mr. rosenstein has been overseeing the mueller investigation. he's in place at the number two in justice. what the president means is he's not slotting in somebody who's an old friend or somebody he discussed the mueller investigation with. there's no evidence to me that mr. whitaker knows anything about the ongoing investigation. he's been the chief of staff to the recused attorney general for 13 months. the president wanted to have a continuum and elevate someone who was already there. in this case it was the chief of staff who has been there for 13 months. >> but, you know, there have been reports pre-dating the choice of matt whitaker that he met with the president several times in the oval office. maybe a dozen times. "the new york times" said they had great chemistry. that's one of the things the president liked about him. he clearly knew matt whitaker. he was familiar with his reputation and familiar with his work. we don't understand why he would say i don't know the man. >> when she's say -- he's saying i don't know, he means i don't kn

the next stage fully depends on mr mueller and his collea g u es fully depends on mr mueller and hisdent is telling them, and whether it leads to other people being interviewed or whether this finally wraps up this enquiry and mr mueller can write his final report. china's president xijinping has called his visit to the philippines a "milestone". it was all aimed at boosting relations with the promise of billions of dollars in backing for mega—projects. he also said that china and the philippines have a shared interest in the south china sea. let's get the latest. 0ur correspondent howard johnson is in manila for us. how has the visit gone down? how has the visit gone down7m how has the visit gone down? it has gone down very well here as far as president rodrigo duterte is concerned. last night, he threw a sumptuous banquet for the chinese president, lots of memorandums of understanding was signed between the two countries, around 29, exploring issues like the south china sea, potential oil and gas exploration, and also looking at the belt and road economic initiative of china, looki

mr. mueller.cation he's going to fire mr. mueller. i think he doesn't like mr. mueller and he's not happy being investigated. but i'm not sure i wouldn't feel the same way. >> just play that out for me. so if he were to fire mueller, what's that sharp reaction from congress that would be effective? >> i don't know exactly what the instrument would be, but i think congress would take steps to make sure that the investigation is completed. not because of anything president trump did or didn't do because of the american people. serious allegations have been raised about the sanctity of our system. i hope he will report directly to the american people. the american people are smart enough to figure it out for themselves. if somebody did something wrong, then prosecute them. but let's bring it to a conclusion. >> fair enough. what if matt whitaker, who is now in charge of over seeing the mueller investigation doesn't want the results to be released to the public, how could they be released to the publi

mr. mueller will be removed from office. but with the president tweeting on a regular basis, a daily basis that the special counsel is conflicted, that he is leading so-called 12 angry democrats and demeaning and ridiculing him in every way, to be so sanguine about the chances of him being fired is folly for us, i believe. we have already seen the forced resignation of the attorney general the day after the election. it's clear, therefore, that something has to be done to protect mr. mueller's investigation. let me just say it wasn't just that the attorney general was fired. it's that the investigation or an oversight for the investigation was taken from the deputy attorney general, where it probably belonged and where it sat before. it was taken from him and given to somebody in an acting capacity, someone who has not been confirmed by the senate. should we here in the senate be okay with that? i would argue no, we can't be. that's why a few weeks ago my colleague from new jersey and my colleague from delaware came to the s

mr. mueller may have.course the embassy may likely have been under surveillance, and it may be that that information, the surveillance information would likely be available to mr. mueller. so what's interesting is throughout all of this, mr. manafort has been operating under a joint defense agreement telling the white house everything that is going on in the questioning by mr. mueller. so at the same time he's giving information that mueller now says was a lie. we had the revelation about the meeting in london at the embassy with wikileaks. if that's accurate, then perhaps that has somehow affected the answers to which mr. trump has provided to the small portion of questioning that mr. trump has provided to mr. mueller. >> interesting. >> all of that could be tied together. the timing is extraordinary. and so, again, without resorting to a report, without another indictment, mr. mueller could be in a position of revealing a lot of information that we would all find very interesting about his investigation

