the battle lines have been drawn in donald trump's war on justice. one day after explosive testimony on capitol hill, deputy attorney general rod rosenstein, the man overseeing the special counsel investigation into russian meddling, is at risk of impeachment and the president's hand picked director of the fbi christopher wray describes his new job as, quote, staring down the barrel of a contempt citation. and brand-new reporting from "the new york times" out in the last 30 minutes sheds new light on rosenstein's private anger over being used to rationalize the firing of fbi director james comey. the times reporting that in public mr. rosenstein has shown no hint that he had second thoughts about that role, but privately, quote, he expressed remorse at the tumult it unleash the. he said the full story would vindicate him. according to one person with whom he spoke shortly after

comey's firing, rosenstein was shaken, unsteady and overwhelmed. another person in touch with rosenstein around that time said he sounded frantic, nervous, upset and emotionally disregulated. in one of these conversations with the acting fbi director at the time, andrew mccabe, rosenstein became visibly upset. joining us now from "the new york times" mike schmidt who just broke this story, nbc news intelligence national security reporter ken dilanian and frank figliuzzi, fbi assistant director for counter intelligence. mike schmidt, take us through what your reporting about unknown and emotional reaction from the deputy attorney general. >> this was an incredibly important time. this is between the comey firing and when mueller is appointed. a little more than a week. what was going on in rosenstein's head, he was very concerned about how he had been used by the white house as the

person to explain the firing. they had used this memo that he had written about comey's handling of the clinton e-mail investigation as the basis for the firing, what they put out to explain it. and he thought that that was wrong, and that he was the fall guy, the scapegoat for this. he had only been the deputy attorney general for two weeks. now, from trump's point of view, what he doesn't understand is why is it that rosenstein played along with the comey firing, wrote the memo, but then went ahead and appointed mueller to investigate that incident. what changed and that's important. >> i want to read a little more from the story which just posted 15 minutes ago. so you guys are reporting that rosenstein's meeting shows his mind-set at one of the critical points of mr. trump's administration. eight days between mr. comey was fired and rosenstein appointed robert mueller as special counsel. in that stretch, rosenstein went from a supporting actor in the dismissal of mr. comey to the official overseeing the

investigation in which the firing was the focus. you guys also write that rosenstein is both the ultimate supervisor of that case and will determine what information is eventually provided to congress and a key participant in the matter being investigated. mr. trump's lawyers also regard him as one of the essential witnesses for the president's defense because mr. rosenstein, they say, wanted to get rid of comey. you touched on this, but just detail how complicated it is to be rod rosenstein. we're going to get to yesterday's fiery testimony. i talked to senior justice department officials today who said they welcome the opportunity to show how even keeled the deputy attorney general is. but your reporting certainly doesn't describe that side of him and his role is treemly fraught with peril from all political directions. >> well, it's so conflicted. and as he is the chief or very important witness in the comey firing, he is also dealing with this issue on capitol hill where he has these republicans that are going after them. he's trying to buy them off, trying to give them this

information on an ongoing investigation, a highly unusual thing to try and give mueller more time to do what he's going to do. it is a very, very interesting spot for him and it's all because jeff sessions recused himself. that is the original thing that gets us to where we are. sessions stepping aside, allowing rosenstein, and the president obsessing over that decision. the president very upset that, that sessions had recused himself. he doesn't trust rosenstein and he blames the special counsel on both of them. >> let me read some of that reporting from the piece. in the afternoon that mr. mueller's appointment was announced, mr. sessions was in the oval office with the president discussing candidates to the fbi director when they both learned that mr. rosenstein had made its decision. mr. trump erupted in anger saying he needed someone overseeing the investigation to be loyal to him. mr. sessions offered to resign. you also report that rosenstein

had every right to be furious over the way this all went down for him and a source close to rosenstein says the white house put greyhound tires on his back. they threw him under the bus. lots of hurt feelings to go around. >> yeah. i mean, the original problem here is that the president wanted to send his own four-page letter to comey about why he should be fired and the white house counsel, don mcgahn looked at that letter and said, this is not a good idea. the president had mentioned the fact that comey said he wasn't under investigation in russia, but the letter was rambling, it went on and on like one of the president's stump speeches. what happens is mcgahn brings in sessions and rosenstein who were already interested in getting rid of comey, and they used sessions and rosenstein as the rationale for the comey firing, as the explanation for it. and people find it funny because donald trump is essentially saying jim comey was too mean to hillary clinton.

