good evening. the news simply does not come much bigger than this. with president trump weighing military action against syria the fbi takes action against his personal attorney and president trump lashes out big-time. at the fbi, his own attorney gener general, his departmenty attorney general, the russia investigation and the man who's running it. fbi agents raided michael cohen's office and hotel room, and now robert mueller's job may be in jeopardy. that's what a source tells us. and that's what the president also told us tonight during a moment with reporters unlike any the country has seen until now. >> why don't you fire mueller? >> why don't i just fire mueller? >> just fire the guy. >> i think it is a disgrace what is going on. we'll see what happens. but i think it's a sad situation when you look at what happened. and many people said you should

fire him. again, they found nothing. and in finding nothing, you know, that's a big statement. if you know, the person who's in charge of the investigation, you know all about that, deputy rosenstein, rod rosenstein, he wrote the letter, very critical of comey. one of the things i said i fired comey. well, i turned out to do the right thing. because you look at all of the things that he's done and the lies, and you look at what's gone on at the fbi with the insurance policy and all of the things that happened. turned out i did the right thing. but he signed, as you know, the fisa warrant. so rod rosenstein who is in charge of this signed a fisa warrant and also signed a letter that was essentially saying to fire james comey. and he was right about that. he was absolutely right.

so we'll see what happens. >> that was far from all the president said. first chief cnn analyst gloria borger joins us. first break down for us what we know about these raids, gloria. >> we know there were raids on his office and his home and hotel room. and we know the search was largely i was told by a source familiar about stormy daniels. and there were a bunch of requests in it which were all kind of subsections of the stormy case, about the payments to her, about his communication with the president, about those payments and his communications with the campaign. i was also told that the search mentioned election laws. questions raised about whether this money was used improperly. and then smaller issues about other investments that could or could not be related to the stormy issues, the sources weren't clear.

and so i think that it was broad in one sense, but we do know that it's largely related to the stormy daniels case. >> let me clarify something you said. you said according to your source there was -- some of the things being looked at were communications between michael cohen and the president or the campaign about the payments. is your source saying that the president knew about the payments or the campaign knew about the payments? because michael cohen has said he didn't tell anybody. the president last week said he didn't know anything about it. >> right. and the president also announced michael cohen is my attorney, so you would assume that would be protected by attorney-client privilege. that's the big question. you just hit on it, anderson. were there communications about covering this up if the president has said he didn't do it? is that a crime if they talked about it? tion we really don't know.

but that's one of the things they're trying to get to the bottom of. and the special counsel says look, this isn't in my jurisdiction, this is somebody else's jurisdiction, so i'm just going to hand it over to them. and i think what we saw today, anderson, was a president, and i was told, who was much angrier at rosestein, rod rosenstein, and jeff sessions than he actually is at bob mueller on this. >> gloria, a lot to learn still. appreciate that. more now on what the president said and just what to make of the entire scene in the cabinet room. cnn's jim acosta joins us from the white house. jim, just talk a little more about what the president said today about those fbi raids because he went on for some time and it was extraordinary to watch. >> it was extraordinary, anderson. and we were watching the president's thought process. he was meeting with military leaders in part about what to do with syria. you could see the gears on what he should do, and how he should

respond to the fbi raid into the offices of michael cohen, some of the other places associated with michael cohen. i talked to a source close to the white house earlier today who pretty much previewed what the president had to say later on in the evening, and that is mueller has gone rogue, they feel like even though the u.s. attorney's office took this over and had this fbi raid carried out that this is essentially a manifestation of the special counsel investigation going rogue. and you heard some of that in the president himself later on in the evening. here is more of what the president had to say. >> so i just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys, good man. and it's a disgraceful situation. it's a total witch hunt. i've been saying it for a long time. i've wanted to keep it down. we've given i believe over a million pages' worth of documents to the special counsel. they continue to just go forward and here we are talking about

syria, we're taking about a lot of serious things with the greatest fighting force ever. and i have this witch hunt constantly going on for over 12 months now. and actually much more than that. you could say it was right after i won the nomination it started. and it's a disgrace. it's frankly a real disgrace. it's an attack on our country in a true sense. it's an attack on what we all stand for. so when i saw this and when i heard it, i heard it like you did, i said that is really now in a whole new level of unfairness. so this has been going on. i saw one of the reporters who is not necessarily a fan of mine, not necessarily very good to me. he said in effect that this is ridiculous, this is now getting ridiculous. they found no collusion whatsoever with russia. the reason they found it is there was no collusion at all.

