gloria borger reports. >> reporter: special counsel robert mueller is a mystery man.erhaps the most private public figure in washington. but as the leader of the russia investigation he's also a political ground zero. >> i think the public trust in this whole thing is gone. >> reporter: and in the sights of a president who wanted him fire. >> last week the president back down after the white house counsel threatened to quit. >> reporter: putting mueller in a bizarre position of investigating whether the president tried to fire him. but you'll never hear about it from mueller. >> i mean this is someone who has turned down more press conferences and interviews than most people in washington ever get the chance to give. he doesn't really live talking about himself. he doesn't really like speaking with the press. >> reporter: at the start mueller was a bipartisan favorite. >> he would have been on anybody's list of let's say the top five people in the country to have taken on this kind of a responsibility. >> we all need to let mr. mueller do his job. i think he's the rig

joining us, our chief political analyst gloria borger and jim zeleny. gloria, you've obtained this very important letter that rick gate wrote to family and friends. >> yes, and it gives you some insight of the pressure he felt given what he's going to do today at 2:00 in the afternoon. the portion of the letter that we've received is addressed to friend and family. it says, given the news reports of last week, i wanted to give everyone an update of the events that will occur today. since the indictment has been handed down last october, there's been great pressure on our family, and these last several months have been excruciating. last weekend there were several news outlets that wrote false and misleading statements concerning my situation. despite my initial desire to vigorously defend myself, i have had a change of heart, and that reflec reflects evan's reporting. the reality of how long this legal process would take, the cost, and anticipation of a trial are too much. i will better serve my family moving forward by exiting this process. the conseque

joined now by john dean, gloria borger, jeffrey toobin.y campaign chair, a major player in the campaign. this has got to be a bad night for manafort. >> when he issued a statement, he said i continued to maintain our innocence. that shows how linked he is with rick gates. he still speaks of him as a team. gates has now admitted that he engaged in many interlocking conspiracy with manafort. tax laws, campaign financing laws, foreign reporting laws. now heavily documented. and it makes manafort situation desperate. >> you have the deputy chair flipping, what could it mean for the chair. paul manafort seems like he is fighting. >> his lawyers indicate that he is. maybe he is fighting until he is not fighting anymore. they have a suit that they filed in federal court against the special counsel saying that an investigating all of his finances that pre date the campaign, that the special counsel is going beyond his jurisdiction. they may be banking on that. and hoping that the whole thing gets thrown out. but i agree with jeffrey, i think the t

david gregory and gloria borger are still with me. the president is recommending that his attorney general, who he clearly doesn't like because he recused himself from the russia investigation, go ahead and start a criminal investigation of the former president. >> well, you hit the nail right on the head. first of all, it all goes back to jeff sessions not recusing himself from russia. the president's anger is just smoldering over that. he gets angrier and angrier every time something happens in the russia investigation. which has occurred. so he also believes, i'm told, according to a source with knowledge this morning, that he believes that sessions' justice department is not aggressive enough on lots of things, and that would be investigating democrats, uranium one, obama, hillary clinton, whatever it is. he also was surprised to learn, i was told, that the bump stock rule was sort of languishing there and that still had not been done yet. and that's why he ordered jeff sessions to get it done. you know, as you know, these rules go

once again, michael zeldin is with us, robert mueller's former assistant, and gloria borger. has this red line been crossed now that mueller and his investigators are asking various witnesses about donald trump's business dealings with russia long before the campaign? >> no, i don't think so. i think the question was unrelated to russia. this is related very much to russia. and i think in asking these questions, you know, our sources say, look, we don't know why mueller is asking these questions. was he just trying to check a box and go through a timeline regarding donald trump and his businesses? or is he looking for ways that the russians had potential leverage over donald trump and his business associates and his business over the past years? so i would say that this is a completely legitimate area of inquiry. i know that kenneth starr, former special counsel for bill clinton, says that it is not. but i believe that we have seen from bob mueller the 13 dooir indictments against the russians that he is pursuing all things russia, and this is a part of it. >> listen to what

