he owes no loyalty to anyone else and the evidence is showing increasingly, not even to his bosses, the american voters. >> olivia nuzzi and david k. johnson. now i get to say something i've been waiting awhile to say is "the rachel maddow show" starts right now with rachel maddow. welcome back. we've been sending you good thoughts and eagerly anticipating your return. >> i have been away for a very long time in cable news time. but even in normal human time it has felt like a very long time. i have missed this crossover with you every night. i've missed being here. >> great to have you back. >> thanks for doing that. thanks to you at home for joining us. i am back. i want to say a big thank you to ari mel ber and to joy reid for filling in for me while i was out sick this last week and a half, almost two weeks. thank you to everybody here on the rachel maddow show who

worked so hard to keep everything running in my absence. i want to thank my bosses for their understanding while i was out sick at a quite inopportune time, i guess. i want to say thanks to all of you who said nice things and wished me well and told me you were praying for me while i was out. i'm not totally well as you can probably tell, but i am like, i don't know, 90% of the way back. would you say i'm 90%? close to 90. we'll see. i am certainly well enough to be here tonight covering the news. and as grateful as i have ever been to have a job like that. because we have to begin tonight naturally, the universe has welcomed me back with late-breaking trump/russia news. news that's just broken in "the washington post" within the last

hour. according to tonight's "washington post," yet another senior serving national security official in the u.s. government has reportedly now told associates that the president directed him, the president told him to intervene with the fbi to try to stop the trump/russia investigation. when james comey, the fbi director, was fired by the white house, we first got a song and dance from the white house about all sorts of other reason yes he might have been fired. the president then soon admitted that he had the trump/russia investigation on his mind when he fired fbi director james comey. we soon thereafter earned that james comey had told associates he had committed to writing. he had written in a memo and told other senior people at the fbi that the president had told him to stop the trump/russia investigation. to lay off the mike flynn part

of the trump/russia investigation. again, not only saying that the president had told him that, but saying crucially that contemporaneously at the time he had made a written note of it and told other people that the president made this wildly inappropriate request to him. we knew that about james comey. now yet another senior official in the trump administration apparently went through the same thing and told people contemporaneously that the president had directed him to try to stop the fbi investigation. just a remarkable advance in the news. we started this week waiting for the comey testimony. waiting for james comey to testify on thursday before the senate intelligence committee. everybody parked at the edge of their seats waiting to hear what the former fbi director will say w these reported claims that

president trump asked comey to call off the investigation into flynn. friends and colleagues of comey say he described contemporane s contemporaneously to them requests to stop the trump/russia investigation. on thursday morning, james comey will testify before the senate about those alleged conversations. it's hard to wait, right, but to help with that tonight, we have this bolshell new report from "the washington post." it's very similar in terms of its structure to these allegations from james comey that the president asked him to stop the trump/russia investigation and he recorded it contemporaneously with those written memos. but the new reporting tonight from "the washington post," just out in the last hour, concerns not james comey but the nation's

pop intelligence official. the director of national intelligence appointed by president trump, former senator dan coats. "the washington post" reporting that the president asked dan coats, director of national intelligence, and the head of the nsa, admiral mike rogers for their help in trying to get the fbi to back off the investigati investigation. the post saying the president made appeals to dan coats and mike rogers urging them to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion between the trump campaign and russia during the election. in the case of the nsa director mike rogers, that rekwefts from the president was reportedly documented contemporaneously in an internal memo, meaning the president asked nsa director mike rogers to make a public statement saying that the trump campaign and russia, there had been no collusion. when that request was made to admiral mike rogers, he recorded that in an internal memo.