no collusion. this is the most biased group of people, these people have the biggest conflicts of interest i've ever seen. democrats all, or just about all, either democrats or a couple of republicans that have worked for president obama. they're not looking at the other side. they're not looking at the hillary clinton horrible things that she did and all of the crimes that were committed. they're not looking at all of the things that happened that everybody is very angry about, i can tell you, from the republican side, and i think even the independent side. they only keep looking at us. so they find no collusion and then they go from there and they say, well, let's keep going. and they raid an office of a personal attorney early in the morning. and i think it's a disgrace. so we'll be talking about it more. but this is the most conflicted

group of people i've ever seen. the attorney general made a terrible mistake when he did this and he recused himself where he should have let us know if he was going to recuse himself and put a different attorney general in. so he made what i consider a very terrible mistake for the country. but you'll figure that out. all i can say is after looking for a long period of time, and even before the special counsel, because it really started just about from the time i won the nomination, and you look at what took place and what happened, and it's a disgrace. it's a disgrace. i've been president now for what seems like a lengthy period of time. we've done a fantastic job. we've beaten isis. we have just about 100% of the caliphate or the land. our economy is incredible.

the stock market dropped a lot today as soon as they heard the noise of this nonsense of what's going on. it was way up and dropped quite a bit at the end, a lot. but that we have to go through that, we've had that hanging over us now from the very, very beginning. and yet the other side, they don't even bother looking. and the other side is where there are crimes and those crimes are obvious. lies under oath all over the place. e-mails that are knocked out, acid washed. and deleted. nobody's ever seen. 33,000 e-mails deleted after getting a subpoena from congress and nobody bothers looking at that. and many, many other things. so i just think it's a disgrace that a thing like this can happen. >> now, a couple of things we should point out. one is the president said at one point that they found that there

was no collusion with russia. in this investigation. anderson, point of fact, robert mueller's team has not issued the findings of its investigation. another thing is the decision the president has to make at this point, thinks he may want to make at this point, and that is whether to follow the special counsel robert mueller or push out rod rosenstein, which could in effect put robert mueller out of a job. i talked to a democratic lawmaker earlier this evening, and you're starting to hear this from other democrats up on capitol hill saying if the president does that they will start moving in the direction of impeachment in the house. of course the republicans control the house, and anderson, people are saying that firing robert mueller is the whole ball game. i don't know if that's necessarily the case. i think the ball game is what leaders on capitol hill ultimately decides to do. if the president fires robert mueller. we're not getting clear answers from leaders up on capitol hill as to whether or not they would go ahead along with their democratic colleagues and move toward impeachment if the president does something like

this. and one of the reasons why you might not see that happen is what we're hearing from our sources close to the white house, inside the white house, earlier this evening. if they can make the case that robert mueller has stepped outside the bounds of this investigation, they may use that as a political argument not to act, and you can't have a constitutional crisis if the legislative branch of government decides not to act. >> jim, you heard bloria's reporting about who the president was angry with, namely attorney general sessions and seems like mostly deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. are you hearing at all from the white house that this might have crossed a line and could actually lead to the firing of mueller? something certainly that's been discussed for a long time. >> i think based on what we are hearing tonight, anderson, that they feel as though this is no longer about the russia investigation, that this is no longer about russian collusion. anderson, they know all too well what the clinton impeachment was about. it was about a real estate transaction that came under investigation that eventually turned into sex and an

investigation whether or not bill clinton lied under oath when he was being deposed in the paula jones matter. and they're seeing some shades of whitewater in all of this quite honestly. the question becomes was the president just venting earlier tonight? was he once again pining about the possibility of firing robert mueller or does he ultimately do that? and of course that just conjures up this huge potential for a constitutional crisis in this town. but anderson, that just depends on if the republicans decide to act. if the republicans stand by and allow the president to fire the special counsel or the attorney general, the deputy attorney general, and then nothing happens and this case is dropped, then it just may eventually be a matter for the voters come november to decide whether or not any of that was appropriate, lawful, and so on. so a whole slew of questions that needs to be answered in the coming days, but no question tonight the president is deeply upset, angry about this. people around him are saying that mueller has gone outside the bounds of this investigation. the question ultimately is what does the president do now?

