this is not first time he's joked about nuclear war on twitter. >> that's true. thanks for joining you us. that's it for this eengs. "the rachel maddow show" starts now. good evening rachel. >> thank you my friend. appreciated. thanks at home for joining us this hour. okay. a lot happened today. good news is we've got this hour together here on tv to sort it out. i will tell you right now we've got more guests than we usually have on the show this hour. that is specifically because i wanted to get experts and lawyers and reporters on the air to explain each of these big surprise developments in today's news, one after other, piece by piece. we're going to get to a lot tonight and have expert help figuring it out. table of contents, i promise you we'll untangle these one after the other over the course of the hour. when we started the news cycle

today, got up, thought big news would be the book from journalist michael wolff. everyone currently in and recently out of the trump administration says terrible things about each other. steve bannon reportedly says ivanka trump is dumb as brick and president reportedly calls former acting attorney general sally yates the c word. and tom barrack reportedly one of the closest friends calls the president not only crazy but stupid. quite collection of human drama and ripe insults in the new book. we'll get to some of that tonight. including the president putting out rip roaring written statement insulting steve bannon, former white house chief strategist, man running the campaign when he won the election. all out there as of today. i have to tell you, also

non-human drama news in the book. perhaps less soap opera and intrigue but more legal liability. there are claims in the book apparently that could indicate new liability we didn't know about for the president and members of his family on obstruction of justice. for sure insults and damning anecdotes impossible to turn away from. former -- saying president is like a child. reported suspicious by members of the staff that president may only be semi literate. there's a lot there. but also a white house in cross hairs of biggest investigation ever mounted against any u.s. president ever. watch for newly unearthed potential legal liabilities to be triggers for upset in the

white house. potentially for renewed aggression by white house and republicans who support the white house against the special counsel and the fbi. on that front there's a whole lot of stuff that just happened today. and lot of it was a surprise. let's start with the u.s. attorneys. remember that back in march president trump fired all the u.s. attorneys, all the federal prosecutors around the country. it's within a president's purview to do that. other presidents have gotten rid of all of them too. nobody ever like trump did it. mass firing happened without warning or notice. federal prosecutors removed in the past they were given time to plan for the seamless handing off of their work, making sure nothing was disrupted. in march though, when trump did it, he just told all the prosecutors, you're gone, today. get out immediately. that is totally unprecedented. now that mass firing of all the

prosecutors included the high profile u.s. attorney in southern district of new york, manhattan, prooet barr aura. despite meeting with him. it was such a sharp u-turn on that one prosecutor, the particular prosecutor who happened to be the one who had the trump organization geographically within his jurisdiction and wide jurisdiction to pursue financial crimes of all sorts because so many globally route transactions through new york city. those firings happened in march. dozens. most high profile was bharara. but there was no time for u.s. attorneys to plan for orderly

procession of their offices. fired and told to get out that day. luckily there is a vacancies reform act that establishes a process for who takes over when they're yanked out without notice. fired u.s. attorneys were all replaced the day they were fired by first assistants, already serving in those offices thanks to the federal vacancies reform act. here's the problem, that has an expiration date. tells you who is going to run office after you fire someone but only tells you who is going to run it for the first 300 days after the firing. then by the end of 300 days administration is supposed to have picked somebody new to run that office. trump fired all the u.s. attorneys in march, 300 days since when he fired them is tomorrow. he hasn't replaced them.

so right quick today, with the 300 day deadline rolling up on us tonight at midnight they just today appointed 17 new u.s. attorneys to take over federal prosecutors offices all over the country. very last day they could with hours to spare. part of what is important about this, they really did just fire the senior federal prosecutors across the country with no plan and 300 days later still scrambling to figure out what to do in those offices. but through this ridiculous process today, very last minute, all of a sudden appointed 17 new people to take these jobs, what they did today, also made choice decisions. including in that key district in manhattan, preet bharara home to trump tower, banking sector

and lot that trump family holds near and dear. new interim u.s. attorney in manhattan will be rudy giuliani's law partner. law partner of one of the president's closest allies. if hypothetically, spitting this out, if the president and republicans who support the president succeeded in dismantling the robert mueller special counsel investigation, conceivably any evidence that robert mueller turned up with criminal implications for trump or the family businesses in manhattan, that evidence would redo you understand to prosecutors in the relevant jurisdictions like manhattan, now led by rudy giuliani's law partner. or to the eastern district of new york, brooklyn. that u.s. attorney has