>> and, frank figliuzzi, there is some extraordinary irony in the layers of rod rosenstein being peeled back the day after such brutal attacks from members of his own party. rosenstein, a lifelong republican under blistering attacks from republicans in the house judiciary committee. when it turns out he wasn't ever comfortable being the fall guy for the president's decision to fire jim comey. >> yeah, so yesterday was quite a disgrace to watch and most americans should just be very troubled by the blatant personal attacks on both the fbi director chris wray, appointed by president trump, and the deputy attorney general rosenstein, a republican, brought in with trump. and yet what we're seeing, nicolle, is essentially a slow-motion train collision about to occur between the republicans in congress who are hell bent on finding a way to

get rosenstein out and stop the special counsel investigation and the d.o.j. train, and these two trains are about to collide, sitting squarely on the tracks is the special counsel. so, what's happening here is time is being bought by d.o.j. and fbi to allow mueller to finish his job. but what i'm telling you is going to happen, sometime in the next 30 to 60 days is that collision is going to really come very close. and what's going to happen is the republicans on the hill are going to start demanding the names of informants and under cover agents. we saw a hint of that yesterday. at some point d.o.j. and fbi will have to say no. lives will be lost, we can't recruit another source again, we can't disclose this and collisions are going to occur. >> frank, what do you make of this new reporting about rosenstein becoming uncomfortable with the way the white house was use -- i remember that day. i remember being on the air when we learned comey had been fired.

i remember watching kellyanne conway reading from, i think it was a four-page memo, reading from it on the north lawn as she did interviews and wondering, i don't know if that's the whole story. to learn that he's been uncomfortable with the white house posture toward the department and some aspects and mike's reporting takes us through some discomfort with mccabe and learning about the comey memos as well. but to learn that the white house gave him pause that early in the administration, certainly ties the thread to yesterday in a more clear way. >> so, what we're seeing in rosenstein is a man, as many public servants similar to him have experienced, which is you go by the letter of the law and you make certain assumptions that our system works when all three branches are acting -- all the actors in them are acting as honest brokers, right? that's the premise of your public service career. so rosenstein drafts that memo suggesting the departure of comey, but he does so based on

solid facts. the i.g. said comey went out of bounds. his judgment was poor. rosenstein does that. within minutes or even days of this happening, he realizes, i'm not dealing with an honest broker in the white house. there is a political agenda here and i'm being used, and that's what we've seen happen. >> and hence the story of so many people who come into contact with this white house. ken dilanian, i want to get your thoughts on mike schmidt's reporting and the mike flynn sentencing. >> i think it's fascinating we're hearing this story now, nicolle. it suggests the stenlt to which rod rosenstein has had it. he's at the end of his rope. our colleague julie ainsley said he was having late night phone calls with friends and was resigned to the fact he might be fired. here i stand. this is recorded further evidence. the fact folks are willing to

disclose this. it's not surprising. i remember talking to pete williams how rosenstein's appointment of mueller was in a sense his way of trying it get some of his reputation back after being so badly used in the comey firing. and now we're seeing sort of the details of that. but it's absolutely clear a that he is at the end of his rope and yesterday's hearing was just the latest kpamt luis palomino of that. >> and, ken dilanian, let me get you to switch topics for us. i know you have some thoughts on the sen 10%ing of the delay of mike flynn who pleaded guilty and is a cooperating witness. he's on team america now. >> right. we have to be careful about reading too much into this. as frank well knows. but the fact that they are continuing to delay mike flynn's sentence, mike flynn is cooperating with robert mueller's investigation suggests that he still has a lot more to give them. and you can contrast that with george papadopoulos, another trump campaign aide who pleaded guilty and was nominally cooperating. his sentencing has been scheduled for september.

