bipartisan support from people in the senate, and i've just never seen a president so sort of brazenly fire an fbi director in charge of an investigation like that. >> this really means something to people. our thanks to everyone who participated in this hour. what a night for "hardball" and chris matthews. tuesday night massacre. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews. in a city erupting at the news that the president of the united states has just fired the person leading the investigation into the president's own involvement with russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. trump announced the firing of fbi director james comey, who has deployed 20 top agents to dig into trump's dealings with the russians. his abrupt action late today may short circuit the investigation leaving open the question of what role trump, michael flynn,

paul manafort or others played in president vooep's meddling in our election. as fbi director comey was one of those who concluded that the russians sought to influence the results in 2016. president trump wrote to comey saying he was being fired while asserting that comey had told him on three occasions that he, trump, was not actually under investigation. that's what trump wrote. trump said, i concur with the department of justice that you are not able to effectively lead the bureau. he referred to a letter from the deputy attorney general citing comey's decision last july to, a, declare the case against hillary clinton to be closed without prosecution and, b, releasing derogatory information about clinton at that time last july. the question arises tonight in this drama, was it a development that came recently, comey's call for an all-out investigation of the trump campaign's possible engagement of the russians, or what comey did last july regarding trump's rival.

pete williams has more. >> reporter: chris, this is the first time that an fbi director has been fired by a president sans h since 1993. that was the only other time when president clinton fired bill sessions over some allegations of impropriety in the way sessions was accused of using bureau money to make improvements at his house. but never before has a president fired an fbi director over something this big. the letter you cite from the president is important because the president is basically saying, i'm not firing him because he's investigating me. and we've never heard any indication that the fbi's investigation of allegations of connections between trump campaign associates and the russians has ever suggested that the president himself was involved in that. so from everything we know, the president seems to be right about that, that the fbi told him three times he was not understand investigation. so the deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein, who is just in that job, has a bipartisan

background, served as the u.s. attorney appointed by democrats and republicans, wrote a three-page letter in laying out the case against james comey. that news conference you talked about last july 5th, rosen stein says it was completely inappropriate for the fbi director to criticize somebody whom they're not charging. second problem, he said, was that comey in essence took over from the justice department, that the call about whether to prosecute hillary clinton was up to prosecutors, not the fbi or the fbi director. and then the matter of the hillary clinton e-mail reopening in late october, when he sent a letter to congress. rosenstein said that was inappropriate, that the fbi shouldn't be revealing investigations it was involved with. now, as for what you just said, the fbi director's publicly revealing that the fbi was investigating trump associates -- remember, that the fbi director said he did that with the full support and

permission of the justice department. so presumably that's not one of the reasons for his firing, and we're told that this issue of getting rid of james comey, that he could no longer effectively lead the fbi, came to a head after his testimony last week when there was basically universal condemnation of his handling of this from all but a few republicans on the committee. but even the republicans had been critical of comey for not calling for charges against hillary clinton for her handling of the e-mail thing. so comey has been the subject of intense bipartisan criticism for the last several months. one other thing i think we have to talk about here, chris. in the letter, rod rosenstein citea lot of former justice department officials, former prosecutors, who say -- who agree with him that comey did the wrong thing. this is really referring to a letter that came out during the campaign, an open letter from

former prosecutors signed by lots of former justice department officials, including eric holder, the attorney general who recommended that comey be hired by barack obama. but the point here, chris, is that none of these people in this letter said that comey ought to be fired, and rosenstein is mentioning them in the letter to suggest that they agree with his analysis that comey did the wrong thing. >> but the decision to fire, just for the facts and the headlines tomorrow, pete, the person who did the firing was donald trump, right? >> reporter: no question. >> and he had discretion to decide what to do. and i have to ask, generally speaking in a broader sense, that he chose to use a case against a -- a cause case, because he needs a cause to fire somebody. that he latched on to this cause of last summer as a basis for getting rid of someone he doesn't want in that job. is that a reasonable assumption? he doesn't want him in the job, and that's why he got rid of him, having as a cause what happened last summer? >> reporter: well, i think it's going to take a while to figure out which is the chicken and

which is the egg here. whether the justice department recommended to the president that comey be fired. what was the genesis of that? that is going to take some time to figure out because normally you would think in the absence of the e-mail question, it would be virtually impossible politically for a president to fire an fbi director who was in the middle of an investigation of that candidate's campaign. make no mistake, that investigation will continue. the fbi won't stop. it's being run by the counterterrorism investigation. whether james comey comes to work tomorrow or not, it wouldn't have mattered. it will still go on. but, chris, you can expect intense calls now for there to be a special prosecutor to take this case over out of theands of the justice department. >> i think there's going to be a tremendous call, as there is in the last couple of hours. thank you, pete williams as always. nbc's peter alexander joins us from the white house. peter, this seems to be, the way it will look to the world, the way it will read in the world headlines, is that trump has just fired the guy -- and it was

his decision, his decision to fire the guy investigating his team over what role they played vis-a-vis the russians in the last campaign. that's the world headline. he had a cause. he was given that cause by the deputy attorney general, rosenstein. he was given that cause he could have used or not used. he chose to use it because you have to have a cause to fire somebody. he grabbed at it. your thoughts? what's the news? >> reporter: i think you're exactly right. i mean the way this went down today was pretty striking. we can now report some new details coming to us here at msnbc. first of all, we're told by white house officials that this planned firing was already in the works before the latest news surrounding james comey. that was about his misstatements regarding huma abedin's e-mails. he overstated the number of e-mails classified, some of them, but a large number -- he said it was actually a much smaller number. that was a misstatement. the white house said that had nothing to do with this today. i think you nailed it on the head. this is the president of the united states, president trump,

