let me ask that question also of chuck rosenberg, in terms of the way robert mueller is building this case. step by step, brick by brick, if you will. >> step by step, brick by brick. he's building it in the classic way. ken referred to the gambino crime family and working your way up the chain but we don't reserve that just for the gambinos. we do that in almost every case. you use minor witnesses and minor defendants to get to major witnesses and major defendants. >> and peter baker, let me repeat that question. i think you could hear me. we had trouble hearing you. what your take is on what rick gates, the role he played, his closeness to manafort and his knowledge of the campaign. >> that's right. if you are in the white house today, the public line is this has nothing to do with us, nothing to do with the campaign, nothing to do with the president. these are crimes that took place outside of the campaign and were about the private finances of these two men. but what you are thinking secretly or quietly is what do they know, what can they tell the special counsel. what will these

among our guests, chuck rosenberg is with us, former u.s. torney, senior fbi official, former chief of staff to james comey. his resume goes on from there. importantly for us he is a msnbc contributor. and, chuck, what -- to my point, what doesn't this indictment say? what's not written or spoken in this? >> well, there's a lot not written or spoken. but one thing that jumps out at me, brian -- forgive me, i'm about to drop a double negative on you. >> that's all right. we allow them. >> nobody should draw any comfort or suste nance from what's not in the indictment. there isn't a paragraph that says, the following people are all vindicated. the notion that you would say that this vindicates maybe because i'm not mentioned here is just silly. what an indictment does is it charges people with a crime. in this case russians and russian organizations. it doesn't vindicate anyone. particularly in a case like this, brian, where it is very likely you'll never get your hands on these individuals to prosecute them in a u.s. court, why would the prose

. >> let's bring in chuck rosenberg, former chief of staff to james comey among other titles. he's currently our favorite, which is msnbc contributor. chuck, lead-off question for you is why indict russians when americans who may be skeptical of all of this business looking for a takeaway see this at the end of the and think, i don't recognize any of these names. what do you think today is perhaps the start of? >> there's a simple answer to that question, and there's a complex answer to the question. the simple answer, brian, is these russians and the organization cited in the indictment broke u.s. law. and so there's a binary choice for prosecutors when that happens. you either charge them or you don't. and they decided to. i think that's the right choice. there's a complex answer as well, which is that you need to send a very, very strong message, not just to the folks who broke the law, but to all americans as frank figliuzzi gist described about how they tried to take over our social media platforms, our political apparatus, and how corrosive and dangerous this russian inte

chuck rosenberg former u.s. attorney, former senior fbi official now thankfully and msnbc contributor. and harry lit man, former u.s. attorney and former deputy assistant attorney general during the clinton administration. >>> let me start with you, michael schmidt, and ask you, you've written i think the stories today and yesterday about the significance of rick gates, of his guilty plea and what that might mean in terms of the wider mueller probe. break it down for us. >> look, this is the latest movement and indication that mueller is building a case in the traditional federal investigation. he has put pressure on manafort, put pressure on gates here to gates to flip. what does gates have to offer? what did he give mueller in exchange for this? is it simply just information to put more pressure on manafort to get manafort to flip? or is there more information? gates was around, as you pointed out, for longer than manafort was. is there anything that he knows about the campaign? remember, the central question

chuck rosenberg, a former u.s. attorney who has worked on the staffs of both robert mueller and james comey at the fbi and is now an msnbc contributor. and with us on-set, nbc's ken delanian and republican strategist steve schmidt. jeremy bash, let me start with you on this idea that carter page, who we know was first surveilled in 2013, at least two to three years before he ended up in the trump orbit and years before the steele dossier ever existed, just talk about carter page being in the center of a big, big political distraction, a movement to smear the fbi which may have the effect of creating a smoke screen so he can do what he really wants to do, which is to get rid of the guy overseeing the mueller probe. >> i think it is important to call it, we all remember that the mueller investigation really had its origins in july of 2016 when after papadopoulos was basically approached by russian intelligence handlers, the investigation, the counter intelligence investigation of the trump campaign kicked off. so, th

