correspondent evan perez and gloria borger. gloria, what are you guys learning? >> some time in early to mid-january the president's legal team sat down with the special counsel and at that time the president's legal team really wanted to get this investigation of the president over with. and so, they were talking about a potential interview. and this special counsel suggested a date, saturday, january 27th. an interview that would last anywhere between four and five hours. we were told. and the president's team just kind of sat there and took it all in and then when they got back together they were actually to the point where they were thinking where can we have this interview? maybe camp david to keep it kind of private. eventually, though, january 29th, two days after the interview to take place, john dowd wrote them a 20-page letter saying absolutely not. >> this is the attorney before rudy giuliani came into this

we want to -- we want to see now how this tracks with cnn's previous reporting and evan perez joins usan, what's your reaction? >> anderson, we reported a story back in march that talked about the four essentially buckets of questions that the mueller team had told the president's legal team that they wanted to ask the president, and what my understanding is that these questions that "the times" have obtained are essentially notes that the president's legal team made so it's their questions. they basically took what mueller's team was telling them and they wrote questions based on that, and that's the reporting we had back when we reported our story back in march, and what we were told then is essentially it amounted to 50 or so questions. gloria borger and i were told by different sources that that wasn't the number, and this matches really what "the times" is reporting here. it's interesting here reading some of these questions, i think the most interesting thing to me certainly, and i certainly understand the agitation that this meeting, where these questions were given to the presi

evan perez is working this for us. what's the reaction? >> stunned, blindsided, angry, frankly, because giuliani sort of on the handy show on fox news allegedly there to make the case that the president is being treated unfairly, especially when you consider the way hillary clinton was treated in their view and they also -- he was also there to make the case that the president should be believed over anything that the former fbi director james comey has to say. obviously, this went really, really off the rails. the president's new lawyer rudy giuliani told dana bash this morning that he coordinated everything, everything he said he spoke to the president before he went on the handy show and he spoke to the president afterwards. everything was coordinated at least according to rudy giuliani to dana bash. >> is there any evidence that giuliani coordinating the comments with the rest of the legal team? is there a sense he went rogue? >> no. it was completely rogue. he did not do that, at least according to the sources that we have been talkin

>> evan perez, thank you for that. joining us this morning in new york julian zel et zer.political economist, greg, chief strategist for horizon investments. welcome back again, guys. when this news broke last night, it was a frenzy of legal analysis here. i want to bring in some of that analysis michael moore, former u.s. attorney talking about how all these questions zero in on intent. >> there's a great deal of focus on his intent. and my belief at this point is that they've got some indication either through the cooperating witnesses or through things discovered through the course of the investigation of his intent when he did some of these things. if he goes in there, he's set up because i promise you that his questioner will know the answers to the questions that get posed to the president. >> julian, this study guide of questions really for the president and his legal team. do you think there's any chance the president would sit down with robert mueller? >> i'm sure the president would like to. there's part of him -- all of him likes to confront these kinds of issue

let's go to evan perez. have they worked out the details of the deal, who gets access on thursday at the white house and what will they access? >> reporter: well, wolf, there is a deal worked out and we'll see whether or not that satisfies the members of house who have been demanding to get this information. they've been demanding documents and here is who will be at the meeting on thursday. devin nunes, obvious the chairman of the house intelligence and trey gowdy, leading the effort to get access to this information. and a member of the house. chris wray, the director of the fbi and dan coats, the director of the national intelligence and rod rosenstein is not planning to be there and sending a representative, edo callahan a deputy under his office. the question remains what exactly are they going to get access and what are they going to be able to see or see documents, that is what the members of the house believe that they are going to go see on thursday. it is not entirely clear the justice department h

