with trump? look at sessions. >> okay. on ji, catherine, carolyn, ryan, thank you forjoining us. chris matthews will return monday night. the rachel maddow show starts right now. >> we have just had a remarkable communication from the president's top lawyer. now, the president's top lawyer on russia matters had been mark kasowitz, a new york lawyer that had represented the president recently on the fraud case and keeping mr. trump's divorce records secret. one of the many, many things that happened in toted's news concerning the president is that he was either demoted from his lead role on the president's legal team, or he has left that legal team altogether. it's not entirely clear which. now apparently leading is john

dowd, a washington d.c. lawyer, who is also known for having a hot temper. now, you might remember last night on this show we had bloomberg news reporter, investigative reporter greg ferrell here. greg ferrell and a colleague yesterday reported for bloomberg. this seemingly very important story -- you see the headline there -- mueller expands probe to trump business transactions. in part it's because of the freak-out it seemed to have occasioned in the white house. that bloomberg article came out yesterday mid-morning. it was updated a couple of times during the day, but initially it came out mid-morning yesterday. by the time we were on the air last night, these were the stories that were breaking in the washington post and in the "new york times" about the president considering his pardon powers. having his legal team consider who is he is allowed to pardon,

also including is he allowed to pardon himself and the white house trying to being could up ways to discredit robert mueller, the special counsel's investigation, giving clear indication that the white house is now basically trying to find a way to fire the special counsel and to that end they're trying to cook up ways that they would be able to justify that firing if and when they do it. those stories broke last night while we were on the air. what led to that incredible turn in the news, what led to the president to consider those radical options? in that news that was broken last night? what were the things that happened that drove the president to start considering these options that you would consider a president to do only as his very last resort? what pushed him to that point? well, according to the reporting from the washington post last night, "the president is irritated by the notion that bob mueller's probe could reach into his family's finances. "his primary frustration centers on the prospect that the mueller

investigation could spread into scrutinizing many years of trump deal making." "the president told top aides he was especially disturbed after learning bob mueller would be able to access several years of his tax returns." "a close advisor to the president is quoted by the post saying that the president's tax returns are outside mueller's investigation, one of the president's lawyers, jay secalau told the president that his real estate transactions are "far outside the scope of a legitimate investigation." all of that explanatory reporting and work done from the washington post simultaneously the "new york times" reporting last night that bob mueller's inquiry involving an examination of trump's financial history, "has stoked fears among the president's aides."

wrrg reports that his financial transactions are being investigated. also, the "new york times" reporting within the last couple of days that deutsche bank, a bank -- deutsche bank, a bank that trump has hundreds of millions of dollars in loans with, deutsche bank, is having its trump transactions reviewed by banking regulators and deutsche bank expects to be handing over their trump-related records to bob mueller very soon. what happens particularly with that bloomberg story is it becomes clear this thing is taking a turn into finances. they are following the money. it's about finances. it's about business transactions. the response from the white house as of last night is that the white house is going nuclear, right? pardons. maybe the president pardoning himself. maybe firing the attorney

general look break glass in case of emergency. they were smashing the glass last night. having lived through that breaking news last night wondering what occasion that incredible turn, we decided to try to chase it down in a granular sense to figure out all we could about how the white house was explaining the president's new radicalism against the russia probe. there was one piece of the white house reaction that we thought would be fairly easy to chase up today. it was a very specific quote. it was from a named official, and it stuck out as kind of strange. it was from that initial bloomberg news article. in that article there is a quote from the man who is now apparently the president's top lawyer on russia issues. it's from john dowd. this is his quote to bloomberg. "those transactions, meaning trump's business transactions, are in my view well beyond the mandate of the special counsel.

