the president asks cory lewandowski to deliver this message to is sessions again or else. and the or else here is similarly genius. back to the report. in the following up meeting, quote, in the july 19th meeting with lewandowski the president raised his previous request and asked if lewandowski had talked to sessions. lewandowski told the president that the message would be delivered soon. soon, boss, soon. lewandowski then recalled the president told him if sessions did not meet with him lewandowski should tell sessions that he was fired. so you go meet with the toerng, you give him this message from the president that tells the attorney general he needs to un-recuse himself, he needs to give a speech about how terrible the special counsel is and about how donald trump ran the greatest presidential campaign in history and then he needs to announce now he's un-recused he's changing the mandate from the special counsel so here on out he can only investigate crimes in the future, nothing that happened, and cory, if jeff sessions won't meet with you to receive this message ab

almost trying to redirect the special counsel's investigation through cory lewandowski. lewandowski did not go forward with that. he did not aseed to the president's wishes but it paints a picture of the different episodes where again they were trying to restrain him from his own worst impulses. and on one of the more interesting pieces where you see daylight between the attorney general and bill barr, bill barr and the special counsel's team is on this issue of doing things in public. the attorney general has suggested you can't obstruct justice necessarily if all of these things were in public. it is suggesting there wasn't corrupt intent but the special counsel has a different analysis on that and essentially said the president wields a significant amount of power, especially over his subordinates and has a mas communication available to him at all times and just because it is in public doesn't mean it is not obstruction. jake and anderson. >> laura jarrett, thank you very much into we'll talk about the investigation into collusion or just covering the obstruction. wan

cory lewandowski who is not exactly known as a squish. he doesn't follow the president's orders.epped in. >> and let me ask you a question because he just -- jeffrey just talked about when the president as a candidate said, russia, if you're listening, get those 30,000 emails of hillary clinton. he said to the special counsel, he was just joking, but the special counsel's report says behind the scenes, he was pushing his staff, go get those 30,000 emails. michael flynn, who later became the national security adviser, is charged with doing that. now they never ultimately get them. is that criminal at all? >> there's an argument. it would be a bit of a stretch on conspiracy law. an agreement between two or more people could be a crime. and there is some detailed analysis in this document which is fairly well-founded they didn't quite get there. but let's keep in mind. the bottom line conclusion is there's not enough to charge a criminal conspiracy with russia. that's not the same thing as a clean bill of health. there's two important pillars that were found here. number one, russia

cory lewandowski won't do it. he tells someone else because cory luna downsizing doesn't want to do it and the other person refuses to do it. >> right. >> if these people had not said no, you know, if they had not -- if they had acceded to what the president asked, would the president be guilty of obstruction. >> well i'm not sure based on how mueller framed it that he was very influenced by the doj policy in terms of his ultimate decision to charge or not charge. but i'll tell wlau, based on the report i think those other people lewandowski, or don mcgahn or the -- it was chief of staff i think to sessions, those people could well have been charged with obstruction had they agreed to go with what the president asked them to do because they are not the president. they don't benefit from the doj policy. it was wise of them for the president's sakes and their own not to follow the instructions. >> devastating, jim. >> i'm not sure it's devastating. it's not a pretty picture. it sounds like a testimoniestous workplace

where he basically said you know a lot of trumps mandates to his staff rob porter apparently cory lewandowsky and others were just not acted upon because the staff knew that this would get the administration an extremely hot water so the irony here is that he actually. he has a staff that's really looking out for his best interest the question is a question of intent as as i think you have men and others you know and when does it become a prosecutable offense and i think that what we're looking at here and this has been indicated in some of the footnotes in the report is that this is something that basically muller said this is something for congress to look at well is that what we're going to see now i mean mulder is going to testify i mean do they we heard the attorney general say he can do that right i'm not against that so let's say he goes to congress and testifies and then it's up to congress to decide what to do i mean the document the report is no longer just a legal document it's now a political document right impeachment itself is political not legal right so there are two avenues t

