Current and former senior white house officials. It has now been confirmed by two other News Organizations and we have all of the breaking news for you but i want to get to maggie haverman and cnn as well. Thank you so much for joining us. This is bombshell breaking news. A huge scoop along with your colleague Michael Schmit talked about your reporting and what youre learning. We have four people who are familiar with what happened who told us that the president had ordered the firing of Robert Mueller to special counsel back in june of 2017 and don mcgann threatened to resign. The president ultimately backed off because of that. The president also planned to cite what he thought conflicts of interest. One was a dispute involving fees at the golf club that the president owns that mueller had belonged to at one point, which is creative and had never heard that one before. Second one was that he had been at the law firm which employed one of Jared Kushners lawyers and the third was that
It has not. Questions are being raised about who in the white house knew about the allegations, when did they know and whatdied they say to the public about them . Also, there are questions about how porter got access to classified material, despite being denied a security clearance. We begin our coverage with jeff zeleny from the white house. John kelly and porter worked very closely together. What do we know about how much the chief of star actual lly kn . Reporter rob porters job was to control what the president sees and what he doesnt see in the oval office. He was a way to instill john kellys west wing discipline. Were told that john kelly knew about this for months. Rob porter today said it was part of a coordinated smear campaign. He said that as the white house was trying to explain and contain the fallout. Few people stood closer to President Trump. From the white house colon nad to the oval office. Even a hand shake with the chinese president. The white house scrambled today
Intelligence committee about what is at stake for the president. At this hour President Trump meeting with democratic and republican lawmakers on a deal to protect dreamers. But hes demanding his 18 billion proposal for that wall. Weve got to protect these kids, and obviously theres going to be a Border Security element of that. There are some things that we can do, but the list that was sent over from the white house suggests that were going to do a comprehensive reform bill, and theres just no time for that. And fire and fury. The author of the book that has upended the white house. Michael wolff joins me right here on Andrea Mitchell reports. And good day, everyone. Thanks for being with us. Im Andrea Mitchell in washington where President Trump and top lawmakers from both parties are at this hour trying to negotiate an immigration deal. As democrats keep demanding protection for the dreamers, the president keeps insisting on 18 billion to build that wall. So how do they bridge that
Reince priebus and also don mcgahn been things they talked to mueller about. That strikes me as a bad idea. Im not a lawyer. What do you say . Its a terrible idea. And if i was the president s lawyer i would have firmly advised him to have no contact with any witnesses particularly about the topic of their conversations with mueller and his team. So the signals to us that the president likely is a very uncontrollable client. It doesnt really rise at least the reporting that weve seen about these limited conversations to any sort of new evidence of obstruction per se. It is still just not something you want to see your client doing when hes the subject of an investigation like this. And barbara, it raises the question we have reporting about tooing about if the president s making a habit of this. Yeah, and i think that one concern is number one what are they talking about . Is he gathering information so he can coordinate the testimony of other witnesses or himself and it also raises th
President trump talked about flynn at the time. Michael flynn, general flynn, is a wonderful man, hes been treated unfairly by the media. As i call it the fake media in many cases. I think it is a sad thing that he was treated so badly. I think it is very, very unfair whats happening to general flynn the way he was treated, very, very unfair. Clearly this was not a president who had just fired Michael Flynn. Michael flynn was allowed to resign. The president said so himself awkwardly standing next to Benjamin Netanyahu as today police announced that he could be indicted on charges. The president made that clear himself and it was made clear on one excruciating white houses press briefing right after flynns departure. Good afternoon. Happy valentines day, i can sense the love in the room. When the president heard the information presented by white houses council, he thought general flynn did not do anything wrong. Back in january, the president said that nobody in his campaign had been