The russia investigations drafted by House Intelligence Committee democrats as a rebuttal to a republican memo that was released. Well have much more on that ahead. Also tonight, first reported by the Washington Post and confirmed by nbc news, a second white house staffer has resigned amid allegations of Domestic Abuse. The post reports, quote, a white house speech writer resigned friday after his former wife claimed that he was violent and emotionally abusive during their turbulent two and a half year marriage, allegations that he vehemently denied, saying she was the one who victimized him. The abrupt departure of david sorenson, who worked under stephen miller, came as the Washington Post was reporting on a story about abuse claims by his exwife, jessica corbett. Corbett told the post that she described his behavior to the fbi last fall as the bureau was conducting a background check of sorensen. She said that during her marriage to sorensen, he ran a car over her foot, put out a cigarette on her hand, threw her into a wall and grasped her menacingly by her hair. This latest report comes as the west wing raises questions about Domestic Abuse allegations against a Top White House aide. Rob porter, a former staff secretary, resigned after two exwives accused him of physical and verbal abuse. Porter denies the allegations calling them, quote, false, outrageous and part of a coordinated smear campaign. In the oval office, the president seemed to come to the defense of his former top aide. We wish him well. He worked very hard. I found out about it recently, and i was surprised by it. But we certainly wish him well. Its an obviously tough time for him. He did a very good job when he was in the white house, and we hope he has a wonderful career and hopefully he will have a great career ahead of him, but it was very sad when we heard about it and certainly hes also very sad. Now, he also, as you probably know, he says hes innocent, and i think you have to remember that. He said very strongly yesterday that hes innocent. So youll have to talk to him about that, but we absolutely wish him well. He did a very good job while he was at the white house. The president did not mention either of the women who accused rob porter of abuse. What you also didnt hear was any mention of the growing controversy over who knew what and when about the accusations against porter. Porters second wife says she alerted the fbi during a background check interview for his security clearance. I was completely honest with what my experience of the marriage, including telling them instances of abuse or police contact. An administration staffer tells nbc news the fbi told the White House Counsels Office about those abuse allegations a year ago. And there have been questions about when exactly john kelly was made aware of what the fbi had learned. Tonight kelly confirmed he had known for months about an investigation. In november i got an update on some of the investigations. And the update was that there was some things that needed to be looked into. Literally that was it. Can you clarify to us exactly there has been a lot of reporting about the timeline and when you found out about things. Can you just clarify that . Tuesday night. Tuesday night. Tuesday night . That the accusations were true. 40 minutes later he was gone. Tuesday night was the same night the white house released a statement from kelly calling porter, quote, a man of true integrity. Now, multiple sources close to the president tell nbc news that trump is frustrated with his chief of staff from his handling of the porter allegations and has been speculating about possible replacements. Lets bring in our leadoff panel on a friday night. Tamara keith, fred rucker, and jill colvin, White House Reporter for the associated press. Welcome, all three of you. Thank you for being with us. Lets start with you. You got two pieces out tonight, one saying the white house staffer john kellys account of the timeline of rob porters exit was untrue, and another separate piece about the chaos that seems to be engulfing the white house. The first piece seems to underscore the other. Whats going on . Well, ali, what we have here is the fourth day of building mounting crisis for this white house, the likes of which weve not seen since the early months of the presidency, and we have conflicting accounts. The stories keep shifting and changing. There is a lot of internal finger pointing. Much of that blame pointed at chief of staff john kelly, but also Communications Director hope hicks and others in the white house who have been trying to manage this situation. And what we dont have so far is any sort of transparency from the white house. We dont know the answers to some key questions, still. We dont have a clear sense of the timeline, especially as it relates to what kelly knew and when and how he took his actions, and we heard in our reporting this morning that at the senior staff meeting, a private meeting of about a dozen or so top aides, kelly, you know, encouraged them to communicate what they believed to be a false version of events, of how quickly kelly took action. What we know from the Public Record and from sort of behind the scenes reporting previously in the previous days is that kelly was defending porter internally, he defended him publicly and was trying to get him to keep his job. Jill, there are mounting calls for kellys resignation from people on the outside who dont think this was handled well. We heard reports earlier this evening that john kelly seemed willing to resign but then he denied that to nbc news. What do we know about john kelly, trumps satisfaction with him and what may happen next . I think there is a little bit of a distinction of kelly formally offering his resignation, and kelly making clear that if the president is unhappy with him, then he would be willing to resign, which is really kind of a sentiment thats shared by most senior staffers who serve at the pleasure