russians and the ukrainian -- the pro-russian ukrainians and general michael flynn who has already said, i've got a story it tell. >> please tell it. >> but he wants immunity. >> that means he's guilty. thank you all so much for joining me. our coverage continues. "the rachel maddow show" starts now. good luck getting through your show without 18,000 pieces of breaking news. >> i'll be sitting in for chris tonight, while ten major stories break all at once, all in the hour before you're on the air or while you're there. chris got me good. he said, i need somebody with six arms to jug will the show. joy keeps those others going. >> they're going. your turn. pass. >> cheers. thanks a lot. and thanks to you at home for joining us this hour, when there is a lot of news breaking. news breaking in washington. there's news breaking outside of washington that relates to our

politics. and there's also some serious and sad news breaking tonight. within the last hour we got news from the mayo clinic that arizona senator john mccain has a brain tumor. now, i'm just going to read to you from a statement put out less than an hour ago from the mayo clinic. quote, on friday, july 14th, so last friday, senator john mccain underwent a procedure to remove a blood clot from above his left eye. at the mayo clinic hospital in phoenix. subsequent tissue pathology revealed that a primary brain tumor known as a guilty oh blas tomea was associated with the blood clot. it was a minimally invasive crane yot my, since that procedure, shows that the tissue of concern was completely resected by imaging. i'm not a doctor, but in layman's terms i think that means they were satisfied that the tumor was removed. quote, the senator and his

family are reviewing further treatment options with his mayo clinic care treatment. treatment options may include a combination of chemotherapy and radiation. the senator's doctors say he's recovering from his surgery, quote, amazingly well, and his underlying health is excellent. again, that statement coming out from the mayo clinic just in the last hour. senator mccain's office also released this statement at the same time. quote, senator mccain appreciates the outpouring of support he's received over the last few days. he's in good spirits as he continues to recover at home with his family in arizona. he's grateful to the doctors and staff at mayo clinic for their outstanding care. he's confident any future treatment will be effective. further consultations with senator mccain's care team will indicate when he will return to the united states senate. so that is what we have this evening. that's all of it. from john mccain's office. and from the doctors who are treating him. now, the mayo clinic describes

guiltyoblastonlya as a type of cancer that can be very difficult to treat. mayo clinic said you can treat it. if you can treat it, then the treatment can slow its progression. the mayo clinic statement saying his care may include a combination of chemotherapy and radiation. senator mccain is 80 years old. he has represented arizona in the senate since 1987. and he represented arizona for several years before that in the house. he, of course, survived five years as a prisoner of war in vietnam, held in absolutely horrific conditions, and subject to torture. his bouts later in life with a deadly form of skin cancer, attributed to the years held in captivity, at times he was held outside. tonight there are prayers and thoughts all across the country for senator mccain. like i said in that crossover with joy a moment ago, there is,

not kidding, there is a lot going on tonight. it was a big news day anyway. but we really do have several big breaking news stories that just stacked up over the last hour and a half. we're handling all of those, including those that seem to be breaking just now. but with all of that, this news about john mccain, it's not good. and it's an upbeat statement from his family and everybody wishes him all the best. at the core, this is sad news and bad news for a senator who is also undoubtedly and arguably an american war hero. we'll let you know if there's further updates from the senator's family or his doctors. while we absorb that news, and monitor that news, though, i think we also have to say that tonight we are probably on resignation watch when it comes to the attorney general of the united states. jeff sessions, jefferson bow

regard jefferson iii, he became the first and for a long time the only member of the u.s. senate to endorse donald trump for president very early on in the trump campaign. jeff sessions was not known for passing legislation in the senate. he was not known for being particularly close with any other group of senators, or any type of senator in particular other than being super conservative. if he was known for anything, it was for his beyond hardline position against immigration. jeff sessions was the republican in the senate who didn't just against illegal immigrants, he's against legal immigrants, too. his stance became a central part of donald trump's campaign after sessions and trump made their alliance. and, you know, in the end, it seemed like sort of a small detail at the time, it's turned out to be really important over time that trump not only took on

