full hour of stacy abrams will be my guest for a special live recording of our bpodcast, tickets sold out ridiculously fast. i think because of stacy abrams not yours truly but we'll release the conversation as a regular tuesday episode for all of our listeners, which means the entire conversation, if you cannot be there live, which most of you cannot be will be available on tuesday wherever you happen to get your pod cast so make sure you subscribe now to why is this happening and i'll be able to sit down in new york city for a full hour with stacy abrams. we can get into all of the things that have been happening and what your future holds. that is "all in" for this evening. "the rachel maddow show" starts now. good evening, rachel. >> good evening, chris. thank you, my friend. thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. sometimes judges issue big long written orders like this one. where the judge spells out his or her reasoning and his or her ruling and how that ruling is based on legal president and

other case law and how it reflects the facts of this case and, you know, judges at every level below the supreme court know their rulings are not only potentially appealable by one of the parties, they are potentially reversible by a higher court. so judges' rulings are often quite detailed. they explain their reasoning in a lot of detail. they can be also quite narrative. they can be quite interesting. but judges don't have to do it that way all the time. when the judge does need to make an order, the judge needs to make a ruling but relatively easy stuff. or at least a relatively simple ruling on a single point and the judge just wants to get right to it and not do too much story telling to back it up. a judge can do something that's a minute order. for a long time i thought it was a minute order because it's small but i think they say it as a minute order.

minute and minute are spelled the same. if i'm wrong, i'll appeal that to cable news court. when a judge issued one of these minute orders, it almost always is something that takes a minute or less to read. it usually takes less time than to to get to the point of what the judge is doing and today, this was the minute order. from the federal judge in washington d.c. hearing the roger stone case. minute order as to roger j. stone junior. and here it is. quote defendant is ordered to show cause as a hearing to be held on thursday, february 21st at 2:30 p.m. as to why the media contact order entered in the case and conditions of release should not be modified or revoked in light of the posts on his instagram account on or about february 18th, 2019. and then it is signed by the judge. that is the whole thing. just takes a minute. meeb not ev

maybe not even a minute but that minute order was issued today and that's how we learned that the president's long-time advisor roger stone in all likelihood will be packing a toothbrush on thursday when he is ordered to appear at this show cause hearing in his case we learned about today in this minute order. and this, of course, follows the genius move by roger stone yesterday to when he decided to post a photo of the judge, who is hearing his case on his instagram account, the photo included a closeup picture of the judge with a little cross hairs next to the judge's head as if she was being targeted by somebody looking through a rifle scope after posting that yesterday, stone took down that image and replaced it with the exact same image but cropped a little differently so the cross hairs aren't there. he did still though leave up the same written caption for the photo targeting the judge. then yesterday evening, somebody apparently decided to finally

open up and start reading those 5,000 text messages i imagine were sent by his lawyer over the course of the day. a lawyer he's paying good money for. i'm guessing that's targeting the judge in the case had been taken down by mr. stone. and mr. stone's lawyers and tried to make it like a formal notion and the lawyers themselves notice apology and included in the notice to the courts a statement by roger stone himself saying sorry. that said this morning, mr. stone was back at it publicly

linking to a right wring blog post that defended him for posting the image targeting the judge on his instagram account. he posted that this morning ultimately that came down today, too. and now we've got the minute order from the judge. who says she will see him in court on thursday. roger stone's lawyers at that hearing will be expected to show cause as to why these actions by mr. stone targeting the judge should not result in her issuing a strict new gag order on everybody involved in the case including mr. stone himself and more importantly than that, mr. stone's lawyers will be expected to show cause on thursday afternoon why these actions by roger stone should not result in the judge modifying roger stone's conditions of release. because you will remember that roger stone was arrested and he was indicted, he was arraigned on seven felony charges but thereafter he walked out of the courthouse, right, and this judge that he targeted yesterday, this judge is going

