investigator says toobin gave inconsistent statements. sources tell me he changed his story two times but it eventually matched up with what the 3-year-old told investigators. kindercare said when we learned of the allegations g mr. toobin, he was immediately placed on administrative leave. >> i would not want my daughter in a situation that anybody could prey upon her. >> reporter: we talked to two other parents who didn't want to go on camera. they told us they do not believe the allegation. they say raul tuban is a nice guy. police want parents who go to this kindercare to talk to their kid about any interaction they possibly have with him. >> into custody and faces six counts of possession of child porn. jordan taught eighth grade english at holmes middle school in alexandria. he's worked for fairfax public schools sin 2016. he will not return in the fall. fairfax county police want anyone with information on this case to give them a call. >> supporters of a northern virginia pastor fighting deportation are planning an all-day vigil f

but i want to get to senior legal analyst jeffrey toobin, alice stewart. and april ryan. there is a lot to discuss tonight. the news from the washington post is a bomb shell. reporting the president is looking to his power to pardon his aides, his family a

jeffrey toobin, holding back, not so much. this is why we love talking to you and you wrote the book on the whole thing, mark, back to you. just to listen to o.j. simpson talk and try to defend himself, what did you make of his defense of what he says happened in that las vegas hotel room? >> well, i think that you're here today -- remember, there was a previous parole hearing, and the lesser counts -- he was convicted of a number of counts. the lesser counts, he's already been paroled on or has been given parole. since the charges ran concurrently, meaning at the same time, this is the more serious crime, and it's a conspiracy. just because you were the one who didn't pull the gun is -- does not absolve you of a conspiracy, and that's, you know, a fortunately or unfortunately does not come through when you're listening to this. i think, however, that most people, especially the commissioners there, probably feel the same way or look at this the same way i do, which is, look, he's done nine years. nine years for this crime is

we have cnn political analyst, david druker, and david sanger, jeffrey toobin. great to have all of you. i'll start with you, david drurk, because you and i are here together in washington. let's start with this. is the thinking of president trump's legal taeam that if anyone on mueller's team has ever, say, given money to a democratic candidate, that they therefore cannot be unbiased and impartial and that would sthomew taint the investigation? >> that's the message the president is trying to send. in some ways, this is reminiscent of the special prosecutor that looked into bill clinton. where there was an all-out war from the white house trying to discredit ken starr, so any result of his investigation would be tainted. so what you're seeing here from this president, with the difference, that the president can actually -- although it would be complicated and politically explosive, could actually fire mueller, because there's no longer a special prosecutor law protecting mueller, but what the president is trying to do, like he tries to do with all of his politi

so i think toobin's skepticism is warranted. >> toobin is always skeptical. >> you're a former assistant your former title was when you worked for the government, but you see the president not only criticizing the attorney general but the deputy attorney general, rod rosenstein, the acting fbi director andrew mccabe, the special counsel robert mueller. have you ever seen anything like this before? >> no, not since richard nixon was president when you had the attorney general of the united states, john mitchell, go to prison because, you know, the entire leadership of the justice department then was corrupted. and, you know, there is annett i can in the justice department that it is not just another department. the president can do what he wants at the department of commerce, he can do what he wants in the state department. he is in charge of american foreign policy. but the justice department has two missions. it is part of the administration but it is also part of the administration of justice which is supposed to operate neutrally and the same from one administration to the other, and

jeffrey toobin, let's start with you. correct the assertion if you disagree, talking about categories of illegality to me seems very far down the road. inappropriate certainly, but illegal, that seems very advanced as an analysis. you? >> well, i basically agree with that. certainly i think it is completely inappropriate and just legally wrong to talk about treason as even a possibility from the facts that we know at this point. it is illegal to solicit help from a foreign government. that is a violation of campaign finance law. >> just the solicitation? you don't have to receive benefit? >> absolutely. >> what if it comes to you, it comes and lands in your lap? >> then it's not a crime. >> if you don't ask for it, you're not soliciting, so it would be a question of fact. >> that's right. we got enormously important e-mails yesterday. what we did not get were any e-mails about what actually happened in this meeting and whether there was any followup and any other meetings with people described as representatives of the fo

