there had been worries that jeff berman's role, his status as the interim u.s. attorney in the southern district, his recusal, his not being involved in the michael cohen case -- there had been worries that maybe the white house might try to use that as some sort of bargaining chip. he's the interim u.s. attorney. he has been appointed, he hasn't been formally nominated to the senate. senate has not confirmed him u.s. attorney. as an interim u.s. attorney, jeff berman's tenure in the southern district of new york is scheduled to end next week. had been scheduled to end as of may 4th unless the trump administration stepped in to formally and properly nominate him for the job. so, it's been this question hanging over the cohen case. when his appointment expires next week, and all of a sudden he can't hold that job any more without trump say-so, might trump take that opportunity to appoint somebody else to lead the southern district of new york who wouldn't have to take themselves out of running the cohen case? who wouldn't have a conflict of interest when it came

jeff berman, they are republican here. another example, perhaps, nancy and zeke, of the president seeing and understanding what he wants to see and understand and not necessarily the facts on the ground. >> well, absolutely. and he has been really up in arms about this. >> yeah, he's upset have some for months and has lashed out at a number of attorneys, the white house top attorney don mcginn for a bunch of months even though they wasn't in his purview. i think it just speaks to the president's view of lawyers. he thinks lawyers should able to clean up any mess and if they don't clean up a mess they're viewed as incompetent even if there is a special investigation underway. >> excuse me. nancy's right there if the if you look at michael cohen he's somebody that's been so close to the president that by his own admission he took a home equity line loan on his home to pay a porn actress weeks before the presidential election. that's the nature of their relationship. so it's no surprise that we're seeing the president react l

attorneys do but he did it and picked jeff berman to be the u.s.ney and jeff berman is the person who authorized this search -- >> what you saw in the cabinet room today, donald trump, we talked a lot in the last year about him not respecting the traditional distance and independence of the justice department and the fbi, from the presiden presidency. i think he got a real lesson today on what that independence is. this is a moment where i think the president was -- and you see it in how angry he is, that it is this way, but there's a full-on display example of the independence from the executive of the justice department fulfilling its mission. and he sat there with his national security team in the wake of a syrian chemical gas attack and he called the search warrant, while dramatic, perfectly legal. he called it, quote, an attack on our country. in that context, sitting around the table with men and women who are giving their live to protect our country from real attacks, that's pretty offensi offensive. >> also you could argue given the lack of

attorney for the southern district, jeff berman. he's someone i understand to be close to don mcgahn, the president's own white house counsel, somebody appointed by the president, somebody interviewed by the president and placed there as a trump appointee not yet confirmed as far as i understand. but this seems like another domino to fall in the president's ongoing war against his own appointees in the department of justice at the fbi and now in the u.s. attorney's office for the southern district. >> the president repeatedly does this with the justice department where he complains about it endlessly, just the other day complaining about the documents the justice department had not turned over to congress. i think the president sometimes forgets or maybe is afraid of the fact that he controls the justice department. he could call the justice department and tell them to end this. and i guess that's where we sort of stand right now. how truly angry is the president, and is he willing to do this? is he willing to push the republicans t

attorney's office from your designated candidate don mcgahn's friend jeff berman. the people who worked for obama, most of those people are gone. you fired sally yates, jim comey, andy mccabe and most of the other people who worked in the obama department reassigned. wrong again. the most conflicted of all. close to 80% of americans think he should be allowed to finish his job. and even rush limbaugh today warned you against firing him. the tweet ends like this. you conclude, except rosenstein, who signed fisa and comey letter, no collusion, so they go crazy. rosenstein is functioning as any deputy attorney general for the united states of america would function and the only person going crazy is you. >>> did i miss anything? >> no, that's right. >> any time trump goes with the parentheses on twitter, parentheses are the best part. >> you missed one thing. >> tell me. jump in. >> you missed one thing. that last charge is so brazen because he's the one that essentially forced rosenstein to write the comey letter. he basically put him to it. >> that we know was a lie

jeff berman is the attorney of jeff sessions in new york. he's overlooking michael cohen.e's the one who authorized the raid on his home. and robert mueller, the special counsel. what do all of these have in common? i'm answering my own question. they are all republicans and they were all named to their current positions during the trump presidency, during the trump administration. so when the president says this investigation is a bunch of democrats who are biased and anti-trump, these are all republicans, they were all named by his people. >> absolutely. we should point out that mr. berman, i believe, my colleagues are reporting that he has also recused himself from this particular matter. but it's true these are all republicans, it's true they were all appointed during the trump administration. it seems, talking to people around the president, that that almost makes it worse in his mind. he feels like he should be protected by these people. this has been his beef with jeff sessions all along, that why isn't he protecting me from this? he's my attorney general, i'm the o

