harmed. that's not who our dreamers are. >> thanks for your time. >> thank you. that is "all in" for evening. the "rachel maddow show" starts right now. it has been a day of fast-moving news developments on big, important stories. i'm always grateful that you tune in to watch this show. tonight i am particularly happy that you are here. because i think today was a really important day. there's a lot of important stuff going on all at once, a lot of news stories about important things are changing rapidly today and into tonight. i think that this next hour is going to be very helpful in terms of sorting out these developing stories. we've got a couple of really, really good, really clued-in reporters who are working at the heart of the most complex stuff in washington right now who will be here to help us tease it out. this will be a good show. thank you for being here. i want to let you know that we will be talking about the

surprise resignation of yet another senior administration official from the trump administration. this time it's the director of the cdc, the centers for disease control. this is not just the latest high-profile departure of yet another high-ranking trump-appointed official. it appears to be yet another case where this resignation was over something that really should have been caught in the normal vetting process before this official was ever appointed in the first place. and there have been a bunch of those who have departed from the trump administration today. this is just the latest. we'll have more on that story tonight. and while we are talking about high-profile departures from the trump administration, we can also confirm what we first reported during the president's state of the union address last night which is that the president's nominee to be ambassador to south korea, obviously a very important ambassador post, that nominee has now either withdrawn or been pulled from consideration. during the president's speech last night, the ambassador

nominee, victor chau announced he is no longer in contention for that position and publicly came out in opposition to the president's approach to north korea, calling it a huge risk to americans. and actually, there's a trifecta tonight. if you are looking at departures and potential departures for people in high-profile roles in the trump administration. the "washington post" is now out with a brutal report on corruption allegations, involving housing secretary ben carson. juliette alperren is reporting that secretary ben carson was warned. he was warned in writing. he was warned in person, that he was giving the appearance of using his position for his son's private gain. but secretary carson, nevertheless went ahead with hud events that appear to have materially benefitted his children. and actually appear to have been designed to materially benefit

his children. one agency that's part of hhs, centers for medicare and medicaid services also reportedly awarded a no-bid contract to a firm run by secretary carson's daughter-in-law, that his son is on the board of. even for the trump administration, these are serious corruption allegations against ben carson. not least because even trump-appointed ethics officials were the once who repeatedly went on the record warning him to not do these things to benefit his family, but he did so anyway, despite having received that formal advice in advance. now, in a normal congress in a normal time, that's the kind of thing that would be front page news for days and lead to multiple congressional investigations. it would be something a whole presidency was remembered in a bad way. in our life it time right now, though, this's just a wednesday. oh, ben carson corruption allegations, mm-hm. but there are, alongside all

those, there are two really big stories that we are focussing on at the top of the news tonight. one of them involves this transcript, which was just released from the intelligence committee in the house. this transcript reads like a script from one of the best episodes of "west wing." in real time, in sometimes astonishing language, this explains how we got to this dramatic point tonight where congressional republicans and white house are apparently planning to, not just threatening to, release highly-classified information to the public, despite the objections of the agency that classified it. the fbi and the justice department we now know have spent the last two day the warning the white house about the danger of what they are about to do with this release of classified information. the fbi then took the extraordinary step this afternoon of releasing a public warning. about what the republicans in the white house are about to do, expressing their grave concerns.

there is only one official overseeing the fbi's russia investigation and its obstruction of justice investigation who the president has not yet tried to fire or actually fired. that's deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. well, tonight cnn was first to report that abc was first to match, they have all confirmed this reporting that rod rosenstein, deputy attorney general, the guy who's leading, overseeing the mueller investigation, he is the latest law enforcement official involved in the russia investigation who the president appears to have pressured, directly, about it. quote, deputy attorney general rod rosenstein visited the white house in december, seeking president trump's help. rosenstein, the top justice official in the russia investigation wanted trump's support in fighting off document demands from devin nunes, but the president had other priorities. trump wanted to know from rosenstein where the special counsel's russia investigation was heading, and he wanted to

