twitter, instagram. the news continues with "a.m. joy." help in puerto rico. jorge pa sasada helping victims the hurricane. stay with us. >> reporter: if the justice department doesn't take action? >> i'm really not involved with the justice department. i'd like to let it run itself, honestly, they should be looking at the democrats, as podesta and all that dishonesty. they should be looking at a lot of things and a lot of people are disappointed in the justice department, including me. good morning, and welcome to "a.m. joy." there is nothing more nixonian to wanting to take control of the justice department and fire your attorney general. on friday donald trump expressed frustration with the justice

department held by the politically embattled jeff sessions quite a few times. to reporters before departing on a 12-day asia trip complained on the radio, on twitter again on twitter and a few more times because he wants sessions and the doj to stop special counsel bob mueller from investigating him and start investigating, you guessed it, hillary clinton. "lock her up! lock her up!" . the undemocratic zeal to jail his opponent haven't stopped the investigation into russia involvement into our election. the moving right along. it appears they're zeroing in on jeff sessions, too. mueller unveiled documents that said sessions testimony under oath, that he was not aware of any trump campaign surrogates communicating with russians was something other than accurate. by the way, this is a crime, lying to the senate.

one this in particular call the veracity into question. this. we know donald trump tweeted it out in march of 2016 as way to brag about his campaign's national security and foreign policy advisory committee. jeff sessions was then the committee chairman. janey gordon, committee director and right there in the center is george papadopoulos. the then 29-year-old former trump campaign adviser who last month pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi, about his efforts to get dirt on hillary clinton from russians. he's the latest person to be officially implicated in what we reik to call stupid watergate, and papadopoulos's presence in the campaign meeting in which he allegedly bragged about arranging a meeting twee trubet trump and vladimir putin seems to be claiming amnesia in trump. who once told us his memory -- >> really didn't remember, she can't be president. she doesn't remember anything. >> no hesitation.

one. great memories of all-time. >> were you instructed on how to use it? i can't remember. >> mr. president, do you remember george papadopoulos during that march meeting? >> i don't remember much about that meeting. it was a very unimportant meeting. took place a long time -- don't remember much about it. >> but he does remember it wasn't important. my panel of experts to unpack it all. they are with me now. thank you all for being here. nick, to you first. senator al franken, who was a very tough question are of jeff sessions during his confirmation hearing sent a letter to jeff sessions attorney general, saying the american people deserve a complete and accurate accounting of the facts. respond by friday november 10, 2017. he wants to know is whether or not jeff sessions essentially lied under oath about whether or not he was aware of russian contacts during the campaign

when he sat on the very same committee and shachaired the committee george papadopoulos sat on. i believe carter page was on as well. do you see in these series of questions of jeff sessions the seeds of maybe jeff sessions being fired? which opens the door to a non-recused attorney general who could fire bob mueller? >> first of all, i see the seeds of jeff sessions possibly being indicted for perjury. you've got him lying under oath before the senate committee during his confirmation hearings. >> yep. >> and on top of all of that, not just one thing. not just he denied meeting with any russians when he met with kislyak three times. not that he just denied having any knowledge about anybody in the campaign having contact with the russians, which we now know he did, because of the papadopoulos plea. >> yes. >> and on top of that, we have to also wonder whether or not he's in jeopardy of being indicted for obstruction of

justice by she chew virtue of a for donald trump to fire james comey. he's in big trouble. >> yes. >> i don't think he'll be answering these questions that senator franken sent him, because what he says will be used against him. >> yes. absolutely. and frank, go to you on that. what george papadopoulos pleaded to was essentially lying to the fbi. he was asked simple, pointed questions about his contacts with russian officials. e 4 l he lied to the fbi. that in and of itself is a crime. could you foresee a situation where the fbi supervised by the department of justice has to interview the attorney general? is there any precedent for that and could that xwlap. >> happen? >> no question we're looking at an interview by mueller's team and fbi agents of the attorney general. that's going to happen. we're probably just two to three weeks away from mueller's team actually sitting down with the vice president and the president to do these interviews, and

