communications director, hope hicks. thank you for being with us. good night from our headquarters here in new york. it's been a big thursday d thursday night of news. i'm glad you're here tonight. so there are four trump campaign officials who have been criminally charged by robert mueller's team of prosecutors in the special counsel's office. two of the four have pled guilty and are now cooperating witnesses, helping the prosecution. and the other two have pled not guilty, and they're due to go to trial. now, a few days ago, there were intriguing reporting that suggested that one of those last two, one of those last two is expected to go to trial might be jumping sides. that robert mueller's team might actually be able -- might be about to flip a third cooperating witness in addition to george papadopoulos and

mike flynn, who he's already got. a new cooperating witness from mueller's team might be trump deputy campaign manager rick gates. an eagle-eyed cnn legal correspondent noticed a new lawyer, famous washington lawyer repeatedly appearing at robert mueller's office to talk to his team about rick gates. now, this is important and interesting for a few reasons. if mueller is about to get rick gates as a cooperating witness, that could be a really big deal. rick gates was manafort's business partner for years, including in his business dealings with putin-linked oligarchs and politicians. he stayed on the campaign in a leadership role even after paul manafort got pushed out because of his russia ties. rick gates was in the transition, he was deputy chair of the inauguration, seen frequently at the trump white house in the early days of the administration, helping to start a pro-trump group where lots of

people went after the election. he is a through-line, a potential gold mine if, in fact, he is flipping to help the mueller prosecution. so, that's one thing that makes that reporting about gates potentially becoming a cooperating witness really interesting reporting. but then there was also just the intrigue about it. so there's this new, very famous new white collared defense lawyer apparently working on rick gates' behalf, apparently negotiating something about gates' case at mueller's offices in d.c., but he has never been announced as one of gates' lawyers. his name doesn't show up anywhere, listing him as one of gates' lawyers. in court so far, gates has had a whole other legal team that was representing him. what about them? well, tonight, all of those lawyers for rick gates just quit. in a very short court filing, three lawyers for trump deputy campaign manager, rick gates, who have been representing him in court all along since he has been charged, all three of them announced that they are

withdrawing from representing him. why are they withdrawing from representing rick gates? quote, for the reasons set forth in exhibit 1, which is the subject of a motion to be filed under seal. we're not allowed to know why they're withdrawing. sealed. in the movie, this is one of the exciting parts. so we are waiting for the other shoe to drop on that. meanwhile, i should tell you tonight we've got our own mini scoop coming up in a couple of minutes with something important going on with the trump legal defense. nobody else has got it, but we have it coming up in a few minutes. >> here is where we start. chuck schumer, he's the leader of the democrats in the senate, he's a very familiar figure. he's been around in the u.s. senate since the dinosaurs roamed the earth. because of that it's easy to forget this is the first session

of congress for which chuck schumer is the democratic leader. before him for 12 years, the democratic leader in the senate was harry reid. harry reid retired from the senate after the 2016 elections. we knew for a long time in advance he was going to retire, was going to leave the senate. we knew as early as the spring of 2015. so that was a really long lead time for him to give, where he would still be around but we knew he wasn't going to be standing for re-election. he wasn't still going to be in the senate after the 2016 elections. that turned out to be very valuable time, though. there's a sort of magic pixie dust that elights on members of congress when they announce they're retiring, when they know they're not going to stand for reelection, they're not going to have to face the voters again, but they're still there for the last time being, serving out their last term. that can be a magic time, right? knowing this is their last hoorah sometimes makes them

willing to speak hard truths and more willing to rock the boat. right before the presidential election in october 2016, harry reid, knowing he's not coming back to the senate, knowing he's in his last days, he basically erupted. he put himself out there with the kind of thing you only expect to see from a lawmaker who had to answer to nobody, who knew he was on his way out. he was going to say his piece, no matter what. in october 2016, right before the election, harry reid sent this letter to the fbi. and it went off like a roman candle. dear director comey, in my communications with you and other top officials in the national security community it becomes clear you possess explosive information about close ties and coordination between donald trump, his top advisers and the russian government. a foreign interest openly hostile to the united states, which trump praises at every opportunity. the public has a right to know this explosive information. now at the time, that letter was seen as a very controversial thing. even a wacky thing for harry reid to have done.