whose campaign aides are under a counterintelligence investigation by the fbi, who now fired the fbi director who was, in effect, overseeing that investigation. so he's now fired the former acting attorney general, sally yates, who was in the headlines over the last 24 hours for what she revealed about the sort of behind the scenes details in those days leading up to the firing of michael flynn. still unclear why 18 days passed before michael flynn was fired. now we know the firing of james comey has also occurred. so one by one, some of the top individuals in law enforcement and in the prospective cecutoris of this country out of jobs as this white house is in effect clearinghouse. the president assuring lawmakers, including dianne feinstein, the top democrat on the judiciary committee, that the next nominee will be independent. but a lot of people are going to be skeptical of this going forward right now given what we've just witnessed. a little more color about the behind the scenes details right now. we know that the fbi director

james comey is scheduled to be in los angeles tonight. he was there for an fbi event. we also know that the letter, the notification of termination, was hand-delivered to the department of justice by keith schiller, whose face would be familiar to those who watch this network often because he's often right by the president's side. he's been close to the president for years. he is the director of oval office operations. he physically hand-delivered that letter to the department of justice, which we are told was also e-mailed to him. but, chris, a lot of new information coming to us this evening. suffice to say we are reaching out to the white house because there lhas not yet been a statement from president trump himself. only the letter. >> you know the news business. we've got senator schumer of new york just making a statement right now. here he is live. >> -- making a big mistake. the first question the administration has to answer is why now. if the administration had objections to the way director

comey handled the clinton investigation, they had those objections the minute the president got into office. but they didn't fire him then. why did it happen today? we know the house is investigating russian interference in our elections that benefited the trump campaign. we know the senate is investigating. we know the fbi has been looking into whether the trump campaign colluded with the russians, a very serious offense. were these investigations getting too close to home for the president? it is troubling that attorney general sessions, who had recused himself from the russian investigation, played a role in firing the man leading it. so what happens now? deputy attorney general rosenstein sat in the judiciary

committee and promised to appoint a special prosecutor at the appropriate time. that time is right now. the american people's trust in our criminal justice system is in rosenstein's hands. mr. rosenstein, america depends on you to restore faith in our criminal justice system, which is going to be badly shattered after the administration's actions today. this is part of a deeply troubling pattern from the trump administration. they fired sally yates. they fired preet bharara. and now they fired director comey, the very man leading the investigation. this does not seem to be a

coincidence. this investigation must be run as far away as possible from this white house and as far away as possible from anyone that president trump has appointed. given the way the president fired director comey, any person who he appoints to lead the russia investigation will be concerned that he or she will meet the seem fate as director comey if they run afoul of the administration. the american people need to have faith that an investigation as serious as this one is being conducted impartially without a shred of bias. the only way the american people can have faith in this investigation is for it to be led by a fearless, independent,

special prosecutor. if deputy attorney general rosenstein does not appoint an independent special prosecutor, every american will rightly suspect that the decision to fire director comey was part of a cover-up. i'll take one or two questions. >> are you suggesting that this was a part of a cover-up, and did you convey to president trump that a special prosecutor should be appointed, and what was his reaction to your response? >> i simply said to him, mr. president, in all due respect, you're making a very big mistake, and he didn't really answer. and i have said from the get-go that i think a special prosecutor is the way to go. but now with what's happened, it is the only way to go. only way to go to restore the american people's faith. are people going to suspect cover-up? absolutely. if an independent special

prosecutor is appointed, there still can be some faith that we can get to the bottom of this. if not, everyone will suspect cover-up. >> are you suggesting -- >> senator schumer, you told me last year before the election that you had lost confidence in jim comey because of how he handled the e-mail scandal. do you think that the president's explanation -- this is the reason why he's firing him now has credibility with you? do you believe that, or do you think he's firing him for another reason? >> okay. i never -- i never called on the president to fire director comey. i had a lot of questions about how he handled himself, but the overwhelming question is this. if the administration had those same questions, the events occurred months ago, and they should have fired comey on the day they came into office. all of them occurred before he came into office. so that does not seem to me to

be a very logical or persuasive explanation. thank you, everybody. >> let's go to hallie jackson at the white house for its reaction. >> reporter: a little bit of a pre-buttal if you will, chris. i'm pulling it up in my e-mail given that just moments before senator chuck schumer came out to make those remarks, the white house handed out a sheet of paper inside the briefing room. essentially giving what you might call oppo if this were a campaign on senator schumer, talking about quotes from schumer criticizing james comey and praising the current deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein. i can tell you that the white house, as part of its conversations surrounding what has happened in just the last couple of hours here, is pointing out to reporters, including myself and peter alexander, who are here, that the senate overwhelmingly confirmed rosenstein. they are looking, it appears, to be putting together an argument to rebut some of the attacks that you are already seeing from democrats that this may have