attorney in manhattan, jeffrey or jeff berman, who is the president's own pick for that office. so the idea that this is a witch hunt just seems ridiculous. >> if you look at the deciding officials that would be involved in a case like this, and you have to remember, don, that when you go into an attorney's office, it really requires permissions at the highest level. so you probably had christopher wray, the head of the fbi, rod rosenstein, the acting attorney general. the interim u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york, berman, and the head of the criminal division in the main justice department, all of whom are seasoned lawyers, all of them happen to be republicans, which i think is irrelevant, but the notion that that crew would somehow conspire to engage in a witch hunt against the president's lawyer for allegations of campaign finance violations doesn't hold true to me. >> i agree that it's relevant, but i think it's important to point out that the president keeps saying it's a witch hunt, it's the democrats, why aren't you looking at hillary clinton or barack o

but jeff berman who is a trump appointee as you said was not involved in seeking the search warrant, or the search warrant process and is not involved in this investigation. it's important to note that in early may, his appointment expires, he was not put forward as a nominee by trump and he was not confirmed by the senate. so he is not actually the u.s. attorney, the permanent u.s. attorney until such time as either he would leave on his own or he would be fired and appointed by somebody else if another administration came in or resigned or something to that effect. that's why i think some folks got this confused the other day, but robert mueller did not have anything to do with the warrant or executing the warrant and his investigation is ongoing. >> if you're worried about attorney client privilege, and that needs to be approved by someone pretty high up in the chain. rod rosenstein did this? >> rod rosenstein executed this warrant. if you want to do a sports analogy, the gm or the one two oversees everyone, he oversees mueller. and from court documents, we know from filings, he h

and if that's all true, the sitting united states attorney right now is a man by the name of jeff berman who was hand-picked by the president of the united states to take over for my successor june kim. so it's an act of independence on the part, if this is true, of the person who is now in charge of my old office. so i don't know how you can complain the way the president did about, you know, politics or anything else. the justice department is run by his people. the special counsel was appointed by his people. this u.s. attorney is his person who i'm told he actually met with before appointing him to the position. and what i've seen so far is that the mueller team referred this portion of the investigation to the southern district of new york through rod rosenstein. and maybe that's true. it is also true by the way that if the mueller team needed to do an investigation that involved property records in new york city, which is the southern district of new york, that they would need to get a search warrant even in connection with their own investigation. and to do that generally you have

murky to me whether it was just the mueller office, just the southern district of new york led by jeff berman the new u.s. attorney, but the prosecutors there and the judge who upheld the search warrant felt that the risk of michael cohen destroying documents was so great, the risk that he wouldn't respond accurately to a subpoena was to great that they had to go in there and take his cell phone, take his computer, take his files and then figure out what's privilege and what's not. this is very unusual, and it's very scary to donald trump quite obviously as maggie was saying because this is someone who probably knows more of donald trump's secrets than ivanka and jared kushner do. >> let's get you information and talk about the implications. put up the graphic of steps just so you understand how involved this is to kind of negate the sense that this was a capricious act. you have to have tried to get this already. that raises the issue of what kind of cooperation they were getting. we've been told that michael cohen through his attorney that they had been cooperating. >> they say thousands of

removed specifically for donald trump to put in the united states attorney who is now acting there, jeff berman. he hand-picked him, there were reports that he interviewed him. -t to do a search on an attorney's office, it's a sensitive thing. it requires the approval of the united states attorney in conjunction with the acting criminal head, who also used to work in my old office. so if it's true that the southern district of new york has taken over this part of the investigation based on a referral from bob mueller's office, it's being done because people think it's serious, warranted and there's evidence of a significant enough nature that you'll risk doing something sensitive like raiding a law office. >> at the end of that q & a, the president was answering some questions. he was asked about the special counsel robert mueller. one reporter said, why don't you just fire mueller? he said, i think it's a disgrace what's going on, we'll see what happens. do you think he might fire him? >> i thought all along he mite fi -- might fire him. but if this portion of the investigation has been lopped

know well, a guy from new jersey appointed there by attorney general sessions, this is a good guy, jeff berman. he is a boy scout. he'll do the right thing. >> and dan, explain how many hoops they had to go through to get this raid of michael cohen's office. >> right,, robert mueller did not make this decision. robert mueller made the decision that this is actually outside the scope of what i'm supposed to be doing. >> to be clear he came upon evidence he thought of some criminal activity. >> it seems he came upon some sort of potential criminal activity. he then hands it off effectively to rod rosenstein, who is the deputy attorney general says, look, we found this, you decide what to do with it. rod rosenstein then makes a referral meaning basically says to the southern district of new york, look, here's what we got, you decide what to do with this. then the u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york, appointed by jeff sessions just recently, interviewed with donald tmakes a decision to then seek out a search warrant, a judge then signs off on it. the standard for a judge to sign of

