which won for best picture and then some, responded to trump's attack with this. understandable. he can't read. that's our broadcast on this thursday night. thank you so much for being here with us. good night from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. wow, what a day it has been. today -- tonight really we have learned that just one week ago the top intelligence official in the u.s. government working on protecting our elections from foreign interference, that official one week ago today briefed the intelligence committee that russia right now is interfering again in our elections, interfering in the 2020 election to try to re-elect president trump. the official specifically told the intelligence committee last week something about this influence effort that we have not heard before, which is that russia's intention this time around is not only to interfere in the general election to try

to benefit president trump's campaign, but also to interfere in the democratic primaries as well. now, this is new information. this is specific. this is not just like, you know, a general warning about the general intent of russia, you know, stuff that we can surmise from their past behavior and their perceived intentions. you know, sometimes we do get these generic warnings. you know, everybody should be vigilant. expect it to happen again. this is specific information from multiple u.s. intelligence agencies conveyed behind closed doors to the intelligence committee. it is on. russia is running an op to try to help re-elect donald trump in 2020. according to the intelligence agencies it is under way, and for the first time we are hearing that this interference this time around will include trying to target or somehow get inside the democratic primary process as well. now, this warning was reportedly issued by the top official in the office of the director of

national intelligence, who since last summer has been officially in charge of overseeing all u.s. intelligence efforts to try to monitor and thwart foreign countries' efforts at attacking our democracy the way russia did on trump's behalf in 2016, which apparently they're working on a new and improved effort for this next election as well. so, deep breath, it's not exactly deja vu. it's more like that slow motion feeling you get when you're sliding around on the ice and you know you're going to crash, but it doesn't feel like there's much you can do about it. here we go again. and looking at these headlines about this news tonight, it's kind of, you know, a get real moment. it is a bit of a rallying cry, right? this is an all hands on deck moment for our democracy. here we are again, four years later. fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, in the immortal words of george w. bush.

fool me twice, can't get fooled again. so this briefing to the intelligence committee in the house about russian interference in the 2020 election to try to re-elect donald trump and their intent to interfere in the democratic primary to try to achieve that same result, this briefing to the intelligence committee was apparently a week ago today. it was last thursday. the reason we learned about it in news reports tonight from "the washington post" and "the new york times" is because of what the response was inside the trump administration when they learned that briefing had been delivered to congress. in the white house, this news was apparently not greeted with a deep breath, with a sentiment that we all need to pull together to make sure this doesn't happen to our country again. what we have learned tonight in both "the washington post" and "the new york times" is that instead of that kind of response from the white house, the real response from this president and the people in the white house who let him do things is that

they decided they should fire the director of national intelligence because after all, it was somebody working in his office who gave that briefing to congress about what russia is doing to try to benefit president trump's re-election. now, the official who gave this briefing didn't make up this information about what russia is doing. the briefing was not like, you know, an op-ed. as spelled out in "the new york times" tonight, the intelligence official who briefed the committee on this just last week, that person was the messenger delivering the, quote, conclusions of multiple intelligence agencies. and so i repeat, it is the conclusion of multiple u.s. intelligence agencies that the russian federation is once again trying to interfere in our 2020 election, our presidential election, again to try to elect donald trump. and, new twist, they plan on trying to interfere in the democratic primary to achieve that aim as well. this is what the intelligence agencies have concluded, and

this is what they have briefed to congress. and so naturally the president has concluded that we'll need someone new to run the intelligence agencies, then. so if there is information like this, the intelligence agencies, what, sit on it? keep it from congress? this is just astonishing. it's not astonishing that russia is trying to interfere in the next election because they like what they got from their effort four years ago. that's not astonishing. i think we were all waiting to hear this, right? russia's behavior is something that should be expected even if the contours of it are all going to be new. what is astonishing is that the white house reaction to learning that information from the intelligence agencies is that somebody new should be running the intelligence agencies, that the intelligence agencies certainly shouldn't be briefing this information about russia's behavior to congress. and this is still a developing story tonight. tonight former cia director john brennan just said this.

