Him . Im not going to deny that i talked to him. When all in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. The nunes memo is out and it does contain a stunning revelation. Unfortunately for the white house and the memo author the revelation is the opposite of what they wanted to reveal. The memo finally answers a essential the central question about the entire russia investigation. What prompted the u. S. Government to open an official Counter Intelligence probe at the height of the 2016 election into the campaign of a major Party President ial candidate xs, that is a big deal and a big thing to do. What was the piece of information that set off their alarms that they would do that. We now know. We know it was not the infamous steele dossier, instead the memo confirms for the first time what the New York Times first reported late last year, that it was information from George Papadopoulos which triggered the opening of an fbi investigation in late july 2016. Papadapoulos who is cooperating reported to have told an australian diplomat over drinks in a pub or wine bar, that russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton. We will talk about that specific revelation or confirmation of reporting. Which has very profound implications. Well talk about that in just a bit. But proponents of the memo are using it to advance a different narrative, using a patch work of in complete information which the fbi led by a Republican Hand picked by the president said contained, quote, material omissions of fact. The memos backers want to portray as russia as the probe as an antitrump conspiracy operating in the highest level of the Justice Department. That conspiracy supposedly began under president obama and crucially and somewhat implausibly have been advanced by Donald Trumps only political appointees. That is what they want you to believe. And they want to you believe it completely inval dade the Mueller Investigation. The president have tried and failed to fire mueller himself according to the New York Times set his sights on a different target. His boss Deputy AttorneyRod Rosenstein, a long time republican nominated by the president himself. He is highly respected. Very good guy. Very smart guy. The democrats like him. The republicans like him. That guy. Today a head of the memo the release the president sung a different tune tweeting, the top leadership and investigators of the fbi and Justice Department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of democrats and against republicans and hes been very clear about what he hoped the memo would accomplish. According to the washington the president said he thought the release of the memo would build a public argument against rosen steins handling of the russia case and suggesting it might give him justification so fire Rod Rosenstein. Asked about the memo today, the president declined to offer support for his deputy a. G. Think it is a disgrace what is happening in our country and when you look at that and see that and so many other things, what is going on, a lot of people should be ashamed of themselves and much worse than that. A lot of people should be ashamed. Thank you very much. [ inaudible question ]. You figure that one out. You figure that one out. Senator Amy Klobuchar and senator, you are you are shaking your head . Shaking my head because it is the Deputy Attorney general now charged because of the recusal of sessions of heading up a Major Investigation about a foreign country interference in our democracy. And you when you are the president , you support your Justice Department and you allow them to do their jobs. And that is with all of the facts out there, chris, what really bothers me the most as a former prosecutor. You dont undermine an investigation. You dont send out tweets about it. And mostly you dont release classified information in the middle of investigations. I cant tell you what that does for trust for those agents on the front lines, for those prosecutors working hard every day. And that is why im shaking my head. Your colleagues leaders in the house and senate democrats, they sent a letter warning trump to use the nunes mem or for firing Rod Rosenstein would be viewed alz an viewed as an attempt to obstruct justice. Is rosenstein a red line for you. Of course it is a red line and you have to make clear as other senators including Lindsey Graham have done in the past that this would trigger a constitutional crisis. And you cant have another saturday night massacre. But i really like your opponent at the beginning of how when you really examine this memo, which any american can do, it is just three pages long, you get to that nugget, where they pretty much admit what we already knew from the testimony in front of the Judiciary Committee of Glenn Simpson that this investigation was triggered back in may when papadapoulos met with an australian diplomat at a london bar and told him that the russians have dirt on Hillary Clinton, this got through the intelligence and triggered the investigation in july and the investigation was initiated well before people had that dossier. One of the president s spokesperson just said on tv that there is no plans for fire rosenstein. Hes safe. Hes fine. Now appearing to clean up and walk back the president s comments from earlier. Given they denied they tried to fire mueller, or thought