emmet flood may not realize what he's gotten into. i don't imagine he's going to be necessarily combative, but i do believe that he's a qualified, experienced lawyer. will he be able to roll with the fairly inconsistent strategies of his client who changes his mind a lot about how, how he should comport himself in this case. >> and, phil rucker, let me ask you to pick up on that. "the new york times" breaking the story today that emmet flood has joined the president's legal team. they had some information in there about how one of the conditions for flood joining was that the president's at one time personal attorney marques witnesses, i guess he was his attorney in the russia investigation, would not be involved. i also heard from two sources that -- one of the conditions for flood going on and taking this role was that ty cobb would not be involved. we saw that news of his departure today. what about this idea flood wanting to eliminate the competing power centers around the legal strategy, that has imperiled the president's own def

and emmet flood has done that. he fought against congressional inquiries and he fought both congress and the independent counsel during the clinton years so this is really the white house and team trump gir d'ing for a long-term fight. >> i spoke to someone who knows flood today and said you don't fire him to escort the client into robert mueller's office. you came on the air at 4:00 p.m. today with all kinds of nuggetry about this story and deep reporting on what went into this. >> well, triggered by the excellent reporting in "the new york times," not just today by matt and mike, but in eely march, i think it was maggie haberman who wrote the first piece when emmet flood wound up in the oval office. there was a lot of speculation about what that was, which triggered a whole lot of reaction from folks in the bush 43 orbit who viewed emmet flood as almost a savior. he was involved in two of the most precarious congressional and legal investigations that george w. bush dealt with in his second term, the attorney gen

you haven't heard a world from emmet flood about this case because emmet flood has made the choice that any serious defense lawyer, who's a real lawyer, would make and that is, of course, the choice to say absolutely nothing. in the meantime, rudy giuliani, has made the opposite choice. but if, or i suppose we should say when, the trump case goes to the united states supreme court with president trump arguing that he does not have to comply with a subpoena from special prosecutor robert mueller, it will be emmet flood who stands and speaks before the united states supreme court. rudy giuliani will not be allowed to say a single word. because, in the supreme court, even donald trump knows he needs a real lawyer. so the good news for the president is that he now has one lawyer with some experience on the defense side of an impeachment trial in the senate of a president of the united states. and the bad news for the president is that he now needs a lawyer with some experience on the defense side of an impeachment trial in the senate of the president of the united states. it's worth pausing

white house lawyer ty cobb is retiring, and being replaced by emmet t. flood, the veteran washington lawyer who represented bill clinton during impeachment. the "new york times" broke the story just a few moments ago and i'm joined now by one of the reporters who did that reporter. my former colleague at the associated press, matt acoupso. walk us through, reset for everybody just coming in to this breaking news, what you all are reporting and what the significant is. >> sure. what we're reporting is that ty cobb, the top white house lawyer, his title was actually white house special counsel, just to keep things confusing. ty cobb is leaving, and is going to be replaced as you said, with emmet flood from the law firm williams & connolly certainly part of the impeachment defense team during the clinton administration. this is significant, because ty cobb came in last year as kind of a voice of moderation and collaboration with the special counsel. arrived at a time when the situation was kind of tense. mueller team was just getting started. didn't feel th

ty cobb is out and clinton impeachment lawyer emmet flood is in. one of the reporters who broke the news is here with us flood is in. one of the reporters who broke the news is here with us tonight. >>> also tonight, did rudy giuliani just do his client donald trump terrible damage on live television on fox news tonight as he announces trump paid cohen back the $130,000 given to stormy daniels? >>> plus, the changes still to come for this white house. nicolle wallace with us on her reporting what those moves signal and who could be the next to go. >>> and a man who was just questioned by the mueller investigation has emerged tonight with a vivid description of how mueller is operating. all of it as "the 11th hour" gets upped way onnderway on a b wednesday night. >>> it's one of those wednesdays. good evening once again from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. day 468 of the trump administration. we have breaking news that we're going to break down on several fronts for you tonight. we'll catch you up on all of them. we're going to begin wit