october 30th, right before the election. but we now know, at least in part, that what he was talking about in that letter, was this guy. >> did you meet sergey kislyak in cleveland? did you talk to him? >> i'm not going to deny that i talked to him. >> so you did talk to him? >> i will say that i never met him anywhere outside of cleveland, let's just say that much. >> the only time that you met him was in cleveland? >> i may have met him, possibly, might have been in cleveland. >> speaking of wacky, you know, we spend a lot of time on the show trying to document the massive turnover in the trump administration. in one year in office they've cycled through more officials than any other modern presidency. they're throwing people out of high-ranking positions at more than triple the rate of the

obama administration at this time. that's an unusual thing about the trump administration. but that fact about the trump administration was foreshadowed on the campaign, where they had the same kind of turnover, even at the highest levels of the campaign. they went through people. no other presidential campaign had a corey lewandowski, then a paul manafort, then steve bannon and kellyanne conway running the campaign. it wasn't just at the top. in september before the election, there was sort of a minut mini kerfuffle. i don't even know if it counts as a scandal. what counts as a scandal anymore? the trump campaign distanced itself from one of its own advisers, trying to pretend they didn't know this guy. >> he's not part of our national security or foreign policy briefings. we have a number of people, fabulous people, men and women as part of our national security policy and foreign policy team and he's not among them. >> he's not among them. he's definitely -- he is not -- who said he was a foreign policy adviser to us?

who told you that? kellyanne conway in september before the election, denying there had ever been a foreign policy adviser to the trump campaign named carter page. carter page, who, what? hope hicks at the same time said the same thing, carter page was an informal adviser. he certainly doesn't speak for the trump campaign. jason miller was a trump campaign spokesman at the time, one of the people who has since been thrown off the carousel. he said at the time carter page has no role in the campaign, despite the fact that now president trump had, himself, announced carter page as one of trump's top foreign advisers. basically they're trying to disappear him. jason miller said, quote, we are not aware of any of his activities, past or present. we're not even aware if he's a real boy. can you prove it? who? the reason they tried to disappear him, the reason they pretended, before the election, that they had definitely never met this guy, he had definitely never been announced by donald

trump at a washington post editorial meeting as one of trump's top five foreign policy advisers -- the reason they tried to pretend that didn't happen was carter page became a problem. he had this big, obvious russia problem. in 2013 we now now and the fbi has always known, that he was targeted by a russian spy ring operating in new york city. there was a criminal complaint filed in court about that russian spy ring, two of the russian spies with famously caught on a wiretap describing carter page as, sadly, an idiot, but did say that they were the liked he was so enthusiastic. they were trying to get secret intel or native american insight into what sort of sanctions russia might expect from the united states in the future. so in their efforts to collect economic intelligence in the united states, they targeted americans to try to make them into russian assets and they targeted carter page and carter

page was, according to the fbi, very happy to meet with them and to give them information and to give them documents. the fbi was monitoring the activities of that spy ring. in the course of their investigation of that spy ring, fbi counterintelligence agents paid carter page a personal visit to talk to him about those friendly russians he had been spending all this time with, and to whom he had been giving information. the fbi was monitoring that spy ring. they monitored him for a couple of years, watching them operate. in 2015, they busted it up, made their arrests. members of the spy ring, including the ones who had been meeting with carter page, describing him as an idiot, they named those russians as agents of the svr, russian foreign intelligence agency. six months after that spy ring that ensnared carter page, six months after it got busted up, arrests and announced indictment by the fbi, six months later, carter page joined the donald trump for president campaign.

january 2016, he started meeting with the campaign in march. that was when donald trump announced him, by name, as one of his five foreign policy advisers for his presidential campaign. he made that announcement at an editorial meeting at the washington post. that was in march. in july, now as an announced senior foreign policy adviser to donald trump, carter page took a trip to moscow. and he gave what was basically an anti-u.s., pro-vladimir putin speech in moscow at a putin-connected university. he denounced u.s. sanctions on russia. he would later admit while he was there, he met with high-ranking russian officials, including the deputy prime minister of russia, as well as at least one official from the russian gas company. he had initially denied them. that kind of visit to moscow, let alone that kind of speech in moscow would tend to attract

attention from u.s. intelligence. for those meetings and for that speech he reportedly attracted attention from u.s. embassy officials in russia and that, in turn, renewed u.s. counterintelligence interest in him. i say renewed because this was only a couple years out from his time meeting with fbi counterintelligence officials about his involvement in a russian spy ring here in the united states. so summer of 2016, a new counterintelligence investigation into carter page was apparently opened. that eventually included the fbi presenting evidence to a judge of what they said was their reasonable belief that he was acting as a witting agent of a foreign power. the initial fisa warrant on carter page was obtained, by some accounts, in the summer of 2016. in other accounts in the fall of 2016. i don't have any independent way to confirm either of those. so we're not exactly sure.

