unexpectedly he fired preet bharara as well. this all happened, as i say, abruptly with no notice. well, in the southern district of new york, a man named june kim had been preet bharara's deputy. when preet bharara got unexpectedly fired, june kim took over that office on a temporary basis, fort ten month until president trump's new nominee came on in. june kim has not done any t vv interviews since leaving new york. and he joins us here tonight. thanks very much for being here. >> happy to be here. >> first of all, let me say i'm appreciative of the fact that you have not done other tv interviews, and i know that you are not going to discuss ongoing cases. i'm not going to ask you to do that. i do want to ask you to help us understand a little bit about what happened last march, and i'd like to ask your help in understanding a little bit about some of the stuff going on with the mueller investigation. does that sound like comfortable territory? >> so far. >> do you know why preet bharara was fired? >> i do not know. >> at the

and bharara is now saying this week he's not convinced this is a full on referral to his old office.e writes, i could be completely wrong but such a referral seems precall war. the key question is whether this is aboutish that have nothing do with bob mueller or a way to gather evidence that could go back to mueller. we don't know yet. what we do know is that after trump got rid of bharara, the new york prosecutor, he returned to his odd interest in personally vetting prosecutors in just a couple places in the country. the places trump lives or headquarters his business. >> it's a weird thing for a president to meet with potential nominees to be u.s. attorneys but when you look at the ones that president trump has met with, they'd be in charge of prosecuting crimes in washington, d.c. and in manhattan and brooklyn. very much the president's home turf both in politics and business. places where he might conceivably have skin in the game. >> skin in the game. well, the game changed last night. until last night, the only people in the world who knew what michael cohen's secret attorney

joining me to discuss this preet bharara.oining us. >> thanks. >> president trump up and at them this morning. tweeting looking at what he tweeted as we came on. attorney client privilege now a thing of the past. i have too many lawyers. and they are probably wondering when their offices and homes will be raided wfrg. including phones and computers taken. all lawyers are deflated and concerned, unquote. what's your reaction? it obvious obviously is an incredibly bold move for the u.s. attorney's office for the southern district of new york, an office you used to hold, for them to raid michael cohen's office. >> yes, when he said all lawyers are deflated, i'm not deflated. injury you have to trust that that office is doing things by the book and crossing every t and dotting every i. i don't think donald trump has a teent understanding of attorney client privilege how it can be pierced. the people doing the investigation in the southern new york i know well. i know the person in charge of the investigation. the u.s. attorney hi

just to make that very loud and clear, replacing preet bharara, the man he fired.s were seizing information related to stormy daniels, as well as private communications between cohen and his clients. the biggest, the most prominent of which is the president of the united states. according to a source. now cohen has stood by the president for 12 years. and during that time he became known as mr. fix-it. any sort of a problem, he was right there. jason carol is "outfront." jason, you know, having seen these two together over many years, to say they are tight, would be an understatement of the relationship that they had. >> absolutely. there's so much more to this man than making that $130,000 to stormy daniels. he's as close as one might be able to get to donald trump and the trump family without being family. one friend described him this way. he said, he is the man if you ever are in trouble at 3:00 a.m. in the morning, and you need someone to help, this is the man to do it. he gained a reputation throughout working within the trump universe as being the pit bull,

after bharara was fired, krur prosecutors took over the u.s. attorney's office for awhile, but then in january, the president installed a new interim u.s. attorney in the southern district of new york, his name is jeffrey berman. he's a trump donor. he worked on the trump transition. he is a law partner of trump's friend rudy giuliani. he controversially took a meeting about the u.s. attorney job before trump named him to the position in january. by january, we now know that office hads apparently opened this criminal investigation into the president's lawyer, into michael cohen. and according to "the new york times" now, jeffrey berman, the newly appointed interim head of that office, he very soon after getting that job recused himself from the cohen case. so, he wouldn't be involved in the cohen case at all. and we don't know why he did that. "the times" reporting that mr. berman wasn't recused because he had any known relationship with cohen, wasn't even recused because of that personal meeting he took with jump before he got the job. but fo

he took over when preet bharara was unexpectedly fired.d from the "washington post" recently that the president's lawyers have been advised by mueller's prosecutors that the president is, as of last month is a subject but not a target of the investigation. now everybody's doing amateur law school trying to figure out what that means. my question is, did they have to tell the president's lawyers that? why would you tell somebody that they're a subject? >> again, i don't have any personal insight into the status of any individuals in the special counsel's investigation. but to answer your question, it, if someone asks, is my client, in a federal investigation a target, subject or witness, you do need to tell them. because they, they should know and have a right to know. in terms of what those terms mean, they are a bit of a term of art that is used in federal criminal investigations. it's not a mystery or secret among people who practice in the area. it's actually pretty clearly set forth and defined in the u.s. attorney manual that is avail