greg: cory lewandowski, great to see you. thank you for being with us tonight. all right, adam schiff, chairman of the house intelligence committee is now famous for saying he had evidence against president trump and refusing to show america what the evidence is. take a look. >> there is clear evidence on the issue of collusion and the body of evidence. they have maintained for some time that within a significant evidence we've seen that there was no collusion. this merely parrots with the president says but is not consistent with what we have seen. i did not say that there is ample evidence, indeed there is of collusion of people in the trump campaign with the russians. there is significant evidence of collusion. we have set that out time and time again. greg: now calling for adam schiff to fess up and admit he had nothing. that he was lying all along. if he did have something, he would have shown it to us by now. jordan, house oversight committeemember, south carolina congressman , ralph norman. great to have you with us tonight. should adam schiff step aside,

cory lewandowski doesn't do it. the president never gets his message to jeff sessions. that is pretty remarkable when you're thinking about where the president stands. attorney general bill barr said there wasn't any issue of robert mueller leaving obstruction of justice to congress. that's not true. over and over again he says you have the authority to check the president. >> quickly here, i think a lot of folks thought that bill barr was going to be one type of attorney general. it turns out that bill barr may not be precisely who we thought he was. >> we saw a lot of daylight between what the attorney general said the report contained and what the report actually contained. you definitely see a lot of daylight between the legal theories set forth by the special counsel and the legal theories the attorney general leaves in. some of this may be abscribed to different prosecutors have different ideas. we are seeing a different side of bill barr. >> always enjoy having you, thank you so much. enjoy the weekend. >>> we delve into some new nbc news reporting on election se

by cory lewandowski who agreed to give a pretty outrageous testimony to attorney general sessions, he wanted him to unrecuse himself from the russia investigation. cory agreed to do that, then skipped town. agreed to do a meeting with the attorney general, the attorney general couldn't do it, then cory lewandowski was miraculously out of d.c. you could call it luck, could call it people putting protections around him, but it underscores in a lot of way the president was saved by people around him. >> julia ainsley on a long day's journey, outside her post at the justice department. thank you for helping us this hour. the president for his part is enroute to mar-a-lago for the holiday weekend. he leaves behind a white house where hyperbole is alive and well. one official called this the best day of the trump presidency thus far. our man at the white house is peter alexander. peter, good evening. what do you have to report from there? >> reporter: brian, good evening to you. despite the unflattering, politically damaging portrait of the president for the last two years painted by robert

another is with cory lewandowski.o doesn't even work in the white house and has not worked in the white house and worked in the campaign as an outside consultant, the president gave him orders to tell then jeff sessions to curtail the scope of the russia investigation. and now cory lewandowski never followed through and attempted to pass it off to another aide who did not follow through on what president instructed. a third one that stuck out to me is rob porter. the then staff sect who left the white house and the president asked him if the number three at the justice department, rachel brand, if she was on their team and if maybe potentially she could be named attorney general. now he wanted to -- porter to reach out to brand to ask her these questions, but porter never did because according to what he told the special counsel, he felt uncomfortable with the task and while it wasn't explicitly stated he said it was understood that the president wanted someone new in that position to fire the special counsel or end t

. >> cory lewandowski not pressuripressure ing jeff sessions.on mcgahn, the scenario as a white house counsel, can you imagine yourself in a situation where the president is calling you from camp david and saying get rid of mueller. tell rod to get rid of mueller. what would you have done? >> repeatedly. at one point mcgahn left him with the impression he would do it but he was worn down so he got him off the phone and didn't do it. there was another aspect of the president's demands he wanted mcgahn to fabricate a record that would subsubstantiate ordered the firing of mueller. he ordered him to create a piece of evidence in the official records of the white house he knew not to be true. >> we know that mcgahn, because of reporting had given 30 hours of testimony. now we know exactly a great deal about what went on there. the president was criticizing mcgahn for taking notes in meetings and said why do you take notes. lawyers don't take notes. i've never had a lawyer who took notes. mcgahn responded he took notes because he's a real lawyer. par

