proposal, there is $200 billion in cuts. that would be more straightforward to implement and could possibly come up in this budget future budget. >> look for that. they will look to cut food stamps and that will be the beginning of the cuts for these programs. thanks for being here. >> that is "all in" for this evening. "the rachel maddow show" starts now. >> thanks my friend. >> you bet. thanks for joining us this hour. i was one year ago today that the trump white house personnel randomly started flinging people off throughout the night. mike flynn became the shortest lived ever national security advisor when -- after 24 you aredaar aar days on the job was fired. he didn't actually get fired. he was allowed to resign and

that detail is easier to remember when you look back on how the president talked about flynn at the time. >> michael flynn, general flynn is a wonderful man. i think he's been treated very, very unfairly by the media. as i call it, the fake media in many cases. and i think it's really a sad thing that he was treated so badly. i think it's very, very unfair what's happened to general flynn the way he was treated. very, very unfair. >> clearly this was not a president who had just fired mike flynn, flynn was allowed to resign. the president said so himself awkwardly standing next to netten nett nett netten -- nbut the fact flynn ws allowed to resign, he wasn't fired, the president made that clear himself and it was made clear at one particularly

excruciating white house press briefing right after flynn's departure. >> good afternoon. happy valentine's day. i can sense the love in the room. when the president heard the information is presented by white house counsel, he thought that general flynn did not do anything wrong. >> back in january, the president said that nobody in his campaign had been in touch with the russians. now today, can you still say definitively that nobody on the trump campaign, not everyone general flynn had any contact with the russians before the election? >> my understanding is that what general flynn has expressed is during the transition period, we were very clear that during the transition period, he did speak with the ambassador. >> i'm talking about during the campaign. >> i don't have any -- there is nothing to conclude me anything different changed with respect to that time period. >> i don't have any -- there is nothing that would conclude me. mike flynn resigned a year ago today. that was the press briefing that

was held a year ago tomorrow when they first had to answer questions about flynn. so this is day 24 and then day 25 into the new administration. they are brand-new. sean spicer as we now know, he had a difficult time with the job of being white house spokesman, this i think was a particularly difficult briefing for him but he did his best. >> is the administration taking any effort cabinet-wise or inside the shot to make sure that everyone comes forward who had any communications with the russians about sanctions or otherwise? >> there is no other information, as far as we are aware, that is an isolated incident that occurred. >> that was not an isolated incident that occurred. will you make any sort of effort to make sure anybody who comes forward who had any communications with the russians about sanctions or otherwise, as far as we're aware, that was an isolated incident. not an isolated incident. a year ago today, february 13th

was when mike flynn resigned because of his undisclosed contacts he lied about. a year ago tomorrow is when the white house tried to explain away the resignation more than sadness than anger, the president was praising mike flynn to the rooftops and the line on the contact with the russian government which he lied about, there wasn't anything wrong with the contacts per se in any way, they were an isolated incident. there weren't going to be any other surprises about trump folks having contacts with the russians. that was a year ago. within two weeks, we'd learned that jeff sessions had also failed to disclose and lie about his contacts with the russian government. just a few weeks later, it was presidential son-in-law jared kushner having to explain his own undisclosed contacts with the russian government that he lied about and the meeting he took during the transition with the head of a state run sanctioned russian bank. >> as far as we're aware, that is an isolated incident that

occurred. >> there were a lot of isolated incidents then it turned out but they started with mike flynn leaving the white house a year ago today. it has since been a remarkable series of revelations about trump campaign contacts with the russian government, but it's also been an incredible time in terms of trump administration people flunking out, people resigning or getting fired or otherwise having to leave high-ranking government service. this is our on going list that we are struggling mightily -- can we make that any bigger? i don't think it's legible. yes, boom! thank you. that's why you guys get paid the big bucks. well done. front got bigger. we have been struggling mightily to find the right font to try to keep this thing update in terms of senior administration officials who have quit, been fired or left. in the past five days, we had to squeeze in a third white house

deputy chief of staff, a white house speech writer, a white house staff secretary, the head of the federal rail association and associate attorney general, the number three person who announced their own departures within the last four or five days. but of everybody mike flynn was first. look at everybody who has come since then. and now today, this totally unprecedented rate of turnover in the white house and in the senior ranks of this administration, it continues to be in focus because all of washington right now is on the edge of their seat that president trump is about to lose yet another chief of staff. john kelly is taking the blame for the white house handling of rob porter, the staff secretary pushed out last week after serving more than a year in that high-ranking job without a permanent security clearance because of serious domestic violence allegations against him, allegations communicated to the fbi by porter's ex wives and the concerns were conveyed to

