congressman swalwell was another, but rod rosenstein and others are telling people close to them, theyidn't know about swalwell and schiff being involved, according to a person i spoke with this evening. that raises more questions. the justice department inspector generality has launched a probably into the manner. meantime senator chuck schumer is calling on trump's former attorneys general to testify. we're joined by congressman raja krishnamuthi. as we look at the facts, we look at the statements coming out, i want to ask you, first off, is it possible doj gave apple a bunch of numbers, no names, so they didn't exactly know they were getting swalwell and schiff's info at the time, when they initially went to apple in 2018? >> i don't know. what i do know is the people who ended up getting targeted were democrats on the house intelligence committee, as well as staff of the house intelligence committee, as well as family members of -- and personal office staff. it wasn't some random group of meet. it was a collection of people. >> if this is a case where doj was doing a leak investiga

rod rosenstein was there until the end.ns had to pass the baton to someone for the gag order to stay in place. "the times" is reporting that the gag orders have to be renewed every year. so, who would have approved the renewal of a gag order? >> to your point about the renewals of the gag order, that's something that would have been known by the career prosecutors that would be applying for those renewals and the hope is they would send that up the chain to the head of the national security division. again, inside of the justice department, this is an organization that's extremely careful, people don't want to be holding the bag if a mistake happens. so, oftentimes what you see is people getting approvals higher and higher and higher so they can always say somebody above me said it was all right. it's really difficult to imagine it didn't happen in this case, especially given the fact that one of the subjects of the investigation was a member of the house intelligence committee. so, again the fact that there seems to have b

that when don mcgahn was the white house council, and a separate source said jeff sessions and rod rosenstein are claiming to others they were unaware of the requests for don mcgahn's records. today democratic leadership offer as stinging rebuke of the actions. >> what has happened here are fingerprints of a dictatorship, not a democracy. >> what the administration did, the justice department, the leadership of the former president goes even beyond richard nixon. >> i am joined by peter welch. nice to see you and thank you for coming on the show. we just heard strong words from congressional leaders. do you agree with their view? >> i do. two astonishing thing, one is personal, and it's astonishing that donald trump was not only atta attacking adam schiff, but he was going after his own lawyer. second and more importantly for our country harbgs's weaponizing the justice department, and bar and sessions were complicit in this. where you have the president who is essentially using the justice department as a political arm to carry out his attacks against political opponents, you are violating t

attorney, jeff sessions, who was leading the justice department at that time and his deputy, rod rosensteinfor don mcgahn's records. something about that does not add up, and how would it be possible the two top officials did not know the department was making such an extraordinary request. a few weeks before the request was made, the president pressured don mcgahn to fire mue mueller, and mcgahn resisted and that was at the core of the investigation into former president trump. former special security spoke to jim acosta about all of this on sunday. here's his take. >> i am prepared to believe the worst. i think we are -- >> what does that mean, the worst? >> that trump would attempt to do things for political purposes and subvert the court of justice. >> now many are calling to hear from attorney general, jeff sessions and rod rosenstein and even want to hear from former attorney general bill barr and the head of the national security decision, john demers. they would like for them to come and testify voluntarily and if they refuse they could issue subpoenas, and in the senate that would

so has rod rosenstein. >> rod rosenstein as well. >> who was the deputy attorney general.e them voluntarily on capitol hill, will you subpoena them? >> well, let's hope they will want to honor the rule of law. this is -- the justice department has been rogue under president trump, understand that, in so many respects. this is just another manifestation of their rogue activity. the others were perpetrated by the attorneys general, but this is one that they claim no knowledge of. how could it be that there could be an investigation of members of the other branch of government and the press and the rest, too, and the attorneys general did not know. so who are these people? and are they still in the justice department? and, again, this is just out of the question no matter who is president, whatever party, this cannot be the way it goes. >> let's turn to infrastructure. >> yes. >> a group of five democrats, five republican senators, they have a deal that they say is $1.2 trillion, about $600 billion in new spending. that's more than republicans were offering, but that's, of co

m former attorneys general jeff sessions and bill barr along with former deputy rod rosenstein all sayd no knowledge of the subpoenas. now democrats are demanding sessions and barr testify. >> how could it be that there could be an investigation of other members in the other branch of government and press too and the attorneys general did not know. who are these people and are they still in the justice department? >> reporter: the justice department inspector general announced probe on friday and now lee lisa monaco will work on problematic matters. the attorney general is meeting today with executives from cnn, the washington post and the new york times. all of whom want answers they demanded log from journalist communications. >> this is not some kind of washington insider thing. this is about people's phone records being subpoenaed without them knowing about it. >> reporter: we know the trump apointee will lever at the end of the month. something that was previously planned. it's notable because the national security plays large role in the leak investigations and they would be dire

