Strzok and page exchanged antitrump messages during the campaign and the implication was the secret society was at the nexus of a plot to take down trump. Trump tv naturally went absolutely crazy. Strzok and his fbi lawyer mistress lisa page talked about a secret society within the fbi . Is this a banana republic. The fbi officials talk about a secret society. Part of a secret society. The secret society. Secret society. The antitrump secret society. A secret society. We have an informant talking about a group that were Holding Secret meetings off site. Secret society. Secret society. Skeet society. A secret society top cops. Trey gowdy is demanding answers. I want to know what society are you talking about. Of course you would want to know that. From the start, i got to say all this seemed suspect. For one thing, anyone in an actual secret society probably isnt calling their secret society secret society. And we now have evidence that the text was likely what pretty much anyone with any common sense whatsoever assumed from the beginning, a sarcastic joke. Last night abc news revealed the full secret society text which made clear the comment was most likely in jest. For senator ron johnson who obviously claimed he had an informant confirming secret meetings, that made things a bit awkward. After reading those transcripts of the Text Messages, do you think it was made as a joke . Its entirely possible. Lets see what the next texas. What about the number of texts. It will be interesting. Do you owe an apology sir for raising these concerns. Well see what the next texts there. He said well see what the missing texts. Are you heard of that one . Johnson is talking about five months worth of Text Messages between strzok and page that the fbi had been unable to find and turn over. To trump allies this was proof they had something huge to hide. The president called the missing texts one of the biggest stories in a long time. Wow. On trump tv last night, conservative activist tom fitten said the Trump Administration should raid the fbi to secure them. If i were the attorney general of the United States, i would be very concerned about what the fbi did here and i would send an independent Law Enforcement like the u. S. Marshals to secure and recover this evidence. Just be clear r clear, is he recommending president send in loyal Security Services to raid the Security Service viewed as disloyal now today brought bad news for the truthers. The Justice Department recovered the texts. The d oo j inspector say they had succeeded to get them back using forensic tools. The issue affected thousands of phones within the fbi, not just strzok and pages which doesnt held the text truthers case. Theres always the next theory to turn to. Cue, House Intelligence Committee devin nunes who obviously isnt up in to this sort of thing. He draft aid classified memo many republicans will say will prove finally the Justice Departments antitrump corruption once and for all. Release the memo. Release the memo. Call the number on your screen, 2022243121, Tell Congress the truth and we have a right to know. Act now. In a letter yesterday, steven boyd, a form he ever Jeff Sessions staffer informed nunes i quote here, it would be extraordinarily reckless to release the memo without Justice Department review saying to do so would be a real risk to National Security. allowed the entire gop caucus to read the memo while denying access to those who obviously might question it. Then theres this. At the time the republicans voteded to provide this flawed document to the house, i made a motion to allow the members to read the underlying materials before they voted on characterizing them in such a distorted fashion. They voted that down. Why would you vote to not have access to read things . The point was they didnt care what was in the underlying documents. They wanted to make a little statement. In the end, thats what all this is about from the madeup secret society to the misleading memo, that is what its all about. Its almost on a daily basis they create these false controversies to take off take the pressure off what is clearly special prosecutor mueller is getting closer and closer to the truth. Joining me now justice and security analyst matt miller, and Msnbc National Security analyst clint watts, former fbi agent. Clint, as someone who obviously worked in the fbi, what is it like to watch sort of portion of the american political system, these institutions like trump tv and conservative media and the white house and allies essentially sell the story to people that the fbi is this kind of like liberal fifth column that trying to bring down a president . Just historically to ever perceive the fbi that way doesnt make any sense. But it is a very conservative organization. You wear only two color shirts, white or blue. Everywhere pretty much is buttoned down there. I would guess we never talked about who is a republican or a democrat but i would guess it is strongly conservative and of all the organizations you would tend to think that because its Law Enforcement. Whats baffling is why you would do this. Even in just a political battle like this transactionally, its no gain or minimal gain. Ultimately it hurts our country. If you were going after a federal Law Enforcement institution at the same time youre advocating for the Opioid Crisis and weve got to take these networks down trying to going after ms13, youre going after an Trump Country as an fbi agent and theyre saying youre part of the deep state or a member of some secret society. I dont want to aid you in this investigation. So youre shooting yourself in the foot. Thats why you saw the department of justice today. Theyre confused whats going on in this congressional setting. Matt, what did you make you now have had sort of standoff between the trump Justice Department under the direction of Jeff Sessions and a former sessions staffer writing to dern nunes basically saying cut this nonsense out. That was an extraordinary letter because it was signed by a former staffer to Jeff Sessions and remember the attacks theyre making all relate to a fisa warrant approved during the 2016 election when Loretta Lynch was the attorney general and jim comey was the head