there's certainly precedent for this. you recall in 2004, the scooter libby valerie plame investigation. fbi inspectors and a special counsel that sat down with the president and the vice president and did extensive questioning. it's very similar. and during that time, vice president cheney's interview by fbi agents lasted about 70 minutes, and during that interview, he said, i can't recall 72 times. so we're looking at that kind of situation here, and listen, inability to close that collusion gap if people sit there at a high level and tell you, i can't recall, i can't recall. you're going to have to rely on human sources and cooperators. who are they? papadopoulos, maybe manafort turns but also something else. mike flynn is a slam dunk criminal charge. he hasn't been charged yet. why is that? is he cooperating? >> absolutely. and he seems to be the person that make donald trump the most

nervous. didn't want to fire him. firing him wishing he hadn't done it. i think mike flynn moving out there is a scary thing for president trump. to you on this question, you have this committee chaired by jeff sessions. where the gentleman who was in charge of it recruits in papadopoulos, and he is now actually also talking to at least the senate committees and probably to mueller's team as well. you have this team that now seems to be kind of the locust of the contact with russia in addition of course to the son, to trump junior, to kushner and others, but carter page, a part of this foreign policy team donald trump bragged about to the "washington post," carter page overnight, just broke yesterday, last night, that carter page is now saying shortly after his trip to russia to meet with russian officials in july of 2016, we now learned he did meet with russian high officials not just university professors or whatever he way saying before. shortly after the trip mr. page

sent an e-mail to at least one trump campaign aide describing insights after conversations with government officials, legislators and business executives during his time in moscow. we also now know he was cc'd and copied on e-mails george papadopoulos sent regarding this contacts with moscow. it starts to look we're circling around what could be collusion. is there a crime in any of that multiple contacts with a foreign government? >> joy, you know when the other guest talked about presidents being subject to interviews by the fbi, you got to give a shout-out to barack obama. he's the only president since richard nixon who has not been questioned in a federal criminal investigation. carter page, again, carter page, ryan, all of these people who seemed low-level, who president trump denies knowing or tries to downplay, mueller is circling around them. they are the kind of little fish designed to deliver the big

fish. what do we know about george papadopoulos? we know he got arrested in august, and he was cooperating with mueller since then, but we didn't find out about that until monday. so i think it's safe to assume that these other little fish, like carter page, might be cooperating. certainly mueller will try to turn ryan, mr. ryan, who was arrested along with mr. manafort, ryan is, kind of manafort's boy. he's his associate. he'll be relatively easy, i think, to get to cooperate with the government. he might give up the goods on people like his boss, manafort. that's how these cases are made. it's like "law & order" that tv show, investigators go from office to office asking questions, building clues that ultimately leads them to the big kahuna. >> that of course is the president of the united states. getting us back to donald

trump's consistent seeming desire to rid himself of mueller. he obviously fired james comey, jared kushner and others rooting him on to do that. he can't outright fire mueller. he can't get the attorney general do it. he's recused, have to get the acting attorney general, rosenstein, said he won't do it. you now have members of congress. a republican resolution put forward by three members of congress pub lirred friday introducing resolution demanding robert mueller resign on his own based on a completely phantom scandal, uranium 1 scandal. rying to get rid of him. rumors advising donald trump to defund mueller's investigation. could any attempts to get rid of mueller or defund his position be illegal on an impeachment side or -- getting into deep water to try to do that.

on a criminal sense and definitely on an impeachment sense. back to watergate. the firing of the special prosecutor, archibald, about to get the tapes to prove whether or not richard nixon was guilty of a crime. got fired. that produced huge public outcry and led to nixon's downfall that started the impeachment. any fooling around with mueller is -- has the danger of triggering public outrage and triggering an impeachment. but it also could be obstruction of justice. just because he's the president and has the power to fire or not fire or whatever that power is, if he does it, for the reason of covering up, then we are in obstruction territory, in my view. >> and nick, what about, if he starts pardoning people? donald trump, who i think frank make as good point, very much in fear of what mike flynn might say if he sees jared kushner potentially getting in trouble.