but it seems clear that a fisa warrant on carter page was approved before the election in 2016. we also now know that by the time that warrant was issued, u.s. intelligence officials were already briefing high-ranking members of congress about carter page. u.s. counterintelligence officials were briefing high-ranking members of congress about counterintelligence concerns specific to this guy, carter page. michael isikoff was first to s yahoo! news. quote, u.s. intelligence officials are seeking to determine whether an american businessman identified by donald trump as one of his foreign policy advisers has opened up private communications with senior russian officials, including talks about the possible lifting of economic sanctions if the republican nominee becomes president. the activities of trump adviser carter page have been discussed with senior members of congress during recent briefings about suspected efforts by moscow to influence the presidential election.

after one of those briefings, senate minority leader harry reid wrote fbi director james comey, citing reports of meetings between a trump adviser, reference to page, and high-ranking sanctioned individuals in moscow over the summer. he cited them as evidence of significant and disturbing ties between the trump campaign and the kremlin. some of those briefed were taken aback when they learned about page's contacts in moscow, viewing them as a possible back channel to the russians that could undercut foreign policy. u.s. officials in the briefings indicated that intelligence reports about page's talks with senior russian officials close to putin were being actively monitored and investigated. senior law enforcement official did not dispute that characterization when asked for comment, quote, it's on our radar screen, said the official about page's contacts with russian officials, it's being looked at. so michael isikoff reporting september 2016, just a few weeks before the presidential election in november 2016.

and with these reports about carter page's ties to russia, contacts he has been sort of denying, counterintelligence officials in the united states, briefing high ranking members in congress about this guy. finally, the trump campaign starts to disavow him. reid had sent a warning letter in august. he sent that explosive follow-up warning letter in late october. public reports that had been subsequently confirmed that u.s. intelligence agencies were actively monitoring him, including surveillance of him apparently approved by a judge in a fisa warrant. that's all going on in fall before the election. the trump campaign is like, we don't know this guy! then the election happens. donald trump gets elected and what does carter page do to celebrate? he flies back to moscow. this was the headline in the "new york times" december 8th. quote, carter page, ex-trump adviser with russian ties visits moscow.

it's lovely in december. page would later admit on that trip, right after the election, he again met with some of the same russian government and ros -- rosneft officials he had met with before. continuing scrutiny of carter page's ties to the russian government meant that even during the presidential transition, the soon-to-be trump administration still had to go out of their way to disavow him, to pretend like he had never been announced by trump as one of his five foreign policy advisers. >> carter page is someone president-elect does not know and was put on notice months ago by the campaign. >> that was january 2017 before the inauguration. we can piece to the from the timing that that is probably around the time when the fisa surveillance warrant on carter page was being renewed. fisa warrants have to be renewed every 90 days. u.s. investigators, law enforcement have to show a judge that there has been continued production of useful intelligence from the existing warrant.

they have to show that there's been continuing or even fresh indications that the target of the warrant is, in fact, acting as a knowing agent of a foreign power. so that fisa warrant for carter page was initially granted in either the summer or the fall. it's hard for us to tell. we know that it was renewed multiple times. we think probably one of the times it was renewed was in january, right after carter page took his post election trip to moscow and sean spicer walked up to that podium and said donald trump definitely don't know him. and we now know in the spring of 2017, once the trump administration was sworn in, the fbi went back to the judge, back to the fisa court judge again, with whatever evidence they had that this warrant was continuing to be productive, there was reason to renew it again.

