Opec which will mobilize 500 million in private capital to invest in projects that empower women in latin american. This initiative will break down barriers for women this the economy and eaffirms the Trump Administration he is commitment to empowering women in latin make and around the globe. As you all saw yesterdays confirmation hearing for mike pompeo as secretary of state went very well. From his years in the army to his time in the House Intelligence Committee to a tenure as cia director. The secretary has excelled as one of the nations key leaders in Foreign Policy and security. As a result of mike pompeos leadership, america has been safer, more secure and more prosperous. There is no reason why secretary pompeos confirmation process should not be done in a speedy and bipartisan manner. Even the Washington Post Editorial Board hardly cheerleader for this administration published an editorial yesterday with a simple straight to the point headline, confirm mike pompeo. Democrats and republicans should do exactly that by coming together and doing what is without question the right thing for our country. With that i will take your questions. The president came out swinging today, calling james comey liar, a leaker action slime ball. Is he worried about what hes take . Not at all. The American People see right through the blatant lies avs self admitted leaker. There is nothing more than a pr stunt by comey to rehabilitate his at thorred reputation and enrich his bank account by peddling a book that belongs in the bargain bin of the fixing section instead of being remembered as a dedicated servant in the pursuit of justice. Like many of his other colleagues a of the the fbi. Comey will be forever i dont know as a disgraced partisan hack that broke his trust with the president of the United States. The dedicated agents of the fib, and the American People he vowed to faithfully serve. One of the president s greatest achievements will go down as firing james comey. The Deputy Attorney was here yesterday. Is the president going to fire Rod Rosenstein . I dont have any announcements at this time. The president has voiced some frustrations. Beyond that i dont have anything to add. Sarah, the president a short time ago issued a pardon to Scooter Libby the former Vice President s chief of staff. There are many people who believe Scooter Libby was the victim of a special counsel investigation run amuck. The recent statements we have heard from the white house would seem to indicate that you feel much the same thing about the Mueller Investigation. Was the president sending some sort of signal to the Mueller Investigation or about the Mueller Investigation by pardoning Scooter Libby . Not at all. One thing has nothing to do with the other. Every case should be reviewed on their own merits. Part par donning libby was the right thing to do after the principal witness recanted her testimony. The d. C. Court of Appeals Panel unanimously voted to restore mr. Libbys bar membership after being presented evidence in support of his version of the events and that key witness changed her recollection of the events in question. In the pardoning statement the president acknowledges he doesnt know Scooter Libby. What was it that convinced him that he deserved a pardon . The president thought it was the right thing to do. Justin. Thanks sarah. The president began the week saying he expected a decision snooshs speak up a little. Sure. The president began the week saying he expected a decision within 24 to 48 hours on syria. On tuesday he said a decision would probably come that night. Here we are on friday. And in a Statement Last night he said that no final decision had been reached. Im wondering if you could walk through why the president hasnt met his own time line there. And specifically, if it had anything to do with the sort of syrian Troop Movement that we saw after wednesday threaten missile strike. No. We are continuing to have ongoing conversations with our partners and allies. The president spoke with president macron of france again earlier today. We are continuing to have ongoing meetings and conversations here at the white house. When we have any further developments we will let you know. Because it is a friday, im wondering friday the 13th. Yeah. Walk us through exactly. You grumble like thats a bad thing. Committed to senator gardner in terms of both what the Justice Department would do and what the white house would do in terms of supporting legislation on states to legalize marijuana . He affirmed the president did speak with senator gardner yesterday and again today. We are always Consulting Congress about issues including states rights of which the president is a Firm Believer and the statement that the senator put out earlier today is accurate. Steve. You mentioned he spoke to president macron. How big a coalition does he have for this expected action in syria . I cant talk about anything that may or may not happen. But i can tell that you the president and a number of individuals within his administration have spoken to a number of our partners and allies at various levels across the world. Is he satisfied now that syria was responsible for the chem kell weapons attack . Yes, we are again confident that both syria had responsibility in this chemical weapons attack. But we also hold russia responsible for their failure to stop chemical weapons attacks from taking place. Josh. It was reported today that Michael Cohen the president s personal attorney helped negotiate a 1. 