about it, do you believe them here . Who knows. You got to take them at some moments at their word that theyre trying to clean things up. That is a good thing. But at the same time, it is just a game of political whackamole every day where the American People are from one attack to the other. Undermining the fbi, trying to fire the special prosecutor, report after a report and tweet after tweet and at some point you just have to say, okay, let this guy do his job, this former fbi director appointed by republicans, let rosenstein do his job against someone appointed by republicans, let chris wray do his job, originally from the bush Justice Department and now running the fbi, youve got to let people do their jobs. And when i just see the effect on agents to the point where it came out today that director wray had to send a memo to the agents saying i stand with you, i believe in the integrity of the fbi, it breaks my heart because were here in the super bowl where we have security everywhere and you see these agents and security people out there and one degrees weather, you have to let them do their jobs. And last question, given the sad fate of your vikings, and youve got the eagles and the pats, who are you pulling for. I imagine you are at the game. Who are you pulling for . Well i couldnt afford a ticket to the game. But i am pulling for a good super bowl. Our fans have our fans our fan have had a hard time. No, no, let me our fans have had a hard time dealing with the philadelphia fans but in their minnesota nice way they are accepting them. It is freezing cold, chris. And if you were here, you would be Walking Around in a hat like this. Enjoy the weekend. It is the bold north and we almost y we welcome you. It will be a blast. Thank you. Jordan humphrey from New Hampshire and senator, your response to watching the republican party, the house leadership, the Committee Leadership and the paul ryan and the white house get together to release this memo over the objections of the fbi, over the reservations of the director of National Intelligence. What do you make of the members of your party . Well, i have to tell you, im no longer a republican. I registered as an independent the day after the election. And the leadership in the congress, this is no longer the party of Ronald Reagan or bob dole or george bush. Or john mccain. And mccain weighed in today saying that we we meaning those who are collaborating with the president in attacking the department of justice and the fbi, he said he said we are doing putins job for him. I thought that was the best comment of the day. But in any event, getting back to your question, it is disheartening. More and more the republicans in congress are the leaders are more prom innocent member prom nent members are drinking large glasses of trump cool aid and it is a great tragedy. Let me read from the john mccain statement. Our nations elected officials including the president must stop looking at the investigation through the warped lens of politics and manufacturing partisan side shows if we continue to undermine our own rule of law, we are doing the job for putin. And within the republican party, paul gosar who is from arizona, i will reads you his response. The full throated adops of this illegal misconduct abuse of fisa by james comey and Andrew Mccabe and sally yates and Rod Rosenstein and i will seem criminal prosecution against the traitors to our nation. That is pretty poisonous stuff. Listen, the number, the heart of this memo, it is a fourpage memo, very short. There is not much in there. By the way, the fir the first two words. Are top secret. Stamped in big bold letters. The president declassified a top secret document for in my opinion purely partisan political advantage so he thinks. I hope it backfires in his face. But nunes and the republicans on the house intelligence committee, they are claiming that the department of justice pulled the wool over the eyes of that special court that authorizes monitoring of the communications of american citizens. Remember this started the cause because a Foreign Policy adviser to donald trump, part of the campaign, a volunteer to be sure, but part of an important body within the campaign, was has been suspected for four or five years of being a russian agent or the target of russian recruitment. The latter i should say. Yeah. The fbi has been on his case for sometime. And last year or so, the department of justice on four occasions got permission four times from this special court to monitor carter pages communication, the suspected person. So the democrats the republicans, nunes and company, would ask you to believe that four times the department of justice pulled the wool over the eyes of this court. Who is judges are highly trained and very skeptical for the most part. It is just defining credit to think they could have been fooled four times and presented faulty evidence that that encouraged them to to permit the monitoring of this mr. Pages communications. So then do you what do you think this is about . Do you think it is about laying the groundwork for Rod Rosenstein or kicking up enough dust to distract. What is your understanding of what they are doing. Yeah, trump is is a modern day pt barnum. He is running a different side show every day to distract the attention from his own deficiency and and faults in my