? jim acosta, thanks very much. the u.s. attorney overseeing the cohen case, we should point out-s a strup appointee. he succeeded cnn certain legal analy analyst preet barra. certainly sounds like a preamble to firing mueller or firing somebody. >> he is angry. when any prosecutor investigates something that touches him, his lawyer is close to him. he's been close to him for a long time. so he's obviously angry. he is saying a lot of things that are probably better for him not to say. the more that he says what he doesn't like with respect to an investigation, it adds to the narrative that he is trying to put a stop to something, which starts to fill in the vessel of obstruction. >> could he, just in terms of firing mueller, if he wanted to, he could fire mueller -- >> well, the procedure -- there's a procedure by which he's supposed to do it. it has to be found by the deputy attorney general. but he could find somebody to replace the deputy attorney

general. most people think to effectuate the firing of bob mueller there has to be? domino effect that will cause that in the future. >> domino effect in terms of? >> you've got to get rid of rosenstein. or you've got to get a new attorney general who would not be recused -- >> which again he was talking badly about the attorney general. >> he does that all the time. he has no shortage of ill comments about a lot of lawyers except his own. >> so michael cohen allegedly reportedly being investigated for possible bank fraud, campaign finance law violations, some of the materials released related to stormy daniels. how could that agreement that michael cohen claimed he facilitated the $130,000 coming from what he said was a home equity line of credit and that payment, how would that lead to those possible charges? i get the campaign finance violations. that would be considered an in-kind contribution to benefit a campaign. >> first of all, i think it's important to say i have no personal knowledge of any of this. the skekd thing i think it's important to say is we don't know what kind of charges are being looked at and maybe no

charges will ultimately follow. but if you were going to speculate you know michael cohen has said among other things that the way he was able to get the money together to make the payoff to stormy daniels' lawyer was by refinancing his home. and that's a form of a loan that you have to do through a bank. so who knows what kinds of representations he made to the bank to get that loan? i guess if he was freight stard, he straightforward, he'd say i'm getting this money, i'm refinancing my home for a $130,000 payment to give to a porn actress who claims to have had an affair with the president. that's probably not what he put on the loan document. if you lie to a bank -- that is pure speculation. but those are the kinds of things that -- >> there was also a suspicious activity report sent out by the bank on that. >> yeah. it could be for a variety of reasons. banks are supposed to report when activity occurs that is not in the norm and that is how a lot of criminal investigations start and that may have been

what happened here. the reporting is so fresh, it is unclear to me who's really running this investigation. the reporting suggests that it is the southern district of new york, u.s. attorney's office which is where i used to work and i used to be the u.s. attorney myself that approved the raid. according to the u.s. attorney manual, for a search to be done on a lawyer's residence or office, it is an especially sensitive kind of search that has to be approved personally by the united states attorney in consultation with the criminal division in washington. and if that's all true, the sitting united states attorney right now is a man by the name of jeff berman who was hand-picked by the president of the united states to take over for my successor june kim. so it's an act of independence on the part, if this is true, of the person who is now in charge of my old office. so i don't know how you can complain the way the president did about, you know, politics or anything else. the justice department is run by his people. the special counsel was appointed by his people.

this u.s. attorney is his person who i'm told he actually met with before appointing him to the position. and what i've seen so far is that the mueller team referred this portion of the investigation to the southern district of new york through rod rosenstein. and maybe that's true. it is also true by the way that if the mueller team needed to do an investigation that involved property records in new york city, which is the southern district of new york, that they would need to get a search warrant even in connection with their own investigation. and to do that generally you have to go through the local u.s. attorney's office. so in lots of instances my office would have been involved with getting the search warrant because the property that was being searched was in the southern district of new york. even though it was someone else's case. i'm not saying that this is a mueller special, but until i see more reporting i think that's possible. >> preet bharara, appreciate it. >> thanks. >> thank you very much. a lot more to get to on this

raid of michael cohen's office. michael avenatti joins us next. he has plenty to say. later the president's decision on syria. which he now says will be made tonight or "shortly thereafter." he is make it apparently in an anger over other things and we will explore the implications tonight. we're finally back out in our yard, but so are they.