of the Justice Department, a republican who obviously now every republican hates. In this letter, you got a Republican Former sessions staffer speak on behalf of trump appointee Rod Rosenstein and chris wray coming out and saying, actually weve looks at the fisa application from the 2016 application and there was nothing wrong with it. Theyve now gotten the republican Justice Department to come out and say what the democraticled Justice Department did was completely 100 within the law. But the further claim that they make that for devin nunes to release there memo would be reckless and could jeopardize National Security, i cant think of a time when a Justice Department of one party has written to a Committee Chairman of the same committee with that big of a claim. Its even more strange because you have on the other side, just down pennsylvania avenue at the white house, youve had Sarah Sanders saying they want the memo to come out in the full interest of transparent sit contradicting the people who say it could hurt security. The white house has taken is the side of the allied media organizations against its own Justice Department. Take a listen, clint. There are serious questions about political bias at high levels at the fbi. Theyve existed for some time under the leadership of the previous director james comey. Its remarkable for the president s spokesperson to call it the integrity of his own fbi into question. They also selected certain Text Messages that fit their story and left out others that didnt fit their story. You give me your Text Messages, i can make you believe anything. Absolutely true. And the way social media and congress and the president played all these things in public, it continues on this barrage. Its release the memo one day, release the tests the next. Its the same playbook we saw in the campaign against Hillary Clinton with lost emails. Matt, they also do seem to be cycling through a bunch of different ones. Im old enough to remember when they were all about uranium one for about a week. That didnt stick. Unmacking. What do you make of the ways in which they procedurally move through these . They have to move from one to the other. He had pick one, say trump tower being wiretapped. That doesnt pan out. They move to another one. That doesnt pan out. They move to uranium 1. They have to have something with which to attack the fbi so they can focus on something other than the fact we keep seeing embarrassing and new revelations about the president. Theres a certain amount of partisanship kind of baked in in washington that you sort of understand. We are far beyond partisanship when you see the texts. These are dishonorable actions by dishonorable people launching attacks when they know the evidence contradicts their claims with no regard to career servants who obviously spent their careers trying to protect National Security no, regard for the credibility of these institutions theyre damaging, and all to thwart and subvert an investigation into how a foreign country interfered with our election. It is pauling behavior from the republican party. Hysteria. Theyre the masters of hysteria. The people who obviously read those hashtags have no idea what they mean. We saw it with President Trump. 50,000 emails. For more on the dubious moorm, im joined by White House Reporter austin and spencer ackerman. Spencer, youve been reporting on this. What are they doing . What is the game plan here . So, this is somewhat like this is somewhat like when galileo ends up transforming our view of a helio centric universe and in order to sort of fight off that transformation, you have to get into ever more exotic theories. Right. To kind of explain this. And you end up getting the idea of like the retro grade motion of gestalt. Spencer. Its an interesting thing to watch as applied to this memo which to be very clear, i have not read and we only get you know, snippets from what we can report on. What we know right now from our reporting last night myself and Betsy Woodruff at the daily buy of the, the memo names particular sort of conservative people of the moment to include the former fbi director jim comey, the Current Deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, and as one of the more famous targets at this point by the president the Deputy Director of the fbi Andrew Mccabe. Now, among the things all of these people have in common is that they have been involved in really substantial ways in the investigation to trump and russia. The question is sort of whats the through line there that connects them. What we sort of have seen from rather selective leaks, its to make an argument that the fisa an process that led to the surveillance warrant on carter page last year was in some way tainted. Thats where again from other leaks weve gotten, the idea is that they relied on Christopher Steele dossier. Now, at the risk of stating you know with an fbi agent who obviously has been an afinite in the fisa process sitting next to me, the people ive talked to involved in the process say that theres simply no credible way that you would have a judge ever approve for a title 1 fisa warrant a statement for probable cause, an application for probable cause that relies on a dossier where the affiants involved cant say where the guys information comes from or whose informants they are. So the question that were facing for this memo, i personally would like to read this memo very much, is how all of this knits together in some kind of coherent way. It seems to me the white house is very clearly in on this. Theres this is sort of back and forth between allies on the hill and the white house with the aim of subverting and discredititying their own Justice Department and federal bureau of investigation. Absolutely. And before i get to that, i must address what you were mentioning earlier especially regarding the secret society con spiry theory imploding in on itself. The way it imploded it resembles an episode of veep. A lot of this is ridiculous but part of the problem why this has legs and will not die is because according to people i have spoken to in the white house over the last few days, the president of the United States is absolutely obsessed with these theorys and something