quote, we are now in a full-blown national security crisis. by trying to prevent the flow of intelligence to congress, trump is abetting a russian covert operation to keep him in office for moscow's interests, not america's. we'll have more on this tonight including an interview tonight with an official who served in a very senior capacity in the office of the director of national intelligence. we've got that all coming up. but as we steam ahead toward this next national security disaster in the era of trump, we are of course still contending with the effects of the last national security disaster of exactly this kind in the era of trump. today the president's longest serving political adviser was sentenced to more than three years in federal prison for his role in 2016 in trying to connect donald trump's 2016 presidential campaign with the entity that was releasing the materials that the russian military -- excuse me, that

russian military intelligence had hacked and stolen to help trump beat hillary clinton. well, we just moments before we got on the record, just got the transcript of the proceedings in which roger stone was sentenced today, and you really should hear this. there are no cameras in federal courts. in some federal courts, including the supreme court, there are sometimes audio recordings that are made of court proceedings and then released to the public, but usually not. usually and for today's proceedings, the only record that we're allowed to get is written, a written transcript like this. but we do have this, and in a case like today's with this roger stone sentencing, this is -- this is really something. let me read to you a little bit from what the judge said at today's sentencing. the judge, quote, the defendant lied about a matter of great national and international significance. this is not campaign high jinks. this is not roger just being roger. he lied to congress. he lied to our elective

representatives. the sentence is not just about punishing him but also deterring others and upholding the law. it has to send the message that witnesses do not get to decide for themselves whether congress is entitled to the facts based on what they think about the topic being investigated or who they fear could be embarrassed by the topic being investigated. the judge says, quote, there was nothing unfair, phony, or disgraceful about the investigation or the prosecution. the house committee, which stone lied to, which at the time stone testified was under the control of the republican majority, the senate intelligence, which remains under the control of the republican majority, the special counsel, who was appointed by and serving under the supervision of the acting attorney general of this administration, and the current inspector general of the current department of justice all investigated the circumstances surrounding the 2016 election, and all have concluded, like the multiple agencies charged with protecting the united states' national security, that the fact that there was a russian attempt

to interfere in the election was beyond debate. it's a matter of enormous public concern. and therefore the house committee, the judge says, the house committee had legitimate grounds, indeed a duty to inquire how materials belonging to the democratic national committee ended up in the hands of wikileaks and whether russia played any role in that. the committee had legitimate grounds, indeed a duty, to inquire whether there was any involvement, encouragement, collaboration on the part of the trump campaign. the legitimacy of the inquiry is an entirely separate question from whether anyone found enough evidence to draw a conclusion at the end of the day. roger stone, the defendant, took it upon himself to lie, to impede, to obstruct before the investigation was complete, and he endeavored to influence the result. how could the committee do its job and reach the correct conclusion under those circumstances? so what did the defense say to the jury on his behalf? they said, so what?

so what? of all the circumstances in this case, that may be the most pernicious. the judge says, quote, the truth still exists. the truth still matters. roger stone's insistence that it doesn't, his belligerence, his pride in his own lies are a threat to our most fundamental institutions, to the very foundation of our democracy. and if it goes unpunished, it will not be a victory for one party or another. everyone loses because everyone depends on the representatives they elect to make the right decisions on a myriad of issues, many of which are politically charged but many of which aren't. and they must make those decisions based on the facts. everyone depends on our elected representatives to protect our elections from foreign interference based on the facts. no one knows where the threat is going to come from next time or whose side they're going to be on, and for that reason the dismay and disgust at the defendant's belligerence should transcend party. the dismay and the disgust at the attempts by others to defend his actions as just business as

usual in our polarized climate should transcend party. the dismay and the disgust with any attempts to interfere with the efforts of prosecutors and members of the judiciary to fulfill their duty should transcend party. sure, the defense is free to say so what, who cares. but i'll say this. congress cared. the united states department of justice and the united states attorney's office for the district of columbia that prosecuted this case and is still prosecuting this case cared. the jurors who served with integrity under difficult circumstances cared. the american people cared. and i care. this is amy berman jackson, the judge sentencing the president's longtime adviser roger stone in a climate that can't be denied and that she didn't deny today, in a climate in which the president and much of the trump supportive conservative media and many republican members of congress have participated in,