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michael cohen. according to new reporting they were conducted by the fbi public construction unit. searching rooms where michael cohen was staying as well as his office. and his home as well. the warrants stem from a matter referred by the russia special counsel and overseen by a trump attorney and connected to the stormy daniels case. her attorney michael avenatti joins us now. just from your unique vantage point what do you make of what went down today? >> anderson, this is a very, very serious matter, needless to say. and as i predicted last week, it appears that the noose is tightening around michael cohen. i think the president has considerable reason to be concerned. a lot of faith and confidence has been put in michael cohen. i think the expectation was that he was going to be the fall guy. this is a very, very serious matter. there's no question that it stems from our case and the amount of attention that our case has attracted over the last six weeks. but make no mistake about it. there is going to be a lot of sleepless nights at the white house from here on out. >> others have reported possible bank fraud being looked into, possible wire fraud, possible

fec, election commission violations. from a legal standpoint what exactly do you think the southern district of new york is interested in when it comes to the stormy daniels case? i mean, because just f.e.c. violations, wouldn't a raid like this be an extremely aggressive move? >> well, it would be. but let me say this. i think the president's accusations related to mueller and the alleged witch hunt, et cetera, is an absolute red herring in this case. there's nothing suggesting that it has anything to do with mueller's investigation. it could be headed up by the u.s. attorney from the southern district of new york. the charges or potential charges could have been referred to him. he is a trump appointee. so the idea that this was somehow politicized is a bunch of nonsense. now, moving to the purpose of the raid, anderson, i will tell you, and we have not announced this previously. we have substantial reason to believe that when michael cohen opened the bank accounts at first republic bank for the

purposes of wiring this money that he was not truthful and honest with the bank as to the purpose of those accounts and what they were designed to be used for. we've never stated that publicly. i'm going to state it publicly tonight. that could be one basis for the raids. but again, i think this is a very, very serious matter. there's a strong likelihood in my opinion that the u.s. attorney's office or the special counsel will be able to pierce the attorney-client privilege between michael cohen and mr. trump based on a crime fraud exception. and again, i can't overstate the seriousness of this at this point. >> that's one of the things i think a lot of people don't realize about attorney-client privilege, that if there is some sort of illegal collusion or fraud being perpetrated between a client and an attorney the attorney-client privilege can itself be pierced. >> that's correct. you can't use your attorney to effectively carry out a crime and then claim that the communications with the attorney are privileged and out of bounds based on the attorney-client privilege.

and i nutshell that's the rule. and i think there's a high likelihood if in fact there were communications between michael cohen and donald trump around the time of this payment, around the time of the negotiation of the agreement or shortly thereafter, i think there's a very good argument that the crime fraud exception applies. it's something we've been talking about for a number of weeks. but this is a stunning development and it does not bode well for michael cohen. >> but if the president was aware of the payment, last week he came out breaking his silence as you know for the first time saying he knew nothing about the payment, this was all done by michael cohen. and michael cohen has said that all along. if it turns out the president did know about the payment and was involved with it or authorized it in some way or ultimately reimbursed michael cohen, that's not illegal, is it? >> well, it may be. that could constitute a felony under the federal election laws related to -- if michael cohen and donald trump conspired to hide this payment and to not report it, i think that may very

well constitute a felony and it could be a very, very serious matter, both for the president and for michael cohen. you know, i think, anderson, the problem here is the president has put a lot of faith on the shoulders of michael cohen and his ability to withstand a considerable amount of heat and take a lot of heat, potentially lose his license, et cetera. michael cohen does not strike me as the kind of guy that at the end of the day will do that. in my experience, anderson, anytime a guy has to repeatedly tell you how tough he is and refer to himself as ray donovan that's really not a tough guy at the end of the day. that's more like a purse puppy. >> a what? a purse puppy? >> a purse puppy. >> i never heard that term. sorry. i just want to replay for you the top of what the president had to say tonight because it's pretty extraordinary the way he described this fbi raid. >> so i just heard that they broke into the office of one of

my personal attorneys, a good man. and it's a disgraceful situation. it's a total witch hunt. >> it's interesting that the president of the united states said the fbi broke into the office of one of his attorneys. there was no breaking in. the fbi had a fully legal search warrant to conduct those raids. anytime the fbi is going to raid a lawyer's office particularly a lawyer for the president of the united states, you would think they would have every t crossed and every i dotted. >> anderson, you're correct. and you can be assured that they did. i want to set the stage for a moment as to what happened here. on thursday afternoon the president made statements on air force one directing people to talk to his attorney relating to this $130,000 payment less than 36 hours later, the fbi conducted a raid at that attorney's office and home and another location. that is a stunning development.