the white house. as john kelly has had the basic white house effort to get the story straight about what they knew about porter and when they knew it and how decisions about employment and security clearance and resignation were handled, the reason it feels like john kelly might have to go in this particular scandal is because of the repeated and increasing reports to white house staff, the people who report to him in the white house are turning against him. in the l.a. times yesterday, that dynamic looked like this, quote, over and over again in the past several days various white house aids have buttonholed reporters to tell them they think kelly either lied to them or tried to get them to lie about what he knew when. in the "new york times", the uprising against kelly among b them, kirsten nielsen was not a

fan. she sleleft the white house. nielsen blocked and tackled john kelly making herself the main line of approach to him. without her, officials often approach mr. kelly freely now and he sometimes does not remember what he said to different people. meow. and now this is what it looks like in the washington post in a story just posted tonight, quote, kelly, john kelly, white house chief of staff is a big, fat liar. says one white house official who demanded it. he would understand the handling of the porter scandal is duty. so white house officials who are willing to speak about john kelly that way to the l.a. times to the "new york times" to the washington post. everybody who works in the white house as a white house staffer reports to john kelly. they are rushing to reporters to

tell them how terrible and incompetent they think john kelly is and john kelly is quote a big fat liar and further demand that subborthey lie to h this matter. once it gets to that point, it not likely to be sustainable. in a white house that lost one chief of staff and three deputy chiefs of staff and a national security advisor and all these people, there is wide spread expectation that president trump is going to need a third white house chief of staff very soon. and honestly, while on the subject. the other very senior white house official plainly on the hook for the handling of the rob porter matter is don mcgahn. we'll be talking later on this hour about why it is there is not the same immediate expectation that don mcgahn might have to resign over this scandal as well as john kelly. the answer there might be as simple as the fact that don mcgahn has been in worse than this. don mccann is so involve in so

many of the biggest trump administration scandals from mike flynn's resignation a year ago on through the firing of jim comey and all the rest of it. so that makes it hard to see why this particular bad scandal might be worse than any other one for don mcgahn. he's really in the middle of every scandal in the white house including some of the ones that might result in serious legal trouble for the president himself but remains. clearly something made don mcgahn sort of politically bulletproof. we don't yet know what that is. in a normal white house environment, you would expect a scandal like the rob porter controversy to result in the white house chief of staff and the white house counsel probably having to go since they are both responsible for white house personnel and things like security clearance issues. we might also expect that the white house communications director and spokesperson might have to go because of their roles in spin whag aning white tails about how this went down

that scandal continues to bang around washington tonight like a pinball game without the glass on it. something is going to break there. it depend what is happened to flynn one year ago today. the behavior of senior white house officials, the more damaging aspects of the scandals are about the white house reaction once they were informed about the troubling behavior of these officials. remember in mike flynn's case, it was the acting attorney general and head of the national security division at the justice department physically personally came to the white house to warn that mike flynn was a serious security risk. there was good reason to believe he had been compromised by a foreign government while he was serving as national security advisor. now, the revelations about flynn's behavior and his lies about his behavior, they did ultimately lead to flynn's resignation, but the delay between the warning and him leaving the white house is still

now the bigger scandal for the white house. there is on going open questions about why the white house waited 18 days after that hair on fire warning from the justice department before they did anything about flynn. 18 days where flynn continued access to the most highly classified information in the u.s. government. that was the flynn scandal. similarly, rob porter, the white house staff secretary, that scandal, chris wray testified there were problems for the secuse secose security clearance last month. they were informed there might be problems with porter getting a clearance. according to chris wray, they contacted what the white house with problems with the clearance and issued a final report in july, a report where the fbi said they determined from a national security standpoint porter couldn't be cleared for classified information.

