are heading to the super bowl they weren't supposed to get anywhere near. not only that, they the perennial underdogs will have a lot of the country rooting like hel for them because they are underdogs admitted and everybody admits it. fly, eagles, fly. why? because every good patriotic american roos for the underdog. and that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in" with chris hayes starts right now. >> tonight on "all in." >> i think it's a disgrace. >> #release the memo backfires. >> a lot of people should be ashamed of themselves and much worse than that. >> tonight after weeks of hype, why the actual news from the memo strengthens the collusion case. plus, is the president about to fire the man in charge of the mueller investigation? >> are you going to fire rod rosenstein. >> you figure that one out. >> why trump rejected the advice of his own fbi director but listened to this guy.

>> it literally mirrors kgb style tactics. >> what we're learning about the man at the heart of the memo. >> did you meter is guy kislyak income cleveland? did you talk to him. >> i'm not going to deny that i talked with him. >> when "all in" starts right now. >> good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. the announce memo is out and it does indeed contain a stunning revelation. unfortunately for the white house and the memo's authors the revelation is precisely the opposite of what they wanted to reveal. you see, the memo finally answers a central question, one of the central questions about the entire russia investigation. what prompted is the u.s. government to open an official counter intelligence probe at the height of the 2016 election into the campaign of a major party's presidential candidate? that's a very big deal. that's a big thing to do. what was the piece of information that set off their alarms that they would do that?

we now know. we now know it was not the infamous steele dossier. instead the memo confirms for the first time what the "new york times" first reported late last year. that it was information from george papadopoulos which triggered the opening of an fbi investigation in late july, 2016. papadopoulos who is now cooperating with robert mueller's team was reported to have told an australian diplomat of all people over drinks in a pub or wine bar that are russia had political dirt on hillary clinton. we will talk about that specific revelation or at least confirmation of the reporting which has profound implications. we'll talk about that in just a bit. but proponents of the memo are using it to advance a different narrative using a patchwork of incomplete information which the fbi led by a republican hand picked by the president said contains "material omissions of fact." the memo's backers want to portray russia as the russia probe as an anti-trump

conspiracy hop rating at the highest levels of the justice department. that supposesly began under president obama and crucially and implausibly has been advanced by donald trump's own political appointees. okay? that's what they want you to believe. they want you to believe at the completely invalidates robert mueller's entire investigation. the president having already tried and failed to fire mueller himself according to "the new york times" has now set his sights on a different target. mueller's boss deputy attorney general rod rosenstein, a long-time republican nominated by the president himself. >> he's highly respected, very good guy, very smart guy. the democrats like him. the republicans like him. >> that guy. today, ahead of the release, the president sung a very different tune about his deputy attorney general tweeting "the top leadership and investigators at the fbi and justice department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of democrats and against republicans," and he's been very

clear what he hoped the memo would accomplish. according to the he said he thought the release of the memo would help build a public argument against rosenstein's handling of the russia case suggesting it might give him justification it fire rosenstein. asked about the memo today, the president declined to offer support for his deputy ag. >> i think it's a disgrace what's happening in our country. and when you look at that, and you see that and so many other things what's going on a lot of people should be ashamed of themselves. and much worse than that. a lot of people should be ashamed. thank you very much. >> the fbi doesn't want the memo out. >> thank you very much >> are you going to fire rosenstein? do you still have confidence in him? >> you figure that one out. >> you figure that one out. senator amy klobuchar is a democrat from minnesota. why are you shaking your head? >> i'm shaking my head because it is the deputy attorney general who obviously is now charged because of the recusal

of attorney general sessions with heading up a major investigation about a foreign country's interference in our democracy. and you when you are the president, you support your justice department. and you allow them to do their jobs. and that is with all the facts out there, chris, what really bothers me most as a former prosecutor. you don't undermine an investigation. you don't send out tweets about it. and mostly, you don't release classified information in the middle of investigations. i can't tell you what that does for trust for those agents on the frontline, for the prosecutors working hard pre day and that is why i'm shaking my head. >> your colleagues leaders in the house and senate, democrats, they sent a letter warning trump to use the announce memo as pretext for firing rosenstein would be viewed as an attempt to obstruct justice and the russia investigation. is that your view? is rosenstein a red line for you? >> of course rosenstein is a red

