that's it? that's all they've got? this is what all the hype was about? for two weeks now they've been hyping this? i hyped that i had donald trump's tax returns and then i clarified that i only had two pages of donald trump's tax returns. for one hour before i actually released two pages of what actually were donald trump's tax returns and for a year now people have been telling me that was unconscionable hype about donald trump's tax returns. but at least those actually were donald trump's tax returns, even if they were boring in the end. sorry. this thing, this was two weeks of this memo is going to end

everything, this memo -- have you heard about the memo? #release the memo. this memo will make donald trump innocent. this will put robert mueller in jail, abolish the fbi, the justice department will have to rename itself the donald j. trump and family private security task force. i mean, i can't believe this is it. i don't really believe in the whole cable news wars idea. i know people who work across the street at the fox news channel. i've got friends who work there. i think we're all doing our own thing the best we can, wish everybody the best but oh, my god, they have been hyping and hyping and huffing and puffing and working their audience up into a frenzy for two solid weeks. they have literally built a right-wing public movement that this memo must be released because this memo will fix the trump presidency, it will fix the russia scandal for president trump, make the whole thing go

away. despite all of that, apparently they didn't know or didn't notice that this thing they have been clamoring for and hyping for two solid weeks that they have built up this frenzy around, it actually disproves their whole point. i mean, at some point in the past year they fixed on this strategy that dossier that buzz feed published right after the election in 2016, republicans and conservatives and conservative media focused on that idea, fixated on the idea that maybe that dossier was something they could use to try to undercut the whole idea that there should have ever been a russia investigation in the first place. they promised the fox news audience, they promised the country, they talked a big portion of the normal media into believing that they were about to shake the earth. they were about to prove that the whole basis of the russia investigation was that dossier. they never even planned to come up with a good argument against the content of the dossier. they didn't think they would have top. step one, say the dossier is

bad. step two, say the whole russia investigation is based on the dossier. step three was today, release the memo that proves step two, that proves that the dossier was the basis for the whole russia investigation and then, boom, you don't need a step four because game's over, trump's president for life and being a democrat's for legal and if you don't support trump for president, you're a democrat and you're illegal, good-bye. today was step three, the memo that proves the whole russia investigation is based on the dossier. then they release this memo which says in its final paragraph sort of distractedly while trying to make another point about specific fbi agents being bad people who have affairs they let slip in the last paragraph of the memo that, oh, by the way, the dossier didn't actually lead to the russia investigation. the fbi was looking at a trump campaign guy for his contacts with the russians. that guy, george papadopoulos,

did actually end up pleading guilty to the fbi about lying about his contacts with the russians. papadopoulos is what started the investigation. they released this memo to prove that the dossier started everything. the memo says the dossier didn't actually start anything. at which point everybody in america goes -- everybody else in america, i guess, goes right, that's what we've been saying! but what happens now to all the hype over this thing at fox news over the past couple of weeks? i mean, this was a lot of hype. what happens to the plan by the white house where the president was apparently led to release this thing? not because he knew what was in it, not because he had even bothered to read it himself but because he was watching fox news segments about it, and those fox news segments were convincing him that this memo of the magic ticket that was going to be his get out of jail free card. what happens to the president's argument that this memo is all the justification he needs to

start removing the deputy attorney general or maybe even the fbi director or everybody else who might conceivably give him some path toward stopping the mueller investigation? fox news apparently convinced the president that this memo is all he would need to be able to fire rod rosenstein. to be able to get rid of the mueller investigation. by one report, to get jeff sessions to indict robert mueller. "washington post" reported this morning that the president was left alone with the memo for several hours so he could read it. the memo is only three and a half pages long. and the font is not that small. and i know the president famously does not enjoy lots of reading, but, i mean, several hours to read three and a half pages? there's no reason to assume he had adequate time to get through all three and a half pages in several hours. maybe he didn't get the end, to the really bad part at the end.

