breathe happy. >>> back now john dean, john q. barrett. okay, so john dean, i want to ask you about "the wall street journal" reporting that the feds have evidence that president trump was directly involved in paying off stormy daniels, karen mcdougal. do you get the sense that campaign finance laws were violated here? >> it certainly would appear that way. as i read that "wall street journal" story, i could just envision the indictment that could come out of all that, a conspiracy to violate the federal campaign laws. whether that will happen or not since michael cohen has pled is a good question. i doubt there will be much further litigation on this in the sense of a prosecution. but david pecker was also mentioned prominently in that story. and he appears that he might have had a an immunity deal as wisenberg from the trump organization clearly got an immunity deal. so i don't know that that case is going to go much further. but it is a certainly evidence of a conspiracy. >> so this is according to the "journal," john barrett, trump met

john's university and john dean, formernism won white house counsel. perfect gentlemen to talk about and no hard names because they're both johns. this is for john barrett. good evening to both of you. let's start with the new reporting i just talked about. before sessions resigned at least one justice official said that it may not be constitutional or they had questions about his appointment. what's your reaction to that? >> it's a very serious question. he is the principal law enforcement officer acting as a cabinet official. and he's never been for their job or any current job that he holds confirmed by the senate. under the appointments clause, there's a serious constitutional quell involved. the d.c. circuit in a federal grand jury case involving the mueller investigation has just called for supplemental briefing on that question. a lot of smart constitutional lawyers think that there is a real serious doubt that he's lawfully in office. >> i want to read this because trump just tweeted on matthew whitaker tonight from paris. he said matthew g. whi

back now, john dean. look, i know you've been in touch with some of cohen's legal team throughout this process. he's looking at three to five years in prison. obviously, sentencing coming up. you were sentenced to one to four years but actually ended up not having to go to prison. where do you think cohen's head is? >> well, i think he has decided very clearly, when i alluded earlier in the show, that he had come forward voluntarily to give his information to the special prosecutor, had no deal, was taking the risk that just the truth of what he had to say would carry the day and he might get some sort of help from the prosecutor, which appears to be the case, that the prosecutor is going to step in and say, this man i was in a little different situation than michael. i was an insider who tried to blow up the coverup from the inside. michael had to wait until it blew up and decide which course he was going to take. >> he's a slightly different role, an insider for quite some time, and maybe wanted to conti

carl bernstein, john dean, josh camp lel, thank you for helping us understand this. as i said, this is incredible perspective from you three gentleman on the story. i appreciate it. >>> we'll have more on this with richard blumenthal who is on the judiciary committee next. also the president gives his clearest statement that he's willing to let saudi arabia get away with murder as long as the money keeps rolling in. specifically the murder of jamal khashoggi. we're keeping them honest. and later, facebook under fire from multiple directions, an exclusive interview with mark zuckerberg. what he said about calls for him to step aside. [crunching foot] huh- what's that? what are you boys up to? (boys in unison) nothing! (female speaker) outdoor memories start with great gifts from bass pro shops' and cabela's 5 day sale. with huge savings like savings of $20 each on this kids' mega wagon and rc trucks. this deer path 8-piece bed set for under $50. and save $100 on this wustof gourmet kitchen cutlery set. open thanksgiving day! since you're heading off to dad... i just g

joining us author carl bernstein, john dean, and former fbi special agent josh campbell who served as special assistant to james comey. josh, on that front you have news. you've just spoken, i understand to james comey. what's his reaction to this news that the president was asking to prosecute him? >> i was just chatting with him earlier this evening, john. tonight he's shaking his head. this is the kind of stuff that had him so worried when he was the fbi director. you think about the incidence of him sit bfting before the presit and the president demanding loyalty. and the president is attempting to interfere with the fbi's criminal investigation into michael flynn, the national security adviser. this is what had him worried then. this is what he's been so vocal about now and speaking out. he wrote a book about it. i think he's also pleased the new york times made clear that president trump and his allies have been lying when they claimed he divulged classified information. i don't think he's surprised by the lies. i think it's just another indication, instance of this white house,

