Gets underway on a friday night. Good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters. This was day 827 of the Trump Administration and as we come on the air this friday night we have two major stories from two of this nations great newspapers that lead us to two Big Questions that we will take on in order tonight. One, just who is Rod Rosenstein, other than a man in a critically important job and what exactly has he been doing behind the scenes. The second question is did the russians change any Election Results in our country in the last president ial election. Well get to both of those. The president for his part stayed on the attack, railed on the Mueller Report. He claimed he was exonerated, while slamming the report and promising the retribution. Today in the friendly confines, he framed the work of muellers team as an attempt to remove him from office. They tried for a coup, didnt work out so well. And i didnt need a gun for that one, did i . Corruption at the highest level, a disgrace spying for a overthrow, and we caught them. We caught them. This morning he attacked democrats efforts to bring in witnesses, hold hearings, and denied one of the key conclusions in the report. I never told don mcgahn to fire mueller. If i wanted to fire mueller, i would have done it myself. It is very simple. I had the right to. I let white House Counsel mcgahn testify. I let everybody testify. [ inaudible question ]. Wait wait. With all of this, with all of this, with all of this transparency, we finish with no collusion, no obstruction, right . Then i get out the first day theyre saying lets do it again and i said that is enough, we have to run a country. We have a very great country to run. Congress will hear testimony this week from trumps handpicked attorney general william barr who has come under fire for the handling of muellers findings. The judiciary committees from both chambers will question barr wednesday and thursday of next week and that brings us to the deposit attorney general that bar inherited. He gave us the investigation, one Rod Rosenstein. And the questions about him tonight like how savvy and inside player is he really . This career federal prosecutor, harvard law graduate who was in internship was for a massachusetts u. S. Attorney named robert mueller, this man who the president has privately called mr. Peepers. Has he been currying the favor of the president all along to keep his job . Here is what raises all of the question tonight. The Washington Post today detailed that rosenstein reportedly told trump something certain to remain in charge of the investigation. It focuses on the fallout and the article from the New York Times. You will recall it september 2018 we reported on it widely at the time. Its sad that after the 2017 firing of james comey he suggested wearing a wire to secretly record the president. He talked about the 25th amendment. The post now said after that rosenstein was called on the carpet and he was forced to explain himself to a Furious White House and was reportedly tearyeyed in a meeting with john kelly. On a subsequent phone call with trump he sought to assure the president that he was on his team and he would make sure that trump was treated fairly. I give the investigation credibility, rosenstein said, i can land the plane. That made us stop and remember where we heard that phrase. Im landing the plane right now. Ive been willing to discuss my letters and the process Going Forward and im not going to get into the details of the process until the plane is on the ground. Back to the Justice Department that can sound more like an airport quoting again from the Washington Post, on multiple occasions Rod Rosenstein told trump he was not a target of muellers investigation. That was important because we know that hearing that was critical to this president. Now to the other story. Tonights downright scare yes story in the New York Times about our last president ial election. The times focuses on the likelihood that Russian Hackers obtained access to at least one florida election system in 2016 even though state officials had originally believed no computers had been compromised. The Mueller Report said the fbi believes it enabled the gru, Russian Military intelligence, to gain access to the network of at least one florida county government. Again, under this headline, Russian Hackers gained access to at least one florida elections network, but which one . The times reporting tonight says the florida secretary of state office in tallahassee said it had been unable to learn what county it was, floridas governor is set to meet with the fbi in coming weeks. Today the fbi director was asked about the russia threat and the security of our next election. The fairly Aggressive Campaign that we saw in 2016 and described in the special counsel report and has continued unabated, it is a 365 days a year threat and that is absolutely continued. We recognize they will continue to adapt and up their game and were viewing 2018 as just kind of a dress rehearsal for the big show 2020. Given that, here for our leadoff discussion on friday night, we are joined by sussan page who just notably became the biographer of barbara bush. The book is called the matriarch. Josh ger steen from politico and also jeremy bash, former chief of staff at cia and pentagon. Jeremy, i would like to begin with you given