. >> reporter: my colleagues, evan perez, gloria borger, and i have learned that the president's legal team is trying to narrow the scope of any potential interview with the special counsel to russia-related matters that occurred before trump's election. also, they want an audio recording made to make sure that there's no question about what is actually said. now because mueller clearly want to talk about issues occurring since trump has been in the white house like potential obstruction of justice and firing james comey, our sources tell us that with those questions, they're proposing written answers. but there's no indication that this will actually work with mueller. our sources have cautioned that while the sides are talking and inching toward some agreement that mueller has clearly suggested that he's not interested in written answers to questions. so there could be a standoff. in that case, you may see this question of a presidential interview go all the way to the supreme court. >> all right. thanks. >>> the business partner of president trump's attorney, michael cohen, pleading

evan perez, tell me what you know. >> that's right, brooke. gloria borger and i have learned that jared kushner's security clearance was restored today officially. it was suspended during the rob porter scandal, where rob porter was allowed to remain on staff despite allegations of spousal abuse. john kelly suspended the clearance of everybody whose clearance was pending, that included jared kushner of course. we have heard now from abby lowell, who is kushner's attorney and he says this is a process a long time in coming. he said it was delayed in part due to the fact that kushner's application was very complicated and the fact that there was a back log that begins for every new administration. the second piece of news that we have from gloria borger and myself is that jared kushner went in for a second interview with the special counsel robert mueller. this happened in mid april. he sat for seven hours, answered questions, a number of questions on different topics, a lot of it having to do with his role in the campaign, his role in the presi

and evan perez is here with more. the judge in this case seems to surprise people and usually harsh on mueller's prosecutors. what did he say. >> reporter: that is right, jim. i think paul manafort finally had a good day in court. he's been getting beaten up in the federal charges here in washington. but this judge ellis down in virginia, he raised some questions about in particular a bank fraud charge that manafort is facing one of 18 counts in alexandria, virginia and here is a couple of quotes. that this investigation is become about the president and he said you don't really care about mr. manafort's bank fraud. he said, this is about trump's prosecution or impeachment. that is what you're really interested in. and he also said that essentially that the -- the council -- that the special counsel had too much power and said we don't want anybody in this kiernts with unfettered power and it is unlikely you'll going to persuade me that the special counsel has power to do anything he or she wants. and of course, presi

evan perez, tell me what you know. >> that's right, brooke. i have learned that jared kushner's security clearance was restored today officially. it was suspended during the rob porter scandal, where rob porter was allowed to remain on staff despite allegations of spousal abuse. john kelly suspended the clearance of everybody whose clearance was pending, that included jared kushner of course. we have heard now from abby lowell, who is kushner's attorney and he says this is a process a long time in

cnn's evan perez is live in washington with the latest. what's the details, evan? >> we are talking about the way the d.c. swamp works. we are getting new insight into the way the embattled long-time personal attorney michael cohen assault to profit off his connection to the profit. this as cnn learns more about the efforts that one of the companies who worked with cohen has taken to distance itself from ties wh a russian oligarch. after esident trump was elected, sources tell cnn that his personal attorney michael cohen quickly got to work attempting to cash in on the victory. multiple people familiar with cohen's behavior say he aggressively pitched himself to potential clients as having access to the most powerful in the world. >> they say i'm his pitbull. i'm his right-hand man. >> one source describing cohen's sales pitch as i don't know who has been representing you, but you should fire them all. i'm the guy you should hire. i'm close heest to the president. i'm his personal lawyer. he had relationships with novart novartis, at&t, korea aerospace, columbus no

let's start with evan perez, who has been track thing investigation from day one.ny sign the special counsel would consider cutting that deal with president trump's team? >> reporter: we don't see any signs of that yet. but look, a lot of this discussion is happening back and forth between the trump team and the special counsel's office. one person we talked to said that this is a negotiation that's inching forward. you know, essentially the president's team is trying to limit the questions, limit the scope of questions to things that are prepresidency. so that would probably take obstruction off the table. they don't want any questions on obstruction. they say the president is willing to sit down for a limited interview, perhaps a couple of hours with a limited set of questions. but then he can answer additional questions perhaps in a take home test version, the written test version. we don't though whether the special counsel will accept that. as a matter of fact, what we were told, the special counsel's office has indicated that they're not inclined to accept su