been politically motivated. it appears as though the white house is conscious of that criticism and is working to kind of turn that on its head. as we said, there are serious questions now about what exactly happened to lead up to this moment as well as some other points that have been raised. for example, in the letter that the president sent to james comey, he talks about three separate occasions on which comey apparently informed him that the president was not under investigation. that could potentially raise some questions about communications between the fbi and the white house. >> thank you so much, hallie jackson the at the white house. we go right now to senator joe manchin. senator, i have a sense for the first time that the president has done something that his people aren't going to like. this isn't defending the trump movement. this isn't defending the white working guy ticked off at the elite. this is a president using his power to prevent himself falling under the -- he's under investigation. he fires the investigator. i think the average guy at a bar

can say, i know what he's up to. he's looking out for his keister, his rear-end. >> you might be right. chris, the bottom line is every time comey came before us in any type of a setting before the senate, if it was bipartisan, all 100 of us, there was always a lot of anxiety. there was always emotion. so he created that because you had believe that believed he was involved in changing the outcome of an election if you will. there's other people that believe that he shouldn't have been -- i mean so i'd say tonight there's probably people on both sides of the aisle that might be pleased with this. but there's an awful lot of people that are very concerned. what i would say, chris, what you need to watch is who are they going to recommend? who's the next person recommending for this job that has to be advise and consent by the senate and confirm. that person better be able to get 75, 85, 90 votes like comey did back in 2013. that's going to be the telltale sign. >> what do you make of the fact that you've just mentioned the

politics of this, and you know it better than anybody? the people that like comey were the ones that liked what he did in the election, which to all obvious appearances helped trump. he opened up the investigation of hillary clinton 11 days before the election. he's probably a hero to a lot of tru trumpies. and now trump fires the guy that most people think -- in fact, hillary has got a book in process that says two people caused her to lose the election, comey and vladimir putin. now it looks like one of the guys that helped her lose is getting fired, and the other guy that helped her lose is now being freed from an investigation. so i don't get how the trump people are going to react -- i don't think they're going to like this one. i think they're going to look at a guy defending himself personally against the justice system that he should be under and respectful to and not representing what they wanted when they voted for the guy, which was look out for the little guy, the innocent little guy. >> chris, let me tell you, so the little guy that's watching

us tonight, i can tell you that senate intelligence committee is going to do our job. this is not going to impede or impair us from doing the investigation that we will do. and it will be done in a non-partisan way. it's a great committee. we have a great staff. they're diligently going about their business. we will have mr. comey come in very quickly. we're looking forward to sally yates and many others to get the facts. the intelligence will take us where it takes us, and the facts basically will give us the truktruk truth. this is not changing anything. now, basically it changes the investigation part, and it's imperative. if it takes a special prosecutor, if it takes somebody that's bipartisan that we can get elected and confirmed through the senate, i think it's upon this administration and president trump to give us somebody -- you know, the special prosecutor is going to be appointed by the attorney general. that person has to be above

reproach. that's the process. >> it's tricky business. hard to know who to trust right now. thank you, senator. i trust you. >> in a way, i'd like for them to come before the committee. thank you. susan page and clint watts, robert costa. you know trump. he knows how to read headline as head of time. it looks like he's pulled a "saturday night live" massacre on a tuesday night. by the way, nixon was smart to do it on a weekend. i have never seen a faster reaction by democratic senators than i heard in the last hour or so. they are loaded for bear. whatever metaphor you want, they want a special prosecutor now more than ever. this has hurt the trump case, i think. your thoughts. politically. >> in the last few minutes i've been talking to my sources the at white house. i have to tell you based on my reporting, the white house is very quiet right now, not sending out officials or cabinet members to defend this decision,

to articulate the reasons why. they're standing by the letter from the president right now, which i think is a different way this white house has usually approached controversial moments such as this. we're also watching this administration really go against how congressional republicans are responding. there's a lot of congressional republicans i'm talking to feel like they were taken by surprise. there are whispers that this was maybe in the works for the past week. but now this pushed tts the republicans on the hill in a tough spot. >> thank you so much. susan, i think it's very hard for a republican senator in any kind of reasonable district, a state that might go either way, to defend this firing. i think the firing of sally yates, who was fantastic yesterday, people wondered about that. there does seem to be sort of a machine gun approach to getting rid of anybody that might investigate you by the president. >> and the president's explanation which is he's firing him for things he did -- >> who would believe that? nobody reading your paper is going to believe that. >> it's certainly not passing the smell test for democrats.

this will be a test for republicans who control those congressional investigations. do they pursue them with renewed vigor? do republicans join democrats in manding that there will be a special counsel? democrats can't do this. republicans could join with them and be a much more potent force in pushing for an independent counsel on this. and what happens at the fbi? does the fbi investigation continue with a lot of vigor, or does this slow things down as they wait to find out -- >> what do you think among the professionals? is this going to turn them off? it may turn off the -- >> for sure. what can you trust? what we saw tonight is the rule of law does not matter. it's the rule of political power. you know, we hear president trump say america first. tonight president trump put himself first. >> a little whiff of fascism tonight i think is fair today. >> absolutely. >> a little whiff of i don't care about the law, i'm the boss. >> if you listened to director comey's testimony last week, he said the reason that he did these press conferences is he was trying to stay above the political fray. >> yeah. >> that he thought it may not be

handled the best way, and he wanted to get that assessment out there, that independent assessment of the fbi, that integrity. that's why it's the fbi out there. and he wanted that judgment to go to the american people so they could know for themselves. what he's seeing now is whether it's democrats last summer or now a republican president now, if you don't bow to their power, you're then thrown under the bus. the fbi director goes to a ten-year appointment so that they can remain independent across the -- >> but you can hear the president was able to find a cause from last year to use as a basis for firing the guy. i know you need to have cause for firing, but no one believes that cause required this firing, not at this point. >> that letter has been in the works probably for weeks or months. they've also probably been waiting for comey to make a mistake that they can fire him for cause. president trump tried to reach out to director comey, try and bring him under his influence. i don't think director comey went for it. when that didn't happen and as the russia investigations