to have this show cause hearing on thursday, this is the judge who set the conditions of release for roger stone. those conditions of release thus far have allowed mr. stone not only to be free and not in jail while he awaits the start of his trial, the judge was generous enough with roger stone that she allowed him not only to be free, she allowed him to be released on bond without him actually having to put up a single dime to secure that bond. he didn't have to put up any money for it at all. well now, those tmatters will b revisited in result of his behavior. that show cause hearing will happen thursday at 2:30 p.m. eastern. and we knew this case was going to be nuts. right? we knew this. this case is proving itself to be everything we expected and more. but that news from federal court in d.c. today broke just before we got this ton of bricks dropped by "the new york times." a several thousand word piece on

the front page of the times as of this afternoon that is basically a look at obstruction of justice issues, this white house and this president may ultimately have to answer for some day, somehow in the russia investigation. everything from one of the president's russia lawyers reportedly offering pardons, presidential pardons to mike flynn and paul manafort after each of them had been charged. and while each of them were making important desighcisions t their potential testimony or cooperation deals with prosecutors, presidents of course have the right to pardon anyone they want to pardon but if the president through his legal team was explicitly dangling pardons to potential witnesses for the purpose of dissuading them from providing evidence that might hurt himself or his administration or his family orbi business, that's a different matter. and that's just one of them. "the new york times" today runs down the whole gammitt to the

efforts to coordinate with congressional republicans and help them in their efforts to undermine and dismarriap dispar disparrage and his multiple efforts to fire attorney general jeff sessions specifically because he wasn't getting what he wanted from him on the russia matter. at one point, the president, according to the "new york times" today, the president called corey, think about the lengths that means the president will go to to avoid firing someone face-to-face. corey lewandowski didn't everyone work at the white house. in what position was he to fire the attorney general of the united states. he reports he asked him to.

okay. i mean, eventually, if you're doing that, why not call people that are like talk radio hosts, you know what i mean? hey, buddy, would you fire the attorney general for me? i'll send you a note. like what -- on what basis -- anyway. like i said, long piece released by "the new york times" basically a ton of bricks with obstruction of justice issues and the president and the russia investigation we know from the watergate era, the obstruction of justice issues were front and center in the impeachment articles brought against nixon and led to the resignation. so that's important stuff and it's i think important to have it laid out in one piece and in context but there are two pieces of this that are either brand-new or largely new tonight that aren't just, you know, a look back at stuff we had previously learned. these are new things and we'll spend a little bit of time talking about them over the course of the hour. one is about the federal prosecutor's office in the

southern district of new york. so this is sdny, this is the powerful u.s. attorney's office based in manhattan. that prosecutor's office has been involved in key investigations that spun out or appear to be underway. subpoenaing the trump inaugural l committee. prosecutors from the southern district of new york that did that cooperation and non-prosecution deal with american media, the publisher of the national enquirer supermarket tabloid and the chief executive, david pecker. southern district of new york prosecutors, also prosecutors who brought charges against michael cohen and a long-time executive in the real estate business charges against cohen brought by the southern district of new york include those campaign finance felonies in which they implicated the

president himself in the commission of the felonies. sdny's involvement in the trump related cases and sdny's willingness explicitly to implicate the president in two felonies already in the cohen case going so far as to give the president the name individual one in the cohen case, they are willing to spell out in court explicitly that individual one is in fact the president of the united states and he directed the commission of the felonies. that forward leaning posture for this u.s. attorney's office in the southern district of new york has led to recent speculation that that prosecutor's office might ultimately decide that they are going to ignore justice department internal policy which says you're not supposed to indict a sitting president while that president is still in

office. poll l politico.com said this prosecutor's office might be willing to defy that justice department policy. they might be willing to try to indict the president out of that office since they are pushing up against that boundary anyway in the prosecutions they have already pursued. i will tell you right now a bit of a programming note here, we'll have an important addition to that story later on this week. right now. we're working on a rachel maddow show and we've got something new on that subject that nobody else has. we're working on that already and we'll have that report sometime in the next few days. as soon as it is ready. but on the michael cohen prosecution in sdny, it had previously been reported that president trump was furious about cohen being prosecuted. furious about him being prosecuted in the way he was in the way that implicated the president for those campaign finance felonies by new york