evan perez joins us. what do you know about the process of a subpoena raised by the special counsel? >> this happened in at least one meeting of the special counsel, the president's team heard they were considering issuing a subpoena if the two teams could not come to terms on an agreement for the president to grant a voluntary interview to the special counsel robert mueller. so the possibility, at least, was raised for the first time, and so, look, what this means is that things are moving a lot more quickly than i think a lot of us have thought. there's still been this idea that the two sides are having meetings, they're having negotiations as to whether or not the president will sit down formally for a voluntary interview. we saw last night the 49 or so questions that the mueller team is prepared to ask. but this appears to be now on the table, the idea that a subpoena could be issued to force the president, if he doesn't sit down for a voluntary interview. >> what was the ten or between mueller and th

let's go to evan perez in washington with more. >> reporter: if you remember, when donald trump jr. was told that these russians were coming to meet with the members of the campaign team, they said they had dirt on hillary clinton and he said he responded, if it's what you say, i love it. so that's the reason why his account of what happened in that meeting, the accounts of other people who are at that meeting has been the focus of the investigation, not only in the senate and the house but also of the special counsel robert mueller. we will see about 2,000 pages of documents here of transcripts from the interviews of various people here. we have a team behind me that is working on reading through this and seeing what is interesting, what is news worthy from all of this, but i'll give you a sense of the characters. the russian lawyer, she was the head of the russian contingent that arrived at this trump tower meeting in june 2016. on the trump side was paul manafort, the chairman of the trump campaign at the time, of course donald trump jr., jared kushner, the president's -- now the

now, i know my colleague evan perez is getting more information from his law enforcement sources so we're working through that now. we might have an update in the next few minutes. right now, multiple fatalities and the sheriff department out there in texas saying that one in custody, another detained. we believe that may pertain to the gunman or gunmen. >> all right, jessica, jump back up, you know, we'll bring the information as soon as we get it and get it confirmed and squared away. i appreciate it. let's talk about this. let me bring in cnn senior law enforcement analyst tom fuentes, assistant director and senior law enforcement analyst and former fbi supervisory special agent josh campbell. too many times we have been talking that we get together and have to talk about this, this is all playing out. when they say it is no longer an active shooter situation, what all is happening now? >> that means they don't think there is another shooter on the loose that poses a risk to anybody at that school or in the general community. they feel having this person in the shooter in custody and p

i want to bring in evan perez. also jack nguyen, former u.s. attorney mike moore and ash asha ringafa. good evening to all of you. evan, you first. what do we know? >> well, don, we know that these questions were put together, were brin by the president's legal team. they had a meeting last month. and during that meeting, they heard from the special counsel robert mueller's team, the four categories of what they had for the president. they put together the 50 or so. the fbi director as well as the national security adviser as well as the president's relationship, his treatment, his mistreatment who believes he did the wrong thing by recusing himself on the investigation. i tell you, the most important part, i think, the most interesting part of the questions deal with the question what we' come to call collusion. whether there was illegal coordination between the c campaign and the russians. despite what you hear from the president, he petedly, he said there was no collusion, no collusion, robert mueller is not done with that question. and very

our justice correspondent is evan perez. senior white house vrpt is jeff zeleny. michael the investigate correspondent at yahoo news. evan i'll start with you. what do we know about these questions and where do they come from? >> they or ridge nate with the mueller team a month ago. they laid out four different groups topic of questions if he agreed to sit down with an interview of the mueller investigator. these particular interviews of the "new york times" tonight essentially note that the president's lawyers took, they made these questions up based on what the mueller team was asking. it's a pretty good, i think, representation. we wrote a story about a month ago in which we described the four main topics. to see the specific questions is very intriguing. a lot of it has to do with obstruction of justice but there's a lot of them, 25% of the 50 or so questions that have to do with whether or not the trump campaign was legally coordinating with russia. what this tells us is that the subject of collusion, despite what you hear from the white house, the fact the pr

