us. have a good weekend and good night from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. thank you for day four of the rule of law crisis. that has been unleashed by president trump and his attorney general william barr. today, interestingly, is the one-year anniversary of william barr taking over at the justice department. congratulations. how's it gone? in this current scandal this week, we're not only learning what general barr has been up to this week, as it has become a gigantic scandal and it's all started falling apart, we're now learning from public reporting and sources starting to squawk about it, we're learning what exactly william barr has been up to on the president's behalf for

the whole year that he has been on the job. happy valentine's day. the reason the news keeps getting worse and worse is because this crisis, over the president and the attorney general intervening in multiple criminal cases to basically fix them on the president's behalf. the reason the news keeps getting worse this week is because this ongoing crisis keeps unfolding like a blooming onion. and it's just as healthy. we keep getting more and more new news about what the attorney general has been doing in his time on the job. but to really get the depth of it, and particularly the depth of what came out today, you should start back in 2017, before the hiring of william barr was even a twinkle input's in president trump's eye. you may recall in 2017, the president fired fbi director, james comey.

he had asked comey for a loyalty pledge, told comey he wanted him to let go the criminal investigation into his national security advisor, mike flynn. the president fired james comey and you might remember the very next day the president invited the russians to the oval office. surprise, he invited the russian foreign minister into the oval and told them in that meeting that he was delighted to have gotten rid of comey. and that all the pressure he had been facing was now off. all that pressure was relieved because he had fired the fbi director, james comey. and the president may indeed have thought so at the moment. he certainly looked happy enough. it seemed in that moment, when we learned what he said to the russian government officials, that he was sort of confessing the reason he fired james comey was to try to make the russia investigation go away. and trying to make federal criminal investigations go away, trying to obstruct them by firing the person leading the

investigation, well, whether or not you're going to get indicted for it, it's not good. and in any case, it didn't work. after an fbi director is fired, the second in command steps up and takes control. the fbi director, was a man named andrew mccabe. and so mccabe, his deputy director stepped up and became the acting director of the fbi. once comey got fired. in the short time that andy mccabe served as acting fbi director in the wake of comey's firing, mr. mccabe approved the opening of two investigations that we know of into the president. first, and it is surprising unsurprising, looking back on it, but first, he approved the investigation into whether the president in fact had fired james comey for the reason he explained to the russians. did he in fact fire comey or do anything else specifically to

try to impede the government's investigation into russia messing with our election? that's an obstruction of justice investigation into the president. mccabe also approved expanding the existing counterintelligence investigation. into the russian attack to include potential role of the president. this terrible, central counterintelligence question of whether the president, at some point was compromised by a foreign power, whether that had anything to do with russia intervening, mccabe approved the expansion of the counterintelligence investigation to include that one. andy mccabe was only the acting director of the fbi for a short time. was right after comey was fired. but fbi, right after comey was fired was a fraught time. mccabe didn't flinch. and that was what he did when he was in that role. and so, naturally, the president decided that he must be, you know, well, proverbially off with his head. the orientation became that of a

heat seeking missile. he fixated on mccake. public denunciation after public denunciation. long after there was new fbi direct and mccabe had returned to his previous job, insisting publicly and hounding the fbi into firing him. firing him, specifically, a single day short of him being eligible to receive his pension as a 20-year fbi veteran. even beyond hounding the fbi into firing him, the president also demanded that mccabe should be criminally charged as well. lock him up. well, under attorney general, william barr, last year, the department of justice finally started to seem amenable to that demand from the president and they did, in fact, open a criminal investigation into andrew mccabe, as the president had been insisting. the problem on the horizon for the criminal investigation is there didn't seem to be adequate grounds to convict andrew

mccabe of any crimes. didn't even seem to be enough basis to charge him with anything. we would soon learn. the way we do indictments in the criminal justice system, broadly speaking, is prosecutors work closely with grand jurys. that is essentially a noned onadversarial, one-sided process. and it does give prosecutor as ton of power. and that system has led to what is often referred to as the ham sandwich standard. the basic idea is it's set up in a way any prosecutor can get a grand jury to hand down an indictment as simple as a ham sandwich if they put their mind to it. it's that easy because the way the system is stacked in the prosecutor's favor. again, like it or don't, that is the system. but even in our little banana republic in which the president is insistingly demanding lock him up.

