new york city. president trump has fired u.s. attorney preet bharara. bharara is what time mag ones called the magazine that busted wall street and its top cop. he leads one of the most independent and prolific districts, new york's. this comes after the president ordered to remaining 46 u.s. attorneys to step down friday. bharara refused. he was then fired today. bharara has taken down big

corruption cases involving both political parties. knowing that in november, president trump asked bharara to stay on, and bharara agreed. >> i said i would absolutely consider staying on. i agreed to stay on. i have already spoken to senator sessions who is the nominee to be the attorney general. >> but as of today the white house has purged all obama holdovers. this letter was written to bharara this week. the letter asked him to investigate trump organization ties to foreign governments. an attorney for the trump organization said it was legallier roanious and politically motivated. monica, what are you hearing right now from officials at the white house if anything? >> we haven't heard anything from white house officials on

this. they are kicking this to the department of justice. of course this news coming at quite a surprise to everybody in preet bharara's orbit given he thought he was going to be reporting to the office on monday and definitely thinking he was going to keep on in this position after his conversation with then president-elect trump in november as you pointed out earlier in the video after the election. it's obvious he's trying to make the point here that this was him deciding not to resign and that as a subsequent decision he was fired, and he made that clear in a tweet earlier today and then in a statement. i'm going to read a part of it. he wrote today i was fired from my position as u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york. one haul mark of justice is absolu absolute independence. preet bharara was a pretty high

profile u.s. attorney. high profile public official such as the mayor and governor were the subject of cases that he was overseeing. and, of course, wall street. this is somebody who was very significant in looking into a lot of issues like this in new york and who from his very own words was clearly surprised by the decision. welgsz heard from people on capitol hill like new york senator chuck schumer who pointed to his independence and said for that reason he will be southerly missed. nothing so far from president trump on this. usually on the weekend we're used to maybe hearing from him in a tweet or reaction of that kind, but nothing yet, richard. >> preet bharara having worked for chuck schumer, his first job out of law school, certainly an association that goes back a couple of years. monica alba at the white house,

thank you so much. i want to bring in former u.s. attorney general, alberto gonzales. thank you for joining us on this hour on a saturday in this development. your thought about the 46 u.s. attorneys that were asked to resign? >> there's nothing unusualb. every u.s. attorney serves at the pleasure of the president. the president no longer has any pleasure in your service, then you leave office. typically with every new administration, every president and every attorney general, u.s. attorney general, wants to have your own settle of field jnz in the u.s. attorney position to help carry out the president's and the attorney general's law enforcement priorities. there's nothing at all unusual about this as far as i can see. >> when you had to address this very issue, and that is the turning over, if you will, of the different districts and the u.s. attorneys that were sefrgds in those spaces, what was your

process? was it to ask for resignation and then wait a week? what was your s.o.p.? >> it really does differ with respect to every administration and every term within the administration. president clinton asked one to leave immediately. president bush in 2001, we did it in stage removals. it just depends upon the president and the other priorities with respect to the office and counsel's office. i think people need to understand that while this is about the enforcement, these are political. that's understood and accepted. and sometimes the removals very apply. the only possible way i think a president might get into trouble with removal is if, for example,

if mr. bharara was investigating donald trump or the trump family and the removal was based upon that investigation, that would be a questionable removal. but i must reassure your viewers that even if that were to happen, the prosecutors in that office would continue the investigation. to try to obstruct justice in that way would be a fool's errand. as a general matter, the president can remove any u.s. attorney for no reason, for a bad reason. he has a great deal of discretion making this kind of change. >> after a u.s. attorney does leave their district, their post, what sort of steps might they be able to take if they were indeed undertaking a case that involved, in this situation, hypothetical as you underlined, involved this current president?