opinion. It is an effort republicans are collaborating and cooperating fully to distract public attention from the facts that the russians made a very strong and substantially effective effort to influence our election. And it is worth finding out whether there was an involvement of anybody in the Trump Campaign or not. It is simple. So why is trump trying to deflect the investigation . Why is he attacking his own the people hes appointed. Session and rosenstein and wray. Hes attacking his own people. It is it is crazy, the president is just hes daft. Hes out of it. Former senator gordon humphrey, it is pleasure. Hes alsoin principles. And matt you were at that Justice Department where the alleged conspiracy was to begin, your response to what is happening today . Im sory, the the microphone went dead. Well go with matt first and get your microphone fixed jill. It was a remarkable kind of a remarkable memo. I expected to read this today and find that it was misleading because it left certain things out. What i didnt expect was to read it and find that the claims that makes fall apart just on the face. They base this entire thing on this kind of legal theory of the fruit of the poison tree. If there was an unlawful or unethical interrogation or surveillance it means the fruts of that technique could be used and so you see in reading this memo, not only do they not make that case with respect to carter page but that tree is poisonous, but that as you pointed out, there is this entire other tree over here, George Papadopoulos case and that tree is not poisoned but produced a lot of fruit. Two guilty pleas and two indictments and so the idea that this memo was going to undermine the entire Mueller Investigation, i think it completely fell apart today. What remains to be seen is whether trump thinks hes gotten the political space because he gets up and watches fox and friends and is encouraged in this manner. To make a move against Rod Rosenstein and that way kind of shut down or curtail the Mueller Investigation. I think that is remaining to be seen. Jill, watching this today i thought about you and your experience in watergate having recently really been immersing myself in the blow by blow details and i wonder what parallels you see today. There are so many parallels to this. First of all, Richard Nixon asked john dean to write a whitewash mem ore saying that he had fully investigated the accusations and that no one in the white house or in the committee to reelect the president was involved. That is what this memo was. It is a whitewash. It is outrageous and it misses so many important facts, it is so misleading. And it is so partisan in its nature, it was intended to not give a fair picture and the outrageous and ironic part is it is major point is that in applying for the fisa warrant, the department of justice left off material and relevant facts whereas this memo is the absolute primer on omitting facts. And so that is one of the most significant things. And another is this question about whether people should stay on the job. Should wray resign. And in the experience of watergate where it looked like we were botched along with the firing of cox, cox met with us and said it is not clear youve been fired and if you havent, you must stay on the job. Right. You know the case. You must stay as long as you possibly can. This seems the key thing. Because when you think about rosenstein, one the president bizarrely actually doesnt like firing people. He doesnt like firing them to his face. He didnt he couldnt even call james comey. He didnt even have the courage to call james comey to tell him over the phone hes fired. He sent his personal bodyguard to an empty building that comey wasnt in. Given how passive aggressive he is, that the fears about rosen stein, and if they just keep showing up to work, that is enough. It works for Jeff Sessions. The president wanted him gone for a long time and look, the personal bodyguard that delivered the letter to comey is not around any more. So there may be no effective way for trump and in this instance to fire Rod Rosenstein. I think that is right. But the other thing trump is trying to do is put pressure on the Justice Department. He has this idea that he pressures the Justice Department will quit or bend to his will. And to some extent, it is worked. We are to we are really lucky that Jeff Sessions had to recuse himself. And it wasnt a choice. He to recuse because he was involved in the campaign. Because you do see sessions bending to trumps will and even today sessions who is recused from the investigation and shouldnt have anything to say about the memo because it relates to an underlying investigation hes recused from and putting out state giving credence to the memo and saying it he will refer it to the right people at the Justice Department, things he has no business saying when he should be standing up for the people in the department. What weve seen in the last week is ive been impressed by chris wray. The president wanted to do something unethical and hugely inappropriate releasing the memo but probleming the fbi and the justice to back down from the public and private objections and weve seen chris wray stand strong and because of that we want him to be in this job because that is not the last time the president will ask him to do something unethical. And jill, you have