about a love child that it determined it was not credible. the suggestion that david pecker has ever used any company found shut down this investigation is not true." categorically denying this catch and kill happened. >> let's bring in david chalian first. starting to connect some dots, we were sitting here this time yesterday talking about the initial report saying that the investigators wanted to raid michael cohen's hotel, home, office because they wanted record related to "access hollywood." before that there was stormy daniels, karen mcdougal and now the doorman. shall we call this a pattern? >> we shall. it is a pattern. and here's why i find it so fascinating and why i think michael cohen may find himself more exposed to potential legal jeopardy, even though he's conducting the same behavior he's conducted for years. he takes actions to protect donald trump. that's what he does. it one thing to do that when donald trump is the ceo of the trump organization. it another thing when donald trump changes the context by becoming a presidential candidate. maybe the behaviors that mi

of pecker and american media, that's one thing. but if that money didn't come from ami, that's a different issue. catch and kill is deeply unethical. what they did was deeply unethical. they could have a defense around unless there are communications or money exchanges hands. >> it is unethical if it is how we use the term catch and kill. you suppressed it for a bad reason. you have editorial discussion. you can say there are a lot of reasons you don't want something. >> let's not be too cute about that. they are spiking a story because it's bad. and purchasing somebody's silence in effect. >> i'm with you. once you put it into a legal context, you're going to have to prove that it was done for a certain reason. michael, am i wrong? >> i think that's right. >> thank you. >> the issue is -- >> you say you're wrong all the time. >> i find you to be pretty correct on these legal issues. >> i'll take it. >> the issue here is whether or not this contribution was an in-kind contribution or an unreported campaign contribution. so this doesn't necessarily have to be coordination directly

probe into cohen. the national enquirer is going into cohen. it's run by david pecker, a friend of president trump. >> all right. switching gears here, a former white house ethics lawyer if president bush is running for a u.s. senate seat as a democrat. according to a commission filing richard painter will be vying for al franken's former seat. smith has said she intends to run for a six-year term as well. so paunter's impending announcement is bound to set up a primary before november. he's been a constant critic of the republican party saying americans are fed up with the gop and his campaign tweeted that americans are quote, in the fight of our lives sating that our democracy is under assault. >> switching gears and back to congress. nunes is no longer considered safe in his election bid. downgraded nunes district to likely republican. nunes is still considered a favorite in this year's race but will face a strong challenge from dans who has raised more than $1 million in the first quarter of the year alone. >> white house reporter steve nelson, good to talk to you. as we just h

this activity. >> a former editor said david pecker sbubought so many storieo protect druonald trump called ia favored bank. >> i'll be careful to stick sto what we reported in the new yorker. i won't speculate on how many more there may or may not be. certainly we now know that there were at least two transactions on behalf of the president or benefit of the president. ami denies that was the purpose. the multiple sources seemed adamant about that with the aim of silences stories that could be been unflattering to the president. >> i know you do a lot of reporting on this. are there more payments to come out? >> i won't speculate on how many more there are but the pattern is sufficient that legal experts tell me this has serious ramifications for election law, for criminal law and certainly as to what the ami side of this gets out of the transaction. what we report many this late e story is sources told us this was a different one and may have resulted in introductions to individuals who could have helped ami. >> we'll continue our conversations. thanks so much for joining us. >> th

incorporated. the ceo of that company, david pecker, happens to be a close friend of the president, has been for years. that brings us to this new reporting from the new yorker and the associated press, both of whom say a former doorman at one of trump's manhattan buildings made a claim, an unverified rumor based on second-hand information, about trump fathering a child in the late 1980s with an employee. the a.p. reported that in late 2015, american media incorporated allegedly paid the doorman $30,000 for that rumor. ami says neither donald trump nor michael cohen had anything to do with its decision not to publish the story. the trump organization has denied the story and says that the doorman is pushing a false story. nbc news has not confirmed the story and has reached out to the white house for comment. here to talk about all of it, julia ainsley, nbc news national security and justice reporter, and jeremy bash back with us, former chief of staff at cia and the pentagon, also an msnbc national security analyst. so, julia, every time you come on, i ask you where you believe the mueller