have created, this climate in which not only roger stone has been defended and the prosecution of him has been attacked, but the judge has been attacked. the department of justice has been attacked for bringing this prosecution. and the president has gone so far as to personally attack individual members of the jury for having had the temerity to convict roger stone. those were remarks today from judge jackson today in sentencing stone for lying to congress, obstructing an investigation, and threatening a witness who could have exposed his lies and obstruction. this case, of course, also engendered a true crisis in the u.s. justice system as more than 2,000 former justice department officials have called on attorney general bill barr to resign after the president criticized prosecutors for the sentence they recommended in roger stone's case and attorney general barr, within hours of that public criticism, intervened at the u.s. attorney's office to lessen that recommendation. the resulting scandal has led to reporting on a number of other

cases related to president trump in which we now know attorney general bill barr has intervened personally to try to swing things in the president's direction. well, today in court, judge jackson took that on, took on that late swerve in this case, took it on directly, including the part of this that is lying there in full sight but has received less attention in this crisis than it deserves, which is as the president has demanded interference in this case and the attorney general has said, yes, sir, you want me to jump, how high -- as the president has demanded interference in this case and the attorney general has followed through on that, it has sort of gone without much mention that it's not just the president's friend here who's getting this intervention. this is a case where the president is intervening to help himself because the person who benefited from what roger stone did, the person who roger stone's crimes were designed to protect was the president.

so when the president is trying to intervene in stone's case to make sure he doesn't get in trouble, he is trying to reward someone and protect someone who broke the law and committed multiple felonies in order to help cover up the president's behavior. judge jackson addressed that head-on today. quote, stone revealed his own motivation to shield the president from evidence that could reflect badly on him. on december 1st, 2017, stone testified that he texted to randy credico, if you testify, you're a fool. because of trump, i could never get away with asserting my fifth amendment rights, but you can. stone knew that some would view it as incriminating for both him and the trump campaign if he asserted his right to testify and say nothing. so he lied instead, and then he tried to make sure that his lie was not exposed. he understood full well that it could reflect badly on the president if someone learned that he had exchanged emails about what julian assange at wikileaks was about to do or that he'd sent messages trying to get julian assange to release

emails on a particular topic, on a particular schedule, or that there were emails between himself and steve bannon and rick gates and paul manafort as he reported in on all of this to the trump campaign. stone's effort to obstruct the investigation was deliberate and planned. it was not one isolated incident. it was conducted over a considerable period of time. stone lied and sought to impede production of information to whom? not to some secret anti-trump cabal, but to congress, to the elected representatives of both partied who were confronted with a matter of grave national importance. he was not convicted and is not being sentenced for exercising his first amendment rights or for his support of the president's campaign or his policies. stone was not prosecuted as some have complained for standing up for the president. he was prosecuted for covering up for the president. quote, this case also exemplifies why it is that this system, for good reason, demands that the responsibility falls to

someone neutral, someone whose job may involve issuing opinions in favor of and against the same administration in the course of a week and not someone who has a long-standing friendship with the defendant, not someone whose political career was aided by the defendant, and surely not someone who has personal involvement in the events underlying the case. the court cannot be influenced by those comments. she's referring here to the president's comments. the court cannot be influenced by those comments. they were entirely inappropriate, but i will not hold them against the defendant either. the judge says, quote, i cannot and will not sentence mr. stone for the behavior of those he supports. sentencing is personal, and it is based on the evidence. roger stone will not be sentenced for who his friends are or for who his enemies are. he is not going to be sentenced for his reputation or his personality or his work. the record doesn't begin to enable me to figure out which supposed dirty tricks he actually committed and which he just took credit for, and it

doesn't matter. the touchstone in this case is the offense. with the what the judge described today as unprecedented situation in which the president demanded intervention in this case to protect roger stone and the attorney general, within hours, followed through and threw out the prosecutor's sentencing recommendation and insisted instead on the lighter sentencing recommendation that the president had insisted on, with the trial team, all the prosecutors on the trial team quitting in protest, including one quitting the government altogether, the judge described that today as an unprecedented thing but did not hide from the fact that this wasn't just about attorney general william barr wading into the case. it was the president trying to intervene in this sentencing. the judge today holding the line and saying that it was wildly inappropriate for the president to do that. it is right in our system of justice that somebody involved in the underlying matter of thiscation -- the president --

