leading off our discussion about all of that now, harry litman. harry is a legal scholar who has been following every turn of the mueller investigation and the investigation of michael cohen. harry litman is a former federal prosecutor and a former deputy assistant attorney general in the clinton administration. and also joining us with the capitol hill perspective, lisa graves, who is a former deputy assistant attorney general in the clinton administration and a former counsel to the senate judiciary committee. and sam stein is with us. he's the politics editor of "the daily beast." he is also an msnbc political analyst. he will cover the politics of what is looming for next week. and harry litman, let me go to you first on what we're hearing about the mueller investigation. sync that with the now announced scheduling just tonight, the announced scheduling of michael cohen testifying publicly this time next week. does michael cohen's basically being released by the special prosecutor to go testify and tell all publicly indicate, is that another in

wait. >> harry litman, i got to jump to you. i remember i worked in the white house when i felt out of my depths, i read broooks like "ro to damascus." this is the only white house where you have to do your homework about what the gocht can do by watching "good fellas" over and over again. >> it's really true. sometimes more like married to the mob. the kind of version of it. look, we have now -- this is a very broad-ranging subpoena and a whole smorgus board of different crimes bought it's true we have the latticework now combining all kinds of different names and episodes and incidents we've heard before that may lead to ukraine, to qatar, to all -- it's a very rich series of leads. and the fountainhead of it all, michael cohen. he is the one who's been there for the ten years. it's his and rick gates' cooperation that gave rise to this particular investigation, and he and the southern district of new york are basically not going to stop until everything has been unearthed. not just as candidate, not just as nominee, but datin

attorney harry litman is back. huffington post senior justice reporter ryan riley is inside the courtroom. and here at the table sam stein, politics editor at the daily beast is here. amy stoddard is making her way to the table. that's how we go here, if they're here, they're here, ready when they're ready. we will start with you, devlin. what are you watching in this stone proceeding? if you could just sort of rank on sort of the scale of corruption to stupidity, brazen to devil destructive, finger in the eye of rule of law, and this is also a case of sort of spiting himself. roger stone getting himself in trouble today in court. >> yeah, the stone hearing really is amazingly weird. i started covering courts more than 20 years ago, and one of the things that hand in the course of of this is stone's lawyer filed something called a notice of apology to the judge in preparation for this hearing. i have never heard of a notice of apology before, i have never seen a notice of apology before. pretty sure it's not even a

back now with shimon prokupecz, susan glasser, phil mudd, and harry litman. harry, the special counsel describes the evidence they have from roger stone as voluminous and complex. should the president be worried? >> i think so. terabytes, that's really a lot and often consistent with the extra amount of data in actually decoding the information that stone might have thought he'd kept from it government's eyes. probably not. it's likely they already had in his own words the proof of his having lied. moreover, the designation as complex, with which both stone and the government agreed to, means we're going on for a while. unless stone caves and decides to cooperate, which has got to be a distinct possibility, we're looking, because it's a complex case, at trial in the fall. >> we saw, shimon, how russians could use information that they send to lawyers, right? and leak it. >> that's right. >> so then how is the mueller team trying to prevent leaks from all of this and particular information? >> well, they're asking for a protective order. same thing they've done

. >> joining me now, harry litman and jeff mason, thank you very much both for being with us. first of all, the significance of mccabe saying that they notified congress of this counterintelligence investigation in those days. and justifying in his book and in this interview why they felt the president was a threat. the title of the book, as savannah pointed out, is "the athleti threat: how the fbi protects america in the age of terrorism and trump," and he combines those two things, terrorism and trump, in the title. >> both of those seem highly significant, the notification of the gang of eight, it really blunts the newest brouhaha about this being some kind of coup or fbi acting -- driving out of its lane. when they heard about the charges, they understood that you have to have some kind of counterintelligence investigation because the risks were so potentially grave. and to the risks itself, what it really brings home is how erratic and troubling and unprecedented the behavior was in those tumultuous days in may. and we've gotten a little bit used to it. but at the time, e

joining our discussion now, jill banks, and harry litman, a former u.s.orney and attorney general und. we had it told us by the "new york times" that president trump spoke to matthew whitaker about can you get thhim to recuse himself so i can see this, and what do you make of this development that the house judiciary committee has this evidence? >> it's very interesting they may have it. it also means there is a possible perjury by mr. whitaker who has denied that he had any conversations like this. it's completely consistent with how all of the people surrounding donald trump behave. they deny, they deny, they deny. donald trump has trained them if you don't admit it, you're not guilty. that's something that should cause concern to all citizens in america. >> harry litman, does it look to you that matthew whitaker threaded the needle careful enough in his testimony to avoid a perjure charge. he was never specifically asked the question, did the president try to control something about that prosecution in new york? the questions he was asked, he seemed to

