wrench. >> this white house has attacked the press, attacked the judiciary. they seem to be systematically attacking all the institutions that put checks on the power of the president. and that's very dangerous. >> thank you all for joining us. that is "all in" for this evening. the "rachel maddow show" starts right now. >> thanks, my friend. thanks to you at home for joining us for the next hour. what a day, huh? you have been seeing live images of a plane sitting on a tarmac now moving down a taxiway in los angeles. this is a private plane of some kind. it's not unusual for federal agencies, especially big ones like the department of justice or the fbi to have private planes at their disposal. director comey was in los angeles for, i think, what was supposed to be a recruiting event today. an event that was canceled. some logistical question once he was fired today by the white house as to what would physically happen to him in the immediate aftermath of his firing. he was removed effective

immediately. so right now he is no longer the director of the fbi. what we believe that director comey is on that plane, which is now taxiing down the runway in los angeles, presumably they'll be flying back to the east coast, presumably, the fbi headquarters in washington. he'll be heading back to washington, but all of this is unscripted at this point. all of this is unprecedented. historical parallels to what happened today but there's never been anything like this before. one instance previously in u.s. history in which an fbi director has been fired by as president. that was a very different circumstance. it was president bill clinton at the time. the fbi director who was fired was william sessions. there were in effect abuse of office concerns that had been documented against him by the department of justice. things like using a department of justice aircraft to fly to see his family.

things le using department resources to build a fence around his house that didn't seem to have any security purpose. and maybe was just because he wanted a fence at this house. those kind of concerns that led to sessions leaving. william sessions being fired by president clinton in the '90s. that's the only precedent we've got for an fbi director being fired. we're left as we watch these remarkable scenes and we wonder what's going to happen next here with james comey. we're left to find other context, other analogies that make this make sense. in 1972, there was a tape made in the oval office. june 23rd, 1972. in that tape, the then president of the united states, richard nixon, and his chief of staff, h.r. halderman, they talked about how they would cover up what they knew about the watergate break-in, which the

nixon administration had orchestrated. and there they were on tape talking about how to beat the investigation into it. how to cover it up. and that tape was released to the public on august 5th, 1974. the supreme court had ordered the president to release that tape and ultimately, he relented and released that tape. by then, by the time that watergate tape, that oval office tape was released, the watergate scandal was quite ripe. impeachment proceedings were well under way already. there were 11 republicans on the house judiciary committee who voted against impeaching richard nixon. but when that tape came out, that august, all of the 11 republicans on that judiciary committee had said they would not impeach nixon. they all said hearing that tape, that they would change their votes. that they would vote to impeach. and three days after that tape came out, august 8th, 1974, the president of the united states resigned. the reason those tapes ever came

to the public domain is because of a man called archibald cox. he was the special prosecutor who was brought in to investigate the watergate case. he was the one who demanded those tapes from the white house and the white house refused and then archibald cox subpoenaed those tapes and the white house refused and he brought the white house to court, and the court ruled against nixon and told him to release those tapes and nixon refused. and then what nixon did is he came for archibald cox. he told archibald cox to lay off about these white house tapes and archibald cox looked the president in he eye and would not do that. no, i'm not going to lay off. and so president nixon told the attorney general to fire archibald cox and the attorney general said no and resigned. and so then nixon told the deputy attorney general to fire archibald cox and the deputy attorney general, he, too, said, no, and he resigned. essentially he had to get the solicitor general to fire

archibald cox and that became known as the saturday night massacre. but archibald cox, yeah, he did get fired. ultimately, he did get fired but you know what? he got the president fired, too. he is the reason those damning tapes eventually had to be released. and nixon's presidency was over less than three days after those tapes came out. so fire the investigators? sure. nixon proved you can do that. binixon also proved the consequences of doing that in the end for a president who has something to hide from those investigators. today president trump fired the director of the fbi, james comey. and we will have reaction to that from a number of people who are in a position to know, or in a position to see how serious this is, wha is likely to happen now.

but just put this in context for a second. how do we get to this point tonight where we saw this private plane take off in l.a. for points unknown with a newly fired fbi director on board and nobody having any idea what's going to happen next. how do we get here tonight? it's a very direct timeline. new president was sworn in 109 days ago. sworn in january 20th. four days after he was sworn in, his national security adviser got questioned by the fbi. we believe he was questioned by the fbi about his connections with foreign governments, specifically russia. two days after that fbi interview, still, the first week of this new administration, the acting attorney general of the united states went to the white house to alert them that there was something wrong with the national security adviser. that they were serious, national security concerns about the national security adviser. related to his contacts with the russian government.

