saluted the president and told him, i work for you now. we're approaching the 2:00 p.m. eastern hour. we're still waiting for a couple more things to break before we can clear the air. chris, one more question to you. how do people process these various investigations going on? yes, there's mueller, yes, there's the questicommittee we today that seems to be trying their best to be well behaved and partisan. then there's the house committee. we talked to swalwell after the nunez incident. what's their role now? >> i think the house committee has helped senator burr of north carolina do a really good job. i think he was burnt by that in terms of partisan identification. he's going to do a really good job. it's probably good for the country that one house blew it

so the senate can look better on this, but burr has been very impressive. nunez hurt himself with that midnight ride of paul revere heading to the eisenhower building, heading back with news he got for the president and looked absurd. it did look absurd because it was absurd. i think burr and werner are going to do a tough job here. again, i go back to they don't feel the need to be instinctively defending the president. go back to watergate. one big difference in terms of watergate. they said there was a candidacy on the presidency and president trump said there is a cloud over the presidency. different mindsets. nixon and his people were thinking about the institution of the presidency. whatever you think of nixon, he was trying to protect his presidency. trump is trying to defend his butt personally against bad pr. it's the cloud versus the cancer. nixon really wanted to be a good president. he wanted to succeed in his public policy which was pretty moderate, actually, politically, even liberal in some cases. he wanted to succeed.

trump wants to protect himself personally and that was all about it in these conversations with comey as i read them. >> yeah, the definition of liberal conservative had been migrating so much of late. when you look at the nixon administration now and our present day, i think you're absolute right. chris matthews in washington. to set the scene, what we're waiting for here, we have members of the senate intelligence committee in this secure room listening to all the things comey wouldn't talk about in front of the rest of us in the first part of the hearing. we also have the personal lawyer for donald trump due in front of a lectern there in front of the national press club. that will be interesting, because so far today we've had some reaction from sarah huckabee sanders. we've had some reaction from don jr. on twitter regarding what they heard on the hill today. and this will be a third prong, personal lawyer for the president. as to some of the highlights of

the comey testimony, we have assembled some of them for you now. >> although the law required no reason at all to fire an fbi director, the administration then chose to defame me, and more importantly, the fbi by saying that the organization was in disarray. that it was poorly led. that the work force had lost confidence in its leader. those were lies, plain and simple. >> what was it about that meeting that led you to determine that you needed to start putting down a written record? >> a combination of things. i think the circumstances, the subject matter and the person i was interacting with. circumstances first, i was alone with the president of the united states or th president-ect, soon to be presiden the subject matter i was tking about matters that touch on the fbi's core responsibility and it related to the president-elect

personally. and then the nature of the person. i was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting. >> did you feel that you need to do create this written record of these memos because they might need to be relied on at some certain date? >> sure. i created records after conversations, and i think i did it after each of our nine conversations. if i didn't, i did it for nearly all of them, especially the ones that were sububstantive. i knew there might come a day when i would need a record of what happened. my interactions with president obama, we spoke twice in three years and i didn't document it. i had a one on one meeting with president bush about a very important security matter. i didn't write a memo documenting that conversation, either. sent a quick e-mail to my staff to let them know there was something going on, but i didn't feel with president bush the need to document it in that way. >> why didn't you stop and say, mr. president, this is wrong. i cannot discuss this with you?

>> that's a good question. maybe if i were stronger, i would have. i was so stunned by the conversation that i just took it in. and the only thing i could think to say, because i was playing in my mind. i rememr every word he said. i was playing in my mind, what should my response be, and that's why i very carefully chose the words. i've seen the tweet about tapes. lordy, i hope there are tapes. >> why do you believe you were fired? >> i guess i don't know for sure. i think the president, his word that i was fired because of the russia investigation. >> do you believe the russia investigation played a role? >> in why i was fired? >> yes. >> yes, because i've seen the president say so. i was fired because of the russia investigation. i was fired in some way to change, or the endeavor was to change the way the russian investigation was being conducted. that is a very big deal, and not just because it involves me. the nature of the fbi and the nature of its work requires that

it not be the subject of political consideration. >> the president tweeted that james comey said there were no tapes of the conversation before he started leaking to the press. was that a subtle attempt to intimidate you from testifying and intimidate someone else from crosses his path from not doing it? >> i'm not going to sit here and try to interpret the president's tweets. to me its major impact, it occurred to me in the milddle o the night, holy cow, there might be tapes. if there's tapes, it's not just my word against his on his direction to get rid of the flynn investigation. >> again, the idea of tapes came up in the president's tweet in the first place. this is the world we're living in. this is the life we've chosen. to the white house, speaking of which kelly o'donnell is standing by with a statement just put out by the president's

