11 00 on the east coast, we are live with new developments and breaking news. Lawyers for President Trump urging that he not sit down for an interview with special counsel Robert Muellers team. Also breaking tonight, a source telling cnn that steve bannon, the president s former chief strategist, will not appear tomorrow before the House Intelligence Committee, defying a subpoena from that committee. And that same Committee Voting unanimously to release the democratic memo which rebuts allegations in that republican memo from friday that the fbi and Justice Department officials abused surveillance laws in the russia investigation. The white house only saying that that memo will be reviewed. It did not say it will be released. Lets begin the hour with cnn senior White House Correspondent pamela brown. Also political analyst molly bowle for time magazine, congressional reporter for the washington post, and political commentator matt lewis, the daily beast. Pamela, the New York Times reporting tonight that the president s lawyers urging him special counsel. Er clear of the an interview with him, similar to reporting you and Gloria Borger had a few days ago. Tell us what theyre telling the president. Thats right, as gloria and i have reported, the president s lawyers have been telling him for quite some time he should not testify. That its not a good idea. In fact, ty cobb, the president s lawyer, said on the record it would be a perjury trap, essentially saying he didnt want his client to do an interview because he was worried hed be caught in a lie. This is what the president s lawyers have been saying behind the scenes. To muellers team, they have argued that they have not shown enough evidence to prove why they need to sit down with the president of the United States. Theyre making the argument that its not normal, its not the same when you being an ordinary person versus the president of the United States and that they havent shown enough evidence to prove they need to sit down and interview him for the obstruction of justice. Thats really just a defense argument, is it not . Other president s have been required to sit down. Clinton volunteered but under threat of s p. If the president turns down the offer in effect of an interview, that could be followed up by a subpoena requiring him. Which is of course what i always bring up. That ultimately, Robert Mueller has the jurisdiction, the authority, to come back and say, okay, heres a subpoena were going to compel you to testify. You remember bill clintons case, the subpoena was issued, then it was worked out where he did testify not grand jury with his lawyer present. Someone i spoke to tonight close to the president s legal team said to me flat out, the president will not testify, period. When i brought up the subpoena this person said, i dont think theyre going to do that. Basically the argument from the white house is going to be from an institutional standpoint, the precedent of having the president sit down and do an interview like this. They seem convinced its not going to end up in a court battle. They might want to look back to nixon and clinton, i suppose. Those are questions. He did have to release the tapes, which the Supreme Court eventually ruled against him. Molly ball, the president has been somewhat back and forth on this question in his public comments. Lets play to our viewers his various comments on whether he would volunteer to sit for an interview. Would you be willing to speak under oath to give your version of 100 . Well see what happens. I mean, certainly ill see what happens. But when they have no collusion and nobodys found any collusion at any level, it seems unlikely youd even have an interview. Are you going to talk to mueller . Im looking forward to it, actually. Theres been no collusion whatsoever. Theres no obstruction whatsoever. And im looking forward to it. Do you have a date set . I dont know. No, i guess theyre talking about two or three weeks. I would love to do it. Again, i have to say, subject to my lawyers and all of that, but i would love to do it. Funny, i wonder if its that kind of bravado that his lawyers are worried about, that he might be overconfident sitting down in an interview with the special counsel. Yeah, i mean, it seems like a classic case, and not the only one, of trumps insteelkts pushing him a certain direction and cooler heads around him trying frantically to push him back the other direction. Trump it seems clear when hes off the top of his head he has this confidence, vertebra valued voe, why not, like everything else, blaze into it and push through. The people around him are saying, mr. President , we see the potential consequences, how this could go off the rails, trying to insulate him, protect him as they see it. But its clear that in his lessguarded moments, the president would just as soon charge right in. It reminds me very much of left to his own devices, i think the president would have ripped up nafta by now. But hes got people around him protecting him, insulating him, seeing potential consequences down the road he maybe doesnt see. He could also sort of be the good guy in this. Lo look, ive got nothing to hide. And let his lawyers be the bad guy, i cant, my lawyers are telling me not to, its an out for him. Talking about some of the president s allies trying to protect him, Chris Christie on Good Morning America last week, listen to what he had to say. Constitute president sit down with him