line. i think you have to make clear as other senators including lindsey graham have done in the past that this would really trigger a constitutional crisis. and you can't have another saturday night massacre. but i really like your point at the beginning of how when you really examine this memo which any american can do, it's just three pages long, you get to that nugget where they pretty much admit what we already knew from testimony in front of the judiciary committee of glenn simpson that in fact, this investigation was triggered back in may when papadopoulos met with an australian diplomat at a london bar and told him that the russians had dirt on hillary clinton. this then got to our intelligence through australian intelligence, triggered the investigation in july and the investigation was initiated well before people had that have dossier. >> one of the president's

spokespeople just said on tv that there's no plans to fire rosenstein. he's safe, he's fine appearing to clean up and walk back the president's comments from earlier. given that they denied strenuously they ever tried to fire mueller or thought about it, do you believe them here? >> who obviously knows you've got to take them at some moments at their word they're trying to clean things up. that's a good thing. but at the same time, it's just a game of political whack a mole every day where the american people are from one attack to the other. undermining the fbi, trying to fire the special prosecutor, report after report, tweet after tweet. at some point, you just have to say okay, let this guy do his job. this former fbi director appointed by republicans. let rosenstein do his job against someone appointed by republicans, let chris wray do his job, originally from the bush justice department and now running the fbi. you've got to let people do

their jobs. and when i just see the effect on agents to the point where it came out today that director wray had to send a memo to the agents say i stand with you, i believe in the integrity of the fbi it, just breaks my heart because you know, we're here in the super bowl where we've got security everywhere and you see these agents and security people out there in 1 degree weather. let them do their jobs. >> last question given the sad favorite your vikings and you've got the eagles and pats. who will you be pulling for? i imagine you'll be at the game. who you pull for? >> i couldn't really afford a ticket to the game. i am pulling for a good super bowl. >> what a politician. >> our fans have had a hard time. no, no, nothing. our fans have had a hard time dealing with the philadelphia fans but in their minnesota nice way, they're accepting them. it's freezing cold, chris. if you were here, you would be walking around in a hat like this. that's what we're wearing. > enjoy the weekend. >> it's the bold north.

we welcome you. >> it will be a blast. thank you. thanks for your time. gordon humphrey is a former republican senator from new hampshire, a vocal trump critic. your response to watching the republican party, the house leadership, the committee leadership, paul ryan, the white house all get together to release this memo over the objections of the fbi, over the reservations of the director of national intelligence. what do you make of the members of your party? >> well, i have to tell you i'm no longer a republican. i registered as an independent the day after the election of donald trump. but i was a republican for nearly 50 years. still a conservative. it's disheartening to see what's happening to the republican party. especially the leadership in the congress. this is no longer the party of ronald reagan or bob dole or george bush. o john mccain. by the way, mccain weighed in today saying that we, meaning those who are collaborating with the president in attacking the department of justice and the fbi, he said mccain said we are

doing putin's job for him. i thought that was the best comment of the day. but in any event, getting back to your question, it's really disheartening. more and more, the republicans in congress are, the leaders more prominent members are drinking very large glasses of trump kool-aid. and it's poisoning the party and it's poisoning our country. it's a very great tragedy shoo let me read from the mccain statement just to put it on the screen 37 our nation's elects officials including the president must stop looking at this investigation through the warped lens of politics and manufacturing partisan sideshows. if we continue to undermine our own rule of law, wes are doing putin's job for him. that was mccain. from the opposite end of the political spectrum, paul gosar, i want to get your response. the full throated option of this illegal misconduct and abuse of fisa by comey, yates and rosenstein constitutes treason, i will be leading a letter to the attorney general seeking

