5:00 a.m. on the east coast and we start with president trump facing more obstruction of justice questions in the wake of a wide ranging "new york times" report. the times says the president pushed to have a federal prosecutor appointed during his administration to oversee the michael cohen investigation. mr. trump by that point had already been implicated in the cohen probe. >> the "times" reports late last year he still called then acting attorney general matthew whitaker to ask if the u.s. attorney in manhattan could supervise it. the report is raising obstruction concerns even in places that usually downplay them. >> the phone call would be evidence of what? >> corrupt intent. that is, an effort to use the levers of power of the government for a corrupt purpose. >> would that be obstruction? >> yes. well, it would be attempted obstruction. >> it's still unclear what whitaker did in response to the president's call. there's no evidence that he took any action. the justice department says whitaker made no commitments, but it does not flatly deny that