preet bharara and christine todd itman, first you, mr. bharara, wh would be the first thing that you want to s redressed? the most important thing? >> five seconds? i don't want to prejudge that, we're looking at a lot of things. that's why we have the task force. to the governor. >> governor, will you lay your cards on the line? what is the most important thing right now? >> i think the independence of the judiciary and people's trust in the independence of the judiciary and law enforcement, if those two things get severely eroded, we're in real trouble. >> thank you both very much indeed for joining me, governored to whitman and preet bharara. thank you so much for being in the studio. >>> as we said, for the first time, the trump administration has agreed to slap sanctions on russian individuals today for election med ling, including all those indicted in robert mueller's investigation. it also joined with france, germany and the uk to denounce the chemical attacks and nerve agent attack onner sergei skri and his daughter julia. russia'

attorney, cnn senior legal analyst, preet bharara. preet, thanks so much for joining us.al questions. legally, do michael cohen's actions make sense? for example, why would a lawyer act this way without consulting his client, if that's, in fact, the case? >> generally speaking, lawyers are supposed to consult with their clients. they're not supposed to take legal action on behalf of their clients without getting their approval. they're representatives of other people, so that's what the relationship is about. but obviously, here, and i should note, this is a subject matter that's not my usual expertise that you're asking me about on the show today, and it's been a long time since i've had contract class, but when you have a high-profile person, whether involved in a criminal investigation or something else, like this might be, and you've done something bad or something that you're not proud of or something that you want to keep quiet, you're kind of in a pickle. and you call your lawyer and your lawyer knows they're supposed to get ow you've the pickle. so there has been

we're talking about preet bharara. he was fired by president trump. he's standing by and we'll get his reaction to this latest new york times report. >>> and we'll get a full report on the stormy daniels case as her lawyer now tries to get the president to break his silence under oath and under threat of perjury. [man] woah. ugh, i don't have my wallet, so - [girl 1] perfect! you can send a digital payment. [man] uhh, i don't have one of those payment apps. [girl 2] perfect! you have a us-based bank account, right? [man] i have wells fargo. [girl 3] perfect! then you should have zelle! [man] perfect. [girls] perfect! [vo] the number one mobile banking app just got better. [man] does your coach use zelle, too? [boy] of course! [vo] another way we're building better every day. vojimmy (shouting): james!as been jimmy's longest. he's survived record rain and a supplier that went belly up. so while he's proud to have helped put a roof over the heads of hundreds of families, he's most proud of the one he's kept over his own. brand vo: get the most out of yo

attorney, our cnn legal analyst preet bharara is joining us right now. t, how significant is this "washington post" report that roger stone told two people he knew russia had hacked these e-mails? >> well, if it's true i think it could be highly significant. obviously at the heart of what robert mueller and others are looking at is the way in which russia may have meddled in the election. but the heart of that is among other things the hacked e-mails of people like john podesta and others. it was a very dramatic way to interfere with our election and so obviously they want to know who facilitated that so if roger stone denying he knew anything in advance although he said to various people as reported in the "washington post" article that he did have advanced knowledge i don't know what the truth is. in some ways it's perverse when you have a person like roger stone who i think is very well known for obfuscating, puffing, bluffing, sometimes lying that you can then say that something that was an admission was actually just a joke or some kind of puffery an

attorneys, both of them who worked for preet bharara, southern district of new york.fer rodgers, center for the advancement of public integrity, and mimi rocha at the pace university school of law. i'd like to begin with you, mimi, and that is this. people talk to feds, are interviewed by feds every day. interviews completed, they go on their way. often that person isn't the subject of the investigation. and very seldom is that person the president of the united states. lay out the stakes, remind us of the stakes. >> well, you hit the nail on the head, brian. because there are -- those two things make this very high stakes for the president. because he is the subject, at least, of this investigation, that's clear, which means he has some risk. if he goes in there and he either lies, certainly, then he could be facing perjury or false statement charges. even if he doesn't lie, if he tells the truth, the question is, will mueller accept what he's telling? will it fit in with the other evidence that mueller has? will it contradict it? or will it make his case better or w