back with me now, gloria borger, john dean, shawn turner and frank bruni. ese are big stories that we're doing. if there are so many of these big stories that hit the news on a night like tonight that it sort of diminishes all of them, because they're all happening at once. >> well, you get a little numb to it, i think, every day. but the story you're talking about with rogers is really kind of stunning to me. because when you have election meddling and you have all intelligence agencies agreeing on it for over a year that there was russian meddling, one would expect expect, in normal times, that you would have a president out there saying, we need to get to the bottom of this. we need to preserve our democracy. i am setting up a special committee to deal with election meddling and it's going to have representatives from every intelligence agency in it. and we're going to make sure that the russians pay for this. and we're going to do whatever we need to do to sanction them. and instead, you have a president who believes that by talking about russian meddlin

joined now by john dean, gloria borger, jeffrey toobin. jeff, let's start with this gates plea deal. gates, big fish here. the deputy campaign chair. a major player in the campaign, pleading to things that didn't relate directly to the campaign but again, this has got to be a bad night for paul manafort. >> in fact, manafort did something unintentionally very revealing, when he issued a statement he said, i continue to maintain our innocence. that shows how linked he is with rick gates, that he still speaks of them as a team. his problem is that gates has now admitted that he was engaged in many interlocking conspiracies with manafort. tax fraud, campaign finance laws, foreign reporting laws. all of those heavily documented, are now admitted crimes on the part of rick gates, and it really makes manafort's situation pretty desperate. >> you have the deputy chair flipping, what could it mean for the chair. gloria, paul manafort seems like he's fighting. >> yeah. well, his lawyer indicates that he is. maybe he's fighting until he's not fighti

gloria borger, what seems to be most on the president's mind. this has been what's so all over his twitter page, is russia. one of the biggest questions to me, i ask, why does the president refuse to condemn russia even after these indictments that came down on friday for election meddling? >> at first he was told by people close to him this was good for him because these indictments against these russian russians, bob mueller stated there were some unwitting participants and the president could then say, aha, there was no conclusion. i think, however, the more this played out and people said, look, this is the first layer of the onion here. the more upset the president got with the coverage. and to answer your question, i don't know the answer to your question. i don't know why. i don't know why the president can never get from a to b when it comes to russia. i don't know why he's not going out there and saying to the nation, look what the special counsel has uncovered. this is a country that has declared war and we the nation -- >> are going t

. >> we are told, gloria borger and i were told he didn't know about these allegations until it got into the paper, until it got into the daily mail yesterday. unclear if it was yesterday or today when the pictures that jim was talking about actually came out. and that is sort of by way of context, despite the fact that his chief of staff was aware of the allegations because it was -- they were presented to him by the fbi as part of the background check that they were doing on rob porter. >> it was considered serious enough by the fbi to not allow a permanent background check? >> apparently. that's certainly what it seems to be. it's unclear if the fbi said, you know, we're not going to do this or if it's even -- if the fbi made a recommendation. we don't know the exact detail of how it worked. but what we do know and what really matters is the fbi found all of this basic information about his ex-wives, about the allegations of abuse, and that came up readily apparently during the background check. what john kelly didn't do was not only not tell the president, but obviously just we are t

cnn's chief political analyst, gloria borger, takes an in-depth look at the man behind one of the mostortant and polarizing investigations in modern political history. >> special counsel robert mueller is a mystery man. perhaps the most private public figure in washington. but as the leader of the russia investigation, he's also a political ground zero. >> i think the public trust in this whole thing is gone. >> reporter: and in the sights of a president who wanted him fire. >> last june, the president ordered the firing of special counsel robert mueller, backed down after the white house counsel threatened to quit. >> reporter: putting mueller in the bizarre position of investigating whether the president tried to fire him. but you'll never hear about it from mueller. >> i mean, this is someone who has turned down more press conferences and interviews than most people in washington ever go get the chance to give. he doesn't really like talking about himself. he doesn't really like speaking with the press. >> reporter: at the start, mueller was a bipartisan favorite. >> he would have b

. >> gloria borger and i have been digging on what is going on there. a couple of things we have learned first that the president himself we are told by two sources did not know about these allegations about the fact that the fbi clearly found this information when they were doing the background check of rob porter. the president didn't know until the daily mail was presented to him. so didn't become aware until it was in the public sphere and the other thing is ivanka trump we were told was quite upset about it when she found out particularly when we saw the photos we all saw of his ex-wife and the bruises. it is a complicated dynamic not just for hope hicks, helped lead the defense of rob porter, but also people like ivanka trump and others who in the white house have come to know and rely on rob porter. but there is also kind of a sense, i am told of protectiveness of hope despite the fact that she, again, is very complicated, concerned because she has become almost a member of the trump family, that if this guy, if it is true that he did this to his