reportedly subpoenaed banking records related to jared kushner in recent weeks already. that office just got a new purpose in charge, new interim u.s. attorney appointed by the trump administration. down to the wire, last minute, 300 days are up interim appointments that happened today are potentially very important. we'll have more on that coming up over the course of the show tonight. in terms of the mueller investigation directly, cnn was first to report today that president's lawyers have met with robert mueller and his investigators. we don't know what happened at long-awaited meeting between the president's and special counsel's legal team but cnn helpfully notes, trump lawyers no longer puts dates on when they expected the mueller investigation to end after previously predicting thanksgiving, then christmas,

then the aenend of this past ye. but there were two big developments today on the republican effort to block or stymie the mueller investigation or at least politically bloody the fbi enough so that the investigation may get hurt in the process. i said a lot happened tonight. a lot has happened today and into tonight. what we seem to be seeing from concerted effort by republicans to try to derail or stymie or somehow deride the mueller investigation, first thing was this surprise tonight. this moment. you remember that back in march, a week before trump fired all the u.s. attorneys, the attorney general jeff sessions recused himself from over seeing any investigation at justice department that pertained to the 2016 campaign, including the russian investigation. when he made that recusal, made

this man, rod rosenstein, the de facto attorney general in charge of overseeing any investigations related to the 2016 campaign including the russia investigation. deputy attorney general rod rosenstein appointed special counsel robert mueller, the man who mueller reports to at justice department. appointed by president trump, he's a republican. nobody quite knows who wha to make of him secondhand his inclinations on the russia investigation. refused to discuss in public other than saying that robert mueller is the right man for the job. today, surprise. bunch of reporters were staking out paul ryan's office. speaker of the house's office today, hoping to catch some news about budget negotiations in congress. all outside paul ryan's office when, hey now, here comes --

isn't that rod rosenstein and his security detail? yeah. there's the deputy attorney general filing into house speaker paul ryan's office. what's he doing here? reporters soon sussed out, even though nobody knew this was coming, rod rosenstein was there to talk with him about the russia investigation. later learned that the meeting is something that rod rosenstein had asked for. and fbi director chris ray was in that meeting too. then it turned out what they were meeting about was the russia investigation. we can narrow it down even further. the fact of this meeting was a surprise to everybody. what's going on here? speaker of the house is technically most powerful person in whole legislative branch. while all the controversial inquiries have been under way in the house technically under his leadership speaker paul ryan has mostly stayed out of the russia

story. here today head of the fbi and de facto attorney general showing up in surprise to everyone. we believe that justice department tonight was poised to hand over to congressional republicans, specifically to devin nunes on the trump transition team, emerged as one of the most aggressive trump partisans in the house. we believe that justice department was poised to hand over to devin nunes documents he demanded from the justice department and fbi that were potentially sensitive about the ongoing robert mueller investigation. devin nunes sent this letter to the justice department between christmas and new year's demanding they turn over all fbi interview summaries and reports of meetings between fbi agents and confidential human sources

that related to the dossier of alleged russian dirt on donald trump that was first collected by veteran spy christopher steele. argument was that russian government interfered in the election. that central finding was borne out and affirmed in the intelligence investigation that came out later this week. recent reporting from the "new york times" and "guardian" suggest there were other intelligence streams behind the steele dossier that led the fbi to start inquiry into the trump campaign and ties to russia. but the steele dossier was something that fbi looked at hard. christopher steele showed it to fbi agent in late summer of 2016 during the presidential campaign. fbi sent a team to debrief him a month before the presidential

election. whether the fbi then followed up with sources or did their own interviews and investigations to disprove or verify or build on what christopher steele found? wouldn't you like to know devin nunes? wouldn't you like to see confidential interview transcripts and fbi reports from meetings with confidential human sources? our reporting indicates tonight that nunes was poised to get documents tonight in response to his letter demanding they hand over this sensitive fbi investigatetory material right in the middle of the mueller investigation. but surprise we believe that justice department was poised to hand that over but surprise, didn't hand over anything to devin nunes tonight.

