paul butler, thank you very much.or your time and malcolm and paul, stick around because we've got a lot to talk about in covering the breaking news out of white house tonight. >>> also ahead, another major story we're reporting. a reported meeting at trump tower with donald trump jr. asking for help from two middle eastern countries. we believe looking at that next. discover card. hey, i'm curious about your social security alerts. oh! we'll alert you if we find your social security number on any one of thousands of risky sites, so you'll be in the know. ewww! being in the know is very good. don't shake! ahhh! sign up online for free. discover social security alerts. now that we have your attention... capri sun has four updated drinks. now with only the good stuff. do you know how to use those? nope. get those kids some capri sun! i thought after sandy hook, where 20 six and seven year olds were slain, this would never happen again. it has happened more than 200 times in 5 years. dianne feinstein and a new generation

. >>> we're going to widen our discussion with former prosecutor, paul butler and jonathan wolter is with us. rudy giuliani was calmer 20 years ago when he was asked legal questions on tv. what has happened? >> the whole world is learning what african-american and latino residents of new york have been saying about giuliani for years, he's erratic, does not respect the rule of law, and he puts politics over principles. so in this interview we also have learned that he's a bad lawyer. he makes damaging admissions about his client. >> jonathan, alter, your reaction to the two rudys, 20 years ago and this morning.

paul butler, rudy giuliani was a lot calmer 20 years ago when he was being asked legal questions on tvwhat has happened? >> well, lawrence, the whole world is now learning what african-american and latino residents of new york have been saying about giuliani for years. he's erratic, does not respect the rule of law, and he puts politics over principles. so in this interview we also have learned that he's a bad lawyer. he makes damaging admissions about his client. >> jonathan alter, your reaction to the two >> just before 9/11 when he became america's mayor. he had completely lost his credibility in new york city. he was widely detested by people in both parties -- >> including his wife who had kicked him out of the mayor's residence because he was having an affair with his press secretary. >> right. so his credibility was shot a long time ago. i don't completely agree with everybody that he's doing the president harm right now. i think trump right now is able to tweet but doesn't go on tv much with his message because he doesn't want to answer questions. so giuliani is out there propa

dionne and paul butler back with us.he looks bad but he's secretly good? >> i can't follow that all the way to the end there. i think that rudy giuliani and donald trump have one objective right now, which is to throw all kinds of arguments out there that the republican base can latch onto as a way of telling themselves that one way or another the investigation is a fraud, it's fixed, there are spies, because i think they have given up on persuading a majority of the country. i think they are only trying to persuade republicans. basically the republican base that there's something wrong here. if they can hold the republican base, they can hold the republican congress. if they can hold the republican congress, they can keep bad things from happening to trump. on the question of trump testifying, rudy giuliani has become like the weatherman. it changes from day to day about whether he will testify, what kind of deal he will make, so i've given up looking for consistency from giuliani. it is the classic pasta against the wa

paul butler, a former federal prosecutor and georgetown law school professor. and ken dilanian, nbc news intelligence and national security reporter. thank you all for being with us. ken, let me start with you. with this news, rudy giuliani, what he is telling the a.p. about, he says, potentially going to the justice department to have this investigation declared illegitimate. what do you make of his comments tonight? >> it's a very significant and potentially disturbing development, steve, because, look, under normal circumstances, the subject or target of a grand jury investigation has no right to learn secret information about that investigation. now, absolutely, once you're charged with a crime as a defendant, you have a right to get discovery and to learn how the government investigated and what they got and anything exculpatory. but before that, you have no right except in this case, the putative defendant is the president of the united states. and in theory, he could order that all this information be provided to him. this is his justice department, his

joining me is former federal probability paul butler. sounding guiltier and guiltier by the day while at the same time rudy giuliani basically concedes, hey, yeah, we're looking at impeachment, but if we smear the investigation we should be fine. >> the president's conspiracy theories are also instrumental. they're a means to an end. so when he claimed that president obama was a muslim who was born in kenya, that was to fire up his base. and this deep state nonsense is about attacking the investigation. it's about going after mueller because he's afraid of what the investigation will reveal. now, i don't think it's going to matter to bob mueller. prosecutors don't really expect to be liked by the subjects of your investigation. the concern is, as rudy giuliani identified, the congress. and some of this stuff seems to be taking hold with them. senator cornyn said we do need to look at the motives. the motive was the fbi had credible information that trump's campaign aides were compromised by russians. so if the ball ultimately is in the h