they'll likely not get testimony from jeff sessions, rod rosenstein, bill barr.is up. congress has a job to do. now it's trickier in the senate because senate rules say you need bipartisan support for a subpoena. you'd need a republican to go along with this. i will note senator ben sasse is part of the senate judiciary committee. if he flips and joins with senate democrats, they can get it done. i'm looking at the house. they don't need any republican support. jerry nadler was ineffective in following up on the nadler report. nadler has to play hard ball. serve subpoenas and if barr or sessions defy them, he needs to go to court immediately. >> let me switch gears and ask you, there's a growing momentum among some democrats who would like to see justice stephen breyer retire at the end of this term in a few weeks. he's 82 years old and they want to ensure, given what mitch mcconnell said in the last 24 hours about not -- the senate not moving if they retake the senate to have a confirmation hearing for biden's next pick. they want to ensure against that. what ar

bill barr, jeff sessions, rod rosenstein all say they didn't know about this. is that believable? mean, who would have ordered don mcgahn? one would guess that someone really high up would have needed to know. >> right, so it does really go to the question of are they intentionally targeting those folks or were there targets of other people and it was just that this information somehow came out in the course of that process. obviously if you're targeting a high-level government official or something like that, that would require an attorney general deputy approval, things like that, on those individuals you mentioned, and this is where that presumption of irregularity comes in, because bill barr is the same guy who basically lied in summarizing the mueller report, and now he's saying, well, i knew nothing of this. it's just a little hard to have credibility with him. and i completely agree with chuck. we have to have the investigation facts come out. but i think one thing that's significant here is that the targets of these requests, apple and the like, they were put under gag ord

would the attorney general or deputy attorney general rod rosenstein not have known about this?ve notified somebody higher up the chain in doj, which is one of the big questions we need an answer to. >> and then, if schumer does get his wish granted, and there is a request being made of barr or even sessions to testify, they don't have to, do they? they're private citizens now, they could say no or just not show up. >> well, it's a complicated question of the power of a congressional subpoena. they don't have to comply and cooperate with the justice department inspector general the way they would if they still worked at the justice department. however, congress has the ability to subpoena private individuals, we see people who are industry leaders and others who are called to testify before congress. >> they can say no. >> we just saw -- they can say no. but then it's a question of how strongly is congress willing to go to courts to fight for it? the next step, if you get rejected as congress, you need to go into the courts and ask the courts to order these people to testify. th

don mcgahn described what he imagined would happen if he followed donald trump's order to call rod rosenstein and fire robert mueller. quote. inflection point. with that i mean a point of no return. if the acting attorney general received what he thought was a direction from the counsel to the president to remove a special counsel, he would either have to remove the special counselor resign. we are still talking about the saturday night massacre decades and decades later, and looking back you always as a student of history wonder could things have gone differently if different people made different decisions, and here my thought was fast forwarding, you know, what this is going to look like down the road. this seems to be an inflection point. it was time to hit the brakes and not make a phone call to rod to raise this issue that the president had continued to raise with me. it seemed to me that it'd be easier for me to not make the call and take whatever heat or fall-out there would be than to cause, potentially, a chain reaction that i think would not be in the best interests of the presiden

we also know even as former attorneys general like jeff sessions, bill barr, rod rosenstein, all distancinge going to open their own investigation. so this is just what we're going to see over the next few weeks and months. i think this is going to be one of the stories of the summer. >> yeah, just the beginning. ali vitali for us on capitol hill. thanks, ali. >>> talking more about these cases of data being collected by the justice department and the i.g. investigation, i do want to bring in harry litman, legal affairs columnist for the "l.a. times." harry, thank you for joining us. this is incredible to me. so apple essentially turning over information on don mcgahn to the department of justice. is this an abuse of power? >> so it's a mind-blowing, stunning abuse of power. sort of watergate-level scandal. depending on the answer to the question that ali rightly says is not clear exactly from this preliminary report, was mcgone somehow just the recipient of a call and that's the reason he somehow was without a lot of other people on a list, or was he the target? same with swalwell and schi

and the idea that jeff sessions, the original attorney general, bill barr, rod rosenstein, deputy attorneyn see why congress wants to get them under oath and get their denials. it just seems to challenge, you know, to strain credulity that no one could have known about these incredibly high profile investigations. >> you are the expert on scotus. you wrote a book on it called the 9. so tell us about, that he this wouldn't move on a biden justice. >> well, it is an incredible power play that is not at all surprising. that doesn't make it any more of an abuse of the constitutional prerogatives of a president to nominate and expect a vote on his nominees for the supreme court. this is where they have been much more disciplined and caring more. the democrats have never really got outraged publicly or in a sustained way about what mcconnell was doing. if you go back to the 2016 political conventioned, this is while he had stopped merrick garland nomination cold. barack obama, hillary clinton, the vice presidential nominees. none of them mentioned that abuse of power at the democratic convention

