. >> and i'm joining by jeffrey toobin and laura coats. hannity is holding his regular radio show and just addressed this revelation. take a listen. >> and let me be very clear to the media, michael never represented me in any matter -- i never retained him in the traditional sense as retaining a lawyer. i never received an invoice from michael. i never paid legal fees to michael. but i have occasionally had brief discussions with him about legal questions about which i wanted his input and perspective. >> jeffrey toobin, your response? >> well, there seems to be some disagreement between michael cohen and sean hannity about whether they ever had a legal relationship. and that is potentially significant because if sean hannity is telling the truth there, then their conversations would not be privileged. and any relationship between them would not be privileged. certainly if sean hannity did retain michael cohen he should have disclosed that because he's been a big advocate of michael cohen on his television and radio show. that is a matter

political commentator, former deputy communications director for donald trump's campaign, and jeffrey toobin, cnn chief legal analyst. brian, morally unfit to be president. that is what we heard from james comey. what is your reaction to his interview? >> a despicable answer for a man who lied before congress. in may of 2017, he lied to senator grassley. and now he's passing judgment on this president. just a despicable answer, he's selling books, it shouldn't be -- he shouldn't be allowed to have all this space to sell these books and -- >> why shouldn't he be allowed to have the ability to sell books? >> i think -- he shouldn't have this amplified effect to have all these media attention. what we have looked at is in may of 2017, he told senator grassley one thing. and now he's saying something completely different in the book. he said he had never leaked anything before, and the book states he's leaked something. the ig report from last friday states he leaked something. there is a problem here. his sort of this unimpeachable character is the most impeachable in this entire episode now. w

. >>> joining me now is jeffrey toobin and former fbi official phil mudd.s -- listened to the messages from the white house and the president tweaking and critique of the special counsel saying he was appointed possibly on a illegal basis and the white house said he has no intention of firing robert mueller. phil, who do you believe? >> i don't think he has an intention of firing. i suspect if you want to read the intent of the united states after 15 months, you butter ask somebody else, jim. but looking at this logically, as a law of unintended consequences. the president got burned by the firing of james comey and then he disappeared from the scene and mueller came on. the avenue president has now that congress will step up or reappoint someone else. the team is brilliant. they won't go anywhere. if you try to go the other route and removing the rod rosenstein or the attorney general, whoever the president tries to put in to replace them has to get confirmed by the senate and they couldn't confirm anybody other than they would allow the investigation to c

we have the advantage of jeffrey toobin here. you're a lawyer.es comey gives a first-hand account with the meeting with the president soon after the president is elected when he says the president told him to let the flynn investigation go and he said he's asking me his impression is to drop the critical investigation. is that possible obstruction of justice he's referring to? >> i don't think. i think it is obstruction of justice. i just think there is just no other way to describe what the president was doing if comey's account of the conversation is correct. he is trying to stop an investigation of a someone in the russia investigation and particularly when you combine it with all three meetings that comey talks about, i think in and of itself it is obstruction of justice. it was a crime committed in the oval office. now, whether comey is telling the truth, he sure looked like he was telling the truth to me. he sure has a pretty good record on such issues but, you know, you have to look at the evidence in the case but i think it's a completely

let's bring in john avlon and jeffrey toobin. jeffrey, the president is the subject of mueller's probe, not a target. what's the difference? >> there are three categories of witnesses in federal investigations. there's a witness who is someone who has information of value. there's a target, who is almost certainly going to be indicted, then there's a subject, someone who is being scrutinized who may be indicted, who may not be indicted. and that's the category that trump falls in. but that's a very serious thing. if you are a subject of a criminal investigation, that means you are -- they are looking at you as someone who may be a criminal. >> play that out a little bit. in an interview with prosecutors from mueller's team where they are gathering information, that status can change. >> it can change. but if you are a lawyer and are told, as you have a awe right to be told, that your client is a subject, you almost always tell that person to take the fifth. you don't take chances. now, if the client is the president of the united