should not be involved in sentencing the person who was convicted for those crimes. but the judge also saying, you know what? mr. stone, you will not be held to account, your sentence will not be made worse because of the wildly inappropriate behavior of the president who is acting on your behalf. instead i will consider you and your fate purely on the basis of the crimes you have committed. in other words, return to regular order while not pretending that anything that has happened here is okay. the behavior of the attorney general, the behavior of the president, wildly inappropriate, but this judge will do things the way they are supposed to be done win the four corners of the law and in a transparent manner, without fear or favor. remarkable allocution today from the judge. but i think the real surprise here is that, you know, the trial team all quit, right? the four prosecutors who were working on this case all quit the case because of what the president and the attorney general did to pervert this case and to try to take it away from the prosecutors who were bringing it up.

the u.s. attorney's office nevertheless had to put somebody up in court today in front of this judge to explain what's going on. and the shock to me in this sentencing today, and it's kind of a pleasant surprise in terms of the crisis that we have been through over the last week, is that the person who stood up from the u.s. attorney's office today completely abandoned that intervention, completely abandoned this intervention that the president demanded that attorney general bill barr had made in this case. the gentleman who stood up from the u.s. attorney's office today who had to explain to the judge what happened here apologized for it and absolutely rejected and rebutted everything the president and bill barr did. that's next. [crackling fire] [wood rolling] alexios, add toilet paper to the shopping list.

[chiseling on stone] oh, and camel milk. and a chicken. and moisturizer. alexa: thanks, guys. i'll take it from here. it's an honor to tell you that [ applause ] thank you. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. i love you! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ (whistling)

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okay. at the sentencing today for the president's longtime adviser roger stone, the fate of mr. stone was obviously in question. he's been convicted of seven felonies. he ended up getting sentenced to 40 months in federal prison, just under 3 1/2 years in prison. but the fate of the justice department and the rule of law was a little bit in question too, right? how would the court deal today

with the crisis around this case, right? the president publicly demanding that the sentencing recommendation from prosecutors should be thrown out, that roger stone was being treated unfairly and that he shouldn't get any prison time? the attorney general then apparently asecceding to that request and getting himself into that case personally, overalling the prosecut -- all four prosecutors quit this case in protest when bill barr did that. today is the day we're going to get some sort of reckoning for that. how is the judge going to harnl it? how is the u.s. attorney's office that just got rolled here, that got overruled by the attorney general and all their prosecutors quit in response -- how is that office going to deal with that standing in front of the judge today, having to explain what happened and how they've dealt with what bill barr did to their case, which he came in and took over? well, i really didn't know

heading into the proceeding, but i did not think it would go like this. all right. this is a conversation at the hearing today between john crabbe, who is the prosecutor belatedly installed in this case, and the judge, judge amy berman jackson. your honor, i want to apologize to the court for the confusion that the government has caused with respect to this sentencing and the difficulties surrounding that. i want to make clear to the court that this confusion was not caused by the original trial team. the original trial team had the authorization at the u.s. attorney's office to file this sentencing memorandum that they submitted to the court monday before last. the judge: let me just follow up on that. so the trial team wrote it? mr. crabb: yes, your honor. the judge bsh but someone higher up than them had to approve. was that you? >> did it go all the way to the u.s. attorney? yes, the u.s. attorney reviewed

it yurns. the judge, did he approve it? mr. crab, yes your honor. the judge, and did the u.s. attorney's office for the district of columbia have to get approval. mr. crab, i don't know the exact requirements. i know there was consultation between the u.s. attorney's office and main justice. the juk, did they receive approval before they filed it? mr. crab, no your honor. may understanding is there was a miscommunication between the attorney general and the u.s. attorney as to the authorization and the expectations that the attorney general had. the judge, but it was approved by everyone whose name was on it, including the u.s. attorney. mr. crab, yes, your honor. the judge, can you elaborate? do you have any personal knowledge about what the nature of that miscommunication was? mr. crab: no, your honor, i don't. the judge: you're not suggesting now that anything that was in the first filing about the nature of the offenses or the calculation of the guidelines or the evidence in the case was incorrect, are you?