and the judge okayed it. the judge signed off on that warrant in the spring. it was either the third time or the fourth time that a judge had looked at the evidence about carter page and signed off on continuing surveillance of him as a potential foreign agent. and that story, that's what this dumb memo is all about. this memo you've been hearing so much about, the memo that is apparently going to be released tomorrow over the vehement objections of the justice department and fbi because it contains classified information about how the fisa court works and how fisa court warrants are adjudicated and what kind of surveillance it does on targets it believes are foreign agents, that memo has been, it's been

the attention of so much media attenti attention, what's that memo about? that memo is a house republican effort to try to make you believe that either the third or fourth renewal of that surveillance warrant against carter page is a terrible scandal. how could anybody approve that? there are multiple reports that donald trump believes this memo is what he needs to end the mueller investigation. it will make america believe only terrible, what, clinton stooges would support a third or fourth renewal of a surveillance warrant on the guy that's been on the intelligence radar since at least 2013 when he played a starring role as the enthusiastic idiot in a spy ring in new york and then ended up on the steps of the government of the united states, while meeting with russian government officials. if russian intelligence mounted its operation against our presidential campaign in part because they wanted to try to undo u.s. sanctions on russia, this is the guy from the trump campaign who says that during the campaign, yeah, he was in moscow, meeting with high-ranking government officials about getting rid of u.s. sanctions on russia.

if it is a scandal that that guy would have a surveillance warrant against him renewed, then, yeah, this memo tomorrow from house republicans is going to blow your socks off. of all the ways they have tried to undermine or just block the mueller investigation, the story of this guy? this guy is not the guy you think they would try to hang that whole strategy on. eate somg this extravagant? or make a back seat that feels nothing like a back seat? why give it every feature you could want, along with a few you didn't know you needed? it's simple. you can build a car, or you can build a cadillac. come in now for this exceptional offer on the cadillac ct6. get this low-mileage lease on this 2018 cadillac ct6 from around $549 per month. visit your local cadillac dealer.

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if you have not been reading "the wall street journal" today, you might want to get on the stick. from morning until night, right through just about an hour or so ago, they have just bun a been battering ram of news today. one of the articles pieced together the trail that carter page left for intelligence agents when it came to his dealings with russia. the surveillance warrant against parter page, its renewal during the trump administration in 2017 is reportedly the subject of this house republican memo which is due to be released tomorrow, which the president believes

will be so scandalous, it will free him from the russian investigation once and for all. joining us is the reporter that broke the news. thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having us. >> you report that the trump came pain sa campaign said it was unaware that he had already had past dealings with u.s. counterintelligence over his dealings with russia. is this a new detail that we're learning from the trump campaign folks? >> this is a new detail. i think what's important to remember about carter page is that he was someone who was brought on to the campaign at a time when they were under an enormous amount of pressure to show who was advising the president or the candidate at that point on national security and foreign policy matters. so trump in 2016 announced carter page along with about five other people as the -- group advising him on those

matters. but this is a group that we're told over and over again was not vetted and they had very little information on their background and the campaign didn't look into whether there was issues such as past dealings with russia. also in this group was george papadopoulos, who of course we know pleaded guilty last year to fbi investigators to lying to fbi investigators about his contacts with russia. >> it is a remarkable ratio if you've got five announced foreign policy advisers, one pleads guilty and becomes a cooperating witness over lying about his contact with russia and the other end up subject to a foreign agent surveillance warrant because of his contacts with russia. it was a weird list to begin with but that's a high proportion of those advisers to end up sort of in the barrel on that specific subject. let me ask you about a timing issue that i don't have clarity on. do you at the wall street journal have clarity on when the

surveillance warrants, these fisa warrants for carter page were first applied for, when they initially went and got one for carter page? >> our reporting shows that happened around october 2016. and what's also interesting to note is that was about a month after carter page had in fact left the trump campaign because of these reports about his ties to russia. so i think in some of these allegations the republicans are making that this fisa warrant began out of political motivations trying to go after the trump campaign, it's interesting to know he wasn't even a part of that effort anymore. >> and we know from michael isikoff's reporting in 2016 that a counterintelligence investigation about mr. page was already open and that counterintelligence concerns about him were already being briefed to members of congress. if your reporting was right that they didn't get the fisa warrant until october, which is after those briefings to congress had happened, that means it was just one tool that they used m whin

was already an ongoing and fairly ripe counterintelligence investigation about that. i realize they're going to try to problemtize this tomorrow. thanks for joining us. >> thanks for having me. whatever you do to stay healthy. you might be missing something. your eyes.

