, this guy. >> roy cohen was a horrible guy. >> he would lie and cheat. >> he was the right hand assistantgle-handedly responsible for naming innocent people as communist without any backing, without any evidence. >> cohen specialized in this kind of savaging of enemies, lies, slander, character assassination. >> roy cohen humiliated people, he made up things, he had no mocials. you couldn't say he even had the morals of a snake. >> trevor: man, i feel bad for snakes. ( laughter ) no, because one snake tells one woman to eat an apple and now everyone hates snakes and women. ( laughter ) ( applause ) so trump longing for a lawyer like roy cohen is disconcerting because what he admires in cohen is that he worked to destroy his political rivals by any means necessary and that's exactly what trump wants the justice department to do for him now and looks like he may be getting his wish. first this happened. >> president trump openly called for clinton to be investigated branding his former rival crooked hillary and tweeting where is our justice department? >> trevor: then this happened. >> the

roger stone is roy cohen without a law degree. so he's never been disbarred for any of his dirty tricks. but he was effectively banned from major republican politics in the 1990s when it was discovered that he and his then wife were advertising in swingers magazines to find like-minded couples to hook up with. and yes, before the internet took over our lives, that sort of thing was actually done through magazines. and no, i'm not going to show you the photos of roger stone in those swinger magazines because, as you know, that's what google is for. when the photos of mr. and mrs. rogers stone in swingers magazines became public, everyone in washington suddenly realized that roger stone was living a much more exciting life than we thought he was, and that those photos were basically roger stone's political obituary. but donald trump, who still hasn't said one word of denial about reports in "the wall street journal" that he arranged to pay off a porn star to keep quiet about an affair they had is not the kind of guy to be troubled b

roy cohen was one of the most corrupt and evil lawyers of the 20th century. he also represented donald trump at one time. to think that the attorney general of the united states, who represents not the president, but who represents all americans and runs the department of justice, should behave like this crooked, evil lawyer, roy cohen is really an astonishing thing for any president to say. >> john dean, was it -- i mean, you were the white house counsel under nixon. was it appropriate for don mcgahn to go to jeff sessions? universally everybody has said jeff sessions did the right thing by recusing himself, it is something he had to do. was it -- if don mcgahn doesn't represent president trump, but represents the office of the president, was it appropriate for him to try to convince jeff sessions to do something he should have done? >> well, it depends upon what he did and how he did it. if, indeed, he leaned on the attorney general on behalf of the president to not recuse himself, that would raise suspicions. if he merely communicated the president's feeli

to me the most astonishing quote of the whole deal is he's saying where is my roy cohen and roy cohen joe mccarthy's henchman, more or less, and he's basically an -- and a mentor in donald trump, it should be said, later in life. so he thinks government is sort of a family mafia business, and he can shut it down, and loyalty to the don is the primary value here. to me that was a mind boggling quote because most people consider roy cohen's role with joe mccarthy as a shameful moment in history, not something you want to emulate. >> woodruff: so, mark, are we learning more here? i mean, the stories are coming almost by the bushel full and everyone of them has more information about what happened. >> yeah, we're certainly learning -- i'm trying to separate is stories right now, but we're learning the president was deeply involved in trying to divert attention on that return flight from his european trip in july, you know, that it's a matter of personal urgencyto him. and what -- which just sets off ararms. i mean, why, what is it? i don't think there is anywhere near a smoking pistol or

. >> you know that quote in there, where he says where's my roy cohen? think about that. >> disbarred. roy cohen has the portrait of bad ethics. >> ambassador to how to get things done in manhattan. they were tied at the hip. steve bannon inherited that when trump went to washington. he wants people to do his bidding. >> you know who has fixers? mob bosses. >> donald trump is used to trying to interview -- >> yes, 100%. >> -- did regulatory, legal and financial structures. he's done it his whole career. >> that's what he tried to do always in new york city policies and government. he's a pick up the phone guy, get it done and assumes it's going to happen. whether it's a violation of the law. whether it's unethical. whether it's against the zoning code. irrelevant. doesn't matter. >> thank goodness for the free press. all right. we got to turn. happening now, the market just opened moments ago. you know, it's been a strong market. as you can see, it is reacting to the jobs report which was released an hour ago. stocks are up. in december, the u.s. economy

