By now that the Department Of Justice is not going to be extorted. Doctors note. The president s former long time personal physician admits what many suspected at the time, the glowing medical report he issued during the campaign was dictated by his patient, donald j. Trump. That letter that showed up about his health rgs he wrote it state visit. President trump making his first trip to the State Department to swear in his top diplomat, mike pompeo. Ive absolute confidence he will do an incredible job as the nations 70th secretary of state. Good day. President trump is reacting to a strange of headlines about Robert Muellers tense negotiations with the president s legal team and the Deputy Attorney general overseeing the russia investigation. Tweeting the probe is a rigged system and then threatening that at some point i will have no choice but to use the powers granted to the presidency and get involved. Thats a clear response to Rod Rosensteins unambiguous push back against House Republicans interfe interference. A March 5th Meeting where Robert Mueller said he could subpoena the president. According to the post, two witnesses say the president s then lawyer replied, this isnt some game. Youre screwing with the work of the presidency of the United States. Joining me now nbc justice correspondent pete williams, nbc national correspondent, Peter Alexander. Former u. S. Attorney and fbi official. We have a full house. Lets start with you and the president on twitter today clearly new threats. New warnings to the Justice Department, to robert mule r and specifically to the man in charge who was Rod Rosenstein. I think thats right. We have seen this sort of twitter tirade from the president in the past but this is a unique one were witnessing today. The bottom line is the president is suggesting that the real investigation should be focused on his former opponent, of now approaching two years ago, Hillary Clinton. He indicates theres no wrong doing so nothing to be uncovered. In a series of those tweets he say its a stet up and trap. This gets to the new reporting that came out overnight about the fact that more than six weeks ago there was this conversation between Robert Mueller and one of the president s attorneys, part of his team focusing on this idea that if the president would refuse to sit down for an interview, mueller may have to subpoena him. Recognize this was before Rudy Giuliani had joined the
scope of some of the questions that list of 49 questions that came out in the New York Times the other day and the president s tweet this morning seems to have been inspired by efforts by some House Conser Conservatives including mark ma meadows, to get a particular document from the Justice Department, a memo that would out line what the Mueller Probe is after. Who are some of the targets of that investigation. It angered those on congress and seems to be the inspiration for some of the president s backlash this morning. For the reporting as well from the post, i believe there were actually a draft of an Impeachment Procedure against Rod Rosenstein. Rosenstein is in charge of the parameters of the Mueller Probe since Jeff Sessions is recused. Pete williams, the significance of all of this and the
possibility of a subpoena for the president. Well, the possibility of a subpoena for the president , of course, this would take us into legal territory where weve not been before. President s jefferson and nixon were subpoenaed for documents and tapes. President clinton was subpoenaed for his testimony but he decided to do it voluntarily. If they do subpoena the president and he says no, im not going to do it. Im going to assert my Fifth Amendment impressive leprivileg us into a territory where the courts have not been before and the white house has to make a political calculation where they plead the fifth which is often associated with organized crime figures. Do they want to go there or will they assert the president has Executive Privilege and doesnt have to answer these questions. We dont know the answer ultimately. The courts have always suggested that president s have to give evidence in criminal cases but
constitutional fight. The Justice Department says we investigate crimes. There is a separation of power. You do your thing, well do ours. Rod rosenstein really pushed back hard yesterday. Lets play a bit of that the question he was asked and his answer. Any reaction to the news that certain members of the House Freedom caucus have talked about drafting up articles of impeachment despite your best ef efforts to comply with Document Requests . They cant even resist leaking their own drafts. The Department Of Justice will not be extorted. Were going to do whats required by the rule of law. Any kind of threats that anybody makes are not going to affect the way we do our job. Chuck, as a former u. S. Assistant attorney and fbi official, Rod Rosensteins answer. Im glad to see him doing that. Ive had my criticisms of rod, someone ive worked with. Someone i know. I like him. Its nice to see him standing up for the department, the institution. There is a separation of powers that must be maintained. Some of what the Department Of Justice does under Rod Rosenstein conducts some of our very most sensitive investigation, political corruption, counter corruption. That needs to remain confidential. Hes not always been an enemy of the president. This is Sarah Sanders last may praising him. Somebody like the Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein who everybody across the board has unequivocally said this guy is man of up standing character and the Gold Standard that the Department Of Justice. I think theres complete confidence in him and another reason for director comey to be out of way so they can have somebody leading this effort that everybody across the board