federal prosecutors and for some of the other things. cnn reported in december on at least two occasions, the president lashed out at acting attorney general whitaker about i implicating trump and cohen being charged with lying to congress about the trump tower moscow. all right. so this was, i mean, trump -- i don't know if corey lhelped but he found a way to fire jeff sessions in a way that didn't scare him too much and get rid of sessions and brought in matthew whitaker to be the acting attorney general and very soon thereafter, there were reports that trump was on the phone with whitaker, you know, calling him, reaming him out about what was going on with michael cohen in the new york courtroom and going on with these prosecutors and what cohen was admitting to. whitaker was asked about reports

that he had been pressured by the white house about the cohen prosecution. he was asked about these reports when he testified before the house judiciaryago, after that testimony, there was a letter wrote to whitaker that confronted him with the allegation that whitaker had lied under oath to the committee when they had questioned him on that very subject. quote, although the committee appreciates the decision to appear, they found many answers to be unsat sisfactorunsatisfac. contradicted by other evidence for our members asked about reports president trump called you at least twice to express frustration after michael cohen pleaded guilty in the southern district of new york to lying to congress and arranging hush money payments. representative cicilline asked you you respond nod he did not.

representative cicilline asked you. you responded no. they identified as a result we require your clarification on this point without delay. so we could sort of tell something was going on. we had a report from cnn in december that the president had called his newly installed acting attorney general and said hey, what are you going to do for me about this cohen prosecution? this is bothering me. we have whitaker being asked under oath and him behaving cagily and have the response immediately after the hearing from the committee chairman saying we think and we think you

did not speak talk about the prosecution and his guilty plea. we have evidence that suggestions those phone calls you were denying actually happened. we can tell this was building on something. today "the new york times" has this, as federal prosecutors gathered evidence late last year about president trump's role and silencing women with hush payments during the 2016 campaign, mr. trump called matthew g whitaker with a question. he asked whether jeffrey berman who had been chosen for that job by president trump, a former law partner of the president's own lawyer rudy ghoul yn knee asked whether jeffrey berman could be put in charge of the investigation siting several american officials with direct nol led knowledge of the call.

mr. berman recused himself. what mr. whitaker did after this was unclear. there is no evidence he took any direct steps to intervene in the manhattan investigation. he did tell associates that the justice department that prosecutors in new york required quote adult supervision. so as i mentioned, we'll have more tonight but this is potentially trouble for matt whitaker who is no longer acting attorney general but staying at the justice department now that the new attorney general william bar has been sworn in. this is potentially trouble for whitaker if his adult supervision comment means he did try influence that prosecution in new york at the behest of the white house. it's also trouble for whitaker obviously if he did lie about those interactions under oath to congress. it's also potentially trouble for the president if he was going after a federal criminal case, right? if he was trying to hand pick to

try to protect himself. that's the kind of thing that theoretically could be prosecuted as a felony obstruction charge against a defendant even potentially against a defendant who is a president if the southern district of new york was in fact inclined to try to pursue something like that. again, we'll have more on that to come both over the course of this hour. the other piece of this we need to talk about is the other big new revelation from this times reporting about michael flynn. michael flynn was the first official fired at the brand-new trump white house. it didn't make it a month. michael flynn then became the first guilty plea and the first cooperating witness in the russia investigation. michael flynn then surprised just a few weeks ago became the first mueller defendant to have his sentencing hearing completely blow up in court when among other things the judge

that was supposed to be sentencing him diverted into questioning prosecutors as to whether they had ever considered charging mike flynn with treason. mike flynn to this day is cooperating with prosecutors sentencing got president off. he's awaiting a date in washington d.c. but we learned today from "the new york times" reporting is actually a quite unexpected answer to what has been a persistent mystery about mike flynn since his story initially blew upless than a week into administration. we finally got an answer what happened and it's the opposite of what we expected and that story is next. expected and that story is next. only a tiger cost, we're finally going on the trip i've been promising. because with expedia, i saved when i added a hotel to our flight. ♪ so even when she outgrows her costume, we'll never outgrow the memory of our adventure together.