they are unrelated to the election of 2016 or any alleged collusion between the trump campaign and russia, and most importantly, he says, they are well beyond any statute of limitations imposed by the u.s. code. who said nigs about statutes of limitations. why are you bringing that up? the statute of limitations for prosecuting what crimes exactly? what are we talking about here? >> the president's lawyer brought up the fact that the president's business activities are crimes and they're beyond the statute of limitations. he brought that up apparently unprompted. >> we contacted john dowd, the president's lawyer today -- actually tonight, to see what that meant and if there was something in particular about the president's past business transactions that made him look up the statute of limitations

for certain crimes. mr. dowd took our call, and he told us, "we have no evidence that any of these entities are under investigation." that means trump business entities. he then told us, "i'm beginning to think it's not true. "i'm beginning to wonder where the hell it came from." he then told our producer that he would never speak to him again. quoting, told our producer, "this is the last call we'll ever have." i'm beginning to think it's not true. i'm beginning to wonder where the hell it came from. this is the last call we'll ever have. some days are weirder than others in this job, but you never really expect them to get that weird in conversation.

>> it's been a weird day, and because it's friday. we've had a bunch of breaking news tonight. we've had a flurry of news break just in the last couple of hours. if the president is going nuclear to try to stop the russia investigation, to try to stop robert mueller's investigation, as you know, he basically has two paths to try to do that. the first path goes through the person that's now overseeing the mueller investigation. deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. if the president can't persuade rod rosenstein to follow mueller, and it seems like he probably can't, then he could fire -- heco order rod rosen stein to fire him, and then if rod rosenstein says no, he could fire rod rosenstein, and then he would get into the cycle where he had to keep firing every other ranking person at the justice department from the top down until he found someone at some rank who would fire bob mueller. that is a hard path. that is potentially a long path.

what became clear this week is that there is an easier and at least a shorter path for the president. quicker way to do it would be for him to just put someone new instead of rod rosenstein in charge of overseeing the mueller investigation. he may love jeff sessions, but if he fires or quits, trump could appoint a new a.g. who would not be recused from the russia investigation, who would not be recused from overseeing mueller, and then that new attorney general would be appointed to replace jeff sessions could fire bob mueller.

that coming into focus with jeff sessions turning -- everybody expecting jeff sessions to resign, that put this bombshell off on the wash wash post tonight in a whole new light. washington post tonight breaking the news that on u.s. intelligence intercepts, the outgoing russian ambassador to the united states, sergei kislyak was heard telling moscow, telling his superiors in moscow, "that he discussed campaign related matters, including policy issues important to moscow with jeff sessions during the 2016 presidential race. now, initially jeff sessions denied ever having any contacts with russian officials during the campaign. he then later had to admit that, yes, he did have contacts with russian officials during the campaign. that admission immediately preceded jeff sessions having to recuse himself from all

campaign-related investigations, including the russia one. but even when jeff sessions was admitting -- was finally admitting that, yeah, okay, he had talked to russians, even when he was admitting that, he was explicit and still denying what "the post" has just reported. >> let me be clear, i never had meetings with russian operatives or russian intermediaries about the trump campaign. >> that was attorney general jeff sessions in march. the washington post reports tonight that ambassador sergei kislyak's accounts of two kwfrgs with jeff sessions, one in april and one if july, were intercepted by u.s. spy agencies. the post says the intelligence indicates that sessions and kislyak, in fact, had substantive discussions on matters, including trump's positions on russia related issues and prospects for u.s. russia relations in a trump

administration. now, it is entirely possible that the russian ambassador was lying to his bosses at the kremlin and really he and jeff sessions were only talking about candy crush and gardening and the other stuff. it's so weird that they both love. right? but with jeff sessions all but being pushed out of the administrati administration. >> it was about whether he further lied. that is either the best timing for sessions or the worst timing for sessions because what the president is publicly complaining about when it comes to jeff sessions is that sessions recused himself from overseeing the russia investigation, which he shouldn't have done. the president didn't want him to do that.

but this is exactly the reason this looks like bad news damning investigations. if the reason he was going to resign because the president was complaining about his recusal, this bad news about jeff sessions and his contacts with the russians, further bolsters the fact that jeff sessions did recuse himself from the russia probe, as he should have. so if he does resign, it could be a sign that the president is trying to move to shut down the russia investigation under robert mueller, which will precipitate a major bipartisan crisis in this country.

