we're going to be joined by pete williams, who has now read the full set of comey memos. pete your highlights from what you've been able to study in the memos. >> sure. remember we've heard this three times at least, once in comey's written statement before he testified after he was fired, when he testified and again in the book, and i guess you could say in his interviews. in his dinner, he said he has serious concerns about michael flynn's judgment. and the president says that theresa may was the first to collate him, and flynn said no. and according to memo the president pointed his fingers at his head and said the guy has serious judgment issues. then in the meeting on february 8th at the white house, he said the chief of staff reince priebus asked, do you have a fisa order on mike flynn, and then comey paused and answered, but didn't say what the answer is, and says you shouldn't get the answer from me. and the thing you talked about a moment ago, putin saying we have some of the most beautiful hookers in the world, meaning the u.s., the president does not say when pu

pete williams joins me now. michael, what?still trying to figure out exactly what it is on the "access hollywood" video that they want. what is it about it? because the narrative about the access would video is that trump didn't remember it, it wasn't something on their radar. it sort of pops up on that day in october and actually a remarkable day in october. that's a month before the election, the same day the obama administration calls out russia and the same day that john podesta's e-mails leaked. >> october 7th. >> and so the question is, is that what was michael cohen trying to do? we know that a focus of the investigation on him are these catch and kills, going out, finding stories that were going to be damaging to trump, getting money to these folks to get them to not talk. part of it is connected to the "national enquirer." how it comes back to access hollywood i don't know. but this was something that was included in a search warrant. something that they had to get court approval for. this is not simply a fishing exer

pete williams. anita kumar, and joining the conversation from new york, former fbi special agent and msnbc national security analyst clint watts. thank you all for being here tonight. >>> michael schmidt, i want to start with you because this book that we have been learning about the last few days, the interview set to air tonight, james comey in many ways this saga was touched off by your reporting in "the new york times" about hillary clinton's use of private e-mail when she was secretary of state. what in this book that comey has put out do you feel is going to make a material difference in how events unfold with the mueller investigation as we go forward? >> i'm not sure how much it really changes the equation there. the one thing is that if comey were to ever be a witness against trump, like in front of the -- in front of congress or even at a trial or anything, they could say, look, and you had a real motivation to go after the president. you wrote this whole book. you made all of this money.

pete williams, nbc news at the supreme court. >>> in pennsylvania tonight we're on verdict watch. his first trial ended with jurors deadlocked. this time around six women testified cosby drugged and sexual assaulted them over the years. cosby has denied those allegations. >>> there is a lot more ahead. we'll tell you about the miracle rescue caught on camera. the frantic effort to free a 12-year-old boy after he became trapped under water at a resort pool. >>> also, the new warning as many families sit down for dinner about the growing e. coli outbreak. important information, stay with us. >>> we're back now with a miracle rescue caught on camera at a resort in south carolina. rescuers in a race to save a 12-year-old boy trapped under water for close to eight minutes. amazingly, he survived thanks in part to bystanders that jumped in to help. gabe gutierrez has the story and some of the video may be disturbing. >> reporter: the surveillance video shows two boys playing in a pool in south carolina. one of the boys appears to pry open a safety grate. the 12-year-old is seen diving i

nbc justice correspondent pete williams has details. >> reporter: federal agents today searched an arizona house belonging to one of the website's founders as the federal government shut down the internet site backpage.com saying it was an action supported by the justice department's office that fights child sexual exploitation. the site was the online version of adult oriented classified ads, but it's long been accused of facilitating prostitution and has been a target of local prosecutors and congressional investigators. >> we were able to determine that they knew what they were doing, that they were actually taking ads regarding underaged girls, even editing the ads to try to hide the fact that they were under age. so they were complicit in it. >> reporter: advocates for children say many underaged girls forced into prostitution end up in online ads. >> most of the victims are female and children. it's really a form of slavery, modern-day slavery. >> reporter: state and local investigators have said in the 14 years backpage.com was in operation, it earned millions. in the past, backpage