private attorney before we hear from him over at the press cl kelly? >> reporter: well, brian, i have some guidance on what mark hasowitz, the president's outside private attorney, is expected to say. he will make a lengthy statement that will cover all the basic points that give the donald trump point of view on this. first and foremost, expect him to talk about the fact that james comey said that the president himself was not under investigation, and that's a point that the president has long wanted to be made public. he will also talk about the fact that in the comey testimony, the president talked about wanting to find out if any satellite associates of his, if any others involved might have been involved in any russian interference, and that should come out. so that is a point the white house is expected to make through the president's private attorney. we'll also talk about the fact that according to the counsel for the president, donald trump made no attempt to intervene or impede, he simply talked about

it would be good to find out, and talked about michael flynn as a good person. it also goes on to say that mr. comey was saying that he had not investigated anyone close to the president. and he also talked about the fact that general flynn is a good guy, meaning comey himself responded in that way. in addition, expect that the counsel will talk about what some of the other top intelligence officials have said, including, for example, the head of the nsa, that there was no direct interference from the president, no one directed him to do anything. here is something that will be of note. the presidt's counsel is expe t say that president trump never told mr. comey, i need loyalty. i expect loyalty in the form or substance. that is a significant point because we saw how james comey memorialized his conversations, spelled that out with quotes as he recalls them. that will be a point that the counsel to the president will take on directly. in addition to that, the office

of the president is entitled to expect loyalty from those who are serving in the administration, a broader loyalty, of course, the oath that every federal official takes is to the constitution, not to the white house or any individual president. but expect the petition counsel to make the point that loyalty is something that is in part coming with the job. also, this is going to be very notable. expect that mark hasowitz will talk about the fact that james comey himself has acknowledged that he was a leaker and that he surreptitiously, is a word i'm told will be used, made unauthorized disclosures of his memos after he was fired. this is a point where we can expect the president's counsel to go after james comey and to try to undercut his credibility. we saw, brian, in the hearing today how james comey talked about reaching out to a friend of his with the instruction to reach to a reporter. his concern at the time was if he didn't get out his side of the story that he was uncertain if the investigation would go forward, and he thought that --

comey thought that even doing that might prompt a special counsel, and of course one was later appointed. mr. comey stated that the disclosures to the conversations he had with their dinner. he gives dates involved with that, that mr. comey admitted that he leaked to friends the purported memo. so purported memos, that's an important use of language that they are questioning whether these memos exist, are about privileged conversations. so we didn't see executive privilege invoked by this white house, but the notion that if there were one-on-one meetings with the president and his then-fbi director and that the director memorialized those through note taking and then released them that that would be a violation of privilege. so expect the trump personal attorney to claim some victories as they see them today, brian, and to take on james comey directly. brian? >> kelly, thank you. ari melber, you're the lawyer here. what does it all mean? and is this going after comey as

a leaker, is there any "there, there"? does it have a chance or is it a shiny object? >> it sounds like a shiny object. i'll read it from the same prepared materials that kelly o'donnell obtained. it's the private lawyer for the president, the executive branch. quote, we will leave it to the appropriate authorities to determine whether these leaks by comey should be investigated. that is striking, ominous -- >> is that really their biggest problem? >> not their biggest problem. there is no public material information from the justice department or the fbi or the federal government that there was any inappropriate leaking of classified material, and private citizens who previously served in government have a wide latitude to discuss their service outside of the classified context. so this statement alone strikes me as a type of bombshell. you could say it's a potential distraction, you could say it's a potential interference. there are some who i would imagine would be looking at this

and questioning about witness tampering and the type of things that are appropriate or not to say to a witness when there is an open inquiry. that's really an issue for the special counsel. to me that's the biggest headline and the rest of it does sound like pretty standard legal argumentation, which can be strong because you start to make everything a debate and everything is a reputed memo or it looks weak because it looks like petty fogging or parsimonious. some of it is normal lawyering. >> i would say a full six hours before we normally see him. chris hayes has joined us here in our studio. the hits just keep on coming. your reaction to what you've witnessed thus far today. >> i thought it was interesting. to me the biggest problem that they face right now is the obstruction problem, right? did the president obstruct justice? it's fairly clear, while comey

did not say that, he put a bunch of dots out for people to draw the line. it's very clear that he wanted a special counsel, it's clear that it is in the special counsel's purview to investigate obstruction, it's very clear the obstruction counsel may make a point about obstruction. in that respect it's clear they're choosing to argue about the loyalty pledge and not about the direction to lay off flynn. because the biggest flag in everything today and everything we've learned is the president of the united states telling people to leave the room, looking the fbi director in the eyes and say, iope you can see some way to let this go about a man who was his campaign aide, who is close and trusted to him. and then after he didn't let it go, firing him. those facts are damning whatever the underlying investigation about russia and collusion bears out. that chain of facts which we now have from the horse's mouth and james comey today. if you look at the damage of obstruction, it looks like obstruction. it looks like a colorable case,