we do not know what sparked the president's newfound sense of urgency on wanting the investigation shut down. white house staffers and lawyers as the washington post reported have been indicating that really it's the turn towards the president's finances and his business transaction and his taxes that has racheted this thing up to def-comone for him. shut this thing down now. no go area for him. other long-time observers of the president have said that the thing to watch with for him, it his kryptonite, his achilles heel, red line, long-time observers of this president have said for a long time now that the other thing that might send him into panic mode in any kind of crisis, in any kind of confrontation would be if anything from his life, from his political life starts to affect his adult children in a negative way. there have been serious issues

raised as to whether or not jared kushner has problems with his security clearance application, whether or not kushner not disclosing his own meetings with russian officials on his security clearance application might open hi him to potential criminal prosecution. i should tell you that one of the prosecutors who has been brought on board the mueller investigation recently secured a high profile conviction for a dea agent who deliberately left things off his security clearance application. any resulting lielkt that he faces because of that might also accrue to his wife, the president's daughter, ivanka, because the form, the sf-86 security clearance application form, the way it asks its questions, it asks about you or

your family. unless ivan yap disclosed his russia meetings and jared -- ivanka may also be in a pickle and potentially be open to prosecution on these matters. and if that really is just personality-wise and in terms of his values and in terms of what emotionally gets him, if that really is the kind of thing that would send the president into panic mode, that may be part of this as well. well, now tonight the "wall street journal" was first to report that jared kushner and ivanka trump have had to refile and amend their financial filings because they left millions of dollars in dozens of assets off their initial filings. now, two days ago on this show we spoke with the outgoing head of the office of government ethics walter schaub who

resigned at the frustration of the enormity of the ethical viegss of the trump administration and trump family. he warned us two nights ago that the president might try to do an end run around his office basically, around the person from that office who is next in line under walter schaub and who would be expected to take a lead job after he left. he warned us two nights ago that the president might instead -- instead of installing that person who is next in line who really ought to have the job -- he warned us that the president might instead go around that person who is next in line and instead pick somebody else out of the office. he warned us that the president might instead try to install a lower ranking ethics person from that office, a known person, who is expected to be more lenient, would be expected to be softer on the trumps. he warned about that two days ago, and today the president did, in fact, elevate that

reputr reputedly more lenient person. that person signed off on jared's revised financial disclosure that got released today. we've actually got one more piece of news about that that we're going to be breaking in a few minutes, and i think this is important. meanwhile, jared kushner has also as of tonight been scheduled for interviews with the senate intelligence committee on monday, and this is new. on wednesday remember how we're supposed to get live testimony on wednesday from donald trump jr. and paul manafort? not anymore. senator chuck grassley, the chair of the judiciary committee in the senate, now says that's not going to happen he now says trump jr. and paul manafort will hand over documents and they'll speak with staff, and they will talk to the committee at some

point in the future, but not now. in the meantime, chuck grassley is going to hold an entirely different hearing on wednesday, and he is tonight filed a subpoena to compel testimony from the head of the research firm that paid for the christopher steel dossier of alleged russian dirt on donald trump. that dossier that caused such a stir when it was published by buzz feed in january. it has a lot of lurid stuff in it that is still unsubinstant shated. it also has a lot of stuff that has been born out by subsequent serious investigation. this thing that's about to happen on wednesday that just got scheduled tonight, this is the thing i have been saying was coming. this is the thing i've been saying was coming from congressional republicans and from republicans who want to defend donald trump. senator grassley has sent the subpoena tonight to the head of fusion gps. he has canceled the testimony from don jr. and paul manafort, and instead of hearing from them next week on the collusion issue, the senate instead will play host at a big open