know whether rosenstein was quote, on my team. deputy attorney general appeared surprised by the president's question. sources say he demurred on the direction of the russia investigation and responded awkwardly to the president's "team" request. he said, quote, of course we're all on your team, mr. president. it's not clear what trump meant or how rosenstein interpreted the comment. this first reported by cnn then confirmed in separate reporting by abc news and the "new york times." for context here, when the president reportedly repeatedly asked fbi director james comey for his loyalty, when he pressured james comey about the progress of the russia investigation, that was very early on in the trump presidency. one charitable interpretation of the president's actions was that, yeah, sure, maybe that looked like textbook obstruction of justice, but the president is new to this. maybe he didn't know you're not

supposed to do that. you could come up with the same charitable explanation maybe about the president's reported entreaties last year, last spring, last summer to the director of national intelligence, to the majority leader in senate, to the senate intelligence committee, all of whom the president pressured and directed to get rid of the russia investigations. you know, maybe this particular president just doesn't know you're not supposed to do that. maybe he doesn't know that it's illegal to try to obstruct an ongoing investigation. maybe he didn't know that for all of those incidents of pressure on people in a position to potentially block these investigations, which he wanted blocked. but since all of those actions by the president have been publicly reported, and since it has also become public knowledge that the president is indeed being investigated for potential criminal charges for those actions, it's no longer possible

to say that the president doesn't know, it's illegal to pressure people who are overseeing or running these investigations about those investigations. i mean, if he didn't know that was illegal and wrong before, he certainly knows now. and these new reports tonight that the pressure, the president pressured deputy attorney general rod rosenstein, the man overseeing the mueller investigation, these new reports tonight say that the president did this to rosenstein last month, at the white house. are you on my team, rosenstein? so, that is one of the two big stories at the top of the news tonight. deputy attorney general reportedly was at the white house and was pressured by the president over the russia investigation. the president made basically a loyalty request, asked him if he was on the president's team on these matters. now the reason rod rosenstein was at the white house was reportedly to talk to the president, to enlist the president's help about house

republicans and now the white house, planning to release classified information. that was only provided to them by the justice department under the understanding that that information would be handled as classified material. it wouldn't be widely disseminated. well, this story is super hot. it continues to unfold tonight, including this big pushback that we're getting from the fbi tonight and the quite amazing prospect that the white house itself may have been involved in creating this document that they're now going to release, which is insane, if the white house is involved in creating it and they're about to release it in their own defense saying it's other people's work, that's insane. the story continues to develop tonight. we'll have more on the big story coming up, including two reporters who are right on that story. but here's the other major story that you should now b i sa -- know about. here's the other one. one of the things we have had to get used to over the last 377

days is that in this administration, when there is a meeting between our american president and the president of russia or a meeting between our president and senior officials from the government of russia, as a rule, we don't hear about that from our own government. we do get news about these meetings, we do get reports about these phone calls, these contacts between our president and russia, but we get that news from russia. and's happened again and again and again. this fall, when president trump took his big trip to asia, he raised some eyebrows when it emerged that he'd be meeting with president putin on the sidelines of that asian summit. the way we learned those meetings were going to happen during the asian summit is that a member of the kremlin staff made the announcement. and that's how u.s. news agencies learned about that. only afterwards did the white house admit, yes, the kremlin is

correct, those meetings are going to happen. he met with putin three separate times on that asia trip. and then when he came back from asia, for some reason he had to meet with vladimir putin again. on november 21st, president trump had a one on one phone call with president putin. we learn thad ed that at 1:00 a when it was translated, from int interfax. and where interfax got this news was from the kremlin. and so that third hand is how we learn that important information about the american president that day. we learned what the american president would be doing that day and who he'd be talking to. we learned that from the kremlin. and it's not even just his meetings with putin himself. in may, the day after president trump fired fbi director james comey, president trump told the russian foreign minister and russian ambassador to the united