a source later told nbc news that dan coats and mike rogers actually talked to each other about these requests they had from the president. they exchanged notes, the two of the them, about their conversations with the president and his requests to kibosh the trump/russia investigation. the idea that the president had asked the head of the nsa, the director of national intelligence, had asked them to help quash the investigation, had asked them to pour public cold water on the investigation, these reports that the intelligence chiefs then potentially, you know, not only spoke to each other about them but that made them protentially corroborating witnesses, those were red-hot reports on their own. not incidentally, those reports made for the best nine seconds of video in this trump/russia story. this was dan coats getting

asked -- director of national intelligence -- getting asked whether he and the nsa director discussed amongst themselves these requests from the president. watch. nine seconds. watch. >> have you talked about this issue with admiral rogers? >> that is something that i -- i would like to withhold that question at this particular point in time. >> not a term of art. i would like to withhold that question. that's not a thing. dan coats said he would like to withhold on that. pause. we all got pregnant watching that pause that was so long. that happened back on may 23rd. no answer.

extremely long, pregnant pause. did you guys discuss this matter together? don't want to talk about it. but now, we're passed that point in time, and tonight this late-breaking news from "the washington post" is that the director of national intelligence, dan coats, told his associates not only that the president asked he and admiral mike rogers to pour public cold water on the investigation. not only that he asked them to put -- not only that he asked them to put public cold water on the investigation, but that he, quote, asked director of national intelligence dan coats if he personally, if coats, would intervene with the fbi director to get the fbi to back off its focus on michael flynn in the russia investigation. so citing officials, "the post" says the request came on march 22nd. that was two days after comey publicly confirmed the fbi had

opened a counterintelligence investigation into trump and russia. "the washington post" says the request to dan coats that he intervene with the fbi director happened after a briefing in the white house. quote, as the briefing was wrapping up, trump asked everyone to leave the room except for dan coats and the cia director mike pompeo. the president then started complaining about the fbi investigation and comey's handling of it. that's according to officials familiar with the account that coats gave to associates. coats discussed the conversation with other officials. that's crucial. and then he decided that intervene with the fbi director as the president had suggested, would be inappropriate. post tonight's cite, folks who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters. it showed the president went further than just asking intelligence officials to publicly deny the existence of any evidence showing collusion during the election, which is

what "the washington post" reported in may. this interaction with coats indicates that trump aimed to enlist top officials to try to get the fbi to curtail their probe. and because, of course, the trump/russia story allows for no rest, this story breaks tonight, the night before dan coats is scheduled to testify tomorrow before the senate intelligence committee in open session. it's good to be back. i was kind of expecting a slower roll back into the news, but i can take it. i should tell you also that moments ago, there was a statement put out from the spokesperson for the office of the director of national intelligence pushing back on this story. do we actually have the -- do we have the written statement? we have the -- oh, we have the written statement in my

teleprompter. i do not have it written down. this is the statement from the director of national intelligence spokesperson. quote, director coats does not discuss his private conversations with the president, however, he has never felt pressured by the president or anyone nels the administration to influence any intelligence matters or ongoing investigations. he has never felt pressured. again, that statement just coming out moments ago from the office of dan coats, the director of national intelligence. joining us now by phone is adam entous, "the washington post" national security reporter who broke this story tonight. thank you for joining us on short notice. i really appreciate it. >> no problem. glad to be here. >> let me ask if i summarized sort of the state of the reporting on this point. as you might have heard, i've been out of it, not only off the show, but i've been literally out of it for a little while. as far as i understand it, you with "the washington post" had previously reported that the president had made requests to the director of national intelligence and the nsa

director that they should make some sort of public pronoun pronouncement, throwing cold water on the trump/russia investigation saying there was no collusion. you're advancing that tonight saying the director of national intelligence was asked by the president to personally intervene with the fbi director to try to stop the probe. is that correct? >> yeah, so you know, the basically, the requests we previously reported, i think, was much more direct. it was a phone calls that were made to mike rogers and to dan coats in which basically the president said he'd like both of them to issue public statements. so in other words, attempt to address the narrative bothering the president about what comey had said publicly when he testified on march 20th that they were investigating coordination if you will, between the russians and members of the trump campaign. so that was an effort to try to address a narrative issue.

