Escalated to the president. The timing of kellys departure comes as more struggles engulf the white house. Cnn is suing, saying they violated the Constitutional Rights of the network and correspondent jim acosta and trumps pick to temporarily leave the Justice Department is facing a lawsuit. Maryland suing saying the president is bypassing the constitutional and statutory requirements for appointing someone to fill that office. All of that would be enough to mount for a tough day for the white house but theres more. Special counsel mueller is indicting his investigation. Lets start with kristen welker, who is here with me in studio. What a great. Great to be here in person. Whats bubbling to the top in the west wing . We spoke to seven officials, team of reporters, myself, carrie lee, ali jackson, and they all said theres an increasing sense in the administration chief of staff kelly may be on his way out. The reason why is hes clashed with a number of top officials, including the first ladys office. Why the first ladys office . Well, over staffing, over travel. This quote where they said there have been instances where the east wing staff were not treated as equals to the Decision Makers in chief kellys offices, promotions denied and granted after months of requests. Look, when you actually talk to officials within the first ladys office, they say we have a very positive working relationship with john kelly and they say the first lady likes john kelly. But the bottom line there are these ongoing tensions behind the scenes. But its not just the first ladys office, ali. Its also john bolton, the National Security adviser. We reported last month there was this bill blowup in the oval office in which john bolton brought an immigration proposal to the president without running it by the chief of staff. They got into it. They got into it. He marched out. And so thats yet another irritant. But just moments ago we got this stunning statement from the first ladys office about john boltons deputy. Let me read you this statement. The deputys name is mirror recardille. This is the statement it is the position of the office of the first lady that she no longer deserved the honor of serving in this white house. Wow. So this isnt everythings okay. Just to be clear, that is about the deputy to john bolton. There are obviously tensions and obviously, the first lady very much does her own thing, she was just in africa, has her own agenda. But clearly there have been some officials who have rubbed her the wrong way. Its interesting because in reporting out this story, we spoke to a lot of different people inside and outside of the white house and all of this reported back to this deputy. Here we are reporting on john kelly and then this development on the deputy to john bolton. We will be tracking to see if she lasts a lot longer in this administration or if shes out as well. Kristen, great to have you here. Kristen welker, upon whom we rely on excellent reporting from the white house. Thank you. The reported staff shakeups comes as the white house faces a lawsuit over its decision to revoke press credentials of cnn reporter jim acosta. They include secret service and top aides including chief of staff john kelly and press secretary Sarah Huckabee sanders violated First Amendment rights. The white house revoked acostas credentials after he, in this shot here, refused to relinquish a microphone during the president s News Conference last week. Etch sarah issued a statement asserting grandstanding, stating joining us now to talk about this is nbc senior media reporter dylan buyers, another former cnner like me, also the author of buyers market, the daily news letter on business, politics and culture of media. Dylan, this is sort of portrayed by different sides as a different thing. Some people portray this as jim acosta, a guy whos got beef with the president , who gets a little hot under the collar with the president and the president gets hot under the collar back with him and cnn is articulating this now as a First Amendment concern, the white house is using its power to silence somebody like jim acosta. Thats right, and both things can be true, ali at the end of the day. Both of those things can be true. Heres what i say, the paramount issue here, the president of the United States should not be deciding who gets to cover him and who gets to ask him questions in the Briefing Room period, full stop. So thats the paramount issue. At the same time we know this, weve known this for several years, President Trump has a very aggressive antimedia strategy. And this is part of that strategy. By making cnn and jim acosta the foil to his white house by getting the aclu, white house correspondents association, other reporters to come to acosta ace defen acostas defense, that serves his purpose of making it seem as though the media is an antagonistic force and the media is out to get him. Let me ask, the First Amendment absolutely protects the medias right to be antagonistic. Whether or not one thinks thats true, the president cited surveys on major networks, somewhere up where 70 , 80 of the coverage of him is negative. The president asserts negative coverage as the media against him. Versus we fact check the president all the time. If i were to fact check all the time, you would probably find that negative. Sure. Its two different arguments, right . It is two different arguments for sure. But, again, the question here is what we are trying to litigate. What we are trying to argue over, which is whether or not acosta deserves a seat in the Briefing Room and what the administrations strategy is. And at the end of the day, this is a conversation that plays differently in the two different americas. So if you are part of the trump faithful, this is further evidence for you that the media is sort of united against him. And let me add at the same time what it does is it helps distract from so many of the significant stories that are taking place in washington, in the country, today. So the catch22 for the media is do we play into trumps strategy, or do we continue to go about the business of covering the white house without making ourselves part of the story . I legitimately mean thats a catch22 because the moment that you start being okay with or accepting the president of the United States deciding which reporters are and are not in the room, that becomes a slippery slope. So i get it. Its just my feeling, and i think its the feeling, by the way, of many people who cover this white house. The work of covering a president ial administration is not done by asking questions in the Briefing Room that the president doesnt want to answer, by not giving back the microphone. That is not the work of journalism. The work of journalism is getting underneath the affects of the policy decisions being made, how the president is thinking. Trump picked a vulnerable target to go after when he went after jim acosta because even acosta is sort of a polarizing figure among reporters because some people do believe hes sort of a show showboat. Trump shouldnti be deciding ths and nor should the media. Thank you very much. You can sign up for byers market, by the way, all one word. Just as critics and administration predicted, legal action is escalating over trumps controversial pick for acting attorney general matthew whitaker. Maryland attorney