states that firing james comey would take a lot of pressure off of him when it came to the russia investigation. he told them that in the oval office, which is remarkable enough. other american presidents haven't made a habit in generations of inviting high-ranking russian officials into the oval office, but president trump did, and we learned about it from russian state media, because while u.s. media was barred from covering that event and no white house announcement was made about that oval office meeting, russian state media not only knew about it, they were invited in to photograph it. those were those photos. those photos, the byline, we have to put the credit on them, russian foreign ministry, that's how we got that news. we learned about that historic meeting in the oval office at the white house because the kremlin decided to tell us about it. given the enormous cleed-like attention that the media shines on the united states 365 days a

year, ad nauseam, it's kind of a remarkable thing, right? it's become this sort of remarkable pattern with this presidency, that when it comes to meetings with high-ranking russian officials, the one thing we're not allowed to find out for ourselves, one thing that we have to get from another country about the behavior of our own president is any news about his contacts with russia. and apparently, it's not just the president. this is a story that started to break last night just before the state of the union and then it broke wide open this morning. reuters was the first english-language news source to report about a high-level meeting, indeed, a high-level visit to the united states by an important russian government official. in this case, by the chief of russia's foreign intelligence service. the sbr. now this is amazing for a few reasons. first of all, once again, i'm thankful to reuters that they

monitor russian media and pronouncements in russian broadcasts about what the trump administration is doing, because otherwise we wouldn't know. in this case, the russian spy chief visiting washington? it was first reported on rossio one news agency. reuters was able to pick up that announcement, based on russian state media. they were able to get that announcement from the kremlin, and that's how we learned that last week, quote, the evidence russia's foreign intelligence service met outside washington with american intelligence fishls. he reportedly met with dan coates and other officials. that the head of russia's intelligence service not only came to the united states and met with trump-appointed dan coates but with mike mom pay yoe. then the "washington post"

dumped this whole cake and sprinkled it with jimmys when it announced it wasn't just the sbr. it was also the head of the fsb, which used to be the kgb and the evidence the gru, which is russia's military intelligence service. all three of their spy chiefs, including the chiefs of the two agencies who mounted that attack on our election in 2016, they all came to the united states last week. and there were meetings with dan coates, and there were meetings with mike mom pay yoe, and there were apparently meetings with other officials that we don't know b aabout, and apparently, government was not going to make any announcement about this, but luckily, the kremlin let us know. shane harris's article says they cannot recall so many heads of russian security apparatus coming to washington all at once. yeah.

it does seem kind of weird. what were they all doing here? and why was this not being kept secret from the russian public, but it was being kept secret from us, by our government? here's the other part of this that is mind-bending. of these three russian intelligence chiefs who were apparently brought to the united states last week to meet with the trump administration in secret, the first one who is reported, the guy of the sbr, the sbr is the foreign-facing intelligence service in russia. this is their service that puts spies in other countries. don't see why there's any reason why you wouldn't invite him here. one of the specific reasons you might not have that guy here, that guy in particular here, is that since 2014 he's been sanctioned by the u.s. government. he was the head of a lower house of parliament in russia when russia invaded crimea, and the obama administration levied sanctions on them because of

that annexing. the guy now hid of the sbr is one of the named figures sanctioned as an individual and therefore, we believe he is barred from entering the united states. so then how did he enter the united states last week? the trump administration has not given an explanation as to how this official who's been sanctioned and has frozen assets and is barred from the united states, the trump administration has not explained how this guy was allowed to enter the united states. we've talked with experts on russian sanctions who've told us that there can sometimes be a special dispensation maid forde. but insofar as we can tell, the remedy is that the secretary of state can personally intervene, can choose, in an individual instance to disregard the sanctions on that person which bar them from entering the