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even if you know nothing about watergate, one thing that everybody knows for sure about the saturday night massacre in watergate, one thing that everybody knows is that it happened on a saturday night. right? this was "nbc nightly news" on the friday night right before the saturday night massacre. it was a very suspenseful friday night. >> all day today, washington waited for the president's lawyers to take the next step in the great and historic case in the nine disputed secret white house tapes. today was the deadline for the president to appeal to the supreme court a lower court rule ing on the tapes, which went against him. but for a reason as yet unexplained, the president's men have not filed the appeal. here is more from carl stern. >> reporter: the cause of late business connected with supreme court's friday conferences, the clerk of the court will be here until 9:00 tonight, giving the white house extra hours to meet the deadline. the president's lawyers were in

meetings all day, but the two persons who seemed most likely to work out a deal, attorney general richardson and special prosecutor cox, haven't met for three days, increasing the prospect that the historic confrontation between the president and the courts will have to be resolved here. >> that was the friday night suspense. the night before the saturday night massacre. it was a legal showdown. everybody thought it was going to be settled at the supreme court. special prosecutor investigating watergate subpoenaed tapes from the oval office. nixon didn't want to hand them over. all that friday into that friday night, everybody was waiting on the nixon white house to file their appeal at the court. we'll have the clerk here until 9:00 p.m. we're waiting, all waiting, expecting that appeal. nixon decided to do something else entirely. he decided he had a genius plan that would keep the whole thing out of court and decide everything in his direction. we're living that again. hold that thought. (vo) i was born during

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senator john stenis, democrat from mississippi, elected to the senate in 1947, widely respected on both sides of the aisle, served in the senate for a long time, more than 40 years. in 1973, senator stenis got held up on the street. he got shot. and he almost died. >> senator john stenis was shot in a washington holdup a week ago. early today, doctors became concerned over his recovery. they performed a 45-minute exploratory operation, but didn't find what they thought was wrong. the hospital said that the operation made senator stenis' condition worse. the prognosis is now grave. >> february 1973. senator john stenis got shot twice in a mugging outside his home in d.c. he almost died. after a long recovery, he did eventually make his way back to the senate. nbc reporters noted at the time that he looked thin, he wasn't walking as briskly as he used to.

senate john stenis was also notoriously kind of deaf. senator ted kennedy said once that john stenis was, quote, known to be a man who was hard of hearing. two months after his return to the senate, after his near-death experience, senator john stennis, hard of hearing senator who just got back to work after being shot twice, had an operation that made it worse, he got an important assignment related to watergate from the white house, an assignment to review the nixon oval office tapes. >> while special prosecutor cox is getting ready to fight president nixon's plan to release summaries of the tapes, white house officials say some of those summaries have been prepared already. if he's prepared to go ahead with his proposal, john stennis is prepared to read the summaries and go over the tapes themselves to verify the summaries. >> stennis says he's been

promised a free hand. he'll go about his job. >> based on evidence i have, though, as of now, i think they are authentic. i have no reason to the contrary. if i am convinced it's a fake in any way, i would quit the business. i wouldn't want to be a party. i don't believe, though, that these tapes are a fraud in their present condition. and, um -- but that's a good point to raise. and that's the way i feel about it. >> october 1973. white house called up 72-year-old senator john stennis to help the president get out of a jam. special prosecutor investigating watergate, archibald cox wanted the white house to turn over tapes from inside the oval office. the president refused to turn over those tapes. it started a legal fight that went all the way to the supreme court. while nixon and cox were fighting about those tapes, the white house proposed a out of the standoff. let's just make a deal like gentlemen here.

nixon said i will not turn over the recordings to you but i will turn over, in his own words he said, quote, a statement prepare by me, personally, a full disclosure of everything contained in those tapes that has any bearing on watergate. nixon wouldn't turn over the tapes to the judge but would listen to them himself and then he would just tell us what was on them. he would tell us for sure whether there was anything that incriminated him on those tapes, honest. now, who wouldn't take a deal like that? nixon had to know nobody would agree to that. his offer had one more component to it. the stennis compromise. yes, he, himself, would be writing up the summaries of anything relevant to watergate on the tapes. but the linchpin to his whole plan was john stennis. they would have senator stennis read nixon's summaries of what was on the tapes and senator stennis alone would be allowed to listen to the tapes, to verify that the written summaries of the tapes were accurate and that would prove to everyone that there was definitely nothing hiding in those tapes that would incriminating nixon. that's how the country could be

