1990's. that is the main problem. russia has been backing donald trump 420, 30 years. -- for 2, 30 years0. host: newsweek has a piece on the poll we just talked about, headlines -- americans think robert mueller and james comey our friends, they are not. it says that a majority

special counsel robert mueller says they sent e-mails without proper authorization. we'll have mueller's response. >>> a man arrested for helping north korea evade economic sanctions. these stories and so much more ahead. welcome to our viewers here in the u.s. and around the world. i'm natalie allen. i'm cyril thanks for joining us. >>> the thomas fire made california history and not in a good way. it is their third wildfire on record. look at this. the bad news, it continues to burn northwest of los angeles. >> isn't that cloud of smoke say it all? >> you can see it from space. >> they are scrambling to get it under control. it's been burning two weeks. this video triggered thousands of evacuations. 12,000 people evacuated their homes in santa barbara. it led to the death of two people, including a firefighter who died battling the flames. the high winds are a major problem. >> miguel marquez has more on this from santa barbara. >> reporter: this thomas fire is the fire that will not quit. i want to show you what's happening in the hills. we are going turn the ligh

is on recess to either undermine the investigation or fire robert mueller. he says that he wanted to make this speech today to raise concerns, put this on lawmakers' radar before they go home for recess. particularly republican lawmakers who may not be focussing on this as they've been focussing on their tax bill instead. so mark warner just moments ago, wolf, saying very clearly that he wants republicans also to speak out if president trump takes this action and fires robert mueller. this is what he said. >> i believe it is up to every member of this institution, republican or democrat, to make a clear and unambiguous statement that any attempt by this president to remove special counsel mueller from his position or to pardon key witnesses in any effort to shield them from accountability or shut down the investigation would be a gross abuse of power and a flagrant violation of executive branch responsibilities and authorities. >> reporter: now, earlier this week, wolf, i did ask senate intelligence chairman richard burr if he shared concerns that robert mue

and robert mueller would not have given him that deal, zero to six months, likely only serving probation unless he knew he had valuable information in exchange for that. and you don't give that deal until you sit down and proffer with the attorney and debrief with the defendant to understands what they have to offer. he likely has had a lot of information. and one of those questions, those 18 days are probably critically important because we at the end of that period the request for president trump to jim comey, can't you see your way clear to letting this go, i hope you can see your way clear to letting this go. and that corrupt intent, that is so important, what did he know at that time? did he know that flynn had lied to the fbi at that moment because he already had, did trump know that? if he did, that means he knew he was asking comey to let a crime go when he was asking him to let that thing go against flynn. did he further know about the underlying conversations with the russian ambassador that was the basis of those false statements. and did he further know who else might be impl

get rid of robert mueller. >> he's not. i talked to the president, he's not. >> reporter: and now when i asked the house chairman bob goodlet about the criticisms focussing on the mueller, the clinton e-mail issue, he said look, this is something we announced a couple months ago. this is the investigation we're going to do looking into fbi interference, possible fbi bias and that's why we're looking into this right now. he said it's the first of several witnesses they want to interview, wolf. >> all right, manu, thank you very much. >>> joining us now, democratic congressman eric squallwell of washington. he's a member of intelligence and judiciary committees. thanks for joining us. >> of course wolf, thanks for having me back. >> you heard your chairman and the house intelligence committee chairman devin nunez tells cnn, it's not a secret his words that we have an investigation into the justice department. you serve on that committee. so who is participating in this nunez effort? >> we don't know, wolf. but what we do know

do you get the sense that his opinion of robert mueller's fairness is contingent on robert mueller not finding anything damaging with him? >> well, it's hard to say. i think that he was sending a signal that okay, i'm going to quit criticizing this investigation and let the chips fall where they may. as you know, this has been going on previous to robert mueller being appointed. so after 16 months, we don't have a single thread of evidence that even suggests there was collusion. we have some people who lied to the fbi. we have some people who broke some campaign finance disclosure laws, but nothing that indicates there was collusion. i think the president at this point, he's realizing what the american people are realizing, this investigation is leading to nowhere, and it probably should be wrapped up soon. >> one of the issues here is that collusion as a criminal charge doesn't exist. there may not be proof of conspiracy yet. collusion, small c, was there collusion, was donald trump, jr. colluding with people on the basis of the promise of dirt on the hillary clinton campaign. i under

