evening, remembering the firing of comey gave us mueller, what stands out to you reading it as you do as a former fed? one aspect of this and john touched on it a little bit that really jumps out at you is the reaction that the president and his team apparently had to this news that they re briefed on by comey and by the dni jim clapper. you know, they re hearing for the first time that the election was influenced by russia, that russia tried to make cyber inroads into our country and essentially attacked us. what you would expect to see is surprise, horror, questions about what they could do to strengthen the united states and protect it from ever happening again. and we don t see, at least in what we ve heard so far about the book, any indication that there was, for one thing, surprise. if i m bob mueller, i m very interested in that testimony, whether or not there was surprise when they were first
group you ve put together and why. i may have over reacted to that photo. i think my wife thought i did. but they all got there and were flashing the thumbs up to president trump on the day that president trump had attacked mueller, attacked rosenstein, done all kinds of other things that i think republicans would be well-advised to distance themselves from. did a tv ad on fox and friends so the president could see it. defending robert mueller, urging republicans to step up to the defense of mueller. there s. a good response on the hill. seeming open to legislation. we got a big response from people around the country. i think it s very important the republicans do this. democrats can defend the investigation. then they look like partisans. it s really up to republicans to say let the investigation go forward. let the rule of law prevail. i think it s important for the country, the future of the republican party. and i hope we can have a little
counsel robert mueller? i would. you would? i would like to. tonight the possibility of that conversation actually taking place is looking unlikely. nbc news is reporting both mueller s prosecutors and trump s legal team, quote, are now proceeding with strategies that presume a presidential interview will not take place and that mueller, quote, may be able to close the obstruction probe more quickly. we have been talking on this broadcast for weeks about that potential interview. our nbc news colleagues also report negotiations hit a roadblock after that fbi raid of the office, residence, and hotel room of trump s longtime confidant and personal lawyer, michael cohen. the investigation into cohen, who has not yet been charged with any crime, appears to be expanding. tonight the washington post is reporting trump s allies worry that federal investigators may have swooped in and seized conversations recorded by michael cohen and his
michael cohen. he s like the guy with the fingers in the dam waiting to see if something is going to go. now that evidence has been seized we re going to find out what the feds have in terms of the evidence that s been collected and in terms of what could actually be used against michael cohen to perhaps have him flip against bigger fish in the mueller investigation. the feds would like to pull his fingers out of the dam and those holes and let the dam go. what have they got on him legally? how did he break the law? what can they use to squeeze him to start squealing on trump. the answer would come from the affidavit that was served on the cohen office and the hotel and his home on monday. that would be stuff like bank fraud, wire fraud, campaign finance violations. and those would be set out with specificity in the affidavit and search warrant. we would know upon the return of the search want exactly what was taken, computers, documents, tax returns. these would give us huge clues
that would lead to impeachable offenses and we got permission to give that to the house judiciary committee which then reviewed it as it considered impeachment, voted articles of impeachment that led to the president resigning. so that is an alternative that cannot be taken away from the grand jury. they have that inherent power. it s a different kind of report than the legislation that creates the office of special prosecutor which is the confidential one. so it would be up to rosen tine as to what happens to it after it s given to him, but it wouldn t be if it s the grand jury s power. so even if mueller and rosenstein were fired, the grand jury doesn t go away and the grand jury has the power to issue that kind of a report setting out the facts. and i think it s very important for americans to get those facts. they need to know as do members of congress, what has the president done and is he guilty, is he fit to be president, and the only way to know that is