6 million settlement to a playboy playmate. Itths also emerged today that Michael Cohen is under investigation by new york. Is the president still associated with Michael Cohen . Does he continue to consider Michael Cohen someone he hold in confidence . I know in a the pre has worked with him as a personal attorney. Beyond that i dont have anything else to add. Would the president like to say anything about him. The president has been clear he has a deep concern about the direction the special counsel has taken. The investigation started about russian collusion, of which there was one. He spoke at length on this and i would roofer you back to those action. Jill. Is cohen still the president s personal attorney . Im not sure jill, i would have to check. Did paul ryan just endorse Kevin Mccarthy as speaker in an interview with meet the press . The president has a great relationship with Kevin Mccarthy but in terms of an announcement who he wants to see as the next speaker i dont have any announcements on that front. The james comey book excerpts came out today. He writes about the president in very personal terms. Were you surprised by that . Was the president surprised by that. I dont think we are surprised by the tact that james comey continues to spread false information. The guy is known to be a liar and a leaker. So theres not a lot about james comey that we would find to be very surprising. Really quickly on the pardon that came out today, the president so far has issued three president ial pardons, one of those to joe arpaio. Is there a commonality in what the president looks for as he pardons individual . Again, every case should be reviewed on their own merits. Thats what the president has done. Im wondering if the administration reacted with any message to moscow after officials there today said that the chemical attack in douma was faked and staged with britains direct involvement . Certainly, our intelligence tells us otherwise. I cant go beyond that. Again, we have a very high confidence that syria was responsible. And once again, russias failure to stop them and their continued disaction on this front has been part of the problem. April. Sarah, what part does the president bring russia into the syria equation now as cause for the delay in the strike time line . Again, we are continuing to have ongoing conversations with partners and allies, assess the information and once a decision is made we will let you know. Dave. Thanks sarah. The Justice Department Inspector General came out with his long awaited report this afternoon on former fbi Deputy Director Andrew Mccabe saying he improperly leaked information about the Clinton Foundation investigation into a reporter and then lied to james comey about it and under oath to two fbi investigators. Do you have a reaction to that . And does that in your mind validate the decision to fire mccabe . I havent seen the full report, but sounds like two peas if a pod with mccabe and comey. Mccabe was fired in disgrace for misconduct and lying about it. Beyond that i dont have anything about it at this point. Francesca. Thank you sarah. You said that james comey was a liar, that hes a leaker, that he made false representations or claims. Other than what the president tweeted this morning about lying under oath to senator grassley, what exactly has he said thats false or a lie . Comey claimed reopening the investigation what he did was base on merit. Now he says it was based on poll numbers. Comey claimed he was told to stop investigating flynn after he previously testified that no one told him to stop investigations. The moodia has determined officials that comey leaked four memos with classified information. I think it is clear that comey has a credibility problem. The other thing thats clear, its just one of the few issues in washington that both democrats and republicans agree on. He has been criticized by the Legal Community for leaking sensitive information. And organizations promoting Good Government found comeys leaking grounds for firing. Multiple democrats including some of the biggest leaders in the Democrat Party have also attacked comey. Minority leader pelosi said comey was maybe not in the right job. Senator schumer was appalled by what comey did and did not have confidence in him any longer. Senator Bernie Sanders said comey acted in an outrageous way. Cain said comey is responsible for the lowest moment in the history of the fbi. Maxine waters said comey has no credibility. The fbi should be independent and not led by a political hack. Comeys higher loyalty is pretty clear that its only to himself. If the you can get this group of people and others like mark meadows and a number of others to agree on something i think that you have to be right. Jim. What about the dasier . Did he also lie about the dossier in his conversation with President Trump about that . The dossier is false Opposition Research that was funded by the Clinton Campaign to attack the president. It was used illegally to justify spying on americans. I think thats quite the problem. Jim . Sarah the content of the president s attacks on jim comey here your attacks on jim comey, isnt all of that a bit unbecoming the presidency of this white house to go after him in such a personal way like that . Kulg him a slime ball and a liar and a leaker . Ic its unbecoming for the person that is supposed to be the top Law Enforcement officials in the United States, the person that is supposed to protect the people this country to lie and leak classified information. Certainly to falsify documents. I think thats a very big problem. And somebody who has created this problem for himself, i didnt encourage jim comey to go out and do a pr campaign. Congress has asked jim comey to come and testify multiple times multiple times which he denied being able to do. Yet he sat down with George Stephanopoulos for five hours. If anybody created this problem its jim comey and he should be the one held responsibility. Right here. I want to keep going. I had two questions, if i could ask a second followup question. Because its friday. And you would be upset if i dont. You probably have seen this tweet. It was a tweet that you posted before the election in 2016 when you were attacking fbi agents because you are under criminal and you are losing. What do you make of that now . The rank and fbi are some of the greatest people in this country. We repeated that time and time again. And certainly have the full support of this administration. I think that we have been very clear though how we feel about some of the leadership at the fbi the, particularly james comey. When you go over comey and rosenstein and mueller, and you are losing. The theme to comeys book is the president s quote disdain for the rule of law and his continued efforts to publicly undermine federal Law Enforcement officials. How would you characterize the president s attitude toward the rule of law and the things he said publicly about the top Law Enforcement officials. The president has a lot of respect for the rule of law but not a lot of suspect for people whose sole job is to carry out the law and they leak classified information and they lie to the American Public about it. Its his own attorney general, Deputy Attorney