cnn's pamela brown, gloria borger brought us the first details of this last week.ago, it tracks with what

an interview with him, similar to reporting you and gloria borger had a few days ago. tell us what they're telling the president. >> that's right, as gloria and i have reported, the president's lawyers have been telling him for quite some time he should not testify. that it's not a good idea. in fact, ty cobb, the president's lawyer, said on the record it would be a perjury trap, essentially saying he didn't want his client to do an interview because he was worried he'd be caught in a lie. this is what the president's lawyers have been saying behind the scenes. to mueller's team, they have argued that they have not shown enough evidence to prove why they need to sit down with the president of the united states. they're making the argument that it's not normal, it's not the same when you -- being an ordinary person versus the president of the united states and that they haven't shown enough evidence to prove they need to sit down and interview him for the obstruction of justice. >> that's really just a defense argument, is it not? other presidents have been required to s

gloria borger and jim sciutto. what did you learn? >> we have been told that investigators for robert mueller have been asking questions of witnesses about business activities of donald trump in russia prior to the 2016 campaign at a time when mr. trump was considering a run for president. this is significant because it shows that mueller's team reaches beyond the campaign and checking into whether to explore. and considering this presidential run. now to be clear, robert mueller's investigation is to focus on meddling in the election as well as ties between trump campaign associates and russians and by remit and the other lines of inquiry that may come up as investigation couldn'ts. -- continues. he would consider as crossing outs of the remit of the mueller investigation. >> gloria, in terms of the kinds of questions that mueller and his team are asking witnesses do we know? >> yeah, lengthy wide ranging interviews but we have been told by sources who have been interviewed by mueller that they have been asking among other things whe

also with us, cnn political director david challian and chief political analyst gloria borger. he said he's shocked now. he's known the fbi, any permanent security clearances, even though he's the person that gives the president the. >> and we learned that kelly has known about this since last fall. the question is how much did he know? did he see the fbi documents? we don't know the answer to that. his conflicting statements last night seemed to say. he was misled in some way. there was no new information --. i think the subtext here is. we don't know and porter said to him, this isn't true or whatever, and maybe he just believed him. but we have to do some digging about the conflict active elements we're all getting in this story as we talk to people both inside and inside of the white house. one thing we do know,. what we didn't know was the president knew all about this. and when the president was told about this, let's just say he was unhappy. >> the president didn't know he had security access? >> the president wfirst heard about it from general kelly when he broke the st

let's bring in our specialist, gloria borger. the actual memo itself, the contents.ignificant is it? >> i think it is a political document. i think you have to look at it through that lens that it is political more than anything else. bits a line of attack against president and republicans who stay russia investigation is the handy work some of senior justice department officials who were out to get the president. and i think the purpose is to muddy the waters, to try to contaminate the mueller investigation. and if they were trying to clarify that all of this is based on a dossier that is not true, and whose author is questionable and partisan, it didn't do that at all. instead of clarifying the dossier was the root of all evil, as they would put it. what they did was confirm that the investigation really began with george papadopoulos. and not michael steele -- christopher steele's dossier. so i think it muddied the waters in a funny way, in a different direction than the one intended. >> george papadopoulos, the young national security volunteer who worked for the

rachel bay, our chief political analyst, gloria borger. lots of confusion. white house officials saying they're baffle ld d by what the president said in private as opposed to what he said in public. what do you think? >> i would be baffled, too, if i worked inside the white house. they're also concerned about a timeline offered by general kelly that they're not sure is accurate. did he lie to his own staff? i think there is a lot of confusion there. the president, you know, you heard kellyanne conway saying that, you know, that the president has confidence in general kelly. i know from my own reporting that the president has been calling around to people saying, well, if this job were to become open, would you potentially be interested in it? his good friend tom barrack said, no, i would not. it was not, i want you to do this job, it was kind of one of those, well, if i were thinking about making a change. so if you're sitting inside the white house, of course you would be scratching your head about this, because it's completely dysfunctional. >> you probab