having his way at his own company that he privately owns, the people around him, don mcgahn, even cory lewandowski, a formal advisor outside of the white house, never followed through on some of his most damaging instincts. some of them kicked it around and hoped it would go away. others like mcgahn threatened to resign instead of doing these orders which could have been ironclad proof of obstruction. at the end of the day the president truly was saved by those around him. we could have been reading a very different report yesterday if some of those aides had carried out those orders. >> they definitely knew what some of the president was asking was at the very least inappropriate. let's pull up the graphic and show the president's attempts to obstruct the obstruction. he asked him to unrecuse himself, the list goes on and on. mueller clearly has the substance to make a recommendation for accusing the president of obstruction of justice but he doesn't. why exactly do you think he didn't? >> sure. boris in the very first few pages of volume two, which covered obstruction, mueller laid out very clea

like when trump asked cory lewandowski. >> the president gave him orders to tell attorney general jeffns to curtail the scope of the russia investigation. lewandowski according to the report never followed through, intending to pass through to an aide who did not follow through on what the president instructed. >> that's a chain of two people fail to go follow through on a demand from the president, and the aide passed order to an assistant who opened the window and shouted it to a grounds keeper, who wrote it down, and taped it to a roomba that was passing by who threw it into a river. >>> 4:58 eastern time. asian markets closed earlier to start the week. european markets are closed. and on wall street, ahead of a busy earnings week, wall street ended higher, dow ended just under 1%. and nasdaq closed up slightly higher. earnings season is in full bloom. facebook, boeing and tesla will report their first quarter earnings wednesday. so far it has not changed its guidance of 360,000 to 400,000 vehicles for the year. boeing's earnings are expected to take a hit after the grounding of the

there was also cory lewandowski. the president dictated a message for him to deliver to then attorney general jeff sessions directing sessions to publicly announce that quote, not with standing his recusal from the russia investigation the president had done nothing wrong and to limit the investigation to future election interference only. he did not deliver that message and tried passing it off. the message was never delivered. former staff secretary rob porter was asked to reach out to rachel brand to discuss the possibility of her replacing sessions and ending the investigation. he didn't do so because he was uncomfortable with the task. there were some in donald trump's orbit who did follow through on problematic requests like former deputy national security adviser katy mcfar land who gave false information to the washington post denying any discussion of russia sanctions occurred between then national security adviser michael flynn and the russian ambassador. we now know that to be false. sarah huckabee sanders

the asking don mcgahn to fire mueller, to lie about that, and asking cory lewandowski to get zwroefgsz narrow the scope of investigation to only future elections. for those three i'm confident if anyone else were charged with that offense or had that evidence, they would be charged with obstruction of justice. >> our thanks to two of our favorites, shannon pettypiece, barbara mcquade, thank you so much for helping us with our conversation tonight. >>> coming up for us, new reporting on the president's curious behavior when it comes to protecting our nation from russia's involvement in our next election. one of the journalists reporting on this story will be with us right after this. >>> this next segment is critical. more now on this report that the white house has downplayed the threat of more russian election meddling, even as security officials work on another side of the government to prevent future attacks to harden our defenses. this affects all of us. this is according to "the washington post," quote, for more than two years, trump has recoiled when aides broached russia's 2016

what stopped me in my tracks yesterday seeing that cory lewandowski who was an enforcer for the presidentike, i'm not going to do that. >> he didn't talk about the president's wrongdoing or bad intentions there. >> we don't know why he decided at this moment not to do that and i think that's what is interesting. don mcgahn, we know how he referred to himself as a real lawyer and actually took steps, prepared the resignations. if the president makes me do this, i'm quitting. >> do you know that don mcgahn told the president he was a real lawyer when the president was saying to him, why can't you be more like roy cohn who was disbarred. >> let me ask you this, given that we've had 24 hours to think about this, if these people, some of these 11 people who we just put on the screen, rick dearborn, don north carolimcgahf they had done the president's bidding, would this report be different. >> i don't think so. if he were to say there was obstruction of justice, what kind of impact that happened have on the presidency, i think he realizes when it's the president we're talking about here, it's

