The latest Political Developments of the day and interviews with top newsmakers are featured. Order is, territory now. And i wonder if theyve had a chance to explain to the president what you reported last week, that under this beefed up postenron witness tampering law, he may have more exposure than he understands. They seem to be leaning on a First Amendment defense, which is not going to hold up if your reporting holds up hes being scrutinized for the way these fit together. What Rudy Giuliani said today is this is ridiculous, the clip you played. The Idea Obstruction by tweet. He said it was bizarre and idiotic and there was nothing to it and the president can express his opinions. The thing about the president and obstruction and collusion, you know, interference or whatever you want to call it is the president usually focuses on the russia question. He says, this is a witch hunt. There was no collusion. He repeats that over and over again. The thing is that does the president rea
unethical or illegal. mcgahn is obviously a witness in the special counsel s investigation. you know, he has given up enormous amount of stuff about what the president was doing behind the scenes in these important moments they re looking at on obstruction but they re gone. they re not there anymore. sessions is not the attorney general. mcgahn is not the white house counsel. the president has sort of lost some of these guardrails as more time goes on into his administration and perhaps he s more isolated or perhaps he s more on his own. joyce, question to you, what happens when there isn t a mack began to stop this sort of thing? i think that that s exactly the right question and it could mean if the president continues down this path that he undermines the rule of law. the most, i think, real shocking phrase in mike s story is when he talks about the president saying that he wanted to order the justice department to convene this investigation.
talk about it with the president. what he sometimes forgets, though, is that she s not in power. she was not elected president. he defeated her. she s a private citizen right now. and so the they re just in very different circumstances. but i think speaking to his concerns about hillary clinton and jim comey and his obsession with it, it s this great detail in mike and maggie s story in the times, which it apparently wasn t enough for don mcgahn or the other lawyers to tell the president that that would be an abuse of power, that he couldn t do it, they had to write up a memo explaining exactly why he couldn t order the justice department to do this. explaining why that could be potentially cause for impeachment. that just shows how serious the president took this desire to prosecute them. jeremy, i d like to read you sally yates, former number two at justice, what she said on social media. part of this has to do with a story we re going to get to later in our broadcast. in a sin
director chris wray and how trump sees him. quote, he has also repeatedly expressed disappointment in the fbi director christopher a. wray for failing to more aggressively investigate mrs. clinton, calling him weak. also tonight, a new development in the mueller investigation. after months of negotiations we can now report trump s legal team says it has submitted his written answers to the special counsel s questions. all of it brings us to our leadoff panel on a tuesday night, including one of the reporters who broke this news, michael schmitt, pulitzer prize winning washington correspondent for the new york times. phillip rucker, for the washington post. jeremy bash, former chief of staff at cia and the pentagon and former u.s. attorney joyce vance, who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor. welcome back to the broadcast to all our veteran guests. mike, i ll begin with you. it is notable that the timeline
united states, it comes with a different weight and i m not sure that everyone in the white house or outside of it that s close to the president really appreciates that. so, if you could just paint for us the picture of what mike and his colleague maggie reported last week mueller stitching together these pieces, how does it fit into an exhibit of obstruction of justice? there are two parallel things going on that intersect, because i think that the smoke that we re starting to see including from mike and maggie s reporting, but also that we are starting to see from some of these michael cohen leaks and critically now that the manafort trial is starting and rick gates is a cooperating witness is taking center stage, i don t think it s a coincidence that he s lashing out this way in an obstructive nature when we are starting to see in the public a little bit more of the collusion end of things. and remember, we don t know what rick gates has told bob mueller about any russia collusi