let's say, for obstruction. it's interesting to me that they are not -- they are essentially stipulating as to those facts. they are trying to sort of massage the interpretation of it. >> i mean, now we know why he hired mark kasowitz. maggie haberman quotes 30 times a day quoting donald trump. kasowitz is going to be busy if this is what donald trump hired him to do. comey was under oath, he was asked questions and he answered them in a forthright manner. if you put half the people that work in this administration under oath, they would answer it the same way. they probably wouldn't be as forthcoming. literally the "new york times" and the "washington post" has 30 source stories every day. so i don't know how mark kosowitz is going to keep up with him if every person that talks about their face-to-face encounter with donald trump is investigated. investigated for what? what are they investigating

comey for doing? >> there is norimina violation. >> what comey put out through a friend from cumbia law school was really just a corroborating piece of information about an interaction that donald trump tweeted about and said, i have tapes. so let's play this tape thread along for a minute. trump said, wait until i release the tapes. comey said yay, or lordy, or whatever the heck he said that was the cutest moment of the day. he said, yay, there are tapes. here's what happened, and you'll see it, too, on those tapes that donald trump has. it's ridiculous. i think we have to stop and acknowledge that we are covering a goat rodeo. i mean, this is lunacy from the president's personal lawyer. this was a serious day and this is an unserious statement. >> the other problem here, there is this huge credibility problem. we've talked about this forever, but you're really seeing it hilt t -- hit the road, right? it is generally true if the president said, no, that's not

true about something, that would have kind of a weight to it. when the president says, no, that's not true, there is no e presumptive weight. it's been entirely given away. so in a he said-she said against his word, it's almost impossible to blend the authoritative credence to the record that you would normally give out of charitable reading. >> i think it's because he's running out of people who will lie for him. >> that's right. >> and that's why the memos matter. i mean, the connective tissue between what you just said and what you just said is there are a bunch of contemporaneous memos -- >> goat rodeo! >> higher than normal credibility in that moment. >> we talk about theories of the case. there can be more than one theory of the case. incompetence and stupidity. >> let me interrupt you one second. this is comey live leaving the

dirksen senate office building. that was comey live leaving the dirksen senate office building. you were saying? >> just commenting on multiple officials today making the tall exit out of a small part of the senate hallway. what i was saying was the connective tissue here, right, is there can be more than one theory of the case. it can be that government does things stupidly and isolated and some of it may be criminal, but there is no criminal conspiracy. the problem that was intensified by jim comey's testimony under oath today is, he did put it on the line under penalty of perjury, and he did engage a bunch of different inquiries about it. and the memos, because if you believe him under oath that they exist and there has been multiple accounts about their existence and how they were created, and they have been verified by different people, although they are not, to be clear, in the public record as of yet. the counter-case would be what? that he magically, mysteriously,

falsely generated multiple accounts of meetings and then distributed them in realtime and somehow managed them all to check with and match visitor logs and phone record logs? the counter-case is embarrassing. that's the problem for the white house. >> we should be clear, right? the people around the president are more or less -- or at least allies, right, in the republican party. the theory of the case, no one is, i think, going to go out on that limb to say that james comey fabricated all of this. what we have seen instead is the first theory, right, that essentially the president is too naive, uninformed, in over his head to have the wherewithall to form the necessary specific intent to do something like obstruct justice. which isruly remarkable thing to say about the most powerful person inhe world. >> but he has a defense on everything. when there was the allegation that he had leaked classified information and potentially

perhaps burned a source by sharing intel with the russians, m.r. mcmaster, the national security adviser, went out and said, no, he didn't. how do you know he didn't? because we didn't tell him. he didn't have the information. >> to a brief point, chris hayes said nobody would make that case. i would request leave to amend that statement and say almost nobody, because the new statement from donald trump's lawyer, mr. kasowitz, says mr. comey leaked to friends purported memos, which is opening the argument that -- >> they're not being paid directly from the president of the united states. >> when was the last time we saw the president's personal lawyer in a news conference setting? it was clinton impeachment? >> that would be kendall, right? >> kendall with bill clinton. but i don't know for sure. >> this is highly unusual. this is a rented room at the national press club not far from the white house. they rent out facilities for this kind of thing. their lectern, their flag, a sign behind them, a guy who will