mr. mueller by mr. whitaker to do anything other than mr. mueller's job, i'm confident mr. mueller will be allowed to do his job without interference. >> brennan: i asked you that question because as you know there have been a public number of public statements made by whitaker saying there's no criminal obstruction of justice charge to be had against president trump. that seems prejudicial. he's referred to special counsel and the mueller lynch mob. what about these comments suggest to you that he's going to be impartial? >> you don't recuse somebody because they have opinions different than people they're overseeing. trust me, there's politics abounds when it comes to the mueller investigation that trump is guilty no matter what mueller finds. mr. mueller will be allowed to do his job without political interferes by mr. whitaker. mr. whitaker i think is legally qualified and otherwise qualified to oversee this investigation. until a new attorney general will be appointed and i think that will happen early next year. >> brennan: early next year. what is your first question

mr. whitaker decided he was going to fire robert mueller or curtail his investigation. e is nothing legally to stop him? >> i mean, there is a regulation in place, but the regulation is one that technically mr. whitaker could rescind. sshe could a new referral to mr. mueller that drastically narrows the scope of the investigation. or he could fire him -- he has to have cause. is unclear under the legislation if you did fire hime for something than cause -- it is unclear if anyone could sue if mr. mueller goes to the courts. we have three branches of government, the executive branch, congress- congress can't do anything -- and the courts, and the questiou would be canet a case to a judge to exercise oversight. laura: have we learned the lessons from watergate when it cometo protecting a special counsel who did president feels threatened by? >> ino, interesting how history is repeating itself. with the famous saturday night massacre, president nixon fired his attorney general for not firing the special prosecutor in that instance and it went down the line. lthere is a lot

mr. mueller's investigation, which we meticulously steered clear of, and we think that mr. ld complete hmumor -- mueller should complete his investigation and follow the truth where it may lead. so i don't know what the president or anyone in his administration or anyone in his former campaign's response are to the claims made by mr. cohen, but i'm interested in hearing both sides of it. >> i will tell you what their response has been. rudy giuliani said yesterday the president's comments, written responses to robert mueller are in line with what michael cohen says. michael cohen says he was negotiating with dmitri petrov and an assistant of his and that candidate trump didn't tell us. do you feel that's appropriate? >> i don't know whether that's appropriate or not, because i haven't heard more details about this. i will just say, though, that what mr. cohen was doing and mr. trump was doing are two different thing. we need to find out about it. as you know, those interrogatories submitted to the president and he's answered, we have not seen, and maybe some day we will see,

rudy giuliani claimed mr trump had provided unprecedented cooperation to robert mueller and it was now trump's attempt to deny asylum to people who enter the country illegally. hundreds of migrants from central america have nowjoined the large caravan gathered on the us—mexico border. now on bbc news, samira hussain talks to stacey cunningham, the president of the new york stock exchange, the first woman to occupy that post, as part of our 100 women season.

mr. mueller and his team. but e far as th investigation goes, with it winding down, the president has said, "let's comply," and hopefully we'll be able to get through it quickly. the president in his press conference today judy made reference to the mueller investigation. he said thereas no rus collusion. we spent millions and millions of clars in taxpayer money. we'll wait for theeport, but if this was about russia collusion from the beginning, as the president has said, there il no csion. he's called this a witch hunt and hoax, and we'll see what the redrrt says. >> wf: so just quickly, he doesn't-- you don't expect there to be a change in any way-- mr. whitaker won't in any way dealing with the russia investigation. >> no, no, ire not aw of what you asked previously, which is that in making this move, the president is trying to shut downtown investigation. i know the media have also asked for probably the best of the part of the year is he trying to fire bob mueller. is he trying to fire rosenstein who over

mr. mueller i think is in the final stages of doing his report. f confidence and bob mueller. i'm going to meet with mr. whitaker next week, and i'm going to have him assure me that he is going to let mr. mueller do his job, and if there is any interference, he will be the first to hear about it on fox news. i don't think that is going to happen. i'm not concerned about that. if i were, i would tell you. >> martha: do you think matt whitaker is going to be an interim attorney general as he is right now, or it's possible he could keep that position? i guess, look ahead to the confirmation process for me. another of names that have been put out there, pam bondi, chris christie, how do you see this working out? >> i would hate to have to choose between those because they are all such good candidates. i talked at length with the president about the attorney general's election. he deserves somebody he trusts, he has confidence in, that the american people also have to have confidence in this person. we are going to have to increase majority in the unite

