that was my last day with doj. >> okay. you said that you've never exposed classified information in an inappropriate manner. i asked director comey these questions last week. so for both of you, yes or no, as far as you know, has any classifiednformati relating to mr. trump or his associates been classified and shared with the media? >> not to my knowledge. >> miss yates? >> not to my knowledge either. >> next question. have either of you ever been an anonymous source in a news report about matters relating to mr. trump, his associates or russia's attempt on meddle in the election? >> absolutely not. >> okay. third question. did either of you ever authorize someone else at your respective organizations to be an anonymous source in a news report about mr. trump or his associates? >> no. >> no. >> as far as either of you know, have any government agencies referred any of the leaks over the past few months to the justice department for potential criminal investigation? >> i don't know. as you know, there is a process for doin

>> i'm not at doj anymore. i don't know what has been referred. >> so then i get kind of sum up, neither one of you know whether the department authorized a criminal investigation of the leaks? >> i do not, sir. >> no, sir. >> have any of you been questioned by the fbi about any leaks? >> i have not been. >> no. >> i want to discuss unmasking. mr. clapper, mrs. yates, did either of you ever request the unmasking of mr. trump, his associates or any member of congress? >> yes, in one case i did. i can specifically recall but i can't discuss it any further than that. >> so if i ask you for details, you said you can't discuss that? >> not here. >> mrs. yates, can you answer that question? did you ever request unmasking of mr. trump, his associates or any members of congress? >> no. >> question 2. did either of you ever review classified documents in which mr. trump, his associates or members of congress had been unmasked? >> oh, yes. >> you have? can you give us details here? >> no, i can't. >> mrs. yates, have you

but matt, you have and your time at doj ever seen a letter like that? why wasn't it honest about that? any lawyer knows if you have a client qushgs you start the letter with pursuant to the counsel you requested and then give it. that letter oddly, perhaps suspiciously, seemed to be written in a way that it could be interpreted as a recommendation, an original recommendation when it was not. >> yeah. that's exactly right. there are a number things about that letter that were odd. i think the thing most inappropriate, there is no way that rod rosenstein didn't know what the president was doing and why the president wanted to fire jim comey. he had been over the day before he sent that letter. he had been over at the white house. w. jeff sessions meeting with the president. how comey and ld that case is under investigation about it inspector general. rod rosenstein is supposed to be an institutionalist who this h. been there as a career prosecutor who would stand up for the department's independents and the integrity of the investigations. he just didn't.

doj and other members of the intel committee. we discussed it at great length. 30th was not at doj anymore so i did not have any further discussions. >> did you consult with other career prosecutors? >> absolutely. we had really the experts within the national security division as we were navigating this situation, they were working with the fbi on the investigation and we were trying to make a derjs about how best to make this notification so we could get the information to the white house that they needed to be able to act. >> so what's the point that you were trying to make, yes or no, will be fine, that general flynn had seriously compromised the security of the united states and possibly the government by what he had done, whatever that was? >> our point was is that logic would tell you that you don't want the national security advisor to be in a position where the russians have leverage over him. now, in terms of what impact that may have or could have had, i can't speak to that, but we knew that was not a good situation wh

found anything yet, or if the doj actually asked the fbi to open an investigation, that -- the fbi should be able to tell us. there's a lot of issues right now that i think need to be investigated and i think you are

doj and with other members of the intel community. and we discussed it at great length. but i wasn't at doj anymore, so i didn't have anymore further discussions after the point about what was being done with respect to that. >> did you consul wisubtle with other career prosecutors? >> absolutely. we had the experts within the national security division as we were navigating this situation they were work iing with the fb on the investigation and we were trying to make a determination about how best to make this notification so we could get the information to the white house that they needed to be able to act. >> what's the point you were trying to make, yes or no will be fine, that general flynn had seriously compromised the security of the united states and possibly the government by what he had done, whatever that was. >> our point was that logic would tell you that you don't want the national security adviser to be in a position where the russians have leverage over him. now in terms of what impact that may have had, i can't speak to that. but we knew that that was no

