Org, say it stopped in january, thats one thing. Did he explicitly say when you testify to congress say that it ended in january, that is quite another thing. Grounded. The president cancels Nancy Pelosis secret trip to afghanistan, a war zone, saying the speaker of the house needs to stay in washington while the shutdown is on. Now pelosi is saying the president s announcement endangered personnel on the ground. The fact that they would leak the commercial plan, that we were flying commercial, is a danger not only to us but to the other people flying commercial. So its very irresponsible. And second date. North koreas top diplomat comes to washington for the second time. Is another summit with President Trump and kim jongun imminent . Good day, everyone, im andrea mitch ctchell in washing where the president is lashing out at Michael Cohen in response to what could be devastating breaking news about his presidency. Two federal Law Enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter telling Buzzfeed News that the president directed his former fixer to lie to congress about when negotiations with the russians over a trump tower in moscow ended. It is the first reported allegation of mr. Trump personally instructing a subordinate to lie about any link to the kremlin. Nbc news has not independently confirmed this reporting. The president s personal attorney is avoiding any discussion about the storys sources. Rudy giuliani instead telling nbc news overnight, if you believe cohen, i can get you a great deal on the brooklyn bridge. That is called a nondenial denial. Joining me now, nbcs kelly odonnell, Nbc National Security reporter ken dilanian, and msnbc contributor barbara mcquade, a former u. S. Attorney and our of counsel for today. Thank you all for being here. Ken dilanian, thats the laub bu lets talk about buzzfeeds reporting and what your own reporting has concluded, while we have not officially confirmed this. Thats right, andrea, we dont have source to go confirm this story but were not being steered off of it. Lanny davis, a spokesman for Michael Cohen, issued a Statement Last night in which he did not deny the story, he simply declined to comment on it. Michael cohen has denied the allegation that he went to practicing prague and met with russians in the past, so its interesting that he hasnt denied this. The Rudy Giuliani statement, you say said, was a nondenial denial. White house spokesman hogan gidley was on fox news, raising questions about the source, accusing people of lack of credibility, but not flatly denying that it happened. Andrea, this is huge and its separate from the russia investigation. The buzzfeed story says it happened after the election. And so it raises the question of whether donald trump suborned perjury and concocted a scheme to lie to a coequal branch of government, the congress. And thats why youre seeing all these democrats saying, look, if this is true, this requires an impeachment inquiry, because this is exactly the kind of thing that drove richard knocks nixon from office, andrea. It could be suborning perjury and could also be obstruction of justice. So very heavy implications here. Kelly odonnell, how is the white house responding . Theres been a lot of attacking of Michael Cohen, which has been a strategy theyve used before. But what that lacks is dressing the underlying claims in the buzzfeed article which as you have pointed out, we have not independently confirmed, that indicates that investigators have possession of emails and other sort of digital fingerprints that include documents from the Trump Organization that in some way would corroborate this, perhaps conversations behind the scenes about alerting the president , we dont know. Just imagine what that might include that goes beyond the voice of Michael Cohen alone. One of the things weve heard from the president directly, using his twitter feed, is one of his tweets today, which quotes a fox news report that says dont forget Michael Cohen has already been convicted of perjury and fraud and as recently as this week, the wall street journal suggests he may have stolen tens of thousands of dollars. Thats the end of the quote. This is the voice of the president , lying to reduce his jail time, exclamation point, watch fatherinlaw. What the president has not done is directly addressed the claims. He could have used his twitter account to say, i never urged him to violate the law, i never told cohen to lie to congress, which is a crime. He has not done that. We dont know if his lawyers have been involved in how he uses his twitter account, we havent seen much of that in the past, so its all about cohen. The other piece of that is the fatherinlaw suggestion. Hes done that before, he did it when he spoke to his good friend and fox news host jeanine pirro, saying without any specifics, look at the fatherinlaw. We have learned from our team who has sourcing close to cohen that he has been rattled by that and concerned about his familys safety. The specter of an accusation, somehow that the cohen family might be in some additional jeopardy after all they have been through and will be going through as he heads to serve a prison term. We dont yet know if the white house will go beyond that. But spokespeople here have, again, said that the report is lacking credibility because of its source, buzzfeed, and also saying that cohen lacks credibility, not addressing the underlying issues, and kind of rewarning the sorts of attacks on cohen that weve heard on earlier steps of