robert: a high-stakes standoff. president trum and his allies ash with the justice department. i'm robert costa. the russia probe enters its second year, tonight, on "washington week." president trump: i have this witch hunt constantly going on for over 12 months now and actually much more than that. robert: as president trump continueso insist there was no wrongdoing by his 2016 campaign, the russiarobe hits the one-ye mark, and the president gets behind allies in congress pushing to discredit robert mueller's ongoing investigation. the latest delopment a showdown, over a top-secret f.b.i. source. b.i. director christopher ray issues a warning and the bureau scrambles. >> the day we can't protect human sources is the day the

american people areaf less robert: a newa ple deal involving the former son-in-law of paul manafort that could put more pressure on the former campaign chairman. mr. trump's persoysl attorney he's more hopeful about the possibility of a sitieown intew between the president d special counsel. others remain skeptical or urge against it. >> we had the first hopeful communication with him last night. i don't want to i dismisst because i think it was a good faith attempt to narrow the focus dramatically of the questioning. robert: we discuss where the investigation and the president go frome, h, yamiche alcindor of the pbs newshour, devlin barrett of "the washington post," kelsey snell ofpr and mark landler of the "new york times." announcer: this is "washington week." corporate funding is provided

by -- >> their leadership is instinctive. they understand the challenges of today and research the technologies of tomorrow. some call them veterans. we call them part of our team. >> on a cruise with american cruise lines, travelers experience the maritime heritag and culture of new england. r fleet of small cruise ships explores americanancapes, seaside villages and historic wrborsre you can experience local customs andsi c. american cruise lines, proud sponsor of "washington week."

>> additional funding is provided by cancer treatment centers ofwm america -- 's own foundation, donating all profits from newman's own's food products for charity and nourishing the common good. koo and patricia yuen through the yuen foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. the ethics and excellence in journalism foundation. the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. once again, from washington, moderator, robert costa. robert:good evening. it has been a year since robert mueller and his team began their special counsel investigation into russia interference during the 2016 presidential election. the expansive probe has gripped the white house and congress art ceainly newsrooms. so far, mr. mueller has crged

19 people, including four former trump campaign advisers, and three russian companies. he has secured five guilty pleas, along withioheir cooper this week, president trump marked the one-year anniversary of the w probeh criticism and suspicion, suspicion of the government he leads and long-standing institutions --me the departnt of justice and the f.b.i. on twitter he slammed the special counsel as, quote, the greast witch hunt in american history. he also tweeted, the obama f.b.i. spied on the trump campaign with an embeddedin rmant. andrew mccarthy, conservative former federal prosecutor, says, if so, this is bigger than watergate. but let's take a step back and get up to speedhi on what all means. in brief, the president is echoing ala being made by his allies on capitol hill. they believeus thea probe, including the surveillance process, of trump cpaign

associates, was mishandled by the d.o.j. and f.b.i. that belief has led them to push justice for more documents. in the latest firestorm, over a top-secret source who provided information to the f.b.i republicans and the president want more information. d.o.j. officials, however, are worried about the source's safety, which they believe could be in jeopardy if exposed. last week, "the washington," poncluding devlin barrett, who joins us tonight, reported that the source is at the center of the back-and-forth between house intelligence committee chairman devin nunez and the d.o.j. so what was a congressional outcry now has presidential support. devlin, welcome to "the shington post." lking to a source last night, i heard this is a firestorm inside the whi house. one person described it as a tinder box, the fight between the d.o.j. and g.o.p., now the president of the united states.

at justice tonight, are they on edge? devlin: i think they are not onp edge butpared for this to escalate, the possibility of escalation, because for a lot of folks in law enforcement, this fight over this source, while an important fight on the merits, is reallabout a bigger problem and a biggeret of confrontations, really about is rod rosenstein going to stay as deputy attorney general overseeing this investigation, is the coness going to tur this fight over the documents into a fight over who gets fired or who quits inside the administrationhe is mueller probe going to be allowed to continue? or is there going to be some sort of ultimate confrontation between the white house, republicans in congress and the justice department? robert: what does that mean, when you say escalation, ultimate confrontation? does it mean the president issues a direct order for the assified materials to be released to the public? devlin: certainly with republicans in cs who are