lots to discuss with chief legal analyst jeffrey toobin. and steve hall.laim that he didn't stay the night in moscow, it seems obvious he did. it doesn't necessarily mean he is trying to hide something. >> if you lie about one thing, you might be lying about somethi something. and it is all relevant to the question. i wrote a piece about the 2013 universe pageant. and it is 2340 doubt that the president, he wasn't president then, but donald trump definitely spent the night at the ritz carlton hotel in moscow. unclear when he left. whether he went back to the hotel and spent the next night there. it doesn't mean that this, you know, notorious incident with the prostitute didn't take place. >> trump's personal body guard testified to congress that the russias offered to send to hotel room. >> it is not just a matter of whether it is prostitutes or frankly donald trump or somebody else. that thing goes on with high ranking businessmen. when you have a target like trump and i think it is probably undeniable at this point that donald trump would have been a tar

joining us is brian karen and jeffrey toobin. great to see all of you guys. john avlon, let's start with china retaliating. here's the graphic. 128 u.s. products. 120 involve fruits, nuts, wine, steel products, pork products, recycled aluminum. what do we think is going to happen now? >> it's a step to the trade war. what is interesting to me is pork on 25%. that is a pitch back to iowa. and the khaochinese ambassador, governor of iowa. that is targeted to eye eye, designed to inflict pain on the ambassador. worse can come. this is only $3 billion. it is not even approaching what the u.s. has done. so watch for escalation. >> so what determines whether there's escalation or not? >> whether china does another round. >> that's the only thing? i don't know. i'm just asking. >> cnn is reporting this is about the first round of aluminum tariffs. the second round, if china decides to match that, then we have more problems. >> china plays trump interestingly. they could have is easily gone at the same level. u.s. tariffs are worth $50 billion. these are $3 billion.

analyst and new york times white house correspondent maggie haberman and cnn chief legal analyst jeffrey toobin. jeffrey, educate us. tell us how unusual it is or how hard it is to search the offices of someone's lawyer. >> justice department really discourages its prosecutors from searching lawyer's offices because there are so many complicated questions arising out of attorney/client privilege and what documents are covered and what documents are not. usually if a lawyer is part of an investigation, they will issue a subpoena so that the lawyer can make some choices about what's privileged and what's not. because there was a search warrant here, that means that the people in charge -- and it is still a little 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 ce

we have david gregory and jeffrey toobin. david gregory, so, we see the french president after conversations with the u.s. president coming out and saying i have the proof assad did this once again using chemical weapons on his own people of international law and seeming decency. that seems to suggest building urgency, what do you think happens andhat do you think congress does? >> notust building urgency but building an international predicate for the president to take action kind of in defense of international norms and to make this a case of a violation of international law and the use of chemical weapons which would be, i think, the authorization that he would need to launch a strike separate from consulting congress as you've been suggesting when we've had these conversations in the past days. i think that's one consideration. i think the president wants to bud something that feels more international here and there's a lot of reasons for that. i think it's a mistake to think you can just punch somebody in the nose and wa

let's discuss this and we are joined by chief legal analyst jeffrey toobin and dana bash. up is down, black is white and night is day as we deal with this statement from the president. it is odd. does he think we're going to not remember? is he trying to blur the lines here? any sense? >> all of the above. i just think if you kind of look at this with the big picture lens, you wonder why his attorneys don't want him to talk to robert mueller. i mean, exhibit a right here on the silver platter, mr. president. you know, if you're tweeting out something that directly contradicts a statement that you made on camera to a network television anchor, you're going to be in trouble. so, you know, this is classic donald trump in that he really doesn't have regard for things that he said before because in his world it doesn't matter and the truth is in the world that he is trying to reach on twitter it doesn't matter for many of those people, for many people in his base. it doesn't matter. it is only up to us and those who are outside that world to remind everybody that what he said i

let's bring in jeffrey toobin and john avlon. we have this dove tailing of law and politics here. >> right. >> politically how does this lay out right now? >> this is incredibly high stakes moment for the president and his administration. not only is this the first real crisis without a lot of his close confidants, hope hicks no one in this as the pressure ratchets up. the president finding out about this on television. the temptation to fire mueller with also james comey's book coming out within seven days will ratchet up pressure as well. whether the president flies off the handle, does something rash that people have been encouraging him not to do like fire mueller. also reconciling the fact that this is his justice department. this is a u.s. attorney for the southern district appointed by him to replace preet bharara. there's an extra sense of betrayal to further inflame his actions. >> he can't fire rob mueller directly. rod rosenstein would have to decide what he wanted to do. let's go down that road. people ask the preside