rudy giuliani claimed mr trump had provided unprecedented cooperation to robert mueller, and it was nowt to deny asylum for people entering illegally. thousands of migrants from central america have joined the caravan gathering on the mexican us border. now, panorama. tonight on panorama, we investigate the criminals who con people looking for love. it was the same name and the same picture. i actually went, how could i have been so stupid? catfish. the romance fraudsters who exploit the lonely. has she asked you for money? yeah, i sent her a little bit of money, yeah. ‘cos i'm worried, roy, that you're being scammed again by... oh no, no, i'm not, i'm not. kathryn, i love you. we set a trap for the criminals. as we uncover a crime that takes us around the world. it was not me, i did not do it.

mr. mueller, and he's not happy with the investigation. ess i wouldn't be if i were in his shoes either, but i've seen no indication that he's going to fire mueller. >> all right. i want to ask you about matt whitaker because obviously, you know, the point that jeff flake was making was jeff sessions was fired, then you were going to see mueller. obviously, the acting replacement for sessions is matt whitaker. adam schiff is the democrat expected to lead the house intelligence committee. he was on the show last night and he told me about why he's worried about whitaker. >> it's entirely possible that whitaker takes action to interfere with mueller, to hobble the investigation, but also whitaker could serve as a back channel to trump and his lawyers in a way that no matter who fills that job later, you can't undo the damage that is done by compromising the investigation. >> so, whitaker could serve as acting attorney general, senator, for seven months. >> right. >> we understand from sources mueller's already started to write his report. so,

mr. mueller's inquiry is the question of whether anyone in mr. trump's orbit participated in russia's efforts to hack and release the materials. here to help us unpack today's developments on the mueller front, as well as covering developments in the ongoing controversy surrounding donald trump's new acting ag, some of our favorite reporters and friends. joining us from "the new york times," peter baker, frank figliuzzi, former fbi assistant director for counterintelligence, chuck rosenberg is back, former senior fbi official. and on capitol hill, democratic congressman eric swalwell is here. let me start with you, peter baker and your paper and colleagues have also reported on the potential signif dhachbs investigation into roger stone n his associates as potentially connecting the conspiracy that robert mueller has already charged, more than a dozen russians for trying to influence the 2016 election to someone potentially roger stone, potentially steve bannon in the trump campaign. what's your sense of the significance of this reporting and thes

mr. mueller wants more? could there be a sou subpoena?bpoena, president cannot be indicted it would be ridiculous to try to issue a subpoena for the president under circumstances when he can't be indicted. it would not surprise me if mr. mueller came back with another question or two because i really don't think he wants to let it g we'll see, there is nothing much more they could do other than ask a few more questions, i know that mr. mule mr. mueller's report should come out shortly. >> what is that shortly? by the end of the year or drag to 2019? >> well, it would not surprise me if they don't drag it to 2019, they don't top let go of it -- they don't want to let go before they have to, i am sure they will' time to review the answers and compare agents statements from other -- compare against statements from other witnesses. you know they will try to drag it out probably to 2019. ashley: enough is enough. i think that everyone believes that, sydney powell thank you for joining us, have a great day. >> thank you, you too. ashley: coming

mr. mueller is able to prove that mr. manafort lied to the f.b.i., that is going to be very bad news for mr. manafort, and i don't think anyone could say that he was treated unfaiiny that circumstance. >> woodruff: just quickly, i want to also say there was a reportn the british newspaper "the guardian" today that paul manafort m with the founder of wikileaks, julian assange, onth e different occasions, including in the spring of 2016, just exactly around the time he went to worr the trump campaign. now, manafort is denying this, but if it were true, it seems to me that could have a lot of significance here. st>> there's no qun. i mean, wikileaks was theth operatio distributed the hacked emails from democrats in the united stes. hacking a server in the united states is a federal crime. anyone who participated in that would-- a conspiracy to do that or aided tat, would be guty of a crime. obviously, knowing about that or having discussions about that n do necessarily constitute a crime, but it would certainly lead-- potent