united states, the secretary of state can decide to provide an individual visa for that individual person for that individual visit at the secretary's discretion. so we called the state department today. hey, is that what happened here? did rex tillerson give special dispensation, a special permission, a special personally-approved visa to the head of russia's foreign intelligence service to come over here secretly last week to meet with trump administration officials? state department answered our question. they told us this, quote, visa records are confidential under section 222 sub section f. therefore, we may not comment on the details of individual cases. to be clear, i don't want to know about any other individual visa cases. we're just trying to figure out why and how the head of russia's spy service, the head of russia's foreign-facing intelligence service who was banned from entering the united states was nevertheless let in

secretly and we wouldn't have known about it until the kremlin told us about it. when it comes to the united states and the trump administration enforcing sanctions of all kinds against russia, there's a whole lot that's going wrong there in increasingly flagrant and bizarre ways. we'll have more reporting on that whoever the next fover the. there's a hard thread to pull over why they decided to not implement sanctions on russia. we are pulling that thread as are a lot of other news agencies right now. but before that reporting bears fruit, even before we get to the bottom of what they are doing about sanctions, which is the thing russia most wants them to change. before we get to the bottom of what the trump administration is trying to deliver to russia in terms of giving them relief from sanctions, this other specific story about secretly letting in all three of russia's spy

chiefs? and in one of their cases, that being against the law, that being against our american law, and somebody in the trump administration green lit it anyway? that is going to need an answer sooner rather than later. i cannot imagine the state department is going to get away with not saying if they were the ones who did it, and if they were not the ones who did it, who did? stay with us tonight. busy news night. lots to come. cable for 17 year. but some people still like cable. just like some people like pre-shaken sodas. having their seat kicked on an airplane. being rammed by a shopping cart. sitting in gum. and walking into a glass door. but for everyone else, there's directv. for #1 rated customer satisfaction over cable, switch to directv and get a $200 reward card. call 1.800.directv

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quoting from page 38, the ranking member, with that i yield back, mr. quigley, and i retain my time. i respect you all. i don't respect this process of what you are doing, and i am from chicago, and you know the reputation i have lived with most my life, working first as a staff person for the chicago city council, i saw the worst of the worst. they got nothing on you on this one, folks. this is extraordinary. and i know what's important here. let's make sure the white house gets a copy of this first, because that's who we're all working for apparently. thank you, i yield back.

quoted from page 39, the chairman, ms. suele, i try to use my voice sparingly on this committee, because i have such deference to the fact that we care about the national security. it's a sad day to be on this committee, and i never thought i would say that since i thought this was the committee that really took seriously our national security and tried to do what's in the best interest of all of us. i just wanted to say for the record that i am very disappointed for all of us that we have gotten to this place. this is from the intelligence committee on monday. their meeting on monday, quoting members of congress, mike quigley and terry suele where this committee is fighting tooth and nail over whether house republicans and the white house are going to release a classified memo that disparages the fbi and tries to undermine

the mueller investigation. now that this transcript is out, we actually know how it got to this huge standoff we're in tonight and which has caused the fbi to make this remarkable public warning today about the dangers of what the white house and republicans are about to do. the fbi was provided a limited opportunity to review this memo the day before the committee voted to release it. we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo's accuracy. that was a statement from the fbi today. here was congressman eric swalwell of california pleading that case against that vote before the vote happened. he says it was our belief, and it still is, that there was a cooperation agreement between our committee and the department of justice, that there would be limited access to the most highly-sensitive materials as it results to russia and we have seen our committee break that agreement. we are violating an agreement with the department of justice. we talking about the most-classified materials, and i take it, mr. chairman, as a