mr. crab: no, i'm not, your honor. the other poibnt, i would like o emphasize this, that the original sentencing memorandum filed by the trial team was done in good faith. reasonable minds can differ as to what an appropriate sentence may be, but as the court has alluded to earlier in this proceeding, it's generally the policy of the u.s. department of justice to request guideline sentences. there was nothing in bad faith about what was done by the original trial team here. the judge, well, it's not just a question of whether this was good faith. if was fully consistent with current justice department policy, isn't that true. mr. crab, yes, your honor. the judge, the current policy of this department of justice is to charge and prosecute the most serious offense available in order to get the highest level guideline, isn't that correct? mr. cracb, that's the general policy, your honor. the judge, i have been atold by assistances standing me before

they aren't a -- that's correct, your honor. the judge says, all right. continue. thank you, your honor. the other point i would like to briefly address, your honor is the department of justice and united states attorney's office is committed to enforcing the law without fear, favor, or political influence. this prosecution was and this prosecution is righteous. the defendant, mr. stone, was found guilty by a jury of his peers of committing serious crimes, obstructing justice, lying to congress, witness tampering. we believe based on those crimes of conviction, the court should impose a substantial period of incarceration. the judge: all right. now, with respect to the second filing, your name is on that, and you're the one na signed it, physically signed it. so does that mean that you wrote it? mr. crab: your honor, i'm not at liberty to discuss the internal deliberations and how materials are prepared within the u.s. attorney's office or the department of justice. but the court's right, i did sign that document and submitted

it. the judge: well, were you directed to write it by someone else? mr. crab: your honor, i apologize. i cannot engage in these discussions of internal deliberations. the judge: all right. is there anything else you want to tell me about why i should impose substantial incarceration in this case? mr. crab, nothing more than to reiterate this is a righteous prosecution and the offenses of conviction are serious. the last point i would like to make is that under the unique facts and circumstances presented in this matter -- this is amazing -- he says, quote, it is particularly appropriate for the government to defer to the court with respect to what the specific sentence would be in this case. we understand that has happened in all sentencings that are adjudicated in this courthouse, that the court will consider the entire record in this matter, most importantly the court will rely on its own sound judgment and experience. to add to that, given this court's unique experience with

related cases before this court and this court's record of thoughtful analysis and fair sentences imposed in those cases, the government has the utmost confidence that we defer to the court. we have confidence that the court will impose a just and fair sentence in this matter. so after all of this, after the worst rule of law crisis in an administration and in a presidency that is a walking, breathing, rule of law crisis, after the president denounces this prosecution as a witch hunt, the president demands that the prosecutors are somehow -- somehow criminal themselves for recommending a strong prison sentence for roger stone in this case, after the president attacks the jury in this case and attacks the judge in this case, after william barr hears that public criticism from the president and intervenes and rescinds the sentencing recommendation from the prosecutors running this case and instead says, no, no, no, i,

william barr insist that we have a revised recommendation that says that roger stone should get off, after all of that, when the deputy head of the criminal didition in the u.s. attorney's office in the district of columbia, when john crabb has to stand up in front of the judge and explain and justify what has just happened, he basically says, you know what? your honor, everything that you have heard from the president of the united states in this case, we disavow. and everything that william barr did and everything that william barr made us write in that second memorandum that, yes, i signed but i don't want to talk about it, everything in that we disavow. our prosecutors who had to quit this case in protest, they were right. this prosecution was righteous. stone ought to go to jail. and, your honor, you're a good judge and we trust to you do what's right. i am glad there are not cameras in courts for a million reasons. today i am particularly glad because today someone in a position of authority in that

u.s. attorney's office that has been absolutely rolled by this president and by this attorney general, somebody in that u.s. attorney's office stood up and said no, not before a judge. i can't do it. just incredible. all right. we'll be right back. and my lack of impulse control, is about to become your problem. ahh no, come on. i saw you eating poop earlier. my focus is on the road, and that's saving me cash with drivewise.