joining us now is emily jane fox, senior reporter at "vanity fair," and paul butler, former federal prosecutornd professor at georgetown school of law. okay, emily and paul, if that was not complicated enough, i have to start with you on this, emily, because you of course are working on a book, a highly anticipated book about donald trump. the idea that if this lawyer finds out about allegations about schneiderman, who is investigating trump at the time, does it make sense to you that instead of this going to law enforcement it goes to the tabloids, who go right to donald trump? >> that there's a connection between the tabloids and donald trump is the least surprising part of this story. but there are two things that just don't make sense to me. why this person would go to a tabloid in the first place. perhaps to get it published. and the second more confusing thing is why didn't donald trump use it? if he knew about it, this is not someone who parts with his money lightly and he settled for $25 million in the trump university cases. he had this dirt on him, it would be very surprising he didn

here to break down what all the of the day's news, nancy gertner and paul butler, a former federal prosecutor. i've seen debate in legal circles about rosenstein's reaction from the president's demand to this action. i want to get your reaction. paul, i'll start with you. what do you think of kind of saying yes but shunting it over to the ig in a punt? >> the president has ignored all of the ethical and procedural guidelines of the department and hereby demands an investigation? i know rod rosenstein. he knows better than this. this is not how the system is supposed to work. so in the worst case scenario, rod rosenstein is being played by president trump just like president trump played him to get him to write that memo justifying the firing of james comey. the best case is that he's trying to appease the president to avoid a saturday night massacre. but chris, you can't apiece a tyrant. you can't mollify a despot. all you do is embolden him. >> nancy, what do you think? >> well, i think he is trying to do by indirection what he knows and has been told he shouldn't do by direction. in other w

. >> so, paul butler, let's pick it up there on that possibility that ken is raising. if the president were to make that order to the justice department and say, i want these materials, play that out. what would happen then? >> it's up to rod rosenstein and the attorney general. you know, steve, i used to think that the erosion of the rule of law would be a big, dramatic thing like the president suspending the constitution or declaring martial law. this week we see it happening drip by drip. the president sends his own lawyer to a meeting in which secret evidence in a case that may involve him is revealed. there's no other subject of a criminal investigation in the united states who would have that kind of access. this is not about law. this is not about regulations. this is a bald power play by the president. he's doing this because he can. >> susan, i'm curious what your sense of this is because there have been issues whether it's with rudy giuliani, whether it's with anybody who has purported to speak for president trump during his political career with, you know, i

attorney general joyce vance, chuck rosenberg, former federal prosecutor paul butler and elise jordanformer aide in the george w. bush white house. mike, take us through -- we tried to chunk this story up into bite sized pieces for you. but take us through what these questions say about where the mueller investigation stood at the time that they were shared with mr. trump's legal team. >> if you look at all the 49 questions, you take a step back from it, you see that an investigation that started two years ago looking at russia, questions of election meddling, ties between trump's campaign and russia, is now with the president mainly focused on the questions of obstruction. more than half of the questions they want to ask are related to things the president has done when he was in office. what were his motivations for the firing of comey? what was truly behind these decisions? why is it that the president was so upset when jeff sessions recused himself? what was the president doing to try and influence the investigation? why was loyalty so important? when you step back, you look at th

msnbc little analyst paul butler, a former federal prosecutor. matt welch of reason magazine.r. what is that relationship between trump world and that publication? >> well, it's been very close. in fact, several months ago when several of my colleagues were zooming in on michael cohen and some of the things he has done related to ami trump during the campaign, ami released a statement acknowledging owning the close personal relationship that david packer, the head of ami had not just with trump, but also cohen. >> that's what is so crazy about this. it's not just trump. michael cohen knows pecker and has been involved in some of these sort of what's called catch and kill stories, right? >> yeah, absolutely. so this was a real turn-about. this was a very -- the ami is completely changing its tune in terms of now not just going on the attack, but going on the attack viciously against cohen. >> how do you interpret that? >> they're in the same business, right? they are the print version of michael cohen. they have been running interference for donald trump. to the extent of payin