and 4:30 this afternoon in walks the justice department to paul ryan's office. deputy attorney general and head of the fbi walk into the office of the man who could be construed to be devin nunes's boss in congress. paul ryan is head of the house. top officials in the doj and fbi went directly to paul ryan tonight. we're told they were there to talk about the russia investigation and devin nunes in particular. wow. that's something. and i say it's something because i have no idea what that is. really don't know what happened there. speaker ryan's office is referring people to the justice department and fbi. they're saying nothing about what happened here. but this was a surprise meeting. and those documents supposed to go to devin nunes didn't go there. conceivably they could have been opening up very sensitive stuff from the middle of the mueller

investigation while it's under way. drama. and that brings us to the last thing i want to get to off the top of the show tonight, the first direct effort by anybody in the orbit of president trump to try to shut down the mueller investigation directly. trump campaign chairman paul manafort was indicted on multiple felony charges. trial due to start may 2nd. today he and lawyers filed a civil lawsuit against robert mueller and justice department official who appointed him and oversees the investigation, deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. i'm not a lawyer but i think it might be weird that manafort has filed this as civil lawsuit. wouldn't you just file this in his own case? but it's demanding that order

appointed robert mueller be declared invalid, actions taken by him be voided, presumably voiding the indictment of paul manafort. and manafort is demanding order and judgment declaring that mr. mueller lacks authority to investigate business dealings not arising from original jurisdiction set out in the order that appointed him. close quote. sounds nuts. why is paul manafort doing this now? is this a legal hail mary as it appears to be? if this has no chance of ever prevailing in court, what else could he be doing this for? obviously if he won that last point, injunction from a court that says special counsel can't investigate business dealings, well that would be awesome for his own case. it might conceivably also be awesome for anyone else who might be worried their business

dealings are in robert mueller's cross hairs right now. expert advice on the subject is at hand. honestly if i were paul manafort and going to ask the president for a pardon in my criminal case, this might be nice holiday card to wrap it up in. by the way boss, i tried to get robert mueller declared unable to look at anybody's business dealings. i tried boss. joining us now is former solicitor general in obama administration and now constitutional law professor at georgetown. thanks for being here. >> great to be back. >> basis of this lawsuit by paul manafort tonight, seeking to end the robert mueller investigation essentially, is that he says the special counsel regulations are basically bad. and he says that robert mueller is acting outside the bounds of what he can legally do. you as far as i can tell wrote

the special counsel regulations the basis of the lawsuit. how do you view this lawsuit? >> to call there a basis for this lawsuit is overly generous. as solicitor general i saw thousands of lawsuits. criminal defendants often explain about the prosecutor expanding their jurisdiction. rarely seen one this frivolous. to use the legal term, this is silly. argument is special counsel regulations written in 1999 only permit original grant of jurisdiction for the prosecutor for cases in which there is no conflict of interest. and i paul manafort might have been involved in shady dealings withed russians starting in 2005 but not a conflict of interest for the justice department to

investigate. so mueller had to go back according to manafort to ask for additional authority from rosenstein to investigate the russian money laundering. lot of problems. most important, factually not true. you said rosenstein has been quiet about the investigation, just saying that mueller is good man. but actually in his december testimony last month said something more than that. to the extent there's any ambiguity about it, mueller has received my permission to these matters. quote is longer than that. but it's clear that mueller has done exactly what lawsuit asked him to do, go and ask for expansion of authority. this is a bogus lawsuit. >> i'm not a lawyer but a dope who tries to explain these things on tv. is this one of those things where there is a lot of political fighting and legal

controversy as to whether or not the special counsel should exist whether or not the regulations of the justice department creating this type of role is something that's proper? is this manafort lawsuit tapping into some larger discussion where he might be expected to bring partisans from that argument over to his side? >> i don't think so. when we crafted them in 1999, widespread bipartisan consensus with republicans and democrats alike that you can't have independent act, thing that gave ken starr and others power over -- lot of us have lived through watergate and government coverup and all the stuff you were saying about the devin nunes and rudy jugiuliani's law firm, central questions in any