general, special counsel, the fbi, the judge who is make decisions he doesnt like. Im sorry, what was the question. Those were the list of the federal Law Enforcement officials he undermined not just people who leaked information. The president haend hasnt undermined them in any capacity. Because he calls out things he finds problematic or concerning, he should be doing that. If the fbi is leaking out classified information the president should be calling them out on it. You guys spend hours and hours praising jim comey propping him up, giving him a big platform. We shouldnt praising him, we should be taking him down, taking him off of air instead of giving him minute after minute. We should talk about the economy, syria, the drug crisis. Instead we are going to talk about jim comey. You guys will cover it endlessly all day today, all day tomorrow and my guess is every day next week with little time given to the issues that the people care about. The president has every right to call out that individual that you guys are propping up and say there are problems and that we should be concerned about it. Charlie. Thank you sarah. This morning, james comey admitted that he didnt tell the president about the political im sorry. Can you speak up. This morning james comey said he didnt inform the president of the political source of the dasier. Was the president surprised to hear that . Did director comey ever tell him about the sourcing of the political dossier against him . Im not sure about that specific conversation but i know that its been documented many times over now that the dossier is false Opposition Research funded by the Clinton Campaign and used to attack the president. A second question because its friday. Did the president speak to former Vice President dick cheney about the Scooter Libby pardon either before or after . I am not aware of any conversations on that subject. Three republican state matters from missouri wrote the president yesterday saying that the embattled governor, Eric Greitens should resign. They said if it was a navy s. E. A. L. , they would salute and resign if his commander asked him to. Did the president respond. I dont have his response at this but that is concerning and something we are taking seriously. Ill keep you update as we have something. Concerning the summit with Prime Minister abe next week in florida does the president plan to push for a bilateral Free Trade Agreement with japan . Im to the going to get ahead of the president s conversations with Prime Minister abe. But trade will certainly be something that is discussed, as well as the ongoing conversations around north korea. Sarah does the president have another meeting today on syria . Im sorry . Will the president be having another nsc meeting on syria. There is a meeting this afternoon at the deputies level. Ayesha. I wanted to ask about the pardoning process. It seems like we have had these three pardons. They all were somewhat highprofile or gotten media attention. How is the president deciding when to take action on a case, i mean with arpaio, he hadnt even been sentenced yet. The libby case was very old. How are you deciding when to take action on these cases . And can a normal person who feels like they have been unjustly convicted, can they get their case to the white house . I mean there is a Justice Department process, but it seems like the president is taking special interest in certain cases. Again, the president has exercised constitutional authority, and he determines when and how hes going to use that when it comes to the pardon process. He looks at each one individually and makes a decision. And we make that announcement. Nadia. What are you calling . Brian . Nadia, and then i will go to brian. Thank you sarah. The ocpw is sending inspectors to syria. Do you think this is a futile exercise since you already have the evidence that actually they have chemical . Once again we are confident in the intelligence that we have and the fact that we know that syria is responsible for these actions. One last question, brian. I will do two. One on syria and one on the department of justice. On syria, the president has publicly said that he wants to get out of syria. Has this strike changed his mind on that . And is he considering other options other than a plan to pull out u. S. Forces from syria . And if you could just answer that im sorry what was the last part . Is he considering other options other than a Long Term Strategy to get out . I dont have any additional changes to policy in syria at this time n. Terms of ormss. All of the options are on the table. We are continuing to look at these and then we will make an announce hen. And question about the department of justice. What does the president have to say to republican lawmakers who believe that firing mueller would be suicide as grassley as said or firing rosenstein could mean the end of the president s presidency for donald trump as Lindsey Graham has said . Im not going to get into hypothetical situations. The president has taken no action on that front. And im to the going to get into a back and forth on a hypothetical. Republican lawmakers who are counselling him not to take an action like that . As to a number of issues, the president talks with a number of lawmakers on a number of topic. He will continue consulting with them not just on this but on big issues that our country is facing and thats what hes focusing on. Thanks guys. Sarah Huckabee Sanders wrapping up the sightly late White House Press briefing this afternoon with some questions on syria, which im going to talk about in just a few moments. I am ali velshi, this the end of a week with fast moving headlines moving around fruch and his associates. We are really just getting started. Some of the headlines have the president once again fired up. We spoke most of the day talking about Michael Cohen. But breaking in the last hour so much news, the Inspector General report on former fbi Deputy Director Andrew Mccabe was released to congress. At least a preliminary report has been reist leased. Still the person who has drawn the president s ire today is fired fbi director james comey. This morning the president responded to released excerpts from comeys book calling the former fbi director a proven leaker and liar and untruthful slime ball who was a terrible director of the fbi. The president ended