angry at the justice department about this, they want the president to issue that order but the justice department and to a lesser extent, theig intece community, have made pretty clear that that is a red line for them a a very hard order to carry out in their minds because they genuinely woouy it endanger, not just the source, who everyone is trying to protect, but people who have helped the source over the years. so they feelhey're on very firm legal and moral grounds to say no, and just gaming it out, if that order were to come, and if that order were to be essentially refused, what does the president do then? and that's what goes to your earlier point about a tinder box. that's the worst-case scenario an ultimate confrontation that could happen as a result of this between the white house a the justice department. robert: this charged moment, kelsey, theresident waded into it, pushed it forward this week. but when you think of how it's been building over time, it started on capitol hill.

congressman mark meadows, north carolina republican, chairman nunes, who are people saying to him? kelsey: they're saying it is a witch hunt but they' a small portion of the republican party on the hill. there are many i talk to who say thers a leadership firewall that needs to be maintained, to avoid the tinder box situation soar, house speaker paul ryan and majority leader mitchl mcconnay they're supportive of mueller finishing the investigation and they'd like it to wrap up quickly. but they're staying out of the hyper-partisanship of this and as long as there is a leadership firewall between the talk in the freedom caucus, the gro that is run by mark seadows,oongs snroongs -- as long as that is confind that small group, there

is hope among mainstream republicans it will stay that way. robert: containment is a tough thing, when you see, mark, in the conservative media, people like steve bannon out there pushing meadows and nunes along. what does that tell you? you've covered bannon for a long time. when you see people on fox news pushing the administration, does that make it harder for the republican leadership to control the situation? rk: i think it does because i think they have an astute read ofhat appeals to their base and galvanizes their base so is top secret informant is a perfect test case. you call the person a spy. we don know. details haven't come out. you put out this sinisterl portra this person and it evokes all the worst kind of sense of the dee state and government agencies overstepping bounds.it enormously powerful with trump's base and i think it does resonate with some percentage of

the republican voters generally which i why, when you look atg pollinata on questions of, do you think the mueller investigation is legitimate or being conducted properly, broadly speaking, you see support for i but if you look at the numbers within the republican party, ace significant page of republican voters believe that this is an investigation that's run amok. so to some extent i think they have already succeeded in discrediting this investigation so that when mueller does finally file his report,x- rcentage of americans will simply not believe it, on the face of it.ro rt: there have been many threats from the president and allies but the president has yet to the pull the trigger when it comes to tiger -- firing thett deputyney general. who is holding him back on that? yamiche: in some ways it's hard to tell who the president is listening to in terms of who has the most weight in the moment in

the day. i think thearger picture, it would throw people in a constitutional crisis if the president tried to fire rod rosenstein or tried to end the ngobe so i think the feeling the president is get from his own party, whether from john kelly or from republican leadership like mitch mcconnell, it's the fact that, if you do this, this will be really, really bad and all theyohings want to do -- the e.p.a., d.o.j -- all the things you want to d on trade. even meeting with kim jong un and everything with north korea, all that would be thrown out of the window if he fired rod rosenstein and tried to stop the mother probe because everyone would be laser focused on that but when i think of where we are a year from ns, i critical what mark said, the idea that for a long time the president has been layinghe groundwork to say that robert mueller, who is a republican, he is some hyperpartisan hack that is aer hi because people are mad that

president trump is president and people want to get rid of him. and that idea has been something they've been working ofor a long time. i think rudy giuliani coming out and saying the mueller camp saying they might issue a report, i think that's laying g theundwork that the report isn't a big deal. originswhat about the of the probe. we've seen reporting from "the times" this week about theur crossfirecane code name, the source we have been reporting on at the "post." are there legitimate questions about how the investigation was started? is the department of justi or f.b.i. vulnerable to congressional scrutiny,ubc scrutiny? >> i think most lawyers wou tell you no, that this is how investigations work. but in many ways what the trump administration and his people have decided is a political solution to a legal problem. it is both a legal problem and