that first urgent warning to the white house from the acting attorney general came in the first week of this administration. came on the first thursday that this new president was president. by the following monday, she was gone. fired by the president. in a dispute over the constitutionality of his muslim ban. a couple weeks later, the national security adviser was gone. under circumstances that are, frankly, still murky and unexplained. soon, though, we got word from the fbi director. the fbi director announcing in an open hearing in the house of representatives that the trump campaign is the subject of an open, active counterintelligence investigation by the fbi to determine whether the trump campaign collaborated with russia in russia's attack on the u.s. presidential election last year. there has never been anything like that in the history of the american presidency. and that announcement,n active counterintelligence investigation into the

president, that lens, like the bombshell that it is, the house intelligence committee hears that testimony on a monday, on march 20th, then the following week, march 28th, they are due to hear from that acting attorney general who got fired a few days after she warned the white house there was something dangerous and wrong going on with the national security adviser mike flynn when it came to his contacts with russia. james comey announces the kournts intelligence investigation of that hearing on march 20th. sally yates was due to tell her part of the story. the mike flynn part of the story just eight days later on march 28th. but that did not happen. after the fbi director made his bombshell announcement at devin nunes' house intelligence committee hearing, chairman nunes got weird. he decided to blow the whole thing up without explanation. there has still been no explanation for this. he canceled the sally yates hearing. and he got himself thrown off

the investigation altogether. a strange stunt at the white house where he claimed to be rushing secret documents to the white house, even though it turns out he got the documents from the white house in the first place. specifically, he got them apparently from one of his own former staffers and from a former protege of national security adviser mike flynn who had been left behind at the national security council, even after flynn left and despite efforts by the new national security adviser to get rid of that guy. but devin nunes canceled the sally yates hearing. got himself taken off the investigation altogether. he's now under investigation by the house ethics committee for potentially having disclosed classified information. that was the house intelligence committee. then the house oversight committee. they decided they'd look into a very specific part of it. they'd look specifically into mike flynn's payments from foreign sources. and despite their very narrow focus on just that piece of it, the house oversight committee

appears to have stumbled on to something unexpectedly rich. their inquiries turned up the theory that mike flynn had not disclosed his foreign payments from russia, even though he'd been told explicitly and in writing that he needed to do that. the inspector general's office announced they started an independent investigation of mike flynn. the white house remarkably -- remarkably refused to hand over any documents to the house oversight committee about mike flynn. they would not hand over a single document, a single piece of paper about mike flynn. and that's a -- an important stonewall there. and the democrats on that committee reacted the way you'd expect. they were not happy with that refusal. democrats on that committee said their chairman, jason chaffetz, should demand to get those flynn documents from the white house. he should subpoena those documents from the white house if necessary to which republican

chairman jason chaffetz replied, i quit. at that point, jason chaffetz quit abruptly and with no notice. he just up and bolted from congress. altogether. he announced he was leaving washington. just as soon as his committee stumbled onto the mike flynn/russia investigation and specifically the white house telling them, no, we're not giving you a single document about it. as soon as that happened, instantly, surprise, no notice. jason chaffetz says, i quit. something about the way this story has unfolded. something about the way this scandal is going freaks people out along the way. we've been seeing it already, but then you get to now. yesterday in the united states senate, the former acting attorney general did finally testify, and now we know maybe why devin nunes was so not

psyched to hear what she had to say. she testified in addition to giving us the tick tock about her warning to the white house, she testified that there was something about mike flynn's underlying behavior when it came to russia that was problematic from the point of view of the justice department. not just him lying about his actions, which is the purported explanation for why he had to go. she says in addition to him lying about his actions, there was something else problematic about his underlying behavior that he was lying about. >> the first thing we did was to explain to mr. mcgann that the underlying conduct that general flynn had engaged in was problematic in and of itself. >> what was that underlying conduct? we do not know what mike flynn's underlying conduct was that led to this urgent concern by the

department. a trip to the white house to say you've got a problem here. we do not know what his underlying conduct was according to the justice department but we know the justice department has it. they've got it. whatever it is. at that same hearing yesterday, the former director of national intelligence also said a couple of things that could have made the white house shiver its timbers over the last 24 hours. james clapper testified that when he previously asserted that he had seen no evidence of collusion between the trump campaign and russia, he says he was saying -- he wasn't saying there was no such evidence, that there was no evidence of collusion, said he was speaking from ignorance. he'd been wald off from. he didn't know about the ongoing i counterintelligence investigation of that matter when he made that previous statement. to the extent the white house and president have been counting on clapper saying i haven't seen

evidence of collusion. but if there was evidence of collusion, i wouldn't have seen it. that was one. second thing james clapper said that may have freaked out the white house a little bit was this. >> over the spring of 2016, multiple european allies passed on additional information to the united states about contacts between the trump campaign and russians. is this accurate? >> i can't answer that. >> general clapper, is that accurate? >> yes, it is, and it's also quite sensitive. >> okay. let me ask you this. >> the specifics are quite sensitive. >> the specifics are quite sensitive. question was, over the spring of 2016, multiple european allies passed on additional information to the u.s. about contacts between the trump campaign and russians.

is that accurate? yes. the specifics are quite sensitive. so confirmation yesterday from the former director of national intelligence when he was in a position to know because he was director of national intelligence then through 2016. he confirmed yesterday that multiple european allies passed information to the u.s. last year about contacts between the trump campaign and russians. confirmed. gulp. james clapper also had this to say when he was asked about the president's business interests in russia. >> general clapper, during your investigation of all things russia, did you ever find a situation where a trump business interest in russia gave you concern? >> not in the course of the prepation of the intelligence community assessment. >> since? >> i'm sorry? >> at all? any time?

