. >> jim got the clintons to invest with him in the whitewater estates. >> whitewater failed. >> jim mcdougal bought madison guaranty savings and loan. >> savings and loans began to drop like flies. >> here was this young upstart governor from arkansas. came out of nowhere. >> i still believe in a place called hope. >> president clinton canceled his public schedule after the tragic death of his white house lawyer vincent foster. >> there were all kinds of crazy theories. >> whitewater was complicated. >> the politically smart thing to do became the appointment of an independent counsel. >> the president, today, has directed the attorney general to appoint a special counsel. >> she basically said, "i won't be talking to you again until this is over." >> there were all sorts of rumors and allegations. if this is really all true, where are the women? ♪ ♪ >> amid the christmas cheer of 1993, the clinton white house was under attack by well-funded right wing aivistsetermined to take down the president >> there were certainly people, based on ideology, who wanted to knock bill clinton out.

how is this whitewater? >> how is this whitewater? >> i can't -- i can't comment on the specifics., "try to shield yourself from the media. the media doing what they need to do. that's not our playing field. our playing field are the courts." >> the pressure on everyone increased as the press coverage got more and more hostile. >> president clinton's private life erupted noxiously into the public domain. >> someone found a video film of the president and monica lewinsky at a rope line that waslayeov and over and over on television. >> it was an uncontainable situation that rolled across the country like a giant boulder, crushing all other news in its path just days away from the state of the union. >> npr and two other news organizations had been given pre-state of the union interviews. we woke up the morning of our interview and read the front page of thewashington post and looked at each other and went, like, "what? i guess we have to ask him about this." looking back on it, it seems so silly and quaint. i said, "gee, mr. president, was there some kind of relationship with this w

. >> whitewater only had four business partners -- jim and susan mcdougal, bill and hillary clinton.> whitewater seemed to be a relatively small issue, but the only way to get it out of the way was to get somebody to come in and investigate, actually, what happened. >> so that's how i began. no, i won't be making any statements. >> the '94 revolution was the voters rendering a verdict. >> he lost not just the senate, but the house. >> i must certainly bear my share of responsibility, and i accept that. >> mrs. paula jones. >> the complaint charges mr. clinton with sexual harassment. >> this suit is about publicity. >> the case was designed by political activists in order to bring down the presidency. >> this case is going all the way up to the supreme court. ♪ >> there's no manual for this. you're on your own, and you'd on the sitting president.to take there's no way you'd win it. in the end, i cast all caution to the wind, and that's where we are. ♪ >> if a short-term spending bill isn't passed by congress and signed by the president, 800,000 federal workers will be sent home. >> th

i worked on the whitewater investigation. susan mcdougal refused to answer three questions and held in contempt and jailed for 18 months for failure to answer those questions. there's not an option if there's a subpoena for the president to sit back and say i plead the fifth and not doing anything. that's not an option on the table for him. >> a political friend of mine moon in philadelphia once said if you're not going to run again for office, take the fifth. he will run for re-election, ken. isn't that a risk to say you took the fifth, you would incriminate yourself if you told the truth? you're saying you're guilty to the vote he, not to the jury necessarily. to the voter you say i don't want to at the truth because that will get me in trouble. >> there are certainly political implications to that for sure. you're not going to plead the fifth amendment if you're going to tell the truth and there's zero implications if you do tell the truth.

had remained in little rock, arkansas, trying to wrap up what began as an investigation into the whitewaterdeal. along the way, ewing had drafted some possible indictments to potentially be used depending on how the investigation progressed. one draft centered on the first lady of the united states and the mystery surrounding missing billing records from the rose law firm. >> didn't circulate it to anybody, it was not ever presented to a grand jury, but i've got it in a notebook, and it's sitting on my shelf. and it says, "u.s. versus 'a,' 'b', 'c,' hillary rodham clinton, 'd,' 'e,' 'f,' 'g.'" ♪ >> on april 27, 1998, ken starr's prosecutors gathered in a large conference room at their headquarters in washington, d.c. >> the independent counsel convenes a final meeting. we're gonna decide whether we should go forward with an indictment of mrs. clinton and others or should we drop it. >> hickman ewing took the floor and presented the contents of his notebook. >> i'm basically going through various events -- you know, the disappearance of the billing records, what the billing records show. >>