political problem but they'real pouring as much energy as they can into the political strategy of tryingo deal with this legal problem. but in terms of the origins of the investigation, the way i think it's easiest to understand it is, the f.b.i. was looking at a bunch of different things at a bunch of different times and that coalesced into a larger question for them which was, is the trump campaign itself or senior people in the trump campaign themselves actively engaging with a foreign power to influence the outcome of our election? that is the basic question and we still don't have the answer to that bic, fundamental question. i do suspect that in time the public may get impatient for an answer to that question. but right nowt it's a of legal blocking and tackling among the individual players and in that, mueller's been prett successful. robert: it comes down to carter page and georgeou papadop who they were meeting with, what

they were doing. mark: and we they having conversations with people more senior in the trump organization, bringing things to the trump campaign that the campaign was representative to. i think to pick up on one thing devlin said, the question of was the origins of this investigation, were they proper or not, has to be seen within theroader context of a very charged political environment and you can't really talk about th beginning of the trump investigation without talking about the end of the clinton email investigation because just as the f.b.i. properlythaid g about the trump investigation, james comey did speak publicly about theai clinn investigation so some percentage of the population is always going to believe that this was handled unfairly, improperly, in a way that disadvantaged hillary clinton and i think that all of this will be, again, rehashed when robert mueller makes his report.

yamiche: think one of the things we're watching happen politically speaking, you're watching people on the campan trail not talking about ecting mueller. that's not the message republicans are campaigning on. the only ones talking aboutel r are talking about how it is a witch hunt, further solidifying the idead that there are maybe three core groups of people whent comes to how america views this. people that believe he's a russian operative and this is a big problem and hillary clinton was wrongedav you people who believe it's a witch hunt and there are a large number of people america who can't keep track of what's going on and every person i talk to in the campaign arm of the democratic party and publican party say people aren't paying attention to this and they generally have no opinion of this investigation though they realize it's probably important. robert: people may not be able to pay attention to it all the time but the person you can't

escape this week is former new york mayor, rudy giuliani. w i feele have him on speed dial calling him every day for our newspaper stoes and repor for "pbs newshour." mr. giuliani isertainly the tv lawyer president trump wanted, someone to hammer the message to the public. here are a few statements thek former newcity mayor made this week. >> this is a completely tainted investigation. do you get a big liar like comey? a liar likeccabe in the f.b.i.? a guy with a conflict of interest from day one on the hillary investigation? it's about time to get theth dan g over with, about time to say we're tortured this president enough. robert: we've had many interviews with rudy giuliani. when will he make a dheision wh the president sits down with robert mueller for an interview? yamiche: i think we both asked him that question every day. i asked him y thatterday. robert: will he or not?

yamiche: i don't know. he doesn't know. heoiaid at this the mueller team and trump's lawyers have been in conversations, narrow questions.e of the he wasn't very clear when i talked to him about what thatme t and whether or not he could sit down and i said, is he kind of ready to sit down and h said it's too soon to say. the thing rudyiuliani is doing is feeding the idea that this washe made up and president is a victim. i think maybe it's working in b waause i think what you said about the idea that the population is ready to look at it fm the lens that they come from, from a political party, ik think the thing here is that when we say people don't care, you're not talking about democrats who are angry hoslary clinton all those people are looking at robert mueller saying, please get this man out of office. and the republicans who feel like so many pmple told t they were supporting the wrong candidate and that president trump could never win, they feel very wronged and fee like they

should be doing a victory lap, not worrying about the investigation. robert: does mueller issue a subpoena if giuliani and the president decli an interview? mark: he could issue ait subpoe. not clear he will. mueller hasn't shown his hand in terms of how aggressive he's willing to be. hence, that gutionio -- discu about whether he would indict president trump. he tends to play things by the book. it's n h cle the president would respond. it would quickly escalatef he rejected it. the reason thaud giuliani has to be so careful on this question is that i think a lot of his lawyers or several lawyers would argue therere many risks for him speaking to the special counsel because many of the things the president has said to date have been proven wrong or contradictory so thinkhere's a worry on the part of his legal team to put him in fro of mueller. robert: when you talk to people at the d.o.j., devlin, giuliani

asserted that the d.o.j. and muheler can't charge president, that it would end up in the hands of congress. ishat the justice department's standpoint? devlin: i think that's the most legally solid thing giuliani has said in a l you talk to lawyers around town and many are flabbergasted by many of the things giuliani is saying in public. however, there is a general understandin in principle within the justice department that a sitting president to be indicted. that hasn't been tested completely latelyut that's the position of the justice department historically and i don't thk mueller is out to change justice department policies. i do think tt if comes to an outright refusal to come in without a subpoela, i think r is the kind of person will be to issue a subpoena. that will obviously raises the stakes and could be an intense thin robert: we'll keep an eye on the