security analyst matt miller, and attorney general eric holder, and nbc justice correspondent pete williams, and harry litman, former deputy assistant attorney general during the clinton administration. welcome, all. our first -- pete and harry, let's talk about the dnc lawsuit just filed. pete, what connections are they making about collusion with russia alleged to make the case that the republican campaign and the kremlin should pay damages? >> any kind of coordination between the trump campaign and the russians and basically assuming them to be true for the purpose of the lawsuit, claiming that they are true, and asking for damages. it's against the trump campaign, wikileaks, julian assange, manafort, gates, jared kushner, and other people -- roger stone. so, you know, i think it's a placeholder, it's a start. it's basically giving them a chance now to engage in discovery. now, obviously, some they will never get. i doubt they will ever get discovery from the russian federation or members of the general staff of the russian armed forces. i think it's going to be hard for them to get to j

joining me now from washington is nbc's pete williams. pete, you got this confirmed. explain it to us. >> sure. so this is the result of the inspector general's report that came out last week saying that andrew mccabe repeatedly lied to the fbi and to the inspector general's investigators about whether he was the source of a leak about the fbi's investigation of the clinton foundation during 2016. according to the ig report, mccabe repeatedly denied that he was the source. his lawyer said that he later corrected this and went back to the investigators and said, look, i've thought about this some more. i see now what you're asking and confirmed that he did authorize fbi people to talk to this reporter about the clinton foundation investigation. so his lawyer has said that it is not correct that he lied, that he did go back and correct it. nonetheless, the inspector general has now -- this is the term of art they use at the justice department -- referred this to the justice department to consider prosecution. so this is merely a recommendation. this is sort of a formal

no, no, the special counsel says, this is the order we got. >> pete williams for us there, pete, thank you, sir. jeff, stand by for me if you can. ned price is with us as well. and danny cevellos. ned price, national security analyst. danny, let me start with you, van der zwaan, 30 days, $20,000 fine. how unusual is it to send an attorney to jail for lying to federal investigators? >> attorneys are treated just the same as anyone else. the only major difference would be most attorneys aren't going to have a significant criminal history. sure enough this is an attorney who would have been what we call a zero, no prior criminal history so his sentencing guidelines were 0 to 6 months. a one-month sentence is squarely in the guidelines. i would have liked to have seen a probation only sentence if i was his attorney, and i think he had grounds for it, but this sentence was within the applicable guidelines. >> van der zwaan not just any attorney here. what more do we know about his family ties? >> well, not just any attorney indeed. he was charged and sentenced for lying to federal investiga

our own pete williams is inside.e reports the judge has taken a break to privately consider the sentence, which is expected soon. before that happened, vand der -- van der zwaanzwaan apologiz his family. the guidelines call for up to six months in jail. the government would not oppose a sentence that would allow van der zwaan to see his child born in august. >> so alexander sander van der didn't want his company to know. alphabank server was in trump tower. >> reporter: his father-in-law is a russian billionaire oligarch. he lied, sources say, to cover up conversations from his employer. he has not signed a cooperation agreement, so we don't think he has much to say about the underlying messages in the probe. but do not lie and don't obstruct athe investigation. >> who knows ramifications of lying. >> he's a lawyer. >> he doesn't want the partners at skadden arps to know what he did. here, you can go to jail. >> kennedy la says, we're not st to make of that. that can be a tag line. we don't know what to make of that.

nbc news justice correspondent pete williams is with us. pete, head of the dnc tom perez said in a statement this was an act of unprecedented treachery. that sounds a little like political talk. tell us about the legal talk. what does this lawsuit say? >> reporter: well, it says there was a conspiracy between the russians and the trump campaign to affect the election. the allegations the lawsuit makes are based basically on what's already been publicly known. no new allegation made in this and in fact some of them have yet to be proven. many of them are the subject of the mueller campaign -- or the mueller work, rather, to see whether there in fact was collusion between the trump campaign and russians. somebody the president repeatedly said there wasn't. just look at the list of defendants. there's about six russian defendants including the russian federation, the armed forces, some russian oligarchs, then wikileaks, julian assange, the president himself is not a defendant, but his, donald trump for president is, the campaign, in other words

nbc justice correspondent, pete williams. and ron worked with james comey at the fbi. daniel goldman, former u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york. pete, let's start with you. what does any of this, the book, the raids, the hearings toward the end of the week that seem to be the fruits of the raids on michael cohen's office, the discussions with michael cohen and stormy daniels, where does this put us in terms of the most important part, the mueller investigation? >> well, start with the book. it ends before the mueller investigation begins. obviously, the fbi was investigating the whole question of whether there was meddling. the president will like the fact that comey says in the book several times that up until the time that james comey was fired, the fbi was not investigating donald trump in the russian collusion investigation. the book talks a lot about the fact that the president wanted him to say that publicly. in the "usa today" interview, he muses a little bit about whether it might have been a better for everybody if comey. at some point, had act

