so we've got a couple of big breaking news stories we're covering tonight. we also have an exclusive interview tonight i'm really looking forward to. a national security and law enforcement veteran who has not spoken publicly since he left the trump administration for a very interesting reason. he is going to be speaking out for the first time tonight. this is his first interview since leaving the trump administration. he's not only going to hopefully talk with us about the circumstances under which he left the administration, but also about his potentially unique ability to give us some insight into matters concerning james comey, matters concerning robert mueller, matters concerning the eastern district of virginia where the u.s. attorney there, we've just learned, has been fired under circumstances that nobody quite

understands. he has been very closely associated with all of those people and institutions. and he, again, is doing his first interview tonight since leaving the trump administration. he's going to be live here in studio with me. that's going to be a big deal. i encourage you to stick around for that. we're also going to be joined tonight by alabama political reporter john archibald. last week after "the washington post" published allegations from four named women about alabama republican senate candidate roy moore, all four women saying moore had pursued them sexually or romantically, i guess, while they were teenagers and he was a grown man in his 30s. after that reporting broke in "the washington post" broke last week, john archibald from "the birmingham news" burst the bubble a little bit of the national reaction to that story when he explained that based on his long history in covering politics in alabama and particularly the politics of the modern republican party in alabama, he said based on his experience, that that "washington post" story might

cause roy moore to win the united states senate race next month by an even larger margin than he might have previously been expected to win. john archibald explaining that that "washington post" story and the allegations against roy moore would be galvanizing to moore's supporters in a way that might positively help his political chances. so that was john archibald's take as of thursday, the night the "washington post" story first broke. but now today, a fifth woman has come forward, saying that she was a 16-year-old waitress in gadsden, alabama when roy moore, who was then the local district attorney, didn't just hit on her or ask her out. she says he assaulted her violently in his car, that he tried to force her into sexual activity and that he threw her out of his vehicle when she did not accede to it. now, roy moore denies her allegations and has denied any sexual misconduct with anyone. but this woman who came forward today, she's trump supporter. she says she is not motivated by

politics. she says she is not suing roy moore, she is not seeking some sort of civil settlement with him. she's also not seeking any sort of law enforcement action against him. but she is describing what she says happened to her. and she did use her real name and go on camera to make these allegations. she is also, importantly, volunteering to testify about her experiences under oath. her attorney saying today that if the senate judiciary committee were to convene a hearing to assess these allegations against roy moore her client, who described this alleged assault from when she was 16, her client would testify under oath under penalty of perjury to any such hearing. now, that offer, to testify under oath, that ends up being not just a dramatic illustration of how much this woman stands by these allegations she's making and how much scrutiny she's willing to subject these allegations to. it also ends up being a very practically interesting idea that conceivably could be the

republican party's way out of this problem. because this is a big problem they've got on their hands, right? they've got a declared, formally nominated republican candidate for the united states senate who may very well win election next month despite or maybe even because of these myriad seemingly credible allegations against him. remember that all five women who have made these allegations against roy moore have described remarkably similar types of behavior. they've all given their names. none of these women apparently knew each other in any other context. they say they have not coordinated their efforts. the initial "washington post" story not only named all four women accusers, they also corroborated these women's allegations with 30 other interviews. because of the weight of those allegations, the republican party does have a real problem, right? they're in a pickle. roy moore denies the allegations and he insists he will not step down. per john archibald and other veteran alabama political observers, there is a real chance that roy moore will win

election next month, even after these allegations have come out. the latest polling shows that roy moore is tied with his democratic opponent, doug jones. even after the allegations came out, roy moore an even bet to win that senate race. but starting on thursday, and then increasingly over the weekend and then in a big tide today after the latest accuser came forward, republicans who were already serving in the senate have started to insist that roy moore should not join them as a united states senator. he on friday the national republican party's senate campaign committee, which is called the nrsc, that's the part of the republican party that's supposed to elect and re-elect republican senators, the nrsc on friday ceased raising or spending any money for roy moore. beyond that organizational decision, though, the head of that group, the head of the nrsc, senator cory gardner, went one very practical step further today when he said if roy moore does win that election in alabama next month, the senate

should vote to expel him. now, senators voting to expel one of their own, that has happened very rarely in the united states senate. there was one guy in the 1700s who got expelled for treason. then there were 14 other members of the senate who all got expelled in a big rush between 1861 and 1862. all 14 of them got thrown out for the same reason. they were all supporters of the confederacy which was quite literally waging war against the united states of america. so one guy for treason in the 1700s, 14 confederates. that's it in terms of expulsions from the senate. ib since the end of the civil war nobody else has been expelled from the senate. there have been proceedings to consider expelling from the senate and sometimes those have turned up allegations lurid enough that people resign because they don't want to have to deal with it. there have been recommendations by specific committees that senators should be expelled. but actually forcing somebody out hasn't happened since 1862.