attorney general jeff sessions had appointed jeffrey berman in january on an interim basis. it's not clear why berman chose to step aside now. we know his decision was approved by senior justice department officials. >>> stormy daniels, we now know, is cooperating with federal investigators. a fact that was confirmed by her lawyer, michael avenatti, on the heels of the michael cohen raid. sources tell cnn that investigators are looking into the nondisclosure agreement and subsequent payment made to the porn star by cohen, the president's personal attorney. a source tells cnn that the federal probe is extensive and aggressive. a large team is working on the case. stormy daniels is set to appear on the next cover of "penthouse" magazine featuring a profile about her and her alleged affair with mr. trump. >>> 15 minutes keeps ticking on. president trump canceling a trip to south america this weekend. the white house says he wants to remain in washington to deal with the chemical attack on syria. tuesday he spoke with british prime minister theresa may and french president macro

attorney is a guy by the name of jeffrey berman who was appointed by jeff sessions, never formally nominated now appointed by the court itself. it seems like the person running the most important law office in the country that oversees the case hasn't gone through advice and consent. what do you think of that? >> have i huge concerns. i wasn't going to return the blue slip for him because he met with the president. to be someone with that position, authority over an investigation that could involve the president, to meet with the president and get his okay just raises concerns. issues of whether there's impropriety or not. so without in he analysis of his qualifications i thought the meeting alone disqualified him. it is troubling that he is running an office that is perhaps one of the most important in the country. and doesn't have the benefit of advice and consent of the senate. >> i want to make sure, because of that meeting, you were going to not return a blue slip. >> correct. >> which is a senate process in which the home state senator exercises veto over the nomination? >> correct. >>

jeff sessions had to know. he didn't say anything to me. christopher wray, i thought he was my guy. they just told me jeffrey berman gave me money in the campaign. this is a man who anybody who has known him over time, i understand why he's in the fit of peak he's in the right now. >> sure. >> people have to understand this man will protect himself like nobody we've ever seen in that office before. >> that's part of the insult, cohen is the keeper of secrets closer than anyone other than family has been said. we have a dozen agents raid his offices and his hotel room -- >> that kind of move, you know, i'm sure in his mind, this isn't what they do. it was unfair of the process. it was a search. manafort, that was very aggressive. the president has to reconcile, yes, it was very aggressive, but it was done by his own people. >> right. >> john avlon, jeffrey toobin, thank you both very much. >>> so president trump promising a forceful response very soon to the chemical attack in syria. we have a live report from damascus for you next. ♪ if you'd have told me three years ago... that we'd be downloading in seconds, what

john kelly, it makes you wonder whether jeff sessions and rod rosenstein are in danger at this point. >> you said the president intends to nominate jeffrey bermanrn district. which raises the distinct possibility that we may discover that jeffrey berman recused himself from this case and left it to one of the career prosecutors in the southern district of new york. and if the president discoveries yet another approval has led to today's fbi raids we'll get some tweets about that one. thank you both very much for joining this discussion tonight. really appreciate it. >> thank you. >> thank you, lawrence. >>> coming up, how today's fbi raids might influence the president's decision about how to respond to a suspected chemical attack in syria. that is something that with this president, in this situation, we have to consider and that's next. at ally, we're doing digital financial services right. but if that's not enough, we have more than 8000 allys looking out for one thing: you. call in the next ten minutes... and if that's not enough, we'll look after your every dollar. put down the phone. and if that's not enough, we'll look after your every c

jeff, you know, the president saying that basically linking all this to robert mueller, the person who actually authorized this raid would be the head of the southern district who's an appointee of the president. >> geoffrey berman. the u.s. attorney. appointed by donald trump. not just that. remember, he didn't have the authority to order a search warrant by himself. all a u.s. attorney can do is make an application to a magistrate judge who decides whether there's enough evidence to grant a search warrant. so it's not -- his complaint is not just with robert mueller. it's with his own appointee, geoff berman, and the judges who approved the search warrant. so the idea that this is somehow bob mueller off on a rogue tangent by himself is just completely belied by the facts >> it's also interesting to hear them, the president talk about the fbi kind of breaking into his -- as if it's like daniel ellsberg's office, his psychiatrist's office and they're stealing documents. what hoops do the fbi, does the head of the southern district, have is to jump through in order to get -- >> i mean, getting a search warrant is an extensive process. it's not -- >> and harder to get one on a lawyer? >> yes. absolutely. there's