What the president did when he stripped former cia director john brennan of his security clearance. He says brents brennan is the quote, worst, a loutmouse and political hack. This is just the latest in the war of words. The fact that hes using a security clearance as a pawn. Hes drunk on power. He really is. Ive never respected him. Ive never had a lot of respect. Its a disgusting frankly. These are frankly very frightening time. Mr. Mueller is highly conflicted. In fact, comey is like his best friend. Let him write his report, we did nothing, theres no collusion. Mr. Trumps claims of collusion are hogwash, because there was collusion i think in open sight. The trump tower meeting with don junior and others. Its a totally rigged deal. Its not us. It is a rigged witchhunt. Ive said it for a long time. Mr. Trump is motivated by whatever is in the best interests of mr. Trump. He did not live up to i think what americans expect from the president of the United States. Joining me now is msnbc white house correspondent. Geoff bennett, it looks like brennan got under his skin again. Reporter it certainly looks that way. Hes hitting back at john brennan. In doing so, the president is now suggesting, without evidence, that there is some misstep, some misdeed in brennans past that deserves a closer look. Heres the tweet in full, which you mentioned earlier. These are fighting words to be sure has anyone looked at the mistakes that John Brennan Ma ed while serves as cia director . He cannot be trusted with the secrets to our country. This, of course follows brennans sitdown yesterday with rachel maddow, when you heard him say the president is drunk on power. There is a set of about 13 guidelines that really determine whether or not someones security clearance should be reviewed or revoked. Being subject to a foreign influence, criminal behavior. Nowhere on the list is saying negative things about the president. Thats why you have john brennan and deserts of other officials dating back to the reagan era who say these totally political motivated. I wont you if you with shed light that the white house has a list of former officials who say they can revoke at any time. Reporter the white house is reporting that they drafted these documents for dozens of former intelligence officials who either criticized the president or were directly involved in the russia probe. The post also reports that communications and press staffers here had a conversation about how to time the release for the greatest political benefit, to counter any negative stories about the president in the news. We reached out to the white house earlier, a official told our Kelly Odonnell theres nothing more than whats already been said. We saw Sarah Sanders read off a list of the names of the people under consideration. With the exception of bruce ohr, the only current employees, all the other people had in common the fact they were at once critical of the president. Geoff bennett for us at the white house, thank you. Lets bring in our panel now. Before we get into it, guys, i want to play one more piece of sound. This is John Brennans interview, where he cites his immigrant roots on another attack. Im the son of an immigrant. When i see what mr. Trump is doing, trashing the reputation of this country, and the way hes treated fellow americans, how he refers to him, the divisiveness, the incitement, the fueling of hatred and polarization, this is not what this country is about. Malcolm, what do you make of brent ens comments there, that the president is severalally trashing the country . Hes absolutely right, and hes doing it in such a way hes going after the fundamental defenders, the u. S. Intelligence community, u. S. Federal law enforcement, and essential anyone who criticizes him in any way, shape or form. Its not just an attack on john brennan, its an attack on anyone who has anything to say about donald trump that is critical of donald trump. He is now weaponized government to punish those people, and that well find out in the long run may end up being a crime. Matt, i want to read for you part of senator burrs statement, the Top Republican on the intelligence committee. He said, quote director brennans recent statements purport to know as fact that the Trump Campaign colluded with a foreign power. If he has some other personal knowledge or evidence of collusion, it should bed disclosed to the special counsel, not the New York Times. Is there anything to that criticism . We know for a fact that on at least two instances the representative of the russian government reached out to representatives of the Trump Campaign and said weve got political dirt on hillary clinton, and wed like to help your campaign. In those two instances, one involving donald trump junior and one involving george papadopoul papadopoulos, they both said yes, bring it on. We know carter page who was considered to be an agent of russia. So you take those three things together. You can say the idea theres no collusion is hogwash. I believe thats what he was referring to. I think the defense of the Trump Administration is we try to do colewd, but it didnt work out, nothing came of it, and its no big deal. All right. Ill ask you to stay with me for a second. We have breaking news from the New York