mr. mueller will be allowed to do his job. as to the mueller investigation, i am confident it is not in jeopardy. >> i don't agree with what he's doing. i don't think the legislation that he and senator coons are proposing is either, a, constitutional, or, b, necessary. >> with that, let's bring in our lead off panel on a thursday night. the aforementioned michael schmidt, washington correspondent for "the new york times." sam stein beck with us as well, politics editor at the daily beast. tamera keith also returns to our broadcast, from npr. >> is this what it seems to be that donald trump comes out of the concentrated for him sessions with his legal team and in plain english learns how bad it is and then goes on a rant on twitter? >> well, there is a big issue here which is that they have been trying to get written responses to mueller for several weeks now. the president's lawyers thought it would happen by wednesday. it still hasn't happened. the president's lawyers have had the questions from mueller. they've known the top

mr. mueller.an example of how fearful they are about what this investigation will find. >> you make a great final point there, which is whatever the underlying facts. it's not hard to say, obviously, any attempt to do any misinformation or framing of a prosecutor in this instance is wrong, and we've heard crickets from that side. david, congressman on the judiciary committee, thank you so much for joining us tonight. >> my pleasure. >> in 30 seconds we return with great gefrpuests and an importa fact check on trump's closing argument. >>> we're in the midterms homestretch, and tonight both parties hitting their closing arguments. oprah preaching love and optimism at a georgia rally for democrats. trump releasing a video that stokes fears and crime. they are decrying as blatantly, quote, racist. before we go into this racial controversy, and we will, first in facts. the trump video focuses on a criminal case that looks bad for republicans. it features an immigrant convicted of murder who got into t

mr. mueller. >> at the likely scenario. you have the lawyers help you answer the questions to the best of your ability. the other issue is whether these answers were under oath. if they're not you don't have to worry about the president being tripped up and say he lied under oath and therefore could be subject to federal charges. these are questions and answers from the president has no fear he could answer those questions and not worry about being tripped out. if the president speaks to mueller directly instead of sending an impertinent that is the truth, could even have been charged with lying to prosecutors. here we don't have to worry about that. >> right, i agree. according to everyone this investigation is coming to a close. the thing that concerns mr. trump's attorneys is going to be mueller knows the answers to the question he's getting so they need to be meticulous in the way they answer them. as richard said, lawyers will edit these answers meticulously so they do not ask those into any type of prosecution for the

well, this means that mr mueller now has the answers is looking for from the president. the answers is looking forfrom the president. we don't know specifically what the a nswe i’s don't know specifically what the answers are, but we have at least got to that stage in what it suggests is that this enquiry is moving towards its final stages. it probably also tells us that mr trump will probably not be sitting down in person with mr mueller, which has been muffled debate for many months now. at one stage, the president saying he would be willing to do that and it is clear i think that the lawyers have advised against it. it really will depend on the mueller investigators's response and interpretation of what they have just been told by the president. we know from the president's lawyer rudy giuliani that as far as he was concerned it was unprecedented cooperation, he has also set an interview that the president had a nswered interview that the president had answered questions which were relating matters pre—election. in other words, that he has not a nswered other words, th

mr. mueller goes to the courts.have three branches of government, the executive branch, congress -- congress can't do anything -- and the cots, and the question would be can you get a case to a judge to exercise ovsight. laura: have we learned the lessons fromhe watergateit comes toec protecting a spial counsel who did president feels threatened by? >> no, it is interesting how history is with the famous saturday night massacre, presidentatixon fired hirney general for not firing the special prosecutor in that instance and it went down the line. there is a lot of political pressure. congress was upset, thinking that the president ahis office too much. there was regulation after that process. regulation was rescinded, etc. then we have the independent counseltate come into play. i worked for ken starr under that statute. wcongre like, we don't want the president pulling puppet strings when it comes to investigations of the white house. laura: right, when it comes to investigation of the white house and robert mueller