what happened on the 22nd of march was basically, you know, the president -- i don't think it's as direct as you had presented it in your intro where i think the president was basically frustrated with comey who, you know, refused the president's request to drop the flynn matter in a conversation that he had with him in february. and that was basically sounding out coats in the presence of pompeo. he's frustrated. what can be done. what can you do? can you do something to help me in going and basically reaching out to comey to get him to pull back. and coats emerges from that meeting and according to the associates that he spoke to, he was angry. he was frustrated that the president had made this what he perceived as putting him in a difficult position because, you know, coats wants to keep, you

know, the intelligence agencies separate from the politics. and for the president to seemingly appeal to him to encourage him to reach out to comey was something that coats was not -- obviously had problems with and clearly did not feel comfortable with. >> to be precise. what you're able to report is that the president basically inquired with dan coats as to whether he could do this? and dan coats -- is that fair? >> that would be an accurate way of describing it. he asked him if he would be willing. if he could do this. and coats felt like that was -- he told his associates he was uncomfortable with that suggestion. so in your statement that you read from the spokesperson for the dni, where they explain that he did not -- he did not feel pressured, that's really not addressing the question.

the question was, did the president ask? they are answering by saying he didn't feel pressure. they're not addressing the question of what actually was discussed in that meeting. >> and adam, in terms of the other sort of -- the other person in that meeting, what you describe is that there was a larger group that was meeting for a briefing at the white house. again, this was march 22nd, according to your reporting, and the president asked as that briefing was breaking up, he asked not only for dan coats to stay in the room but for mike pompeo, the director of the cia, to stay in the room as well. do you have any understanding as to whether or not similar requests like this or similar inquiries were made like this to mike pompeo, or is he there essentially as an observer, as a bystander to what really was an irpt action between the president and the dni? >> i don't have an answer to

that. as far as i know, pompeo, when he leaves that room, he doesn't go and tell associates and other officials that he's bothered by what just happened. the only reason we know why coats, you know, that coats had expressed concern about what had transpired is because he goes and basically seeks advice and shares the experience with other officials. and i have no information to suggest that pompeo does the same. and so i think there are questions about whether or not the president, you know, i think the takeaway here, as what happened before, in previous stories, is this president does not have a lot of washington experience, as we all know. and, you know, he maybe either doesn't understand these dividing lines that are supposed to separate the intelligence agencies from the political

leadership. either he's unaware of that or he doesn't really care about those dividing lines that are supposed to separate the investigators, the intelligence community from the politics. and so he is frequently crossing that line in ways that make people feel uncomfortable. and that's, i think, what this is -- potentially an example of and potentially something more, if coats were to offer a full recollection of the conversation that he had with the president. >> which he may be asked to do tomorrow, as soon as tomorrow morning when he testifies in open session before the senate intelligence committee. adam entous, "washington post" national security reporter with tonight's scoop at "the washington post." adam, i appreciate you joining us on very short notice. congratulations on this scoop. thanks for joining us. the headline tonight, top intelligence official, director of national intelligence, dan coats, told associates,

contemporaneously at the time, in late march, that the president asked him if he could please intervene with fbi director james comey to try to stop the fbi russia investigation, particularly as it pertained to national security adviser mike flynn. again, there's no allegation here in terms of "the washington post" reporting that dan coats committed his concerns about this to writing, as has been reported about similar concerns regarding james comey himself and the nsa director, admiral mike rogers, but you can expect dan coats to be asked about this tomorrow in open session. we've got more on that coming up. stay with us. do you play? ♪ ♪ use the chase mobile app to send money in just a tap, to friends at more banks then ever before.