with this thought, to a my great honor to fire james comey. Before that tweet, a clip of comeys interview with abc news aired. In that clip he describes the 2017 meeting with the then incoming President Trump to brief him on the infamous claims on that dossier. It was an out of body experience for me. I was floating above myself sitting here you are briefing the president of the United States about prostitutes in moscow. Moments ago, press secretary sarah Huckabee Sanders had this to say about comey and president. Comey will be forever known as a disgraced partisan hack that broke his sake credited trust with the president of the United States. The dedicated agents of the fbi, and the American People he vowed to fatefully serve. One of the president s greatest achievements will go down as firing director james comey. She talked about how we dont cover because we are covering comey we dont cover syria or the custom or the drug crisis. We actually cover all of those things. We can manage it all. Halle jackson there were a lot of topics covered, the mccabe stuff, libbys pardon, the office of the Inspector General. Ill going to talk about syria in a up can of minutes. What do you take away. If i step on what you are getting into later on in the show my apologies. Lets do this. The comment, clearly sarah Huckabee Sanders was fired up, riled up. She came out ready with talking points prepared blasting james comey and scathing and personal terms, questioned about the appropriateness of doing that from the White House Press podium here. I would say your comment there finishes because that same line struckly as well, the one about being so furious that james comb audio is given a platform and saying things that in the white houses view simply are not accurate. The question i will be putting in your clip and save notebook is why sometimes there is a double standard for a president who says things that are also not accurate. You had the president kicking off the morning calling him a slime ball. You had his at ice out on tv saying this issics if. This book is not real, basically. You had cali anne conway on the north lawn talking about how comey is a disgruntled exemployee. Clearly it turned personal and bitter. James comey also blasts the president in pretty personal terms. And experts that we have been speaking to over the last 18 hours or so as you know there are not as many legal ramifications in the book as there are personal ramifications. Thats what comey says, he did not see illegal behavior though he had questions about ethics of it. Thats one of the aspects. One of the other lines, Michael Cohen, the news broke in the last 90 minutes or so that he is under investigation. Sanders could not say whether he coulden was still the personal attorney for donald trump. At this point we are reaching out to cohen and his attorneys. That is interesting given that cohen is somebody who has been in the president s orbit for a very long time. The two of them have a relationship that predates this campaign by a long time. So it might be significant if the two severed ties. We dont know if thats the case. Neither did the press secretary. And before i let you go i want to mention policy. I think its critical. I think its notable that the press secretary confirm a National Security meeting on the deputy level for later on tonight. We knew from nikki hayley there would be a meeting at the white house she would be attending but the fact that its deputy level tils you about timing the any military action. Meaning missiles may be less imminent or the white house wants to signal less about the timing of such an attack if one is going to happen. A good point. Halle jackson for us, our chief white house correspondent. I want to talk about the big topic of the he have brooing, james comey and his tellall book. With me, a chief investigative correspond enfor yahoo news and the author of russia roulette, which is out now. Michael lets talk a little bit about this. You have had some chance the review some of this book, a number of people have read all through it. We have seen the exempts erpts. Is there anything here as it relates to the biggest concern, the reason that President Trump told lester moment he got james comey, because of the russia investigation . Is there anything in this book that furgts the russia investigation, that hinders it, that changes the potential outcome . I didnt see any in terms of actual facts rhetting to the investigation, so far, we havent seen of the. I havent had a chance to read through the book. I just read the excerpts that have come out, accounts of it. What struck me is first of all james comey as i think halle mentioned is exceedingly personal about the president in this. I mean not just the comparisons to him being a mob boss and some unflattering personal reference, but just the whole tone of it seems almost as if comey in some ways as fallen into trumps trap of viewing everything in personal terms. But you know the part that kind of struck me is whats getting a lot of attention is that briefing in january 6th at trump tower, 2017. Yep. When comey goes there to trump tower with the rest of the intelligence community. The rest of the intelligence officials leave and he presents the dossier. And he tells a lot about trumps reaction to what he was telling him. But you know, comey onlies that pa only has part of the story there because after comey leaves as we write in our book, what took place after that, which is in trumps mind what comey was trying to do was blackmail him. He calls ate shakedown. He views it as, comey is trying to hold something over him. Now, thats certainly not what comey says he had in mind. And there is no indication that thats in fact what was the case. But in some ways i think this was a matter of comey not reading the guy he was briefing, not understanding how the salacious allegations. Comey writes he was just telling trump that you should know that there is this dossier out there that has information that sounds compromising on you. Sarah Huckabee Sanders took the opportunity when asked about this a few moments ago to go off on a tirade about james comey and the media but at the same time took another tune to take a swipe at the dossier and undermined its legitimacy. You and david corn were some of the earliest people to understand that dossier. What is your perspective, broadly speaking, on