pete williams is nbc's justice correspondent.rucker is the white house bureau chief for "the washington post" and an msnbc political analyst and former u.s. congresswoman elizabeth holtzman was member of the house judiciary committee that voted for impeachment of president nixon. she now works for harry finestein's practice. pete, who can fire robert muller? >> it is an unresolved question. many people say the president could do it, he is head of the executive branch, he could fire anybody in it. but that's an untested question. it would have to go to court. secondly, he could direct the attorney general to change the justice department regulations that say who gets to fire the special counsel. or he could order rod rosenstein to do it. if rod rosenstein refused to do it, and remember the regulations say on what grounds a person can be fired, it is basically for not doing the job correctly or misconduct in office. if rosenstein said no and quit, then you would go down the list of order of succession in the justice department. the

for more on the two major policy battles i bring in nbc news justice correspondent pete williams. if we can, with what's going on with donald trump, and i'm going back to when he announced his intention to implement a travel ban and get you on the other side. >> donald j. trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of muslims entering the united states, until our country's representatives can figure out what the hell is going on! [ cheers and applause ] >> now, a lot has happened between then and now. what's at the heart of the case now, pete? >> reporter: well, on the question of whether this is a muslim ban, the solicitor general noelle francisco said if it was, it's a very poor one, because most of the muslim world is not covered by this. justice alito agreed with. it only covers 9% of the muslim population. sorry. there's an emergency vehicle going on here. let it pass. so i think -- a majority of the conservatives are not bothered anymore by this muslim ban issue. although the courts liberals seemed concerned about it. justice said suppose an anti-semitic candidate camp

nbc justice correspondent pete williams. thanks to all of you for joining us. kristen welker, at the white house let me start with you. we see what the president is saying on twitter. are we expecting to hear more and do we know what's going on behind the scenes as the tweets are prepare and pushed out there for public view? >> reporter: to the first part of your question, i think we're going to hear a lot more from this white house. suh sarah sanders briefs at 2:30 today. i think you will hear her kek koe some of the what the president laid out in those tweets. white house officials have been hud ling behind closed doors trying to figure out how to respond to these first interview by james comey, the release of the book by james comey. one of the interesting things to note is the rnc is launching an all out campaign against him to discredit him. to say effectively in their words neither democrats nor republicans trust him. there would be a lot of push back from those in the law enforcement community. i asked administration official whether the white house was

pete williams is at the supreme court. pete, what can you gather from the oral arguments, and i know that's always risky, as to which way this might go? >> reporter: for the president it seemed the president will have a bare majority of five here. the challengers say this is illegal, first of all because they say congress has banned restricting travel from everyone in a certain country, nationality wide. secondly they raise the constitutional religious claim it's a muslim ban. the lawyer for the justice department, knoll francisco said no, it's not illegal and majority of the justices both seem concerned about reining in too much of the president's sdib ability. if it's a muslim ban, he said i don't see how you can call this a muslim ban when it only applies to 5% of the world's muslim population. based on those comments, it would seem, this third time will be different. the administration's argument is this one should be different was a unlike the first two, this one was imposed last september only after a worldwide revie

our justice correspondent pete williams was there. he's in washington. pete, what'd you learn? >> reporter: hallie, we heard from the lawyer for andrew mccabe. mccabe wasn't here himself but michael chrome witch former justice department inspector general says basically that mccabe is just beginning to fight back against his firing. there's been a legal trust fund formed run by two former judges and chuck ramsey, the former police chief here in washington and philadelphia. and what they say is they might sue for wrongful termination, they might sue for defamation, for damages. he's lost his pension, his healthcare benefits. they might say that his did you process rights were violate the. what they say is that this whole process that led to his firing, the investigation by the fbi and the inspector general was rushed and that the people involved basically formed a theory here and developed tunnel vision and only pursued the evidence that led in one direction but not the evidence that would have been on mccabe's side. so for that reason they want to try to get more discovery, the

