on this case. and the thing with ty cobb in the white house, i don t think he sees himself as the president s lawyer. i think he sees himself more as a lawyer of the institution of the president danes and for the white house. and he sees his job more as facilitating a relationship with the office of the special counsel rather than being part of the president s defense team. matt apuzzo, you were agreeing with that. and i believe ty cobb does not represent the president personally, i actually think cobb and sekulow could probably get through this next stage where the president has to negotiate some sort of interview with mueller. the question is who is going to do the lawyering at the next stage, of whatever comes out of this investigation, whether some sort of referrals, something further where mueller wants to do more in terms of the president personally or other white house aides, who s going to litigate that? and that s where you need both a constitutional lawyer and criminal la
and that s where you need both a constitutional lawyer and criminal lawyer. that s why they ve been looking around for other lawyers. whatever comes next, they re going to need another lawyer. so matthew nussbaum, again to set the scene, the president in florida, we know not who he s going to see, talk to, say something on twitter, it could be explosive, it could be radio silence. he gets back to washington sunday night. how is the trump agenda supposed to get pushed forward on monday with the staff anxiety over potentially more departures? what can you speak about the inside mood in this place you cover every day? well, i think there s a lot of concern like you said about more staff turnover with these controversies at the cabinet level. people aren t really sure who s going to go next. there s really no legislative agenda to speak of. there are these confirmation fights that are going to be happening in the senate. but i think the main thing is seeing how trump now operates that
investigation. former spokesman for trump s legal team named mark corallo. it s a lot and we turn to our lead off panel on a friday night. new york times reporter and msnbc contributor. tamara keith white house. thor for npr. matthew nussbaum, white house reporter for politico. welcome and good evening to all three of you. it s a hell of a thing, i m tempted to say on holy week, the terrible swift sword of the federal government. when feds act, when you witness it, it is striking to watch. i can t imagine what it s like to be the guy surrounded at logan, your phone is taken. what it s like to be the folks in that concourse that watched this go down. but it s never uninteresting in the mueller investigation. yeah, that s right. and the power of the federal government is very much on display here.
sessions announced the appointment of utah u.s. attorney john huber to lead an internal investigation alongside d.o.j. inspector general and saying he will reconsider a second special counsel if their review warrants one down line, sometime in the future. bring in benjamin with ittis, msnbc legal analyst. and matthew nussbaum, white house reporter at politico. benjamin, let s start with this. the assignment of huber, which may be one of i guess several senior several senior staff at least in the d.o.j., what does that say to you in terms of where sessions might be thinking this could go? so, really, all this is is an elaboration of a point that he sessions made sometime earlier.
lawyer behaved, dealing with that in the context of the oig framework seems appropriate unless you have evidence of criminal conduct. usually we do not open a criminal investigation without what s called a predicate for a criminal investigation, which is some reasonable basis to think that a crime may have been committed. i am still honestly scratching my head here and saying of all these issues that people want a new special counsel to investigate, what on earth is the crime that is supposed to have taken place? and so i start with the question that is there even a predicate for a proper investigation here? quickly, 15 second to you here matthew. charles grassley, robert goodlet ads well as gowdy, those are the republican leaders that sessions addressed his letter to. why those three? because of their role overseeing the judiciary and the