you have been reporting with gloria borger on a lot of this over the past week. what can you tell us tonight? >> that's right, erin, in fact, the president's lawyers have been in the president's ears telling him for a long time he should not testify. the concern, it would be a perjury trap. it would be some fishing expedition and would basically set up the president to where he could be caught in a lie. as you know, the president has been outspoken about his desire to want to sit down with robert mueller. he even said he would love to do under oath, but under that caveat that he would only do it at the advice of his lawyers. they're making the argument to robert mueller's team that they have not met the threshold of interviewing the president. they are making the argument that the president isn't just like anyone else and that they haven't shown enough evidence to prove why they need to sit down to interview the president to find out his state of mind in the russia probe investigation. they are arguing they have enough for thhim to not have to testify. >> how do

supervisory special agent jeff campbell, our cnn political supporter nia henderson and our legal analyst gloria borger. the head of the nra association also really went after the democrats. and he said this. i'm going to play this other clip. >> the elites don't care not one wit about america's school system and school children. if they truly cared, what they would do is they would protect them. for them it's not a safety issue, it's a political issue. they care more about control and more of it. their goal is to eliminate the second amendment and our firearms freedoms so they can eradicate all individual freedoms. >> he really lashed out in a very, very tough way. >> this is what we've heard from the nra over the last decade or so, i'd say. it's that every challenge to laws on guns becomes an assault on an inalienable right, an assault on the second amendment. it becomes a culture war. and rather than engaging on the specifics of the issues, it becomes the elites versus us, it's the socialists versus us, which is also what he was talking about this morning. and as jeff was talking about, what was str

we'll bring in cnn's gloria borger, white house correspondent jim acosta, matt lewis, a commentator, as well. this story, gloria, is unbelievable. i understand you have new reporting before we dig into more details on rob porter, the outgoing staff secretary in the white house. what have you found out? >> my colleague dana bash have done some digging. he didn't know about all of this until "the daily mail" article was brought to his attention and he was not very happy, he was furious about it. we also know that his daughter ivanka was very unhappy about it. and as you reported before, chief of staff kelly knew about it. we're not sure to what extent, however. but he knew about it this fall, dana and i are told by two sources, because his security clearance wasn't coming through, and he knew that there was something that was keeping it from going through. so kelly had some form of knowledge about this. and the problem i think, kelly has grown to like porter. he's dependent on him. he's the sort of staff secretary that makes the trains run on time. they had each other's back. they trust

joining me to discuss this, we have gloria borger, evan perez, and kara skinel. evan, what has emerged as the most significant legal question based on this memo? >> look, i think if you talk to republicans, they say that this memo raises real questions about what they say is a breakdown of the legal process. the fruit of the poisonous tree, so to speak, that launches all of this investigation is what they say was a dossier paid for by democrats and hillary clinton campaign. they say that there were four memos -- four fisa applications to do -- >> the initial and follow-ups. >> to do surveillance on carter page. they say that because there was information used from this so-called dossier, that it really wrecks all of this. it makes it illegitimate. if you look at this memo, it doesn't back that up. in fact, it undermines some of the central points. it says, for instance, that there was other intelligence beyond the dossier, beyond the information that came from christopher steele, the british mi-6 agent who prepared it, that was used to get the warrants. if says t

dana, gloria borger said some republicans worried there may be too much of a drum roll on this.there a fear this may be a dud? >> sure. look this is the opposite of politics 101 which is you keep expectations low and keep delivery high. we don't know the delivery here. expectations are super high. you know, based on not just how much we're talking about it and how much the fbi is fighting it and how much the democrats are upset and how much the president is saying he thinks this is really important and explosive for the russia investigation. it better be big considering all of that build up and it is really unclear if it is. i talked to people who read it and who say to me over and over again. fisa. fisa. it is before it was changed, focused on the fisa court and warrants at the beginning of the russia pre-mueller. >> even if the political document, this memo, is to the bombshell worthy. watching the president's reaction to it may be. if it is to try and put rosenstein in the cross-hairs and potentially start talking about whether or not he's going to act on this which we report

gloria borger, our chief political analyst, is standing by to also respond to that kind of language from the president. why would he say that? >> well, look, i think from his point of view, it's probably a negotiating ploy. >> so an opening move? >> yeah, an opening move and probably feels that the shutdown last time was a political fizzle for the democrats, which it was, that they didn't get anything out of it. so he's probably thinking why not do it again? if you put that political explanation aside, this is the president of the united states calling for the government to shut down, which is kind of astonishing. i don't recall any president in -- that i can recall ever saying gee i think a shutdown would be great for the country. shutdown is not great for the country. the president -- you can pick a tweet over the last ten years. the president always saying before he was president that shutdowns are bad and the president ought to be blamed for them. so, he has a history of being all over the lot on this. this is political. again, it's sort of another indication that he hasn't grown int