. >> asha, preet bharara tweets this had earlier. i bet special counsel already has sam nunberg's e-mails. they are from the service provider, you ask for them anyway. among other things, you learn a lot when people selectively disclose. >>> so, wouldn't mueller have access to those e-mails by other means? so, what is he after here? >> right. well, he has other means. so, in issuing the subpoena, he's actually, like preet bharara said, he can get some signals on what this person is willing to turnover. remember with manafort he originally issued a subpoena, and then he executed a search warrant because it was clear that what manafort was turning over was not everything that he asked for. so, mueller always has the option of getting a search warrant if he hasn't already to get these communications. the communications are important, don, because they are in writing. and so to the extent that he is interviewing nunberg or other people, there is a certain amount of written verification that can catch them if they are not telling the trut

perspective now from cnn senior legal analyst preet bharara, a former u.s. attorney for new york's southern district, home to trump tower. full disclosure, he was fired from that job by the president. we spoke to him earlier. i'm wondering what you make of these alleged conversations about pardons. >> i think like a lot of people, you find it kind of crazy. >> crazy that dowd might have those conversations? >> yeah. i think that the way you exercise your pardon power in a way that doesn't have the optics of looking like it's a quid pro quo, in other words, the president will buy your silence by giving you a pardon if you agree in advance not to say anything bad about him and not to cooperate with the mueller investigation. i'm not saying that that happened, but that's certainly what it will look like. and if you're a smart lawyer and you go and you approach the other side, michael flynn's lawyer, for example, and you start floating the idea of a pardon, if that's true, then it absolutely makes it look like, as we're seeing today from all the reporting and th

attorney preet bharara. preet, i want to get to that, but i want to play for you a news clip.t down with the former fbi director. listen to this exchange. >> it's been reported that you threatened to resign over being urged to fire people. that correct? >> you know, have i been very clear from the minute i was nominated to the minute i walked in the door to countless opportunities since then that i am unwaveringly committed to doing this job by the book independently following our rules and our processes free from political or partisan influence. >> so it sounds like you're saying those reports are not wrong? >> i'm not going to talk about specific conversations. >> all right. so preet, what's your reaction? >> my reaction is it's good that chris wray is saying the things that he is saying. that's just a small snippet. i haven't seen the full interview. but i think at a time when people have concerns that there is political interference, a time when people are concerned that the president is telling people what to do and the fbi is not handling his responsibilities in an arm's

attorneys who got fired were very high profile people, for example, preet bharara for the district of knock. furthermore, he had been publicly assured for the right to keep his job. he was told he would be able to stay on in the trump strae administrati administration. in the year since those firings happened, though, while those things are also still interesting, what's turned out to be super interesting in the long run is that even though it really was a mass firing out of the blue last march, there ended up being a tiny handful of u.s. attorneys that the president decided he would hold on to. none of them was famous at all at the time. they've all become a little bit famous since. they include rod rosenstein, who at the time was u.s. attorney in maryland. they didn't get rid of him. he ended up becoming the number two official in the justice department, he is the direct supervisor of the robert mueller special counsel investigation and therefore rod rosenstein has been publicly attacked by the president of the united states. there was also dana boente. he became head of the nationa

. >> and yet preet bharara, the former u.s. attorney, fired by president trump as well, responded to one of the president's tweets saying this. this is called lawsuit exhibit a. here's what the president had tweeted. this is what he was responding to. andrew mccabe fired. a great day for the hard working men and women of the fbi. a great day for democracy. james comey was his boss and made mccabe look like a choir boy. he knew all about the lies and corruption going on at the highest levels of the fbi. palm, he's suggesting mccabe could go after the president. no? >> well, yes. and i think mccabe has suggested in statements he issued yesterday that he might file a lawsuit of his own. you know, this is a labor law situation as well as sort of an investigation by congress and by the special prosecutor. and you can't just fire somebody who has worked for the government for 21 years without valid cause. so there's going to be a monster of a battle here, and mccabe's position is, i have been fired to prevent me from appearing as a w

james comey, mike flynn, sally yates -- [ unintelligible ] [ buzzer ] [ cheers and applause ] >> preet bharara: pretty fun though, right? >> jimmy: yeah, it is pretty fun. yeah, yeah, yeah. [ light laughter ] >> very fun. very fun. if you guys watching at home want to play along, go ahead and take a video of yourself trying to say all 19 names in ten seconds and tag it with the hashtag #tenseconds! don't forget the exclamation point. ha-ha. [ laughter ] and whoever does it the fastest will have their video featured on "the tonight show" featuring jimmy fallon. [ light laughter ] >> jimmy: wait, wait, come on, this is my show. you can't just make up a a contest. [ laughter ] >> please? [ light laughter ] >> jimmy: all right. give it up for tariq and jamal, everybody! [ cheers and applause ] and #tenseconds! >> steve: wow. don't forget the exclamation point. >> jimmy: you guys see this? yesterday trump told reporters his idea for how to keep other countries from interfering with our elections. i'm not sure it's the most advanced idea. but watch this. >> but it's always good to have a paper backu