general brian frosh is suing calling whitaker an unbipartisan person in the filing and urging the judge to declare Rod Rosenstein is the acting attorney general. That would be the normal course of events. Joining me, charlie savage, who studies these things in great detail. Any merit to these lawsuits . Doesnt the president at the ends of the day determine who he wants to be his attorney general, separate to whether or not whitaker is in position to oversee the Mueller Investigation, how is it unconstitutional hes named . Maryland is making two different arguments. One there is a federal statute thats been on the books for a long time that says if the position of the attorney general is vacant, the Deputy Attorney general is the next in line followed by the associate attorney general and slolicitor. And the president is pointing to a process hes reportedly using to install Matt Whitaker. But when theres two laws that conflict two laws, the Justice Department prevails over the generic one. Separately theyre saying the constitution of the United States says principal officers, that is extremely powerful officials like the attorney general, must be Senate Confirmed. Thats why you need to have a Senate Confirmed official like Rod Rosenstein next in line and not have the president to have the ability to just pluck any crony out of the ranks of the department whether the vacancy arose and put them in exercising this extraordinary power. Thats just not how the constitution works. They have a very powerful statutory argument and constitutional argument theyre bringing to bear and theyre saying this judge has the authority to declare that Matt Whitaker is not the lawful Deputy Attorney general, that these statutes and constitutional issues mean that when Jeff Sessions was ousted, that role automatically went to Rod Rosenstein. Because they are already suing Jeff Sessions in his capacity as the attorney general, that judge has to decide who is the new attorney general that is taking over in this existing lawsuit, and that gives them standing to have this question answered right now. All right. There are a number of legislators, jerry adler i was speaking to yesterday, that said when he takes over as house judiciary chair hes going to ask Matt Whitaker to come and testify. If he doesnt, he will subpoena him. A number of Democratic Senators sent a letter to the ethics officer at the department of justice saying, have you talk the to Matt Whitaker . What has he been instructed to do . At some point there may be real problems with Matt Whitaker being able to oversee the Mueller Investigation, which is the whole point of trump putting him there. Everyone thinks that trump would not have put Matt Whitaker there but for one reason, and that was to get someone who was loyal to him, more loyal, he perceives, than Rod Rosenstein, perhaps, in a position of supervision and control over mueller as mueller maybe brings this thing in for a landing on the central questions still out there, which are was the Trump Campaign including with russia . Did trump try to obstruct that inquiry . It would be very interesting if there turns out to have been some sloppy lawyering behind the white houses decision to engineer this and instead of disempowering Rod Rosenstein they echbt up empowering him. Charlie, thanks for your coverage as always, charlie savage, washington correspondent at the the New York Times and msnbc contributor and Pulitzer Prize winner. As to the fight at the Justice Department, a new indictment indicates its not slowing down the special target investigation. On the left is a 72yearold conspiracy theorist whose most recent employer you was info wars. Hes considered to be the founder of the obama birthing conspiracy, suggesting barack obama was not born in the United States. More importantly to mueller, corsi is an associate and close friend to this man on the right, trump adviser former trump adviser roger stone. Last year stone told the House Intelligence Committee that corsi gave him Opposition Research on the Clinton CampaignResearch Chairman john podesta in 2016. Joining me is nbc news Senior Investigative producer anna scheckter, whos been following the story closely. You were supposed to sit down with jerome corsi today and suddenly that didnt happen. Thats right. He was in a car on 49th street about to walk in the building, we had everything planned. He has something to say. Hes come to believe hes going to be indicted for perjury. We were going to talk about all of these issues and his lawyer shut it down. Mysteriously and immediately after he got off the phone with the special counsels office. He will not disclose what those conversations with, but every time i talk to him on the phone, hes jumping to get back on the phone with investigators in washington. Hes the one who says hes going to be indicted or whatever it is that happens to him. Whats his whole story here . Why does he think hes about to get into trouble . He said he thinks hes been caught in a perjury trap. He feels like they the investigators, have thousand u. S. Of pages of emails and texts and communications, and he must have slipped up and that perhaps there was communication where he found out before the john Podesta Emails dropped the october surprise right before the election that he actually did receive communication about those, and had advance knowledge. And what does what happened . How does this connect to the larger thing . You can go down the rabbit hole with these guys. This guy is some people thought to be a crackpot but there could be something here, if hes the conduit or had some foreknowledge of these emails. Thats right. If he told stone, got foreknowledge about the emails, told stone or anyone in the Trump Campaign, although he wasnt a part of the campaign, thats really at the heart of this. But we dont know that actually happened. This really speaks to where is the Mueller Investigation . Were not seeing leaks about Trump Campaign officials including directly with russians. Its all going back to julian asank, wikileaks, roger stone and bizarre characters coming out of the woodwork who may have had advanced knowledge of the wikileaks. Weird but not the same thing some people thought this investigation was going. Thank you for your hard work, anna scheckter. Coming up next, we now know the city for amazons headquarters. What the cities gave up to lure in the business giant and what it means for all of us. 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In southern california, at least two people have been killed in ape fire burning near los angeles, bringing the statewide death toll to 44. The woolsey fire has burned nearly 100,000 acres and has destroyed nearly 450,000 structures. Amazon announced big plans today for its longanticipated and highly publicized second headquarters. Theyve been calling it hg2. The new headquarters are going to be split between two locations. One will be in new york just outside of manhattan. It will be Long Island City, part of new york city. The other one will be in the washington, d. C. Suburb of arlington, virginia, in crystal city there. The new locations are going to join the assisting headquarters in seattle, theyll have shared responsibility as headquarters. The company is offering 5 billion in investment in the new headquarters location and total locations, and total of 5