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in june last year, shortly after the republican nomination was clinched, "usa today" published this long, sort of embarrassing report on the new republican nominee. it was titled this. ""usa today" exclusive. hundreds allege donald trump doesn't pay his bills. and the subheading was, among those who say billionaire didn't pay? dishwashers, painters, waiters. "usa today" reported in june, they basically had their reporters comb through legal documents and catalog all the people who the republican presidential nominee had been accused of not paying over the course of his business life. and it wasn't just other big name real estate people. it was contractors and subcontractors, plumbers, painters, dishwashers,

waitresses, bartenders, employees at every level. also, lawyers. his own lawyers. and that ends up being important. over the course of his business career, according to what "usa today" reporters were able to dig up through all these legal filings, in several instances, he retained law firms to represent him in these cases where he got sued because he had allegedly stiffed his workers. his plumbers or dishwashers or somebody, sue him because they say trump hasn't paid them what they owe him. those same law firms ended up suing donald trump as well because they said he then didn't pay his legal bills after they represented him in cases where other people said he didn't pay them either. i can't say they weren't warned, right? in 2008, that was a new york law firm who trump hired to help fight contractors over alleged

mispayments. so trump didn't pay his contractors, allegedly. he hired a law firm to represent him in that case. the law firm then in turn alleged trump didn't pay them either. they said trump didn't pay them nearly $500,000 in legal fees. him and that new york law firm, they ended up settling. four years later, it was a virginia law firm. they sued the trump organization for over $90,000 worth of allegedly unpaid legal fees. that resulted in another settlement. then it was an atlantic city law firm, also accused trump of skipping out on over a million dollars in legal fees that he owed to that law firm in atlantic city. and they said that he didn't pay them. that history of donald trump having to settle out of court or being sued by law firms says that trump engaged them to represent him and then didn't pay them when the bills came due. that ends up being a really

interesting relevant back story to a fascinating new scoop from yahoo!'s michael isikoff. isikoff scoops that top lawyers at the least four major private law firms have been contacted by the white house about potentially representing the president in his legal woes. at least four major law firms turned down the opportunity to represent the president in this trump/russia investigation. the president has selected a private attorney named mark kosowitz to represent him as his private lawyer but according to isikoff's reporting, there were attempts to entice other kind of brand name lawyers. high-profile d.c. legal eagles trying to get people to come join the president's legal team. those efforts have proved fruitless. quoting from isikoff's report, the concerns were the guy won't pay, and he won't listen. that's one lawyer close to the

white house. quote, other factors the lawyer said, were that it would kill recruitment for the firms to be publicly associated with representing the polarizing president, and it would jeopardize the firm's relationship with other clients. i think it's important, in this story, and in every story related to this story strange presidency, to separate out what is truly new and unprecedented and what is actually sort of par for the course presidential behavior. and it's unavoidable. it's definitely true in modern times almost every president has hired outside legal counsel. almost every modern president has relied on private lawyers to help him respond to whatever scandal that administration is facing. president obama is an exception to that. president obama had a private lawyer but there was never a major scandal during his administration that required him to use that private counsel. but for most other modern presidents, there is somebody. president nixon went through not one, but two outside private

lawyers. his first was a man names charles alan wright, the preempent in institutional lawyer of his time. wright, however, was unsuccessful in his efforts to prevent nixon from having to hand over the white house tapes. and so nixon canned him. replaced him with another prominent lawyer names james st. clair. st. clair defended the decision to withhold the tapes all the way up to the supreme court before they lost that case. during iran/contra, president reagan retained republican super lawyer ted olson as his private counsel. ronald reagan's successor, president george h.w. bush hired jimmy carter's attorney general, griffin bell, to be his private outside lawyer when the iran/contra issues followed him into his term as president. president bill clinton retained big name lawyers david kendall, bob bennett to represent him during the monica lewinsky affair. so presidents hire outside

counsel. presidents use outside lawyers when they've got scandals to deal with. usually high-profile lawyers at high-profile law firms. and those kinds of lawyers, those kinds of law firms usually line up to represent the president. no matters the scandal, it's representing the president of the united states. except when it comes to this president. president trump being rebuffed by big law firms is not only an anomaly when it comes to recent presidential history. it also raises this very practical, immediate question of whether or not he's going to have the best possible defense. i mean, following tonight's reporting, front page of the "washington post," looks like he might need it more than ever. is he going to get as good a defense as other presidents would get? hold that thought. there's an answer. -what? -we gotta go. -where? -san francisco. -when? -friday. we gotta go.