republic, who guards the guardians. can't throw out the special counsel regulations and pretend that appointed officials can do everything. needs to be something in place. not tapping into anything except manafort's lawyer's desire to get paid something more by the hour or something like that. end of this lawsuit will be one big winner, robert mueller. going to get a lay-up win in court. >> constitutional law professional at georgetown university, exactly the man i wanted to talk to about this. thanks for being here. lot of people called this lawsuit frivolous, heard neil call it silly. but last point he made is important. manafort's lawyers have brought something nobody think has any chance of breaking in manafort's direction. if this does get taken up by

court and treated the way most observers think it will be, could strengthen mueller by clarifying even more his authority to act under the authority in which he was appointed. i don't know why they did this. busy news day. stay with us. when you book a flight then add a hotel you can save. 3 waves later, i think it was the other way around... ♪ everything you need to go. expedia. ai'm begging you... take gas-x. beneath the duvet, your tossing and turning isn't restlessness , it's gas. gas-x relieves pressure,bloating and discomfort in minutes !! so we can all sleep easier tonight.

let with one a day women's. a complete multivitamin specially formulated with key nutrients plus vitamin d for bone health support. your one a day is showing. save up to $8 on one a day. see sunday's paper. we know that when you're >> tspending time with thelass grandkids... ♪ music >> tech: ...every minute counts. and you don't have time for a cracked windshield. that's why at safelite, we'll show you exactly when we'll be there.

with a replacement you can trust. all done sir. >> grandpa: looks great! >> tech: thanks for choosing safelite. >> grandpa: thank you! >> child: bye! >> tech: bye! saving you time... so you can keep saving the world. >> kids: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace ♪

last night just before we went on the air, "new york times" published a scoop, interesting news in form of op-ed. unusual way to breaking news. but by founders of the research firm fusion gps, firm that hired former british spy christopher

steele in 2016 to look into donald trump's russia connections. produced famous dossier of detailed allegations about the russian government intervening in the election to help donald trump win. fusion attacked by white house and republicans for their role in producing the dossier but fusion says they stand by their work. say attacks on them an effort to divert attention from damning stuff they turned up about trump and russia. fusion's founder glenn simpson has testified more than 20 hours before three investigative committees behind closed doors. calling on committees to release the transcripts of the testimony so americans can judge for themselves as republicans continue to attack that firm and the dossier. today the chairman of the first

committee where glenn simpson testified. judicial committee in the senate gave a response. doesn't make much sense. chuck grassley, in august he said he would support releasing the transcript of simpson's testimony. in august. today he said no, doesn't support that anymore. citing quote investigative factors he must consider to temporarily protect information in midst of inquiry like this one, tainting memory of other witnesses. more importantly senator grassley provided fusion gps an opportunity for transparency six months ago when he invited the firm to publicly testify at open committee hearing. mr. simpson declined. that remains on the table. two arguments from grassley in

same statement. would taint the investigation for anyone in the public to know what you've told us. also you should have said it publicly. two very contradictory ideas. can't say that. you should have just said that. tonight the top democrat on the committee, diane feinstein, office tells us she supports releasing the ten-hour transcript of testimony. amy cloeb ucher also is on the committee and she supports releasing the testimony. question one, why isn't it being released? question two, if senator grassley is going to stick to his u-turn on this and republicans aren't going to let this out, could fusion tell us more about their testimony on their own without the transcript being released? in their op-ed for instance, i told you they broke news.

part of the news is that fusion allowed all readers of the "new york times" to know one of the things they testified to was their belief that congressional investigators should look into the bank records of deutsche bank and other investigators. and look into red flags for money laundering at various trump properties. testified but investigators showed little interest in pursuing these matters. plenty of other people have interest though. if republicans won't let it out in transcripts, could we get it in other means? could fusion describe what they testified to? could other members of the committee tell us what was said? joining us senator richard blumenthal from connecticut, heard testimony from glenn

