but also at "the washington post" pep thank you eric, kim whaley. what's behind the leak of those questions and who benefits from those questions that are out there now? could it be an effort by trump's allies to convince him never to sit down for an interview with the special counsel? or is it an attempt to get republicans to shut the mueller investigation down because they don't like the questions. either way, if it came from trump's side, it could backfire dramatically. unintended consequences, the best of politics. plus, new reporting tonight how long-time fixer michael cohen reacted after trump said cohen only handled a tiny fraction of his legal issues. trump's throwing cohen under the bus when he should be worried what cohen could tell prosecutors tonight. watch cohen. the nbc news exclusive report, the chief of staff john kelly called trump an id yop is the latest in a long line of trump cabinet members who belittled the boss. what's worse, idiot or moron? moron is a little bit more lyrical. idiot is pretty bad. finally, let me finish tonigh

russia whaley and i live in you and me that are this is also important for us to. secure our position in the international arena. russia doesn't actually more than nail down a maker that russia should be a really to rise up to the challenges of its time. and respond to them and each article he gives we should develop our literacy be any areas where we have always been strong and one of will look it up with it we should. work hard you know areas where we are yet to achieve the desired results the areas where we have not yet done enough us it is to get our path forward is always difficult question. is that there is only one mistake that history will never forgive us if someone we are so full of and if you would if we are relaxed and look at is cool especially today at this turning point when the whole world is going through. a lot of changes and we have many decisions that we need to take these are historical just says us which will determine the future of our country for decades to. see what i see what we have a lot of hard to let go and our entire society each one

whaley, and then dr. jamison. >> distinguished members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here -- sen. grassley: stopped just a minute, we might have to do something with your microphone. talk again and see. >> can you hear me? >> is it ok? >> it makes it appear as though you have a frog in your throat. >> here we have another person coming with another microphone. we have had this happen before, so it's not you. try and pull it in as close as you can. go ahead. [indiscernible] [laughter] sen. grassley: could you -- ok, we have to turn it on here is what i'm told. >> ok. good? thank you. the controversy surrounding cambridge analytica and facebook has raised a number of serious concerns. foreign interference in u.s. elections, the personal privacy of facebook users, and cambridge analytica's voter targeting strategies. my expertise is on civic engagement, personal data, and voter targeting, and i hope to be able to answer questions you have in these areas. that need briefly summarize a few points

. >> reporter: kim whaley, a former federal prosecutor, who was an independent councilor during the whitewater investigation, says the mueller investigation is moving quickly and yielding results. >> we don't know how many witnesses have been talked to, but we have to assume a lot more than have been made public, because this investigation keeps things very quiet. >> reporter: a report filed in december indicates that mueller's team spent $3.2 mollion in its first five months of work. another budget report is due next month. >> selling america out to the russians! traitor! >> reporter: the first person facing trial is former trump campaign chair paul manafort, who is charged in two separate cases. those trials will begin later this year. the office of the special council will continue to work l til every court appeal has been exhausted. >> glor: paula continues her reporting on this. so paula, what happens next year? >> reporter: well, jeff, if it's one thing i've learned over the last year covering this case is that the only person who knows what's going to happen next is special counsel robe

let's bring in former assistant kim whaley. she was associate during the white water investigation. what do you make of this? >> it's not authori comprehensive, it's not measured. the investigation headed by robert mueller needs to decide if this is necessary. the notion that this is made up and a witch hunt is not by what mueller has done so far, but the facts we know influenced by the russia campaign. that stuff is not disputable at this point. >> rudy giuliani, the former new york mayor, says if mueller issues a subpoena forcing the president to testify, the president does not have to comply with that subpoena. listen to this. >> what happens if robert mueller subpoenas the president? will you comply? >> well, we don't have to. he's the president of the united states. we can assert the same privilege other presidents have. >> from a legal standpoint, is giuliani right? >> i think he's incorrect. we have historically a number of circumstances where presidents have complied with subpoenas. richard nixon tried to quash a subpoena, stop a subpoena for tapes, and a supreme court said,