but senator cory gardner, head of the republican national senate committee, he's saying it should happen again. hasn't happened since 1862. he says it should happen for roy moore if roy moore wins in alabama next month. and that turns out not to be just an interesting history lesson, oh yeah, there's only been 15 of them in total and not since the civil war. it not only ends up being an interesting point for gardner to take, it also is practically important because it offers a few different potential off-ramps for the republican party if they want to get themselves out of this roy moore crisis that they are in. and of those off-ramps, the easiest one, the one that actually takes the least courage, is to do what senator cory gardner did today and just threaten that if roy moore is elected, he may face expulsion. you can just threaten that. that's a possibility, alabama, if you elect him, we may expel him. if you want to kick it up a notch and be slightly braver than that, they could turn that threat into a promise.

republicans could organize the necessary votes in the united states senate to expel him. make a public show of force. don't just threaten, promise that if roy moore is elected he will be expelled from the united states senate. by our count there are maybe 20 republican senators who have publicly criticized roy moore so far to the point of strongly withdrawing their endorsement or calling on him to withdraw from the race. if all those republican senators would all pledge to vote that they would expel roy moore, if they would all pledge to vote to expel roy moore, you add them to all the democrats who would presumably go along, that would be more than enough to reach the 67 votes they'd need in the senate to expel him. right? if they can line up 67 votes, they can say, these 67 senators are going to vote to expel you. then they can promise that he will never be seated in the united states senate. i mean, are they working on that?

it's not like they're busy passing legislation. they haven't passed a single substantive piece of legislation since donald trump was sworn into office in january. i don't know what they do all day. if they wanted to solve their roy moore problem, the republicans in the senate could whip those votes and then publicly promise that an expulsion will happen. so they can threaten it, they can promise it. but if they wanted to be even more brave, they really wanted to solve their problem, if they really wanted to get rid of the threat of roy moore actually becoming a sitting u.s. senator, they could move not just from a threat to a promise but from a promise to a plan. there is no reason why the senate cannot start holding hearings tomorrow on the credibility of the allegations against roy moore and the question of whether or not he as a senate candidate meets the ethical standards required of a united states senator. now, those proceedings would be moot. if he ends up losing the election in alabama next month. but if he wins the election next month, the only way they could be far enough along in their

expulsion proceedings so they could make good on that promise and guarantee the day he shows up in washington to be sworn in is also the day he gets thrown out is if they get cracking. start it now. these things take time. no time like the present, right? if you say you're going to expel him if he gets elected, that takes work. they could start doing that work right now. and if republican leaders in the senate wanted to actually do something about this rather than just talking about it on twitter, well, the first witness they might want to speak to who volunteered herself today in a tearful statement that she says she is willing to make under oath. so the allegations against republican senate candidate roy moore continue to mount. senate republicans do appear to be in a panic about what to do about it. they could take action against roy moore starting immediately if they wanted to. i also have to tell you, they could also take steps just within the republican party internally to stop supporting roy moore in his alabama

campaign. nbc news has a scoop tonight about the fact that the rnc, despite all of this public handwringing, all this public denouncing by republican senators, you know what, the rnc is still actively right now, tonight, supporting roy moore's campaign in alabama. and not just in the abstract sense. they've literally, tonight, got operatives on the ground in alabama working to elect roy moore. and they are spending on his behalf. so much for the republican party trying to draw a line under him. so republicans have plenty that they could be doing right now if they really want to block this roy moore problem from getting any worse for them. we've got that story ahead tonight in terms of the rnc. we've also got john archibald from "the birmingham news," very much a live wire story. i expect further developments probably while we're on the air. but as i said, there's another major breaking news story tonight, from "the atlantic magazine." and the excellent reporter there julia ioffe. their reporting tonight concerns donald trump jr. and yet more

