investigation of the president. earlier this week the new york times broke the news that two days after jeff sessions recused himself president trump quote berated mr. sessions and told him he should reverse his decision, an unusual and potentially inappropriate request. mr. sessions refused. the confrontation is being investigated by the special prosecutor robert mueller, iii, as are the president s public and private attacks on mr. sessions and efforts to get him to resign. and tonight axios is reporting, quote, president trump pressured attorney general jeff sessions to reclaim control of the russia investigation on at least four separate occasions, three times in person and once over the phone, according to sources familiar with the conversations. jonathan swan s axios report said quote the sustained pressure made several officials uncomfortable because they viewed it as improper and worried it could be politically and legally problematic.
mr. sessions refused. the confrontation is being investigated by the special prosecutor robert mueller, iii, as are the president s public and private attacks on mr. sessions and efforts to get him to resign. and tonight axios is reporting, quote, president trump pressured attorney general jeff sessions to reclaim control of the russia investigation on at least four separate occasions, three times in person and once over the phone, according to sources familiar with the conversations. jonathan swan s axios report said quote the sustained pressure made several officials uncomfortable because they viewed it as improper and worried it could be politically and legally problematic. axios says trump s conversations with sessions about reversing his recusal occurred throughout last year and that trump told sessions he d be a hero to conservatives if he did the right thing and took back control over the russia investigation, according to two sources with knowledge of their conversations, trump
get investigation whether this was an illegal campaign contribution since the payment was made in the weeks before the 2016 election. common cause arguing that it may not have been an illegal contribution if it was donald trump s own money, but there may have been a reporting violation since they apparently reported it to no one. so that could be part of the litigation as well. let s talk about that. brian todd, thank you very much. i want to bring in vice president of policy and litigation for common cause, paul s. ryan. thank you so much for joining us on cnn. did donald trump s lawyer michael cohen break campaign finance laws by paying stormy daniels $130,000? it certainly looks like that happened. that there was a violation or multiple violations of the law. the law says that any money spent or paid by a candidate or agent of a candidate for the purpose of influencing an election is both a contribution from the candidate to their own campaign, that s an expenditure by the campa
deantonio, author of the truth about trump. so glad to have both of you on. thank you for coming on the program. michael, you first, tonight axios is reporting attorney general sessions at public urging of president trump has been pressuring the fbi director, christopher wray, to fire deputy director andrew mccabe, but wray threatened to resign if mccabe was removed. does this sound like a donald trump move to you? oh, it s 100% a donald trump move. you know, he doesn tforget when people upset him. he associates wray and others at the fbi with james comey. you know, these were the fellows that comey went back and shared the information about the meetings he had with the president. so there would be a contemporary record of what transpired. i think the reporting at axios sounds very accurate.
the president appointed chris ray because he is a man of true character and integrity and the right choice to clean up the misconduct at the highest levels of the fbi and give the rank and file confidence in their leadership. so there you see the statement, don, clearly the white house isn t denying this reporting that wray felt pressure, the fbi director felt pressure from the attorney general sessions. and was upset about it. the white house not denying that. it s up clear, parts of this unclear in terms of that he had he was the right choice to clean up the misconduct at the highest levels of the fbi. it seems as though they re talking about andy mccabe, the deputy fbi director who s expected to retire very soon. so i think that does tell you something there, don. yeah, it certainly does. is you can hear, pamela, pamela ran to a studio to get us to at the top show, we know you re out