if there is a firing of robert mueller or pardons, both would cross a red line. and undoubtedly lead to a fire storm, much as there was in the saturday night massacre when richard nixon tried to do the same. >> well, we know that some of the president's supporters are encouraging him to fire robert mueller, but he keeps saying that he has no such intention. why are you so concerned about this when the president says he doesn't have any plans to fire mueller? >> the president really is proceeding on two tracks. on the one hand, he's saying, as he did on sunday, or earlier this week, i have no plans to fire robert mueller. on the other hand, he has encouraged this chorus of subservient defenders in the congress, principally on the republican side, to attack the fbi, fbi agents, and the deputy fbi director to attack the investigation itself, and mueller personally and others around him. so this kind of concerted and coordinated attack on the special counsel is an indication that there is coordinated effort. and senator warner's warning today was powerful and eloquen

and president trump says he thinks special counsel robert mueller will be fair in his investigation of russia's election meddling and ties to trump associates, and he tells "the new york times" he thinks the investigation is a witch hunt that makes the u.s. look very bad. during the course of the interview the president insists no less than 16 times there has been no collusion, and declares ominously he has a absolute right to do what he wants with the u.s. justice department. >>> the president is making new demands on democrats, saying if they want an immigration deal that would protect hundreds of thousands of young d.r.e.a.m.ers, they will need to deal with big concessions. first and foremost, a desperately needed border wall. i will speak with our correspondence and specialists standing by with full coverage. we begin with growing signs that north korea may be moving towards a new missile launch. i want to go to cnn correspondent, barbara starr. tell us what you are learning. >> the latest we have is several u.s. officials are telling me there are signs north korea could be prepari

we have yet to hear from robert mueller and the team what's going on. jen, you also worked a transition. jason miller told us he had no expectation of privacy. assume you didn't have any expectation of privacy in the campaign you worked on, why make this argument if you're part of the trump transition team, is this just politics to muddy the waters? >>, of course, it's politics. i remember our lawyers saying, all of your e-mails are going to go to a dot gof server. they're neither private or privileg privileged. i would guess that's what every team has been told since there was e-mail. there was there was an orchestrated attack to firing mueller. yes, president trump said he wasn't going to do that now, one thing we've learned is not to believe what he said, what everybody should be worried about is if he takeszxr+ steps fire mueller when congress is out of session. members of congress won't be here, the judiciary won't be here. >> one thing i don't understand is the democrats saying the president is going to fire robert mueller. jackie spear and adam

more clear conflict of interest in robert mueller's witch hunt. why are not republican leaders in the senate and house calling for the special counsel to be shut down. why arept they holding mueller in to account. we take that up with officials and they have a brand new book with a great new idea. let trump be trump. it's easy to think that all money managers are pretty much the same. but while some push high commission investment products, fisher investments avoids them. some advisers have hidden and layered fees. fisher investments never does. and while some advisers are happy to earn commissions from you whether you do well or not, fisher investments fees are structured so we do better when you do better. maybe that's why most of our clients come from other money managers. fisher investments. clearly better money management. [vo] progress is an unstoppable force. the season of audi sales event is here. audi will cover your first month's lease payment on select models during the season of audi sales event. approaching medicare eligibility? you m

though, they are speculating that the president is now planning to fire robert mueller. two democrats, both on the house intelligence committee, made the case this weekend that that was the case. first, adam schiff, who was on twitter, saying that he believed that the firing of robert mueller would happen before the end of the year. the other, jackie spear, also made the case to a san francisco tv station that robert mueller's firing was eminent. cnn reached out to white house attorney ty cobb for a statement on these remarks and he gave us a statement writing, in part, quote. so you have the white house denying that there is any kind of plan to remove robert mueller as the head of the special counsel. you have some democrats that are saying that that is the case, that his firing is eminent and certain republicans saying the special counsel is tainted and that robert mueller should, indeed, resign. a complicated situation and one that likely will receive greater focus because, as early as this week, you have white house legal team meeting with robert mueller one-on-one,