ken whaley is joining us right now to break it down. she's a former u.s. attorney, was a former correspondent with the whitewater investigation. kim, talk to us about the president's power over the department of justice to make a demand like this. >> sure. the president under article 2 of the constitution has the power to take care that the laws are executed. he has the power to direct the processes of the justice department. but internally, for many, many years, there's been a separation effectively between the president and the prosecutorial arm of the justice department. because the idea is we don't want to politicize the criminal justice process. so there is lots of guidelines in place to ensure that there are limited conversations between the president and people within the justice department and that those kinds of decisions are made based on facts, made based on potential harm to the public and other neutral factors that are law and fact based, not political based. >> the president tweeted that this informant was actually spying on the campaign. u.s

let's bring in kim whaley, gloria borger. is it working? >> it is with the republican base. mueller's afternoon approval rating among republicans in the latest polling is 17%. now, it was never high. it was 29% in the poll we took before that i believe. he is still above water when it comes to the public at large in terms of his approval. but obviously the president is playing to his base because if something happens to him, to his family, or mueller issues a very tough report, he wants to be able to say they have no credibility or if he decides not to go and testify before mueller, why would i sit down with these people who are out to get me. so this is part of a strategy and it is something we've seen trump do over and over again. >> and with that base, it seems to be resonating. >> yeah, he has an incredible hold on his supporters because of the way the media is so fractured and because of the sort of direct line he has to his own supporters, he has an incredible ability to shape the narrative of this investigation in a way that benefits him and he and giuliani and some o

. >>> and joining me now, kim whaley and laura coats. let's turn to the mueller investigation.are making a final push toward whether there will be a presidential interview and a source familiar with the discussion said there is a 50/50 chance that the two will sit down. take a listen to what president trump had to say about this earlier today. >> nobody wants to speak more than me. in fact, against my lawyers because most lawyers say never speak on anything. if i thought it was fair, i would override my lawyers. >> do you think he's setting the stage to not talk to mueller or do you think ultimately he will override his lawyers? >> i think his lawyers are telling as he indicates not to talk to mueller and that makes sense because there is a lot of ways to get limb sel-- get hims in trouble and per jer himself and make inconsistent statements and they don't understand the scope of the facts from mueller and i think what will happen is if robert mueller needs to talk to mr. trump, like what happened in whitewater where i worked, he will subpoena him and then we could potentially

let me bring in kim whaley, former u.s. attorney, an msnbc contributor, and so is joyce vance, former u.s. attorney for the northern district of alabama. big thanks to both of you. joyce, let me just start with you. actually, kim, this may be a better question for you. let me pose this question to you. it's a very simple question. if the president did ask his attorney general to un-recuse himself, i'm not familiar with the working definition of obstruction of justice, but that would seem on its face to a lot of folks that the president was trying to obstruct justice, no? >> yeah, the creme of obstruction of justice is about the process of interfering with the process of justice itself. and here we're talking about an investigation into russian interference with the election that our national security agencies agree was -- favored donald trump. and there are other information supporting that. so this isn't the first example of mr. trump trying to basically stop the process on a theory that the president somehow is in a speci

former assistant attorney kim whaley. thank you both for joining us. you should just surmise that trump is not going to sit around and outlawyer anybody. he's going to say which side are you on, my side or these geeks trying to bring me down. that's what he's up to. >> listen, impeachment is a political process. so there's some sense to that. the problem is twofold. first of all, eventually he has to sit down and talk to mueller. he can do it the easy way and sit down for a voluntary interview or the hard way. >> or else what? >> gets a subpoena. >> suppose he says i'm going to ignore the subpoena. >> at that point, the political dynamic shifts. if at the refuses to respond to a subpoena. he can litigate. if a court orders him to sef. >> you think the supreme court 5-4 with anthony kennedy joining the. >> i think it will be bigger than that. i do not think john roberts lost let him get away with that. this is not going to be a party vote as it were. >> is that because of the precedent where bill clinton had to testify. >> yes. nismon they do this. >> w

. >> mayor whaley and then chief ramsey. >> i wanted to thank you. i don't think it should go without notice from the commitment from the council of great city schools the recognition about what needs to happen with our gun laws to charge. in order to change what's going on inside our schools. your recognition of that is something that's really important. we could have all these conversations about school safety, but if we have less access to guns we would be better off in our school system. >> thank you for that. we also had very strong backing from your superintendent and board president. >> chief? >> i want to add something around this issue of school resource officers, increased arrests if we have more security in schools. i think it's an important topic. when i was the police commissioner in philadelphia, one day one of my deputies came into the office and said we've got a problem. he had been going over data and what he saw was we were making a lot of arrests in schools. and he also had a solution. he actually had worked on a diversion program.