>> senator graham, i can't comment on that because that impacts the investigation. >> something about the president's russia business ties impacts an investigation. and so, therefore, cannot be discussed in open session. that was yesterday. today the senate intelligence committee announced that they have sent a request to the treasury department to the financial crimes unit in the treasury department asking for information that agency may have about president donald trump. or associates of president donald trump. now this is the office of the treasury department that, among other things, investigates international money laundering. so senate intelligence told that office today at the treasury department that they want anything that they've got related to the president. that request went into the

treasury department as of today. right after the director of national intelligence said in an open hearing that trump business ties in russia cannot be discussed in an open hearing because they relate to an ongoing intelligence investigation. that was today. and you know, day after tomorrow, on thursday, fbi director james comey was due to be back in the senate in open session testifying on the trump/russia investigation. that will not happen. today the president fired the fbi director at the direction, he says, of the attorney general. and if that timeline of events that i just laid out doesn't make it clear enough exactly what's going on here and how desperate a moment this is for this white house, the piece of it that puts thisn the category not just of another trump scandal, not just of another law enforcement or

national security firing that can't be explained by this administration. what puts this in the category of history tonight is whodunit. >> the staff recommended recusal. they said that since i had involvement with the campaign, i should not be involved in any campaign investigation. i have studied the rules and considered their comments and evaluation. i believe those recommendations are right and just. therefore, i have recused myself in the matters that deal with the trump campaign. that exact language of that recusal is in the press release that we will give to you. i've said this, quote, i have no decided to recuse myself from any existing or future investigations of any matter relating in any way to the campaigns for president of the united states. >> recused.

i have now decided to recuse myself from any existing or future investigations of any matter relate in any way to the campaigns for president of the united states. in what world can you both be recused from an investigation and then take it upon yourself to fire the person who is leading that investigation? the fbi director, by his own admission, by his own statement, in public, the fbi director was leading an active counterintelligence investigation into the trump campaign and its potential ties with russia. the attorney general, despite that recusal, just fired the fbi director in the middle of that investigation. but, wait. the justice department says they are not firing the fbi director over the trump/russia investigation. they are firing him over another matter. they say they are firing him over the handling of the clinton e-mail investigation. specifically, his comments on the clinton e-mail investigation that he made last july.

now what's incredible, what's literally not credible about that is that those comments from james comey were made last july. why would they be firing him for that now? or what he did last july. i'll also tell you there's a department of justice inspector general inquiry into what he said last july. what he said last year about the clinton e-mail inquiry. there's an inspector general inquiry into that, if the trump administration were so concerned about that, presumably, they would wait for that inspector general inquiry to finish before they acted on it. so if it's about the clinton e-mail investigation, it all -- in many senses of our timeline here, it makes no sense they'd be firing him now over that. but, even if you think, despite the timeline, oh, that must be why they're firing him, what is even more incredible about that ace assertion from the white house

is that jeff sessions is also recused from anything related to a hillary clinton investigation. >> with regard to secretary clinton and some of the comments i made, i do believe that that could place my objectivity in question. i've given that thought. i believe the proper thing for me to do would be to recuse myself from any questions involving those kind of investigations that involve secretary clinton that were raised during the campaign. or could be otherwise connected to it. >> recuse myself from any questions involving those kinds of investigations that involve secretary clinton that were raised during the campaign, could be oerwise connected to it. the fbi director wasired today without warning, suddenly, summarily, effective immediately. fbi director fired today at the direction of the attorney general. the white house says it's over a matters related to hillary clinton that was raised during

the campaign. the attorney general is recused from matters related to hillary clinton that were raised in the campaign. the attorney general is also recused from matters related to the trump/russia investigation. an investigation the fbi director is now leading. or was now leading. the nixon white house had a case to make that the oval office tapes shouldn't be turned over. they had a case to make about that. they had an argument. they lost that argument. they lost that case. and then they tried for a while to defy the law. to fire their way and intimidate their way into getting away with it anyway. and it worked for a hot minute. but it also laid bare what they had to be afraid of. firing archibald cox was the first shovel into richard nixon's political grave. and it always, always works like that.