even trump loyalists like cory lewandowski. people the president wouldn't be thrilled to be talking. the president consumes information through television. while you or mike or i pouring over the mueller report. what the president knows about it reading the papers, what you see on tv. so he doesn't necessarily know. >> so it's an open question. he's clearly aware of don mcgahn's role. is he aware of others? not yet. depends on the morning shows and front pages of the daily papers. >> it's why we turn to both your papers every morning. ashley parker and mike, thank you for spending time with us and your reporting today. jared kushner may have spilled the beans on white house view in russian assistance in presidential campaigns chalking the entire russian operation up to a few facebook ads. that's all it was. why does kushner appear to be toeing the line at the kremlin. donald trump jr. refused to testify for the mueller report. we'll tell you what else we're learning about that meeting with russians. 2020 democrats break glass o

. >> in some cases it is unclear -- was cory lewandowski not following through on the president's directives because he had a moral qualm with it or because he thought i don't want to be the one who goes to try to do something inappropriate. >> so he handed it to rick dearborn. >> so he pawned it off. and rick dearborn said sure, i'll take care of it and never does anything. >> but it does give you an indication of the fact that people just didn't feel that they had to listen to trump when he was ranting about something. they kind of said, sure, sure and hoped he didn't remember that he had asked them to do it. >> and a senior official tells cnn that the mueller report isn't surprising because in their words, it is the, quote, unquote, the norm for trump to make what they say are absurd demands of his staff. can the white house work like that? >> absolutely not. and unless you're the trump white house. but the happiest person in america right now is probably michael cohen. because everything he said before the committee about the code of conduct, being asked to do certain things is corrobora

because a lot of people who were portrayed in the report, namely don mcgahn, geoff session tz, cory lewandowskiople who don't work in the white house or have left the white house. he wants to make sure the people that are still there are following his orders, treating him like the president's orders and not like some kind of suggestion. >> hold on a second, jeffrey. shouldn't the 12 people who ignored or disobeyed the president's orders -- you can see the pictures for 11 of the 12 right there, but you can see all of their names. many of them, you know, jackie, they were pretty important in protecting the president from doing something he would have regretted down the road. >> that's exactly right. the biggest case -- biggest take way and why the demps want don mcgahn to testify before the house publicly is this anecdote as it relates to mcgahn telling special counsel mueller that the president ordered him to fire mueller from leading the investigation. and the president was very upset with him when he refused to do so, and was pressuring him to issue a retraction to "the new york times." mcgahn

>> you bring don mcgahn up, cory lewandowski, a lot of people are outside of government who will have to answer a congressional subpoena. >> jeff, i would do it as an impeachment exercise because then the american people would pay attention. i would do it on prime time just like we did with nixon. when the british with parliament, it's more serious. you sit down and watch these people testify and you got an impact you don't get by reading about it in the paper. your thoughts? >> there would certainly be an impact, but people like nancy pelosi are thinking to what end? if you can't actually succeed in impeaching the president of the united states, is it worthageou >> how so? how does he look good all along. >> just in the aftermath of the results. first off, after attorney general barr's letter and most recently after the full report is out. he will say there was no obstruction, no collusion, the democrats hate me, they're trying to undo a legitimately elected president. that will help his base get energized, not that they need help now, and perhaps help others. >> he'll say -- >> that