be speaking in part for the president of the united states as a person, as he relates to the swirl of allegations going on. >> i mean, the recount by both the gore campaign and the bush campaign had counsel represented before the supreme court and they did press availabilities, but i think that was probably the last two. >> as we look at the unusual setting of this press club gathering and reporters waiting to hear this response, what does mr. kasowitz speak for? does he speak for the intelligence committee? does he speak for the justice department? does he speak for the white house government? no, he doesn't speak for any of those things, so what he can offer is not so much a deep intelligence or insight, which is not a criticism of his. the lawyering job he has to do today is a tough one. he can speak for donald trump the citizen, and he can make claims and challenges based on

publicly available information. so, you know, in fairness to him, he's at a significant disadvantage. i think the statement he just released raises a lot more questions than it clarifies, but this is going to be, i would expect, an unusual presentation to say the least. >> the other problem, and this is the problem that has bedevilled everyone. everyone who is sort of around this thing, the russia investigation, what's called this sort of title, no one knows what the actual final determined facts at the heart of it is. so everyone employed to dance around it, spin it away, they don't know what they're attached to. i remain agnostic, because i don't know what the facts are, either. i don't know what the facts are, and having to have the position in which you have to defend the trump administration, the actions of the surrogates and his associates without knowing what the underlying thing that happened is definitively is a dangerous one, because new

revelations can always come out hours, days, weeks after something you say definitive to prove you wrong. >> i think donald trump doesn't know, either, because in the private testimony, comey reveals that if you find out that any of my guys, my satellite associates, were involved, call me. let me know. he doesn't seem to know. >> which is not the usual way targets of investigation are contacted. >> but it does support the ignorance defense. >> if that was spoken with sincerity, and not, i'll be expected at this point to say this. i think he made clear today his just the facts style. andy card is waiting to stand by and talk to us, former chief of staff in the bush xliii white house. andy, thanks for coming. what do you think the problems in the white house are after

listening to jim comey's view? >> it wasn't as bad a day for donald trump as people predicted it would be, but it was not a good day. comey really didn't put out anything new. he kind of reinforced that we were already told was likely to be the case, and i do think there was a he said-he said debate that will continue to take place, but i don't think this was a disastrous day for donald trump. i do think this is a sad day for the nature of how washington works right now, and we have a naive president. that's not even a criticism, it's kind a statement of fact. he hn't been there. he doesn't know. i kind of wish that director comey, when he was the fbi director in one of these sessions with the president, had just said, i understand your concerns. let me tell you why you shouldn't raise these things right now. introduce a little wisdom to the process. and it's more than speaking truth to power, it's really explaining how power works and

how you don't want to step there. i kind of wish comey had done that at one of his sessions. i think it would have been a courtesy and we might not have had these problems. because i doubt that the president was really looking to be intentionally doing something that would be illegal or wrong. i think that he might have hoped to do something that would mitigate a problem that he saw rather than understand the obligation that the fbi has to find out if someone broke the law. it's a sad day. >> you realize that would put the role of the fbi director and -- into part civics director, and the subpart to that is can the ignorance of the ways of washington and the leverage of the machinery of presidency be any defense if you're donald trump? >> no, i don't think it can be a defense, but i do think that a

jim comey or a chief of staff or a white house counsel could have taken the president aside -- and i think comey should have gone to somebody else and let somebody else have maybe an opportunity to educate the president to the obligations that he has as the head of the executive branch and not to interfere and to pay attention to kind of the lanes of travel you're allowed to be in and know which ones you can't get in or you shouldn't get in. because there are consequences. so, you know, i doubt that donald trump is as machavialian as he's perceived to be. i think he's naive and has not been smart about this. i've said for a long time, the advice i gave to psintial candidates and, in fact, to presidents was taste your words before you spithem out. this is a great example of someone spitting out words that he didn't taste and he shouldn't have spit them out. >> andy, it's nicolle wallace.

how you doing? >> i'm great, nicolle, i love you. >> i louve you, too. let me ask you something. fbi director mueller, he was the fbi director when you and i both worked for george bush. if he had asked you as chief of staff, i know it's apples to apples, but if he had asked you if he was never alone in a room with the president, what would you have done? >> that was kind of my rule, anyway. i didn't want the fbi director to come -- it was very unusual for the fbi director to come to the white house for a meeting with the president. very unusual. it was 9/11 he came in. i remember the first time, it was on the morning of the day after 9/11. and then friday morning before he went to new york city, the fbi director came in. he had only been on the job for ten days, and he was briefing the president about what had happened in new york city with the attack on the world trade