unreported contact between the trump campaign and people involved in the russian operation targeting our presidential election last year while that russian operation was under way. now, you may have heard about this scoop already tonight. there are two really important things about this scoop. one is that this is yet another contact, another set of communications that they lied about. this is yet another contact between the trump side of things and the russia side of things that they have apparently sought to keep secret all this time. and it's -- it shouldn't blow my mind, but it does. i honestly felt like i'm not sure what's going to happen next in this scandal in terms of who's going to be arrested next, who might be indicted next, who will turn out to be aware of something that they previously pled ignorance of. i was expecting twists and turns. i was not expecting that -- a new fbi raid or something. i was not expecting we would still be learning about more contacts between the trump

campaign and the russians even at this late date. you know, you know that you're supposed to explain -- i mean, how many more of them can there be? literally today "the washington post" published what they believed was an omnibus account of all the different known contacts and meetings between the trump campaign and russian operatives during the campaign. they came up with a list of 30 different incidents. that was published this morning. already it turns out to be out of date. it turns out there's more that donald trump jr. didn't disclose. that's one important part of this. how many more can there be? remember when john mccain said this thing is like a centipede, you keep thinking the other shoe is going to drop, but there's a lot of shoes? is there anybody in the trump world, i don't know, maybe president trump, who can say, who can make a public announcement, hey, if you were involved in the campaign or the transition or my administration and you had secret contacts with russians and their operatives and their agents, now would be a good time to say so? you could call for that, right?

it is all going to come out eventually. somebody should call on them to spill. particularly if you're of the mindset that there's nothing nefarious about these contacts between the trump campaign and russia. if you're going to make the case that it's totally normal for presidential campaigns that are being assisted by a foreign intelligence operation to have several dozen contacts with a agents and operatives and officials from that country while the operation is under way, yeah, that's totally normal. if you want to claim that there's nothing weird about all these contacts, especially if you want to claim that there's nothing weird about it, then why do you keep hiding them? fess up. say what they are. eventually they'll turn up, in julia ioffe's reporting or on "nbc nightly news." if you think these contacts are all benign, why have you been hiding them for more than a year? so that's the first thing that's important about this new scoop in "the atlantic" tonight. the second thing that's important is the timing.

the first public reports of the hacking -- that the hacking of democratic political organizations and the stealing of their documents and e-mails weren't just normal thefts or normal mischief, the first reports that they were a product of a russian intel operation was in mid-june last year. "washington post" first to report that the hack of the dnc was a russian operation. and that public ascribing of responsibility for the hack, naming the russian government as responsible, that may well have kick started the process of russia to start disseminating that stolen information, to start releasing the stolen documents back into the united states to try to affect our election. within weeks it wasn't just guccifer 2.0, it was wikileaks releasing stolen democratic documents to try to help trump and hurt clinton. that hacking and stealing of information and documents and release of the information back into the u.s., that was all being widely publicly described as a russian government operation including by u.s. intelligence officials, all

through last summer. but that first report, that it's russia, it's not just random theft, not just random hacking, it's a russian intelligence operation, that first report came out june 14th last year. and that timing ends up being really important. last month, betsy woodruff reported at the daily beast that cambridge analytica, the data firm hired by the trump campaign last year, were asked about an offer to publish information about hillary clinton. after that initial report from betsy woodruff of the daily beast we didn't know whether cambridge analyst ka was technically working for the trump campaign at the time they made those overtures to wikileaks. nor did we know if they would have been cognizant when they were reaching out to wikileaks, we don't know if they would have been aware at the time that wikileaks was doing what they were doing as an agent of the russian government.