joining us now from "the washington post" newsroom is matt who covers the justice department for the post. thanks very much for being here. i know this is an incredibly busy day and night. thanks for being with us. >> it is. thank you for having me. >> so i've covered the basics here in terms of the big picture, what's happened, and what i see as the relevant timeline and context. can you update us on what else has happened today in terms of the new fbi acting director being appointed and anything else we expect to happen next? >> just as i was sitting down, i was seeing that the deputy director had taken over leading the agency, andrew mccabe, who really was mixed up in a lot of the same clinton problems that comey was that the attorney general and the deputy attorney general highlighted as reasons for his following. you know what we're really looking at now is what was going on in the russia investigation

athis moment and did that have any -- did that contribute here at all? the stated reason is this firing was related to the clinton probe and how they handled the clinton probe. and i think most people would agree he did not handle that well. but the timing is very weird. we're months away from that. so why now? and i think more importantly, what was going on in that russia case as we speak. the deputy attorney general, the newly confirmed deputy rod rosenstein, they published his recommendation to attorney general jeff sessions on this. they also published attorney general jeff sessions letter on this. also the letter that president trump wrote to director comey actually affectuating the firing he here. is it a complicated factor that he's supposed to be recused from

matters released to hillary clinton, issued raised during the campaign like the e-mail concern, or to the trump/russia investigation itself? >> well, that's a really interesting point. trump is the one to fire comey. it isn't jeff sessions who fires james comey. but trump relies on a recommendation from jeff sessions. jeff sessions relies on the word of his deputy attorney general who talks all about the clinton case. well, you raised earlier a great point. isn't jeff sessions supposed to be recused from the clinton case? he said that when he took office and, look, jeff sessions on the campaign trail talked a lot about the clinton case. there were good reasons for him to be recused. it is an interesting issue. how can he endorse those findings if he's supposed to be recused om the case? >> matt covering the justice department for "the washington post" on what is a remarkable day to be covering the justice department for "the washington post." your paper has done a lot to -- almost more than anything to increase our understanding of

this as a country. i'm sure you're proud to be working there tonight but also incredibly busy. thanks for being with umatt. >> thank you. joining us is senator sheldon whitehouse, democrat are rhode island. he's on the senate judiciary committee which will have to approve the next fbi director before he or she gets a full up or down vote in the senate. senator whitehouse had a prominent role in yesterday's hearing with the former acting attorney general sally yates. thank you for being here. >> my pleasure. >> i've seen your written statement today but let me just get your personal reaction to what happened today and how big a deal you think this is. >> i think it's a very big deal. at one level, this is a story of rod rosenstein coming in and in an incredibly heartfelt and powerful and compelling memo going through all the things that comey did wrong that violated prosecutorial protocol and summarizing it in a document that i think will live on in the department's history and legacy as you don't do this.

and that would be all very understandable. then the problem of jeff sessions getting involved in this given his recusal. and then you have it going up to the white house and the guy being formally fired by a president who he has said he is investigating. and, of course, don mcgann was the center of the hearing yesterday and white house counsel is probably involved. so it's hard to know until we see where this began. but certainly the passion of rosenstein's memo suggests there was an enormous amount of pent-up frustration and emotion about what comey had done that basically exploded across the pages of that memoranda. >> can i ask you about that, though? if this is about what rosenstein's memo is about, comey's investigation, that's the subject of the department of justice inspector general. >> it's also something where the deputy attorney general who is running presumably a lot of the work the department of justice

given the recusal, he needs to have confidence in his fbi director, and he could have said, looking at all of that, having been a career guy. this guy is breaking rule after rule after rule. not only is he getting away with it, but inventing he's retroactive justifications, talking about things that aren't true. he's out of control. makes no sense. we have to get rid of him. if that were where this began, then it's a very different story than if it began in the fevered confines of white house counsel's office or the oval office with them saying, my god, we've got to get rid of this guy and they're getting really close to us. and both would be true. >> why would the attorney general be able to make this recommendation to the president. a formal recommendation which they'ved me public if he's formally recused from the matters they say was the basis of the firing? >> it's hard to explain. >> is it illegal? >> i doubt it's illegal. i think that -- and particularly when you consider the 96% of the

fbi's business with the department of justice is not the stuff that he's recused from. so one could say you worked your way around this and that that wasn't the basis. but they are saying that it's the basis. put sessions right back in the spotlight again. as you pointed out, the whole echo of watergate is very strong here. second, you've got a president under investigation by an fbi director firing that fbi director. third, you've got a recused attorney general recommending to the president that he fire the fbi director, regarding the matter as to which he's recused, and then underlying all of that this truly passionate, well thought throh and sincere and real takedown of comey's behavior by a clearly frustratedth in infuriated rod rosenstein. how that all stacks up? tbd.