and cory lewandowski would pass the message to jeff sessions that he should kill the russia investigationhe number of pages mueller spent telling congress exactly how it could bring an obstruction of justice charge against the president though he determined he himself was unable to. despite this, the last number out is zero, that's the amount of specific evidence that mueller found could clear trump of an obstruction charge. >> i love when john does math. it's so great. >> it's so refreshing. >> it's hot. >> it's early in the morning. but math honest. >> we'll be back in the next hour, actually you'll be back in a minute. thank you very much, john. >>> cnn legal analyst, el elie honig will join us next. ♪ - [woman] with shark's duo clean, i don't just clean, i deep clean carpets and floors, so i got this. yep, this too, and this, please. even long hair and pet hair are no problem, but the one thing i won't have to clean is this because the shark's self-cleaning brush roll removes the hair wrap while i clean. ♪ - [announcer] shark, the vacuum that deep cleans now cleans itself. rather than

so what's your view of what, you know, chris christie, cory lewandowski, jeff sessions, what they did to stop trump? >> they basically followed the responsibility as citizens. i mean, that's the least we can expect. i remember my elementary school teachers in rolling hills saying you've got to follow the law as americans, and so i'm glad they lived up to that basic obligation. >> well, i hear you, but, i mean, just to look at this historically. some might say that not enough people in the george w. bush white house stood in the way of the iraq war and its questionable premise or that not enough people in the obama white house stood in the way of illegal drone wars. isn't it a good thing that there were at least a dozen dissenting voices to stand in trump's way? >> yes, it is, and it's one of the paradoxes of this administration. you want good people to be there and yet serving in this administration puts you in a hugely compromised position. >> right. >> but i'm glad that there are voices there who are willing to stand up to the president. >> well, i want to go back to your answer to

didn't follow through but the mueller report lays out a number of examples like a meeting with cory lewandowski and an adviser on the campaign and an outsider and he was told to limit the scope of the mueller report. and he didn't do that and punted it over to rick dearborn who also did not follow through on this request. we also asked rob porter to run through the ranks of the justice department and try to figure out if rachel brand was someone who would be loyal to trump. that is something porter didn't feel comfortable with. he didn't follow through on that request. he asks james comey the fbi director to seeing the way to let the flynn thing go. he did not do that and pursued the flynn investigation and he became an important cooperator. he said to get rid of robert mueller and mcgahn refused to do and refused to go to the press and say this never happened, you never asked me to get rid of the special counsel because he knew that was a lie. >> sarah, thank you very much. >>> and nelson cunningham, a former us assistant attorney under president clinton and kim whale a former federal prosecut

this is the one where the president tried to draft his former campaign manager cory lewandowski to help him shut down the special counsel's investigation. that was june 2017. "the washington post" just reported mueller's investigation wouldn't only encompass stuff from the campaign and what russia did and whether anybody in the trump campaign helped and what russia did to the campaign but the post reported in june that the investigation would also include actions that trump took as president and specifically, the question of whether he had obstructed justice by trying to obstruct that investigation as president. now what the mueller report explains is that after that report came out in the "washington post," the president freaked. and he told his white house counsel don mcgahn he needed to call the justice department and get mueller fired and don mcgahn said, no. the president then took a meeting with corey lewandowski of all people. corey lewandowski, a private citizen at that point, sat him down in the oval office and take dictation. corey, write this down. told him to write down a me

the asking don mcgahn to fire mueller, to lie about that, and asking cory lewandowski to get zwroefgszrow the scope of investigation to only future elections. for those three i'm confident if anyone else were charged with that offense or had that evidence, they would be charged with obstruction of justice. >> our thanks to two of our favorites, shannon pettypiece, barbara mcquade, thank you so much for helping us with our conversation tonight. >>> coming up for us, new reporting on the president's curious behavior when it comes to protecting our nation from russia's involvement in our next election. one of the journalists reporting on this story will be with us right after this. n can seem ove. even if you try to eat well, you might fall short in key nutrients. get more by adding one a day. it's the #1 multivitamin uniquely designed for men and women. one serving, once a day. one a day. and done. at a comfort inn with a glow taround them, so people watching will be like, "wow, maybe i'll glow too if i book direct at choicehotels.com." who glows? just say, badda book. badda boom. book n