criminal prosecution against the traitors to our nation. >> that's pretty poisonous stuff in itself. listen, the number, the heart of the memo, it's a four-page memo, very short, not much in there. by the way, the first two words that jump out at you are at the very top. top secret. top secret stamped in big bold letters. president declassified a top secret document for in my opinion purely partisan political advantage or so he thinks. i hope it backfires in his face. but the number of it is they, announce and the republicans on the house intelligence committee are claiming that the department of justice pulled the wool over the eyes of that special court that authorizes monitoring of the communications of american citizens. remember, this started because a foreign policy adviser to donald trump part of the campaign a volunteer to be sure, but part of an important body within the

campaign, has been suspected for four or five years of being a russian agent or the target of russian recruitment. >> the latter i should say. >> yeah. the fbi's been on his case for some time. so in the last year or so, the department of justice on four occasions got permission four times from this special court to monitor carter page's communications, this suspected person. so the democrats, i mean the republicans announce and company, would ask us to believe that four times the department of justice pulled the wool over the eyes of this court whose judges are highly trained and very skeptical for the most part. it's just defies credit duality to think that they could have been fooled four times that they were presented faulty evidence that encouraged them to -- to permit the monitoring of this mr. page's communications. >> so then what do you think

this is about? do you think this is about laying the groundwork to get rid of rosenstein, to distract? what is your understanding what they're doing? >> yeah, you know, trump is a modern day p.t. barnum running a different sideshow every day to distract attention from his own defirde efficiencies and false my opinion. it's an effort, unfortunately, republicans are cooperating fully to distract public attention from the facts that the russians made a very strong and substantially effective effort to influence our election. and it's worth finding out whether there was an involvement of anyone in the trump campaign or not. it's that simple. so if there wasn't, why is trump trying to deflect the investigation? why is he attacking his own, the people he's appointed? sessions and rosenstein and wray. he's attacking his own people.

it's crazy. the president is just he's daft, he's out of it. >> former senator gordon humphrey, thank you. >> he's also unprincipled. >> joann banks, msnbc justice analyst matt miller from the justice department under president obama. since matt, you were at that justice department where the alleged conspiracy was to begin, your response to what's happening today. >> i'm sorry, the microphone went dead. >> i couldn't hear. >> you we'll go with matt first and get your microphone fixed there, jill. >> it was a really remarkable kind of remarkable memo. i expected to read this memo today and find it was misleading because it left certain things out. what i didn't expect was to read it and find that the claims it makes fall apart just on their face. they base this had entire thing on this kind of legal theory of the fruit of poison tree. if there was an unlawful or unethical interrogation or surveillance, that it means that the fruit of that of technique

can can't be used. not only do they not make that case with respect to carter page that that free is particularly poisonous but that as you pointed out, there is this is entire other tree over here, george papadopoulos case, and not only is that tree not poisoned but it has produced a lot of fruit. it's fractured two guilty pleas already. it has produced two indictments and so the idea that this memo was going to undermine the entire mueller investigation i think completely fell apart today. what remains to be seen is whether trump thinks he's gotten the political space because he finds, because he gets up and watches "fox & friends" and is sort of encouraged in this manner, to make a move against rod rosenstein in that way kind of shut down or curtailed the mueller investigation. i think that remains to be seen. >> jill, watching this today i was thinking about you and your experience with watergate having just recently been immersing myself in the details of that. i wonder what parallels you see

today. >> there are so many parallels to this. first of all, richard nixon asked john dean to write a whitewash memo saying he had fully investigated the accusations and that no one in the white house or on the committee to re-elect the president was involved. that's what's this memo was. it is a whitewash. it is outrageous. it misses so many important facts. it is so misleading and so partisan in its nature. it was intended to not give a fair picture and the outrageous and ironic part is its major point is that in applying for the fisa warrant, the department of justice left off material and relevant facts. whereas their memo is the absolute primer on omitting facts. and so that's one of the most significant things. and another is this question about whether people should stay on the job, should wray resign,