when it comes to andrew mccabe. the president braying for months, the former fbi director must be charged, must be prosecuted and even within the president's favorite attorney general, william barr, trying to go along with that, it turn out the case with andrew mccabe couldn't even meet the ham sandwich standard. last year they started emerging these intriguing reports that, while the president was calling over and over again for mccabe's head, prosecutors on the u.s. attorney's office in washington apparently, at least twice, brought their evidence against andrew mccabe before a grand jury. and grand jury proceedings are secret so a lot of this is circumstantial evidence. but it appears, based on circumstantial evidence, that despite multiple attempts to get an indictment out of a grand jury against andrew mccabe, for whatever reason the grand jury wouldn't do it. and again, i insist there is only circumstantial evidence of that. but no indictment of andrew

mccabe ever emerged. even after this criminal case against him was open for months, even after the prosecutors appeared to convene the grand jury in this matter more than once, after one of those instances with the grand jury not producing an indictment, mccabe's own lawyers made a public demand the justice department should give it up and stop letting their client, mr. mccabe, twist in the wind. there was a judge overseeing the matter and the judge also started making increasingly impatient reparks in court. why couldn't they just bring charges already? if not, you should close it. how long do they intend to leave this criminal case technically open without actually being able to indict him on anything? well, here's the judge in july of year lamenting in court that this investigation

seemed to be going, in his words, going on, in his words, ad in finetem. prosecutors at that point in july asked for another 60 days. and 60 days later, they were back in court. he told them once again, how come you haven't brought charges? quote, how long are you talking about? prosecutors at that point asked the judge for another three weeks. three weeks later, they were back in court, they still didn't have any charges to present. they asked the judge for another three months. and at that point the judge says no. the judge balks. i don't know why it's so difficult for a decision to be made. quote, it seems to me from the standpoint of mr. mccabe he has a right for the government to make decision and not have his life held in limbo waiting for a decision. so do, you have any idea how long it's going to be before a decision is made? prosecutor says, your honor, i

would ask for a period of three months before we come back. the judge responds no. that just seems like a long time to me. i just -- i just don't get it. so, the president is publicly banging the drum about this. mccabe should be prosecuted. mccabe is a criminal. this guy at the fbi who over saw the opening of the russia investigation and whether i tried to shut that investigation down and all the other obstructive things i did, that guy is the real enemy of the state, he's committed treason, according to the president. he should be fired, prosecuted, behind bars. the president doesn't letup. and under william barr, attorney general william barr, the effort to prosecute mr. mccabe keeps chugging along, trying, trying, mr. president. but clearly, it doesn't make much sense. it's not well-grounded. it's really starting to seem like they don't actually have a case against him. and the "new york times"

suggested that the supposed key witnesses they were going to count on, those witnesses actually went in the grand jury and told them everything mccabe did was fine. not only was it not illegal, it was specifically the kind of stuff he was tasked to do in the job he held at the fbi. seems like they don't have a case. who wants to be the one to tell president trump that the criminal case that they brought against andrew mccabe, after he insisted on them opening it, is going to be dropped? who wants to tell him? you want to tell him? i'm going to be out sick the next three weeks. meanwhile, the prosecutors on the andrew mccabe case start quitting. one prosecutor pulls his name off the case. withdraws. another leaves the justice department altogether. sound familiar? those happened in the fall. but today, finally, finally, after all this, finally, they dropped the case against mccabe. they will no longer try to bring criminal charges against andrew mccabe.

they will close this matter. now, why did they give this up today? in the movie version of this moment in american life, somebody has had an awakening of conscience. and recognized it's really wrong and bad for this country, quite injurious to our status as a rule of law country for the president to keep publicly demanding investigations of people he's decided are his enemies. somebody realizes, somebody has a come to someone moment and decides it's even more wrong for an attorney general to listen to those demands and try to bring about those prosecutions the president is demanding. in the movie version of this crisis, where america wins at the end, somebody wakes up to how wrong that is and that is what finally causes this decision today to stop seeking criminal charges against andrew mccabe. that does not appear to be what happened. what appears to have happened in the movie we're living is these guys ran up against a court order. thanks to a freedom of information act lawsuit called

crew, this is a day previously sealed documents from the mccabe case were going to be made public. including sealed conversations between the prosecutors and the judge. the prosecutors who repeatedly couldn't explain why no charges were being brought u w, who cout explain why they needed more and more team to keep this investigation alive, even though they couldn't apparently get the grand jury to charge him. what was unsealed were conversations that took place under seal between those prosecutors who couldn't explain why this mccabe case was still going on and the judge, who was asking them hard questions. and so, as of today, as of today the court order has been effectuated. and those previously sealed documents have been unsealed. so, now we can see why they dropped the case today.