finally, you know, donald trump was -- rod rosenstein said they wanted him to wear a wire to invoke the he took the cognitive assessment and aced it. we could settle the way the left dodd by having biden take a bipartisan group of doctors and just take a test and put the worries to rest. >> martha: he said on the campaign trail he didn't need a test because it was ridiculous to even ask him. you make very good points. you know, raising questions about that. real quick before i let you go. this controversy over this woman in the olympic trials that turned her back when the anthem was played and said she had been set up. that she doesn't appear to want to represent this country. >> yeah, i think that -- we're so tired of the country of the kneeling and not wanting to see the flag, this is a sigh. we're psych of it, tired, it's weary. we don't like the virtual signalling. if you don't want to go, stay home. if you don't want to go through the mandatory celebrations, don't do it. if you want to represent a country whose flag you honor, you're welcome to become a due citizen or migrate to an

it is not plausible, though, that some other political appointee, perhaps rod rosenstein did not know this. career people wouldn't take these steps without consulting higher ups. >> i was a career prosecutor, what a statement for us to be even be questioning the ecred credibility of an attorney general. biden is having to face a lot of the same discussion points we're talking about while he's backabroad. here's what vladimir putin told nbc about president biden. >> you once described president trump as a bright person, talented. how would you describe president biden? >> even now i believe former u.s. president mr. trump is an extraordinary individual, talented individual, otherwise he would not have become u.s. president. he's colorful individual. you may like him or not. he had not been in big-time politics before. some like it, some don't like it, but that's a fact. president biden, of course, is radically different from trump because president biden is a career man. he has spent virtually his entire adulthood in politics. just think of the number of years he spent in the senate, a

extraordinary, a source tells cnn that then attorney general jeff sessions and deputy attorney general rod rosenstein didn't know about the request. something about that does not add up. that the justice department would make an extraordinary request and two top officials at the justice department knew nothing about it. some former officials suggested that's just not possible. other people suggested that maybe these folks were swept up. at some point that likely would have been reported to a supervisor. >> either misleading or bad oversight. paula reed, thanks so much. joining me now, a former u.s. attorney general under the george w. bush administration, alberto gonzales. he served as white house counsel to president bush, now dean of belmont university college of law. sir, thanks for joining us this morning. >> jim, it is a pleasure. it is a very unusual story. it is bizarre. >> talk about that. previous administrations have pursued leak investigations, the obama administration included, which at times involved journalists, although in those cases i believe the journalists were investigated as poss

, do you believe, for congress to hear testimony under oath from bill barr, jeff sessions and rod rosenstein i think it's really important. and it's not just because this is an exercise in history. listen, i like history just as much as the next person. i like to make sure history is out there for folks to see and to learn from. but this is about looking forward as well, learning what happens so we can prevent it from happening again. there has to be consequences. i'm a firm believer in accountability. when people do things that are illegal, antidemocratic, there needs to be accountability so that in the future, if somebody is thinking about doing the same thing, they're going to think twice. we have to impose some costs on people here. >> very quickly before i let you go, congressman, have you been briefed on why they started this investigation of this house intelligence committee staffer to begin with and whatever happened to that investigation? >> i have not. i don't have that information. >> thank you very much, congressman jason crow. appreciate it very much. >> thank you. >>> just ahea

this week that the president did try to get him to fire via the then deputy attorney general rod rosenstein, the special counsel robert mueller. >> the fact it appears possibly that the entire intelligence committee may have been targeted here. we know specifically that eric swalwell's gave information to investigators. how much more of this committee and how wud ranging was this investigation? it's not just those exact adversaries but everybody who interacted with president trump's adversaries. this was incredibly wide-ranging. and as adam schiff said, the scope is just incredible here. >> i'm told, elliott, williams included in this list of targets were not just staffers for the untel intelligence committee but people outside that group as well. i'm curious what the law is here. can a president tell his attorney general to access anybody's phone records if he says, hey this is something i want to look into. >> look, the president of the united states shouldn't be meddling in investigations. the justice department put in place by the president ought to -- >> he shouldn't be but did it all

