Dramafree weekend. No such luck. This morning, a Major Development in the controversy over President Trumps firing of james comey. A memo from former fbi director claims the president asked him to drop an investigation into Michael Flynn the day after flynn was fired. The big question this morning, is this obstruction of justice among other things . The chaos continues. This feels like a defining moment. With us we have New York Times reporter who broke this comey memo story, Michael Schmidt, senior political analyst for nbc news and msnbc, mark halperin. Veteran columnist and msnbc contributor Mike Barnicle and former democratic congressman harold ford, junior. Also, joe ahead with new reporting on all of this. First lets lay it out for you. Less than a week after President Trump fired and then warned fbi director james comey about tapes of their conversations, there looks to be a paper trail inside the bureau of investigation. Multiple sources firsthand knowledge of all of this tell
National security adviser Michael Flynn. His words, according to director comey, i hope you can let this go. This was the day after comey himself had that flynn himself had resigned. Now, again, if true, this memo is a clear sign yet of president ial interference with the investigation into whether members of his Campaign Team colluded with russian officials. And the news comes a day after the revelation that the president revealed covert classified intelligence to russias ambassador and their foreign minister. We have a team of correspondents on this. Pamela brown, jake tapper, jim acosta at the white house, jim sciutto, Phil Mattingly on the hill. Pam brown has new reporting. She starts us off. What are you hearing, pamela . Well, andon, according to sources speaking to myself and my colleague jake tapper james comey the former fbi director wanted to document a specific conversation he had with the president in february where he alleged that the president asked him to end the probe i
I want to join us now with pamela brown, pam, Justice Department, naming the former fbi director as the special counsel, what else can you tell us . Rod rosenstein, the deputy, saying he has chosen bob mueller, the former fbi director to take the reins of the special probe. So essentially the department of justice is now out of the equation, and bob mueller will run the investigation, and have the same jurisdiction as the grand jury. He can interview the president , anything he deems necessary in this investigation. And what is so interesting here, don, Rod Rosenstein and his team did not give much advance warning to the white house or the attorney general, Jeff Sessions who as you know recused himself from the russia probe. In fact the white house found out just an hour before Rod Rosenstein wanted to do this by the book, clearly. So he says my decision is not a finding that crimes have been committed or any prosecution is warranted. I have made no such determination, what i determine
The white house saying the president has never asked mr. Comey or anyone else to end an investigation, including any investigation involving general flynn. This is perhaps the most explosive revelation yet in President Trumps short tenure. Jake tapper, what are you learning about what happened in that room on february 14th between the president and jim comey . Pamela brown and i each have spoken to sources that confirmed the existence of this memo. The source i spoke with has a copy of the memo. Hes a source close to comey. He tells me that on february 14, director comey, then still the fbi director was in the oval office with President Trump, Vice President pence and the attorney general Jeff Sessions talking about an issue of National Security or the law. After that meeting was over, the president asked the Vice President and the attorney general to leave the room and then according to this memo, comey said, as you read, that the president said to him, i hope you can see your way cle
Comey to shut down the fbis investigation into the National Security adviser mike flynn. Mike flynn had resigned the day before that meeting because of his undisclosed contacts with russian officials. Now two people who say they have read comeys memo say the memo quotes the president directly from that conversation saying about the Flynn Investigation, quote, i hope you can let this go. So there is a lot to this story. The white house is denying this conversation took place. James comey would probably be a pretty good witness if it came down to a he said he said disagreement about whether or not this conversation happened. Particularly if he contemporaneously documented the contents of that conversation when it happened and he can prove it. But its possible the white house could also prove it in terms of their side of the story. If they are not erasing that proof right now. The president has previously indicated that conversations that take place in the Trump White House might possibly