cory lewandowski and hope hicks and keith schiller.ut obviously to be a successful strategy in terms of winning the presidentdy. these were people who -- you know, lawrence, like the proximity to the principal is confers. power and also confers knowledge you. spend enough time in the proximity with a candidate you find out all the dirty laundry. sometimes the laundry is very dirty. sometimes it's not so dirty. those people including michael cohen who sat near trump on the bus with him, on the plane with him, everywhere they went, they saw a lot of stuff. some of it has been reported and much has not. and i think you're going to talk at the end of the show why donald trump might have a very bad day on the day when he leaves office if he leaves office in 2021. these people are the core to why that day might be so bad. they're at the core of it. >> and jason, this is obviously one of the problems the president has the minute he leaves office. it just may be that the only reason he hasn't been indicted is he's president of the united state

you bring don mcgahn up, cory lewandowski up, sessions up, felix seder to talk about the russian deal, there are a lot of people who are outside of government who have to answer a congressional subpoena. >> i would do it as an impeachment exercise because then the american people would pay attention. i'd do it in prime time. it's much more serious for some reason. you sit down with your family and you watch these people testify and you get an impact you don't get by reading it in the paper. your thoughts? >> well, there would certainly be an impact but i think people like nancy pelosi are thinking to what end. if you can't actually succeed in impeaching the president of the united states, is it worth going through that process in something that could be beneficial and advantageous in many ways to president trump? >> how so? how's the look if he's shown to be basically the bad guy all summer long? >> i think he would use the same play book he's been using in the aftermath of the results, also in attorney general barr's letter and after the full report is out. the democrats hate me, the

the asking mcgahn to fire mueller, to lie about that, and asking cory lewandowski to get jeff sessions to narrow the scope of investigation to only future elections. for those three i'm confident if anyone else were charged with that offense or had that evidence, they would be charged with obstruction of justice. >> our thanks to two of our favorites, shannon pettypiece, barbara mcquade, thank you so much for helping us with our conversation tonight. >>> coming up for us, new reporting on the president's curious behavior when it comes to protecting our nation from russia's involvement in our next election. one of the journalists reporting on this story will be with us right after this. if your moderate to severe ulcerative colitis or crohn's symptoms... are holding you back... and your current treatment hasn't worked well enough... it may be time for a change. ask your doctor about entyvio®, the only biologic developed and approved just for uc and crohn's. entyvio® works at the site of inflammation in the gi tract, and is clinically proven to help many patients achieve both symptom rel

he listed at one point cory lewandowski to meet with the attorney general that he needed to give a speech saying there shouldn't be a special counsel. i know the president didn't do anything wrong. in jeff sessions wouldn't do it, he should deliver message he's fired. >> i think it was on the fourth of july holiday. >> he wanted to have the meting, set it up. it had to be cancelled. lewandowski tried to find someone closer and deerborn said i'm not going to do that. he told lewandowski he had done it but didn't do it. either they wanted to protect the president or themselves from criminal liability not to carry out a very, very troubling order. >> joyce vance, what have you found? >> as we read through this information and as i listen to the conversations that you are having in new york, i'm reminded of one of the first conversations that ari melber and i ever had about this when the investigation was young and we talked about the fact there was some conduct that was not illegal but there was still inappropriate for a president. we talked about the notion there was conduct that was lawful

in a previously unknown example, detailed in the report, trump met with former campaign aide cory lewandowskind dictated a message intended for jeff sessions. in the message, sessions was told to publicly announce the investigation was very unfair to the president and he should not be subject to an investigation because he hasn't done anything wrong. the message was never delivered. still the redacted report concludes the trump campaign did not criminally conspire with the russians, but trump had other reasons to dread the investigation. according to the report, the evidence does indicate that a thorough fbi investigation would uncover facts about the campaign and the president personally that the president could have understood to be crimes or would give rise to personal and political concerns. cnn has reported at least 16 trump associates had russian contacts during the campaigner transition. according to mueller's report, the campaign expected it would benefit electoralally from information stolen and released through russian efforts. but the investigation did not establish that members of