>> depending on the high-profile nature of the investigation or the complexity of the investigation, they might bring in a former -- a deputy u.s. attorney from another district, someone from justice in washington to he had up the office in acting capacity. there's all kinds of options. again, it's very, very difficult to take any kind of personnel action anyway, to obstruct justice because all these investigations are handled by career prosecutors who are there before, and are going to be there after preet is now gone. >> this is rare though, is it not, for u.s. attorney to say no, i'm not going to resign because as you were noting you serve at the pleasure of the president, and in this case this u.s. attorney saying i am not going to resign, i instead will

be fired. fairly uncommon? >> absolutely there's nothing special about mr. bharara, even though he may be the former u.s. attorney in the southern district of new york which is very influential, very high-profile position, there's nothing special about his appointment and the office will continue to do good work zblun common for him not to resign is what i'm saying, requiring that he be fired? >> exactly. he should have understood and he knows. he worked for chuck schumer and was very much involved in raising the removal of u.s. attorneys when i was the attorney general. those removals were ultimately found to be legitimate, but nonetheless was very much involved in raising that as an issue. it's ironic we find ourselves here today where he's refusing to respect the president of the united states.

it comes to the point where he's essentially fired from the position. >> a footnote here, and you preet bharara have not necessarily sat on the same side of the table taught me based on your history going back into recent years. of you sort of gave a head nod to that as he was investigating some of the attorneys you had to let go, and as you said the outcome of that situation. what do you know of preet bharara and what is his sort of personality? might we expect him to say even more about what may or may not have been discussed at trump tour and that what he said, is he's going to continue his job through this administration? >>? >> i don't know enough to comment on that. it doesn't matter what happens during that conversation. what matters is what's occurring today and what's been said recently. the president is entitled to

change his mind. if the attorney general for whatever reason has an issue with mr. bharara, it's going to the president's going to pay a lot of attention to that. previous conversations don't matter. what matters is what the president wants today and what the u.s. attorney general what isn't wants today. >> mr. attorney general, i can't thank you enough for stopping by t 80th united states attorney general who serves "e" served under president bush. thank you for your perspective. i want to bring in beth fewy. interesting conversation here, beth, as we talked to the former attorney general. as i was noting, he and preet bharara were not always on the same side. he discussed it and so did i underline at that point when preet bharara was looking into the some of the firings he had undertaken and despite all that he was clear in stating the development of what we're seeing

today is somewhat typical but a little atypical. >> he made the case that this is not uncommon for the sitting president to get rid of these folks, that he's allowed to bring in people that he wants in these jobs. preet bharara is a public person on his own who was going to attract a lot of attention on his own might really stand out as somebody who if you're looking to make changes, this is a guy you maybe want to move off the public eye. on the other hand, as we know, he told reporters that mr. trump told him that he wanted him to stay on for the administration. this does make the fact that he was fired today a little bit unusual. there's pressure from right wing media and within the white house to furge government of holdovers from the obama administration. these folks, these attorneys are certainly holdovers. whether or not they are act in a political capacity, they're not supposed to, they are sworn to uphold the law. they may be seen within the

white house as part of hose holdovers trying to trip up the administration. >> talk about the timing here, because there is -- what are the investigation that this particular u.s. attorney may or may not have been looking into or will look into in the future that does in his district involve trump tour and the home of donald trump. the second piece is as beth was bringing up, he shouldn't just go into the sunset here because it's very typical for a new administration to say i want new u.s. attorneys. >> right. it's important to know as we've discussing that president trump did act within his legal authority. there's nothing improper or, frankly, unusual about a new president dismissing attorneys who are holdovers from the prior and the administration. the interesting thing is there's

no clear evidence that preet bharara was looking into anything that involved trump tower or trump's businesses or anything else. preet bharara was pretty good at busting people who broke the law and did so in a nonpartisan way. he's busted lots of the wall street executives and finds as a result he's gone after politicians, democrat and republican. he's gotten cross wise with the mayor and governor. the president has some shoes to fill to find another attorney. >> on saturday when we were on air tomorrow, we will have a tweet or two coming from president trump. and in this case, this is not necessarily outside of the space, beth, that he would potentially react to. at least last i checked, we haven't seen a thing. >> not yet. it appears that president trump is starting to be a little bit more judicious with his tweets after his big tweet storm about