way of reference, the white house counsel under president nixon said, and i quote, this is from john dean, this is what an autocrat does. >> also this morning the special counsel now has the president's written answers to some two dozen questions on russian collusion, the allegation of such. and on this thanksgiving eve the president tells us one thing he is thankful for. less than a day after shrugging off a cia report, a high confidence one implicating the saudi crown prince in the murder of jamal khashoggi, the president writes thank you to saudi arabia for lower oil prices. i's g that he is ook actuactual. but let's start on what we're digging into here, and that is c cnn at the justice department. the president pressuring the justice department which is meant to be by law independent of the president to prosecute his political enemies. what do we know? >> well, jim and poppy, good morning. for months we have seen the president on twitter publically calling on the justice department to investigate clinton and comey. but we're now learning that behind the scenes in private he was actua

. >>> joining me now former federal prosecutor jeffrey toobin, david gergen, john dean who served as richard nixon's white house counsel, also former federal prosecutor ann millgram. john how to phrase this question but how frigging stupid is this guy? >> very frigging stupid. to get a cooperation agreement and the chance for a lower sentence was very important to him. especially since he's 70 years old. to throw that away, to throw that benefit away by continuing to lie to the special counsel's office is incredibly reckless and self-defeating. now, in the filing today, manafort's lawyers said they disagree. >> he said he wasn't lying. >> he wasn't lying. but the fact that mueller's office blew this agreement up in this way suggests they must have a pretty good reason for thinking he's lying to them. >> john dean, if conventional wisdom is true and the collusion portion of the investigation is nearing an end, why would manafort mess up a federal plea deal? you obviously have some experience with this. does it make sense to you? >> it makes no sense. in fact, as alluded earlier, it's s

thank you, john dean. i appreciate it always.>> thanks, don. >>> can the new democratic majority in the house -- can they do anything to protect robert mueller? i'm going to ask congressman ted lieu, who serves on the judiciary committee, next. fidelity is redefining value for investors. introducing zero account fees for brokerage accounts. and zero minimums to open an account. we have fidelity mutual funds with zero minimum investment. and now only fidelity offers four zero expense ratio index funds directly to investors. because when you invest with fidelity, all those zeros really add up. ♪ so maybe i'll win ♪ saved by zero all the tools you need for every step of the way. make it, squarespace ♪ ♪ -whoops -sorry! ♪ ♪ >>> so the firing of the toerp general jeff sessions comes hours after democrats won control of the house. giving them power to block parts of the president' agenda. can they protect mueller? good evening. can you do anything to protect mueller? >> thank you, don for the question. yes. we're already sending out le

thank you, john dean. i appreciate it always.much. >> thanks, don. >>> can the new democratic majority in the house -- can they do anything to protect robert mueller? i'm going to ask congressman ted lieu, who serves on the judiciary committee, next. fact is, there have been twenty-six in the last decade. allstate is adapting. with drones to assess home damage sooner. and if a flying object damages your car, you can snap a photo and get your claim processed in hours, not days. plus, allstate can pay your claim in minutes. now that you know the truth... are you in good hands? we were talking about the model t. now here we are talking about winning the most jd power iqs and appeal awards. talking about driver-assist technology talking about cars that talk and listen. talking about the highest customer loyalty in the country. but that's enough talking. seriously. that was a lot of talking. back to building that was a lot of talking. where in all of this is the stuff that matters? the stakes are so high, your finances, your future. h

so this is not helpful to the furthering of this investigation either. >> john dean, what do you think about the theory david gergen advanced, this, you know, is hoping to get a pardon down the road if it's protecting the president? >> that's very potential. i think he sort of waited for that up until the time he flipped, and he obviously has ability to communicate probably through his wife and others to send signals that he can only go so far. the prosecutors would probably monitor him very closely, so we don't know how this will go. david also mentioned we're going to learn more. we are in the sentencing document that's going to be filed very shortly. >> anne, would it be appropriate for manafort's attorneys or people connected to manafort to have connections with people on the trump legal team or people connected to the president to try to pass along information or pass along some sort of message? >> i mean it's possible. what's more likely is that people from the trump team may have tried to communicate with manafort's lawyers or send messages to manafort. and mean, this is really