. >> people even paul butler earlier on this program pointedous yamiche, rod rosenstein by agreeing toeting tomorrow has already kind of given up the larger fight? >> and yet the president has not said publicly, i do still have confidence in rod rosenstein. went out today, talked for probably what's a lot of time today and goes to the roundtable more questions about the doj and refusing to say i actually have confidence these people can do their xrobs we sjobs well. the allies of the president are like a dog with a bone for the president. infiltrating campaign. no evidence of it but talking about it saying this adds to the narrative they've sold their base and i venture to say not just trump's base. republicans who even some who maybe didn't like president trump's style, they're starting to look at the doj and think, is this a partisan organization? trying to take down a president that some people don't like. >> and jeff mason, when we talk about all this, we're talking about these allies of the president's on capitol hill, devin nunes doing it nor a year and a ha -- for a year and a h

. >> for more on mueller's latest court filing, i'm joined by harry sen dick and paul butler. anything jump out at, harry. >> a couple things. number one, there's this appendix a to the brief, beak a listing in one convenient place with bullet points of everything that the mueller team has done. going to your question with frank, are they an aware of what the press is doing is, i don't think it's dictating what they do but they want to make it helpful for you to see what's out there. >> i can only read one page. everyone around me knows that. you get one page with me. >> for anyone who wants to see it, it's in one place. another thing that was interesting is the stress on confidentiality of the investigation particularly right now. i know you're covering it later. while you have the nunes meeting and all these questions whether very sensitive information from sources within the government are going to be provide, here they're reminding people, this is being done confidentially for very important reasons. we don't want this to slip out. >> it jumped out at me, too. they're basi

i'm joined by natasha bertrand it, an msnbc contributor, paul butler, analyst and jonathan swan, national political reporter for axios. this is an amazing development. natasha, for months now, the president has played a cat-and-mouse game lied basically over and over again said i don't know who this woman is. i didn't ever pay the $130,000. they be he had his lawyer said he sort of paid for it. then rudy guiliani said it was paid for this retainer relationship. the president didn't know about this relationship or be involved with this relationship with daniels. now it comes out in a formal document required of all public officers, the president admitted he made the payment after all this. his supporters will take this lying? just taking this? >> the question remains of whether or not he would have ever disclosed this if rudy guiliani had not come out earlier and told sean hannity. he didn't do it last year. that's why the head of the oge is potentially referring him to the justice department because he did not disclose any of these payments on his 2017 form. if not for giuliani telling se

giuliani today, robert costa and julia ansley is a national security reporter with nbc news and paul butler, a former federal prosecutor and legal analyst. robert, give me a sense of play, of the play the state of play of rudy guiliani on this question. are we redding to a constitutional crisis? are theytology reject, ignore, whatever override a subpoena from mueller? how tough are they going to be here? >> well, they're going to be tough in the sense this is a more aggressive strategy. we're watching it play out around the president of the united states moving away from ty cobb who preached cooperation for months. said to the president if you cooperate, if you don't exert executive privilege that maybe the mueller probe would end. after all those promises a lot of frustration inside of the white house and outside. and they're moving to giuliani to try to be more aggressive in the negotiations with mueller over an interview and emmett flood, a veteran lawyer seen as a combative force. >> you know, i understand the president's strength with regard to attitude politically. his attitude of ant

joining us now from washington, paul butler former federal prosecutor now a georgetown law professor and msnbc analyst. here at the table with us msnbc contributor princeton university professor. john heilman is back. he has the title of nbc -- how did you get this title? an msnbc national affairs -- >> i want to make it complicated for you. really long. >> co-host executive producer of circus, mara gay, "the new york times" editorial board. >>> as the resident person smarter than all the rest of us on the law, general hayden seemed to suggest that tomorrow's meeting may not simply be obliterating norms in terms of how you share classified sensitive intelligence with the hill, but that it may be breaking a law. >> right. so, if this is a meeting with congress, then the president doesn't get to exclude the democrats. what the republicans are saying that the justice department is affirming, this is a meeting with people who have concerns about the documents that aren't being revealed to the congress. and they're saying the democrats don't have those concerns. they're okay with the proc