president obama potentially wire tapping his bichlgtd we haven't seen anything of that nature coming from the president since then. he's been tweeting about his health care plan, having good meetings with members of congress. he appears to at least to the extent that anybody uses twitter is being professional. he's bullying more professional about his tweeting. so perhaps that's why he's laying low this weekend about preet bharara. >> final thought to you, as a heel. one case that i think few people know about that came to mind about preet bharara was in 2013 he busted and arrested an indian dpamt dpat on charges of visa fraud for a worker. it created an uproar and a headache for president obama, the man who hired him for the job. in his eyes she had broken the law, and that was the end of it. >> barack obama saying you will take that job.

okay. thank you so much. back in a moment with more how this firing went down. we'll have that after this. it just feels like anything is possible here in upstate new york. ( ♪ ) at corning, i test smart glass that goes all over the world. but there's no place like home. there's always something different to do like skiing in the winter, jet skiing in the summer. we can do everything. new york state is filled with bright minds like samantha's. to find the companies and talent of tomorrow, search for our page, jobsinnewyorkstate on linkedin. that goes beyond assuming beingredients are safe...ood to knowing they are. going beyond expectations... because our pets deserve it. beyond. natural pet food.

the market.redict but through good times and bad... ...at t. rowe price... ...we've helped our investors stay confident for over 75 years. call us or your advisor. t. rowe price. invest with confidence. ♪ oh! the things you say ♪ ♪ oh♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ you're unbelievab♪e

♪ you're unbelievab♪e

issahi . for the breaking news on this saturday. preet bharara was fired by donald trump today after refusing to resign. for more on how this all happened today, msnbc tom winter joins us on the phone. taurjs lay out the timeline for us after what happened

yesterday, friday. that request for the 46 remaining u.s. attorneys to resign. >> well, richard it came as a surprise for all 46 that they were going to be, a, that they had to design when they did and they had to be out by midnight. look, all of them with the exception of preet bharara knew that they were going to leave at some point. some has been told within the next few weeks they were going to go, some were told it wasn't until may that they were going to leave. on this week's conference call with attorney general sessions, he ended his call by saying "happy hunting." there's no indication at all from the attorney general there was going to be this need to leave right away. to kind of echo the attorney general gonzales's comments it's

not a surprise at all to these u.s. attorneys that they need to leave. it was a surprise to preet bharara and the southern district of new york because he had been told, folks know him to be someone who doesn't mince words or waste words. for him to come out and talk to cameras and say the president has asked me to stay on, he absolutely believed that he was going to stay in that office through not only the transition, but well into this administration. he's a very independent guy. the idea he was going to be and that he needed to resign was not one that he had planned for certainly much baton rouge before today or yesterday. >> and you're alluding to that conversation when preet bharara, the video we're playing right now when he came to the

microphone and he won't say he was asked to stay on. we didn't get anything from the president since the administration. >> that's correct. there was no official acknowledgement of that and no statement from the justice department since president trump took office saying that he was going to stay on. but i can tell you that up until very recently it's been business as usual in that office. >> to that point, any word, we don't know all the cases that any district office is working on at any one time, but any indication there's something that could be discussed at this point based on today's headline? >> at this point, no. the office will be assumed by kim who was preet's deputy. he started in the u.s. attorney's office here in

new york in 2000, took searcher years away to be in private practice. jim and the prosecutors in that office are very capable and they're people who know what's going on as well as for folks that are watching in north carolina and ohio and elsewhere, this is an office that looks at major wall street banking case and major terrorism cases. these are individuals that are fully briefed on these cases. when monday morning comes around, it'll be different in the southern district, but everybody there will know exactly what they need to do is & exactly what's going on with the cases they've been handling. >> just to give folks a sense of the scale that this office looks into, there's sac capital that

had to pay. the surprise was basically the ask q of timing, you had to be out by midnight. tom winter, thank you. >> thank you, richard. >> joining me on the phone is democratic new york state senator and former federal prosecutor, tom cominski. thanks for joining us today. he shouldn't just go into the sunset here as previous u.s. attorneys have done when a new administration asks them to do that. that might be the criticism right now of him saying, no, i'm not going to do that, fire me. ? >> clearly there has ban prior discussion. by the way, thank you for having me. clearly there was a prior discussion and mr. bharara thought he was staying on.