>> the -- the thing i'm trying to ask you about is the timing. you don't have insight into why rod rosenstein acted when he did. the timing of it related to the russia investigation has a flashing red siren on top of it screaming suspicion in terms of the trump/russia investigation. if this was driven by those things he put in his memo. if it was driven by the handling of the clinton investigation, what explains them doing is today? especially given they know that we'd all see the connections to all the russia -- >> hasn't been there long. so he comes in. he takes a little time to sort out what's going on. he's furious. he's building up. it could have been the straw that broke the camel's back was comey's testimony and the public disclosure that he had testified falsely to congress and god knows what the conversation was between rosenstein and comey about how the department was going to clean that up.

but whatever happened in that exchange might have been the straw that broke the camel's back. but in addition to the top down story of potential suspects and targets of an fbi investigation involved in getting rid of the director and a recused attorney general getting involved in the matter, don't forget this underlying piece which is that, in some respects, at long last, the department has said something honest and true about all of comey's misbehavior through all of this. >> whether or not it's true about why they fired him. >> clearly that was piled up. that is a venting of emotion out of rosenstein. that's a vindication of the department's values against their abuses through this whole process. >> the deputy director mccabe has now been named the acting director of the fbi. part of the reason he's been in the news in the trump era is because of that strange circumstance we had where the

white house contacted the head of the intelligence committee in the house and the head of the intelligence committee in the senate, both of whom are leading investigations into the trump/russia investigation and told them to call reporters on the white house's behalf to quash a story that said there had been contacts under investigation between trump campaign officials and russian officials. the person from the fbi who the white house credited for that -- credited basically with the impetsus for those calls was deputy mccabe. should he be recused because he's already been involved in the white house doing public relations work essentially with members of congress and with the press on that subject? >> i'd want to know more before i made that call, but it's certainly not a good sign. i think the only good sign in all of this is the department through rod rosenstein going back to its basic principles and saying, look. we do not divulge derogatory

investigative information about people we haven't charged. and then we do not go up to congress and talk about that derogatory investigator information and do not tell congress that we've reopened investigations adding more derogatory investigative information about somebody still not charged. that is prosecution and investigation 101. and comey's repeated violation of that and his repeated refusals to come clean and these wild assertions of trying to justify what he did, i think that that was sending off a lot of real alarms all through the department and this at least sets that part right. >> while raising lots of other questions. >> while raising so many, questions. >> senor whitehouse, do yeou expect we'll see more investigation with follow-up to yates and clapper? a lot of questions raised there that couldn't be answered in open session. >> lindsey and i are sitting down shortly to plot next steps. >> tell him i said hi and ask

him if he'd like to be on "the rachel maddow show." we're going to bring in congressman elijah cummings, the top democrat on the house oversight and government reform committee. congressman cummings, thank you for being withous short notice toent. appreciate you joining us. >> glad to be with you, rachel. >> let me get your reaction to this news that the white house has fired the fbi director tonight on the recommendation of attorney general jeff sessions. >> rachel, i was shocked. but not really surprised. after hearing sally yates yesterday and, by the way, a -- that's the epitome of a public servant, a person that i know well. phenomenal integrity. to come forth and say the things she said. it's interesting that today, now we move to this subject. i thought she laid out a very clear case and i have to tell you, the timing is interesting.

it seems as soon as there is a situation where there is some negative evidence coming forward with regard to the president, suddenly there is what i call a hocus-pocus move. we then move to another subject. and this one is, without a doubt, not only explosive, but i think it also goes to the heart of our democracy. >> congressman cummings, you have been very outspoken about the fact that the white house refused to hand over any documents, even a single page of documentation related to mike flynn's vetting to be national security adviser and his tenure as national security adviser after your committee, you and congressman chaffetz asked them for information about flynn's tenure, his security clearance application process. what's the status of that now? >> chairman chafe ei asked

him -- first of all, rachel, we have still not gotten one single syllable from the white house. that's very unusual. particularly when you have a bipartisan request. and i'd ask chairman chaffetz about now suddening those records and he has basically said he'd not do that. and that leads me to another point, rachel. president trump, there is absolutely no accountability with regard to this president. he basically seems to be able to do whatever he wants. and our republican friends are aiding and abetting that situation. we look at the emoluments situation. family members making all kinds of money, off the presidency and i could go on and on. but the idea that the white house would not give us one syllable is very unusual.

normally what would happen if there was a dispute, we'd get some documents and then we'd walk -- sit down with the white house. that is the democrats and republicans on the committee, and try to work out issues as to whether there's executive privilege or problems that they say. and usually we're able to get some documents. if this were hillary clinton, the republicans would be trying to impeach her right now. i'm telling you. keep in mind that chairman chaffetz in a matter of maybe two or three weeks back a few months ago, before we went out of session, held six emergency hearings over a course of two or three weeks dealing with records, subpoenas, things of that nature trying to get more information from secretary clinton. and so what i have said to the republicans is that we are to act as a check and balance with

regard to the executive branch. we have a job to do. this is not a republican issue, a democrat or independent. this is an american issue. and i am hoping that they will come around. but we don't even know who the chairman of our committee is going to be. look what happened with nunes. i mean, that was a fiasco. running around, hiding documents, claiming he got them from somewhere else. this is a major investigation. and so going back to comey, he was the one independent person who i thought would lead an investigation that might lead us to the kinds of facts we're looking for. >> congressman, you've called for immediate emergency hearings to hear testimony from him, from now former fbi director james comey and from the attorney general and from the deputy attorney general. do you think there's any chance that you'll get that? >> i think there's a possibility.

