That has gone out related to Paul Manafort in order to we only knew about one other subpoena thats gone out related to mike flynn. I was writing that up today to be able to explain it. When i proved to myself that also was one week ago, that wasnt like seven months ago, i had to check it 17 times because i cant believe how much is happening in such a short period. Consider now, andreas point, its so great, these are the nights when we need our experienced voices who can remember the rumblings of water gate and what that momentum felt like. There is john mccain who remembers it well, using the word water gate tonight saying this is possibly bigger than watergate. So far we dont have any demands from the republican side, really, on a special prosecutor, seven days from now, you could have 50 republican senators saying there should be a special prosecutor, thats how fast this is moving. We dont know. Thats exactly right. And all the more remarkable to think that this president , who has already broken protocol, broken precedent by having not yet taken a foreign trip. At the end of this week, hes supposedly leaving for an eightday, or tenday foreign trip. I mean, the news wont stop because hes not here to be making it. This news is being made in the pages of New York Times and its being made in u. S. Attorneys offices. Its being made in the editorial, in the newsroom of the Washington Post. Its being made all over the country no matter where he is. If this news continues to break at this record while hes abroad, meeting with foreign allies, i cant even imagine what thats going to be like for the on going work of the administration and the federal government that he heads up. Rachel, i spoke to a former associate of jim comey when he was a u. S. Attorney tonight and he told me that everybody who has worked with jim comey, everyone who knows him has been waiting, in effect, for this memo. They know that a conversation the kind of conversation that donald trump was talking about and talking about having with jim comey, that he would memorialize as close to contemporaneous way as he possibly could and that that was the training that he insisted on u. S. Attorneys who work for him, thats what he taught them to do. We heard someone on your program saying that they were all taught to do that in the fbi academy theyre taught to do that. And so this day, they knew it was coming. They didnt know how it was going to come out or where it was going to come out. They knew it would be memos like this. I think its three important parts of that. Number one, we had the special agent in charge. The other times in the difficult or controversial circumstances where he has. Get something on the record. What is considered true. What is the real record of what happened, a trained fbi agent making contemporaneous notes that were shared at the time with other people who can verify that witness statement at the time and have memorialized it and preserved it since without tampering it. Thats the kind of chain of evidence that makes witness testimony admissible. The fbi does that training. Thats why james comey knows how to do that and ultimately the reason that you do it that way so you can use it for prosecutoring somebody. We dont know if thats where its headed. Rachel thank you very much for spending a few extra minutes with us tonight, on these historic nights i always want to start with you. No one has been better at tracking trump investigations, no one has been better at explaining step by step whats going on at every stage of every trump investigation. And ive got to tell you, its a little intimidating when you hand your audience over to me, after the class they just took for an hour, i feel like your students are all smarter than me, the professor that takes over for the 10 00 p. M. Class. You are way too kind and now im blushing all the way to my toes. I consider us a team, thank you my friendship. Thank you team leader. Thank you. Well, i want to talk about this memorializing conversation that we were just talking about with rachel. Its not just lawyers or fbi agents. When i started working in government in the office of senator daniel patrick, i first heard the term memcon it was after meeting with the president. He said he was going to write a memcon, it was something he learn today do in his first job in washington working in the kennedy administration. It was simply shorthand for memorandum of a conversation. Whenever he had a truly important conversation, as soon as possible after that conversation, he would type it up on his typewriter right there beside his desk. He would quote as much of the dialogue as precisely as he could remember it and he would fill in every detail he could that he thought was relevant to the shape of that conversation. I started doing the same thing after meetings in the oval office, meetings in the cabinet room, sometimes after important meetings the speaker of the house. If you have worked in washington near anyone, anyone in high office, you are aware, at least, of the concept of memcon. Donald trump has never heard of it. Hes never heard of the practice of making a memo of a conversation. Lawyers do it all the time, prosecutors do, fbi agents do, and donald trump and many other people are just discovering today that jim comey does it. Sources told me, when he was a federal prosecutor, he specifically jim comey specifically assisted all u. S. Attorneys to write memos of any kind of material conversation, any conversation that was material to the case, with anyone, anything like that should be written up in memo form. If an fbi agent was present, then the prosecutor would not a watergate