>> myself and my colleague sara murray and gloria borger, we're told some 30 to 40 white house officials and trump political appointees are operating with interim security clearances, not full security clearances, extremely unusual more than a year into a presidential administration. among them jared kushner, the president's son-in-law as well as the now former staff secretary rob porter which we learned in the last 24 hours. now the white house has claimed this is the product really of just a long and bureaucratic approval process for these security clearances but we're told by a number sources that this is, one, extremely unusual this late in an administration, early in a administration you might have a number of people with interim security clearances, 13 months in, very unusual and i'm told that by both current and former intelligence officials who have served both republican and democratic administrations. more importantly, we are told, that among the issues behind these delays are likely to be continuing questions, both from law enforcement and the intelligence community as to whet

military diplomatic analyst john kirby, our cheer correspondent dana bash and our chief legal analyst gloria borgeris is a huge embarrassment for the white house today, that the fbi director together with the intelligence community, on this issue the fbi director completely disputed what the white house has been saying over the past week. >> it makes you wonder, what were they thinking? they knew the fbi director was going to come and testify today. i don't think they should have assumed that the fbi director was going to do anything other than defend his agency and their security clearance process and come with a timeline of his own. the problem now for the white house is compounded here. because his timeline is different from theirs. he makes it very clear that at least by the fall, at least by the fall that there was knowledge in the white house about this. and i think the question that jeff zeleny raises is the right question, which is, who knew what when? when did don mcgahn know? did don mcgahn go to kelly? did don mcgahn keep this to himself? we need to hear a little bit about what the white

this is according to our dana bash, gloria borger, jamie gangel, jim acosta, and ijeremy diamond. there's been no decision by president trump to replace john kelly, but multiple sources say conversations over who could secede him have heated up. cnn reported that the president has been calling his associates in recent days and discussing the possibilities. no decision has been made. the scrutiny increased after today's testimony by fbi director christopher wray. >> go, michael. >> yeah, i think that's exactly right. and it's not just recent days, it's recent weeks. >> the big caveat here is that president trump talks to sort of anyone and everyone about the minutia of the white house and ask for feedback in how people are doing and the decisions he's made. and i should point out that sarah sanders, the white house press secretary, was asked about john kelly's status today at the white house briefing late in the day, after that testimony you mentioned. and she said the president has full confidence in john kelly. and that may be true, but i can tell you that if john kelly has the c

outfront senior political analyst, chief political gloria borger. the president had to be reminded to empathize. but the first two questions are spot on or what i think the people in the room wanted asked and people in this town hall want asked tonight as well. >> i think so. in that regard i think the president went out of his way to just be a listener. he did sort of talk about the question of whether concealed carry might be something people oul ought to think about for teachers. but generally the president is in listening mode. i don't think you have to remind yourself to be em pa thitic, not one of the president's great skills as we know. but i do think the people walked away today thinking they were heard and there was no vit real which we are so used to in the debate inside the room at least. and the president was hearing them out. >> david gur begin, we have seen presidents acted before in these times, president obama, comforter in chief. how did president trump do today? there were divergent views in that room. >> sure. i think we should cu

>> sir don, my colleagues gloria borger, pamela brown and i are told that investigators for mueller have recently been asking witnesses about donald trump's business activities in russia prior to the 2016 presidential campaign as he considered a run for president. this according to three people familiar with the matter. the lines of inquiry indicate that mueller's team is reaching beyond the campaign to explore how the russians might have sought to influence trump at a time when he was discussing deals in moscow, and beginning that presidential run. mueller, of course, was appointed to investigate russian meddling in the 2016 campaign, but that also includes in his investigation links between trump associates and russians and any issues that might arise from the investigation. that said, the president claims that any investigation into the family's personal finances would be in his view a breach of the special counsel's mandate. >> what else can you tell us about the kinds of questions that mueller is asking witnesses? >> so, it's reaching into a whole host of things that happened before