there was a filing by mike flynns lawyers to extend the sentencing for another 60 days. Hes still cooperating. Both sides say they have a lot of work to do and they need more time. They didnt really explain it. They want to keep that channel open. Its much harder to do it after hes sentenced. I should just say on these documents that congress wants, theres two things they want. They want stuff about the Hillary Clinton email investigation and i think one of the things that making it harder for the Justice Department to say no is something that james comey did after shutting down in july the Hillary Clinton email investigation where he sent stuff that normally the fbi doesnt share with congress. The records of interviews of people. The so called 302s and some internal documents about it. The Justice Department kind of is asking for this themselves
because they open the door a little bit on that. On the second thing theyre asking for which is documents about Mueller Investigation, that really is the crown jewels of what the Justice Department does. Thats an ongoing criminal investigation and i cant think of case where doj has ever turned over sort of operational memos in the middle of an investigation. Pete williams, chuck rosenburg, Peter Alexander thank you so much for starting us off. We have Breaking News. A southwest Airline Flights on its way from newark to chicago had to make an Emergency Landing because of a cracked window. These pictures appear to show the damage in question. The plane has been taken out of service. No injuries are reported. We dont know if this is a 737 but it comes two weeks after a woman was killed on a separate southwest flight when an engine
failure completely broke the window and partially sucking her out of plane. Were following another breaking story from savannah, georgia. A Military Cargo Plane has just cra crashed. The plane went down shortly after take off. Taking off from the Savannah Hilton head savannah airport. No word on how many people were on board. Well bring you more details. Secretary of swagger. Mike pompeo wants to help the State Department get its groove back but will his approach work . Well talk to a democratic senator who has opposed his nomination. Im not a bigwig. Or a canythingo. But ive got an idea sir. Get domo. Itll connect us to everything thats going on in the company. Get it for jean whos always cold. For the sales team, it and the warehouse crew. Give us the data we need. In one place, anywhere we need it. Help us do our jobs better. With domo we can run this place together. Well thats thats your job i guess. At a comfort inn with a glow taround them, so people watching will be like, wow, maybe ill glow too if i book direct at choicehotels. Com. Who glows . Just say, badda book. Badda boom. Book now at choicehotels. Com. To me, hes, phil micwell, dad. O golfer. So when his joint pain from Psoriatic Arthritis got really bad, it scared me. And what could that pain mean . Joint pain could mean joint damage. Enbrel helps relieve joint pain, helps stop irreversible joint damage, and helps skin get clearer. Enbrel may lower your ability to fight infections. Serious, sometimes fatal events including infections, tuberculosis, lymphoma, other cancers, Nervous System and blood disorders, and allergic reactions have occurred. Tell your doctor if youve been someplace where fungal infections are common, or if youre prone to infections, have cuts or sores, have had hepatitis b,
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up with some compromise where they waive they stop waiving the sangs bctions. Its small but likelihood next week some time before may 12th theyll break out of deal. Their argument is like net yanyu said in the past, they cheated their program. They can restart any time they want and bad actors in the region. Theres in doubt the iranians have been bad actors but we know the information revealed by netanyahu the other day was nothing new in substance. There was more detail but we have known for a long time that up until 2004, early 2004, i ran had a secret Nuclear Weapons
program. Pompeo confirmed that ended in early 2004. During his confirmation he indicated he had zero evidence that iran was in violation of the Iran Nuclear Agreement. Its to prevent iran from getting a Nuclear Weapon. They had that program. They stopped it. We want to make sure they dont proceed down their path. Thats the whole purpose of the agreement. An agreement which they are abiding by as we speak. I want to ask you about statement that the white house issued the other night and it was that it was the same day that netanyahu made his very theatrical presentation. Iran has a robust, clandestine Nuclear Weapons program. This is something that was known until 2007. It was declassified then and the white house and all the other Intelligence Agencies knowled acknowledged that. It was stopped at that point. This was clearly a misstatement. I called it out as soon as it came out and they waited an hour and a half. Sarah sanders said yesterday they quick lly corrected the record. They have not corrected it bauds they d because they did not issue a statement. They fixed the website. Do you think this was a Clerical Error or something more involved where they were trying to muddy the waters and suggest that iran still has a Nuclear Program . I dont know for sure. My first reaction when i saw that was Here We Go Again. We remember in the lead up to the iraq war there was all this misinformation coming out about how Saddam Hussein was marching toward getting weapons of mass