robert mueller had the goods to give many more counts. we know he was not fully forthcoming on his security clearance form. there are other things he could have had the goods to. >> registering as a foreign agent. >> exactly. an indication, i was speaking to michael about this a short time ago, it shows you the value of the kind of cooperation that flynn is offering here based on the number of years that mueller is not thrown on him right from the start. to take those years off the table, flynn would have to be offering something significant. >> so the question is, was what mueller know that he's not saying and we don't know from these documents. >> and what is flynn giving up? >> who has he given up. >> and why was it worth it to mueller. >> the lawyers would have to give a proffer, they would have to tell him exactly what flynn is prepared to say. so they know all of this before the document is prepared. >> what special counsels do is they look for the biggest pelt they can get, the biggest trophy they can mount on their wall. flynn wou

robert mueller's team could be days away. the two sides could meet as early as this week to discuss the ongoing investigations. i want to bring in evan perez who helps break this story on cnn. evan, what do we expect to be discussed this week. >> this is a meeting where the president's legal team basically have the special counsel team puts their cards on the table. they want to know where this investigation is going and in particular whether or not or how much longer perhaps this maybe going or whether or not there is any interests in anybody else inside the white house. at this point there is been a lot of speculations about whether or not this investigation is going to ultimately target the president and i think one of the things that they want from this meeting is get a better sense of not only how much longer it is going to go because it is a cloud over the president and the administration for the past year but also, you know, how much longer or what avenues are left for this investigation to pursue? >> according to your

. >>> tension rises between president trump's team and special counsel robert mueller's team. mr. trump says he's not going to fire mueller as the two sides clash over e-mails. >>> and the wildfire battle rages on in southern california as thousands of firefighters go up against the so-called thomas fire around the clock. >> once that wind went up, we immediately went around with our hand crew and our dozers. >>> good morning from the studio 57 newsroom at cbs headquarters here in new york. good to be with you. i'm anne-marie green. >>> this morning power has been restored to the atlanta airport, but trouble is not over. an electrical fire brought the busiest airport to a standstill most of yesterday. most of the flights were grounded and thousands of passengers were stranded. more than 300 flights have already been canceled today. roxana saberi is at the airport with the latest. good morning, roxana. >> reporter: good morning, anne-marie. georgia power officials say outages like the one that crippled atlanta's airport are very rare. the airport just announced a few hours ago that

we don't know what robert mueller has. what is the perspective from the white house that you know of? >> i would say this, this is part of the problem, i would say it about any special counsel. even with the democratic administration as its primary investigative target, it can be open-ended and can literally go on and on, no limit on its budget or time frame. that is part of the problem. this has been frustrating and a diversion from what's important for the american people. i think this is important. while mainstream media and people who live in the corridor who despise trump are obsessed with russia, regular americans are not. the economy is accelerating, our border is largely under control. neil gorsuch is on the court, amazing things are happening and a lot of people appreciate that. they don't care that general flynn committed a process crime. a process crime, not a crime in action, not anything remotely close to treasonous against the united states. i am confident that in the end, the growth agenda of donald trump is

>> we have not gotten a comment to the white house as to the news that robert mueller obtained these transition team e-mails. we are hearing several officials responding that there is a plan in place behind the scenes to get rid of robert mueller. yesterday ty cobb put out a statement to cnn saying there was no plan to fire robert mueller and earlier today you played a bit of it. steve mnuchin said much of the same. here's more of what he said. >> i haven't heard the president. i was at dinner last night with the president and vice president and i haven't heard anything about a firing. we have to get past this investigation. this is a giant distraction. nobody has said that in any way this impacted the out come of the election. >> when you say you have to get past it, should it run its course? >> i think it should be over quickly since there is nothing there. it should be over quickly. people want to focus on other things. >> does that include the president firing mueller or should it run its course. >> i don't have any reason to think the president is going to do that, but that's up