but for the president of the united states to cast aspersions as to the good members of the fbi, hardworking law enforcement people that are only trying to do their job that are executing a valid search warrant is outrageous. for him to cast aspersions on these folks. these folks are trying to do what we have been trying to do and that is to engage in a search for the truth and get to the bottom of what happened here. for the president to cast these aspersions is completely uncalled for, anderson. and better yet, it's not smart. where i come from if you're a target of a federal investigation or if people around you are targets of a federal investigation, search warrants and the like, the last thing you want to do is start casting aspersions and criticizing members of law enforcement that are doing their job. that's just not smart. i don't care who you are. >> i think it was this morning you announced you plan to release a composite sketch of the man who stormy daniels says threatened her back in a parking lot in 2011. i just want to play something you said this morning on "new day."

>> a composite sketch has been produced. we're going to be releasing that term along with a significant reward asking that the public come forward. we are very close to identifying this individual. >> and i am wondering given what happened today sometimes news overtakes the best-laid plans, is that still your plan to release that tomorrow? >> the short answer is i don't know. if it is not released tomorrow, it will probably be released within 48 hours. but obviously we did not expect the events of this morning and what's transpired. we have a lot to sort out in connection with this. >> just how much of what happened today do you think relates to your case and relates to all of the things you have brought out in your case over the last several weeks? >> well, i don't say that to be egotistical. but i think it's pretty clear. it has a lot to do with the amount of scrutiny and amount of attention we've brought to this

case and these issues including your interview on "60 minutes" of my client. your use of the expert related to campaign finance law, et cetera. i think there's no question that it has a lot to do with our case. you know, the other development that i think is important is we have made an application to take the deposition of michael cohen and the deposition of the president. i think at this point if we do get the deposition of michael cohen the likelihood of him taking five or pleading the fifth amendment is very, very high. i think it's unlikely that he will not plead the fifth amendment in connection with questions i may pose to him if we get that deposition. and imagine the irony of that. the right hand of the president, the personal attorney to the president, that the president has referred the american people to as it relates to the facts of this, potentially taking the fifth amendment when asked under oath questions about the details concerning the agreement and the payment. this whole thing stinks, anderson. >> michael avenatti, appreciate your time. thank you very much. incredible day. up next our legal experts weigh

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comcast, building america's largest gig-speed network. breaking news tonight the fbi raids on president trump's personal attorney michael cohen. a source familiar with the raids says the fbi seized documents related to stormy daniels. michael cohen has admitted to paying $130,000 for her to keep quiet about an affair she alleges she had with then citizen donald trump in 2006. president trump is taking aim at his own department of justice. >> but this is the most confl t

conflicted group of people i've of seen. the attorney general made a terrible mistake when he did this and when he recused himself, or he should have certainly let us know if he was going to recuse himself, and we would have used a -- put a different attorney general in. >> there's a lot to sort through. joining us now is jeffrey toobin, ann milligram, josh dean and josh campbell. first of all, jeff, what do you take away from what the president said and how he said it? >> it was one of the most remarkable statements in this presidency. the idea he's calling this a witch hunt and denouncing his own justice department -- >> and saying the fbi broke into -- >> remember what happened here. we have not just robert mueller. we have jeffrey berman, the u.s. attorney, appoint from the southern district, appointed by donald trump, personally interviewed by donald trump, which is very unusual. both of them authorized the application for the search warrant. and then a judge, a magistrate