mr. mueller to move forward, unimpeded by politics.evin nunes, the head of the house intelligence committee, has withheld relevant testimony and information from mr. mueller's committee and i don't , think there should be two sets of rules, a set of rules for the and his family who are getting away with things, and another set of rules for the rest of us. under article one of the constitution, it's the responsibility of congress to exercise appropriate oversight. that is all we are talking about, appropriate oversight. i will be pleased when devin nunes is no longer the head of the house intelligence committee, and when mr. schiff is. you like to say resist, well, i resist injustice, i resist inequality, and i resist dishonesty. we have record dishonesty from this administration and you know that to be the case. ms. harkey: that is not true. who started resist? it has been california, and who is leading california? this policy has cost our state tremendously in every area, and we are still suing and being sued by the federal government

mr. mueller to move forward, unimpeded by politics. nunes, the head of the house intelligence committee, has withheld information for mr. mueller, and i don't think there should be two sets of rules, a set of rules for the president of his family -- the president and his family in one set of rules for the rest of us. under article one of the constitution, it's the responsibility of congress to exercise appropriate oversight. that's all we are talking about. appropriate oversight. i will be pleased when devin n head ofno longer the the house intelligence committee, and adam schiff is. i resist inequality and i resisted dishonesty. we have record dishonesty from this administration and you know that to be the case. ms. harkey: that is not true. who started resist? it has been california, and who is leading california? stateolicy has cost our tremendously in every area, and we are still suing and being sued by the government. resist has made the sanctuary state. resist has caused everybody to start coming across the border, resist on the

mr. mueller is investigating. president said he didn't have any transactions, now he has transactions. we need to get the facts. it's important that president trump never released his tax returns during the campaign and as president of the united states. so we don't really have transparency on his business transactions. yes, it's relevant. >> the cohen plea deal comes exactly a week after the president turned in his written answers to robert mueller. one week. so what do you make of the timing? do you think at all they could be connected? >> normally you would think that the president's response would be near the end of the investigation. it's clear to me that he wanted to get the president's account on the record before dealing with mr. cohen in a formal sense. >> why would he want to do that, sir? >> because there could potentially be inconsistencies and he wants to make sure he has on the record each of their positions. >> when you look just at the last month, the president fired his attorney general, he replac

mr. mueller and his team for several months.f his frustrations and concerns may involve what the implications on his family are going to be. we've seen him in the public and twitter setting veering between saying everything's fine, i've, you know, i'm going to answer everything to being outraged at mr. mueller and even just in the last few days, the same sort of thing, everything will be fine. it's a total mess. so you know, there's -- the president's under a tremendous amount of pressure. and he's had the break of the campaign, those closing weeks of the campaign, the rallies, for several weeks. and mr. mueller and his team doing the traditional thing where you -- you put any sort of public notice of an investigation on hold. that's over now. and the -- we're in the closing weeks of the republican power in the how to, the takeover by the democrats. the president's teaming pressure, and this has come back into full force. >> there's been talk about james comey and he tweeted, he said, house republicans can ask me anything they w

after days of reviewing questions from robert mueller, the president's lawyers reportedly see potential land mines for mrthey learn about the direction of the russia investigation? >>> throwing stones. as mueller may be closing in, trump ally roger stone releases texts he exchanged with his alleged back channel to wikileaks. do the messages offer any evidence of collusion? >>> within the margin, after a machine recount, the florida senate race is too close to call, so now the ballots will be counted again, by hand. we're following all the breaking news on the election cliff-hangers in the sunshine state. >>> and searching for the loss. as the death toll soars in california's wildfire disaster, we're learning new details about the painful and painstaking efforts to find and identify victims. we want to welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer. u'

