the president has defended flynn, despite firing him for lying. >> michael flynn, general flynn is a wonderful man, i think he's been treated very unfairly by the media. as i call it, the fake media in many cases. and i think it's really a sad thing that he was treated so badly. >> flynn himself has gone silent publicly, in march, he said he was willing to be interviewed in exchange for immunity. general flynn has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it. joining me now, rachel maddow who has been covering it better than anyone. >> i don't know, that was pretty good. >> i'm curious what you feel of this story. in terms of the waves it sent has not been as large as others. for me personally, the way i feel like i'm putting the facts as we know them into view, seems like one of the most significant because it puts flynn at the center of something, and it gives some plausible vision of what exactly someone might be up to in reaching out to the russians. >> i think you laid it out perfectly. we've now been looking at this long enough as a country. we know enough about the inves

did michael flynn help them with that? or anyone else collude with the russian government in their efforts to elude the election? it's a serious charge, an absolutely unanswered one at that point. that is still an unanswered charge. since mike flynn left the white house he and his businesses and business associates have reportedly been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury investigating collusion between the trump campaign and russia. mike flynn is a focus of robert mueller's investigation which is reportedly looking into not only flynn's russian contacts but also his work lobbying for turkey. mike flynn's activities during the press den campaign, during the transition, his very brief tenure in the white house itself, those are turned out to be right at the center of the ongoing investigations into this new administration and the russian attack on us last year. and those ongoing investigations have ended up putting a spotlight on one particular member of the trump administration and the specific question of whether or not he k

> one of the questions that's going to raise on the hill was the president was so defensive of michael flynn have been flynn operating on his own businesses and not h is rois role. >> i am glad you brought it up. >> if there is a link, he was acting on his own. >> again, if you go back and watch james comey's testimony because the president asked him to backup michael flynn. why the president was so devoted to michael flynn. >> this makes it necessary for the president not to do anything regarding mueller other than given the resources to deal with the investigation. he cannot remove him or fire him. you have to trust him and everybody in the city does. he's got a reputation for complete integrity. you cannot remove robert mueller. >> that's -- he's the central character now. what does he do? you are in the trump white house, you got to be concern. >> the question of michael flynn, some sort of loyalty. michael flynn is the only person that stood by him during the course of the campaign. this story gives weight to the counter theory that michael flynn may have something that the president is

does that have anything to do with the unmasking of michael flynn?nobert mueller -- call robert mueller and ask him what he thinks of the former fbi director leaking classified information to the press. host: by the way, the former -- the man nominated to be a director has his hearing on capitol hill today -- be cia onector has his hearing capitol hill today at 9:30. christopher wray will be before ae committee and that will be 9:30 eastern on c-span three. our caller was talking about the women with who donald trump junior and paul manafort, jared kushner met. she is a russian lawyer who met with donald trump junior and others at trump tower in manhattan on june 9, 2016, writes the washington post. -- a few dayster, later, seated in front of the house foreign affairs committee hearing in which witnesses discussed u.s. sanctions against her country. a few hours after the hearing, she was spotted again attending the screening of the film and criticized u.s. sanctions. in the course of week from new york to washington, she showed up at several of is th

he was warned by barack obama saying hey, be careful about this michael flynn guy. that donald trump has any interest in letting jared kushner go. at the end of the day, what donald trump wants to do is what will happen. >> let's say he was to resign from the administration. and with that, the security clearance. he is still his son-in-law. he is still married to ivanka. >> one would assume that if you had -- this is donald trump. it is impossible to predict what rules apply to donald trump here. part of issue is that jared kushner, there was a huge question at the outset whether or not they could work together. they have these special rules. there was supposed to be nepotism protections in place. they worked around that and 94 it all depends whether donald trump wants them gone. >> this is interesting. he has faced resistance from some of the top press aides, according the six sources familiar with the matter. the story suggesting this might be sarah huckabee sanders saying, hey, we're not necessarily comfortable going out and doing this. >> i don't think it is a q