report, whether or not he does the interview. there's been more news into mueller front because one year into the vovings capitol hill, g inveion on capitol hill, the senate intelligence committee concluded the russians did meddle in the election and boost mr. trumps and t week the judiciary committee released a report on the trump ter meeting between don trump jr., jared kuser and russians and we learned that mueller has reached a plea deal with paul manafort, former campaign chairman. with all these moving parts, thers been one constant, the secrecy surrounding the mller operation, no leaks. there is a recent cnn poll that find republicans are increasingly losing faithe in special counsel. only 17% of republicans have a favorable opinion of mueller. ethat is the c with republicans but you see on capitol hill the senate republicans working with senate democrats came to the conclusion that was different than house

republicans, and they said the russians did meddle and boost trump. kelsey: if there was ever ae wek whou saw a stark difference between the senate and house apoach, this week was it. you saw senate republicans saying things that house republicans wolld aely never stand behind. in fact, house republicans said they dismissed the findings that the election w tilted towards trump. they rejected this entirely. you see all ofns the republi coming out and saying that they are happy andat s republicans are happy to look into this and want to continue the inveigation. the partisanship on the house said is not surprising. they're drawn into districts where they're more likely to be elected by replicans who are more likely to believe in the president so theyave different political concerns back home and it appears when legislating.

robert: one question, about the mandate mueller has, whether or not he's stepping outside of his bounds. giuliani keeps saying the president doesn't want to talk about michael cohen or stormy daniels, should he sit down. is that an issue the trump side will continue to push? yamiche: i think he is. th sources i've talked to familiar with how special unsel investigation works say this is why presidents hate they because t can get tentacles and go different directions and when you he someone like esident trump and his associates with intertwined, complicated financials, yr h how michael cohen or stormy daniels might figure int this. there's an idea that the president might be very nervous sitting down. the one thing giuliani didn't say today or this week is that the d.o.j. wouldn't indict the

president's children. you think about donald trump jr. he could be indicted. jared kushner could be indicted. so there's all these people around donald trump who could bl in l jeopardy, something that's a lot bigger. when think of president trump eitting down with the special counsel, w think of the interview with lester hol he was asked why did you fire james comey? he said it's becau of the russia thing. it was stunning but he was telling the truth so if he does go into the interview and tls the truth what does that mean?ma robert, you've studied american power and international diplomacy. the president i trying to do a lot of things around the world. what does it mean for him to have this cloud as he endangs in foreign policy? mark: the white house continues to function normally in terms of the state department and cabinet

so at some level the policy continues. the problemn is, w you have a president that is this distracted, you can have the l presidene the plot. i was talking to a white house official rec ntly aboth korea policy, which has gotten a bit messy ithe last few days. the north koreans have sent strange sigls about whether the summit meeting will happen or not so here's the president dealing with a curveball from the north koreans at the moment he's preoccupied with his own legal situation and i think there's a danger when you have a president that, as nixon did during watergate, starts to be so wrapped up in his own issues, he's not thinking clearly about his own problems. robert: thanks for joining us tonight. our conversation will continue online on the "washington week extra." we will discuss this week's prim.y electio you can find that later tonight atas pbs.orgngtonweek. i'm robert costa. thank you for joining us

announcer: funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> the leadership is instinctive. they understand the challenges eof today and research th technologies of tomorrow. some call them veterans. we call them part of our team. announcer:additional funding is provided by.

>> at cancer treatment centers of america, we publish treatmens rume for 11 cancer types so patients can make informed a decisionsut their cancer care. learn more at cancercenter.com. >> american cruise lines, proud sponsor of "washington week." newman's own foundation, donating all profits from newman's own's food products for charity and nourishing the common goo the ethics and excellence in journalism foundation. koo and patricia yuen through the yuen foundation, committeddg to bg cultural differences in our communities. the corporation for publicdc brting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank yo g aptioning performed by the national captionstitute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org.] -there was a night of tv that was mary tyler moore.

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