again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. day 670 of the trump administration. we lead our broadcast tonight with a stunner of a report in the new york times which says the president wanted to order the criminal prosecution of james comey and hillary clinton, according to two people familiar with the conversation. it broke while trump was on air force one on his way to his florida property for the thanksgiving holiday. times reporting is the work of michael schmitt and magle haberman. they write, president trump told the white house counsel in the spring that he wanted to order the justice department to prosecute his 2016 challenger, hillary clinton, and the former fbi director james comey. the lawyer, don mcgahn, rebuffed the president saying he had no authority to order a prosecution. mr. mcbegan said while he could request an investigation, that too could prompt accusations of abuse of power. to underscore his point, mr.
white house. that s what s gave the white house a lot of of what could be done. trump saw the political pressure and he saw others saying look, this is a narrow thing. he says to mcgahn, let the fbi do whatever they want about kavanaugh and mcbegan says legally we can t do that. we don t cannot let the fbi run free and dig through whatever it wants. they have to be directed. what we ll do is tell them on these particular issues we have asked them to look into accusations from three women, they interview whomever they want to. this piece kind of paints mcgahn as raining in everyone his boss, the president s desire to open this up. yes, the president. it is interesting. we have seen the president interact with so many different ways with the justice department. in this case, he wants to use the fbi as a way of giving him
concerned. not by what mcbegan kngahn know want to comment on what the president said. they say he followed the book and i think it is the president s book which involves a lot of lyinging. so it is not just mcgahn, but steve cohen michael cohen. yes. and manafort, all of these people. it is all a piece. do you think that the president is going to pardon paul manafort, his campaign chairman, who was krikconvicted eight counts? i think that the fact that the president continued to say very nice things about manafort, you d think that he was hopeful
well as mccan both respect the office of the president, that s who their client is. the only one that really has attorney-client privilege is dowed. so he is the one that apparently is asking for more be withheld as is mcbegan. tie cob. and mcgentleman is the one whose withholding. it s an interesting set of conflicts there given who they re client is. that s interesting john and jeff, this is right that tie cob represents the presidency. he works for the government. so president trump doesn t have the same kind of attorney-client privilege with him? that s right. one of the unresolved questions is what kind of attorney-client privilege government lawyers have with the president. it s clear dowed has a
pretty amazing story, senator. i want your reaction to the report of the new york times according to the times two of the lawyers were overheard at a d.c. restaurant talking about conflicting views within the president s legal team. cobb voiced frustration with the white house saying he was too conservative with russia probe and alleged mcbegan has ha couple of documents locked in a safe. are you concerned that the white house might be hiding information from the special council s investigation? well, wolf, it s my hope, it s my expectation that the white house will fully cooperate with special council robert mueller. i have no reason to believe that that s not the case. this was a titillating story, suggested that you have a pretty senior attorneys making the mistake of chatting loudly on a sidewalk cafe and we ll see whether it amounts to anything. i have been working across the aisle in a way that s designed