that's why we have people like robert mueller, the cia. and they're going to be doing their job, and members of congress better understand they've got to back off and let our fbi, our cia find out what's been going on so this never happens again. >> richard painter, good to see you again. a former ethics lawyer for president george bush. >>> coming up president trump has denied or down-played russian hacking at every opportunity. but the problem didn't begin with with president trump. one of our next guests says we should expect more and right now the russians are winning when "the 11th hour" continues. >>> if putin likes donald trump, i consider that an asset not a liability because we have a horrible relationship with russia. if putin likes donald trump, guess what, folks? that's called an asset not a liability. now, i don't know that i'm going to get along with vladimir putin. i hope i do. yesterday i received a call from president putin of russia thanking our country for the intelligence that our cia was able to provide them concerning

what the president himself says that robert mueller is not going anywhere. listen. [ inaudible question ] >> no, i'm not. >> mueller's office facing increased scrutiny in recent weeks over reports of possible political bias within the special counsel's team. now the latest controversy's over trump transition e-mails obtained by the special counsel. cnn's boris sanchez has the latest from the white house. >> reporter: christine and dave, this boils down to a dispute about who actually owns these tens of thousands of e-mails that were exchanged between trump transition officials during the transition last year. on one hand, you have the general services administration who provided e-mail services and support to the trump transition team making the case that these e-mails are part of the public record in part because they used a .gov domain to service the e-mails. that's what they're telling buzzfeed news. they argue they had legal standing in handing these documents over to robert mueller, that they did not do so unethically or unlawfully. on the other hand, y

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 child tax credit, fulfilling a demand by senator marco rubio. rubio and another key republican, tennesse

and special counsel robert mueller might actually do that. we will see what the narrative is from the people defending the president if that happens. >> when i read this transcript of the interview with the "new york times," the thing that bothers the president about the implication there was russian collusion, democrats are saying russia won the president the election. that's what bothers him so much. he said i i was the better candidate and i had the better campaign. that's why he is pushing back so hard. >> yes. he said 15 times no collusion. >> i think like 60 times. >> he should. stick to that script. i think he will be fair. he said i think they will be fair. there was no collusion. he is doing programming as he always does. he is brilliant at that. it's great. this is where he does the best free wheeling introduce. did you see the reaction online. it's insane.erviews. did you see the reaction online. it's insane. >> let's say president obama was on vacation in hawaii and the writer from the washington "times" said could i do a sit down

what happens when robert mueller comes out and makes his announcement? >> well, let's see what he has to say. but there is no worry he could attack the credibility of robert mueller -- >> but they are, richard, they are, and there are people in this country, lots of people in this country who want to believe it and are willing to believe it. >> yeah, they want to believe it. but he is really a traditional republican -- many of us in the republican party have admired robert mueller for years, even though we say he is nonpartisan, he has impeccable credentials, he was in the marines, impeccable credentials under president bush and obama, and there is no way you can attack the credibility and professionalism of robert mueller. and anybody who tries doing that, it's going to be very transparent what their motives are. of course people being prosecuted or being investigated don't like the investigators or the prosecutors. the mafia doesn't like prosecutors either. but for fox news to be weighing in that way and making up a bunch of stories and the latest stor

it accuses robert mueller of unlawfully obtaining thousands of transition e-mails. it claims the documents were private property even though they were on government servers and registered to gov.com addresses. this is significant they're putting this out defending the investigation. a spokesman says, quote, when we have obtained e-mails in the course of our ongoing criminal investigation, we have secured either the account owner's consent or appropriate criminal process. president trump and vladimir putin appear to be gaining a close relationship. today the two talked for the second time in four days. first to these transition e-mails. what are the transition team and the white house saying about this? >> reporter: the trump transition team is making the case that robert mueller obtained these e-mails unlawfully. this winds down to a dispute between the general services administration and the trump transition team over who actually owns these e-mails. the general services administration provided e-mail services and support for the transition team during the transiti

robert mueller is a republican. he has been applauded by republicans on both sides of the aisle and he was appointed by president bush. those who serve in high places, the fbi director and a republican made many contributions to republican candidates. there is an effort under way to besmerch this. we are politicians. we smell rats. we smell a rat and are speaking up about it. >> the argument i heard about people plugged in is this effort by republicans and critics of the mueller investigation is that yes, besmerch them and press a charge of collusion. that's against the president raising questions about his integrity. sort of similar. i'm old enough to remember during the ken star investigation of then president clinton. he was investigating and there was a lot of efforts by supporters to besmerch ken star and go after him in case he came up with charges, they would be weakened and the political ramifications would be reduced. what's your reaction? >> that's a historical reference. we have only one independent couns