the merriman smith award for broadcast goes to evan perez, jim shootout, jake tapper and carl bernsteincnn. [applause] these journalists and a number of other cnn reporters broke the story that the intelligence community had briefed president barack obama and president-elect donald trump that russia had compromising information about mr. trump. you remember that story. cnn then reported that fbi director james comey personally briefed president trump about the dossier. the judges called the reporting breaking news at its very best. [applause] [whistling] >> the merriman smith award for print goes to josh duffy. [applause] josh's story about the resignation of white house press secretary sean spicer grabs the reader from the opening sentence. duffy hustled to find a wide variety of sources and conveyed in the drama of the resignation and help the reader's attention. he reported details others said we did not have, beautifully reported and written, say the judges. [applause] i also congratulate chris johnson. where is chris? honorable mention for the merriman smith award, chris johnson of

evan perez starts our coverage from washington. >> the president's legal team composed a list of nearlyquestions following a meeting last month with the special counsel robert mueller's investigators to discuss a possible interview with the president. a cnn reported, the questions roughly fall into four categories. and they deal with firing of james comey, the former fbi director and michael flynn, former national security adviser as well as the president's dealings with attorney general jeff sessions and the potential coordination between the trump campaign and russians. the questions published by "the new york times" show a focus on the president's state of mind during key events. it's clear from some of the questions that despite the president's claims that collusion is off the table, the mueller investigators are still pursuing questions of whether anyone broke the law in those repeated contacts between trump campaign associates and people the fbi believes were russian government operatives. christine, dave? >> evan, thanks. >>> "the new york times" says up front the questions are n

joining us, sarah murray, evan perez, and also here to help us understand legal implications, prosecutoreph moreno. thank you very much. evan, you've gone through these documents. what stands out to you? >> you remember, this is a meet bring the russians were promising dirt on hillary clinton to members of the trump campaign. one part of a conversation with donald trump, jr., which he says, you know, i was interested in listening to information on hillary clinton. yes, he says. information that came potentially from the russian government. donald trump, jr., said again, i have no way of assess bring it came from, but i was willing to listen. the context is in the e-mail, that introduced this meeting, donald trump, jr. was told that this information would be coming from the russian government and the support for the trump campaign. here's another bit of testimony from rob goldstone who helped broker this meeting. he says after the meeting, the question came, did you report back to emin and aras about the meeting? he said, emin immediately. he said, i just sat in a meeting about adoption.

evan perez is joining us with what he learned. >> it is one of the companies that paid money.ard to distance itself from russian oligarch. that is viktor vekselberg. he was placed last month in a sanctions list. cnn reported yesterday that investigators working with special counsel mueller stopped and questions vekselberg about payments that columbus nova had to the president's lawyer. cousins and sources told us that in trader was also questioned by investigators. some of the attention is coming because michael avenatti the lawyer for stormy daniels made allegations that said mr. vekselberg and his cousin quote routed eight payments to mr. cohen through columbus nova. the company itself is fully owned and operated by u.s. citizens and that it has never had foreign ownership. it also says that the oligarch had no role in the american company's decision to hire michael cohen. >> the company is previously portrayed a bit of a closer relationship, haven't they? >> that's right. until recently columbus nova included those ties. we find an archive company of columbus nova website a

our evan perez joins us with what he's evan, what can you tell us?reporter: well, columbus nova is one of the companies that paid money after the 2016 election to president trump's personal lawyer, michael cohen, but it's now working hard to distance itself from a russian oligarch that it has long had ties to. and that oligarch is named viktor vekselberg. he's a close ally of vladimir putin, he was placed last month on a sanctions list by the treasury department. cnn reported yesterday that investigators working with robert mueller stopped and questioned vekselberg at a new york area airport this year about payments that columbus nova made to the president's lawyer. now, vekselberg and columbus nova founder andrew enslider are cousins, and sources tell us that entrader was also questioned by investigators. now, some of the attention on columbus nova is coming because michael avenatti, the lawyer for adult film star stormy daniels, made allegations that say mr. vekselberg and his cousin, quote, routed eight payments to mr. cohen through columbus know