an example of this was illustrated in a letter i received after i left doj. i got a letter from a couple in oregon who had gone to the airport with their young son to protest the travel ban. they sent me a photograph of him, this little boy holding up a sign that said "immigrants and refugees welcome." and they said they did that because they wanted both their world and their son to know, that as a country, that is who we are. that is what we stand for. [applause] a friend of mine shared with me an old irish story of a man who arrives at the gates of heaven and asks to be let in. st. peter says, of course, just show me your scars. the man says, scars? i have no scars. st. peter responds, pity. was there nothing worth fighting for? there is plenty worth fighting for. for me, it is criminal justice reform, so we can have a fair and proportional criminal justice system that applies equally to all, regardless of race or wealth or status. [applause] it is also respect for the brave men and women and law enforcement who risk their lives every day to protect us. [ap

undermines, undercuts white house spokesman sean si spicer's assertion that doj only gave a mere heads up and compounds the question or raises the question why it took 18 days for the white house to take action against flynn, only after a "washington post" report revealing that doj warning to white house officials, don. >> all right. thank you, pamela brown. i appreciate that. i want to bring in now john dean, john dean is the former white house counsel for president richard nixon and he's also the author of "conservatives without conscience." good evening to you, mr. dean. thank you so much for joining us. what did you think of the hearing today? >> well, you know, there was more detail we received. we knew about the meeting. we knew at the warning had come in earlier and this is just further evidence this white house is not inclined to really deal with this issue. what they keep doing is just stalling, stonewalling, if you will. the tweets are not responsive. that's why everyone thinks there's something there, is the way he's responding to it and dealing with it. >> how could he clea

mcgann did not ask you in the second meeting why doj, general yates, would have concerns that the doj -- that the national security adviser had lied to the vice president. in the first meet being did you mention that? this he might be compromised? >> we went through all of our concerns in the first meeting. in the second meeting, he said why is this an issue for the doj if one white house official lies to another. >> okay. i don't understand why he didn't understand that. >> i'm not sure i can help you with that, senator. >> this is -- general flynn after that for 18 days stayed there. one classified thing after another. there are policies that deal with who gets clearance, security clearance and not. executive order 12968 outlines the rules for security clearances. it says that when there's a credible allegation that raises concern about someone's fitness to access classified information, that person's clearance should be suspected pending investigation. is that right? the executive order also states that a clearance holderst must always demonstrate "trustworthiness, honesty, reliabi

i need to follow the same lines doj has drown. you should not draw that my answer is yes but rather that the answer would require me to reveal classified information. >> thank you. >> my response is always within the context of intelligence, foreign intelligence, not domestic. >> exactly. >> following the comey line, the director testified a few days ago in the full committee that the fbi had interviewed mr. flynn a day before or two days before your meeting at the white house and you just testified that you had told the white house counsel that the fbi had interviewed flynn and he asked -- mcgann asked how'd he do. >> yes. >> did you have the 302 with you when you were in the white house? had you seen it at the time you went up to the white house? >> no the fick conducted a readout on the 24th, a detailed readout specifically from the agents that conducted the interview. we felt it was important to get that information as soon as possible. we had folks who spent a lot of time with the agents finding out how this impacted their in

the e doj, the same thing.one of these peoplele who wereo upset ababout loreretta lynchch, hillary clinton ---- which is an egregious s act -- none of themm werere upset a abouthen the doj was conspiring to go after journalists and activists in n a way that not t only goes against our charter, but against the entire beieing. theris a a great danance of disingenuous that goes o on. part of it is wrapped up in the establishmhment figurures, whetr be in journanalism or law enforcement or polititics. part of it just has to do with the deterioration o of how we thinink in socieiety, what kindf people make it to the top, what kind of people lead d our natiol conversation. it is the huge all-encompassing problem. it is all the e more dangerous because of such a powerful nation with anan extensiveve machinery y the goeses all acros the world. amy: barrett brown, are you able to step foot outside? yoyou are under house arrest. >> i can go to my frontt yard. i am supposed toto be herere uns i'm goining to work or some ot

she overwrote the doj officials -- the white house did not get access to the underlying evidence until thursday, favor a february 2. that's when the full review began. once they had access to the information. >> was the president informed at that time? press sec. spicer: he was informed at the front end. the council would seek the information she said was available to them. >> [indiscernible] you described that sally toes gave you a heads up -- do more than offer to provide materials. she encouraged the white house to act and expressed real concern about michael flynn being compromised by the russians. on saturday, michael flynn sat in on that phone call with president putin. is that the right call? press sec. spicer: again, what you have is somebody who was an obama appointee coming in and saying -- i get it -- at that moment my sure. you have to wonder why they are telling you something to the point where they had to come back a second time because what they were saying was unclear. you said it was widely rumored that she wanted to be part of the clinton white house. --t makes you ne

