andrew weissmann is a former senior member of mueller's team. andrew weissmann is the author of "where law ends: inside the mueller investigation." andrew, good to see you. thank you for joining us tonight. there is a distinction between this pardon and every other pardon i mentioned by previous presidents, and that is, this, like the commutation of roger stone's sentence, is about stuff that was related to donald trump, himself, and/or his election. >> absolutely. and this is another example of this president really letting us see that our system of checks and balances really don't take into account how to deal with a president who is shameless and brazen and has no respect for the rule of law. and now we're seeing it play out with respect to the pardon power this time with respect to michael flynn. but as you said, we're likely to see this happen again. and one thing i would add to your excellent litany of what michael flynn did is that after committing a slew of crimes, many of which he committed as the national security adviser to the presid

and andrew weissmann, msnbc legal analyst. i want to start with you. is this a thing? i mean, we know they're not competent to execute it, but were they, is this possible? >> i think practically speaking it is not possible. first, with respect to what their doing in the courts, it is really not a legal strategy. it is a political strategy. the court cases are all being thrown out or being withdrawn. it is one of the guardrails that is actually still functioning. and, you know, in the courts you need facts and you need the law. and they have neither. so you're seeing all of that being thrown out which is why i think you're seeing plan b. which is to go directly to the legislatures. but there is a problem here. which is that if they're not careful, what they're doing could violate both federal and state law. which is you could not tamper with ballot election results. and this is a place where they may be hoisted by their own per tard because the attorney general issued a memo saying that we're going to be able to go in and fix things now, the normal process was to wait u

joining us now, andrew weissmann, a former senior member of the special counsel robert mueller's teamhe previously served as fbi general counsel and is the former head of the department of justice's criminal fraud section. his inside account of the mueller investigation is called "where law ends." andrew, good to see you again. thank you for being with us. you know, when we were talking about impeachment, there were a lot of -- there's a lot of political pressure not to impeach the president when the democrats won control of the house. there was some sense of get on with the work of the people. and others said, and a lot of people used the legal argument, that there is an obligation to do something, that the president has committed impeachable offenses. there's an obviously kbasioliga preference. where do you stand on this? do you think there is an obligation for the biden administration to investigate trump's criminality when in office or prior? >> so, we're going to be in a very different situation. we're going to be, as of january 20th, 2021, in a situation where we no longer are t

andrew weissmann is a former senior member of special counsel mueller's team. i want to turn now to congressman adam schiff to sort of pick up where we left off. congressman, good to see you again. thank you for being with us. what andrew was talking about is interesting and troubling first of all. how does what happened today affect two things? number one is matt gaetz's comment the president should pardon all sorts of people, which he probably will do, including himself. and how does this affect what happens on january 20th of 2020, because the president as we know faces a lot of exposure, both civilly and criminally. >> i would say this. it doesn't literally impact whether the president can pardon himself or whether that will be enforceable in court. in fact, i'm quite confident that's unconstitutional. one of the premises behind our constitution is that no one is adjudge of their own case. we are bound by the rule of law. we are a nation of laws, not individuals. if a president could commit any crime he wanted and simply pardon himself, it would be self-def

you for something else because something very special just happened in your interview with andrew weissmann, and it shows us one of, i think, the benefits of the way this work has changed. most things are worse because of the pandemic, but one thing that i think is better is that the guests on these programs get to stay at home, which leads to -- >> yep. >> -- questions like, is that an animal over your shoulder, which, ali, that's the best question -- that is the best question of the night here at msnbc. >> it's not going to get me an emmy, lawrence, but it was a fun question. >> you got tonight's emmy with that question, and i've got to say i've been doing this for a few years. i have yet to ask, is that an animal over your shoulder? so that was a first for me. >> have a good night, lawrence. i'll enjoy the show. >> thank you. >>> well, the breaking news of this hour is that two biden transition officials are telling nbc news that a few current and former trump administration officials have reached out privately to the biden transition team. now, this outreach was described as not a big d

. >> andrew weissmann, good chat.ecause clearly we've got a lot of things to still talk about. >> will do. >>> tomorrow's grim anniversary and where the fight for social justice stands after protests around the u.s. and the world. if you have postmenopausal osteoporosis and a high risk for fracture, now might not be the best time to ask yourself, 'are my bones strong?' life is full of make or break moments. that's why it's so important to help reduce your risk of fracture with prolia®. only prolia® is proven to help strengthen and protect bones from fracture with 1 shot every 6 months. do not take prolia® if you have low blood calcium, are pregnant, are allergic to it, or take xgeva®. serious allergic reactions like low blood pressure, trouble breathing, throat tightness, face, lip or tongue swelling, rash, itching or hives have happened. tell your doctor about dental problems, as severe jaw bone problems may happen. or new or unusual pain in your hip, groin, or thigh, as unusual thigh bone fractures have occurred. sp

special counsel prosecutor i call prosecutor because much more accurate term spent 48 million dollars weissmannent through taxes went through everything, 48 million, you look at everything, and they found no collusion no nothing. maria: so where are we on this, brian brenberg, i know earlier lee was telling us about no, no trust in our institutions if we don't see accountability for the crimes that took place how will anybody trust that fbi is not in a leadership of fbi is not playing politics we heard from carter page, who was spied on for a year, because they wanted to -- a window into trump campaign he is suing them for 75-million-dollar lawsuit. >> that is exactly the issue maria the word "special counsel" make me cringe after what we have seen past he several years i don't want to see that again on one hand but on the other hand what do you do about this situation of you investigation ongoing it needs to finish not just for trump administration but for the good of the american people have trust in our institutions, the question is: would a biden administration allow that to go on unimpeded