. >>> finally, abc's legal analyst dan abrams is digging into the little known path of another highly of the towering figures in american history. >> i can't listen to this anymore. >> abraham lincoln, the 16 president of the united states in the film lincoln. >> now, now, now. >> lincoln is best known for winning the civil war and abolishing slavery. >> slavery first, i intend to sign the 13th amendment. >> but a new book by dan abrams shines a light on a surprising chapter in lincoln's life. >> one of the lesser known things about abraham lincoln was that he was a really well known and well respected lawyer presi. >> lincoln's last trial, the case that put him into the presidency, was of a person accused of stabbing his neighbor to death in 1939. lincoln was his defense attorney. >> it became really high profile. you had these two neighbors. a claim of self-defense. but you also had a very high profile witness. peter cartwright, one of the best known preachers in the country. more well known than nc defee.t en an acquittal, courtr months before he became the republican nominee for p

stormy daniels' attorney, michael avenatti joins dan abrams on our legal panel. and our powerhouse roundtable, we'll talk about the politics, the facts that matter this week. >> from abc news, it is "this week." here now chiefnd welcome to "this week." what a week it was, and i know we have said that a lot over the last couple of years, but this may rank as one of the most head-spinning and consequential yet. the sight of an american president standing side by side with a russian dictator echoing vladimir putin's talking points may not have been a surprise to those who follow trump's twitter feed, but it was still shocking. several days of walkbacks haven't clarified things much. nearly all that trump and putin talked about in their two hours alone, still a mystery. here's the director of national intelligence, dan coats. >> the white house has announced on twitter that vladimir putin is coming to the white house in the fall. >> say that again? [ laughter ] >> vladimir putin -- >> did i hear you right? did i hear that? >> yeah, yeah. >> okay. that's going to be s

-year-old peach quinn harrison in 1859. >> so i'm pleased to introduce dan abrams to politics and prose tonight. he is the chief legal affairs anchor for abc news and ceo and founder of abrams media. he is the author of man found and is written for many publications including the "new york times", the "wall street journal" and "newsweek." in his new book, "lincoln's last trial" he sheds light on a little-known chapter in lincoln's life, the tie between his debates with stephen douglas and his eventual run for the presidency. during this time as the books title implies lincoln took on his last great case as a lawyer, case which presented great personal and political challenges for him. author of the presidents war right lincoln's wartime leadership overshadows his life as a lawyer but you can't understand one without the other. in this rich and previously unexplored corner of history, the authors take inside the courtroom to watch abraham lincoln at the height of his power as as a lawyer and on the edge of eternal fame as he tries a murder trial in front of a jury. abrams will be in conv

she's talking to dan abram. a very important journalists. sir, take it away. >> you mentioned that linking to cases not always on the side of the angels practicing attorney. when he ran, where some of his representations used against him in a political battle along the lines of ku represent slaveowners. >> that's a great question. the answer is not as far as i know. that would be certainly come even tim kaine in this election was criticized for that. i don't think there was anything where specifically it was a question of who he represented that came back to haunt him. bp didn't do him any favors later in life either. he became assertive ne'er-do-well and his brother ended up getting charged with murder as well. he was also acquitted in 1885 and when his brother was charged, everyone started talking about the fact that other brother was represented by abraham lincoln. >> is there much historical writing the dissent about his work as a lawyer? >> the most famous trial he did was called the almanac trial. this is the case where two guys were a

in conversation tonight with a journalist from cnn please join me to welcome david gregory and dan abrams to politics & prose. [applause] >> hello. thank you for coming. great to have you out here and great to have you in town and has had a chance for dan and i each other we are old friends covering a lot of news and it is terrific to be in conversation with him tonight. you can find out how smart and interesting and funny. so let's get to it. talk about what the book is about your journey to writing and book my co-author approached me and there is a transcript out there the only transcript that this is only trial abraham lincoln and was only discovered in 1989 in a box with a bow around it. nobody has really talk about it. i can't really be abraham lincoln but yet we looked into it and it is true. a small article than the new york times 1989 when the box was discovered there were a legalizing analyzing tori itself is fascinating the trial is fascinating. as i say in production it would be a high-profile case in this day and age with two neighbors and friends and young men involved in the