outfront tonight richard painter and gloria borger. we are possibly hours away. it's not a matter of if at this point. it is a matter of when. anyway the white house pulls back as you start to see a few republicans say ho ho ho? >> i don't think so. because i think it's what the president wants. this is a president who likes to use blunt force and he feels he's being an attacked and i do believe this is about the mueller investigation. i know from my own reporting that the president has told more than one friend that it is a way to kind of muddy the waters here. and that he believes that the fbi is corrupt, as he told one friend. and that he's fighting back. and so this is not going to stop. because the president wants it done and he is allowed to declassify whatever he wants. >> pretty incredible. this whole fight back and forth over whether certain parts of the memo will be redacted, names removed for national security. fbi is saying even if you do that it's still inaccurate. still not okay. one senior officialization they will do some redactions on national se

cnn's chief political analyst gloria borger takes an in depth look at the man behind one of the most important and polarizing investigations in modern political history. >> fred, during his nine months on the job, special counsel robert mueller has been busy, indicting 22 people and companies, securing five guilty pleas and on friday, getting the cooperation of trump campaign aide rick gates. but who is this virtually silent special counsel? a man of few words but clearly lots of action. special counsel robert mueller is a mystery man. perhaps the most private public figure in washington. but as the leader of the russia investigation, he's also at political ground zero. >> i think the public trust in this whole thing is gone. >> reporter: and in the sights of a president who wanted him fired. >> last june, president trump orders the firing of special counsel -- >> reporter: putting mueller in the bizarre position of investigating whether the president tried to fire him. but you'll never hear about it from mueller. >> i mean, this is someone who has turned down more press conferences

also with me, cnn chief political analyst gloria borger and former associate white house counsel under george w. bush jamil jafer. thank you for joining me on this groundhog's day. i won't make the joke. you know what i'm thinking. gloria, you have a source who is pretty close to this process of clearing this memo, and they're concerned about all of this buildup, you know, the bar has been raised pretty high by this. >> it has. and the way it was described to me is that the drum roll is getting a little bit long here. and what we're seeing is that it is continuing today and, of course, the white house is going to hand the football over to the house and part of the reason for that, aside from the fact that that's the process, is that it seems to me maybe the white house is trying to distance itself a little bit from all of this. there is a question -- >> good luck. >> right. but there is a question about whether all the hype is really going to live up to the -- what the real memo is. and whether it kind of may fall flat. so i think you're going to see this ball passed to the hill. it wi

cnn's pamela brown, gloria borger brought us the first details of this last week. s "new york times" report which broke about 45 minutes ago, it tracks with what you and gloria were reporting last week. it seems to sound a more definitive note about the line the president's legal team will draw with the special counsel. >> my colleague and i had been reporting this is the stance of the president's legal team. a week ago we reported that they believe robert mueller hasn't met the threshold to interview the president. they don't want the president to sit down with robert mueller and his team because as ty cobb, the president's lawyer, has said on the record he believes it's a perjury trap, and they want to prevent this from happening. they want to prevent any type of fishing expedition. the sources we've spoken to have said that first of all, they believe that the president shouldn't be treated like anyone else. second of all, they believe that robert mueller's team hasn't shown the evidence, the proof that they have to sit down to talk to the president to understand

>> cara, myself, gloria borger and pam lo brown and myself are told investigators for the special counselert mueller have recently been asking witnesses questions about donald trump's business activities in russia prior to the 2016 presidential campaign. and this as he was considering a run for president. this is according to three people familiar with the matter. the lines of inquiry indicate that mueller's team is reaching beyond the campaign to explore how the russians might have sought to influence trump at a time when he was both discussing deals in moscow and considering this presidential run. now, mueller was appointed to investigate russian meddling in the 2016 campaign as well as links, we should note, between trump associates and russians and any issues that might arise from those investigations. however, as we've often said on the air, the president claims that any investigation of his family's personal finances would be a breach, in his view, of the special counsel's mandate. >> in terms of the kind of questions that mueller is asking witnesses, what have you learned? >> so we

gloria ryan, cnn political analyst joshua green, bloomberg business week and cnn political analyst gloria borger. glora months ago, early last fall, several top brass -- not the president but kelly heard issues he was having trouble getting that full security clearance and his ex-wives had reported this abuse, the question why didn't kelly take any action, is it surprising given what we know about john kelly? >> well, it's surprising on a lot of levels because even if porter were misleading kelly, if kelly spoke with him about it, et cetera, you still had an fbi document which had rel red flags all over it, including a restraining order against one of his, you know, ex-wives. and so i think that this tells us -- and we'll have to -- you know, i think we're awaiting a fuller explanation from the chief of staff. he certainly owes one to everyone, which is if he had this fbi report, if he knew about it and he talked to rob porter about it, why did he take his word over the fbi? >> great question. >> i don't think we know the answer to that. and then what dana bash and i learned last night was that