sessions as an endorsee and surrogate, trump also took on sessions' staff from his senate office. and in taking on sessions' staff, he ended up taking on a lot of jeff sessions' policy positions. when donald trump had policy positions as a candidate, they tended to come whole cloth out of this policy shop that jeff sessions set up for trump. their relationship, it was more than an endorser/endorsee relationship. it was a more substantive kind of thing. donald trump, what i think of it is that he basically absorbed jeff sessions. to the extent that he became a politician during the campaign. it was because jeff sessions and his whole operation was just absorbed into trump inc. and then after donald trump won the election, jeff sessions was the first announcement he made for his cabinet. it was announced jeff sessions would be attorney general in the trump administration.

tonight it feels like that might not last. "the new york times" just published an interview with president trump in which he threatens to fire robert mueller, the special counsel investigating him on the russia investigation. he criticizes robert mueller and says mueller has conflicts of interest in the russia investigation, conflicts that the president says he knows about and hasn't yet revealed them, but he will. he also rips the acting director of the fbi andrew mccabe, which might sound random, but it's becoming a talking point on the fox news channel and social media in the last few days. and also casts dispersions on the deputy attorney general of the united states. who is someone he appointed to that job. rod rosenstein, who is now overseeing the trump-russia investigations at the justice department because attorney general jeff sessions is supposedly recused from them. in the same interview, importantly, the president also rips the attorney general himself, jeff sessions, who he

has been seen as so close to, and who really did a huge amount toward making trump a republican candidate instead of just an iconic conservative free-floating nonparty affiliated candidate in the primary. in this new interview tonight, the president criticizes jeff sessions in such a way that in normal times, we would expect an official criticize this way by the president to resign before the evening is over. that said, these are not normal times. so who knows. we don't have a transcript of this interview yet from "the new york times" tonight. we just have their writeup of, which is basically their characterization and a few coats, a few direct quotes from the president. they did, though, release this one piece of audio. >> sessions gets the job.

right after he gets the job he recuses himself. is that a mistake? well, sessions should never have recused himself. and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job and i would have picked somebody else. >> he gave you no evidence at all? >> zero. so jeff sessions takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himse himself, which, frankly, i think is very unfair to the president. how do you take a job and then recuse yourself. if he would have recused himself before the job, i would have said, thanks, jeff, but i can't -- you know, i'm not going to take you. it's extremely unfair. that's a mild word, to the president. so he recuses himself. i then end up with a second man who's a deputy. >> so that's the only audio that

we've got. we don't have a transcript from the "times." just from that audio, first of all, we know that president trump speaks about himself as the president in the third. there's an interesting question that he's pointing at, that doesn't at all seem obvious to me. maybe i'm just being dense here. but when he says it's unfair to the president, meaning himself, that his attorney general has recused himself from the trump-russia investigation, why is that unfair? why is that unfair unless you would want your attorney general overseeing the russia investigation in a way that was favorable to you. right? the reason jeff sessions recused himself from the russia investigation is because the russia investigation is about the trump campaign, and jeff sessions was a big part of the trump campaign. he actually recused himself from all investigative matters that might have anything to do with the campaign. with the clinton campaign or the trump campaign, with anything

that happened in the campaign for the presidency in 2016. why would that be unfair to the president? for him to take himself out of an oversight role of investigations into that? unless trump believes the only way to be fair, and to fairly treat the president in that regard is to oversee those investigations in a way that is favorable to him. so there's that. like i said, that's the only tape that we've got. we don't yet have a transcript. i'll tell you that the last thing he said there in the tape is, so he recuses himself. meaning jeff sessions. i then end up with a second man who is a deputy. from "times'" writeup about this, the next thing that the president might have said there about deputy attorney general rod rosenstein is this. this is quoting from the text of the piece. quote, the president expressed discontent with deputy attorney general rod rosenstein, a former federal prosecutor from baltimore. when jeff sessions recused