privilege to serve on this committee. we are each one of 22 individuals who are trusted to conduct oversight of our intelligence community. if we were to put out to the public without them conducting a review, collaborating together to make sure that inaccuracies are not disseminated to the public then we will break trust with them. and we will not see the effect today or tomorrow. but as we bring them in on non-russia matters, they will not trust us because we have broken an agreement and aired for the whole public something we were trusted to use privately. we got the transcript today, as we learned that the deputy attorney general and the fbi director have gone personally to the white house to warn the white house. to tell them how dangerous it would be to release this classified information. beyond that, we understand what the fbi further sent subject matter experts to the white

house, to tell them more specifically about the danger of this release of this type of classified information would pose. now one major fly in the ointment about those warnings is the question of whether the white house itself may have been involved in cooking up this classified memo to attack the fbi. this is from page 23 of the transcript just released today. mr. quigley, let me ask you another question with the greatest respect. when you conceived of doing this memo, the preparation, the thought of doing it, the consultation of it, was any of this done after consultations with anyone in the white house? did they have any idea you were doing this? did they talk about doing this with you? did they suggest it? did you suggest it to them? did you consult in how to go forward with this before, during and after this point right now? chairman devin nunes, i would just answer as far as i know, no. mr. quigley, mr. chairman, does

that mean none of the staff members had any communication at all with the white house? chairman nunes, the chair is not going to entertain a question by another member. do any other members wish to be heard? your time has expired. quigley, does that mean just questions you don't like? or questions in general, sir? nunes does not respond to that. the leader of the house republican effort to undermine the fbi's investigation, house intelligence devin nunes refusing to say whether or not his staff wrote this classified memo that they're about to release now in consultation with the white house. i know that sounds like a process thing. if that were to happen, he won't answer if his staff has writ at any -- written it in conjunction with the white house.

if this happened, then this firestorm it helped create to help undermine the fbi investigation into itself, into the white house. so this is the white house putting out a document that it wrote to defend itself against the fbi's investigation. and releasing classified information in the process. i know you probably wouldn't wish a life in congress on your worst enemy, but these kind of fights that they're having shows you why it really matters who's there, and sometimes they deal with stuff that is not just consequential, it is freaking compelling to read it word for word. told you this was going to be a really big show. we'll be back with the reporter who's right at the heart of this story. stay with us. we got married after college. and had twin boys. but then one night, a truck didn't stop. but thanks to our forester, neither did our story.

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just as we were getting on the air tonight, reuters was first to report that the classified memo written by republicans in the house, memo alleging surveillance abuses by the fbi in the russia investigation, that memo is likely to be released tomorrow by the white house. this comes despite repeated warnings by the fbi and justice department that it would be dangerous to national security to do so, but a white house official reportedly says to expect this release tomorrow. nbc news has now confirmed that report. senior administration official confirming that the nunes memo will likely come out tomorrow. that official also tells nbc that there could be redactions from what was originally in the memo, but we won't know what those are until we see them. and because we're apparently

still having the news equivalent of a super blue blood moon, the "new york times" has just moments ago broken news about how the special town is honing in on the trump tower meeting between the trump campaign and kremlin-connected lawyers and the response to that getting out. the times is reporting that a former spokesman for the trump legal team is planning to tell mr. mueller about a previously undisclosed conference call with president trump and hope hicks. he plans to tell investigators that mrs. hicks said during the call that e-mails written by donald trump jr. in which he said he was eager to receive political dirt on hillary clinton, she said those e-mails will never get out. that mr. carawlo with concerns

that they may be obstructing justice. she says she never said that. the idea that hope hicks ever suggested that e-mails or other documents would be concealed or destroyed is completely false. joining us now is ken delaney, a national reporter. i don't know where to start. let's start with the memo. the fbi has made what looks to a lay observer like me, has taken extraordinary public, an extraordinary public position that this should not happen, what the white house is about to do. but it sounds like the white house feels they're good to go and they're going to release it tomorrow. >> this whole thing is extraordinary. yes, that statement by the fbi was extraordinary, but it was extraordinary that members of the house got access to a classified fisa application. that does not normally happen. and it's further extraordinary that they're making moves to make that public even though without the normal classification review that tends to happen when we declassify