we can see the judge reaming out the prosecutors for what the president and by extension the attorney general were trying to do here. and that's why today went the way it did. this morning, the justice department formally dropped its case against andrew mccabe. a couple of hours after the announcement, we get quietly posted on the docket this transcript. judge reggie walton. the case was stringing along, never quite able to produce any actual criminal charges and couldn't explain why the case was still open and the judge just says. quote, the public is listening to what's going on and i do not think people like the fact that you've got somebody at the top basically trying to dictate whether somebody should be prosecuted. i think it's a banana republic when we go down that road and

we have those types of statements being made that are conceivably, fine not influencing the ultimate decision, i think there are a lot of people on the outside who perceive there is undue inappropriate pressure being brought to bear. and i would just hope, it is very disturbing that we are in the mess that we are in, in that regard. because, he says, i think, having been a part of the prosecution for a long time -- the judge is a former prosecutor -- he says, quote, i just think the integrity of the process is being unduly undermined by inappropriate comments and actions by people at the top of the government. and i think as a government and a society, we are going it pay a price at some point for this. prosecutor says to the judge so i will certainly report back about what was said here and i do want you to know i take my role -- and the judge

interrupts. i'm not criticizing, he says. and the prosecutor says, no, i understand. and the judge says quote, i'm just happy that when i was in the justice department those kind of things were not taking place, that we're putting perceived or actual pressure on the office as to whether you prosecute somebody for a criminal offense. i'm happy i never had to endure that and the prosecutor says, no, i completely understand. it's not like he defends himself and says, your honor, you're misunderstanding. there hasn't been any political pressure on us. nobody at the top of our government has been telling us to bring this prosecution. this is an independent -- he doesn't say that. he just says in this ex parte communication just unveiled yes, your honor, i understand. so, this week the scope of this week -- i mean, it has been fallen apart. you might remember around the end of the impeachment trial, there's been a lot of punditry

as to how the president would respond, whether the president, having survived the threat of being removed from office and the impeachment trial, there's been all this speculation three would overreach in some way, whether he would do something inevitably that would cause some new crisis th. that turned out to be half right, half right. because what the president did this week was bigger than causing some new crisis. what the president did this week was that he started talking about something that has apparently been going on for a long time. he exposed something that he and attorney general william barr have been doing together for a year now. it is all tumbling out now because the president this week couldn't stop himself from bragging about it. to the extent that attorney general william barr has spent his one year in office trying to essentially fix criminal cases

for the president, it turns out it's true, in terms of prosecutions and favors the president wants done for his allies or for people who could potentially implicate him in further misbehaver and often they're the same. some of this has really been hiding in plain sight. some of it is brand-new. there's a reason it is all cascading out now. that's next. stay with us. ix can help you quit slow turkey. along with support, chantix is proven to help you quit. with chantix you can keep smoking at first and ease into quitting so when the day arrives, you'll be more ready to kiss cigarettes goodbye. when you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. stop chantix and get help right away if you have changes in behavior or thinking, aggression, hostility, depressed mood, suicidal thoughts or actions, seizures, new or worse heart or blood vessel problems, sleepwalking, or life-threatening allergic and skin reactions. decrease alcohol use. use caution driving or operating machinery.

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in early january, on january 7th, prosecutors in the mike flynn case said he should receive a prison sentence. prosecutors inexplicably reversed the recommendation, saying, actually, they didn't want prison time at all. forget the earlier recommendation and i remember i actually posted something online at the time asking what the heck was going on there. i posted this january 29th, quote, 22 days ago doj prosecutors were asking for a sentence of imprisonment. now they say they're not. what happened in the last 22 days? i posted that on january 29th.