so after all of the hype, after all of the excitement, after all of the absolute fixation on this big reveal, this big revolutory home today, i will admit to being shocked what the they released. it was just kind of like a sad trombone. we only bring that out for very special occasions. but we did nevertheless get a landmark moment in american history today. we did get a public release of classified information, pushed by house republicans and okayed by the president of the united states, apparently because he thought this was going to be good for him politically because fox news told him it would be. fisa warrants are classified. the whole fisa court process is a classified process. we're not supposed to get any public information about the fisa courts or warrants,

confirmation of specific warrants or targets of specific warrants. we know thanks to this memo on october 21st, 2016 a foreign intelligence surveillance act fisa warrant was approved to start surveillance on carter page. we also learned that warrant was renewed three times after its initial approval. and that's helpful information. even though it's information we're really not supposed to have, it's good to know. i was talking to my reporter friend in my office and we were counting out what those three renewals mean when that means carter page was subject to the warrant. they run for 90 days. that would mean it was renewed in january. if it ran for another january and it was renewed for a second time that would be in april, and

if it ran for another 90 days and it was renewed for a third time, which is what the memo said today, that means it was renewed in july. and then it would run for another 90 days, which would be august, september, october. so that manse from october 26, 16 to october 2017 at least carter page was being surveilled under a fisa warrant, which is the kind of thing we are never supposed to know. but now we've got this information because they released this classified information, from at least october '16 to october '17 this trump foreign policy adviser was under surveillance thanks to a fisa warrant because he was believed to be either a foreign agent or at least a u.s. person in contact with a foreign intelligence services. and it's bizarre that we know that. it's bizarre that has been declassified and given to the public. it's handy to know for trying to piece together some of the

timeline on this stuff. handy if only it makes clear when carter page to do an interview with chris hayes in october last year, october 17, based on the math and the number of fingers i have, he was probably still be surveilled under the fisa warrant. and that interview was nutty. all of carter page's interviews are a little nutty, but he did say this one now very intriguing thing. not really about his own case or about donald trump, but about house budget committee republicans. >> the interest of really getting the truth out there. i think when the truth comes out, when speaker paul ryan says the fisa warrant, the details about the dodgy dossier and what happens, all the documents around that will be released, that's what i'm really excited about. the truth will set a lot of people free. >> because of the way he talks, because of the way he basis in interview, everything carter

page says seems a little fuzzy, like a little like where you going, man? but what he just said there actually is what happened. and he knew about it months in advance. last october carter page somehow knew that speaker of the house paul ryan would green light the release of classified information about what went moo the fisa warrant for carter page. >> when speaker paul ryan says the fisa warrant -- the details about the dodgy dossier and what happened and all those documents surrounding that are going to be released, that's what i'm really excited about. >> paul ryan is going to green light the release of the information around your fisa warrant? it sounded like another krasz c thing that carter page said months ago and that just happened. that they would try to use this

warrant against carter page to make a public case, to try to turn that warrant somehow into some sort of public information that presumably would be used to turn the whole russia investigation into a scandal. and now it's happened. and they have put out their memo and it is such a bust, it is so not what it was hyped to be, but i think it is worth being clear that this is something they have been trying to figure out a way to use for a very long time. apparently the let's release the classified information about what led to the warrant plan, apparently that plan was in the works since at least last october when carter page blurted it out to chris hayes. i think it's also worth noting that even before that, last march, remember the obama wire tapped trump tower scandal? remember that? march of last year right at the start of his administration, president trump made that strange allegation. "terrible, just found out that

obama had my wires tapped in trump tower just before the victory. i bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that obama was tapping my phones in october." trump tower was not wire tapped and obama was not wire tapping trump tower in october. but in october, they did get the fisa warrant to surveil carter page. there was surveillance of trump's ex-campaign aide starting in october. but if that's what was the truth behind that wooley effort to create some kind of giant national security scandal around it, i think it worked for a couple of weeks. people were very upset about this allegation that president obama had his wires tapped and everything and people tried to figure out what he was talking about and it was distracting. that lasted for a couple of