we're back with our reporters and analysts and jeffrey toobin we're being told that stephen ryan andael cohen said among the items taken during the fbi raids are his home and his office and his hotel room, his safety deputy box included trump organization materials. trump organization materials. you remember the president at one point suggested in that new york times interview, you bring in the trump organization and you are crossing a red line. what is your reaction -- what is the president's reaction going to be to that. >> this is very significant for two reasons. first of all, business records and e-mails, financial documents, contracts, bank statements, are very unlikely to be covered by attorney/client privilege. so the government is almost certainly going to get its hands on them. and the other reason is significant is because it is in the area that suggests that the president is most concerned about, whereas he said in that "times" interview, if you look for financial records of mine, other than about russia, that is a red line. that again could prompt the president to take a

you hear jeffrey toobin. meantime, his interview started to hit the air waves.he is with george stephanopoulos. >> i never thought these words would come out, but i don't know whether the current president of the united states was with constitutes peeing on each other in moscow in 2013. >> are we living an alternate universe? we think this is real life unless we're in a parallel universe. james, retired fbi supervisory special agent joins me along with jeffrey toobin. it is pretty incredible when you' that change on both sides. we're talking about prostitutes peeing in a hotel room in moscow. the whole thing is sordid on both sides. start with the president calling him a slime ball. people on both sides did hate jim comey at some point. >> he's right. some hate d him. there's a lot in there that's highly controversial. there's no proof he leaked classified information for example, so i think we need to be, can't get that backward. the -- >> sorry. >> the way donald trump expresses himself on twitter and in general is just something new under the sun in terms of

joining us is cnn chief legal analyst jeffrey toobin and cnn legal analyst carrie cordero. that mueller is continuing to investigate president trump but does not consider him a criminal target, but rather a subject of his investigation, what is the difference? >> in federal law enforcement there are three categories of witnesses. there are targets, who are almost certainly going to be charged, going to be indicted. there are witnesses who are just people whose information is of value to the prosecutors. and in between the two, there is something called a subject, that is someone who is under investigation but who may or may not be charged. trump is a subject, and i don't think that's particularly good news for him. it's a big deal to be under criminal investigation by the fbi, particularly if you are president of the united states. this has been implicit in what the mueller investigation has been doing, but this confirmation that the president is under criminal investigation, that's a pretty profound thing to think about. >> carrie, according to "the washington post" report

jeffrey toobin is with us. jeffrey, you're a former federal prosecutor, give us your analysis of this extraordinary moment. >> i think it's important to emphasize how unusual it is to get a search warrant of a lawyer's office. the justice department does do it on occasion but they're very reluctant to give prosecutor's permission to ask for -- to ask for search warrants of lawyers offices because there are so many complicated issues relating to the attorney/client privilege in obtaining documents that might violate that privilege. so they only allow these searches in rare circumstances. so this makes this moment even more extraordinary. it's not just that someone so close to the president had his offices searched, but someone who is a lawyer which means that the justice department felt very strongly that there was probable cause related to evidence of crimes in michael cohen's office and a magistrate judge agreed. now the answer to what they are looking for is in a document called the affidavit in support of the

i'll let jeffrey toobin explain. >> you establish a taint team which goes through all the documents, group of lawyers to determine which are covered by the attorney-client privilege and which are not. that taint team then turns over to the investigators the documents that are appropriate to look at. the taint team is not involved in the investigation. >> that's right, there's a taint team. ( laughter ) i'm glad you had me on, trevor, because, too often, the taint is ignored. allow me to elaborate with this chart i keep with me. this illustrates how investigators deal with attorney-client privilege. you see, trevor, this circle represents documents pertinent to the criminal investigation while this circle represents documents that prosecutors are not allowed to see, and this very sensitive area right in the middle, that's where the they want team works. >> trevor: that seems like an important job. >> yeah, this is a crack team of lawyers we're talking about here. experts in probing, which is necessary because if you stray too far in the wrong direction, things can start to get a littl

joining us jeffrey toobin and all allen dershowitz. sanders left own the possibility of pardoning michael cohen. do you see indications that the president would not pardon cohen? >> hard to say. he is obviously dangling a pardon before michael cohen in all but explicit terms. but you know, michael cohen hasn't been indicted yet and he may never been indicted so may be no reason to pardon him. it is worth pausing to consider again what it would be like if hillary clinton were president of the united states and one of her top aides was under criminal investigation and she was tweeting stay strong, don't flip. the republican party would have impeachment proceedings underway already if that is the case. now the standards have changed so dramatically, that we all shrug it offer. but totally inappropriate what the president is doing, but i don't think it is unlawful. >> professor dershowitz, is it inappropriate? >> i think it is inappropriate. look, the prosecutors can influence the discussion of compa cohen they can threaten him, cajole him