he seize as an abscam level scandal of the deep state or whatever out to get him. No matter how many of these things get debunked or theres no reason to take them seriously from anybody reasonable or objective, you can expect the president of the United States to talk about this and tweet about it for quite some time. Partly because hes consuming this stuff. Thats right. Its like the snake is eating its tail here. The president watches this on his television. He then tweets about it and the cycle repeats itself. Talk about some of the ramifications of this. You mentioned the Judicial Watch guy proposing that the u. S. Marshals raid the fbi. Now, we hear a lot particularly during this life span of this story about the deep state, that this is some sort of conspiracy by the security agencies to go after trump to undo you the results of the 2016 election and you get coup talk thrown in from people like alex jones. What a deep state actually is a rogue Security Apparatus pursuing its own highly politicize the agenda and particularly is prone as we see in countries like egypt and turkey to attacking the unfavored security agents. Exactly. The irony is ultimately you could create a real feasible prospect, a real a circumstance that for all of the rhetoric is a rather dangerous one where you politicize the security agencies and particularly create loyalty tests for security agencies as we heard the president apparently asked the interim director of the fbi Andrew Mccabe who obviously he vote ford, that could result in some sort of you know, some sort of conflict or otherwise result in this cooptation of one of these agencies against basically allamerican laws and traditions. Thats a really serious thing to play with. Laying the foupgs for the kind of hinge that engenders deep state. Thank you both for joining me. Next, donald trump jr. And the russian conspiracy back in the headlines today. The back and forth over trump juniors Senate Judiciary testimony and why one democrat says the transcript may be material to the Mueller Investigation in two minutes. My business was going nowhere. So i built this kickin new website with godaddy. Building a website in under an hour is easy 68 of people. Who have built their website using gocentral, did it in. Under an hour, and you can too. Type in your business or idea. Pick your favourite design. Personalize it with beautiful images. And. Youre done and now business is booming. Harriet, its a double stitch not a cross stitch build a better website in under an hour. Free to try. No credit card required. Gocentral from godaddy. All right. We have breaking news just in the last few moments from the New York Times. A just published a few minutes ago, im going to read you from the times article headline. Trump ordered mueller fired but backed off when white House Counsel threatened to quit. President trump ordered the firing last you know of Robert Mueller iii the special counsel overseeing the russia investigation according to four people told of the matter but ultimately backed down after the white House Counsel threatened to resign rather than carry out the directive. This is last june. The west wing confrontation marks the first time mr. Trump is known to have tried to fire the special counsel. Mr. Mueller learned about the episode in recent months as his investigators interviewed current and forrer senior white house officials in his inquiry into whether the president obstructed justice. Barbara mcquaid is a former u. S. Attorney from michigan and msnbc legal contributor. I know you have seen this a few seconds ago as i have now. Your reaction . Well, its really extraordinary whenever i hear talk about the president firing Robert Mueller, i think about the saturday night massacre which was really the Tipping Point for Richard Nixons demise. So i always think it would be an incredibly politically dangerous thing for President Trump to do, certainly theres a question of what are the legal ramifications of it. Does he have the power to do it . Probably. But you know, like any power of the president , if it is done for a corrupt purpose, then that could be more evidence of obstruction of justice. So i can understand why his white house carrie leed him against it even going so far according to the story as threatening to quit. Extraordinary. One of the things interesting here it appears that the timeline that this is when it starts being made public that the white house, that, mueller is interested not just in russia and the possibility of collusion with an adversary who obviously commit add crime to interfere in an American Election but also with oobstruction in the wake of the comey firing. They were actively attempting to obstruct justice in terms of how they handled that. And theres a kind of i dont know, again, selfreferencity here which is that discover that he thought about firing mueller himself in the course of investigating the possibility of obstruction. Yeah, i guess the analogy of the snake eating its tail comes to mind again as you head in the last segment. The irony piles upon itself. As weve discussed before, chris, when the president exercises a power like the power to fire or the power to appoint a federal judge or to grant a pardon, he has power to do all of those things. If he does it for improper pur, say, for example, in exchange for a bribe, thats an easy example when it would be a corrupt purpose, similarly, if he were to fire Robert Mueller because hes afraid hes going to get too close to learning the truth about what happened with russia, that would be obstruction of justice or some evidence of it. So i think its an important factor that Robert Mueller will throw into the whole mix of all the things hes looking at to decide whether President Trump had a corrupt purpose in all the things hes been doing. I want to bring back one of the White House Reporters from the daily beast and get your reaction to this. Absolutely. The interesting thing abouting this is its not entirely surprising given that the president has floated or flirted with the prospect of ordering the sacking of Robert Mueller for months. And as is clear in this story, basically every senior official in his white house and close to him and in his administration