nunes saying this is just the beginning and hell do more of this. The question is how affective is this . This feels like throwing stuff against the wall. Thaer doing this for months now. Mueller is doing whatever he is doing and find what he will find. Do you worry this is going to materialize out of fear or is it is it a side show . I think it is a side show. I dont think it will affect mueller at all. I think he will continue to be the kind of person he has been to keep his own consult and keep the investigation going. I do think that i heard today from what you just played on air of the president saying people should be disgraced and it is a shame what is happening. And of course he speaks in such generalities this is one time i could agree with him. But i would say the people who should be ashamed are himself and nunes. Jill wine banks and matt miller. Thank you. Coming up sh the now confirmed the confirmed origin of the russia investigation, thanks to the nunes memo, how an australian diplomat did what no one in the Trump Campaign did, next. So that memo released by House Republicans today does not help the republican narrative. Quite the opposite. And in confirming the real genesis of the russia investigation, it highlights one of the strangest things, something that bug med me about the behave of everyone in the trump circle related to russia, whether you believe they committed a crime or not. No one ever blew the whistle or called the fbi. No one said, well, there are people connected with the russia government who keep approaching us and offering dirt on Hillary Clinton and then it looks like the russians hacked the dnc. I wonder if those two are related. Nothing like that. Zero. Silence. The people who were supporting a candidate who was running for an office that he now occupies, that is supposed to protect and defend the United States never, not once as far as we can tell, reached out to u. S. Authorities to sound the alarm. But now we have confirmation of who it was that did sound the alarm. As was reported by the New York Times it was an australian diplomat who happened to spend time in a london wine bar with trump Foreign Policy adviser George Papadopoulos in may 2016 when he was has since pleaded guilty according to the times made a startling revelation. Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton. Think of this for a second. You are in the wine bar and you are the australian diplomat and talking to this dude who you maybe know or dont know he is related to the Trump Campaign and he is drunk and tell you knows russia has dirt on Hillary Clinton. And then time goes by and you see the dnc has been hacked. By the russians. And when the hacked dnc emails went on online two months later, australian officials alerted the american counterparts. The fbi opened a Counter Intelligence investigation, all because of an australian diplomat who was looking out for american interest. Think about that for a second. As far as we know, donald trump jr. Never called the fbi or Jared Kushner or Paul Manafort or carter page, Jeff Sessions never does. One of the people ever, ever, during this entire campaign, smelled something fishy and thinks they have the responsibility to the United States of america to protect the integrity of the election. No. None of them. But an australian diplomat did. That is who did it. And we have confirmation of that due to the nunes memo. And congressman, have you seen evidence of anyone in the Trump Campaign contacting any official to Say Something smells fishy here. Good evening, chris. Not a shred of evidence and my concern and one of the reforms that i think will have to be put in place, a duty to report law if a foreign adversary or a Foreign Agent contacts a u. S. Person and wants to interfere in a federal election that you should have to report to the fbi and there is one other that i wanted to point out, Michael Cohen didnt think it was odd in october and december of 2015 when felix sadir was suggesting that in addition to putting a trump tower in moscow, that they get donald trump and putin together because we could, quote, unquote, engineer this and make our boy president. Another one i forgot. I have forgotten about that one. Okay. So this memo is out. I think a lot of people have i think they exposed it for what it is. It does not materially affect the integrity of the Mueller Investigation. And there is another memo that the democrats have written, people who have read that talked to reporters, where does that go next . Is that going to come out. Hopefully it comes out on monday. Were asking for a vote on monday evening. It will not only rebut and in ten pages with footnotes this memo that theyve put out, but also will shine new and unseen evidence that we believe that the door has been open to to put into focus what their alleging and we believe we must do all we can in congress to pass legislation to protect rosenstein and mueller because the intent is to get rid of them. And chris one other point not made is the republicans by turning this over to the white house before publication, they revealed to the white house evidence in the investigation that is against the president and included the white House Counsel as a potential witness. That is a good point. So your concerned about the the investigation integrity, essentially. It compromises the ability to