i've never seen attorneys fighting on television with jeffrey toobin acting as referee. this meet and confer requirement is whenever you do something major in a federal case, you're supposed to sit down with your adversary, have a conference and try to work it out so you don't have to go to the judge. but obviously the temperature has gotten so hot, these guys are fighting with each other so much, the judge now has said sit down, hammer this stuff out before you come to me with motion practice. i think you have an angry federal judge saying figure it out yourself before you come to me. >> this is avenatti reacting to done lemon, reacting to his conversation with michael cohen last evening. watch. >> it's moronic under the circumstances -- any attorney would tell a client not to be speaking to the press the day after the fbi executes three search warrants on your home and office. this is crazy, ludicrous. when i heard he spoke to don lemon, i didn't believe it until i saw done's report and lo and behold i believed don that it happened. it's beyond stupid. >> so, jennifer,

cnn chief legal analyst jeffrey toobin? >> it is ridiculous.ust an ordinary supreme court case. of course all district judges are bound by supreme court precedent. brown v. board of education, 1954, is a land mark, is part of the fabric of our country, not just an ordinary supreme court decision. her failure to acknowledge that which most high school students know much less would be judges i think is really scandal. >> what should she have said? >> yes. do you agree with brown v. board of education? yes. what's your next question, senator. >> you want them to give their opinion on whether they like a ruling or not? >> you bet i do. it is important to acknowledge that is part of the fabric of our law. you have to acknowledge it's the right thing to do. should they go through one at a time? >> why did blumenthal name that case and not citizens v. united? >> because he wanted to see whether she's part of the mainstream. you know, it's a mainstream position to support brown v. board of education. >> she did say she supports it, she said i would be

. >> but let's bring in a better mind than mine and one of your former students jeffrey toobin. >> hiy. >> what we're trying to parse out here and the professor often gets misunderstood on this and you know this jeffrey as well as i do. he's talking in general. i don't like taint teams not that this taint team did anything wrong, not that this search necessarily is wrong because we haven't seen the affidavit but in general, but specific to this, my point back to him was, one, if they believe there's probable cause that the attorney and the client are involved in criminal activity, well, that's different than just saying we want to look at lawyer private communications with their client, isn't it? >> that's right. and just as a general matter, lawyers, doctors, priests all of whom have privileges that are protected by the law, none of them are exempt from having search warrants executed against them. they are not above the law and there are systems in place for searching doctors' offices and for searching lawyers' offices and religious institutions, and that's what is going on here. it

we have david gregory and jeffrey toobin. david gregory, so tee it up for us. what matters this morning? >> well, you know, you've got the president, who is having to deal with questions about him as a candidate. as abby laid out moments ago, you have events happening, some really embarrassing to the president as a candidate faced such peril because of these disclosures of the "access hollywood" tape or previous liaisons with women, that he wanted to quiet all of that and maybe distract people by putting out this kind of opposition research which raises the question of where it came from and whether there was any collusion with the russian government in so doing. so it's messy. we know that as president he has brought on problems on himself firing jim comey, seeking to interfere in the investigation. so i think they're looking at a pattern on all of this and seeing how it fits together. and for the president, who even out in the public is not afraid to engage in what appears to be "house of cards" like tactics, you know, i think it's a little bold to say oh, no

joining me now is allen der s dershowitz and jeffrey toobin. >> it was about days after it happened. shouldn't he stick to one story? >> he should stick to no stories. he shouldn't say anything about it. but obvious that the efficieort to end the russia investigation. it is not okay. i think it is not illegal. it is not a crime because the president does have the authority to tell the attorney general i want you to investigate this but not that. i don't want you to investigate that. that should change. that is not okay. but it is not illegal today under the law >> it sure is. this is a fundamental disagreement that allen and i have. all of those examples of setting investigative priorities. if the president fires the fbi director to stop him from investigating the president himself, that is a corrupt motive. that is the definition of obstruction of justice. >> you are saying the intent matters. >> that is the whole story. >> that is the point. you have to have an illegal act and you can't have an illegal act when the president acts within his constitutional authority. you can't have