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while the middle-class continues to struggle. that's what happens when billionaires are able to control the political system. our campaign is funded by the working people of this country, and those are the people that i will represent. no more tax breaks for billionaires. we are going to guarantee health care to all people and create up to 20 million good paying jobs to save this planet. i'm bernie sanders and i approve this message because we need an economy that works for all of us, not just wealthy campaign contributors. joining us now is donald ayer. he served as deputy attorney general in the united states department of justice under president george h.w. bush. i really appreciate you making time to be here tonight. thank you.

>> thank you. it's great to be here. >> so you published an op-ed piece at "the atlantic" this week that captured the attention of the nation. it was titled "barr must resign," and it ended with a very striking sort of call to arms. bill barr's america is not a place that anyone, including trump voters, should want to go. it is a banana republic where all are subject to the whims of a dictatorial president and his henchmen. to prevent that, we need a public uprising demanding that bail barr resign immediately or, failing that, be impeached. this has been a remarkable crisis that we've been through over the course of this past week as mr. barr's interventions in cases related to the president have come to light. i want to ask if you feel any better today than you have over the past few days with what happened today in the roger stone sentencing in washington? >> well, i feel very good, as you've laid out in great detail, i feel very good about the way the judge handled the situation. i feel very bad about the situation that she was put in, the court was put in, the country was put in.

and i guess what i feel is that perhaps there's some indication of a slight step back, but i really -- i really don't think it's terribly significant because i think what is going on here is sort of an effort to fall back and regroup rather than any educational process of the attorney general. the article i wrote really talks about barr's beliefs and behavior over an extended period of time, primarily the period he's been attorney general in the last year. literally it's been one year since he took over. and also going back to ideas we knew he had before he came, which clearly indicated -- and indeed i know of his work pretty well back 30 years ago as well, and it also had these very strong inclinations to pursue -- for some reason, i think he believes that america should have a president who is virtually an autocrat, and he

has worked throughout his career as he's been in government to work toward that. and the difficult problem we're in is that he has had the unholy alliance with president trump for the last year in order to advance it. so there are a whole array of things that he has done. now, people's attention, i think, was drawn and has been drawn the last ten days or so by these intrusions that you recited, the stone sentencing debacle that you've laid out but also the interference in the flynn case, also the appointment of some group of worthies that barr apparently trusts and wants to oversee the handling of an aware of cases. we don't even know quite what they are, but presumably they're sensitive cases of interest to the president. so, you know, i think to some degree he's sort of rolled back a little. of course he made his comment about the president tweeting and how he's very disturbed by it, and i had some people say to me,

isn't that great? he's resisting the president? and my reaction was, no, it's not great at all. he's really just saying, you know, don't say you like what i'm doing, or i won't be able to get away with putting the fix in. and so i think there's a whole array of things that he's doing and the disturbing thing is he's had an enormous amount of succe success in a whole array of areas. i can run through it if you like, or we can talk about parts of it. >> well, let me ask you about what we should be looking for in the justice department if the threat is as grave as you say, and i tend to agree with you on that. i mean we do see mr. barr intervening in the stone case, in the flynn case. it's been reported in the erik prince case. it appears he's intervening and set of some sort of special structure about what might be a rudy giuliani case. he mentioned there's other cases that are not yet public that he appears to be riding hard on. would you expect the line prosecutors or the supervisors

of the line prosecutors in those cases that have essentially been hijacked for thin this process e president's benefit. would you expect justice department personnel to be alerting the courts or sound something sort of public alarm or doing something other than what they're doing to try to preserve the integrity of those cases? >> well, the letter that was issued about a week ago by, i think, 2,200 or so former prosecutors of whom i was one indicated, a, that barr needs to resign for sure and then said, you know, if it's unlikely that he's going to do that, then the folks in the department need to step up and be the front line of defense against these improprieties. so the idea that they would in fact report improprieties that go on and be a watchdog of it, i think, is a hope and a reasonable expectation because the people in the department are incredibly dedicated. i am hez tasitant myself to say