matt miller, former chief spokesman for the department of justice in the obama administration, and paul butler federal prosecutor. great to have you both. matt, let me begin with you. giuliani comparing fbi agents to storm troopers, your reaction to that. >> it is such an appalling thing for -- really for anyone to say, but especially for someone who -- two things -- one, is the former u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york. his office oversaw those same fbi agents who executed this search warrant on michael cohen's office. second, he wasn't appearing in any kind of personal capacity or surrogate for the president. he was appearing as the president's personal representative, his attorney, speaking on behalf of the president of the united states. the fbi, part of the executive branch, ultimately works for the president of the united states. and for him to come out and attack fbi agents who put their lives on the line across the country every day, fighting violent crime, fighting terrorism, and to compare them to nazis is so beneath him, so beneath someone that's a representative fo

paul butler, former prosecutor and msnbc analyst and malcolm nance msnbc terrorism expert.men, great to have all of you with us. first at the white house. tell us what you've learned about this news coming out of rudy giuliani within the last hour or

editor the root, msnbc contributor, john heilman, co-host and effecttive produce irof the circus, paul butlerutor, georgetown law professor, and david jolly, former republican congressman. your description of mueller is pretty spot on. >> yeah, i was struck by donny. he went through, he talks about personal brand audits. the reason i asked him, sounds like a cheesy thing. i said look, what happens in court matters a lot clearly in the legal realm is super important. but the reality is we saw with clinton and other cases, ultimately this can be a political process, impeachment is a political process, not a quasi-legal process, but not fully legal process. what the court of public opinion thinks matters a lot and what donald trump is trying to do right now when you think about his strategy is to try to say, i'm talking all this stuff out of the legal realm and i'm going to throw it all to the body politic and say, witch hunt, hoax, conspiracy, no collusion, and try to get enough public support that when the day comes, the day of reckoning comes he'll have enough of the public behind him that th

prosecutor nick acker man, nbc analyst danny savalos and professor of law at georgetown law school paul butlernick, you have rudy giuliani saying he wants to see the classified information for one purpose only -- to show it to donald trump's attorneys and derail the mueller investigation. >> exactly right. this is precisely what happened during the watergate investigation. john dean sat in on the fbi interviews of approximately 14 white house individuals. the whole point behind that was to get what everybody was saying so they could give it to nixon and others so they could come up and concoct their stories so they would know where the pitfalls are and how they could get around what people were saying. >> yeah. >> this was a way to keep tabs on the entire investigation and be able to basically mold their stories around what other people were saying. that's what this is all about. that's why rudy giuliani wants this. i know rudy giuliani. i served with him for six months when he was u.s. attorney. he would never in a million years have ever, ever allowed this kind of information to be given to

joining me natasha ber tran, msnbc analyst paul butler. natasha, if you could, just walk us through the relationship, the enter relationships between trump, manafort and rick gates. >> tom barrack is an interesting figure because he has the confidence of both paul manafort and donald trump and, of course, rick gates. he's known him for about four decades, met in beirut 40 years ago. he's known trump for almost as long, almost three decades. when the president needed or the then candidate donald trump needed someone to wrangle delegates for him at the convention, paul manafort stepped in and said i really want to work for this campaign. he told tom barrack, please connect me with the president. he said, okay,ly write you a glowing cover letter. in that letter he mentioned that paul manafort would be willing to work for free. this was a really interesting anything. tom barrack's importance is that he serves as a nexus between the president and paul manafort. after the election and after paul manafort was ousted from the campaign because he wa

butler paul burrell is one of the few who remains close to diana. >> she dismissed her body guards becausece charles. she wanted her freedom. she wanted a life. >> it's a dangerous move. some even say reckless. but diana wants a simpler life focused on her boys, a few select charities and her new romance. >> the love of her life really after charles was a pakistani heart surgeon named hasnat khan. >> diana met hasnat khan while he was treating a close friend. >> she was instantly smitten with him for some reason. an unlikely guy. had a slightly paunchy nondescript fellow. and -- but she said she had a thing for doctors. and she became so enamored of khan. they became very serious. they had a very tempestuous affair. >> khan doesn't like the limelight or want the pressure of being di's guy. while diana keeps khan hidden from the press, she publicly promotes charities close to her heart like the halo trust which advocates against land mines. >> she was aware of the power she had. >> arthur edwards photographs diana's trip to angola, africa, in 1997. >> to go and comfort these kids that had t