i mean emmet flood is an establishment republican attorney. are you surprised that someone like emmet flood doesn't have the power or the moxie or the instinct to walk into the president's office and say, hey, lighten up on the comey trashing. he is a central witness in the mueller investigation, into you and obstruction of justice. >> but ultimately the president is his own chief communications officer, chief strategist, chief legal counsel, and this is just how he's going to behave. there is nothing any adviser can do to stop the president from behaving the way he is. and that's why so many of them have quit. going back to what john was saying earlier about the institutions being trashed here, president trump will stop at nothing to discredit the institutions that are meant to keep leaders honest. that includes not only law enforcement but congress and their investigative power, the media most especially, which he's come at us -- >> guns a-blazing. >> incredible venom and dishonesty. >>. >> and you know what other institution is in real peri

emmet flood. emmet flood is famous, probably most famous and best known in washington, d.c., as being a mobile of president clinton's impeachment defense team. he didn't have a really prominent role in it but he was there all along so he deeply knows what goes on in terms of what happens in congress and the liaison between the white house when congress decides that they want to throw you out of office. he was also inside the white house in the bush administration. he was attached to the white house counsel's office congressional investigations was his forte. so a person who is well-positioned to go into the negotiations with robert mueller as to whether or not the president should sit down with him. now on that front, no surprise that there was talk of a possible subpoena of the president to come before a grand jury and meetings that the president's attorneys were having with robert mueller back in early march. we had reported weeks ago that negotiations were still underway despite the fact that m

he said he confronted emmet flood about this during the briefing.o republicans, though, anderson tonight silent about this, not expressing any concerns whatsoever, even as democrats express their outrage, anderson. >> appreciate it. democratic congressman joining us tonight. congressman, do you have an understanding as to why there were two separate briefings today, one for chairman nunes and gowdy and one for the bipartisan gang of eight? >> it did not make sense at all. we didn't believe there should be a meeting at all. essentially by having the meeting you are allowing a subject of a criminal investigation to reach into the evidence locker at the fbi and to see some of the evidence that exists against him. that's just wrong. now, the fact that they decided to go ahead with the meeting anyway, we wanted it to be bipartisan and for it to be just one. instead, there was a partisan meeting mr. schiff was able to get into thankfully because he persisted and the bipartisan meeting where, unfortunately, speaker ryan chose not to be a part of and went t

is emmet flood leading the team?these are important decisions in terms of how this is going to unfold. does the president want to negotiate the terms of an appearance before the special counsel or a grand jury? does he want to fight, go to court, resist that? or might he just ignore this? >> what do you think of the decision as now has been widely reported by robert mueller to threaten the president with a subpoena if he doesn't voluntarily sit down for an interview? >> i've been saying for a long time, that was completely predictable. if the president thinks he's above the law and doesn't have to provide the evidence that the special counsel wants, he's wrong. and i believe that -- i'm quite certain that if he litigates it, he will lose in court and he will have to provide evidence in some form or fashion. >> remind us what happened with bill clinton, because we all remember when he was questioned by the grand jury during the whole monica lewinsky uproar. >> in the case of ken starr's proceeding -- >> he was the ind

replaced by wash veteran emmet flood, a sign the investigation could be changing. rudy giuliani, another addition to the trump legal team, telling "the washington post," jay sekulow felt he needed someone more aggressive, that is not a criticism of ty, but how we are going to do this. cobb joined the legal team last summer and took the lead in dealing with robert mueller. the white house said today that he's retiring. but a source close to cobb said he recently grew uncomfortable with the president's mueller tweets saying he didn't want to be part of a mudslinging campaign and flood, who is replacing cobb, representing then bill clinton during his impeachment process in the late 1990s and worked in george w. bush's administration and personally for dick cheney. all of this as cnn learned that the president's legal team is now preparing for a showdown with the special counsel, bracing for a possible legal fight after it was revealed that mueller raised the possibility of a presidential subpoena. trump was once eager to sit down with mueller face-to-face. -- >> are y

