jeff bennett, danny zavala, joyce vance and jeremy bass. my belated thanks to bill kristol for joining us and having an opinion there. dan, i'm going to begin with you here in new york. i've used the expression change of venue in a different context at the top of the broadcast. in a way this is a form of that i guess. what just happened today, why are they trying to move the court jurisdiction where this is going to be heard? >> this is a classic defense maneuver. i've removed cases, attorneys who have had them in federal court have removed cases and a law which allows defendants from different states and you have enough dollar amount and controversy, that's why there were so many millions alleged in this. if you have enough involved a defendant can drag it out of state court and up to federal court. it's automatic. this is not a motion, this is not a request. once a defendant files this notice of removal the case is now in federal court and it's incumbent upon the plaintiff to get it back down to state court, which is not an easy thing to

attorney joyce vance who always keeps all of us honest. michael schmidt, let me start with you. first, your reporting on this attorney who was in the white house, in the oval office, meeting with the president, story the white house tried to cloud up a little bit after the fact. who was he and what is the significance? >> well, the sort of first phase of this investigation is coming to an end and that was the one led by ty cobb. that was the production of documents setting up of interviews between white house officials and the special counsel. most of that has been completed, so the president now has to prepare for whatever the next phase is. that is obviously the interview and then if mueller decides to do anything. and there is a sense in the white house that the president needs a really experienced person that knows what these things could look like to be in place. and a lot of people think emmet flood is that person. he's someone that represented vice-president cheney, as you mentioned he did represent clinton during impeachment. he is a veteran washington lawyer with a lot

attorney joyce vance who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor. jill, i'd like to begin with you, there's a term of art at the white house. something called the in town travel pool. you have the glory and honor of riding many vehicles behind the president to go where they are going this evening. he went to a donor's home in virginia for a closed media event. you're among the few that saw him out of the vehicle and walking, correct? >> that's right. >> this is the only appearance we've seen at all. i mean a photographer with a long lens manage to capture an image of him with an umbrella, capturing him walking from the white house to a limo. the president has had no events on his public schedule. we haven't been able to ask him questions we couldn't ask him yesterday, today. this is very unusual for the president. he's someone who typically interacts with reporters, we've seen him completely silent on this topic on twitter. usually trump's advisers are begging him to stop tweeting about issues, the russia investigation being the first and foremost s

and joyce vance. also an msnbc contributor. joyce, let me start with you there.sions telling congress that the u.s. attorney in utah and the doj inspector general are going to be investigating these matters instead. in your view, is that the right way to handle this? >> this doesn't seem like an investigation where it would be appropriate to appoint a second special counsel. we really reserve having a special counsel for these extraordinary investigations like the mueller/russia investigation that can't be handled other ways. the u.s. attorney in utah is an experienced prosecutor. he's handled a lot of difficult cases and he's very well respected. he did run into a little bit of a stumble early on in his tenure during the trump administration when he held a press conference over at the white house, but as long as he's receiving clear guidance from doj's leadership to maintain that strict divide between doj and the white house, he looks like the right person to appoint to do this difficult job. >> joyce, how do they go about conducting an investigation like this?

for more i turn to joyce vance, a former federal prosecutor from alabama. thanks for being here tonight. >> thanks for having me, ari. >> when we know that don mcgahn has to play more than one role, he has the duty to the commander in chief and give him advice in that role, but also has a legal duty to comply with the special counsel probe, what do you see in this story that you think don mcgahn is likely to provide to mueller? >> it's an interesting question. mcgahn has the duty of candor in response to mueller. so in response to questions that are posed to him, he must be truthful, like anyone else, he testifies in front of a grand jury. but that prohibition against not being fully truthful means a little bit more to lawyer whose are officers of the court. so mcgahn obviously has a lot of insight into his conversations with the president, and as we've learned tonight from this story, the president is prone to talk to witnesses. something his lawyers have undoubtedly advised him against doing. where this could become a crime, there's a narrow species of ob

want to bring in matt miller, former sparm for attorney general holder, msnbc analyst as well as joyce vance, and joyce, when you hear this and you hear the lawyers fighting and you see the lie detector come out, what is your view of the wider significance? >> lie detector tests are really interesting, ari. you've noted that they're not admissible in court, and that's because their scientific validity hasn't been established yet. not to say it couldn't be done in the future. and perhaps this would be the case. but lie detector tests are widely used in law enforcement. particularly early on in cases when people are trying to decide whether a witness is telling the truth. also, widely used in the justice department as an employment device. so the introduction of this lie detector test not as evidence, but as an indication that ms. daniels is being truthful at least in so far as her story about having intercourse with the president is very compelling here. >> and matt miller, when you were serving the obama administration, i don't recall him making a joinder motion for any lawsuits like this. >