simpson in august. when we contacted back at time, you were only one to publicly support releasing that transcript. good to see you. thanks for being here. >> thanks rachel. >> said this should be out there. senator feinstein, top democrat, also tells us she support it's, senator klobuchar also support it's. previously reported that senator orrin hatch was in support. chuck grassley had told constituents he would probably vote for releasing the transcript. what is going on now in terms of it not being released? >> there is no question, rachel, that the summary of the interview should be released, also the transcript of interview with donald trump jr. and other witnesses who have come before the committee. what is going on now seems to be

part of an effort to distract from the underlying investigation of collusion between the russians and the trump campaign and their interference in our election and possible obstruction of justice. it's unconsignable we don't issue subpoenas for donald trump jr. and others with relevant knowledge about the potential collusion and obstruction of justice. >> senator grassley is now making argument that releasing this might interfere with ongoing investigations, other witness's recollections of events. seems to be not irrational argument for why some testimony might be kept private and out of public hands while investigation is ongoing. i mentioned it's a new argument for senator grassley. didn't seem to be bothered by it

before. and didn't preclude other committees releasing testimony from erik prince or carter page. >> read that interview and reviewed it. and also read and closely reviewed the transcript of the interview with donald trump jr. real unanswered questions, ones that should be revealed in public are in donald trump jr.'s testimony. and there is no way that the testimony, if released from glenn simpson, would taint, influence or any any way distract from the testimony of others before this committee. think the american public needs to know what all of this testimony is. they have a right to know it. the real distraction in my view is the focus on fusion gps in the way that republicans are using it because it's part of an effort to distract us from the real focus, collusion between the trump campaign and russians

and their meddling, as well as obstruction of justice and also legislation that must be passed to protect the special counsel. you've made reference already tonight to a number of very concerning developments. appointment of a new u.s. attorney in the southern district of new york who was personally interviewed by the president. as well as meeting between paul ryan and christopher wray, head of the fbi and rod rosenstein, all looks of efforts to stymie or stop the robert mueller investigation. >> do you know anything about the meeting? it was surprise to observers, i don't think anybody had advance word, not sure we know what it's about. told that it was to discuss congressman devin nunes,

controversial chair of the committee and trump transition member. do you know anything about it? >> hope is it was not to hand over evidence, summaries of evidence or indications of what was going to happen in the investigation, that would be improper. >> senator blumenthal, i appreciate your time. thanks for being with us. >> thank you. >> don't let this get lost in the sauce here. underscoring what senator just said. having reviewed transcripts of the donald trump jr. testimony, behind closed doors and not released. and glenn simpson testimony, same, having seen both of those transcripts, he says there's nothing about the fusion gps transcript which would taint anything from another witness and interfere with the investigation and he's calling for that donald trump jr. transcript to be released saying it's important.

my interest is piqued. stay with us. we'll be right back. with adt, you can feel safe for only $49.00. that includes security panel, keypad, key fob, entry and motion sensors and for a limited time, get a camera included and installed at no additional cost.

of the season' on the only bed that adjusts on both sides to your ideal comfort, your sleep number setting. does your bed do that? right now our queen c4 mattress is only $1199, save $400. ends soon. visit sleepnumber.com for a store near you.

woman: so, greg, it's a lot to take in. woman 2: and i know that's hard to hear, but the doctors caught it early. hi, blake! my dad has cancer. woman: and i know how hard that is to hear. but you're in the right place. man: and dr. pascal and her team, they know what to do. they know what to do. the doctors know what to do. so here's the plan. first off, we're going to give you all... (voice fading away) you don't see something like this on white house letterhood every day, quote, steve bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency. when he was fired he had already lost his mind. when he worked as staffer, already won the nomination. now steve is on his own.

learning that winning not as easy as i made it look. little to do with our historic victory, but everything to do with loss of senate seat in alabama held for years by republicans. doesn't represent my base. only in it for himself. >> technically the alabama republicans held the seat 20th-ish years, not 30. but book by michael wolff, steve bannon says not nice things about the president and first year in office. book is a wild read. and beyond the stuff in the pages and lost his mind response to the pages, key parts of the book have been lost. understandably because so much salacious stuff. in terms of substance here, we know in june on air force one heading back from germany,