has been urging him not to do so because they recognize what don mcgahn recognized that doing so would set off a potentially presidencyending or presidencydefining armageddon. Theres a few things that pop out here. One is mcgahns ability to stop him doing what would be, i think youre right, a presidencyending move or the beginning of the end. To barbaras point about the saturday night massacre, it was the firing of Archibald Cox by president nixon that sort of began the ends for him. This paragraph also pertains. Barbara, i want your reaction to it. Another option that mr. Trump considered in cushions with his advisers was dismissing the Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein and elevating the number three official rachel brand overseeing mr. Mueller. What do you think about the possibility how would that work if you would to remove rosenstein . You want me to answer that question. Please, thanks. I think that would have similar political ramifications. Rob rosen sign is a career respected Deputy Attorney general. Hes been a u. S. Attorney in both republican and democratic administrations. To remove him in that scenario without any just cause i think would cause a lot of alarm and panic. I dont know that it would be any better than firing Robert Mueller because it would suggest youre trying to elevate someone who obviously might be more sympathetic to your views in overseeing the investigation. So i think that too would be a disaster for President Trump. Swen, talk about the mood in the white house with respect to this investigation because we know the president s obsessed with it. He watches a channel that talks about these sort of conspiracy theories. We know hes been railing against mueller and sessions publicly and against the fbi publicly. What is the mood there like . It seems like in what i can tell on the outside and the reporting theres this kind of hoping to stop him from doing something that would genuinely be absolutely catastrophic. Thats 100 true and currently something that advisers both inside and outside of the white house have been trying to convince the president to do or at least urge him against is as the president said last night during his impromptu press gaggle that oh, sure, i definitely within the next two or three weeks, i would be willing to sit down under oath for an interview with team mueller. Thats at stake something i would like to do because the president does not believe hes done anything wrong and refuses to believe there is any reason anybody should think he did anything wrong. People inside the white house and outside of it have been strongly urging him to a, listen to your lawyers and b, do not submit yourself to Something Like that. Perhaps dont even submit yourself to an interview at all because they are concerned of his propensity to run his mouth and trouble he could potentially get himself into in that kind of intense situation. The fact that he, barbara, the fact the president had to be restrained from taking this action which would have been both cataclysmic politically abreal rule of law questions, what does that say about what hes learned over the course of his presidency about the rule of law and about what he did wrong in firing comey . Well, i guess he didnt make the same mistake twice. I guess that shows hes a little bit coachable, that he ultimately took the advice of white House Counsel. If its true that white House Counsel had to threaten to resign to get him to stop, then maybe he was just limiting his political damage at that point realizing how bad it would look and so im not sure hes learned any lessons. He just knows what a political disaster it would have been for his white House Counsel to resign. Let me bringing in asawin. One of the reporters that broke the story the New York Times, a remarkable bit of reporting, michael. Well, if you look back at june, its a month after mueller has been appointed and the white house has experienced the firing of comey and seen the enormous impact that that will. And mcgahn was deeply concerned about it and was willing to put his job on the line to try and stop it. You have four different people telling this. What was the context or the trigger for the president wanting to fire mueller . Well, the president thought that mueller had conflict of interest issues. The president thought that mueller who obviously had been a member of his golf club in northern virginia, had had a dispute about membership fees. That was one of the reasons he will to go. The other reason being that mueller had worked at a law firm that represented Jared Kushner and mueller had interviewed to be the fbi director the day before he was made special counsel. The president thought those were things that were reasons for him not to oversee the russia investigation. Has this kind of desire to get rid of mueller, has it pertained or has it gone away over time . Well, the president has changed his tone towards mueller. He has since ty cobb came in in july, he has ratcheted back his criticisms and he has even as recently as december said he thought mueller would treat him fairly. I think he has been coached to the point that to realize that criticizing mueller doesnt get him anywhere. It only antagonizes and drags this process out. If hes done nothing wrong, then he shouldnt do that. Do you have reporting that suggests what the views of other folks, obviously mcgahn was so dead set opposed to this he threatened to resign. Other people in that white house, their views of it at the time . I dont think that anyone thought this was a good idea. Very few people thought the firing of comey was a good idea. There was some support at doj and amongst folks like Jared Kushner. I dont think anyone thought getting rid of mueller would solve anything at that point. There was a full blown investigation into the president s conduct in office. And im not sure what anyone thought getting rid of mueller would do to that. If anything, maybe it would lead republicans to be even more critical of the president and say if youre getting rid of mueller, what do you have to hide. Do you think that the political calculation that was made or the legal one made by don mcgahn, do you have any sense what have that did to