things. you and i are journalists, we are in favor of transparency. i want to read all this stuff. but the way this has happened is so disturbing to people both on the republican and democratic side of the aisle. this threatens to blow up 40 years of congressional oversight and intelligence. >> the reason they got access to this information is because even though the justice department and the fbi went directly to the speaker of the house and the white house to say this is inappropriate, we should not be required to hand this stuff over, speaker of the house paul ryan and the white house, apparently, pushed for it to happen anyway, and then according to this transcript that was released today about the intelligence from the intelligence community meeting on monday, it sounds like the justice department and fbi handed over this very sensitive information with the understanding, they thought they had an agreement it would not be disseminated and house republicans turned around and spread it to the entire house and now are giving it to the public. >> that's what it looks like.

and this is a special case, because there is a legitimate oversight function on the russia investigation, but normally, pending criminal investigations are not briefed to congress. the justice department has a very hard-line. you'll remember that james comey refused to acknowledge before the election that the fbi was investigating donald trump, even though harry reid raised a stink and says you have this information. he wouldn't talk about it. that's not normal. now we know there's an investigation, but they tend not to turn over these highly-classified pieces of information. the republicans are saying look, we have a legitimate oversight function here. that's true, but to make it public is a whole other kettle of fish. >> just to reestablish norms here, at least remember what they were, is it a scandal that the fbi and justice department handed over this information when it was demanded? >> i don't think it is. look. the congress has a right to, to -- >> even in ongoing criminal investigations? we all know that's a great way to say no, you're not getting

it. >> the problem is what they're doing with it. as you read eric swalwell saying, they're never going to give this stuff again. they've poisoned the well. what are we going to turn over to the hill, it's going to be leaked and made public. their worst nightmare for the intelligence communities is coming true. >> the headline as mueller zooms in on trump tower cover story. i looked at that headline, like, uh-huh, we know that. this is part of what they've been looking at in part about misleading the public may have crossed the line into obstruction of justice or activity. what's new about this, what seems to be specific allegations by somebody who used to be on team trump, mark caralo saying that hope hicks said that these e mails written by donald trump jr. that gave lie to the statement that was being constructed on air force one, partially dictated by the president himself, that those

e-mails, quote, will never get out. that's a very serious assertion. >> that seems deeply significant to me. you're right. you had to read a lot of paragraph noose th paragraphs to get to that. she's a neophyte, but this is a serious matter, and mark caralo resigned, because he was concerned that this was obstruction of justice. now we know according to the story, the details that hope hicks is essentially implying that they can make these incriminating e-mails go away. of course they couldn't, it became one of the defining stories in the investigation and the special counsel still has questions that are not answered in this article about why donald trump in particular insisted on drafting that statement the way he did. >> and this does sort of spell out a little bit what might be a problem for the president in that regard. this is describing towards the end of the article, describing a call between hope hicks and mark caralo, according to three people who relayed his versions

of events to the times and mr. caralo is not disputing the events, hicks was reportedly told by caralo that she was either being naïve or she was suggesting that e-mails could be withheld from investigators. he described himself as concerned, alarmed that she had said that in front of the president without a lawyer on the phone. and that conversation could not be protected by attorney-client privilege. that implies the president having legal liability over the falseness of that statement. >> it absolutely does. now it's not only known to the special counsel but the rest of us. >> the story reported first by reuters, confirmed by nbc news that the republican memo that they say will be dangerous to be released will be released in some form tomorrow by the white house. there remain questions about

whether that was an authored in part or in conjunction with the white house. >> good to be with you. >> i feel like we just started. still a lot more to come, stay with us. bibs on people! lobsterfest is back at red lobster... with the most lobster dishes of the year. new dueling lobster tails has two tails that'll fight to be your favorite. one topped with creamy shrimp and scallops, the other... steamed with lemon and herbs. and no, you're not dreaming, classics like lobster lover's dream are back too, along with decadent new lobster truffle mac & cheese.

