thank you, chuck rosenburg. great have having you on.etsy, what happened to the party of law and order? remember them? why are so many republicans abandoning their principles to follow trump into battle with the country's top law enforcement officials. we're going to hear from two republicans on either side of that fight. plus, if history is a guide, presidents who obviously subvert the truth and go to war with the fbi and the intelligence community of this country don't win. trump has started that war releasing a memo his own fbi director says it false and tonight we're going to see why it's a war he will lose. and the "hardball" roundtable tonight on trump's motives in all of this. sounds like he wants to fire rod rosenstein as a way to put mueller's whole investigation in jeopardy. that should set off alarm bells everywhere. what is it about this investigation that donald trump is so damned scared of. let me finish with what's happening this sunday in minnesota. you know where i stand. this is "hardball" where the action is. the great

answer questions, currently professor at ucla school of law, and back with us msnbc contributor chuck rosenburggreat to have you both with us. chuck, let's tackle the first question, if i may. there is a claim there was the okay to surveil carter page without this deal dossier democrats say it was just one factor of many. we don't know what the other ones are. how high is this when it comes to evidence that is actually needed to get a judge to sign off on the action? >> for any warrant whether it is in criticism cal court or before the fisa court the standard's the same and probably cause. where does that come from? the fourth amendment to the constitution. it is serious but not particularly high bar. i can tell you by having worked for director mueller with the fbi, one of my jobs was to review every fisa warrant before he certified it. dozens of lawyers aej agents in the fbi and department of justice before it before i review it. before director mueller certifies it. before it goes to attorney general for his signature. before it then goes to a federal district court judge on the fisa court f

joining me is ken dilanian, investigator reporter with nbc news, chuck rosenburg, former u.s. attorney and mika eoyang is a former staff director to the house intelligence committee and june sigh fer is a former cia officer. let me go to our friend ken. underlying crime. it's often said in conspiracies, it's the cover-up, not the crime. 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 how that happened on the russian side. but now, what that means is that anybody in the trump team or any manor helped that conspiracy by what's called an overt act can be charged as parts of it, even if that overt act wasn't technically illegal. chuck can correct me if i'm wrong, that's my undering it of conspiracy law. as long as they agreed and knew about the agreement to interfere in the election and violate american law, the actual act whatever they did does not necessarily have to be a crime. number two, a lot of people say how

. >>> chuck rosenburg served james comey and is an msnbc contributor. let's dive in deeper into the legal aspects of it and to the intel aspects of it. chuck, if donald trump does decide block the schiff memo after allowing the nunes memo and after saying that the nunes memo totally vindicates him, could that potentially factor into a case for obstruction? >> i don't really see that, katy. look, there are a lot of folks a lot smarter than me who can talk about the political ramifications from a legal vantage point, they mean absolutely nothing. if a fisa court judge, which is really just a federal district court judge sitting by designation has a problem with what the prosecutors did, she'll call them in. she'll have a hearing and she'll get to the bottom of it in a nonpartisan and nonpublic way. but legally i don't think there's much to this stuff. it's political right now. >> could you say this is a bunch of noise? is robert mueller paying any attention to this >> if our statement lasts five minutes, i can assure you he won't be thinking the nunes or s

but i want to go back to something that chuck rosenburg said that i think is very important. what's the purpose of this kind of an indictment? we know that mueller waive some difficulty in extraditing these 13 individuals. so is this simple an exercising in naming and skmamg putting an end to the russian activity? i think this is really a call to arms for americans to reads this indictment, this very detailed indication of how the russians tried to dupe and manipulate us so we can be on guard for 2018. >> joyce vance, thanks for being part of our conversation. congressman eric swalwell, democrat of california and member of the house intel committee is joining us by phone. congressman, what's the takeaway for american citizens? >> good afternoon, brian. we have the clearest evidence now that the russians hit us and the department of justice believes they can approve that beyond a reasonable doubt. we had an assessment with high confidence before, but now we have evidence that they believe they can prove that exceeds the highest standard you need to determine guilt in our count

reveals just how stressed out he is about the russia probe closing in on him. >> he feels that chuck rosenburg you look at the tweets this weekend, that he felt the walls were closing in on him. i'm wondering from your reading of the indictments on friday and seeing where this investigation has gone, does the president have a reason to be concerned? >> yes. and i don't think it's just this indictment on friday, but -- that tells that story, joe. i think there are many more chapters to be written. this piece has been, what was pointed out earlier, is only about russian actors in russia on the social media interference portion. there is a lot more to come. >> and, ben, how significant -- well, the new york the post is calling new york city cops fat. i'm not holding that up. but "the daily news," talking about gates. looks like he is going to follow in the foot steps and the president's former national security director and plead. then they're going to go after manafort. how significant is that? >> the short answer is we don't know and we can't know because we don't know what gates knows. >> what