of the president. What we know right now is the president is not happy with john kelly and the fact he was not looped into this and didnt know about it and wasnt told about this until wednesday. This is a president who very frequently calls up his friends, calls up outside advisers, asks questions about how they feel his staffers are doing. But this has reached kind of a more serious level and hes been throwing out a couple of names, a couple people have been reported, Mick Mulvaney is one that seems to come up again and again, and that hes kind of weighing the possibility of a future without john kelly. Nonetheless, i just want to stress the fact that john kelly is such an integral part of this white house, and that at this point, still as of tonight, it still seems like it would be a stretch or at least very people would be surprised if the president actually decided to pull the trigger and get rid of kelly at this point. So this is interesting, tamara. What jill is talking about is something that people in the white house want john kelly to be, what people in the public were hoping john kelly would be, a stabilizing force. But increasingly, over the last several months, weve seen things that have gone wrong that kelly has been at the front of or involved with. And theres some people who are saying maybe hes not maybe hes a little more temporate than people think. Maybe hes a lot like donald trump but with a little bit of discipline. Maybe hes not the answer. The reputation of conventional wisdom in washington is that john kelly was the, quote, adult in the room or the stabilizing force. He came in saying that he was coming in to manage the staff, not the president. Well, this week managing the staff has not been going particularly well. And the thing with the chief of staff is that they dont want to be the one getting the headlines. They dont want to be the one getting the attention. I was talking to leon panetta, former chief of staff, and someone who knows kelly well about this. And he said there are consequences for chiefs of staff who steal the headlines and not in a good way. Remember that just this week, kelly said some pretty crude and insensitive things about immigrants known as dreamers, basically implying that they were lazy. Jill, let me ask you about some of the president s comments. He did break his silence about rob porter and he said some things that we aired at the top of the show about the fact that rob porter has denied the allegations. I want to take everybody back to november 21st when donald trump first talked about the allegations against roy moore. This is what he had to say. Well, he denies it. Look, he denies it. I mean if you look at what is really going on and you look at all the things that have happened over the last 48 hours, he totally denies it. He says it didnt happen, and, you know, you have to listen to him also. Youre talking about he said 40 years ago this did not happen. Similar structure of the comment that he used about rob porter today, saying he strongly denies it. You have to listen to him. This is a pattern for the president. It is, indeed, a pattern from the president where he again and again likes to put the focus on the denials, the claims of innocent by various men who are accused of wrongdoing, whether it be this allegation of spousal abuse or allegations of sexual misconduct. We also have to keep in mind that the president is also somebody who has been repeatedly accused of misdeeds himself and, therefore, comes into this from a position of somebody who has repeatedly had to go on the record, repeatedly denied allegations against him, and even privately really seems to want to take stock into what these people including porter, who had been such a trusted aide, someone who constantly traveled with him, was constantly in the oval office, and really taking stock in those denials. Philip, sam nunberg, a former trump adviser, was on today. He was talking about rob porter as it related to the president. Lets listen. He wasnt really served well by his staff. I dont think he had any idea about this. I dont think an issue about an fbi clearance for rob porter was taken to him, nor should it have been. So this is interesting, phil. When the president feels under pressure or he feels cheated or out of the limelight or in the limelight for the wrong reasons, he tends to tweet, he tends to lash out, he tends to identify other people as having failed him. What do you think is going to happen . Well, ali, tomorrow is saturday, and we know saturday morning is when some of these tweet storms come, so i guess well stay tuned. I heard there might be rain in d. C. Which means golfing might not be an option, so more likely to have tweets then. Talking to people today who have been in touch with the president , hes been venting privately. Hes not taken to twitter to lash out at either the media or any of his aides or to comment on this matter, but hes been very bothered by it, very frustrated, quite angry, and i would expect for that tone to continue through the weekend. Tamara, let me ask you about hope hicks. The president released a statement earlier today amidst reports that he was frustrated not just with john kelly but with hope hicks and the handling of the situation in which he said, hope is absolutely fantastic. She was with the campaign from the beginning and i couldnt ask for anything more. Hope is smart, very talented and respected for all. Where do you think hope hicks stands in this whole thing . Heres the other thing about hope hicks. Shes loyal. Shes been absolutely loyal to President Trump in a way many of his other aides have not been, and the president values that sort of loyalty. Its a unique relationship thats there that he has not had with other aides because she really, truly has been there since the very beginning. And the other thing about hope hicks, she doesnt generally, except this week, and she certainly didnt seek it out, she doesnt seek attention. She