in the very early days of the trump administration, the justice department led by sessions and rod rosenstein, rolled out aggressive, talked up, focused on finding people who were lucky or sharing information with journalists. including classified information. finding them, prosecuting them, and trying them and putting them behind bars. this became a top priority for the doj's national security division. even though that evasion has finite resources and i'm sure you can and i can think of one or two or several other national security problems that might be slightly higher concern, slightly higher threat to this country. and people talking to reporters. but at the justice department, in response to the presidents broader constant tweets and comments and harangues about these classified leagues, the department moved forward with this effort to try to hunt down as many people as possible. who talked about classified material with journalist. and that's the context in which the department ended up, even if it's the most benign explanation possible, that's the contacts under which the department e

rod rosenstein was under fire from people who wanted to impeach him. it was during that period of time as they were staring down that pressure, that this happened. so the perception at the most basic level is one of the president of the united states with the biggest megaphone in the country blaring this out and the justice department doing it. we would need to see inside the investigation to know what the justice department had to move forward in an investigation like this. a federal judge likely played a role in employing the gag order. there is a question that would that federal judge have allowed that to happen if it was completely frivolous, but there was a lot that we don't know about the cause that the justice department had to go ahead. >> seizing records from reporters like yourself. i think we are getting a picture of how political that department was. but was there any pushback from career doj officials when this was happening? presumably some of them are still there. >> we know there were discussions between career and political officials b

. >> reporter: another source tells cnn that jeff sessions and rod rosenstein had no knowledge of the for mcgahn's data from apple. the speaker of the house finds that hard to believe. >> this is about undermining the rule of law, and if these attorneys general, or sessions, to say they didn't know anything about it is beyond belief. so we will have to have them come under oath to tell about that. >> well, this news over the weekend preseeding planned meeting between cnn, the "washington post," and merrick garland. the goal there, john, is to try to convince doj to not just do a memo change but actually do a policy change that would give more freedom of the press tamp-down on things like this. the big question now, john, is who's next. >> that's a fair question. how much wider does this go in that meeting today with maerric gar garland. very important indeed. >>> live pictures on the side of your screen of president biden arriving shortly at nato headquarters in brussels. let's go right to cnn's jeff zeleny who's there. jeff, what are we expecting? >> reporter: well,we are expecting p

general jeff ses sessions, who had been leading the justice department at the time, and the deputy rod rosenstein were not aware. how is it possible the top two justice officials would not know the department was making such an extraordinary request? an important piece of context, a few weeks before the request was made, the president was frustrated with his white house counsel. he pressured don to fire then special counsel robert muller. he resisted and that was at the core of the obstruction of justice investigation into former president trump. former national security advisor john bolton spoke to jim acosta about this on sunday. here is his take. >> i'm prepared to believe the worst. i think we're operating in a -- >> what does that mean the worst? >> that trump would attempt to do things for political purposes and subvert the course of justice. we're still operating in a large fact vacuum here. >> reporter: democratic lawmakers are calling for the top justice officials to come to the hill and testify. they want to hear from attorney general jeff sessions, rod rosen stein. they want to hear fr

interestingly, alicia, i should say a source close to rod rosenstein and jeff sessions told us neitherr believe they authorized a subpoena of the records of two democratic members of congress. >> right, we've been talking about that piece of it. what do we know about the prosecutor from new jersey who oversaw the leak investigation, benvenuto? >> not someone who had experience in these national security and leak cases but it appears as in so many matters, bill barr wanted to bring somebody in to revive what he viewed as the dormant leak cases and wanted to make sure they were thoroughly investigated, turned over every rock. no charges have been brought. weak cases are hard to make and barr also said he had nothing to do with any subpoenas of democratis members of congress or staffers. they were pressing hard to make the leak cases because some of the disclosures were damaging but didn't go anywhere and now the department of justice inspector general will get to the bottom. there's competing stories what happened, hopefully get to the bottom of who said what when and who ordered this, h

chairman schiff and swalwell were notified their data was seized and we know deputy attorney general rod rosensteinral, had told people that they're not aware of this. they denied that they knew the lawmakers were part of the dragnet. democratic congressman mike quigley joins me now. nice to see you. first, can you update us with any new information? have you learned anything else from apple or doj? >> i think it will take a little while with apple. i know the committee staff is asking for clarification if anyone else was targeted from the committee or anyone else in congress. so much else will flow pretty quickly given the circumstances. i can't help but respond to the attorney generals forgetting this. there is no way in the world something like this can happen without the attorney general being involved or at least notified. it defies belief that they would try to convince us otherwise and they would somehow forget that there was a subpoena on congress? it just goes to further assault what is left of their integrity. >> what would concern you more if they did know of it, they were aware of it or