so were they working for the trump campaign? did they know they were dealing with the russians? we didn't know after that report from the daily beast. on friday from "the wall street journal" we got clarification on one of those points. turns out cambridge analytica was work for the trump campaign at the time they reached out to wikileaks and asked them to help them disseminate their stolen documents. we still don't have clarification on that other point, though. whether or not they knew wikileaks was part of this russian operation. did they reach out to wikileaks before or after it became publicly known that wikileaks was part of this russian intel op? did the trump campaign through cambridge analytica try to knowingly collude with russia in that part of their attack? they definitely tried to collude. we just don't know if it was knowingly. because we don't know if they knew it was russia they were dealing with. so it's an interesting open question. but soon after we learned about that overture, cambridge analytica to wikileaks, we subsequently learned from the "wall street journal" that trump mega donor rebecca mercer had

also tried to make an overture to wikileaks. she asked cambridge analytica to reach out to wikileaks to help them disseminate their stolen democratic documents. with rebecca mercer there's no amming about ute at all. she made those overtures to try to help wikileaks in their operation in august of last year. by that time she was clearly established as one of theest donors to the pro-trump effort and by then it was widely publicly discussed that what wikileaks was doing was in service of this russian intelligence operation. to the extent that we're looking for evidence of the trump campaign knowingly trying to help russia in what they did during the campaign, rebecca mercer would appear to be right in the headlines on that one. open question as to whether cambridge analytica was doing what they did knowingly. rebekah mercer, it seems quite clear. and now tonight at the "the atlantic" magazine julia ioffe has put donald trump jr. on this as well. "the atlantic" obtained and donald trump jr. later confirmed tonight by publishing himself his direct messages with wikileaks.

accord together messages produced by donald trump jr. tonight wikileaks contacted him a number of times starting in september of 2016 and they continued reaching out to him for weeks. "the atlantic" reports that the messages from wikileaks actually went on for months longer, well into 2017. but don jr. has himself published his messages with wikileaks from september and october including wikileaks telling him on october 12th, 2016 that there's a specific link that should be used while promoting wikileaks's stolen democratic documents. it's a sort of obscure url, wlsearch.tk. two days after receiving that advice from wikileaks about using that link to more efficiently promote the stolen documents, donald trump jr. in fact tweeted that exact link. quote, "for those who have time to read about the corruption and hypocrisy, all the wikileaks e-mails are right here noechlt and then he gave that obscure

url that had been given to him by wikileaks in a contact that wasn't previously disclosed or reported until today. bottom line here, maybe the trump campaign's data firm, definitely the trump campaign's top donor, and definitely donald trump's eldest son were communicating during the campaign with people who were carrying out the russian intelligence operation that was mounted during our election to try to elect trump and hurt clinton. donald trump jr. is now admitting that he literally helped them distribute their stolen material. so, questions. is that illegal? what he's admitting to tonight, helping distribute, more efficiently distribute stolen materials, is that illegal? if the stolen material in question was the product of a foreign intelligence operation, does that affect what type of crime this might be or whether it's a crime? julia ioffe further reports tonight that on the same day donald junior got his first message from wikileaks, he told everybody else on the campaign that he was now in contact with wikileaks.

he told steve bannon, he told kellyanne conway, he told brad parscale, he told jared kushner, jared kushner then told hope hicks. apparently that's documentation of all that. okay. this was when wikileaks was widely reported to be part of the russian operation. they were all notified that wikileaks and don jr. were in direct communication. so when all or most of those people subsequently claimed they had no idea anybody associated with the campaign had anything to do with this russian operation, is that like a criminal offense lie or is that just a lie-lie or is there some other potential explanation here? the day that donald trump jr. tweeted out the special wikileaks link given to him by wikileaks for more efficient distribution of the stolen anti-clinton e-mails, that same day mike pence went on "fox and friends" and was asked if there was any possibility that the trump campaign was in cahoots with wikileaks, and mike pence responded, "nothing could be

further from the truth." literally that day the trump campaign was actually in cahoots with wikileaks. is that actionable? either in terms of potentially prosecuting somebody or in terms of what investigators or prosecutors might do with that falsehood from the man who is now vice president and from all those other senior people on the campaign? how do you handle a case like this, that's both criminal and counterintelligence, it involved we now know dozens of surreptitious meetings and contacts, some of which are still being exposed for the first time today, now? how do you manage an investigatory mushroom cloud like this one? i mean, if you could invent a person to talk to about that you would invent somebody who was like used to work with -- counsel to bob mueller at the fbi and was also like chief of staff to james comey and maybe that person had also been a former u.s. attorney himself and one of the really crucial districts like the eastern district of virginia.