question witnesses to entail the answers they already know exist. And ill give you a response to chairman nunes who responded to you. There is a part of the memo that said nowhere in the fisa warrant do they say that the dossier, which forms part of the material for the underlying warrant, that the dossier was part of a political opposition project at that time being paid by the dnc. You are responding and saying that is not quite true. There was information that this was politically motivated. I want to play what you had to say and nuness response and take a listen. It was disclosed to the fisa court that part of the evidence was from a politically motivated source. True . No. I said early. These guys tell so many lies you cant keep track of them. That is not true . No. These guys tell so many lies you cant keep track of them. What is your response . Well devin nunes has not even read the fisa application and he said that in the interview ex im not convinced hes read his memo. And chris, there was evidence disclosed that demonstrated how the political motivations. I want to be clear. And it is just false. Out of fairness, you have not read that fisa warrant as well, correct . We havent been given access to it. Only mr. Schiff and gowdy have. I have been briefed on the contents by the staff. I have been relieved briefed on the fisa application by the staff. Is your committee broken now . It is not ir repparable. It is not . If he remains it is. And devin nunes just said these guys tell so many lies you cant believe them. And if a new chairman came on board, Mike Connaway would be the logical replacement, that we can become harmonious again and check our political beliefs and bipartisanship at the door. Eric swallwell, thank you. My pleasure. The man of the center of the memo and why he gave paul ryan a shoutout on this very show months ago. The enduring mystery of carter page, next ve it or lose it ve it or lose it and at my age, im moving more than ever. Because getting older is inevitable. But feeling older . Thats something i control. Get a coupon at depend. Com so, howell. Going . We had a vacation early in our marriage that kinda put us in a hole. Go someplace exotic . Yeah, bermuda. A hospital in bermuda. A hospital in bermuda. What . What happened . I got a little overconfident on a moped. Even with insurance, we had to dip into our 401 k so it set us back a little bit. Sometimes you dont have a choice. But it doesnt mean you cant get back on track. Great. Yeah, great. Id like to go back to bermuda. I hear its nice. Yeah, id like to see it. No judgment. Just guidance. Td ameritrade. New family connections, every day. Llion thats more ways to discover new relatives. People who share your dna. And maybe a whole lot more. Order your kit at ancestrydna. Com did you meet kislyak in cleveland . Did you talk to him. I am not going to deny that i talked to him. So you did talk to him. I will say i never met him anywhere outside of cleveland. Lets just say that much. The only time that you met him was in cleveland . That i may have met him, possibly. It might have been in cleveland. The person at the center of the dubious allegations of the nunes memo is very familiar. Carter page. Who appeared on this show three times last year and pain maintained from the beginning without presenting public evidence that he was the victim of a vast conspiracy to unconstitutionally surveil him and that claimed that carter was since the beginning, that was the official Conspiracy Theory of the white house and much of the republican party. And the last time i spoke to page was in october. When he said something really interesting. We are getting the truth out there. When the truth comes out and when Speaker Paul Ryan says the fisa warrant or the the details about the dodgy dossier and what happened and all of the documents, it will be released, that is what im excited about. And i think the truth will set a lot of people free. Wait a second. When paul ryan said all of the stuff around the warrant and the dossier could be released. Did carter page know what was coming in and if so, how. That is a really big deal. Well we asked page about that comment today and he sent a brief response but it didnt address whether he had been in contact with paul ryan or any other gop lawmakers or staffers about the public release of information related to his case. Or about the nunes memo specifically. Well let you know if we hear back. And carter page isnt the only person involving this whole thing under scrutiny. And apparently the reporter who broke that report is joining me next. A little hidenseek. Cold. Warmer. Warmer. Ah boiling. Jackpot. And if youve got cutrate car insurance, you could be picking up these charges yourself. So get allstate, where agents help keep you protected from mayhem. Like me. Mayhem is everywhere. Are you in good hands . This new day. Looks nothing like yesterday. Roads nowhere to be found. And its exactly what youre looking for. Thereswhatever type ofhe end of eweekender you are,ton. Dont let another weekend pass you by. Get the lowest price when you book at hilton. Com President Trump ignored warnings from his fbi director and Justice Department and from National Intelligence when he released the nunes memo but did not ignore the advise of his booster on trump tv. Release the memo. Release the memo. Call the number on