let's bring in someone who knows a little more about watergate than i do, john dean, the former white house counsel for president nixon. john, what's your reaction to this move, president trump asking attorney general jeff sessions for his resignation today? >> well, unlike the saturday night massacre where nixon relieved special prosecutor cox, that was sort of a culmination of disregard for the president's direction as to not go after his tapes. here i think this seems to be planned like a murder. i say that given the fact that the president was asked a question in the press conference this morning, he brushed it off, said we'll deal with it later and he's clearly been thinking about it and later meant he's not necessarily going to fire mueller, he's going to undercut him by the people around him. >> do you see this as part of an attempt to undermine the mueller investigation? obviously matthew whitaker, who is now the acting attorney general, has been very up front and honest about his belief that attorney general sessions, now former attorney general sessions, could be replaced, s

here is what cricket tore john dean told our john berman. >> if i had to channel a little bit of richard nixon, i think he'd tell this president he's gone so far. this is the sort of stuff of a banana republic. >> you, of course, were involved with watergate. you just said richard nixon would tell donald trump he's going to far? >> i think he would. >> jack quinn, former white house counsel of the clinton administration, now a cnn legal analyst. what did you make, jack, of john dean's comment there? >> i agree with him 100%. richard nixon was impeached for a number of different things. one of them was obstruction of justice. another was abuse of his office to protect himself and his corrupt colleagues who had engaged in wrongdoing leading up to the impeachment. the same thing is going on here. remarkably enough, president trump's lawyers seem to think the president is incapable of obstructing justice, is incapable of breaking the law because he's president. this is not saudi arabia. this is america. no one is above the law including the president of the united states. he will be held to

. >> your point is other than the audio tapes, john dean, as white house counsel was one of the mosts against nixon? >> his testimony was amazing. he had sump ch detail. the tapes came out and corroborated his version sometimes verbatim. >> mcgahn would be the new dean with the same job. here was john dean talking about all this this week. >> if i had to channel a little of richard nixon, i think he'd tell this president he's going too far. this is what an autocrat does. this is a level that richard nixon n didndidn't go to. where he went after somebody's personal well being by a criminal prosecution. >> based on your knowledge of how the house interplays, what should the house do to preserve mueller and to get the mcgahn material out to the public if you think that's a worthwhile goal? >> absolutely. first of all, they should put a subpoena before -- to mcgahn. he's now a private citizen. but a subpoena to the white house asking his notes be preserved. hopefully mueller will write a report. one thing mueller can do, assuming he's not blocked by wl whittaker, he can release his infor

i've earned everything i've got. >> john dean, i mean the question is obvious here. but i need to say this. less than a year later, nixon resigned. similarities, defensiveness here. what do you see? >> well, nixon was a pretty good actor. donald trump is not. nixon could actually go out and fake it. there's a very different public nixon than there was behind closed doors as the tapes show. trump wears his emotions right on his sleeve and you can tell his moods very quickly. nixon was trying to put on an angry kind of facade for this group of editors he was meeting with in disneyland to try to start a new disclosure agreement that he was going to be forthcoming. and he was -- he was very angry about his tax returns. he was found out mot to really be a crook although he took a huge tax deduction. as far as obstruction of justice, no court ever ruled on it but certainly public opinion is very clear that he obstructed justice. >> we're out of time. thank you all. i appreciate it. >> thank you. >>> a white male politician in kansas tells a black female city planner to not

he wants to be the john dean of the story, is that right? >> yea.roof is in the pudding when mueller can use his information and if he continues to cooperate and mueller finds his information valuable, that's going to be what's telling. now, remember, cohen is the guy who knows where the bodies are buried metaphorically speaking, of course, and beyond this, just think about what he might be able to verify or not verify. cohen is mentioned in the steele dossier, he could, you know, dispute -- he could start to, you know, cross out things that are true and not true that are still in speculation. >> remember, that prague trip is something that michael cohen has denied publicly in the most vehement terms. i've never been to prague, its all made up. is that operative that statement still? that's a question that we'd want answered. remember, this just shows that its all connected because the wikileaks effort which is what prague relates to was another attempt by russia to ingrashate itself with the trump campaign. here you have financial interests of the