televised hearing to the big republican pushback theory that they have been gearing up with -- gearing up for on conservative media for a couple of weeks now. this is where they will claim that there is a russian scandal, but it's not a trump russia scandal. it's the democrats. and the dossier on trump, that's the real russia scandal. that's from russia and the scandal is about hillary clinton and the democrats. we have known this was coming. now as of tonight we know it is arriving wednesday morning in the senate and the first subpoena has just got out for that. that's all happened tonight. that's all been reported tonight and also the white house spokesman sean spicer resigned today, and anthony scaramucci, and there are many rumors that reince priebus will be next to go, and his former deputy chief of staff katie walsh, she went

back to the rny, and the spokesman for the president's legal team resigned, and the man who had been the top lawyer on the russia legal team was apparently replaced, and the guy who replaced him and is the new top lawyer just told us he doesn't believe that trump's business dealings or financial transactions are actually being investigated and then he told us this is the last call we will ever have. it was super weird. happy friday. things are weird. a lot is happening. mostly, i have questions. tonight we have structured the rest of this hour, the rest of the show to try to get me and get us some answers to those questions. stay with us tonight. it's a lot. i know. this is important stuff. this is an important time. stay right there.

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we're still absorbing the news from the washington post that includes news that according sous intelligence intercept that is have been provided by u.s. officials russia's ambassador to washington told his superiors in moscow that he discussed trufrp campaign matters, including russia-related policies, with jeff sessions during last year's presidential race. that's a big deal because even once jeff sessions admitted that he did have contacts with russian officials during the campaign, despite the fact that he previously denied it, even once he admitted to it, he explicitly said as attorney general -- he explicitly said that when he had those contacts with russians, he did not discuss the trump campaign with any russian operatives or

intermediaries. gl now, "the post" says -- on russia related issues and prospects tore u.s.-russia relations in a trump administration. again,ing it could be that kislyak was lying to the kremlin and really he didn't talk about anything of consequence with jeff sessions, but this story comes after the president told the "new york times" he wishes he had never chosen jeff sessions to be his attorney general. after senior trump aides told "the times" they were stunned when jeff sessions didn't quit following that criticism from the president, he also told "the times" that he essentially hinted that jeff sessions had lied to the senate in his sworn testimony during his confirmation hearings. if jeff sessions does resign or if the president fires him, if president trump dwets to nominate a new attorney general, one who presumably would not have to be recused from overseeing the russia investigation, then it would seem like getting rid of attorney general jeff sessions would put president trump one

giant step closer to being able to end the russia investigation by firing robert mueller. is that the right way to look at it? people who really understand the law here, but really understand how government lawyers work is that correct? if that is correct, then what would happen to the russia investigation once trump went after mueller? joining us now is somebody who knows these things. bob bower was former white house counsel to president obama. mr. bower, i really appreciate you being here tonight. thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> let me just ask you first about what i was just saying there about the removal of attorney general jeff sessions. if he quits or resigns and the president does get to name a new acting attorney general and then appoint somebody new for that job, is that potentially a path for him to end the mueller investigation? >> he might think of it that way. he or his lawyers might also think of it as a way to make sure that they exercise a little more control or they feel like they can exercise more control over mueller.

they may believe the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein is no longer able to did that, and as you know, they have expressed this concern that mueller is expanding his mandate to include the president's finances. he is, if you will, veering out of control. sessions can't do anything about it, and they may think that rosenstein can't do anything about it. they may feel their best bet is to have a new attorney general who is not recused. >> if the -- if either through the rosenstein path or through the getting rid of jeff sessions path, they are able to somehow down the road to figure out a way to fire bob mueller, in that instance, is there any other part of the law enforcement -- any other part of the justice system in this country that could take up the investigation in mueller's wake?