sources tell our gloria borger and evan perez that the president's lawyers and special counsel actuallyte for bob mueller to interview president trump, but the trump team balked. this formal q & a between the president and the president's team was in the planning stages for earlier this year, january 27th at camp david. days earlier, you'll remember the president told reporters that he was, quote, looking forward to answering mueller's questions. joining me now on all of it, shannon wu and molly ball. molly, let me begin with you on how extraordinary it is what lauren just reported. the fact that you had emmet flood, a white house attorney, and the chief of staff, folks on the president's team in this meeting about a confidential source that could be key in the probe against the president and that giuliani told dana, well, you know, the president wanted him in there. >> right. the objection to this meeting in the first place was the suspicion that the reason republicans had convened it and at the beginning it was only going to be republicans was to basically collect information for the

evan perez is in washington with more. well over a million dollars he made basically saying i'm the guy that can get you to the president. >> that's right, poppy. you remember obviously the president when he was campaigning was railing against the swamp, here in washington. this is the ultimate in swampy behavior. michael cohen, once the president was elected, started cashing in on his access to the president telling people he was the guy that could get him close to the white house, to the new administration, one republican strategist told us one of the pitches that michael cohen made was -- he said, quote, i don't know who has been representing you, but you should fire them all, and i'm the guy who you should hire. i'm closest to the president. i'm his personal lawyer. he clearly was making over a million dollars as you mentioned, for some of these big name companies that i think even, you know, big lobbying firms here in washington would have been very, very jealous of the big names that he was able to get. >> so let's t

. >> wolf, sara murray, evan perez and i contributed to a story on cnn.com which really does show thee. the public relations strategy, the political strategy because that is the arena in which the president lives and works and needs to deal. and you have robert mueller who has with his team over the past year been dealing very quietly and very, very tight lipped. >> a quick break and more news coming up. kim jong-un's tactics and the threats to cancel the summit with the president paying off. ♪ ♪ i can do more to lower my a1c. because my body can still make its own insulin. and i take trulicity once a week to activate my body to release it, like it's supposed to. trulicity is not insulin. it comes in a once-weekly, truly easy-to-use pen. and it works 24/7. trulicity is an injection to improve blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes when used with diet and exercise. don't use it as the first medicine to treat diabetes, or if you have type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. don't take trulicity if you or your family have medullary thyroid cancer, you're allergic to trulicity, or ha

>> evan perez, gloria borger and i have learned that the president's legal team is trying to narrow thecope of any special interview with the special counsel and narrow it to russia-related matters that occurred before trump was elected president. now, our sources are telling us that in order to try to avoid a standoff, one possibility they're thinking about is limited trump interview plus written answers to questions that the special counsel clearly wants to ask about things happening during the president's time in the white house, like obstruction of justice. we know that is something the special counsel has been asking people about. >> is there any indication this will actually work, that mueller is willing to cut a deal, or is this just stuff that the legal team is kind of floating out into the public as a way of, i don't know, influencing something? >> that's a great question. first of all, the answer to that question is obviously this is something that the legal team is trying to get out into the public, or at least entertaining in the public as a way to try to push robert mueller

me and a team of reporters, jim sciutto, evan perez and the legendary carl bernstein won an award.bout this dossier. we all know about the dossier now. and that they had briefed president obama and then president-elect trump on the existence of this material that the russians were claiming was compromising. >> jimmy: yes. and was this the biggest story you've ever broken, would you say? >> it was pretty big. i don't know. it's tough to compare them all. i've won this awards a few times. and there were other -- i did one about -- during the obama years when he was about to fire his director of national intelligence. and i knew before the director of national intelligence that he was about to be fired. so that was one. >> jimmy: you should get an award for not screaming when you interview kellyanne conway. because that alone is a remarkable achievement. >> i don't scream every time. [ laughter ] i appreciate -- i appreciate your noticing. >> jimmy: i want to show something because this -- i don't know if you've even seen this. but this is what happened when you got your award. run th