also have michael wolff and other sources quoting the president as saying things like where's my roy cohenho's going to protect me, expecting the attorney general to protect him. it strikes me that the use of that word "protect" would be of special interest in an obstruction case. >> i think that's exactly right. the president made clear that what he believes he's entitled to in an attorney general, not someone who's loyal to the department, to the american people, but someone who's loyal to him. and not just on a garden variety issue but on the russia investigation, which is paramount for him. so i think all of this does go to intent. and certainly, bob mueller, this "new york times" and "the washington post" story is not news to him because he's been interviewing all these people in the white house and around the president. and i think ron is exactly right. there's probably a lot we don't know that the special counsel does that relates to the issue of the president's intent. >> how secure is bob mueller's job, do you think in the view of congress at this point? i know when he was first a

he cried out in the oval office, where is my roy cohen? something to hide, but there's no way to know for sure without bob mueller sitting him across the table, and gauging his answers, and his credibility. was he intending to obstruct or not? >> carrie, there's the criminal standard that mueller is looking at, that congress has the standard that doesn't have to dovetail precisely with mueller's standard. which standard should the white house be more concerned about? >> they're probably most concerned about legal exposure with the special counsel's case, because the special counsel's investigation star what we know, it looks like it's covering several different areas ranging from potential violations of possibly computer fraud and abuse act, which is the hacking aspect, whether there was any advance nothing of that, to obstruction, so there's a lot of legal exposure. not all of that is directed at the president. some of that is directed to individuals who were involved in the campaign, others potentially who still work in the white house.

>> maybe you would have to go back to roy cohen to come up with a precedent for that, katy, and that might have been the most startling detail in that incredible story. as peter said, in some ways that story adds flavor to our understanding of donald trump in the white house in these early months, but it's consistent with things we knew. that trump was telling people the russia investigation was phony, he was trying to get his name cleared, he was pressuring people to drop the charges. there are a lot of startling new details. but they're consistent with this picture of donald trump thinking that the federal government is like the trump organization, that people are there to serve him and defend him, serve his pleasure, as long as they're loyal to him, not necessarily the constitution. but that particular detail is something different. that is a -- if true, it's a little sketchy. i don't doubt the voracity of it. we want to know more about it. it suggests a sleazy political smear campaign that is in a wholly new category and can't be explained why. donald trump was in some kind of st

he's talking about stalin, but there's a lot of roy cohen and joe mccarthy in donald trump.here's a kind of neo critic facism he finds attractive. that's what jeff flake is going after that this is a president that does not really understand the constitution, doesn't understand things in democracy like our immigration heritage and certainly is on the wrong side of history when he talks about the press being an enemy. >> go ahead, nick. >> i think it's also important to note that there is a larger issue here. it does feel a little uncomfortable for a journalist to be ringing his hands and saying how awful the attacks on the press are, but what president trump has done is not just go after the press but systematically go after all the larger institutions in american politics and government that play referee role, so that's the courts, the judges, it's the law enforcement community, the intelligence community. and i do think that this larger effort to undermine these institutions is an enormously important line of attack that it's really important for all of us, whatever our po

. >>> we're talking about the president, the law, roy cohen, spit on the ground, art work.e's what richard blumenthal, who serves on the judiciary committee, said about obstruction of justice a few minutes ago. >> this excellent reporting certainly indicates a key element of an obstruction of justice case which is corrupt intent. and what is building here, it may not have reached the threshold of proof beyond a reasonable doubt, is clearly an effort to shut down the investigation, to interfere with it by in effect telling jeff sessions he had to maintain control over it and stymie it if possible. >> back now with the panel. one of the things we talked about last night a little bit -- repeating -- jeff toobin made the point and other. even if there was no underlining crime, no collusion or anything inappropriate that the trump administration did, vis-a-vis russia or anything else, if there was an attempt to obstruct justice, even if the attempt wasn't successful, that in and of itself can be a crime. >> and if everything was hogwash, this was a hoax and made up, then why thi