you would invent somebody who had been involved in incredibly complex high-level justice department investigations and prosecutions in their own right and who intimately knows all the players involved here. and i guess ideally you would want them also to have a little bit of trump administration experience. you would want them to know what the trump administration is like. and then you would probably want to get the first interview with them after they left the trump administration. and that's what we have done tonight, because that is a real person i'm describing and he is my guest here exclusively, next. patrick woke up with back pain. but he has work to do. so he took aleve. if he'd taken tylenol, he'd be stopping for more pills right now. only aleve has the strength to stop tough pain for up to 12 hours with just one pill. aleve. all day strong. a heart transplant... that's a whole different ballgame. i was in shock. i am very proud of the development of drugs that can prevent the rejection and prevent the recurrence

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find out how at sanfranciscodignity.com. or a little internet machine? it makes you wonder: shouldn't we get our phones and internet from the same company? that's why xfinity mobile comes with your internet. you get up to 5 lines of talk and text at no extra cost. so all you pay for is data. see how much you can save. choose by the gig or unlimited. xfinity mobile. a new kind of network designed to save you money. call, visit, or go to xfinitymobile.com. our next guest served as counsel to robert mueller when mueller was director of the fbi.

our next guest also served as chief of staff to the deputy attorney general of the united states when that deputy a.g. was james comey. he also served as chief of staff to james comey when comey was fbi director. you can see him in the middle there holding the bible as james comey was sworn in to run the fbi. not for nothing, he also himself served as the u.s. attorney for the eastern district of virginia which is now a very familiar jurisdiction to those of us who have been following the twists and turns in the special counsel investigation and the investigations of trump campaign chair paul manafort, trump national security adviser mike flynn. it's one of the highest profile u.s. attorney jurisdictions in the country, in terms of stuff related to washington, also stuff related to spying and terrorism. by the time the trump administration came into being, our next guest was serving as the acting director of the dea. in september he announced he would be stepping down from that role.

and "the new york times" reported that he had "become convinced that president trump has little respect for the law." i have been wondering about the circumstances of his departure and was hoping i would someday get a chance to talk to him. his name is chuck rosenberg. this is his first interview since leaving the trump administration. and boy, do i have a lot of things to ask about. mr. rosenberg, thank you very much for being here. i really appreciate it. >> it's my pleasure, rachel. thanks for having me. >> i should mention you are also an msnbc/nbc news contributor. we are really happy to have you on board here. >> thank you. >> i want to ask about a lot of different things that are going on right now. in part just doing your mini resume think think our viewers will understand that you've had proximity tie lot of the most interesting people and jurisdictions here. >> what they may take from that is that i can't keep a job. >> i wouldn't say -- none of those jobs are ones you've held for five minutes. i've had a lot of those. but i do want to ask you about your decision to stay on into the trump administration, and then your decision to leave this

fall. obviously, you were acting d.e.a. administrator when the trump administration came to the fore. you stayed there for nine months before you announced you were leaving. why did you leave? >> the first part is easy. i was asked to serve by attorney general lynch under president obama. i have great respect for the men and women of d.e.a. when someone asks you to do something and you can do it, then you try to do it. the reason i left is more complicated. but i was uncomfortable. and i didn't want to make it about me, rachel. the worst thing that i can do as a leader of an organization like the dea is make it about me. and so when the president condoned the mistreatment of criminal defendants in a speech that he gave in new york, i sent an e-mail to all the men and women of dea. it became public, that was not my intent or my goal, but it became public. >> because you disagreed with the way the president had -- >> we don't mistreat defendants. we respect their civil rights, we respect their constitutional rights.

they are human beings and we will treat them as such. we don't condone police brutality. but i was concerned this was becoming about me, and that's not fair to the men and women of dea. and so it's time to go. >> when "the new york times" characterized you more broadly as having lost confidence in the president's respect for the rule of law, was that an accurate characterization? >> it was. >> would you -- did they ask you to stay or did they offer you a different job when you made clear you would like to leave? >> no, it was pretty clear they were going to make a change anyway, and that's fine, that happens all the time, i get that. and so i figured, let me clear out, let me go do something else. >> you were chief of staff to james comey when he was the deputy attorney general and also when he was fbi director. >> and we were colleagues before that. we were both assistant u.s. attorneys together in the eastern district of virginia. >> given that long relationship, can you describe your personal