mr. mueller. i would have to see more information to know exactly the basis for an indictment of mr. comey. all we want to do is have him in and ask a lot of questions, many, many questions based upon the interviews we conducted with many, many other people who testified under oath on the record, and we want him to do the same. liz: democrats plan to investigate ivanka trump's use of personal emails. here is what her lawyer said. she did not create a private server in her house or ostles. there was never' confidential information transmitted. and the emails have been retained in conformity with records press vision laws and rules. >> the question we had in investigating hillary clinton's misuse is she was the secretary of state and she was involved in many, many communications that involve classified information. she was running this through a server stored in a class net her bathroom at her home. that's highly irresponsible. people communicating on devices about things that are not classified is a concern. but nothing compared to communications by people involved in the intelligence

mr. mueller's questions or did you write this yourself? thanks to all three- of you for being with us tonight. >> and the former navy s.e.a.l. is defending a mission after an attack from president trump. >>> here's what one of the incoming -- hear what one of the incoming freshman member of congress think about that. >>> up next, the breaking news tonight from "the washington post." ivanka trump used a personal e-mail account to send hundred of e-mails about government business last year. the reaction from the white house after this. ar three action from the white house after this share the love event, we've shown just how far love can go. (grandma vo) over one hundred national parks protected. (mom vo) more than fifty thousand animals rescued. (old man vo) nearly two million meals delivered. (mom vo) over eighteen hundred wishes granted. (vo) that's one hundred and forty million dollars donated to charity by subaru and its retailers over eleven years. (girl) thank you. (boy) thank you. (old man) thank you. (granddaughter) thank you. oprah

mr. mueller's questions or did you write this yourself? thanks to all three of you for being with us tonight. >> the former navy s.e.a.l. is defending a mission after an attack from president trump. >>> here's what one of the incoming -- hear what one of the incoming freshman member of congress think about that. >>> up next, the breaking news tonight from "the washington post." ivanka trump used a personal e-mail account to send hundred of e-mails about government business last year. the reaction from the white house after this. welcome to emirates mr. jones. just sit back, relax and let us entertain you... ...with over 3,500 channels of entertainment, including the latest movies and box sets from around the world. ( ♪ ) we even have live sports and news channels. ( ♪ ) and your free wi-fi will start shortly. enjoy your flight mr. jones. world's best inflight entertainment. fly emirates. fly better. world's best inflight entertainment. this is moving day with the best in-home wifi experience and millions of wifi hotspots to help you stay c

mr. mueller. i don't know if they're actually within mr. 's hands right now and if he's going over them but what is your thinking about these written answers? is there any danger for the president because clearly, he went over them very carefully with his lawyers to make sure that there weren't any mistakes in there. >> well there's always a danger but obviously, the president is well-served by extremely able lawyers, they i'm sure were extremely careful about this. they know what they're doing and in a way it's a symbolic victory for the president in that he has not been summoned to testify. at least as far as we know, right? maybe there's been an invitation to testify but written questions , written answers, and so forth are a safe and secure way of providing information to the special counsel, so yes, these answers presumably are in robert mueller's hands so i would expect the classic give and take process, hey your answer to question number three, mr. president, with all due respect, raises a couple of other questions, and it'll be the n

mr. mueller's effort? >> you know, i cannot stop thinking about, as from one professional looking at another professional, the beauty of this week. if you just go to 30,000 feet and look what's happened, they waited until trump got his answers in, and then, bam, all kinds of things have happened. especially today. today they snuck in cohen. he was a john doe when they came in at first, and reporters were, you know, milling around and they realized it was mueller's team that was there. and they took this plea. and it was a way of mueller and his team looking the president in the eye and saying, we got you. it was, like this. that's what it was today. it was just a thing of beauty from somebody who has done this before. i just thought, i've had so much admiration for the manner in which it's done. it just made me smile. >> bob, about this president, the charitable way to put it is he has an agnostic view of business deals. the less charitable way is, when you balance the job of president-elect and/or preside