facetoface . No. Why not . I dont believe so. Listen, i dont think theres been any allegations, credible allegations, against the president of the United States. I dont think the president of the United States, unless there are credible allegations, which i dont believe there are, should be sitting across from a special counsel. The presidency is different. I dont think they should do that. Do you agree with that argument . In effect, hes playing his defense lawyer here. Experienced prosecutor. But making an argument that other lawyers have made, that without an underlying crime, you dont the president cannot be forced to sit down . I think its a compelling argument. Nixon didnt do it. Reagan i think did, interrogatories, the written statements. I would never advise anybody to voluntarily submit themselves, whether theyre the president or not, to any sort of a case where you could be in they call it a trap. I think it actually is. For anybody but perjury traps a nice phrase for a defense lawyer to say. But as Jeffrey Toobin has said on our air oftentimes, the way to avoid a perjury trap is to tell the truth. Right. Are they worried the president just cant force himself to tell the truth . I would say two things. First of all, i would advise anybody not to voluntarily ever engage in any sort of discussion where you are, im going to go talk to the fbi i would never, if you could at all avoid it. You could accidentally commit perjury. Its totally possible. The other thing i would say is, i think donald trump is uniquely incapable of telling the truth. If i were advising him, i would say, no way would i let you do this. Would his lawyers say that to him point blank . They should. He has a tendency to tell the story thats in his head at that moment and thats dangerous when youre in a room with bob mueller his team. So we have other news coming tonight. A typical night. In this year, in this news cycle. Steve bannon, who was meant to appear before the House Intelligence Committee under a committee subpoena, is now no longer going to appear. This appears to be another product of this question as to how far executive privilege will extend to him. What questions hes going to actually answer when facing that committee. Yeah, because youll recall just recently he wouldnt give any information to the committee when he went up to the hill. He basically made the argument that this was because of the white house, the white house says im protected by executive privilege, ill talk to muellers team and give them all this information. So in some ways its not a surprise, but it certainly sets up this battle between steve bannon and the committee. And hes not the only one whos been claiming this. Again, this is another executve privilege extending to another adviser. Quite a liberal definition of this legal issue. Yeah, its rankling the people on the hill, including republicans quite a bit. Its not the president invoking the executive privilege, its his advisers saying he may want to. The possibility it might be invoked. Also theyre really upset because hes trying to invoke it for not discussing things that happened in the transition period. How can you invoke executive privilege is the argument when you were not actually in the white house being in the executive . There was another guy that was there still. Theyre upset, theyve been trying to work it out with bannon so they can schedule a date thats mutually agreeable, so there can be discussions between the House Counsel and white house to work out what the terms would be of the discuss n discussion. This is the third time theyve tried to reschedule this discussion. This interview thats going to be behind closed doors. And youre starting to hear people lose their patience with this. And its really going to come down to when do republicans decide theyve had enough . And today you were seeing people like tom learny saying we have to mean something with these subpoenas. If people think we dont, they dont show up, then nobodys going to interview with the House Intel Committee again. We cant let that happen. The next step is issuing a contempt resolution or citation and thats a big step that they may or may not be willing to take yet. But thats the point at which were playing chicken at some point. Molly, do you see something of course we had the drama on friday of the nunes memo and that came out, partisan lines. But now today, unanimous vote in the House Intel Committee to release the democratic rebuttal, in effect, attempt to rebutt those points. Is that an attempt toing not just mag unanimous but regain some of that bipartisanship as they continue this investigation . So much trust in the Intelligence Community was fractured by what happened with the nunes memo. This is a did that had traditionally been able, uniquely almost in congress, to Work Together across party lines. There was a concern that if that trust was fractured forever, it would really impede the ability of the Intelligence Community to function. I do think this was some attempt in a goodwill gesture to say, heres something we can agree on heres something the republicans particularly on the committee can extend an olive branch to the democrats saying, we did this thing that fractured so much trust, heres a way that maybe we can get it back. Of course we dont know where this is headed, we dont know what the white house is going to do. We had a sign of where the white house is today based on the president s twitter feed. This