and based on the experience of watergate where it looked like we had been abolished along with the firing of cox, cox met with us and said, it's not clear you've been fired and if you haven't, you must stay on the job. >> right. >> you know the case. you must stay as long as you possibly can. >> this seems a key thing, matt. when you think about rosenstein, the president bizarrely actually doesn't like firing people. he doesn't like firing them to his face. he couldn't even call james comey. he didn't have the courage to tell him over the phone to tell him he's fired. he sent his personal bodyguard to a building he wasn't in. given how passive aggressive he is, it seems if rosenstein and wray just keep showing up to work, that may be enough. >> it's worked for jeff sessions. look, the president has wanted him gone for a long time. the personal bodyguard that delivered the letter to comey is not around anymore. there may be no effective way for trump in this instance to

fire rod rosenstein. i think that's right. but the other thing trump is trying to do is put pressure on the justice department. he seems to have this idea if he pressures the justice department people might quit or they might bend to his will. you know, to some extent it's worked. we are to -- we are really lucky that jeff sessions had to recuse himself. it wasn't a choice. he had to recuse because he was involved in his campaign because you do secessions bending to trump's will to a great extent. even today sessions recused from this investigation and shouldn't have anything to say about this memo because it relates to an underlying investigation he's recused from putting out a statement giving credence to the findings saying he's going to refer it to the right people at the justice department to be looked at, things he has no business saying on a day when he should have stood up for the people in the department. what we've seen in the last week i've been impressed by chris wray. the president not only has wanted to do something himself that's unethical and humanly inappropriate releasing this memo but he's really been

pressuring the fbi and justice department to back down from their public and private objections. we've seen chris wray stand really strong. because of that, we really ought to want chris wray to be in this job because this is not the last time the president is going to ask him to do something unethical. >> let me ask you, this jill. you've got announce saying this is just the beginning. he's going to do more of this. i guess the question is how effective is this? this feels like throwing stuff against the wall. they've been doing this for months. mueller is going to find what he's going to find. do you worry that this is going to materially interfere or is it ultimately a sideshow? >> i think it's a sideshow. i don't think it will affect mueller at all. i think he will continue to be the kind of person he has been to keep his own counsel, to keep the investigation going. i do think that i heard today from what you just played on air of the president saying people should it be disgraced and it's a shame what's happening. and, of course, espeaks in such

generalities that this is one time i could agree with him but i would say the people who obviously should be ashamed are himself and announce. >> all right, jill wine-banks and matt miller, thank you both. >> thanks. coming up, the now confirmed, the confirmed origin of the russia investigation thanks to the announce memo, how an australian diplomat did what no one in the trump campaign apparently did next. he was 34% eastern european. so i went onto ancestry, soon learned that one of our ancestors we thought was italian was eastern european. this is my ancestor who i didn't know about. he looks a little bit like me, yes. ancestry has many paths to discovering your story. get started for free at ancestry.com

so that memo released by house republicans today does not help the republican narrative, quite the opposite. it highlights one of the strangest things, something that always bugged me about the behavior of everyone in the trump circle with respect to russia. whether you think they could lewded or not, whether they committed a crime or not. here's the thing. no one ever blew the whistle. no one ever called the fbi. no one ever says well, there are people connected with the russian government who obviously keep approaching us and offering dirt on hillary clinton and then oh, boy, it looks like the

russians hacked the dnc. i wonder if those two are related. nothing like that, zero. silence. the people who obviously were supporting a candidate who obviously was running for an office that he now occupies, that is supposed to protect and defend the united states never not once as far as we can tell reached out to u.s. authorities to sound the alarm. but now we have confirmation who obviously it was that did sound the alarm. as was previously reported by "the new york times," it was an australian diplomat who obviously happened to spend time in a london wine bar with trump foreign policy adviser george papadopoulos in may 2016 when papadopoulos who obviously has since pleaded guilty according to the times" made a startling revelation. russia had political dirt on hillary clinton. okay, think of this for a second. you're in the wine bar, the australian diplomat talking to this dude who obviously you maybe don't know or know, related to the trump campaign. he's drunk. he knows russia has dirt on hillary clinton. then time goes by.