. >> jim got the clintons to invest with him in the whitewater estates. >> whitewater failed. >> jimanty savings and loan. >> savings and loans began to drop like flies. >> here was this young upstart governor from arkansas. came out of nowhere. >> i still believe in a place called hope. >> president clinton canceled his public schedule after the tragic death of his white house lawyer vincent foster. >> there were all kinds of crazy theories. >> whitewater was complicated. >> the politically smart thing to do became the appointment of an independent counsel. >> the president, today, has directed the attorney general to appoint a special counsel. >> she basically said, "i won't be talking to you again until this is over." >> there were all sorts of mo

. >> whitewater only had four business partners -- jim and susan mcdougal, bill and hillary clinton.o get it out of the way was to get somebody to come in and investigate, actually, what happened. >> so that's how i began. no, i won't be making any statements. >> the '94 revolution was the voters rendering a verdict. >> he lost not just the senate, but the house. >> i must certainly bear my share of responsibility, and i accept that. >> mrs. paula jones. >> the complaint charges mr. clinton with sexual harassment. >> this suit is about publicity. >> the case was designed by political activists in order to bring down the presidency. >> this case is going all the way up to the supreme court.

if you go back and look at whitewater, it was -- i mean, wow! you could argue -- >> talking about getting out of your lane. >> you could argue it was totally rightful and within the purview of what he could do. whitewater, land deal, the travel office. it went into the paula jones' investigation. it was during that, the perjury that president clinton committed pertaining to monica lewinsky that led to the impeachment. what do you think when you hear ken starr be critical of this? >> basically his argument was that the mueller investigation is there to -- >> we do have it. can we listen? let's roll it, then we'll talk about it. >> i think it's beyond his mandate. the mandate is what happened during the 2016 election in terms of collusion. that's the key idea. >> all right. >> he put it better and more succinctly than i could have put it. so the question for mueller is, is this out of his lane or do you start here because you believe that there is some connection of russian influence that actually does connect up to the campaign? now if you start

had remained in little rock, arkansas, trying to wrap up what began as an investigation into the whitewaterdeal. along the way, ewing had drafted some possible indictments to potentially be used depending on how the investigation progressed. one draft centered on the first lady of the united states and the mystery surrounding missing billing records from the rose law firm. >> didn't circulate it to anybody, it was not ever presented to a grand jury, but i've got it in a notebook, and it's sitting on my shelf. and it says, "u.s. versus 'a,' 'b', 'c,' hillary rodham clinton, 'd,' 'e,' 'f,' 'g.'" ♪ >> on april 27, 1998, ken starr's prosecutors gathered in a large conference room at their headquarters in washington, d.c. >> the independent counsel convenes a final meeting. we're gonna decide whether we should go forward with an indictment of mrs. clinton and others or should we drop it. >> hickman ewing took the floor and presented the contents of his notebook. >> i'm basically going through various events -- you know, the disappearance of the billing records, what the billing records show. >>

again, you started with whitewater. as information comes in, you do an investigation. things come up, you say, wow, this is important, this could be a crime, this could be something wrong. your choice is, we should look into this, add it to our portfolio, or hand it off to somebody else. take me inside the room when you're sitting around the room and saying we need to go to janet reno, we need to go to the panel because this is a big deal. how do you weigh the sensitivity of all that? >> well, i think you try to find -- when you say it arises from, that can either be a wholly unrelated crime that you stumble across, which could still directly arise from the investigation, right. you're looking at a particular person. and when you're looking at him, somebody tells you, oh, here's a completely separate crime that he committed three or four years ago. the second example would be something that you can tie more directly or that you think may tie directly to the core items you're looking at. you would say, look, rod, we want to look at this because clearly this could be a c

robert ray, former whitewater independent counsel. guest ticks off both sides. that is good quality, very good quality. >>> you remember the google engineer who lost his job because he said he was just speaking his mine and talking about practices at google that weren't fair or remotely balanced. he is still out of that job but he is coming here with his lawyer next. the things we do rising before dawn. sweating it out. tough to do it all. but we can always find time to listen to great thinkers and explorers whose stories take us places our hamstrings can't. all we have to do is listen. download audible to start listening. ♪ neil: james dem more lost. he was fired at google for simply he said expressing his point of view, a conservative point of view which he outlined to some of his colleagues at work that google was being unfair, questioned the role of biology and career choices and some left of center biases that put conservative workers in some peril. the case was brought to the national labor relations board and it was there that

