let s get right to it. at this hour, adding to the horrific humanitarian crisis in ukraine, filthy water putting people at risk. plus, in just under 60 minutes, john durham set to testify in front of the house intelligence committee. expect a lot of questions about his scathing report on the fbi and doj s handling of the trump russia probe. the judge sets a date for former president s trial in his classified documents case. and the breaking news that charges filed against the president s son, hunter biden, mean he ll plead guilty to federal tax charges as part of a plea deal with prosecutors. our nbc news reporters are following all of the latest developments. we begin with that plea deal for hunter biden. ken dilanian joins us now. my understanding, ken, is the judge still needs to approve this so what happens next and what more can you tell us about the terms of this deal? that s right. we expect hunter biden to appear in the coming days at this courthouse behind me
biased investigation. how do you prevent that for for instance, fisa wiretap applications. that s according to the house intel chairman. we re pulling him in to our committee to say, okay, now that we ve seen there were abuses, this was wrong and there are problems with fisa itself, what are the recommendations that you think we should pursue? here are some things we re looking at. what do you think of these? and that s the legislative angle here in congress. tomorrow before the judiciary committee, i would expect political firework. that panel is led by jim jordan, a staunch trump ally. one theme we can be watching for it is likely to be used as a venue for republicans to continue advancing many of their criticism against federal law enforcement. it will be shocking if there
the sloppiness in one of the most intrusive techniques used. reading someone s e-mails. again, if you re in middle america, move on to something else. if you re in the fbi, i m with director comey. ready to trash him, but not today. yeah, you got to look at this. this is significant internally within the fbi. josh, help us understand the work flow. why the head of the fbi would not have tight control on the ins and outs and the details of an investigation as big as one that could impact the presidency? no, it s a great question and phil knows this having served under robert mueller is that the fbi director every single morning walks into their office to a stack of fisa wiretap applications and the director has to sign each one certifying two things. first, that the purpose is to collect foreign intelligence and secondly, this is the least intrusive method possible and that director, you know, counts
his power. against that backdrop there s more interest in this notably at times obscure hearings. this is what we re dealing with. it is 400 pages, this thick. this is the report, supposed to guide the facts today. as a prosecutor watching the hearing, putting as much politics aside as you can, how much of what you saw in congress was following these facts versus just trying to layer right over them with other views? as a prosecutor, criminal prosecutor, i worked for all moefrt two decades with the fbi on many, many sfrp warrants and many, many wiretap applications. i think what gets lost in all of this, and i know frank will back me up on this, is when you are working on an investigation like this, and you re beginning the initial investigative steps, you don t know if you re looking at pretty much the whole picture or
friendly to saying this is government misconduct if true. he says he is not fully aware of the details of this. he said he was about to call president trump to discuss the nbc news story. to figure out what s going on. he said that this could lead to a real evisceration, in his words, of attorney/client privilege, if an attorney was being wiretapped. so an angry reaction, defiant reaction from the former new york mayor. can i respond to that? yes, please. i find that incredibly ironic. i mean, this is rudy giuliani who served as the u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york for years during which i would dare to say there were thousands of wiretap applications made, thousands of wiretaps conducted, evidence procured, individuals charged, individuals conducted and sent to federal penitentiaries across the nation in response to evidence that mr. giuliani himself used by way of wiretap