tonights news. We saw today the president saying he was the victim of a failed coup, and you cant help but view this from that backdrop tonight. It lands with a thud, the story about a hacked election system in the state of florida given your back ground in the intel business, how do you view this story . Very concerning, brian, i think we have all been concerned about the hacking of the voting machines. The story said it is the tallied and how they are displayed. In florida in 2016, the spread between trump and clinton was a little over 100,000 votes which is not a lot in a state as large as florida. A large number of electoral votes there, a single hack of a single county voting tabulation system could make the difference. Josh, people are going to be concerned after reading stories like these and they should be. Can you help ensure us that the good people of government will work awfully hard to understand investigate this to run it down and stem off the next one in 2020 . No, i cant assure people of that because there seems to be tension between the two things that you mentioned. We have an investigation that seems to have been thorough by the fbi to get to the bottom of what the russians were up to in 2016, but the question about applying that as run into a few obstacles. There is some officials that dont take this very seriously or they think they can solve this on their own and the other problem is that there seemed to be some reluctance in some quarters of the federal government to share the details about what the fbi has discovered with the people on the ground who could fix it. There is always tension there and it seems like there is a standoff at the moment where folks are concerned if they reveal the details of what fbi discovered it could expose sources and intelligence methods, but they could maybe not get serious about fixing this for next time. Susan, we can all agree, even sober witnesses of what has been going on for the next year all things russia have been a hallmark of this administration. The odd carveout for russia, lying about russia. Talk about this megatrigger about stories about legitimacy. We think President Trump has not taken the response that other president s may have taken to the continuing disclosures about russias successful efforts in some cases to meddle in the election that put him in the white house. And to joshs points, hurdles to woo would be, one would be in the white house and the president s denying in believing in his own Intelligence Services conclusions in the fair to muster a nationwide response an assault on the most fundamental aspect of our democracy which is free and Fair Elections that are not affected by foreign meddling. Put that maybe at the top. Jeremy bash, the other story is about mr. Rosenstein. We heard during the attorney generals performance that the american people, not the president , are supposed to be the client of the attorney general, the Deputy Attorney general, and the d. O. J. Do you think this raises legit mass questions as to who rosenstein saw himself working for . I think he bought himself an invitation to testify before the house judiciary committee. Appropriately brian should look at role of the department of justice leadership in bringing the Mueller Report into the department and in summarizing it and holding that press conference as well as the revelations in tonights post story about reassuring the target of the investigation that hes going to be okay, that he will land the plane. I think if Rod Rosenstein said anything to the president , he should have said mr. President i cannot discuss this investigation with you. The appropriate way to discussion this with the department of justice is in bob muellers witness chair. Does this just add to the petina of questions and dirt surrounding what should have been the fair dealing of administration of this investigation . Well i think that the charitable interpretation and the prevailing wisdom was that Rod Rosenstein was on a tight rope walk here. He was trying to keep it going without some kind of cataclysm of additional firings from the white house and some kind of conflagration that is bad for the president and the country and the Justice Department and that he had managed that pretty well. It seems sycophant toward the white house doesnt seem to have tapered over time. As rod was preparing to leave the Justice Department, you begin to hear fewer implausible phrases praising the white house and praising the president as someone committed to the rule of law, and that rhetoric has continued right up through the last few weeks. Through last night actually. And that is what is leading, i should say again, a reevaluation of maybe they were too generous to rosenstein. In their assessment of how he was handling this. Susan page, tomorrow is the white house Correspondents Dinner and extending a first this president continues not to attend. He is instead holding a counter rally in green bay, wisconsin tomorrow night. Here is a guy alleging a failed coup today as we sat in the friendly confined of the nra. He could say it strikes me just about anything tomorrow night, susan. He could. And he may. And previous president s have chosen not to attends the white house Correspondents Dinner. There is no crime. What is the president has done that is different from previous president s is instruct all of his officials