what if he just starts pardoning people? is that obstruction? >> certainly could be obstruction if he does it with the intent to obstruct the investigation and get rid of it because it's honing in on him, sure, that's obstruction. don't forget, the indictment that mueller came down with is for money laundering. money laundering is a crime in new york state. also tax evasion is a crime in new york state. so trump is going to have a problem doing any pardons here, because he can't pardon for new york state laws. in fact, some of the new york state laws are more potent and may be more applicable to what happened here than would be some of the federal laws. so he's not in a great position, mr. trump. >> let's remember -- attempts to pardon or promises are pardon to the watergate burglarers by nixon was one of the articles, grounds for impeachment. >> and frank, quickly, if, say, manafort got pardoned or papadopoulos got pardoned, when they go before an fbi agent to

be interviewed can they assert their fifth amendment right at that point? >> they can always do that, were-of-but that takes the legs right out from under the fbi interview. i agree with the others. the president is teetering on obstruction of justice. it's said, obstruction, just because the president can do something doesn't mean it's not illegal. if he's doing it to avoid incrimating himself or furthering the investigation, that's obstruction. >> and paul, quickly, last word on this. do you see an obstruction of justice case coming out of mueller's office and how high will it go? >> it's certainly possible. why after donald trump, robert mueller is the most powerful person in the district of columbia. so, yeah. i think that there's definitely the grounds there if it's going to happen it's not impoochment. that's political -- turns its lonely high eyes to robert mueller. >> it's all "mueller time" in our house. >> thank you all. great panel. thank you. up next, new details on how

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we learned there's a debate going on in the kremlin between the foreign ministry and the intelligence services about whether or not they should release the 20,000 of mrs. clinton's e-mails they hacked into and received and stored. >> this week we learned from a surprise plea agreement in the russia investigation that one month before fox news analyst andrew depoll taun oh made that claim, a donald trump campaign official was already trying to obtain hillary clinton's supposedly missing e-mails. which a lot of republicans including donald trump clearly believed russia had. and if we look at this development in the context of a

longer timeline, it's clear that the hunt for russians with e-mail dirt on hillary clinton was a recurring theme in the trump campaign. let's go back to march 19th, 2016. when russian operatives first hacked clinton campaign chairman john podesta's e-mail account which wasn't public knowledge until wikileaks released those later that year in october. a month after the podesta hack, in april, learned russian government hacked the dnc. during that same month, april 26th, trump campaign adviser george papadopoulos met in london with a professor who claimed to have contacts with russian government officials in possession of dirt on hillary clinton. in the form of thousands of e-mails. about two weeks later on may

9th, fox news analyst andrew napolitano makes a similar claim with clinton's e-mails pap month after that donald trump jr. starts hi own dirt and june 3rd gets an e-mail close to a russian business partner promising information that would incriminate clinton and be useful to his father's campaign fop that donald jr. responds, if it's what you say, i love it. six days later, donald trump jr., paul manafort and jared kushner attend the trump tower meeting set up in that e-mail. where a russian attorney was expected to deliver the goods. on that same day, that trump junior was seeking whatever the russians were offering in that june 9th meeting, his father tweeted at clinton, where are your 33,000 e-mails that you deleted? a month later on july 27th,

trump made that request directly to the russians when he said during a news conference, russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. fast-forward again, labor day weekend. peter w. smith a gop operative told the "journal" he began seeking e-mails, he believed to be stolen from clinton's private server from several hacker groups. including two he determined were russian. smith was found dead of apparent suicide weeks after he talked with the "journal." those efforts to get clinton e-mails ultimately amounted to a fool's error in respect never has been any evidence that russians or anyone else ever successfully hacked hillary clinton's private e-mail serve rs or that anybody, russian or otherwise, ever actually had her deleted e-mails. in fact, hillary clinton might

have been alone among the dnc, john podesta and even state and federal government agencies in not being successfully hacked. go figure. up next, my panel weighs in on whether the russians baited the hook by planting a clever fiction about having hillary clinton's e-mails in order to gain access and influence with donald trump and members of his campaign. stay with us. let's get the big guy in place. the ford year-end sales event is here. i can guide you in? no, thanks , santa, i got this. looks a little tight. perfect fit. santa needs an f-150. that's ford, america's best selling brand. hurry in today for 0% financing for 72 months across the full line of ford cars, trucks and suvs! and just announced... get 0 % apr for 72 months plus $1000 cash back! take advantage of these exclusive holiday offers during the ford year end sales event. discover card. i justis this for real?match, yep. we match all the cash back new cardmembers earn at the end of their first year, automatically. whoo! i got my money! hard to contain yourself, isn't it?