was the president , what the president tweeted at the ranking democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. Little adam schiff. Thats a new one. Who is desperate to run for Higher Office is one of the businessest liars and leakers in washington, right up there with comey, warner, brennan, and clapper, exclamation point. Leaves closed hearings to illegally leak confident information, must be stopped, exclamation point. Adam schiffs response was, i think its time for general kelley to give the president a timeout again. Its not new, this kind of hyperbole from the president. Is it helping his case . No, not at all. Look, i think adam schiff probably does leak a lot. At least certainly has close sources in the media. Or hes a source of a lot of media folks. The thing that bothered me much more than this, this is just donald trump being donald trump. And engaging in the sort of little marco sort of thing. I think much more troubling was donald trump claiming that the nunes memo exonerated him of the mueller probe, which i thought was patently absurd, even republicans are saying it has nothing to do with mueller. Trey gowdy went on the air, he ticked off all the reasons why the memo did not exonerate him, because he was in effect ticking off the other bits of evidence that led the fbi down to path. Right. And this is a tug of war thats happening right now between the republicans, who do not want to have this snowball into some sort of verdict on what they think about the mueller probe, and the president , whos trying to take every pit that he can and declare victory. The fact that this happened today, though, is telling. Everybody knew that the House Intelligence Committee was going to vote on the memo this evening. Its now in the president s hands. Hes got five days to make a decision whether or not to block that move. Does he have the guts to declassify the republican one and not the democrat one . I was asking that question of the republicans on the committee, and no, they think hes going to have to let it go. He just may heavily redact it. Thats the question. Even if thats another thing, if its heavily redacted, democrats want to see what the fbi ordered redacted and what comes out of the white house redact. 40 black lines and two names . To see if its political or sources and if theres a difference. Theyre going to try to potentially have a next round of pushing to get this out there more than comes right. Thats a possibility. Thanks so much to the panel. I appreciate it when you come in late to join us. President trump repeatedly attacks the russia investigation as a hoax once again and slams the fbis role in it. Up next, were going to ask an fbi agent who just quit the bureau how political attacks are wearing on the bureaus rank and file. Join tmobile, and when you buy one of the latest Samsung Galaxy phones get a Samsung Galaxy s8 free. Yahoooo ahoooo plus, unlimited family plans come with netflix included. Spectacular so, you can watch all your netflix favorites on your new samsung phones. Whoa join the uncarrier and get a Samsung Galaxy s8 free. All on americas best unlimited network. Your new brotherinlaw. You like him. Hes one of those guys who always smells good. His 5 oclock shadow is always at 5 oclock. You like him. Your mom says hes done really well for himself. He has stocks and bonds your dad wants to go fishing with him. Your dad doesnt even like fishing. You like your brotherinlaw. But youd like him better if you made more money than he does. Dont get mad at your brotherinlaw. Get e trade looking for a hotel that fits. Whoooo. Your budget . Tripadvisor now searches over. 200 sites to find you the. Hotel you want at the lowest price. Grazi, gino find a price that fits. Tripadvisor. Welcome back. With all the focus now on the democrats memo on the fbi and surveillance, friday all the talk was of devin nunes republican version. Nunes memo was billed as a bombshell set to upend the russia investigation, proof he and his allies claimed that the fbi had it in for trump. Just 72 hours later, even republicans say there isnt much to nunes claims. To be fair, his memo didnt quite meet democrats dire predibbles of revealing deep, Dark National security secrets. Perhaps these dueling memos reveal something about both parties. That is, a possible tendency to love the fbi when its on their side, not so much when the bureau isnt. Remember, Many Democrats still blame james comey for singlehandedly, they say, losing the election for Hillary Clinton. That was way back in 2016 when donald trump was wholeheartedly praising him. Of course since then trump fired comey and is attacking his successor, christopher wray. What does this all mean to the men and women of the fbi . A politically motivated accusation led one special agent to resign so that he could speak out in defense of the bureau. He quit on friday saying such attacks make our nation less safe. Josh campbell is with me now. Thanks very much for taking the time. Thanks for telling your story to us and to the american people. Thanks, jim. As i read this piece, its clearly a heartfelt piece. I want for the sake of the audience who might not have read it, ill quote one of the lines. Fbi agents are dogged people who do not care about the direction of political winds but to succeed in their work they need public backing. Scorched earth attacks from politicians with partisan goals now threaten that support, raising corrosive doubts about the integrity