joining me now is paul butler, former federal prosecutor and professor at georgetown law school.claiming that he has direct knowledge, i suppose from talking to folks in the mueller investigation, that they have narrowed the scope of their investigation. here he is. >> wednesday night we received a communication from them. i can't go into detail, but narrowing the subjects for questioning down to about two and -- >> from all like 50, that list that came out. >> you could actually have divided those and i did into like five categories, subject areas. >> all right. that's fair. five, maybe seven. >> no secret that the whole thing with michael cohen is out because that's in the southern district of new york. >> you believe that mueller has turned over all of that investigation or do you think he may have reserved certain aspects? >> it's my belief that he turned all of it over. >> so, paul, i think he's saying narrowing it down to two subjects from five. does any of that make sense to you or sound credible to you? >> well, it could be, too, collusion and obstruction of justice, thos

. >> the theory is far-fetched to some but a real fear for diana, one she shared with her butler paulrell. >> i have a letter that says, the next few months are the most difficult of my life. i feel i'm going the be killed in an automobile accident. in order that charles can remarry. >> and it turns out burrell wasn't the only one diana shared her fears with. >> diana was completely convinced that the royal family were the men in gray who run the operation or british intelligence would kill her if she became too big of a problem. she went to her lawyer and said, they're going to kill me and here's how. it will be either a helicopter accident or a car crash and it will be staged to look like a car crash. her lawyer took notes, detailed notes. >> patrick jephson was diana's private secretary and attended the meeting with her lawyer. >> i can remember how shocked lord mishcon was by that. >> did she give details for why she was concerned about her safety? >> not enough. the trouble was the last few years from '93, '94 onwards was a very, very unsettled time. >> but lord mishcon's notes f

. >> paul barel was princess diana's butler. >> all through harry's years he always knew he was seconde was always referred to as a spare, just always second best. and i think that had a profound effect on harry. >> his childhood is also impacted by his parent's marital troubles. >> harry grew up in a a very, very tricky household. the prince and princess were never happy together. in a marriage that had failed before it even began. >> i remember the time when diana was shut away and quiet and crying and the boys would write little messages, please don't cry, mummy, and they would put it under the door. >> when charles and diana divorce it hits harry hard. and then one year later his mother is killed. harry is just 12 years old. >> this incredibly loving figure who had given him so much warmth and comfort in what was a very difficult childhood, an extraordinary upbringing, was suddenly gone. >> i remember harry coming back to kensington palace. shortly after the funeral he ran down the corridor and flung himself into my arms and cried. and his tears wet my shirt through. he was devasta

. >> paul burrell was princess diana's butler. >> so all through harry's formative years, he always knewcond. >> he was always referred to as the spare. just always second best. and i think that had a profound effect on harry. >> his childhood is also impacted by his parents' marital troubles. >> harry grew up in a very tricky household. the prince and princess were never happy together in a marriage that had failed before it even began. >> i remember the times when diana was shut away and quiet or crying, and the boys would write little messages, please don't cry, mummy, and they would put it under the door. >> when charles and diana divorce, it hits harry hard. then one year later, his mother is killed. harry is just 12 years old. >> this incredibly loving figure who had given him so much warmth and comfort in what was a very difficult childhood and extraordinary upbringing was suddenly gone. >> i remember harry coming back to kensington palace shortly after the funeral. he ran down the corridor and flung himself into my arms and cried. and his tears wet my shirt through. he was devast

. >> paul burrell was princess diana's butler. >> so all through harry's formative years, he always knew second. >> he was always referred to as the spare. just always second best. and i think that had a profound effect on harry. >> his childhood is also impacted by his parents' marital troubles. >> harry grew up in a very tricky household. the prince and princess were never happy together in a marriage that had failed before it even began. >> i remember the times when diana was shut away and quiet or crying, and the boys would write little messages. please don't crumb, mummy, and they would put it under the door. >> when charles and diana divorce, it hits harry hard. then one year later, his mother is killed. harry is just 12 years old. >> this incredibly loving figure who had given him so much warmth and comfort in what was a very difficult childhood and extraordinary upbringing was suddenly gone. >> i remember harry coming back to kensington palace shortly after the funeral. he ran down the corridor and flung himself into my arms and cried. and his tears wet my shirt through. he was d