their relationship in terms of mcgahns ability to retrain impulses like that from the president . Mcgahn and the president have been through so much together. They went through the comey firing together. The president tried to get had mcgahn lobby sessions in march not to recuse himself from the russia investigation. Theres this incident. Mcgahn is a central player in every Major Incident except for the plane ride that mueller is looking as the. Mcgahn was the white houses top lawyer and had to try and figure out how to balance not breaking the law with what the president wanted to do. One more thing just to make sure i understand the detail here that your report suggests or i think it says that mueller himself and their team found out about this in the course of their investigation into the possibility of obstruction. Correct. The you have to understand mueller spent the past several months interviewing many white house officials about the president s conduct to try and understand the president s motivations, why did he fire comey and so obsessed with having someone loyal that oversaw the russia investigation. Hes learned a lot of different things. The white house has exerted no po executive or Attorney Client privilege and allowed officials to speak openly with mueller. Mueller has learned these things from that into Michael Schmidt one of the by lines along with Maggie Haberman in that New York Times article, the headline breaking at this moment, trump ordered mueller fired but backed off when white House Counsel threatened to quit. Thank you so much for popping on the phone, michael. Appreciate it. I want to go back to barbara mckad and asawin. The idea, barbara, that the white house has allows their folks to talk to mueller and the president is now saying he will talk to mueller, what do you think about the likelihood the president actually goes through with that . I think at some point its going to be difficult for him to stay in Office Without talking to robert mulener some way. My guess is his lawyers are trying to negotiate some limits on that so that he is not fully exposed talking for hours and hours with all the dangers that brings to it. Thats why im sure it made them a little crazy he said yesterday ill talk to him under oath no problem. Im sure theyre involved in very careful negotiations to try to limit those terms. My questions is that Robert Mueller cant close this investigation one way or the other without at some point talking to President Trump to try to probe his intent at the time he was saying those things, if he said them and making those decisions. Asawin, how often do you think it happens in that white house that someone threaten tosses quit or throws himself across the tracks as it appears mcgahn did here . Way more frequently than i think people in the white house find appropriate or at all comforting or that we here would find appropriate or comforting. But something i think thats important to keep in mind regarding the reported june desire express desire and almost explicit order from President Trump in terms of ordering the sacking of Robert Mueller, when you take that in itself, it is vital to realize that is more extreme and the position that has been held by some of his more extreme or shall we a hardcore allies or current or former administration officials. Even someone like steve bannon who obviously used to be on good terms with the president. Shortly after he left the white house he advised the president to get rougher and tougher with mueller and get yourself some new lawyers. And basically start as the president would say, fighting back more when it comes to Robert Mueller and his team of investigators. Even then someone like steve bannon never urged the president to order the sacking or the firing of robert muler. Thats a great point. Barbara and asawin sueb senga. I have at the table congressman jerry nadler, the Ranking Member of the house judiciary committee. We were when we booked you to come to the show, we were going to talk about what we were learn about the case for obstruction of justice and we just got this bit of news. Your reaction to this news. Well, my reaction to this news is that in retrospect, its not surprising. The president and the people around him have been doing everything they can to discredit the special prosecutor to discredit the investigation. To discredit any agency that cooperates with it. The fbi, et cetera. With a view toward disabling the investigation and discrediting whatever report may come out. This is the behavior of people with something to fear. Of people who obviously think that theres a high likelihood the special counsel will either decide the president s guilty of a crime or recommend or issue a report that might lead to impeachment or something. The fact that he tried to or that he wanted to fire him before he was warned off by his lawyers is not surprising in that regard but it is more evidence as to intent in doing everything he can to obstruct the investigation. You know, its interesting to me mcgahn, i keep feeling we are going to head toward some moment where we have an institutional showdown, at some point theres going to be a question of what holds like there was in the saturday night massacre. You had people sprint together fbi and in this case, it seems mcgahn was the one who obviously said you cannot do this. My question to you is, given the way your colleagues republicans have conducted themselves, particularly in the house with respect to the fbi and the nunes memo, are you confident that if you were to sack mueller that they would be upset and hold him accountable and takes steps to do that . No, im not confident. That would be a great test for the republicans. Assuming they were still in the majority at that point. They have so far failed to exercise their duty as members of the house and senate to hold the president accountable, to have to supply checks and balances that one branch is supposed to supply against the other and to exercise oversight. They instead have conducted themselves increasingly like football linebackers making way for whatever the president wants to do and participating in trying to discredit any institution that we depend on to hold the president