i think basically, but rachel, come on now. the only way we get that is people like the speaker of the house say that i'm going to put country before party and be a true leader. that the folks at mcconnell, over at the senate do the same thing. we have to have their cooperation. rachel, you know this. when we are not in power, that is democrats are not in power, we don't call for -- we can't call for -- we don't have the power to call for these hearings. we can't make them happen. but if the republicans would stop circling the wagon around this president and circle the wagon around the united states of america, so that we can preserve our democracy, so that generations yet unborn might experience what i experienced as a young man coming up, that is a true democracy, then that will happen. but until then, until they move off of that plateau that they

seem to be on, not wanting to look into this and kind of backing off, whenever we seem to be getting close and new evidence comes forward. it will never happen. so then you'll have a presidency where there is no accountability. and as president trump said during the campaign, and he was very, very clear, when he talked about hillary clinton saying lock her up, him along with flynn, they said that nobody is above the law. and they are absolutely right. there's another thing. one of the reasons why we want to bring everybody in, the deputy attorney general, and i know rod rosenstein. because he served here in maryland for over ten years as our u.s. attorney. but, rachel, we've got sessions who says that he recused himself. now, wait a minute. am i missing something? you said you recuse yourself from anything to do with hillary clinton. you recuse yourself from anything to do with trump and -- president trump and the

russians. well, wait a minute now. you now just, as i read the documents that were put forth by the president, he says that the deputy attorney general and thouthe attorney general sessions advised him to fire mr. comey. that doesn't sound like recusal to me. and one of the things we have to be about, it's not just what we do. it's what we do says about us. in other words, we want a transparent government. we want one with honesty and integry. and if anybody wants to know what that integrity looks li, all they have to do is look at clapper and sally yates. those are the kind of people who will bring us to where we need to be. >> congressman elijah cummings, the top democrat on the house oversight committee. thank you for being with us tonight. you joined us on short notice. i appreciate it. >> thank you. i want to bring in nbc presidential historian michael

be beschlo beschloss. i get my michael beschloss phone dialing hand just starts acting on its own. for me, obviously, the -- i'm trying to find historical context that helps me understand the magituted of what this means. we only have one previous example of an fbi director being fired. very different circumstances, sessions fired by president krinton over abuse of office claims. the more salient precedent to me seems like, because of the active counterintelligence investigation into this president, seems to me like archibald cox who was the special prosecutor at watergate. is that how you are thinking about it? does that seem apt to you? >> yes. if you and i were talking back in october of 1973 at the -- on the evening that nixon fired archibald cox, i would have said what i would say tonight that

one of the cardinal principles of american democracy is no american is above the law, and that principle has been jeopardized tonight. same thing in october of 1973. cox was conducting an investigation of nixon with watergate. he was pressing for the watergate tapes that nixon had made. nixon had told him stop doing this or else and the or else was he fired cox. the fbi was ordered to seal cox's offices. possibly confiscate the evidence that cox had gathered and shut down the special prosecution force -- >> they particulhysically came offices. >> they physically came to his offices and threw out some of the people working there and said we're in charge now. t the feel of an authoritarian country. >> there ended up being another special prosecutor after archibald cox.

>> nixon's intention was to shut down the investigation totally and not have another special prosecutor with a dig staff that was looking into the watergate scandal along with these tapes. and what happened was there was so much outrage from congress, both democrats and republicans, and across the country, there were demonstrations, people were very angry. it was the first time that people said maybe nixon seriously should be impeached. the outrage was so great. the pressure on nixon that nixon felt compelled not only to appoint a new special prosecutor but to appoint a very tough guy, leon jaworski of texas. >> who ended up taking -- >> and ultimately, the tapes were sued for and the supreme court said, yes, and as a result, they showed that nixon had obstructed justice. had tried to stop the investigation of the watergate break-in and had to resign. >> michael, the issue here in

terms of finding historical parallel comes back to me to that point you made at the outset. the question of being above the law. the president now in terms of people who are in some way either directly connected or potentially connected to the trump/russia investigation who have been fired, or who have left. mike flynn in some ways is seen as a potential villain in the trump/russia investigation. he -- whether or not we ever find out about what he did, he certainly is in a position to potentially know if anything else broader than his own actions happened within the campaign. he resigned. we sometimes describe him as having been fired but his resignation was accepted. sally yates who warned the white house about mike flynn, she was fired by the white house over -- in a conflict over the muslim ban. there was also shortly thereafter a strange action by the white house where all the u.s. attorneys were fired. it's within the power of the president to fire all the u.s.