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to relieve his foot, knee, or lower back pain, from being on his feet. dr. scholl's. born to move. so tonight we have this new 51-page transcript showing exactly what happened behind closed doors that led to the memo release that we're going to get tomorrow. this is what happened in the house intelligence committee behind closed doors on monday. we now know because of this transcript that republican chairman devin nunes got stapled by a democrat on that committee, specifically mike quigley who asked directly, hey, where did this memo come for really? asked nunes directly whether he or his staffers worked with the white house on this classified memo that bashes the fbi and attempts to basically vindicate the white house as far as we can tell on the russia investigation. chairman nunes first tried answering, quote, i would just answer, as far as i know, no.

when mike quigley further asked him, well, what about your staff, if it wasn't you, did your staff with the white house? he basically said your time has expired. the house intelligence transcript, when you read it, it instantly makes itself into a really good movie inside your head, but it almost came with a spoiler. because somebody outside that committee hearing followed this story closely enough and had sources that she found out what happened in that particular instance before anybody else and before the rest of us knew about it. just before the state of the union, daily beast reporter had this scoop, devin nunes getting grilled about whether the white house was involved in prepping this memo, devin nunes said don't ask me, as far as i know, no. but i don't want to talk about it. that's exactly what we learned in the transcript. but betsy had it first.

thank you for being here on the scoop. >> thanks, rachel. >> let me ask you about the significance of this. we've now been told that the white house is planning on releasing this classified memo. we've also in the last 24 hours had a lot more information about how alarmed the fbi and the justice department are about the fact that this classified information is going to be released. ken delainian was just here saying his sources are beside themselves, that this specific kind of information is going to get out there. given all of that concern and upset, how redicadical a releas this is, how significant is that the white house may have helped prepare the memo? >> it's extraordinarily significant. and one thing that stood out to me about this transcript and popped out when i was chatting yesterday is the specific nature of the question that congressman quigley asked nunes. at first i asked nunes something

to the fact of, did you know about this, were you involved, and he hemmed and hawed and quigley followed up with an important question, did your staff work with the white house. the reason that particular question is important, is as your viewers will recall, nunes took a big step back from this investigation, but what i have been told, what i'm hearing from my sources as i've followed this story closely is that while nunes himself took a big step back, his staff kept doing what they were doing and very much run being the show in his stead. so what quigley is asking, even if nunes himself weren't involved in going back and forth between the hill and the white house, did he and his staff know what they were doing, and when quigley pressed him on that and tried to get a clear answer, nunes said time for somebody else to ask a question, i don't want to talk about this. it really tells you what nunes isn't willing to say about the work his staff are doing on this

pivotal investigation. >> and if the point of this memo is to somehow insulate the white house from this investigation because of these supposedly revealed details about the fbi, if the white house itself was involved in crafting these revealed details, it changes, it changes the whole dynamic in terms of what exactly we are about to get tomorrow. i want to ask you about another piece of this, which is revealed very early on in this transcript, and it unexpectedly coincides with another big politics story. devin nunes stepped back while he was under investigation, his staff kept working on it. when it comes to the underlying intelligence that the fbi is so freaked out about, intelligence veterans are so worried that this is about to get disseminated. that underlying intelligence, the fisa stuff, it was seen by nunes' staffers, congressman adam schiff and one republican

member of congress. trey gowdy. memo's coming out tomorrow, trey goud e y running for congress today. i don't think any of us have any insight what trey gowdy had in his mind when he announce td his resignation today. but clearly there that has to be some interest at stake in terms of him having access to the underlying intelligence. >> he's one of the republicans that hasn't gone after the fbi with the type of excitement that some members of the house have. if you look at the transcript from some of these other house intelligence committee hearings gowdy is one who sometimes will pull in the reigns a little bit when his fellow republicans are zooming after the fbi. so his role is definitely an interesting one. i can tell you folks on the committee view him differently than they view nunes, at least