. >> you said you want the russian investigation to continue at doj. would the white house oppose the appointment of a special prosecutor to continue the investigation? >> we don't think it's necessary. you've got a house committee, is a senate committee, and the department of justice all working on this. i don't think there's a necessary need at this point to add that. you've got the deputy attorney general who i had say is about as independent as it comes due to fact he has such bipartisan support. >> rank and file within the bureau lost faith with the fbi director, there was a special inside who wrote us who had the vast majority is in favor of director comey. this is total shock. this was not supposed to happen. the real ludsers here are the 20 people in the front line of the investigation because they lost the only person working here in the last 15 years who actually cared about them. so what's your answer to this? >> we've heard from countless members of the fbi that say very different things. in fact, the president will be meeting with acting d

memo that i can tell you, i cover the doj.out memos that say we just decided this. no due process. and don't even mention that there is an ongoing internal review of the very issue they claim comey is being issued about. don't even minutes even though there is this because of the extraordinary circumstances. acts like that doesn't exist. that's the opposite of due process. respond the you would to senator dean heller here, a republican. this is what i mean about the inflection point saying now, all of the sudden, quote, i'm uncomfortable with the timing. i think an independent prosecutor should be on the table if the senate and the house can't get the answers. >> listen, i think they are slowly but surely waking up. 2018 will be a disaster. >> a bloodbath. >> if republicans do not get themselves together. they also are now seeing that trump is only loyal to trump. he will throw anyone under the bus. we saw how he loved comey in october, november, december, and january and february. >> for the exact same things that he hates hi

you were at doj that general flynn might be vulnerable to blackmail? >> yes, i did, an expressed those to the white house. >> and you say why he feel may have been vulnerable to blackmail and if somebody else fell in that category of vulnerable to blackmail? >> certainly any time russians have compromising information on you you're certainly vulnerable to blackmail. >> let me ask general clapper. you're looked at a lot of these. the case of senior government officials, if they have hidden financial information things that are normally disclosed when they take a senior official position, is that an area where they could be black mailed, if it's discovered. >> why i, of course. and is it your experience that the russians search for that kind of thing? >> absolutely. ing. >> thank you. >> january the intelligence xhipt and the fbi and cia concluded with high confidence that the russians interfered with the elections to help elect donald trump. last week the president contradicted that saying it could have been china and could have been a lot of different

>> i'm not at doj anymore so i i don't know what's been referred. spirit so then i guess kind of sum up, neither one of you know whether the department authorized a criminal investigation of the leaks? >> i do not, sir. >> no, sir. >> okay. have any of you been questionedn mark the fbi about any leaks? >> i have not been. >> no. >> want to discuss on masking. mr. clapper and mr. gates committed either of you ever request the unmasking of mr. trump come his associates or need member of congress? >> yes. in one case i did. i can specifically call but i can't discuss it any further than that. >> you can't, so if i asked you for details you said you can't discuss that. is that what you said?. >> not here. >> okay. ms. yates, can you answer that question? did you ever request unmasking of mr. trump, his associates or any member of congress? >> no. >> did either of you ever review classified documents in which mr. trump come his associates or members of congress had been unmasked? >> well, yes. >> you have to can you give us details here? >> no, i can't.

real choice was to abide by doj policy or violate that policy. what did you make, matt, of comey's defense today in general? >> i don't find it very convincing. i do think she'she's a man of integrity, but he said he was worried about the fbi's reputation and whether people was thinking the fbi was acting appropriately. that's not the right standard. when he says i had to tell congress about this because the public -- the congress had a right to know before the election, because i had informed them up to date. it ignores the fact that he's not supposed to be informing congress. the very act -- when he says i didn't -- i couldn't think about the impact on the election. you're supposed to think about the impact of the election. if there's anything that you will do -- >> is it not -- [ overlapping speakers ] >> -- to proceed with that investigation 11 days before the election, or to notify congress. it was a huge mistake. i don't think he said today was very convincing. >> matt couldn't hear my question there. matt, thank you. thanks to all of my pa