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ms. yates, what did you tell the white house about mr. flynn? >> i had two in person meetings and one phone call with the white house counsel about mr. flynn. the first meeting occurred on january 26th. i called don mcgahn first thing that morning and told him that i had a very sensitive matter that

i needed to discuss with him, that i couldn't talk about it on the phone and that i needed to come see him, and he agreed to meet with me later that afternoon. the first thing we did was to explain to mr. mcgahn that the underlying conduct that general flynn engaged in was problematic in and of itself. not only did we believe the russians knew this but likely had proof of the information and that created a compromise situation, a situation where the national security advisor essentially could be blackmailed by the russians. finally, we told them that we were giving them all of this information so that they could take action. the action that they deemed appropriate. >> that was sally yates, talking about something that happened at the very, very beginning of the trump administration, literally less than a week of the swearing in of the in the president. it's a few days into administration, sally yates is acting attorney general

personally goes to the white house to the new white house counsel to tell the new white house counsel that the brand new president's brand-new national security advisor is compromised by a hostile foreign power and they needed to act in whatever way they felt was appropriate to act in response to that information. >> we believed that general flynn was compromised with respect to the russians. to state the obvious, you don't want your national security advisor compromised with the russians. we knew that was not a good s situati situation, which is why we wanted to let the white house know about it. >> it's been a persistent mystery about mike flynn and the trump administration and the president and this white house ever since sally yates gave us that information. all right. how is it, why is it that after the white house received that hair on fire warning from the justice department the attorney general coming in person to the white house to say hey, the national security advisor is compromised by a foreign

government, there is an intelligence operation that has been run by the russian government that has resulted in there being somebody who they have got leverage on and they have a compromise on, they have compromised working in the white house as national security advisor. like that warning comes to the white house unimaginable and the white house responded by doing nothing for 18 days. think about how extreme this news is, how unthinkable, right? this is like it's coming from inside the house, everybody get out. [ laughter ] >> think of the implications of this. not only can this guy plainly not continue in his job as national security advisor for one more second, this guy anybody would hear that warning and recognize this guy has to be out right away. this guy can't have access to classified information. we need to debrief or do some sort of forensic accounting to figure out what he had access to because we should assume the

russians have that. him being compromised means the russians can extract whatever they want from this guy so don't let him have access to anything at all. you got to get this guy out of the white house and start, right? you got to start the plumbing work here. i mean, that was the implication of what they told the white house. and has been a persistent mystery since then they had no reaction and flynn stayed on for 18 days and the white house had novi visible response before fln was charged with a felony, pled guilty and to become a cooperating witness. last year i was able to interview salliuates and asked her here on this program where with the passing of time she had better insight why the white house took so long to respond to

the warning she brought them. is there anything that you can tell us now or even just remind us of now about the urgency with which you warned the white house about him? for me, i'm asking because of this persistent mystery about why the white house waited so long, waited 18 days before they took any action in response to your warning? is there anything you can tell us that might shed light? >> i can't figure it out myself why they took all of that time. you know, i came knocking on the door on telling them they had a serious problem with the national security advisor and could be compromised with the russians and came back the next day to give them even more information about that and it made it clear to them that we were telling them this so that they could act. this was not a cause weheads up we're giving this information so you can act and then nothing happened. >> and then nothing happened.

well today what we learned in the "new york times" is that in fact we might have been looking at this the wrong way. what might seem mysterious, it took the white house 18 days to take action in response totally historically unprecedented warning about there being inside the white house in the form of the compromised national security advisor. what we learned is that it's not that they waited 18 days after that warning to act, to get rid of him, what this new reporting says is that even after those 18 days, they still didn't act at all. quote, it was february 14th, 2017 and mr. trump and his advisors were in the oval office debating how to explain the resignation of mr. flynn, the national security advisor. the justice department had already raised the questions that mr. flynn might be subject

to blackmail, as the group in fact in the oval office talked, they mentioned what paul ryan the speaker of the house told reporters which is that mr. trump had asked mr. flynn to resign. it was under -- excuse me, it was unclear where speaker ryan got that information but president trump seized on mr. ryan's words, that sounds better the president said according to people with knowledge. many trump turned to the white house secretary to break the news media, say that mr. trump ordered. but was that true mr. spicer pressed? say that i asked for his resignation, mr. trump repeated. and after that, sean spicer in fact walked out to brief reporters on mike flynn's leaving the white house the previous night resigning the previous night. he told reporters the president asked for flynn's resignation. apparently that was not true the president did not ask for flynn to resign.