attorneys include preet bharara. so the president has in a way, unlike he's accepting, inviting this happening but there's much more of a disconnect of what robert mueller has done as part of the so-called witch-hunt and what the fdny is doing right now. >> the president speaking at a moment ago, speaking with his military leaders, talking about a possible u.s. response to what's been going on in syria, here's the president. >> so i just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys, a good man and it's a disgraceful situation. it's a total witch-hunt. i've been saying it for a long time. i've wanted to keep it down. we've given i believe over a million pages worth of documents to the special counsel. they continue to just go forward and here we are talking about syria, we're talking about a lot of serious things with the greatest fighting force ever and i have this witch-hunt constantly going on for over 12 months now and actually much more than that. you could say it was right after i won th

attorney for the southern district appointed by him to replace preet bharara. there's an extra sense of betrayal to further inflame his actions. >> he can't fire rob mueller directly. rod rosenstein would have to decide what he wanted to do. let's go down that road. people ask the president and you heard him responding. let's say that cascading effects does happen, are the wheels already in motion and would it continue even without mueller at the helm? >> no, absolutely not. i think this is a very important point. that the president really has within his ability to stop this investigation. when resident nixon fired cox in 1973 in the saturday night massacre, he replaced him with leon who continued the investigation. there is no sign that i'm aware of that president trump would replace robert mueller. so, i think the investigation to the extent it existed at all would return to the regular justice department. the pending cases, like the one against manafort would be prosecuted by someone, but in terms of the investigation, i think it would probably just peter ou

. >> that's the president and then preet bharara. when you look at the makeup of the fbi and this particular case. these are law and order republicans who are facing the president. this is a democrat trying to get me. does that fly? >> honestly, this is not the first time or the last time that the president will blame the democrats for something. especially when it comes to the fbi probe into russian meddling. as we know before he is not scared of calling out anybody like the democrats or the fbi. his favorite term is witch hunt. he used that term yesterday as well. he will continue to use that rhetor rhetoric. >> come back in a half hour. we have a lot to talk about this morning. i guess one question from yesterday from the remarkable before the cabinet meeting, can he compartmentalize with the russia investigation and syria and the fbi raid. >> it was organized by the u.s. district in new york. this is not necessarily part of the russia probe. we don't know what for sure what the fbi agents were targeting. reporting about wire frau

as preet bharara said, this was thinks district, he knows people have dotting every "i" and cross been every "t" so it's unlikely they would have taken this step if they didn't feel it necessary as part of a large and important investigation. >> let me just ask you about the degree to which the white house is worried about all of this, your paper reporting on a shift here about what they're concerned about legally. >> that's right. my colleagues are hearing from people inside the white house, they see this as as a much more imminent threat to the ump rather than the mueller probe at this point. they don't know exactly what's in these papers, in these maybe recordings of telephone calls that would touch on president trump's business dealings and other matters going back for years that may raise legal jeopardy for the president. >> charlie savage of "new york times," and my college julie anxio ainsley. >>> this week's "watch for this" garcetti is the late zest it politics to make the if trip to iowa. could eric garcetti be next? for an insider's take, we turn to beth huey. he goes to wat

. >> preet bharara, appreciate it. >> thanks. >> thank you very much. a lot more to get to on this raid of michael cohen's office. michael avenatti joins us next. he has plenty to say. later the president's decision on syria. which he now says will be made tonight or "shortly thereafter." he is make it apparently in an anger over other things and we will explore the implications tonight. we're finally back out in our yard, but so are they. introducing scotts turf builder triple action. it kills weeds, prevents crabgrass and feeds so grass can thrive, guaranteed. our backyard is back. this is a scotts yard. a place with 24-hour valet service... and upholstery classes a place where seniors get the care they need in the comfort of home. home instead senior care. when it comes to travel, i sweat the details. late checkout... ...down-alternative pillows... ...and of course, price. tripadvisor helps you book a... ...hotel without breaking a sweat. because we now instantly... ...search over 200 booking sites ...to find you the lowest price... ...on the hotel y