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-- never talked to anybody from russia, do you stand by that claim? >> i all can tell you is this, there wa nos collusion. >> that depends, from donald trump, wearing pretty thin according to the revelation learned from a professor with ties to the russian government the russians had "dirt" on hillary clinton.

joining us, two of my all-stars i feel i've been talking to a year straight because i have. on the air together, i believe now since last july. >> yes. >> essentially telling the same story over and over again. >> every day. >> when you first heard and you write in your book about that andrew napolitano clip that happened sort of out of the blue in april of last year. >> right. >> when you heard andrew napolitano say that, what did you think? >> in fact, i came on msnbc that week. >> on "hardball." >> right. to address that statement, because it was impossible. what they were saying was that napolitano had u.s. intelligence sources that were saying he had information from the kremlin of an internal debate between vladimir putin, his senior staff, about should they release 20,000 hacked hillary clinton e-mails, and i said that level of intelligence is impossible to have. it's just impossible. >> how would he be saying it? >> he got it from a website

called, whatdoesitmean.com. a mythical character, a conduit of information from sputnik, rt and other russian stories that put this in an obscure conspiracy theory website and then got to napolitano and 27 july trfansferred to donald trump. >> and we know the people who like donald trump are avid viewers of fox news. to you does it make sense that if the kremlin wanted to plant the fictitious idea that they had the 20,000 to 30,000 e-mails hillary clinton deleted because they were personal, when her state department e-mails were turned over, if they wanted to plant that, this is the way to do it. put it on an obscure website, fox news picks up it, is that a

typical way the kremlin would operate? >> certainly a way it would operate and that intent not just to reach people in the trump campaign but to reach republicans in general, the trump base and to kind of make this narrative resonate in american society. i tend to think, though, if the kremlin wanted to talk to the trump campaign could have easily gone through paul manafort or others in the campaign who had direct connections to the kremlin. i don't think they necessarily needed to circumvent it for that particular reason. >> and i mean, that is a question. you have carter page walking off the street joining the trump foreign policy team. george papadopoulos, a low-level sort of guy, 29 years old, walk in, become a part of the foreign policy team and announce i'm going to moscow. i can get vladimir putin in the room with donald trump. there seems to be a lot of people who were peddling connections to the kremlin, connections to putin, or, i can find the e-mails. >> yes. i've said this i don't know how

many times over the last year. there are multiple and will be found, multiple dirty tricks teams who all had independent access, or so they thought to information that russia was dangling in front of them. interesting about this whole 20,000 hillary clinton e-mails thing. it comes ten months after the russians hacked the, initially hacked the dnc, which means their information warfare management team had already had the information they wanted. they needed to now plus up all of their, you know, their surrogates to go out and start feeding this through multiple accesses to get it to donald trump, and it worked. >> yeah. >> how many teams do we really know about? papadopoulos. maybe carter page. maybe -- you know, mike flynn and through manafort. all can be completely independent of each other, and then come together once it reaches donald trump. you know, donald trump jr., even. >> yeah. >> do you -- do you assume that

the russians were lying? they were just saying that they had these missing e-mails to dangle that possibility and draw in trump campaign people? >> yes. i don't have to assume. we already know that now. if they had the e-mails they would have been released years ago. >> they would have been out. yeah. >> this came from russian sources, again, and there is no way anyone would ever know what was being said inside the office of vladimir putin. if that was a u.s. intelligence source, that person would have died with that information. and to leak it out to some obscure conspiracy website then it shows up on fox news tells you the russians injected that too the blood stream of american media themselves. >> and sarah mckenzie, do you think, soul severance needs to be done? all of this information couldn't have survived without the oxygen's media interest in the e-mails as a source of news and information? not just the conspiracy theories thingry for the e-mails, it was

us, the media? >> absolutely. they bear a lot of responsibility for that. a lot of this goes back to a historic obsession with hillary clinton, the false assumption hillary clinton was bound to win the election to spend time on frivolous matters like e-mailgate, whereas all of this time the russians were working actively with the trump campaign. also there were a lot of financial impropriety is happening within the trump campaign that went under examplen, but that story dominated. it doesn't take a genius to sort of know the media will bite on any kind of anti-hillary clinton story. of course the kremlin would peddle it in that way. appeals to disillusioned bernie voters, to republicans, a lot of the american public in general. a smart move on their part but the media should have paid more attention and done a better job. >> lastly, is this the most successful intelligence operation in at least modern