i think emmet is being put on the team to prepare for all of the steps.might give answers to written questions or not at all. the question is, the special counsel wants donald trump to talk to him because that's where he get him. >> it's come to a head on that front, but it could take months and months. you are talking about post midterms. your midterm round up, including the house minority leader wants the job of speaker back. on't. flonase helps block 6 key inflammatory substances. on't. most pills only block one. flonase. the full value of your new car? you're better off throwing your money right into the harbor. i'm gonna regret that. with new car replacement, if your brand new car gets totaled, liberty mutual will pay the entire value plus depreciation. liberty stands with you. liberty mutual insurance. let someone else do the heavy lifting. tripadvisor compares prices from over 200 booking sites to find the right hotel for you at the lowest price. so you barely have to lift a finger. or a wing. tripadvisor. attention homeowners age sixty-two and old

so what was emmet flood doing there? perhaps these comments from rudy giuliani can shed some light on it. president's newest attorney telling cnn there will be no interview with president trump unless the legal team gets more information about the confidential source. amid all this drama about flood's unexpected appearance, at the briefing, congressman adam schiff, the ranking democrat on the house intelligence committee who was at the briefing summed up what he heard. >> nothing we heard today has changed our view that there is no evidence to support any allegation that the fbi or any intelligence agency placed a spy in the trump campaign or otherwise failed to follow appropriate procedures and protocols. >> as you can sum up from what i just read, we have a lot to get to tonight. first i want to get to cnn political correspondent sara murray with breaking news on roger stone. sara, good evening to you. you're reporting roger stone's finances are being examined by the special counsel. what do you know? >> that's right.

because emmet flood is a skilled lawyer and someone who i believe kind of respects the way the law is supposed to be enforced here. so, if you're expecting to get a skilled lawyer on a team that's going to fight every step of the way and basically try to confront the special prosecutor and challenge him, the way the president's been trying to do through his tweets, i just think that that, too, is -- is just a strategy that's going to lead to nowhere. it's basically going to lead to the courts trying to enforce what we all know has to take place here. one way or another, if the president wants this investigation to come to an end, it's only going to come to an end when the president testifies to the special prosecutor. that's the reality, and he can change lawyer every other day, but that reality remains the same. >> quick question on emmet flood, the new lawyer coming into the white house to work with the president on all of this. he did serve during the bill clinton impeachment process. he was a relatively junior lawyer at that time. did you know him? what ycan you tell us about him?

emmet flood will represent the president and the administration against the russia witch hunt.

so why emmet flood? rudy giuliani who was just doing an interview with the "washington post" a few minutes ago said they needed to bring in somebody who was more aggressive than ty cobb to deal with the final, what they believe is the final phase of this mueller investigation. rudy giuliani adding a tidbit yesterday. when we told you about the 49 or 52 questions depending how they are grouped that bob mueller wants to ask the president, it would add up to hours of testimony. rudy giuliani says there is no way he will let the president sit down for ten or 12 hours with bob mueller. that if mueller gets an interview it would be in the neighborhood of two or three hours, which means that mueller either has to pare down questions or he has to ask them quickly. don't forget president clinton sat for interview in 1998 in the monica lewinsky investigation he talked for three, three and a half hours so there is precedent there. >> dana: all right, john. well, we will keep in touch with you because it's only 2:00

there was no reason for emmet flood to be there. rudy giuliani, who has these sort of spasmodic blurts of truth said he did it because the president has the power -- absolute right to send anybody he wants. he has a right to know what's going on. he doesn't. he may under law run the justice department and all the executive agencies, but the justice department is different and this is a probe about him. sending his lawyer there was a maligned message to the fbi director, to the justice department, that he's watching. >> david, you asked former deputy attorney general sally yates about some of this and about some of these claims from the president. this is in "the axe files," the latest edition. >> how do you react to that, the implication that spies were sent in at the direction of the obama administration? >> yeah, well, you're right. it's under investigation now and i think i have to leave it to this department of justice and fbi to make decisions a wt information they're going to publicly release so i can't really comment on that

sarah sanders saying emmet flood will be joining the white house staff to represent the president and administration against the russia witch hunt. ty cob will retire end of the