had a close relationship at least from his testimony -- his interview with the wall street with michael flynn and at that point flynn was senior adviser. michael, this is the first specific piece of evidence that is being reported on allegedly that links, again, michael flynn to this activity set that might lead to collusion. >> yeah, this is a fragment, i think it is important -- it is an important fragment. it begins to sort of bring up a question many of us have had, which is what might collusion have looked like had it occurred. this article in the "wall street journal" begins to lay some of that out. but listen, we've got a long way to go to try and figure out whether this is truthful or just a consultant operating in and of itself and on his own accord and dropping names. to me what this really begs the question of is michael flynn cooperating with the fbi. he is probably the rosetta stone to say listen here is who i was talking to and here is who others might have been talking to. i don't know that we know that definitively. it is a big guessing game here in washington. if i were the f

and that it could be on-going, given what michael flynn has been up to in terms of contacts withans, with russian officials. >> i see what you're asking. in terms of the people i spoke with who are intelligence people for this story, i wouldn't say that specific concern was necessarily raise. i think the concern that some people raised was that they were worried about someone who seemed to be a sort of more partisan and political choice chosen for his loyalty to one person in this very important job. >> and i guess that's the point. if his loyalty was specifically to michael flynn, then who is it that's protecting him in his job now, were you able to determine that? >> like i said, jared kushner and steve bannon intervened to save his job. in terms of why he's still there, despite the fact that mcmaster has been obviously able to fire other people he wanted to fire, you know, the fact of the matter is there was attempt to fire him, it wasn't successful, and once something like that happens, the president himself sort of inter convenience convenients to save your job, you become u

" that he was working toward in close preparation to an independent expenditure, with not just michael flynnut also steve bannon, kellyanne conway, and sam clovis, who was a policy adviser to now president trump. joining us now is investigative reporter michael isikoff, who is chief investigative correspondent at yahoo! news, who wrote a book in 1999, called uncovering clinton, who looks at peter smith's earlier activism. thank you for joining us. >> good to be with you. >> so peter smith turns up in the "the wall street journal" last night, also tonight. what can you tell us about his background in the anti-bill clinton material in the '90s? >> well, it's fascinating that something somebody wrote 20 years ago pops back up in the news in a totally different context. but yeah, you pretty much covered it in the intro there, rachel, he was one of the sort of shadowy, behind the scenes figures who was helping to finance some of the politicitic opo research to bill clinton, he gave a five-page material that led to the troopergate stories. there was another $25,000 that he gave to a troopergate wh

and now you have this new information that michael flynn is in need of money, that michael flynn has started yet another consulting firm. he doesn't have the money to sort of pay for his legal defense. he's still out there. and we don't talk about him much any more, but there are all these places where -- all these people being willing to go to jail for him, right. >> it's sort of amazing. and remember, none of these people ever remember meeting with the russian ambassador. he's a very mem rabl figure, very large loud man, the level of do you police it here of lying about these contacts is one thing. and i think you've hit the nail on head. first of all, of all the people that donald trump has thrown overboard and ridiculed and disdand and dispensed with, why is he so defensive of michael flynn? he's not a family member. he wasn't someone there at the very, very, very beginning. so what is it about michael flynn that has donald trump so concerned about his fate, so concerned about his reputation? i think that is one big link, one big weak link in the defense around the presidency. an

michael flynn, was an act of political retribution. sarah carter will be with us. we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ welcome to holiday inn! ♪ ♪ thank you! ♪ ♪ wait, i have something for you! ♪ ♪ making every stay a special stay. holiday inn, smiles ahead. whether for big meetings or little getaways, member always save more at holidayinn.com that's why at comcast we're continuing to make4/7. our services more reliable than ever. like technology that can update itself. an advanced fiber-network infrustructure. new, more reliable equipment for your home. and a new culture built around customer service. it all adds up to our most reliable network ever. one that keeps you connected to what matters most. >> lou: the white house warning syrian president bashar alassad that his regime will pay a heavy price if he carries out another chemical attack against his people this year. the administration detected prepriation at a syrian air base involved in a gas attack in april. join you us is retired four star general, jack keane. >> thank you. >> lou: this is the boldest by the presiden