cropped up, this is a nervous reaction from a president whos seeing the walls caving in. >> i thought sally yates was the mo most impressive witness we've seen. she seemed like a likable witness who had the truth and was a true public servant with 36, 37 years behind her, working for a government salary, doing the job as a prosecutor, clean record. and she said the president didn't want the information i gave him when i came and said, michael flynn's been playing footsie with the russians. you ought to know about it and he's lying about it. why wouldn't they thank her for doing that? this is the part that is -- if you're the biggest trumper in the world, how can you defend trump for doing nothing for 18 days when he finds out that his top security guy is on the take from the russians? i don't know why he wouldn't want to immediately boot the guy. call him in right now. did you take $34,000? were you talking sanctions? unless he told him to talk sanctions with the russian ambassador. >> what's the lesson, though, when you have an investigation of a president and he gets mad

and he fires him? the nixon example is that things get worse for you because people think you're covering something up. they think there is something there to pursue. it doesn't do you good even with your allies, even with people that naturally want to be with you. >> that started the move for impeachment. that did. that night. >> every time president trump gets caught in the incompetence picture, which we saw yesterday, they knew for 18 days that flynn was compromised and didn't do anything about it and sat on it until it was basically brought up through the media. >> i want to remind the viewers that it all comes back to this is not just a witch hunt or some kind of a, you know, fishing expedition. the focus of this investigation since almost the beginning of this administration is what role did the -- we knew that the russians played a role in helping this election go the way it went. we know that. 17 intelligence agencies brought that information to us, including comey. but the question has always been, was the candidate who won

or the people in any way responsible for encourang that or responding to it positively by saying, you know, we're going to relieve those sanctions when we get in there. on the phone right now, that's what it's about. the russian connection. right now we have john brabender on the phone. john, go ahead. what do you think is the reaction by the trump voter to what they're learning tonight on the news? >> well, i think it's going to be a little bit wait and see. i think senator manchin said a lot of this is going to be dependent upon who the president does actually appoint. i think that story will be very telling. but let's not forget this is one of the few times when democrats and republicans have come together and basically said, we have a renegade fbi director who is incompetent and showed poor judgment. hillary clinton basically said that last week. so, you know, this does not affect any of the investigations at the house or senate. it's not like somehow this relieves the investigation. so if you can't fire somebody

for incompetence, then they get to have this job forever no matter how they perform, and i just find it a little bit disingenuous that the people who most have been demanding that he be fired are now acting like he's the greatest fbi director -- >> i think it's fair as you know politically whie the clinton people, why hillary clinton is writing a book now apparently saying he was one of the two reasons she lost the election. everybody would agree about the role he played. so the fact that both sides attack you because you're politically independent is not a slander. it could be that you are independent, that you'll go after hillary. you may make a mistake on terms of numbers of e-mails that went over to anthony weiner's computer desktop. those numbers were clearly wrong, but that's not usually the reason to fire somebody, john. that's not the reason you use to -- >> except i think there were a lot of people who felt he showed poor judgment, first at his july 5th press confence, which was really unprecedented. >> did you believe that 11 days

before the election when he came out and said, we're reopening the investigation of hillary clinton because of the connection with anthony weiner? did you say at the time that was bad judgment? >> well, look, i'm a republican, so i thought it was fortuitous without a doubt. but in retrospect, i think it is fair to say that it probably was poor judgment because when he did announce that, i thought, oh, he must have something. you're not going to make this announcement just fishing, you know, to see if do you have something. it turned out that's exactly where he was. >> okay. >> i can't help but think it's a little bit disingenuous for the democrats to claim that that's the case and he should be fired and now he's fired and somehow it's donald trump's fault. >> when you're reading the newspapers around the world tomorrow from germany to india, anywhere in the world, kenya, anywhere you read the headlines, the headlines are going to say, president fires prosecutor who is investigating him over russian ties. that's going to be the news around the -- is that good for our country that a president

looks like he's covering up a prosecution or obstructing a prosecution? >> comey is going to have every right to dispute that, but if indeed that's the truth, then trump was right to put that in the letter. >> well, he didn't say carter page. he didn't say paul manafort, and he didn't say michael flynn. he didn't say those guys weren't under investigation or roger stone or the rest of them. anyway, john brabender, thank you for joining us. i'm joined by senator martin heinrich who is a member of the u.s. select committee on intelligence. your reaction to the news breaking tonight, senator? >> you know, chris, i think this really sent the message that this president now believes he's above the law. we haven't seen anything like this in decades, certainly not since the saturda night massacre. so i think peoe suld be deeply concerned about these developments. >> do you believe his argument on paper that the reason he's doing this is what comey did

last summer with regard to hillary clinton? do you believe that's the reason he's firing him now? >> absolutely not. i don't think that's a credible argument. this is a president who is giving him a thumb's up two days into the administration, saying he had guts back in october. i think the only logical explanation at this point is the most obvious one. that the investigation was getting a little too close to the white house. he was feeling the heat. i think it's very troubling to see that the attorney general, who has recused himself from this administration, is now directing the -- or suggesting that the president fire director comey. so i think this is not going away anytime soon. >> you know, he's most known for that iconic line, you're fired from the old reality tv days of "apprentice" on nbc, i must say. now he's fired sally yates, who everyone believes is a stand-up public servant after yesterday's excellent testimony. >> absolutely. >> now he's fired comey, who is a bit independent and not always

