Reports and interviews that give viewers a look inside the corridors of power in Washington, D. C. All this is ken vogel of the New York Times and also the law firm of butler rocca and dershowitz, former federal prosecutor Georgetown Law 0 professor and legal analyst paul butler. Former assistant u. S. Attorney for the Southern District of new york also an msnbc legal analyst mimi rocca, and Professor Emeritus at harvard law school, Alan Dershowitz. He is the author of the book the case against Impeaching Trump. Thanks to all of you for being with us on this sunday night. Ken vogel, i want to start with you just in terms of what weve been seeing out of the white house from this president today. What prompted this flurry of tweets . Well, clearly hes fairly under a lot of pressure. Michael cohen is coming out publicly and releasing the tape of the conversation regarding a payoff to a woman who alleged he had an affair with her, has seemed to set him off in a way we havent seen him really, you know, focusing quite so much anger towards his former associates as he is now. And then its additionally just the building of this case that the Mueller Investigation is biased and we saw him as you put
it airing a Greatest Hits of grievances including what i loosely call the non sequitur. We cant figure out who the extra four are. The claim a number of prosecutors have donate today democrats. That is true. Mueller is a republican. No doubt he is pursuing this in a matter that is dictated by the law and facts as opposed to any political grievances. Sure. Mimi rocca, to pick up on that point, this is a situation where Robert Mueller, first of all, is a republican, was registered republican and cant use Party Affiliation in hiring his attorneys to make a decision about hiring them. Absolutely. It would be impermissible, perhaps even illegal for him to have done that. And the mere point here, something that donald trump and people who see things only through a political lens cant
justice investigation against the president. Because he wrote the letter and becomes a major witness in the case. Does he have a leg to stand on in calling for the Special Prosecutor to recuse in your view . It does not sound like a strong case to me, but it sounds like an credibly compelling case to ask to have Rod Rosenstein. I dont even see the argument on the other side. You cannot be both the major witness in an investigation and heading the investigation itself. I dont know why Rod Rosenstein hasnt recused himself. I dont know why Strzok Didnt Recuse himself. You know, you make decisions on your own. You dont have to wait for anybody else to do it. Strzok knew, notwithstanding the fact, yes, people see the case not through the lens of their own bias. But when you write messages saying, we have to stop this president. We need a guarantee, we need a Life Insurance policy. You do not continue to investigate that person. So i think selfrecusal should have been the way to go for both strzok and rosenstein. But i think as far as mueller is concerned, i dont think its a very strong case for recusal. Paul butler, weigh in on this. Is there . Im going to agree with my former Criminal Law ProfessorAlan Dershowitz there are concerns about Rod Rosenstein. But his answer is hes checked. Hes discussed those issues with the Ethics Office of theDepartment Of Justice and they say theres no reason for him to recuse himself. With regard to mr. Mueller, again, what the president says is that hes a good friend of james comey, that they had this issue with regard to a country club or golf club and fees, and that mueller worked for the firm that represented jared kushner. Under guidelines of the Department Of Justice, none of those by themselves mean that there has to be a recusal. What the Department Rules are is if there is a close personal or financial relationship with a subject, then the prosecutor has to recuse herself or himself. Here there is no evidence of that. Mr. Mueller would have been vetted extensively by Rod Rosenstein and other people at the Department Of Justice before he was selected. Good to have that perspective here. But meanwhile, we also want to
make sure we touch on the other Big Story Today which of course is Michael Cohen. You will be surprised to learn Rudy Giuliani tells abc news the joint Defense Agreement between the president and Michael Cohen has officially ended. Of course, it comes as the p. R. Battle between cohens lawyers and the president s continues to play out In Plain Sight for the world to see. Or in the case of audio recordings, to hear. And right now this much is clear. Cohen has already released one potentially problematic tape involving the president. And he says he has more. We know of Something Like 183 unique conversations on tape. One of those is with the president of the united states. Thats the threeminute one involving, involving the mcdougal payment, ami mcdougal payment. There are 12 others, maybe 11 or 12 others out of the 183 in which the president is discussed at any length. Cohen apparently has a story to tell as well. According to a knowledgeable source, hes prepared to tell Robert Mueller that the president knew in advance about that 2016 Trump Tower Meeting between his son and a russian lawyer. Ken vogel, my sources are telling me that if this is cohen