accountable. So no, now, if the president were to if it did come to a crisis, would some of the some of my republican colleagues say to themselves, enough is enough, politics is enough. Ive got to be patriotic here and uphold the institutions, maybe. Maybe. Maybe. We now know, i mean, we have a bunch of new pieces in theres the sort of two stories, the stories of what the russians did, theres a story about and sub siddry is whether they had help from americans or anyone in the president s campaign and a second question whether the president obstructed justice. Did he act with corrupt intent to stop a criminal investigation. Or is he continuing obstruction right now. Thats the question. It seems to me theres a case to be made just on the facts we know. Particularly this bolsters the case that he has done that. Isnt that fairly isnt that a pretty makable case . Well, i think you could make a case. There are two separate cases remember. Obstruction of justice. One is could you make a criminal case. And the criminal law obstruction of justice can be quite technical, turns on inintent and maybe you could make that case and maybe you couldnt. Thats up to the special counsel to decide and to make recommendations. The other is the question of impeachment. Obstruction of justice not as a criminal case but as a factual matter was the key of one of the articles of impeachment voted against nixon. And people many people dont understand this, but high crimes and misdemeanors as aim peachable offense do not have to be crimes under the criminal code. Equally crimes under the criminal code may not be impeachable. There are two separate tests and wed have to see at the time. Would firing mueller were he had to do it, right, which its unclear to me that its necessarily that this is a passing fancy hes now let go of. If he went so far as to order his white House Counsel to do it, and the white House Counsel says i quit, is that an Impeachable Offense to you, a bright red line . The act of the act of firing mueller by himself by itself is not an Impeachable Offense. The act of firing mueller as part of a pattern of acts designed to impede an investigation to obstruct the judicial system in investigating a crime, the crime after all was the russians hacking into the dnc and using that information that vi lays our laws and the possible collusion by americans perhaps in the Trump Campaign with that crime, that would be impeachable if you could show that it was part of a pattern and designed for the improper purpose of obstructing that investigation. You know, all throughout there period and particularly with respect to this investigation, its felt like theres been these sort of tests against the institutions, whether theyll hold 0 or not. Youve got a situation where the president s allies in congress are fighting with the Justice Department about possibly releasing classified information, the Justice Department said it would threaten the National Security. Youve got the president and his allies casting aspersions on the integrity and trustability of the chief Law Enforcement operation that he runs. Whose leaders he appointed. And whose leaders he appointed. Youve got him kind of railing against his own asking the fbi director acting director who obviously he voted for. How worried are you . I mean in the scale of how you stay up at night about where we are institutionally in this country at this moment, where are you at . Im very concerned. I dont know how this is going to turn out. The president not only in the Russian Investigation but in all sorts of other ways is breaking every norm and seeking to denigrate every institution we depend on to protect our liberty and to protect our constitutional form of government. Whether its trashing the press or trashing the judiciary or trashing the Law Enforcement agencies, its all of the piece. Well find out if our institutions are viable enough still to handle this. I certainly hope so. Its not a guarantee. The Glass Half Full wave interpreting the story we just got and if you just happened to be joining us, the New York Times publishing a report that the president in june ordered mueller to be fired. He backed off when his white House Counsel in the cross hairs of all this from the beginning threatened to quit over it. Thats how bad an idea he thought it was. The glass halfful way of looking at that is that he backed off. This thing he could have done he does have the Constitutional Authority to fire the special prosecutor. He has to get rosenstein to do it and, et cetera. He has a Constitutional Authority to do it and the fact that he did not, his counsel convinced him the Glass Half Full, it worked. So far it has. So far it has. We have to hope that it will or we have to do everything we can to hold the feet of all the people, all the players which means the republican and democratic members of the house and senate to the fire. The fear is that it holds till it doesnt and when it doesnt, its too late. Its possible. I mean, weve seen democratic governments fall into other forms of government before. Hopefully, we are resilient enough and the people of the country are sensitive enough and devoted enough to the democratic form of government they wont permit this to happen, that republican members of the house will not go beyond a certain point that the population will not go beyond a certain point. Jerry nadler, its great to have you here tonight. I appreciate it. Great to be here. I want to bring in former watergate assistant prosecutor and legal analyst nick ackerman. Your reaction to the story. Yeah, i guess my first reaction, is this is astounding evidence of consciousness of guilt. Why would he want to fire mueller unless hes trying to cover something up and its clear to me that what hes trying to cover up is the conspiracy between him, his campaign, and the russian government. This whole thing thats been going on the last few weeks where he says he wants to cooperate, hes looking forward to testifying, i mean its all a big charade because thats what this shows. And you put that in combination with the fact that he has all of these surrogates out there doing the dirty work with this ridiculous fourpage memo that nunes has come up with based on totally