what do we do if emmet flood shows up or the chief of staff shows up? all of this playing out. here's my thinking right now. that it was an agonizing decision to do it in this manner. number two, they are buying time, nicolle, that they want to finish their mission, they want to allow mueller to finish his mission. the agency saying let's appease them. we've done nothing wrong. threats' be as transparent as we can and not give them any excuse. the problem with that, nicolle, how far does this go, where does this end, how many briefings are they going to be demanded to give. >> we just heard from adam schiff. he went to the cameras after the gang of 8 meeting. let's listen to that and talk about it on the other side. >> today's gang of 8 briefing was conducted to assure protection of sources and methods. nothing we heard today has changed our view. there is no evidence to support any allegation that the fbi or any intelligence agency placed a spy in the trump campaign or otherwise failed to follow appropriate procedures and protocols. thank you. >> so, frank figliuzzi, their com

emmet flood, the president's lawyer, at the meetings stirring controversy. i want to show you what rudy giuliani, the personal lawyer to the president now, what he had to say. he said i can't understand why it is inappropriate for the white house counsel to be there. maybe it would be more me or jay sekulow, but not one for representing the president inside the white house. why is it inappropriate and why was he there? >> i think many democrats and some republicans feel the president doesn't see any line between himself and his office and the justice department investigation into the administration which involves the administration. this is an ongoing problem. here you have a briefing about what happened with the informant about an accusation that the president launched and the feeling was there shouldn't be any representation from presidential counsel in the room at all. >> there was a lot of shock at all. he wasn't on the list of participants. he came in the meeting and left. mark warwarner, the democrat, s i never seen the gang of eight meeting with lawye

so i imagine that emmet flood and others are very frustrated. i think this is a consequence of president trump being his own communications director. and not having a comprehensive strategy where everyone's on the same page, and my guess is that emmet flood would ask rudy giuliani to either stop talking or at least learn the facts before you do talk. >> and you're so right to make that point. he is playing with house money during all these media appearances or more appropriately, white house. and barbara, one more thing. i want to run rudy giuliani on the subject of the president potentially taking the fifth and then get your opinion coming out of this. >> are you confident the president will not take the fifth in this case? >> oh, how could i ever be confident of that? when i'm facing a situation with the president and all the other lawyers are, in which every lawyer in america thinks he'd be a fool to testify, i've got a client who wants to testify, please, don't -- he said it yesterday. and you know, jay and i said to ourselves, my goodness,

. >> so rudy giuliani told cnn's dana bash that he wanted emmet flood at these briefings today. is there a reason that he should have been there? >> should have been there? i mean beyond the president wanting him to be there. this is cleary outside the normal. >> i love both of you -- >> he wants him there because he wants to know what he can learn about the investigation on behalf of his client. the thing is it's totally inappropriate for him to be there on behalf of his client. these are top secret information very classified, very sensitive details being shared with top legislators. it is inappropriate for the president's lawyer to have any of that information. of course, he didn't get it. he just went, and being there was a bit of the -- >> framed the meeting. >> it framed the meeting. what it was all the kabuki theater you need. it was an attempt to throw your weight around, but this is an independent investigation. >> the republican congressman told jake tapper about flood attending the meeting saying, quote, it is the craziest shit i've ever heard.

emmet flood does have an amazing pedigree here in washington d.c. he's a partner in williams and connelly. he clerked for justice antonin scalia. he was president clinton's impeachment later. one of the team. he represented dick cheney lawsuit. he was in the white house office during the bush administration. very familiar here were the washington landscape. the president excited to have him on board. >> neil: thank you very much, john roberts. what does this mean, including the latest change in the legal team as well? could this be a sign that things are coming together for an investigation that could soon be end something let's ask tom dupree. what do you think? >> neil, i think we're in the final phase. the president's shakeup says number 1, they might be ready to adopt a more aggressive posture with the special counsel and number 2, means that they might be ready to sit down with the special counsel and negotiate the circumstances under which the president could testify. changes are afoot and we're starting to enter the final phase of this invest

do we know for instance whether emmet flood, the new white house lawyer, was present for these meetingshere rudy giuliani says the president and rudy were dividing up the territory, the president would take care of north korea, iran, things like that, and giuliani would take care of stormy daniels and things like that? >> reporter: we don't know for sure, andrea, we do know this is a more aggressive strategy that is being unveiled by the president, by his newly installed legal team. remember, under ty cobb who is still here, by the way, the motto was, comply with robert mueller, get this over as quickly as possible. now you're seeing the president and lawyers dig in their heels. you heard rudy giuliani make those statements, leaving the door open to the president pleading the fifth. and in conversations with peter as well as myself last week, andrea, mr. giuliani really making the case that he's concerned that mueller's team may be trying to lay a perjury trap for the president. and so they're not going to agree to an in-person interview unless they feel as though the terms are right. a