jeffrey toobin had a different take on that. >> i disagree with him on that. >> you think if somebody is not at the helm, the wheels are in motion. >> the wheels are in motion. we have different agencies involved. like the treasury. looking at tax stuff. once the wheels of justice start turning, i don't think people understand there is always a next logical step. if you don't follow it, you have to justify it. >> what if your boss tells you that's enough? >> they will sign their name to a one day paper that one day says they obstructed justice. it will eventually see the light of day. >> i'm pretty sure trump is not worried how he will be judged at this point. >>> coming up, michael avenatti will join us to talk about how his client is cooperating and what about that sketch that he promised to release and more. >>> all right. mark zuckerberg faced not a grilling. i would say solid questions came his way when he was with the senate. what he told lawmakers about your privacy and what itlso revealed about how little the senators understand about the internet business, next. liberty mutua

josh campbell, jeffrey toobin and jeff bernstein. >> does it make sense to you that, i mean, just in december for the second time he would have been talking about firing mueller? >> sure it makes sense given what we know about the president and his character. but let's step back and remember this red line, is something of his own invention that he thinks is some line between appropriate and inappropriate. it's important to remember that we are talking about a president who may be firing justice department officials and prosecutors for doing their jobs. rod rosenstein has done nothing wrong. he has done his job. yet, it seems like and i certainly believe the reporting of our colleagues that he is on the verge of losing his job because he did the right thing. so i think it is totally believable that the president is considering firing rosenstein, that he almost fired mueller in december and earlier last year. but we can't lose perspective on the fact that this is wrong, this whole approach to being president is wrong. but this is how things are working. >> jeff, the president was about

. >> dana bash and jeffrey toobin join us. dana. for a man who says he has the best memory of all time, did the president genuinely forget, a, or is this revisionist history? >> i'll take b, brooke, and that is my final answer. look, there's no question that the president is just annoyed beyond belief about james comey's book, about his book tour, about his interview after interview, talking about the fact that he believes that the president is morally bankrupt, talking about private kfrss that the two of them had and challenging the president on just about everything. and the president just like with the stormy daniels situation took the bait. jomy might not follow president trump on twitter, but 50 million people do. and that's really all the president cares about. i mean, from everything i've been told is that he understands so well the tool inthat he has with those 50 million followers, many of whom are dire supporters and he wants to get to them. to many of them, it doesn't matter what he said before. >> hmm. hmm. >> can i say

jeffr jeffrey toobin what is your reaction?t's consistent with the president's view of the fbi as sort of a private investigation agency for his benefit. the idea that they would investigate the so-called, you know, golden showers claim just to reassure melania it doesn't happen, that's not why federal law enforcement exists, and comey wisely it sounds like put trump off. it is indicative of the mind-set of their entire relationship, which brief though it was, was about donald trump wanting to get assurance that the fbi was working for him personally. >> phil, you use are to work there. >> i'm uncomfortable with the book and the allegations that are surfacing. there's two pieces that are significant. mr. comey has a window into the president's requests about, for example, federal investigations that is critical. i think it's oak to publish people under the obama administration, but some of these salacious said if you want to jack up sales, you better make this look good. so let's look at two lenses. what did we learn about the

here to break down all of this, cnn chief legal analyst jeffrey toobin. we have no effective border laws? >> he said that his administration is a huge success at cut canning illegal immigration. you know, be i think it's a mistake to parse these too carefully for logic and factual accuracy. but they are good windows into what he is actually thinking. and he is is worried that his base thinks that he is getting soft on immigration. >> we do now know the genesis of this change. it was a fox and friends segment. the president loves watching fox and friends. my friends over at the weekend show, tkpwregriff jenkins was i with a caravan with a reporter in it trying to get from honduras to the u.s. border. here is what the president watched. listen to this moment. >> an army of migrants is marching or riding or making their way from honduras? >> most all of them from central america. the big question is what happens when they do arrive in the u.s.? i know they want to seek protection. but they won't necessarily get that? >> no. they're going to be arrested. you

