corallo. in the legal world it's known as divergent interests. the president and mark corallo have divergent interests. he has accused the trump administration of attempting to obstruct justice and so you can't as a lawyer both carry water for that argument and carry the water that, no, the president is not obstructing justice. what is fascinating to me is that this was obvious to every reporter and every lawyer in this case in about 30 seconds after the news broke that joe digenova was joining the team. it's not clear to me why that wasn't immediately obvious to the white house, to the president when he announced the expansion of this team. it certainly is the case that they need lawyers, you know, right now jay sekulow leading the case is not a criminal lawyer. he's a constitutional lawyer. he's done a lot of civil work. he's never entered a federal appearance in a criminal case. this was done hurriedly before the routine basic checks could get done. >> joyce, does this suggest if someone is

his name was mark corallo. for a while, he was the spokesman for the legal team representing the president in the russia scandal. not only are we at the point where lawyers need their own lawyers, but lawyers need spokespersons for this scandal. and that's what mark corallo was doing for a while before he quit that job under unusual circumstances last summer, in july. the first substantive thing we learned about the circumstances of why he quit actually came months later, came from michael wolff's controversial book "fire and fury", page 260, to be precise. here's how michael wolff explained corallo quitting his job. it comes at the end of a long discussion, a long chapter about the news breaking on the trump tower meeting. so he goes into great detail about trump's efforts with his top staffers to try to maneuver a way out of that story without getting hurt, to try to spin that story to construct a false narrative about the trump tower meeting that wouldn't make it look so bad for them. at the end of that whol

the other saying we know who mark corallo was to investigate and we know why he left. that may be the conflict. >>> mr. costa, you get to go first tonight. what is the status as you know it of this president and his legal team, his protests notwithstanding? >> the status of the legal team, lonely. you have jay sekulow trying to run the outside team with regard to the russia probe, ty cobb inside working at the white house but his influence has been fading for weeks. they keep searching for some high-profile lawyer to lead this team. we keep hearing about conflicts but there's more to the story. so many of the major law firms do not want to take the risk of being associated with president trump. they think it too much at the moment to enter such a highly charged case. >> sometimes the phrase "business conflicts" could just mean in their business as law firm it would not be a feather in their cap for this particular client at this time. mimi, talk us through what nicole wwl -- wallace was saying there. >> usually a lawyer cannot represent two clients if the client's inte

mark corallo already waived the conflict. there could be many things.heory is the one neil posits, this is a gene you knui conflict. technically we have conflict, everybody is fine. if there's a true adverse interest where mark corallo may be testifying against president trump, this becomes a much more serious conflict and prosecutors do have an interest in avoiding those conflicts not just to be nice guys because they don't want to ruin the investigation in some way, creation an issue for appeal that could cause a problem down the road. prosecutors are sometimes proactive in alerting parties to a potential conflict, especially when there's information they don't have. the trump team would not have perfect information about the cooperation of mark corallo, for example, so they may have had to alert them to that so they could make a meaningful decision about representation. >> let's put a little meat on the bone and explain that to nonlawyers. what you're also saying, i want to make sure i understand this, trump's defense attorneys would not know what ma

my biggest problem is that they have been reported in the paper as representing mark corallo and sam klobis, and i don't understand how you overcome the conflict of the representation of those individuals, irrespective of whether they sign a waiver, and the representation of the president, especially corallo, who quit the campaign -- or quit the job in the white house because he thought they were engaged in obstructionist behavior on that air force one memo thing. so how do you represent someone who has essentially said the white house has engaged in obstruction behavior and at the same time represent the white house. i think on a conflicts matter, they probably won't pass the test. >> ken, i know you want to respond. go ahead. >> no, no, no. i agree with michael. i think that for those reasons, it's a bad fit, and you don't really have to go any farther than that. you did say there's no conflict now, but there's no telling where things will go, particularly as it relates to each individual, sam clovis, corallo, or president trump. putting yourself as a lawyer in that position would