that's what john dean told me overnight about the stunning revolution that president trump wanted to order the justice department to go after his political rivals. dean also said this is the sort of stuff of a banana republic. this is what an autocrat does. on multiple occasions the president raised investigating clinton with rod rosenstein and matt whitaker, now the acting attorney general, but then he was jeff sessions chief of staff. the president claims he never knew matt whitaker, but the fact that he leaned on them repeatedly proved that was a lie. the president also wanted to prosecute james comey, but mcgahn pushed back saying he had no authority to order a prosecution and even had white house lawyers write a memo to trump saying he could face a range of consequences, including possible impeachment. >> now this other top story. president trump is siding with saudi arabia over u.s. intelligence and their assessment that the crown prince did order the murder of a journalist. the president is making it clear he will not punish saudi arabia. the president thinks the crown prince'

you see michael cohen go meet, like a john dean situation sitting there for a day, two days in public to do give michael a job. okay? the situation would have been a lot different. roger was furious. trump is giving me problems about getting roger hired. i took a lower salary to make sure roger could get hired. roa roger leaked. my position, get corey lewandowski removed. he screwed me. i want him out. our position was, why not, what about manafort? and that's when we started thinking about it. >> two things. first of all the president has not turned any questions. don't assume. >> he's been busy. what he said. >> second of all, i don't know we should assume bob mueller is close to ending. we're also getting that from sources coming from the white house, but this notion, you keep hearing from the trump side that because they're inept, because they're the gang that can't conspire straight that it's okay. it is not okay for don jr., george papadopolos, roger stone, to send these lies everywhere. >> if a leal, not okay, didn't want to, hate to do it, it's not okay -- >> you're prepared t

imagine, if you will, that john dean was cooperating with archibald cox was in a joint defense agreement with richard nixon. this doesn't happen. that would be astonishment if you were the prosecutor. you would not be happy about it. >> it's a key point. we are in this drama that paid out and we are getting closer to the end, but maybe we are not. appreciate your insights. i want to read this from the filing from bob mueller. they will file a detailed sentencing with the probation department in advance of sentencing that sets forth the nature of the crimes and lies, including those after signing the plea agreement here in. the special counsel is saying paul manafort after saying he would lie and lie and lie and we are going to prove it. >> repeatedly lying. you don't get a cooperation agreement and you lie to prosecutors. this is special counsel. there are career people on this team. there are veterans on this team. there are fbi agents that spent dozens of years working these cases. you don't go into a room and think you can get away with lying. especially before the special counsel whi

john dean is here, jack quinn. good evening. today's developments, it's really -- just when you think it can't get any more twisted, it gets, i know this is not a word, twisteder. john, i'm going to start with you. back in august, sources close to michael cohen told me that they will saw parallels to your story. right? >> yes. >> after what happened today, do you think there are parallels? >> well, there's some he's an obvious insider. he didn't try to end it inside as i happened to do. but when it came time to stand up, i think he did. when i look at his cooperation agreement, the first time he walked in with none at all, he went to -- spent 70 some hours with the special counsel with no agreement. today he has an agreement as a result of the information he's provided. so that -- they don't give those out easily at the special counsel's office. so he's provided some good information, don. >> he says he doesn't have an official what he has is a promise of a letter i think. that's what the reporting is, a promise of a letter to th

. >>> i want to bring in now john dean and phil mudd. good evening, gentlemen. let's get your reaction, john, first. your reaction to paul manafort updating the president's legal team on his contact with mueller. an attorney for paul manafort obviously. >> yes. "the new york times" reported this earlier, and it's kevin downing. that's the lawyer who was involved in this, and he's playing a very dangerous game. during watergate, the most experienced criminal defense lawyer represented e. howard hunt. he ended up, because of doing just what this -- a very similar action, an unindicted co-conspirator and got himself in a whole heap of trouble. came within a hair's esso there's a line here, don. generally when you have a joint defense agreement, once your client is cooperating, you no longer are part of that agreement. >> does this mean, phil, that manafort was essentially informing the president about what mueller knows where he was claiming to be cooperating but actually lying? >> i think so. we're still missing just a quarter piece of the puzzle, don. i look at t