perfect by any means, but who has shown that he doesn't listen to political leadership, that he was willing to go after hillary clinton under a democratic administration. he was able to basically hurt her badly 11 days before the election, which i think is very troubling. but he's also a guy who stood up to ashcroft back in the bad old days with regard to torture. he is a man who has proved himself perhaps as an independent, someone who donald trump doesn't control. that's what i'm hearing tonight, that donald trump doesn't want anyone around him who might investigate him he doesn't own. >> i think that's exactly right. and i haven't always agreed with director comey, but he's supposed to be independent if he's director of the fbi. and this sient, i think, a very chilling and intentional message to law enforcement, and i think it is a terrible precedent for thfbi and really law enforcement across this country today. >> how do we get o of this? do we get an independent counsel, an independent prosecutor? how does it get done? >> i think we absolutely need an

independent counsel. at some point, as this gets more and more flagrant, my hope is some of our republican colleagues who have called for such a thing will actually join with us to put into law an independent counsel who will look at this and have the credibility to do so, to step back from the politics and not under the thumb of the current occupant of the white house. >> well, i recommend sally yates. thank you, senator heinrich of new mexico. i'm joined by nbc news justice and security analyst matt miller and ken dilanian. ken, go ahead with what you're thinking about this whole case. you had some very insightful thoughts in the beginning of this mess tonight. >> well, chris, thanks. i think what's important to explain to our viewers is they hear democrats criticizing republicans all the time, right? these people are really disturbed about this. this is heartfelt. they are apoplectic, and they feel it was deeply cynical for

the trump administration to cite comey's handling of the hillary clinton matter as a justification for his firing. and they're really concerned deeply about what's going to happen to this russia investigation. now, i've been also talking to former fbi officials who have some insight into how these counterintelligence investigations work. i'm getting a mixed picture. one person i talked to said, look, the fbi is non-political. this is going to be a big story but at the end of the day, they're going to do their jobs. it would be politically suicidal for the trump administration to try to quash this investigation. that's one person. another very senior former official, though, said he is really disturbed and depressed and thinks that the trump administration is going to try to bring in someone who will try to close the russia investigation. he even said to me he frs thisst end of an independent fbi. this is the kind of reaction we're getting, chris, across the board here to this very dramatic news. >> matt, we also know as a fact if you are appointed now, even with the title independent counsel, if you're appointed in any way by donald trump, he wants to own you. >> yeah.

that's exactly right. that's the signal he's sending by firing jim comey. it's a message to everyone at the justice department. it's a message to jim comey's successor that i expect you to fall in line. and if you get out of line, you will be fired. it's really disappointing to see. you know, we are used to seeing partisan reactions about many things in washington, but this is a real fundamental rule of law issue. it goes to the very basis of how our democracy works and if there's any check on the president at all. if the president is under investigation, if his associates are under criminal investigation, it needs to be someone strong enough and independent enough to make the little calls to move forward with that investigation, to make the big calls. it needs to be someone that's completely independent, and there is no one at the justice department left who is strong enough to do that in the way that jim comey was. >> yeah, this isn't fixing a parking ticket. thank you, matt miller, and thank you, ken dilanian. on the phone is the ranking member of the house intelligence committee, congressman adam schiff. congressman, we've been watching you for months now, and i wonder

how this fits into the context of what you've been investigating as ranking democrat on that committee. >> well, here's my concern. you have a president whose associates are under investigation by the fbi. you have an attorney general who is supposed to have recused himself from decisions over the russian investigation making a recommendation to the president to fire that chief investigator, and the president taking that recommendation. it raises a whole host of conflicts of interest and questions about whether this is simply brazen interference with a criminal investigation. i don't think anyone in the country can have any confidence that donald trump wasn't thinking, what's the impact on my exposure by firing comey? and he must have concluded that he was better off without him than with him at the helm. and that is deeply troubling. i think it underscores just how essential it is that we have an independent prosecutor appointed immediately. >> let's look at that balance,

that very sharp balance there. it seems to me what was your view as a professional, as an attorney, as a member of congress and ranking member on that committee. what did you think of comey's ability to get to the bottom of this case with the russian involvement? was he going to do it? >> first of all, i shared a lot of the reservations that the deputy a.g. set out in terms of director comey's handling of the clinton e-mail investigation, particularly what he did in october. so i understand that. i concur with a lot of those criticisms. at the same time, though, for this president, who applauded those statements and actions by director comey to take this action now just calls into question, you know, what is this really about. and i think, you know, people are going to jump to the conclusion and perhaps properly so that this is all about the russian investigation, which he has called a fake. now he's getting rid of the head of the fbi, who is conducting that investigation. you know, i certainly have mixed feelings about the director

given his conduct of the clinton e-mail investigation, but i have profound concerns about a president who is so deeply conflicted in terms of his interests making this kind of a judgment. >> back to my question. do you think that he was going to do a good job of investigating the russian deal -- comey? did you have faith in him to do that? >> i think that one of the s impacts of the house investigation was providing oversight to make sure the direor and the fbi were taking this matter seriously. i had more confidence that was happening after our open hearing than i did before. nonetheless, it was something i think we needed to continue to monitor and stay on top of and question of the director about whether he had chased douwn thi lead or that lead. this is part of what we're able