change the focus of the investigation, even telling someone who is outside of the white house, cory lewandowskihe dictated, if you read the report, to jeff sessions saying change the focus of the investigation and get it off me. the evidence is overabundant that donald trump wanted bob mueller gone and that he told mcgahn to take care of it. >> lastly, this question whether president trump will be in legal jeopardy after his presidency is over, whether that's in 2021 or 2025, rudy giuliani suggested he's not worried at all, they got their shot and they missed. what do you think, is there exposure for president trump legal exposure, and mueller alluded to the fact that presidents are not immune from prosecution after the presidency is over. >> look, i mean, the mueller review it seems to me if you look at the document is they absolutely believe there is a potential of viable prosecution once donald trump leaves office. he said in great particularity that although you cannot prosecute a sitting president under the olc interpretation, we are nonetheless preserving evidence while memories are fresh

counsel and trying to get him to fire the special counsel and leaves out that he wanted to send cory lewandowski and never worked in the white house and was an outside private consultant to get rid -- to essentially deliver this message to the attorney general to change the investigation. so bill barr is choosing his words carefully and that has to do with he knows the president is watching that press conference because the president was tweeting about it and encouraging people to tune in and behind the scenes the president has been praising bill barr at length for the performance over last two months and comparing him to jeff session and how he's doing such a better job than sessions did and he's relating it back to the russia investigation. >> and a joint statement from leader schumer, senate democratic minority leader and speaker nancy pelosi from the house. the differences are stark between what attorney barr said on obstruction as we continue to review the report, one thing is clear barr presented that the president did not obstruct justice while mueller's report appears to undercut that fi

you had cory lewandowski who was trying to fire jeff sessions, reince priebus who was supposed to getf sessions and didn't and hope hicks as well. there are a lot of no people in the white house behind the scenes when the president has done this sort of stuff. but mcgahn, according to the report by the way, said here, the president tried to have don mcgahn deny that he tried to remove mueller. mcgahn refused to do that. how much weight would you say after all of that does don mcgahn's new statement carry in the report, cynthia? >> i think it carries a lot. he seems credible as you read through the part. my favorite part is he refused to do what the president wanted and the president got him angry that he was taking notes. i've never had a lawyer take notes. and real lawyers take notes. he said. >> that it is a good idea to keep a record. whole sequence between the two really rings true and gives you a feel you could almost be in the room with them the way it is written. i think mcgahn if reading the report a couple of times has a lot of credibility and that is why the president is so

cory. corey lewandowski >> served as >> ed: he's continued to be one of his most vocal supporters and tonightlisa is coming under scrutiny in the wake of the redacted mueller report. we'll go live to corey lewandowski as a response claims he was pressured good to see you kristin. >> good to see you, ed. this is one of the ten episodes that the mueller identified as possible obstruction by the president. corey lewandowski was in the office and according to the report, president trump asked him to dictate a message and deliver it to then attorney general jeff sessions. the message, meet with a special counsel and get him to limit his investigation to future election interference, not what happened to 2016. corey lewandowski agreed to do it. set up a meeting for the following night, the report says lewandowski wanted to pass the message to sessions in person rather than over the phone for didn't want to meet at the department of justice because he did not want a public log of his visit and did not want sessions to have an advantage over him by meeting on what lewandowski described as sessions up

he wanted cory lewandowski to tell jeff sessions to publicly say it was a very unfair investigation.couraged people in the white house not to disclose emails of the infamous trump tower meeting in new york. so, these are efforts to say, listen, i don't like this. i want to stymie it. i want to slow it down. and i think there's a huge legal question as to whether the fact that it wasn't actually completed somehow exonerates him from a crime. but the other point -- and i think this has come up, we have to be extremely careful about thinking about this entire project ads a black and white thing, either exonerated or guilty of a crime. there's a huge gray area and the gray area involves the integrity of our democratic process and the integrity of the system. on collusion as well, the special counsel first of all says, listen, this is not collusion. we are not applying that definition. and mr. barr unfortunately did apply that definition this morning, which i think is confusing for people. the special counsel also says the russians, quote, worked to secure the outcome of a trump presidenc