chuck rosenberg, you of course had long experience with the fbi and know the background. what do you expect the reaction of christopher wray to be given that he had grave concerns about this being released? >> he can't be happy. i don't think anyone at the fbi is going to be happy. but sometimes when there's a lot of stuff swirling around, it's important to take a step back and look at first principles. first principle here, that a federal district court judge sitting on the fisa court had probable cause to believe that carter page was an agent of a foreign power. from what we know, although it would be helpful to see all the documents, from what we know, the answer is yes. it's really that simple. >> if this was an extension, there are 90-day periods after which they have to go back and get an extension and again prove that this is a productive surveillance. >> that's right. so renewals are done every 90 days. and you go back and tell the court what has happened since the last extension, but remember, it's just probable cause. where does that standard come from? from the

chuck rosenberg, former senior fbi official and clear thinker and speaker, thank you very much, chucknice to have you here. >> thank you, rachel. >> we'll be right back. stay with usment -- u.s. is list. download audible to start listening. which means everyone has access to our real reviews that we actually verify. and we can also verify that what goes down, [ splash, toilet flush ] doesn't always come back up. find a great plumber at angie's list. join today for free. find a great plumber at angie's list. 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 you want. don't sweat your booking. tripadvisor. the latest reviews. the lowest prices. >>> you know when you're a kid and you have a difficult question, one that your parents don't want to answer or talk to you about and you ask your mom and your mom says ask your dad and you ask your dad

information from him. >> very important point, chuck rosenberg, former u.s.ney, and fbi official and clear thinker and speaker. thanks for being us. >> thank you, rachel. >> we'll be right back. stay with us. greatness comes from. save 30% at ancestrydna.com. and when youod sugar is a replace one meal... choices. ...or snack a day with glucerna... ...made with carbsteady... ...to help minimize blood sugar spikes... ...you can really feel it. now with 30% less carbs and sugars. glucerna. you wouldn't accept from any one else. why accept it from your allergy pills? flonase relieves your worst symptoms including nasal congestion, which most pills don't. flonase helps block 6 key inflammatory substances. most pills only block one. flonase. let your inner light loose with one a day women's. ♪ a complete multivitamin specially formulated with key nutrients plus vitamin d for bone health support. your one a day is showing. on the only bed that adjusts on both sides to your ideal comfort, your sleep number setting. does your bed do that? right now, save 50% on the ul

joining us now to help us understand what just happened here is chuck rosenberg, former senior fbi official as well as a former u.s. attorney for the eastern district of virginia which is where the grand jury that returned this new indictment today was seated. chuck, thank you for being here. nice to have you here. >> nice to be here, rachel, thank you. >> let me ask you about the venue question. the first time of manafort and gates was from a grand jury in d.c. these new charges were from a grand jury in virginia, in the eastern district of virginia where you served as u.s. attorney. is there a reason for this change of venue? it seems unusual just as a lay observer? >> it's unusual but not unheard of. if you want to charge manafort and gates, rachel, with everything they did, you have to bring it in this case in two different places. it seems to me they don't have venue for the tax fraud charges in the district of columbia. they probably don't have venue in the eastern district of virginia for the failure to register as foreign agents so if you want to charge them with everything, if you

chuck rosenberg, former u.s. attorney, former senior official at the fbi who worked on the staffs of both robert mueller and james comey and now an msnbc contributor and matt miller, msnbc legal analyst and former chief spokesman at the justice department. an embarrassment of riches. kristen welker, i have to start with you. i watched the president give a signature move there, the thumbs up. i heard your shouted questions and i wonder if anyone was surprised that today wasn't the day that he walked up and offered any comments. >> well, we thought we had a shot today, nicolle. there's no doubt about that. in part because of the statement that you saw coming out of the white house and that tweet that he sent out, they are now making the case that this proof that there was no collusion. of course, the investigation is ongoing. but we thought perhaps he would say something on camera. it's worth noting, nicolle, this white house hasn't answered our questions since tuesday. that's the last time we had a briefing here.