destruction and back in september 2002, netanyahu testified before the congress that iraq was poised to get a Nuclear Weapon and that we needed to take him out. Yes, for a moment there it looked like all these things were happening again and with netanyahus state the other day, clearly designed to try to undermine the continuity of the Iran Nuclear Agreement, its looking like Here We Go Again and just recently even though they corrected the Clerical Error, the administration is clearly latching onto the release of information which we already knew in substance to justify pulling the plug on the Iran Nuclear Agreement which will e limb eliminate the agreement that will give a green
light to iran. It makes no sense at all. Do you think this is case where the White House Press office puts out a statement of such import and impact without it being cleared by the National Security council or is this a deliberate attempt to mislead the American People and the world. Well, theres no way of knowing for sure at this point in time. What we do know is that even today in the last 24 hours, for example, the administration is trying to use this information that was known to the United States and our allies for a very long time. That at one point in time iran was embarked on a Nuclear Weapons program. What they are not focusing on is the fact that weve already found that the iranians ended that Weapons Program by early 2004 and again the whole purpose of the Iran Nuclear Agreement is to recognize the iranians may
try to get a Nuclear Weapon. We want to cut off all their paths to getting that and we will have in place a very strong verification regime. You get rid of the grem, you go blind right away. They can pick out a lot of inspectors and resume enriching at much higher levels. To get rid of agreement that is putting the brakes on and which gives us lead time in the event they do cheat at some point, its bad for our security. Its bad for the security of our allies. I dont know what the president is thinking unless he wants to do at what pompeo said he wanted to do was go bomb iran. Thats something Mike Pom Ppeo said years ago which is why im worried about him at the State Department reenforcing some of President Trumps worst instincts. Thank you very much. Thanks for being with us today. Thank you. Coming up, selfmedicating. New revelations about the president s glowing bill of health. Ways to lthe northern belly fat. Percussion massage. Not cool. Freezing away fat cells with coolsculpting . Now thats cool. Coolsculpting safely freezes and removes fat cells. With little or no downtime. And no surgery. Results and Patient Experience may vary. Some rare side effects include temporary numbness, discomfort, and swelling. Ask your doctor if coolsculpting is right for you. And visit coolsculpting. Com today for your chance to win a free treatment. A new twist in the saga of President Trumps former long time personal physician dr. Harold bornstein to told news nbc that his office was Quote Raid Bid ted by the presi personal body guard and lawyer. They took the records. Now bornstein is dishing new information about his former patient and that unusual doctors note released describing the president as in the best health of anyone to ever be lelected to the presidency. Some of them with have to admit that names are changed on them to weird names that he made up. I will also tell you that letter that show eed up in times about his health, he wrote himself. You know that. Yeah. He wrote it himself. Me, from where i come from, tend of it was black humor. It wasnt meant to be a serious comment. I guess people dont have that sense of humor. I get it. Joining me now is dr. John torrez and nbc news investigative producer. Thank you both. Let me ask about any vulnerability that dr. Bornstein has in talking about his patients records publicly. The medication that he was using for hair growth. Any of those patientdoctor confidential statements. As a doctor thats a huge violation of patient confidential and illegal violation as well. We have hipaa that protects
patients. If you didnt have permission to specifically tell people about that specific medication in that format then thats a big violation of that. That violation does come with fines and even jail time. Just not something that physicians should be doing. When you interviewed him, he was on camera he said to you, i didnt do anything wrong. Who would care about a hair growth medication. He doesnt seem to understand that distinction, which was just played out. He said he thought since the election was already over that it didnt matter. He said millions of men across america take this drug. Its not a big deal. I think he feels hurt that after he made those statements to a reporter that trump cut him off. Why do you think hes speaking out now . Its been just about a years since this incident took place where the director of operations in the oval office, former long