cre kremlin history? >> i'm tempted to say in the history of the world and i'm a scholar in this and know people very, very close to this, realtime participants and they say that the russians apparently got their hooks into another country that has atomic bombs. tell you one thing. who warned us about all this? hillary clinton. >> yeah. she did. there's a pretty lengthy video. google it online. lengthy, goes into a big warning about this and nobody listened. two people we have been lived to over a year and love it. please, come back. thank you very much. coming up, why the republicans just can't quit donald trump. that's next. fortunate enough to travel to many interesting places. i've always wanted to create those experiences for others. with my advisor's help along the way, it's finally my turn to be the host.

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i'm tom steyer, and like you, i'm a citizen who knows it's up to us to do something. it's why i'm funding this effort to raise our voices together and demand that elected officials take a stand on impeachment. a republican congress once impeached a president for far less. yet today people in congress and his own administration know that this president is a clear and present danger who's mentally unstable and armed with nuclear weapons. and they do nothing. join us and tell your member of congress that they have a moral responsibility to stop doing what's political and start doing what's right. our country depends on it. more than a year into this story of russian attacks on our election and as the scope of the initial inquiries widen one thing that's remained completely consistent, besides donald

trump's denials of collusion, the republican national committee, rnc. for a lot of democrats not just party loyalty, something worse. complicity with what russia did. october, 2016, three weeks before the election, then chair of the democratic national committee, donna brazile, wrote a letter to then rnc chair reince priebus offering to brief them on the dnc hack and asked that the party issue a joint statement on the russia attack to confirm the legitimacy of the electoral process. that came 11 days after the obama administration first officially accused the russian government publicly of trying to interfere in our election and announced it got completely drowned out the very next day by the "access hollywood" tape, but there was no bipartisan effort, no united front. we reached out to the rnc for comment. a spokesman pointed out in july

of 2016 priebus said he would be "concerned if it were true russians were behind the dnc" and he did make other comments denouncing the hacking of people's private e-mails but republicans didn't actually do anything to stand with democrats. they never responded to that letter. joining me, a former clinton campaign strategist and a democratic strategist and a former chief white house ethics lawyer for george w. bush and another republican strategist. to you first, joel. i don't know if you recall the letter. i have a copy. in it donna brazile starts saying three weeks ago we challenged both parties to focus on the integrity of the election process. let's stand together, try to help each other. do you recall any response whatsoever coming from the rnc? >> zero. no response at all. now, maybe once something happened but i haven't heard anybody say there was a response

or heard anybody from the rnc say there was and she outlined several other steps she wanted to take, make a statement jointly, five or six steps to be taken to preserve the integrity of the election, and radio silence. nothing. >> i will say, like i said, we reached out to the rnc. spoke to somebody close to the situation, knowledgeable about the situation who did speak with me on background saying one possible explanation why there wasn't a response this letter starts talking about the russian intervention, the deft of e-mails, warning, expletive in . and then goes into voter polls and we know the rnc is under a dissenty ci since the 1980s, not allowed to touch anything involving integrity, election intreg grate, were attempting to interfere with the right to vote of black and hispanic voters.

under a dissent decree. could they have not responded because donna brazile talked about russia and other things? >> could be. marco rubio said today is the democrats. tomorrow could be us. rick perry said, i don't care what he has to say. they were putting -- people close to trump putting up their hands saying we don't want to go near this thing. >> absolutely. simon rosenberg, you have written for "u.s. news & world report" in april, rnc two of the most important components. penetration of trump's campaign by the russian government and n nomination and view of this information, what do you mean by that? >> it's clear every single day the rnc put out a press release promoting the wikileaks releases and amplifying the russian campaign, and encouraging other people in the republican ecosystem to use this thing, use these things every day. it was critical to the

normalization of the use of this, which became common with the media themselves. imagine if the rnc had said, look, we have doubts about the wikileaks stuff and don't want to touch it. we're patriots, not partisans and don't want to put this in the blood stream in the ecosystem. no question, reince preeb oiebu sean spicer's embrace was critical to its success. collusion. it's established. out in the open. we know this took place and far more scrutiny has to be placed and in looking, us looking at the role the republican party african structure itself played in the success of this russian operation in the united states. >> know elnoelle, look at this stone article from june, referencing the "washington post" piece on what the obama administration triped to do an russian interference.