of the fbi that could last for generations. Thats remarkable. Youre talking about shaking the core of the american peoples confidence, really, in the fbi. It is. And its something that even if there isnt immediate result that were seeing right in front of our face, it is something that threatens our ability to do our job in the longterm. What i mean by that is the fbi cannot do its job without public trust. Whether its an agent knocking on someones door, whether its recruiting, whatever the case may be. Rising in a courtroom and trying to convince a jury what we are about to say must be believed, the fbi requires that public trust. I think what were seeing now is regardless of party, im not talking about politics, im not here to talk politics. But the political attacks on the bureau, which are different from criticism, have that potential to impede our work for the future. Are you and your colleagues noticing that already . Are you noticing questions being asked in the course of your work that were not asked before . The one big question, whether its an fbi agent talking to a subject or someone that theyre trying to get information from in the course of their job, even frankly our family and friends when we go home, is, what happened to the fbi . Thats a tough question to answer. Because the reality is, nothings happened to the fbi, its the same fbi that weve had for 40 years. Its the same fbi with oversight that ensures our accountability. What i have seen and what many of my colleagues assess is that politics has intersected with the fbi in a way we havent seen before. Where now critical institutions like Law Enforcement are now fair game for political attacks. Its interesting. Because that question, what happened to the fbi, that seems to indicate that people buy the partisan attacks. That you are now, you or the bureau writ large, is behaving in a biased way. Youre right. And thats why i think the potential ramifications could be longterm. Because as this corrosive doubt starts to seep in as far as our ability to be believed, its hard to get that undone once its already baked in. I think the time is now. Again it wasnt easy to leave the fbi, an organization that i love. I loved going to work every day, working with the best people that you would ever meet. And it was tough to leave. But i think its too important to speak out and say these attacks must stop, because the ramifications are so grave. Its a loss. A loss to the bureau. You were there, present with james comey, when he was fired by the president. And some emails from the fbi have been released that show the initial reaction to that from people inside. One reading, our hearts are heavy, i hope this is an instance of fake news, kind of dark humor. Tell us what it was like in that moment. So i had the pleasure of serving as jim comeys special assistant. I will say at the outset, ive spent my professional life telling the truth, gathering the truth. Thats what fbi agents do. Even in this new role im not going to change that. Im biased in the sense that i had a front row seat to an incredible leader, someone who was not without fault, none of us are, were human beings, were not perfect. What i saw was a leader who was well liked throughout the organization. I know there were some criticisms and accusations that maybe that wasnt the case. I can tell you, it was the case. Because i saw it. I can give you three examples. The first being, i spent a lot of time with the director while he was traveling. You knew it was a deployed organization. He had to visit the troops. I watched him interact with thousands of fbi employees. Literally thousands. And seeing their faces as they interacted with him. As ive said before, not all of them agreed with him. We had a segment of the population that had some issues with the handling of the Hillary Clinton investigation. Thats fine, people can disagree. Even those who disagreed with his actions still respected him. The second thing, in the fbi, we have something that he actually championed, we call it the climate survey, employees cannon miscellaneously every year fill out surveys to tell us how are our leaders doing . Our ability to hold them accountable. Its anonymous, employees rate the officials. His ratings across all levels were always high. Which tells you its not someone who just being nice to them because theyre in the moment with the director. Let me ask you this. Even in his testimony on the hill, he referred to i think he use the phrase, nauseous. When he was asked if he was concerned when he came out with that reopening of the investigation several days before the election, whether he might affect the election. There was criticism of director comey during the Hillary Clinton email investigation. I imagine from both sides. But being very public when he first said he was not issuing charges, but being very critical. From some, and some with axes to grind. Is it your sense he or others in the fbi thought he was too involved politically in 2016 . I think what we saw with director comey is something that may be unique in washington, that is someone who had no regard for the political ramifications what was he was about to do, but as we want our leaders to, do he worked his end box, whats this front of me, what are the hard decisions that i have to make . He didnt say, this may be a political hot potato, im going to kick this across the street, let someone else dot. He worked the cases that were in front of him. He