few people are better equipped to talk about this than cnn's senior legal analyst preet bharara, formertorney for the southern district of new york. preet, the idea that mueller's team is having the fbi search russian oligarchs traveling into the united states. what does that tell new. >> it tells me the mueller team is very serious, it has something that is causing them to take these significant and aggressive steps. it's telling me and should tell everyone the investigation shouldn't stop at water's edge. they can't go into russia and interview people they would like, who may have been involved in affecting the election in an unlawful way, but they can lie in wait a. it's something prosecutors have been doing for a long time. oligarchs should now appreciate that they travel a little bit at their own peril. >> would they also have the capabilities of reaching out to oligarchs traveling in great britain? a lot of russians go there. >> you would be hoping that our allies and our law enforcement partners around the world, particularly in friendly countries, are coordinating with our own l

prosecutor, mary jo white who went on to run the sec, a man named james comey, and a man named preet bhararait is one of the toughest places. >> the sort of most logical and above board and sensible legal explanation is by bringing rudy giuliani is, there's a certain amount, however much james comey attacked rudy giuliani in james comey's book, there's a certain bit of prestige and honor among colleagues in the u.s. attorney's office skpm. and by bringing rudy in, donald trump to one extent is signaling that the michael cohen thing is really important because that's happening in the southern district. and they're saying, look, we've got a guy who's been the u.s. attorney there. that's one explanation. another explanation is that, a less charitable one, is donald trump is in this bizarre world of he's got a fox cabinet. he's got sean hannity as his chief of staff. he's got john bolton as his national security adviser. he's got larry kudlow as his economic adviser. rudy is out there to be in his tv cabinet. >> that brings us full circle around the bend. if donald trump is offered legal advice

attorney, cnn senior legal analyst, preet bharara. preet, thanks for joining us.information or documents might have led the mueller team to start questioning these russian oligarchs? >> you can't know for certain. what you do know about bob mueller and any competent and reasonable prosecutor's office is they don't proceed unless they have real information. they don't proceed on a whim or a hunch when you're talking about something as important and dynamic a step as questioning oligarchs who are coming into an airport or leaving through an airport. so it could be that they have testimonial evidence, it could be they have documentary evidence. we know they have been issuing subpoenas for financial information for quite some time and they're following the flow of money. if they saw money coming from certain sources, including pass-throughs that lead to russian oligarchs who are trying to influence the election by contributing money to campaigns that they should not have been, well, they're going to be taking a look at that. the bottom line people should understand is

as preet bharara told us last night, it's an ominous development for anybody on the receiving end of states attorney and i was being asked to personally approve, as someone had to have been in the southern district of new york, a search of someone's home and office, who was counsel to the president, i would want a lot more than the bare minimum proof of probable cause. so, i predict, as we saw with paul manafort that if they decide they have enough evidence to engage in a very aggressive move, that the likelihood that michael cohen is going to be charged is high. >> back now with alan der ch witness, norman iseman. do you agree with that? >> i do. lawyers aren't above the law. but it's the rights of the client, that is, when you start taking the entire computer, all of the financial records, we know from reporting that it also includes conversations and -- >> how can it be done then? if you're saying a taint team isn't the way to do it, it's not right for fbi agents to be doing this, you're saying, what, a judge? >> if anybody's going to go through it, it should be a judge or a neutr

brian: preet bharara. >> yeah, preet bharara. that was the whole big uproar.is i i have driving us crazy. you have to go in and clean up the department of justice. steve: jason, we had a u.s. attorney from illinois who has been tapped by the attorney general to go to the department of justice and try to get this document production thing going fast because so few have been released. i think just a handful, you know, maybe 6,000 so far out of one million that the ig has. we had him on a little while ago. listen how he describes his job where he says we have got to do a better job getting the word out. >> clearly we need to do a better job at the department and fbi to get materials to the house committee to do their job. it was made very clear to me by the attorney general giving me this task, we're to produce documents quickly. to do so completely under the law. my job is to deal with the documents that have been responsive to the subpoena. doj are refusing to hand over anything. and of course congress they have a right and obligation to do their job which incl

district of new york is a trump appointee, jeffrey berman, who holds the position once filled by preet bhararatay on and then abruptly fired three months later. berman was appointed by the president in january of 2018 reportedly with the backing of jared kushner. he was an assistant u.s. attorney from 1990 to 1994 and has donated to several republican politicians over the years, including $5,400 to the trump campaign. until rejoining the department of justice, berman was a partner at the same law firm as rudy giuliani who told the "washington post" about the raid "is this surprising? yes. is it extraordinary? no. this is the way prosecutors get information. sometimes to convict and prosecute, sometimes to exculpate." joe? yeah. willie, let's talk about what the president said briefly and you can -- maybe you can help me o out. i'm obviously a little tired this morning. i'm having spasms of lucidity as a doctor once said of riddick bowe. by the way, one of the greatest commentaries of any boxer saying "beau-- beau is showibowe is sh of lucidity." donald trump is saying this is a nothing-burger.