i turn now to former federal prosecutor joyce vance and jessica chambers. how important is it that some of this witness discussion relates to the potential removal of bob mueller himself? >> it's bad, ari, not just in the legal sense, not just in the sense that there are people who will face criminal charges as the mueller investigation moves forward, it's also bad for our institutions. we expect the president to have respect for the foundational institutions like the justice department, that are part of our democracy. and here we have the president of the united states flouting the norms that protect those agencies, clearly trying to influence practices and policies, and whether it rises to the level of actually trying to inappropriately influence a witness or trying to interfere and obstruct an investigation, what he has done over the last year to weaken those institutions, in order to protect himself and his friends is devastating, it's hard work that we'll have to do to climb back up that hill when this administration ends. >> and joyce, i don't know if

attorney and now an msnbc contributor joyce vance. i want to talk about the mueller subpoena of the trump organization. i think the surprise here is that it was a subpoena and not a request for documents. do you assume -- a request was made and denied and that is why -- what was your reaction to the subpoena aspect of this? >> i think we have to be careful not to make assumptions here but something that we've heard from the trump organization over time is that they were in a cooperative posture with the mueller investigation and sharing documents that were needed. so this news that there is now a subpoena that the subpoena was issued some weeks ago is definitely a different trend. and does it signify anything? it may just be mueller trying to cut square corners. but far more likely it indicates that they need a document of legal significance that offers them teeth. and whether that is because cooperation was faltering or because they were not receiving documents that they expected would be in the company's possession, but we'll learn

attorney now an msnbc contributor joyce vance. hi, all. matt apuzzo, let me start with you. >>> these officials said that plainly it is common practice for lawyers -- i think anyone that is covering the special counsel probe knows that reince priebus and steve bannon and don mcgahn all share an attorney and that was permitted by the special counsel, but that there was a conflict, that the white house acknowledged a conflict between the spouse of mark corallo's attorney and donald trump. seems like a big flashing red light. >> that's right. it is 100% the case that, as you mention, this is essentially about the representation of mark corallo. in the legal world it's known as divergent interests. the president and mark corallo have divergent interests. he has accused the trump administration of attempting to obstruct justice and so you can't as a lawyer both carry water for that argument and carry the water that, no, the president is not obstructing justice. what is fascinating to me is that this was obvious to every reporter and every lawye

frank montoya is a former special agent and joyce vance. thank you all for joining me tonight. what do you make of this? why is the president attacking mueller by name now? it's personal. it's just about destroying this guy. he doesn't have a legal case. that why he is doing it? >> it's absolutely a shift going on. and the new lawyer he has brought on to his legal team is a fighter who is pulling no punches, who believe there's is a conspiracy in the fbi to go after the president. >> says he believes. >> yes, says he believes. this is just the beginning. >> joe di geneva. >> in '92 he worked on the passport scandal. >> he is bulking up. it looks to me like he is getting personal, however, natasha. he wants to destroy. tell me about this. >> it really makes no sense. the white house kind of had a victory when it managed to get mueller's team to submit written questions or at least topics to the white house about a possible sit-down interview with the president. >> interview. where does that word come from? help me with that word. questioning, interrogation. why it is an intervie

joyce vance, law professor at george washington university. jonathan turley and new york times reporter michael schmidt who had another big scoop. >> what's new. >> he'sincredible. >> mike, we could talk about so much right now, but first let's talk about day five of the president. i guess it's day five. maybe even more than that, that this stormy daniels news has frozen the president of the united states yet again. this is yet to happen. i know i was critical of the legal techniques stormy daniels' lawyer was taking but if you look at it through the -- through the lens of politics, my gosh, this guy has done to donald trump and stormy daniels as done to donald trump what donald trump was able to do to people like marco rubio and jeb bush and other political giants for a year and a half and that is freeze them, tongue tie them and get them trying to fig dwrur out, how do i respond to this because he has no response and he's hiding. >> you have that exactly right, joe. the lawyer for stormy daniels is doing to the president of the united states

attorney joyce vance. tion is going to come out about this physical threat and there are going to be quite a few details about it, joyce. what are the implications? >> you know, this is something of a bombshell, joe, this idea that someone physically threatened her could possibly be a crime so it may be she now feels like she can discuss details if perhaps she's reported a crime to police and there's going top some sort of ongoing criminal investigation into whoever threatened her. but this will also in many ways influence the judge who ultimately hear this is case, of course, a judge in california will have to decide if the nda is valid. >> if she signed an nda and then the attorney comes forward with evidence that either the president of the united states or somebody closely associated with the president doing the president's bidding, somebody that worked for the president several years went to her and physically threatened her and said physical harm would come of her if she did not remain silent -- >> or