he's had roy cohen, a pit bull. he's had michael kohn, a flun ki. he has not adjusted to having lawyers who are working for the government under his supervision, but not necessarily personally for him. they are giving him arm's length legal advice, no matter what the issue is. >> i spoke to someone today who speaks to the president regularly. he said the president believes the justice department is corrupt. that's his feeling about it. if they weren't krups corrupt, they would have handled things differently. we know he is from our reporting, he's been complaining about rod rosenstein. he's been complaining about andrew mccabe. the question is whether he's complaining about chris wray, we don't know. >> take a look at the live picture. this is outside of the secure room where members of the house intelligence committee had been meeting to try to decide whether or not to go ahead and release this four-page memo. adam schiff is walking out with other democrats. let's listen. >> good evening. i want to give a quick briefing on the events in the committ

it was very brief and he despised roy cohen every moment of it. it was a. where basically, the kennedys were looking for a way to bobby to fit into washington. jack was already there as an elected official and bobby found his way into the senate staff and he was working on joe mccarthy's committee. he really didn't like him, got out of that in less than six months and he went on to do a bunch of other things. what i tracing here is what happened to this country in the 1960s. bobby kennedy was not the same person in 1968 that he was in 1961 and no one in the country was. there were segregationists, in 1961 who were not degradation it in 1968. when you look at what happened to people's opinions and their view of the world, bobby kennedy was someone who changed i would say an average amount for someone with their eyes open in that period of time. there were people who went through much bigger pendulum swings in their life rather than bobby kennedy did and that's something i get into in depth about how the 60s changed everyone. jean mccarthy and everyone else f

. >> did he really say according to "the new york times" where is my roy cohen? >> i don't know what he said. that's "the new york times" according to anonymous sources not that i'm aware of. >> what you do know? you know a fair amount about the firing of james comey. you had to go out the night that happened. you laid it all on the deputyrney general rod rosenstein at that time. >> correct. >> that turned out no the to be true. >> i went with the information i had at the time. >> who gave you that information. >> i think the counsel's office laid it out very clear how the process had worked authority to fire rod rosen or the fbi director laid solely with the deputy attorney general as far as organizationally how that worked out that there was a letter that the deputy attorney general had written to the president, to the attorney general laying out the case for the firing of jim comey as fbi director. the attorney general concurred and brought it to the president. that was the information that i was given and that was the information -- >> we know now for several

perspective is fairly easy to put it into perspective, based on the president's own words, where is my roy cohen. he protected his brother, the president. he references barack obama's attorney taking care of barack obama. he wonders where is my roy cohn. he views the justice department and the fbi clearly as elements of his own political arm. he's looking for his own personal michael cohn. who is now his personal lawyer, who pays $130,000 allegedly to a prostitute. that's what he's looking for. he's looking for personal loyalty. that's what he's looking for. >> porn star. >> it's so gross. >> but it's, sometimes you let the trump comments fly by and there's so many it's hard to correct them all. when he says that andrew mccabe's wife quote essentially got the money from hillary clinton. it was a combination of terry mcauliffe's superpac, common good va. a little bit of a reach. terry mcauliffe, a friend of the clinton who is ran for campaign in 2008 and the democratic party of virginia that totalled about $675,000. he didn't become deputy director of the fbi, andrew mccabe, until february of 201

you've got the president saying that he wants roy cohen in there.publicans in the senate actually finally sending forth a criminal recommendation, and referral, and it's for a guy who actually is reporting wrong doing of the white house. where are we in the beginning days of 2018? >> well, here's where we are in terms of upholding the rule of law. the special counsel is proceeding methodically and will interview the president face to face is my prediction. remember that we've had two convictions, two indictments. the indictments will result in trials, and those trials will be r additional facts as will the additi additional charges. that's part of upholding the rule of law. >> we should expect additional indictments soon? >> almost certainly in my view there will be additional convictions as well as indictments. but on the judiciary committee, i'm disappointed this first action by the republican majority is aimed at someone who has reported wrong doing, christopher steel, rather than committed it. it's based on information that the fbi and the depar