alan deferenrshowitz, and also us jeffrey toobin.nks both for joining us on this very calm, not very busy day. >> a typical day. >> jeff, in terms of the rosenstein talking points, can there be any juchx other than to fire rosenstein. >> here is the deputy attorney general, who is being investigated by the white house, by the people who employ him, solely because he is doing the job he's supposed to do. rod rosenstein is supervising the mueller investigation in an honorable way reflecting his integri integrity, and that's not good enough. >> but you say he's a witness. >> of course he's a witness, the primary witness. any decent lawyer kaye rosenstein as the first witness and says, did you write the memo at the time? at the time you wrote the memo, did you think you were obstructing justice? did you think there was justification? did you ask the president if he had any corrupt motives? you can't be a witness and at the same time supervise prosecution, but do you really believe that's the intent of the president in terms of getting ro

and jeffrey toobin, give us the significance of this discovery that we all learned today in the official. attorney's document submitted to the court. >> well i think it is immensely significant. here you have the man closest professionally to donald trump, the man who keeps his secrets and negotiated with stormy daniels and in charge of protecting his secrets is under criminal investigation, without doubt at this point, and has been for months. that is the other thing that is so important about this. about what came out today. so it is not just stormy daniels that is related -- this criminal investigation. stormy daniels may not even be part of the story. it is earlier business relationships that the -- that michael cohen has and the -- and the surveillance of him going back months, e-mail covers and they've been reading his e-mails and we learned they searched his safety deputy boxes too. so michael cohen is in a world of trouble and that is what we learned today. >> and we also learned, gloria, you learned that the president of the united states spoke on the phone with michael cohen to

jeffrey toobin, let's get your reaction. giuliani, a former u.s. attorney in new york. he knows this business. >> he does. he is a politician now for decades and much more than a lawyer. he's not inside courtrooms for a very long time. he's clearly been hired asda that said to try to negotiate with mueller. i think robert mueller, the idea that, hey, you know, we are old friends from the justice department in the '80s let's work out a deal that's not going to work with robert mueller. he'll treat giuliani with respect but the idea that their prior relationship will buy him anything struck strikes he as extremely extremely unlikely as does the idea that this could somehow wrap up in a couple of weeks. given the magnitude of cases outstanding, that just seems like completely dream land. >> yeah. chris, when he tells "the washington post" giuliani, i hope to negotiate an end to this for the good of the country and high regard for the president and for bob mueller, what say you? >> well, i mean, first of all i think dana's point that giuliani made to her is he does have --

> joining me to break all of this down, cnn chief legal analyst and former federal prosecutor jeffrey toobin. starting off with this new memo we have in the filing here, and paul manafort's attorney who was challenging it, why are you going back, why are you looking so far back here? we know that rod rosenstein said, hey, go ahead and look into this if you need to. is any of that surprising? >> it is not surprising, but it just shows that the mueller investigation is like an iceberg. three-quarters of it is stuff we can't see. that blacked out area in that memo shows how many areas he's looking into that, you know, that have not been publicly disclosed yet. it is not a surprise. but it also shows how meticulous mueller has been about getting authorization from the justice department to do what he's doing, and how unlikely it is mueller -- that manafort will get the charges against him thrown out. >> let me ask you, it may sound like a simple question but i don't mean it that way, in terms of how meticulous robert mueller has been, why is it more important in terms of this investigation? >> i

. >> we had jeffrey toobin on earlier who laid out a scenario by which if the president were to firethere's a way the investigation does evaporate? the wheels of the investigation could grind to a halt and maybe impeachment does go away. then the republicans and the president just continue on -- >> jeffrey has a particularly dark view on all of this. i don't think it will go away. i think too much investigating has been done. there's too much information known. there are people under indictment. i think this train is rolling. it's very hard to stop it now. >> in the nixon situation they wound up getting another counsel in there who continued investigating obviously. senator kennedy from louisiana was just on and he made an interesting point where he said, look, if he were to do something like that, then we would have to own it and i wonder if it's not about whether they'll vote to impeach him, it's whether they'll go to him and say, if you were to do this -- >> i don't -- i thought that was a really interesting interview because he was sending a signal. others will do the same. the q

. >> jeffrey toobin, one of the clues in this memo to mueller are there that talk about, that give us into the special counsel's investigation. >> well, the one that really jumped out at me was the authorization given by rod rosenstein to mueller, to investigate collusion between the trump campaign and russia. wi which the statement says is a violation of united states laws. this has been an extremely useful talking point for the president himself and for others that collusion is no crime. here, you have the united states department of justice, donald trump's department of justice, saying collusion is a crime. and i just think that's, there you go. it's the first bullet point there. and you know, in vangs violation of united states law. trump and his supporters have been saying from day one that collusion is not a crime. here you have the department of justice saying the president, the mueller is authorized to investigation collusion using that very word as a violation of united states law. >> we know he's not only looking into collusion as a possible crime, but obstruction of justice