weeks before everybody finally realized it was nonsense. a couple weeks later, they tried to reup it. a couple weeks after the obama wire tapped me stuff, march 17th it was devon nunes, breathing hard, sweating, summoning reporters, visibly upset saying he had received from a whistle blower terrible informing about people from the trump campaign being monitored in foreign surveillance. this was such damning and terrible informing, he said he's sorry he had to go, he had to rush to the white house to brief the president on this disturbing revelation. this was information that was actually provided to devon nunes from the white house in the first place. was that all about carter page having a fisa warrant on him as well? is that what that was about, too? what is this all about? the trump campaign did hire someone, lord knows why, who had no national security profile and

no political profile at all but he was believed by the fbi to either be a witting foreign agent of russia or at least a u.s. person in contact with the foreign intelligence agency. he turned up in a russian spy ring involving a branch of bveb bank earlier. another person came to the attention of the officials bass of his contacts foreign intelligence. they did get a fisa warrant on carter page in 2016/becau, beca they released information to the public did it. they've been trying to make some big political point about this warrant on carter page for a long time. the existence of that warrant for carter page has been kicking

around a lot. that itself is an unusual thing. fisa warrant and details about don't make it into discussion very often. we debate fisa and warrants in the abstract but knowing about one and knowing when application was made and who it was about, this is stuff that doesn't leak to the press at all. but this carter page one, for whatever reason, it been around. we've known about it, there's been a ton of reporting about it. for some reason people knew enough about this fisa warrant about carter page to be kibitzing about it, so much so that it got picked up in multiple news organizations. it's been clear for a long time that the trump white house and republicans have wanted to make that into a scandal. it's been clear for months. cart are page made that clear in

the intervi -- chris hayes interview. how did anybody know about it in the first place? we still don't know. but now it confirmed publicly because they did, as carter page said they would, they took their big shot at it today. they declassified the information about that warrant and what led to it, selectively, so they could take their big shot, so they could finally figure out the highest use they could put that warrant to. they'd use this memo to make the russia investigation go away. poof. they would show that the fisa warrant for carter page was based on the steele dossier. the steele dossier they will say the therefore the source of the whole fbi russia investigation and boom, national consensus,

there is no more russia investigation, trump is innocent. >> "the page fisa application also mentions information regarding full owe trump campaign adviser george papadopoulos. the papadopoulos information triggered the opening of an fbi counterintelligence investigation in late july 2016." so that means the dossier wasn't the basis for the fbi's counterintelligence investigation. it was other intelligence that the fbi had about actual contacts between the trump campaign and the russians. they weren't made up. they've already resulted in a guilty play and cooperating witness. oops. why did they put that in their big memo? they could put anything in here. they didn't let anybody check it against the actual facts? they just released it on their own? why did they put that in there? oops? but they did. even if you never fell for any

of the fox news independent abo -- hype, there is one assertion in this memo that does still really stick out. i think it's designed to seem very worrying. it's an assertion in the memo about christopher steele himself. republicans have tried to make the dossier a scandal. they've tried to make christopher steele a scandal. he was the head russia guy at mi-6 for years. they've been trying to make him a dubious person. they've turned a lot of what are supposed to be the congressional russia investigations into instead full-time efforts to impugn christopher steele and the russia dossier. because republicans have done that, we've got pretty good public record, documents in the public domain, about the doss r dossier, about christopher steel

and the firm that commissioned it. the republicans have hauled fusion gps up to capitol hill and pressured their found are into giving 21 hours of congressional testimony about christopher steele and the dossier. well, in this member open released today, this is what they say about christopher steele personally, which is designed to undercut him as a source, thereby undercut the dossier, thereby undercut the russian investigation, even though it want based on the dossier. quote, shortly after the election, the fbi began interviewing a senior d.o.j. official, associate deputy attorney general bruce ohr, who had been in touch with christopher steele. quote, for example, in september 2016, steele admitted to ohr his feelings against then-candidate trump when steele said he was, and this is in quotes, desperate