>> and the appointment of this special prosecutor, looks like a cya move, the doj knows there's nothing there. there's been no evidence at all of any collusion. appointing him may tamp down some of the allegations of impropriety, the relationship between trump interfering with the investigation and all that. it gives them some distance and think it might hurt politically but we don't know who ordered it. >> sean: why does it hurt politically to say were going to get to the bottom of it? >> that admittedly doesn't, that helps politically, it fuels the democratic fire. there's nothing here and yet we add another layer that lends credence to it. i'm not saying we shouldn't have done it, -- >> sean: he needs to govern and this breathless hysteria that is existing in the deep state leaks, it's hurting his ability to do his job. >> i totally agree, i have a slightly different take than david does. i think this shifts focus from the senate and the house which are now hotbeds of covering your

be touched by the doj or the executive branch without hindrance from any outside source. host: pam, what do you think? we ought to stop these investigations altogether, let .he fbi do the job triedw russia has always to hack into our political world . this needs to stop. democrats are corrupt. they have lied repeatedly and it is lie covering live. need to stop it with the fbi and have them do the job. host: frank, lakewood, new jersey, republican. i want to talk about collusion, influence in the vote. the collusion that went on was when rice was giving clinton the answers to the debates and nobody mentioned that. all of the local news are all in on it. they covered it up. that is collusion. why isn't that being investigated? fact that hillary got the answers to the questions, that is ridiculous, to concentrate on something insignificant. what scares me about from, a lot more the security people, the question is mental stability. wife, melania, is never going to move to the white house. what scares me is he has the nuclear codes. i am wondering if someone can take the nucl

what do you make of how the doj handled it? >> it is unfortunate. there's no way to remove the human component of this. anybody who watches the video of the family in front of a microphone explaining how they feel about this -- >> you ache for them. >> you do. but you also have to understand that the police officers involved in this -- and i don't know them personally, but they are also entitled to due process. police unions are collectively bargaining units. those officers have a right until formal charges are brought, which is interesting in this case, normally it's the state taking a look at something. a grand jury being convened and deciding not to move forward. >> and the defense to step in? >> absolutely. the feds -- and as your other contributor just pointed out, the feds have a much higher bar to reach that standard. you have to prove what that person, that cop is thinking during that struggle. >> brooke, that raises an interesting point overall when you start talking about this administration eight department of justice and how they are goi

the doj lost confidence in director comey. bipartisan members of congress made it clear that they had lost confidence in director comey. most importantly, the rank and file of the fbi had lost confidence in their director. accordingly, the president accepted the recommendation of his deputy attorney general to remove james comey from his position. before the news broke the president spoke to several members of congress to inform them of his decision. those members were mitch mcconnell, paul ryan, chuck grassley, chuck schumer, senator feinstein, senator graham, kevin mccarthy, nancy pelosi, and bob goodlatte. later in the evening he spoke to bob corker, chairman of the senate committee on foreign relations. in addition to all the big news happening at the white house today, it is also my daughter, scarlet, her fifth birthday. since you guys are here and i'm not, my first birthday wish to her is that you guys are credibly nice. -- incredibly nice. now i will take your questions. alex? >> i have a couple of broader questions for

republicans and democrats backing the man who will lead the doj probe. former fbi director bob mueller. we'll descri his role and why he is admired on the hill. >> i think it was a good choice when i first heard it. i think we can move forward. >>> breaking news. former fox news chief roger ailes has died. we'll look at the legacy of a man who changed news in america for years to come. >>> good morning, everyone. i'm chris jansing at our msnbc headquarters in new york. right now, president trump this morning seeming to contradict himself, calling the newly announced investigation into his campaign's possible ties to russia not just the single greatest witch hunt of any politician in american history, but adding, with all of the illegal acts that took place in the clinton campaign and obama administration, there was never a special council appointed. tweeted that before 8:00 eastern time this morning after releasing a measured statement last night. saying he, quote, looks forward to this matter concluding quickly. his scathing new criticism unleashed even

