know where brooke is, i know i will see her again and that gives me hope. that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thanks for watching. good morning. i'm dara brown in new york at msnbc world headquarters. it is 7:00 in the east, 4:00 out west. he's got memos. reports say the newly fired fbi director has some dirt on the president. >> their significance is that they will corroborate comey's own recollections about his meetings with the president. mccabe also memorialized we're told his meetings, his own interactions with the president. mean while, there is a new report andrew mccabe has already sat down with a special counsel for an interview. no collusion, no crime, the president reiterating his innocence and for the first time taking direct aim at mueller.

plus, stormy history. reports that trump's legal team has tried to silence the porn star since way before we even thought. our top story this morning, new fallout from the firing of former fbi deputy director andrew mccabe. details on how mccabe compiled memos of his encounters with president trump, similar to those by former fbi director james cokie. an undisclosed interview between mccabe and special counsel bob mueller and how mccabe's memos were turned over to mueller. fresh outrage about the timing of mccabe's dismissal only hours before his retirement. her is former assistant attorney general david chris. >> probably the most significant thing is the extensive statements coming from the president and from the white house criticizing mccabe, effectively calling for him to be fired and celebrating when he was fired. when you politicize law enforcement and investigations, you make it very difficult for the american people to have

confidence in the integrity and the accuracy of outcomes. and a major step forward for the russia investigation, "the new york times" reporting trump's legal team has received questions from mueller's office which is seeking to interview the president based on his answers. president trump denounced the russia probe in a tweet last night calling out mueller by name and reiterating there was no collusion and deeming it a witch-hunt. backlash within the intelligence community in reaction to the firing of andrew mccabe. nbc news justice correspondent pete williams has more. >> general jeff sessions accepted a recommendation from the fbi itself to fire andrew mccabe over his decision to let fbi officials talk with a reporter during the presidential campaign about an investigation of the clinton foundation. sessions called that an unauthorized disclosure to the news media and said mccabe lacked candor when asked about it later including under oath on multiple occasions. the justice department says 19 other people were fired from the fbi over the past year for lack

of candor. >> i can't comment. >> but mccabe says he answered truthfully and approved talking to the reporter to clarify the fbi's role in the clinton investigation. he says he's being singled out for supporting former fbi director james comey after he was fired. >> the vast majority of fbi employees enjoyed a deep and positive connection to director comey. >> mccabe says his firing is part of an unprecedented effort by the administration, driven by the president himself to destroy his reputation and possibly strip him of his pension. mccabe's defenders call for a fund to support him and his family. >> the idea that a president could come and interfere with a discipline decision at the very end just a couple days before his career is over is just, i think, a frightening proposition. >> reporter: so far the report that led to the fbi's firing recommendation has not been released. >> the public needs to see those reasons for the firing, otherwise it just looks like

trying to suppress a witness that saw the comey firing last year and is involved in the russia probe. >> reporter: president trump tweeted today that mccabe's firing is a great day for the hard working men and women of the fbi and called comey sanctimonious. >> nbc news justice correspondent pete williams, thank you. for more on this lengths bring in alley vitale and kevin sir rily for broom berg news. alley, let's start with you. president trump called out mueller by name in his tweet and that's one of the few times that he had done this. do you think mccabe's firing has emboldened the president to continue to go after the fbi? >> i don't think that the president has ever opinion anything but bold in going after law enforcement and the fbi. i think that over the course of the past year he has made it pretty clear that when it comes down to them versus him he's always going to defend himself even if it's at the cost of a president going after his own intelligence agencies, but i do think in this instance what

you're seeing is his legal team using the mccabe firing as an excuse for them to say, see, look, there was wrongdoing. you have john dowd the president's personal attorney saying you should be using this as a precedent to hopefully -- he's seeming to recommend or press for the idea of getting rid of mueller because of this firing. so i think that you're seeing them kind of lay the building blocks for this. i will say as the president calls this a great day for the fbi and seems to praise the decision of jeff sessions, jeff sessions is someone who has been pretty embattled over the course of his time at the trump white house because he decided to recuse himself from the russia probe. this is something that lays groundwork for the trump legal team to hopefully get rid of that probe in their case. i wonder if this does anything for jeff sessions' standing in trump world. you have a lot of cabinet secretaries who are in precarious positions. we reported throughout the week there was this expectation we were going to see more firings,

more departures and friday came and at least from a cabinet and west wing perspective there were never any firings that happened. i bond from this does anything for jeff sessions while the rest of the people sit on pins and needles. >> an interesting week ahead with that note. ken, i want to turn to you because the associated press is reporting that mccabe kept detailed memos of his interactions with president trump and that's similar to the ones that james comey kept. so how damning might these be for the president? >> here we go again, part two, the sequel of the comey testimony on capitol hill. you can ensure that andrew mccabe will likely be called to testify on clil and those memos will cost another develop news cycle for this administration. i don't think that he's going to change any minds. i think that most republicans that i speak with agree with this administration in the sense that they believe rightfully or wrongfully that this investigation has gone well beyond the scope of collusion. case in point the subpoenas that were issued to the trump organization. on the flip side of that, i