even a minor child was targeted, all of this, and yet the attorneys general, barr, sessions and rod rosenstein deputy attorney skgeneral, all say the knew nothing about it. how could it be that you have all these families targeted and no attorney general ever hears about it? >> yeah, look, that's the emerging likelihood, even the possibility or likelihood that that is the explanation. i think one of the things that you heard from merrick garland, the attorney general, he finally made a comment about this today in a prepared statement, and one of the things he says is's lease mo monaco, the deputy general attorney, are looking for where the bodies are buried inside the building. there is a lack of trust that even the current leadership understands what they knew when. i think that's why they're so slow in providing evidence to congress. they said they are serving problematic measures deserving of high level review. it's extremely possible, because of the way this investigation happened, maybe even the investigators, the agents who were sending these subpoenas, did not initially know whose numbe

rod rosenstein, remember him? he hasn't put anything in writing yet amid st. all these orphan activities. the open questions are pretty clear -- who did approve the surveyians? "new york times" is reporting that they did approve it. another question, why did the doj take this huge grave measure of these gag orders long after the surveillance ended and the probably didn't an turn of nil good leads for the illegal leaks? why didn't the doj, or even federal judges who are nominally independent offer more skepticism no leak probe that just happened to follow hundreds of donald trump's tweets, demanding an attack on aday schiff. you don't need to be inspector poirot to see the links here. why is this all coming out now? i don't know. i have clues, but we don't have nearly enough of investigations independently done yet. we know without the gag orders being lifted, this thing could have stayed buried for a long time, maybe forever. then the other question -- as we started reporting when we first dug into this big, big scandal friday -- and it is a trump scandal. it

interestingly, alicia, i should say that a source close to rod rosenstein and jeff sessions told us thator believes they authorized the subpoena of two democratic members of congress. >> we've been talking about that piece of it. what do we know about this prosecutor from new jersey who oversaw the leak investigation? >> you know, certainly not a household name, not someone who had experience in these kinds of national security and leak cases. but it appears that as in so many members, bill barr wanted to bring somebody in to revive what he viewed as these dormant leak cases that weren't going anywhere. he wanted to make sure they were thoroughly investigated, turned over every rock. as far as we know, no charges have been brought. barr said he had nothing to do with any subpoenas of democratic members of congress or stafferes. but it's very clear that they were pressing really hard to try to make some of these leak cases, because they viewed some of the disclosures as extremely damaging, but, you know, it didn't go anywhere. and now the department of justice inspector general is going t

mcgahn and asked him to talk to rod rosenstein who was then the acting attorney general of the united rosenstein have mueller removed because of alleged conflict of interest which nobody thought were real. >> of course, you say you'd ask if trump asked mcgahn to deny he had ordered mueller's firing and then your fourth question would be if donald trump instructed you to create a paper record that would indicate he had not asked for mueller's firing. so to actually create something. >> yeah, that's the second part. in addition to destroying old notes, trump is said to have asked mcgahn to create a fake record of denying that the first things had happened. that he asked to have mueller fired. he said i want you to write notes that say president trump never actually asked me to do that, which would have been an extreme example of obstruction. >> would have been huge. >> so you would like to ask don mcgahn if trump asked you to discuss executive legal issues with nonfederal employees, why is that key? >> well, the executive privilege only extends between members of the executive branch. t

now a source familiar tells cnn that then attorney general jeff sessions and rod rosenstein were not aware of this request. you and i covered the justice department for a long time. clearly something here does not add up. . how is it possible that the two top justice officials would not be aware of an extraordinary request like this? at this point we don't know if he is the target of a situation or swept up in an investigation into someone else. but an important piece of context is that a few weeks before this request, we know that former president trump was frustrated with his white house counsel. he had been pressuring him to fire then special counsel robert mueller. mcgann resisted and the president was frustrated that mcgann was not willing to cover up this incident that was really a key in the obstruction of justice part of that probe. now earlier today our colleague spoke with former national security adviser and ambassador john bolton. here was his take on all this. trump would try to subvert the course of justice. we're working in a large vacuum here. >> now democratic lawmak

striking findings was that trump wanted mcgahn to tell the deputy attorney general at the time, rod rosenstein saying, in part, with that i meant a point of no return. if the acting attorney general received what he thought was a direction from the counsel to the president to remove a special counsel, he would either have to remove the special counsel or resign. joining me now is nbc news political contributor jake sherman. what were some of your biggest takeaways from mcgahn's testimony? >> not stepping away from anything he has said previously. i guess there's two thins to -- two things to look at. he confirmed everything we had known about the mueller investigation and the surrounding events. the president called it a nothing burger. i don't think it was in any way, shape or form. it was confirming for everything we knew. number two, on the other hand, this is two years late. the investigation into the mueller report and the related events have ended for the moment. if this testimony had come two years ago, this would be a different story on capitol hill or on capitol haake as we call it. l