oh, spicer also told reporters that the white house exhaustively investigated flynn after they receive that warning from the justice department according to white house lawyers concerned about mr. spicer's comments at the time, that was not true. they had not exhaustively investigated flynn after that warning. spicer also told reporters that trump administration lawyers had exhaustedly reviewed flynn's contacts with the russian government and the way he talked about it and concluded that there were no legal issues whatsoever surrounding what mike flynn had done and no being legally in the clear. according to the times today, all those concerns about what then became the white house public line about flynn's departure, white house lawyers wrote up a confidential memo detailing all of the lies that the white house was officially telling the public about mike flynn's departure from the white house, including the lie that the president fired him, that

the president had asked for his resignation when in fact, the president did not. white house lawyers wrote a confidential memo expressing concern. the times reports that the white house never went back despite the documented nature of those lies and cleared up with the public what actually happened and no, we don't have that legal memo that was written up by white house lawyers detailing all of these lies and the lawyers' concerns about it, but boy does that seem like the thing maybe congress should ask for now. and now the mystery about flynn is no longer why did the president take so long to act in response to that warning about the danger of flynn. now the mystery is why did the president never act to fire flynn or demand his resignation after that warning from the justice department? it isn't just that they waited 18 days. they still hadn't acted and he left on his own. and then why did they tell an

elaborate series of lies to the public trying to make it seem like they responded to the warning when they never did? and on top of that, the oversight committee in the house today dropped another bomb having to do with flynn and other senior white house officials pursuing a secret deal in which they themselves appear to have had a large private financial stake after they are warned by national security counsel lawyers that pursuing that deal inside the white house would be illegal. the oversight committee and intelligence committee opened a new investigation into the matter and say this is something that appears to have been a mike flynn joint that was illegal on a couple different levels and not something that ended when mike flynn left the white house. it is something, according to the oversight committee today that the white house is still pursuing as recently as last week. and that's next. stay with us. stay with us ♪

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trouble. love! hope! and rather a lot of tea. the best of britain, from the moment you step on board. today the house oversight committee titled whistled pl blowers rave grave concern to saudi arabia. if you know nothing else about saudi arabia at all, one thing you probably know is sod saudi floats of a sea of oil and they might want to put nuclear power points in saudi arabia.

they have access to energy that's not a problem. getting nuclear power plants maybe isn't their end game here. the crown prince of saudi arabia said out loud and bluntly his country may soon develop nuclear weapons. scientifically, nuclear power plant technology and new clear weapons technology are kissing cousins. so there are laws in the united states and around the world about restricting the transfer of nuclear technology abroad, those laws apply to nuclear power plant technology because if you get nuclear power plant technology, you're pretty far down the road toward having nuclear weapons tech. well now in this report today, the oversight committee say they are investigating whistle blower reports from inside the federal government that senior trump administration officials have been pursuing a plan to give nuclear technology to saudi arabia in continlaw that prohib

that after being warned it would be illegal to pursue the plan. these trump administration officials have been pursuing this plan along the lines of a business proposal from which some of them would personally financially benefit. joining us now is congressman murphy, democrat on the house oversight committee. thank you for making time for us tonight. much appreciated. >> thank you, rachel. >> the whistle bloweri eers bri these concerns to your committee are suggesting this plan was advanced by trump national security advisor mike flynn back in the hot minute when he was in the administration in 2017 but there is also the implication that it didn't die with flynn leaving administration, that it's being pursued today. >> that's right. even after michael flynn left, some of his deputies along with jared kushner, the president's son-in-law basically took it upon themselves to continue with this plan to basically trade

secret nuclear technology from america in return for contracts to build and operate nuclear reactors in saudi arabia. >> in terms of the potential criminal implications, this is a self-dealing concern in terms of whether or not officials pursuing this were them shelves in a position to financially benefit from any knock on effects of this change in american policy but then the transfer of the technology itself is something that's highly regulated not just been american tradition or reasonable restraint but also by law. >> absolutely. there is something called the atomic energy act of 1954 and specifically section 123 of that act, which specifically requires congressional approval for the export of sensitive nuclear technology to other countries and so this was clearly an end runaround congress, not to mention as you previously said, an end runaround conflicts of