now to plow threw the timelines, james schultz, former white house counsel, fill mudd, and cnn's gloria borgerhil, you used to work for the fbi. did you know about this white house personnel office and what do you make of the conflicting stories? >> in some ways, yes, i did, i had to go through a white house security process myself. in some ways, the stories aren't conflicting. this is speculative, but i would bet this one in vegas, anderson. let me give you a way this works. the fbi completes the investigation in july. that means they pass over a file to the white house security office. that file could include things that are pretty basic. the guy shoplifted when he was 17, who cares. he smoked dope when he was a sophomore in college, who cares. let's adjudicate him. or, you step forward and say, he might have hit two ex-wives, those are the allegations, how do you adjudicate that and why can't you adjudicate an expedited security clearance for a white house official in seven months? let me tell you what i think happened here. i think the fbi sent over a really nasty package in july, they upd

correspondent abby phillip, cnn political analyst, david gregory, and our chief political analyst gloria borger. how safe is kelly right now? >> well, you heard the vice president there. i think last night there was a lot of scurrying around and a lot of activity around the fact that the president had been calling people, one of whom he sort of remotely said, well, if i were thinking about changing chief of staff, would you be interested? he said, no, that was last friday. so there's all this kind of activity about replacements and people in the white house wondering what is going on here, and i think now we're seeing an effort from the vice president and others to say, stop, we're done, it's over, there's not going to be a replacement for general kelly. he is remaining where he is, and i think obviously that comes from the president. >> i think that's the important point. mike pence, the vice president, may be all the way over there in the olympics, but when he comes out and vouches for kelly in this way, that means they're closing ranks. this is a president who doesn't mind letting someone he

with me now is cnn chief political analyst, gloria borger and our chief legal analyst, jeffrey toobinf, tell us more about the specifics of the indictments. what do they cover? >> they cover very similar indictments to the first indictment, except there's more of a focus on the tax issues here. basically, the gist of it is that manafort received millions of dollars and manafort and gates received millions of dollars from his work on behalf of yanukovych, who was the ukrainian leader who was allied with vladimir putin. in this case, they are accused of receiving that money in phony loans that they were actually using the money as if it were income, but treating it as if it's loans, so they didn't have to pay taxes on it. so the tax charges are at the heart of this case. >> so, i mean, is this a move, jeff, to pressure gates and manafort into taking a plea deal or pressuring gates into flip on manafort and maybe manafort to flip on somebody else? >> that's exactly what it is. it's worth remembering that paul manafort is 70 years old. if he's convicted in both of these cases, he is almos

assistant to robert mueller at the justice department, as well as kirsten powers and david axelrod and gloria borgerael zeldin, you see the tweet there from james comey on the eve of what we believe to be the release of this. does it feel to you like a spurious attack on the fbi? >> the nunes -- >> yes. >> -- memo is a spurious attack, politically motivated spurious attack on the fbi that is unnecessary for the redress that he says needs to be happening. >> what the republicans are saying is, look, this is about educating the american people, the american people need to know what's going on at the highest levels of the fbi. >> right. so there are two ways to do that. you can invite the inspector general to investigate those improprieties or hold oversight hearings and, in fact, fbi director wray asked to brief the full committee in closed-door session to answer any and all questions with respect to their concerns about the issuance of this fisa warrant that they're so worried about and they declined that opportunity. so there are opportunities here to gather the information. these memoranda, because

know how specific the information that john kelly got was but our understanding from sources, gloria borgernd others at the white house -- our white house team is that he certainly had a head's up and information that there were problems with the background checks and we're told even to the point where he understood that there were issues of domestic violence. and that john kelly, who very much relied on rob porter, rob porter has become until yesterday integral part of the kelly machine at the white house, didn't do anything. so -- what we don't know is how specific it got. but at the end of the day, this is a question of leadership, it is a question of ownership. we know from our reporting that the president himself was furious. he didn't know about the specifics until he saw it in the paper. and this is so complicated on so many levels because -- we have to remind people that rob porter is dating hope hicks. who is probably the most important aide in the white house. >> the communications director. >> who helped craft the -- the sort of misleading or at least -- or omitted important fact