made the tough decisions. If you go back and look at the series of events that happened, again, i dont work for jim comey, i dont work with the fbi anymore, my job is to tell facts. If you go back and look at the last year and a half and whats happened to him, some of the most critical decisions that he made where he took a lot of heat, there was always an option for him to do something that would have gotten him off the hook. I think at each turn what he did is determined whats best for the institution, for the department of justice, for the rule of law. I think thats to be lauded. Do you look at you said in so many words that it makes the country less safe. Why is that . These attacks . I do, because again, it goes back to the fbi cannot do its job without public trust. In our business, now my former business, we rely on the public to provide us information. So whether thats the fbi top ten program, seeking information for the public, whether it was youre trying to recruit an informant whos going to help you stop the next terrorist plot. Im not being an alarmist, i think these are real issues were going to face. If the public sees us as, okay, theyre just like everyone else, theyre political, they cant be trusted. I think thats going to impact our ability to build that trust, to do our jobs, to gather information we need to protect the country. Josh campbell, thanks for speaking out and thanks for your service in the bureau. Thank you. Coming up next, the president saying many times that hes eager totalktospecial counsel Robert Mueller. His lawyers trying to steer him clear. Who will win that leg shal showdown . The risks of either strategy next. Why wait months for your next vacation when you can squeeze one in between friday and monday at hilton . Theres a vacation at the end of every week. Whatever type of weekender you are, dont let another weekend pass you by. Get the lowest price when you book at hilton. Com gathered here are the worlds finest insurance experts. Rodney mastermind of discounts like safe driver, paperless. The list goes on. How about a discount for long lists . Gold. Mara, you save our customers hundreds for switching almost effortlessly. Its a gift. And jamie. Present. Together we are unstoppable. So, what are we gonna do . Insurance. Thats kind of what we do here. Welcome back. President trumps lawyers advising him to refuse an interview request from Robert Mueller. How will that square with the president who has said many, many times that he is eager to speak to the special counsel . Lets break it all down with michael zeldin, cnn legal analyst and Robert Muellers special assistant at department of justice. John dean, contributor and former counsel in the nixon white house. Trumps attorneys dont want him to speak to special counsel mueller, do they have the right to say no . Its not clear, actually. While you mentioned u. S. Versus nixon earlier, that was a question of whether a president had the privilege, executive privilege, to withhold evidence and documents. And nixons case, tapes. And 80 they decided against him. As to his being called to testify, nixon never was, until after he left the office. He did so voluntarily. Michael zeldin, you worked for Robert Mueller. Bill clinton did, was required to testify. Yes, three times. So what was the difference there legally . There is no difference. It was just a different set of circumstances. In nixons case, to johns point, they wanted the tapes which was essentially testimony. It wasnt physical evidence they wanted, they wanted the words out of Richard Nixons mouth, which ultimately convicted him in the court of Public Opinion and caused him to resign his office. In the case of trump and the case of clinton, they wanted the words out of his mouth live. And they got it because the grand jurys right to receive evidence, generally speaking, under all the cases that have analyzed this, overcomes executive privilege. And of course remember one thing about executive privilege is, its a privilege that results from the president and his senior advisers talking about policy. Thats what nixon tried to assert. But it was not about policy. In this case also, these are not policy conversations between trump and his senior advisers. In fact, much of this occurs before hes even president. So i dont see in the end how he prevails. Michael make at good point, john dean. It gets to that issue. Nixon was beaten on that point because the court effectively ruled, if i understand it correctly, that if he was dealing with state secrets, yes, matters of National Security, yes, those conversations, executive privilege. If hes speaking in that case about a crime at the watergate hotel, not covered by executive privilege. Might the special counsel or even the Supreme Court, if it goes there, rule similarly here that, say, a conversation on air force one about a meeting with russians, that that does not fall under the umbrella of issues of National Security that are covered by executive privilege . Michael always makes good points. Id start with that. And add that heres a situation where theyd have to may have to litigate it. The other thing is, they could litigate it and prevail, that the grand jury had the right to the testimony, and trump could be the first president to take the fifth amendment. That theyre not going to be able to get around. So there is still always that option. But i think it would be a powerfully unpleasant situation for a sitting president to