center towers. so that was a very unusual circumstance. it was rare to have the fbi director in the oval office meeting with the president. now, if it was in the sittion room in a meeting of, you know -- i'm going to say national security policy, that's different. but having a meeting kind of outside of a normal venue where you talk about national security issues, i would have not encouraged that to happen without witnesses being there. >> i just want to say that -- to andy's point, that's the kind of characterization we've seen from a bunch of people today, and i don't think it's necessarily the wrong one. but i would just say, the man is a 70-year-old billionaire. he's done a lot of deals. he's not a child, he's a grown-up and he's also the president of the united states. there is the old saying about ignorance and the law is no excuse. there is also the fact that the thing james comey said today and i think the thing that is really hard for the kind of naivete

argument is, why did he ask everyone to leave the room? everyone thought that was weird. that's a weird thing to do, and if he's doing something that you yourself don't understand to be a transgression, you might do it in front of everyone. but when you ask someone to leave the room and then you do it, that's a harder interpretation, i think. >> it is. but it takes courage from somebody in that group to say, mr. president, let's think about that before we all leave. have someone speak up. especially in the early days of a presidency when the president has had no experience in government. >> andy card, thank you very much. we're just now within the two-minute warning for mark kasowitz, the president's personal lawyer. we have reason to believe that he has arrived in the outer office there. this is, again, a rental room at the national press ub. you see the fire capacity there mounted on the ll. just a quick review of who he

is. he has represented donald trump and a good many more people. in trump's case for 15 years. you may have also seen his name in connection with bill o'reilly's ousting at fox news. bill o'reilly used him for defense back then. "new york times" headline in the andrew ross piece that profiled him was, quote, the toughest of the tough guys, and here he is entering the room. >> good afternoon, everyone. i'm mark carollo, and this is mark kasowitz, president donald trump's personal attorney. he'll make a statement and we will not be taking questions. >> ladies and gentlemen, i'm mark kasowitz, president trump's personal lawyer. contrary to numerous false press accounts leading up to today's hearing, mr. comey has now finally confirmed publicly what he repeatedly told president

trump privately. that is that the president was not under investigation as part of any probe into russian interference. the president -- mr. comey also admitted that there is no evidence that a single vote changed as a result of any russian interference. mr. comey's testimony also makes clear that the president never sought to impede the investigation into attempted russian interferencen the 2016 tion. and, in fact, according to mr. comey, the president told mr. comey, quote, it would be good to find out, closed quote, in that investigation if there was, quote, some satellite associates of his who did something wrong, closed quote. and he, president trump, did not

exclude anyone from that statement. consistent with that statement, the president never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that mr. comey stop investigating anyone, including the president never suggested that mr. comey, quote, let flynn go, closed quote. as the president publicly stated the next day, he did say to mr. comey, quote, general flynn is a good guy. he has been through a lot, closed quote. and also, quote, asked how general flynn is doing, closed quote. admiral rogers testified today that the president never, quote, directed him to do anything illegal, immoral, unethical or inappropriate, closed quote, and

never, never, quote, pressured him to do so, closed quote. director coats said the same thing. the president likewise never pressured mr. comey. the president also never told mr. comey, quote, i need loyalty. i expect loyalty, closed quote. he never said it in form, and he never said it in substance. of course, the office of the president is entitled to expect loyalty from those who are serving the add administratimin. and from before this president took office to this day, it is overwhelmingly clear that there have been and continue to be those in government who are actively attempting to undermine this administration with selective and illegal leaks of

classified information and privileged communications. mr. comey has now admitted that he is one of these leakers. today mr. comey admitted that he unilaterally and surreptitiously made unauthorized disclosures to the press of privileged communications with the president. the leaks of this privileged information began no later than march 2017 when friends of mr. comey have stated that he disclosed to them the conversations that he had with the president during their january 27th, 2017 dinner and february 14th, 2017 white house meeting. today mr. comey admitted that he leaked to friends of his purported memos of those privileged communications, one

of which he testified was classified. mr. comey also testified that immediately after he was terminated, he authorized his friends to leak the contents of those memos to the press in order to, in mr. comey's words, quote, prompt the appointment of a special counsel, closed quote. although mr. comey testified that he only leaked the memos in response to a tweet, the public record reveals that the "new york times" was quoting from those memos the day before the referenced tweet, which belies mr. comey's excuse for this unauthorized disclosure of privileged information and appears to be entirely retaliatory. we will leave it to the appropriate authorities to determine whether these leaks should be investigated along with all the others that are

being investigated. in somum, it is now established that the president was not being investigated for colluding with or attempting to obstruct the administration. these important facts fo the country to know are vtually the only facts that have not been leaked during the course of these events. as he said yesterday, the president feels completely vindicated and is eager to continue moving forward with his agenda with the business of this country and with this public cloud removed. thank you. >> so the president's personal lawyer in washington. ari melber, what did we just witness other than learning that jim comey is on the pile of other leakers that they've been going after? >> well, i think it is clearly a