himself from the russia investigation, the president said he was, get this, irritated to learn where his deputy was from. quote, there are very few republicans in baltimore, if any. so maybe rod rosenstein will resign tonight, too. or maybe rod rosenstein should be on resignation watch as well. the president is publicly calling into question his ability to do his job because of his partisan leanings or lack thereof. which is a public expression of lack of confidence by the president in the deputy attorney general who in the case of the russian investigation is the acting attorney general. again, that is the sort of thing that would typically cause a public official to resign immediately. but again, we don't know what to expect tonight. as i also mentioned in this interview tonight, the president casts some aspersions on the deputy director of the fbi, andrew mccabe. we don't yet have a quote from

the "times" about that, we just have their characterization of the president criticizing him. so i think we'll wait until we get the transcript, or additional audio from the "times" before we get into too much detail there, rather than going with a paraphrased set of criticism. when it comes to robert mueller, though, they are fairly explicit as to what he says about special counsel robert mueller. quote, mr. trump said mr. mueller was running an office ripe with conflicts of interest. the president warned investigators against delving into matters too far afield from russia. mr. trump never said he would order the justice department to fire mr. mueller. nor would he outline circumstances under which he might do so. but he left open the possibility as he expressed deep grievance over an investigation that has taken a political toll in the six months since he took office. asked if mr. mueller's

investigation would cross a red line, if it expanded to look at his family's finances beyond any relationship to russia, mr. trump said, quote, i would say yes. i think that's a violation. well, as noted last hour, with joy reed, when she spoke with reporter david k. johnston, who is the reporter who obtained the only two pages of donald trump's federal tax returns that have ever been made public, this reference, would it be a red line if mueller started looking into finances, into the trump family finances, and the president saying, yes, i think that would be a red line, i think that's a violation. i don't know if this is what the "times" reporter is referring to when they asked him that question. but as soon as this interview posted tonight at "the new york times," "the new york times" also posted in their business section a big news story about deutsche bank, which is the president's biggest lender.

deutsche bank has an unusual financial relationship to donald trump. as david k. johnston and other financial reporters have documented, when other banks, when almost every other major bank would no longer do business with donald trump and the trump organization, deutsche bank continued to, and he -- they remain his largest lender. deutsche bank is also on the hook to tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in fines for their role in russian money laundering schemes in recent years. but according to the "times" tonight, banking regulators are reviewing hundreds of millions of dollars in loans made to mr. trump's businesses through deutsche bank's private wealth management unit. which caters to an ultra-rich clientele. the "times" is citing three people on the review not authorized to speak publicly. the regulators want to know if the loan might have exposed the rank to heightened risks.

secondly, deutsche bank has been in contact with federal investigators about the trump accounts. they're citing two people briefed on the matter. and the bank is expected to eventually have to provide information to robert mueller. the special counsel overseeing the federal investigation into the trump campaign's ties to russia. so in two separate stories tonight, "the new york times" is reporting that deutsche bank is expecting to have to hand over trump related financial and banking records to robert mueller as special counsel. and, the president is telling "new york times" reporters tonight that if robert mueller delves too far into his finances, he would consider that a red line. he would consider that a violation, never saying explicitly he would fire mr. mueller, but clearly making that threat. if the president fired the special counsel investigating russia after he fired the fbi director who's investigating

russia, presumably all h-e double hockey sticks would break loose in washington, presumably. but who knows. the president is clearly threatening to fire the special counsel tonight if he looks into the president's finances. the "times" reporting that mueller is looking into the president's finances. with all that said, the immediate question, and the question that may shape everything that happens next on this subject, is whether or not the attorney general will now feel that he is forced to quit, now that the president has expressed more than a lack of confidence in him. now that the president has expressed regret that he's in that job. again, the president saying on tape tonight that he wishes he would have chosen someone else to be attorney general. that alone would usually be enough to cause instant resignation of any cabinet official so described by the

president at whose pleasure they serve. i should tell you, though, that that's not all. in the same interview the president also goes further when it comes to jeff sessions and all but accuses him of lying to the senate. about jeff sessions' own contacts with russian officials. quoting from the "times," mr. trump also faulted mr. sessions for his testimony during senate confirmation hearings. when sessions said he had not met with any russians, even though he met at least twice with ambassador sergey kislyak. quote, jeff sessions, gave some bad answers, the president said, he gave some answers that were simple questions and should have been simple answers, but they weren't. now, jeff sessions so far is not commenting in response to this denigration from the president tonight. the president saying he wished he hadn't hired him. and that he thinks he gave,