time body guard, no longer with the white house but was such a close aide to the president. He and a lawyer for the Trump Organization showed up at the office and one other individual. Well, he was seeing the news reports. Ronnie jackson was all over the news. The former white house doctor. I think he felt a little bit left out. He would have liked that job and he felt spurned and seeing dr. Jackson getting a lot of attention and i think he felt it was time to speak about it. He said he wishes he contacted the police and the fbi at the time that the medical records were taken. It felt like a burglary to him. Well, thank you very much. We do have some Breaking News on the legal front. The president s legal team, Michael Schmit is joining us. The president s lawyer inside
the white house who has been dealing with the Special Counsels investigation is going to retire. The president is going to hire emmett flood, a long time washington longer who represented bill clinton during impeachment and worked in the george w. Bush white house represented Vice President chaney. Mr. Flood is expected to take a more adversarial approach to the Mueller Probe. He wanted the president to sit down for an interview. Here we are in may of 2018, the year after mueller was appointed and the president will be going with a new lawyer inside the white house to deal with it. Does this slow down any negotiations on conversations with the mueller team since its a new cast of characters . I know these lawyers know each other and have worked with each other or against each other in previous cases, but it is
started over. I think that its our understanding that cobb will remain on for several weeks and im not sure that this really changes much. The president has personal lawyers who are dealing with the interview question, wcobb had a an advocate of doing the interview. Theres been an increasing interview whether after they got the questions that mueller wanted to ask or after the cohen raid that an interview is a bad idea. Im not sure how much it will change on that front. Cobb had been in charge of the Document Production to mueller. He had pushed out and said we should not exert privilege on any of these. We have nothing to hide. A lot of that work is done but the president will still need a lawyer to deal with all of these questions about the russia matter. Of course, front and center right now is the whole issue that you first exposed in the New York Times with the 49
issues or Subject Areas that led to questions that were written from notes as to what the mueller people wanted to ask the president about. Another former lawyer then representing the president. Theres been a continuous resolving door almost on the president s legal team. We have Rudy Giuliani in now and now youre bringing in an experienced Washington Attorney replacing ty cobb. You point out its likely to become more confrontational. You think it makes it less likely the president would agree to an interview . Yeah. I think so. Its still not really clear. The president you have to remember wants to do the interview. The president thinks he can explain to mueller all of these different things. Its the president s lawyers that are concerned about it. The president believes hes his best spokesman. Believes he can make an articulate argument about why there was nothing wrong with the comey firing or his relationship with Jeff Sessions. Its the lawyers that are concerned. Out of those 49 questions that be president s legal team compiled after their meeting with mueller, twothirds of them are about obstruction. They are about things that have gone on since the president was in office. Theres some conclusion questions but its largely dominated by obstruction. The president has been tweeting in the last 24 hours about all of this and also with implied threats against the probe, against Rod Rosenstein, against every one involved. Also suggesting that collusion was not part of it. Collusion is certainly part of those 49 Subject Areas that were
laid out in your story. The other thing about the president s tweets is when we wrote in march that he was considering hiring flood he attacked us and said we made that up and he attacked my colleague who i worked on the story with. Now here he is Going Forward with that. Another example of him saying we fabricated things that turn out to be true. Flood, as were pointing out, cli clerk for justice ska lcalia. Also bill clinton during impeachment proceedings. He also was one of the lead lawyers in the Bush White HouseCounsel Office in the last two years when the democrats had control of congress and investigating all different parts of administration. He dealt with a lot of those oversight issues. Take the lead on the u. S. Attorneys firing scandal. The president could find himself in a similar situation if they lose control of the house and or the senate later this year. If the democrats have control, there will be many, many investigations that the democrats will try to do into the way the administration has functioned so far. Well, thank you very much. Stay with us. I want to bring in fellow New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters and Washington Post colu columnist. Were happy to announce that ruth marcus has joined the msnbc family. Shes already a regular on many of our programs especially ours. Welcome. Thank you. Its a new role. Were thrilled. Thanks for your help in all of that. Its great day to have your expertise. Harvard lawyer here onset. I defer to you. The significance of ty cobbs quote retirement. It seems like a significant time for someone to retire whos been