how he had to fend off the pressure of the president, to talk to rod rosenstein and to get him to oust mueller as special counsel. >> new reporting tonight about the former presidents current legal battles. new york times reports quote a senior finance executive at donald trump's family business has testified before a state grandeur in manhattan, as prosecutors ramp up their investigation of mr. trump and his company. the executive, jeffrey macron, he has long served as the trump organizations controller, making him a handful of high-ranking executives to oversee the company's finances. times notes he worked at the trump organization for 35 years. that he worked with the cfo allen weisselberg, who is also himself under scrutiny from the manhattan da. this was the day facebook announced it will continue trumps timeout suspension from the platform until january 2023, which will be after the 2022 midterm elections. just as the 2024 presidential campaign cycle is getting underway, the company says its decision stems from trump's post on social media during the one six right and insurrectio

it seems like they should be able to get bill barr to come and testify, jeff sessions, rod rosenstein i certainly think that the precedent that was set under president trump is you don't have to show up to a congressional subpoena, especially if it's under the other party, and if that's the case, then you kind of wait it out. you just wait it out until people aren't interested anymore. and i hope that that's not something that's going to be able to continue under this new administration. but it's ultimately going to be put to the test. we have no other option but to try and try to bring back some of the norms that predated the trump administration. >> i want to ask you about republican congressman matt gaetz, who at one point, you had an across the aisle friendship with. which seemed sort of like, i don't want to say an odd friendship, but one that because it was kind of odd, got some attention. i know you have certainly spoken out against him since he's come under federal investigation for crimes that involve alleged sexual conduct with a minor and ubskrobstruction of justice, an hav

then the question is to rod rosenstein who i reached out to this morning to ask that very question. >van perez, very interesting. thanks for being with us. >>> he stormed the capitol january 6th. what does he think of republicans' downplaying what the mob did that day. we're going to speak with one of the rioters, next. i brought in ensure max protein, with thirty grams of protein. those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks! ( sighs wearily ) here, i'll take that! ( excited yell ) woo-hoo! ensure max protein. with thirty grams of protein, one-gram of sugar, and nutrients to support immune health! are your hr processes weighing ( adown your employees? on to quarterly projections! support immune health! expense report! if you're using multiple systems, re-entering data over and over time sheet! using email and spreadsheets to manage information and approvals, then your hr systems are a drag on productive time. with paycom, employees enter and manage their own hr data in a single, easy-to-use software. visit paycom dot com and schedule your demo today. do they know this door i

rod rosenstein, who was deputy attorney general for most of the time.u can see why congress wants to get them under oath and get their denials because it just seems to strain credulity that no one could have known about these incredibly high-profile investigations. >> you are our resident expert on scotus. you've written a book on it called "the nine." give me your take on mitch mcconnell saying he probably wouldn't move to confirm a biden justice if they take back the senate in the midterms. i guess we shouldn't be surprised, but what's your take on this? >> well, it is an incredible power play that is not at all surprising. but that doesn't make it any more of an abuse of the constitutional prerogatives of a president to nominate and expect a vote on his -- his nominees for the supreme court. but, you know, this is an area where the republicans have been much more disciplined and caring more. you were talking about this earlier in the segment. you know, the democrats have never really got outraged publicly or in a sustained way about what mcconnell wa

interview with politico, that neither he nor trump were briefed on the subpoenas and his deputy rod rosensteinor jeff sessions said that he knew nothing about it either. cnn's legal national security and analyst kerry cordero joins us as long as melanie zanona. kerry, you have barr denying it and rosenstein and sessions denying it. but take a listen to this exchange between bill barr and kamala harris a couple of years ago on this very general topic. >> has the president or anyone at the white house ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone, yes or no, please, sir? >> um, the president or anybody else? >> seems you would remember something like that and be able to tell us. >> i'm grappling with the word of suggest. there are discussions of masters out there that they have not asked me to open an investigation. >> there have been discussed of matters out there. they have not asked me. but it is plausible that he would not have known. especially on the issue of metadata from members of congress being caught up as part of an investigation? >> so, in this case, although he w

comes to don mcghan that then-attorney general jeff sessions and then-deputy attorney general rod rosensteinor the white house counsel's records. but in talking with sources, there are some concerns that perhaps his information was swept up. that they didn't actually know who it was, whose information they had, and that wasn't actually disclosed until apple revealed it to their customer. i talked to a lot of former justice officials and said that's scary, that's going to be scary to a lot of americans. the fact that the white house counsel doesn't have much protection when it comes to his records being swept up. now of course we're also investigating reporting on the requests for records from several journalists including our colleague, barbara starr, here at cnn. later today, several -- several top officials from various news organizations will be meeting with the attorney general to discuss efforts to obtain reporters' records. >> paula, thank you so much for that. >>> there is a lot to dig through here. joining me for more on this is cnn legal analyst paul callen. your reaction to the sta