quote, bad answers to the senate. again, this is the kind of thing you would expect to occasion a fairly quick resignation. like tonight, if you're going from past experience in american history. but anybody trying to explain this past year, based on past experience in american history has been shown to be a church so far. we'll see what happens here. we're trying to jug will all these stories as they continue to break over the course of the evening. clearly, this is a big deal in terms of the pressure on the fbi, the pressure on the deputy attorney general, the pressure on the special counsel, and most pointedly the pressure on trump loyaltyists, early supporter, attorney general jeff sessions. we're going to take a quick break. we'll be back with the former department of justice spokesman under attorney general eric holder who actually wrote before tonight that something like this might happen. we'll be talking with him. we've got adam schiff on the house intelligence committee here tonight. and tonight, we've got the

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we're covering this breaking news tonight from "the new york times." the president making extensive comments to "the new york times" criticizing in very aggressive terms his own attorney general, jeff sessions, the deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein, the special counsel robert mueller, threatening to fire robert mueller if he looks at his family's financing. the "times" reporting the deutsche bank which holds millions of dollars in trump debt is actually expecting to hand their financial information

on trump over to robert mueller. and trump also criticizing the acting director of the fbi, andrew mccabe. i want to tell you, just in the last couple of minutes in the commercial break, "the new york times" has released more verbatim transcripts from this discussion. and i want to read you one piece of this. the quote from trump is this. nothing was changed other than richard nixon came along. and when nixon came along, inaudible, was pretty brutal. and out of courtesy, the fbi started reporting to the department of justice. but there was nothing official, there was nothing from congress, there was nothing anything. but the fbi person really reports directly to the president of the united states. which is interesting. you know, which is interesting. and i think we're going to have a great new fbi director. the president appearing to suggest in this "new york times"

interview while threatening the attorney general, and deputy attorney general, would just report directly to him. joining us is matthew miller. mr. miller, thank you for being with us tonight. i really appreciate you being here. >> thank you. >> first let me just ask your top line reaction to what the president has said tonight about the entire senior leadership of the justice department, the fbi, and the special counsel's investigation. >> you know, i think it's a stunning attack not just on jeff sessions and rod rosenstein, it's an attack on the rule of law in the united states and whether the justice department conduct investigations independent from presidential interference. the president's been very clear that he doesn't believe in that, doesn't think they should. i think it's incumbent upon the attorney general now to make clear to the president that that's not the way the system works. if he doesn't withdraw these attacks and stop try to

undermine the rule of law, he'll resign. >> the last excerpt from the interview that's just come out in the last couple of minutes that i just read, the president saying that the fbi essentially shouldn't report to the department of justice, and that the fbi director should report directly to the president. and then he goes on immediately thereafter to say, you know, which is interesting. i think we're going to have a great new fbi director. this suggests to me, at least in this written transcript that's just been reported by "the new york times," that the president is suggesting that the fbi and the department of justice be reorganized so that the fbi becomes an executive agency under him. is that what it sounds like to you? >> it's a really troubling thing to say. not surprisingly he has the facts wrong, the history's wrong, the fbi is part of the justice department, that didn't change after watergate. what did change after watergate because of the way the president was meddling in the investigations is the justice department promulgated new rules by which the justice department would not contact the president

about ongoing investigations, and the president wouldn't contact the justice department and interfere. it seemed to be those rules that i suspect the president is really pushing back against, and really feels constrained by. it seems -- look, he wanted jim comey to operate as if he operated to him, to be loyal to him, and follow his whims. when he wasn't, he fired him. i think he's making clear he wants his next fbi director to do what jim comey wouldn't do. >> if the attorney general and deputy attorney general do not respond to this interview tonight by resigning, which under normal terms would be the thing you would expect, if they end up not resigning, and thereby sort of standing by the president's comments here, is there anybody else in this chain of command, is there anybody else in government who could sort of speak truth to power the way you were describing it, in terms of standing up for the independence of the justice department? >> bob mueller can, andrew