involved in the most significant case of his high profile career. When you have a very big case, what you dont want to do is have a constantly shifting stable of lawyers. Theres a lot of factual catch up to get to. Not just creating a relationship of strus and reliance and possibly listening to you with your client. Also to just know the facts of the case and have relationships with the other lawyers in the case. It is good to have somebody there who has some expertise in high profile, political investigations. Its kind of too bad if the president s point of view. I think we should all want the president to have good capable counsel here no matter what we think of him. Its too bad he cant seem to keep a lawyer. This is a white house staff position. Yes. According to this statement from the white house to the
white house reporters, he, for several weeks has been discussing his retirement and let Chief Of Staff kelly know he would retire at the end of this month. It seems awfully sudden. He was doing a podcast and saying the whole issue of a possible interview was on the table. Well, i guess its a crowded table with lots of possibilities. Its really important for everybody to understand the distinction between president the president s personal lawyer and representing the office of the presidency. Somebody who has experience in the counsels office is much more capable of being able to be a zealous advocate for the office of the presidency and serving the existing president s interest at the same time. Its good news for trump. Last september ty cobb was
overheard arguing. Maybe you can fill in the details of that. That had to bo an embarrassment to him. Michael could know the details better than i would but it seems not a lot has changed. You still have a client who is not exactly a model client. Somebody known for stretching the truth and out right falsehoods. Aides have described as a guy who will probably pass the Lie Detector Test because hes saying what he believes in the moment. Also whats not going to change is the doggedness of the Mueller Probe. I dont know what shifted inside the thinking of this lawyer because what you have here is still lawyer after lawyer after lawyer after law firm after law firm thats refused to work with this president for precisely the reasons i just laid out. I think theres a lot we dont know yet about why this happened. Your other colleague at the New York Times now joins us. Tell us the Background Hire on c c cobbs sudden retirement. He came in last year and was a voice of moderation. The relationship between the white house and the Mueller Investigation, was tense. The mueller folks didnt feel like they were getting everything. The white house wasnt responding fast enough to their request. Cobb came in and was like everybody calm down and were going to cooperate fully. Were going to give the Mueller Investigation whatever it wants and the fastest way to get through this is just full cooperation. He said it a million times. Full cooperation mode. That ruffles some feathers at the white house with the white House Counsel who thought that cobb was too willing to agree
with the the mueller investigators wanted. He worked on Special Counsel investigations himself. He knows bob mueller and he was a voice of moderation. Whats interesting here is youre replacing him with somebody like emmett flood who has been through the Impeachment Fires and going to probably be more likely to take an adversarial tone. Matt. The Trump Lawyers dont have Security Clearances. Apparently john dowd did. Hes long since left. Now emmet flood has to get Security Clearance as well. Sure. We know that cobb did. I would assume given the prominent law firm he works for and the high level cases he works on, hes been through the clearance process before which will speed this up. Whether he has active clearances now that need to be elevated or whether they need to rush this through, i suspect thats not going to be a problem for somebody who is taking a job like the white house Special Counsel. Matt youve already referenced this but let me read you, refresh everyones memory with this tweet from the president attacking maggies story. The failing New York Times wrote a false story stating im
unhappy with my legal team on the russia case and im going to add another lawyer to help out. Wrong. Im very happy with my lawyers. They are doing a great job. One out of three is still there. Obviously, fake news. What can you say . Jay, check your mail. If you stack up the record of the New York Times against the record of President Trump in terms of presenting factually accurate information, i know whose side im on. Especially on twitter. I think the bigger problem is, i dont know if its a bigger problem but its a huge problem. Look at all the people who believed him hen when he said t. This is pattern with this president. Because his followers are so devoted to him and republicans on capitol him or so comply sit. They say the president is telling the truth. We know instance after instance in which this has not been the