pete williams is in our washington bureau. he can add to this. pete. >> the federal response is very slow at this point. largely because of the san bruno police, california highway patrol and the county authorities have the lead on this. so the feds are offering their assistance. but at this stage what they will be doing is providing any investigative work that has to be done once the building is cleared. which is the responsibility of the first responders. in this case the local authorities. so the information 234r0e to the federal folks that we would normally hear in right now just hasn't gone in that direction yet.normally hear in right now hasn't gone in that direction yet.federal folks that we would normally hear in right now just hasn't gone in that direction yet. but once it is cleared, fbi and atf can help the considerable manpower that they have already do all the investigative work that has to be done to build a case. all the informatiforensic, ball work, where were shots fired, where good thdid they come from on the suspect. so they ar

pete williams is now off the phone. pete, did you grab anything? >> the point we just made a moment ago, this is more and more looking like the woman who came there came with a specific target in mind. sounds like a domestic dispute that played out at the youtube headquarters. that's the impression that we're getting right now from the initial investigating work that the law enforcement people have done. in other words, this woman came there because she had a specific target in mind. and that would square with the details we have from the hospital of the shooting victims, of one male, who is in critical condition, he seems to be the most seriously wounded. so it would seem logical that she came there to attack a man at the youtube headquarters, one woman was shot, and then another woman was seriously wounded, whether these were other targets or simply people who were collateral damage to her attack, we don't know. but that's more and more what it's sounding like, is this is not in the category of the kind of shootings that have become all too commo

joining me now is our justice correspondent, pete williams, and special prosecuter jill wine j winebanks. pete, the reporting from the wall street journal that the redacted in jim comey's memos is vladimir putin, that vladimir putin allegedly called donald trump first after his election. what do we snow. >> well, what the memo is saying is that this is the -- something that came up during jim comey's dinner at the white house. the one on one dinner with the president on january 28th. and toward the end of the memo he says the president said that he had some concerns about mike flynn's judgment. reservations about flynn's judgment and he used this story to illustrate it. he said he was -- this was a lunch, apparently, with the british prime minister, theresa may, and that he raised a glass to toast her and said you were the first to call me after my inauguration and congratulate me. according to the memo the president said flynn interrupted him at that point and said no, no, it was -- redacted. that's the black box you showed in the brackets, redacted. and apparently that's putin. so fill

pete williams has been reading up on this. he joins me with more. pete, give us some context into this and what it means. >> it turns out that this referral was actually sent in january. that was about the time that andrew mccabe was relieved of the job of deputy director of the fbi by the new director, christopher ray, who brought in his own team and then just as andrew mccabe was about to retire last month, 36 hours before he was to retire he was fired by attorney general jeff sessions who was acting on a referral from the fbi and career justice department people that he should be fired. that was followed by a report last friday by the inspector general what said i misled investigators from the fbi and the inspector general's office about passing on information to a newspaper reporter and then lied whether he was the source of that information. what we have learned now is that several months ago -- it's been several months now in a the justice department has been considering this referral. what's a referral? the inspector general has no independent

i'm joined by justice correspondent pete williams. what do we have now as of now? >> so many times in a situation like this, chris, we don't know what the motive was but we seem to know that tonight. what the authorities are telling us is that this woman came to the youtube workplace with a specific target in mind. someone she knew someone with whom she wanted to settle a grievance. she shot that person, she may have shot a second person who was with him intentionally. we're not sure about the third person. the authorities have told us that the male that she shot is in critical condition in the hospital in san francisco. the two the women are in serious and fair condition. but this is not the kind of workplace shooting where someone shows up to send a message or try to try to create as much carnage as possible. this was someone who came there authorities say to settle a grievance. as far as the firearm used, we're waiting confirmation of it. all the indications so far is she had a semi-automatic handgun, a pistol. semi-automatic simply means it fires every time you

pete williams. richard engel. tonight, richard will have more of his interview with natalia veselnitskaya. >>> trump spoke, the korean war is ending apparently but what is north and south korea's plan for peace and what about the face to face meeting between president trump and kim jong-un? this hour we're also watching the white house at 11:40 a.m. eastern time. president trump is going to greet angela merkel. we'll bring that to you as it happens. they'll hold a working lunch at 12:15. they're expected to cover trade and russian relations. at 1:50 p.m. they'll hold a joint news conference. that's what hallie jackson was talking about. she'll be there. you're watching "velshi and ruhle". we'll be back in a minute. ♪ better than anyone ♪ anyone i've ever met ♪ i'm stuck on your heart, the best just got bigger. ♪ i hang on every word you say applebee's new bigger bolder grill combos. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood. gas, bloating, constipation and diarrhea can start in the colon and may be signs of an im