now, the gentleman seated in the center is general deane's father, john deane, as well. and he served as marshall's secretary to general staff in the beginning of the war and in 1943, he was sent over to russia to serve as the senior military commander for ambassador harman. by the way, when i visited general deane's widow, i got some great pictures to put in the book and this is a classic. this is his first day at west point in 1938. and you can just imagine what he's being put through right here. next slide. jack deane's graduation, 1942. class of 1942, by the way, had almost 20% death rate during the war. i think it was 19.7 or something. but one in five cadets in the class of 1942, the first class to graduate, when we were in the second world war, didn't make it to the end. so there was, you know, there was a luck factor, as well. handsome guy there, isn't he? next slide. general deane is on the right there, as a lieutenant colonel he's a battalion commander less than three years from his graduation date at west point so he's gone from second lieutenant to lieutenant

former nixon white house counsel john dean told cnn that even nixon would say these requests would go far. put this into context, the idea of the president asking doj officials to investigate his political opponents. what is the significance of that? >> it is hugely significant. given the fact that it is just not done, no president in the history of the united states should be meddling in any kind of criminal investigation by the department of justice. president obama, there is enough evidence to suggest that he did something like this. the fact that the president is having meetings and bringing this up in these meetings with the acting attorney general with the deputy attorney general is a huge conflict. i'm sure there are memos about this. it is highly, highly unethical and should not be done. whether or not it is illegal is a whole other issue. whether or not this is something that could potentially impeach the president is a whole other issue. the optics and the ethics are an issue and is troubling and should be documented by the department of justice in some way and some fashion.

attorney for the southern district of new york, harry sandick, and former nixon white house counsel john dean. so the crucial questions here tonight, let's start, john, with rudy giuliani saying, okay, if you come back and the questions are about obstruction of justice, forget about it. executive privilege is going to protect us. is he right? >> i don't think he necessarily is correct. executive privilege is a very vague, really has little legal standing. the supreme court did recognize it in u.s. v. nixon when he was forced to turn over his tapes. if anything, that case would call for the president to respond and answer any subpoena. >> so, harry, there's the issue of executive privilege, and now there's -- look, according to what they told us, trump submitted his written answers yesterday. that's what we have been told. >> right. >> so what do you make of giuliani already saying mueller may have follow-ups? i mean they're barely there. >> i think he's anticipating, and it makes sense that, you know, when you answer questions in writing, there are inevitably going to be more ambiguities and

karl beernstein demeans his legacy comparing this to a richard nixon in watergate, so does john dean. they were attacks on enemies. here, there's real evidence of wrongdoing, in fact criminal wrongdoing. it's preposterous anyone suggests who camy did as fbi director, the likes this went on and his agenda, was appropriate, or certainly breached his contract, certainly violated d.o.j. rules. >> we're short on time, guys, i'm going to joe. when do you think this mueller probe is going to be over? >> well, i think we saw the mid terms come and go. and mueller wasn't going to obviously release anything, he didn't want to seem political like comey did before the 2015 election. this has gone on for 18 months, un23e79erred. i would think at this point, we have to start to see it wind down since the president has submitted his answers. my question is, will the american people accept anything outside of a direct line of collusion between the president and russian officials. because, remember, republicans overplayed their hand with bill clinton in the late '90s. and bill clinton left office with

that's what john dean told me overnight about the stunning revolution that president trump wanted tofter his political rivals. dean also said this is the sort of stuff of a banana republic. this is what an autocrat does. on multiple occasions the president raised investigating clinton with rod rosenstein and matt whitaker, now the acting attorney general, but then he was jeff sessions chief of staff. the president claims he never knew matt whitaker, but the fact that he leaned on them repeatedly proved that was a lie. the president also wanted to prosecute james comey, but mcgahn pushed back saying he had no authority to order a prosecution and even had white house lawyers write a memo to trump saying he

john dean in watergate is a memory lane for a lot of people on that. this is the president trying to directly order through mcgahn as his intermediary to dnc.o.j. the prosecutions of comey and clinton. this is huge banana republic-type territory. this is the government attorney paid by our tax dollars and this is conduct that even he warned the president, i don't use the "i" word a lot, don mcgahn according to his excellent reporting tonight allegedly here warned the president you do this, we're not talking about a misdemeanor charge here, we're talking about a high crime of impeachment. he gave that counsel during a time when the republicans controlled the entire congress. >> michael, is there context here -- you say this was in the spring, spring of 2018 when the president had this conversation with mcgahn. is there context about what was going on more broadly that might have appropriate tprecipitated e conversation at that moment? >> there's a lot of tumultuous times for the president but in terms of the investigation of the justice department, ther