and you see that the dnc has been hacked by the russians and when those hacked e-mails started going online two months later, australian officials alerted american counterparts. the fbi opened a counter intelligence investigation because of an australian diplomat looking out for american interests. think about that for a second. as far as we know, donald trump jr. never calls the fbi. jared kushner never does. paul manafort never does. george papadopoulos never does. carter page and jeff significances did he ever does. not one of these people never ever, ever smells something fishy and thinks they have a responsibility to the united states of america to protect the integrity of the election. no, one of them. but an australian diplomat did. that's who obviously does it. we have confirmation of that thanks to the announce memo. congressman eric swalwell, have you seen evidence of anyone in the trump campaign ever contacting any officials of any kind to say something smells fishy here? >> good evening. not a shred of evidence.

one of the reforms will have to be put in place is a duty to report law if a foreign adversary or foreign agent contacts a u.s. person and wants to interfere in a federal election, that you should have to report it to the fbi and there's one other that i wanted to point out. michael cohn didn't think it was odd in october and december of 2015 when felix sater was suggesting that in addition to putting a trump tower in moscow, that they get donald trump and putin together because we could, quote unquote, engineer this and make our boy president. >> that's another one i forgot. i had forgotten about that one. okay. so this memo is out. i think you know, a lot of people have i think exposed it for what it is. it does not seem to materially affect the integrity of the mueller investigation in any substantive way. there is another memo the democrats have written. people who have read that have talked to some reporters some of which has been published.

where does that go next? will that come out. >> hopefully on monday. we're asking for a vote monday evening. it will not only rebut in ten pages with footnotes this memo they've put out but it also also shine new and unseen evidence that we believe the door has been opened to to put into focus what they're alleging. we also believe immediately we must do all we can in congress to pass legislation to protect rosenstein and mueller because clearly, the intent is to get rid of them. chris, one other point i don't think has been made is the republicans by turning this over to the white house before publication, had he revealed to the white house evidence in the investigation that is against the president and includes the white house counsel as a potential witness. >> that's a good point. you're concerned about the investigatory integrity essentially. >> it compromises your ability to question witnesses without them tailoring their answers to evidence they know exists.

>> i want to give you a chance to respond to the chairman devin announce. there's a part of the memo that says nowhere in the fisa warrant do they say that the dossier which forms part of the material for the underlying warrant that the dossier was part of a political opposition project which at that time was being paid for by the dnc. you're saying that's actually not quite true that there was information that this was politically motivated. i want to play what you had to say and announce' response and get to you respond to the chair. take a listen. >> it was disclosed to the fisa court that part of the evidence was from a politically motivated source. >> true? >> no. i mean, this is things i said earlier. these guys tell so many lies you can't keep track of them. >> that's not true. >> no. >> these guys tell so many lies you can't keep track of them. what's your response? >> well, devin announce has not even read the fisa application. he also said that in the

interview. i'm not convinced that he's read his memo. there was evidence disclosed that demonstrated the political motivations. and. >> i just want to be clear. >> it's just false. >> out of fairness, have you not read that underlying fisa warrant, as well, correct? >> we haven't been given access to it. we've asked for access. only mr. schiff and mr. gowdy have. i have been briefed on the contents by our staff. i've been briefed on the contents of the fisa application by our staff. >> is your committee broken now? >> it's not irreparable yet. but it will be. >> really? >> it's really. >> if he remains it is. if he remains it. >> devin announce just said these guys tell so many lies you can't keep track of them. >> it's irreparable if he remains as chairman. i still believe if a new chairman came on board, mike con know way would be the logical replacement, that we can become harmonious again and check our political beliefs and our

partisanship at the door. >> congressman eric swalwell, thank you. >> my pleasure. >> coming up, the man at the center of the discredited memo and why he gave paul ryan a shoutout on this very show months ago. the enduring mystery of carter page next. stuff happens. [ dog groans ] [ coughs and sneezes ] nothing relieves more symptoms than alka seltzer plus maximum strength liquid gels.

did you meter is guy kislyak in cleveland. >> did you talk to him. >> i'm not going to deny that i talked with him. >> so did you 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? >> that i may have met him possibly might have been in cleveland.