and the suggestion that robert mueller should be fired. i want you to listen to congresswoman jackie spear and what she said this weekend about what she is hearing on capitol hill. >> the rumor on the hill, when i left yesterday, was that the president was going to make a significant speech at the end of next week, and on december 22nd, when we are out of d.c., he was going to fire robert mueller. >> dan, the white house is pushing back about that but we only have to look back to the firing of james comey about how sometimes the official line from the white house does not coincide with what the president believes. let's get this reminder. >> let me be very clear that the president's decision to accept the recommendation of the deputy attorney general and the attorney general, to remove director comey as the head of the fbi, was based solely and exclusively on his commitment to the best interests of the american people and to ensuring that the fbi has the trust and confidence of the people of this nation. >> i was going to fire comey. my de

he says he believes robert mueller will treat him fairly. so what are the president's closest advisers saying about that interview? they'd have to know about it first. "washington post" reporter josh dossey reached out to an aide for reaction and dawsey replied this. asked fairly senior trump adviser for thoughts on "the new york times" interview a few minutes ago. person responded, what interview? today? we've got a team of reporters and analysts here with us to debrief. garrett haake is in west palm beach, not far from where the president is spending the holidays. also julia ainsley, national security and justice reporter, and jonathan lemire with the associated press and msnbc political be analyst. garrett, this interview was not pla planned. michael schmidt was at the links, at the golf course in the grill room. how did it come together? >> not planned, but not entirely accidental. michael schmidt has said he was at the trump international golf course grill room as a guest of one of president trump's friends. we know that president trump

and i commend to your attention these are actually the issues robert mueller is grappling with. but i made an effort to boil it down for you, particularly now that i only have 3 1/2 minutes left. if an individual, any individual including the president of the united states because in our system no person is above the law. if any individual attempts to interfere with, block, frustrate or otherwise impede a criminal investigation with corrupt intent, then that is obstruction of justice in a nutshell. the most critical question is what is corrupt intent? and the case law, it's been ruled on by all of our u.s. circuits. the case law is very interesting because it goes right to the heart of ethical, of moral questions that lay just underneath the criminal law. just underneath all those lengthy provisions in 18 united states code are a set of moral questions. obstruction of justice, corrupt intent is addressed by the courts as there's no cookie cutter. there's no simple test. it is evil or wrongful intent in taking an action. so if a president fires an fbi director because the preside

robert mueller is doing his job. he's doing it well. and he's not going to sit there shooting his mouth off or twilighti tweeting or anything else. when you hear from him it's going to be an indictment or something else like that. >> last question here, richard painter, you are part of crew, citizens ethics in washington, filed suit against this president using the emollient clause. judge ruled you didn't have standing. let me quote the statement while it is a set back we will not walk away from the constitutional violation. constitution is explicit on these issues and the president is clearly in violation. our legal team is weighing options and soon layout our decisions how to proceed. help us understand what is next here, if the judge rules you don't have standing, what needs to come to the president and his properties? >> well, according to the new york, fulelt that was not prope court to bring this lawsuit. we'll appeal that. there are two others. one by the state of congress and district of columbia maryland. they have different st

and allegations of political bias within robert mueller's team. let's bring in our justice correspondent jessica snyder. the man who appointed mueller faced a lot of questions up on capitol hill today. >> he did. he faced hours of grilling criticism about the special counsel's probe from republicans. but rosenstein was unwavering in his support of robert mueller and his team throughout that contentious hearing. deputy attorney general rob rosenstein found himself taking incoming fire from members of the president's party today defending the russia investigation in special counsel robert mueller who he appointed on charges of bias. >> director mueller has throughout his lifetime been a dedicated and respected and heroic public servant. i believe he was an ideal choice for this task. >> this is unbelievable, and i'm here to tell you, mr. rosenstein, i think the public trust in this whole thing is gone. >> under relentless questioning rosenstein repeatedly said he sees no reason to remove mueller. and he suggested to democrats on the committee that t