how many other plays -- we have this amazing doj report about the ferguson practices and only have it because michael brown was shot and killed and there were protests and the doj came in undertook a comprehensive investigation of the department and looked at e-mails but just shined a flashlight at one place almost at random. if they took the flashlight and went to some other place in milwaukee county, they would fine the same thing. >> host: one thing in the book you say, ferguson was kind of hidden in plain sight. can you give a specific example of something that kind of moved you while you were reporting there, that angered you and you needed to write this book and make this not hidden anymore. >> guest: i had this experience where i went down there and just be talking to people all day, and what i found was i could just literally do there is on air. on air in a live tv program, just take my microphone and be two african-american resident of ferguson and say, tell me about your experience with cops, and story after story after story and you can tell when people are telling the trut

there were three or four issues he raised first, why does doj care if one white official lies to anotherouse official and we discussed it was a lot more than just a white house official lying to another >> this is the vice president of the united states lying to the american people. >> exactly and this created a compromise situation and we walked through those things. >> so they were interesting in the under lying behavior and potential for compromise. it was a national security threat. >> absolutely. >> you have no doubt about that. >> i don't think anybody in the intel community has a doubt about that. >> the seriousness of her warning is not the only discrepancy. she said she gave access to white house on january 30th. >> they didn't get access until february 2nd. >> it was ready january 30th. >> you wanted the white house to act. >> we expected the white house to act. >> did you expect them to react quickly. >> yes. >> there was urgency to the situation. >> yes i called monday morning to let mr. mccann know it was ready. that was another issue he raised in the second meeting was whet

i need to follow the same line the doj has drawn. you should not draw from that the my answer is yes but that the answer would require me to reveal classified information. >> my response, not the domestic -- >> following the comey line, the director testified a few days ago in full committee, the fbi interviewed mister flynn a day before or two days before your meeting at the white house and you testified you had told the white house counsel the fbi reviewed flynn and mc gun asked how did he do. did you have the 302 with you in the white house? did you show it to white house counsel or seen it at the time you went to the white house? >> the fbi conducted the interview on the 24th, a readout from the fbi, a detailed readout, funding agents that conducted the energy, we didn't want to wait for the 302, we wanted to get it to the white house as much as possible so we had folks who spend a lot of time with agents. how this impacted their investigation. >> did you take that summary with you? did you have a document to describe the fbi int

of who he could get -- doj is still interviewing candidates. if we have an update on the proce process. >> i literally don't have an update. part of it is doj will notify us when they believe they have candidates the president wants to meet with or the president will ask them who they have but we are not at that point in the process. >> can you explain -- you're saying that the leaks -- that there is a problem obviously that there's leaks. other people say that the president said something inappropriate. regardless of what happened. how can you assure allies that have expressed concern about leaks in the united states that their information is safe with the united states? how can you assure them? are people calling them? i don't mean the particular ally. i just mean in general. >> i think we take -- i mean, look. there's no one who is more outraged about this than the president and he has been very clear in his statements over the last couple months that this kind of behavior cannot be tolerated and that this action undermines or national secur

the doj lost confidence in director comey. bipartisan members of congress made it clear that they had lost confidence in director comey. most importantly, the rank and file of the fbi had lost confidence in their director. accordingly, the president accepted the recommendation of his deputy attorney general to remove james comey from his position. before the news broke the president spoke to several members of congress to inform them of his decision. those members are senate majority leader mitch mcconnell, speaker of the house paul ryan, senator chuck grassley, senate minority leader chuck schumer, senator feinstein, senator lindsey graham, house majority leader kevin mccarthy. house minority leader nancy pelosi, and congressman bob goodloe. later in the evening he also spoke to senator bob corker, chairman of the senate committee on foreign relations. in addition to the big news happening at the white house today it is also my daughter scarlett's fifth birthday and since i'm here and you aren't i get to wish scarlett a happy

that was a doj decision. >> he took the recommendation seriously and he made a decision based on that. >> president trump made the right decision at the right time. to accept the recommendation of the deputy attorney general. >> but in an interview with lester holt on thursday, the president said not only had he already decided to fire comey before getting deputy attorney general rod rosenstein's recommendation, he had the russia investigation on his mind when he did. >> when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made-up story, an excuse by the democrats for having lost an election they should have won. >> reporter: mr. trump also said he pressed comey in a private dinner on january 27th to tell him if he was under investigation. the dinner was held three days after the fbi interviewed now former national security advisor mike flynn and one day after acting attorney general sally yates briefed the white house, warning them flynn could be blackmailed by russian contacts. >> i think he asked for the dinner and wanted to

