Investigations into his political rival. His attorney general opened the door for dirt on political rivals from rudy guilliani, whose search in ukraine started this whole thing. He criticized the potential sentence and conviction by a jury and his long term friend and his department of justice reversed that decision, sparking the four career prosecutors in charge to either quit the case or resign. He publicly affirmed his attorney general put his thumb on the scale by congratulating him. The question now, who keeps the u. S. President potentially unbound and in check. In a matter of 24 hours, the already embattled integrity of the Justice Department has taken a huge hit and prompted justice officials to resign after its stunning reversal in the roger stone case and praises attorney general bill barr and the judge presiding over the case and with drew the nomination op former attorney general jessie liu over how her office handle cases over the mueller probe. We have kaitlyn colin. Yesterday, he denied getting involved in the case but praising bill barr. What can you tell us . Reporter not only praising him, hes congratulating him for reducing the sentencing for roger stone after the Justice Department said there was no coordination with the white house over four federal prosecutors working on the case recommended that sentence of 79 years. The white house is also insisting President Trump didnt have direct conversations with the attorney general, bill barr, saying he has the right to do so if he wanted to. That leads you back to the president s tweets, making pretty clear how he felt about that 79 year recommendation for roger stone onmo monday night, coming shortly before the tweets from the president and then going in and overruling them and reducing this sentence. President s typically avoid getting involved in this, a politically sensitive case and three decade involvement with roger stone, someone the president is incredibly close with. Now, roger stone is set to be sentenced next week and you have seen the president attacking the very knowledge on twitter against the judge who will sentence roger stone and questions whether the president will ultimately followthrough offering him a pardon. Thank you so much for that report. The gravity of this cant be understated, the four prosecutors quit the case after their recommendations were sum mary sidelined. Sara is with us. What more can you tell us about these men . I think youre right. No understating these with roger stone set to appear next week. And one of the key prosecutors on the stone case, questioned witnesses at the trial, he was the first one to tell the judge he was quitting the case and also quitting his role with the dc u. S. Attorneys office. He remains in a position with the boston Attorneys Office but did not quit completely. One who did is jonathan kravis. He with drew from the case and resigned from the dc u. S. Attorneys office. Another guy is adam jed, on the mueller team, involved in the roger stone case and Paul Manafort case and no longer involved in the roger stone case and notified the judge he wanted to withdraw but also did not resign from doj. The last one on this case is mike marando, asked to withdraw from the case and remains an assistant u. S. Attorney for the district of columbia. Mike marando gave an impassioned argument at roger stones trial saying the truth still matters. Lets discuss the political implications between the executive and government and whether there is a divide between the two at this point if any at all. Im joined by chief political analyst, Gloria Borger and harry. Harry, this move that shows doj is backing convicted criminal, right, whose crimes were on the president s behalf, really done for the benefit of the president in part, do you see this as an abuse of power . Is this to you something that makes you say this is or might be corrupt . I wouldnt quite put it this is or might be. Its cataclysmic, brianna. You have prosecutors from every stripe and every era in articles all over twitter saying this is a four alarm fire and worse. Its not simply, though, its a big part that they completely bulldozed the career prosecutors after they made a recommendation, which is never, i mean never done. No ones ever heard of it, but so plainly as part of this president s reign of terror pos and reward friends. Stone comes first and foremost. It is stunning, and the former department of justice alums are reeling today and seeing the departments reputation as on life support. What do you think, gloria . I agree. Im not an attorney or former member of the department of justice. What i see is a president who believes the department of justice is the law firm of donald j. Trump. That is the way the attorney general behaves. Remember, during the campaign and early on in the president s tenure, he kept saying, where is my roy cohen . I need a lawyer like roy cohen, who was his infamous friend and attorney in new york, who would do anything for him and of course had few scruples. The question has been answered. His roy cohen seems to be the current attorney general, bill barr. Can i add . He has more than roy cohen. He has John Mitchell now, someone there to do his political bidding without even being asked, who knows what intuitively has taken it on. This is even beyond roy cohen. Thats one of the questions i want to get your perspective on. You have a spokesperson saying trumps decision came after the decision to downgrade this sentencing. My question, is that even worse knowing it wasnt even pressure from the president , almost like an internalization what perhaps the president s desires may be if you believe politics or the president s wishes played a part in this, they really seemed to do. Its a great point. Even if its