liz: this is in reference to don mcgahn, cory lewandowski, reince priebus, according to the mueller reportsobeys. stuart: he's not worried about impeachment. to me, this is uncomfortable on easter sunday for special counsel robert mueller. you've got to watch this. roll it. reporter: could i ask you a couple questions? will you testify before congress, sir? >> [ inaudible ]. reporter: if he were anybody but the president, would mr. trump be indicted, sir? sir, why didn't you make a recommendation to congress one way or the other? did the attorney general accurately characterize your positions on conspiracy and obstruction, sir? stuart: i'm sorry. i'm sorry. that's easter sunday, the man had just come out of church and you ambush him like that. liz: social media is lighting up saying msnbc was totally wrong to allow this reporter to do this. prior to the mueller report, just giving you the reaction on social media, they are saying msnbc, you treated mueller like a patriot and a hero. why don't you go get in muler's face before the report came out. you are getting in his face after the repor

people have looked at cory ley lewandows lewandowski. i don't know him, but i think by reputation people look at him as a political operative that doesn't always have the strongest moral compass. >> you are talking people who would retweet foreign propaganda, would go to meeting given those offers, would talk hopefully whether they can elicit hacked material. they would do thaushlgs but even they wouldn't go along with let's kneecap the pro. >> i think that's really telling evidence about what his view was of the president's intent. but notwithstanding that, you still at the end of the day have an awful lot of legal issues to get by. and an obstruction case, look, we did it in the martha stewart case. there aren't many obstruction cases throughout that you don't have an underlying crime that was being obstructed, the investigation obstructed. >> two things, and then i want to bring in congresswoman speer. mueller alludes to but done say the underlying crime might have been other things donald trump did that he was worried would be uncove

president trump asked his former campaignanager, cory lieu and owski to tell jeff sessions to announce the investigation was unfair to the president. lewandowski never delivered that message. thler's bottom line, if we had confidence that e president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. president trump pushing back on twit i had the right to end the whole witch hunt if i wand. everyone, in wuding mueller if ited. i chose not to. the report also outlined a sweeping and systemic effortss ru to promote mr. trump's candidacy laying numerous contacted with the campaign and russians before and after the elecon but mueller found insufficient evidence to prove the president or any other american conspired or coordinated with russia in 2016. a conclusion emphasized by william barr. l >> that is something that all americans can and should be grateful to have confirmed. >>hat was peter alexander reporting. despite president trump 's insistence that the special counsel report exonerate him, he's back on twitter calling it, quote, the crazy mueller report. and he uses profanity to refer to some of the statements in the report.

cory lewendowski described by senior white house investigators. joining me author of the "post" new book matt and msnbc contributor barbara mcquaid. matt, i will read a little bit of what you wrote. lewandowski had repeatedly proved his loyalty to trump. he had signed on with the campaign when new york mogul and followed the mantra and when he was fired from the campaign, he appeared on television that day to praise trump. i wonder in this context, matt, did trump look at him and think he's absolutely going to get this done for me? >> yeah, the isis is a guy who s lawyer as loyal can get in the trump world. at the time trump asks him to deliver this message to sessions who isn't even in government and that's so critical here, right. because mueller sees this as trump turning to someone who is just going to be loyal to him. who actually isn't sort of in the chain of command, but is outside of it and that in some ways makes it more nefarious. not taking an act that people can judge and maybe have a good motive, he is turning to an outsider for this kind of back channel plan to get a message to sessions to limit the scope of mueller's investigation. and it's important to note, cory lewandowskin