independence.her that special prosecutor will basically take over what was happening at the fbi and very doj and i would be discouraged if somehow this new to try to s going special prosecutor would from de jim comey testifying in public before our committee because clearly it's comey's lieve mr. intent to testify, choose a venue and testify in open. really has changed. the scope of the investigation -- in terms of the task but i can see -- i could not be rstand why there would any reason why a few days ago director comey's intent was to if he still has that intent that we could not have hat testimony and my hope is sooner than later because congress breaks in another week and i would get that opportunity o present itself and i would as soon as it done possible. hope.at is my i think we're going through the we get ourse of how do through them. i can't think of anything i toldn't clear on my schedule muller. with mr. schumer.or that should give me and the american people confidence of great is a man integrity and experience. second, after this meeting it's clear as ever that the intelligence

the doj says that an independent inquiry is in the public's interest.throw the fed rate hike off, chances now at about 60%. that is down from about 80% a week ago. chances of a move in september are also falling. the fed funds futures market is not pricing in a full hike until november. apple shares fell the most in six months as the controversy surrounding the trump administration prompted concerns about tax reforms being passed. apple has $240 billion in cash abroad. trump has proposed a tax cut to repatriate offshore holdings. stocks fell the most since november. s&p 500 fell 1.5%. ivanka trump's clothing brand is facing chrysostom from labor rights activists for relying on chinese factories that they say they thought one dollar an hour. china labor watch says it investigated two producers, saying employees are forced to work more than 12 hours a day, 60's week, for $360 per month. the group has investigated apple suppliers in china. the u.s. imposed new measures against iran for developing rockets, while suspending sanctions went to its nuclear prog

there are good men and women who work for the doj.ride in what they do and want to restore the credibility of the office and they are above politics. they don't appreciate that their office has become a political mechanism. >> eric: mark noller says "white house as they search for a new director will begin immediately." president trump calls it "a new beginning for our crown jewel of law enforcement." chief investigative body in america. very important. that was a big thing. you remember during this hillary clinton email scandal, agents in the field just lost faith in their leaders. >> it's exactly right and think of the reversal that took place here. when jim comey was appointed, everybody was saying this was the guy that sort of straight arrow, and the investigation with hillary clinton was going on. you had the democrats that were saying this is terrible and then they said he's not going to charge. they all thought he was great. among conservatives, it was a similar reversal the other way, so i think comey had a difficult time but

you then have mcgahn going to the doj on february 2nd to see those documents. but it's not until february 13th that flynn actually resigns. tell us what happened between -- you got this warning, you then saw documents that backed up that warning, then you have 11 days that passed. what was happening in those 11 days? >> i think if you go back in time and look at what we talked about at the time, there were several conversations that occurred with general flynn between the chief of staff, the general counsel, the vice president, it all occurred then. look, when you think about the scope of time that actually occurred, those 11 days, to make sure that we did the right thing is important. and we ultimately did. that's what's important when you think of this. when you look at this compared to other instances, the idea that in 11 days, a review was conducted, the president acted decisively. i think that actually shows the system worked properly. john? >> reporter: [ inaudible ] at all how yates describes those conversations on the 26th and 27th? she's saying she cam

no one was bringing the ferguson department to heel before the do doj came in.big cities there may be other mechanis mechanisms, that it is just vital to have a department of justice that can act as some kind of accountability above just a police department. >> otherwise who do you appeal to? the thing that was very interesting to me, and that's why i want everybody to really look at this book in light of this new administration and these new circumstances. the thing that was striking to me is how people just went along with it. because this man has even been reele reelected, the mayor. you can't just march. there has to be real organizing. that mayor has been reelected. >> and part of it is just about the power of the politics of the side of the the town on the mayor's side. right? because when we were there, and when i was reporting you had the protests but also the backlash. and what this book is about in many ways, and it was formed of a period of growing up in this city. you were a public figure and i was a teenager and it was about the power of the politic

chad is counsel to the deputy attorney general and will be bringing us the doj perspective. then to chad's left, tracy short. tracy is the principal legal adviser for i.c.e., immigration and customs enforcement, within the department of homeland security. so he'll be our second government speaker this morning. and at the -- no pun intended -- far left, michael niefack, principal in the d.c. region of jackson lewis pc. michael himself is former general counsel of i.c.e. so i'm really looking forward to his opportunity to reflect coming from both the private practice side but also with the government i.c.e. enforcement experience to sort of round out our discussion. so -- we probably messed up the seating order, if not the introduction order. so our plan is to have brief presentations from each of the speakers, with michelle starting us off with the history, background, and basically framing of the issue. then each of the panelists will speak. then we'll have sometime for a roundtable discussion that i'll facilitate so that people can, you know, speak among themselves, respond