attorneys but they didn't seem to have any replacements lined up, and there was reported -- there were reports that it was possible that some of the u.s. attorneys, particularly southern district of new york, u.s. attorney might have been involved in an investigation or two -- >> exactly right. >> -- that touched on the administration. now the fbi director being fired. that sort of a pattern, we describe that as a nixonian pattern. >> right. >> is -- is it? is it a nixonian pattern? >> sure there is. it's a danger to democracy because you have a president who was obviously afraid of an investigation that might find connections between him and his entourage and the russians that might endanger his presidency and you have to assume that these widespread firings are intended to squelch that investigation and also scare others in the government who might investigate other things that are connected to that. >> the nixon library today, did you see the tweet they put out that said fun fact. nixon ever even fired an fbi

director. >> he did other things that were equally chilling to democracy. >> but that is a fun fact. >> it is a fun fact. >> michael beschloss, thank you. >> thanks for keeping your sense of humor. i'm not sure we all have it. >> joining us now is tom brokaw, nbc news special correspondent, longtime anchor of "nbc nightly news." white house correspondent during the watergate scandal. mr. brokaw, it's an honor to have you with us. >> thank you rachel. good to be here. i rarely disagree with michael beschloss, but to some degree i do tonight. i think that the saturday night massacre was an entirely different dimension. we were very deep into watergate at that point and it was a summary firing by the president of the unitestates who was under investigation. in this case as we've been hearing during the course of this day, director comey had a lot of self-inflicted wounds. attorney general sessions put

his name on that, even though he'd recused himself from that. nonetheless, comey had made a number of mistakes, right up to the last 24 hours or so before we got to this place. the one thing i learned during watergait, everybody take a deep breath. let's deal with the facts as we know them and go from day-to-day to day and see how they stack up. the thing most interesting in the president's letter to comey was this line. while i greatly appreciate you informing me on three separate occasions that i am not under investigation, and then nonetheless, i would like to get rid of you. he was plainly trying to make his case before the public which had nothing to do with why he was firing comey, according to the outline. so it's very much on his mind. it's a very complex situation as these almost always are, rachel. >> tom, to that point, obviously, that jumped out of the letter just as a strange thing you wouldn't expect to see in a letter like that. also a very blunt assertion but the president given the fact

that the fbi director has said in an open session of the house intelligence committee that there is an active counterintelligence investigation that credits whether -- includes whether or not trump's campaign -- do you think the president is trying to imply that investigation is closed or is he trying to draw a distinction between an investigation into his campaign versus him personally? >> i think what he has said repeatedly about the possibility of that investigation, it's big news. that's his favorite phrase these days. he keeps throwing that out there. plainly it wasn his mind when he wrote that letter to getid of the attorney general who was in charge of that investigation. and this is not unusual. if you have known donald trump and how he operates, as most of us in new york have over the years, he has his own sphere of reality, as it were. he always has a way of defending or defining what he was doing that may not have anything to do with the facts at all. and so we're seeing that here again tonight.

again, the mrpts thing is, brick by brick, let's see where this leads us and then act on that. that's the important thing. a lot of troubling aspects tonight for the administration. it's a continuation of the and then tonight the republican head of the senate intelligence committee and this firing of the attorney general during these circumstances, these are works that are beginning to stack up, rachel. >> special correspondent, tom, thank you so much for being with us on this historic night. i appreciate you being here. >> it was a pleasure. >> joining us now is matthew miller, he's spokesman under attorney general eric holder, thanks for being with us. >> appreciate it. >> what was your reaction to this today, i'll preface it by saying, as soon as we heard that this news was breaking before it was actually confirmed by the white house, we started calling people who we know senior

officials in previous and anybody who had been sort of at ranking, that kind of ranking limber of national security establishment to contact this. because we were breaking by making our booking calls. and everybody was shocked to the point of disturbed, nobody said, oh, i knew it was coming or it happened and absolutely floored by it. that was my -- our experience as a show in the moment. what was your experience? >> it was the exact same. i found out from a booker and i was immediately on t phone for colleagues, former colleagues of mine. i think this is a crisis for the country, but it is a tragedy for the department of justice. if you look at rod's letter, you know, it's laid out and right about jim comey. there is one fundamentalal rule department of justice that is more important than any other, that's the independent of the

department of justice and fbi to conduct investigations free from political interference, free from political interference from the white house, congress or anyone. this is a flagrant act by the white house to try to shutdown that investigation. >> in terms of the attorney general's role here, we've got this memo from the attorney general. we've got the letter from the president -- but in between there, we've got the attorney general, writing to the president and making this recommendation and the president saying he is firing the director on the recommendation of the attorney general. the attorney general is rekused from all matters related to the matters related to hillary clinton that may have been arisen during the campaign. from what they say it's about, that this is about hillary clinton and the e-mails, he should be recused in either case. are we putting too much emphasis on the word "recused"? >> the entire process is a

farce. both of those memos are a farce, both dated today. let me tell you, the way the department of justice works, it's deliberate, slow. he would have worked on this memo and sent it up through the chain of command. they were going to slow deliberation. the fact they're both dated today the same day he's fired, awe of it leads you to believe this was an out come they predetermined. you can imagine the white house saying, we need to get rid of jim comey we can't control him. they worked out a way jeff sessions to do it. >> in terms of the next steps here, first of all, is there any remedy on the recusal issue with attorney general jeff sessions, what would be the appropriate response to something like that. and what do you expect to have happen now with the deputy director of the fbi being elevated into the acting world now. >> in terms of remedy, there's no immediate remedy, he can be investigated by the attorney general's office, jeff sessions