chuck rosenberg, former senior fbi official and msnbc contributor and also with me natasha bertrand staff writer at "the atlantic." help me understand the import of what happened yesterday, this plea that rick gates copped yesterday in washington. >> david, it's a big deal. as you know, mr. gates was there for a lot of stuff. he was on the campaign. he was on the transition. he knows the folks around trump. he talks to them. at least he talked to them. and he has a lot of information to provide. it's really important to remember that there are a lot more than four cooperators. there's dozens of people who know pieces of this story and all of them are providing information important to the investigation. the four cooperators have pled guilty. >> natasha, let me read the statement we gotrom rick gates yesterday. despite my initial desire to vigorously defend myself, i've had a change of heart. the reality of how long this process will take, and the circus-like atmosphere of an anticipated trial are too much. i will better serve my family moving forward by exiting this process. when you look

let's bridng in chuck rosenberg a former msnbc contributor. when you heard about this new charge today, this charge of lying by van der zwaan, what was your reaction? >> well, katy, i'll tell you. eat your vegetables, make your bed, and don't lie to the fbi. i think bob mueller is sending a signal, even if this case is a one-off, and by that mean, not in the heartland of the russia interference portion of the investigation, if you go in front of the fbi, in you're talking to bob's prosecutors, tell the truth. >> is that really what this is? more than anything else, a big signal to everybody in this, if they're not coming to play, as in coming to tell the truth and coming to be fully honest and forthright with this special counsel, that they will face some serious repercussions? >> yes, but squb let me explain what the but is. yes, but, because there's a person "a" mentioned in the charging document, we don't know who that is. and moreover, it looks like mr. van der zwaan had some contact with gates and manafort and might be helpful in the pros

so paul manafort is someone who will be a convicted felon according to chuck rosenberg. why would he not cooperate? why would he be holding out? is he holding out for a pardon? is that a safe bet? >> well, i can't possibly speculate what's going on in paul manafort's head -- >> right, but as an investigator. >> so some people miscalculate their odds. there are some criminal defendants who simply miscalculate the risk of going to trial. some people think they have nothing to add. some people think they will never cooperate. it's just against what they think they want to do. constitutionally, they just simply can't get past the idea they'll testify against other people. some people may be hoping for a presidential pardon. but there are all sorts of reasons why people do or don't cooperate. but i would say, overwhelmingly, the odds are that most people who are in that circumstances doedo end up cooperating. >> what do you think's going to happen here? >> i think it's too early to tell. here's what i can tell you. bob mueller is not done. he's got a very talented team going

joining us to understand what happened here, chuck rosenberg a former u.s. attorney for the eastern district of virginia, which is where the grand jury that returned this new dime was seated. thanks for being here. >> it's nice to be here, thank you. >> the first indictment of manafort and gates was from a grand jury in d.c. these new charges were from a grand jury in virginia. where you served as u.s. attorney. is there a reason for this change of venue? it seems unusual just as a lay observer? >> it's unusual. it's not unheard of. if you want to charge manafort and gates, with everything they did, you have to bring it in this case in two different places. it seems to me they don't have venue for the tax fraud charges in the district of colombia. they probably don't have venue in the eastern district of virginia for the failure to register as foreign agents. sow want to charge them with everything if you want to run the table you have to do it if two different places. >> does this mean these guys could face two consecutive trials if these two different juri

joining us now to continue the conversation is chuck rosenberg, former u.s. torney and senior fbi official. chuck, good to see. >> you good to see you, katy. >> what do you think this memo and the democrats releasing it is going to have on the -- what impact is it going to have on the russia investigation? >> if you're talking about what robert mueller and his team are doing, the answer is nothing. it's meaningless. there's to ways to think about the memos. in a political dimension, the republicans put forth one that was specious and misleading. and the democrats put out one that filled in some of the gaps. but that's a political dimension. if you're talking about a legal dimension, it has no meaning. mueller and his team aren't distracted by dueling memos. if the fisa court judge who sits on the fisa court has concerns about the affidavit, he or she will bring in the prosecutors to question them. so you have to think about these dueling memos in these two different dimensions. >> let's talk about what's in the memos, the fact that the investigation was opened

joining is me now, chuck rosenberg, former u.s. torney and senior fbi official, and benjamin -- senior fellow at the brookin brookings institution and msnbc legal analyst. everybody has so many titles these day. chuck, very clearly there's some negotiation going on. gates has changed lawyers. he's now got this eminent defense attorney, tom green, who knows very well how to do these proffers and fwoesnegotiate a d. >> that's right. and by the way, most defendants are convicted and most of those are convicted by pleading guilty. so we shouldn't when be at all surprised it seems to be heading precisely in that direction. >> what would be the virtue, the advantage for mueller in getting gates to sign on? >> well -- >> and to be a cooperating witness? >> there's several advantages. one is he's obtaining a guilty plea from somebody he charged with a crime. at least in terms of that instant case, you're clearing the decks. second, he is obligated to cooperate. not just against manafort but against anybody against whom he has information. l