we know that jeff sessions, rod rosenstein, bill barr said they didn't know about it.ind that hard to believe. we need to to know who did know, how high did it go? >> why the gag orders? is that commonplace? is that unusual to have the gag order and this level of secrecy. >> it's alarming and third thing we need answer to. why the secrecy? the reason we find out about it now it's been under sale. doj went to the courts and said we have to make sure the people we subpoenaed barbara starr, eric swalwell, the phone kompanys, apple you can't tell them that require a special court order. doj going into courts and say please keep it secret. why was that done, renewed several years? that's the next big question. >> as we learned in addition to journalists members of congress and staffers and families. now we learn about don mcgahn. how broad is this the things we don't know? >> this is a question for merrick garland how many other cases are there? there could be many other cases still under gag orders. gag orders could expire in two weeks, six months. if oom meeting with gero

with the matter tells cnn that then-attorney general jeff sessions and deputy attorney general rod rosensteinunaware of the requests for mcgahn's records or those for democratic lawmakers. but house speaker nancy pelosi told cnn sunday she does not believe top officials were unaware. >> this is about undermining the rule of law. and for the attorneys general barr and sessions, at least two, two say they didn't know anything about it is beyond belief. so we will have to have them come under oath to testify about that. >> reporter: right now, there are more questions than answers about the unusual investigation. today democratic halawmakers se a letter to the attorney general demanding more information about the legal basis for this probe and who on the hill was targeted. executives from cnn, the "new york times" and the "washington post" seen here entering the justice department late monday met with the attorney general about why the justice department also demanded records from journalists. the justice department's independent watchdog is reviewing whether the trump justice department followe

supposedly what these leaks were about, but his deputy, the man in charge of the investigation, rod rosensteinything about it either. is that possible? >> well, that is the question and that's obviously what democrats are trying to get to the bottom of. senate democrats want both of them to come before the judiciary committee to go over this and yes, bill barr says he ♪ limu emu & doug ♪ oh! are you using liberty mutual's coverage customizer tool? sorry? well, since you asked. it finds discounts and policy recommendations, so you only pay for what you need. limu, you're an animal! who's got the bird legs now? only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ [typing sounds] [music fades in] [voice of female] my husband ben and i opened ben's chili bowl the very same year that we were married. that's 1958. [voice of male] the chili bowl really has never closed in our history. when the pandemic hit, we had to pivot. and it's been really helpful to keep people updated on google. we wouldn't be here without our wonderful customers. we're really thankful for all of them. [female v

investigation of russian interference, how he had to fend off the pressure of the president to talk to rod rosenstein and try to get him to oust mueller as special council. >> there's also new reporting tonight about the former president's current legal battles. "the new york times" reports, quote, a senior finance executive at donald trump's family business has testified before a state grand jury in manhattan as prosecutors ramp up their investigation of mr. trump and his company. the executive jeffrey mccony has long served as the trump organization's controller, making him one of a handful of high ranking executives to oversee the company's finances. "the times" notes mcconney worked at the trump organization for 35 years and that he worked with the cfo allen weisselberg who's also himself under scrutiny from the manhattan d. a. this was also the day facebook announced it will continue trump's time-out suspension from the platform until at least january 2023, which of course will be after the 2022 mid-term elections. but just as the 2024 presidential campaign cycle is getting under way. the compan

but a source close to sessions and his deputy rod rosenstein tell fox news neither men knew about the mcgahn records. records belonging to house democrats adam schiff and eric swalwell also seized. >> bill barr and jeff sessions saying that they don't recall being briefed on this, that's a problem. >> the senate's top democrat chuck schumer wants to hear from the head of the justice department's national security division. john demurez, a trump appointee who announced he is leaving his post next week. a department official tells fox news demurez' departure was planned for months schumer wants foreign minister sessions and his successor is bill barr. >> this is not some kind of washington insider thing. this is about people's phone records being subpoenaed without them even knowing about it. >> house intelligence committee chairman schiff today called for doj reforms. hours after the attorney general released a statement leading, in part, political or otherwise improper considerations must play no role in any investigative or prosecutorial decisions. bret, about an hour ago, the attorn