>> at that point it becomes a question for the congress. the attention is going to shift from an incapacitated department of justice to a congress that would have to consider articles of impeachment. >> i believe -- i believe that in the abstract. i believe that as a student of political science. i'm also looking ahead, though, to what is going to happen in the senate next week. i think that in the judiciary committee senator grassley is signaling with a subpoena that he says he is issuing tonight with his cancellation of testimony from paul manafort and donald trump jr. that the congressional republicans who more or less support president trump are about to start sort of a political counter offensive to try to create a competing narrative, to try to make the russia scandal a democratic scandal. because it at least feels to me as an observer that that's about to happen. it's hard for me to believe that anything the president is going to do about this russia investigation would result in republicans newly looking at this as potentially

impeachable -- as potentially impeachable acts. >> i'm not certain. i think that if president trump does something that members of congress on both sides of the aisle have probably warned him not to do and in his own interest he fires mueller, having expressed dissatisfaction about being under investigation, having the investigation expanded to include his finances, i think it might trigger a very powerful counter reaction from the congress. now, obviously that's hard to predict, but this is going to astound too much to people like watergate, too much like a president interfering with the law enforcement process in his own interest, and that's something that's going to resonate i think frankly across party lines. >> bob bower, former white house council for president obama. i have two additional questions for you on very specific matters. can you stlound for a bit to make me smarter? we'll be back right after this. ♪ ♪ where all the walls echo with laughter ♪

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i have a tree faullls in th forest question for you. if the president issues a pardon, do we have to know about it? would he have to tell us? is it possible he has already pardoned somebody? is it possible the prosecutors or investigators might just find that out when it comes time to file an indictment against that person, but it's never been publicly announced? i think this is an answerable question, but i have no requested what the answer is. back with us once again is bob bower, white house counsel to president obama. mr. bower, thank you again for sticking with us. >> certainly. >> i know that when presidential pardons or commutations are

issued for all previous presidents, we have always known about it. there has always been a public statement about it. is that legally required or could a president do this in a way that we didn't necessarily know about? at least for the time being. >> i think it's highly unlikely for a couple of reasons. of course, this depends on the degree to which the white house is careful about looking at the exercise of the pardon power. who is to say. eventually it has to become public. it's an act of immunization. you have to have the pardon out there. whoever benefits of it can use it to his or her advantage. secondly, it's clooer from the founder's inception from the pardon power that it was meant to be an act of public public accountability. it was extraordinary power, but it was balanced out by the president's requirement of answering for it. for example, to the congress, to the american public, and there's never been a pardon that has been sort of issued and then only revealed weeks later. in truth i think the answer to the question is it absolutely needs to be public, and then there's a third tactical consideration. a strategic consideration.

in issuing the pardon, a president is going to want to be able to say that he issued it for appropriate reasons in the general welfare. not for any other purpose. so that president is going to want to trum bet the grounds for the pardon that he or she is relying on. that's another reason it would be a very public act. it's a public defense of the exercise of the pardon power. i think in this case we can imagine why this president would be advised to do that. >> the grounds that makes me -- i said i only had two questions for you, but you have spash the another one. i'm sorry. it's a follow-up. we won't count it against my numbers. the president obviously has the legal authority, has the power to issue pardons. presumably the president could not issue a pardon in exchange for a bribe. he could not issue a pardon for an improper reason. is it possible that if he pardons either he tried to pardon himself or he pardoned members of his family or he pardoned other people from the administration, specifically to

obstruct the investigation into the russia matter, that the pardon itself, while a legal act, could be seen as an illegal obstruction of justice? >> yes. an act and furtherance of obstruction of justice. there's some disagreement among legal scholars about this. i think the better view is that clearly if a pardon is issued in furtherance of the president's self-interest, for example, to protect himself, his family, or his aides, that would expose him to a charge of obstruction of justice and the fact that he has pardon power wouldn't save him. last question for you. i mean it. we learned today that president trump apparently met in person with specific u.s. attorney nominee jesse luvis, who is nominated to be u.s. attorney for the district of columbia. she disclosed that meeting to the senate judiciary committee, and some people have expressed concern about the president putting himself personally in a meeting like that with the potential nominee. especially for the district so that u.s. attorney for that