that donald trump not get elected and was passionate about him not being president. it's actually the only phrase in the entire memo that's in bold type. they really want you to know that christopher steele communicated that. thanks to the russia probes in congress being turned into anti-christopher steele investigations and they hauled the fusion gps guy back to congress again and again and again, we know what the congress is for christopher steele's state of mind around that time. we know what was going on at the time that might have led christopher steele to say something like that about how he felt about donald trump being elected president. we have more information about that than just what's in the memo. the first glen simpson memo was released, he explains his and

chris steele's statement of mind about donald trump. given all the information that steele had just collected about him which caused them to take their information to the fbi and the justice department. basically out of fear because they were so alarmed by what this research project had turned up about trum. this is from the transcript. quote, after the election obviously we were as surprised as everyone else and chris and i were mutually concerned about whether the united states had just elected someone who was compromised by a hostile foreign power. we were, you know, unsure what to do. initially we didn't do anything other than to discuss our concerns, but we were gravely concerned. okay. then we get a second transcript from glen simpson talking to the house committee and he explains in more detail. page 78. did the fbi ever reach out to you or fusion gps in relation to the matters that mr. steele informed them on?

>> i was asked to provide was in by the justice department. >> by whom and when? >> a prosecutor by the name of bruce ohr. >> did mr. ohr reach out to you? how did that shake out originally? >> i think it was someone that chris steele knows. >> chris told me he'd been talking to bruce, that he told bruce about what happened and that bruce wanted more information and suggested that i speak with bruce. the context of this is that it was after the election a very surprising thing had happened, which was that donald trump had won. we were by that time enormously concerned about rapidly accumulating indications that the russian government had mounted a massive attack on the american election system and that donald trump and his associates might have been involved. and there were a lot of alarming things happening, including trump saying things about vladimir putin that didn't make any sense, that weren't ordinary things for a republican to say. and you know, anyway. we had also by this time given this information to the fbi. they indicated to chris they were investigating it and they

apparently told the "new york times" that they weren't. that's about this article, "investigating donald trump, fbi sees no clear link to russia." the substantive claims in that "new york times" article have basically been disprove i don't know. there's a raging debate why the "new york times" hasn't corrected or retracted that article. it existed at the time. "so we had also by this time given this information to the fbi, and they had indicated to chris that they were investigating it and then they told the "new york times" that they weren't. it was not clear to us whether anyone at a high level of government was aware of the information provided. so we were, you know, very scared for the country and for ourselves. we felt if we could give it to someone else higher up, we should. so chris suggested i give some information to bruce, we eventually met at a coffee shop and i told him the story.

and then that part of the transcript ends with "my time is up, thank you." so the member open released today by house republicans, this classified memo that they thought would be the big get out of jail free card, would end the russia investigation, the one actually alarming piece of it or at least kind of shocking piece of it is when they say that chris steele expressed grave worries about donald trump being elected president of the united states. they take that one piece and bold it, tit's the one bold lin in the whole memo. they held it up as proof that christopher steele -- they don't say it might be because of what he learned about donald trump and russia and compromise and blackmail. what a fiasco. what an embarrassment. oh! there's one.

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we are joined by a top democrat on the intelligence

committee, adam schiff. this has been kind of a weird day >> yes, it has. >> you know what the underlying intelligence is that led to this republican memo today we know that the other republican member of congress who has seen that underlying intelligence is actually not congressman devin nunes, it's trey gowdy that surprised everybody this week by announcing he would be resigning from congress. there is conflicting information as to whether or not he actually wrote this document. he contacted congressman gowdy's office and they told us he was not involve in writing it and nunes says it was he and trey gowdy that wrote it. do you have any clarity on that?