size and scale. Watergate got president nixon impeached on the verge of impeachment he resigned. He resigned as he faced impeachment in the house of representatives for exactly, exactly what james comeys memo says donald trump did, obstruction of justice. The nixon tapes of the oval office captured the moment when the president agreed to the idea of using the cia to tell patrick gray, the director of the fbi, to stop an investigation of the watergate scandal. Here is some of that tape. Youll hear the voice of white house chief of staff presenting the problem to the president. The fbi investigation is going in directions they dont want it to go. He told the president , that white House Counsel, john dean has figured out a way to stop that investigation. The way to stop it is to get vernon walters, the Deputy Director of the cia to tell the fbi director to stay out of it. They did not know that mark they did not know that mark felt was also deep throat, the code name for the secret source, reporting of the Washington Post that exposed the watergate scandal. Thats what obstruction of justice sound like. According to with his conversation of the president obstruction of justice sounds like this. I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting flynn go, mr. Trump told mr. Comey, according to the memo. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go. He did not say anything to mr. Trump about curtailing the investigation, only replying, i a agree he is a good guy. Defending the integrity of the President Trump and attacking the accuracy of the memo saying, this is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the president and mr. Comey. Joining us now, connecticut, democrat senator who is a member of the Judiciary Committee. Thank you very much for joining us tonight on this important night and i wanted to get your reaction to your reading of that comey memo as presented in the New York Times. What youre seeing, lawrence, is actually an obstruction of justice case unfolding in real time. As a fellow alumnus and also a prosecutor, i have written more than a few of those memoranda of conversations and i am willing to bet that there are more of them they will provide more evidence in this case against against donald trump for obstruction of justice. And what we need, now, is subpoenas that will preserve tapes, assuming they exist, transcripts, other memos that someone in the white house may have done and jim comeys that maybe in the department of justice. Senator, it seems that many republicans are in their usual stance of taking a breath and waiting and hoping no one asks them about this, saying as little as possible about it and waiting to see what happens next. With the republicans in control of congress in order for the committees to get deeping into it. Republicans are going to have to want to do that. Do you expect to see jim comey in a hearing environment, either the house or senate with that memo, if that were to happen, how would that happen . Almost inevitably i think hell be a witness in the proceeding here in congress. I hope its the jew dash area committee, i think it will be. I will predict hell be here, i think my republican colleagues will do the right thing. I think theyll put country above party. I think they are shaken by a lot of what they have seen or heard over just these last days and you rightly recall with rachel who has done great work on the connection between the Trump Campaign and the russian interference with our election, that it was just a week ago that the former director attorney general, sally yates, was testifying here in washington and set off sort of a Chain Reaction of events and were seeing the latest. Theres a mosaic here, and presenting it to the jury, ultimately, record of Public Opinion will be a piece by piece task, i think part of it will be jim comey testifying under oath in an open proceeding. Senator Lindsey Graham has been running hearing series out of subcommittee, would that be the way you would expect this to proceed, that he, himself, would want to hear from jim comey, since Judiciary Committee does have jurisdiction over fbi matters and Justice Department matters. The two leaders of that subcommittee have been doing excellent work. And i think that senator graham i have recalled a lot of those very same feelings of hope, but also fear for our democracy. And remember, lawrence, that water gate, basically, was a third rate burglary, as it was termed. It gives wise to the expression, the cover up was worst than the crime. The crime was two good theft. Here we have the theft of democracy, the russian meddling in our elections, potential collusion involving the Trump Campaign, the effort to in effect this wart that investigation in firing comey and seeking to have him layoff. Warning that sally yates, that michael flynn, the National Security adviser was vulnerable to russian blackmail. So this thread of evidence, i think, will ultimately lead to further evidence that that will make watergate very recommend necessary sent. Thank you very much for joining us on this important night, really appreciate it. Thank you. Senator patrick lahe is the senior democrat in the United States senate, elected to the senate 42 years ago. Hes a former chairman of the Judicial Committee and now the senior democrat on this film. He has voted on the confirmation of countless attorney generals and fbi before he was a senator, he was a prosecutor. As a prosecutor, somebody could come and say, stop this price you should or ignore this price or stop this investigation. If somebody really meant that, id tell them, hell face responsibility of being charged