also joining us is frank figliuzzi and joyce vance. joyce, what's your take on this breaking news from the "new york times"? >> so this is very interesting news, not completely unexpected, but the most important thing here is that instead of making a polite request that the information be turned over, mueller issued a subpoena. we don't know if there was a previous polite request that was rebuked, but the organization will now have to turn over responsive documents. no privilege can be asserted at this point in time f. they don't turn over documents that are responsive, there will be contempt or other proceedings. >> donald trump said it was a red line to go into his finances, his personal business. this is robert mueller going into his finances and personal business. >> exactly. this is going to take the special counsel inquiry behind the curtain of the trump organization. here's why this is within scope and it is pertinent to what mueller is doing. it's going to shed light on possibly why the russians may have compromised the presiden

attorney joyce vance and john heilemann, our msnbc analyst. what can you report about what may or may not happen on friday? >> you had sam giving interview after interview after interview where he was really just charging, threatening not to participate in any of the mueller subpoena requests, saying he wasn't going to show up on friday, threatening to arrest him if they wanted to. but in my conversation with him after he finished all his cable news shows, he was in a much more somber mood. he said i'm really frustrated, they asked me for all of these e-mails, i e-mailed steve bannon and roger stone every day, it's so many hours of work they put me through, i don't understand i have to do, i didn't do anything wrong but i guess in the end i'll end up cooperating with them anyway. he said ideally he'd like muler to come back with a revised subpoena. he actually singled out carter page to me saying if he only got a new subpoena that didn't have page's name on it, he'd be happy to comply with it. he also said he'd never spoken to carter page. i'm

policy is. >> joyce vance, i want to end the block by going back to a poll we showed last hour.e asked if they trusted robert mueller and wanted him to finish the investigation. 72% of americans want him to finish the investigation. only 11% think he should be fired. only one in ten think he should be fired and you start breaking this down party by party, joyce, the most telling part of this even among remembers, almost six in 10 republicans say let robert mueller finish the investigation. only 25% say he should be fired, only 8% of independents who will make a huge difference in the swing districts on whether snoeps is speaker of the house or paul ryan and 4% of democrats think he should be fired. john heilemann was talking about this that robert mueller has somehow become one of the most trusted men in america. there are few people in have this much kvs in the american people. so many institutions see their numbers collapsing, rural just seems to become more and more trusted with the american people everyday. how does that impact where we are in this investigation and where we

joyce vance, as always, we appreciate your expertise. ? thank y . >> thank you for having me. >> i want to turn to a close student of this story and its and t yants seed thing. >> it conjures richard nixon in '73 and '74. he was accused by the house impeachment inquiry of witness tampering, which was one of the counts against him. his aide said it was pathological. nixon was a lawyer. he knew to get involved in this was against his own self-interest, but he couldn't help himself. he always had to get involved in this. bill clinton, when he was pursued in 1998. his special prosecutor, kenneth starr accused him of witness tampering with betty curry, his secretary, who starr charged had tried to unduly influence, clinton said that wasn't true. she said it wasn't true either. another thing, ari is i think you would agree, as an imminent lawyer, presidents, those who are deft or good clients, ronald reagan was an excellent client. he took his lawyers' advice, he got out of the scandal. vice president george bush was in danger of being dragged i

joyce vance, a former u.s.y for the northern district of alabama who just joined msnbc news and msnbc as a contributor. and matt miller is a former spokesman for president obama's department of justice. and matt, he will begin with you. it seems the house intel committee that the republicans are giving the president what he wants. he wants some document somewhere that he can say look, no collusion. he has been saying it ahead of any documentary evidence of that. but it now appears they are going to give him twhachlt do you make of it? >> yeah, not just no collusion. but the russians weren't even trying to elect him. i suppose in one sense we could congratulate devin nunes because it has been clear for a year now that he was going to go out of his what i to turn this committee really into an arm of the white house or an arm of the president's legal team. but even when you recalibrate your expectations and you know that's what his goal, he still manages to exceed expectations. and go kind of above and beyond. and

joyce vance, good to have you. thank you, ladies. >>> and mueller has new cooperat cooperator. we'll break that down next. it's 6 am. 40 million americans are waking up to a gillette shave. and at our factory in boston, more than a thousand workers are starting their day building on over a hundred years of heritage, craftsmanship and innovation. today we're bringing you america's number one shave at lower prices every day. putting money back in the pockets of millions of americans. as one of those workers, i'm proud to bring you gillette quality for less, because nobody can beat the men and women of gillette. gillette - the best a man can get. why do people put why does your tummy go "grumbily, grumbily, grumbily"? no more questions for you! ouph, that milk in your cereal was messing with you, wasn't it? try lactaid, it's real milk without that annoying lactose. good, right? -mmm, yeah. lactaid. the milk that doesn't mess with you. imagine if the things you bought every day... earned you miles to get to the places you really want to go. with the united mileageplus explorer card