>> i think the republican staff wrote the memo. that's the best of our understanding and quite breathtaking because the chairman didn't bother to review the underlying material. the only one apparently of republican members that did, trey gowdy brought us the endless benghazi conspiracies that never prove to be true. it's important for people to understand as they try to justify this use of this never before used house rule to publish this, this is not what oversight looks like. they claim this is part of oversight. we do oversight every day. oversight involves bringing agencies before our committee and asking tough questions and demanding information when they raised this memo, which they raised with no notice to us, we said let's bring in the fbi. let's bring the department of justice. let's hear what they have to say and look at the full fisa applications and go through them and see what's being left out of the memo. we took a vote and they voted no, we don't want to know. we who haven't read it, we that

don't look at the underlying materials, we don't want to know. we want to publish our memo. this is about a narrative they wanted to tell that they wanted to get out in the public domain and you're right, i would add one other thing to the timeline. this all began on march 20th when james comey testified before our committee in the first open hearing and revealed there was a counterintelligence investigation going on of the trump campaign. we on the committee, the democrats laid out a powerful case why a thorough and objective investigation needed to be done. republicans said they view that hearing as an utter disaster, as did the white house. it's only a disaster if you view your job as protecting the president and not finding out the truth. it was the very next day after that hearing that devin nunes went on the midnight run to his undisclosed location to get these incriminating documents that didn't stand for anything like he represented them and the day after that that he would present them back to the white house.

that whole gambit began the day after that hearing and it's never really ended. this is the latest chapter in an effort to distract attention from the russia probe and put the government on trial. >> what do you make of the effectiveness of this effort? to me, it feels quite fitting that today is ground hog day because it feels like we have seen this movie before in terms -- waving around. you know, i have this list, i have this classified information that proves the raugs investigation is based on on something inappropriate, that it should go away and the real villains here are the obama administration or hillary clinton.

i feel like we've seen a number of different ways of this but with the hype and conservative media and dramatic and unprecedented action where they actually released classified information in order to do this, i have to ask you how damaging you think this is and how well this particular attempt of their's has done at its aim to protect the president and try to divert the investigation. >> well, i think it's been very damaging but not in the way republicans have hoped. it's been damaging because they have built this up so much. on fox, they were trumpeting this that made watergate look like a walk in the park and gop tea party members were saying this is the most vile thing they have seen and it's a big dud. the department of justice consists of a single fisa court application against someone already under inquiry by the fbi because he had already been approached by russian

intelligence for was in years before donald trump came along. but the real damage they have done is they have damaged the relationship between our committee and intelligence committee. in the future, the intelligence committee will be wary of sharing information, if you have a neighbor next door buying a lot of fertilizer and seems odd because they don't have a yard, are you going to think twice before calling the fbi because if they get a search warrant for your neighbor and something is politicized and there is information, your identity will be revealed because you really can't trust this will be kept confidential anymore. even so, the process presumed in the president of the united states who has a veto over this would be a responsible person who would have the interest of the nation at heart and of course, that's not what we have here. >> congressman adam schiff, top democrat on the house intelligence committee, currently engaged in the fight

to have the rebuttal memo to this declassified and released. thank you for being with us tonight. >> thank you. a lot more to get to tonight, stay with us. ] [ coughs and sneezes ] nothing relieves more symptoms than alka seltzer plus maximum strength liquid gels. coaching means making tough choices. jim! you're in! but when you have high blood pressure and need cold medicine that works fast, the choice is simple. coricidin hbp is the #1 brand that gives powerful cold symptom relief without raising your blood pressure. coricidin hbp.