to in effect boycott the dinner. It is one more step in the deterioration of the norms that kept the capitol afloat. It is not that it is so great to have dunner with somebody, but it is a sign of respect for the role of the institution of the press and the democracy. We dont hear much about that from this administration. Susan, if memory serves, the dinner begins with the toast of the president of the United States, whether he is present or not. Is that still the case, do you remember . I think the dinner may close with a toast to the president and the presidency. I would assume that would go forward as in the past. Something tells me the toast will not be returned in kind, from green bay, wisconsin, but well see. Plenty to talk about when we come back on monday. Our thanks to our big three starting us off on a friday night after yet another consequential week and to susan page and gosh gurstein and jeremy bash. And coming up, what the Mueller Report had to say about the public statements, the stuff we could hear and see about the possibility of pardons and their potential to obstruct justice. 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You inspired us to create internet that puts you in charge. That handles anything. That protects whats important. And reaches everywhere. This is beyond wifi. This is xfi. Simple, easy, awesome. Are you going to pardon Paul Manafort . I dont talk about that. I think it is all very sad. He worked for me for a very short period of time, but he happens to be a very good person and i think it is very sad what they did to Paul Manafort. That is an example of what well talk about. And Paul Manafort was chairman of the campaign. One of several instances cited where President Trump stopped short of ruling out a pardon for someone and in this case Paul Manafort and tonight were called uncovered, diving into the parts of the Mueller Report that havent received wide news Media Coverage and look at what the special counsel team had to say about trump and whether he was trying to signal or convince manafort not to cooperate with the government. He was found guilt august 21st of last year. He pled guilty to charges in washington, d. C. Both of them with the feds. He signed a plea agreement to cooperate with the feds. That agreement was later torn up after the feds established that manafort had lied to them. Here is a portion of what the Mueller Report says. Quote, there is evidence that the president s actions had the potential to influence manaforts decision whether to cooperate with the government. The president and his personal counsel made repeated statements suggesting that a pardon was a possibility for mania for the and making it clear the president did not want manafort to flip and cooperate with the government. And the Mueller Report represents this exchange between manafort and rick gates, quote, in january 2018, manafort told president s personal council and they were going to take care of us. Manafort told gates it was stupid to plead saying he was in touch with the president s personal counsel and repeating that they should sit tight and be taken care of. Gates asked if anyone mentioned pardons and no one used that word. Lets bring in the former assistance attorney for the district of new york. Nelson, talk about the use, the dangling of pardons that really only one person can do at the end of the new day as a vehicle to potentially obstruct justice. Look, the president s power to pardon is in the constitution. There is no limits on his power to pardon. Other than that he may not pardon impeachments. That does not mean that the president cannot be called in to question for the way he exercises that president ial pardon. For example, lets assume he was given 2 million to pardon someone, does anybody think that would not be a crime and that would not be wrong to accept a bribe, to offer to pardon somebody . Precisely the role of the congress to look at the conduct of the president and the version of his powers and to see whether or not it constituted an overreach and clearly in this case it did. I want to read for you something else. This is a little legal ise from the Mueller Report. Many discouragement of cooperation with the government and other occurred in public view. While it may be more difficult to establish that publicfacing acts were motivated by a corrupt intent, the president s power to influence actions, persons and events is enhanced and here comes the important part, by his unique ability to attract attention through use of mass communication. And no principle of law excludes public acts from the scope of obstruction statues. If the likely effect of the access to intimidate witnesses or alter their testimony, the justice systems integrity is equally threatened. Nelson, if acts of wrongdoing are spoken in public on realtime on twitter while the helicopter awaits on the sauj lawn is it any less of an act of a doing because it is not behind closed doors. No, the legal words youve read make that clear from mueller, but it is Donald Trumps m. O. The more brazen he is, the more overt, the more then later on he said you saw what i did there, didnt you . I did it publicly. That is the way he lulls the system. Into angryezzing to what he does. I may have talked about a pardon, but i did it on television. The point is did Paul Manafort hear it . Did it shape his behavior . Did dona