pete williams, nbc's justice correspondent. nicholas confessore. and devlin barrett from "the washington post." pete, i have to start with you on this very busy day. first, to the dnc filing this lawsuit against the russian government, the trump campaign, as well as wikileaks. what do you make of this? what's the very latest on that? >> there's nothing new in terms of allegations of any kind of explosive new allegations suggesting that the trump campaign and the russians were colluding. basically the lawsuit takes all of the claims that have been out there publicly, assumes them to be true, and wraps them into a lawsuit and says that the democrats were severely hurt by the hacks of their e-mail system. they had to may $1 million to get it fixed. donations dropped off. employees were threatened. so they want damages against the trump campaign and some of the familiar names that have been mentioned. it is a long list of defendants. now some of them the democrats are never -- if this lawsuit continues -- are never going to be able to depose. russians a

. >> joining us now is presidential historian and msnbc contributor and also pete williams. pete, let's start with you. there's a lot of news made in the book. it's really the color that adds to the events we spent so long reporting on. i'm interested from your perspective as somebody who covers justice and the investigations what if anything stood out to you as being important as opposed to interesting. >> well, i'll talk about a couple of them. first, you began this segment by showing that video on the january 22nd reception that the president had for law enforcement people who worked on inaugural security. and you see the picture where comey walks across the room and shakes the president's hand. this is it. he writes about this in the book. he says he dreaded having to do that. he says to himself, he thought this is a complete disaster. i'm quoting now, and there's no friking way i'm going to hug him, and then he says he thought that it was unfortunate that the president was doing this, that he thought it was asking leaders of law enforcement agencies and national security

joining us now is nbc news justin correspondent pete williams. >> i'll go first. ready, pete? >> sure. >> press freedom in the media content section. why? what is the explanation for the changes? >> first of all, the u.s. attorneys manual, what is it? if you print it out, two-sided, this is basically what it is. >> that's a beauty. >> one of the goals of -- by the way, there are two other volumes that interpret sections in the u.s. attorneys manual. it is called the criminal resources manual. one of the goals the justice department says was to try to trim this thing down. every successive justice department keeps adding stuff to it. the justice department's view was, it's becoming so vague, a lot of these sections, they say. they're nearly stating things that are obvious. constitutional values. that is their explanation for why this section called "need for free press and fair trial" was taken out. what it says is, careful weight must be given in each case to the constitutional requirements of free press in public trials, so forth. the explanation, they tell me, is they though

nbc justice correspondent pete williams joins me. pete what is this argument? >> manafort's lawyers basically say the special counsel regulations say an investigation has to investigate a specific matter. and they say mueller has gone beyond that. and they also say another part of rosenstein's commission to the special counsel is too broad because it says you can investigate anything else that may arise. they say that's basically a blank check and that violates the special counsel regulations. now, mueller's team has said no, no, wait a minute, we got a memo in august from rod rosenstein that specifically says where to investigate manafort's dealings with ukraine and what the prosecutors say eventually was money laundering and trying to evade taxes. but manafort's lawyers say hey, that memo came out two weeks after his house was searched. so something is wrong here. they say the process is flawed. that rosenstein's commission is too broad. that mueller has gone beyond it. they say for that reason, all the charges should be thrown out. now, even if, and this is

nbc's justice correspondent pete williams joins me now from outside the courthouse in washington. pete what i've been racking my brain on since we heard about the story. if you're a lawyer, you understand the ramifications of lying, yet this guy did. what's in store for him? >> well, what he says, his lawyers say in court documents, when he was interviewed by the special counsel, he wasn't worried about bob mueller's team he was worried about the lawyers because he didn't want them to know about his conversationings with richard gates in 2016 about the work that skanden arps did for manafort and gates when they represents ukraine. that's what this case is about. i think really this prosecution is intended to send a message that you don't lie to the special counsel. i think that's what this is all about. i don't think this is one of those cases where they're squeezing somebody to get cooperation. the sentencing is happening pretty fast after his guilty plea. so it does seem intended to send a message. the question is will he get any prison time at all. his lawyers are saying no he s

for what this means i'm joined by pete williams who has made this clear and understandable for me. i'll ask him to do it again. >> reporter: the u.s. attorney's manual is something most people consult online in the u.s. attorney's office. if you're a nerd like me and ever printed it out this is what it ends up being. guidance on everything from conducting criminal trials to filing civil fines. enormous thing. the goal of this, the justice department says, was to get rid of excess language that was merely stating general principles. one of the ones they did away with says likewise, the need for a free press careful weight must be given in each case to the constitutional riefrmts to a free press and public trials as well as the right of people in a constitutional democracy to have access to information. what the justice department says about this one is that it was merely stating sort of broad general things that are already in the constitution and they were trying to slim this one down so that's out. the one on racial gerrymandering they said talked about the department intervening