Times. The paper is out with a record that the White House Counsels Office is cooperating extensively with the muellers obstruction inquiry writing sharing detailed accounts about the episodes at the heart of the inquiry whether President Trump obstructed justice, including some that the investigators would not have learned of otherwise. I want to go to Michael Schmidt with the New York Times on this. Bring us up to speed. What the story discusses is the cooperation of the white House Counsel don mcgann, and how hes provided a wideranging amount of information on the president s decisions that are under scrutiny. What was the president doing . What was he thinking and saying around the moments of the firing of comey, the efforts to be Jeff Sessions to assert his control over the investigation, those types of things. Its unusual for a lawyer to be so cooperative with investigators, but mcgahn was concerned the president would pin the blame on him for the legal advice he had given the president and the president was going to blame him for the obstruction and he realized he had to lean in as much as possible and cooperate with the investigation. Michael, at this point any sort of early lean on the next step . Or what would happen after this as a result of this the office giving this information . Reporter the cooperation has been going on for a long time. Its been going on for nine months. Theres been several meetings. He spent hours with mueller. The question is, what is mueller going to do with this information . Will he write a report that goes to congress . Theres a nothing out there hell definitely do that. Its not clear thats necessarily a forgone conclusion, though, a decision would have to be made by the Deputy Attorney general who answers to the president , but the real question is, how does mueller see the president s actions . The stuff he has learned about, the president s efforts to assert his control . Are they things simply the president exercises his normal power . Or more nefarious . Was it a larger conspiracy . Michael, you sort of touched on it. Im not a lawyer, so i dont know, but it seems odd you would see this level of cooperation coming from this lawyer. Can you dig into that for me . How strange is this . Well, mcgahn was so surprised by this. He was surprised the white house was going to allow him to do this. Mcgahn thought it would set a bad precedent for future administrations. He thought the administration could fight mueller on this, try to exert executive privilege, fight it in court, and there were concerns that they were essential handing over a blueprint to try to build an obstruction case, but mcdawn had no choice and was concerned that the president was setting him up here. What happens is that mcgahn basically decided im going to do Everything Possible to cuddle up to mueller to protect myself. Thats what happened. We have a few other folks joining in. Malcolm, i turn to you first to get your thoughts about this newsbreaking about the white House Counsel. Yeah, this is not good for the president. I mean don mcgahn was always going to cooperate with the counsel. He left the president s legal team, but in this particular instance, hes cooperating extensively. Theres only two ways out of this for anyone who meets the special counsel. You lie and you go to prison, or you tell the truth. If hes telling the truth, i think this is not going to bode well for the president. Jay, ill ask you the same question to weigh in on this cooperation. Whats your read on this . Well, it sounds like the president encouraged him to do it, so i dont know if its don mcgahn flipping on the president , but more that hes doing what he thought best. Obviously there was in hesitancy in the beginning, do they really want to cooperate. Clearly they did cooperate and did it to an extent that was quite striking. So then the question is, you know, what has he actually given the special counsel . What are the meetings what were the context of trumps sort of thought proses for actually fire comey and all the details that are relevant to this case if youre trying to build a case. And matt, the same to you, just your thoughts on this about what in the means and what it could mean Going Forward for this investigation. Sure. For this potential prosecution . I think the forwardlooking way to look at my colleagues reporting on this is, what does it mean for mcgahn . And what has it meant for him, who is severalally the inside the room key witness about the many of these actions. Hes the key inside the room witness for the special counsel, but hes also acting as the lawyer for the office of the president , who is now in the middle of this investigation. So how is mcgahn positioning himself to advise the president at the same time that hes giving evidence about the president . It puts the white House Counsel in a really remarkable situation, and i think thats something to watch Going Forward, especially if this comes to the hill. If theres impeachment proceedings or other hearings, and mcgahn is now advising witnesses on what they can and cant say, but hes also a witness. It would get really muddy. Never a dull motel. Thank you all. Six months in prisons is what mueller is suggesting for p papadopoulos. Morning. Morning. What do we got . 