now we know the answer. turns out over the course of the 22 days, attorney general william barr intervenes to basically put the fix in on that case on behalf of president trump. nbc news today nailing this down. quote, within the past month the -- today's february 14th, federal prosecutors on the flynn case came under pressure to recommend a lighter sentence for flynn than they had proposed. in early january prosecutors had recommended flynn serve up to six months in jail. they were overruled on january 29th when the government submitted a new sentencing recommendation saying flynn was more appropriate. for probation. senior justice department officials intervened in what they were others with pursuing in the case. this amid further reporting from nbc and "the new york times"

that attorney general barr has installed a team of people in an ongoing way specifically to, shall we say, oversee cases that are sensitive and that happen to be of interest to the president. quote, mr. barr has installed a handful of prosecutors to handle the national security cases in washington. the team includes at least one prosecutor from the office of the u.s. attorney in st. louis, one handling the flynn case. a st. louis prosecutor? as well as prosecutors from the office of the deputy attorney general. what are they doing there? quote, over the past two weeks, the outside prosecutors have began grilling line prosecutors in the washington u.s. attorney's office about various cases, some public, some not, including investigative steps, prosecutorial actions and why they took them. some involved president trump's

friends and allies, others his critics and adversaries. they amount to imposing monetary control over what career prosecutors have been doing in the washington u.s. attorney's office. the move is, quote, highly unusual and could trigger more accusations of political interference by top department officials. you think? it could, could trigger those -- consider that trigger pulled. i mean, this is not a warning about the possible mistaken appearance of political influence on the criminal justice system. i mean this is documentation, further documentation we have piled up this week that, in fact, the criminal justice system has been breached. it's not threatened. it's hurt. prosecutorial decisions are being made specifically to benefit the president and to respond to his demands and to

punish his enemies and to try to free his friends. it's not that there's a threat of this. we are now living with a justice system that has been made to work this way. this crisis emerged on tuesday this week in the case of roger stone because the president couldn't keep quiet. but the stone case followed the exact pattern of what happened with michael flynn. just like in the flynn case, prosecutors recommended a prison sentence. then there was political intervention on behalf of the president to reduce that prison recommendation and instead recommend no prison sentence and so a revised recommendation was made to the court. and the only difference between the two cases, this week, while the president was feeling his oats, he couldn't resist making his demands about the prosecution out loud. he couldn't resist saying out loud how he wished for the stone case to be fixed, please. and that brought everybody's attention to it.

and of course the dark reality we are presenting and even beyond this cascade of very upsetting evidence about what trump and barr have done to break the rule of law. the very dark revelation, i think, is that president screwed up and set off this crisis this week by crowing about what he wanted done in this one criminal case, specifically because he really doesn't want this stuff to be done quietly. he does want this stuff to be done out loud. he wants to brag about it because the threat is the point. right? i mean, attorney general william barr clearly doesn't want this to be public. who wants to be known as the attorney general who fixes cases on the president's behalf. so of course attorney general barr is expressing consternation about how it makes it difficult to do his job. but the dark truth is the president wants this to be broadcast as loud as possible. first of all, he's not ashamed by this. doesn't believe he's constrained

by the law. that's his recent experience. seems to back him up on that. he believes the criminal justice system should be there for his disposal. that he should use the criminal justice system to lock up his political opponents, to lock up anybody who stands against him, whether as part of a political opposition movement or part of law enforcement, as a whistle-blower or somebody who testified truthfully as to something they saw. he believes anybody who does such a thing is a traitor and should be locked up. and anybody who's considering doing such a thing should fear being locked up as to shut down all opposition to himself and to essentially render resistance futile. his idea is to create that fear that will stop people from standing up against him and if that's what you're trying to do, the louder you can be about the fact you're using the criminal justice system this way, the

better. and so the stone case interference happened out in the open because the president couldn't stop himself. the flynn case interference is out in the open. the mccabe case interference is basically laid bare today. and the rest of the reporting's pouring out. the reporting that attorney general william barr inserted himself in the hush money case in new york and stone was identified as the individual one, in which the president's business and executives were reportedly under federal scrutiny until william barr was sworn in as attorney general and he immediately got himself down to new york where he met with federal prosecutors about that very case. that very case was quietly closed with no additional cases brought against anyone d spite the fact they blocked state investigators from having anything to do with this case.