so if you want to know who's going to be running the legal strategy, it's emmet.'s running the pr strategy? that's rudy. >> and yet, rudy giuliani, we understand, did meet with robert mueller earlier this week, trying to lay out the parameters that there were to be an interview with the president and the president yesterday said he'd be happy to sit down with mueller. do you think that's going to happen? >> i don't know. i would be surprised at this point if the president sat down with mueller for an interview, despite what he has said. perhaps they're trying to find middle ground here where perhaps the president could answer questions in a time-limited fashion or answer questions in writing. the safest thing to do would be to answer questions and have them submitted in writing. that way you have really tight control over exactly how you answer them. but given open-ended several long hours interview to this special counsel under the circumstances and under the posture that has been brought forth this week, i think it's highly unlikely that the president will ultim

and emmet flood is in.er who represented bill clinton during his own impeachment proceedings. emmet flood and his team went toe to toe with the special counsel ken starr and we know that emmet flood is a big fan of the executive privilege, which is often invoked by the president, his office, to be able to prevent subpoenas, disclosure of of information. so if emmet flood takes more of a hard line in the sand with mueller and his team, giuliani as the surrogate for trump and the language that he uses when he does his media circles, we're going to see perhaps a more adversarial approach to the mueller investigation from the trump administration than we saw before. >> well something else to consider natasha, because giuliani has said that mueller definitely should back off on ivanka. don't involve her in this russia probe. do you agree with giuliani? and what are you hearing about the strategy from mueller so far as the trump family in general is concerned? >> he is saving them for last because he knows if he

emmet flood is representing the white house.ltimately they have to be on the same team, and mr. flood had no idea that this strategy was going to be rolled out in the way it was. rudy has absolutely every authority from the president to speak on his behalf about this and has said so. but it is usually good to be working in concert, and it is striking that rudy has stressed, back to your earlier tape that you played about the campaign. none of this came from campaign money. it doesn't matter if it came from campaign funds or not. >> that's right. >> it's about whether or not this effort was to try to shut this down so as not to embarrass the gop nominee for the white house. >> whether it was going to affect the outcome of the election or be an attempt to, that's absolutely right. hey, kim, we always ask -- try to ask every night, how did the trump agenda advance today? i'll put a finer point on it. you're there in front of the capitol. how do you think the republicans, house and senate, are reacting to this week thus far? >> i th

a seriousness when you bring in emmet flood. ty cobb sort of said his position within the legal team ran its course. now as the investigation potentially moves into another phase, you bring in somebody else. having rudy is having someone who can be an attack dog and has a little bit of position to go after mueller on television or question his motivations. i'm not sure if his legal expertise is productive behind the scenes. he came in with the claim that he knows mueller well and make the investigation go away. that is a bit questionable on its face. you know, it does feel like part of this on the one hand is bringing in serious folks and then bringing people here for messaging and i don't know if i should say message discipline, but doing the pr necessary to go forward. >> many feel now the gloves are off. tal, thanks. we will check in with you in 20 minutes. >>> breaking news. release of three american hostages held by north korea is imminent. the president posted this tweet. everybody is aware the past administration has long

ty cobb is out, and clinton impeachment lawyer emmet flood is in.e reporters who broke the news is here with us tonight. >>> also tonight, did rudy giuliani just do his client donald trump terrible damage on live television on fox news tonight as he announces trump paid cohen back the $130,000 given to stormy daniels? >>> plus, the changes still to come for this white house. nicolle wallace with us on her reporting what those moves signal and who could be the next to go. >>> and a man who was just questioned by the mueller investigation has emerged tonight with a vivid description of how mueller is operating. all of it as "the 11th hour" gets underway on a business iz wednesday night. >>> it's one of those wednesdays.