[applause] >> first up this weekend, dan abrams recalls

let's get more on this from our chief legal analyst, dan abrams.eries of tweets by the president. rigged witch-hunt. conflicts of interest for robert mueller. that's potentially the most explosive charge. break it down. >> first of all, this idea of a conflict of interest. it seems that what he is saying is that mueller was a member of a trump golf club. he withdrew his membership. >> he calls it a long business relationship. >> i don't think there is any indication there was any long business relationship unless you consider being a member of the golf club a long business relationship. mueller then withdrew his membership, wrote a note after he withdrew asking for back dues. i don't know what, beyond that, he could be talking about. you have the claim that the entire investigation was started by the phony dossier. that's not why the investigation was started. the investigation was started after the firing of james comey. you have a number of factual problems. but the bigger picture problem for the president is that robert mueller can be unassailab

more from our legal team, dan abrams and kate shaw. dan, let me begin with you. we saw the president call brett kavanaugh the most qualified man in the country. whether you agree with that or not, he is straight out of central casting for a gop court pick. >> and we also have an extensive paper trail, right? he's been a judge on what is viewed as the second most important federal court in the country in the d.c. circuit for 12 years, over 300 opinions. and so you're going to have people going through each one of his opinions and most importantly his dissents, where he disagreed with the majority on the key issues, like abortion, religious liberty, guns, executive power. so we're going to know an enormous amount already about what judge kavanaugh thinks and would do when he's -- if and when he's confirmed to the court. >> kate, what kavanaugh supporters already believe they know is that he will lock in that conservative majority on the court for a generation. >> absolutely. i mean i think on issues like roe vs. wade which of course is front and center already in t

. >> we want to bring in dan abrams for more on this right now.t to get to the bottom of what the president is talking about here. this was an application to the court to survey carter page. he had been working for the trump campaign and released 400 pages of documents highly classified documents in the past. the president called this illegal saying the fbi misled the court saying this was all based on the dossier. everything he is saying there just isn't true. >> yeah, if you read actually the documents themselves, it becomes clear exactly why they wanted this. remember, this is an application saying this is why we need more information. here's what we know about the intelligence. here's what we know about the contacts. here's what we know about the meetings. we now need more. and if you actually talk about it in the context of warrants in general, this is what happens. you know, the big complaint has has been, well, there was interested parties. the steele dossier. >> revealed in the documents. >> that's the key point. it was revealed in there t

let's get more from our chief legal analyst dan abrams.hink a lot of people don't know that former officials often maintain their security clearances but the big question on the table is if the president wanted to follow through, how would he do it? >> okay, so first let's say there are 4 million americans who have security clearance. a lot of them are contractors, don't work for the government, they regularly monetize their access to having security clearance. and, remember, having security clearance doesn't mean you get access to secure information. what it means is you're part of the eligible pool of people who could get access. then there's another step. when there's something specific you want to have access to, you then have to get authorization. so i think it's important to understand that context. the president has wide latitude when it comes to security clearance. typically the only thing the courts can get involved in is the process. how did he go about revoking it? what were the procedures put in place, et cetera? but with all t

now to help explain what it all means and where things are headed, abc news chief legal analyst dan abrams and former new jersey governor and federal prosecutor chris christie, an abc news contributor. dan, i want to start with you. trump has officially severed the relationship with cohen. he was paying for cohen's legal defense, sharing information but no longer. his lawyer, rudy giuliani, telling abc, we wouldn't consider it in our best interest to share confidential information with them and they would feel the same way. what does this all mean to you, dan? >> well look, the fact that they are now no longer sharing information is not a surprise. this has been in the works for many weeks. it is clear now that michael cohen is on his own here. it's also clear that he potentially has information to provide to robert mueller. but let's be clear, he's being investigated by the southern district of new york which is a separate entity investigating michael cohen. he doesn't have a deal right now with robert mueller. we don't know if he's going to have a deal with robert mueller. as a result, w