. >> evan perez, thank you so much. great report. >>> joining me now is congressman ted lieu, a democrat who serves on the judiciary and the foreign affairs committees. congressman, thank you so much for being with us today. and as you know, the policy right now that the department of justice has, it says that a sitting president cannot be indicted. does rudy giuliani, is he just sort of speaking the truth here when he says, ultimately this does come down to congress and the american public? because this really may not be an issue of a sitting president being indicted. it's impeachment, right? >> well, thank you, brianna, for that question. i'm a former prosecutor. and i know that when the defense team doesn't have a good argument, what they do is put the police on trial. they attack law enforcement. that's what we're seeing right now, because the defense team for president trump really does not have a good argument. and they're scared of what the report from robert mueller is going to show. by the way, former white hou

however, it seems unlikely from my reporting, evan perez's reporting, dana bash's reporting that theal counsel would agree with this. >> do you think these tactics on the part of the trump legal team will actually work with robert mueller? >> i don't think so. number one mueller always know he's got the power to speeda in h back pocket. he may think he can negotiate this out but he can subpoena the president. they know it, he knows it. and even if there's this legal question of whether a sitting president can be indicted, there aren't many legal scholars that say the president can't be subpoenaed. the fact that mueller hasn't said anything strikes me as a sign of strength or that he has cards he wants to hold close, not that he doesn't think he has a good position here. >> let's talk a bit about this business associate of michael cohen who has now pleaded guilty, will cooperate with state and federal investigations. what do you think this means for the cohen investigation? >> well, its development is certainly most significant because it escalates pressure on michael cohen to coopera

our chief political analyst gloria borger and evan perez broke the story.s is the first time we've heard of any possible date for an interview between the president and mueller. what happened? >> well, there was a meeting in early to mid-january, and it was a very different time from the time dana bash was talking about just earlier. because it was a time when the president's legal team actually wanted to get this all over with and have the president sit down. so there was a meeting with mueller. he suggested let's get the president on january 27th and laid out 16 subjects, and the president's legal team listened to it. they met among themselves later on, and they were even thinking oh, maybe we can have this at kac camp david, might be a good place, we could do this on a saturday. and then after thinking about it, and there was some disagreement among the president's lawyers. but the lead of the president's team john dowd on january 29th sent mueller a letter, a 20-page letter which one source says the president read and approved saying there's no way we a

evan perez is breaking this t news. what else are you learn iing?that's been on going between the office and the big thing is they want to limit the scope of the questions that the special counsel can ask during this interview. they want to limit the amount of time this interview would take, but most of all, they say they would want to make sure these are questions that relate to action that is the president took before he took office. things that have to do with obstruction of justice would be off the table. things that have to do with any actions that the president took while in office. would also be off the table. even for the questions that have to do with russian collusion, which is what they say this interview should be focused on. they say they want a narrow scope of questions. they want to limit what type of questions are going to be asked of the president. >> so all of that then i understand some of it they want to be able to submit in write ing, which means they could write b b who know ifs the president would have anything to do with it.

our justice correspondent evan perez has been working this story for us. manafort says mueller's probe has overstepped its legal authority, the judge disagrees. >> that's right. the federal judge says manafort's claim that the special counsel's overstepped his bounds are completely without merit. she says that paul manafort should prepare to go on trial in september here in washington. he's facing charges both here and in northern virginia. let me read to you a little bit of what the judge had to say about this. she said, who had connections to the russian government, who attended meetings on behalf of the campaign? given the combination of his prominence within the campaign and his ties to ukrainian officials supported by an operating out of russia as well as to russian oligarchs, manafort was an obvious person of interest. the special counsel would have been remiss to ignore such an obvious potential link between the trump campaign and the russian government. wolf, this case has garnered a lot of criticism of the special counsel simply because it predate

>> let's bring in our justice correspondent, evan perez. what might these changes in trump's legal team might suggest? >> i think it suggests that the president is getting ready to do battle with the special counsel, wolf. i think the idea that they've brought up -- that they've suggested going the route of doing a subpoena, if they cannot come to an agreement with the president to do a voluntary interview, i think, shows you where this is going. ty cobb was the last person in the president's team who was advocating for some kind of a deal. some kind of an agreement, a cooperative stance with the special counsel. john dowd, who initially began on that side, by the time he left, had now moved over to the point where he believed that it was not a good to have the president sit down for a voluntary interview. and so now you have people who are looking at this and thinking that this is not a very good idea. and the special counsel may then have to do a subpoena. and then we'll see whether or not there's going to be a legal fight. >> well, rudy