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one of the great investigative reporters of our time is a man named michael isikoff. he's worked at newsweek magazine, nbc news. he has worked frankly all over the news industry. wherever he has been, though, he has always done ground-breaking, original, no-fear, no favor, hard-won, shoe leather reporting. he's an old-fashioned investigative reporter and it's worth following everything he publishes because he's always on to something that nobody else is working on.

right now michael isikoff works at yahoo! news. they are lucky to have him. his latest report today is that this president, this current president, has an unusual problem that other modern presidents have not had. isikoff reports today that the top lawyers and the top law firms in washington, d.c., are all turning the president down as he seeks outside private counsel to represent him in his big scandal. as the russia investigation circles him and expands and gets more serious by the day. joining us now is michael isikoff, chief investigative correspondent for yahoo! news. nice to see you tonight. thanks for being here. >> thanks for the kind words from one of the great cable hosts of our time. >> that's a much smaller thing to win, but i appreciate it. let me ask you first of all about -- i think the kind of scope of the impact of what you're reporting, when you look at this historically, lots of

presidents have had a need for outside counsel for scandals large and small. presidents have engaged outside lawyers. it seems to me looking at this historically of whether the scandals are a big deal from administration to administration, law firms and big-name lawyers usually see it as quite an honor, a prestige thing to represent a president regardless of what it is he's asking about. isn't that true? >> it is. and i should point out that there were multiple reasons given to the white house for why these top lawyers at these top firms turn down the overtures they got. in some cases, they cited existing commitments, upcoming trials that would make it difficult for them to devote the necessary time and resources. in other cases they cited conflicts of interest that some of their clients had already gotten subpoenas as part of this investigation. the financial institutions that

have been subpoenaed for records. but the ones that really leap out are, number one, the person that, i mean, you cited before, the president's history in not paying his legal bills. that was cited. but more important was the fact, the question of, would he listen to their advice. any of these top people, brendan sullivan, ted olson. you go down the list. if they are going to take the case, they expect the client to listen to them, take their advice, to do what they say, stay off twitter, and i think they had real questions about whether this particular client would do that. beyond that, you know, it was extraordinary that there was concern about reputational risk to their firms. would the -- would taking on the representation of donald trump, such a polarizing figure, kill

recruitment of top notch coming out of law school. >> he does have an outside lawyer. he has brought on a lawyer who represented him in some of his atlantic city casino business. it's a lawyer who, i know, has threatened "the new york times" when they've reported things about president trump that president trump didn't like. he represented him in part of the trump university fraud case in which the president paid $25 million. attorney mark kasowitz is a new york lawyer. how does he fit in in terms of this very basic practical question as to whether or not the president is going to have a top-notch defense here? >> look, he is a new york pit bull civil litigator. he's got a long history of representing donald trump, making menacing public statements about his

adversaries. threatening countersuits like he did to some of the women who came forward after the "access hollywood" video came out. he threatened them with lawsuits if they continued to allege that donald trump had done something untoward toward them. it's worked for marc kasowitz. what we're talking about in washington with complex congressional justice department investigations that are heavily influenced by news media coverage, by politics, by public perceptions, it is a very different field. it calls for different skills, nuance, at times releasing information, making public disclosures, something this president and marc kasowitz is loathed to do.

there are real questions as to whether he's the right guy for this particular job. >> michael isikoff, chief investigative correspondent for yahoo! news. congratulations on this scoop. thanks for being here. >> thank you, rachel. i will say this story that isikoff published today, part of the reason i wanted to have him on today to talk about it, this is not just a washington gossip story about who doesn't want to be associated with trump or what big names have been approached and what they've said. if this presidency is going to be challenged by this investigation, if there's an extential question as to whether donald trump stays president because of the seriousness of this investigation, one of the things we have to hope for as americans, whether you like trump or you don't, is that it is a very well-fought, hard-fought thing when it comes to both accusing him and defending him. if the stakes are as high as i believe they are in terms of this investigation, there can be no question as to whether or not he's well represented, that he gets the best defense possible

and that all of the truth comes out. you have to have faith in the adversarial nature of our justice system in order to hope for an outcome everybody can abide by and believe in. you're if you're against this president, don't root for him to have a bad lawyer. root for us all to be on the same page when this is all over, come hell or high water. we'll be right back.