judge, signed that warrant saying there is probable cause to believe that in these searches evidence of a crime will be found. >> this could be something that so the idea that he is calling this a witch hunt when you have all of these people including neutral judges involved is really a shameful, shameful episode. >> this could be something that mueller stumbled across and felt it's not in his purview and therefore gave it to the southern district. or it could be something in mueller's purview that the southern district, they're the ones who executed the search warrants. >> right. that's right. >> i mean, i think that is possible. though the thing i would sort of say big picture is that a lot of the reporting it has been clear when it's mueller's folks, and there's a lot of reasons@people in the southern district would have gone out of their way to say look, this is mueller's -- this is mueller's job, not ours right now. >> this is something that mueller's team would have passed over. >> it's hard for us to know right now. but my first instinct is yes, that it's something where

mueller's team is looking through evidence, they're collecting evidence and they find evidence of a potential crime that isn't core to the work that they're doing. and even if it's allowable under the special counsel's mandate they make a decision that hey, it makes more sense for us to refer this out. you could think anytime think about a law enforcement officer being called to a home with a domestic disturbance, finds tons of fentanyl or heroin, they might call in the drug squad. >> so all the president's talk about robert mueller in this may be just completely misplaced. >> so first of all, it may have nothing to do with robert mueller other than robert mueller making a criminal referral, which by the way people do all the time. and then it would be up to the sitting u.s. attorney to decide is this something i'm going to go into court on. >> the sitting u.s. attorney appointed by the president. >> exactly. and this is what i think jeff is rightly pointing out. what's so strange about this is the president is sort of drawing this conspiracy theory but all the conspirators are his people. right? there's something about it that really doesn't make sense. his u.s. attorney, his fbi right now. i don't believe that the u.s.

attorneys or the fbi are biased, but under the president's theory if he believes people are politically motivate td makes absolutely no sense. >> josh, you're formerly with the fbi. what also stuck out to me is how the president characterized this raid, saying the fbi broke into cohen's office. you though, the fbi had a warrant issued by a judge here. >> that's correct. and that is the major point. in the united states of america the fbi can't just go in and snoop around and gather whatever they want. i mean, this comes back to the fact that you had a detached magistrate that an fbi agent went before and swore an oath and said that the document that i'm presenting to you here, an affidavit in support of the search warrant, contains facts that there is evidence of a crime at this location. and the judge looked at that and says yes, i agree there is probable cause. i think for those who are saying that this is evidence that robert mueller's out of control, they couldn't be more wrong. this is the opposite of that. think about that. a lot of the criticism that mueller's team has got zen they're secretive, we don't really know what they're doing. this step that we saw today is mueller actually broadening that, bringing in yet another independent party, the southern

district of new york, the u.s. attorney, and saying look, you take this information that i presented to you and you determine if there's a crime here and go forth. when you're an fbi agent, when you're a prosecutor as my colleagues here on the panel know, you simply can't turn a blind eye to crime. you have to go where the facts take you. and sometimes that's not a good thing for the defendant, but that's how it works in america. >> and john dean, remarkable this wasn't just a raid on an office. it was a raid on michael cohen's office. it was a raid on the hotel room that he happens to be staying at. also according to the reporting a raid on his home as well. >> that's right. and that decision was made not in washington. that was made in the southern district. those who know federal law enforcement know that the southern district is very unique in the u.s. attorney's office. it thinks for itself. it makes decisions for itself. it sometimes actually conflicts with what happens in washington. and i think this is a clear example of where they decided how to handle this, they did it the way they wanted to, they with great specificity had to

get this warrant to go in and so they had to be ready to swear under oath what might be there, what they thought would be there. this is a southern district operation. >> we should also talk, jeff, just about the documents seized here, documents related to stormy daniels, e-mails, tax documents, business records, also communications between cohen and the president. >> right. and one of the things that i think people need to understand how unusual this is so it's very unusual to get a search warrant for a lawyer's office. there are separate office -- >> because of attorney-client privilege. >> because of the really complicated issues of attorney-client privilege of the documents you might seize. and the justice department is reluctant to do that. in the unusual circumstances when they're investigating lawyers they usually proceed by subpoena. they ask the lawyer to produce documents. >> because michael cohen's attorney is saying look, we've been cooperating. >> right. so the fact that they had the evidence to go forward with a search warrant, not a subpoena,

suggests not only that they feel there's very serious evidence of wrongdoing but there was o'some time urgency, they were worried about the documents being destroyed. so the search warrant of an attorney is -- jumps out to me. >> we've got to take a break. we've got more with the panel on tonight's breaking news, the raid on michael cohen and the president's reaction.