mr. mueller has proof to support this perjury allegation. these talks broke down. either mr. mueller decided it wasn't worth it. it didn't offer a deal in exchange or he has another reason to back out of this. with the introduction of mr. whitaker and this probe, a lot of questions are looming over how the decisions are being made. >> corsi described the experience. he said it was like being interrogated as a pow in the korean war. roger stone released a statement saying i continue to see my friend jerry corsi is being harassed not for lying, but refusing to lie. in america, someone would refuse to lie. >> mr. stone is on record as saying admit nothing, deny everything. that sort of being the way to address these situations. mr. muler is a pro. i have 100% confidence that it's evidence backing up this situation because it's required by doj in addition to the fact that this is the kind of person his reputation stands up for. >> mueller has been circling roger stone. does this imply anything for stone if corsi is not operating? >> if he doesn't cooperate and he is charged with p

mueller's probe. >> this former football player, mr. er seems under qualified to say the least. >> the former attorney in iowa. >> look at the comments he made over the years. certainly he has been an outspoken critic of the mueller investigation and a critic of the federal judiciary which he deems an inferior branch of government. unbelievable at this day and age. it appears for all intents and purposes that he is there to block or tackle mr. mueller and trying to squelch the report worked on by a grand jury investigation that has gone on for 18 months. >> he will oversee mueller and his team. what can mueller do about that? >> one thing he can do is an end run around whitaker. the grand jury has rights of its own and the federal judiciary that oversees the grand jury may take a role should mr. mueller wish to pursue that route along with the grand jury and try to transmit his report to the house of representatives directly. this is what we did in watergate. the chief judge of the federal district court transmitted a report known as a r

mr. mueller will be allowed to do something job without political interference mr. whitaker. gally qualified and otherwise qualified to oversee this investigation. until a new attorney general would be a pointed and being that will happen early next year. >> so he is confident that the mueller probe will be unsbru uninterrupted. do you feel that confident? >> i can't say i share that confiden confidence, but i hope he is right. mr. whitaker expressed opposition to the investigation several times. i think with regard to whether or not he should be the acting attorney general, there is a constitutional challenge that he has to come to terms with. he is not a senate-confirmed officer of the justice department unlike rod rosenstein who would otherwise be the acting attorney general. the president side stepped appointing mr. rosenstein in favor of mr. whitaker. i think he did so because of mr. whitaker's prejudicial statements against the investigation. i wish i shared senator graham's confidence, but right now we are going to have to very carefully scrutinize mr. whitaker's next a

mr. mueller and his team of professional investigators. deputy attorney general rod rosenstein should continue to oversee the mueller investigation. deputy attorney general rosenstein has shown his fidelity to the rule of law with the much-needed announcement of the special counsel to investigate potential criminal activity and collusion between the trump campaign and the russian government in the 2016 elections. his choice of robert mueller was solid. mr. mueller served as the f.b.i. director under both democratic and republican presidential administrations. he has a well-earned reputation as a nonpartisan professional. let me remind my colleagues that when deputy attorney general rosenstein made the special counsel appointment in may of 2017, he wrote, and i quote, madam president, i determined that it is in the public interests for me to exercise my authority and appoint a special counsel to assume responsibility for this matter. what i have determined is that the -- that based upon the unique circumstances, the public interest requires

mr. mueller by mr. whittaker to do anything other than mr. r's job. >> our justice correspondent has more on our nation's top law enforcement official. the newly appointed attorney general and why democrats are so concerned. >> reporter: matthew whittaker was well known as a reliable conservative when hef was hand picked. don mcgahn was behind his fihirg as sessions chief of staff and white house officials believe his loyalties would lie at the white house and not with sessions who had fallen out of favor with trump. he too recommended whittaker since jeff sessions need add strong manager and someone with credibility who had served the department. one source says it was way to keep things on the rails at the justice department and keep sessions focused. whittaker was encouraged by people close to trump to appear on tv to get the attention of the president. in 2014, whittaker told an iowa blog he thought the landmark supreme court ruling from 1803 that established judiciary ability to strike down laws to violate the u.s. constitution was one of