with obstruction of justice. Richard durhman is also a member. The stunning that the president is breeching directly to the fbi and stop an investigation of general flynn under the circumstances. It raises series of questions of obstruction of justice. Is anyone, including the president of the United States, above the law. Can they all be held, everyone be held accountable as they should be, under the rule of law. And this revelation. The statement thats been raised really raises that question. Joining me now professor and lawyer at duke university. Also joining us tim weaner, winning author who includes legacy of ashes, the history of the cia and enemies, history of the fbi. Lets Read National correspondent and the host of aj weekend. I want to start with you about your reaction to this material and what you believe the water will be in washington tomorrow add the republicans are trying to get through the night as quietly as possible, tomorrow its not going to stay quiet. Ive been interacting with a republican source and what theyre saying is, donors are definitely, if not panicking, very very upset about this. You have republicans who have stood by donald trump for a lot of basic political reasons. They sense the chaos, they understand how serious it is. They understand how deadly serious this is and the one thing that can actually move republicans is fear of losing reelection and fear of losing the donors. And donors are now demanding that this chaos end. Its not clear who can end it, you know, donors want someone to get control of whats happening in the white house, im not really sure who they turn to and people they talk to are not sure it doesnt seem like the magic can get your hand on. This is the most hand on it. By the way, if youll understand this, donald trump has now dismisd and taken out of the realm of executive privilege, not only mr. Comey, sally yates, michael flynn, none of these can coverage with protection for themselves. Having studied the fbi as you have, i have a feeling you are completely unsurprised by todays revelation that jim comey went back to the office and typed up what just happened to him. Well, of course, any reporter would, any investigator would, any cop would make a memo of the conversation. What is a little surprising is that in the past week the president of the United States has not committed just one, but two. One is the obstruction of justice which is becoming painfully clear in what he calls the socalled russia case or the hopes. Firing jim comey. Could tell as we found out today, to call off these dogs. So you would put down firing jim comey as part of an obstruction of justice . I would. Thats one. And abuse of power. The second abuse of power, was giving comfort to the russians by leaking them incredibly intelligence that had been entrusted to the United States on the basis that it not be leaked to a third party. That is an abuse of power and that is a violation of this oath of office. So thats count two. Your reading of the law as it applies to what weve learned in this memo. Well, i think weve got an obstruction case, at least, at the level of what would normally trigger a grand jury investigation at this point. You dont decide at this stage whether youve got enough to proof it to the jury beyond reasonable doubt or anything like that you gear up a grand jury investigation. You know there are memos, tapes, witnesses and the fbi has been looking into some of this, but what we really need is a prosecutor, we needed special counsel. Weve got to start calling witnesses in under oath. I know some of this will has been on the hill. It may happen in a fashion. The fbi has got a criminal investigation here and they need to pair with a prosecutor and get down to brass tax. That cant be a rer individuals are now witnesses in this investigation. So we needed special counsel and we still start to take testimony and subpoena these subpoena. The most incredible thing today is the fact that the white house is denying that this happened. Because all weekend long all we were hearing was, whatever happened last week, its explainable. Its not really that wrong with it. Trump is in over his head but he doesnt understand the rules of the role. They realize. This is a clear obstruction because theyre saying this did not happen. When theyre talking about it, the ochbl is and so thats where i pull up the nixon case right away and he tried to have it on the page. And and the obstruction of justice was tell the director to stop doing that. And the and the trick method was. Have someone from the cia do it because it is not uncommon for the to say to the fbi, thats something were working on. So that was the trick. That wasnt that trick did not fool congress. It didnt. And in this case, here is the way that you wind up with an independent counsel, which is probably the white house has to say the most. Is that this talking point that youre hearing from a lot of republicans, Lindsey Graham was deployed. If he had these concerns he should have just gone to the Justice Department. What would he have gone to. He had to recuse himself. Mr. Rosenstein made it clear that hes a yes man and hes the direct supervisor of the fbi director. He clearly would not have been clinton did. He simply had to act on his own. And so you have, you know, the situation where republicans now cant say that the remedy is from mr. Rosenstein to support prosecutor who could also be fired. We can see the president has no self restraint. Well fire him, too. The only avenue news are likely not to do this. They dont want to take the only avenue. They dont want to take the political avenue. Theyre not going to