however, at this stage in the game it was highly inappropriate for emmet flood, the new guy on the trumpeam in terms of the defense of donald trump to have gone with kelly to be able to go to the any of these meetings. we're hearing that they only came at the beginning for a few minutes. and yet why unless they're trying to intimidate people into this information. >> so giuliani said, katie, if the spying was inappropriate that means we may have an entirely illegitimate investigation. is there credence to that legally speaking? or is he pulling something from the trump playbook and trying to put that out there. to offer that concern. >> so that's the irritating component of the giuliani comments that are made willy nilly out into the public. and it troubles me because he is a lawyer ostensibly. so as a lawyer you do have an obligation to make sure that what you say is basically right and do you have an obligation to make sure that you're careful about extra judicial statements made by you, especially when you're representing a party so when giuliani makes these statements, alex, he's try

the criminal attorney are the raskins. >> emmet flood. >> emmet flood. >> he's playing criminal attorneyying one on tv. >> that's the problem. and the danger in doing that, whether you're a criminal attorney or you're a pr person, is you need to know the answer to the questions before you go out. >> i think bakari hit the nail on the head when he talked about the kind of client that rudy giuliani and all of this lawyers have, which is donald trump. somebody who is a liar, somebody who will not tell you the truth, even if you ask him the question straight out. to me, it's still baffling, gloria, you reported this, that before giuliani went out on the sean hannity, supposedly he and the president were on the same page. nobody else was, nobody else knew what they were talking about or what giuliani was going to say. supposedly, giuliani and trump had agreed that this is what giuliani was going to do. not only that, let's remember the president's tweets that absolutely underscored everything that giuliani said before he got the blow-back and before then he tried to walk back what i believe w

reporting today that emmet flood is expected to take a more adversarial approach than mr. cobb did.hanks for having me. >> what do you mean by more adversarial approach? >> well, the thing with cobb, his approach was cooperation, cooperation, cooperation. he took the president at his word that the president said he did nothing wrong, and he said, look, the sooner we give them all the documents, the sooner we allow people to speak with mueller, the faster this will be over, the sooner the cloud will be lifted. if you remember, it was ty cobb who was saying at the end of last year, sort of this rolling thing, the investigation is going to be over by thanksgiving, going to be over by christmas, new year, et cetera, here we are in may, ty cobb is out, the investigation still going on. >> the way that ty cobb left today doesn't seem to have matched with the white house explanation for how he left, mr. cobb says that it was a planned rollout, the white house suggesting that it had been on deck for a few weeks and this is an orderly process. mr. cobb doing a long interview this morning, ri

chief of staff john kelly and white house lawyer emmet flood spotted. that is questioning whether the justice department is sharing information about an investigation with people tied to that very investigation but kelly and flood introduced the start of the meeting and did not stay for the rest. >> why is emmet flood here for the briefing? >> the presence no matter how brief it was complicates things here in terms of where this intelligence may end up. >> reporter: the unpress dented duelling debrises at first only included a single session with just republicans. >> this is not the way our system works. >> i think the democrats should have the same briefing, as well. >> reporter: backlash sent administration scrambling to include the other side of the isle trying to avoid accusations they are politicizing intelligence. >> there is no evidence to support any allegation the fbi or any intelligence agency placed a spy in the trump campaign. >> reporter: hallie jackson, nbc news, the white house. >>> also at the white house today, an american war hero rece

jay sekulow did a lot of interview with emmet to get to this point. think we forget, it was about five weeks ago that donald mcgahn, the presidents white house counsel said he would like to be gone by the summer, that he would stay until he found his replacement and that could extend the midterm. but emmet flood i think we'll end up being the white house counsel before the end of the summer. >> jesse: all right. greg, what we are hearing from the white house is, you know, i am preparing to broker peace on the north korean peninsula. trying to negotiate something in syria. trying to deal with the iranian nuclear situation and now you're making me spend hours prepping for a sitdown and wasting my time on this. >> greg: yeah, it is like studying for the s.a.t. while you are trying to ride a bike. anyway, we'll be right back. he should answer these questions on twitter. that's what he should do. i think two hours is way too long. i don't think he should have given them any time. do it in writing somehow. what bothers me most about this is that the investi