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times" called nine exhaustive days, a man named sammy gravano who everybody called sammy the bull, testified in federal court in brooklyn, new york, and testified against the most famous and arguably the most powerful mafia crime boss in the entire country. march 1992, sammy the bull, the underboss of the gambino crime family, took the stand in brooklyn and gave nine days of epic, exhaustive, damning testimony against the head of the gambino crime family. the guy he worked for. john gotti. now, of course, they called john gotti the teflon don because he was slick in his personal appearance. also a great talker. witty, smooth. a real way with words. they also called him the teflon don because charges never stuck to him. that was before sammy "the bull." though. when he testified in march 92 he was one of the highest ranking mauve why figures to ever have

turned state's evidence. he testified in march that year. professional that year, john gotti got convicted. teflon don, teflon no longer, right? john gotti got sentenced in april 1992 to life in prison. ultimately in 2002, a decade later, he died behind bars. meanwhile, though, sammy "the bull" went into witness protection. in his case, that meant arizona. at the time of john gotti's conviction, i said john gotti was definitely the most famous and arguably the most powerful mob boss in the entire united states. i said he's only arguably the most powerful at the time because if you've ever seen a mob movie, you know there isn't just one crime family. there are rival families in the italian mafia in new york city. although john gotti was the undisputed head of the gambino crime family, at the time he was running that, he had a considerable rival who was the head of the genovese crime

family. gotti was running the gambino side, the guy running the genovese side of things was vinnie the chin. vincent giganti. he was a good looking guy in his youth. they didn't call him "the chin" because he had some outsized deformed weird looking chin. was from the italian pronunciation of vincent. usually a guy's looks are not that important when talking about his alleged criminal status. in vinnie "the chin's" status in his later years, the way he looked became very important to his efforts to stay out of business. >> it is dusk in new york city. and the man coming out of the shadows on the left is walking down the street in bedroom slippers wearing his pajamas beneath a bathrobe. this man is vincent giganti and the fbi says he is the boss of the richest mafia family in the country.

his brother -- >> you don't understand. >> his doctors say the man in pajamas is mentally ill, not a godfather but a man with the mind of a child afraid of the dark. >> he's crazy as a fox. he -- he has played this game for many years. >> giganti first came to police attention 30 years ago for taking a shot at a mob boss. >> vinnie, did you give yourself up because you were afraid? >> no, you're crazy. >> the last time giganti was arrested, the charges were dropped when his lawyers produced letters from psychiatrists calling him a schizophrenic with little chance of recovery. giganti has even been hospitalized from time to time. they insist he's a mastermintd. >> a smart man would be smart enough to act a little crazy. >> just before midnight most nights, his bodyguards take him to this million-dollar townhouse he shares with his longtime girlfriend just off park avenue.

unaware that we're watch with hidden cameras as he lives, giganti is no longer walking around in pajamas but it dressed like a normal person at this time of night. >> he's been extremely, extremely smart. he has outwitted us for a long period of time. but i can tell you right now that the commitment is going to be made where it's going to become extremely difficult for him to outwit us from here on out. >> i love that nbc reporting from 1988. they catch him outside his girlfriend's house not wearing a bathrobe now. the reporting on the alleged head of the genovese crime family, aerch rival john gotti, vinnie "the chin" giganti. that report was 1988. the fbi saying it's going to be difficult to outwit us from now on. it was not until almost a decade after that they got the conviction against vinnie "the chin." and the way they got it is just incredible, right? they tried everything under the sun. doggedly pursued him year after year. the fbi and the feds are making