we go to robert ray, the former whitewater under counsel. what are the points included in this memo that most of effectively support the democrats' argument? >> i come down on the side of the president being concerned about this. political charges and counter charges aside, the democrats through their memo try to make the point that there is at least partial corroboration of the christopher steele information in an effort to say there was no abuse of process here. but it still remains the question and the american people i think should be concerned about this. we have known and the american people have known for some time that politics and prosecution shouldn't mix. what i don't think we fully anticipated in this process and something people should be concerned about, not only is that true, but also politics and foreign counter untell jones also shouldn't mix and that is just as dangerous. so that's the process the republicans are focused on and concerned about. >> you are saying the democrats memo that was released, 10 pages, does not suppo

it was something we did hear in the whitewater investigation. prosecutors prosecute, right? they look at the facts and the law and identify if there was a violation of the law. if there wasn't, they move on. that's a system we should all uphold and respect here. and this witch hunt lie, essentially, has really been debunked by what's coming out of the mueller investigation. witch hunt suggests it's purely political. that's not the case here. >> we have other topics to cover as well. more breaking news. ahead, white house communications director hope hicks refusing to answer questions about her time in the white house and on the trump transition as she appears before the house intelligence committee as the russia probe. >>> virginia and new york openly woo'ing delta. i'll speak with one lawmaker giving delta an ultimatum. natu? ugh, natural. good choice. how about calling or texting? definitely calling. puppies or kitties? sorry, cats. dry eyes or artificial tears? wait, that's a trick question. because they can both get in your way. that's why it is super-important to chat w

whitewater. records reviewing how ken star forced a grand jury appearance from president bill clinton p what do you think trump's team can learn interest this in terms of defending the president? >> certainly they know that if it comes to a subpoena, there isn't really an objection. historically at least legally that the president can make. i say historically because we are in a world where this president doesn't appear to respect the kind of processes and legal norms that we historically with prior presidents have been known to enjoy and that's why i've said this whole issue raises big separation of powers questions in addition to being former justice department lawyer as well as independent counsel, i'm a full-time law professor and the issue here that might be different from bill clinton is bill clinton complied with the subpoena. we don't know what mr. trump would do. if he challenges the legality of it, it could be traumatic for the country. >> bob woodward saying he sees what happens with t

kim whaley, associate counsel during the whitewater investigation of president clinton. you heard them talk about why the memo doesn't vindicate the president. trey gou di is not running for re-election. if there was no dossier what case do you see robert mueller having? the president says no obstruction. i don't know how he can say that? >> a case with respect to getting a fisa warrant, my presumption is there was a substantial amount of information presented to the judge. what's forgotten in this discussion is that as a matter of separation of powers this is a federal judge, an article 3 judge who made the determination. it's not for congresstosecond guess it from either side of the aisle. as far as obstruction of justice, we don't know what the mueller team has other than the president's statements that he fired comey because of the russia investigation. everybody needs to pump the brakes and let the process continue. the investigative process continue. we have an election in the fall coming up. we don't know the extent to which the russians influenced the last elect

now, you recall democrats did everything they could to undermine ken starr's whitewater investigation into misdeeds by president clinton, and to compare what democrats are saying now with what they said back then. >> there is a growing concern, i can tell you, and the senate, in the sense that mr. starr is now operating out of any sense of reasonable behavior. >> we get a politically motivated prosecutor who is allied with the right wing of opponents of my husband who has literally spent four years looking at every phone bill -- looking at every telephe call we've made, every check with ever written. >> this is a president who, on many issues, is basically beyond shame at this point. so any sense of fairness or thoroughness for the sake of the investigation, i think, is questionable from the white house. >> he is trying to distract attention from the russian investigation and to discredit whatever mueller says in the end. >> laura: ha! i love that. let's go to the man who was in the eye of the storm back then. former independent counsel ken starr joins us, and alan dershowitz is in mi

but she changed whitewater to a political investigation. peter strzok and lisa page have changed this to a political investigation because now you can look at -- >> you believe there's a secret society. >> wait a second. calling the people of virginia ignorant hillbillies, saying, oh, my god, i don't know what we're going to do now. saying -- i don't know what they meant when they said our task, when they referred to insurance policies. >> do you believe there was a secret society? >> i don't think there was a secret society at all, but i think their prejudice and anti-trump feelings were absolutely blatant in these e-mails. >> what about their anti-chelsea clinton feelings? >> i think they should look the at the 50,000 -- >> didn't she say something about chelsea clinton at some point? >> here's to me the biggest takeaway of them all. they had the anthony weiner, huma abedin e-mails september 28th, and then james comey said he did not know about them until october 28th. doesn't that bother anybody? >> can we talk about russians? can we tal