have taken the fifth amendment. Michael, i want you to help us with this issue. The phrase that i try to hesitate to say, perjury trap, right, that makes it seem like theres some kind of nefarious purposes going on here. At the end of the day, if you tell the truth, right, youre not going to get charged with lying to the special counsel. Because thats a point that youll often hear from the president s defenders here that well, the special counsel kind of maneuvered the president into a position where he tells a falsehood. Lets be clear what is a perjury trap. A perjury trap is a defined sort of concept in law. Its a form of entrapment where the prosecutor and its inappropriate where the prosecutor is bringing the witness in for the sole purpose of getting him to commit a perjury that he can charge him with that perjury. Thats a perjury trap. When theres an ongoing, legitimate investigation and you bring a witness in to testify, and that witness doesnt tell the truth, thats just perjury. Plain old, plain old perjury. This isnt a trap. This is a legitimate investigation. If the president chooses to not tell the truth, then hes chargeable with person. John dean, i imagine the special counsel has i dont want to say advantage, but an arrow in his quiver, that he has cooperating witnesses now and the primary one with regard to the president would be michael flynn. Yes, indeed. And trump has no idea what flynn has said, what flynn has recorded, his own set of selfcorroboration in his emails what hes told others. So, yes. And we have something ive described earlier, a naturalborn liar in the president. And so he has difficulty. Hes often truthchallenged. So i understand why his attorneys are doing it and i think i understand if its pushed by the special counsel why hes pushing it. the other issue, of course, today that the House Intelligence Committee voted unanimously to release the democratic rebuttal to the nunes memo, sending it to President Trump. The president as you know from our experience last week has five days to decide whether to declassify this document. Ultimately thats a judgment call by the president and there are political implications. Any legal requirement for the president to put this out there now that the house has voted, or rather the committee, has voted unanimously to put it out there . No, my understanding is that classification issues reside solely in the executive branch. And theyre a prerogative of the president. The president can, if hes prepared to withstand the political conflicts that hes created for himself, he has are you saying politics might enter into this decision . Is that what youre suggesting . Far be it for me to understand politics. From a legal matter, i think its his prerogative. I think hes hard pressed to not release it. The question will be, i think, that which congressman schiff raised, which is, will he neuter it by excising things from it through redaction . And thats his greatest weapon, i think. John dean, do you see the president standing in the way of this at this point . Or is the political pressure just too great . I think the greatest likelihood is some sort of heavy redaction where he wont explain the redactions. But i also understand that there is a rule in the house that the house can indeed release socalled classified information. Michaels absolutely right, this is something the president s power has clearly been defined to be the supreme and ultimate power, yet heres this house rule. Thats right. I believe it would be a majority in the house could overrule the president , which would be a political calculation on the part of the Republican Party as well. John dean, michael zeldin, thanks very much. The president s lawyers dont want him to speak to mueller. Is this part of a strategy to further undermine the Mueller Investigation . Well talk about that question right after this. Heres some advice. Tripadvisor now searches more. 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If we can use dna to diagnose the rarest of diseases, imagine what we can do for the conditions that affect us all. Imagine what we can do for you. Welcome back. Lets bring in cnn legal and National Security analyst asha rangaba, david rode, and julia raffy. I want to zero in on steve bannon lost in the mix here. A lot of anticipation to him coming to the House Intelligence Committee after his confusing experience last time where he wouldnt answer any questions. Now hes just not showing up. It seems that those issues on what questions hes going to answer have not been settled. Where is this going . Whos going to settle this question so that the House Intelligence Committee can interview him as its interviewed so many other people . Yes, were having a game of congressional whos on first. Weve seen this with jeff sessions. Preemptively invoking executive privilege and going around and around. You know, ultimately its up to the members of congress to enforce a subpoena and essentially make him answer those questions. And if they choose not to do that, then, you know, then these people can get away with it. Weve seen this pattern go on. But if they do choose to try to enforce it, and the white house actually tries to actually invoke executive privilege, that could potentially get litigated as it has in previous circumstances. David, this white house would be stretching that veneer of executive privilege, if my history is right, just doing some research tonight that Ronald Reagan even in