sure that nixon wasn't lying about whatever was on them. and the whole thing is cuckoo, right? instead of responding to the subpoena, giving the tapes over, we'll play this elaborate game of telephone about what's on the tapes and the guy on the other end of the telephone is a hard of hearing guy who just got shot twice, known for repeatedly having to have things repeated over and over again because he can't hear what they're saying even in the course of normal business. he would be the authenticator of audiotapes. i'm sorry, what was that again? that was the guy they picked to listen to the nixon tapes and make sure that nixon's summaries of the tapes were correct. special prosecutor archibald cox said, yeah, no. no. and that's why, on saturday, nixon ordered archibald cox to be fired. his attorney general said no, i won't fire him. then he quit. then the deputy attorney general said no, i won't fire him. he quit. finally the number three official in the justice department said, okay, i'll fire

him. it was the saturday night massacre. what led to the saturday night massacre was this amazing gambit by the white house. just provide what the president said is on the tapes. sure, that will be fine. yeah. sure. the trump legal team has tried one version of this. january 8th, which feels like ten years ago now, nbc was the first to report that trump's counsel were in negotiations to have the president sit down with mueller. the laugh-out-loud detail was the part where the one person familiar said that one person liked the idea of would be to forego the president's interview with mueller altogether but instead they would give robert mueller, quote, an affidavit signed by the president affirming that he was innocent

of any wrong doing. sure. well, who could possibly reject that offer? why question him if he could just sign something that says "dear robert, i'm totally innocent. believe me. love, the president." that should do it. who could argue? they actually tried that. and now it's possible they are trying it again, a different version of that again. congressman jim himes from the intelligence committee next. they are refusing to answer question as to whether or not the shocking memo exonerating the white house was written by the trump white house.

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congressman jim himes, thank you very much for joining us tonight. i really appreciate your time, sir. >> great to be with you, rachel. >> we don't know for sure if this is going to happen tomorrow, if the house republicans are going to release this classified memo. but the president has been described in multiple news reports as anticipating that this classified memo release will provide him the pretense

that he needs to fire the deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein who is overseeing the mueller investigation. that's multiple news reports. i don't know if that's true or not. are you expecting that? >> um, i would certainly hope that wouldn't be the case. this memo is a transparent, political hit job. when it is released, if it is released, people like you and many other journalists and the people who are named, and the institutions that are named like the federal bureau of investigation and the justice department, will have an opportunity to point out what a second-rate piece of work it is. individuals are named, i suppose could be used since it alleges bias at the department of justice and at the fbi. i suppose it could be used as a pretext to fire the deputy attorney general. but, remember, this is the guy that the president hired, who wrote a memo a little unusual for a deputy attorney general justifying the firing of jim comey. he is a republican. firing rosenstein cannot be done

based on any sort of partisan or allegation of bias. it would be a pretty clear attempt to sabotage the investigation, the department of justice and fbi investigation. i would be a little shocked if that happened. >> i feel like your argument there makes sense to me, makes sense to me as a legal matter even though i'm not a lawyer, just thinking about obstruction of justice and knowing how these things get pursued. i feel like the president and pro-trump conservative media are locked in a bit of a folly adieu and they have convinced each other that america will rise up against the mueller investigation and the fbi and

justice department when this information come out and that will give the president all the backing he needs to do this without fear of repercussion. that's what i see happening on the right. we won't know until it happens. as far as you know, is there a plan? do you think there would be any response in congress, for example, if the deputy attorney general is fired? >> well, if that were the plan, it wasn't executed to fire the deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein, who's overseeing the mueller investigation. he explicitly warned them. does that mean that's what's going to happen? no. this is the latest installment in a series of efforts that chairman nunes has been making ever since they announced the existence of the russian investigation and that there was collusi

collusion, continuing with the allegations that susan rice and samantha powers were inappropriately unmasking americans, all of which turned out to be complete baloney. this is the next step and what's going to happen is that the american public is going to see it for really the shoddy work that it is, even if they don't get a chance to see the democratic rebuttal of that memo. >> do you think there will be release of the democratic memo rebutting it? do you and other democrats on the intelligence committee have any clarity as to whether or not the white house helped produce this memo? >> we don't have clarity on the second question. in fact, congressman quigley in the meeting this was presented to us, he asked the chairman that question and the chairman refused to answer it. none of us know. if it were true it wouldn't be inconsistent with the chairman's back and forth efforts to cloud