mr. mueller. that -- brought it up on the floor of the house and brought a motion to bring it to the floor and it got about 183 democrat votes but the only republican that would sign on, we only had one and that was a shame. >> what can you do with that? you're about to have the majority. >> if we can get a majority, we can force a vote on the floor, but you've got to get a majority to bring it out of committee and to the floor for a vote. we'd probably get every democrat when we come back, but that's still 193 and you probably wouldn't get many republicans. there's a chance we could get -- who knows what mia love and carbello and mike coffman and the others that president trump read off the other day like he was doing a speech of who died the previous year. it's like when i was in temple and they read off the names of the dead. he w it's still a lame duck. he still needs their votes on some bills. ryan costello showed his revulsion at it and sent out a tweet. he's a real good republican who retir

mr. mueller but maybe to add a probe which of course as far as the president's concerned is all about dilutinghe scandal pull if you will. i actually think mueller's probe is as safe as it can be. robert: the democrats, they don't believe that. what canhey don the lame duck before they take power in the house next year to try toh protecte mueller investigation? molly: make a lot of noise.he once t lame duck is over and they're actually in power at hey can trye house, t to use that power to investigate anything they can that theyhid is untorrid or fishy or happens to be where mueller had to leave off in their estimation. at this point, cck, you're right, we don't know what they're going to do. but by making the switch it gives democrats all t ammunition they need if they're not satisfied with the findings. if it falls anything wrong and findingng wing you're going to see people saying wait a second there could have been interference and it's going to launch the investigations that twere goio happen as to what sort of activity was going on in the d.o.j. even once mueller is done even if he had b

mr. mueller's team reassured mr. trump's lawyers that they were not trying to lure the president into a trap did they forward his answers on november 20th. mike, joyce, aaron and jonathan are all still here. take us through what could have been so catastrophic for the president to -- i mean, as jonathan lemire just noted, he sees himself in these figures. these outside mainstream political figures. why didn't he want to be named in this filing? >> well, so the president, two weeks ago, was ready to send in the written answers. three things happened. one, they find out about this corsi deal and they believe he looks like an unindicted co-conspirator and did not like it. then they saw the unsealing of documents in the eastern district of virginia that said that julian assange had been charged. and that had been a huge mistake. if it wasn't done purposely and sent a message to the president's lawyers that what is the justice department doing? is there something more afoot here. they knew about manafort. they knew what w

mr. mueller waited for this plea to be announced and the circumstance to be announced until after donaldubmitted answers to his questions. >> you don't think that was a coincidence? you mentioned at the top your committee has a working relationship with the special counsel. you can help me understand that better? does the committee have investigation and he sent this and referred this to robert mueller or did he say i need everything you have on the trump tower because i'm looking into that? how did it work? >> all i'm going to tell you is where appropriate, we have shared testimony that we thought would be of value to the special prosecutor. i will not go beyond that and i will say we have a working relationship. we hear very little back. that has been the tightest ship i have seen run in washington. i'm anxious like many on both sides for the special prosecutor to continue to lay out his case and bring forward some of the plea agreements and all of the f facts from the host of people. the president's campaign manager and rick gates. michael cohen the lawyer, and fixer. they are all wor

mr. mueller's questions, or did you write this one yourself? i mean, third graders take people's name and turn them into profanity. so this is a spirit of bipartisan? >> no. nothing's going to change. he's going to keep acting like a third grader, like an immoral person. he's a horrific role model for our children. he just cursed on twitter and you're not even saying it, rev, on cable tv. we're not even supposed to repeat the kind of thing he says to people. he's the president of the united states, the adam schiff is going to hit the fan for the president, though. he's going to investigate him on everything because there's plenty to investigate. it is going to get so much worse. i mean, we're going to have a government shutdown over this stupid wall that's going to waste taxpayer money. i don't see cooperation coming down the road. i would love to be wrong. >> listen, i want you to listen to president trump on his impact on the midterms. and i want you to respond, carrie. >> are you ready? i won the senate. and that's historic too. >> but if yo