attorney who investigated whitewater explains why these charges are being kept hidden. but first, as mentioned yesterday, the florida statehouse declined to open debate on gun control legislation as survivors of parkland shooting looked on. you will not believe what they debated on instead. >> so what legislation did they focus on instead? a bill that declares porn dangerous. what do you have against teenagers? first, you won't do anything about guns. now you're taking away their porn. what are you doing in there? you better be loading a gun, young man. oh, that's lovely... so graceful. the corkscrew spin, flawless... ...his signature move, the flying dutchman. poetry in motion. and there it is, the "baby bird". breathtaking. a sumo wrestler figure skating? surprising. what's not surprising? how much money heather saved by switching to geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. now that we have your attention... capri sun has four updated drinks. now with only the good stuff. do you know how to use those? nope. get those kids some new capri sun! was

project you can tell and still had the parking and everything but nobody was there it was perfect whitewater time nobody was there so they spend all this resources on the infrastructure hoping i assume that later at some point that it'll it'll make good but but it hasn't in a lot of places so what does the future hold for the olympics alex looks like cities and countries are smarting up because not sometimes not only to cities suffer but nations suffer poor nations to bring in the lympics that's a very costly thing to do so look now we're talking about looking into the future and what's happening here we know that lympics bring in about five to six billion dollars every time that they happen oh i will see the international olympic committee takes three billion of that most of this is made off of t.v. but they still take that money so what did the city see in the end very little so for the next government big games that are coming up there's a really interesting two thousand and twenty four games happening in pairs only pairs in los angeles actually bid and the olympic committee thought that

project you can tell and still had the parking and everything but nobody was there it was perfect whitewater time nobody was there so they spend all this resources on the infrastructure hoping i assume that later at some point that it'll it'll make good but but it hasn't in a lot of places so what does the future hold for the olympics alex looks like cities and countries are smarting up because not sometimes not only to cities suffer but nations suffer poor nations to bring in the lympics that's a very costly thing to do so look now we're talking about looking into the future and what's happening here we know that lympics bring in about five to six billion dollars every time that they happen oh i will see the international olympic committee takes three billion of that most of this is made off of t.v. but they still take that money so what did the city see in the end very little so for the next big games that are coming up there's a really interesting two thousand and twenty four games happening in pairs only pairs in los angeles actually bid and the olympic committee thought that oh my gosh

project you can tell and still had the parking and everything but nobody was there it was perfect whitewater time nobody was there so they spend all this resources on the infrastructure hoping i assume that later at some point that it'll it'll make good but but it hasn't in a lot of places so what does the future hold for the olympics alex looks like cities and countries are smarting up because not sometimes not only to cities suffer but nations suffer poor nations to bring in the lympics and it's a very costly thing to do so look now we're talking about looking into the future and what's happening here we know that lympics bring in about five to six billion dollars every time that they happen oh i will see the international olympic committee takes three billion of that most of this is made off of t.v. but they still take that money so what do the city see in the end very little so for the next big games that are coming up there's a really interesting two thousand twenty four games happening in pairs only pairs in los angeles actually bid and the olympic committee saw that oh my gosh what's

people like broken cliffs and sarah in whitewater all became employed for wisconsin fast-forward worker training program during the past year. [applause] eight years ago the state government created a $3.6 billion budget deficit. the previous governor and legislature raided for the transportation fund. the patient compensation fund. they even missed a payment to minnesota. today the state and in the last fiscal year with more than half a billion dollars surplus in the nonpartisan legislative fiscal bureau just predict good they would win the current budget with an even larger surplus than first projected. [applause] our pension is fully funded in the rainy day fund is 168 times bigger than when we took office. wisconsin's long-term mean that is one of the lowest, best in the nation. we are paying off our obligations faster than we take on that and three national agencies upgraded our bond rating this past year. for movies, and i was the first time since 1973. it is the first time ever. that historic is more proof that our financial management is working. [applause] we invested more than

going back to the first star yesterday saying thank you to ken starr, former independent counsel whitewater for your insight and powerful words and finds that abuse can russian meddling commentary. great interview with maria bartiromo. cheryl: it was a great interview. meanwhile, disney says well. rate case expected to plead guilty to fraud related charges as special counsel robert mueller. they've also agreed to testify against paul manafort, transformer campaign chairman. they are both indicted for charges that include money laundering and conspiracy against the u.s. could change of heart for gates and his attorney. lauren: chat sessions moving forward on one of the top priorities which is the leaks identifying people who leaked a secret space sessions told maria bartiromo pities taking the lead on exposing the lakers. >> that is a violation of the law to leak classified documents and it is being investigated. the last two years before i became attorney general come each year there were three open investigations and classified leaks. now we have 27 and we are going after this aggressively