michael flynn, was an act of political retribution. sarah carter will be with us. we'll be right back. >> lou: the white house warning syrian president bashar alassad that his regime will pay a heavy price if he carries out another chemical attack against his people this year. the administration detected prepriation at a syrian air base involved in a gas attack in april. join you us is retired four star general, jack keane. >> thank you. >> lou: this is the boldest by the president yet. >> yes, he absolutely means it. i am stunned at assad would consider using gas again. i think the president would not just take it from the air field from which it came, they have six operational air fields and all of their airplanes and helicopters. we could see all of that out in one night using cruise missiles. >>'ve>> lou: that would incrud russians. >> the russians repositioned their aircraft. and we would not want to kill them. we know which ones are russian and which ones are his. we would take out the fuel and ammunition and supplies, repair parts and all of that is around a

michael flynn, was an act of political retribution. sarah carter will be with us. we'll be right back. [ noises inside can ] [ laughing ] it's driving me crazy come on. [ spitting from tongue ] time for my secret weapon. sports, movies, tv, ah, show me music to distract a minion. [ voice remote click ] oh! [ pharrell starts to play ] [ minion so happy to see screen ] ahh! i'm pretty smart. ahhh! [ lots of minions ] [ mooing sound ] show me unicorns. [ click noise for tv ] ahhh! that works too. find your awesome with the xfinity x1 voice remote. see despicable me 3. in theaters in june. >> lou: the white house warning syrian president bashar alassad that his regime will pay a heavy price if he carries out another chemical attack against his people this year. the administration detected prepriation at a syrian air base involved in a gas attack in april. join you us is retired four star general, jack keane. >> thank you. >> lou: this is the boldest by the president yet. >> yes, he absolutely means it. i am stunned at assad would consider using gas again. i think the p

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michael flynn, shortest in history, reince priebus, shortest serving chief of staff. let's emphasize, though, bob !$! the president says there's no white house chaos. >> it's obvious there is white house chaos. general kelly says there's a chaos. that's why it's a restart today. in one of my tweets i said we're going to see what kind of day it is if kelly gets rid of scaramucci or if scaramucci stays. if scaramucci would have stayed, it would have been business as usual. that would have been warning signs for all of us watching this unfold. kelly has shown he's the leader. he's in charge. and now we're really hoping and praying that some order and clarity is going to go forward. but for that to go forward, president trump also has to allow general kelly to lead and needs to listen to general kelly. there needs to be clarity of vision and we're all hoping and praying for the best in this country but there needs to be some clarity now. >> this does come down to this, right? and when you -- anthony scaramucci ten days as communications director. six f-bombs in one press

michael flynn, was an act of political retribution. sarah carter will be with us. we'll be right back. these days families want to be connected 24/7. that's why at comcast we're continuing to make our services more reliable than ever. like technology that can update itself. an advanced fiber-network infrustructure. new, more reliable equipment for your home. and a new culture built around customer service. it all adds up to our most reliable network ever. one that keeps you connected to what matters most. so we need tablets installed... with the menu app ready to roll. in 12 weeks. yeah. ♪ ♪ the world of fast food is being changed by faster networks. ♪ ♪ data, applications, customer experience. ♪ ♪ which is why comcast business delivers consistent network performance and speed across all your locations. fast connections everywhere. that's how you outmaneuver. >> lou: the white house warning syrian president bashar alassad that his regime will pay a heavy price if he carries out another chemical attack against his people this year. the administration detected prepri

michael flynn, was an act of political retribution. sarah carter will be with us. we'll be right back. you totaled your brand new car. nobody's hurt, but there will still be pain. it comes when your insurance company says they'll only pay three-quarters of what it takes to replace it. what are you supposed to do? drive three-quarters of a car? now if you had liberty mutual new car replacement™, you'd get your whole car back. i guess they don't want you driving around on three wheels. smart. with liberty mutual new car replacement™, we'll replace the full value of your car. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance. >> lou: the white house warning syrian president bashar alassad that his regime will pay a heavy price if he carries out another chemical attack against his people this year. the administration detected prepriation at a syrian air base involved in a gas attack in april. join you us is retired four star general, jack keane. >> thank you. >> lou: this is the boldest by the president yet. >> yes, he absolutely means it. i am stunned at assad would