be left with much choice, they dont want it to be, but it is. From what weve learned in the Nixon Administration, is that now is the time, in fact, it was probably before now, but now is absolutely man minute. This is for something per lick it up. 48 members of the Nixon Administration between of things that the president wanted them to do and things they tried to help the president with after the president had already crossed legal lines and this president is going to ask people to do things that they should not do. Tomorrow and in the feature end of may may have already done so. This is happening ten times faster. Then it took him az his plumbers threeandahalf years to braem into the dnc. The washington already did that. Youre the last selection. It took threeandahalf months, not threeandahalf years to get to the point where hes obstructing justice and there he is, no question that firing jim comey and intimidating him is obstruction calling off the ap. Aiding intelligence, he had no right to leak. That is an abusive power. And as far as beyond lawyering up. Its too late. There are going to be special committees in congress and there will certainly be, if not, before after the 2018 elections. Motion of impeachment of this president. Professor, i would assume you would advise anyone working on white house to get close to criminal rerd having a retainer starting now or know who to have. But the amazing thing here, is the president of the United States has a white House Counsel. This is the white house sens job. The things that were being said last week by the president , the things that were learning now that he did or the kind of things that any good white House Counsel would have told the president not to do, and im not casting any aspergss on the White House Council who i do not know. It seems to me tt president is either not talking to him or not listening. And, you know, we keep hearing that this is the ceo president , he knows how to run things. No ceo of any emergency corporation in mark and without getting good with hyatt. Its almost as if he went and fired his own. And when told the shareholders, theres nothing to see here. This has no merit. And if this guy says otherwise, he better watch out because i have him on tape. But this is the kind of thing that will get them to fire a coe and that would be up to it. Something about this president the basic. Enjoying the scenes described in this story. The show, a kind of con con spear toir nermt mike pence is president in the group. He asks the Vice President to leave so hes alone in the room with the fbi director when he makes one of these proposals. You read my mind. Theres a consciousness of guilt here. If somebody doesnt understand. The department the head of the department to leave. He asks him twice. Everybody Jeff Sessions who is no pair gone to virtue. Theres something entirely improper about leaving them alone. When it is the president s cam pain thats being investigated by the fbi director. Trump insists that he leave the room, twice, and by the way, i think that sessions are not its going to everyone who touches it. What mike pence has a very plausible story as well; he knew absolutely nothing about anything, including when sally yates comes in and informs the transition team, which hes the head. Hes the head of the transition team. The idea that he was holding ignorant makes me unfit to see if they had a own. Well have to squeeze in a commercial break. Thank you both for joining us. Youve written books about the cia and collapse of Richard Nixon, everything we need, thank you very much for being with us. Tonight. Well need a few more comments from you, stick around. Coming up, how will republicans in congress react. That is the question from is with us. In these turbulent times, do you focus on todays headwinds . Or plan for tomorrow . At kpmg, we believe success requires both. With our broad range of services and industry expertise, kpmg can help you anticipate tomorrow and deliver today. Kpmg. My belly pain i could build a small city with all the overthecounter products ive used. Enough ive tried enough laxatives to cover the eastern seaboard. Ive climbed a Mount Everest of fiber. Probiotics . Enough avo if youve had enough, tell your doctor what youve tried and how long youve been at it. Linzess works differently from laxatives. Linzess treats adults with ibs with constipation or chronic constipation. 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Hell direct all of their ambition schemes, its an agonizing choice. Go down with him or risk the offending the membership, offending fox news and separating yourself. It will be highly optimistic and it will be made pretty soon. Trump one of the things donald trump had going for him. Hes going to sign a tax cut bill written by the house of representatives an passed by the senate. Hes going to go along with him legislative on whatever they want to do. Can you imagine washington shifting to a tax cut debate from this . Can that happen. Know, they cant do anything. Donald trump has trapped the party there, sort of hostage to him. But theyre hostage to himself. Lt theyve made a bargain here. They could get the exact bills. But the president puns doesnt have a movement behind them. They need him to go back to their district and to the constituents youve on reelection. Thats created all the rest of us are having this conversation, but in the bubble of trump supporters, they dont believe russia gate at all. They think its fake news. I want to hear about Hillary Clinton saying, if they go after trump, they could lose reaction because their base will leave them. If they dont go after trump, the wave thats watching over them every day has history comes. They are going down in hutter, because they wont act. Richard nixon was reelected with a massive overwhelming majority, stunning electoral victories, one fwh a long history. 