mccabe can. he's in an acting position. it's really incumbent on sessions and rosenstein to do that. they have to remember, they swore an oath not to the president, but to the constitution. they're there to serve the american public, not to serve donald trump. they're supposed to protect their institutions from independence. you know, when he fired jim comey, that was a red line that he crossed. and they failed that test. they were supposed to stand up for the department's independence then and push back against the president and they didn't do it. this is another big test for them and the institution. are they going to allow donald trump to trample all over the independence of the investigation, or of the justice department, or are they going to stand up and say this isn't the way the system works in america. if they don't do it, there's one left in the executive branch, it will have to come from congress. >> one last quick question before you go. you wrote recently, some days ago, that something like this might happen. given your precedence that the president has just done this, do you know what happens next?

>> i think we're headed for a massive clash. it's clear donald trump is not going to respect this investigation. i don't think it's a coincidence that he launched this attack after the investigation got close to his son. we found out yesterday that bob mueller is looking at his son. he's making clear now if they look at him personally, if they look at his finances personally, he's going to respond. i don't see how we get past this without him firing mueller or other people at the justice department and a massive, massive crisis. >> matthew miller, former justice department spokesman. very sobering. thank you. i appreciate it. >> thanks. a lot of breaking news tonight. we learned some important news about the scope of the investigation, including a focus on the president's finances involving deutsche bank. we have learned through "the new york times" that the president is threatening to fire special counsel bob mueller over the investigation taking just that sort of turn. we have learned the president is expressing lack of confidence and personal regret that attorney general jeff sessions

holds that job and levying criticism against the acting director of the fbi, deputy attorney general as well. we've also got news about who's going to be testifying on these matters in congress as soon as the next few days. a lot coming up. congressman adam schiff on intelligence is going to be here shortly. stay with us. ♪

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times" has just published an interview with the president much the united states. in which he has threatened the special counsel, robert mueller, and he has threatened the -- he's threatened robert mueller, saying he might fire him. he's also expressed grave criticism about his attorney general and deputy attorney general. but he's also made another kind of news that is of serious intelligence concern. when president trump met with the russian foreign minister and the russian ambassador in the oval office, remember that? you'll remember that shortly thereafter we learned that in that meeting, he had, a, bragged to the russian official that is he just fired the fbi director to take the pressure off himself when it came to the russia investigation, and b, we learned that he gave those russian officials code word protected super-secret information about the fight against isis. and how one of our allies had managed to infiltrate and/or surveil isis in a way that nobody knew about, and he told

the russians. it was information that was super sensitive, that would -- was perceived as potentially jeopardizing that very important surveillance and/or infiltration if anybody knew about it. nobody in the u.s. government was supposed to tell anybody about it, particularly the russians. the president spilled the beans in that meeting. the reason we found out that he did that is because there was a note taker in that meeting. and when the president made those remarks to the russians, somebody wrote it down and then when those notes were circulated inside the white house, or among senior administration officials, somebody was sufficiently alarmed that it became -- somebody was sufficiently alarmed that it became news. i mean, a, leaked to the press, but b, presumably the fact that the president had told the russians that, once it was known, like at the cia, and at the nsa, and national security counsel, that could become a point of action, if a source

needed to be removed from the battlefield, if somebody needed to be oh protected, if the people's protection that the president had just given away, that could be set in motion, a sort of cleanup operation. all because there was a note taker there. otherwise how would we have known he gave that away. when the president met one-on-one with vladimir putin at the g20, we were told there was no note taker at the first official formal conversation that he had with vladimir putin. but we know for sure there was no note taker there. and there was no u.s. official there at all, not even a translator, for the president's second long conversation with vladimir putin, that the white house never acknowledged until it was reported in the press yesterday. well, tonight speaking to "the new york times," the president has given a characterization of his conversation with vladimir putin that had never been previously disclosed by the white house until last night. he tells the "times," quote, it was not a long conversation. it was, you know, could be 15