joining me now is ken dilanian, chuck rosenberg, a former u.s. attorney and former fbi officials. and mieke eoyang. and let me go to our friend ken. in this case we have a crime. >> right, and that's important for two reasons, chris. one, mueller has established a complex conspiracy at the heart of this russian interference campaign, and he's laid out a road map for how that happened on the russian side. but now what that means is that anybody in the trump team or any american that helped that conspiracy by what's called an overt act can be charged as part of it, even if that overt act wasn't a crime. that's my understanding of the conspiracy law. as long as they agreed and knew about this agreement to interfere in the election the actual act is not necessarily a crime. now mueller has laid out the underlying criminal offenses at the heart of this russian election meddling, which is conspiracy to defraud the united states and also to violate u.s. election law, chris. >> let's go to chuck on that. the question i have is didn't we all know beginning by the late summer of 2016 there

chuck rosenberg, former administrator, thank you very much. i really appreciate it. back. in the modern world, it pays to switch things up. you can switch and save time. [cars honking] [car accelerating] you can switch and save worry. ♪ you can switch and save hassle. [vacuuming sound] and when you switch to esurance, you can save time, worry, hassle and yup, money. in fact, drivers who switched from geico to esurance saved hundreds. so you might want to think about pulling the ol' switcheroo. that's auto and home insurance for the modern world. esurance. an allstate company. click or call. lobsterfest is back at red lobster... with the most lobster dishes of the year. new dueling lobster tails has two tails that'll fight to be your favorite. one topped with creamy shrimp and scallops, the other... steamed with lemon and herbs. and no, you're not dreaming, classics like lobster lover's dream are back too, along with decadent new lobster truffle mac & cheese. but enough talking about lobster- let's get to eating! - because lobsterfest won't last. so dive in today at r

. >> laura: comey's chief of staff chuck rosenberg all over television today look, if they really had concerns about this. if the trump people or the republicans were worried about this, they could have gone to the inspector general and voiced their concerns. they could have gone to the privacy and civil liberties oversight board and they could go to the fbi. that's what he said today, comey's mouth piece was all over msnbc. >> i think that just ignores the political urgency of all of this because there will be an inspector general investigation of the handling of this and it's going to come out in 2020 or 21. >> laura: it will be too late. the damage will have been done. >> the people want to remove the president from office based on this case. we have know what the evidence is. >> laura: the white house giving exclusive reaction to us. hogan gidley deputy press secretary is going to join us to react to this memo released. questions about rosenstein. up next, a lot more later. michelle malkin, dan bongino and media's role in helping the fbi mislead the fisa court, coming up. as the o

chuck rosenberg joins us, senior fbi official at msnbc contributor. chuck, thanks for being here. let's talk about the tips again. we talked to you before the show started and you said there are thousands of tips a year. but unless someone has committed a crime, there's nothing federal law enforcement or law enforcement, period, can do. >> katy, you're right. these tips come in all the time. and i can tell you that men and women in law enforcement are enormously frustrated because they know there's a lot of mental health issues out there and they know there's a lot of weapons out there. but unless someone can be committed, meaning they meet the standards of state law as a dissolution of marriage danger to themselves or others, we can't take them off the street because of a bad feeling of what they said. that's not how the rules work, katy. >> i want to play a sound bite from paul ryan a little bit earlier today in reaction to this. and get your reaction to paul ryan in a moment. let's play it. >> and i think, as public policy makers we don't just knee jerk before we have the facts

. >>> joining me now is chuck rosenberg, former federal prosecutor and a former counselor to robert mueller and now an nbc news contributor. so you are a card carrying member of the deep state. >> seems that way. if by deep state you mean people who care deeply about our institutions. >> i try to have a sense of humor these days because it is very hard not to. first of all, walk me through -- what is it that the fbi is most concerned about here? they are sounding an alarm louder and louder, whether wray is threatening resignation or not, i get that. but the fact that that fear is out there, it is clear these alarm bells are loud. >> so there are a lot of sensitive sources and methods that go into every fisa application and we rely on lots of people, including foreign governments to help us in our cases. and if people don't believe that they could trust their information to our institutions, to the fbi and the cia, then we undermine their work. >> so the fear is that in this fisa application, that is -- that they are writing this memo which obviously they believe this was unlawfully targeted