in august, obama administration quietly approached capitol hill about the growing evidence of russian involvement, cia director john brennan couldn't get top republicans to meet with him. we learned when a caravan of top u.s. security officials finally sat down with members of senate, led by mitch mcconnell connell flatly refused to cooperate and the learned when jeh johnson, homeland security contacted people of elections in various states, whose election data was possibly compromised republicans blew him off. were republicans essentially willing to benefit from russian interference essentially refusing to join with democrats out of pure partisanship over really concern for national security? >> it's unfortunate that you know when he wanted to privately meet with some key republicans to discuss the issue, it's unfortunate they didn't want to meet. you've got -- you know, we all know there's bad blood between republicans and democrats on the

fact that donna brazile had tried to approach reince priebus about the -- about snag they could do together to combat this. i can see where reince priebus probably wasn't that thrilled to be meeting with donna brazile, and so forth, on how to combat the russian hacking. now, you know, your guest earlier said which is true, that marco rubio tried to. to look further into this is, the rnc should have been a little more proactive on looking at it, but what about the fec and these ads that were let loose, you know, to hurt both democrats and republicans on twitter? on facebook? you know? where is this? you know? this is how a lot of the, you know, some of the hate groups got out. and we saw a lot of the evidence that russian hackers and russian advertisers were playing in our

elections, to the right and the left, entangled in a very bitter war trying to really promote that. so the rnc maybe should have been a little more pro active, joy, you're right. but what about the fec and what about getting them to get a little bit more reactive and a little bit more proactive and trying to be, you know, prevent some of this? >> richard painter, a lot of democrats doing a lot of soul searching wishing the obama administration had been more aggressive trying to combat this. we have examples in other countries, richard, same thing happ happening. an aggressive attempt to hack into e-mails of the french, the candidates running for the president in france. hackers came after them, but the french were prepared, headline in the "new york times." we had finland and estonia attacked by the same exact kind of campaign. but the difference is, that in those countries and in germany and other places, both of the

political parties came together and were very public about saying, we don't care who wins this election. we don't want russia involved, and they were very proactive. so wasn't it incumbent on the republicans to be as alarmed as democrats about an attack on our country? >> well, of course. the russians have been doing this for 100 years. since the 1917 russian revolution, and that supported the far left wing communist parties all over the world with some success in some places and now it's right wing nuts and so-called religious conservatives who, you know, they support, and the ku klux klan lemelements in the united states and breitbart news. always doing it. trying to destabilize the american democracy. a serious threat to the united states government and all opposing this and ai sure you, voters who traditionally vote republican are not going to

tolerate elected officials and our political operatives in the republican party who persist in this cover-up, and the people for example, steve bannon and those types, encouraging president trump to fire robert moocher, would have be an additional act of obstruction of justice. it's very important to distinguish between the extremist elements and traditional republicans, traditional conservatives with no tolerance of the ku klux klan wannabes, breitbart news or the russian collaborators inside our government. we are strongly committed to the united states independence of our own country. that's what was fought for in the american revolution and we are not going to be dominated by russia or any other foreign power and are not going to allow them to take advantage of racial animosities and other issues we have to deal with in this country in order to dominate and that's exactly what has happened

here and the trump white house is persisted in a cover-up rather than allowing robert mueller to complete his investigation. that is absolutely critical. >> quickly, simon. i take it your view, talking about it quite some time, none of the different wings of the republican party stood up to the russians? >> right. in fact the rnc was critical in the russian operation succeeding. there was active collusion. they knew this was coming from russia. we know this now. that was established this week. they knew as early as april, may, june, that russia was attempting to get involved in the elections here in the united states. think about what happened the day after the republican convention ended. wikileaks released their dnc e-mails and caused the dnc chairman the day before our convention began to resign and created enormous chaos. are you telling me the trump campaign didn't know that was coming from russia at that point? they all knew. >> and there hasn't been a lot of honesty what people knew. >> lied about it. >> clear. back in our next year, joel.