they are sort of done with him it appears at this point. but flynn may have a lot more to say. interestingly, you know, these stories cross because devin nunes sent a letter to the fbi demanding all evidence of contacts between fbi informants and under cover agents and a list of trump campaign officials. and on that list was mike flynn. so apparently devin nunes thinks that mike flynn was at some point talking to an fbi informant, nicolle. >> frank figliuzzi, can you go over the sen 10%ing of mike flynn and the notion they are dealing with ongoing requests for an unprecedented, it would appear, level of detail about an ongoing investigation. >> so, first, a couple thoughts on the flynn sentencing being delayed. first, look, i think what's apparent here is that the president may well intend to pardon flynn. and if you sentence him, the pardon could come down very,

very quickly. if you draw this out, it's unlikely the president is going to do a presentencing pardon. so that's one aspect of it. the second is there is a hint here flynn is not fully cooperated or done yet and they want to keep this hanging over his head so that's that -- my theory on that. with regard to the demands, unprecedented demands during a pending investigation for details on informants, sources, under cover agents, we've got to see this for what it is. it is nothing more than a blatant attempt to get rosenstein and/or chris wray to say, no, we can't do it, and then they'll be held in contempt or there will be impeachment proceedings against them. we'll face trump appointees being held in contempt by a republican congress in an attempt to protect trump. >> mike submchmidt, let me brin you back to the point of pardon

which was raised. i hadn't thought about delaying mike flynn's sentence being delayed. dangling the prospect of pardon, there is a pardon history already with mr. flynn. >> and pardons are in the questions that mueller wants to ask trump about. he wants to ask what trump knew about this, did trump have surrogates reaching out to flynn to raise this prospect with him. there had been reporting last year by yahoo! news flynn had this call with the president in which the president said for him to stay strong. or the president was trying to send a message to him in that sense. so, there are sort of larger questions on the pardon issue there. and as frank points out, this sort of delays this. on the sentencing of mueller probably the most unsatisfiling part of this is there is so much we don't know. we really don't know why mueller delayed it, why he continues to hold this over flynn. and we continue to be surprised by what goes on. i realize that's not the easiest

thing for everyone to get their head around, but that's sort of where things are. >> frank, you talk most days about the known and unknowns about the mueller probe. this seems like another one. if you could tie these two stories together, the idea that rosenstein from the very beginning of the trump presidency, so unnerved, described someone deeply rattled and emotional about what they were asked to do in service of this president, and mike flynn, someone who was dangled or offered or maybe flirted with the idea of a pardon now with the sentencing delayed, there is a commonality of everyone that comes in contact with this white house. it seems to have some sort of either ignorance of the rule of law or disdain for it or effort or desire to go around it, doesn't it? >> well, and what we see, nicolle, is that certain people who have some semblance of

normalcy and justice and rule of law end up departing the white house. and that's what's happening. with rosenstein, we have a different situation. he's not part of the white house. and as he said yesterday a couple of times, i have a duty here. i have an obligation here. so we've got a man who must be just restlessly trying to sleep at night figuring out how do i fill my duty as deputy attorney general of the united states and overseeing an unprecedented special counsel investigation, trying to ensure that the president and the gop is happy enough to allow us to get our job done, yet not give it all up and start divulging things that should never be divulges ed in middle of the case. i feel for him, i empathize with him. we have to call our members of kopg and say, look, mueller, rosenstein need protection. we need a bill to protect them. we need to allow this to finish. >> let me give you the last line of your story.

kw quoting the city's fictional son rocky, it's not how hard you can hit, it's how hard you can hit and keep moving forward. that is certainly his experience at this hour. >> the question hanging over rosenstein is what will the president do about him. the president doesn't think he has the political capital to go ahead and fire him. the president is afraid of that. he has scar tissue left over from the comey firing and i think he's afraid of what the senate would do if he went forward with that. the question is the president waiting till after the mid terms or is rod rosenstein someone he can never get rid of. we'll have to see until later this year for that to play out. >> bob mueller wants to know the answer to all of those questions, right? >> i mean, the questions that bob mueller has for the president. i mean, still this large thing hanging out there, will the president sit down and talk to bob mueller and answer the questions that he wants him to.

>> mike schmidt, thank you for your reporting. thanks for sharing it with us. when we come back, more on the war on justice and those explosive charges from congressional republicans and how rosenstein is pushing back. also ahead, inside the quiet campaign to guarantee donald trump a second supreme court vacancy. exclusive new reporting from "the new york times". and did an infamous radio pranks or trick the president of the united states aboard air force one? we'll play you that audio and let you decide. that's coming up. since my stroke, he hasn't left my side.