minutes. just talked about things. actually, it was very interesting. we talked about adoption. as everybody knows now, when the russians talk about adoption, what they're talking about is sanctions. the russians retaliated on one -- against the united states for one particular kind of sanctions, by putting in an adoption ban. so when the kremlin, or people associated with the kremlin bring up adoption policy, they are talking about getting rid of sanctions on russia. apparently the president had that conversation face to face with vladimir putin at the g20, and we didn't know about it until now. we don't know anything about the character of the conversation other than what he said about it. if he gave them anything else that was super top-secret, nobody else in the u.s. government knows how to clean up after it now. joining us now is congressman adam schiff, the top democrat on the house intelligence committee. thank you for being with us tonight. i know there's a lot going on. >> it's a pleasure to be with

you. i'm glad you introduced this segment with that comment. because that really struck me as well, the fact that of all the things the president says they talked about, he should say adoptions. of course, this is what his son said their meeting was about. and we now know the meeting was about anything but adoptions. it was about getting dirt on hillary clinton, about the magnitsky act and adoptions was really the subterfuge. are we supposed to believe the president when he said this meeting which also wasn't revealed voluntarily was also about adoptions? maybe we all have it wrong about vladimir putin, maybe he's a much more, you know, thoughtful guy than we give him credit, that he wakes up in the morning worrying about adoptions and orphans. but it's hard to believe that was the topic of conversation. >> if the president was discussing sanctions, which is, you know, as i was just saying sort of what the russians mean when they do talk about

adoptions, if they did talk about adoptions, which means they were talking about sanctions, what's the danger of him doing that, which he now admits to, without a u.s. translator, without a u.s. note taker, without any presumably any u.s. government planning for that conversation, and with no readout about what actually happens in that one-on-one? >> well, this would be a bad practice with any president not to have others present to interpret what mr. putin says or to take notes on what our own president says. it's all the more risky with this president, because he does talk offscript, because he doesn't have the discipline to carry the message with someone who is quite a skillful negotiator and counterpart in putin. so we don't know what the president may have conceded in that conversation. we don't know what the president may have revealed about what he would like to take place. we don't know what he may have said in that maegt that contradicts of what was said in the earlier meeting. and that is obviously deeply concerning in terms of our

national security. we have gained no insights about the meeting with putin. in terms of the national security establishment of the united states. we have gained very little, i think putin has gained great insights. so it is all the more concerning that it took place the way it did. and we had to learn about it the way we did. >> congressman, we have learned tonight that your counterpart committee in the senate has scheduled testimony next week from paul manafort and from donald trump jr. they're scheduled to testify next wednesday, although as far as i know, they haven't confirmed that they're going to appear. judiciary committee, excuse me. we're also told that jared kushner is going to be doing a behind closed doors interview with the senate intelligence committee on monday of next week. as for your committee in the house, there has been some scheduled testimony from a number of different people, trump adviser j.d. gordon, from former obama national security

adviser rice, and roger stone, a number of pieces of scheduled testimony that have been delayed. looking from the outside, it sort of feels like things in the senate are moving, and things in the house are stalled. as the senior democrat on that committee, is it fair to say that your committee is stalled? >> no, not at all. in fact, we have been progressing with the interviews just about every week. what we are trying to do is we're trying to coordinate with bob mueller. we're trying to coordinate with our senate counterparts and trying to do our investigation in an orderly way, in which the benefit of the investigation is in the sense that we're trying to get documents from witnesses before they come and testify so that we can ask the witnesses about that. and when we haven't received the documents in advance, we do sometimes postpone the witness interviews. we also are trying to take into consideration the equities that bob mueller has. and the order in which he may want witnesses to come before either his investigation or ours. so we're doing our best to coordinate. i think logically, an

investigation tends to bring in the less significant witnesses first. the more significant witnesses later. but as you can tell, a lot of competing equities here including the equity of the public that has a great desire to know, a need to know. and so i don't think it's accurate to say we're stalled. in fact, we're progressing, although we're less public about what we're doing certainly than what the senate is doing. >> if i was to ask you if paul manafort has been having conversations with your committee staff, or indeed members of your committee behind closed doors, you wouldn't answer me, would you? >> you know, i can tell you that with respect to mr. manafort, mr. kushner, don junior, these are all people we're going to want to come before our committee. some of them we've already been in touch with their counsel, some of them we're working with. you know, i don't want to go beyond that. but those conversations are ongoing. so it is progressing. of course, we're trying to coordinate as best we can with