the iran contra affair, which involved a whole host of National Security questions, did not invoke executive privilege there. What would the case that this administration would make that executive privilege covers Steve Bannons discussions with the president , for instance, about this trump tower meeting in 2016 . How could they make that argument . Its more its not a very strong legal argument, its more a political argument. Its part of this campaign to kind of belittle this investigation, declare it a witch hunt. I dont think it will stand legally. But i think theres a very Clear Strategy to say, this doesnt matter, you hear it i think more and more consistently from the president , the president s son, that this is just an unfair process and they dont take it seriously and theyre saying to their republican base, you shouldnt take it seriously either. Right. Part of a coordinated effort with a lot of targets. You mentioned the president s son over the past few days, weve heard from other members of the trump family indicating they feel the same as the president on the investigation, also that the nunes memo somehow was a vindication of the entire russia investigation, an interview this weekend with fox news, donald trump jr. Had this to say. There is a little bit of sweet revenge in it for me and certainly probably the family in the sense that if they wouldnt have done this, this stuff would be going on. This would be going on at the highest levels of government. Theyd be continuing to do it to my father, trying to undermine his actions. Imagine how effective he can be given the year hes had without this cloud over his head. So some outrage there. What is he basing that on . Well, a very selective, cherrypicked reading of a very selective and cherrypicked memo, right . Because i think a lot of the same people who read that memo saw that it confirmed that the russia investigation was triggered not by the dossier, not by the fact that the dnc had paid for it, but by George Papadopoulos meeting with the russians and running his mouth to an australian ambassador, which we already knew. To the degree the australian ambassador was concerned enough he reported it back to his countrys Intelligence Services which shared it with their u. S. Partners. Exactly. Its just again, this is what has worried me since 2016. And im sorry to be a Debbie Downer here. The extent to which were coming to resemble russia in the sense that theres two populations that live in completely parallel informational spaces. Where the facts dont intersect at all. The narratives dont intersect at all. And at this point, it doesnt really matter what muellers investigation reveals or the senate or god forbid the house investigation reveals. Everybodys going to take it and run with it in their separate political directions based on where they were going into it. Asha, because it is part of really a series of attacks weve seen on the investigation, individuals, institutions, we spoke to a former colleague of yours, Josh Campbell, who left the bureau because of the nature of these attacks and what its doing to the agencies here. Im curious how serious your experience is of this. And do you feel that it is eating at corrosive was the way Josh Campbell used in his editorial. Do you share that view . Yes, i do. I think it is corrosive when the Publics Trust in the fbi is undermined. Mainly because it really affects the ability of agents to do their jobs, of them to be able to get the information to solve their cases, to investigate terrorism, and counter intelligence. And as i mentioned earlier today, you know, agents go and testify in court when prosecutors are prosecuting cases. Juries have to believe them. They have to understand that they have integrity in the way that they conducted their investigations. All of this gets undermined. And its very difficult to repair, jim. So once you lose that, once its eroded, its not something that can be fixed overnight. So it is a longterm problem when the fbis continually attacked like this. David, before we go, final thought. I think this is a bad sign for foreign intelligence agencies. Theyre not going to want to give information to the u. S. They fear it will be released for political purposes. And thats whats happening. These congressional oversight committees were supposed to stop this kind of process, keep the intelligence profession professional, instead theyre using all this for political gain. Listen, stay with us. Were going to have more time on the other side of the break. What happens if you Say Something nasty about your future boss and then it comes to light after you start working for him . Thats exactly what happened with someone in trumps cabinet now. Well tell you exactly what he said. Iis not always easy. Its a longdistance run. 