the "national enquirer." david pecker, the publisher, and dylan howard, the "national enquirer" editor and chief. ami the parent company released this statement. ami denies that donald trump or michael cohen had anything to do with its decision not to pursue a story about a love child that it determined was not credible. now, it's moments like this when the "national enquirer" is putting out statements about what's true and false. that it would be really great if the "national enquirer" never printed outright screaming lies on the cover of the "national enquirer," which it does on a regular basis. a spokesperson for the trump organization denied the story that dino told the "national enquirer" but he said i took a a polygraph test. it seems like the writing is on the wall about that. it's pretty clear he said. he said the story had to come out and he referred further questions to his lawyer. the woman he's referring to in his story about donald trump has denied to the associated press that she ever had an affair with donald trump, the news organizations that know who she is are who wou

were first reported by the "new york times." both pecker and howard have reportedly been involved in payments to people who wanted to tell stories that would be viewed as damaging to the donald trump campaign or to donald trump in the years before he was elected president. we will have more on that story as we get it. moments ago we learned that president trump met with deputy attorney general rod rosenstein at the white house. the white house says the two talked about routine department business. is there much routine department business at the attorney general's office these days? this comes as the president responded to reports that he and his allies are trying to undermine the russia investigation which is overseen by rod rosenstein. a short time ago the president tweeted he has been cooperating with robert mueller and has full confidence in ty cobb the white house lawyer dealing with the probe. earlier he tweeted that he would have fired mueller if he wanted to. a "new york times" report that he wanted to in december was fake news. the first tweet was in response to a "washingto

this was to disguise a favor to mr. trump by his friend david pecker, then there is another potential for fraud. so the southern district of new york is notoriously -- it's my alma mater so i can take some pride in this and i was head of the official corruption section before i went down to washington to work on the watergate case. >> let me get your quick reaction to the chairman of the senate judiciary committee, chuck grassley, reacting today when he was asked about the possibility if the president could fire robert mueller. listen to this. >> i think it would be suicide for the president to fire him. i think the less the president says about this whole thing, the better off he will be. and i think that mueller is a person of stature and respected, and i respect him. just let the thing go forward. >> that is hugely important. >> why? tell us why you believe that's important. >> i testified before senator grassley's committee back in june, and the import of my testimony was that the judiciary committee needed to protect robert mueller against the potential for firing, just

of american media, the parent company of the national inquirer -- >> right. david pecker is one of the president's supporters. he cheerleads the president a lot. they have a long time relationship down in florida and the question is whether or not this story was bought with the purpose of keeping out -- keeping it out of the headlines. to essentially buy her silence. and so that is the reason why she has filed this lawsuit. and so it is kind of a surprising thing that this would be included in the search of cohen because he claimed he had nothing to do with this and to do with the american media and the national inquirer doing a private deal with this woman to be clear, american media said they are cooperating with all inquiries on this issue and they say they simply bought the story and decided not to publish it because they say they didn't find it credible. that is their story. >> karen mcdougal got $150,000 and stormy daniels got $130,000. >> and the people doing this investigation in new york are public corruption investigators. that is important in all of this. that is where t

"national enquirer," david pecker his friend, what kind of influence do they have over the president now? what kind of -- what do they want in exchange for this? not only have they paid money to hush people about actual affairs, they have printed stories about fake affairs involving ted cruz. they have a lot of stories that they have done and catch and killed to benefit donald trump. what does he do for them in return? that's a question. >> what's also interesting kore. any publicly are saying they didn't find the person credible they paid $30,000 according to ronan reporting they work aggressively on the story gave a lie detector test to the person which the person aldly passed. not admissible in court. very fallible. but if near paying the $30,000 though the publishers says they don't believe. >> it's intriguing and also complicated as well. as you just laid out, anderson. it goes back to if you think -- what's so powerful about this is that the president of the united states is now extremely vulnerable to blackmail, whether by the "national enquirer," ami, that is one of the thing

to avoid conflicts of interests. as the "new york times" writes, ami's chairman, david j. pecker is a friend of president trump's and his publications. the national enquirer and radar chief among them, have put an emphasis on helping mr. trump and hurting his rivals, including endorsing his presidential bid. joining me now is ken vogel, one of the authors of the "new york times" piece. good to see you. welcome. >> hey katy. >> what is the deal with this. scott pruett has new controversy every day. why is this one potentially a big deal as well. >> this guy, the head of his security detail, was instrumental in clearing the way for some of the spending on travel and other sort of perks of office that have come under scrutiny from both congress and the epa inspector general. there were objections at the agency from senior staff members who thought that this type of spending was improper and unnecessary. and this guy, pratta was the guy who both signed off on it and who tried to tamp down on opposition from within the agency. he was successful on that front. at least one of the contract