to do in closed session. but nonetheless, even with the misgivings i had about the director, the fact that this president and this attorney general have made this decision hearkens back, i think, to some of the decisions that were equally tainted by president nixon. >> let's take a look at that series of developments. we had nunes, your chairman for a while, who basically humiliated himself by that midnight ride down to the eob and coming back with the same material and going back the next morning to the president with what he had gotten from the president's people. then yesterday the i thought stellar testimony from sally yates, the acting attorney general who brought the information about the russian connection through michael flynn to the president's people, to his attorney in the white house, and she was pushed back basically and criticized for doing her job. the pattern here looks much better for the people prosecuting this case or trying

to get to the truth, than it does for the people trying to cover it up certainly. is that fair? >> well, you know, when you look at the pattern, sally yates did her job. she got fired by president trump. director comey was investigating something the president described as a fake. he got fired. you know, it doesn't, you know, particularly enhance your career prospects, i guess, to take action that the president decides is not in his very personalnterest. that's not a quality you look for in a president. you look for a president to have an independent justice department, an independent fbi, and i think that's been very much thrown into question by this president's actions. >> he comes from the private sector, from a company he owns and controls, and he had a tv show for years, very successful tv show where he fired people. do you get the sense that trump believes that anyone who causes him any kind of chafing, any discomfort, that he does have sort of the right to fire?

>> i think he does view it that way. he has very little appreciation of how a system of checks and balances works, and one of the things that we are finding, you know, much to our peril is this system of democracy and checks and balances that we think is so firmly entrenched is actually quite fragile. when you have someone in the oval office who doesn't observe any of the norms of behavior that we're used to in a president, we see just where the weaknesses are institutionally in our system. i do think it's incumbent on congress, both democrats and republicans, to insist upon an independent prosecutor here. there's simply no way i think the public is going to have confidence that this president is going to voluntarily absent himself from any further interference in the investigation. >> there was another iconic event in the last couple days. that was the trip in the bus. not the other bus, not the acce access hollywood bus, where they

all trooped down to the white house to get their pat on the back from the president. i don't know how these things connect. but if i were doing deep history, i would say that's another indication that the balance of checks and balances in our system isn't really working when members of the house of representatives, who got elected on their own, who put together their political careers on their own, who do their job on their own, felt that they should come down to the white house -- there they are, the picture of them, giggling like kids rewarded by the school principal, getting a holiday. they're all grinning. i don't know. do they understand the system of checks and balances when they work with you on this investigation? do they get it? >> well, you know, i do think that my colleagues on the committee and mike conaway are serious about the investigation. i do have to say, though, watching that spectacle at the white house, i found it so disturbing that people thought that passing a bill that cuts off tens of millions of people from health insurance is something to be celebrated like

a frat party. >> yeah. >> it really was appalling, and it says more about how they view this as a game than it does about whether they're focused on the public benefit. >> well said. thank you so much, adam schiff. let's go back to susan, clint, and robert for their reactions. robert, you are a trump watcher. do you think he's a -- he's very good at public relations, at headline selection. his tweeting is always trying to catch up to the news cycle. i think he's fallen behind in the news cycle tonight. i don't think he's going to control the headlines tomorrow morning. i think they're already written. >> i'm monitoring some of the headlines right now coming out of the capitol hill, and he has senator burr from north carolina, chairman of the intelligence committee saying he's troubled by the president's decision and its timing. the congressman from michigan, a republican, saying he wants to establish an independent commission on russia. but i think one point we have to remember here is this was deeply

personal for the president. the fact that reveals that is keith schiller, his long time bodyguard, now head of oval office operations, personally delivered the letter to director comey at the fbi. and when you have keith schiller involved in the execution of this decision, that means it came directly from the president himself, and he trusted only his longtime confidant to make it happen. >> you know, i do see the romanov aspect of this administration. the people he trusts are his family members. his bodyguards deliver that kind of information. it's monarch i cal. when a king doesn't like the minister, he fires the minister. he changes the palace guard. he makes all the decisions based upon himself. i do think -- you're going to do the headline tomorrow, aren't you? usa today in every hotel room in america, i think the headline is going to be very bad for the president with his people. i don't think they're going to like it. >> the optics of having your

long time bodyguard deliver the letter saying that you've been fired, i think, is troubling. the fact that senator burr, who has been a very good republican, and some questions about how aggressively he would pursue the -- for him to call this troubling, that is a sign that republicans are finding this distressing and may not provide that kind of wall of protection for president trump that he wants to have. >> and north carolina is becoming a very much increasingly a purple state. clint, this question of probity, how do you think the people around comey are going to react to this? career, gutsy, fbi agents who go to work every day for a government salary. they committed to a government salary, and they have to take risks physically sometimes. they carry a gun. how are they going to react? are they going to think their agency is under assault or just comey? >> i think this sends not only to the fbi but to everybody in government the signal from president trump, you had better

bow to me, and if you don't, you're replaceable. i'll have you gone the next day. and that's going to meet stiff resistance in the fbi, who sees themselves as the independent arbiter across the checks and balances, whether it be congress, whether it be the executive branch. and i really believe amongst my fbi friends, current and former, that they're going to have a big problem with this because it's seen as if the president tried to influence what is an independent body. and when he didn't get his way, he then got rid or discarded of the fbi director. >> it sounds to me politically that trump's less afraid of what they have on him now than he's afraid of what they will get. in other words, what they have on him now, comey could drop the dime on him tomorrow morning. but what i think trump is afraid of is what they will get tomorrow and the next day and if this investigation goes on and on, it might get to pay dirt. >> he thinks he's above the law. if you remember last summer, he talked about, i could shoot a person in the middle of the street, and nothing would happen