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Ask about the 1 prescribed biologic by dermatologists. Humira go. grunting today is your day. Crush it. Angies boom chicka pop whole grain popcorn. Boom one trump cabinet secretary did not always have choice words for his boss. Cnn discovering that epa administrator scott pruitt called donald trump a, quote, empty vessel on the constitution and the rule of law. This coming during an interview with an oklahoma radio show in 2016. Pruitt was supporting the candidacy of jeb bush at the time. Were back now with asha rangap rangappa, david rohde, and julia ioffe. Julia, a number of trump aides have been caught saying less than flattering things about the president. Today we learned about the epa administrator scott pruitt. Lets have a listen to that interview. I think hes an empty vessel when it comes to thinks like the constitution and rule of law. And im very concerned that perhaps in the vouns that there may be a very blunt instrument as the voice of the execution. Goodness gracious where we are with all these legal questions. We know that his boss watches some cable television. When he finds out about this, is scott pruitt are his days numbers . Could be. Scott pruitt put out a Statement Today saying President Trump is the most consequential leader of our time. Hes clearly hoping the president hears that. This is politics. This is during the primaries. Pruitt was backing jeb bush as you said at the time. Its embarrassing but not unusual. But what is unusual is President Trump and his patience for this kind of disloyalty. The question is how does trump react . This can blow over, not be a big thing, but you just dont know whether the president will tolerate this or not. Julia, how significant when you hear comments like that . Whats interesting about it too, beyond it being very critical, its very top cal with the kinds of shoes we issues we are facin. Wasnt he the law and order candidate . Let me just connect it to the memo, right . We had this like the fact that carter page and George Papadopoulos were in any way involved with the campaign that ended up winning the white house is telling, right, because there were so many other candidates. They took all the potential advisers and everything and the Trump Campaign got stuck with the carter pages and the George Papadopouloses. And the Scott Pruitts of the world were saying, this guy is not really all that much. Now that he is president , they have to, you know, kiss dear leaders ring. But it looks there are so many you know, you could disqualify all of washington if this were disqualifying. Asha, its not like they are reluctantly carrying out the president s issues here. Scott pruitt, one of the most aggressive cabinet secretaries here in terms of environmental policy, really dismantling the entire epa and its functions here. I mean theyre showing ability to change their stripes. I think thats the most disturbing thing, jim, is that these are folks who recognize early on that there were potential issues that would be coming particularly on the legal and constitutional front, as you said, exactly as we are facing right now. And then are yet willing to enable a lot of the policies that hes promoting. And weve seen this in a number of different fronts, with the travel ban, with the nunes memo to undermine the Mueller Investigation. Its kind of happening across the board, and it just goes back to, you know, the longterm consequences of not really standing up for the rule of law and other Democratic Values that, you know, both parties have always championed. And theyre all going out the window right now. You might say that scott pruitt was prescient in his comments on the constitution and well, scott pruitt was always a true believer in terms of denying climate change, right . Theres a lot of people like this who are manning kind of the various ships of the trump administration. The true believers, the ideologues wfor whom trump was really an empty vessel. But i dont know that trump cared one way or another about a lot of these issues, but hes been appointing people like scott pruitt, who go in there and while trump is distracted tweeting about nunes, et cetera, theyre busy dismantling the epa. With great effect, are they not . Making Real Progress on what has been longtime conservative agenda . Major progress. If you look at whats happened on immigration, Stephen Miller a hard liner on that issue. Trump came into office as this sort of deal maker. No one knew where he was politically, and he was essentially captured by the far right of the Republican Party. Thats their deal with the devil if you will. They can get these things theyve wanted carried out, many of them extreme right proposals, by working with this president. You know, will it haunt them . Well have to see in the midterms elections in november. David, asha, julia, thanks so much for sticking around with us. Thanks to you as well for joining us tonight. Im jim sciutto in for don lemon. Thats it for us tonight. Thanks so much for watching. Hope to see you tomorrow. The whisperer . Why do they call him the whisperer . He talks to planes. He talks to planes. Watch this. Hey watson, whats avionics telling you . Maintenance records and performance data suggest replacing capacitor c4. Not bad. Whats with the coffee maker . Sorry. We are not on speaking terms. We packed new banquet mega bowls full of majestic piles of cheddar mac n cheese, smothered in mozzarella. But it wasnt mega. So we topped it with protein packed chunks of buffalostyle chicken. Now thats mega. Good evening. At the end of a full and somewhat harrowing day which included a record plunge on wall street and President Trump accusing democratic lawmakers of being unamerican and treasonous for not clapping at certain moments of the state of the union address, we begin tonight with the president s claim of vindication in the russia investigation, talking about the nunes memo on saturday, the president tweeted, quote, this memo totally vindicates trump and probe, but the russian witch hunt goes on and on. There was no collusion and there was no obstruction. The word now