interest rules, also michael flynn committed a felony in omitting his contacts with saudi arabia prior to coming to the administration on his sf 86 form, the form required for security clearance and so forth. >> in terms of that last point there, one of the things that we have since come to learn is that as far as i understand it, there was a criminal referral from the democrats on the oversight committee to robert mueller to the special counsel's office specifically on that issue of mike flynn and his security clearance application and whether or not he was forthcoming about his contacts with saudi arabia about this plan. one thing i found interesting is i feel like we heard a lot of stories about officials leaving things off those security clearance applications, not mentioning things but in the case of mike flynn, it sounds like, i mean, he invented the name of a hotel that he's supposedly staying at, which is a hotel that doesn't exist.

>> something like the king colin hotel in saudi arabia that doesn't exist. >> there is the -- that's literally the name of the airport at -- >> i haven't been there but yes. >> he says he spoke at a conference that didn't exist. this seems like a -- not something he forgot but tried to create a fake cover story about. >> absolutely. it's only rivalled by jared kushner which i've kind of been after in the last two years as you might recall, jared kushner had 0 errors and omissions. they are walking, talking conflicts of interest. >> congressman raj raja krishnamoorthi. have you slept at all since you found out these are your committees? >> it's been busy but we have something called caffeine.

>> very good. i'm well aware and on your side on that. sir, thank you for your time. much appreciated. >> thank you. >> much more to get to tonight. stay with us. >> much more to get to tonight stay with us ♪ with venus, you're in charge of how your skin feels. so, when the world expects you to follow the rules,

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call the number on the screen now or visit getsilversneakers.com did the president lash out to you on or about december 8th, 2018 to discuss a case in the southern district of new york where he was identified as individual one? >> no, congressman. >> did anyone on the president's behalf either inside the white house or outside contact you to lash out or express dissatisfacti dissatisfaction? >> did they contact me to lash out? >> yes, did they reach out to you to express dissatisfaction? >> no. >> we watch that testimony a couple weeks ago from matt whitaker. and whether you found it credible at the time, plenty of people on that committee apparently did not. the chairman of that committee followed up that testimony with a letter to whitaker that said in so many words, we believe you

lied to us in that testimony. now they are told whitaker quote, we require your clarification without delay. "the new york times" adds fuel to the smoldering doubts, "the times" reports president trump himself called matt whitaker, his acting attorney general and asked whitaker if somebody else could be put in charge of the investigation of michael cohen, somebody else at the federal prosecutor's office in new york. "the times" reports that the president wanted to know if the prosecutor, he had hand picked for that u.s. attorney job in that office could please take over the cohen investigation. so that is a serious allegation about the president trying to interfere in that prosecution of his long-time lawyer. a prosecution in which the president himself is allegedly implicated in some of the felonies to which cohen has confessed. but the question is still hanging over matt whitaker, did the white house let him know the president was not happy about

the cohen investigation as "the times" reports tonight or cnn reported in december. is the chairman correct in challenging whitaker's testimony? jerry's letter has gone unanswered but we're told tonight that they think matthew whitaker might reply and then again we expected him to leave the justice department when william bar took over as the new attorney general but instead whitaker stayed on and have given him a different job at the justice department. if he's still a justice department official tonight, that means he's still under the oversight of the house judiciary committee in congress that could bring matt whitaker back in over this specifically, if he lied to them, if he purge gererjuried h this could get interesting quickly. a house committee maybember joi us next. mmittee maybember joins us next. yeah, that's the available hd surround vision camera. the top of your car?