>> the person at the center of the dubious allegations in the announce memo someone familiar to viewers of this program carter page who obviously appeared on this show three times last year and maintained from the beginning without presenting any public evidence that he was the victim of a vast conspiracy to unconstitutionally and illegally surveil him. with the announce memo released that claim that carter has been a believer in since the beginning became the official conspiracy of the white house and the republican party. the last time i spoke to page was in october when he said something really weird that now seems, well, oddly pressure yent. pressure yent. >> in the interest of getting the truth out there. when the truth comes out, when speaker paul ryan says the fisa warrant or the details about the dodgy dossier and what happened and all the documents sour rounding that will be released that's what i'm excited about. the truth will set a lot of people free. >> wait a second. when paul ryan says that all the stuff around the warrant and the

dossier can be released? did carter page know what was coming? and if so, how? that seems like that would be a really big deal. we asked page about that comment today. he sent a brief response but it didn't really address whether he had been in contact with pul ryan or any other gop lawmakers or their staffers about the public release of information related to his case or about the announce memo specifically. we'll let you know if we hear back. carter page isn't the only person whose involvement is under scrutiny. reportedly, sean hannity has been advising the president on the announce memo as he pushed for its release night after night on trump tv. the reporter who obviously broke that news joins me next. ients a. to knowing they are. going beyond expectations... because our pets deserve it. beyond. natural pet food.

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it's easy to add to the routine. join energy upgrade california and do your thing. president trump ignored warnings from his own fbi director and justice department and the reservations of his own director much national intelligence whether he decided to release the announce memo but he most certainly did not ignore the advice of his most loyal booster on trump tv. >> release the memo. #release the memo. call the number on your screen, 202-224-3121 tell congress the truth about one of the biggest scandals in american history. we have a right to know. >> that was a few seconds. there's been hours of that. according to "the daily beast," trump has been in regular contact with hannity over recent weeks as the tv host hyped the memo on his show. one white house official jokingly dubbed him hip senior counsel to the president. he tweeted a total lie, fakes

news, phony and anonymous sources. >> joining me now the author of that report white house reporter osman suebsaeng. did you just make it up, sfen? >> not, absolutely not. i was a little bit surprised by sean hannity's viscerally mad reaction to a factual statement that among other things he speaks often to the president of the united states and is one of his closest informal advisers. that has been reported by us and many other outlets many times over the past year or two. >> it does seem like there's a direct connection which is this has been something heavily promoted on that show, heavily promoted on that network, release the memo, release the memo. the president batches a lot of it. it seems from your reporting that was he listening more to those folks on the television screen than his own advisers inside the white house? >> he was actually listening to people on his own television screen a lot more than he was listening to, for instance, his

own fbi director. i mean, some fox news personalities such as sean hannity do speak to the president rather often. but the funny thing is you don't actually have to get the president on the phone to influence him in a deep way when it comes to politics and policy if you're on fox news. our sources in the white house have told us repeatedly that before the president had seen the memo, his opinion of it had been shaped almost completely by conservative media and fox news channel that he had been absorbing, not at all close to how it was being shaped by his briefings or interrogation communities. >> one of the weird things about this campaign to release the memo is that it came out of nowhere and then pushed heavily without any of the people involved in it having read are the actual memo. you're saying that kind of persuaded or primed the president before he himself had read it? >> absolutely. and it was coming through what he was seeing on his shining tv

screens within the white house residence. >> i want to play you a more sort of hedge statement from sean hannity about your report last night was interesting. take a lis. >> and by the way people in the media were saying i'm advising him on the memo. you can't advise this president. he's such his own man. you capital tell him not to tweet. he has his own ways. >> i don't know what's happened. >> i'm saying it every night, call your congressman. release the memo. hello. >> it's not really a denial of that one. >> no, not at all. also sean is being self-referenceal in that. particularly early on in the trump era in early 2017, he advised the president over the phone and privately to tweet less and hate tweet less. so sean is speaking from direct experience on that. it was no accident that he said those words. >> swau win suebsaeng, thank you. >> all eyes on the attorney general as his deputy sits in the president's firing line. first thing 1, thing 2 next. why wait months for your next vacation