it's something i did myself back in my career, but it's not something that i would say everybody is obligated to quit when something happens that they, themselves, think is wrong. i think that's a personal thing, and i think those choices are difficult and the situations all vary. i think what's, you know, frankly what i would like to see -- this is not all the problem of the lawyers in the justice department. they're the ones that have to deal with it. they're the ones that have to cope with it day to day. it's the problem of the american people. what bill barr is doing by his systematic behavior, you know, some of the things include the whitewashing of the mueller report and his summary rejection of the key conclusion in the i.g. investigation of the russian interference investigation itself where the i.g. said, you know, that they did it. certainly the i.g. found misconduct by agents with regard to the submission of certain warrants. but the key conclusion was that

there was ample factual basis for that investigation, and the oversight of it was conducted by people in a proper way, and they weren't biased at all. well, immediately when that came out, bill barr categorically and publicly rejected that conclusion as one he disagreed with. the less familiar conduct that is in some ways more sinister because it is less known is the whole pattern of handling the department's business in a way that undercuts the checks and balances of our system that are built right into the constitution. people are, i think, pretty familiar with the stonewalling resistance to requests for information from the hill in a whole array of areas including related to the impeachment issues but also the president's tax returns. also, you know, the olc opinion that said when the i.g. for the

intelligence community submitted the whistle-blower report relating to the ukraine conversation, the office of legal counsel issued a legal opinion saying, you don't need to give that to capitol hill. it's not a matter of urgent concern. well, this sort of nonsense that they've perpetrated, the effect of it essentially is to undermine all of the checks and balances within the government on the president. and the goal that bill barr has is one that we knew he had before he got there, and it was actually ventilated at his hearing by testimony by a professor named neil kinkoff. the memo that he submitted in june of 2018 when he was apparently wanting to be considered for the job, and in that memo he said the president is the executive branch, and those powers of the executive

branch are indivisible. so the president has undivided power to oversee and control all the work of the justice department, including the criminal investigations. and then just in case we weren't clear what bill barr meant, he went on to say, and neither congress nor anyone else could deny the president the power to supervise or even terminate an investigation of himself. so i said in that article that bill barr is un-american, and that's why he needs to resign. he is un-american because this country is predicated probably above all else on the idea that we live in a democracy and no person is above the law. and he believes in a structure of government, for reasons again i can't fathom, but he does believe in it, where the president is above the law and the president he would like to now put above the law is donald

trump. so that's the problem we're dealing with, and i do think these recent events are shocking, but they're only the culmination of other events that are just about as shocking. >> donald ayer, former deputy attorney general, thank you so much for being with us tonight, sir. it's an honor to have you here. >> thank you. thanks for having me. >> much more to get to. stay with us.

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i want to bring into the conversation now robert litt. mr. litt used to work at the office of the director of national intelligence under president obama. thank you very much for joining us. i really appreciate it. >> thanks. i wish i didn't have to be here. >> well, you're here on a night that is remarkable news. we learned yesterday that the president had moved with alacrity to install someone surprising as the new acting director of national intelligence, a man named rick grenell, who has no intelligence experience at all, has never had an intelligence-related job ever, is currently serving as

the ambassador to germany. we then learned tonight in "the new york times" that the president appears to have decided to get rid of the existing director of national intelligence because he was very angered that there was a briefing by someone in his office last week to congress that russia is trying to interfere in the 2020 election to again benefit president trump. it seems like that's what caused the quick move to install rick grenell in this job and to oust the existing director. i just have to ask your top-line reaction to that tonight. >> i think this is all very troubling. there's a third story as well that just broke late this evening, which is that the number two at the office of director of national intelligence, a career cia who is very well respected, has been asked to go back and instead they have moved in a former aide to devin nunes, who is best known for traipsing around the country -- around the world trying to undermine the conclusions of the intelligence community about the russia investigation. so i think number one, you have the man who is utterly