my biggest problem is that they have been reported in the paper as representing mark corallo and samlovis, i don't understand -- irrespective of whether they sign a waiver. especially corallo who quit the campaign who had the job in the white house because he thought they were engaged in obstructionist behavior. how do you represent someone who's said the white house has engaged in obstruction behavior. on a complex matter, they probably won't pass the test. >> ken, i know you want to respo respond. >> i agree with michael. it's a bad sfit. you can say there's no conflict now, but there's no telling where things will go putting yourself as a lawyer in that position would be very unwise, and again, i don't think it serves any of those clients well for a lawyer to put themselves in that position. much like last night. >> thank you, i appreciate both of you. have a great weekend. >>> playboy playmate and a porn star coming out with blockbuster interviews about their alleged affairs with the president. and their stories are pretty similar. >>> plus, stormy daniels attorney firing a warni

one problem that hope hicks might have with the special prosecutor involves mark corallo who resigned last year, the "new york times" reported he is planning to tell mr. mueller about a previously undisclosed conference call with mr. trump and hope hicks, the white house communications director, according to three people 37 mr. corralo planned to say before the call, the e-mails about the meeting in which the younger trump said he was eager to receive political dirt about hillary clinton by the russias will never get out. that left concerns that ms. hicks could be obstructing justice. joining us josh miller and barbara mcquad and eugene robertson. and josh, i want to go to you on managing stories like this. i have known of situations in government where someone was actually planning to leave and then some kind of cloudy situation developed involving a hint of scandal of some sort and those people decided to stay a decent interval extending their stay a matter of months if necessary in order to make it clear their leaving had nothing to do with that controversy that had suddenly erupte

the corallo things is ambiguous. >> it is just a press account.e don't know what happened. >> he said she at some point -- he alleged that she said this will never come out. now that could have been her saying we have -- naively saying we have a very tight circle and a lot of stuff doesn't get out. >> within the white house leaks. >> naive and stupid, but not obstruction of justice. it could also be she was indicated she intended to obstruct justice. we don't know what was her intent when she said that. and what she said the other day in front of the committee, i want to see the transcript. because i hate to say this, but -- i've covered politics since 1990 and i've been lied to by people in every party and every administration. democrats and republicans and communicators, press secretaries and communication director, they lie all of the time. they tell white lies and black lies and big blue, red and white lies and as reporters we get lived to all of the time but what did she lie about? i don't know the answer. if you lie to federal officials and

we're told because of another client mark corallo. we know about his alleged role in all of this. does that necessarily mean -- nicolle wallace put it this way yesterday. they havedy verge end interests, does that necessarily mean corolo has testified against trump? >> no, it doesn't. it may be that they've identified the potential for a conflict that could develop into a serious one later in the representation. also, it was known i think to the white house. to the president that that pair were representing and conceivably another witness in the investigation, so it may be that simply in the conversations that were reported to have occurred in the oval office, they came to the conclusion, they simply didn't have an understanding about how the relationship would work that was satisfactory to the lawyers. i would also point one other thing out in closing here. the other event that lawyers are going to be observing is this entire set of controversies around stormy davis. and the role that mr. trump's lawyer has played in all of this, if that's the kind of loyalty he's looking for. th

sam clovis, and early adviser to the campaign and also mark corallo. he's a hostile witness to the president. >> shepard: he might, too. >> yeah. that i have a conflict with interesting clients. so as you rightly point out, it comes down to the interview. right? whether the president will agree to one. john dowd has made the argument, we've given them everything. intent is where you get to jeopardy with the line of questioning. as you can see, the president wants to do it and joe digenova and victoria may have been along that line. >> shepard: a witness in a special counsel investigation secretly backed the united arab emirates in congress. that's according to a u.p. investigation. sources tell the a.p. that george nader spent $2.5 million and gave to it a trump fund raiser through a company in canada. canadianer is a political adviser to the you i nated emirates. the fund raiser made donations to lawmakers to sway their opinions on qatar, a rival to the uae. i'm sure people have read about that. apparently this guy was a player. >> so elliott brody ba

