trump asked. what s the significance of the fact that trump appears to have been according, according to the times directly involved here. john, this has always been the challenge, right, with looking at an investigation that would go all the way to the top of this particular scheme to overturn the election is how do you get evidence that president trump knew what he was doing, what everyone was looking at doing was illegal and he actually directed. it so here you now have the evidence as they gather evidence from people who were in the room during these discussions. you finally learn what the former president himself knew. so, it s crucial. if doj is ultimately to charge criminally former president trump, they need that state of mind evidence. they need his involvement. they need his direction. they need him to have known what he was asking for was illegal and to have ordered it. that s the evidence that s seemingly starting to come out. the significance of the fact that it was n
it didn t materialize, but it s the willingness to accept it many. i am joined by howard fineman who writes for nbc news and is a friend of the beat. things are changing, heads are swirling. anything else you want to add. let s start with the fact that rob goldstone made an important point. the people receiving the offer and participating and reacting to an offer to conspire. that conspiracy doesn t ever have to happen. and in a way it doesn t have to
that didn t materialize, but yes. it s the willingness to accept it. i m joined by howard fineman who writes for nbc news and is a friend of the beat. things are changing, heads are swirling. put this money part of the investigation in context for us and given anything else you want to add to the rosenstein reporting. okay, let s start with the fact that legal expert goldstone just made a very important point, which is in order for there to be a conspiracy, a criminal conspiracy, the people receiving the offer and participating in positively reacting to offer to conspire, that conspiracy doesn t have to ever happen. and in a way, it doesn t have to
i have to ask you about launching these new probes about the obama administration issues and clinton issues, getting reporting from donald trump. why now? i think it is an insult to the american public. think of it as one of two things. assuming the american public would be distracted by a shiny object, or pay no the legal defense of, oh, yeah, what about you? at a time we re investigating the most important investigation, i think in congressional history. so it didn t begin just recently with the masking and unmasking and the uranium investigation. it began at the very beginning when chairman nunez went to the white house at midnight hflt a press conference the next day. then briefed the president. the president of the united states discouraging mr. comey from the investigation of mr.
that supports adding a new person to that list. you can bet bob mueller is taking notice. and that s not all. the other part of trump s mitigation defense he is that whatever his rookie staff did, he didn t know about it. trump has some experienced defense lawyers and they are ready to flip. senator howard baker s famous question on its head. what did the president know and when did he know it? if donald trump didn t know, or didn t know until later, they can argue he didn t know about any solicitation of this foreign help pirgts looks like some of which occurred. and his own solicitation would remain in the sarcasm vault. that may sound dodgy but it could be a decent legal defense. conspiracy doesn t require that your plot was successful but it does require you knew about it and you plotted it. and that s why the news tonight that another trump adviser might land on this list is so significant. the new report making waves.