deposition of david pecker, to take the deaf six finition of executives, get the documents. recordings you mention the, this correspondence. nothing would have made me personally happier. that's not what karen wanted. what karen wanted was to not be beholden to the company. doesn't want to be on their magazine, work with them. she was tricked into a catch and kill contract. >> the settlement, reported, the settlement will include a magazine cover from ami. reported but not accurate? >> not accurate. it makes me upset. we worked hard to negotiate this. and we made it clear she didn't want money. she just didn't want to deal with these people. >> does sunny want he want to g? >> none of her material published in the publications. >> hear me out. important to understand what happened. ami insist they'd have the right to repurpose old pictures and articles because they want to save face. they want to put her on their magazine, and say, oh, thirtz nothirtz -- there is noth going on here. a commercial relationship. it is a fraud. she was tricked into a deal. so that her lawyer who was working wi

pecker used the national inquirer to buy stories and shut tome down. he sees the media and a paper do what it's supposed to do. >> if i donald trump own a newspaper i would use it entirely as a vessel to attack enemies and he's projecting that out ward. that was great. thank you. that is "all in" for this evening. >> good evening. much appreciated. thanks to you at home for joining us. great to be back, i had a couple days off, for which i'm grateful especially for my friend joe reid who filled in last night but as i say, it's great to be back lots of great news. the shooting that took place in california, that was the focus of news attention this afternoon. close to san francisco, from all the information that we've got at this point it looks like this is the kind of shooting that will be classified as a workplace shooting potentially a workplace shooting related to a domestic matter. neither of those things are unusual at all in this country at this point, however, in this case, this took

her story was never published. this man, david pecker, is ceo of the parent company — american media incorporated — and he's a friend and supporter of donald trump. well, karen mcdougal has just got out of that deal. anthony zurcer is in washington. what is the next stage of the story? karen mcdougal might go back on us media until more details about her alleged affair with donald trump. she already had an interview where she told a lot of the story but there might be a big deal and other media events that will be somewhat ofan media events that will be somewhat of an embarrassment for donald trump —— book deal. although with this lawsuit going away, that is probably good news, because you have a requested documents, things could then be publicised, some things which donald trump doesn't want to go away. don't go away yourself. another story involving donald trump's embattled lawyer michael cohen: he dropped libel lawsuits he had filed against buzzfeed and a political research firm. anthony — why has he done this? he says this because he is distracted by other legal cas

about, with david pecker, who owns the media company that puts out the "national enquirer" and often engages in something called catch and kill, which is what we saw with the former playmate where you basically -- it's a version of hush money still. you pay a woman for her story, and then you never accomplish it. that's one thing they're looking into, and it seems like what we know so far, michael cohen is sort of the president's fixer, is sort of front and center in trying to keep these women silent and trying to handle all these women who they worried might come forward during the campaign. and to your first question, you're right. the mood in the white house is incredibly grim. the president is furious and aides are worried about what's going to happen next. >> ashley parker, david corn, thanks for joining us tonight. really appreciate it. >>> tonight's last word is next. >>> time for tonight's last great, another dead end. sarge, i just got a tip that'll crack this case wide open! turns out the prints at the crime scene- awwwww...did mcgruffy wuffy get a tippy wippy? i'm serious!

killing one of the stories negative to president trump. the relationship between david pecker and the president is well known, and it is hard to imagine that's a coincidence that that's coming out now, that southern district of new york is going after michael cohen. what does flipping mean. it is only relevant if you have something seriously damaging about somebody else. does michael cohen have that? we're going to find out, courtesy of southern district of new york and to some degree robert mueller as well. >> we're just about out of town. last word if you want to comment on this as well. >> just that this entire thing is metastasizing, grown beyond robert mueller, now southern district of new york is involved, other parts of the justice department involved. even if trump wanted to take a heavy hand and shut it down, getting increasingly difficult for him to do that. >> all right, good to see you both. thank you very much. >>> new evidence from house democrats claims the president may have obstructed justice while the house gop maintains there was no collusion. we talk with a house i

instruments. he thinks bazos uses "the washington post" the way his friend david pecker used the national inquirer to buy stories and shut tome down. he sees the media and a paper do what it's supposed to do. >> if i donald trump own a newspaper i would use it entirely as a vessel to attack enemies and he's projecting that out ward. that was great. thank you. that is "all in" for this evening. >>> the breaking news we're covering tonight comes from the "washington post." mueller's people have told trump's people the president is the subject of a criminal investigation, though not currently a target. mueller is preparing a report about donald trump's actions in office and there's more. two of the reporters on this