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of thing 1 tonight, donald trump spoke at a dinner for the rnc last night, a fund-raiser held at the trump international hotel in washington or in other words, it was yet another example of how the trump family continues to line its pockets through the presidency. it also presented the president with an opportunity to brag about his cognitive abilities. trump had the white house press pool after just the first few minutes but breitbart says it retained audio with jibes of some of the notes from other reporter who's had people inside. they didn't release the audio. trump said in the beginning of the test he had to identify sketches of animals which was easy. later he had to repeat disassociated words as the test administratorsed is asked him to repeat them at different points in the test. those last ten questions are hard. there aren't a lot of people that can do that. just to be clear this is a test to just see if you have dementia

or not. it's not an iq test. that's how the memory did on the memory part of the exam. life presents us with memory tests every day. he had a much harder time with one this week in west virginia. that's thing 2 in 60 seconds. you can save time, worry, hassle, and yup, money. in fact, drivers who switched from geico to esurance saved hundreds. that's auto and home insurance for the modern world. esurance. an allstate company. click or call.

hours before trump reportedly admitted the memory part of his cognitive test was hard, he made an appearance at the republican retreat in west virginia. at the beginning of his speech trump reading from a teleprompter thanked senator john cornyn. seconds later forgot he had just thanked senator john cornyn. >> senate majority whip john cornyn. john, thank you. great job. house majority whip steve scalise again, steve. thank you. house majority leader kevin mccarthy. kevin? chair john thune and house conference chair kathy mcmorris rogers.

did they forget your name, john? i don't know. what's going on here? john cornyn, everybody knows. i didn't put his name up but that's okay. >> senate majority whip john cornyn. john, thank you. great job. >> president didn't do much there to back up his very frequent claim of having "one of the great memories of all time." >> i don't have teleprompters here, folks. i don't need teleprompters. it's called like up here and it's called memory and it's called other things. >> i have a good memory and all that stuff, like a great memory. >> i have a really good memory. >> i have a good memory like a great memory. >> i have a great memory. >> i'm blessed with a great memory. >> one of the great memories of all time. . your eyes. that's why there's ocuvite. ocuvite helps replenish nutrients your eyes can lose as you age. it has lutein, zeaxanthin and omega-3. ocuvite. be good to your eyes.

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to the american public a memo that the director of the fbi says is false. that has never happened in our democracy. >> an extraordinary times, jeff sessions the attorney general walks a careful line. he of course actively recommended comey's firing. he recused himself from the investigation and hung on to his job despite the president's bullying publicly and privately. today he defended rod ro rosenstein a man the president seems to be targeting. >> to ron and rainal are harvard graduates. they're experienced lawyers. they -- rob had 27 years in the department. rachel has had a number of years in the department previously. so they both represent the kind of quality and leadership that we want in the department. >> but just hours later, jeff sessions said something very, very different about the people at the department of justice. that and the potential for a new constitutional crisis next.