view of him and i can ask you about some of the legal stuff too, but the president this weekend on his asia trip went out of his way to single out former director comey by name and call him a political hack. the president has kept up a cycle of personal attacks past firing him. i just wanted to ask, as somebody who knows him personally, how does that affect him and how does that affect you? >> i don't have a long complicated answer to your question. jim is a man of tremendous integrity and tremendous intellect, and he's a friend. so i'm completely biased. but i also believe i am completely right. it was a privilege to work with him. it was a privilege to work for him. and i learned as much from jim comey as i've ever learned from any mentor or boss in my entire life. >> when he made contemporaneous notes of his conversations with the president, which he testified about to congress, he said those conversations were troubling to him, that's why he made contemporaneous notes,

that's why he shared the content of those notes and memos with other senior justice department o'and fbi officials. is that standard operating procedure? is that something you knew him to do other times in his career? >> i know others who have done it. i've done it myself. if you see something you want to remember, and i don't mean necessarily something that troubles you, just something you want to remember, well, then you write it down. because memories fade. so i've done that too. i've come from a meeting, i say you know what, something happened today that's a little bit weird or a little bit good or a little bit odd or whatever, and i write it down. not unusual. sometimes it's just an e-mail to myself. >> if that subject of your memo to self or notes you that shared with other people ends up being part of a criminal investigation, how do prosecutors or grand juries treat that kind of evidence? obviously, there was no witness in the room to what the president told james comey. the only sort of witness that we have is what comey memorialized

to himself in terms of what happened in those conversations. how would that be treated in terms of evidence? >> contemporaneous notes are helpful because they help witnesses to remember stuff, and frankly we want witnesses to remember stuff. there's lots of ways for me to refresh your recollection on something that may have happened to you. one way would be to show you something you wrote at the time. hey, rachel, does this jog your memory? you would read it and say yes or no, either it does or doesn't. but that kind of stuff is helpful. and if the person making the notes is a truth teller like james comey, that stuff's even more helpful. >> would the notes be admissible? >> the notes themselves are probably not admissible. but if the witness forgets something while testifying, you can use anything to refresh their recollection so the notes could be used in that way. >> we know there are other fbi officials that james comey briefed. would we expect those people who he briefed about those conversations with the president to be called as witnesses in terms of what they contemporaneously heard from comey? >> again, so without getting hypertechnical, because that's

sort of boring, you know, that might be hearsay, what he said to others. there are exceptions to the hearsay rule that might permit it. but they might also have independent knowledge. so yes, possibly, if they were part of a conversation, they could be called as witnesses too. >> chuck rosenberg is our guest, he isw a former chief of staff to james comey, former counsel to robert mueller, former u.s. attorney for the eastern district of virginia. this is his first interview since leaving the trump administration last month. will you stick with us? >> i would be delighted. >> you don't have a choice. >> okay. >> we'll be back with chuck rosenberg in just a moment. 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

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let me begin with one overarching question. why do you believe you were fired? >> i don't know for sure. i believe -- i take the president at his word that i was fired because of the russia investigation. something about the way i was conducting it the president felt created pressure on him he wanted to relieve. >> i'm joined again by chuck rosenberg, former u.s. toern for the eastern district of virginia, also former aide to both james comey and robert mueller. until last month he was the acting administrator of the dea until he stepped down because of his discomfort, in his words, with practices of the trump administration and of the president. mr. rosenberg, thank you again. >> my pleasure. >> you just saw there james comey making the case to congress as to why he believes he was fired. what is your view about how strong the case is that the firing of james comey was the obstruction of justice?

>> well, it's a possibility. there's a whole bunch of other things we need to know. i presume bob mueller knows them or will find them out. from where i stand, he might have an obstruction case. but let me be clear about something. the mere fact that you have the elements of a crime, that you've met the elements of a statute, doesn't necessarily mean that you have a prosecutable case. federal prosecutors are trained that you also have to have a reasonable probability of conviction. so there are times when we have the elements, and it looks like you might here, but do we have a prosecutable case? different question. and i don't know the answer to that. >> and what are the necessary but not sufficient elements that you need to put together in order to prove obstruction of justice? >> you need to have a pending investigation. you need to have some act that impedes or impairs the investigation. >> or attempts to. >> or attempts to, endeavors to. and you need to have the requisite intent. of those things, intent is