ty cobb, his main representative in the russia probe, is stepping down to be replaced by emmet flood,wyer who worked for president clinton during his impeachment proceedings. here's our north america reporter anthony zurcher on the significance of the cobb departure. the official line is that he's leaving to retire, to spend more time with his grandkids or something, but the reality is that ty something, but the reality is that ty cobb, over the pass make few months, has been preaching cooperation with robert mueller‘s probe. he wants to turn over all of the documents, he says that is the quickest way to get this behind him, he has been saying it is going to wrap up since last thanksgiving. the reality is that this could represent a more adversarial approach to robert mueller‘s investigation. sarah sanders described what emmet flood is going to be doing, he is going to lead the defence against the russia witch—hunts, you cannot get more adversarial than that. they have indicted russians, they had presented evidence of russian involvement in the us election, but they are looking at if

new white house attorney emmet flood was on hand along with white house chief of staff john kelly asdirector and deputy attorney general prepared to brief two groups of lawmakers on this confidential source, the source that met with trump campaign aides in 2016. flood and kelly left before any information was shared, but it still raised a lot of eyebrows and not just democrats' eyebrows. laura fox is in washington with more. it was not perceived well and received well by many. >> reporter: that is right, poppy. one of the main issues here was that democrats said that it was inappropriate. that's what adam schiff, the top democrat on the house intelligence committee said. mark warner, the top democrat on the senate intelligence committee said, quote, i have never seen a gang of eight meeting that included any presence from the white house. one gop congressional staffer told cnn's jake tapper that this was some of the craziest and then this person used an expletive to describe how the meeting unfolded. of course a senior administration official said that this did little to quell concer

emmet flood clerked for justice antonin scalia. he was one of president clinton's impeachment lawyers. he represented dick cheney, advised bob mcdonald and was a member of the bush administration. sarah huckabee sanders saying emmet flood will represent the president and the administration against the russia witch hunt. i asked rudy guliani about it. he didn't have much to say about flood. he told "the washington post" that the president wanted somebody more aggressive than ty cobb. ty will be staying until the end of may and flood comes in. there's some talk that he could be a replacement for don mcgann. >> shepard: since we're talking about lawyers, former attorney, john dowd, you had a conversation with him as well. >> i did. he confirmed the early meetings in march when they negotiated with robert mueller over the interview of the president by the special counsel in which mueller said, you know, if you don't agree to a voluntary interview, we can issue a subpoena and haul him before a grand jury. to which john dowd said this is

white house lawyer ty cobb is retiring, and being replaced by emmet t.the veteran washington lawyer who represented bill clinton during impeachment. the "new york times" broke the story just a few moments ago and i'm joined now by one of the reporters who did that reporter. my former colleague at the associated press, matt

that the president's attorney emmet flood were present at the top of those meetings.you wrote in part, flood's presence fueled the perception that the white house was trying to monitor the investigation in to the trump campaign. how did they justify? how do republicans justify having the chief of staff and the president's personal attorney? >> the official line from the white house that john kelly and emmet flood, the president's lawyer, were only there for the beginning of these two meetings. essentially popped in, said hi. told everyone they were glad the meetings were going on and stepped out. they weren't actually involved in the nuts and bolts of the meeting is what the white house is telling us. that said, it hasn't been enough to alleviate concerns even that short appearance according to the white house was appropriate. one thing i can tell you that during the second meeting, a highly classified confidential meeting, i can tell you during the second meeting that happened yesterday on capitol hill, emmet flood was actually confronted by multiple participant tell

you've got the raskins who are just starting out, you've got emmet flood who hasn't gotten his security clearance yet, hasn't even started yet. and you have rudy giuliani setting deadlines and saying, okay, we want this -- we want to make this decision by may 17th. so, what i've been told, what my colleagues at the white house have been told, is that, you know, this really is a goal and not so much a deadline. >> it's aspirational. >> let's call it aspirational. and so the legal team is kind of like herding cats right now, and the person in charge is the president of the united states whom as we all know loves chaos. so that's. wh what he's got. >> it's hard to believe, the rudy giuliani interview with sean hannity was last wednesday night, not even a full week since that happened. it went the way it did and the next day it went even worse then he was on tv again this weekend, he was on the phone with politico and the "the wall street journal" all day today. how is it that this is still going on? >> we still actually don't know what the story is, we don't know which of juligiuliani's st