full-throated defense and counter attack. the defense is that in form and substance, they are claiming the president was not trying to impede or direct the flynn investigation or the russia investigation. it is a series of claims about facts and basically stating that those quotes that were most of those allegations did not occur. they say it is a denial of the loyalty test. it is a point-by-point rebuttal of jim comey. i should note, as we stressed throughout the day, it is not offered under oath, it is not offered with any extra evidence. it's a statement from a lawyer which he's entitled to make. i do want to read this sentence that i think is just remarkable in accusing the fbi director. mr. kasowitz says, it's clear there continue to be those in government who continue to undermine the association with leaks of classified information

and privileged communications. mr. comey has now admitted he's one of these leakers, end quote. the lawyer for the president of the united states claiming, i would say, obviously misleadingly claiming, that the testimony provided today was somehow an illegal leak. there is no evidence offered, there is no substantiation and no one on the committee seemed to think that. that is just striking. >> katy tur joins us here in the studio. >> i just started talking, sorry. we should point out that mr. comey did leak those, if you want to call it, leaked those memos or that memo to his friend at columbia after he was no longer a part of the fbi. he was a private citizen at this point. so you're not necessarily leaking information like a government employee would be leaking information. he was a private citizen. i also want to note that they are refuting what comey said under oath, that the president said, i need loyalty, i expect loyalty in form or substance. they're not providing any proof,

and they're not making any mention in this argument of tapes, of any tapes that could corroborate the president's version of events or mr. kasowitz's version of events. again, at the white house press briefing, sarah huckabee sanders said today she does not know of any tapes. she even joked around saying she'll look underneath the cushions. so the white house is still refusing to say whether or not those tapes exist. that is very notable. but again, ari, you're right. it is something of anlternate universe. they're very focused on tryin paintames comey as the leaker in chief, as somebody who needs to be investigated, as somebody who did something wrong, and they're not so focused on much of the substance of that testimony today. >> nicolle wallace, you've been studying because we've been watching you study on camera. what have you found? >> first off, a source close to former president clinton says that no matter how bad things got, we held our briefings every

day and quite often sent our lawyers out to brief. we did not outsource comments like this to a non-government official. it is extraordinary that a non-government official, someone without any access to peers, people who would be comey's peers -- >> speaking for the president. >> speaking for a man of the free world. today he was speaking for the office of the presidency in saying, we now know who the leakers are. now, on this topic of leaking, i said this a few minutes ago but it bears repeating. every day, 20 to 30 people -- >> they had 20 sources last night. >> and before it listed, according to 30 sources in and out of the government. so what they do is if they want the government officials to work on their behalf, even if they're the dni or the head of the fbi or the cia, they call them and

they try to bully them into calling the press. however, if someone who has been maligned, and even comey said today he was defamed by the president, defends himself as someone who was a former government official, sharing information that was not classified, then they want to go after them and prosecute them. it is the stuff out of a cruddy screenplay or a novel that will never get published because you couldn't make it up that this would happen in this country at the highest levels of government. >> so if this is his private attorney hired here in new york, a guy he knew and dealt with before, what is the white house counsel's role? >> the white house counsel would still respond to any requests, for example, this question of tapes. if the special counsel subpoenaed tapes or any other records of this, they would be facilitating and handling that on behalf of the white house, on behalf of the government and defending the role of the president. for example, we heard about the potential use of executive

privilege. that's a white house counsel who would consult on an exercise under his lawful authority as a government attorney as opposed to a private attorney. this is a private attorney, though, who by my reading of it, seems to be deliberately mingling or deflating the role because this comment about what is illegal. to put a fine point on it, why does this private attorney have any role or business or authority to get into the conversation about what's illegal? what is the basis for that? i see no statutory reference, i see no reference to the u.s. criminal code here, i see -- talk about defamatory, i see an allegation against a very private person. we all know that former government officials talk a lot. they have a first amendment right to talk about anything other than what is classified or privileged. they come on air, they give speeches, they write books, they write op-eds. again, just to take a step back

about how bonkers is it, well, it's really bonkers. former officials talk all the time lawfully. >> we have a number of them on our air all the time. >> a couple notes here. nicolle wallace is getting sprung because in an hour and 19 minutes, her broadcast comes on the air, and you should be able to be familiar with the material. thank you. >> i think i'm good. >> we want to go to chris matthews in washington. chris, i've wanted your reaction to this conversation and that appearance by the president's lawyer. >> i thought it was -- i got to be careful here. he's probably a bit letigious, this guy, but it seems like the kind of lawyer you would want to get if you're in trouble. he's very good, he wasn't under oath, he didn't take questions. you can't compare him apples to apples to the situation comey was in under all day, which was under oath with a lot of tough questioning. he read a lot of the obvious stuff we've been hearing the past couple hours as someone defensive of the president. i thought the statement -- he