by the way, that fits with the president's message of draining the swamp and wanting to be tough on crime. in albany, preet bharara has shaken the foundations of our capital. whether you're democrat or republican, he's been an equal opportunist when it comes to weeding out corruption. certainly he was happy to stay on. this disrupt rehearsversal is v concerning. we don't know who's coming in next and it's going to be some very big shoes to fill as the previous caller said in order to get that same type of corruption and crime fighting capabilities that mr. bharara had. it's really a shame because there was as far as i can see no good reason to reverse course here. >> as a former federal prosecutor working in the eastern directors you've coordinated, worked with preet bharara.

what sorts of conversations that you've had and for that matter, experiences you had working with him tell you that he would basically stand up and say, no, you have to fire me? >> look, i was only in management for a little time. i really worked with his line assistants, the grunts like me working the cases. what i want people ston this corruption busting doesn't come with the job. when i got to the public integrity unit where i was, we had not gone after a public official or indicted an elected official in years. these cases are hard to bring. that first not heard of beforehand in a long time, and he bred healthy competition. we would go after tough cases and work hard to be the best corruption fighters we could be

knowing that preet was going to make a good case and we wanted to go and make one too if the evidence warranted. you don't want to giving up on that. but what i can say is he didn't play politics. he went after the number one democratic in terms of assembly speaker, silver. you don't see that very often. it's a real shame to not have that anymore. >> as it was written in the new yorker, he used to prewrite the questions for senator schumer and not without the awareness that a good question could lead to a good pickup. he's aware of those dynamics of the cases you chews and the way you express them. he gave you an award and respects what you do. as you look at preet bharara and the rest of the attorneys that were asked to resign, is it really the timing as tom winter

was telling us? friday, you get the call, some didn't, evidently, that you needed to be out by midnight? is that what's upsetting preet bharara and potentially others at this moment? >> i think mr. bharara is clearly making a statement that it's not me who wanted to leave, it's you who told me to leave. and i think that's important so the public knows to set the record straight. he was willing to come in monday, roll up his sleeves, continue with the fearless crime fighting he had done. it's definitely the president's prerogative to do this, but for me it doesn't make any sense. he had shown no disinclination to continue being a fearless crime fighter. if the president was serious about drainage the swamp, this is something he wouldn't do.

>> thank you so much. i appreciate it that. we'll have more on the breaking news. welgsz have a tweet that came in from eric holder, the former u.s. attorney saying many thanks to the men and women appointed by president obama who served this nation so well as united states attorneys. job well done. that just into us. we'll have more after this. per roll

more "doing chores for dad" per roll more "earning something you love" per roll bounty is more absorbent, so the roll can last 50% longer than the leading ordinary brand. so you get more "life" per roll. bounty, the quicker picker upper we danced in a german dance group. i wore lederhosen.man. when i first got on ancestry

i was really surprised that i wasn't finding all of these germans in my tree. i decided to have my dna tested through ancestry dna. the big surprise was we're not german at all. 52% of my dna comes from scotland and ireland. so, i traded in my lederhosen for a kilt. ancestry has many paths to discovering your story. get started for free at ancestry.com. so we know how to cover almost alanything.ything, even a "truck-cicle." [second man] how you doing? [ice cracking] [second man] ah,ah, ah. oh no! [first man] saves us some drilling. [burke] and we covered it, february fourteenth, twenty-fifteen. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪

i'm richard lui in new york city. president trump making brief remarks in response to news that an intruder breached the white house grounds last night. the president was inside when that happened. the intruder claimed he was there for a meeting with the president. that turned out to be false. the secret service was not armed. our breaking news also today, the trump administration firing