crucial -- for that crucial district. how do you view that? >> i don't know the details of this. i have not reviewed any detail in the press, but i'm frankly troubled by it. i'm troubled by it. i'm trying to be fair about it. you have at various turns this president having private meetings with various senior people officials in law enforcement, and they are not just random meetings. he didn't meet with the u.s. attorney for some distant state, which he doesn't have any particular, you know, direct interest in at the moment. so, yes, i think there's a question of whether, in fact, we're going to have a department of justice and white house relationship, which is run among traditional lines, with accountability on policy, which is perfectly appropriate, but careful controls to make sure it is not being, if you will, dictated to in its law enforcement decision making. it's not being controlled by the executive in law enforcement. >> okay. so the bottom line on that is it is a red flag, but it's sort of fitting a red flag that points

in the direction of a broader concern that we're seeing that we have other red flags about. >> yes, i would put it exactly that way. it's one of a piece with a number of other similar behaviors. >> got it. bob bower, white house counsel in the obama administration, someone who speaks very, very clearly on these matters, even when i don't. thank you for your time tonight, sir. >> thank you. >> i still have a lot of questions. i have somebody else lined up here tonight for our next interview, who is perfectly positioned to answer my next round of stuff i just don't understand about what could conceivably happen next. stay with us. this is going to be good.

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we're continuing tonight with a list of questions that have been raised at least in my mind by the avalanche of news we've had over the last 48 to 72 hours. i talked to the top of the show about a very intriguing i would call it a provocative question raised by the president's lead lawyer on russia matters, john dowd. he told bloomberg news yesterday that donald trump's business transactions are not only something that shouldn't be investigated by the special counsel, but he also said they are "well beyond any statute of limitation imposed by the united states code." i don't know what he was talking about. we called up john dowd to ask what transactions he was talking about. what crimes might be associated with those transactions whose statute of limitations he has been checking to see if it's expired? he told us in response that he doesn't think the special

counsel is looking into trump's business transactions. he then told our producer who was on the phone with him that he who never speak to him again, and then he hung up on him. aside from that sort of weird behavior, that is a serious question. what's john dowd talking about? what's the president's lead lawyer talking about? i mean, if there are trump business transactions that happened long enough ago that they would fall outside the statute of limitations for prosecution as criminal matters, does that mean those things are out of bounds? sort of not ufrl for the special counsel's investigation?

>> let me start with that first issue that the president's top lawyer raised. he is suspending to news which he contests that the special counsel investigation has turned towards the president's business transactions and financial transactions. >> the federal criminal code has limitations to bring charges or it could be done with. it could be two years or four years. in some cases it could be ten years for the more serious charges. you would have to know precisely what crimes the president's counsel has in mind or beyond the statute of limitations, but

that is one of the defenses that a criminal proceeding that the president could raise. two points about that, rachel. first of all, that wouldn't keep congress from investigating it as grounds for impeachment. that kind of limitations period would not be a limitation on congress because the nature of impeachment would have to be very serious matters, but not necessarily technically within the criminal code. being criminal is not either necessary or sufficient. moreover, i think he is making -- they're making a larger point that they're setting up an excuse, a pretext for attempting to just discharge the special counsel about arguing that his mandate is only to investigate the russian campaign involvement. the special counsel's mandate, it does say matters directly related to that, but matters directly related to any links, "any links" between the russian

officials and officials in the trump campaign. certain financial relationships are part of those links, and a serious prosecutor wants to look at a whole series. >> is there anything that the white house or his lawyers have raised wrartd to objections to this investigation? they've talked about political donations made by lawyers involved in the investigation. they've talked about bob mueller having been a trump golf club member at some point. they've talked about obviously these complaints about looking into financial matters and trump business matters. are any of the things that they've raised to your mind

legitimate concerns or legitimate grounds for trying to undermine the investigation? >> it's clear from the reporting that they are looking for a pretext and charging, with regard to mueller personally. this is a someone who is a life-long republican who was head of the criminal division, republican administrations, who for 12 years was head of the fbi in both republican and democratic administrations and is respected by law enforcement across the country. they raise the fact that he worked with james comey, but comey may be not necessarily a central figure in this, but in any event, comey and mueller have never been to each other's houses. one was head of the fbi. one was deputy attorney general, and they overlapped. that's absurd. of course, there are people on his staff who have participated