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we're talking about the president's extensive reaction to news that the fbi raided his attorney michael cohen's office and hotel room and we're told house as well. he called it among other things an attack on our country. a source tells cnn the raid seized documents related to

stormy daniels where cohen made a $130,000 payment right before the election to keep her quiet about an alleged affair with the president years before. in the department of there's an old tweet for every occasion which usually relates to something the president tweeted tonight michael cohen's getting in on the act. he posted this during a democratic presidential primary back in 2015. tonight it resurfaced. "hillary clinton, when you go to prison for defrauding america and perjury, your room and board will be free." back now with the panel. so if the president decided he wanted to get rid of special counsel mueller as a lot of people seem to think he has wanted to for a while and obviously given today's statements, he can't just directly fire him, can he? >> right. he could fire the secretary of veterans affairs, which he did. the other day. the way the regulation is worded is he would have to direct his supervisor in the justice department, that is, deputy attorney general rosenstein, to fire mueller.

if rosenstein resigned rather than do it, the next person in line, the associate attorney general, that person would then have to decide whether to do it. that is the pattern that went on in the saturday night massacre when richard nixon fired archibald cox. you had the attorney general elliott richardson refused to do it. you had the deputy attorney general refused to do it, and finally robert bork, the solicitor general, did it. basically, the president would have to work his way through the hierarchy in the justice department until he found someone to do it but he couldn't do it directly himself. >> and just kind of big picture, how stunning is today? >> it's an extraordinary day i think for a number of reasons. one is we've been watching all these things unfold relating to the mueller investigation and today we did see the president's personal attorney and someone who's worked as a lawyer for the president really for over a decade having a search warrant

executed. >> not just a regular lawyer, a guy who has described himself as a fix-it man. his friend mr. schwartz has referred to him as the president's fixer. >> which basically means they're looking -- there's no way they're looking for things that don't connect to the president in some way. right? >> anything he's done -- >> for the past, you know, 15 years, 10 or 15 years has been related to the president. so obviously some of it could concern stormy daniels, the president tangentially we think involved in that. but it really is an unbelievable day when you start to think about what's happening, what we're going to see next. >> john dean, is there any way you can imagine the president firing mueller that doesn't provoke some sort of a constitutional crisis? >> it's very difficult to imagine. in fact, i think he might have been somewhat defanged today. i wouldn't be surprised if we later learned he was tipped off maybe during the raid that was taking place as a kushtd cy. he is after all the head of a branch of government and this is

something happening in his branch that could affect him and i suspect there might have been a courtesy call. but can he turn around and build this into a case to fire mueller? it's going to be very tough because as i said earlier i think this is a lot of the southern district's own doing and how this was handled. >> josh, does a lot of this come back to the president's firing of fbi director comey last may? again, the president kind of revisited that firing again today, going on about how he did the right thing. >> he did, and there was obviously a lot in that statement today. i think the one thing that stood out for me is indicating that he would have actually removed the attorney general had he known that sessions was going to recuse himself, which i think is stunning to think about, that here you have a department leader, an official in government indicating i'm conflicted eyre, therefore i'm going to remove myself, and then for the chief executive to then say, well, that's cause enough for me to fire you is incredibly stunning. >> yeah. and that's something he's said before. months ago as i recall. and the fact he's kind of

revisiting that, kind of revisiting all the greatest hits. i want to thank everybody on the legal panel. the president's on-camera comments tonight were mostly about the raid on michael cohen, but the meeting he was speaking from was actually about the situation in syria. the president said the chemical attack over the weekend will be met forcefully and that a decision will come as soon as tonight. the latest from inside syria, next. i just got my cashback match, is this for real? yep. we match all the cash back new cardmembers earn at the end of their first year, automatically. whoo! i got my money! hard to contain yourself, isn't it? uh huh! let it go! whoo! get a dollar-for-dollar match at the end of your first year. only from discover.