usually the most difficult to prove. you might have bare bones elements. but you might not have a prosecutable case. don't know yet, rachel. don't know. but it's in really good hands. >> well, to that point, i mean, tonight -- we woke up this morning to "the washington post" publishing a list of what it believed was the omnibus list of contacts between the trump campaign and russian officials or agents, 30 different contacts. by this afternoon we had news from "the atlantic" magazine of further undisclosed contacts between donald trump jr. and wick laek wikileaks, which has been named as essentially a russian cutout in this operation. that's interesting on its face in terms of whether or not there's contacts, knowing contacts, which might themselves be legally problematic for donald trump jr. but i'm wondering how the investigation is managed in such a way when it continues to mushroom the way it does, when there are that many contacts, that many people who have been

not telling the truth about their communications with russians, and when obstruction of justice possibility becomes a tangent off this one, foreign agent stuff registration becomes a tangent, bank fraud becomes a tangent off of this. how do you handle something that big and spreading? >> how do you handle a big thing? first of all you have a guy in bob mueller who ran the fbi. and remember, what was bobb's first big case? seven days after he started, the attacks of 9/11, rachel. you want to talk about a big case, that's the biggest case in fbi history. 500,000 interviews, right? you had agents all over the world working nonstop, day in and day out, on the biggest case in fbi history. guess who managed it. bob mueller. and so if you're asking me is this a big case, you bet it is. if you're asking me does it appear to be getting bigger, the answer is yes. but you have a brilliant manager at the helm. you have the right guy for this job.

and so maybe you bring on more prosecutors or more agents or maybe you break up the team in different ways. i guarantee they have a few big whiteboards in there. but this man can manage a case. >> you were u.s. attorney in the eastern district of virginia, speaking of 9/11, prosecuted zacharias moussoui. who is now in federal super max prison, was prosecuted through the normal court system and not military commission. >> right. and i'm a big fan of article 3 courts because -- and i'm completely biased here again. but we've done this for years. and we've done it in a transparent way, tethered to the constitution, to the rule of law, to criminal rules of evidence and criminal rules of procedure. i think article iii courts are the place to be if you're trying to bring a terrorist case in this country. >> eastern district of virginia handles cases that important. >> you bet they do. >> dana boente was eastern district of virginia attorney. intending to stay on in the

eastern district of virginia, had been advised personally by the president that he could stay on. we're not told why he was fired but we're told he was fired the day before the first indictments came down in the special counsel's investigation. those may be totally unrelated matters. but as the former u.s. attorney there, as somebody who i believe has known dana boente for a long time, do you have any insight into that firing? >> i've known dana for about 300 years. and by the way, he was my first assistant when i was the u.s. attorney. i asked him to take on that job essentially as the chief operating officer of our office. old and dear friend. as to your second question, rachel, that's up to dana. whatever reasons he knows or is willing to share, i have to leave that to dana. it's not for me to say. >> it's probably worth asking the trump administration why they decided to fire him. >> you could ask them. >> i'll make some calls. >> i bet you will. >> chuck rosenberg, now an nbc and msnbc news contributor. this is his first interview since leaving the trump administration last month. mr. rosenberg, i hope this is

the first of many times we get to talk. >> i hope so too. thank you, rachel. real pleasure. >> appreciate it. chuck rosenberg, former acting zrifrnt of the dea, former u.s. attorney, former top aide to robert mueller and james comey, and now he gets to talk to us. we'll be right back. each year sarah climbs 58,007 steps. that's the height of mount everest. because each day she chooses to take the stairs. at work, at home... even on the escalator. that can be hard on her lower body, so now she does it with dr. scholl's orthotics. clinically proven to relieve and prevent foot, knee or lower back pain,