president and staff cooked up a l -- misleading statement, defending a meeting that president's son and members of the campaign took with the russians during the campaign. they said it was primarily about russian adoptions. we now know it was called to deliver russian government provided dirt on hillary clinton to team trump. that's why they took the meeting. today we got a new account on what happened on that trip home from germany by way of the salacious new book. michael wolff reports quote the president ordered that no one should let on to the more problematic discussion about hillary clinton. it was a realtime example of denial and cover-up. continues mark corallo was instructed not to speak to the press, indeed not to even answer his phone. later that week, seeing no good outcome and privately confiding

that he believed the meeting on air force one represented a likely obstruction of justice, he quit. that's new. spokesman reportedly quit his job after privately confided he believed what he witnessed on air force one that day was obstruction of justice by the president. special counsel robert mueller has been interested in obstruction of justice in the trump investigation. now we've new reporting that member of the legal team was so disturbed by the possibility he witnessed that crime that he told other people about it, then quit. so that's one place to stick a bookmark in the new book. here's another. this is charles kushner, jared's dad. kushners own a gigantic real

estate empire, under scrutiny in the trump era. when trump was deciding whether to fire fbi director james comey, one influence on that discussion was the business opinion of jared's dad. quote charlie kushner's fear, channelled through his son and daughter-in-law was that the kushner family's dealings were getting wrapped up in pursuit of trump. jared and ivanka exhibited an increased panic that it was moving into trump family finances. daughter and son-in-law encouraged him to fire comey, arguing he was dangerous and uncontrollable player whose profit would inevitably be their loss. what happened next, president fired james comey, spurred the

appointment of special counsel and if this bock is right, might have another avenue into the investigation. whether or not james comey was fired to suppress fbi inquiries into kushner family business practices. stick a bookmark into that chapter too. serious claims in the book alongside the other stuff to open up new avenues into the investigation.

if sleep is essential to happiness. what's essential to sleep? introducing the leesa mattress. a better place to sleep. expertly designed for support, pressure relief, cooling and bounce. read our reviews then try the leesa

mattress in your own home. sleep on it for 100 nights and love it or get a full refund. order now and get $100 off. go to buyleesa.com today.

you might take something for your heart... or joints. but do you take something for your brain. with an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is the number one selling brain-health supplement in drug stores nationwide. prevagen. the name to remember.

sometimes on this show we get lucky on live tv. in october, we were puzzling over the news that the president had been personally interviewing potential candidates for federal prosecutor jobs, u.s. attorney positions in new york. seemed like kind of thing presidents don't usually do. u.s. attorneys, justice department and attorney general all supposed to operate independent of the white house. few days after that report, eric holder was on the show for interview. he fired off basically emergency flare, warning about the president interviewing those potential u.s. attorneys. >> the way it was done in the obama administration and clinton administration as well and think in the bush administrations, the highest level person that you spoke to as incoming attorney general -- u.s. attorney, was in fact the attorney general. that was it. nobody went to talk to the white house. >> and why is that?

why was it structured that way? >> to again, ensure that independence. u.s. attorney would understand that your boss is the attorney general of the united states, not supposed to have any contacts. u.s. attorney not supposed to have any contact wds the white house except through the justice department. >> u.s. attorney not supposed to have any contacts with the white house. today one of the people who donald trump personally interviewed got the job. appointed interim basis and pending senate confirmation, law partner of the trump friend rudy giuliani will become u.s. attorney for crucial southern district of new york. can't say we weren't warned. barbara mcquade, one of the u.s. attorneys fired by president back in march. thanks for joining us, nice to see you barb. >> thanks rachel. >> a bunch of interrim u.s.

attorneys appointed today. under the federal vacancies reform act, 300 days to pick somebody new once there's a vacancy, only have the days max. that day is tomorrow. what would have happened if the administration, like, really blew this and didn't notice that deadline passing or department get it together to get the appointments made at the last minute today? who would have been running the prosecutor's offices as of tomorrow? >> well, the pick then goes to the courts. the judges in the district where the u.s. attorney works gets to pick and so they may pick someone that the justice department likes, or they may pick somebody else so i think the attorney general didn't want to they can that chance that somebody other than the choosing gets the position and i think that's why he's waiting for president trump to make the nominations. didn't happen. and so, he -- it appears felt the need to act on his own. >> two of the appointments announced today in the southern