the senate in terms of their timing as well as our own. it's a bit of a juggling also with the senate judiciary committee. but i think all are playing an important role here. >> congressman adam schiff, the top democrat on the house intelligence committee, thank you for your time tonight, sir. really appreciate you being here with us. >> thank you. >> more to come tonight. a lot more to come tonight. how are we going to squeeze it all in. stay with us. a daily struggle,

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we have been talking tonight about the really astounding and consequential interview "the new york times" that just published with the president. the president calls into question the tenure of the attorney general of the united states, and the deputy attorney general of the united states, and the acting fbi director, and the special counsel who is investigating him on matters related to russia. the president's remarks tonight bring up all sorts of questions about the independence of parts of the government that by design have some level of independence so they can function properly and without interference from the executive branch. our next guest is someone who has just left the leadership of a high-profile independent agency inside the federal government. he says because he no longer believed that the tools he had for carrying out his mission worked. he was supposed to safeguard ethics in our federal government, as a national watch guard. today is his first day outside of that job. joining us now for the interview is walter schab, who finished

his work yesterday in the office of ethics. first day officially -- with his new job which is senior director of ethics at the campaign legal center. it's a real honor to have you here. thank you for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> i have a lot of things i want to talk to you about. you're here on a busy news night. i have to ask you about the news of the evening. the president in the interview is raising an ethics issue about the attorney general. quoting from the president's remarks tonight to "the new york times," attorney general jeff sessions should have never recused himself. meaning from the trump-russia investigation. and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job, and i would have picked somebody else. do you know why jeff sessions recused himself and is the president right in raising this as an issue of fairness to the president? >> first of all, thanks for having me here. >> yeah. >> that's an absolutely outrageous statement for the president to have made. before i answer that question, i want to make clear, i have no information about any

investigations that are or are not going on or the scope. we have 70 people, 4,500 officials we coordinate throughout the entire executive branch. doj has mentioned that rod rosenstein was getting advice from doj regarding this recusal. i in my office called doj and said, we don't know what investigations are going on, we don't need to know, we don't want to know, but if there's any chance that there's an investigation going on that he is a member of the class of persons who potentially would be interviewed in connection with that investigation -- >> he must recuse himself? >> i need to defend attorney general sessions here because he did the right things. we told doj if there's any chance that he's part of the class of persons being looked at in this investigation, he must

recuse. and doj has an excellent ethics office and they did the right thing and took proactive measures to be sure he wouldn't be 1r068d. this is what we do across thebr. this is how we're the prevention mechanism. so when i resign and when i'm telling the world that we've got a problem with our ethics program, oje is the canary in the coal mine with this departure from ethical norms, and it starts with a little thing like the president not divesting his financial interests, which sets a tone from the top that goes cascading down through the executive branch. and you wind up in a place where you have a president criticizing a law enforcement official for doing the right thing and staying out of an investigation in which he may or may not be a target, but because there's any potential at all, they're going to err on the side of being cautious. now, again, i want to be clear. i have no idea what the scope of any investigation is, and i'm not interfering with any law enforcement activity because i don't have information to share.

but this is oge's role. we talked about establishing prophylactic measures to prevent conflicts of interest, and it worked in this case. >> and when attorney general jeff sessions responded to that advice and issued a statement saying that he was recusing himself from matters related to the presidential campaign in 2016, was that the appropriate scope of recusal according to the advice that oge gave him? >> well, and there i want to be careful because they've never been quite public about the exact scope of the recusal, and i don't know the scope of the investigation. but i do know that he publicly announced that he recused, and that's the important thing to do. apparently that's the thing that's concerning the president. but the very idea that you would question a decision to recuse and then in the same breath i heard today that he was saying, well, mueller's investigation is full of conflicts of interest -- you can't have it both ways. if conflicts of interest are bad, you recuse, and that's a good thing. >> when the president made those comments about conflicts of