charles: now i want to hear from former whitewater continued counsel and former prosecutor robert ray. a lot of moving parts here. the fisa temperature warrant dossier was funded by the dnc and hillary clinton. also the idea that it cited a yahoo news article that subsequently was sourced by steele himself to get this warrant. it begs the question, the fisa court itself and the sort of mystery that shrouds it. it takes away credibility, doesn't it? >> it raises substantial questions. the principle finding of the nunes memorandum is material and relevant information was omitted. that's a quote. that's referring to the fact that the steel el dossier was funded by the dnc and clinton campaign which would seriously impact credibility. the contention by a majority in congress is this was a material omission. and materiality is governed by the fact that former deputy director mccabe said they would not have sought the application but for the steele dossier. that's the significance of putting two and two together. it fund mines and calls into question -- it undermines calling into question,.

he said thank you, the whitewater independent counsel for your insight and powerful words on fisa abuse, here is what he has to say about that. >> we are aiming our guns where they should be aimed. i think we should stop pointing figures to fingers at one another in this country and realize who the real enemy is. >> the real enemy according to ken starr is obviously russia. i will leave you with this, i think you might find this instructive. people are saying the russians were trying to help donald trump. you can make the argument that what they were really doing is trying to not just sow discord but damage the presumptive winner which would've been hillary clinton. of course the tables were turned on november 8th. back to you. >> kennedy: thank you so much for that report, we will take you to the couch were a little bit more discussion. chris, let's take a look at this. who is more to blame here? the president for not taking on more aggressive stance against russia, when he talks about the disconnect, there is no collusion between his administration and the russians. that appears to be

. >> dana: robert wray former federal prosecutor with the independent counsel in the whitewater investigationthank you for coming over today. you had the chance to read the indictment. what stood out? >> first thing is the indictment is within the core of robert mueller's mandate, which is to investigate russian interference in the 2016 election. as you know, there's a secondary purpose to the mandate and that is whether or not there was collusion with the trump campaign. the indictment prominently, in a word, indicates that at least so far as we know and what is being disclosed through a grand jury indictment, the trump campaign was unwitting in that process. then the third part of the mandate deals with something like obstruction of justice, false statements, perjury. we've seen the manifestation in that with regard to things previously like the guilty plea by michael flynn. so i guess what sticks out is that this is front and center of the mandate that bob mueller was appointed to investigate. that is effort, sophisticated efforts apparently, by russian individuals and entities in a very c

tradition -- with passed special investigations -- when bill clinton was being investigated for whitewaterber democrats saying it was a vast right wing conspiracy. he was investigated for land deal and wound up being charged or in hot water for monica lewinsky, something completely unrelated. isn't that the republicans are afraid of here? >> there is a problem and people should hold us accountable to how we go about this. but we should become at this point, looking at the howard bakers -- of the watergate era, where republicans and democrats were working just to get the truth. we should be at that point. so if he is innocent, that comes out and we move on. >> the republicans made a big deal about this. from the sidelines, it almost looked like the democrats were rising -- rather than saying, you have to cherry picked -- it is a press release. release it and we will put our side of the story out. instead, it was bringing more attention to this then it would have gotten. >> i think there are two parts to the equation. the one part is the aspect of this that they made the three stooges look l

senior fellow and former senior counsel in the whitewater investigation. ned, let me start with you. in light of what we've seen in this memo and in light of all that surrounded the release of this memo, i wonder how worried you are about rod rosenstein's future in the government. >> david, i think it depends on whom you listen tochlt . if you listen to susan collins, even trey gowdy, they've said it no way impugns the mueller probe and the ongoing probe into donald trump. but i think we're hearing a slightly different tune from the white us yesterda when he was asked if he stillad confidence i rod rosenstein, presidentrump was etty ominous. he said i'lligure that one out. we have heard --e have also seen a statement from his own white house saying that the membmemo itself raises doubts about the leadership of the justice department and the fbi. so, it seems quite possible that with this memo, the white house has planted those seeds, those seeds it will later harvest if it decides to move against rod rosenstein who, of course, is the only figure in the dep