. >> i think it does, evan perez, thank you. >>> is there anything democrats can do to stop president trump and the legal team from making the case against robert mueller in the court of public opinion? need something printed? the business advisors at office depot can assist with exactly what your business needs to grow. get your coupon for 20% off services, technology and more at office depot and officedepot.com. technology and more ♪ (electronic dance music)♪ ♪ ♪ metastatic breast cancer is relentless, but i'm relentless too. mbc doesn't take a day off, and neither will i. and i treat my mbc with new everyday verzenio- the only one of its kind that can be taken every day. in fact, verzenio is a cdk4 & 6 inhibitor for postmenopausal women with hr+, her2- mbc, approved, with hormonal therapy, as an everyday treatment for a relentless disease. verzenio + an ai is proven to help women have significantly more time without disease progression, and more than half of women saw their tumors shrink vs an ai. diarrhea is common, may be severe, and may cause dehydration or infection. before tak

with the president before talks between the two sides stalled, my sources tell my colleague and i, evan perez. they discussed the logistics of holding it at camp david, which we know is the presidential retreat in maryland. before the president's team finally rejected the plan in a 20-page letter that was spent to the special counsel. so this possible date for an interview, wolf, has never been reported before. and had they done it, maybe the world would have been a little bit different. and if you'll recall at that time the president's attorneys were quite interested in getting this over with and moving quickly, which is why they considered this very seriously. but in the end, wolf, they decided and then the chief counsel for the president, john dowd, decided that it was just too much of a risk and that on constitutional grounds they felt the president was not required to do it. >> what do you think, jeffrey? five hours, camp david, a saturday back in january. that's what mueller wanted. didn't happen. >> right. and i think this is indicative of how everything about the trump presidency has

and my colleagues, pamela brown, evan perez, and i have been reporting this all day. what we're hearing is words like, blind sided. the president threw a grenade into all of this. that giuliani was winging it. and that giuliani has said he spoke with the president about this, and as we've said all along, the president is his chief legal strategist. so maybe they concocted this together. but it might have been nice for them to talk to the rest of the legal team about whether he ought to be doing this. because their sense of giuliani, from speaking to them today, that is he's the guy who ought to be out there delivering the message they need to deliver. which is, the president's being treated unfairly, comey doesn't tell the truth, the department of justice needs to start dealing with congress, needs to start cooperating, and the president won't testify unless these questions are fair, et cetera. all of that. instead, what he did was he started talking about stormy daniels. he raises an issue nobody wanted to talk about. and oh, by the way, in doing that, he contradicte

and evan perez is with us. how did he finally get the security clearance. >> that is right. as of today jared kushner has been restored with his security clearance. he's got the top secret security clearance. and now it allows him to see the nation's utmost closely guarded secrets and he could be able to have access to the presidential daily brief which is something that he was known to previously have acsa -- access to. and this is a process that has been months in the making. as you just mentioned, the white house said that jared kushner clearance was really being delayed by the normal backlog they have at the fbi, people who are -- career people doing the investigation of the background in order to get the final approval for the clearance. but you remember, he had a temporary clearance that was -- that was restricted and removed back in february amid the overhaul the white house was doing following the rob porter scandal. rob porter was the president's former staff director who stayed on and was able to have a top secret clearance even though he had -- there were allegati

phil, i want to bring you in now because there's other new reporting from gloria borger and evan perez as well that president trump's legal team discussed having a mueller interview, supposed to happen at camp david, but the president team ultimately said no. they rejected that plan. if that had happened, things may have looked a lot different. >> they may have. >> that's for phil. >> sorry. >> go ahead, phil. >> i'm sorry. i think so, but let me give you two perspectives on this. number one, when you hear rudy giuliani speak, he wants to speak out of both sides of his mouth on the one hand he's saying for his client, this is a fraudulent investigation, this is a witch hunt. on the other hand he's saying my client wants to speak and we want to bring this to closure as quickly as possible by september 1st. you got to look at giuliani and say if you simply cooperated with the interview in january, you might have closed this out. that said, if you look at information like what you're just talking about a moment ago, the investigation into roger stone's finances, even if you complete the i