. >> want to bring in dan abrams and chris christie. let's start, dan, for the sake of argument, assume what michael cohen is claiming is true and that mueller has evidence to back it up, that president trump had advanced knowledge of that meeting. what would it mean? >> it could mean potential legal problems. we talk about collusion. collusion in and of itself isn't a crime. you have to be able to show a conspiracy. you know, could they make a case based on that? yeah, they could. when you're talking about this, this is the heart of the entire investigation which is potential connections with the russians. it's not just mike cone. it's donald jr.'s evolving statements about why the meeting was set up and afterwards what happened. it's donald trump himself's own statements and tweets about hillary clinton and potentially damaging information. it's everything around this. you put that in conjunction with what michael cohen said and you have a potential problem. again, let's not forget that most people believed that robert a siinpr this wi

i want to bring in our chief legal analyst, dan abrams, and dan, this trial set to start next week.his is quite a twist. >> it is such an interesting development. who are these five witnesses? we don't know. but more importantly, these are basically five people who are saying we will in effect invoke our right against self-incrimination meaning there's something they're worried about in connection with their testimony. robert mueller's coming back and saying, fair enough, but we need your testimony. so we'd like to grant what's called use immunity meaning we won't use anything you say against you for these specific purposes. now, the judge is going to have to sign off on that but what really mueller is doing is trying to force these five people to testify. >> you could argue that he's also trying to put more pressure on paul manafort to come to a plea agreement. >> it's possible, but, you know, these five witnesses are preparing for trial. not for a plea agreement. these are five witnesses who he doesn't want to name publicly because he's concerned about the impact. the only way tha

dan abrams has been sitting here taking notes during this whole conversation.o what's your take on this? >> this is striking. you don't do this interview and say these things unless you're looking for a possible deal with the southern district of new york. remember, this is not the same office as robert mueller. robert mueller sent this case to the southern district of new york, so in theory this is an office that reports to donald trump. and what i found so striking about your interview is the questions he would answer versus the questions he wouldn't answer. and the questions he would answer are the ones where it seems i think he feels safe, right? he is saying -- >> he didn't collude. he didn't do anything wrong. >> exactly. he's perfectly happy to talk about that and talk about how kind he thought the fbi agents were, which is sort of an amazing statement. he's saying -- they're raiding his office and he's saying how polite they were. but he won't answer all the questions which are the sorts of things that prosecutors are gohe holdingonho, probably on a exp

our chief legal analyst dan abrams is here along with employment attorney nancy erika smith who representedson in her sexual harassment lawsuit against roger ailes. good morning to both of you. nancy, it looks like for now at least moonves is staying on at cbs. what's your reaction to that decision? >> i think that's a very bad decision. that puts a lot of pressure on the current employees. he's the ceo. if there is an investigation -- i don't think it's independent. i think the board say they were hiring outside counsel which means their lawyer. "the new yorker" reported their chief compliance officer said it was still betsy plevin who was allegedly investigating mr. rose since may 3rd. she's a defense lawyer. she spent her career investigating harassers. i don't think that is the best independent investigator and i think it puts a lot of pressure on current employees if they're being interviewed about their existing boss. >> you mentioned charlie rose. it's interesting, dan, cbs as we know was very quick to act against the allegations against mr. rose. doesn't seem to be quite the case at

joining us now is our chief legal analyst dan abrams and genetic genealogist cece moore.ooking forward to this discussion. let me begin with you. you were able to narrow it down to two brothers, one is now behind bars, explain how you go about doing this. >> so we're looking for people who share significant stretches of dna with the suspect. we find them in the database ged match and then we reverse the family -- we reverse engineer the family tree of the suspect based on the family trees of the people that are sharing dna with him. >> how many cases have you been working on and are continuing to work on? >> i've worked on about a dozen so far. but i have many more cases waiting for my attention. so i expect that we will see lots more arrests thanks to genetic genealogy. >> i know families are hoping for that. dan, in this case too the suspect confessed. >> yeah, and you find that a lot of these cases where you're able to use dna evidence and they can present that to a suspect and say, look, we now have your dna. there's now new testing out there that can confirm you're o