. >> nbc news justice correspondent pete williams says regulations give rosenstein sole authority to fire bob mueller, and part of it is around whether constitutionally trump's power can override rosenstein's. meanwhile, senators could no longer vouch for job security of any high ranking official at the justice department. >> you said many times that the president had the intention of firing robert mueller. does that remain the case? >> the president was asked this directly last night. i refer back to his comments. >> what about rod rosenstein? >> the president voiced his frustrations, beyond that i don't have anything else. >> fbi director wray, he signed off on the fbi raid. >> the president's voiced frustration with the situation. i haven't spoken with him directly about director wray. >> what is td nature of the relationship with jeff sessions, has he risked being fired? >> i think the president was clear about frustrations when he spoke about that last night. >> learning new details about the raid of his personal attorney michael cohen. nbc news confirmed that deputy attorney ge

and as pete williams pointed out the courts have never been clear about this very issue and i spoke withvative thinkers and they say that the framers permitted a formidable blanc branch. so even there is a regulation that says only the attorney general can fire the special counsel, they say that the constitution supersedes any regulation. and this person told me he had been advising the white house about this. and wouldn't say anything beyond that. >> so you got the source, sarah huckabee sanders's source. >> potentially. but as you can imagine, this is all sort of fast moving here. and so that is the thing that we're trying to get more reporting on. >> i understand that. and it has to be tough because he probably says a lot of things to a lot of people. but you were noting this earlier and i thought it was such a fascinating catch, the white house is really changing their rhetoric on robert mueller. while it might not be surprising for the president to say he's going to fire him, the white house has been very different in regards to mueller when answering the questions. talk about how t

as pete williams of nbc news says, this lawsuit could be tied up for yours just getting to first basemeaning just to start the process of having a trial. now the trump campaign accused the dnc of filing the lawsuit as a way to raise money and distract from its own internal strife calling it a sham lawsuit filed by a bogus -- in a statement to "mtp daily," roger stone calls it quote a left wing conspiracy theory dressed up as a lawsuit. he goes on to ask, does the dnc expect the russian federation to show up in court? that is another reason not to take the lawsuit seriously. it is highly unlikely that anyone in russia is ever going to be deposed in this thing. one more reason not to take it seriously is it's not clear if it even can survive a motion to dismiss it. but if it did go forward one big reason to take this lawsuit seriously, the dnc could force key witnesses to answer questions under oath in depositions. another reason the take this lawsuit seriously, president trump can't pardon his way out of it and he kane can't fire his way out of it. so there are both publicity stunt way

nbc's justice correspondent pete williams is at the courthouse. nbc's kristen welker is at the white house. and matt miller, an nbc justice and security analyst is joining me here as well. pete, first to you. tell me about the van der zwaan -- the sentence and everything that went into this. >> reporter: well, this was a prosecution and a sentence largely meant to send a message that you shouldn't lie to the special counsel. that's really what this case was all about. this was not a prosecution to try to get his cooperation so that the government could learn more, the special counsel could learn more about potential russian meddling. and so the judge said that she had to sentence him based on what he did. she said he's a lawyer, he should have known better. he knew the importance of the special counsel's case. he knew how lawyers should conduct themselves but he still lied. she said this is not something that happened to him, in other words. he may have a great character. a lot of people spoke up for him in letters to the judge but she said finally

a legal source familiar with the issue tells our colleague pete williams that the justice department's general sent a referral to d.c.'s top prosecutor recommending a criminal charge against mccabe for lying to investigators. the panel still here as well as frank figliuzzi. frank, i start with you. >> yeah, so, look, if this is indeed true, the charge being referred or recommended is for a lack of candor during an internal inquiry. i cannot recall that ever happening in my 25-year fbi career. i also headed the office of professional responsibility adjudication unit. i was the chief inspector of the fbi during my career, and that's a new one on me. so, what i was thinking was that more likely the referral would be for unauthorized leak that mccabe actually conceded that he did -- eventually conceded that he did allow his subordinates to talk to the media and disclose the existence of the case. that sounded much more prosecutable than lacking candor during an internal inquiry. i don't know whether he was under oath or not, but nonetheless, the remedy for that is termination, not criminal