on this particular matter. he is seen, comparatively, it's perhaps a low bar, as an honest broker. someone who's acting in better faith. what that means for the intelligence committee next year after gowdy is no longer in the house is significant. we don't know who's going to take it over. at the same time when we're talking about these important questions of intelligence and the significant of the memo being released tomorrow. something i can share that's important is that rod rosenstein, the number two guy in the department of justice, the guy who's the boss of chris wray who runs the fbi, he's deeply concerned, my understanding, about the release of that memo that the hill's top liaison sent to nooups last week. i can tell you rosenstein was closely involved in the crafting of that letter. that letter reflected -- according to a source family, reflected the way rod rosenstein

feels about the release of the memo. i can also tell you that rosenstein has done nothing to indicate just because the fbi director saw the memo means that rosenstein feels differently. if rod rosenstein wanted to, he could give a wink and a nod to nunes, it's something that might curry favor with the white house, take some of the heat off his back but rod rosenstein has not done that. he's done nothing to dial back the statement the fbi put out this morning. we're safe in saying this memo doesn't just divide republicans and democrats it divides the trump administration itself. rod rosenstein is a trump appointee and that letter that came out last week was scorching. >> betsy woodruff, journalist for the daily beast, thank you for being here. >> sure thing. >> that's remarkable what she

was reporting there. we talked about rod rosenstein as the one person in charge of the russia investigation who hasn't been fired or tried to have been fired, which is wrong grammar, by the president. this is a really point of contention, a serious point of contention between the fbi and the trump white house and the house republicans. the trump white house and republicans are winning this. it depends on whether the fbi gets more steel in their spine or whether they concede to what the trump administration wants. the independence of law enforcement in this country is an important thing and we haven't seen it tested like this in our lifetimes. we'll be right back.

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being the head of the centers for disease control is an important job. they're responsible for informing and protecting the american public about the biggest risk to their health like this winter's deadly flu epidemic or ongoing threats like smoking which remain it is leading cause of preventable death in this country. it's one of the weirdness of this administration that dr. brenda fitzgerald made a big investment in tobacco stocks a month after being appointed head of cdc.

it was reported she purchased up to $15,000 of japan tobacco company stock in august after she started running the cdc. today after that reporting and a bunch of other reporting about her financial conflict of interests with her job she resigned from running the cdc. that's also particularly interesting for us here at the robert muell rachel maddow show and our graphic's team we work hard on the list of trying to keep up on the list of senior officials who have cycled out of the trump administration already even though they've only been there a year. it now includes, the secretary of health and human service, white house chief of staff, deputy white house chief of staff, another white house chief, the senior adviser to the white house chief of staff, press secret, communications director, national security advisor, deputy national security advisor, another deputy

national security advisor, intelligence director at the security council. the deputy chief of staff at the fascial security council, the chief white house strategist, steve bannon. another another strategist who did not appear to have any particular job in the white house, but he went on tv a lot, that guy sg sebastian gorka, remember him. the communications director for the office of public liaison. the fbi director, deputy fbi director, the chief of staff of the fbi director, the director of the office on government ethics. director of the national security agency, deputy director of the column counsel, the vice president's wife's chief of staff. the vice president's chief

policy center and now the head of the centers for disease control. we even screwed one up. we put press secretary on the same line as white house chief of staff. that might be an intentional screw up, where else are you going to put a dot. we're going to have to do it as a slide show. more than three dozen high ranking officials in a year. that's well over tripled the rate of president obama's staff in the same time. that probably means nothing at all, but we're going to keep it on track, get a bigger graphic. now it's time for the "last word with lawrence o'donnell." >> when we talk about tv talking heads, most of us expect to see the talking side of the head when we're looking at our tvs. instead we get that beautiful thick head of hair