joyce vance and barbara mcquaid are both former federal prosecutors. the story is he's talks with reince priebus and also don mcgahn been things they talked to mueller about. that strikes me as a bad idea. i'm not a lawyer. what do you say? >> it's a terrible idea. and if i was the president's lawyer i would have firmly advised him to have no contact with any witnesses particularly about the topic of their conversations with mueller and his team. so the signals to us that the president likely is a very uncontrollable client. it doesn't really rise at least the reporting that we've seen about these limited conversations to any sort of new evidence of obstruction per se. it is still just not something you want to see your client doing when he's the subject of an investigation like this. >> and barbara, it raises the question we have reporting about tooing about if the president's making a habit of this. >> yeah, and i think that one concern is number one what are they talking about? is he gathering information so he can coordinate the testimony of other

i'm joined by former federal prosecutor seth waxman, as well as joyce vance, that's former federal prosecutors and margaret love who was the former doj pardon pardoned. so we are indebted to what looks like an all-star panel. i mean this would shock any law school, quite frankly. ronado, first and for most, what does it tell you what does it mean that john dowd was reportedly talking pardons before people flipped. >> it suggests to me that he was trying to persuade them from flipping. and they did it in a clever way, they had dowd be the one to communicate with them, so president trump's fingerprints are not on it. you saw how president trump himself is very tight lipped about it. so this way the words are coming out of dowd's mouth not his, it's going to be harder for mueller to peer behind the curtain and see if trump himself was the one behind the efforts to diswade the prosecution. >> i'm really disturbed by the fact that it's the president's personal lawyer who's involved in offering these pardons. the criminal lawyer, typically and i nomar gknow margaret willm this. i represented a numbe

joyce vance and barbara mcquaid are both former federal prosecutors. th

i'm joined by justice reporter jul julia ainsley and joyce vance, an msnbc contributor. the recommendation to fire mccabe, it follows the inspector general's report. what are you sources telling you about what's behind your recommendation and whether mccabe is going to get axed? >> as you laid out, it does seem he wasn't forthcoming enough with the inspector general. that was referred to the office of professional responsibility within the fbi. those people oversee people who are career civil servants like mccabe. they're in what's known as the senior executive service. those people don't just serve at the pleasure of the president. it's not like trump can wave a hand and he'd be fired without his pension overnight. there's a process here. they have recommended to attorney general sessions that mccabe be fired. and i've spoken to a lot of people inside the fbi. this seems kind of ruthlessly mean to someone who's already stepped aside from being the deputy director, you know, just days away from getting his pension, to have that stripped away from him. on the other hand,

joyce vance and barbara mcquaid are both former federal prosecutors.'s talks with reince priebus and also don mcgahn been things they talked to mueller about. that strikes me as a bad idea. i'm not a lawyer. what do you say? >> it's a terrible idea. and if i was the president's lawyer i would have firmly advised him to have no contact with any witnesses particularly about the topic of their conversations with mueller and his team. so the signals to us that the president likely is a very uncontrollable client. it doesn't really rise at least the reporting that we've seen

joyce vance, a former u.s. attorney. she is with us also. there you had a taste of roy cohn in the night. that shut up that whole manner of talking, the sort of street corner manner, and then saying they've got something on trump, but i'm not going to talk about it. i'm going ignore the subpoena. put it all together. >> this is definitely one of the big characters in what he portrayed today that is really grabbing a lot of headlines. but i think at the end of the day, sam nunberg, it's not about defending trump at all. he is really throwing trump under the bus. he is saying he doesn't want to comply with the subpoena right here because it's too much work. that he doesn't want to hand over everything, all of his communications on these ten people. that's not really how one usually deals with the justice department. and he is sort of turning this into him against them. like they're a political opponent and not the justice department. and at the end of the day, it really seems to be more about saving his mentor, roger stone than it is about don

. >> joyce vance, thank you for being on this morning. >>> still ahead on "morning joe" -- >> hold ite. would you like to weigh in -- apparently some kids out of brooklyn are tweeting that brooklyn barbecue is the best in the world and i know the good people of texas -- as ted cruz said and i actual actually agree with him wholeheartedly for once "bless your hearts, brooklyn." memphis, obviously offended. but would you like to speak for the alabama contingent on whether brooklyn barbecue is the best barbecue in the world. >> i saw those reports about brooklyn with great horror. that is not barbecue. y'all come back on down to birmingham and we'll eat some of the finest barbecue in the world here. >> joyce vance, thank you very much. >> i had a cot in the back of dreamland barbecue in tuscaloosa, alabama. >> that i believe. >> my friends said they were afraid i was going to get the gout. >> it's not a pretty sight. >>> jim himes is a leading voice on two of the day's most pressing issues, he is knee deep in the russia probe from his seat on the intel committee and is a long time advoca