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counter said, please tell larry o'donnell he needs to run for president. that does it for us tonight. time for the last word. >> good evening, it's my turn to blush, as i've been doing here. >> there's a very nice lady named judy who definitely wants you to run for president. >> wow. wow. federal indictments were returned in washington today in the watergate bugging affair. seven people were indicted today. the five who were caught by the police, along with two others, g. gordon liddi, a former white house aide who was counsel to the finance committee of president nixon's campaign organization, and e. howard hunt, a former consultant for the white house. in a presidential year, indictments like these are the hottest potatoes on the market. >> 45 years ago, the first indictments were handed down in the watergate scandal. less than two months later,

president nixon was re-elected in a landslide, carrying every single state except massachusetts and washington, d.c. joining me now is kevin matson, historian at ohio university. you did have this lingering support for richard nixon even after the indictments. why is that? >> why did nixon still have support? >> why did he have such robust support? >> well, he was radically popular present at this point in time, winning the re-election that you just mentioned. skni think the republican party saw the possibilities of him being a great leader for the country. so i think that many republicans kind of rallied around richard nixon, as did some centrist democrats. >> and you have these parallels between watergate and what you call russia-gate here, the break-in of the dnc physically during watergate and virtually through the e-mails by russian

hackers. but you have a very different response from republican leadership. there seems to be wariness of watergate among senior level republicans in congress, whereas now they don't seem to care all that much. has there been that radical a shift in the republican party itself, or is there anything this richard nixon that inspired more dread amongst his allies on the hill? >> no, i think it's ramped-up partisan ship driving what's going on right now. you hear from corker and flake. you sometimes hear limerings of from mccain, that there are people who are peeling off the president who are also republicans. i think that was nixon's biggest fear, that what was going to happen as things were going to be investigated, people would peel off. so, for instance, john dean, his white house counsel says that there's a cancer surrounding the presidency as early as january of '73. so you have -- that's the fear that's going on. i think that one of the things

to keep in mind is that richard nixon, as far as his persona goes, is somewhat similar to donald trump. there's a real paranoia. there's a real desire for unity at all costs. you know, thinking of any sort of protest as disroyal and as infusing disloyalty within the nation. so i think there's parallels between the two personas of the presidents that are carrying out both of these crises. so i think the thing to watch would be how many other most likely republican senators start to kind of break with the president. that's, i think, quite significant. >> when you talk about the similarities between nixon and trump, as you said, a certain kind of paranoia. a lot of people are looking at trump and seeing a kind of unraveling in the way that he's behaving publicly. some people are worrying about his mental health at this point. what was nixon's mental state as watergate was closing in on him? >> well, this is a debate historians have with themselves

an awful lot. i think there's a kind of feeling that nixon had something of a breakdown in the white house. even before watergate, but certainly around watergate, he became extremely defensive, more warrior-like, which is i think a quality he shares with our current sitting president. he certainly had something of a breakdown and was increasingly paranoid. there are allegations that alcohol was involved in this. you know, we don't necessarily have complete and absolute lock step evidence for that, but there certainly seemed to be something of a fall-apart on him. and as we watches people peel off the administration, people turn on him, people start speaking about what's going on within the white house. and of course once the tapes get announced, he becomes increasingly, i think, paranoid and kind of, you know, prone to see this as a conspiracy against him. and as a victim. >> yeah, absolutely. paranoid was the watch word of the day, it might be again.

kevin, thank you very much. >> great to be here. so much more coming up, keep it right here on msnbc. for your heart... your joints... or your digestion... so why wouldn't you take something for the most important part of you... your brain. with an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is now the number one selling brain health supplement in drug stores nationwide. prevagen. the name to remember.

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many insurance plans cover chantix for a low or $0 copay. president barack obama tried very hard to close the u.s. military prison at guantanamo in cuba throughout his two terms as president. it was a campaign promise that he tried to keep, that he intended to keep, that i think he thought he would keep. but in the end, congress really was able to thwart those efforts by the president and his administration and guantanamo was still open for business by the time obama left office. to people who served in the obama administration, particularly people that worked on that issue in the obama administration, i think that was a real disappointment from president obama's two terms, that they weren't able to get guantanamo closed, even though they really wanted to. but that said, they also didn't send a single new prisoner there for the entire eight years that obama was president.