they supposedly had pending charges there. they supposedly had an ongoing criminal investigation. but it inexplicably closed and nobody else being charged at all. barr reportedly, personally inserted himself into the igor and rudy giuliani case. we'll have more on that later in the show. so, it may not just be the one u.s. attorney's office. it may be the sovereign district of new york as well, the one everybody assured us would be so independent no one could ever push them around. one last piece i think is worth underscoring is this is the thing that rattles my molars the most out of the revelations from this crisis. and it is from a new york times. it's about barr's installing of this team of overseers in d.c. for sensitive cases that relate to the president. not only has that team inserted itself in the stone case, "the

times" described this team as interceding in, quote, various cases both some public and some not. some not? some cases we don't know about? i mean, what the "times" is reporting, among the politically sensitive cases that, in every other case we know of, the circumstance has something to do with the president and one of these cases has something to do with the president. some of the cases that bill barr is interfering with are cases that we don't know about yet. cases that are either sealed indictments in which the alleged perpetrators haven't been arrested yet or open criminal cases where charges have not been filed. barr's hand-picked team of overseers is messing in those

cases, too. what are those cases? and what's bill barr doing to them right now as we speak? and how do we get our legal system back when these guys are done with it? how do we get those cases back if they're improperly touched? because what we're living through as of this week is not a threat at the rule of law, we're emerging into a reality where we recognize we have a lack of the rule of law. it is broken. the rule of law is no longer in effect when it comes to criminal cases that have to do with the president. or his perceived interests. they have hijacked one u.s. attorney's offices and another supposedly very independent district in new york does not appear to have been immune from this pressure either. at least, there is circumstantial evidence that raises serious questions about that. given that, what do we do now? how do we get this back? how much should we count on people inside the justice department to stop this? to at least squawk about it and let us know? if they do squawk about it, how

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is right for you. economically powerfully influenced my values. bernie sanders he's fighting to raise wages. and guarantee health care for all. now, our country is at a turning point.

hard working people, betrayed by trump, struggling to survive. in this moment, we need a fighter. bernie sanders. we know he'll fight for us as president because he always has. i'm bernie sanders and i approve this message. i have questions. now that we have arrived here. now that we know the american criminal justice system is being used by the president and his attorney general, and we're beyond warning we're beyond that happening. we're living it. i have questions. how do we stop it?

and whether it's fair to hope that people inside this justice department, whether it's fair of us to hope that those people should squawk and let us know, whether it's fair of us to expect that the judges whose cases are being affected by the political hijackings, should the judges themselves, try to make the justice department admit to and account for the political interference effecting the cases. i want to know whether the justice department might in fact screwing up cases. that have no interest to the president. just normal criminal cases because the attorney general is waiting into some specific cases on the president's behalf to ask for lenience for specific defendants. won't every defendant in the country ask for that same treatment because he's giving it to the attorney's friends. i want to know how to counter the message that the president is sending.

and in fact f you oppose him, yet he will help the attorney general bring the legal system down on you, i want you to know how normal every day people can counter that by finding some way to support the people who the president is making an example of. is there a way for ordinary citizens to support the whistle-blowers and the law enforcement people who the president has made examples of by destroying them? i have all of these questions. i don't know how i should get answers but i would like to ask some of them of andrew weissmann. currently professor at nyu law. thank you very much for being here. >> i hope you're not going to ask me any of those questions. >> i've laid this out in stark terms. do you think i'm being unreasonable? >> i don't. i don't think you're being unreasonable. the one point i would make is this is not a democratic/republican issue in terms of where we are today. i have served under democratic administrations and republican administrations in the department of justice. i worked on the enron case, which was highly, highly

political in the sense that there was enormous interest in the press about whether ken lay, the then chairman of the firm, was connected to the vice president. >> the brand new bush/cheney administration? >> exactly. and there was not a scintilla, not any political pressure put on us at all. it was -- it was classic department of justice, which, as you follow the facts, the law. if it's a warranted investigation, it will be brought and that full investigation was led by republicans who had integrity. so, this really isn't -- what we're living through now, i don't think people should think this is somehow democrats are not going to be like this but republicans are. no, we're really dealing with something very different. >> and the way the president has portrayed this and this is interesting psychologically and as a political strategy is he's portrayed the justice department as always having been corrupt and political as presidents

always having attorney generals who fix cases for them, who punish their enemies and rewarded their friends. why isn't he getting the justice department he knows every other president has had. i mean, he's trying to create the sense that this is not only something he should get as a republican but something that all presidents have gotten. >> well, that's simply not true. it is fair to say there are attorney generals who have had closer relationships with the president and some have had more distant relationships. in 21 years, do you know how many times i have experienced or even heard of the attorney general of the united states reaching in to a single criminal case to weigh in on the sentencing submission? that would be zero. it doesn't happen. i think one of the thins that was missing from attorney general barr's interview was him making it sound like well, this is normal. this is something that happens normally. tell me one other time, other

than for flynn and stone and paul manafort, not in connection with sentencing but in terms of where he was housed, when have you ever reached in as the attorney general to any other case? it's remarkable. it's sort of an obvious, you look at the facts and it's very hard not to be cynical and say it's obvious what's happening. this is the attorney general who is clearly doing this, because these are three people close to the president. and they're getting disproportionate justice. >> let me ask you about some of the potential remedies. we're back with andrew