interest involving special counsel mueller, he said essentially that his office was rife with conflicts according to "the new york times'" characterization. then he said that there are conflicts that the president knows about that he hasn't publicly disclosed yet, but he's going to. he's talking about mueller having applied for the fbi director job or having been considered, excuse me, for the fbi director job. in the president's words, he was up here, and he wanted the job. after he was named special counsel, i said, what the hell is this all about? talk about conflicts. but he was interviewing for the job. there were many other conflicts that i haven't said, but i will at some point. >> well, that sounds a lot to me like saying that the last director of the fbi should be concerned and hope that there are not tapes, which we later learned there were not tapes. what i can tell you for sure is that the department of justice and the federal bureau of investigation have outstanding ethics officials. they're career officials who know what they're doing. they've put their time in.

they're experts, and they take the time to consult with the office of government ethics. so we know a lot about the capabilities of those ethics officers, and i can tell you i am very confident in saying that there are not conflicts of interest going unaddressed by these ethics offices. >> so you're saying in the case of robert mueller having been considered for the fbi job, that is not something that was flagged as a conflict in terms of him becoming special counsel in. >> no and it's not a conflict of interest. >> how about with deputy attorney general rod rosenstein? i don't want to ask you to litigate all these things here but the president raises a concern about deputy attorney general rod rosenstein, saying that -- he doesn't say it directly, but the implication of what he's saying is that if the president is being investigated for potentially obstructing justice, for firing james comey in order to take the pressure off himself in the russia investigation, rod rosenstein having written a memo to the president about comey that precipitated in some tellings --

precipitated that firing, that involves him in that process to such a degree that rosenstein should himself be recused from anything involving oversight of the special counsel. how do you view that? >> that does not meet the definition of a conflict of interest in the executive branch. nothing that you've said is a reason why rosenstein should have to recuse from the work of his job. now, that said, as a career government official, for many years, i have grave concerns about the idea that somebody would write a memorandum designed to look like this is making an out of the blue recommendation to fire someone when the president turns around and says the decision was already made. i cannot imagine what was going through the head of the law enforcement officer whose responsibility is to display a high level of candor and be direct. that kind of impression that writing that memorandum creates

is very concerning to me as a career government official. that's not the way people behave, but it is not an ethics violation in the sense that there are any specific rules saying if you've been involved in taking a decision to fire someone, you should not be involved in overseeing their replacement. there's just nothing in place that would suggest that's inappropriate. >> do you feel totally confident in your decision to leave office before you'd have to at the end of your term? you know that president trump will appoint your successor. >> i don't know if he will. if he were to nominate somebody, i think he might have a lot of questions raised during that nomination hearing, the confirmation hearing about his own conflicts of interest. it will be interesting to see if he leaves someone acting in that position or whether he nominates somebody. i will say one thing that i think people should be watching out for. under the vey can sacancies ref there's a mechanism for identifying who is going to take

over. that was designated months before the election, that's our chief of staff. in theory, career officials should be interchangeable. they're honest, non-partisan individuals. if the white house reaches down and plucks somebody else out of the office to put them in the acting role rather than the person it should default to, everyone should be asking why would they do that. what advantage do they think they're going to gain? do they think they will find an individual that will give them a better deal than ms. finlandson who is tough as nails and as experienced as they come. >> walter shaub, thank you. how soon can you come back? very soon? >> sure. >> good. now senior director of ethics at the campaign legal center. thank you for your service. we'll be right back. nning inter. award winning design. award winning engine. the volvo xc90.

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where does the time go? that does it for us tonight. we will see you again tomorrow. now it's time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence. >> it's been a night of really stunning news, but the sad news about senator john mccain's predicament with cancer, that's very, very tough news to be reporting on tonight. >> yeah. >> we're getting statements from presidents and politicians everywhere about this. great cheering on for john mccain tonight when he really needs it. >> yeah, and you know senator mccain is unlike anybody else in not -- not just in the senate but in american politics. he's