this is reporting i did along with evan perez and gloria borger. it is, as you said, the idea of trying to narrow the scope to specifically questions before donald trump was in office, and about even more so, russia-related questions, meaning because they argue that this whole thing was supposed to be about russia collusion. but they also don't want the president to be asked in a face-to-face interview about obstruction of justice, which they know that robert mueller has been trying to probe other witnesses on. an obstruction of justice would be about the firing of james comey. so we're told by our sources that because the trump legal team understands that that's a mueller point of interest that they would say well, those questions can be asked and answered in written form. so, look, the obvious question is whether or not robert mueller is going to go for it. and the answer is we don't know. what we do know according to sources we have talked to, they were cautious saying look, these negotiations are inching along. one source even -- a couple of so

my colleagues pamela brown, evan perez and i have been talking to some of these people and people in the circle and as if rudy giuliani threw a hand grenade into the middle of his own legal team having just joined a short while ago. nobody expected that he would go on fox news and say what he said last night about the president, about michael cohen, about the payoff to stormy daniels and how -- and how that was handled. and, you know, these people are kind of in shock saying that this is rudy giuliani winging it, that he was really brought on, a, to do some sort of hardball new york negotiating with mueller but, b, to stick to the talking points for the president which is that he is treated unfairly, that james comey is not telling the truth and on and on. and instead, he veered off into some territory that nobody wanted him to go into save perhaps the president because there is a theory, of course, that he and the president spoke about this both before and after at least that's what giuliani says. >> that's right. giuliani said he coordinated this with the president or informed him

our justice correspondent evan perez is here. what does law enforcement know about the suspect. >> wolf, as often happens in these cases, they have found very little trace of him -- there is no negative information in his background to indicate that this is something that he was thinking of doing. he hasn't had any previous significant run-ins with law enforcement that would cause him to think he would be somebody who could carry out something like this. it appears from talking to his classmates at least law enforcement believes that they found him to be quiet, but nobody really thought that something stood out that would cause something like this. obviously now they're doing investigation and talk to his family, they believe at some point something is going to stand out, something that may have happened recently, something that he has said and spoken about, obviously those journals will be see, the information on his phone and his computer, which will indicate whether -- how long he's been thinking about this and whether or not

evan perez is "outfront." you got a lot of details.it. this was date, place, time, everything, right? >> right, exactly. they had worked out even the details. january 27th, a saturday. and the interview was supposed to take place at camp david. they were trying to figure out some lodge sticks. it appears that at some point the president's legal team, led by john dowd at the time, rethought this entire thing and decided not to go ahead. but erin, look back at what we're talking about. january, the president's team was pushing for this investigation to be over with. and so that's when the special counsel said, all right, let's come on in, do this interview. so they talked about perhaps a five-hour interview with the president. and they even had 16 topics they were going to cover in this interview. and then suddenly -- >> 16 topics? >> 16 topics was part of the discussion here. some sources we talked to, gloria borger and i talked to, differ on exactly how close they were to agreeing to this. some say that, look, this was something under

evan perez is "outfront." this is a huge charge being head led. informan informants, spy.ponsible to be using those words because you know it's driving the president to a place where he might do something about it and the problem is, here's what we know about what this person was doing. this is a person who was a confidential source for the fbi. provided information to the fbi and to the intelligence community in the past. and he interacted with some people who were associated with the trump campaign. this person was not implanted as the president said in the campaign. this wasn't sent as an undercover spy to infiltrate the campaign. none of those words i think woul describe this situation. this person simply came forward and provided information to the fbi. this is when the fbi was looking into what the russians were up to with regard to the 2016 election. so, all of this is really what the fbi is supposed to do, which is if they see a foreign power trying to sp ining interfere, t supposed to investigate it and if comes in and provides information, they're supposed to acc