and eastern district of new york, two jurisdictions we know the president personally melt with some of the people he was considering for the u.s. attorneys in the jurisdictions. do you share eric holder's concern on the air the president meeting with the candidates for the jobs is inappropriate? >> i do. you know, it's highly unusual. just another example of some of the norms that we are seeing that are being eroded. it may be that the new u.s. attorneys are acceptable but it creates a bad appearance to erode the perception offed independence we want to have and doesn't feel beholden to the president, especially the one who presides in the district where the president has business assets, has homes, residences and is subject to the jurisdiction of that office. >> barb, let me ask you about something else that came up in the news today. i was mentioning that some of the less salacious and to me very salient stuff in the book

of michael wolf is an allegation about perceived obstruction of justice. former spokesman for the president's legal team according to michael wolf quit his job after he said he witnessed what he believed to be obstruction of justice by the president on air force leading the creation of a statement about that trump tower meeting involving his son and top members of his campaign during the presidential campaign. that seems to me like a big red flag given there's an ongoing investigation of the president and his campaign and we know that obstruction of justice is one thing that robert mueller is reportedly looking at. if that's one of the things you are looking at, how would you view an account like that appearing in a reported book? is that something that you would follow? >> agreed. i think that is absolutely a big red flag and there are other red flags about that conversation that occurred on air force one. i mean, this is the conversation about which donald trump jr. has

tried to assert attorney dlsh client privilege saying a lawyer participated in the conversation while his father was present. a big red flag. the opinion of the spokesman is dispositive and the fact he quit the job over it thinking it might be obstruction of justice to cause me to with an n't to ask him questions. what are the facts to reach that conclusion? >> barbara, former u.s. attorney, thank you very much for being with us. nice the see. you. >> thank you, rachel. thanks. >> it is a busy day, a lot happened. still more ahead. stay with us.

so that's the idea. what do you think? hate to play devil's advocate but... i kind of feel like it's a game changer. i wouldn't go that far. are you there? he's probably on mute. yeah... gary won't like it. why? because he's gary. (phone ringing) what? keep going! yeah... (laughs) (voice on phone) it's not millennial enough. there are a lot of ways to say no. thank you so much. thank you! so we're doing it. yes! "we got a yes!" start saying yes to your company's best ideas. let us help with money and know-how, so you can get business done. american express open.

all right. one of the most controversial things that this new administration did right out of the gate and that is a high bar! but one of their most controversial creations was just killed tonight. and it was killed by the white house. this is a day of lots and lots of surprises. this one is the final story tonight. that's next. ♪ this is what our version of financial planning looks like. tomorrow's important, but, this officially completes his education. spend you life living. find an advisor at northwesternmutual.com. but when we brought our daughter home, that was it. now i have nicoderm cq.

the nicoderm cq patch with unique extended release technology helps prevent your urge to smoke all day. it's the best thing that ever happened to me. every great why needs a great how. we know that when you're >> tspending time with thelass grandkids... ♪ music >> tech: ...every minute counts.

and you don't have time for a cracked windshield. that's why at safelite, we'll show you exactly when we'll be there. with a replacement you can trust. all done sir. >> grandpa: looks great! >> tech: thanks for choosing safelite. >> grandpa: thank you! >> child: bye! >> tech: bye! saving you time... so you can keep saving the world. >> kids: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace ♪ so the commission was formed in may. then it met just twice. it demanded reams of sensitive information from the states about voters. the information they were demanding sensitive enough that a bunch of the states refused to hand the information over. then they got hit with a barrage of lawsuits including one filed in november by one of its own members who said, quote, apparently this is the only way to find out what we are doing. well, then, tonight the president announced he was

killing it. dissolving the group. it is the presidential advisory commission on election integrity members didn't know they were cut loose and fired until the white house public statement went out announcing the dissolving of their group. the commissioners were simply e-mails the white house statement with a short and important addendum. quote, today the president dissolved the commission by executive order. due to pending litigation, you should continue to preserve records. it's basically been a fun year. that's as good of microcosm i've seen anywhere. it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." good evening, lawrence. >> good evening, rachel. as you can see, the beard is gone. i know you voted for the beard but let me just tell you. as i told you the vote in twitter universe kind of