telling the truth and obviously you can imagine that it breaks down a little bit along partisan lines who thinks cohen was lying to them and who thinks cohen is lying now, but at the very least we know that he was asked in these congressional situations whether or not the president knew about the Trump Tower Meeting beforehand. Right, and our understanding is that he said no, which was the party line at the time. So for him now to be coming out and saying that he has this bit of evidence, that just so happens to be really the closest thing to a smoking gun that you could have for building the case that he had advance both the Collusion Case that the president had advance knowledge of an offer by a foreign power to provide something of benefit, potentially in violation of Campaign Finance laws, to his campaign. And then additionally, the obstruction charge this would be the closest thing to the smoking gun there because the president , as we now know, Helped Don Junior Compose and put out this statement that said something
very opposite from what Michael Cohen is saying now about trumps advance knowledge or at least sort of contemporary knowledge of this alleged of this alleged meeting or of this meeting. Right. Alan dershowitz, you have written the case against Impeaching Trump ahead of, of course, knowing exactly what Robert Mueller is going to find. Who do you believe here . If cohen is telling the truth and that he knows and can provide evidence of the idea that the president did know about this Trump Tower Meeting ahead of time and proceeded to, you know, write a statement on Air Force One that was given to the public that expressly said the opposite, how is that not problematic . Well, three things. First of all, i wrote the book, case against Impeaching Trump, because i wanted to layout the criteria for impeachment. And in my view they require the
commission of a crime. Controversial, people disagree. But obviously if there were evidence of a crime, there would be a case for impeachment. Second, youre not correct when you said, quote, cohen has already released one tape. If cohen had released that tape, hed be disbarred obviously because it was ruled by the you mean Rudy Giuliani wasnt correct . Okay, im following. You have to get the facts straight. Let me be clear. So, cohen didnt certainly doesnt acknowledge he released the tape because hed be disbarred if he did. The tape leaked as i understand it and only then did Rudy Giuliani after the content of the tape leaked did he say that he waived that tape. But if cohen, in fact, leaked the tape, hed have a real problem because the judge has ruled the judge who was appointed the former judge has ruled that it was
privileged. As far as the smoking gun of collusion, its a wonderful smoking gun. The problem is there is no such crime as collusion. Even if the president colluded with the russians, and even if he knowingly went to the meeting no evidence of this hoping to get material that had already been acquired by the russians that was dirt on Hillary Clinton, that would be as constitutionally privileged as the New York Times going to a meeting and getting material from the Pentagon Papers, from snowden, from manning. Youre entitled to use under the First Amendment material that has already been obtained. What makes it a crime is if you tell one of the sources to go and do something illegal, hack the Democratic National committee. So, as i argue in my book, we have to make a sharp distinction between political sins and actual crimes. And collusion is not a crime. And the case for Obstruction Of Justice based on tweets and public statements is about as weak a case as i have ever seen laid out by the New York Times. We want to just point out to our viewers that you just watched the president get onto marine one off of Air Force One at joint base andrews. He is returning from a weekend at bedminster. Well keep an eye on all that and ski if he takes questions for Press Waiting for him at the white house. Ken vogel, your response to what mr. Dershowitz was saying. Yes, if you think that is a violation of Campaign Finance violation, knowledge of Campaign Finance violation, and an effort to cover that up by mischaracterizing and miss reporting on a federal election commission, filing that there was something of value, sought or received, from a foreign power. Okay. Now thats a good question. 9 answer is that something of value is First Amendment protected information. Then the Campaign Finance law has to be construed as it was intended, to cover money and other material payments. But if it were construed to cover information to be used in a campaign, it would violate the First Amendment. A foreign power spent money to develop and then provide that was not public information. I dont understand that. What money thats what i mean. You dont think that russia spent money to try to develop this case against Bill Broaderror the zip brothers or whoever this information . Dont you think the people from wikileaks and the people from manning and dont you think they spent money and the Pentagon Papers . It costs money to get information. That was not provided to the campaign. That was provided directly to the campaign. If youre trying to target a person, you can stretch the law that way. But thats not the way Civil Liberties lawyers should approach a problem of criminal law. The concept of it requires that you define the criminal law in