case. Matt, in the last 24 hours have seen Rod Rosenstein standing up to mark meadows in a very public way on camera saying hes not going to be extorted and the Justice Department is not going to bend. Is this a Turning Point add well . Is It Stiffening the spine of the people in charge of the Mueller Probe . I dont know how the fight between doj and congress is sort of playing in the room with bob mueller and his shop. I suspect its more of a side show or a distraction. Any propersecutor would not liko turn over documents to their investigation. Because rosenstein is digging in thats stiffening the spine of bob mueller. I dont think his spine needs
stiffening. I think it will be interesting to see how these changes play out at the white house and if the change from Cobb To Flood is a sign that the white house is going to take a different diffe. You know, i spoke with ty cobb briefly before we ran our story. You know, he said he planned to stay on until the end of the month. He said he wished everybody well. You know, he said he was honored to serve. It doesnt sound like hes being rushed out the door, but who knows whats in the mind of the president when he makes these changes. Is he hoping that somebodys going to come in emmet flood will come in guns blazing and change the legal strategy . Finally, ruth marcus, msnbc contributor and msnbc contributor ruth marcus, Deputy Page Editor of the Washington Post, how would you play out the likelihood of whether the president agrees or doesnt agree . If he is subpoenas if it comes
to that, that is a lengthy procedure . Would there would it fasttrfast fasttrack through the Supreme Court and get through quickly . One is bringing in a lawyer from Williams Connolly with extensive criminal experience would suggest that his counsel to the president would be both in the president s president ial capacity and his personal capacity, that it would be not wise to participate in answering questions. Then the question is, if bob mueller makes the nebs step axt issues a subpoena, do you comply or contest the subpoena . Contest the subpoena outside of authority of the Special Counsel . Weve seen this before. During the watergate prosecution. Its not that complicated a legal question, but if in youre
a you go to the district court, Supreme Court, that could take months. Thanks so much to michael schmidt, russian roulette. One of the nations top spies is saying about that meeting at trump tower. Stay with us on msnbc. Crohns, youve tried to own us. But now its our turn to take control with stelara® stelara® works differently for adults with moderately to severely active crohns disease. Studies showed relief and remission, with dosing every 8 weeks. Stelara® may lower the ability of your Immune System to fight infections and may increase your risk of infections and cancer. Some serious infections require hospitalization. Before treatment, get tested for tuberculosis. Before or during treatment, always tell your doctor if you think you have an infection or have flulike symptoms or sores, have had cancer, or develop any new skin growths, or if anyone in your house needs or recently had a vaccine. Alert your doctor of new or worsening problems, including headaches, seizures, confusion, and vision problems. These may be signs of a rare, potentially fatal brain condition. Some serious allergic reactions can occur. Do not take stelara® if you are allergic to any of its ingredients. Were fed up with your unpredictability. Remission can start with stelara®. Talk to your doctor today. Janssen wants to help you explore Cost Support Options for stelara®. Lets take a look at some numbers 4 out of 5 people who have a stroke, their first symptom. Is a stroke. 80 percent of all strokes and Heart Disease . Preventable. And 149 dollars is all it takes to get screened
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dirt about hillary, and he never reported it to the fbi. So its a classic operation that will be a Textbook Case in moscow. I thought mike hayden on Michael Jordemergenc morning joe was brutally honest about himself saying he had not thought deeply enough how russia was moving against the u. S. That the focus had been, understandably, after 9 11, on counterterrorism, and then on the russians against them on cyber, but not seeing how they were taking advantage of information attacks. Well, you know well, andrea, yes, i do, but i would say just to be a little easier on mike hayden, i would say when you look at russian behavior since 9 11, there is a very clear switch in the way they operate after 2012, when putin comes back as president s in that period of time he focuses much more on eroding confidence in the United States. Eroding our alliances in europe
and our partnerships with everything from nato to the eu. Its much more after 2012, and actually i would say russia has gone global now, because we see them much more active in europe, africa, latin america. Thats the switch point. So im not sure you would have detected that during mike haydens time in government. Well, mike haydens new book, which is the assault on intelligence sounds fascinating. About to go get it after watching him on morning joe. Thank you all for going through so much as we pursue this investigation. That does it for us. Kasie hunt is here right next to me on msnbc. Hi, andrea. What a whirlwind news day. As usual, i suppose. Thank you so much. I am kasie hunt. I am in for craig melvin today. Breaking news cobb is out. Another lawyer representing the