18 months later he was driven out of office by republicans in his own party who went down to the white house, barry, among them who was a very very strong him. I saw him stood up with whatever you want. You can leave now or you can stay and get convicted and ri shard nixon of everything they described would be the impeachment process, whats the different between that or not. First the inflation was coming but it had not started yet. Peace in our time. Apparent end of the war, favorable to the United States. By the way, the baby is increase in Social Security benefits earlier in 1972. I think in terms may be the biggest increase ever. That got Richard Nixon massively ree leked. But the reckoning was waiting. The economy got into trouble. Vietnam went wrong. Conditions changed. Donald trump has got, in many ways, more favorable geo political situation. There is no your u. S. Was. The economy may or may not hold up. He has one that is a much more united party and a party that is much more frightened. The Trump Republican Party is a Minority Party in terms of majority of the power. This is a join resting on its aej. All republicans what if we topple over. If theres no agenda. I mean, if there is no republican agenda left because the business of washington is the management of the madness of the white house, then, you know, the sticking with donald trump to get the tax cut that we cant even, you know, have a vote on because he has thrown the trains off the track. Youre not sticking with him for any legislative reason. The ironny here is that not only is this party that is with him because of fear, but its also a party that gets wrecked by him, even aside from russia gate. Hell go on air force one and say well have the health care in three days. Theyve made themselves the lacking of the president. Theyre being led around by his chaos. This is the congress that has given up all article i particle and said we are the employees of the ceo president. Whatever he tells us or no matter how tangle, may be scheduling them from on r clrks a. Youve worked in the scheduling of hca. Youve worked in the white house and look forward to wheels up moment, the president is flying away to a foreign country and those of us back at the office can relax, can really take it easy. In fact, theres a thing called the wheels on party when the big guy flies away. If the president does actually go on his foreign trip, which everything is in doubt, he could cancel it. But if he does, does this white house, the people left behind at the white house, do they get to relax. As you suggested, im questioning whether this trip is really going to happen. One of the stops on the trip is israel, and its still uncertain, but the there is embedded in this terrible story about the leak to russia, a possibility of a really severe monkey wrench. The possibility of a really important betrayal of important intelligence. If that story is correct, i dont know that donald trump is going to want to that he hates confrontation, famously so. Back here in d. C. This story is going to get hotter and hotter and hotter. Its going to be held together in the face of barrage of leaks. Surely there are other conversations that james comey has members of and well be hearing about those, too. And joy, the going on the foreign trip is one of the old devices, its well timed of changing the subject and changing these kind of subjects. Donald trump is the subject. He cant change that subject. He cant, you know, theres also the consideration that these foreign leaders have to make as well. Im not sure he wants that photo op right now. He pushed for the election and got burned by this. The politics on the other side of the pond, as we say, arent looking too good. There were only so many dictators that he could invite to the without. But i think the real bottom line is, it cant be escape, not only at this point are republicans, even if donald trump goes on this trip. Theyre still left with a situation that they are supine in the face of the president of the United States attempting to sbi date that of the fbi and inviting the very man who he supposedly fired mike flynn for secretly meeting with into oval office with his photographers or the photographers of the foreign minister and no american media, allowing them to have court in the oval office after that same country attacked our election. Donald trumps temperament on fitness, immaturity is not just doing the Republican Partys politics. Its dangerous to the National Security. How do Lindsey Graham, explain to history, how do they explain why this is okay in exchange for tax cuts. It looks like john mccain is already there saying this is water gate level or worst. I want to read what senator burr said tonight. Hes one of the ones in this story that share of the senate and intelligence committee. He used a statement saying as close weve worked with the director over the past many months now. I actually believe the director might have told us if there had been a request like that and it was never mentioned by him, so someone would have to do more than just have Anonymous Sources on this one, for me, to believe that theres something that something is there. David, the interesting thing about what we learned the New York Times report. James comey did make the memo and he did make sure around him knew about it so he would have both the contemporaneous writing of it and the contemporaneous