himself. it is quite obvious that the president is an incidenocent ma. and look at the time, vivian, here we are 11:15 eastern time, you re holding up your phone, i m going to read it off a piece of paper from donald j. trump. james comey illegally leaked classified documents to the press in order to generate a special council, misspelled. therefore, the special council misspelled was established based on an illegal act? really, does everybody know what that means? vivian, you get to explain. brian, we see the pattern here. and the sound bite you just played really shows the defense that the white house and president trump s lawyers are going to take in terms of basically james comey did something illegal in their mind. and so as a result of it, the special counsel is relying on illegally leaked documents and information. and so it is legitimate.
the election. ami as a corporation has different rules, but it would be further evidence that that was the purpose for the stormy daniels payment. and michael cohen could be on the hook for campaign finance violations, if that s the case. so there s also cooperation and there s cooperation. and apparently the latter case is turning over documents and materials. vivian, last night, the view was, who among the republicans in the house, perhaps, thought the comey memos were going to be exculpatory for the president, because at first blush, they did not read like that. i want to play for you what joe dee engi digenova said about the comey memos. we ll talk about it on the other side. i don t think that there s any doubt that these 15 pages of james comey s notes constitute a suicide note. he has deceived congress as a result of the substance in this memoranda. he has deceived the american people. and i must say, he has deluded
different than anyone else. so, either mueller or the southern district. they re going to finish their investigation and rudy giuliani may be able to negotiate some agreement, as to an interview or something, but he s not going to be able to make the investigation evaporate. fair enough. and thank you for the honest answer. hey, vivian, how does this look, this sessions matter specifically, politically, within the trump white house? reporter: well, obviously, sessions has been under fire since day one and, so he has recused himself from the russia investigation. this is something that has gotten really under the skin of the president. he has repeatedly expressed his frustration. you just showed one of many clips where he did that. but, obviously, when jeff sessions pushes back on these issues and if there s an incident where he says this compromises my integrity as an attorney, as a prosecutor, as the attorney general and i might
ego. james comey has a lot of editorializing within these memos. at no point within them, and frankly in his testimony last year, before congress, both in march and in june after he was fired, does he allege that the president asked him to do anything inappropriate. when you look at james comey, he has a real credibility problem. and the democratic national committee has launched a surprise legal attack on the president, filing a multi-million-dollar lawsuit in federal court, alleging it, the dnc, was the victim of a conspiracy by the trump campaign, russian officials, and wikileaks to disrupt hillary clinton s campaign in favor of donald trump. it s a lot to talk about. we have the people for it. let s bring in our leadoff panel for a friday night. matt apuzzo, new york times reporter, msnbc contributor, and a man who was just awarded his second pulitzer prize. vivian slamama, nbc news political reporter covering the white house, and daniel goldman, former assistant u.s. attorne