the dossier . Is it mostly nonsense or mostly true . Or somewhere in between . Look n broad strokes, what Christopher Steele was writing about in the summer of 2016 about a Russian Campaign to interfere in our election, to denigrate hillary clinton, to promote donald trump has been confirmed by the u. S. Intelligence community. He also made allegations about levels of cooperation and coordination between the trump folks and the kremlin and russian cutouts. Some of those have held up because weve learned a lot more since the summer about contacts that we didnt know about. And it is not even clear Christopher Steele knew at the time that there were multiple communications among multiple levels in the trump orbit and the kremlins ority. As far as the sensational particular, the explosive allegation about the pee party and the golden shower, i should note that in our book, Christopher Steeles faith in that allegation has wavered himself and he has told associates he believes its only 50 50 that that is true, which is pretty stunning in a respect since that was the part of the dossier that grabbed the most attention and the author of it now doesnt really stand behind it. There are other allegations that remain unconfirmed as well. Michael, the number of thing that we discuss on television these days that i never thought i would discuss in my career as a journalist dont go far, please, i want to talk to you about syria and bashar al assad. You are one of the few people in recent history to have had a conversation about relevant matters with bashar al assad. Im going to talk about that in a few minutes despite that sarah Huckabee Sanders we dont talk about. Im going to talk about that on this show. Michael cohen, the easy weres personal lawyer is under criminal investigation. Its not clear whether he coulden still works for the president. Sarah Huckabee Sanders wasnt sure about that. She was asked specifically about it in the white house briefings. Halle said she couldnt give a straight answer to it. The release about this man being under criminal investigation come after of a he claims some material that the fbi raid got from his office and hotels has attorneyclient privilege. The fbi carried out the raid after receiving a referral from special counsel mueller. The raids were broader than previously reported. The paper reports that in addition to searching cohens office and hotel room prosecutors obtained warrants to seize materials from his cell phone, tablets and lab top and a safedeposit box. Investigators were reportedly looking for information on communications between cohen and President Trump over the infamous access Hollywood Tape along with information on cohens 130,000 still unexplained payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford and a payment to the owner of the National Enquirer and other tabloids. Cohen denied any wrongdoing. President trumps new attorney joanna hen done told the court today that the pre has an acute interest in this marry. This is important. He has an acute interest in this matter. Even though the public has nothing do with Stormy Daniels and doesnt know why his attorney paid her 0,000. Stormy daniels attorney was there. Heres what he had to say. There is no question there is documentation in those records concerning the negotiation with my client. Perhaps relating to the payoff. There could be a host of documents related to that agreement, the payment, what the president knew, when he knew it. Hopefully we will find out exactly what is in the documents. Joining me, danny za val owes. A couple of thing here. First of all when you raid a Lawyers Office the bar is high to get that warrant. More importantly, to deal with the evidence. There are something called privileged teams or taint teams that look at things that might be Attorney Client privileged and you have to get yet more permission in order to access those documents or that information. Thats right. The chief concern any time the government invades an Attorneys Office with a search warrant is protecting privilege. Because if you deny privilege, you may deny constitutional representation to innocent third parties, including the clients of the lawyer. If michael he coulden happened to also be my lawyer and i hear that his office has been busted, i need to inside there is something who is going to look at this before my business gets out into the court that has nothing to do with what they have been looking for . Exactly. There is a conundrum with this because the reason we have privileged documents is we dont want people like law enforce in to look at the documents. Now the challenge is somebody has the look at this, and its going to be Law Enforcement. How do they review it for privilege. The taint teams take the first pass, take the documents and split them into three categories, privileged, definitely not and then maybe. Right. The reality is, somebody from the government, from the prosecution or a special agent is going to be looking at these documents. Right. Once they see them they cant unsee them. Unsee them. Exactly. Right. The challenge any times this happens courts have been critical of it. When it comes to the president as you said and the prosecutor said his Attorney Client privilege is no more significant any any other citizens. It is attorney klein privilege no matter what. What if you and your attorney were in on something unlawful together . There are many ways Attorney Client privilege can be defeated. One is if any other party is present. If you bring your mom to an Attorney Client meeting you may destroy privilege. Interesting. Secondly, anything in furtherance of a crime fraud. That can defeat Attorney Client privilege. Not every conferring between an attorney and a citizen is necessarily privileged. In fact, there are many rules that have to be followed in seeking to assert privilege. Thats exactly the challenge of the taint team. Think about it. Thats a criticism that a defense attorney would have. If this taint team benefits, the government benefits as to documents that are not privileged which way are they going to lean . Towards a finding that this isnt privileged. No matter what, the law place as burden on the attorney to file the motion to get those documents either returned or suppressed. Which is what is happening as we speak. Yes. Hes doing it in the form of a tro, which is our fastest form of injunctive