familiar tells cnn that the former attorney general jeff sessions and former deputy attorney general rod rosenstein had no knowledge for the request for don's records. something about that does not add up. we continue to work our sources on how that could be possible. the two top justice officials would not know about such an extraordinary request. also, an important piece of context here? few weeks before the request was made, don and the president were at odds over the fact that the president had been pressuring him to fire then special counsel robert mueller. don resisted and the back and forth was at the center of the obstruction of justice investigation into former president trump. >> apple and other tech giants are caught between demands for subpoenas for law enforcement and demands for privacy. you probably noted apple is ramping up privacy. but tech companies must comply with law enforcement. there could be thousands of requests per week. many are vague on the focus of an investigation and the companies with only challenge subpoenas if they're related to a corporate client. not a government

it is not plausible, though, that some other political appointee, perhaps rod rosenstein, did not know this. career people would not take these steps without consulting higher-ups. >> i mean, i was a career prosecutor. i can't imagine this was taken without that. and what -- what a statement for us to even be questioning the credibility of an attorney general. i mean, that's just so telling right now. but, you know, john, i want to turn to president biden's overseas trip. he is undoubtedly having to face a lot of the same discussion points that we're talking about here, while he is abroad. and he's meeting with vladimir putin, next week. here's what putin told nbc about president biden. >> you once described president trump as a bright person, talented. how would you describe president biden? >> translator: even now, i believe that former-u.s. president, mr. trump, is an extraordinary individual. talented individual. otherwise, he would not have become u.s. president. he is a colorful individual. you may like him or not. and -- but he didn't come from u.s. establishment. and some like

mcgahn talk to rod rosenstein and ask him to ouster them. >> can democrats do something with that information? >> oh, absolutely why they can make a criminal referral to the justice department and based on what congresswoman dean has said it would appear they have the threshold now to establish that there was obstruction of justice and don mcgahn would be the key witness in doing that. whether the democrats refer this for criminal prosecution is another issue but the reason that there was such an effort by mcgahn to avoid testifying is that he knew he would have to make statements that would be damaging to donald trump. and this is consistent with the behavior from donald in the last 33 years. cover-up. lie. deny. understand that while fraud is everywhere and always a crime in donald's mind that's routine normal behavior. it is okay. >> katie, trump is trying to dismiss the capitol riot lawsuits against him saying it was an official capacity asking congress not to certify joe biden as president. is that an effective argument about presidential immunity? >> he tried before and failed at the su

our sources that the people in charge of the justice department at the time, jeff sessionss, rod rosensteinestigation which was active at that time and around this circle. here's what we do know. we do know that apple did receive this subpoena from mcgahn's data, and his wife's data, in february of 2018. that was a really intense moment in the trump years. it was when donald trump, right around the time donald trump was telling his white house counsel mcgahn to get rid of the special counsel, mcgahn was refusing to do that, trump was ordering him to lie about that scenario, and then mcgahn became a very important witness in the mueller investigation regarding whether the president had obstructed justice, and the steps that trump had taken there. at that same period of time, what we learned earlier this week, was that this was the period that the justice department was also subpoenaing the records of the house intelligence committee members eric swalwell and adam schiff, who were both democrats. so all of this is sort of just an environment where we're learning different things about subpoen

his deputy, rod rosenstein, says he didn't know anything about it either. is that possible?right, chris. that's obviously what democrats are trying to get to the bottom of. senate democrats want both of them to come before the judiciary committee to go over this. and, yes, bill barr said that he told the wall street journal that he wasn't aware and this would have happened before he was in the job, sessions also has -- people close to sessions said he was not aware of anything. but certainly these are serious questions, democrats are looking into this. there is also that inspector general report and we're going to have to see what more comes out of this. chris: there is another controversy on capitol hill about congresswoman ilhan omar, after a hearing that she was involved in with secretary of state blinken, she tweeted this. we have seen unthinkable atrocities committed by the u.s., hamas, israel, afghanistan and the taliban. some jewish members objected strongly to comparing israel to terrorist groups. take a look. >> there is a long history of comments here that i have f

the very early days of the trump administration, the justice department, led by sessions and rod rosenstein, rolled out aggressive, torqued up focus on finding people who were leaking or sharing information with journalists, including classified information, finding them, prosecuting them and trying to put them behind bars. this became a top priority for the doj's national security division, even though that division has finite resources and i'm sure you and i can think of several other national security problems that might be a slightly higher concern and threat to this country than people talking to reporters. but at the justice department in response to the president's broader constant tweets and comments and harangues about these leaks, the department hunted down as many people as possible and that's the context in which the department ended up, even the most benign explanation possible, that's where the justice department ended up hovering up information from two lawmakers, part of the job that they had, of course, is to oversee the department of justice. >> hackers one of those lawmak