your screen and Tell Congress the truth about one of the biggest scandals in American History and we have a right to know. There is a just seconds but there is hours of that. Trump has been in regular contact with hanity over the phone as the trump host relentlessly hyped the memo on his show and it got to the point that one senior white house officials dubbed hanity, senior counsel to the president. He denied the report tweeting a total lie, fake news and phony and anonymous sources, amazing how the media makes things up. And joining me the reporter aswynn. No. And in fact, i was a little bit surprised by sean hannity mad reaction to a factual statement that among other things he speaks often to the president of the United States and one of his closest informal adviser gsz. That is a fact. That is reported by us and many other outlets many times over the past year or two. It does seem like there is a direct connection and this is something really heavily promoted on that show. Heavily promoted on that network. Looes the release the memo and the president watches it and from your reporting it seems what was he listening more to those folks on the Television Screen than his own advisers in the white house. He was actually listened to people on his own Television Screen more than he was listening to for instance. His own fbi director. Some fox news personalities such as sean hannity do speak to the president often but you dont have to get the president on the phone to influence him in a deep way when it comes to politics and policy if you are on fox news. Our sources in the white house have told us repeatedly that before the president had seen the nunes memo his opinion had been shaped almost completely by conservative media and Fox News Channel that he had been absorbing. Not at all close to have it was being shaped by his own briefing or intelligence community. This seems key. So one of the weird things about this campaign to release the memo is that it came out of nowhere and then it was being pushed without any of the people involved in it having read the memo. What you are saying is that that kind of persuaded or primed the president before he himself had read it. Absolutely. And it was coming through what he was seeing on his shiny tv screens within the white house residents. I want to play you a more sort of hedge statement from sean hannity about your report last night i thought was interesting and get your response. Take a listen. People in the media were saying im advising him on the memo. You cant advise this president. You cant tell him not to tweet. He lips he has his own ways. I i dont know what is happening. I say it every night. Call your congressman and release the memo. Hello. It is not really a denial. No. Not at all. And also sean is being self rfren shall because in 2017 he advised the president over the phone and privately to tweet less and hate treat tweet less. It is no accident that he said those words. Thank you for being with me. Thank you for having me. All eyes on attorney general as his deputy sits in the fire line. But up next thing one and thing two. Next. Do what i did. Ask your doctor about humira. Its proven to help relieve pain and protect joints from further irreversible damage in many adults. 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Straightforward advice, tailored recommendations, taxefficient investing strategies, and a dedicated advisor to help you grow and protect your wealth. Fidelity wealth management. Thing one tonight, donald trump spoke at a dinner for the rnc, a fundraiser held at the Trump International hotel in washington or in other words, it was yet another example of how the trump family continues to line its pockets through the presidency. It also presented the president with an opportunity to brag about his cognitive abilities. He had the White House Press pool escorted out the first few minutes but breitbart obtained audio which jives with the notes from other reporters. They didnt release the audio but wrote about it. In the beginning trump had to identify sketches of animals, which was easych and then later he had repeat disassociated words as the test administrators asked him to repeat them. The last ten questions are hard. There arent a lot of people that could do that. Just to be clear, this is a test to see if you are have dementia. It is not an iq or app tude test. That is the memory. But life presents us with memory tests every day and he had a much harder time with one this week in west virginia. Thing two in 60 seconds. So why wouldnt you take something for the most important part of you. Your brain. With an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is now the number one selling brain Health Supplement in drug stores nationwide. Prevagen. The name to remember. Because um, ive been meaning to talk to you, uh oh. Well, you know, youre getting older. Um, you might be experiencing some, ah, sensations. Ah, it happened to your dad. Uh with. Oh, look the tow trucks here cant wait to be rescued . Esurance roadside assistance lets you know when help will arrive. Thats insurance for the modern world. Esurance. An allstate company. Click or call. You have any questions, uh. Im good. Awesome. Hours before trump reportedly admitted the memory part of his test was hard, he made a appearance in the republican retreat in west virginia. At