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joining us now here on set is congressman eric swalwell. he's a member of the intelligence committee in the house and also the judiciary committee in the house. congressman, thank you for coming in. >> thank you. >> i wanted to ask you about a few stories that broke today, but your chairman jerry nadler is saying pretty directly to the recently departed acting attorney general matt whitaker that he may have perjured himself before he left. in fact, when whitaker said he got no call from the white house pressuring him about the cohen investigation, that's not true,

the president had pressured him about that. what do you make of the story, the controversy and the matter of his impending perjury? >> the acting attorney general is not worthy of taking him at his word and his word is not credible of "new york times" reporting. what does it say about the president trying to put pressure on the attorney general? we don't care about the dispute between the two of them, but if he's lashing out because he wants the acting attorney general to do something differently, that affects things. >> the president is trying to accuse the prosecutor who is bringing the case and pursuing a case against his lawyer, a case in which the president himself is implicated, that's a serious allegation. >> i asked the acting attorney general if pardons were ever discussed, and he said, you know, there is a rigorous process. yes, there was a rigorous process. donald trump doesn't follow it, but he said there was no discussion of pardons in this "new york times" story. he said the trump lawyers were

handing pardons out to manafort, et cetera. and did whitaker, when he was interviewing for the job to be donald trump's lawyer inside the white house before he became acting attorney general, did he talk about his previously held views of the mueller investigation? so there is a couple different buckets where the "new york times" and other press accounts say, no, he did talk about his views, he did want to be the president's defense attorney inside the white house first. there has been discussion of pardons, and that he was lashed out at. we need to bring him back under subpoena and start to really see what happened. >> does it matter that he has stayed at the justice department? >> a no-show job. is it a no-show job? they sort of invented another title for him. it would have been harder for you to get in if he was still acting a.g. >> we're going to pretty them. i have the confidence as i sit here today that we are going to hear from him again.

if we had not won the majority, we would be powerless as these abuses occur. but we have the majority now, we have subpoena power, and we have the rule of law that we want to make sure is still standing, so we're going to press him on this. >> the "new york times" bombshell reporting today is this report that the white house told a long series of lies about the departure of mike flynn as the president's first national security adviser. we often wondered why it took 18 days for flynn to get fired after they got that drastic warning from the justice department about him being compromised by russia. "the times" reporting that even after those 18 days, he wasn't fired. the president didn't ask for his resignation. flynn was just allowed to go on his own terms. there was no review and conclusion by white house lawyers that he hadn't done legally problematic. for me this is brand new revelations. is this something more familiar to you because of your committee work? >> in our committee work, we have seen that i don't think donald trump has ever fired someone off camera.

i think he's only fired people on camera. but we have found that -- i think the reason he didn't fire michael flynn, i don't think he was personally really offended by it. it became a public relations crisis for him, and i think flynn was even more qualified that he was doing this bidding on the president's behalf, offering to reduce sanctions for the russians. if you looked at this as a quid pro quo, that's part of the quo, the payback to the country that helped you. i think the president truly isn't capable of firing anybody, because as you laid out, he had so many people who had done offensive things to him but they stayed around. >> i am not going to ask you right now about running for president in a substantive way, but i am going to -- >> that's a longer block. >> but i would ask you that if you are going to form an exploratory committee or if you are going to announce that you are getting in this race, will you come back here and set aside some time and talk to me? >> i would love that. >> thank you, congressman swalwell. >> my pleasure. we'll be right back.

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one final note for you tonight. we have had some breaking news this hour. this time last night we had reporting from cnn and reuters nbc news has since confirmed that the current deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein, who has had such a key role at the justice department during the mueller investigation, overseeing the mueller investigation after attorney general jeff sessions was recused from having any involvement in that. we learned this time last night that rosenstein is now planning to leave the justice department

as expected now that a new attorney general, william barr, has been sworn in. he's planning to leave in mid-march. as of right now, we've got the news about who is on slate to replace him. a man named jeffrey rosen is being nominated by the trump administration to be the new deputy attorney general under the new attorney general, william barr. one thing that's a little bit unusual about this choice is that currently rosen serves as a deputy executive on the transportation department, and mr. rosen apparently does not have justice department experience. that is not unheard of for a deputy attorney general, but the deputy attorney general is really the person that runs, as a day to day thing, the justice department. they are the chief operating officer of doj. so having somebody come in and day that job with zero doj experience, not unheard of but an unusual choice. that does it again for us tonight. now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." good evening, lawrence. i'm very excit