the u.s. attorney known at one of america's hardest charging prosecutors, less than four months ago, preet bharara walking into trump tour to meet with president-elect trump and his future boss, attorney general sessions. he walked out telling reporters to the microphones he had been asked to stay on. but late yesterday when sessions demanded that the last 46 u.s. attorneys from the obama era and before that they hand in their resignations, bharara said no. politico reports steve into an among those backing the decision to fire the so-called sheriff of wall street. bharara confirmed his ouster this afternoon adding, quote, one haul mark of justice is absolute independence that that's my touch stone every day that i served. thanks for being with us this

hour. this office was certainly known for absolute independence, not only during the years that he has been the u.s. attorney out of the southern district, but also before that. bharara talking about absolutely independence, is this firing and house cleaning r there any questions surrounding it that you are hearing from your reporting? >> not at all. this is a mess of president trump's making. he singles out this very, very loved, tough on wall street prosecutor by asking him to come meet with him face to face with jeff sessions as well, tells him that he wants him to say that he respects him, tells reporters the same thing when he leaves. even in the "new york times" he asked on the conference call saying does this apply to me because i was told i was staying on. you never know who's calling the

shots. "politico" reported that bannon was behind it that, it was a decision that was unbiased. this story really is a mess of their own making, and i think we're right to ask was there a political motivation, are there people he was considering prosecuting that our friend or contributors to trump. this could have completely normal business as usual, new president, new prosecutors, and they if you heard thi they fumbled this again. >> it was not necessarily the request of them to resign, it was you must because know within minutes or hours, by midnight, and that potentially is why that isn't the right thing to do. >> absolutely. there's a process here. there's ongoing investigations. there's tossing off.

it's another example of the president and his administration underestimating the people that he just flippantly dismisses. it's admirable for him to say, no, i'm not going to resign. if you want me to leave, you have to fire me. the onus is on you. underestimating that people are going to bow down and do what you say when people who are committed to their jobs are committed to truth and justice. this administration is not. >> former attorney general alberto gonzales -- >> you can promote me. >> who spoke with us this hour was saying in effect, and i paraphrase that is u.s. attorney preet bharara should basically just accept the fact that he was asked to resign and then move on. >> so what do you accept? do you accept one-on-one meekt

with the president of the united states telling you in your face telling you that you are going to stay, or do you accept some call with one fell swoop takes you and 49 other prosecutors out? they're mixed messages, leaving this vacuum for people to rightfully so question their motivations. >> gabrielle larks thank you so much for sticking around. coming up, making the case for repeal and replace. vice president pence traveling to kentucky, a state that has senator that has become a huge obstacle to the white house health care effort. i can stay. i'm good. i won't be late hey mom. yeah. no kissing on the first date, alright? life doesn't always stick to a plan,

but with our investment expertise we'll help you handle what's next. financial guidance while you're mastering life. from chase. so you can. just imagine if all were constantly thinking. always on the lookout for patterns and connections to make everything work better. i call it the internet of everything, but it's really the internet of everyday life. ♪ the partnership between dell technologies and sap helps make the promise of the internet of things a reality for our customers. we know how powerful live data can be. we use sap at dell to run everything from finance to procurement to travel expenses. and that's the same kind of live insight we can now start offering to all of our customers. and as we get better information, better insights, it can improve virtually every aspect of society and the economy. that's the opportunity of our generation.

the next industrial revolution. that's why dell technologies runs live with sap.