in supporting political candidates. it must be mr. trump's position that only trump supporters are allowed to investigate him. people were either for trump or for clinton, and mueller would not have given that any consideration whatsoever against staff. i don't see that they have anything. the idea that robert mueller would risk his reputation that he has spent a lifetime gathering to try to go after someone just because of a 6-year-old fee dispute at a golf club is beyond absurd. >> walter dellinger, acting solicitor general under president clinton. thank you for being here tonight. really appreciate your time. >> all right. we have much more ahead tonight. it's like the -- it's like the maddow show goes to law school. but with a tutor who doesn't know anything about this stuff. this is -- the stuff that's happening in the news right now is moving really fast. staying grounded in terms of

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three days ago the top ethics official in the u.s. government left his job, basically in frustration. he left, making the case that the ethics laws in the u.s. government didn't anticipate -- they weren't written to constrain the kind of flagrant, willful violations of ethics

norms that the new administration is demonstrating. basically he argued that the old rules were premised on the idea that if your conflicts of interest were exposed, you'd be ashamed, and that would stop you from doing them. when shame no longer applies, the ethics rules turned out to have a pretty flimsy foundation when pushed sort of to the limit. he's now left government service to try to push for stronger rules. but while he was here, the day after he left government office, left government office three days ago, he was here two days ago. he gave us a warning about something he thought was about to happen in short order. it has just happened. that's next.

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optum. how well gets done. 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 who will give them a better deal than ms. finlayson who is tough as nails and as experienced as they come. >> we got that heads up two nights ago from walter shaub who just resigned. he told us to watch for how the white house filled his role with an acting director. he said to watch for the white house potentially skipping the next person in line to lead that agency, shelley finlayson, and instead installing somebody else. he told us, does the white house think they'll find an individual

in that office who might give them a better deal than the woman who's next in line? that was the warning two nights ago. now we've got the news that the president has made his choice. and as walter shaub warned us, the president in fact skipped over shelley finlayson, who would be the person next in line, and instead tapped an official in the office who shaub says, quote, tends to lean toward the permissive end the spectrum. he says, quote, i'm concerned that the white house may be trying to ensure looser oversight. and who knows? but we got that announcement today about the new acting director for the ethics office. and then lo and behold, well after the close of business on this summer friday night, we got another big piece of news from the ethics office concerning the president's family. jared kushner has amended his financial disclosure forms he is required to file. turns out he more than 75 different assets that his lawyer says he plum forgot to declare before. we got that news tonight from the ethics office at 7:00 p.m. eastern time. kushner updating his financial disclosure form, revealing more than 75 new assets and millions of dollars he didn't previously disclose. and just look at this.

if you look at jared kushner's new form -- can we put that up? you will see that the ethics official who certified this form is the new and more lenient acting director of the office. his form was signed off on by the person the white house plucked out of line for that job, and he signed off on that form not today when we got it well after close of business on a summer friday night. he actually signed off on it yesterday, thursday. but then that form, for some reason, doesn't hit the news until friday night after the close of business. apparently that timing is unusual for that office. we spoke again tonight to walter shaub, the former ethics director. he told us it's been the agency's policy for years to release financial disclosures on the same day they are certified. if a report seemed likely to garner extra attention, he said the office made an extra effort to make sure the forms got released to the public the same day they were signed. that is how they used to do it when he was in charge. now that the white house has hand-picked someone to take over

that job, apparently we get the kushner forms 7:00 on a friday night. that does it for us tonight. msnbc live is next. good morning, everyone. i'm dara brown in msnbc headquarters. with sean spicer out and a new trump ally in had, the media getting a smooch from the much. how the country could be paying a price for all this turm employ. new questions about presidential pardons and whether president trump can pardon himself. and the new report about jeff sessiones and what alleged intercepts claim the russian ambassador says the two discussed. we'll ask if the attorney general just got into more hot water. we b