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imagine what we can do for you. aspersion. president trump says there will be a big price to pay for the suspected poison gas attack that killed many civilians, many children, and wounded scores more in the syrian city of douma. he met with top military commanders and national security team at the white house tonight and said a short time ago the u.s. had a lot of military options and will make a decision soon.

as we tell you this story, first we have a warning the images we're about to show you are incredibly disturbing. we do think it's important we show them so you can grasp the horror happening in syria. it's been happening for seven years, in fact. local and international activist groups say barrel bombs filled with toxic gas were dropped from helicopters over the town on saturday. some of the victims choked, they say, then died of suffocation. cnn has been unable to independently confirm either the images or account in part because syrian government forces surround the city. we want to bring you the latest now from inside syria. cnn's fred pleitgen is the only western journalist right now in damascus. tv journalist. he joins us now. what are we learning from your sources of what people on the ground experienced in douma? >> reporter: they said it was absolutely awful, anderson. i can tell you, that day started with a huge amount of air strikes over the douma area which was encircled by assad

forces but held by the rebels at the time and apparently those helicopters showed up and dropped canisters. the opposition is saying. they say shortly after the can canisters were dropped, a toxic gas was released and people started to have severe respiratory problems. they had hundreds of people had trouble breathing, a lot of them, of course, trying to seek medical aid which in itself was almost impossible in those besieged areas. that's also where some of those horrifying images came from of children having trouble to breathe. people then lying on the floor, people with oxygen masks trying to get help some way. then, of course, they say dozens of people were killed. we still don't know the exact death toll, but even after all this has happened, the russians, anderson, are still saying they believe that all of this is a hoax. anderson? >> and what's the assad regime saying? >> reporter: that's interesting because the assad regime said they were pressing an offensive on the area at the time but the offensive was moving forward so

quickly they didn't need poison gas to move quicker. they also say the areas that were hit were in the rear echelon. in those areas, the rebels actually had some pro-government prisoners that the assad regime would have been scared to hit, themselves. they say essentially they had no reason to use any sort of poison gas. but the important thing is, anderson, i think is that that area, douma, has since actually fallen into the hands of the syrian government. the remaining rebels have been bused out. and the force that's now on the ground providing security there is the russians. so the russians really have no reason to say that they don't want an international investigation in that area. they certainly have the means to allow international investigators in there, if that's something that they really want to do, anderson. >> all right. fred pleitgen, appreciate it. coming up, the fbi raids the offices of the president's lawyer, michael cohen. president describing it as a witch hunt saying the fbi broke into this lawyer's office, called it a disgraceful attack on the country. the latest from the white house, next.

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continuing our breaking news coverage, what a president calls an attack on our country. fbi raids on office, hotel rooms, according to the "wall street journal," the home of his personal attorney michael cohen 37 on the table, how it went down and how the president's displeasure of everything to do with it. also new reporting by "the new york times'" maggie haberman on another story from a ukrainian tycoon to president trump's foundation. and a decision that could come in hours or minutes on a possible military action against syria after this weekend's alleged gas attack. also, to impeach or not talk about it? hear from the guy that's been buying all those tv ads calling for impeaching the president along with david axelrod saying the talk could be toxic to democrats. first the very latest from michael cohen from gloria borger. gloria, talk big picture, everything we know about what went down, how these raids were conducted, what they were looking for. >> we know it's extraordinary.

this, michael cohen is the president's personal attorney, he's also a longstanding friend of the president's who dined with him at mar-a-lago a week ago and today he awoke to discover that his office and his hotel room were searched by the fbi and took things you might expect like this phone, his personal computer and financial documents. they proceeded with this search, according to cohen's own attorney, after they were contacted by the special counsel robert mueller who said this is not within my bailiwick but you might do this yourselves. cohen's attorney called it inappropriate and unnecessary. because cohen has been cooperating with investigators so far. so they took records, my sources tell me, related to his legal clients and that includes the president and as well as his personal finances. one of my sources said, anderson, that when you look at this, the search warrant, and we

have not read it, but my source said that it is largely related to stormy daniels and then there were subsets of it in which there was discussion of payments made to her, of communications with the president about the stormy daniels case, and potentially communications with the campaign about it. i mean, you'll recall michael cohen was not a member of the campaign officially, but he did talk to a lot of people of the campaign about it. now, people i've spoken with who were close to the president say he is incredibly upset by this. he is angry about this. he believes this has crossed a line for him. and the legal team, it seems to me, may not be playing nice with bob mueller anymore. and then, of course, the question that you've been raising all evening is does this mean that he would fire rod rosenstein or attorney general jeff sessions whom i'm told he's