. the white house has kick off its push to mike pence making the first top in louisville, kentucky. msnbc is in louisville,

kentucky, the covering speech for us. what's the latest there. >> reporter: richard vice president mike pence spoke before and after select group of louisville business represents today to repeal and replace obamacare in kentucky. let's listen to what the vice president had to say. >> we're going to have an orderly transition to a better health care system that makes affordable, high-quality health insurance available for every american. >> so he was talking front of these local business leaders. mike pence has become the administration's point foreign sell the new health care plan. this is his third such visit. the others were in ohio and wisconsin. and this trip to kentucky might have also been directed to senator rand paul who has been the harshest critic of the bill asking it to be scrapped all together and even calling it

obamacare-lite. with his visit to kentucky today mike pence might have been pressuring him and other republicans in congress to get behind the new by at the event today he also mentioned another kentucky policing and praved him, senate majority leader will have a large part in getting this bill passed and was not in attendance today either. this was a hard sell for kentucky ans. the state's uninsured dropped from 20% to 7%. 1.3 million kentuckians are covered because of medicare expansion. that's why you saw hundreds of protesters outside this event today asking mike pence for affordable health care for everyone and asking for obamacare to stay. richard? >> thank you so much for that report out of kentucky. also we're watching this.

several states, including hawaii, have filed lawsuits challenging president trump's revised immigration order. we'll hear from hawaii's attorney general who has been hashly critical of that order. dearthere's no other way to say this. it's over. i've found a permanent escape from monotony. together, we are perfectly balanced. our senses awake. our hearts racing as one. i know this is sudden, but they say...if you love something

set it free. see you around, giulia

how's tcheck it out.t going? lights. meeting configuration. blueprints. call hruska. we've gotta set up a meeting. sure. how do you spell that? abreu, albert, allen, anderson c, anderson r... you know what? i'll just tell him myself. door. andrade... see why 3,000 companies a month are switching to vonage. why do so many businesses rely on the u.s. postal service? because when they ship with us, their business becomes our business. ♪ that's why we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country.

♪ here, there, everywhere. united states postal service priority : you there's certain races that are going to be presumptively going to be in a second class environment. and there will be a superior race that's running everything. >> the attorney general of hawaii became the first u.s. official to challenge the ban on six muslim majority nations. the top law enforcement sacrificial taking on the white house. only a few days remain until the ban is set to go into effect. earlier i spoke with hawaii's attorney general, doug chin. and i asked him if using language like a superior race, whether that was going a little

bit too far. >> i think history shows us whenever the top levels of government take some sort of aim at persons because of their national origin or because of their religion, that's when you're going to end up having problems with the constitution, even beyond that that's where you have problems in society. one of the concerns that we have about the executive order even when we were reading through the new one is just that it has -- i will still contains words such as we're going to make sure we track every one of these citizens and noncitizens that are based in these downs look and see whether or not they're committing hate crimes or honor killings or domestic violence. anyone from one of these six skunz presumptively a terrorist. that is something they have to overcome even if they're a a

baby or grandmother or mother-in-law. >> when you look at one of the adjustments to this new or revised immigration ban, they removed the wording that many critics were bringing up. this has religious consideration and no longer shows that in this latest draft, shall we say. >> right. the supreme court back in 2005 had a great case that had to do with the ten commandments being labeled as the fundamentals of american principals and laws. it was a church and statement argument, but basically in striking down what that county was trying to do, the supreme court said the world is not made brand new every morning. we might be looking at neutral language, but we didn't wake up on that day. i think the problem unfortunately for the administration is that you have

president trump's statements when he was on the campaign trail after he became the republican candidate. even after he became president as well as the statements of his surrogates, stean midterm after the second kpechktd was put out essentially said this is going to have to be the same basic policy principals with just a few tweaks to it in order to pass legal concerns.that, we do that the discriminatory intent that was behind it was eliminated. >> folks might not know that. the state of hawaii has 5,000 or # thousand group of residents that are muslim americans, and you do talk about them when you discuss this issue. what time of day that community been saying to your office? >> i have to say hawaii is one of the most ethnically diverse states in the country. there is significant muslim

population that's here. i think one of the blechssings the opportunity to meet people in the community. they contribute to the university, they work jocks. the research institutions that are here. they're special people that deserve to be welcome just as other minority groups that have been discriminated against in the past. >> just looking at the calendar here, wednesday you're back in court? >> sure >> the new ban will take effect the day after that. you've also had a conversation evidently with the president. tell me all about those things. >> that's right. last week i had a chance to be at the national ag conference that was in d.c. president trump met with us and open it up for questions and answers. at that time the executive order hasn't gone out. so i stood up and i introduced myself.