relief. You are going to the court and saying court we need you to give us this stop everything right now. Hit the pause button. In cohens case he is asking for his own attorneys to review the documents first. Realistically he can hope for maybe the judge to apoint a special master to review the documents. But there is a very good chance the government is going to win and their taint team will be allowed first pass at these documents. Thanks for explaining this. This is a important matter. Some of the president s allies have called for Deputy Attorney general Rod Rosenstein to be fired after had he approved the search warrant for Michael Cohen. Three sources who spoke with rosenstein tell nbc news hes prepared for the possibility that he will lose his job. The president can fire him. Trump has lashed out at rosenstein in the past for the russia investigation. Rosenstein took over the probe after attorney general Jeff Sessions recused himself and later appointed former fbi director Robert Mueller to be special counsel. This afternoon Pennsylvania Democratic congressman brendan boil took to twitter to warn President Trump if he fires rosenstein he would file an article of impeachment against him for obstruction of justice. Joining us, Barbara Mcquaid a former u. S. Attorney for the Eastern District of michigan and an msnbc legal analyst. Barbara, this is layers for people who are not lawyers, this has all been complicated for the last year and a half. This has layers and layers of complexity. What on earth is the problem with Rod Rosenstein now . Whats the president s problem with him . Well, it seems that hes very upset about the approval of the search warrant. He has also made conference to the fact that Rod Rosenstein signed off on the fisa order application that intercepted carter page. And so its building on both of those things. He said some critical thing about him earlier in the week. Based on the media reporting of both of those things, they both seem perfectly legitimate that Rod Rosenstein carefully followed the law in both instances. There is nothing wrong with approving a fisa application thats based on probable cause, which it was in this instance, and that did disclose the potential bias of the sources of the information contained in it. In this instance, to search a Lawyers Office it is considered a very rare thing to do and it has to be done after great consideration. But i have no reason to think they didnt follow the procedure outlined in the u. S. Attorneys manual to do it. So the question, i think, is are these the real reasons that President Trump believes Rod Rosenstein is abusing his power . Or is he instead concerned that this investigation is getting too close to home . Certainly the president has the hour to fire Rod Rosenstein or anyone else who serves at his pleasure as a president ial appointee unless he is doing it with some corrupt purpose that could be yet another instance of obstruction of justice. So the structure of the department of justice and the attorney general and the fbi is a little bit different than it is in say the epa or other departments. So that there are situations of duties. But in the end, can the president just keep on knocking people off at the department of justice until hes satisfied that he has someone who will actually do his bidding . Because this is a little banana representicish. Yeah, so in terms of this position, yes, he is a president ial appointee. The next person in line to run the deputy or to run this investigation would be another president ial appointee, noele francisco. If he went through him, they come the succession ultimately goes through all the u. S. Attorneys how are president ially appointed. He really could keep going before a very long time before he would hit a career person. I think at some point you would hope that members of congress or others would push back and say there is too much like a Banana Republic for us to tolerate. Barbara mcquaid, thanks very much. Coming up next russia makes an outrageous claim that it has quote irreputable evidence that the deadly gas attack in syria was staged. We have the last american journalist to get an on camera interview with syrian president assad. Patrick woke up with back pain. But he has work to do. So he took aleve. If hed taken tylenol, hed be stopping for more pills right now. Only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. Aleve. All day strong. Ive been making blades here at gillette for 20 years. I bet im the first blade maker youve ever met. Theres a lot of innovation that goes into making our thinnest longest lasting blades on the market. Precision machinery and highquality materials from around the world. Nobody else even comes close. Its about delivering a more comfortable shave every time. Invented in boston, made and sold around the world. Now starting at 7. 99. Gillette. The best a man can get. Did a chemical weapons attack happen . Yes. The u. S. Has analyzed yes, it has happened. The uk has analyzed, yes, it has happened. France has analyzed, yes it has happened. Three separate analysis, all coming back with the same thing. The United States estimates that assad has used chemical weapons this the syrian war at least 50 times. Public estimates are as high as 200. All nations and all people will be harmed if we allow assad to normalize the use of chemical weapons. That was u. S. Ambassador nikki hayley condemning russias support of syrian president barbal ar al assad saying there is proof last weeks attack against innocent civilians was indeed a chemical attack. Last week they had a high level of confidence that syria was responsible for the attack. Syria denied it. And russia is now claiming that the attack was stage asked directed by britain. The uk is calling that a blatant lie. It is a not conservible where britain would be involved in Something Like that. Joining me, about risch any could have been. The last to have interviewed bashar al assad. You showed him photographs of people who were killed until detention by the syrians not by the use of chel committeecal attack. But to a lot of syrians the attacks have been a side story because so many people have been killed by the regime. You presented with evidence. It was one of the most fascinating interviews i have ever listened to. Lets play a piece. When your institutions were accurate when accurate about reporting what