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earlier today the attorney general praised his deputy holding up the model of the leadership. jeff sessions seemed to take a sharp turn saying i have great confidence in the men and women of the department but no department is is perfect accordingly, this is response to the memo, i will forward all information i receive from congress regarding this. jeff sessions, the attorney

general splitting the difference over his own department. a former assistant special watergate professor and nancy is a retired federal judge and nancy, let me begin with you, how do you read sessions in all this? >> well, i mean, i think he's scrambling for a position of credibility here. it seems to me he's going back and forth. it's hard to see. i mean, the whole issue here is sort of fleeting alliances and allegiances. i don't know where he has any credibility at all under the circumstances. >> you means in terms of defending the integrity of the department as it comes under increased pressure. >> right. the danger here is that after all the attacks on the department, let's assume trump gets his way and there is a house-cleaning. the department then evolves from that will be a department that will not be independent, will be

a department very different that is really captive of the white house, which is not what the constitution intended. >> nick, let's say this memo is basically blows over, which essentially i think it will. it's meant to kick up dirt. is there going to be more of this? >> there is going to be a lot more. this is just the beginning. this has been in a whole string of incidents we've seen from the beginning talking about this unmasking where nunes goes to the white house and makes like he got this stuff himself but really got it from the white house. this is a pattern of this and i think it will get worse. this is why, it's michael flynn. michael flynn told mueller's group all kinds of things. he's laid out a whole scenario of conspiracy and crime -- >> you think. you think. you don't have anyway of knowing that but you think. >> i know. i'm positive. it's based on his guilty plea. he plead to a lie to release sanctions. what is happening here is they

are going back to the people in the white house, people around trump. they are asking questions based on what they are learning from michael flynn and all of this is circling back to the president. so he knows that the jig is up. he knows they are moving in on him and getting closer and closer. and so he's not going to stop. he is desperate to get this investigation stopped and out of the way. >> nancy, is that square with what your theory is at the moment? >> i agree. i think this attack on the fisa warrant is extraordinary. if the court had known about steele's biases it would have made a particle of difference is frankly absurd. from one end of this country to the other, there are search warrants that are executed based on the testimony of, you know, drug dealers who are trying to get off the charges in order to better their situation.

so it doesn't -- the premise of what he was trying to do doesn't make sense and if they are prepared to do this, who knows. >> you were a district judge. you over saw criminal trials and the theory of the nunes memo, this is messed up because one of the things entered into evidence is someone that had a bias against the target. what you're saying is it turns out in federal court and local criminal court, the evidence for warrants comes from people bias against the target. >> people who are bias against the target, testifying in order to get off charges that could be the estranged wife of someone that sees drug dealing going on. the bias is irrelevant. the issue is what other co-on rati -- cthe steele memo had to be small part. >> there is this question about

where is all this going and all these things mueller is doing on obstruction. it's very unclear what he's going to do with it and a lot of people say there is no way he indicts the president and decisions. this piece comes out working for someone of the target of the mueller probe saying they think he's going to do that, which was sort of weird to me. >> yeah, but i don't see how they would know. the only way i could assume that is from the questions asked of his client as to what trump's involvement is. they will be asking that. at a minimum, trump is going to be an unindicted co-conspirator that comes out here but whether he'll be indicted is a whole different story and whether or not -- >> whether or not he can be indicted. right. they are two separate questions. >> you know, you got to dial this back and say if this really was nothing why didn't he go before the american people and say the election was hacked and

basically incriminate himself than had he simply step back and let the investigation proceed. >> anyone trying to be at all charitable read the president's behavior. he's acting like this because he's guilty. that's not the slam dunk. that's not the threshold. >> an observer of the conduct, it's hard to make sense of the conduct. >>conscience trying to get comey and loyalty and stop the investigation into flynn, et cetera, et cetera. >> do you think wray and rosenstein and sessions can just stick it out? >> it's -- i think they are being advised to stick it out. i don't know about sessions but certainly everyone else. there is a wonderful question

about if they leave, as i said, they seed this department to a very politicized department. i'm not sure that's in their interest. in one sense it's easier because there are many it's attacking. it's clear he's doing an attack on the department and one person says i'm not sure i have the president's confidence. he's doing everyone -- >> strength in numbers. thanks for your time. that is "all in" for this evening. good evening. >> good evening. have a great weekend, my friend. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. that's it. [ laughter ] >> that's it. that's what the hype is about? two weeks. i hyped i had donald trump's tax rump returns and i clarified