to me. >> is that what he just did? >> he thinks he can do whatever he wants and that there will be no actual pushback to him. he believes he has absolute power as the president. he doesn't exactly understand the government. >> he made a big mistake today. not only what he did, he did it with the timing. this is aweekday, the robust, early part of the week. every democratic sator was working hard today. you could tell it wasn't saturday night, and he wasn't at mar-a-lago or in jersey at a golf course. he went at the american political system and judicial system and bureaucratic system when it's working, and they were ready to come back tonight. it's an amazing event tonight. >> the quickest way for his administration to end is for him to lose the republican senators. and you're already seeing some talk that's very different from what you might have -- >> i thiwant to talk about a coe things. first of all, where do we go with an independent prosecutor?

to pick an independent prosecutor, which is the outlet pass if you will in football, we've got to try something else, right? still it requires a process. the president picks an independent counsel if he picks one based upon a decision made by a recommendation, a nomination by the attorney general? >> i think the attorney general chooses the special prosecutor, and the attorney general has recused himself from matters involving trump's russia investigation. i assume that means the deputy attorney general is the person who would choose an independent counsel if the administration decided to go that way. >> formally it's done through the a.g.? >> i believe so. >> with senate approval or not? >> no. i don't believe so. i mean there was a special prosecutor law that was allowed to -- >> this is going to be problematic if you don't get senate approval. >> i believe that's the way the process works. >> thank you as always. we'll be reading your paper tomorrow morning as it hits the floor in front of us. msnbc senior political analyst mark halperin was just inside the oval office with president

trump. mark, what's happening there? >> reporter: well, chris, the president was in a meeting with the vice president, the white house chief of staff, a few other top aides, and i was at the white house on another matter and got brought in to see e president,o talk about this decision that he made the first thing i can tell you from a senior administration official is the president met tonight for i believe about 30 minutes with the new acting fbi director, mr. mccabe, who is a figure whose name came up in the conduct of the investigation into hillary clinton last year. we can talk more about him, but he's got some ties, sobut as th deputy fbi director, he's now going to be after a meeting with the president this evening, he will be the acting director at least for the time being. the president talked about the decision to get rid of comey and said that judgment was what he thought was the concern. that was the concern of people at the justice department, including the deputy attorney general, who does have, as pete

williams said earlier, some bipartisan credentials. that in his view, this was not a tough decision. you'll recall that during the campaign, comey, through his actions related to the clinton campaign, obviously people in the clinton campaign raised questions about him. but the president during the campaign said he also looked at comey's behavior and started to have doubts about his conduct as the fbi director and made the decision to get rid of him. >> well, this is mid-may almost, and those actions that were mentioned by the deputy attorney general occurred last july and october. why now? it doesn't seem credible. sure, as in mathematics, it's a necessary condition but not a sufficiency condition. he can use t. he didn't have to use it. >> reporter: right. i raised the question of timing, and one of the things the president cited was this thing that happened during comey's testimony which had to be recanted today regarding the way huma abedin's e-mails got on her husband's server. he raised that as an issue that once again raised the question

of competence and judgment on the part of comey. but he didn't give me in the time i was in there a complete explanation as to why now although he did say that he'd had concerns for a while. he did say that this was -- that people in both parties had raised concerns about comey and that that's part of what he was keying off of. >> did he mention the russian investigation? >> only in the context of saying this was not a factor. i didn't have the time i would have liked to press him on that and the politics of that because clearly if this is going to be an issue -- clearly this is going to be an issue that a lot of people are going to have that front and center as you've been discussing. but he dismissed it and said that that was not part of his thinking. but obviously people are going to question that, and he said the search now is under way and that he suggested that this was something they wanted to get done very quickly, that replacing comey, he felt, was necessary to do now. as i said, he cited as a recent development the testimony that had to be recounted regarding

huma abedin and her practice with hillary clinton's e-mails. but he didn't explain the sum total of what was involved. >> thank you so much, mark halperin at the white house. democratic senator richard blumenthal, connecticut, a former attorney general of connecticut. sir, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> i was citing a math rule there which is necessary but not sufficient. sure he had a cause. he needed to have a cause under the law to fire him. he found if in what happened last year. i don't believe it was his motive for firing the guy. your thinking? >> i question director comey when he appeared before the committee just last week because i was doubtful about the wisdom of what he said and did in those months. but certainly now, to use that action as a reason to fire director comey absolutely defies credibility. and it is a brazen, craven attempt in my view to stifle the rule of law and an ongoing investigation that has the

president of the united states as a potential target. in his testimony, director comey refused to rule out the president as a potential target of that investigation when i explicitly asked him about it. and i think that answer says more about the president's reason for firing him today than does something that happened months and months ago. >> back in october of 1973 of course we had the saturday night miscarry when the president went right through the list of people he had to fire to get at the independent counsel. he wanted to get rid of archibald cox. i understand again he can make all kinds of arguments. but it looked like he was stifling justice. does it look that way now? >> it looks and feels very much like that saturday night massacre when richard nixon fired one attorney general after another when they refused to fire archibald cox, who was investigating potentially the president of the united states.