. >> dana: jeffrey toobin was on cnn last night talking about one of the key targets, somebody who has been charged, paul manafort, and whether or not he is getting into a situation where he might flip against the president. listen to this. >> i think manafort is in desperate, desperate trouble. mueller's response not only was persuasive on the grounds of whether he had jurisdiction to bring the case, but there was another part of the filing that was particularly interesting. one of the big talking points that the president and his supporters have made is that collusion is not a crime. colluding doesn't violate u.s. laws. but the memo from rosenstein says very clearly that there can be collusion that is a crime. >> dana: mr. trusty, let me have you start with manafort. is there any reason to believe, resides possibly other information that toobin has that we don't, that manafort is close to flipping on the president? >> if toobin has an insider whispering in his ear, here it comes, then there shouldn't be any surprises. gates is cooperating. any attorney representing manafort should ha

let's talk a little bit about the law, jeffrey toobin.he president spent the weekend on a tweet storm. a couple dozen tweets weighing in on michael cohen, his longtime friend and lawyer. saying he's not going to flip although they put enormous pressure on these individuals. what message is the president sending right now on all of this? >> it's practically cliche at this moment. imagine if hillary clinton was president and she was cheering on her aide saying stay strong don't flip. you would have to spatula the republicans off the ceiling. they would be so outraged. by this. this is just an example of how trump has normalized behavior that would have been unacceptable in earlier presidents. i mean, it does look like, you know, he is offering some sort of support whether it's ultimately a pardon down the line. it's just wildly inappropriate, but it's how he behaves. >> everybody stand by. we have some major, major breaking news right now. go to our special correspondent jamie gangel. what are you learning? >> we have just learned that form

joining us is chief legal analyst jeffrey toobin.eople like you and me know the story of jack johnson, obviously. it was a political move on him at the time. the first woman they went after him for wound up being his wife and then they found another woman and wanted to go after him. he had to flee, went to canada, europe, came back, did some time. what do you make of this move legally? >> well, it was a racist move. >> sure. >> that -- >> jim crow written all over it. >> total racist, sham abuse of the legal system to have jack johnson prosecuted. what do i make of it? jack johnson is long dead, and most presidents have had policies against pardoning dead people because where do you stop? there are unfortunately, thousands of victims of unjust convictions in the united states. >> if you want to talk about jim crow and racist prosecutions. >> exactly. that's why barack obama who apparently did consider a jack johnson pardon didn't do it. why is donald trump considering it now? how wide is your imagination? part of it is, maybe it's a

joining us now is jeffrey toobin, ann milligram, josh dean and josh campbell. first of all, jeff, what do you take away from what the president said and how he said it? >> it was one of the most remarkable statements in this presidency. the idea he's calling this a witch hunt and denouncing his own justice department -- >> and saying the fbi broke into -- >> remember what happened here. we have not just robert mueller. we have jeffrey berman, the u.s. attorney, appoint from the southern district, appointed by donald trump, personally interviewed by donald trump, which is very unusual. both of them authorized the application for the search warrant. and then a judge, a magistrate judge, signed that warrant saying there is probable cause to believe that in these searches evidence of a crime will be found. >> this could be something that so the idea that he is calling this a witch hunt when you have all of these people including neutral judges involved is really a shameful, shameful episode. >> this could be something that mueller stumbled across and felt it's not

joining us, cnn chief league analyst jeffrey toobin and professor alan dershowitz. so, jeff, sarah sanders left open the possibility of president trump to pardoning his personal attorney, michael cohen. do you see any indications that the president would not pardon cohen? >> well, it's very hard to say, i mean, i -- you know, he is obviously dangling a pardon before michael cohen, in all but explicit tirms, but michael cohen hasn't been indicted yet and he may never be, so, there may be no reason to pardon him. but, you know, it is worth pausing to consider, you know, again, what it would be like if hillary clinton were president of the united states and one of her top aides was under criminal investigation and she was tweeting, stay strong, don't flip, you know, the republican party would have impeachment proceedings under way already, if that were the case. now, you know, the standards have changed so dramatically that we all shrug it off. but it's totally inappropriate, what the president is doing, but i don't think it's unlawful. >> professor dershowitz, is it i