unqualified to director of national intelligence. the statute that created the position says that the director of national intelligence should be somebody with extensive national security expertise. now, he's only going in as acting, so he doesn't need to meet that qualification. but his principal qualification appears to be political loyalty to the president, and that is very dangerous in at least two respects. the first one and "the new york times" story about the briefing of the intelligence committee demonstrates this. the purpose of the intelligence community is to generate factual, accurate, unbiased information so that policymakers can make decisions in the national interest. and you have a real risk that somebody who views himself as so completely aligned with the president and so completely willing to defend the president is not going to be willing to tell the president or the cabinet information that the president doesn't want to hear, thus undercutting the utility of the intelligence community. the other risk, of course, is you have a president who has

announced without any basis that he thinks that president obama weaponized the intelligence community against him. you have a president who has already indicated he's willing to weaponize law enforcement against his political opponents, and there's a real risk that having a coterie of loyalists at the head of the intelligence community is going to embolden him to use the sources of the intelligence community to undercut his political opponents. so i think this is very troubling. >> i want to ask you the worst case scenario, what we sort of laymen and observers should understand about the risks of what you described there. also about what this means in terms of how much congress is going to learn about what the intelligence committee -- what the intelligent community is doing. if you could stick with us for a second, we'll have to take a quick break, but we'll be right back after this. now, we know the trump strategy-

try to win by attacking, distorting, dividing. mr. president: it. won't. work. newspapers report bloomberg is the democrat trump fears most. as president, universal healthcare that lets people keep their coverage if they like it. a record on job creation. a doable plan to combat climate change. i led a complex, diverse city through 9-11 and i have common sense plans to move america away from chaos to progress! i'm mike bloomberg and i approve this message.

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back with us is robert litt, former general counsel in the office of the director of national intelligence. thank you again. with this news tonight that the president has acted suddenly to fire the national intelligence director and his principal deputy and replace those two positions with two very, very highly partisan figures who don't have intelligence experience at all, you were talking about before the break the threat that the president may see the intelligence community as something that he can weaponize to his own political advantage. what should we understand as the real threat of that? how could the president do that? what would it look like? >> well, you know, the intelligence community has extraordinary capabilities to

conduct surveillance, to collect information, which is not supposed to be directed at americans. and indeed in the russia investigation, they were very careful to focus the attention of the intelligence community on what the russians were doing, not what americans were doing. it was up to the fbi to conduct any investigation of americans. the president believes apparently that all of the agencies of the executive branch are there to serve him personally, and there is a risk that he will ask to have some of these capabilities directed against his political opponents, that he will, for example, try to use intelligence sources and activities to see if he can dig up dirt on joe biden in connection with ukraine or anything else out there. i think there's a real risk that with politicized leadership in the intelligence community, that

there won't be the necessary will to resist that. >> robert litt, former general counsel at the office of the director of national intelligence. i wish we had more time to spend talking with you about this very scary situation tonight. i hope you'll come back in the next few days. >> i wish we didn't have to talk about it at all, rachel. >> me too. thank you very much, sir. i appreciate it. we'll be right back. did you know you can get unlimited talk and text on america's best 4g lte networks for $20? unlimited talk? i like that! because on sundays you know i gotta talk to mama, then on... this is your wake-up call, people. the new tracfone wireless. now you're in control.

the new tracfone wireless. non-drowsy claritin cool mint chewables. feel the clarity of new the only allergy product with relief of your worst symptoms, including itchy throat. plus an immediate blast of cooling sensation. feel the clarity and live claritin clear. that is going to do it for us tonight. i do want to end with a special shout-out to all the court reporters out there. it is really hard to get detailed, perfect, court

transcripts turned around same day so that we in the news media can read from them on the same day that court proceedings happen to let the public know what happened. there usually aren't cameras or even recording devices in federal courts and when something important happens in the federal courts, important h the federal court, it takes not a computer, but a human, a really, really hard day's work to get that stuff turned around so that we can present that material on tv and you can get the next best thing to being there. thank you to all the court reporters, someday i will be reincarnated as one if i'm really good in this life. >> to continue this thanks, i just want to clarify to the audience who i think understands it. by court reporters you don't mean members of the press who are there reporting for a news organization. you mean the stenographers in that room who are just miracle workers in the way they capture every single word and rachel, i know, i know that i speak for the court reporters in