attorney harry litman. at the table, associated press white house reporter jonathan lemire and johnny deutsche. harry, we left out five of your titles. we will get to those before we start talking to you. i have to start with ken and carol, some unbelievable reporting from you and your colleagues this week. you guys have obviously pored over this transcript with all of the knowledge about the manafort case. ken, your piece mopped wnday wa described by a u.s. firm akin to a unicorn sighting. the officials at the heart of the mueller probe, the branch of that, contacts between donald trump's former campaign chairman and konstantin kilimnik. you have been on this beat for many months. talk about what the significance this is in the broader mueller probe. >> the significance of what was laid out in the court filing you just described is that it gives some visibility into what mueller is actually pursuing, that is specific to the mission and the task he was assigned by the department of justice. that is to invest

harry litman, he makes a great point. this was all done -- and this might be the conundrum of dealing with the trump administration, this was done in good faith, the point about tactics. they simply said if you don't show up, we're prepared to subpoena you, which in a normal white house -- and i worked in a normal white house, is information. it does not necessarily affect your conduct. >> that's right. it prompts at most the negotiation of what they will talk about. if it's a miscue, it's because in tactics it gave whitaker, who obviously would prefer not to testify and excuse something to brandish. the questions that you quoted, and they gave him, were pretty cleverly crafted. they're general and open-ended and hard to simply assert executive privilege to. they would push him -- and this presumably is what he was practicing doing, pushing him a little farther down the line before he asserted. one more thing about executive privilege, it's a general balancing test and might be a harder battle for congress to win than for

if you recall yesterday, harry litman told me last night that it would make sense if you planned to subpoena the president that you might wait for the last minute to do it. why has he misdirected on all things in the campaign, why does he act like he has something to hide? why isn't he curious to find out if any americans hurt him? joining me for this conversation, former federal prosecutor, sal weisenberg. howard fineman, and daniel pletka. i say it this way, all of the reporting has been based on the justice didn't preparing. based on everything that we don't know and have not heard from mueller, would it surprise you if he could wrap this and have a report early next week? >> no no, it would not surprise me at all. he did a lot of work and he has whatever else you can say about his team, he has a highly qualified team with him. >> how many of those unknown unanswered questions has he at times hinted that there is more information. how many of those do you think will get complete answers to? the question is how much of that comes to the american people. barr is the -- mueller is the specia

. >> well the president could have an opinion on that, joining me now is harry litman. into a little bit of the process part, mueller is required to submit a report to basically his supervisor, is it now bill barr? >> it is now bill barr. rosenstein doesn't matter now. he just has to submit a short summary of his expectations, but if it is submitted next week it will be more full bodied. >> have you ever had to submit a report like this for a multipronged investigation? a drug investigation or something like that where you have this kind of situation. >> yeah, i had situations where it was a octopus kind of case that was 50 to 100 pages. this is the president of the united states, and the most consequential report in u.s. history. i have not had that before, and it is also a case that the regulations specifically provide for a very bare bones report and the national interests provide for something greater, how mueller and bar will negotiation that tension is unclear. >> you were number three i think -- >> well no, but where would you come down on this? >> i feel like no

we turn now to former federal prosecutor harry litman who knows these stories well. very well. hat is important, do you think about what's coming down the pipe for the rest of this week? >> well, pretty much everything. we're back to kind of a 360 degree investigation in potential assault on mueller. you'll have whitaker testifying. he will probably try to elude any of the questions about how he was appointed. there may be a subpoena battle there. cohen obviously has a lot to say, but mueller may be able to muzzle him quite a bit. i think the biggest news is what's happening in the inaugural committee, a big broad subpoena as you said. and if it doesn't indanger trump individually, it endangers are a lot of people who can endanger him. it looks like he may have tried to dip into the piggy bank to help international connections, and he would know a lot about either things trump may have done. >> and how does that square with the way they feel, and they feel it's unfair. on the other hand, it appears these leads, some of which come from people like michael cohen, are the fruits of

. >> here's what a friend of the show, harry litman, wrote about stone's gag order.okay? it said that jackson's order made it clear that what he couldn't do was conduct a public campaign against his trial on the courthouse steps as he did when he left the court following his preliminary appearance, flashing the nixon v for victory sign and trarking special counsel robert s. mueller's probe. those displays garner wider press coverage and cast the court itself in a political light. is that exactly what stone did with this instagram post, do you think? >> well, sure. part of what litman's getting at there is the judge has a broader discretion to regulate stone's behavior on the courthouse steps than she does when he's on his private instagram. but as to this action, look, the bottom line is what he did on the courthouse steps was stupid. that was dumb. and this is dumber. it is dumb when -- >> and dumber. >> -- someone holds your freedom in your -- there you go. when someone holds your freedom in their hands, as judge jackson does for roger stone, you do not want to tak

joining me now is harry litman, former u.s.ttorney and former deputy attorney general during the clinton administration, and msnbc's national security analyst frank figuliuzzi. frank, what are you looking for as a counterintelligence expert from michael cohen, the impact of his testimony in secret and in public? >> when we get to hear him in public, in open session, i'll be looking for evidence of crimes committed while in office by trump. that will be directly related to impeach tability impeachability. let's focus on that. also i need to hear what is it precisely that cohen lied to congress about the first time, and perhaps more importantly, who directed him to lie or who knew he was lying. >> and those two things are related, if he were hypothetically told to lie by the president or someone on behalf of the president. >> exactly. and that's the material that he will testify about today as opposed to tomorrow, all things russia, which we're told won't come out tomorrow, but things like who told you to lie about how long the t