i said we were wondering with the new travel ban coming out what was it he was trying to accomplish, what was he thinking behind this executive order. and his response was civil. it was the same day as his statement -- speech to the joint session of congress. and he said that his goals were to make america safe again, that extreme vetting was a part of that and a lot of us wouldn't like his approach and that was his priority. >> thanks to attorney general doug chin. the firing of preet bharara. hey, searching for a great used car? yeah! you got it. just say show me millions of used cars for sale at the all new carfax.com. i don't want one that's had a big wreck just say, show me cars with no accidents reported pretty cool

i like it that's the power of carfax® find the cars you want, avoid the ones you don't plus you get a free carfax® report with every listing start your used car search at carfax.com ito become dangerous.d for an everyday item new tide pods child guard pack. helps keep your laundry pacs safe and your child safer. align, press and unzip. so we know how to cover almost alanything.ything, even a "truck-cicle." [second man] how you doing? [ice cracking] [second man] ah,ah, ah. oh no! [first man] saves us some drilling. [burke] and we covered it, february fourteenth, twenty-fifteen. talk to farmers. we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪

breaking news story. u.s. attorney preet bharara fired after refusing to resign. joyce advance, former u.s. attorney for the northern district of alabama.

advan thank you for being us. joyce, what's the sense, if you will, of the community of former u.s. attorneys as they watch what has happened in the last 24 hours? >> well, richard, thanks for having me. i think it's important for everyone to understand that the united states attorneys offices are really the front line in the fight against crime. the way these firings were conducted, not the fact that they happened, because u.s. attorneys are political appoints, it's interrupt i have to the morale in the offices. the way this was done makes you question this administration's with kimt to the justice department's mission. >> you're right, it happened. those who did, did, those who

did not, didn't hear about it in some cases. what are you are hearing in terms of that actual timing from other former u.s. attorneys or theernz you've been speaking with? >> i think it's very unusual. i served in the department for 25 years as a career prosecutor. so i lived through a number of these changes. and typically u.s. attorneys have several months of notice so that they're aware of when the change will take place. in this situation people were out on snow days, people were in meetings. many u.s. attorneys heard when they received calls from the press or frantic calls from people in their office asking if they'd heard they had been fired. >> does it surprise you one attorney is saying i'm not going to resign, you'll have to fire me? >> what makes preet different is the fact that he was asked to stay on by the president. and then suddenly he's fired.

and you have to ask the question what changed? none of us know the answer to that question, but it's troubling that we've having to ask it. >> you know preet bharara. any sense of what's going through his mind right now? his sense of what has happened in the last 24 hours? >> preet and i were confirmed together for our jobs as u.s. attorneys. we were among the first five of the obama u.s. attorneys. one thing that i know about preet bharara is he's absolutely committed to the mission. he believes that the independence of the justice department is at the heart of our system of government and i strongly suspect preet's concern is for the people in his office and for their ability to perform their ongoing mission which side not change no matter who the president is. >> thank you for your service and giving us your protector. >> that's it for this hour. stay with us right here for news

updates on any breaking news is it happens right here on msnbc. we have a special edition of the rachel maddow show. that is next. have a great night. honey, do we have like a super creamy cheese with taco spice already in it? oh, thanks. bon appe-cheese! okay... whattwo servings of veggies? v8 or a powdered drink? ready, go. ahhhhhhhh! shake! shake! shake! shake! shake! done! you gotta shake it! i shake it! glad i had a v8. the original way to fuel your day.

thanks to you at home for joining us for the next hour. "politico" reports tonight that u.s. investigators including the fbi are looking into a russian citizen in conjunction one of the incidents on the trump campaign last year which defied explanation at the time. dramatic news tonight from politicalco.com. this incident happened last year, last summer on the trump campaign. it was one of the first direct signs we had that something strange was up in the trump campaign when it came to the issue of russia. it's an incident that came to light during the republican national