true in some ways, just as you say, what that means is the leadership took it upon itself to what . Theres no two ways around it, to absolutely further his Political Initiative to basically help his friends and harm his enemies. We are talking antithetical to what the department of justice is supposed to be. Lets look, gloria, to what republican senators are saying about this. In light of the president s actions, do you think theres any lessons he learned from being impeached . I dont know what actions youre referring to. I have made very clear i dont think anyone should be retaliated against. I dont think it had anything to do with this. I havent seen any proof it has. Firstoff, i dont know. I dont know exactly what happened. I believe there ought to be equal treatment under the law. Im sure i will get more information on it. So tepid response, at best there, right . Not even like a very poor lukewarm. I wonder just how ap pa pledapl they would be if this was a case involving an omb confidante who resigned in mass under these circumstances. On a scale of 110, it would be 25, of course. We know the answer to this question. Everyday, were watching republicans twist themselves into pretzels. They really have no answers for these questions mono is asking them every single day. You mean, they appear to be running away every single day . Questions manu is asking. They are all in and no way out for them. They need the president. The president is popular in the Republican Party, he will help them get reelected. Theyre all in no matter what. The president is watching. If any one of them said, thats bad, thats wrong, we need to hold hearings on it and investigate it, what do you think the president would be doing. Harry, i wonder if you think in the end, all this is mute and trump will end up pardoning stone anyway. Its an interesting point. At the least, if the sentence is reduced, it will make a pardon easier. And if it is, it will make it easier for judge jackson. She is smart and my guess is she returns to the guidelines sentence and leeches it leaves it to him to do his own pardoning under the constitutional clause. You say she will return to the guideline sentence and rely on 79 years initially recommended . Best guess, a, shell be suspicious of the process, but, b, that is literally by the book. There was nothing excessive about that sentence, exactly what was called for, especially since stone went to trial and tried to make a mockery of the whole proceedings. You cant tell with a judge but its my best guess. Trump, probably december, can do the same thing. Nevertheless, they have taken a large swipe on his behalf for really political reasons. I cant see any other explanation. You think that President Trump will pardon roger stone . Eventually, eventually. Why wait . It seems to me hes kind of drawing a path to that. He might wait because of the election, i would think. Youre saying after . Yeah. I think its pretty clear, roger stone and others. And others. Stay tuned. Gloria, thank you so much. Harry litman, thank you. And the president suggesting the purple heart recipient should be punished by the military. See how many delegates are at stake in the next two contests. What the potential turnout means for democrats chances against President Trump. Until i almost lost my life. My doctors again ordered me to take aspirin, and i do. Be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. Listen to the doctor. Take it seriously. Whatcha doin over there . Uh, im building a website ok, then bye bye now a new kind of investor with an app thats changing the way we do money. Download robinhood now. A book that youre ready to share with the world . Get published now, call for your free publisher kit today we called it, senator Bernie Sanders in the lead and p. B. Behind him following last nights primary in New Hampshire. We are just two contests in, people and there is still 49 to go and meaning there is a lot of room to change. While sanders and buttigieg are hoping to see more of the same, others like joe biden and Elizabeth Warren are praying for a dramatic shift and may get it with more diverse states. Iowa and New Hampshire are 90 white. It looks long. If youre a campaign out there, this is what youre looking at. You have two races out of the way, relatively small. Everyone looks at them. This is just the start. Nevada coming up, South Carolina coming up, joe biden looking for a big surge in South Carolina to bring in some of the vote and maybe do better here. This is the month that really matters. When you hit march and super tuesday comes roaring in here and another super tuesday and more states cluttering in there, by the end of march you will be talking about having about half the field of delegates settled and will make a huge difference who is really in front. Think how many you need to win here. Think of all the delegates, were barely starting well. Buttigieg doing well, sanders and warren not as good as he would like and klobuchar and biden not as good as he would have liked. You look at the next two contests, theyre hoping with these numbers to work out, maybe they can shift the perception who is moving ahead. Thats really all this is about, not the total count, the sense, do you have momentum and might you be able to win as you push into march when Mike Bloomberg comes into play and see if he has any traction. That is why you see people like bennett and yang and patrick dropping out. They dont really have that mojo going for them. Thats not whats going to happen, gretchen. Thats what happened with those campaigns and they have to say, we are stepping aside because big numbers are out there waiting to be collected. You have to have the mojo and you are the mojo expert, tom foreman. Senator Sanders Campaign