conjoins these two sentences which i thought somebody made a mistake here. he said the president also never told mr. comey, i need loyalty, i expect loyalty in form or substance. the sentence right after that, of course, the office of the president is entitled to expect loyalty from those serving in the administration. i'm sorry they wanted to do a transition, a segue to the question of leaking, but there they are saying that the fbi director owes loyalty to the president. i don't think they got it straight here in terms of the drafting of this thing. but again, a very expensive lawyer. i was thinking how much an hour is this guy getting paid? and i think he did the best he could, but it was totally outside the sphere of politics and government and the press. and everybody involved, and this is going to resent the fact he brought in this outsourced character who defends people, you know, in law. and fair enough, it's his right to counsel. but he wasn't somebody like sean spicer or ms. sanders or somebody that would normally defend the president. he wasn't the president's

counsel. he is entitled to counsel and nobody in the justice department was defending him. no one was defending him within the political world. he had to go outside the political world to get someone very expensive to defend him. it sounds like the second redoubt to me, not the first redoubt. the fact you bring him in now seems premature at best. t story line that continues, the through line, especially given what you just said is ignorance of the way the presidency works, the way government works, chain of command, what's outside the chain of command and the jobs that traditionally have kind of walls around them for good reason. >> well, i agree with what chris hayes said a moment ago and what everybody said. we're all pretty much aware. our perspective as a group, i think, is pretty informed. when you ask a guy to meet you in the dark, basically, in the white house on a state floor in one of the rooms you visit during christmas time with no one else else except navy stewards to serve and then they disappear, and it's one on one

over this little table and he's saying, are you going to be loyal to me? then with his chief of staff and his son-in-law and everybody, get out of here, i've got something important to talk to this guy about, i want him off the flynn case. there is evidence here that they was dleliberating what he was doing. he was planning to get this guy alone and pressure him to get what he wanted done, which is an oath of loyalty across the board so he could work with this guy as a tool, and secondly to get off the flynn case. i agree with chris hayes. i mine, there isean, there is a. i'm not an attorney, but i've heard a lot. this attorney is not going to play in peoria, this guy. he's not the kind of guy that represents the little people working in factories and have lost coal mining jobs. he brought a big city lawyer in to defend him here, and i think it's going to look like he was in trouble to have to do so. >> chris matthews, thanks. i want to read a statement from john mccain, whi is enginegerma

because of the conversation that arose after his last 7-minute question time with jim comey. it says this. u.s. senator john mccain released the following statement today. quote, i get the sense from twitter that my line of questioning today went over people's heads. maybe going forward i shouldn't stay up late watching the diamondbacks night games. what i was trying to get at was whether mr. comey believes that any of his interactions with the president rise to the level of obstruction of justice. in the case of secretary clinton's e-mails, you remember this thread, mr. comey was willing to step beyond his role as an investigator and state his belief about what, quote, no reasonable prosecutor would conclude about the evidence. i wanted mr. comey to apply that same approach to the key questions surrounding his interactions with president

trump. whether or not the president's conduct constitutes obstruction of justice whi, while i missed opportunity to today's hearing, i still believe this question is important, and i intend to submit it in writing to mr. comey for the record. so, john mccain of arizona, clearing that up. he is not a member of the intelligence committee but kind of an ex-officio member by being the chairman of armed services. michael isikoff, an investigative reporter of yahoo is with us to call attention to mething mr. kasowitz just said at that event on behalf of the president. michael? >> i think there may have been a misfire here, because kasowitz in trying to undermine comey said that when he leaked the memo to his friend and comey testified it was in response to a tweet that the president had

made about reference to tapes, kasowitz said that the "new york times" story quoting that memo was before the referenced tweet. well, i just double-checked this, and, in fact, the tweet in question, and your people may want to call this up, was may 12th, 8:26 a.m. that's when the president wrote, i hope comey -- comey better hope there are no tapes. the "new york times" story quoting comey's memo is may 16th. it's four days later. so that seems to be completely the opposite of what kasowitz just claimed undercut comey's testimony. you know, maybe kasowitz has an explanation for this or there are some other "times" story he's referring to. but clearly what comey was talking about was the one memo,

an excerpt of which he had his friend, a columbia university professor, read to the "new york times" and that came four days after the tweet about the tapes. >> michael ikoff, thank you fothat. ari melber, this is what can happen when you contract out legal services in this case, and what i mean is, today we are hearing from the president's privately hired legal counsel from new york. we are not hearing from white house counsel. we were not allowed to see the white house briefing on camera. this is the physical manifestation. >> yeah. and what a portrait of decline of professional services it is. i don't think it serves the president well. we've talked a lot about what is problematic for the president. but if you are a trump supporter and you're rooting for him in his capacity as donald trump, the man who won that campaign,