speak with other republicans as well as of course democrats who suggest that they want to see this investigation continue onward. the bottom line to allie's point is that if you look at the sanctions that were released by the treasury department on thursday regarding russia but the more than dozen entities of russians as well as businesses that were sanctioned here, we should also look at some of them because they were also most of them part of several of the mueller indictments. that would suggest that the trump administration or at least the intelligence community inside of the trump administration is, in fact, looking at portions of the mueller investigation and aligning with it in the sense that they are targeting several of the same russians. >> and, allie, we have seen members of congress reach out publicly to mccabe offering him employment now. so one offer would even give him oversight over the justice department and the fbi. do you think that mccabe's firing might have unintended consequences? >> i think that -- i just want to circle back because i think the point that kevin makes is

really important when you talk about the treasury sanctions that came down last week. a lot of the people that they were sanctioning in that be the same people and entities that were indicted by mueller several weeks before. so that's really important when you think about trump calling this a witch-hunt. his own treasury department seems to be finding similar conclusions at least in terms of those entities. so i think that will put a peg in that, but that's an important point. in terms of the unintended consequences to the mccabe firing, he's talking, and it doesn't sound like he's going to be not talking for at least in the recent future. so you're coming up on a month in april where james comey's book is coming out, he will be doing several press interviews, that's already going to be in the news, now you have this double barrelled lead where you have mccabe, then, add to go that conversation and only putting russia more squarely in the forefront of the news cycle. of course, it's competing with stories like stormy daniels, the important star accusing trump of maybe allegedly having an affair with her and maybe possibly being threatened physically to stay quiet about that, her morning did say that on "morning

joe" earlier this week. the point of mccabe being fired is that it only lends more fuel to that russia headline being front and center for trump administration who has had to contend with it for the past year. it's not the thing they want front and center, especially as they try to push infrastructure which is next on the horizon for them. >> kevin, i want to go back to this. as allie pointed out the russian indictments are similar people. ax yoes is reporting that andrew mccabe is now a witness in the russian investigation, has already met with robert mueller. what about his dismissal, do you think it's an attempt to discredit him as a witness in the russia probe but that could be a whole other problem. >> when you talk to folks connected with this white house they suggest this is a president who has been frustrated with andrew mccabe for quite some time and even attorney general jeff sessions. for the attorney general to do this just two days before he was qualifying for benefits is clearly a sign that he was trying to at least maybe

potentially win over some points with the president in the sense that he was trying to get that type of the timing of this down. you know, speculation aside, i think the facts matter here and the facts are that this is an administration who has for quite some time tried to put this investigation behind them, but if there's one thing we can learn from bob mueller's timetable is that he's operating on his own timetable. if there's one thing we've learned from even the 2016 campaign cycle with regards to former director comey is that the intelligence community is not going to operate on political timelines, they're going to operate on their own. this is something this administration is going to have to deal with for quite some time. oh, yeah, it could impact and be the october surprise so to speak ahead of the 2018 midterms. >> stay with us because we have more headlines to discuss. and the firing of fbi director andrew mccabe, this morning the plan that could keep him keep his pension. could help him keep his pension. be right back.

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new developments this morning in the russia investigation as the president himself is now dismissing the probe. he tweeted late last night the mueller probe should never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime. the president was tweeting as "the new york times" reports mueller was sending potential questions to trump's legal team as part of negotiations for an interview with the special counsel. joining me now is a former federal prosecutor doug bergs. how close do you think we are getting to a face-to-face meeting. >> unlike a normal witness, let's be honest, you know, when it's the president you can have certain, you know, setups, you know. president clinton was interviewed closed circuit,

everybody remembers that, but i think you are getting fairly close to answer your question and i think that once they figure out exactly the mechanics of it you may see it happen. >> "politico" reports the president's lawyers are preparing him for a meeting with mueller. how would you prepare president trump? >> it's very difficult. we've discussed this before. the point being that this particular individual obviously when you are a lawyer and working with a witness you have to size up what's the personality, what's the approach, and, you know, president trump does -- you know, he's bombastic, a bull in a china shop very often. but the more important technical point about it is that this is a very complicated matter and there are thousands -- hundreds of thousands of documents and so on and so forth. so it's not the type of thing that lends itself to just kind of going in there cavalierly, but the approach would be the same as in every case when i work with a witness which is, you know, you've got to just answer the questions as best as you can, as best as you can

recall, and you would spend a lot of time obviously preparing about the specific facts. >> and our other big news today is the firing of former deputy fbi director andrew mccabe. a source tells axios that mccabe not only turned over memos to mueller but also met with mueller. axios reports that that exchange focused on the firing of former fbi director james comey. how damaging could this be for the president? >> well, what they're doing there, dara, is one of the most fundamental things in any investigation is to try to backup or corroborate a witness. james comey indicated that certain things happen and the mccabe memos are not only his interactions with the boats but what james comey may have indicated to him about comey's interactions and that would obviously shed a lot of light on either backing up or contradicting what james comey said. so i think that's why they're asked in that, dara. >> but would that be conceived