joining us now to talk about all the legal angles on this are jeffrey toobin as well as carrie cordero. jeff, if mueller does not consider the president a criminal target, rather a subject of the investigation, does that mean that the president's completely out of woods here? >> by no means. there are three categories in federal criminal law. there's target, which means you are almost certainly going to be indicted. there is subject, where you may or may not be indicted. and then there's witness, where you are just someone who has information of interest to the prosecutor. but being a subject is a very serious thing. that means the prosecutors are determining whether to file charges against you. the president of the united states is a subject of a criminal investigation with fbi agents and federal prosecutors. i mean that is something that an extraordinarily serious thing, and i don't know if that's even been true since richard nixon. i don't think bill clinton was ever a subject although he probably was, i guess, in retrospect. but i mean this is a very significant designation and, yo

david chalian, kristen powers, anne milgram, jeffrey toobin, paul begala, and mike shields. 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

alan dershowitz, jeffrey toobin here with us. in terms of the rosenstein talking points, can there be any justification for the white house doing this, other than to undermine rod rosenstein? >> that's the purpose. and think about how disgraceful this is. here is the deputy attorney general, who is being investigated by the white house, by the people who employ him, solely because he is doing the job he's supposed to do. rod rosenstein is supervising the mueller investigation in an honorable way, reflecting his integrity, and that's not good enough for this white house, they want to get rid of him. >> but you say he's a witness. >> of course he's the witness, he's the first witness. he's the my prayprimary witness. any decent lawyer asks -- calls rosenstein as the first witness and says, did you write the memo at the time? at the time you wrote the memo, did you think you were obstructing justice? did you think there was justification? did you ask the president if he had any corrupt motives? you can't be a witness and at the same

. >> you know, jeffrey took toobin, we are told he is concerned about the e-mails the fbi has collected there have been a warning for cohen's e-mails, specifically communications between cohen and hope hicks the president's long-time aid and communications between conand corey lewandowski who had been the campaign manager. >> that could explain why the president is as concerned as he is right now. >> oh, absolutely. you know in fairness to the president, i think people who are saying, well, if have you nothing to fear, why are you worried about the search like this? this is an incredibly intrusive search on someone who is very close to the president and deals with extremely sensitive subjects. i don't think you have to have a guilty conscience to be concerned about. that now, it seems to me that given the circumstances, this was a legitimate search, but the idea that the president is angry about it, i don't think that proves that there is anything incriminating in these documents. it's just very intrusive, very personal, and by his own account, michael cohen is the person that keeps all

the point about the media trying to make up this narrative, i think it's really entertain that jeffrey toobin has been criticizing justice gorsuch for asking too many questions and being pushy al oral argument but he wrote a piece about calling justice thomas a disgrace because he never asks questions because he doesn't think it's a good use of his time interrupt the advocates and hear what he sass to say help wants to hear what they have to say. >> you're getting in trouble either way with them. the other thing point is the gorsuch style hash tag comes off as mocking his tile as being overexplaining of something but that goes to a point of who justice gore such is target audience its. it isn't the elite law professor or the commentator pundit circuit. it's wanting the average american to read the opinion and understand what they're saying. so, yes, he might explain something you already know pat yourself on the back, good job, and don't disparage the opinion because you maybe aren't the target audience. >> thank you all, you have been an outstanding panel. we have a gift for you. [applause]

what is the distinction, joining us for that is jeffrey could bein a-- toobin and carrie cordero. >>re are targets who are almost certainly going to be charged and indicted. there are witnesses. and in between the two there is somebody called the subject. someone who is under investigation but who may or not be charged. trump is a subject. and i don't think that is particularly good news for him. it is a big deal to be under criminal investigation by the fbi particularly if the you are the president of the united states. this has been implicit in what the mueller investigation has been doing. but this confirm aiation, that president is under criminal investigation, that is a profound thing to think about. >> carrie, according to the "washington post" reporting some have told him that is part of the danger of sitting down for an interview, that you can go from being a subject to a target quickly. >> one could depending on the outcome of the interview. being a subject, they shouldn't cracking open any champagne in the white house. there is certainly risk of him sitting down for an inte