chair, nina turner, congratulations, this was a big day. Thank you, brianna. Lets look at the numbers. Everyone is dissecting them because this is really senator sanders second time he has gone through this in New Hampshire. In 2016, he won by 22 . He had more than 150,000 total votes. This time around, he won by just over 1 in 73,000 total votes. I know obviously the field is much larger here. Even controlling for that, it appears he may have lost a little support. What do you think about that . We won. You hit the nail on the head, took the words out of my mouth. There are more people running this time. He won. Two for two. We won the popular vote in the great state of iowa and popular vote in the great state of New Hampshire. The senator won the largest share of people of color in both of those states. I know folks want to disregard the black and brown and other ethnic minorities living in New Hampshire and state of iowa, it is primarily white and there are sisters and brothers of color in those states and they selected their candidate overwhelmingly, Bernie Sanders and the same canby said about millennial and generation z as well. I want to ask you this. Yes, there were more candidates. It is a more crowded field than last time. Even if you were to take Elizabeth Warrens votes and say she wasnt in the race and tack them onto Bernie Sanders, he would still fall tens of thousands of votes short of what he had in 2016, even though turnout was actually higher this time. Are you not worried about that . Is there a lesson to be learned for that about how maybe he needs to hone his message as a candidate more familiar to voters . Absolutely not. The lesson to be learned is he won. Adding up the votes of senator sanders and warren and the moderate candidates in this race is not the way to look at the race. We won fair and square, just flat out. The message our campaign has, that senator sanders is running to change the material conditions of poor and middle class in this country is resonating. Everything about this democratic contest is swirling in the arena of senator Bernie Sanders. The entire democratic debate processen mated by medicare for all, Green New Deal and a legal system unjust in every situation. Our message is resonating by the American People and can be seen by we are 2 for 2. Im not disputing that he won, to be clear. I want to look at the breakdown of the numbers i think is important. Breaking up this snapshot where we are in this race, Pete Buttigieg won in iowa and came in second, very close behind Bernie Sanders. Do you see this as the faceoff, and if so, how do you counter the momentum of Pete Buttigieg, when its possible that could embolden some of the folks who support him . The question becomes, brianna, how does he and any of the other candidates running deal with the momentum we have. We have a fullfledged movement behind us, multiracial, multiethnic, multiculturalal. You will see some of these candidates bump up against that when they get to the great state of nevada and South Carolina and super tuesday states. Senator sanders is polling nationally as the number one candidate to go the strongest headtohead with president donald j. Trump. We are building that coalition. Some candidates you just named, mr. Buttigieg, number one polling 1 and 2 with black community and hispanic sisters and brothers. The last time i checked, black and brown folks are the majority in terms of the coalition yielded to build, to win throughout the United States of america. You cannot win this race without bringing black folks, without winning over the black community. Senator sanders is doing that. He increased his share in the black community and his message. We will keep doing that. We have the momentum. I know you said mr. Buttigieg won iowa, i want to push back on that. We got the popular vote in iowa and New Hampshire, we are 2 for 2. You said Bernie Sanders has made strides with the black vote. The campaign only spent a little over 200,000 in South Carolina on ads. It was a tough place for him. Hes pulling well behind joe biden when it comes to support for black voters. How is he viewing South Carolina . Why did he only spend just a little bit of money there . Depends what poll you look at, the senator is eating into that. This, the black community should not be held responsible for all of these candidates win. Unlike Vice President joe biden, senator Bernie Sanders is not taking the black community for granted just because the proximity to the first black president. The senator has attended over 60 events in that state. You couple that with the fact he has me and other national cochairs and dr. Cornell west, and we are all over the great state of South Carolina building the requisite relationships that are needed and not calling the Africanamerican Community a firewall. We are going to invest more in ads, i get your point, and there are things money cannot buy what the senator has been in since last year. I guarantee you, it will be like night and day to what happened in 2016. Okay. Thats what i wanted to understand from you. I appreciate your answer. Nina turner, appreciate you coming on, from manchester. Thank you. Always. Saying President Trump learned his lesson after being acquitted, senator collins is now tap dancing around that question and what she is saying and not saying today. And President Trump weighing in on the democratic primary and who hed rather face in the general election. If youre 55 and up, tmobile has a plan designed just for you. And, for a limited time only, were making it an even better deal. Now you can get two lines for only 55. That includes unlimited talk, text and data. With no annual service contracts. It also includes talk, text and data when traveling in mexico and canada.