the investigation. Andrea . There are a number of significant parts to that president ial response. It misstates that Michael Cohen was never convicted of percentaperjury per se. Cohen has said he was reconsidering whether he was going to testify on february 7th as had been agreed to before congress because of the president going after the fatherinlaw, so that was potentially an effort to try to back him off and make him more fearful about his testimony to congress that has at least been scheduled and announced. Barbara, lets talk about the legal implications. Lets posit that perhaps, you know, as the indications are, perhaps this is in fact true, what are the legal implications of the potential felonies that would be involved here, especially as they relate to what william barr has said . Yeah, i think its very significant. You know, if this was a statement under oath, theres been some question about it, it could be suborning perjury which is a statutory crime, punishable by prison. If it was witness tampering or obstruction of justice, which these facts if true would fit, is a 20year felony. Because were talking about the president of the United States, instead of talking about violations of the criminal code, were talking instead about high crimes and misdemeanors. But this is the very type of thing that Richard Nixon was charged with, an impeachment article was prepared for him, it was not charged. So these are very serious matters. With respect to your particular question about william barr, i think this would even fit within William Barrs definition of obstruction of justice. He wrote that letter to the Justice Department talking about a particular theory of obstruction of justice did not fit and he thought it was fatally flawed, and that was a theory where the president is asking his subordinates to stop investigating a particular matter. He said that the president has the right to do that. But what he also said is the president would be guilty of obstruction of justice if he were to conceal evidence. And this allegation is in that category. And i want to just make clear, eric swalwell, a member of the intelligence committee, he did say on our air last night that Michael Cohen was sworn in. So whatever he said to congress was under oath. Let me play a little bit of william barr from his confirmation hearing earlier this week, answering those very specific questions from Amy Klobuchar about what he had said in that june letter. You wrote on page 1 that a president persuading a person to commit perjury would be obstruction; is that right . That yes. Any well, any person who persuades another. Any, okay. And you also said that a president or any person convincing a witness to change testimony would be obstruction; is that right . Yes. Okay. And on page 2 you said that a president deliberately impairing the integrity or availability of evidence would be an obstruct n obstruction, that is correct . Yes. Could you clarify, barbara, under that rubric, if all those facts add up, that barr would say that in that case a sitting president could be indicted, or is it just that it could become articles of impeachment, or both . I think what hes saying is it could constitute the crime of obstruction of justice. And in that case, you know, under the theory that a president could not be indicted, it would be up to congress to look into that theory. Or if there is a theory that the president could be indicted, it would satisfy the elements. The gist of his letter was that what he was aware of, that is, President Trump asking jim comey to stand down from investigating mike flynn, could not constitute obstruction of justice because the executive has the absolute power to decide what the department of justice does and does not investigate. But this, based on those admissions to senator klobuchar and the allegations, is very different. Its a different type of obstruction of justice. It is the destruction or concealing of evidence, not use of his executive power, but instead trying to tamper with the integrity of evidence, a very different type of category. And william barr has said yes, that would constitute the crime of obstruction of justice. Thank you so much, barbara mcquade, kelly odonnell, and of course ken dilanian. We have breaking news now. Well quickly update you on whats happening on north korea because the white house has Just Announced that kim yongchol, the former intelligence chief, top official, right hand person to kim jongun, who is in washington today, he met with secretary pompeo at 11 00 and hes now heading over to the white house or will be shortly, for a meeting with the president. That would seem to indicate that plans are afoot for a second summit, perhaps to be announced today. Well have a lot more coming up later in the program. Meanwhile, Texas Democratic congressman Joaquin Castro serves on the intelligence committee. Congressman castro tweeted his initial reaction to the bombshell buzzfeed reporting thursday night, writing, if the buzzfeed story is true, President Trump must resign or be impeached. Congressman castro joining us now. Thank you very much for being with us. First of all, from what youve heard so far, if this report is true, would you want to proceed to impeachment . That is not what nancy pelosi has been saying, and the democratic leaders. Yeah, i think if this report is true, if the president directed Michael Cohen to lie to congress, then thats a clear case of participating in perjury and obstruction of justice, and he should resign. But