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let's not forget michael flynn was the one who had to resign because sally yates, the acting attorney compromised and open to russian blackmail. what we've learned this week is that it's possible that the crime in this case is worse than the cover up. the cover up has been bungled, there's no doubt. they've done a horrible job getting information out. but on top of it, it seems that a lot of people and a lot of high-powered positions are lying. and i have to wonder what are they try to cover up. >> and howard and i both kind of exclaimed when you said the michael flynn point, yeah, yeah, good point. >> yeah, that's a really great point. >> yes, and was he there in that meeting, we don't know. and did he know about the meeting? >> i suspect attorney general mueller is investigating that very question. that's a great question. >> if he wasn't before, he is now. >> yes, i'm sure he is. >> and it shows president trump has hit a record low approval rating for any president at the six-month mark, just 36%. that sounds bad but, howard, how much does that number mean? do we give it too much c

there is no doubt that these two menu each other. >> an attorney for michael flynn didn't return oureeking comment. in the end, shane harris said, peter smith believes he had gathered those private hillary clinton e-mails but couldn't completely verify their accuracy. so he never put them out. some on capitol hill thinks smith's efforts are one more avenue that should be investigated in the russia probe. >> it is something that should be probed further. i hope it now gets folded into what we are doing. >> aside from michael flynn's attorney never getting back to us about peter smith, the white house also didn't return our calls or e-mails. a senior official from the trump presidential campaign told me he had never heard of peter smith or his reported attempts to gather hillary clinton's e-mails during the campaign. brian today, cnn. >>> we now know there were eight people in the room when donald trump jr. took that campaign meeting with a russian lawyer back in 2016. new details about the russian lobbyist and former soviet intelligence officer who were there. ♪ more kinds of crab tha

unlike michael flynn and james comey, they didn't have such support. sessions did. >> those same code of regulations govern the budget of special counsel and that is in the purview of the government. i could see where sessions is replaced and that attorney general doesn't fire bob mueller but he just reduces his budget to so low that his investigation has to grind to a halt. >> to reduce his resources. what do you think the concern is for mueller? in order to fire sessions, they would have to go through all the hoops and do everything that they said. do you think mueller is concerned right now? >> i don'tme. first of all, bob mueller was the fbi director when i was u.s. attorney. i have a lot of respect for him and i would be surprised if he is ultimately worried at all about this. in fact, i don't even think he pays attention to what's going on in the daily back and forth about whether or not jeff sessions has the confidence of the president. bob mueller is going to continue to do his investigation. he continues to staff up. they're talking to people,

michael flynn has other issues.f i was him, i would be worrying about that potential, you know, lawsuit. indictment on attempting to abduct an american resident from pennsylvania. i wouldn't worry about being locked up on minor political charges. he has issues. >> yeah. he has issues and we don't have any time to go into the rest of that, but, thank you to david corn and nayyera. >>> but coming up in our next hour, our reporter round table will discuss the g20 donald trump's health care battle to come. more "am joy" after the break. needles. essential for him, but maybe not for people with rheumatoid arthritis. because there are options. like an "unjection™". xeljanz xr. a once daily pill for adults with moderate to severe ra for whom methotrexate did not work well. xeljanz xr can reduce pain, swelling and joint damage, even without methotrexate. xeljanz xr can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections, lymphoma and other cancers have happened. don't start xe

you know, we had michael flynn say early on, no, i did not meet with the russians. and we find out michael flynn met with the russians, excuse the firetruck behind me right now. we then have the attorney general, jeff sessions, say he didn't meet with the russians. well then we found out jeff sessions met with the russians, and often, and again, last year, almost exactly this time of the year, we were told by donald trump, jr., that campaign officials had not met with any russians. said specifically russians. well, turns out now, yes, did he meet with the russians. maybe it was not the russian government official that he was initially promised in the emails, that we now saw this morning, but, you know, time and time again there is administration can't seem to get within a 24-hour window of stumbling into another one every these situations. so, the situation right now is the senate committee will want to hear from donald trump, jr., the house intelligence community will want to hear from donald trump, jr. as well, so they've now re spun the wheel here, and finds them