all these confident public pronouncements they're just about to get him for years and years. and years and years go by and they're not able to get him. what happened in the end is this. eastern district of new york, federal prosecutors office in brooklyn. finally 1997, so almost a decade after that nbc report, 1997, prosecutors in that brooklyn office finally came up with this audacious gambit to try to get vinnie "the chin." and it took them out of brooklyn, out of new york, off the east coast altogether. they flew a prosecutor, a specific prosecutor. they flew him from new york to arizona. they flew him to arizona and they got sammy "the bull" out of witness protection. right? he had testified against john gotti. he was in the witness protection program. living in obscurity in arizona for years after his blockbuster testimony put john gotti away. one of the highest ranking mob guys to ever flip on the stand,

right? but the prosecutor who had overseen sammy "the bull's" case, who product him, who had overseen him flipping to testify against john gotti, who helped do the deal to send him off to live this new anonymous life for the rest of his days in arizona, that individual prosecutor personally flew out to arizona to do the impossible. to persuade sammy "the bull" to do it again. to come back out of hiding, come out of the witness protection program and testify once again against another crime boss. this time against vinnie "the chin." the head of yet another new york crime family. flew out to arizona. persuaded him. the guy did it. and that's part of how they finally put vinnie "the chin" away despite the whole bathrobe and slippers act. >> in new york city, they call him the oddfather. and now vincent gigante has been convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. his lawyers have said he's mentally ill. he's a familiar figure on the

streets of his neighborhood where he shuffles along wearing a bathrobe. prosecutors said it was an act, and the jury agreed, convicting gigante in effect of >> today show footage from 1997. and the way that those prosecutors built those cases, right, the way that flipped the guys in the mob, including in the case, they flipped a guy who was already in witness protection who had testified against john goddy to testify against another family. unbelievably dramatic story the way the feds dismantled the italian mob in new york. these things don't really ever end. and now we know that that intrepid prosecutor, the guy on the plane, the guy who samuel the bull and put him in witness

protection and went to arizona and flipped another mob boss, that prosecutor, he now works for robert mueller in the special counsel investigation into the trump russia affair. his name is andrew whites man. two ss, two ns. running the fraud section in the long state in brooklyn at the eastern district of new york u.s. attorney's office. interestingly in his role at the fraud division, the justice department he did a ton of work specifically on the foreign corrupt practices act. now, though, andrew has taken leave to join the special counsel investigation into the trump-russia matter. we do not full extent of whom he has working with him. andrew, veteran of more than 25 mob prosecutions including the highest profile mob prosecution

we've ever had in this country. veteran of complicated stock fraud cases, actually, he's also the guy who led the enron task force at the beginning of the 2000s. which everybody thought it was going to be the biggest scandal of george w. bush administration until 9/11 happened. we now know that he's the highest ranking government lawyer to leave his post in government to go join robert mueller's investigation instead. andrew's appointment was first reported by bloomberg news. i expect we may learn more about the significance over time, what it tells us about the investigation. we may learn more about in the days ahead. >> he and his spokesman are not confirms or denying anything about the exact scope of the investigation and recent reports are true that mueller's investigation has spread out to encompass prior existing

investigations into the trump campaign chair, paul manafort. we can report tonight that if those reports are true about the scope of mueller's investigation, that would mean that the they're afforded to those prior existing investigations will be brought under robert mueller's control. what i mean by that, specifically, in the case with paul manafort, what's been reported, manafort, long-standing, years long fbi investigation into the klepocacy in ukraine. the millions of dollars that was stolen by the proputin dictator who manafort worked for for years. the investigation involves fbi agents working, including, on site in kia and then ukraine, investigation on going for years. in the case of mike flynn, the