never be protected by attorney-compliaattorney attorney-client privilege, and that is what led mark coralloresign. if all the people who he confided in can back him up, that incident with that statement about trump tower, that ended up being really important for a couple of reasons. first of all,'s the plot and press drama that derived from this incident. it was a matter of like a day before donald trump jr.'s e-mails setting up that meeting in order to get dirt on hillary clinton, it was only a matter of a day before those e-mails in fact came out, revealing that the president's dumb adoption statement was an overt lie. so obviously, that's in the media, that whole story. but more importantly, there is a very serious legal problem here. the president is widely believed to be the subject of a special counsel investigation into whether or not he has obstructed justice by trying to impede or block or pervert the russia investigation through various means. at the time that that air force one discussion happened last july where they're trying to cook up an explanation for the trump tower meetin

that does hold in this case because victoria representing mark corallo who had retained her earlier and he had been a part of the broader legal team as a spokesman for mark kasowitz, one of the president's earlier attorneys who still represents him in real estate matters. that kind of overlap is a problem on a legal team. and so although it had been announced that jodie jen nova would be on television and working on the team, today the breaks on that. what does this mean? sekulow is still representing is the president. you also have inside the white house ty cobb who is a facilitator between the white house and the special counsel team. we saw a big departure in john dowd who quit the team and last weekend we talked about his notable statement saying it was time for the mueller investigation to end. a couple of days pass, there was talk of digenova joining the team. i'm hold not to expect there will be another addition immine imminently. this is another one of those head-snapping moments where you had a sense there was a change. it seemed like a legitimate one. did i jen nova had been v

former spokesman for trump's legal team named mark corallo. it's a lot and we turn to our lead off panel on a friday night. new york times reporter and msnbc contributor. tamara keith white house. thor for npr. matthew nussbaum, white house reporter for politico. welcome and good evening to all three of you. it's a hell of a thing, i'm tempted to say on holy week, the terrible swift sword of the federal government. when feds act, when you witness it, it is striking to watch. i can't imagine what it's like to be the guy surrounded at logan, your phone is taken. what it's like to be the folks in that concourse that watched this go down. but it's never uninteresting in the mueller investigation. >> yeah, that's right. and the power of the federal government is very much on display here. look, i think what all these developments these weeks show, at least for me, is the question of collusion or conspiracy or whatever we want to call it is still very much in play as far as bob mueller's concerned. i mean he's asking about essentially contacts betwe

joe digenova, was offered the job but ultimately couldn't take it because his wife represents mark coralloat was a legal conflict with the president for reasons unknown. you're smart. why didn't the president see those guys? >> the fact they're tv supporters, sort of a -- >> make you think. >> boy, seeing white men seen on tv. defending them. jackson to be fair is not a pundit by trade. >> he had a turn at the podium we all know the president was really happy with. >> yes, and who wouldn't want to have -- you're a physician shave 30 pounds off your weight and say -- and say you're going to live to be 123 just because your genetics are so good. >> great genes. >> the president is a creature of television. if there were -- the ideal person for him in any given job would be a tabloid gossip columnist who also was on tv all the time. those are the worlds in which he lives. those are the worlds in which he looks at those people's credibility. we know what he did. it all goes back to the early part of the campaign where he was as happy as he could be where it was just him and a couple people on

corallo, who re-signed as a spokesman for the trump legal world, planned to tell investigators that missicks said during the call that e-mails written by donald trump jr. before the meeting where he said he was eagle to receive political dirt will never get out. she seems to be more and more of a central figure in that cover-up. >> a lot of the media was doing this geography of her being this innocent fashion model who was in there, the accidental bureaucrat. that is not true. hope hicks on the air force one meeting was involved in the crafting of not just lying to the american public but it was to set out a framework in how they were going to respond to everything, the news media, to congress and everyone else who would come in there, which means when she got called in for her little meeting with rob mueller in december, she has two options, tell the total truth or lie and go to prison. everybody else who is going to option number two, we have already seen their indictments. maybe she is still playing this game where she is maintaining her job but i'm certain right after that interview,