the white house reportedly asked the fbi followup questions about the problems with porter's clearance and the fbi got back to them in november. porter was not granted a permanent security clearance. the fbi closed the file in january and got additional information about his case this month in february. director wray says he hand that to the fbi, as well. there are multiple notifications about the problems with rob porter and why he's not getting cleared to handle classified materials. in flynn's case, it was 18 days after the warning. here from the initial notification it looks like it was 11 months. but during that time period, just like they allowed flynn to continue to access classified information, they allowed porter to continue to handle highly classified information crossing the president's desk. cnn reported today up until last week when he was finally forced out because of press attention,

rob porter was considered for a big promotion to become deputy white house chief of staff. he was apparently going to be number four despite all of these notifications from the fbi about problems in his background check that resulted in him not being able to get a security clearance. they have been told all of those times they will still promote him. i mean, a year ago it was flynn with these dire national security warnings and the white house having no response until it was in the papers. now a year later, it's rob porter with very serious warnings about him and the security clearance and the white house clearing him through until once again, it ends up in in the newspaper and that's the reason people get pushed out. like mike flynn, even in the face of this new considerable and pretty much out of control scandal about porter just like with flynn, the president apparently personally feels really positive about the guy. >> well, we wish him well. he worked very hard. let's see, obviously, tough time

for him. he did a very good job when he was in the white house and we hope he has a wonderful career and hopefully he will have a great career ahead of him but it was very sad when we heard about it, and certainly, he's also very sad but we absolutely wish him well. did a very good job while at the white house. >> the chiefs of all the major u.s. intelligence agency testified in the senate today in a hearing about worldwide threats. they testified unanimously that not only did russia target our 2016 elections in this country, they testified that they are also now targeting our 2018 elections. >> there should be no doubt that russia perceived that its past efforts as successful and views the 2018 u.s. midterm elections as a potential target for russian influence operations. >> despite the intelligence chief's expressing that

unanimous expression about russia building and continuing efforts to influence u.s. internal politics to skew elections, there was awkwardness in the room today when senators asked whether the trump administration and president himself actually have directed the united states to do anything to try to stop the russians from that kind of interference again. >> all morning, gentlemen, we've heard the story of russia influencing our campaigns and indeed in the current campaign for the midterms, so let me say has the president directed you and your agency to take specific actions to confront russian influence activities that are on going? >> we're talkiking a lot of specific efforts to blunt -- >> enacted by the president? >> not specifically directed by the president. >> director coats, have you received a specific directive to

take specific steps to disrupt and understand first and disrupt activities directed at the elections in 2018? >> we work together on this throughout the agency has full understanding we're to provide whatever intelligence is relevant and make sure that that is passed on to our policy makers including the president. >> intelligence is not actually disrupting the operations of an opponent, do you agree? >> no, we pass it on and they make the decisions how to implement it. >> the other panelist have anything to add on this point? >> for us, i can't say that i've been explicitlily dy lto blunt actively stop. on the other hand, it's generally clear to help us understand this. >> so it's nice to hear unanimously we're about to get

walloped again in another russian operation in 2018. it's nice to hear they all agree on that. it's less exciting to hear them say really what they are directed to do is study the matter and no instruction from the president they should try to stop it and that got one person in that room really mad. that's next. hold together. a little to the left. 1, 2, 3, push! easy! easy! easy! (horn honking) alright! alright! we've all got places to go! we've all got places to go! washington crossing the delaware turnpike? surprising. what's not surprising? how much money sean saved by switching to geico. big man with a horn. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. can start in the colon constiand may be signs of an imbalance of good bacteria. only phillips' colon health has this

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i am sick and tired of going to these hearings i've been going to for five years where everybody talks about cyber attacks and our country still does not have a policy or doctrine or a strategy for dealing with them. and we are trying to fight a global battle with our hands tied behind our back. director coats, you have a stunning statement in your report. they will work to use cyber operations to achieve strategy objectives unless they face clear repercussions. right now there are none. is that not the case? there are no repercussions.