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u.s. senator." the newspaper citing allegations from now five women who say they were teenagers when roy moore, who was in his late 20s and early 30s, approached them sexually or romantically. quote, "the seriousness of knees incidents cannot be overstated. they should not be parsed with talk of statutes of limitations or proof exists. proof beyond a reasonable doubt is a consideration for the courtroom, not the ballot box. his candidacy is over. his true character has been revealed. it's time for the gop to remove its official support. and since he and his party can't assure it, the voters of alabama must." again, this is the editorial board from the largest newspaper in the state of alabama tonight. now, roy moore has denied allegations of sexual misconduct against a 14-year-old girl. today he denied even knowing a fifth accuser who says he violently assaulted her when she was 16. those allegations are being cited by a growing number of republican senators across the

country who say that roy moore should now withdraw from that senate race. here's the thing, though. back home in alabama, republican part officials have made no efforts to try to stop roy moore from winning the senate election. now nbc news can report that neither has the national republican party. nbc's vaughn hilliard has been in alabama reporting on the fallout there, he reports tonight citing two sources, that the national republican party still has 11 operatives on the ground in alabama tonight, trying to help roy moore win this senate election. so the republican party senate campaign arm has made a big show out of dropping him. lots of republican senators as individuals have made a big show out of dropping him. but not the rnc. the rnc has a joint fundraising agreement with the roy moore campaign, there's no indication they have removed themselves from that agreement. again, they've got 11 paid operatives on the ground in alabama tonight helping roy moore win. asked whether the rnc planned to change its operations on the ground in alabama, nbc news got

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on thursday after "the washington post" first reported allegations of four women that they had been pursued sexually or romantically by roy moore

when he was a man in his 30s and they were teenagers, john archiba archibald, columnist, told us roy moore wouldn't drop out of the race and the allegations probably wouldn't hurt moore's chances of winning that senate seat. now a fifth accuser came forward today accusing him of a violent attempt the sexual assault. has the view from alabama changed at all? john archibald joins us now from the great state of alabama. thank you for being here. >> thank you, rachel. >> do you think that the overall trajectory of this case changes now with this fifth accuser? >> i think it's changed a good bit since i talked to you last. i think it was a watershed day. anybody who saw that press conference today and didn't find it compelling didn't watch the same thing i watched and i get that sense that a lot of people felt that way. >> when you say you found it compelling, did you find it to be just materially different and more disturbing than the earlier allegations or just the fact

that this woman was willing to put herself out there live on camera and tell everybody in her own words? >> well, you know, she had that -- she was unmistakably gadsden when she spoke and she spoke like someone people here would know and she spoke with a ring of truth. now, i'm saying that. the so-called political leadership here has not said that. they're still holding fast to that belief that, you know, if you say it was put up by the liberal media long enough people believe it. >> in terms of -- i guess in terms of the preponderance of evidence here, saying that this is a liberal media thing, a gloria allred brought the woman forward and "the washington post" initially published the allegations, there's new reports in "the new yorker" and corroborated by your paper that in the '80s around the time of these allegations supposed to have happened, roy moore was seen as a problem at the local mall, that he was somebody who was asked to leave or somehow sort of blackballed from the

local shopping center because of his what was seen as predatory behavior toward young girls. that's not a liberal media creation unless your paper's the liberal media. do you think that changes anything? >> well, you know, i think there comes a time where the timing, where it started, even if there were evidence that, you know, this was put out by either the gop establishment or democrats it doesn't matter when you hear, you know, four women in the "washington post," 30 sources there, plus this woman today who was completely compelling, and others coming out time and time again. i mean, at some point you have to realize this is a problem no matter whether, you know, somebody with a political interest pointed it to somebody or another. but the behavior is unquestionably disturbing, and what was described today was unquestionably criminal. this is not creepy anymore. this is sexual assault of a young girl. >> john, one last question. nbc news reported tonight that there are 11 operatives for the rnc still working in alabama

tonight on roy moore's behalf. you don't have any information about that or any evidence about what the on the ground campaign looks like for him right now, do you? >> no. i just know it continues and there's been no change in that direction. and i'm still betting he wins. >> john archibald, columnist at al.com. thank you for your time tonight. we appreciate it. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back. stay with us. coaching means making tough choices.

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the senate next month and then expelled from the senate maybe the alabama governor could appoint jeff sessions to that seat instead. that would put jeff sessions back in his own seat and have the knock-on effect of removing that does it for us tonight. we'll see you tomorrow. now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." good evening, lawrence. >> good evening, rachel. from miami -- >> oh. >> that's where i am tonight at the miami book fair. and, high from northampton. >> hi from north ramp on the? massachusetts? >> okay. you migh-