you need tapes, you need documents, you need witnesses like john dean.those tapes and go through what dean testified to, it wasn't just oh, yeah, we talked about something. it was dean saying in the tape, proving in one meeting, president nixon authorized, ordered, paying blackmail money to the watergate burglars 12 times in just a single meeting. and the power of that led to nixon's demise. does mueller have something like that, or is he headed in that direction? i think jeff toobin jumped a little ahead of the facts. >> bob woodward, it's always great to have you on. thank you so much. >>> after the cohen news broke today, the president announced on twitter he denied not to meet with vladamir putin at the g20 after all. he said it's for reasons other than the cohen plea. we'll look at that ahead. ( ♪ ) ready to juvÉderm it? correct age-related volume loss in cheeks with juvÉderm voluma xc, add fullness to lips with juvÉderm ultra xc and smooth moderate to severe lines around the nose and mouth with juvÉderm xc. tell your doctor if you have a history of

i want to bring in now shimon prokupecz and also john dean. good evening to both of you. shimon, would you take us through these e-mails, please? >> certainly. and really this is important. it kind of gives us an understanding why the special counsel and the mueller team have been digging in on roger stone. those e-mails really in the weeks before the election, some of them before julian assange had released any of these e-mails, if you just take a look at this, on october 3rd of 2016 there's an e-mail from roger stone to matthew boyle, who is an editor at breitbart, which is connected obviously to steve bannon, who was working for the campaign at that time. and in the e-mail he writes this is basically asking assange what he's got. hope it's good. and then there are e-mails. a follow-up from roger stone. also basically saying it is -- i would tell bannon but he doesn't call me back. and then he says "my book on the trump campaign will be out in january." and then finally on october 4th steve bannon e-mails roger stone, asking him "what was this morning?" and that was in

you need tapes, you need documents, you need witnesses like john dean. dean testified to, it wasn't just oh, yeah, we talked about something. it was dean saying and the tape proving in one meeting president nixon authorized, ordered paying blackmail money to the watergate burglars 12 times in just a single meeting. and the power of that led to nixon's demise. does mueller have something like that or is he headed in that direction? i think jeff toobin jumped a little ahead of the facts. >> bob woodward, it's always great to have you on. thank you so much. after the cohen news broke today the president announced on twitter he's decided not to meet with vladimir putin at the g-20 summit after all. he says it's for reasons other than the cohen plea. we'll look at that ahead. karate helps... relieve some of the house-buying... stress. at least you don't have to worry about homeowners insurance. call geico. geico... helps with... homeowners insurance? been doing it for years. i'm calling geico right now. good idea! get to know geico. and see how easy homeowner

knew at thtapes could pro whher the presidt of thenited states had engaged in a cover-up or whether john deanas line. who was telling the truth? they said, congress can't you have to do something about it. amy: and these were tapes that richard nixon had secret ordered himself, the taping of the white house. >> correct. at that point, the impeachment inquiry started. have a president of the united states who waited deliberately until after the midterm elections so there would be no adverse political impact on him, to fire the attorney general of the united states. why did he fire him? there is nothing that sessions did that was contrary to his political view or political agenda of the president, except that he would not take control and he would not oversee and he would not supervise and he would not interfere with mueller's investigation. ,his president, just like nixon once to control the criminal process that is going to take place against him and his friends. and that -- if we go down that road, we are becoming a banana republic. that is not the united rates of america. we are a country c

ultimate source, donald trump's own lawyer, and the white house counsel could get in the way, just like john deang copeople, who i'm going to read from the article, is a witness against president trump in the investigation by special counsel mueller. what you're saying is your view as a federal prosecutor -- i know you to be a normal line prosecutor, not talking party or politics -- that alone looks to you like the crime of obstruction? >> yes. i charged an attempt -- you have to understand, ari, this is an attempt at obstruction of justice. when i charge obstruction of justice, i didn't just always focus on one moment. i would focus on an entire pattern. and you clearly have a pattern and a scheme against the investigation that clearly falls within the obstruction statutes. and what he did with the attorney mcgahn, that is an attempt to obstruct justice. and here's something people have to realize. the attorney-client privilege, executive privilege, priest-pen nent privilege, they wash away if there's a crime fraud. and president of the united states is essentially asking mcgahn to commit a crim