on going information that involves him, reported the likes to foreign contacts, including his foreign business ties. that is a grand jury investigation that's produced multiple seasons throughout u.s. attorney's office, the prosecutor overseeing that flynn investigation is reported to be a veteran espionage prosecutor. if these recent news reports are true, that both the flynn investigation are part of mueller's information between possible conclusion, we have confirmed they'll have management control of all of the doj and resources that were previously devoted to other inquiries. that's new information that we can confirm that tonight in terms of the resources under mueller's control. now, i know everybody has been talking about the comey testimony that's going to happen on thursday, that's going to be a big deal. tomorrow the senate intelligence

committee is due to hear testimony in open russia from four people who are likely to get a bunch of questions about this ongoing investigation. director of national intelligence of tonight's front page scoop which says, let the president -- president asked dan coats if he could intervene with the fbi director to try to stop the trump/russia investigation, at least the part of it that related to mike flynn. that's on the front page of washington post as of tonight. expect questions of dan coats about that tomorrow. it has been previously reported that the national security agency director, admiral mike rogers, also approached by the president about the trump russia investigation, president reportedly asking mike rogers to make public statements pouring cold water on the investigation, expect mike rogers head of the nsa to get questions about that tomorrow, too. in terms of the other people getting testimony tomorrow, there's no new director of the fbi since the president fired

james comey a month ago, although it has been weeks since the president said he named somebody new for the job, apparently the process of picking somebody for that job is not going very well. still just an acting director of the fbi. his name is andrew mccabe, he'll testify tomorrow. the other person who will testify tomorrow is rod rosenstein, he's the number two official at the justice department. here are a couple of things to be ready for tomorrow in terms of rod's testimony. first of all, as you know, the attorney general jeff sessions, he himself is reportedly -- purportedly recused from the trump campaign in the trump russia investigation, that recusal is a matter of controversy, if you set that aside for now, rod is overseeing the robert mueller investigation. because jeff sessions recused

himself. >> the investigation is not to the russian attacker and paul manafort business dealings around the world, it's been reported and never confirmed that his investigation, the matter of jim comey's firing. and question of whether or not the director james comey was fired in an effort to obstruct justice, to obstruct the russia investigation. because both jeff sessions and rod were involved in what the white house says was the decision-making process to fire james comey. it's possible that he himself may end up being a subject that robert mueller is looking into in terms of obstruction of justice. he can't oversee an investigation into himself, he cannot oversee that part of the investigation. tomorrow in this testimony we expect that -- that will mean that rod rosenstein will try to avoid answering questions from the senate about the firing of jim comey or these broader

questions about whether comey was fired to obstruct justice. we also expect we'll get a new name that will be famous as of tomorrow. if rod rosenstein makes clear tomorrow that he's recusing himself from all of or part of the investigation of the mueller investigation, that will mean that another person is about to get famous. and that person is -- rachel brand, have you ever seen her on television before? probably not. she -- her confirmation hearings were not widely telecast and to the extent that anybody was paying attention to them, you might not have noticed her because it was held alongside the confirmation hearing of rod rosenstein she got very few questions of senators from either party during the whole confirmation process. she is a relatively well-known, relatively noncontroversial justice department figure. she's about to become very well-known as of tomorrow

because she is the third in line at the justice department. jeff sessions is, obviously, first. he, at least, reportedly is recused from trump russia investigation matters and anything else related to the trump campaign. so that would put rod rosenstein, to the extent part of this investigation, also touches on rosenstein's behavior, too. that will mean will recuse himself, either from that part of the investigation, once you take out the number one investigation, sessions, number two person in the justice department rod rosenstein, that was the number three person in the justice department, the here to for unsung, unknown pers personage. of rachel brand. >> he'll oversee this whole

investigation, including his budget and report to congress at the end and everything. >> we're waiting for that james comey testimony on thursday. tomorrow's testimony is going to be a very big deal as well. that does it for us tonight, thank you for your fofor barns. it's time for the the last word with lawrence o'donnel. >> you know, cosmetic surgery. >> that you're only playing at 90% of your ability. i just want you to know, rachel, every night you're followed by someone who maxes out at around 80%, max. and by 10:30 it has dropped, way, way below. >> not true. i hear by