we have no doctrine of deterren deterrence. how are we ever going to get them to stop doing this if we patch our software and defend ourselves. >> king of maine in the senate today anger over russia gears up to game the elections. that was a remarkable moment in the intelligence senate from the fact we're living with reverberations what they did to the last election as we're now supposedly gearing up for what they will do to the next one. what sunk trump national security advisor mike flynn one year ago today was not that he had secret communications with the russian government. what sunk mike flynn a year ago today, he had secret conversations with the russian government that he lied about and those conversations

specifically had been about sanctions. right after christmas, after the election 2016 the obama administration leveed new sanctions, new punishments against russia for interfering in our election. that day flynn started having sk red c -- secret conversations and tried to under cut those sanctio sanctions. we learned about the trump tower meeting that happened and a bunch of russians. they did not disclose that until "the new york times" published an account of it. the initial defense for why they lied about that meeting, eye they didn't disclose the meeting, it didn't seem important to them. all the russians wanted to talk about is the issue of sanctions. same thing for mike flynn's conversation and the transition. one of the other weird trump campaign contacts with the russian government that we didn't learn about until months after it happened is eric prince

going to the islands and meeting with the head of a russian sovereign wealth fund. eric prince tried to play down that russian meeting as nothing important but what did they discuss at that meeting? sanctions. russian sanctions. and then carter paige, the clown prince denied but admitted under oath when he went to russia in the middle of the presidential campaign as a trump campaign foreign policy advisor, yeah, the issue of sanctions may have come up in passing. even the forgotten ukrainian peace plan scandal, remember that one? trump's personal lawyer michael co-win and russian trump organization guy with extensive ties to organized crime meet in new york at a hotel and come up with a secret peace plan that they reportedly delivered to national security advisor mike flynn in his officer still there. what was the subject?

among other things and everything else, a way to get rid of u.s. sanctions on russia. sanctions, sanctions, sanctions, sanctions. the anchor that the 2016 election russia scandal is dragging through our current news and the current behavior of the trump administration is sanctions. sanctions. the primary russian objective of lifting the burden of sanctions. that was partly the subject of every single contact between the trump campaign and russia that we can document thus far going right back to mike flynn having to leave the white house a year ago today. the trump administration started making plans to unrilaterally drop sanctions and congress found out and freaked out. congress insisted legally that the trump administration had to enforce and increase sanctions against russia. trump administration dragged their feet, didn't want to do it and had to be nudgeed to cod to and killed off the office at the

state department that handles sanctions. just before the state of the union a couple weeks ago, another legal deadline arrived for sanctions, they instead declared that there would be no new punishment for anybody buying russian military equipment, which had been the original idea behind those sanctions. state department announced that the existence of a u.s. law in this subject in their estimation, it was deterrence enough. those sanctions were not meant to detour russian behavior. they were meant to be punishment for past russian behavior for them attacking our election. but the state department decided to let it slide. trump administration was also required by law to produce by the end of january a detailed report identifying quote the most significant senior foreign political figures in russia. the way this list was supposed to be put together it was supposed to take into account high net worth so very, very

rich russian individuals and supposed to consider their closeness to the russian regime. it was supposed to consider their specific relationship to vladimir putin or members of the russian ruling elite and crucially, to put together that list, u.s. government officials were supposed to determine quote any corruption with respect to any of those individuals. they were supposed to come with this oligarch list. the u.s. government was going to use the resources to compile a list of russians that became millionaires because of putin's regime through ill gotten means, right? there are credible reports such a list was actually produced by specialists career employees within the u.s. government. that was first reported by the atlantic counsel. we were able to confirm it with a person who had knowledge of the process by which that list was created. we believe such a list was generated as a u.s. government work product as required by that

u.s. sanctions law. but when it came to the deadline, came time to push publish the list, it never arrived. steve mnuchin's treasury department put out a list of rich russians they copied from the forbe's magazine billionaires list and a directory of people that work in the kremlin. putin's government had been terrified about the actual corrupt putin connected list that the united states was about to put out. they expected to have global consequences in terms of the ability of the putin regime and it's enable lrs in russia to maintain the wealth. they were shaking in their boots about that list. and again, we have reason to believe that such a list was created by the u.s. government but somewhere before the deadline it got submarined and replaced instead with this list that was a joke. forbes magazine list and the kremlin phone directory, ha.

so much for the corruption, closeness to putin, all that out the window. give them a list of rich people and forget it. mike flynn has been gone for a year as of today. trump campaign chairman and deputy campaign chairman were both arrested in october. and are facing multiple felonies. the white house even today right now is an escalating turmoil over the mishandling of classified information and elevation of seriously flawed white house personnel to senior positions. congress is waking up to the fact the next elections are less than a year ago and no clear sense from the intelligence agencies we're defending ourselves against russia doing again what they did to us in 2016. but what they did to us in 2016 more than anything appears to have been motivated by sanctions. by russia's desire to get relief from sanctions. the trump administration is in charge of that and the trump administration is behaving

pretty inexplicably when it comes to russian sanctions. it is amazing where we have been in the past year. it is necessary to look up, look forward and see what we're bumbling into but something wrong with where we are right now, what the administration is doing now because administration is doing now on sanctions is what russia was asking for through the 2016 election in the secret meetings. we didn't know what was happening because meetings were secret. that was our excuse but that's what russia asked for and now, right now in 2018 we can see in realtime that they are getting what they wanted and asked for from this administration. ( ♪ ) ♪ 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.