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harvard graduates, they are experienced lawyers. rod's had 27 years in the department, rachel's 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. >> thank you very much. >> reporter: [ inaudible ]. >> do you still have confidence -- >> you figure that one out. >> the republicans appear to have laid an egg with the big memo release today. but the president reportedly had been convinced by watching fox news channel segments in the lead up to the memo release he was convinced this would offer him all the ammunition he needed to fire deputy attorney general rod rosenstein at the justice department when the president was asked about that today by reporters, does it make you more likely to fire rosenstein and do you still have confidence in him? the president's response was you figure that one out.

our guest is a former u.s. attorney, has extensive experience with the fisa process and james comey and robert mueller, seems like the guy to talk to tonight. thank you for being here. >> my pleasure. obviously there has been criticism any classified information has been released at all. further, there is criticism if something is going to be released, this selection of information about the fisa process according to democrats is misleading and incomplete and according to the fbi fatally incomplete and inaccurate. from what you know about the fisa process, would it be possible to declassify safely enough information to give the public a true picture of what appropriately or inappropriately led to a warrant being issued? >> i can answer it this way. if you wanted to give everyone a full picture, this wouldn't do

it. you have three pieces of a jigsaw puzzle with a 997 missing pieces and no box top. this doesn't give you any picture at all. i can tell you having worked for bob mueller at the fbi, i was responsible for viewing the fisa warrants before prosecutors brought them to a fisa court judge to be authorized. lots and lots of people before me worked on those warrants before me vetting them and corroborating them and making sure that everything was checked to the extent it could be. it's an exact process and ironically, it's the rank and file process of the

department of justice, the paralegals and prosecutors that ensure the accuracy. the rank and file are the ones that help prepare these for court. >> is there -- to the extent this is going to be used as a political document, i played that clip at the top because there are reports the president believes he can use this memo, the release of this memo and publicity around it in the consecutive media to give him public support for dramatic action like firing the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. given its intended use, should we expect there could be some kind of rebuttal, that the fbi would issue a public statement clarifying what are the implicit allegations against them in this memo? >> the fbi said its peace and properly so. the fbi is in a tough bind. they didn't want anything out. they only compound the problem by putting more out. can i take a minute to explain what is odd about classified information? >> please, please. >> imagine someone leaked a document saying rachel maddow a senior official of the foreign

government, loved nutella but would only eat it with a red plastic spoon and marked top secret and everyone is wondering why in the world is that be top secret? it turns out that only one person in the whole world, your great aunt barbara knows you like eating nutella with a red plastic spoon. we told the whole world great aunt barbara is the source for the united states government. she's a mole. she's a spy and something bad is going to happen to her in the next couple days in that foreign country. and so the fbi cannot be in the business of rebutting this stuff because to rebut it, they will lay out other facts that foreign governments are going to use to their advantage and our disadvantage. they've said their piece. >> chuck, i have to tell you, i have an aunt named barbara who is freaking out right now but in a different way -- >> she's a spy. >> in a different way than you

freaked out the country with what they have given away with this classified information. former u.s. attorney and senior fbi official and dea administration. thank you. i really appreciate it. >> my pleasure. successful people have one thing in common. they read more. how do they find the time? ... with audible. audible has the world's largest selection of audiobooks. for just $14.95 a month... you get a credit good for any audiobook ... and you can roll your credits to the next month if you don't use them. audible members get free no hassle exchanges ... and use the mobile app to listen anytime, anywhere. start a 30-day trial and your first audiobook is free.

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the 12 hour pain relieving strength of aleve. i'm back. aleve pm for a better am. there are five high-ranking officials named in this memo today. james comey fired. deputy fbi director andrew mccabe pushed out and dana bente had been fired but brought him back and rod rosenstein. the white house denied tonight that rod rosenstein's job is on the line but they also denied the president ever tried to fire special counsel robert mueller which we now know he did. this is why people have been calling this moment a slow motion saturday night massacre after nixon cleared out the

department in 1973 to stop the very long against him. joining me is msnbc historian michael bosnian serb loskchael . thank you for being with us. >> pleasure. >> will you put this in historical context in terms of magnitude in terms of how big a deal this is and how strange it is? >> it could be a really big deal because number one, just as you've been suggesting, we could maybe the next few days be seeing the firing of rod rosenstein which could lead to an effort to constrain robert mueller's investigation or even shut it down with all that would entail. i suggest the next couple days we all sleep with one eye open because we just cannot know what is going to happen but even a larger context, rachel, this is a guy donald trump who since the time he was elected has talked about attacking some of the most vulnerable aspects of our