the beginning trump reading from a teleprompter thanks senator john cornyn and seconds later forgot he had just thanked senator john cornin. Senate majority whip john cornyn. Thank you. And House Majority whip steve scalise. Thank you. And House Majority leader kevin mccarthy. Kevin. Jared john thune and house conference chair. Kathy mcmars rogers. Did they forget your name, john . What is going on here . John cornyn, everybody knows. They didnt put his name up, but that is okay. Senate majority whip john cornyn. Thank you. Great job. The president didnt do much to back up his claim of having one of the quote greatest memories of all time. I dont have teleprompters here folks. I dont need teleprompters. It is called up here and it is called memory and it is called other things. Have a good mem ory. A great miaemory. And i have a good mem ory, i have a great memory. Im blessed with a great m memory. One of the greatest memories of all time. That youll ever need staying ahead isnt about waiting for a chance. Its about the one bold choice you make, that moves you forward. the one and only Cadillac Escalade. Come in now for this exceptional offer on the Cadillac Escalade. Get this lowmileage lease on this 2018 Cadillac Escalade from around 879 per month. Visit your local cadillac dealer. Just to step back a bit here, it is worth saying in a single sentence what is happening. We have the president of the United States now having issued to the American Public a memo that the director of the fbi said is false. That is never happened in our democracy. And Jeff Sessions the attorney general walks a careful line and actively recommended James Comey Firing and more or less forced to recuse himself from the Mueller Investigation and hes hung on to his job despite the president s bullying publicly and privately. Today he even defended Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein, a man the president seems to be explicitly targeting. Ron and rachel are harvard graduates. They are experienced lawyers. They are rod has had 27 years in the department. Rachel has had a number of years in the department previously. So they both represent the kind of quality and leadership that we want in the department. But just hours later Jeff Sessions said something very, very different about the people at the department of justice. And that and the potential for a new constitutional crisis next. For singing definitely dry mouth has been a problem for me. Im also on a lot of medications that dry my mouth. I just drank tons of water all the time. It was never enough. I wasnt sure i was going to be able to continue singing. I saw my dentist. He suggested biotene. It feels refreshing. My mouth felt more lubricated. I use biotene rinse twice a day and then i use the spray throughout the day. It actually saved my career in a way. Biotene really did make a difference. [heartbeat] this new day. Looks nothing like yesterday. Roads nowhere to be found. And its exactly what youre looking for. [ laughs ] rodney. Bowling. Classic. Can i help you . Its me. Jamie. Im not good with names. Celeste i trained you. We share a locker. Moose man yo. He gets two name your price tools. He gets two . I literally coined the phrase, we give you Coverage Options based on your budget. Thats me. Jamie yeah. Youre back from italy. [ both smooch ] ciao bella. [ both smooch ] that goes beyond assuming beingredients are safe. Ood to knowing they are. Going beyond expectations. Because our pets deserve it. Beyond. Natural pet food. Sucthey read more. Have one thing in common. How do they find the time . With audible. Audible has the Worlds Largest selection of audiobooks. For just 14. 95 a month. You get a credit good for any audiobook. And you can roll your credits to the next month if you dont use them. Audible members get free no hassle exchanges. And use the mobile app to listen anytime, anywhere. Start a 30day trial and your first audiobook is free. Listening, is the new reading. Text audio22 to five hundred five hundred to start listening today. Earlier today the toerp general praised Rod Rosenstein holding up as a model for department leadership. This a statement hours later, Jeff Sessions seemed to take a sharp turn saying i have great confidence in the men and women of the department, but no department is is. Perfect. This is in response to the memo, i will forward to appropriate doj components all resources i receive. Jeff sessions seeming to take the president s side or at least splitting the difference over his own department. A retired federal judge and nancy, let me begin with you. How do you read sessions in all of this . I think hes scrambling for a position of credibility here. It seems to me hes going back and forth. Its hard to see the whole issue here. Its fleeting allegiances. I dont know where he has any credibility at all under the circumstances. You mean in terms of defending the independent and integrity of the department as it comes under increased pressure. The danger here is that after all the attacks on the department lets assume trump get. S its way and theres a house cleaning. The department that then evolves from that would be a department that will not be independent. It will be a department thats very different. Its really captive of the white house. Which is not what the constitution intended. Nick, lets say this memo is basically