it also would be a violation of doj rules for comey to answer it. under existing doj policy that governs contact between the department and white house the fbi director is in no way allowed to talk to the white house about ongoing criminal investigations. so if he did answer it it was a violation of doj rules. but let's get to the underlying substance. this whole question of whether the president is personally under investigation is a bit of a canard. the president's campaign is under investigation. he was the head of the campaign. when the fbi, when the department of justice are looking at any organization, whether it's a known criminal organization or whether it's a corporation, they're looking for criminal wrongdoing. if they find criminal wrongdoing they go as far up the chain of command as possible to see who knew about it and might have been involved in it. his campaign is under investigation. it may not involve him at this point but that doesn't mean they're not looking at him and his associates and they certainly wouldn't have ruled him out

>> doj has the lead in the se

quote, one thing i learned at doj about james comey. he leaves a protective paper trail whenever he deems something inappropriate happened. stay tuned. stay tuned? five days after that tweet, here we are with this "new york times" reporting that the president told james comey to stop the flynn investigation and james comey took notes on that matter and has now had them described to "the new york times." >>> joining us now is the man who told us to stay tuned, matthew miller, former doj spokesman under attorney general eric holder. thank you. >> thank you. >> i'm a little suspicious of you. >> i wish i could say i had fore knowledge that he was going to do this. i didn't have any inside information, but i -- the story that you just referenced, the 2009 story, i was at the justice department when that story ran. i remember it well because i thought it was a very instructive lesson about jim comey. that memo that he wrote to his chief of staff, two things interesting to me about that. >> remember where you are. we're going to pick that up

though, while you were at doj that general flynn might be vulnerable to blackmail? >> yes, i did, and expressed those to the white house. >> and you say why you feel he may have been vulnerable to blackmail and if somebody else fell into that same category, might they be vulnerable to blackmail? >> certainly any time the russians have compromising information on you, then you are certainly vulnerable to blackmail. >> let me ask general clapper this, you've looked at a lot of these. the other case of senior government officials. if they had hidden financial information, things that are normally disclosed when you take a senior official position, is that an area where they could be blackma blackmailed? if it's discovered. >> yes, it is, of course. >> and is it your experience that the russians search for that kind of thing? >> absolutely. they do. >> january, the intelligence community, the fbi, cia, nsa, concluded high confidence that russia interfered in the 2016 election to denigrate secretary clinton, help elect donald trump. last week, president trump contradicte

go through doj. and priebus was directly appealing to comey who at the time was overseeing the russia investigation. so this was part of these things piling up for comey. but by ten of march he thought maybnow they've figured out what they can and cannot do. there's no coherent answer for why comey was fired. so the question is that did the white house realize by tend of march that they weren't going to win comey over? and is that when they realized comey wasn't going to be the person they wanted running the fbi. >> because implicit unless choice is that it was unacceptable and it was never going to happen they would leave the investigation alone and expect somebody who couldn't be pressured to continue with it. if they exerted the pressure, he resisted and then they fired him, the question is what their expectations were in terms of how much they could direct this investigation, and i guess that's still the unanswered question here. >> this all makes a lot of sense in hindsight. the idea we thought

or does the fbi have to disclose all of its investigations to the doj? does it have to get the attorney general's consent? >> we work with the department of justice, whether that is main justice or u.s. justice offices on all of our investigations. so we work with them, and so in a legal sense, we are not independent of the department of justice. we are spiritually and culturally pretty independent groups. that is the way you would want it, but we work with the department of justice and all of our investigations. >> is the attorney general or senior officials at the department of justice, if they oppose a specific investigation, can they help that fbi investigation? >> in theory, yes. >> has it happened? >> not in my experience because it would be a big deal to tell the fbi to stop doing something that -- without it appropriate purpose. oftentimes, they give us opinions that we do not see a case they are, you should stop investing resources, but i'm talking a situation where we will total two stops sending for a political reason, that would be a very big