alerting others to this information. But he also was very careful to not let anyone involved until the trump russia investigation know about that conversation because he wanted them to do an investigation that was not, in any way, effected by this unique information he had about the president. That could mean, but at some point in that investigation. The director was going to introduce this, and say, by the way, here is evidence that the president of the United States trying to impede this investigation. So it strikes me in the totality of the information of the New York Times as reasonable that the fbi director would not share that with chairman burr and it may be tomorrow, if she comes to that realization himself. Well see what he thinks zbh hes presenting a committee of those of the fbi. Do you remember devan nunes strange Midnight Ride . How can we forget. None of this concluded. Theres a lot of suggestion that what he was doing was meeting with people in the west wing, minor members of the National Security staff who are trying to find a way to hack into the fbi cooperation. The fbi investigation. If any of that is true and it remains proven, but if any of that is true or close to being true, the fbi had to know, that there were people in and around donald trump who was investigating them or following them. At least the chairman of at least one of the intelligence committees was collaborating with those people, maybe the chairman of the other committee had some other ambiguous relationship. This was not a relationship there is theres great tension between the Republican Party and the fbi on this question and james comey, although himself, of course he was a precautions. He would have felt it. Of course its the question were all wondering about and i usually dont bother asking because i know we dont know. But where do you sense were going not the next seven days, just the next seven hours, the next, you know, until noontime tomorrow. I think the absence of republicans on tv tonight is one place theyre going. Theyre going to be and not let allow us to ask many questions. They dont want to talk about him. There is some real soul searching that has to be taken place. They do have donors who can see the tv, theyre not locked in a room only watching fox news. They understand theres a real scandal that everyone else can see. The donors are not one on one with the way i like to see the republicans are. Theyve got to find spine. The two men who lead the house and are pure politicians. They want one thing, tax cuts for the wealthy, any way that can get it. Theyre not fixated on this. He hasnt done anything about it. Lindsey graham said he was outrageous. He tried to divert him into questions about weeks. They participate in attempting to change the subject to hiks emails, whatever he wants them to do. Theyre divided even the ones who get credit for the media for being courageous, theyre so deeply divided on the heart steaks there. Youre seeing intense pressure for independent counsel. I think the second area of question is going to be on mr. Rosenstein. Hes testifying thursday. He doesnt want to do it. How do you not. No one mentioned that we know the names of at this point seems qualified to be of this investigation. The life changed today on the question of special prosecutor. Its hard to imagine. He is a part of it now. He was a member of the sort of ka gal, even if he was misused. Well have to take a break there. David, thank you very much for joining us. Always appreciate your giving us that perspective, what theyre thinking and not thinking. Thank you very much on this very important night with this terrible, this is terrible news for the United States for the presidency of the United States and on a night like that. We need a little joy in the room. Thank you. Any time. Appreciate that. Coming up, the other emergency at the white house, the trump caused by releasing classified information to the russians. Its all of a piece and former acting cia director john will put all of the pieces together. Hey katy, let me show you how behind schedule we are. Yeah. Are those the pyrotechnics that are gonna startle me from a distance . Yep. And my impractical wardrobe changes, those all set . 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[man] beautiful just like you. [woman] oh, why thank you. [burke] and we covered it, november sixth, twothousandnine. Talk to farmers. We know a thing or two because weve seen a thing or two. We are farmers. Bumpadum, bumbumbumbum as i reminded rachel at the beginning of this hour, one week ago tonight, we were reacting to the news that donald trump had just fired fbi director james comey. Breaking news. Jim comey is out at the fbi. This is a cover up. Is this a cover up . Of what . Of what . Does the comey firing cast a shadow over your talks, gentlemen . Youre kidding. There is one news agency allowed in the trump lavrov meeting and it belonged to Vladimir Putin . You cant make this stuff up. Regardless of recommendation, i was going to fire comey. They keep changing their story. I gave you the best information i had at the moment. We had a very nice dinner. Did you ask him to drop the investigation . No, never. Did President Trump record his conversations with former fbi director comey . I assume youre referring to the tweet. James comey better hope there are no tapes of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press. The president has nothing further to add on that. The president on multiple occasions demanded that comey pledge his loyalty to him. Comey declined to do so. I read that article. I dont think its inappropriate. Did you answer that