take for instance the saga of michael flynn. first inkling there was something sketchy about the trump foreign policy adviser and his relationship with russia came a year ago through republican national convention when yahoo! news chief investigative correspondent michael isikoff pressed flynn on a trip he took to moscow for the 10th anniversary of r.t. >> were you paid for that event? >> you would have to ask the folks i went over there to -- >> no, i'm asking you. you would know if you were paid. >> yeah, i went over there as a speaking event. it was a speaking event. >> then one week before the inauguration, david ignatius of the "washington post" reported the very same day president obama sanctioned russia for interfering in the election according to a u.s. governor officials flynn phoned sergey kislyak several times. what did he say or undercut sanctions. the white house denied it. they went on national television to say flynn had not talked sanctions. hours after michael flynn was sworn in as national security adviser, the

and therefore, as you were alluding to before, jared was just as compromised as michael flynn was. >>in know and was talked about earlier in this hour, the culpability of russians in this entire meeting. >> it's been a pretty interesting week because what that meeting was was a really great sort of microcosm of what those of us with experience watching russian intelligence operations play out in other places have seen but on a macro sale around the trump organization and campaign. >> is this a typical soft sell? >> it's something hard for people to understand. this is the kremlin's preferred means of action against the united states which it has defined as its primary opponent are these shadow warfare tools. every one of these russians kind of floating around the scenes that just happened to have a russian intelligence background or happened to have a direct line to the russian prosecutor or happened to have financing from russian-state companies, these are not disconnected from the kremlin. it's something new and different for americans to understand. we do not operate in the same wa

so when you compare michael flynn and you compare that article that came out in the journal, look, michael flynn had direct contact. he was sitting in front of putin. there is a profile that the russians use when they recruit people, and i think that what you're seeing here is perhaps these bread crumbs that show, as malcolm was saying, these dirty trick teams which again are a layer that are designed to confuse, to sort of make it difficult to link back to the host country. this, in fact, non-attribution that they employed to sort of make the waters murky. >> malcolm, i want to play for you shane harris who broke the story in the journal, and he's the one rachel was citing in her discussion of this story. but i want to push back a little bit on this idea that because donald trump said something, it should be treated as true when so much of what donald trump says shouldn't be treated as deferentially, automatically true. he cites that statement we've played now and people have seen it repeatedly where he said, oh, russia, help me get those e-mails. here's harris talking about that in the w

michael flynn, paul manafort, skrmpt b. gordon, jeff sessions, now don jr., jerared kushner, donald pag. are they tired of having to talk about thig and that they wish that there were some sort of better answers coming out of the white house? >> i think that there's probably -- there is that fatigue happening but not really in equal way on both sides of the aisle. democrats are getting tired of the white house coming up with, well, we didn't know. this was just a casual meeting to discuss something that -- it was not that important. wouldn't have violated the law, with somebody who happened to be russian. they're getting sick of that line saying this is a pattern. for some reason you're able to talk about meet with other foreign nationals but when it comes up with whether you met with russians you have this big hole in your memory and it seems to be a collective hole with everyone affiliated with the trump campaign and trump transition team and those still in the white house. it's becoming more difficult to explain these th

so michael flynn will be one star witness.s got all these shady real estate actions with trump. you can be sure that mueller has all of the bank records from trump, manafort, everyone else who's involved. seen he probably is looking to flip manafort. plan fort was at this weird meeting with the russian operative with donald junior. he knows what happened there. he doesn't have the same kind of loyalty that trump junior might have. so it's going to be really interesting to see what happens at this meeting on wednesday. don junior testifies for the first time under oath. he's got to tell the truth. going to be able to ask specific questions about russia. it seems really difficult for folks involved in the trump administration to tell the truth, the whole truth about russia. so really interesting hearing on wednesday. >> could they be prosecuted if they were found to have lied in those hearings? >> absolutely. false statements, perjury. it's not enough to say oh i forgot. they have some of the world's leading investigators and be

lou: that one crime, involves michael flynn. there is no other possibility other than the fact his name was leaked. >> right, it will be interesting to see if they get to the bottom of it. i have a feeling they will be able to determine number of pee people who had access to flynn's name, and wittle that down to individual who leaked it we'll see. lou: encouraging in that regard could we're learning fox news is learning that number of individuals involved in the unmasking, we're told is widening. therefore we're getting a better idea of what was involved, we would not know that. >> yes, not just samantha power and susan price, and john brennan but we're led to believe there are more individuals, usually one or two ask for national security reason to unmask the name of an american who is caught up incidental collection, this many people, it makes you wonder is it true that obama administration in last year in office was undertaking a concerted effort to hurt the donald trump campaign, then the presidency of donald trump? lou: in