the waters around this investigation. but i do not know. to your question about the democratic memo, the democratic memo is a ten-point memo going point by point through the republican memo and pointing out how the time lines in the republican memo don't work out, pointing out each allegation is at best cherry picked and at worst not at all indicative of the bias that the republicans are trying to allege. what's interesting is the president under this procedure for declassification. the republican as he's looking at the republican memo would have to approve the release or could object to the releasing of the democratic memo. what do you think donald trump is going to do with that? >> i have a feeling that's one thing no one will take a bet on. congressman, thank you for your time tonight, sir. >> thank you, rachel. we have one more story here

tonight. a mini-scoop about the president's legal defense. this is exclusive. we've got it next. stay with us. (vo) dogs have evolved,

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a farmer's market.ve what's in this kiester. a fire truck. even a marching band. and if i can get comfortable talking about this kiester, then you can get comfortable using preparation h. for any sort of discomfort in yours. preparation h. get comfortable with it. found this today on the office of government ethics website. check this out. it's called the patriot legal expense fund trust. you can see on monday the office of government ethics weighed in on this and said they don't approve or disapprove of legal defense funds, but they said the ones in the papers would comply with federal laws of how government workers can be paid

and about gifts for them or their bosses. this fund is reportedly to help legal fees incurred by employees, fund-raisers or volunteers employed by the trump campaign, trump administration or trump transition when it comes to the inquiries being conducted by the committees of the u.s. senate and house of representatives. we have reported this truth on the trump defense of the trump investigation, one that created weird incentives for people caught up in these. that is that the trump campaign spent hundreds of thousands of dollars paying fees for two people and two people only, donald trump and donald trump jr. recognizing that was a little weird, the president's lawyers announced months ago that the president planned to set up some kind of mechanism, using his own money to help staffers pay their

legal bills, too. ticklish proposition, how do you reconcile the boss, the president, dangling help with your legal bills while you the staffer answer questions to the special prosecutor who's asking questions about your boss. they said the future legal defense would be for witnesses, staffers and campaign workers forced to incur extraordinary legal expenses merely because they were witnesses. it doesn't incur indictees or targets. the fund would cover a broad swath of people but leave out indicted people like rick gates or mike flynn. we got that information from a trump lawyer just before thanksgiving. since then there's been nothing. but today we believe we found the legal defense fund for trump staffers. we believe we have found that it's on its way. this patriot legal defense fund

trust looks like how they might be going to do this. we are the first to report this, who will get help from the pay patriot legal defense funds we don't know. the papers say it won't be given out based on someone's involvement was beneficial to the president. the manager shall avoid payments arising for indictmentment of fraudulent criminal activities until the manager determined that the acts forming such indictment were undertaken by the recipient on behalf of or directly in support of the campaign. the transition and

administration in good faith and without knowledge that such acts were prohibited by law. you can't do what? so they've left themselves some room to work on that one in terms of who might get their legal fees paid for. we asked craig holeman, a public citizen, whether the president could donate to the fund. he said, yes, the president in his reading could give to this. so maybe the presidential inaugural committee that has tens of millions of dollars left over, maybe they could do so too. that means this scoop of ours poses a quandary of where the money comes from and goes. here's quandary number two. trump campaign yesterday closed out the books on 2017. toting up the money that they got from donors and the people who bought the red hats with the campaign slogan on that. they listed that is all along with how much they spent and what they spent it on. if you bought a red make america great again. that was a campaign donation. you might not be happy to know that one out of every four

dollars spent by the campaign last year, including your donation, went to legal fees. and we now know that includes large sums for law firms which happen to represent the campaign and various individuals in dealing with the trump-russia investigation. the "new york times" notes a significant expense that was paid to the firm that respects the president's long-time that got over $200,000 campaign money. there's no way to know what it got used for and whether or not it was used for the russia investigation or whether it was campaign business. the campaign didn't respond when asked whether they are covering michael cohen's legal costs. this is a simple question. i didn't know michael cohen was on the campaign. is the trump campaign paying michael cohen's legal fees related to russia? is that what they're doing with the donors' money? the trump campaign should be able to answer that. so far they're not. that does it for us. now it's time for the "last word with lawrence o'donnell." >> here we are on memo eve. tomorrow could be memo day.