the narrowest possible way, not the broadest possible way. You dont search for crime. Show me the man and ill find you the crime. You have to find crimes that are obvious and apparent, not based on an accordionlike stretching of the laws. Thats what worries me as a civil libertarian. Id make the same arguments if Hillary Clinton were charged with obstruction and the tapes and iphone, all of that. Its the same argument. Paul butler, what do you think . If donald trump knew in advance about this meeting where allegedly the russians were going to provide dirt on hillary, three other crimes in addition to the Campaign Finance ones, Obstruction Of Justice because he dictated a memo about this meeting are that was a lie. It was obviously an intent to throw people off, including the prosecutors. If he knew that the dirt was
coming from hacked email, he would also be guilty of Computer Fraud under federal laws. No. No. No. Conspiracy to defraud the united states. None of that is true. Jared Kushner Jared kushner said under oath in congress that the president did not know about this meeting. So what mueller does with that is possibly im not sure kushner was under oath. Im sorry, don junior. Lying to congress is a crime. Don junior testified under oath the president did not know about this meeting. What mueller might do is Charge Don Junior with perjury and use that to squeeze President Trump, possibly to get him to resign or to agree not to run for reelection in exchange for the prosecutor going easy on his son don junior. Were going to put pause hang on, im sorry. Im very proud of that. Everyone is trying to jump in. Were going to push pause on this conversation briefly. Everyone is going to stay put. Manaforts trial is set to Begin Tuesday. It a full preview as they name 35 witnesses who could be called on to testify including his former deputy rick gates who has already pleaded guilty to fraud. And later our series on women to washington. My interview with katie and days later was critically injured in a crash with a drunk driver. I join her as she returned to the campaign trail. Ahh. Summer is coming. And its time to get outside. Pack in even more adventure with audible. With the Largest Selection of audiobooks. Audible lets you follow plot twists off the beaten track. Or discover magic when you hit the open road. With the free audible app, your stories go wherever you do. And for just 14. 95 a month you get a credit, good for any audiobook. If you dont like it exchange it any time. No questions asked. You can also roll your credits to the next month if you dont use them. So take audible with you this summer. On the road. On the trail. Or to the beach. Start a 30day trial and your first audiobook is free. Cancel anytime, and your books are yours to keep forever. No matter where you go this summer make it better with audible. Text summer17 to 500500 to start listening today. Adoptions. Then it was trump didnt know about the meeting. Now it appears weve gotten to the point he knew about but no crime was committed. I think that that in and of itself, the sort of path of this defense by trumps team is telling, but i also think we cant look at this meeting in isolation. It is very significant, if true, that he knew about the meeting. That doesnt mean that a crime begins and ends there. You have to look at everything that came before it and everything that came after it. Remember, after that meeting is when trump gave that speech, calling on the russians to get more of Hillary Clintons emails, and they actually did, we know, go in then and start fishing into her campaign directly. Basically the day of, day after. Yes. Let me answer that, please. You cant look at it in isolation. Mr. Dershowitz . Let me answer that, please. You are implying in a kind of mccarthyite way that i am somehow defending trump and that i am making his case. Shame on you. I am making a Civil Liberties case. I am not part of the Trump Defense team and dont you dare accuse me of doing that. I am not making a case for anybody. I would be making the identical case if Hillary Clinton had been elected and they were trying to stretch the law the way all four of you are trying to stretch the law to target somebody who you disapprove of. I am the only person on the show who is trying to defend Civil Liberties. Give me at least an opportunity to make that case and dont accuse me of making a case for somebody im not making ats case for. Im responding to what youre saying. I am not responsible for what trump said earlier you are defending him, sir. And to your point, the president s stor