. >> let's bring in analyst jeffrey toobin. jeffrey, how serious is this, these e-mails from a legal perspective? >> it's certainly very serious, but it's also important to say there is a long way to go, and these e-mails in and of themselves are not proof of any crimes. two things to think about. one is, it is a crime for campaign officials to solicit anything of value from a foreign government. so the question is, was anything solicited here of value? were e-mails solicited, was hacking solicited? that is a question investigators will want to explore. the other issue is that jared kushner, who is now a very high white house official, he's copied on these e-mails. the question is, did he disclose this meeting when he filled out his security clearance? if he intentionally left it off, that's a crime. it's not a crime if he simply forgot or made a mistake. this meeting, though, certainly seems pretty dramatic even in the context of a dramatic campaign, the idea that he simply forgot about it, which strikes me as probably a littl

the record is not good. >> maybe you would, jeffrey toobin. >> i am out of that business.urnalist now. >> because you're here. >> exactly. >> jeffrey toobin, thank you very much. >>> ahead for us, deadly weather. one second a family is spending their saturday swim nth arizona river. next, a flash flood carries trees and rocks right at them, killing at least nine. that's next. for your heart... your joints... or your digestion... so why wouldn't you take something for the most important part of you... your brain. with an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is now the number one selling brain health supplement in drug stores nationwide. prevagen. the name to remember. theso when i need to book tant to mea hotel room,tion. i want someone that makes it easy. booking.com gets it. and with their price match, i know i'm getting the best price every time. visit booking.com. booking.yeah! we carry flowers that signifyn why we want to end the disease. and we walk so that one day, there will be a white flower for alzheimer's first survivor. join the fight at alz.org/wa

jeffrey toobin who covered the murder trial. al al alan de alan, part of his team. >> i was behind the goldmans in the second row. and i look looked a little different then. it was a long time ago. it is not an exaggeration to say it was a long time in history. it was a celebrity attraction but the issues of race, gender, wealth -- >> class. >> class. that we all learned about. explored. >> it changed the media. and it was -- it did usher in reality television. i was working for the local fox station here in new york. we developed a program called o.j. today. that's what we did all day pretty much up until prime time or maybe until the 10:00 news came on. our entire programming for you. >> and cnn did so well covering the trial as did court tv that it was one of the things that prompted fox news to be created. msnbc to be created. both of which did not exist in 19 the 1995 when this was -- >> what did you think of the parole board's decision? >> i think it was the right thing with the law. he had done his record if prison, which

. >> i mean, jeffrey toobin, well, i mean, i find it fascinating, quite fravnkly, because it's sot of like an inside voice becomes an outside voice. it's fascinating to see and ufr heller laughing along with that. what did you make of that interaction? >> whatever i think of donald trump, and there's never anything beneath the surface. i mean, it's always right out there. that's the great virtue of his twitter feed is that you really know what he's thinking. but the problem is, he doesn't engage with the policy aspects. and, you know, dean heller is looking at the state of nevada where millions of people are going to lose insurance under the repeal plan, under the repeal and replace plan, and the president is expecting him to vote for it. why would he vote for it if he's running for reelection and it's going to do all that damage to the state? that's the policy problem. but the president talks about it exclusively in terms of, are you with me or are you against me? >> and says, you know, i know the people of nevada. that's what he says to dean heller who has been in public service for

cnn legal analyst jeffrey toobin is back, steeped in all things o.j. simpson. having written the definitive account of the murder trial. also with us cnn legal analysts. earlier today you said the parole board probably wasn't wrong to grant him parole. you were critical of some of the statements he made. >> i was. it's been a long time. i thought i was sort of over the whole thing. but just to see him there, justifying his behavior, mouthing the words i'm sorry it happened. but trying to justify what he said -- what he did for which he was arrested, but then even worse, to describe himself as someone who had led a conflict-free life, when he was a convicted domestic abuser, when nicole brown simpson had called repeatedly to 911 for the violence that he imposed on her, putting aside the murders for which he was acquitted. i just thought that was so indicative of someone that doesn't think domestic violence is a real crime. and i just was totally, totally offended. >> mark, to jeff's point, it was interesting, he kept saying he was sorry for what happened as thou

toobin, he's going to tell you when he's angry. he's absolutely going to tell you. the american people feel reassured, that's the purpose of the process. >> he said he would have hired someone else, implying he would have hired someone that would have done what he wanted them to do. we are going to get more -- >> jeff sessions ended up feeling compromised by, frankly, what others were saying about him. if he hired someone else, there wouldn't have been that compromise. i don't think jeff sessions went in knowing that. he was being a diligent attorney. >> we are going to get more into the new york times in a moment. you were in a meeting on health care and heard the news as we all did that senator john mccain was diagnosed with brain cancer. from what i heard at the meeting, you all stopped, took a moment, prayed together. tell me about that. >> yeah, very moving. john mccain has served our country so diligently with such incredible sacrifice that even those who disagree with him politically acknowledge and respect the man's life and dedication to our country. and th

jeffrey toobin, what was your reaction when you read what the president said about jeff sessions? part of it was, jeff sessions recusi recusi recusing himself was unfair to the president. was it unfair? >> no, the right decision to make. but donald trump makes decisions based on how they affect him. itis had negative implications for him. the problem is not with the procedure. the problem is with the fact his administration had all these connections, this campaign had all these connections with the russian government, russian businesses and then practically everyone in his administration has said false or misleading things about it since then, leading to the appointment of the special prosecutor. that's not jeff sessions fault, it's donald trump's fault. trump never sees things as his fault. sessions is a convenient target. >> pam, the president makes clear publicly, he regrets putting jeff sessions as attorney general. are you hearing anything from folks at justice about this today? >> yeah. i think a lot of people are sort of shell shocked the president said this publicly. as da

. >>> senator rick santorum, cnn legal analyst jeffrey toobin, bob baer and matthew whittaker. jeff, what is your reaction to what jay said? >> i think what is interesting is how the subject matter has changed. for months, the president and everyone involved in the campaign was saying this whole subject is ridiculous. there were no contacts between our campaign and the russians. the whole thing is fake news. didn't happen. now, of course, we know this meeting took place. >> now it's no illegality. >> exactly. now jay is saying, quite properly as an attorney, saying there is no illegality. he may be right. he may be wrong. but they are moving the defense lines back. we'll see if there is no illegality. it is true that it is not 100% clear that there is any illegality at this point. but the facts are going to determine whether there is any illegality. >> senator, it's also tough -- obviously jay has a tough job in many ways. but when you have a client whether it's as an attorney or a public relations person who has not told you or has not revealed the full story right away, it is

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let's bring in cnn political director david chalian, cnn senior analyst jeffrey toobin and cnn legal analyst david gregory. on the front page of "the new york times," "the washington post," reporting on what's going on inside the white house as they try to deal with all this breaking news. the reports are there's a lot of suspicion among staffers and the president's top people about who is giving information to "the times" and "the washington post." you can imagine the climate inside as they try to deal with all this. >> there are two threats to the psychology inside the west wing, one is just that, looking around and saying who is leaking this stuff, and is family turning on family? is every advisor sort of in for himself? there's no sort of sense of a real alliance. that's one thing affecting the psychology there. the other thing is, the president, who remains completely consumed by this story line and, therefore, not advancing an agenda elsewhere. >> how can he not be consumed, when it's on the front pages of every newspaper, how can he not be consumed. >> i used to laugh back in

let's bring in our panel, cnn political analyst john avlon, cnn senior legal analyst jeffrey toobin and cnn politics reporter and editor at large chris cillizza. >> for the people who went to bed before 9:00 p.m. last night -- >> which is us. >> and i mean us. they have no idea where health care is. even if you stayed up past 9:00 p.m., you may have no idea. i have a helpful graphic to show everyone. this will clear it up. so they passed in the afternoon a motion to proceed, the senate did. then they had 20 hours of debate still in progress. then -- this sounds fun to me. there will be a vote-a-rama. >> you think that involves drinks and dancing. sadly it doesn't. >> is there dancing? >> it's actually the least popular amusement park ride. >> there's only dancing around the issues. no actual cha-cha. >> we are on a roll. someone help us. john, where are we with health care? >> we are in a thicket of senate procedu procedures, a very popular thing for the american people to pay attention to. this matters. the procedural hurdle was cleared yesterday and today is going to be a series of vo

let's bring back michael smerconish, david sanger and jeffrey toobin. david, you have an article in "the new york times" this morning. this is a pivotal moment for president trump in techls of the sanctions against russia and a dilemma for him. if he goes along with congress and signs the legislation to sanction russia, that must mean he agrees with the intel chiefs that, in fact, they meddled and, of course, it scuttles his attempt to reset this relationship with putin. if he does not sign what congress wants him to sign in 2er78s of sanctions, that has all sorts of political consequences. what's going to happen here? >> alisyn, i think he'll sign it. i think he'll sign it because if he, in this political atmosphere vetoed a bill that appeared to be part of an effort by the white house to somehow protect the russians from additional sanctions, you can imagine the outcry, and the veto would probably be overridden. this vote in the senate, 98-2. the house has nat taken this up yet. the second thing i think you need to remember about this is this is a sig

for that let's bring in jim sciutto and legal analyst jeff toobin. jeff, let me start with you. assuming what we know as fact which on its face, senior members of the trump team willing to meet with somebody who was billed as having damaging information on hillary clinton, who was billed as a russian government attorney, somebody with information from the russian prosecutor. is that a crime? >> possibly. and i really want to be careful about that, because i think there has been a lot of loose talk about what's criminal and what's not. i certainly don't think treason is even a remote possibility here. treason involves times of war. this is not, under any circumstances, treason. however, there are campaign finance laws which do potentially carry criminal penalties which say it is illegal to solicit or receive government in a campaign.foreign that usually applies to money. >> yeah. >> but if the thing of value is intelligence, hacked e-mails, that potentially could be a crime. it's not something that i'm aware has ever been prosecuted as anything other than money, but it is somethi

jeffrey toobin, let me start with you. has anything been revealed so far that showed that anyone, paul manafort, jared kushner, donald trump jr., any of them violated any law? >> not clear. and i think, you know, we all want to jump and decide whether someone is guilty or innocent of a crime. and this is an unfolding investigation. it is not a crime, under federal law, to collude. that collusion is a big word but that is not a crime. >> more of a political term than a legal term. >> it's important. a lot of people talk about collusion as if it's a crime, and it's not. the only possible crime i see coming out of this particular event involving donald junior is possibly a campaign finance violation where it is unlawful to solicit any sort of thing of value from a foreign government. and perhaps, depending on what went on in this meeting and i don't necessarily credit donald junior's description of what went on since he's lied about so much of what went on. whether he solicited some sort of aid from the government. that's a l

jeff toobin, kushner amended his security clearance forms now not once, but twice.ems like the second time, only after paul manafort told, according to "the new york times," told capitol hill about this meeting with donald trump jr. at what point should he stop getting the benefit of the doubt, that it was just an oversight? >> well, you know, one of the things about security clearances is the more powerful you are in the government, the less likely the officials are to give you a problem on security clearance. it is not an equitable system. but what is so troubling about this whole issue of omitting these visits is that the whole purpose of disclosing the names of the foreign nationals you've met with is so that the background clearance folks can investigate these meetings. and look at what the circumstances were. so this is not just some technic technicality. this is something that is actually crucial to determining why someone should be granted or denied a security clearance and he seems to have had a great deal of trouble in getting his form right. >> professor

the story broke after jeffrey toobin published a profile of the "national enquirer" and the publisher, david pecker, who is close friends with donald trump. the article is titled "the national enquirer's fervor for trump." jeff, we could spend the next two hours talking about your article about the national enquirer, which the timing could not be more kind of amazing. it's fascinating on multiple levels. just explain the relationship between president trump and the publication. >> david pecker is the chief executive of american media, the parent company of "the national enquirer." and pecker and trump have been very close friends for decades, going back to when pecker ran a sort of a publication for trump called "trump style." and in a very open way, pecker told me when i was reporting my story that he believes "the national enquirer" is going to support trump because trump is a close friend of his, and because he thinks that's what his readers want. >> the fact that it's now merged as a flashpoint between trump and mika brzezinski and joe scarborough, does that surprise you? >> well,

toobin says. and number two, if you were o.j.ot commit the murders, he has had a conflict-free life except for the incident in las vegas and one domestic difficulty to which he pleaded guilty and paid the punishment. so that's not as far off the mark as people who wanted to ridicule him asserted. but nonetheless it seemed out of place and i think it came out spontaneously and perhaps unwittingly. >> you said except for the one domestic violence incident. a lot of people point to even one as a giant exception and then of course allegations that it was a lot more than just one incident of domestic violence. it was a whole pattern, some people say, of years of domestic violence with nicole brown. is that not true? >> well, had the prosecution not sabotaged our case, we would have put the head of the domestic violence group in america on the stand to say that o.j. was not a batterer in her opinion. unfortunately, our day never came because jury attrition forced us to shut down before the american people got an objective look at the w

let's bring in cnn senior legal analyst jeffrey toobin, the definitive reporter of o.j. stop, right? everybody has such vivid memories. >> and it was something where everything could break one way or the other and introduce so many topics to the american people about the justice system and what lawyering can moan and what juries can mean, and now here we are today. this isn't about the homicide case. this is about the burglary case. he was paroled with respect to certain charges already. but today will be his big day to clear the rest charges and maybe become a free man at age of what, 70? >> 70. what do you make of the chances? >> everything i've had learned about the nevada system suggests he will get parole. there are not a lot of 70-year-olds in prison, you know, unless you're serving life without parole, older people are almost -- are almost always paroled, and, you know, i have made -- i have said many, many times i think o.j. simpson is guilty of the murders. he should be serving life without parole for those murders. this nevada case is bogus. if he had not been

in fact in toobin's awesome piece in "the new yorker" he talks about how the owner of it, the publisher, talked about how he sees him seven as the father of trump's presidency and he wants to protect it. that is something that you see in third world countries, right, when presidents are either owners of media or they coal the media. >> jeff it toobin in the article talks about, i guess a former playboy playmate making allegations and david packer, the head of the nags "the natio enquirer" hired her to write a complication. >> as long as she didn't say anything bad about trump. >> cut and kill. >> i've never heard that. >> catch and kill. >> that's the term you use. >> how many other stories has "the national enquirer" caught and then killed? it's part of the pro-trump media universe, shows on fox, websites and "the national enquirer" is a big part of this pro-trump media universe. if we take what scarborough and brzezinski are charging on face value, this is the president saying call me, grovel, tell me you like me, it tell me you'll be nice to me, and i will get rid of some bad news fo

i want to bring the panel, jeffrey toobin, and mark geragos. jeff, going into this, did you expect him to be paroled? >> i did. my understanding of the nevada rules made it very likely that he was going to be paroled. and i also think it was the right decision. as much as i think that o.j. simpson should be serving life in prison for the murders of ron and nicole, he was acquitted. and i thought this sentence was excessive. i thought this whole las vegas case was basically payback and much as i would have liked to have seen him convicted in the original case, that's not how i think the legal system should work. and nine years for that case i just thought was too much. >> and they look at whether you're a model prisoner or not. it certainly seems like he was. he also went into great detail about the courses he had taken and whether he followed through on the promises he made in the last one. >> yes. i have to disrespectfully disagree with jeff in i don't think this was a slam-dunk. i think it was a close call. o.j., yes. his risk factors were lo

i want to bring in cnn legal analyst paul cowen and jeffrey toobin with us as well and start with you, paul. what's your league read on what this e-mail and what the offer for and the actual meeting that happened took place, that took place, what it means? >> i think this is really going to be one of the most important documents that mueller looks at, doing this investigation, because it's the first time we see a clear link to the russian government in that the e-mail suggests that this lawyer who's going to have the meeting has been designated by the russian government, and that there are official russian documents linked to the crown prosecutor of russia that may incriminate hillary clinton. so all of that is suggestive of now a direct link to the russians, but i think we have to hesitate before we jump to the conclusion that this is criminal as opposed to political stupidity, because there's nothing in american law that i'm aware of that would prohibit a candidate from accepting damaging information, even from an enemy foreign government, to use against a political opponent. and i

so the e-mails came up at some point during both of those processes. >> jeff toobin, does donald trump. have any potential legal exposure here? >> potentially. but it is not at all clear that he does. you know, collusion which is something we've talked a lot about is not a crime. there is no such crime as collusion. also, you know, all the lies that have been told to the american people, it's not a crime to lie to the american people. one possible offense that donald trump jr. might be investigated for is violating the campaign finance laws, the laws say it is unlawful to solicit anything of value from a foreign government. now, the question is, did he solicit something of value. we don't know what went on in this meeting. i think we have donald trump's word that this was a 20-minute meeting and a big waste of time. presumably there are e-mails describing what went on at this meeting. this is something that is certainly going to be of interest to director mueller and his team in determining what he -- and you know, what went on at this meeting is very important. the other person who ma

i think even jeff toobin was on. and everybody agreed that there is not a legal violation with the meeting. so i go back to what i said initially. they donald trump jr. puts out the e-mail, the whole chain of e-mail events. and then the question still is the meeting takes place. no exchange of information. the russian american that you talked about, the lobbyist say that. natalia in an interview she gave in moscow said it. donald trump jr. has said it. so the people that were there said it, that nothing transpired. so at the end of the day you always look what the -- go ahead. >> no, no, i get the legal argument, and you're a lawyer and i'm not. we have had a lot of legal people on. some had said maybe a stretch. but some lawyer could make it a legal argument. but most have said they don't think there is anything there. they're based on what we know currently who knows what we may learn down the road. there is also just the ethical and kind of moral argument. is it right to have had this meeting. but back to the idea

on the pardon question that you were just talking with jeffrey toobin about, i agree with jeffrey excepte additional thing which is under the code of federal regulations that govern mueller's conduct here, he has to submit a report to the attorney general and the attorney general has to give that report to congress. that report is to say this is why i prosecuted people, this is why i declined to prosecute people. so if he pardons everybody, mueller can stay investigate and say i would have indicted these people but for the pardons, and therefore, i'm submitting my report and you give it to congress and then congress can figure out wlrhether or not there's an abuse of power and impeachable offense there. i don't see this as a viable legal strategy on behalf of the president. >> matt, you're agreeing with him. >> yes, indeed. i think he's getting some very questionable legal advice. and i think what we're seeing is donald trump trying to press the case that he's above the law. he's trying to test the proposition that no person, no man, no woman, in this country is above the law but him. bu

i tell you what, i tell you what we do know -- >> i'll leave that to jeffrey toobin and the law expert. many people are afraid if this president fires robert mueller we will be in a constitutional crisis. why doesn't the president want mueller to prove that trump was right and -- >> isn't mr. mueller and his band of democratic donors doing that? brian, let's back up. i'm asking you to please cover the issues that america are telling pollsters, including cnn's pollsters. you are not being honest to your own poll figure you look at the issues that people say are most important to them. you're not covering them. you just went right back to russia. >> i think people can care about multiple issues at the same time. certainly, folks that i talk to care about a lot of issues. >> that's america and donald trump. he is making good on those promises with or without the help of a number of cable stations. but, let's be honest here. you cannot with a straight face tell me that most -- you have this disproportionate, out of whack, unequal coverage on russia with nothing there. there's nobody -- eve

what will -- jeffrey toobin, what will his life be like? it's my understanding he'll continue to enjoy a healthy nfl money and screen actors guild from his life on the big screen. >> well, i think his life will be a lot like what it was like from 1995 to 2007 which was basically a pariah from his old life as an actor, as a sports caster, as a pitchman, but you know, the last i heard, his pension was something like $300,000 a year, which is plenty comfortable to live on. he'll live in florida, which has bankruptcy laws that will allow him to protect virtually all of his money from the goldmans and the browns from their civil judgment. that's a principal reason, as i understand it, why he moved from california to florida. and you know, his life will be very much more seedy and less glamorous than it used to be and he will be surrounded by these leeches, these memorabilia dealers, these creeps he was involved with that got -- that, you know, were in that las vegas hotel. that's going to be his life. selling memorabilia, selling his signature,

that right there is a classic example of health seeing them allowing their legal analyst jeffrey toobin to go on the air and state that everything the trumpet ministration has said about meeting with russian government officials is wrong calling them liars she said in that interview with n.b.c. she is not a russian agent or russian in the government and there was a severe mis represent misrepresentation about what the meeting was going to be about to don jr now the big question tonight will is where is the president fit in all of this right now donald trump has been a largely quiet about this i mean i think it's more sensitive being that it is his own son that's being called into question here so he hasn't said too much about it although one thing's for sure that don jr now has come publicly come forward to say that his father was not informed about this meeting that don took this on his own ok now what's going to happen is the opposition party is going to want to know is there an e-mail trail between junior and the president when it comes to this meeting and if there is that would be t

. >>> formerly worked in the bush white house and jeffrey toobin, cnn senior legal analyst. nice to have you. 30 minutes, david druker, until there's a new chief of staff. i almost said a new man in charge at the white house. that is clearly not true but someone who has more power in the white house. we'll see how much sway over the president. generally quite friendly to the president but has called him out wrote this. shuffling of staff furniture won't matter unless mr. trump accepts the white house problem isn't mr. priebus, it is him. so, does kelly get more authority in this white house than priebus did? >> we'll find out. the president tweeted there is no white house chaos. the president respects two kinds of people. people that make a lot of money and he respects generals. to the extent that general kelly, the department of homeland security secretary can command trump's respect in a way priebus never could and the president thinks political people are dopes, journalists, political people, washington, we're all idiots and speaks to americans in that way. the extent tha

. >> all right, so here's what our legal analyst and esteemed at everything at the law, jeffrey toobin, writes in "the new yorker." the american legal system is not supposed to be a karma based organism for retribution or unpunished bad deeds, but that's how it appeared to be in nevada. the las vegas case was a transparent attempt by the local authorities to issue payback for simpson's acquittal 1234994 murd murders. >> like joey said, it's a numbers game. i've always said, three things in life are certain, death, taxes,s and karma. o.j. simpson suffered for karma with this sentence because of the homicides and payback, but we can haven't that and we can't have it now. so by the numbers, what are we going to hear today from him? i say he needs to be contrite and be seated. i mean, basically, he needs to say very little other than, i did it, i'm sorry. and then move on. but i think he will get out. and we need to understand as a nation that we can't keep him there forever, by virtue of something for which he was acquitted a long time ago. >> this is how the justice system works. joey, e

jeff toobin joins us. jeff, the president taking the position today on criticizing the sessions recusal. >> reporter: he did just a few minutes ago in the rose garden under the blistering sun, he took aim at jeff sessions for his recusal. he's shaming him, he's humiliating him, but he's not saying if he intends to fire him. there is a bit of mystery at the white house about how long this will go on. it is creating a chilling effect to a lot of supporters of the president. but they were all watching very carefully when he said this today about his attorney general. >> i am disappointed in the attorney general. he should not have recused himself almost immediately after he took office, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me prior to taking office, and i would have quite simply picked somebody else. so i think that's a bad thing not for the president but for the presidency. i think it's unfair to the presidency, and that's the way i feel. thank you. >> now, jake, it should have come as

misleading the american public, jeffrey toobin and other lawyers will tell you, not in and of itself illegal. you can mislead and lie to "the new york times" all you want. it won't get you thrown in jail. however, it will raise the eyebrows. no question, david, of the special kocounsel looking into this. why is the white house so concerned about the timing ofd this? >> so concerned about the timing. why, by the way, with this revelation about the e-mails, we know it contradicts months and months of white house denials about the very substance of this investigation which the president continues to call a pitch hunt and has called a hoax when it is clearly not. so what is the president hiding? what are those aides hiding? they knew about this, they decided not to be forthcoming about it. the president has never come out and had a press conference to answer any and all questions regarding this. they simply don't come clean. and that's why this thing is so suspicious and has been now for so long. look, the president made very clear when he was a candidate that he didn't take any of the p

in new york, cnn senior legal analyst jeffrey toobin, former federal prosecutor and author of "the runf his life: the people versus o.j. simpson." the definitive book on this and cnn legal analyst and criminally defense attorney danny savalas as well as cnn legal analyst paul callan who served as co-counsel for nicole brown simpson's case in the civil case against o.j. simpson in which o.j. simpson lost. and mark geragos and sieve's rights loyal areva martin. jeffrey, 13 years to the day after o.j. simpson was acquitted of the double murder of nicole brown simpson and ron goldman, the jury in las vegas found him guilty of armed robbery and clearly it seemed as if his acquittal, which many people thought was, know, was wrong, clearly that impacted the sentencing? >> well, the judge very specifically said that she was not considering the -- the acquittal in the murder case. i didn't believe her then. i don't believe her now. i think everything about the las vegas case was affected by the los angeles acquittals. remember, you know, the other people in that hotel room had guns, or at least

. >> jeffrey toobin, do you see anything legally here the president's team should be worried about whensee this video? >> it's part of the mosaic of the relationships that could be used to establish that people knew each other. certainly there's nothing criminal or inappropriate with what's going on in the video. just in terms of the atmosphere in the white house, all of these people are under criminal investigation. there is a prosecutor with some of the finest lawyers in the country, the entire research of the fbi at their disposal, investigating whether all of these top people committed crimes or an i am peempeachable offense. that wears on you. that is a draining, difficult, emotionally rigorous experience to go through, and that matters. >> i was just going to say another casualty of this video is it's becoming harder and harder to comprehend or to believe that the president had no knowledge of the meeting between don trump jr. and this lawyer because of the connection, because of the connection to this billionaire and his son. they've had a past with each other, so it would make s

paul begala, molly ball and jeffrey toobin. matt, you think jeff sessions should step down just out of dignity? >> i think so. this is not the first time that this has happened. remember, there were leaks that donald trump was undermining his attorney general, the media reported. some of those people think those stories aren't real -- well, guess what? a couple of months later we always find out they are real. >> right. in fact there were plenty of people saying that's fake news. he has total confidence in jeff sessions. this is just again unnamed sources. >> and just a side note, since we're talking media, it's interesting that he gives this exclusive once again to the failing "new york times." but no, i do. i think that jeff sessions who was a really big endorsement for donald trump. by all rights, he should have been a ted cruz guy. when he supported donald trump, that really helped donald trump i think win the nomination. and he did the right thing when he recused himself. he actually did the right thing. and now he's being

. >> jeff toobin in the article talks about i guess a former playboy playmate who is making allegations, and david packer, the head of the "national enquirer," actually hired her to write a column for some other publications of his. >> as long as she didn't say anything bad about trump. >> catch and kill. >> that's the term used. >> how many other stories has the "national enquirer" caught and then killed? it's part of the pro-trump might ya universe. you think about shows on fax, breitbart, other websites. the "national enquirer" is a big part of this pro-trump media universe. if we take what scarborough and brzezinski are charging on face value, this is the president saying, call me. grovel, tell me you like me. tell me you'll be nice to me, and i will get rid of some bad news for you. in face value, that's very disturbing. it's not the first time there's been charges of this white house trying to neuter or silence critical voices in the media. >> again, we don't know if he did this. this is an allegation. >> at the time he told his colleagues, including the head of nbc news p.r., he

we heard jeffrey toobin talk about how, in fact, they did this during the ken starr investigation with bill clinton. they wanted to look into what they thought was an overly conservative panel. >> right. it makes a level of sense. if you see a prosecutor who is -- who has pretty wide latitude to start, special counsel, i should say, and then you know from the reporting that we've seen that it's ramping up and broadening, not narrowing, it does make some level of sense. the thing that i wonder about, and i just don't know is, what we've seen so far, is there is a lawyer that mueller picked one of of the investigator said he picked who has donated to hillary clinton. we know that. bob mueller and james comey, the fired fbi director, are friendly. we know -- i mean, that's public knowledge. bob mueller, according to trump, was in his office, interviewing for the fbi job. we know that. >> so does that taint everything? >> and i don't -- i don't think it does. i think what -- i'm not even sure trump, necessarily, thinks it does. i think what trump is doing, he's making sure the case exists,

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cnn political director, david chalian, and cnn senior analyst, jeffrey toobin. david gregory, jeh johnson was on the show, the former homeland security secretary. he changed my mind about something with jeff sessions. he had a different take. what do you think about it. he said, it's not about the testimony. it's not about the botched answers. jeff sessions had no choice but to recuse himself from jump, because he had been involved with the campaign. the president knew that, and should not have picked him. it's on the president, because he had to know that sessions would have to recuse thihimself from anything to do with the campaign, because he was part of it? >> well, i think that's right, in terms of what justice department policies are. but i think that also presupposes that the president was going to take any of that into county. you know, at the time, before he turned on him, jeff sessions was one of his earliest supporters. and was part of a kind of america first world view and a hard line on immigration that the president wanted to make good on to his su

. >> jeff toobin, legally, the president, can he do this? because a lot of people who were transgender in the military were essentially encouraged last year under the obama policy to come forward and identify themselves and now those who have come forward and identified themselves, i assume under this policy can maybe be fired. >> there certainly will be lawsuits, no doubt about it. the aclu has put out a call for potential plaintiffs who want to bring cases. the problem with challenging this change, and obviously we're going have to see precisely how it's spelled out and applied, is that courts give the military a great deal of deference in terms of how they organize themselves, what they view as militarily necessary deference issues like unit cohesion. there's a great reluctance of courts to second guess that. that's why most of the don't ask, don't tell challenges failed. it was only when congress and the president, president obama, changed the policy that the policy changed. the courts were not nearly as helpful as they were on same-sex

joining me tonight kirsten powers, jeffrey toobin, maggie haberman, and david shallian. you've been talking to folks probably close to the president. what is he doing with jeff sessions? >> a lot of this is a kaleidoscope. you're looking at it and people are seeing different things. is he genuinely very angry, blames jeff sessions. he said this in this interview with me and my colleagues last week. he has continued to say it, even saying it privately. in his heart of hearts, he would like jeff sessions gone. jeff is correct, is he caught in this sort of catch 22. he wants him gone but who is the replacement and how do you get the replacement in unless it's a recess appointment which will create all kinds of backlash. in terms of backlash, he is choosing the one person who really is not only indicating a pretty pure conservative policy formula out of anybody in his administration with the exception of scott pruitt to attack and he is somebody who has a lot of credit with the conservative base and the reaction and support sessions has gotten surprised the president a bit.