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renein the caribbean.onder... for a limited time enjoy two free perks, like complimentary wi-fi and drinks. a savings up to $300 when you book now, during the celebrity cruises sail beyond event. last year at their joint confirmation hearing, they sat at the same table and answered questions together. they were nominated to be the number two and number three picks at the justice department and confirmed as a pair. now rosenstein is still there, but rachel brand, the associate attorney general quit on friday night. after nine months on the job she's leaving public service to work instead for walmart. she reportedly said the walmart job is an opportunity she just can't pass up. but there was reportedly something else on her mind, as well, when she decided to leave the number three job in the justice department.

nbc news reported soon after her resignation brand quit her top job out of concern that she might be asked to take over for the deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. quote, public criticism of deputy attorney general rod rosenstein by president trump worried rachel brand that rosenstein's job could be in danger, quote, should rosenstein be fired, brand would be next in line to see robert mueller's investigation into the medaling into the election in a spotlight she told friends she did not want to enter. so nbc news report that rachel brand decided basically to jump out of the plane and parachute safely to walmart headquarters. and the response from the justice department was strong and memorable. justice department told nbc news quote all of this is false and frankly ridiculous. quit being ridiculous nbc news. well since then, since that

initial nbc reporting politico matched nbc's report and added to it. rachel brand badly wanted to avoid overseeing the russia investigation according to two people familiar with her thinking and there is this, walmart began courting her around the time trump began making noises he might fire rosenstein. walmart, why did you do that? why did you start doing that precisely then? julia at nbc news has been reporting rachel brand has been unhappy at the justice department for months and frustrated at her position. there were pull and push factors that led to this decision. joining us now is nbc justice reporter who broke this story for nbc news. great to have you with us tonight. thanks for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> watching this from the outside and not totally understanding the kinds of dynamics that buffet people at the top of the justice department, the thing that seems striking from outside is the

possible oversight of the mueller investigation that brand might be called upon to become the new oversight for the mueller investigation if the president fired rosenstein. now you reported that was part of they are thinking about why she left, right? >> that's right. it was part of her thinking with a general lack of support and it's not just if he had been fired. it's also if he had to recuse himself. as we know, rosenstein could be a witness in the obstruction case because it was he, rosenstein who wrote the memo that the white house used to justify the firing of james comey fbi director. if he had to recuse himself, she would then fall into that line like rosenstein took over from sessions once he recused himself. there was a domino effect happening and we know months ago, rachel brand was reading those looking at rosenstein and the pressure he was under and telling people i don't want anything to do with that. >> so should we see the brand resignation? is there any reason to see that resignation as a sign, as an

indication that either the firing of rosenstein is coming or a recusal of rosenstein is coming, something that would show this big change in rachel brand's life? >> i would think that if it weren't for the timing. walmart began courting her when the heat was pushing up on rosenstein. it's not something changed within the last week that all of a sudden she wanted to jump ship. jobs like these aren't something that you get overnight. this has been in the process for a long time but it seems there has been a slow burn. she's been seeing what could come. she also just feels really unsupported. there are a lot of vacancies and when you oversee part of the justice department and 30% of these division heads are still unfilled, that's a tough place to be and to be in a place where she would have less support and more pressure seems like a place someone that spent a career that is so far good, would not want

to ruin it. >> is there any indication the walmart job offer came about as a favor to the trump administration if the president is trying to game out how he might try to end the mueller investigation if clearing people out who might oversee the mueller investigation in ways he doesn't like if that's part of a white house legal defense strategy on this mueller investigation, is there any indication that walmart was approached to make her an offer she couldn't refuse or they were involved at all in the thinking about this that might becoming from the white house? >> i don't have any reporting there was back channel conversations between the white house and walmart to give her something she couldn't refuse. i imagine that rachel brand had a number of options as been approached by the private sector many times in her career and decided to take this because of the time income a lot of ways. it was a matter of she was willing to exit this place in the public sector, which she hadn't for a long time. she searched under the bush

administration and obama administration. i think the key thing to read into this is that there is someone pushing someone like this with this reputation out of the government and into the private sector rather than walmart coming along to kind of clean up for the trump administration but gosh, if that's there, i hope we find it. >> me, too. >> that would be interesting. >> nbc's national security justice reporter that had a scoop with this. thank you. much more to get to here tonight. do stay with us. everyone has a thing. that binge watch over the weekend thing.