pete williams, nbc news justice correspondent. the latest now on the pardon of scooter libby which is not actually unrelated to all of this, believe it or not. scooter libby, you will remember was vice-president dick cheney's former chief of staff. sarah huckabee sanders said minutes ago the president thought it was the right thing to do. libby's pardon and the timing of it raises a lot of questions. before we get into this, i want to remind you, i need a little reminding, refresher of scooter libby. libby was the chief of staff to dick cheney. that was dick cheney. and a major figure in the start of the iraq war, he had previously served in the george h.w. bush administration in both the state and defense departments on foreign policy issues. now, in 2003 in an op-ed in "the new york times" or an op-ed did question the motivation behind the iraq war and it was written by ambassador joseph wilson. joseph wilson happened to be married to a woman named valerie plame. in an attempt to discredit the op-ed, administration officials rev

, the trump administration had a chance to defend the president's travel ban in court as nbc's pete williams reports, the consecutive tuv majority on the court seemed to agree that trump has the right to restrict travel from certain countries in the name of national security. u.s. solicitor general know francisco argued that the administration's latest travel ban was policemened after a thorough review of high risk countries not effective in fighting terrorism. francisco also said the policy is not a muslim ban arguing it only impacts a small number of the world's muslim majority countries. the court will decide the case by late june. we'll be right back. whether it's a big thing, small thing, or something unexpected, pnc will be right there when you need us. because when it comes to your finances, if you focus on today, tomorrow has a way of working itself out. theseare heading back home.y oil if you focus on today, thanks to dawn, rescue workers only trust dawn, because it's tough on grease yet gentle. i am home, i am home, i am home you know what's not awesome? gig-speed internet. when on

nbc news justice correspondent pete williams has been poring through this report the last few minutese former chief spokesman at the justice department, matt miller, also an msnbc justice and security analyst. gentlemen, welcome. pete, just reading a few notes that have come in, including "the new york times'" lead, that says the justice department inspector general delivered to congress on friday a highly critical report that adduced andrew mccabe, the former fbi deputy director of repeatedly misleading investigators. what was he misleading them about? >> about a conversation that the ig says he had with reporter devlin barrett then at the "wall street journal," then at "the washington post," about a story that barrett was working on suggesting that, as deputy director, mccabe was, in essence, slow-rolling the fbi's investigation of the clinton foundation. what mccabe -- what the report says -- mccabe has said this, too -- that he authorized the fbi to say to the reporter, no, that's not true. and in fact, the fbi had had a phone conversation with the justice department, that it was

i feel like every time we talk to pete williams on tv -- >> that's right. >> -- he always says nothingal investigation. >> there's an exception if it's in the public interest. the inspector general found this was not in the public ice interest. his wife was running as a democrat. the "wall street journal" was looking into why is he looking into a republican presidential candidate? >> yeah, john ward, what's your view -- a.b. stoddard alluded to this, how comey handled himself. when the book came out, excerpts, comey was viewed as the picture he was trying to paint of somebody who was more loyal to, you know, the country, to honor, to these sort of ideas of decency and comparing himself inevitably to president trump but he ended up on defense over some of the smaller items, the, you know, focus on the president's hands, for example. >> yeah, the stuff about the president's hands came across as petty. i have to say, i personally found it a little surprising that his first interview, i believe, was with stephanopoulos. i found that surprising because if you're looking to persuade, you kno

pete suratos is live with the city's next steps. >> reporter: good morning to you, marcus. well, yeah, san francisco's mayor as well as police chief william scott with a new campaign calling "park smart" and prevent the car break-ins and seen the numbers skyrocket here in. san francisco standing in area of a problem area of fisherman's wharf and main points they explained. doubling foot patrols in the area and plan on adding a robbery and burglary unit and expand investigative resources. another thing to add are the fingerprinting services. they're going to increase the training for san francisco police officers about a few dozen of them coming the services and all ten of the district stations in san francisco. and then also, this park smart campaign and see a combination of informational pamphlets and signage around the problem areas and m youuni buss with the simple message of if you love it, don't refer it. if you love in your car don't leave it in the car. they pointed out that these break-ins gone down by 17% in the careyear compared to last y and here's the mayor and police chief talking about it this morning tie status quo on the s