mcloughlin, former acting director of the cia and national security analyst, msnbc contributor chuck rosenberg chief of staff to james comey. peter alexander at the white us

solicitor general under president clinton, and chuck rosenberg, msnbc contributor, former u.s. attorney and senior fbi official. these two gentlemen are serious business. seth, you first. hope hicks and her white lies. "the new york times" says she insisted she had not lied about matters material to the 2016 presidential election. what do you think about that? a little lie here, a little lie there, no biggie? >> yeah, so first, i wasn't the sli solicitor general, i was the federal prosecutor here in d.c. in any event, the way she characterizes her lies are self-serving. bob mueller has already met with her once for a period of hours. when i hear that, if i'm bob mueller, i have to bring her back now and find out which of those things she talked about were white lies or real lies or whatever way i want to characterize it since i'm the prosecutor leading the investigation. >> large and small, seth, no one is required to lie. >> absolutely right, of course she wasn't under oath in front of bob mueller, but there are federal agents in the room. that's how martha stewart went to jai

. >> significant news for manafort as our friend chuck rosenberg likes to say, make your bed, eat your vegetables, don't lie to the fbi. rules to live by. let's look ahead, though. if gates is pleading guilty, if manafort is in hotter water and ends up having to change his plea as well, no indication that he might be doing that. there's vice president mike pence now entering this room. down the line, what does that mean for donald trump? what do these charges against rick gates and paul manafort have to do with donald trump, have to do with potential coordination with russia during the trump campaign? >> that's the big opening question, katy. first of all, we know that yesterday's indictment has something to do with donald trump to the extent that it shows that two people who were running his campaign were allegedly engaged in a white collar crime spree. they were defrauding banks and evading taxes during the time they were in charge of his campaign. to your question about collusion, it depends on what paul manafort has to say about the subject, assuming ultimately he succumbs to the p

but we had chuck rosenberg on the other day who's not prone to exaggeration that he at some point will be a convicted felon given what he's being charged with at this point. what are the reasons that manafort might not want to strike a plea deal. >> he could be waiting for a pardon. it would get him away from the most serious federal charges even though it would bring the white house into great controversy if the president was to grant such a pardon. two, helping me be worried some other retaliation. let's not forget that the people that manafort was in business with in ukraine, people from russia, are some very serious players. and he knows a lot about activities that happened there and potentially things that happened in this campaign. it's a dangerous thing to cross people like that. we don't know if that's the case, but i think to get back to chuck's point, manafort is going to spend time in jail likely. he's going to be a convicted felon. the question is how long does help the to go to jail? strike a plea deal if he has information about the president, the president's son-in-law?

. >> chuck rosenberg, i'm sure this sounds very familiar to you, and the two things that i've heard in the last couple days are in line with what katy suggests. we paid more attention to the obstruction of justice case because there has been more public facing pieces of it. the people would be sadly mistaken to assume bob mueller's team is not looking very closely at russia's role and whether or not there was a conspiracy among russians. does that become -- does that become the underlying crime, if this moves into the kind of investigation where you're looking at who knew what and when is it >> sure, nicolle. in fact, maybe one of several underlying crimes. it's great reporting. and to take nothing away from it, i would also add it's not the least bit surprising. the central theme of the investigation has been russia, and the things connected to russia, whether it's money laundering or obstruction of justice or failing to register as a foreign agent. so, i'm not the least bit surprised by how the prosecutors are going about making their case. in fact, it's comforting because this is wh

and they played it straight and that is heartening as a citizen. >> all right, chuck rosenberg, thankuch. senator langford, thank you very much. andrea mitchell, we'll see you at noon on msnbc. >>> still ahead on "morning joe" the federal government's plan to increase spending in an economy that is already expanding while cutting a trillion dollars in taxes something lloyd blankfine said he would not do. in fact, he compares it to throwing lighter fluid on a fire. we'll ask him to explain that when he joins us here on set. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. don't we need that cable box to watch tv? nope. don't we need to run? nope. it just explodes in a high pitched 'yeahhh.' yeahhh! try directv now for $10 a month for 3 months. no satellite needed. >>> up next, what could be our most important conversation of the morning, keep it right here on "morning joe." experience lexus safety system plus standard. in the 2018 lexus es and es hybrid. lease the 2018 es 350 for $339 a month for 36 months. experience amazing at your lexus dealer. experience amazing another anti-wri