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was paid $130,000 before the election to keep quiet about her alleged affair with president trump while he was married to his current wife. michael cohen is the man behind the payments but he's told the times tonight after a lot of questions, weeks of questions whether or not that might have been a campaign contribution. some campaign contributions co-hco cohen is reporting it was his personal money he paid. the 2016 payment made to the actress, mr. cohen said he was not reimbursed. the trump campaign was not a party to the transaction with miss cliffclifford. it was lawful and not a campaign ex ppenditure by anyone. he declined to answer followup questions and mr. trump paid the

payment and what the motivation was and whether he made similar payments to people over the years. so again, you know you never expect that your news job will have you talk about stuff like this but there are several weeks of reporting about the alleged relationship, which mr. cohen denied between mr. trump and this porn star, stormy daniels. the $130,000 payment is part of it they did not deny. the only question is who paid that money. we have the first account who did it. the president's personal lawyer said he paid it and nobody reimbursed out of his own pocket. we'll be right back. each year sarah climbs 58,007 steps. that's the height of mount everest. because each day she chooses to take the stairs. at work, at home... even on the escalator. that can be hard on her lower body, so now she does it with dr. scholl's orthotics. clinically proven to relieve and prevent foot, knee or lower back pain, by reducing the shock and stress that travel up her body with every step she takes.

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this is one of those nights when we're having to throw out the planned show and observe news as it comes in. welcome to my world. a remarkable headline just posted by "the new york times" in the last couple of minutes. "trump's longtime lawyer says he paid stormy daniels out of his own pocket." this is a story that was first broken in "the wall street journal" several weeks ago in january. "the wall street journal" reported that a porn star named stormy daniels, that's her stage name. her real name is stephanie clifford, she alleged that she had had an affair with president trump while he was married to his current wife. she detailed this affair in great detail for a tabloid magazine, which later posted her

account. what "the wall street journal" reported was that a payment had been made to her just before the election basically for her to keep quiet about the affair. "the wall street journal" then further reported on an llc, a delaware-based llc, a shell corporation that had been set up to facilitate this payment, amid multiple denials that there had been an affair. nobody really denied that this payment ever happened that perhaps this had been an illegally large campaign contribution to the trump campaign. it led more broadly to questions about who paid this money? who was paying women, at least one woman to not talk about her alleged affair with president trump right before the election? well, now the president's long-time personal lawyer michael cohen has told "the new york times" in a statement that he paid that money out of his own pocket. neither the trump organization nor the trump campaign was party to the transaction. mr. cohen is not answering whether mr. trump himself was aware of the payment, what the

motivation was for the payment. mr. cohen is also not saying whether he made similar payments to other people over the years. that story has just broken. this happens at a time when all of washington son the edge of their seats wondering if the president is about to lose another chief of staff in the rob porter scandal. the staff secretary who was just pushed out last week amid domestic violence charges and now serious questions as to how the white house handled those questions. that scandal is raising serious questions about the future of chief of staff john kelly. also about the future of whoo white house counsel don mcgahn. joining us to try to make sense of this milieu in which we now live is andrea mitchell, the anchor of "andrea mitchell reports." and the one person i know i'm fortunate to work with who has literally seen it all, who is never rattled and who knows how to keep these things in context. andrea, thanks for being here. >> i'm rattled. officially rattled. ! about to lose it. i mean, what else can happen