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xc90. recharged. we're back with andrew weissman, former senior member of the special counsel investigation. i assume roger stone is still going to have sentencing late next week on thursday. the government prosecutors in the stone case, submitted a sentencing recommendation that said give him a bunch of prison time and the next day, after the

president tweeted a new sentencing recommendation that says, no, don't. we didn't mean t the judge will have to consider -- what does the judge do with that? and what does she make of this? >> one, the judge is excellent and she is smart and tough and she'll be tough on either side if they're playing games whether it's the government or the defense. i would expect her, with respect to the government, having a lot of pointed questions about you submitted something initially that said certain thins about the facts and also made certain represents about the law, which you then retracted and said well, we're not saying the law really requires this. how can you say that? i've looked at the law. the law does seem to require this guideline applies. she can do that. and she can require the u.s. attorney to show up and actually -- the people who signed it to come in and say what happened. >> if it turns out the truth of

what happened there is what we believe it was, which is political pressure on the u.s. attorney and the prosecutors to change it, all signs would seem to indicate that public reporting. if the judge concludes it was improper political interference that caused the government to change its recommendation, can she sanction the department? can she, is there some remedy she can impose beyond embarrassment? >> the main issue is making the right decision first with respect to the defendant. what's the appropriate sentence? so, she's going to want to know what to make of the government submission and that is the thing that gives her leeway. to ask all of these very probing questions. at the end of the day i think she's principally focussed on what she's supposed to, doing justice for the defendant. because she's going to try to apply equal justice. she's not going to hold a different standard for roger stone.

than any other defendant who's there. >> she may be the only prospect for accountability that we have here. >> she's famously said one of the things great about the ports is it's one place in the country facts still matter. she does have a remedy because if there are lawyers that can be referred to the bar. if she thinks something happened inappropriate, she can refer them to the ig. if she thinks there's something inappropriate. so, there's some sanctions. and if you're a lawyer, that's a terrible thing to have happened to you. >> andrew weissmann, thank you so much. it's a pleasure to have you. n ] give me your hand! i can save you... lots of money with liberty mutual! we customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need!

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david rode is out with a new piece about attorney general william barr. i encourage you to read it. i will give you the punch line though. it is the opposite of a punch line. he leaves us with this chilling thought. quote, the unresolved question is how far barr will go in expanding presidential power when the president is donald trump? critics contend that by empowering trump, barr is paving the way for ah taautocracy.

the book "in deep" comes out in april. thank you so much for being here. i feel like you're a little bit of a bill barr whisperer which is why i wanted to talk to you. you've been looking in depth at him as a political actor, an attorney and in this part of his life. do you feel like there's something about the way he approaches his job that we are misunderstanding as we confront this crisis? >> he does have a very different view of the presidency. he sees it first as the most important branch of the government. whenever the united states has come under dire threat from a war, a great depression or a natural disaster, the president has saved the country. and he really believes the president should be stronger and congress, or the judiciary, anything since watergate, the presidency has been weakened too much. and he's trying to restore that balance. >> in terms of the judiciary, i feel like we use the word constitutional crisis a lot. this week i've been thinking about this as a rule of law crisis and not necessarily a

constitutional crisis. i think of a constitutional crisis as the disobedience, disobeying a court order. if barr believes that a president is, should be superior to the judiciary, does he believe that a president should disobey a court order if he wants to? >> yes. i think he believes the president has that power. he thinks there are two remedies. one is impeachment which we just saw fail. and the other is elections. and that's it. and that the president through article two has full control of the executive branch. that means he has full control of the department of justice and as talked about, he can bring criminal cases. the president himself can bring criminal cases against whoever he wants. >> what do you make of attorney general barr sort of, not defending what has been exposed this week but trying to explain his own frustrations with the president making public