it is like the saturday night massacre, they drag out john dean, a guy that doesn't even have a law licensethe guy who served time, i seem to recall, through watergate. now he is a contributor to cnn, msnbc, what does he say? it is like the president is plotting to kill somebody, a murder. so he gets rid of sessions, what, so what happens? he has an acting attorney general, then i hear these so-called experts, he can't do that, there is a rule ofr succession -- of course he can do that. moreover, they say it is like the saturday night massacre -- how? i did he fire mueller? did he order the attorney general to fire mueller? did he order the deputy attorney general to fire mueller? he hasn't ordered anyone to do anything to mueller, mueller is still roaming the countryside looking for people to prosecute and challenge and so forth and so on. nothing has happened. a but chuck schumer is there, "i think we have a constitutional crisis." let me tell you something, this is an important point. i have said that the appointment of mueller is unconstitutional and violates the appointment because sch

back during watergate we had el patrick gray, the head of the fbi, feeding information back to john dean so they could coordinate the coverup. you cannot have the department of justice sharing information with the target of an investigation or the subject or witnesses. that is what destroys an investigation and its credibility. and this just sounds exactly like the kind of thing that led to articles of impeachment against richard nixon. >> elliott, there's also the issue of the responses, and i want to get your take on this as well, maya. the responses have been submitted, interestingly enough, have nothing to do -- they're essentially asserting privilege over everything from the day he wins the election to anything in the presidency. nothing on the transition, nothing on the presidency, they're going to answer some questions, very lawyered questions about the campaign. what do you make of that? elliott? i think his sound might have gone out, maya. >> well, quite frankly, i think we saw this coming. because the trump camp has been asserting really aggressive broad constitutional authorit

. >> joyce, i must say, i also heard john dean today, and i'm going to ask you to explain this in lay terms. he theorized that mueller has done some trump proofing of his own investigation, including but not limited to potentially delivering sealed indictments to a senior federal judge and saying, in effect, hang on to these in case anything happens to me or us. can you speak to that? >> so that sounds a little bit nefarious. the process is really a little bit more pedestrian. it's not unusual for federal prosecutors to seal indictments. there's a lot of reasons. sealing is just a mechanism for keeping an indictment secret until you've actually been able to arrest the defendant. so a lot of the time, we'll do that for safety considerations. here mueller could have had the grand jury issue indictments, sealed them. they would then be in position of the clerk of the court, but not made public, not unsealed until such time as defendants were arrested or mueller's prosecutors directed the clerk that it was time to unseal them. that seems like a very likely possibility to protect the inves

investigation, i mean, the parallels are so very clearly there, is michael cohen turning into the john dean of this story? >> right. its kind of shakespearian, you know, in a way. the man -- the man we all knew during the campaign who described donald trump as the greatest person in the universe is suddenly now the person armed, potentially, with enough who could really cause the president great damage and it is shakespearian in nature because of their relationship previously and his relationship -- i can't emphasize this enough, his relationship to the rest of the trump family, you know. michael cohen was not only donald trump's fixer. michael cohen fixed a lot for everybody and so you now have the cfo of the trump organization alan weisselberg being giving immunity here. this whole thing is going to unspool itself eventually. we just don't know in which direction. >> how do you deal with the fact that you've got this key witness who has lied, has admitted he's lied, has lied in the past? how do you deal with that? how does a prosecutor, how does mueller deal with the fact that this is an

all these discussions with the president as you outlined the president makes these comments about john dean -- about ehrlichman and haldeman, i'm sorry, about how these are fine upstanding guys when petersen and then attorney general go in to see him and say look, we've got a problem. we're really concerned about these guys and we think you should fire them. and the president had a reaction that was kind of surprising to me. but as i dug into it more, it was the volume of the -- it was the number of interactions, the nature of the scope that really surprised me. i was just surprised by it and intrigued. and i guess the other thing, as you said earlier, this was something that i was unaware of before myself. and having worked in the justice department for many years. i thought it was something that might be useful to folks still in the justice department to be aware of, to have some knowledge about. one of the things that i struggled with all the time -- not all the time, but frequently was having to confront novel complicated, challenging problems that there was no book to go to look up an