crazy ideas, i mean, this is like the fifth or sixth edition of this sort of attack on the mueller Prosecution Team. Theyre just hoping that something sticks and its obvious to me based on this new news tonight that the president is behind all of this. That he says one thing but hes got other people doing other things. And to me, the bottom line is, it just shows hes guilty. So. Im not sure yet what it is hes guilty of but hes clearly guilty. That has been your view from the beginning. You have been quite certain i think for months now theres something there and youre someone who obviously was on that Prosecution Team for watergate. What youre saying is you dont think that the president wanted him fired because Robert Mueller had a fees dispute with a northernern Virginia Golf Course that trump owned. That doesnt stand for you . That doesnt stand up, the idea that he was angry because he couldnt play golf and the fees were too high just doesnt make a lot of sense. I mean, none of this does other than the fact that we know a crime was committed. We know that the russians broke into the Democratic National committee. They stole emails. We know that you know, a month later, that papadopoulos who was his Foreign Policy adviser was told about this. We know that june 4th, goldstone wrote to don junior saying he was going to bring the dirt, these documents likely the emails to trump tower. We know that a few days later, donald trump said he was going to talk about all the bad things the clintons did, then he didnt. Then a week later, guccifer 2. 0 starts publishing this dirt, these emails and it copies right on through the campaign with donald trump encouraging everybody to look at the wikileaks site and then youve got hedge man roger stone had had communications with guccifer 2. 0 and wikileaks. The outline of what has happened here is pretty obvious at this point. As someone who obviously went through the watergate process, do you think what is your reaction to hearing that mcgahn threatened to fire . Because it sounds similar to you know, what happened over the department of justice under nixon when they were ordered to get rid of Archibald Cox. Yes, i think its very similar. I mean, this is exactly what nixon ordered Elliott Richardson to do who was the attorney general. He refused. Ruckles house who was the deputy refused. And basically they had to in order to keep the white house from taking over the Justice Department, both ruckles house and richardson got bork to agree to fire cox so it could be done by at least the department of justice as opposed to a white house takeover. Heres, trump is clearly has no respect for the department of justice. He has no respect for the rule of law. And he would stop at nothing to try and fire mueller if he could do it and thought he could get away with it. To your point, mcgahn threatening to quit apparently you know convinced him otherwise. Even if they went through with it, there would probably have been resignations at the department of justice in incredibly analogous fashion. You would have ended up, if the white house did it and people at the department of justice resigned over it, you would have a direct history repeating itself. You would. Theres no question about it. Thats exactly thats exactly what were seeing here. But in the watergate situation, i mean, at least nixon didnt take such a prominent role. He had his main main lieutenants in the white house doing most of his bidding. This is a situation where i think trump was involved in this from the beginning on his own. People that were involved with him were very close family members and long time con if i dans. And i think theres others around him that realize the dangers in what hes trying to do to extricate himself from all of this. Nick ackerman, thank you for joining us tonight. Stick around. Well be right back right back with sam cedar and cristina greer. Dont go anywhere. Some air fresheners are so overwhelming, they can. Send you and your family running. Introducing febreze one for fabric and air. No aerosols. No dyes. No heavy perfumes. It cleans away odors for a pure light freshness. So you can spray and stay. Febreze one, breathe happy. Sam seater is an msnbc contributor and Christina Greer is with policy research at nyu and were reacting to the news. So at one level, its not surprising. The president is running around saying publicly on twitter hes being railroaded but the fact it came as close as it did and it was as serious as it was and took mcgahn, who is not necessarily stuck his neck out a ton so far, he didnt do this, for instance, over comey, right . That he went as far as he did in threatening to quit over it. What do you make of that . You know, i dont know that its that surprising. To me, what is most interesting, why do we know this . How do we know this now . Who interest is it for us to know this story . Thats usually what im most wondering about when we hear leaking coming out of the Trump Administration. Clearly, this does not benefit donald trump. And if im don mcgahn, im maybe i want it on the record as we move forward. Because look, were getting towards the end. There was a report today. Let me be clear, i literally have no idea. I mean, i think its clear this doesnt benefit President Trump in any way. No, it does not look good for him. It looks good for don mcgahn. Who does this look good for and bad for . You got to ask, why now and why this piece of information . Were talking about information thats seven months old. True. There has been a lot of people that Left Administration that could have told this story and didnt. Thats a good point. There is a lot of people out there now, no longer inside the tent necessarily who have knowledge of what happened during that time, who may have secrets that they are willing to tell. The number of people that Left Administration are the number of people left in the administration. When you have someone like mueller who is meticulous and systematic and a president who is a known liar, right, four decades of business in new york, we know this. There are a lot of people that lied by omission or kept quiet and now when were looking at mueller, when hes coming to your office or having you come to his office and asking