can for not following this recusal. but the fundamental problem here is that jeff sessions cannot oversee the justice department while it's, you know, an investigation of the trump campaign. let's be clear. even if with his recusal, rod is meeting every day with jeff sessions, you can see how clearly these issues all become intermeshed today with this firing. rod has to appoint a special counsel. i think for other consequences, jeff sessions and rod need to be on the hill by the end of the week explain how this happened, what they talked about with the white house, did the president request it, did he bring up the russia investigation when he request it. they need to say all of that on the record under oath to congress. >> matthew miller, former department of justice spokesmen during the obama administration. i appreciate you being there. >> thank you. >> i want to dip into some of the reaction tonight from capital hill. this is a little bit of what senate democratic leader chuck shumer had to say, watch this.

>> earlier this afternoon, president trump called me and informed me he was firing director comey. i told the president, mr. president, with all do respect, you're making a big mistake. >> that was democratic leader chuck schumer speaking today in the senate. the democrats have responded in the way you just heard, the way we sheldon whitehouse responded. they're being shocked about the timing and the circumstances related to the russia investigation and i think they're a little bit in all of the map in the rationale what has to do with his handling of the clinton e-mail investigation last year, which was a matter of active investigation by the department of justice inspector general. in terms of the republican response, though, there's also been some interesting republican response, ill leeluded to a mom

ago. we've been watching that come in over the course of the evening tonight, some republican elected officials expressing their own levels of concern, or at least the need for more disclose sure about exactly what happened here. joining us now is foreign affairs andrea mitchell, here on msnbc. hi. >> well -- >> hi. >> take a deep breath everyone. >> yeah. >> so, let me -- let me ask your -- not what your reaction was to this, but how big a deal this seems to you in the grand sweep? >> huge. enormous. this was the investigation of the president and his colleagues, according to the fbi director himself. the interesting thing as you've just eluded to is that clinton world, and many other democrats, have mixed feelings. i've been talking to a lot of people tonight. they have mixed feelings because they agree with many of the complaints laid out in rod's letter today. they agree that comey broke so

many of these procedures and rules. they've been terribly concerned, you heard hillary clinton blaming her defeat on comey. that said, there is tremendous distress because they believe, now, that this does jeopardize the investigation. and the fact that you've got both senators warner and the republican chairman of intelligence, senator's comments were so teresting, this further confuses an already challenging investigation. they're acknowledging that the senate intelligence committee already had a really hard job ahead of him. and they were relying on comey to back them up. they don't have professional prosecutors. there's been a lot of criticism quietly and openly that the senate intelligence committee staff was very good at going up the torture report and going through documents. >> dedicated full time staff. >> but they are not trained to

do a spy investigation. >> right. >> to go and find, you know, the source of it and all of that -- >> those on the torture report, those were full time investigators, people who were assigned just to that investigator. it's all people who have other responsibilities. >> they haven't hired up. >> they haven't done it. >> so the power here is in the fbi. >> absolutely. >> i'm told at headquarters today, tonight, agents are very loyal to comey, despite all of his errors and other criticism of him. they're devastated by this. and that there's going to be a huge morale problem there and people are asking, what is recusal mean. you just asked that question. the fact that the new acting director of the fbi was also involved in briefing reince priebus inappropriately about a "new york times" report. >> helping them manage public relations and the press around this story. >> yeah. >> and what does the fbi -- what does attorney general's recusal

really mean. >> if he can fire the person who is leading the investigation. >> why was he even involved in that. >> from which he is supposedly recused. >> the whole thing is extraordinary, the way it was done. he -- comey was addressing the fbi agents. he had come from a police briefing. miami, he was in l.a. he was in the room addressing them in their control center. it's up on the tv screen, cable news breaking the story, he thought it was a prank. >> the tv screens are breaking the news behind him while he is speaking in front of a crowd and i think it was a joke. ty did not give him a courtesy of waiting until he was back in dc tonight and letting him know personally. >> i hear from democrats. we heard it from sheldon whitehouse tonight. they do have mixed feelings about the handling of the investigation one they have been articulating for months. t it may have been the difference in the response of the election. to me it defies belief that this is the basis of this firing

because of the timing, because there's an active inspector general investigation underway, they're not waiting for the response to and because of the urgency and apparently the -- of which it's carried out all of a sudden at a crucial moment. >> and speaking of russia, who is going to be at the state department tomorrow and then possibly at the white house with the president, unless that gets cancelled. the russians are in town witnessing this craziness, so what they have -- the string they first started pulling with the e-mail hack, has come completely unravelled in front of their own eyes. >> andrea mitchell, thank you for joining us tonight. >> thank you very much. >> what a day to be alive. that does it for us tonight. we'll see you again tomorrow. our coverage continues with lawrence o'donnel, on the last word. >> we're going to continue our breaking news live coverage of this. i wanted to amplify for you what andrea was jus