thousands of hillary clinton's missing e-mails claiming he had the support of none other than michael flynnthe 33,000 e-mails were in the hand of russian hackers and told multipresident friend he was working with flynn to obtain then. one of the people he was accused of trying to recruit, matt tate who laid out his interactions with smith that was published friday night. tate wrote although it wasn't initially clear to me how independent smith's operation was from flynn or the trump campaign, it was immediately apparent that smith was both well connected within the top echelons of the campaign and seemed to know flynn and his son well. he taoffered deep incites. he went onto discuss a research document he says smith sent him that listed senior members of the trump team including kellyanne conway, michael flynn, steve bannon, and more. joining us is a senior reporter at business insider. welcome. >> thank you for having me. >> what do you make of this report. who is tate, exactly, and put these pieces together a little bit? >> tate is an information security specialist. he used to work for t

the oval office, then asked comey to drop the investigation of former national security adviser michael flynn but the president told the "times," he did not shoo people out of the room. >> i don't remember even talking to him about any of this stuff. his testimony is loaded up with lies. >> reporter: in a long, rambling interview, the president also reminisced about his recent trip to paris and to napoleon's tomb, and he gave a history lesson about how napoleon and hitler lost major battles against russia, because their armies froze to death. the president seemed fascinated, mentioning it more than once that french president emmanuel macron has a fondness for holding hands. "people don't realize he loves holding my hand," mr. trump said, "and that's good as far as that goes." >> a white house spokesperson said today that, yes, president trump is disappointed in attorney general sessions, but he has not lost confidence in him and has no plan to fire him. anthony? >> mason: chip reid at the white house, thank you, chip. the special counsel is now looking into the trump business empire, in the i

he joins former national security adviser michael flynn. attorney general jeff sessions. and, jared kushner. as recently as february, the february had denied that there were any russian contacts during the election. >> no, nobody that i know of. >> this new revelation, houfrg has caught the attention of congress. mark warner is the top democrat on the senate intelligence committee. >> this is the first time the public has seen clear evidence that senior level officials of the trump campaign melt with potentially an agent of a foreign government to try to obtain information that would discredit hillary clinton. >> today the white house said the president did not know about the june 2016 meeting. although he was in new york on the same day. spokeswoman sarah huckabee sanders. >> there was no collusion that they keep trying to create that there was. >> donald trump jr. defended himself on twitter today saying among other things, that the meeting went nowhere, but he had to listen. he has now hired an attorney and said he is willing to cooperate with congressional investigati

>> let me just wrap and say this -- i mean with the whole issue of the demise of the career of michael flynnynn hadn't disclosed the meeting with kislyak. who knew that? kislyak knew that. so presumably that went in the flynn file for kompromat, right? >> that's right and that's exactly when the u.s. government was most worried about. it was not so much what flynn had talked about with kislyak. but the fact that he hid that information from the fbi and from his security clearance disclosures in a way that compromised him. that's why these meetings in trump tower are so damaging. is this the tip of the iceberg? are there a whole other host of meetings with the russian, with russian government officials? or proxies that are going to incriminate members of the trump team or maybe even the president himself? if there are, the russians know it and they can use it and the trump team knows it. and they are subject to that influence. because they do not want it to come to light. >> i'm going to wrap myself in your curriculum vitae and take off my tinfoil hat. professor, thank you so much for being h

michael flynn may have been the subject of a direct approach. hey, go after hillary clinton. but can i just say one last thing? i know precisely when it information was injected into the bloodstream of american politics. early 2016, there was a news report from russia that was put out through sputnik and another smaller agency which was picked up by a right wing blogger and that story that putin was having a debate within the halls of the kremlin about releasing hillary clinton's 33,000 emails got repeated by judge napolitano on fox news in april, and it disappeared, but didn't come back up until trump's statement in july. it was festering during all that time, and these people didn't care, but they knew, they had to have known that information would be coming from the russians, and that informed trump and all the people who had conversations with them to make that statement about russia, if you're listening, release hillary clinton's emails. they don't care. win at all cost. >> it makes so much more sense with this piece of the puzzle that you don't have to believe that dona