you point blank questions, a lot of people realize their silence wont protect them and donald trump will throw you under the bus whether youre in his party or family. Now were going to start to see people realize it is getting hot in this kitchen, and they might want to protect themselves. Thats a great question about the loyalty here, right . Are people willing to do. Right. But what that means for what the calculations that other people make, there is the fact that when we sit and put it together, right . He has comey over for loyalty, he asks comey to drop the flynn probe. He then fires comey, right . He then pressures sessions to not recuse himself. Threatens to fire sessions over the fact he recused himself. He brings in the new fbi director and his wife got political donations and tries to fire mueller. Thats quite a pattern of attempting to muck with, one might say obstruct the investigation into you. Look, a very charitable view is that he just demands some type of personal loyalty, thinks that hes some type of cop out and that thats the way that you run these things. This is not someone that went into the presidency. The most charitable is not evidence of guilt or guilty mind set but he doesnt like the fact he doesnt control this. I would go further, hes used to operating in a certain way. Thats also not necessarily as to what he was doing leading up. If he doesnt know the norms of being president , he may not know the norms of being a candidate. Thats no defense. He doesnt realize, you are the president. Weve always said he doesnt respect and understand the office. This isnt a building inspector from queens. This is the federal government and you cant just bully your way through to policy or to however hes been governing by chaos. Its worked to a certain extent but at a certain point in time, his time will be up when mueller essentially is collecting receipts from unemployed former trump people and they seen systematically how he berates people and throws them under the bus when they are no longer in the white house. You have to look and say why am i standing by this man when i know for a fact he will not stand by me if the roles were reversed. We should know a lot of big stories happen when the president is out of the country. The revelation that big trump tower meeting happened when he was in europe. The president right now is in davos. Do you how do you think here is a question that ive been trying to get my head around, which is there seems like there is the pace is quickening. When you talk about this point about the mueller wants to talk to the president , everyone weve talked to has said that comes at the end. Right. What is your feeling about the Political Parties in washington and how prepared they are for whatever comes next . I think there is a lot of people that said im riding this all the way out. There is no other choice. On the republican side. On the republican side because were going to hit the wall at one point and we might as well get as much as we can before that wall comes. I mean, i dont know if the pace is quickening, but were just at a different stage. I mean, because i feel like we said the pace is quickening for a year. Yeah. But i think look, there is a lot of things that are coming out that are old news, right . Over the past couple weeks. Since steve bannon has been basically cut adrift. The Stormy Daniels thing you seem to have a theory. There is a period of interest but there are 11,000 llcs established on the day that the one that paid off Stormy Daniels. Somebody tipped those reporters off. And why they got this tip thats a good point. You cant go exhort through the paperwork. You need to be looking for something. Great point. Someone told them. And someone told them about something that happened a month before the election where there was already plenty of evidence of this relationship from an interview from years before. Right. So there is something thats still out there that is associated with that payment that someone, it was in someones interest to have the press report on. Thats the only thing we know for sure. These things that are cropping up now are interesting, and the reactions to them are also interesting. Going back to your point, sam, you know, i dont necessarily think the pace is quickening. Nixon was under investigation for two years minimum. We still have some likes. Mueller is maybe switching it up. This is a chaotic presidency. Maybe he will interview the president. Maybe it isnt the last stop. Maybe hes reversing the strategy. I think we also have to remember there are so many republicans who arent running for reelection because they have passed this tax bill and everyone says they are retiring. They are cashing out. A lot of republicans are like listen, this is a smash and grab. This man, who knows what hes going to do. Hes off the rails. God willing we still have a country in 2020. Lets just take what we can get. The tax bill couldnt have been more clear to the American Public they are in it to win it for themselves, not even the party. I think they see this blue wave coming, they dont really know how its going to shake out. The democrats need to get together in a much more structured way but republicans are in it for the money. Listen, well say anything. Sure, hes with prostitutes. Hes a christian. We love him. They dont really care anymore. Their values are gone. I should say it was not a sex worker he was a porn star. My apologies to stormy. Thank you both. That is all in for this evening. Dont forget to like us on facebook. Thank you all for joining us in that last hour of important tonight the New York Times out with a big story that donald trump ordered the firing of Robert Mueller until his white house lawyer said, if he goes, i go, too. Tonight what it means that it apparently came to close to happening. How will fellow republicans react, and is the president really looking forward to sitting down with mueller under oath . This also makes for another huge story here while the president is over there. Hours from now he starts his day in davos against the backdrop of big news from back home. The 11th hour on a thursday night begins now. And good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters