"new york times" list the intelligence officials mueller requested to interview which include dan coats and mike rogers, as well as rick ledgett who the "wall street journal" explains may have documented a significant phone call between rogers and president trump. nbc's tracie potts is in zchlt c. this morning. >> reporter: this is a significant turn in the investigation if, in fact, robert mueller is looking into whether the president tried to influence or get others to influence this reaction. we now have reaction this morning, new from president trump. take a look at this tweet in response to the story. he says they made up a phony collusion with the russian story, found zero proof so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story. nice. earlier we heard from the president's personal attorney, in fact, a spokesperson for that attorney, they've been handling all the questions about the russia investigation. they called this an fbi leak of information that's outrageous, inexcusable and illegal. it's certainly raising questions about whether or not after the firing of fbi director james come

are you surprised that they are talking about bringing into mueller's office, admiral rogers, dni coats as early as next week? is that not faster than normal? >> i don't think so. this might not be the last time he talks to those individuals. but given their testimony before congress the other week it's important he actually speaks with them and find out what they know and what the president said to them. which they said they would cooperate with the special prosecutor's office. >> how do you sit down if you are mueller in mueller's office -- we have learned he is hiring all these expert attorneys, people who go from government to the private sector back to government with great ease but hiring these experts in their field. how do you limit the scope of your investigation? how do you diffy it up. >> i think you have to take it in different pieces. there is the piece during the campaign about the coordination with the russians and if that in fact occurred and looking at the campaign officials there. there is the question of what the russians did, the ways in which they did it, what their

rogers refused to discuss. they've both been called into private interviews with robert mueller.say that the president made them uncomfortable to make public statements about the russia meddling investigation that would make the presidebene president. trump loyalists say misleading the country about white house tapes is no big deal. democrats disagree. >> it definitely bolsters and provides evidence for obstruction of justice. clearly, the president's purpose or motive here was to have an effect on comey's testimony and i think that the intent was to intimidate or threaten him but to go to the merits, jim comey's testimony never changed. >> obstruction is part of the political debate. what special counsel mueller concludes about the president's conduct is the judgment that matters most. ti "time" puts the special counsel on the cover with the caption "the lie detector." pretty partisan debate. we don't see the classified briefings. you see this partisan thing. what else did we learn this past week? among the nuggets is now that the president has an early morning call with the leg

cnn learns that robert mueller will interview three officials this week. dan coats, mike rogerser nsa deputy director richard ledgett. cnn has not independently, shim mo -- shimon confirmed "the washington post" report. how far are we willing to go in this report? >> when we're willing to say and what we've learned is that the special counsel, bob mueller, wants to talk to some of the intelligence -- these agency heads of these intelligence agents, rogers and coats which you mentioned. all of this is really because a lot has come out through maybe leaks and also on the hill in testimony before congress where trump was asking these intelligence officials to basically knockdown these ports of collusion. it's just something that trump as we know has not been able to get his head around and has had issues that he or his campaign may have been involved in some sort of collusion with russia. tis is what basically what i think mueller wants to look at. to see if there was any pressure, did they feel any pressure from the president in these conversations that he may have had with them.

current head of the nsa, mike rogers and richard ledget, a former deputy to mike rogers have agreed to talk to mueller's team as early as next week. a spokesman for the president's personal attorney provided this reaction, quote, the fbi leak of information regarding the president is outrageous, inexcuable and illegal. two things to note. one, it's not a denial of the story in chief and two, the post does not say that their sources, and there are five, are inside the fbi. let us at this point bring in tonight's starting panel. white house bureau chief for the "washington post," phillip rucker, white house reporter for the associated press jonathan le mere and two attorneys are with us tonight. a 25-year veteran federal prosecutor, joyce vance, who spent almost eight years as a u.s. attorney, among the first five u.s. attorneys appointed by president obama. and jeremy bash is back with us, former chief of staff at the cia and pentagon. former chief counsel to the house intelligence committee. phillip, i'll begin with you largely because of the work again tonight of your newspaper on this eventful, emotio

cbs news has learned that special counsel robert mueller will interview director and nsa director admiral mike rogers reports about whether the president pressured them to tamp down the investigation into allegations of collusion between the trump campaign and russia. >> do you solemnly swear to tell the truth? >> reporter: a week ago former fbi director james comey told senators he believes he was fired by mr. trump because of the fbi's ongoing russia investigation, which comey was leading at the time. >> do you believe this will rise to obstruction of justice? >> i don't know. that's bob mueller's job to check that out. >> reporter: ron hosko, former associate director of the fbi, says while obstruction of justice is hard to prove the allegation itself could hurt the president. >> don't you have to prove intent? >> getting to intent to obstruct or impede-s going to be very important. and it could be that they never are able to build that case in a meaningful way. however, damage could be done. political damage could be done during the process. >> oversee the investigation drew bipartisan praise. th

mueller's people. coats didn't talk publicly. rogers did some closed session . my hunch here is whatever took place in those conversations is going to be pivotal because when you look at what comey heard from trump, it raises suspicions. if you find that ultimately the president also asked coats and others to intervene with comey, i think it adds a lot of evidence, a lot of weight to the suspicion about obstruction of justice. so i think that may be the new element that we're seeing emerge. >> they're not weasels, these guys. they are men in this case who have proud careers behind them, and they'd like to have proud legacies. they're not like the weasely people run ago round that table with him in the cabinet the other day. a spokesperson for president trump's personal lawyer, marc kasowitz -- now he's got a lawyer for spokespeople. following the statement in response to "the washington post" reporting, quote, the fbi leak of information regarding the president is outrageous and inexcusable, and illegal. let's go to the guy who got the story. devlin, are you gui

national intelligence, mike rogers, head of the national security agency, and rogers deputy, agreed to be interviewed by mueller's investigators and it could happen this week. the "wall street journal," he wrote a memo that mr. rogers had with president trump. trump didn't wait to fight back. he tweeted this morning, quote, they made up a phony collusion with the russians story. found zero proof. now, they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story. nice. then just an hour later, this tweet. you are witnessing the single greatest witch hunt in american political history, led by some very bad and conflicted people. #maga. make america great again. also new this morning, an inforal adviser to president trump and also part of the transition team was pushing back on reports, as well. >> the notion that the president of the united states obstructed justice is absolutely complete nonsense. it is back into the washington fever, where people want to throw eggs and tomatoes at him, to try toagenda. >> joining me now is one of the reporters who helped break the bomb shell story. ari melber is mmsnbc's chief legal cor

roger stone says that he should fire bob mueller and fire rod rosenstein. we'll see if he does that, but interestingly, roger stone was in new york and used the same word the president has been using, witch hunt. >> thank you, appreciate it. >>> breaking news off the coast of japan. seven u.s. soldiers are missing after their navy destroyer collided with a merchant ship. at least four have suffered injuries, including the ship's commanding officer is hospitalized in stable condition. search is under way for the missing soldiers. the "uss fitzgerald" suffered damage to its starboard side above and below the water line. this resulted in some flooding. i'm going to linger on these pictures for a bit. the ship is operating, i should tell you, under its own power. u.s. naval vessels and aircraft on hand to assist. we'll continue to update you. when we come back, will the president fire robert mueller, the man investigating him, or the deputy attorney general. and what will the consequences be if he does? expert legal advice, next. to its roots. brewed only in gol

if the president was to take the advice of his friend and adviser, roger stone and to fire both muellernd rosenstein, first politically, what's the consequences for the president? >> the consequences for people who already are not on the trump train would be that it looks like he's trying to cover something. if he really is as innocent as he professes that he is, an investigation should reveal that and would actually put all of this to rest, which is what the president actually seems to say that he wants to happen. if that's not what an investigation revealsreveals, i be problematic. >> legal consequences, danny? >> they're's two-ways to look a this one is that the president as chief executive hat power, legal authority to fire anybody in the justice department that he wants with impunity. the other way to look at it is this, there are many times that even a legal action can become an illegal action. it with become obstruction of justice, if it is done can construct intent. done for an improper purpose. there are many examples of this in federal criminal law, which is incredibly expansi

mueller wants to talk to director of national intelligence, dan coats and national security agency chief admiral mike rogers and one of his former deputies. nbc news and others reported that coats and rogers refused the president's request to publicly clear him and his campaign of colluding with russia. perhaps bigger news if possible is president trump reportedly questioned the intelligence community assessment that russia interferes in the 2016 election. going to pause here. we have senator richmond, going to get to him, get an update on congressman scalise. let's go there now. >> just a little history on it, the game has been in existence for over 100 years and in times of war, we would not play but for the most part well over 50 baseball games. if i'm correct, democrats have the lead. since i have been here, it was steve and i's chance to go after each other on the field. he handed out bats to his team, fancy, louisiana made red bats. because the republicans would never pitch to me in a game, i actually took his fancy red bat to the plate with me because they were going to walk me anyway. i remember him

. >> reporter: mueller's team will also interview nsa director, michael rogers, and is seeking information from former deputy nsa director, richard leggett. leggett wrote a memo, according to a source, about a conversation in which the president allegedly asked rogers to help the fbi, quote, to lift the cloud of the russia probe. meanwhile, investigations could be multiplying. chuck grassley, the powerful chairman of the senate judiciary committee, which has oversight of the fbi, has not ruled out a request from democratic senator, dianne feinstein, to open a separate probe into possible obstruction of justice. >> we're going to leave that to a conversation with feinstein. >> today in federal court, cnn filed a lawsuit, trying to force the fbi to turn over the memos comey wrote about his conversation with president trump. the memos are not classified and the fbi has not explained its refusal so far to release them, despite a ruling from the justice department that it should expedite a freedom of information act request to do so. all of that according to cnn's law enforcement filed in the d

that is why they let admiral rogers and get away with saying nothing, but bob mueller will come to rescueill tell us -- >> aligned himself, his top, his top hires are all democratic conors. donors. >> that doesn't mean anything. lou: it means a great dealer you kidding. >> he has a legal. lou: when did you become a polly anna. >> he has a legal responsibility to get to the bottom of this in a way. lou: ethical to not be conflicted, he is conflictd. >> on that we disagree, prosecutors can befriend --friey are all of the time. lou: in this partisan age, you think someone is giving mueller credit for being bipartisan. >> i don't care if he is bipartisan, if he indicts and prosecutes people they are guilty, that is what they are supposed to do. lou: you just under cut our own argument, all prosecutors think their target are guilty. >> right or they wouldn't be the target. lou: give me the crime and evidence. >> oh, i i don' don't know what it is, i know -- >> at what point do we see that is stupid. >> they could shut the investigations down in a heart beat. lou: you want to get started on pre

i think his financial transactions are going to be a really key piece for bob mueller's team to dig into. i doubt that roger stone is going to say anything significant import, in the long run, his communications with potential russian associated folks like guccifer 2.0 and wikileaks, that will be another very important area for bob mueller's investigation, because they will want to see what he was saying and when he was saying it. >> what do you make of the fact that roger stone wants to have his day on the big stage, most likely planning his outfit but they'll do it behind closed doors, what's the big difference? >> roger stone is a total loose cannon and i agree in that what he says isn't likely to be of import in terms of national or diplomatic consequences but he could say or do anything and any journalist that was working with him knows what information he was pedaling which he was from wikileaks in terms of hillary clinton, the e-mail investigation, connections to the clinton foundation where she's very active at doing. that's all likely to come up. putting that aside and turning to whags the more ser

right now, that mueller is investigating a possible obstruction of justice by the president, requested interviews with the director of national intelligence, the nsa director, mike rogersquestions about the conversation, and mueller wants to interview former deputy director regarding memos he wrote on roger's conversation with the president they all agreed to be interviewed. meanwhile, reaction from the president's attorney last night. his spokesperson putting out this statement saying, "the fbi leak of information regarding the president is outrageous, inexcusable, and illegal." that despite the fact it's not clear from the reporting that the initial information here came from the fbi at all or that it would have been illegal for a number of the people involved in the investigation who would be aware of it to have spoken about it to a reporter kelly, so, for now, though, the white house buttoned up on the issue of russia. president is not commenting in any way on any of this >> no. >> what's the time frame ahead with the investigation, specifically president trump being investigated or not, either way, when do we expect answers from mueller and the investigation? >> r

of national intelligence dan coates and the national security agency director rogers told the special council, robert muellerthat president trump suggested they publicly declare there was no collusion between the trump campaign and the russians, does that bolster the obstruction case, potentially, against the president? >> well, i can't comment on whether those reports are accurate or not. you know, certainly if the president was making any effort to enlist the help of others to push back on the russia investigation in any way to refute allegations of collusion or to in any other way influence the direction of the investigation, that would be important evidence in terms of whether the president was trying to obstruct or impede, but i can't confirm or deny whether those reports are accurate. >> i want to clarify one thing, you say you've been in touch with comey about those memos, he testified he doesn't have those memo any longer, he gave them up to the fbi or others. are you talking to the fbi or the special council? are you talking to comey directly? >> you know, i don't want to get into the specifics, wol

obstruction of justice by the president himself mueller requested the interviews with the director of national intelligence dan coates, the nsa director mike rogersbout their conversations with the president. mueller also wants to interview the former nsa deputy director richard legit regarding a memo he wrote on rogers' conversation with president trump so that's the second official we know who has been taking detailed memos of presidential conversations. coates, rogers and legit all agreed to be interviewed by the special counsel. the president's personal attorney, however, putting out this statement last night when "the washington post" initially broke the news saying the fbi leak of information regarding the president is outrageous, inexcusable and illegal. the president himself going further than that on twitter this morning issuing this statement saying -- they made up a phony collusion with the russian story, found zero proof, so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story. nice second tweet, you are witnessing the single greatest witch hunt in american political history, led by some very bad and conflicted people. #makeameri

mueller's team. i know mike rogers and the former deputy director at nsa. these are all honorable and honest men.g to answer these questions fully and truthfully. that could only help the investigation get to the actual truth. >> how damaging to the institution is this line of criticism by the president? he's not just saying i didn't do anything wrong, there is nothing there. he's attacking the process. he's attacking the special counsel. he's calling the people involved in this bad and there is an irony with this latest one. you tell me if i'm wrong, general, but it seems like the only way we know if they have proof of collusion is if they leaked. i thought the president didn't want any leaking. is it damaging to the institution and the process and does that matter? >> it is damaging and there has been an approach and attitude coming out of the white house not to argue the data, but to try to delegitimize the messagers of paragraphs the other side. and chris i've got to tell you it is damaging to the american intelligence institution that the leaders of american intelligence have to be in this k

nbc news confirmed that robert mueller will interview nsa chief mike rogers and national intelligence director dan coates who testified behind closed doors today on capitol hill. what is different about this? this is a huge development because the investigation is no longer exclusively focused on a presidential campaign and concerns about collusion. now the investigation is looking at the sitting president of the united states. >> the president's legal team slammed the leak of the story as outrageous and illegal. with yesterday's shooting and promises of unity echoing across washington, still questions today from both parties about letting mueller's investigation run its course. >> it's not a witch hunt. he has a job to do. >> reporter: an investigation with questions now reaching into the oval office. and tonight a bit of breaking news. vice president mike pence has now hired his own personal attorney to handle questions into the russia investigation. richard cullen signed on to his legal team. he's a former u.s. attorn, virginia. leon, this comes a few weeks after president trump hi

nbc news confirmed that robert mueller will interview nsa chief mike rogers and national intelligencen coates who testified behind closed doors today on capitol hill. legal experts say the new focus could be a game changer. what is different about this? this is a huge development because the investigation is no longer exclusively focused on a presidential campaign and concerns about collusion. now the investigation is looking at the sitting president of the united states. >> the president's legal team slammed the leak of the story address outrageous and illegal. >> with the shooting ises of university echoing across washington, still investigation running its course. >> it's not a witch hunt. he has a job to do. >> reporter: an investigation with questions now reaching into the oval office. mueller could speak with those intelligence heads as early as next week. >> thank you. >>> it's like itunes for your health. first at 4:00, why your phone couldoon be s t ♪ [doorbell] ♪ ♪ when you have doctors working as a team for your health, you get the care you need to help you thrive. ♪ visit

it is said by the "journal" that admiral rogers deputy kept a memo of that conversation. mueller reportedly entered this phase of the investigation a matter of days after president trump fired james comey. that was on may 9th last month. the president's outside legal team are not denying this. they did give a statement to nbc news that reads, the fbi leak of information regarding the president is outrageous, inexcusable and illegal. stephanie. >> what a web this is, peter. thank you so much. this is a major story still unfolding. we're going to take a break. up next here in washington, we're going to cover a lot more on that bombshell report. our legal team here to break down what happens next with the obstruction of justice investigation. more on the shooting. will it bring politicians here in washington together. we hope so. >> we may have our differences, but we do well in times like these to remember that everyone who serves in our nation's capital is here because above all, they love our country. bar) whoer threw it has to go get it. not me! somebody will get it... ♪ (dog ba

cbs news has learned special counsel robert mueller will interview director of national intelligence dan coats and admiral mike rogers on whether they tamped down on the investigation into allegations of collusion with russia. a week ago former fbi director james comey told senators that he believed he was fired by mr. trump because of the fbii's ongoing investigation, which comey was leading at the time. >> do you believe this will rise to the obstruction of justice? >> i don't know. i believe that's up to him to sort that out. >> reporter: while it is hard to proof. the allegation itself could hurt the president. >> don't you have to prove intent? >> getting to intent to obstruct or impede is going to be very important and it could be that they never are able to build that case in a meaningful way. however, damage could be done, political damage could be done during the process. >> reporter: mueller's appointment over a month ago drew partisan praise. the white house even interviewed him to fill the vacant fbi director job on may 16th. but as mueller's investigation gained traction, the president's allies began acc

now the investigation involves special counsel mueller interviewing dan coats and mike rogers about what the president asked them to do. coats said that president trump was obsessed with the russia probe. my type 2 diabetes. my a1c wasn't were it needed to be.diabetes. so i liked when my doctor told me that i may reach my blood sugar and a1c goals by activating what's within me with once-weekly trulicity. trulicity is not insulin. it helps activate my body to do what it's suppose to do, release its own insulin. i take it once a week, and it works 24/7. it comes in an easy-to-use pen and i may even lose a little weight. trulicity is a once-weekly injectable prescription medicine to improve blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes when used with diet and exercise. trulicity is not insulin. it should not be the first medicine to treat diabetes, or for people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis. do not take trulicity if you or a family member has had medullary thyroid cancer, if you've had multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2, or if you are allergic to trulicity. stop tru

in terms of these intelligence officials who are being queried now by the mueller investigation, the nsa director, admiral rogerse nsa. get back to him in a second and it's dan coats, who is the director of national intelligence. the reason that that recently departed deputy director of the nsa is apparently being investigated is reportedly he is the one who wrote up an nsa memo describing the interacts that the nsa director had had with the president about whether or not he should get involved in that fbi investigation. does that tell us that the mueller investigation is basically trying to corroborate whether the president used other officials to try to block that investigation? >> it certainly suggests that is of investigative interest, to use the term of art. and it suggests that those individuals were potentially memorializing things for some of the same potential reasons that jim comey outlined under oath. they have lawyers. they have a general counsel in every agency, and they have strict rules. particularly because the foreign intelligence agencies know they're not supposed to be involved on the home fro

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