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certainly when i was minding my own business in private practice in atlanta, i didn't

think i was going to be spending the first ten months of my job staring down the barrel of a contempt citation for a conduct that occurred long before i even thought about being fbi director. having said that, i am committed to making sure that we're responsive to these committees. >> a hot war between congressional republicans and the justice department escalating a day after the president's congressional fixers turned up the heat on deputy attorney general rod rosenstein and fbi director christopher wray. a senior justice department official telling me today that rosenstein's testimony on capitol hill, quote, speaks for itself and adds that the contentious nature of the relationship is only on one side, theirs. it's worth noting that the republican members of the house judiciary committee are many of the same members who spent 2 1/2 years investigating benghazi and turned up zero indictments and zero guilty pleas. now they are attacking a lifelong republican who appointed a former director of the fbi, also a lifelong republican, to over see an

investigation into russian med allege that has yielded 16 indictments and five guilty pleas in 13 months. armed with animus, debunked conspiracy theories and fox news inspired rants, house republicans made their disdain for rosenstein clear. >> it's really the rosenstein investigation. you appointed mueller. you're supervising mueller. seems like you should be recused from this more so than jeff sessions. >> whatever you got, finish it the hell up. >> i don't know why you won't give us what we've asked for. >> certainly, i hope your colleagues are not under that impression. that is not accurate, sir, and -- >> it is accurate. we have caught you hiding -- >> mr. chair, if you have evidence of wrongdoing by any member of the trump campaign, present it to the dam grand injure jury. >> my job is to make sure we respond to your concerns. i have appointed mr. loesch. i appreciate your concerns. >> again, i think the house of representatives is going to say

otherwise. >> your use of this technique -- >> mr. chairman, can we be permitted to answer the question? >> mr. jordan, i am the deputy attorney general of the united states, okay. i'm not the person doing the redacting. i am responsible for responding to your concerns as i have. i have a team with me, sir. it's just a fraction of the team that's doing this work. whatever you brought issues to my attention i have taken appropriate steps to remedy them. so your statement that i am personally keeping information from you, trying to conceal information zash >> you're the boss, mr. rosen steent. >> that's correct. my concern is to make sure we respond to your concerns. >> thank god he's the boss. the senior justice department officially spoke to today noted the notice documents being requested by these members have been delivered or the request is in the process of being accommodating leading this official to question the public nature of yesterday's display. joining us at the table rick

stengel, former time magazine managing editor. evan mcmullen, former cia operative who ran for president as intd pent. and rev al sharpton, action network and host of politics nation here on msnbc. frank and ken are still with us. ken, let me come straight to you. you have an extraordinary piece out today detailing what they are asking for. and i'll ask you what i asked frank in the last block. the nature of what they're looking for is incredibly detailed confidential information about an ongoing investigation. is there any precedent for what they're asking for? and is there any sense that they'll stop at any point? the justice department insists they are accommodating these requests and that what makes them so extraordinary is the fact they all get out to the media. they are all in the press. >> i fear, nicolle, that the news-consuming public is not understanding just how extraordinary and remarkable this is. they see a bunch of congress people yelling at executive

branch officials, they see a fight over documents. this is not a normal oversight fight. this is the republicans and house of representatives demanding and in most cases receiving the kind of internal and secret documents about a pending criminal investigation that have never before been turned over to congress or rarely if ever. for example, fbi 302s, the detailed notes fbi agents take of interviews. now, there is one precedent for that. james comey turned some of those over in the clinton investigation to the last congress. until recently that had never happened. secret fisa applications, zoe lofgren democrat from california said she's been around 24 years. she's never seen this being turned over to congress. she spent most of the day reading the fisa application. there is so much information in there, lives would be lost if it was made public. the fear is these republicans are using this material in a very cavalier way. and while you heard rosenstein

being attacked by republicans, which is remarkable in its own right, and you may have heard some democrats trying to interject on his behalf, some people including our friend matt miller have been arguing that democrats should actually be asking harder questions of rosenstein, principally, why are you handing this stuff over to these people? why are you breaking with press department? one of the answers i'm told, he's being advised by other members of the cabinet, look, at the end of the day president trump is not going to back you guys on this. you can take a stand and refuse to hand it over, but it's not really up to you. it's his executive branch. house speaker paul ryan has also been siding with these fire brand conservatives and putting pressure on the justice department. it's a really -- we're in uncharted territory here, nicolle. >> and, frank, is that's such a good point ken makes. these men are on an island. the president, the commander in chief has no regard for the rule of law, has no affinity for any of the individuals running the department of justice. seems to have, i'm told, no personal connection to the head of the fbi which doesn't matter