democracy at the beginning and also in recent times. the fbi, he's talked about reconstructing the fbi, i don't think i want to see an fbi where a president can use fbi agents to go after his political enemies. justice department, we saw that actually today. there is an effort to cast doubt on the justice department which is now our legal system is a threat to donald trump in his circle and the intelligence community from the very beginning after he was elected. he attacked. this is something in recent years kept us strong against russia and one of the bull works against russia invading our electoral system in the midterm election. this is not only a threat to the mueller investigation, it goes way beyond. >> as we see the white house and allies in the republican party in congress, try to really not just rebut but really impugn really undue the mule aeller investigation, the fbi, to a certain extent the justice department. i try to see that in the context

of the beef that various presidents have had with the media over time or the beef that they've had with people investigating them. what seems different to me is the conservative media messaging machine that has turned this into not just a political stance, it's turned it into a cultural stance for conservatives. does that have historic precedence or is that new? >> it's something that nixon was desperate to have and we know that richard nixon met with roger ailes of all people and talked to him about establishing a tv network. nixon would have loved to have that in watergate. in the case now it's emboldening donald trump. a little late for nixon. the other thing, rachel, is today was a day that threatened america's faith in government.

that's the top of the russian wish book. this was a great day for russia and that's something none of us want to see. >> nbc news historian michael beschloss, thank you for your time. we'll be right back. stay with us. 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. but enough talking about lobster- let's get to eating! - because lobsterfest won't last. so dive in today at red lobster! ( ♪ ) ♪ one is the only number ♪ that you'll ever need ♪ staying ahead isn't about waiting for a chance. it's about the one bold choice you make, that moves you forward. ( ♪ ) the one and only cadillac escalade. come in now for this exceptional offer

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the man has held five different jobs in the trump administration. five jobs.

dana boente, he was the u.s. attorney for the eastern district of virginia, which is an important position given its proximity to d.c. when if president fired acting attorney general sally yates, until they swore in jeff sessions, then they made him deputy attorney general, until rod rosenstein got sworn in and then they made him attorney general of the acting. considering it was obama hold over they made these efforts to keep him around and in these positions. that's why it was surprising, when dana boente was finally

out, suddenly announced he was leaving the justice department and nbc news learned he didn't jump, he was pushed. he had been told to resign. after they gave him all those jobs, why did they fire that guy? don't know. but then they changed their minds just a few days ago. they brought him back to the yet another big job. they have him working as the general counsel of the fbi. the trump administration just can't quit dana boente. today we learned something else about him, something he did when he was acting attorney general. that is that dana boente was one of the many official who signed a fisa application for surveillance on carter page. i know, crazy. the president had been hoping to use this memo as a way to get rid of rod rosenstein because he signed off on one too, in fact, he appeared to do what everybody else did before him when it came to seeking a warrant for carter page. four different judges were happy to approve surveillance warrants and renewals when it came to carter page.

the difference is all the other high ranking officials have been fired or are out the door or are threatened like rod rosenstein. dana boente signed one too is he not going to get fired? if trump gets rid of rod rosenstein, does he have to get rid of dana boente too? why would rod rosenstein have to go and not dana boente? somebody explain it to me. we'll be right back. waysthe roasted core wrap. fat.

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i hereby wish you a very happy super bowl weekend and i also the ones that our friends at the fox news channel and republicans and those at the white house had hyped and suggested would be the get out of jail free card for anything that led to an fbi investigation over the course of the trump campaign or administration. and now that it has dropped it disproves the main point they were trying to make with it. i feel like -- well, like i said i wish you gastro intestinal relief. i feel as a country we had a relieving burp. it's over. that does it for us tonight see you monday. go pats. it's time for the last word. joy reed is in for lawrence o'donnell. >> i forgive you for being a pats fans. afc.