or donald trump the president of the united states, you would really want him to have the best experts and most honest, thoughtful professionals around him dealing with these instead, these were aspersions about a burch of jargons for referring to the deep state when he says those in government were attempting to undermine this administration with selective and illegal leaks. it sounds like a lot of attacks that aren't jermaine to what happened. this isn't a detailed accounting. this isn't good enough to deal with the inquiries wherever they may go and we don't know where they go. this is a private attorney doing the best he can. some of which are factually challenged and some of which have no evidence whatsoever. will say this, it is not normal legal practices at the early stages of an inquiry to as pert a witness has committed a felony without any evidence whatsoever. so this may be sort of a

brushback pitch. or as some might say, the way people talking in new york or d.c. but without any evidence, it is not good lawyering. >> if you attempt to it put it that way, it sounds serious. we're going to fit in our first break since all of this testimony this morning. we're going to come back. continue our coverage. among those standing by to talk to us, a form he agent of the fbi who may have an interesting point of view about what we witnessed this morning and this afternoon when our coverage continues right after this.

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ifs honestly concerned. that combination of things never experienced before but it led me to believe i had to write it down and in a detailed way. >> that was partf th comey testimony from earlier today. clint watts is with us. a form he fbi agent and more importantly, former member of the joint terrorism task force. welcome to you. the question to you is, we heard the former director say that he didn't get a chance to say goodbye. we've heard various employees of the fbi say that he enjoyed great support of loyalty from

the staff. how do you think today was viewed by your former colleagues at the fbi in. >> even the fbi or the military, you say i'm under siege. and i think that's what comey was trying to say. i think the fbi is trying to restore faith in the public and stay strong and continue to do your job. what i find interesting when i talk to former fbi colleagues or even former military folks who just watched a very big crisis in qatar where we had trumans stationed, does the president realize the position he's putting us in? i think what you saw from director comey, he went into these meetings and he wasn't sure what was happening and he wasn't sure how to protect himself or the country. when he talks about documenting, you look at the first engagements with the president. home run documendocuments it.

he notified attorney general sessions. he notified the doj. he kept notifying his escalations. i believe he felt under siege and still does today and he doesn't have much of a way to defend himself and i think what you see with president trump and his lawyer, rationalize, minimize. you are the deep state that are after me. i didn't do anything bad but you're a leaker. what i did, minimization, i'm hoping that goes away. i'm not telling you to go away. all of those he actions are oftentimes associated with the guilty. if you're an fbi agent or anyone working with the fbi, you're not sure. >> richard is with us. i'll going to take it on blind faith that you can see us. we have lost all electronics and all ability to see what's going on on television right now. richard was deathics lawyer for the bush 43 white house.

and richard, i guess i'm most interested in what we've seen the last hour. the president's private attorney, as i said, the single physical manifestation of this presidency today, given the comey testimony this morning. >> well, i think it was appropriate for the president's criminal defense lawyer to speak and i believe he is functioning here as a criminal defense lawyer. the president is in serious jeopardy, being prosecuted for obstruction of justice. there is substantial evidence of obstruction of justice. the special prosecutor, as well as the house and the senate, are well, i'm sure, they will look for more evidence and find out the facts with why director comey was fired. if he was fired because of the russia investigation, that combined with today is a very

clear evidence of obstruction of justice on the part of the president. this is something the president's personal defense and attorney ought to respond to. that's what he did. if i were the white house counsel, i would want to have nothing to do with it. just ask john dean what it is like to go off and make license plates for a while. that's not what the white house counsel ought to be getting involved in. so i think having the defense attorney speak was appropriate. he said things that made no sense. the suggestion that somehow leaking nonclassified information is illegal. that's just not true. and director comey had the right to tell t"the new york times" about those conversations. the public has a right to know and it is very, very important. for people to understand the difference between leaking classified information, which is a criminal offense, and the type disclosure, "the new york

times," director comey made that was entirely appropriate. >> richard painter joining us as part of our coverage where we've witnessed news on so many fronts. starting on capitol hill but continuing in the last hour with the president's personal attorney. we'll give way to our next hour's coverage. ali velshi standing by to take it away. good afternoon. here in new york, still following fast moving updates in the aftermath of today's riveting testimony on capitol hill. if you're looking for a two-sentence summary of the testimony, it's not that easy. there is so much that needs to be carefully unpacked. that's what we plan to do with you this hour. before that, the president's personal lawyer just responded in the last hour to what mr. comey had to say. >> in some, it is now established that the president was not being