except for that he hasn't taken his side in public disputes with devin nunes with whom he does have a warm personal relationship. where does this leave us when the department of justice and the fbi is untethered from congress, they really don't have a lot of support in the republican-led senate or house, untethered from the white house, and they're hoping they can buy enough time to accommodate the request, is a wordy keep hearing from department of justice owe fishlsz to let either mueller finish his job or stay in these jobs, lest the president appoint someone who doesn't adhere to the rule of law. >> couple thoughts. first is thankfully rosenstein and wray know a whole lot more about when mueller is going to finish up than the white house does. they can play that timing to their advantage. they may know in coordination with mueller just when they are able to say no, no more, this ends now, because mueller is then coming in with his

findings. number one. number two, i'm really concerned about the long-term damage well beyond this. we are now setting precedent that impacts national security. we are setting a precedent where if congress demands names of informants and sources and under cover agents and what, where and when, and putting lives in danger and the ability to recruit long-term deep sources, because you can no longer look them in the face as fbi agents do in their careers and say, i need you to betray your country for our country. i need you to come over to our side, and that informant looks at you and says, can you guarantee my safety and my anonymity? and now you say, maybe not, that's the long-term damage here. >> you gave me chills when you made evan nod. >> frank is absolutely right. i'll tell you, even if the identities of sources that are contributing to the investigation never come out, the fact that the members of the house of these republicans are going after their identities,

trying to expose them, has a chilling effect on their activities on the ability of the investigation to gather information from these sources anyway. so, it does president even matter if the house is successful in getting those identities. it's already threatened -- it threatens to have an impact. whether it is or not, i don't know, but i would imagine it is. i've seen situations like this where our ability to protect sources sort of comes into question because somebody has revealed for one reason or another. and we end up having a harder time collecting information in investigations. >> we can put up the obliteration of norms the president has steam rolled over behind us on a wall and make a big fancy graphic, but this seems like one in which lives could be lost and american national security could be in peril. >> yes. and also the irony -- i'm old enough to remember when the republican party was the law and order party.

>> is that donald trump's convention speech? >> before that. long before -- the party was supporter of the justice department, the fbi. democrats were accused of being weak on that. the other thing people aren't talking about which you alluded to in a subtle way before is that as soon as the justice department hands over this document, the staff in the house committee will look at it and decide what goes immediately to the washington post, what immediately goes to "the new york times," that jeopardizes the security of people and because rosenstein knows as soon as he gives it over, it goes immediately -- >> fox news, they're worried about the disinformation campaign. they're worried about the pipeline between what they turnover to these house members and it ends up in a graphic called mueller's mob family on fox news. they're not worried -- >> that's right. >> i didn't hear any concern about what the washington post does with information that comes out through their public affairs office. i think they're concerned and i think the reason rosenstein was so assertive on the hill yesterday and the reason you see them finally sort of getting their side of this story out is

that they understand that fox news and the president's allies in congress have done some damage. i want to know if you think, rev, that, you know, the president is calling in these code reds. >> i think it's clearly him calling it in and he's the one to benefit. i think that they not only got to worry about them leaking it to fox news. they have to think about he may be the one they would give it to and he is the one they're investigating. have you ever heard of someone under investigation sending their boys out, tell me what they got and tell them to cut off the investigation. i think we need -- >> al capone. >> absolutely al capone. we need to take a step back here. they are actually saying, as elected members of the senate, that we don't care if there was russian interference. chop it up, end it. i mean, they ought to be the ones more than anyone saying, are you telling me the patriotic

law and order party that we may have been interfered with? the fact that they're outraged with the investigation more than -- >> about the russians. crazy. >> makes one wonder what is really going on here. >> i know you don't wonder. you have a theory. >> no, i think it's very clear. i think the president is like other leaders who vladimir putin supports. i don't think the president would likely have won the election had it not been for russian interference. that's our situation. we're not the only country to be in this situation. let me say this. a lot of people are increasingly saying, look, this investigation, the mueller part of it has been going on for a year. it ought to wrap up. i really want to push back on that. this is the type of -- if this were a counter intelligence investigation of just one person, it would last probably longer than a year. we're in a situation now where every time you turn over a stone, it's another several russians or americans dealing with russians or more contacts. this is a complicated,

complicated situation. yo