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Brians back . He doesnt get my room. Hes only going to be here for like a week. Like a month, tops. Oh boy. Wifi fast enough for the whole family is simple, easy, awesome. In many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40s. That breaking news against from the New York Times today, a report that the White House Counsels Office is cooperating extensively with the Robert Mueller obstruction inquiry. Joining us is danny sevalos, and kim willie. Danny, your thoughts. What does this signal to you . That the mueller team is doing exactly what we would expect, and be warns. When you come in to sit down you do your best to tell the truth, because when you dont, that is when you get hit with section 1001, obstruction of justice. Kim, while we have you as well, what do you make of this . I also worked in the whitewater investigation, so i know there can be investigation between an investigator of the president and the white house, but given the kind of attacks we have seen, the integrity of mueller and his team, the integrity of the fbi, it actually makes me woo feel that there is cooperation and that is ultimately important for the american to have accountable on the russian attack on our election. I havent read the article. Its hard to know what exact cooperation were talking about, but i think this is a happy note in a sea of unhappy information coming out with respect to government power. Lets focus on a few other things we are learning. We just heard about George Papadopoulos, danny, and the fact the mueller team is recommending a sixmonth jail sentence. We know he pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi as part of their investigation about russian contact during the 2016 campaign. Yesterday we know there was a court filing sentencing memorandum by muellers team. So walk me through this memorandum and this idea that papadopoulos didnt really supply any real useful information. Exactly. Anytime a defendant pleads guilty and agrees to cooperate, they dont automatically gets whats call a 5k1 motion, a substantial assistance motion. This is critical if youre facing significant sentence. In papadopoulos case, hes all right at the bottom end, so even the sentencing memorandum isnt that harsh. Theyre looking for the sentencing table right there. Papadopoulos is a criminal history category i. Offense level is just a 4, well in the range of 0 to six months. So nothing is that dangerous to papadopoulos. Even without any assistance, he would be in that category, because he pleaded guilty. The important thing, if even as a witness i decide to cooperate, the ultimate decider of whether ive cooperated to their satisfaction is the government. We have to note that the president , kim, has repeatedly tried to discredit mueller, just as recently as the other day. Listen to this. Mr. Mueller has a lot of conflicts also directly yourself. You know that. Mr. Mueller is highly conflicted. In fact, comey is like his best friend. I could go into conflict afflict. But sadly mr. Mueller is conflicted. Let him write his report. We did nothing, theres no collusion. If he was doing an honest report, he would write it on the other side. Kim, we know the final decision is about George Papadopoulos sentence lies with the judge, but you have these kind of statements almost daily. Could this have an impact . I think its unlikely a judge would Pay Attention to it. The bigger issue is, does a jury in both mr. Manaforts trial, and any future trials would Pay Attention to this. I think it could persuade people to not Pay Attention and buy into the false narrative that hes somewhat conflicted. I think on the sentencing memo, i think everyone should pull it up and read it. Its quite interesting. It lay us order in plain english, once upon a time there was someone who reached out or was contacted about meeting with a Russian National during the campaign. He told the campaign that the russians might have information, dirt on hillary clinton, and then he lied for federal investigators about it. So the idea this is all made up, people should start reading source documents and make a decision themselves as to whether this kind of interference with a foreign hostile government in our core electoral process is something we can tolerate, regardless of who is in the white house at any particular given point in time. Since you brought in Paul Manafort, the former Campaign Chairman for donald trump, and we know the jury has been deliberating, i think we have another sound from the president , making some remarks about manafort in particular. Listen to this. I think the whole manafort trial is very sad, when you look at whats going on there. I think its a very sad day for our country. He worked for me for a very short period of time, but you know what . He happens to be a very good person. So, danny, ill ask you, the impact potentially that that comment could have on a jury well, history repeats itself. Im going to bring you back to the 7 ons, when president nixon opine openly that Charles Manson was almostt certainly guilty. Here you have something that if the prosecution can make that into an argument for a mistrial, i dont think they will. I think they feel confident going into deliberation, an