statements about it? the president is clearly saying, i believe i have the right to interfere in any criminal case and i would like to crow about the fact i'm going to. i belie he's trying to intimidate his critics by doing that. attorney general barr isn't exactly saying the same thing. he's not conceding that president trump has the right to dictate what the sentencing recommendations should be for his pals. but does he believe that? >> that's the real question here. and i don't know what barr was trying to do. i think he was, i think he's in an extraordinarily difficult position. he is the attorney general. the president says there's this vast deep state. last night, lou dobbs was saying, two dozen people who should be arrested in the fbi and the justice department. one of them, according to the conspiracy theorys, floss andy mccabe. guess what, there's no evidence against andy mccabe. how does bill barr prove the president's rhetoric about a deep state and bring people to court when there is no evidence to prove that? so i think he's still carrying out this agenda. he believes the president has the right to influence the cases

but he's saying, please stop broadcasting on twitter. you're making it very hard for me to give you the power i think you should have. >> you're making it very hard for me to keep doing this stuff we've been doing all year together, quietly with people only suspecting and it not being able to prove it. >> yet. like one theory, i don't know. none of russ in bill barr's head. he had this theory the president can prosecute anyone he wants but it has to be a different experience for the attorney general. he was under george h.w. bush. he was very cautious and did believe the president should have more power and too much was lost in watergate versus working for president trump and believing that this single person should have this kind of power. and he's written in some legal papers about restraints and political pressure. nothing seems to restrain this president. best case scenario, bill barr working for president trump, thinks, maybe a president shouldn't have this much power.

>> hard to imagine that getting unwired at this point in his life. let me ask you, one of the things that i think people are considering is a concession against bill barr himself that might try reel him in. this is a crisis of the rule of law. learning the attorney general has been fixing these cases for the president is a remarkable thing. it would be the biggest scandal in any presidency in the modern era. it is one scandal among many in this one but a deep and dark one. how would bill barr react to himself being impeached by the house of representatives? >> he would see that as an excessive reaction. i think he buys into the dark donald trump, there is no, no one is neutral. every attorney general is highly politicized and a view that the mueller investigation was a political smear on the president. and so he gave this speech to the federalist society saying it is the radical left destroying all of our norms and they're setting out to destroy this president. the scary thing is this

mentality, they're under attack, the house is abusing its powers, mueller abused his powers and we have to fight back. so he's fixing these cases. and maybe he thinks it is unjust. it is too much of a sentence against roger stone. i don't know how he compares that to the facts. roger stone was convicted by a jury of his peers of seven felonies. and we can debate the sentence but that's breaking the law. so it's a pivotal moment. bill barr is a pivotal player right now. will he continue to play along? will he push back? will more people resign? it's an enormous crisis and it is very sad. >> it is. and it's getting deeper by the day, the more we learn. david rode, author of "in deep" coming out in april. i got my first subaru and i did it anyway.

for more than five hundred thousand miles, my outback always got me there. so when it was time, of course i got a new one. because my kids still need me. and i need them. (vo) welcome to the all-new subaru outback. the most reliable outback ever. go where love takes you. than rheumatoid arthritis or psoriatic arthritis. when considering another treatment, ask about xeljanz xr,

a once-daily pill for adults with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis or active psoriatic arthritis for whom methotrexate did not work well enough. it can reduce pain, swelling, and significantly improve physical function. xeljanz can lower your ability to fight infections like tb; don't start xeljanz if you have an infection. taking a higher than recommended dose of xeljanz for ra can increase risk of death. serious, sometimes fatal infections, cancers including lymphoma, and blood clots have happened. as have tears in the stomach or intestines, serious allergic reactions, and changes in lab results. tell your doctor if you've been somewhere fungal infections are common, or if you've had tb, hepatitis b or c, or are prone to infections. don't let another morning go by without asking your doctor about xeljanz xr. it has been a dark week.

these are difficult times for our country. as always, that just means all the more reason to pay attention and all the more reason to appreciate stuff totally outside of what is going wrong when it still goes right. like happy valentine's day. we'll see you again on monday. now it's time for "the last now, it's time for "the last word." ali velshi in tonight. >> happy valentine's day. we will see you on monday, rachel. tonight, michael moore will join us. i am going to ask him to help us assess donald trump's re-election chances. he's always honest about this. it's going to be a good conversation. plus, we are on the ground in nevada talking to voters about the democratic race. and former governor bill weld of massachusetts will join us on what his stronger than expected showing in the new hampshire republican primary means for trump this fall. but we begin as rachel discussed, with the country's rule of law. facing a growing crisis as the controversy widens over the attorney general and president trump's influence over the department of justice. tonight, new controversial developments involve the people both at the center of the president's impeachment and the