harry litman, and my panel for the hour, nancy cooke, sahil kap kapur. thank you all for being here. kim, i want to start with you with what we heard from adam schiff over the weekend. he said look, if the attorney general doesn't make the findings by robert mueller public, he's poised to subpoena that report. take a listen. i want to get your reaction on the other side. >> we will obviously subpoena the report. we will bring bob mueller in to testify before congress. we'll take it to court if necessary. and in the end, i think the department understands they're going to have to make this public. i think barr will ultimately understand that as well. >> now, as we know, kim, the attorney general has not said he's going to make it public. he said he needs to look at it first and then make a determination. what do you make of what you heard from adam schiff? >> i think he has his finger on what is a conundrum right now. which is that the regulations that govern this report do not provide they be made public to the congress or to the american people. that is

want to bring in harry litman juliette. >> they announce a sweeping investigation into the president'sshould the president's legal team be -- what you this she be doing now to prepare for this? >> yeah, and sweeping is right. really covers everything we've heard about chronologically, geographically. there are not that many weaponsst the one weapon they do have is to assert executive pruf privilege. and force a battle over subpoenas which typically and historically take a long tomb and sometimes so long that that the congress itself is over and the case goes away, we're going to learn a lot on friday. whitaker says they'll show up, i bet he will, but on the first sensitive question they're going to ask him about, how did you get the job, will he assert executive privilege? if that happens, you'll know it's probably going to be a general strategy. >> you're shaking your head, juliette -- >> which way was she shaking? >> always in agreement. >> how would a team react to this kind of political statement landscape where there will be investigations coming from congress as well as the justi

harry litman and from the america rising pack, alexander wilkes.l of you. >> thank you. >> shannon: there was a debate about what this bill actually was so the senator talked about it just before the vote on the senate vote, for today, here's his expiration. >> picture baby that's already been born that is outside the womb gasping for air. that's the only thing that today's vote is actually about. we are talking about babies who have already been born. nothing in this bill touches abortion access. >> shannon: i think whited nearly every democrat in the senate vote no on this? >> i think what he said is so misleading. this legislation would criminalize doctors and it doesn't actually address anything to -- >> shannon: of baby that's actually a life outside of the one. doesn't he live with anything that happens before. >> excuse me, it addresses a procedure that just doesn't exist. it's not an abortion. it doesn't exist as a procedure in this country. it's a misleading builder to >> shannon: i got to stop right there because i covered the case for a

nbc news intelligence and national security reporter kim delaney, craig brower, mya wylie, harry litman and dana millbank, a big thanks to all of you. ken, i'll start with you because in addition to the president's tweet, we also heard from his press secretary a little more than an hour ago. >> the president is going to leave that decision up to the attorney general. just because he hasn't made that call, he's following the proper process. if he did it the other way, you guys would go crazy saying i can't believe the president has done this. i think it's such a double standard. >> does he want to be made public? does he think the public needs to see it in order to move on, sarah? >> we think the public should have moved on a long time ago. i think the public did move on a long time ago. i think the only people that are hung up on it are the democrats and the media. >> those heading that investigation might dispute that conclusion, ken. what do we know about where things stand right now? >> that statement she made has no connection to reality. this.investigation, 34 people indicted or ac

. >> harry litman, take me through what robert mueller sees and hears, presumably, he has access to allis information and then some. >> yeah, he sees and hears the potential for obstruction of justice again. you're the white house counsel's office. start there. many of them have probably spoken to him. you're sitting there and you hear sean spicer get up and blithely announce there's no legal issue. when you know what has happeneded with flynn and right away think about liability for the white house and liability for yourself down the line. now, would this amount to an actual obstruction? this kind of lie about flynn. i think that's a bit of a stretch, but it's certainly of interest to mueller that the president's impulse is immediately to say, whatever sounds best. and that spicer is specifically contradicting what white house counsel members at least think that they have told him. now, there's a little bit of a war of words going on even today between spicer and the white house counsel folks. that's what happens when people in the white house start lying. there's a bit of a circular f

no word on whether harris will run for the congressional seat once again.ng joining us is dan litman, the co-author of the "politico" play book. mark harris was in washington did have d.c. how's this ringing out on capitol hill what happened in north carolina? >> i think capitol hill has been watching this and cringing the wholhow'has time because they wondering howse mark harris cou even think to hire this guy to help t with absentee ballots, tt he was warned by his own son was likely a fraudulent operation, and soen a lot of capitol hill republicans think that they should have had a tighter leash on this guy, and they didn't expect that in the 21st century that they would be resorting to, you know, ballot fraud. from democrats you hear people talking about as much attention on this case, what about all those state laws that republican legislatures have passed toan me ites harder for people to vote, particularly minorities, and so that's something you hear that from democrats as a talking point because they believe that suppresses the number of votes from minorities. >> either way it