page two, that message is relayed to the white house counsel, john dean. the white house counsel tells the top aide to the president who says, oh, we better tell the attorney general about this. page four, the attorney general is told about this. page five, the next day, the president convenes a big meeting to talk about this matter, to talk about how much money the watergate burglar wants to stay quiet about the burglary, and the amount of money that would be required to keep him and other watergate defendants silent. that's the content of that meeting involving the president. how do we know that? check the footnotes. that's where we get the footnote referencing the president's dictabelt recording. page seven, they authorize the hush money payment to the burglar. he asks for $120,000, he's going to get $75,000. page ten, the hush money payment gets dropped off on the late evening of march 21st, 1973. fred larue caused $75,000 in cash funds to be placed in the mailbox at the residence of the burglar's attorney. page 11, the next morning the attorney genera

"outfront" now, harry sandick and john dean. start with rudy giuliani saying if you come back and the questions are about obstruction of justice, forget about it. executive privilege is going to protect us. is he right? >> i don't think he necessarily is correct. executive privilege is a very vague, really it has little legal standing. the supreme court did recognize it in u.s. versus nixon when he was forced to turn over his tapes. if anything, that case would call for the president to respond and answer any subpoena. >> so, harry, there's the issue of executive privilege, and now there's, look, according to what they told us, trump submitted his written answers yesterday. that's what we have been told. so, what do you make of giuliani already saying mueller may have follow-ups? i mean, they're barely there. >> i think he's anticipating, and it makes sense, that, you know, when you answer questions in writing, there are inevitably going to be more ambiguities and more need for follow-up than when you have an interview, and if a

and history will look at him more as a john dean than the other guys. very different from manafort, obviously. this is personal, beyond saving himself and saving his family. there is a big difference between all the other people that have turned or don't turn on trump. the personal connection here. it's when your husband or your wife or your best friend turns on you. you dedicated your life. there's a catharticness. >> is there a remorse for helping sell donald trump to the -- >> oh, i don't think that's dramatic enough. he feels he was -- he knows he wasn't working for an angel. but he genuinely -- i've spoken hours. good guy, good guy. he was so immersed. his own persona was so immersed in who donald trump was and his own identity that it was just to watch this meta morph sis. his tone, his attitude. he's still going to jail. proeb probably, obviously. and he lied to congress. they gave him six months concurrent. so they gave him nothing. that's how important what they gave him. and also to frank's point. this is the tip of the iceberg. i've said this

"outfront" now, cnn's senior justice correspondent, evan perez, former nixon white house counsel john deanes trusty, a former justice department official and long-time friend of deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. gentlemen, great to see you. evan, it looks like mueller's investigation is in its final stages but what more are you learning about this? >> that's right, kate. i think it is clear, there's all kinds of signs that the mueller investigation is wrapping up, and as we get to that point, you know, the president has been meeting with his lawyers, basically going over these written questions that the mueller team has presented to them. what we -- we refer to as the take-home test and the president is going over the answers so when he comes back from his trip to europe over the weekend, we expect he's going to meet with the lawyers and they're going to finalize the answers. they're going to send it back to robert mueller, and in their view, this means that this is everything that robert mueller has asked for, and so you know, in their view, this should wrap up the investigation. so

joining us now is former federal prosecutor laura coates and former nixon white house counsel john dean. carl bernstein. and cnn chief legal analyst, jeffrey toobin. jeff, you say this is the president, himself, essentially taking over the mueller case. explain that. >> well, the -- robert mueller is an employee of the department of justice and understood the regulation he is to be supervised as an employee of the department of justice which means it's usually the attorney general unless the attorney general is recused. now because there's a new acting attorney general, he is the supervisor of the mueller investigation. mr. whittaker. look at what he has said about the mueller investigation. it is virtually identical to what donald trump has said about it, that there are no crimes here. it needs to be forestalled. it needs to be ended. and the only question is when or if whittaker decides to shut it down. >> sorry, who do we have? carl bernstein. how do you see this? i mean, this has been talked about now for quite a while, the idea of jeff sessions, you know, the president has been mak