blows over. Which essentially i think it will. Its meant to kick up dirt. Is there going to be more of this . Theres going to be a lot more. This is just the beginning. This is actually been in a whole string of incidents that we have seen from the beginning talking about this unmasking where nunes goes up to the white house and making like he got this stuff himself, but yet he really got it from the white house. Theres a whole pattern of this. I think its going to get worse. This is why. Its michael flynn. Michael flynn has told muellers group all kinds of things. Hes laid out a whole scenario of conspiracy and crime. You think. You dont have any way to know that. But you think. I know. Im positive. Its based on his guilty plea. He pled to a lie that relates to sanctions. At any rate, whats happening here is they are going back to people in the white house. They are going to people around trump. They are asking questions based on what they are learning from michael flynn. And all of this is circling back to the president. So he knows that the jig is up. He knows that they are moving in on him and they are getting closer and closer. And so hes not going to stop. He is desperate to get this investigation stopped and out of the way. Is is that square with what your theory is at the moment . I agree. I think that this attack on the fisa warrant is sort of the most extraordinary of all. The implication that if the fisa court had known about steels biases, it would have made a particle of difference, is absurd. From one end of the this country to the other, there are search warrants that are executed based on the testimony of drug dealers who are trying to get off the charges in order to better their situation. So it doesnt the premise of what he was trying to do doesnt make any sense. If they are prepared to do this, who knows what else they will do. This is an important point because you were a district judge. You oversaw criminal trials. The theory the nunes memo is this is all messed up. One of the things that was entered into evidence in support of the warrant was someone who a h a bias against the target. It turns out in federal criminal court the evidence for warrants often comes from people who are biassed gns the target. People who are biassed against the target who were testifying in order to get off of charges that could be the estranged wife of someone who is is seeing drug dealing going on. The bias is irrelevant. The issue is is what other corroboration. Itten cant be said enough times fisa applications are 50 to 100 pages long. The steel memo had to be a very small part of this overall picture. So this is a complete con trious. Theres this question about where all this is going. Mueller is zooming in on obstruction. Its very unclear what hes going to do with it. Theres been a lot of people saying theres no way he indicts the president. Its extremely unclear whether he legally can. This piece comes out with a lawyer working for someone who is is a target of the mueller probe. Saying they think hes going to do that. Which was sort of weird to me. I dont see how they would know. The only way to assume that is from the questions that are asked of the client. At a minimum, trump is going to be an unindicted coconspirator that comes out here. But whether he will be indicted is a whole different story. And whether or not whether he can be. Indicted. You got to dial this back. Say if this really was nothing, why didnt he go before the American People and say the election was hacked. Lets get to the bottom of this. Hes done more to basically incriminate himself by what hes saying than had he stepped back and let the investigation proceed where it would proceed. This is the problem at this point for anyone who is trying to be at all charitable. Read the president s behavior chau charitably. Hes acting like this because hes guilty. Thats not the threshold to convict someone, but just as an observer of the conduct, its hard to make sense of the conduct. The consciousness of guilt is overwhelming. You can do go through a whole lit knit of things hes done right from the start with comey trying to get his loyalty, asking to stop the investigation, et cetera. Let me ask you this. Do you think that ray is and rosenstein and sessions can just stick it out . I think they are being advised to stick it autoout. I dont know about sessions, but everyone else theres a question about if they leave, they seed this department to a very politicized department. And im not sure that thats in their interest. Its easier because there are many of them hes attacking. Its clear hes doing a blunder attack on the department. One person you can say im not sure i have the president s confidence. But hes doing everyone thank you for your time. The the Rachel Maddow show starts right now. Have a great weekend. Thank you to you at home for joining us this hour. Thats it. Thats all theyve got. This is what all the hype was about . Two weeks now they have been hyping this. I hyped that i had dthd dths tax returns and then i clarified that i had two pages of Donald Trumps tax returns. For one hour before i actually released two pages of what actually were Donald Trumps tax returns. For a year now people were telling me that was unconscionable hype about Donald Trumps tax returns. But you know what . At least those actually were Donald Trumps tax