this interference with an investigation is really quite unbelievable. i think stunning and staggering because it demonstrates such a contempt for law enforcement and the rule of law, and that is why i believe that the deputy attorney general must appoint a special prosecutor. i've urged it for months since mid-february as you know, and chuck schumer reiterated that call today. i will introduce legislation tomorrow to establish an independent counsel who can conduct this investigation if the deputy attorney general fails to. it really is about the foundational, core principles of our democracy. >> last question. we need an fbi director who can dig up the dirt before an independent counsel can get the job done of judging that

material. have you any confidence president trump will pick an fbi director who has an aggressive attitude towards finding out? and now we have 20 special agents engaged in this according to comey's testimony a couple weeks back. he is making an aggressive effort, or was until today. do you have the confidence the president will pick an fbi director who will aggressively pursue all leads regarding the possible involvement by his people with the russians? >> congress very simply and bluntly cannot trust the president to appoint a new fbi director who would have the integrity and credibility and the appearance of those qualities in order to inspire trust in the american people. so that's why i think a special prosecutor must be appointed to supervise the fbi and, in effect, supplant the fbi director in conducting that investigation or an independent counsel by statute. >> thank you, richard

blumenthal. shannon petty piece is a white house correspondent with bloomberg news and annie lynskey is chief north of national correspondent for the boston clo globe. and ayesha ross co-rco. what are we watching tonight? >> i don't think any of us saw this coming. >> i saw something with sally yates. trump was scared to death of her. >> a lot of this caught all of surprise. the newsroom was, you know, shocked when this came out. >> what's your headline tomorrow do you think in the globe? i expect this is right across the top? >> this is the move of a strongman. >> strongman as one word? >> yeah. i think we're going to find out is congress really a co-equal branch of government or are they sub servient to the white house? i think that answer will be clr in how they choose to respond -- >> i think they won't get on the bus again, my hope.

the republican members of the house who trooped on to that bus like little kids going to see buffalo bob or mr. green jeans and giggling on the way down that the president was going to pat them on the back for doing what he told them to. >> i think that's the question. do republicans stick by president trump with this because that's going to be key. i mean the democrats are lining up and saying that this is nixonian. they need a special prosecutor. but without the republicans on board, what are the democrats going to be able to do? >> i think the trump people care about -- they don't like the elite looking down on them. they don't like it, and they're right. they don't like arrogance in government. but here we have a guy not for their cause, not for the working stiff who lost his industrial job, not for the person who is tired of watching carole king dance with hillary or anything like that. here's a guy, to cover his own rear end, has just fired the guy prosecuting or investigating him. i think the average guy on route 40 having a drink tonight along the old state roads is looking, that guy did what i would have done, but i'm not president of

the united states. >> and to those people who are out there caring about jobs, caring about health care, tax reform, the economy, to ayesha's point, look what this does to his domestic agenda. congress is going to show up tomorrow and they are supposed to be talking about health care, about tax reform. you know what they're going to be talking about now? russia and comey. it's a huge distraction. >> i don't think it hurts him one bit with his base. i don't think it hurts him one bit. >> you're so cynical. they like comey. comey was the guy that got hillary, and he's firing the guy that got hillary. >> but he didn't recommend charges, so a lot of them will say, well, he didn't recommend charges. then, you know -- >> hillary has already written a book. we know that. the book says two reasons she lost, right? comey and the russians. and now trump puts the kibosh on all this. >> one thing we will get is leaks. there are people in the fbi who are loyal to comey and they're going to start --

>> trump's less afraid of the dirt they have than the dirt they will get. mike va car ago ahead. >> reporter: richard burr, says he's disturbed, troubled by the timing and reasoning. mark warner, of course the senator from virginia, who is the vice chair of that intelligence committee says that now comey can come before their committee. he's free to come before their committee and testify in their ongoing probe in russian meddling in the election. just today, that intelligence committee was meeting, not hearing testimony but looking at some of the materials they've gotten back from some of these figures like carter page, general flynn is also someone they've requested documents from. paul manafort. so these investigations are ongoing, and now they've added more fuel to the fire and potentially one very important witness in james comey, who is free to speak his mind to the committee whenever they deem it necessary to call him forward.

we've seen john mccain say he's disappointed. we've seen james lankford from oklahoma, another conservative, say the american people deserve an explanation into the timing and reasoning behind this. and practically a uniform wall of democrats and the consensus it boils down to three things on the side of the democrats. i know you were just talking to blumenthal of connecticut. they're outraged. they want a special prosecutor, and they are very much regretful of the 94-6 vote for rod rosenstein, the now deputy attorney general who was just installed. blumenthal was one of the few that voted against it. so a mounting wave of outrage coming from democrats and a lot of disappointment and consternation even from some republicans. >> thank you so much. i think you're going to know the democrats think he's d on the mat. i know schumer moves when he he soos the opportunity. he's very politically swift, and he sees a guy on the deck. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us.

"all in" with chris hayes starts right now. tonight on "all in." >> the fbi, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. >> james comey is out. >> that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the trump campaign and the russian government. >> the president of the united states has fired the man leading the investigation of his own campaign. >> he's become more famous than me. >> tonight, how the white house is explaining its seismic power play. how democrats are reacting with senator elizabeth warren. the shades of nixon with john dean. what all of this means for the russia investigation and what it means for american government when "all in" starts right now.