if he doesnt resign, he should be impeached. You are a member of the intelligence committee. Did you hear Michael Cohens testimony . Yes. I was along with adam schiff, he and i were the main democratic questioners in that interview. Is there any way you can confirm what he said, is it what it is claimed he said, that he prevaricated about the timing of the trump tower when the trump tower negotiations ended . Yeah, as you can imagine, Michael Cohen was in a very different place when he did that interview with us. And of course hes admitted now to lying to congress. So thats part of the reason that we need to bring him back now to the intelligence committee, but possibly obviously the over the committee, perhaps the judiciary committee, and get to the bottom of this specific question. The other thing is i hope that bob mueller will let him talk to us, because if this is the case, if this is true, what buzzfeed has reported, then Congress Needs to take action. It means you have a president who is directing at least one person and who knows, perhaps others, to lie to congress. What about the argument from many of your colleagues that you all should wait for the Mueller Report or for whatever Mueller Reports to the attorney general before proceeding with anything on impeachment . Look, i mean, theres something to that argument. The reason is we cant as compelling as this news article seems, we cant just go off a news article. We have to either independently confirm it ourselves by bringing witnesses in, which well start doing. Adam schiff said that yesterday. And then and or, the second thing is, bob mueller has already gone through that process and he puts out a report before we have finished our investigation into this. So i think whenever of those two things comes first, if we determine that this report is true, then we should move forward with impeachment. Do you consider the president s tweets, again going after Michael Cohens fatherinlaw, as in any way an attempt to intimidate a witness who is about to testify on february 7th and could that be obstruction . Oh, i think so. It should be at least considered a form of witness tampering. Hes trying to mess with a witness there. Its actually just on a personal level, andrea, if you think about it, how dangerous it is for that man when the president of the United States, who has a twitter following of, i dont know, i dont follow him on twitter, but 40 or 50 million people, whatever it is, and youre basically, you know, maligning a specific person, that gets very dangerous on a personal level for someone. Who is not a public official or, you know right, hes a private citizen, sure. And in fact someone who is an immigrant to this country as well. Let me play a little bit of what your twin brother, julian, who is running for president , had to say on morning joe today on the subject of impeachment. Based on last nights report about the president instructing his lawyer to lie to congress, do you believe congress should begin articles of impeachment against the president . I believe that they should wait for the hearings and probably the Mueller Report. Before beginning. Yes. There seems to be a distance between you and your twin brother on this very subject of the timing. Its actually the same. If you look at my tweet, i said if its true. Other members of congress have said the same thing. What we mean by that is, it looks like a compelling news report but you have to independently verify it, or youre relying on bob mueller to present it to you. So hes right, either you have to do the hearings or youre going to get the Mueller Report. Very quickly, now that hes running and youre where you are, as kids, did you guys ever impersonate each other, just to fool friends, family, anybody else . No. We actually never did. We got accused of it but never did. I actually we switched classes one time. I think it was an english class. There was a substitute teacher. So i dont really count that. So we wont see you in some debate if hes not quite up to it . Just kidding. I have said i will either grow a beard, shave my head, or Something Else to make sure everybody knows, i dont want to be mistaken for a president ial candidate especially when i dont have secret service protection. So dont worry about that. Thank you, i know its a busy day for you. Thank you. Coming up next, the shutdown, the squabble between Speaker Pelosi accusing the president of endangering u. S. Personnel in afghanistan by announcing her secret trip to the war zone. The latest on the escalating duel between the president and the speaker. President and the speaker. Your joints. Or your digestion. So why wouldnt you take something for the most important part of you. Your brain. With an ingredient originally discovered in jellyfish, prevagen has been shown in Clinical Trials to improve shortterm memory. Prevagen. Healthier brain. Better life. My digestive system used to make me feel sluggish. But those days are over. Now i take metamucil every day. 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In a statement pelosi says, quote, in the middle of the night, the state Departments Diplomatic Security Service provided an upgraded threat assessment detailing that the president announcing the sensitive travel had significantly increased the danger to the delegations and the troops security during the trip. This morning we learned that the administration had leaked the commercial travel plans as well in light of the grave threats caused by the president s action the