collusion. reporter: the president is bashing the comments as his team blocks white house attorney don mcgahn from testifying before congress. now it s turning to his then chief of staff annie donaldson tallie. a staunchly conservative lawyer, donaldson s lawyer appears 67 times in the redacted mueller report. her notes of meetins between mcgahn and trump are at the center of the most embarrassing and controversial moments, including her speculation that trump s decision to fire james comey would destroy his presidency. is this the beginning of the end? her reference one day to being just in the middle of another russia fiasco. she recorded details about efforts to pressure attorney general jeff sessions over his recusal from the russia probe and about trump s interest in canning special counsel robert mueller. when the report emerged and the impact of donaldson s words were
about improperly authorizing the disclosure of sensitive information to the media. mcca mccabe insisted comey knew. it does not indicate prosecutors have reached any conclusions so far. in a statement to the post the attorney said he was confident the u.s. attorneys office would ultimately conclude his client had done nothing wrong. new details emerging about president trump s efforts to pressure attorney general jeff sessions over his recusal from the russia investigation. according to axios, that s last year, according to sources familiar with the conversations. those conversations allegedly happened three times in person. and one attempt happened over the phone. new york times reported earlier this week one such attempt by trump during a dinner with sessions in march of 2017. according to the axios report,
we are back with more now on that new reporting that reveals the president tried repeatedly to pressure attorney general jeff sessions to get himself back on the russia investigation. new york times, you ll recall, first to report the special counsel is investigating a conversation from march of last year in which trump asked sessions essentially to unrecuse himself. but today jonathan swan of axios, who joins us in just a moment, reports there were three additional instances that we know about. according to his report, quote, a source with knowledge of the conversation said they occurred throughout last year until fairly late in the year and not just in the short period after sessions recused himself last march. and that quote, the sustained pressure made several officials uncomfortable because they viewed it as improper and worry that it could be politically and legally problematic. trump has repeatedly raked the head of the justice department publicly over the coals for his recusa
jeff sessions who has frequently been the subject of the president s furry. but the white house says there is no message being sent to sessions. officials here say the white house stands firmly behind him. jim acosta, cnn, the white house. let s get some perspective now from leslie who teaches international relations at sos university of london. good to have you with us. thank you. the first thing i want to start with cnn s reporting, sources that tell us at least three top officials, trump s former press secretary, former chief of staff and white house counsel were all part of a campaign to pressure attorney general jeff sessions to maintain control of the russia investigation. if that directive came from president trump, is it obstruction of justice? and if so, what will it mean for donald trump? well, i think there s obviously a very serious concern and this is one that the lawyers
book makes claims about the president s intelligence. on twitter president twitter president trump laid out the qualifications. live from the white house. they had been saying that president trump and everyone around him believes that he is unfit for office. denying that same that saying that he is really smart and then reaffirming that today. he was never in the oval office. we didn t have an interview. i did a quick interview with him a long time ago having to do with an article i don t know this man. sloppy steve brought him into the white house quite a bit. that s why it sloppy steve is now looking for a job. referring to steve being in. they commented on reporting that he directed white house officials to pressure attorney general jeff sessions against recusing himself from the russian investigation.