tonight? >> tell me what rattles you the most. is it the accumulation of all these happening at once or one or more of these things seems like it's the straw that breaks the camel's back? >> what's truly unsettling a year after mike flynn left, exactly a year after mike flynn was fired is that this white house has had at peter baker's count a 34% turnover. the chaos in the white house and the lack of institutional knowledge. the fact that they for days have been trying to blame the fbi for the failure to properly vet rob porter. they shouldn't have done that they shouldn't have laid it at the feet of the fbi on the eve of christopher wray testifying for the senate intelligence committee. that was a mistake. because christopher wray was not going to lie under oath. he was not only going to defend his agency but explain the facts of life to this white house. it is not up to the fbi to make these decisions. and they were not made within the last weeks, months, even a year ago they had already told

the white house there was a problem. and in all of the past white houses that i have covered, the general counsel, the chief of staff are responsible for flagging these things to the president of the united states, or to the chief of staff or whoever is making the decisions on the political end of the white house. the fbi simply vets and reports. and when they give an interim security clearance, that means it's a denial of security. that means you should be shuffled out of the white house. you should not be as a top assistant to the president anywhere near that building. and the fact is it is not a backlog. it is not the fact that there is 700,000 more people backed up. the top assistant to the president are the first people done, they're done within a month or two. and the fact that there was a problem with rob porter was reported in realtime in a timely fashion. and christopher wray made that clear. then today sarah sanders tried to blame, this tried to say that nobody was lying.

kristen welker said well, then, who is lying? the timeline doesn't add up. is it the chief of staff? is it the fbi? christopher wray? she said well both are true because it was not the fbi and the counsel's office. it was the security office of white house personnel. well, peter alexander is reporting tonight that that story doesn't add up. that it really is the political wing, that those are professional security people and they pass it on to the political people. so it's a long way of saying what's truly shocking is that they have not figured out a way to understand how to make the trains run on time. >> and andrea, we are ash soshing that while we're still absorbing continued scandal from the campaign. >> exactly. >> with this news about the stormy daniel parjts michael cohen just telling "the new york times" tonight he paid that personally out of his own pocket, it had nothing to do with the trump campaign, there has been an unusual story developing around michael cohen. long time personal lawyer of the president, long-time trump organization lawyer him. was not part of the campaign. but the rnc recently reported

that the rnc is paying a lot of money to the law firm that is representing michael cohen in the russia scandal. he is the president's lawyer. he had to get his own lawyer to defend him in the russia scandal. and the rnc appears to be paying that firm, we think to pay for michael cohen's russia defense when he was not part of the campaign. now cohen is saying that he was personally paying off women to not talk about their affairs with president trump just before the election. who -- i mean usually congressional committees would look into that sort of thing. i doubt the republican-controlled congress is going to do that here. who takes this on? who investigating these things? >> it's funny you ask that. ron wyden was asking me today, what do you want to see, what do you want to hear today? he said i want to hear follow the money but the republican leadership won't let us do that. so he was complaining that the senate intelligence committee is being stymied when in fact as we know the house intelligence committee is a disaster. the question was raised last

night why does it even exist anymore. so the fact that they have not gotten to the bottom of this. i have to just say there was a moment of pride as an american sitting in that hearing room today to at least watch the fact that republican political appointees, coates and pompeo who have not been known to distinguish themselves because we don't hear from them very often, and when we do seem to be making excuses or shuffling, they were absolutely straight forward in saying what they knew and what they believe believed to be the case about the russia investigation. you pointed that out earlier. and that is at least something. they were not kowtowing to the president. >> andrea mitchell, host of "andrea mitchell reports" which is noon weekdays here on msnbc. a fast-breaking news night. i had a whole bunch of different stuff to talk to you tonight, andrea. >> yeah. >> thank you for switching. much appreciated my friend. we'll be right back unless something else happens in the next five seconds, in which case i'll still be here.

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one year ago tonight, the trump white house started shedding its first high-ranking officials, just 24 days into the new administration. one year ago tonight, the departure of michael flynn, who has since fled plead guilty to lying to the fbi has has become a cooperating witness into the special counsel investigation into the russia attack. tonight one year on we bookend that achievement with the news in "the new york times" that the president's personal lawyer says when it came time to pay a porn star right before the election to say that she didn't have an affair with donald trump, he found $130,000 in his own pocket and he swears it didn't come out of the campaign or out of the trump organization. that does it for us tonight. we'll see you again tomorrow. now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." good evening, lawrence. >> good evening, rachel. we have just stepped into john edwards territory. this is a third party making an expenditure for the benefit of the campaign to keep a woman quiet. about her relationship with the candidate.