to find hillary clinton s e-mails. his siding with russian president vladimir putin over u.s. intelligence agencies. trump allegedly having advanced knowledge of wikileaks release of the dnc and clinton e-mails before the election and allegedly knowing michael flynn would lie to the fbi to cut a side deal to end sanctions on russia. the potential cases around obstruction of justice. trump s firing of fbi director jim comey, his suggestion that according to comey, that then fbi director drop the probe into michael flynn. trump reportedly ordering the white house counsel to fire robert mueller and allegedly wanting michael cohen to lie to congress. the next alleged crime, abuse of power. the handling of security clearances for trump s son-in-law jared kushner and his daughter ivanka, attacks on the justice department and federal judges and potentially dangling pardons in front of witnesses
here in new york. day 761 of the trump administration and the new york times, as we mentioned, is out with an incredibly detailed account of the president s two-year effort to derail and discredit the investigations now encircling him and some of his associates. the reporting is the work of four journalists, including michael schmidt, who joins us in just a moment. the trump presidency is under criminal investigation, and trump s public battles against the inquiries have become a signature of his administration thus far. a number of actions, including the firing of james comey, reportedly ordering the white house counsel to fire robert mueller and ordering jeff sessions to end the mueller effort have raised questions about obstruction. however, this new times report, quote, reveals the extent of an even more sustained, more secret assault of mr. trump on the machinery of federal law enforcement. perhaps the biggest revelation
of efforts the president has done, his attempts to control the investigation, have not stopped, they haven t abated. he has continued to try in different ways to gain control of it. he doesn t seem to have learned a lot of lessons along the way. he discusses the idea of unrecusal, sort of a made-up legal concept, with his acting attorney general. same concept he was talking about in march of 2017, just two years into office, after jeff sessions, his attorney general at the time, recused himself in the russia investigation. sessions never went back to take over the investigation, but it did create a problem for him with mueller. and mueller looked at this issue. and here we are looking at the same thing again. the other thing that runs through all this is loyalty. the president s obsession with the person overseeing the investigation being loyal to
discredit the investigations now encircling him and some of his associates. the reporting is the work of four journalists, including michael schmidt, who joins us in just a moment. the trump presidency is under criminal investigation, and trump s public battles against the inquiries have become a signature of his administration thus far. a number of actions, including the firing of james comey, reportedly ordering the white house counsel to fire robert mueller and calling on former attorney general jeff sessions to end the mueller effort have raised questions about obstruction. however, this new times report, quote, reveals the extent of an even more sustained, more secretive assault of mr. trump on the machinery of federal law enforcement. perhaps the biggest revelation in this piece is that trump may have tried to interfere with the investigation involving his former lawyer, michael cohen, about hush money payments, you ll recall, made during the 2016 campaign. that investigation i
encircling him and some of his associates. the reporting is the work of four journalists, including michael schmidt, who joins us in just a moment. the trump presidency is under criminal investigation, and trump s public battles against the inquiries have become a signature of his administration thus far. a number of actions, including the firing of james comey, reportedly ordering the white house counsel to fire robert mueller and ordering jeff sessions to end the mueller effort have raised questions about obstruction. however, this new times report, quote, reveals the