as self-serving, though. if those things are corroborated? >> that's a good point. absolutely. i mean, you know, when james comey came out with his material you heard that exact point and you're right, which is, you know, why would he, you know, instantaneously memorialize this in the fashion that he did. it's the same thing here with mccabe. but a lot of this i find interesting because, you know, people are reading the tea leaves and arguing, you know, one point versus the other. a lot of that's political more than legal. the point i'm trying to make is that legally a lot of this is just standard process, standard operating procedure in an investigation. >> and something that's not standard operating procedure, mccabe was fired only 26 hours before he could retire and many guests told us yesterday that his reputation within the fbi was stellar. take a listen. >> andrew mccabe, very distinguished career. >> i know he has the support of the rank and file at the fbi and this is no way that he should be treated. >> an individual who spent a

career fighting russian organized crime. >> i have the utmost respect for him, he's honest, he's got integrity. very, very, very solid professional. >> and, doug, congressman mark pocan is offering mccabe a job so he is eligible for his full pension. is that legal? is it even a possibility under these circumstances? >> that's funny because it's so interesting because in law so many times, you know, we argue something in one direction and wait a minute it's in the other. if your claim is that this was a political stunt to deny me my pension, well, what's going to be volleyed back over the net is this was a political stunt to win you your pension if you follow what i'm saying. so the reality is that this is going to have to be probably settled in a court. there is what's called the merit protection board, okay, it's a federal agency that, you know, a jude cates these type of things and his claim would be i was fired for political reasons, it was retaliatory, it was in

connection with the investigation. i don't think it's necessarily a good idea to do some kind of stunt about hiring him for two days. >> doug, before you go we have to it your honor to this stormy daniels case because the "washington post" is reporting that trump's personal lawyer has been trying to silence daniels since 2011. why is this case not going away? >> well, look, first of all, legally it raises some interesting issues which i'm sure you've discussed and that is is an agreement a contract valid when it's signed by the lawyer and not the party. that's quite interesting. i think the reason it's not going away is, you know, these type of stories sometimes have more, you know, duration than you would think. it's hard to say really. that's a tough question, dara. >> well, how does this reflect on the lawyers? is this bad work on their part? since 2011 they haven't been able to make it move and now it is headline. >> that's a really good question and the reason that's so good is one of the big problems here -- and i spoke to a number of

experts, a couple law professors -- is that when the lawyer signed that document he is acting on behalf of the client and ethically obligated to speak to the client about that particular matter. so that makes it fairly clear that the agreement is binding and stormy daniels -- stan daniels, excuse me, has an uphill battle to invalidate that agreement by forces confidentiality. in the other direction they say it's a million dollars for every breach the liquidated damages cause and a cause like that is to punitive as opposed to compensatory that i think the trump side of the case would have trouble enforcing that. but again, i find it really interesting what you're asking me and that i'm somewhat economically unable to answer which is why does this thing keep perceiving along. it's hard to say honestly. >> great to have you on this sunday morning. thanks so much for your time. and the fight over stormy's story, new information on just how many years a trump attorney has tried to keep it secret. around daisies.

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raise money through the website crowd justice to pay her lawyer. it appears to be successful so far. $23,000 plus this morning in pledges. ali, what word inside the white house about this overall? what is the mood surrounding this? >> this is not one that people are really jumping to talk about. i'm sure that's not surprising. i know that sarah huckabee sanders publicly when she's asked about this during the briefings she frequently tosses it back to the president's personal attorneys and that makes sense, but the news this week that they're pushing it to federal court, that michael cohen with the consent of the president tried to push this case to a federal court goes to show that the president is obviously following along with each step of this as we get deeper into the legal battle over stormy daniels and her allegations. of course, the president's legal team including michael cohen are

saying that she has violated her nondisclosure agreement by coming out and talking about this. you've seen her and her lawyer increase their public presence on talking about this story because they feel that the nda is invalid. as your last guest is saying that brings you into murky legal waters. i am not a lawyer, i skipped law school to cover the trump campaign so i can't answer the legal part of that question, but i think there are interested questions when you have her attorney saying that she was bullied potentially physically to stay quiet about this story. it becomes less about this alleged affair although that's the, quote/unquote, sexy piece of this, it's more about what was done to keep this woman silent if she had something inconvenient possibly to say about then candidate and now president donald trump. >> and, kevin, on that point the allegations in the post involve threats and interrogation by michael cohen and for the first time president trump attached his name to this ongoing legal battle to silence stormy daniels. should trump be worried by

attaching himself to this case he is also liable for behavior by cohen and now that goes all the way back to 2011 that with he might not have known about? >> i will keep this quick. look, no republicans that i talk to are talking about this right now, but this is, i think, where it gets interesting because when it starts to get into the courts, a legal fishing expedition on behalf of the attorneys could yield other interesting items and e-mails that are unrelated to this. i think that's where this really gets interesting, particularly if e-mails are subpoenaed from the trump organization. it's similar, quite frankly, not -- it's different, but the process would be similar to what was found with anthony weiner in the sense that that investigation yielded other connections to other incidents. >> that's interesting to put that in the same boat there. kevin cirilli, ali vitali great to have you here on this sunday morning. great conversations. and that will do it for me. i'm dara brown.

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