hi everyone, it s 4:00 in new york as we come on the air, we are following breaking news. at this hour, one of the disgraced twice impeached ex-president s closest advisers, allen weisselberg is on route to the notorious rikers island. if he hasn t arrived already. he s been sentenced to five months behind bars for executing a tax scheme. he had been facing up to 15 years in prison but struck a deal with prosecutors pleading guilty to 15 felony counts including tax fraud, conspiracy and grand larceny, and agreeing to testify against the trump org, though notably not against the big boss, donald hymn or any of his family. weisselberg who is 75 years old has been with the trump org for 50 years. technically he was the chief financial officer, but cfo doesn t capture how central he is to the trump org and the shady transactions or how complicit he was in the dirty dealings of the ex-president. nobody knows that better than michael cohen who had and has and has shared the receipt
times where he was going after his own political appointees. his favorite target was rod rosensteen. his chief deputy spent a lot of time on capitol hill dealing with this exact makeup of house republicans trying to keep jim jordan from voting to impeach rosensteen. this is partisan, of course, because of the fact the administration is in the hands of a democratic president but this is also in aversion to the rule of law. what does that say to you? yeah, it s an aversion to truth and wray was appointed to donald trump anytime anyone crosses party lines and does something as a government official that might suggest a republican is engaged in wrong doing, then trump screams
that firing a special counsel would and he can really do it for any reason he wants. you can do it very quickly. samantha, how much weight do you give the president s attorney s statement, given just this week, the president himself was calling the fbi sad and disgraceful and poking holes. i m looking at this from the national security perspective that there s a really worrisome trend emerging. the director of national intelligence has assessed that putin order eed an influence campaign against the united states to undermine faith in our democratic institutions. all these different breads we re talking about, we re starting to do the russian s job for them. the president and his lawyers by saying we need to investigate the investigators. by calling our own institutions sick and rigged or by having to asha s point, a pretty partisan hear iing this week with rod rosensteen where republican lawmakers questioned the
what he s going to do here. if he s ordered to fire mueller and if he doesn t quit before he carries out that order, you re going have tease cases and investigations and it will be up to him to decide whether wr they go. or to new york to southern district or eastern district of new york, whether they get sent to the criminal decision of the department of justice but they re not going to go away just because bob mueller s not at the helm. when you said persuaded. knowing rosensteen like we do, having served as a u.s. attorney, rod is someone who is unquestionably has the character, the independence to serve. he served in two different administrations and so again i m not sure i am sure that he cannot be persuaded. i think he would step down before being persuaded to direct an investigation one way or another. on that point were you at all
reckoning to go along with that for the person who makes the firing decision. what do you mean by that to? i think for had were a lot of outrage if he was fired on a whim. rosensteen has said he s the one who hired him and he can fire him but he won t unless there s just cause. i think the investigation continues. it was going on in the eastern district of virginia. i think it would continue. the question is under whose jurisdingz? if it justice department hierarchy, rod rosensteen was persuaded that the whole investigation was bunk. he could end it, iffee wanted to, right? he could end the investigation. the deputy aturny general could end the investigation to end, i suppose. but i don t think that s not