is happening in syria. Never. If the fbi says something, its not evidence for anyone, especially for us. The most important thing, if you take these photos to any court in your country, could they convict any criminal regarding this crime, who committed . If you dont have this full paper you cannot convict. Its propaganda, its just fake news. Just fake news. Does the guy live in a bubble . Or he knows exactly what he is doing and he has the ability to manipulate people. Not you but the british and fake news and assumes it will never get back to him. That was one of the more fascinating pats of interview. This was last year, february of 2016, the first interview since donald trump became president. What leapt out at me was the use of the phrase fake news. He used it twice in the course of the interview. He was adopting the language of President Trump from the campaign. And the context here is i confronted him with niethese photographs the socalled caesar photographs which are really searing photos of emaciated tortured bodies of detainees who were killed in his prisons. And his reaction first said, you know, do you have the photos . I said i do. And i handed it to him. And he says how can you who authenticated these photos . How do we know these are real. Then i gave him a copy of an fbi report in custom the Fbi Crime Lab in quantico, photo lab had analyzed these photographs and concluded there was no signs of manipulation, they had been smuggled out of syria by a former regime photographer. Anybody who looks at these photos they immediately conjure up images of nazi concentration camps. Emaciated. No muscle, no herb from, teeth missing in some cases we elected not to present that right now. But unbelievable. There is evidence you can refute, and yet they refute it. Michael thank for your work on that. Chief investigative correspondent at yahoo news. President trump just tweeted about the Inspector General report on Andrew Mccabe. He tweeted this. D. O. J. Just issued the mccabe report which is a total disaster. He lied, lied, lied. Mccabe was totally controlled by comey. Mccabe is comey. No collusion. All made up by this den of thieves and low life s. Weird because he said they issued the mccabe report which is a total disaster. Not sure what he is talking about. The report argues that mccabe, quote, lacked candor, including under oath, on multiple occasions in connection with describing his role in connection with the disclosure to the wall street journal and that this conduct violated fbi offense codes. The oig, the office of the investigator general also concluded that mccabes disclosure of the existence of an Ongoing Investigation in the manner describe in this court violated the fbi and the fbi media policy and constituted misconduct. Pete stuff. He breaks it down for us. Pete, whats the skinny on this . Well, two things about the president s tweet. Lets look at it again. First of all, he says mccabe lied. Thats certainly basically what the i. G. Report, the Inspector General report concludes. But then the president says mccabe was totally controlled by comey. Whats interesting about the report is that among the people they cite as suggesting that mccabe was not honest in discussing this was james comey. We learned from this report that the Inspector General interviewed comey, and he says he doesnt recall andy mccabe telling him that he was going to give this or that he had given this information to wall street journal and comey would have opposed that. So, the report marks a very sharp distinction between the way it describes how fbi director comey and his deputy andy mack cabe handl andy mccabe handled this and talked about it. Thats. 1. 2, sarah Huckabee Sanders did talk about this in her briefing a short time ago. I havent seen the report, but sounds like two peas in the pod. Mccabe was fired for disgrace and lying about it. Beyond that i dont have anything about it at this point. Well, so, again, its the the report actually makes a distinction between the way mccabe and comey were handled this. Of course, the report is exclusively about how information got to the wall street journal suggesting the fbi wanted to move forward with the Clinton Foundation investigation, and the Justice Department did not. What the o. I. G. Says here is, yes, mccabe says eventually told the investigators that he authorized this disclosure to the wall street journal to set the record straight, that he had the authority to give information to the news media about sensitive matters, but the o. I. G. Says he shouldnt have. All right, pete, thanks very much for your reporting on this. Pete williams, nbc news justice correspondent. The latest now on the pardon of Scooter Libby which is not actually unrelated to all of this, believe it or not. Scooter libby, you will remember was vicepresident dick cheneys former chief of staff. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said minutes ago the president thought it was the right thing to do. Libbys pardon and the timing of it raises a lot of questions. Before we get into this, i want to remind you, i need a little reminding, refresher of Scooter Libby. Libby was the chief of staff to dick cheney. That was dick cheney. And a major figure in the start of the iraq war, he had previously served in the george h. W. Bush administration in both the state and defense departments on Foreign Policy issues. Now, in 2003 in an oped in the New York Times or an oped did question the motivation behind the iraq war and it was written by ambassador joseph wilson. Joseph wilson happened to be married to a woman named valerie plame. In an attempt to discredit the oped, Administration Officials revealed that plame was a cia operative and that would be a federal crime under certain circumstances. In 2007, libby was convicted on a number of charges, including lying to the fbi and obstructing justice. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison. President bush ultimately commuted libbys sentence but didnt issue a full pardon. Thats what trump did today. For more on all this im joined by matthew cooper, hes a contributor with the washingtonian and just wrote this article on the trial of Scooter Libby and his testimony against libby when he was time magazines reporter. Matt, good to have you here. Thanks, ali. This is an interesting story. Some people say the president is doing something he didnt need to do, there was no great call to pardon Scooter Libby to set the table and send a message to people that are in trouble that the president has now pardoned a few people and hes good to do that. Others say this is actually very tied to jim comey. Talk to me about this. Well, i think both are true. I think he is sending a message about his antipathy towards comey. Comey was the guy who appointed the special prosecutor in the cia case exactly, the attorney general back then, john ash croft had to recuse himself, much as Jeff Sessions is doing, recusing now. Comey was the number two at justice and he appointed this very determined prosecutor. So, this is a way of saying jim comey, fake prosecutor, you know, bad guy. Also, i think it is a way of saying, look, hey, ive got pardon power and im going to take it out whenever i want. Now, i think it has very little to do with libby himself. This is not a guy trump knew personally. Correct. Has no personal ties to. If you had to think about people in trump land who have faced criminal convictions, maybe former new York City Police commissioner bernie kerak, real housewife of new jersey, theresa judice, those are people you think trump would throw a pardon to. This comes out of nowhere. I think it really is a shot at comey. And also reflects the influence of libbys attorneys, joe digenova and victoria tensing who very interesting point. Who trump considered making his own attorneys. Thats right. He decided not to at the last minute. This could be a whisper in trumps ear. He does tend to respond to people he respects talk about. If i had to pitch him, hey, jim comey committed another injustice 11 years ago just like youre getting, and trump that would have gotten trumps attention. There are obviously people who didnt like the political motivations behind what happened. Right. Ambassador joe wilson, Valerie Plames husband said this about the pardon. Its not just a pardon of Scooter Libby the individual. Its a pardon of the entire neo conservative Subversive Movement that drove this country to a false war in 2003 and which still has ambition to drive this country to war in iran. And what he has done is he has given a blanket pardon essentially to this movement and hes invited them babbling inck admission to, again, lead a charge to take the u. S. To war. So, this is a third thesis, right, that its not really about jim comey and its not really about sending a message to Paul Manafort or Michael Flynn or George Papadopoulos or whomever else, that this is actually about a wing of the conservative party thats largely been antitrumpers now, the neo conservatives, to say this is one of your people and im throwing you a bone. Do you think there is anything to that . Well, i dont think its mutually exclusive. Id be very surprised if john bolton, who is close to cheney and libby, didnt weigh in on this as he went through his vetting process and now his arrival at the white house. All these things are possible with trump. I think its about anything but mercy for the guy. Right. Its not about trump having a soft spot for Scooter Libby. This is a guy who didnt get sent to prison. He got his law license back. This is about clearing his good name. Matthew, good to see you again. Matthew cooper, washingtonian contributor. All right, nbc news Investigative Unit has learned republican fundraiser broidy has resigned. Donald trumps attorney and fixer negotiated another money for silence deal in late 2017, according to people familiar with the matter. It says that 1. 6 million were paid to a former play boy model to remain silent about her sexual relationship and subsequent pregnancy with broidy, who is an associate of the president. Broidy, who is married, acknowledged a consensual relationship with a play boy play mate and said he was sorry for the hurt these revelations are causing his family. Joining me now is michael roth feld, a reporter for the wall street journal. Michael, this is yet another story that people were not expecting to hear. Whats it about . Well, as you mentioned, its a new deal with a woman not involving President Trump, but President Trumps fixer and personal attorney Michael Cohen. Some of the same cast of characters that weve been hearing about with Stormy Daniels, payment for another nondisclosure agreement. In this case elliott broidy, a big republican fundraiser whos frequently gone to maralago, the president s place in florida. Had been accused by a woman who he had a sexual relationship with of getting her pregnant, and she had an exclusive, allegedly sexual relationship with him over the course of more than a year. At some point came to him and said, im pregnant. Youre the father. And then he turned to Michael Cohen to fix it, to negotiate a nondisclosure agreement. The 1. 6 million hush fee basically is actually to be paid over two years in quarterly installments starting in december of 2017. How was this disclosed . How are we learning about this . Its through our reporting basically. You know, we had reported that in 2016 that karen mcdougal, a play mate who alleged an affair with President Trump, was paid off 150,000 by the owner of the national inquirer. That story was killed. And then just this january, Stormy Daniels we reported had been paid before the election 130,000, not to talk about an affair with mr. Trump. So, just by delving into this world of hush agreements, nondisclosure agreements, we learned about this additional agreement that Michael Cohen was involved in just in the same week that the fbi raided his place. Michael, thanks very much for your reporting on this. Michael roth field is a reporter with the wjs. That does it for me. Deadline white house with Nicolle Wallace starts right now. Hi, everyone. Its 4 00 in new york. The president s personal attorney is back in court this hour as a brandnew Court Filing Confirms hes under criminal investigation. From that filing, quote, on april 9, 2018, agents from the new York Field Office of the fbi executed search warrants for Michael Cohens residents, hotel room, office, safety deposit box, and electronic devices. The searches were authorized by a federal magistrate judge who had found probable cause to believe that the premises and devices searched contained evidence, fruits and instrumentalities of conduct for which cohen is under criminal investigation
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