doesnt want to be in the limelight. She hangs back. She almost never goes on the record. And that is one of those things that makes her valuable to the president in a way that to people on the outside, it doesnt always entirely compute. Shes the white house director of communications and most americans wouldnt know what her voice sounds like, so youre right, she doesnt seek it out. Thank you, tamara keith, jill rucker, phil colvin. The white house decision not to be classified the democratic memo at this time. And number three at the Justice Department suddenly announces her exit as her boss, Rod Rosenstein, faces increased scrutiny amid the russia investigation. The 11th hour just Getting Started on a friday night. Is ready for takeoff. Were invested in creating the worlds first stateoftheart drone testing facility in Central New York and the mohawk valley, which marks the start of our nations first 50mile unmanned flight corridor. And allows us to attract the worlds top drone talent. All across new york state, were building the new new york. To grow your business with us in new york state, visit esd. Ny. Gov. We have two major developments tonight tied to the russia investigation. President trump is declining to release the democrats response to a controversial house intel memo accusing the department of justice of misconduct. In a letter sent to the white house, White House Counsel Don Mcgahn says after the review, quote, the department has identified portions of a february 5 memorandum, the nature of which it believes would create especially significant concerns for the National Security and Law Enforcement interests. Although the president is inclined to declassify the february 5th memorandum, because the memorandum contains numerous properly classified and especially sensitive passages, he is unable to do so at this time. Something adam schiff pointed out tonight, quote, the white house ignored their concerns and approved the publication of the republican memo with no redactions even though the action was described by the agencies as extraordinarily reckless and omitting material facts. After promising to treat the democratic response precisely the same way, the white house now seeks to have the democratic memo sent back to committee and revised by the same majority that produced the flawed nunes memo to begin with. That news coming hours after nbc news confirmed that this woman, the third highest ranking official at the department of justice, is quitting after just nine months on the job. Rachel brand was confirmed as associate attorney general in may. The New York Times broke that story tonight, adding this important context. Quote, ms. Brands profile had risen in part because she is next in line to the attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, who is he overseeing the special investigation inquiry into the 2016 election. Mr. Trump, who has called it a witch hunt, is considering firing Rod Rosenstein. Such a move could have put her in the line of extension, left her in the cross hairs of the president. When asked if it was his intent to fire rosenstein, this was trumps response exactly a week ago. I think its terrible, if you want to know the truth. I think its a disgrace what is going on in this country. I think its a disgrace. You look at that and you see that and so many other things, whats going on, a lot of people should be ashamed of themselves and much worse than that. Are you going to fire Rod Rosenstein . Do you still have confidence in him . You figure that one out. You figure that one out, which asked about Rod Rosenstein. I cant really interpret the first part of that comment by the president because it didnt make a lot of sense. Joining me, Jonathan Allen and former u. S. Attorney joyce vance who spent 25 years as a former federal prosecutor. Thank you for joining us on a friday night. Lets start with this memo, joyce. There are some legitimate National Security concerns tied to these memos but the white house seemed to dispense of those concerns in its decision to release the nunes memo, the republican memo unredacted. Now they seem concerned about the response. Right. You know, its so important to contemplate what this memo really represents. Because the larger issue involved here is a National Security issue. The fisa court is the place that the Justice Department and Law Enforcement goes when theyre dealing with matters that is a significant risk to our National Security. You know, the fbi and the Intelligence Community, theyve done an amazing job since 9 11 of not letting the bad guys get through, whether thats terrorism or whether thats a challenge like the one the russians face to us with these sorts of spying operations. I have enough prosecutor dna in me that i dont want to see anything compromised, the integrity of that process. But like you say, once this has been politicized and part of this memo, sort of cherrypicked republican part of the information has been released, then there is a certain amount of need for at least some balanced information in a nonclassified, nondamaging setting so the American People get the full truth and not just the information this president thinks its in his selfinterest to release. But this was always the worry, right, that while the department of justice and the democrats and the fbi, who all happen to be on the same side on this issue, have a story to tell, because were dealing with classified information, joyce, it was going to hamstring them a little bit in getting a response out. You know, its almost impossible to tell that side of the story here. We worry so much about compromising sources or methods, and so a great example of that is here, when a source has been compromised and publicly sort of, you know, berated back and forth and paraded in the political process, what does that mean for our future ability to get other sources to provide information . So there is a real risk here. People will feel unsafe that this inf