question . No, no, i didnt. But i dont think it would be a bad question to ask. President trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian Foreign minister and the Russian Ambassador last week during a meeting at the white house. The story that came out tonight as reported is false. I think we could do with a little less drama from the white house. Most senators are shaking their heads saying, is this going to end soon . We are only on day 117 of the trump presidency, and now tonight we do not know how many more days there will be in the trump presidency. The fouryear calendar of the presidency is now in serious jeopardy. This is what Senate Minority leader Chuck Schumer said today. In a week full of revelation after revelation, on a day when we thought things couldnt get any worse, they have. The country is being tested in unprecedented ways. I say to all of my colleagues in the senate, history is watching. Joining us now, john mclauchlin, former acting director of the cia. Hes an msnbc National Security analyst now. And, john, i want to ask you about i want to go to the nixon model of this moment where they were trying to get the fbi, acting fbi director patrick gray to back off an investigation, stop an investigation. And their clever thought, john deans clever thought was, have the cia do it because every once in a while the cia is working on something and the fbi gets in the way and they have to alert the fbi. Were working on that, could you please let us do that . Why wouldnt the trump administration, if they were trying to do this with james comey instead of closing the door and having the president do it one on one, why not go through that today, try to go through that nixon route through the cia to have the cia say to the fbi, please back off this . Well, lawrence, i think the answer is very simple. The cia wouldnt do it. It didnt do it then, and it wouldnt do it now. It would be a flat no. And i want to get your overall reaction to the developments of this day, what it means for the fbi going forward, and what you expect to hear from james comey as this memo becomes the center of this story. Well, knowing the fbi as i do, im quite certain that this series of developments only makes them all the more determined to get to the bottom of this. Thats the culture there. Thats the way they operate. And i think thats where theyd come out. And im pretty sure at some point jim comey will be sitting in front of a senate or House Investigating Committee and he will tell his side of the story, and hes got, im certain knowing jim comey, paper to back it up. In your own practices in government, was it something that you would do from time to time after certain conversations yes. Write it up and say i just want to preserve how this conversation went . Yes. Every time that i or people with me met with the National Security advisor, we would write up, as you said at the beginning of the show, a mem con, write it up, it is important to do with anything that is controversial. Its quite common. Is that a matter of i want to protect myself from what might become of this conversation, or is that just a matter of i want to have a good record here . I want to be able i dont want to rely on human memory . Its a little bit of each. Id say the bulk of your motive comes from the fact that you want to preserve it for a lot of reasons. Everything ranging from history to checking your own memory later. And also at times when youre making controversial decisions that may in the future become public controversies, you want to know exactly what you said and to whom you said it and you want to know what their reaction was because a lot of people get amnesia when things get rough. So, you want to have a record. The original reason we had you booked on the show before this memo story exploded was to talk about the president personally releasing classified information to the russians. Yeah. And can you even conceive of how that would have happened . No. No. So much of what weve seen this week is hard to conceive of. In fact, i was thinking about it while waiting to go on and asking myself, beyond the ticktock that we talk about what is it im left with at the end of these eight days or so. And i think of three or four points i would not make about any of the seven president s that i served. Remarkably first, this president seems to have be unable to not stop selfdestructive behavior. So much of what hes done has been nonforced errors. Second, he doesnt seem to learn much from what goes on. Third, he really hasnt built moral authority to go with his legal authority. And i dont think id say that about anyone else. That is going to be the last word for tonight, and it is the perfect last word for tonight. Former acting cia director john mclauchlin, thank you very much for joining us tonight. I really appreciate it. Thank you, lawrence. The 11th hour with Brian Williams starts now. The 11th hour with Brian Williams starts now. Tonight the explosive the New York Times story that the president asked the fbi director to bring the flynnrussia investigation to an end. The times says its from comeys own notes, the reporter who broke the news is here tonight. With some claiming trump obstructed justice, tonight senator john mccain says trumps issues have reached, quote, watergate size and scale. Weve got members of house and Senate Intelligence committees, a watergate prosecutor and our experts and the journalists covering this story as the 11th hour gets underway. Well, good evening once again from our headquarters here in new york. Day 117 of the trump administration, and tonight to get straight to the point of a giant new delo