. >> i woke up and it was like whitewater coming out and started rising fast.>> reporter: this residents one big take away. >> we do not always get all the information from our city, federal, local government so it is on us as individuals to be aware of what is going on.>> reporter: the first thing this resident did was post on social media asking for help with sandbags.>> we had 20 to 40 cars coming in dropping off sandbags. this video captured friends and strangers who helped and helped. one year later, they are preparing for the party to thank all those people who showed up when he needed it most. >> i saw some lady who took all of our electronics upstairs. i do not even know who she was. >> reporter: the water district paid for his new fence and he has rebuilt his basement from the floor up. his goal was to have the repairs done by the one-year mark.>> we won't have it exactly by the anniversary. >> reporter: while improvements have been made the work is far from done. the city of san jose expects to spend more than $27 million in the next two years since as some of the projects wil

hypocrisy, howling about republicans undermining mueller after doing all they could to sabotage the whitewater are at ground zero in the fight over american her

with me now the senior counsel to ken starr in the whitewater investigation. thank you so much for being with me. how does this apparent rick gates plea intensify pressure around paul manafort? >> quite substantially. gates, by all accounts was manafort's deputy. manafort was his mentor. he probably had pretty full insight into the scope of manafort's activities. and so the idea that manafort will be able to with stand the charges against him successfully is substantially diminished at this point. it's far more likely gates testifying against manafort means manafort is going to wind up either having to take a plea or be convicted after trial. >> you wrote this piece in the atlantic basically saying special counsel was sending a potent message to the public with regard to the russian indictments. what are you saying? what's the message mueller is sending? >> well, as i said in the article and as i'm sure your viewers realize, none of the russians who are indicted are going to see the inside of an american courtroom. russia doesn't extradite citizens to the unit

white house chief of staff during the long special counsel investigation that went everywhere from whitewater to monica lewinsky. i want to put up" while you were the clinton chief of staff. in this town, to what is done on the basis of innuendo and speculation. every mistake becomes a conspiracy. every charge becomes a conviction. every rumor becomes reality. that's the way this town is built. question, couldn't donald trump say the same thing? >> i think that's a pretty dam good- - good quote. i think that's what happens. there's too much innuendo. too much failure to deal with each other on the basis of trust and honesty. so the result is we engage in these partisan attacks. we engage in what i think is trench warfare in washington in which both parties stay in their trenches. flow grenades at one another and failed to govern. i think that's why the american people are angry and frustrated very frankly. they look at washington and see it doesn't work.that concerns us all. >>chris: i guess the point is this, as a democrat, you probably thought bill clinton was being hounded by - - like spec

here with us tonight to talk about all of it, sol wisenberg, deputy independent counsel for the whitewater lewinsky investigation. he was chosen by ken starr to conduct the grand jury questioning of president bill clinton. we welcome to the broadcast mimi rocah, former attorney for the southern district of new york. currently a distinguished fellow and criminal justice at the pace university school of law. sol, because these are two such different characters and very different men, is there any constant that is transferable, a standard that would apply to the questioning of one, and ergo, to the other? >> well, for any investigation like this and any questioning like this, you obviously want to be totally prepared. and mueller's got a great experienced, brilliant crew with him. the most important thing i think that assuming this questioning takes place, either informally or at the grand jury, let's say it happens informally, most important thing is to not have time constraint on it. to make it clear there's not going be a time limitation on the questioning. that's number one. number two, i

. >> martha: what do you say when we have watergate or whitewater, the american public understood the that was being investigated. the basic question for a lot of americans is, what crime is robert mueller investigating? >> i would encourage my fellow citizens -- that is a quick question. i would encourage them to go back and read the charter, read the jurisdiction that created by mueller. there is a counterintelligence. what did russia do to impact our election in 2016. there may or may not be crimes, domestic crimes associated with that, but there is a foreign power trying to interfere with the gears of our democracy. the hack of the dnc server is a crime. the accessing of john podesta's email is a crime. the attempt to access other servers is a crime. so there is a criminal foundation, if you will. but there is a counterintelligence jurisdiction for him separate and apart from any criminality. >> martha: i don't have a language in front of me but i read it recently. the way it was set forth is that it is a national security investigation that investigates the period of the election

>> well, let's remember that the whitewater investigation, which dominated much of the clinton presidencymilar a land deal that occurred a long time before they came into government. so it really seems to me that this is similar. it's long since been established, the president, that what happened prior to coming in is now fair game. and one of the concerns about real estate transactions is that they are often a cover for money laundering. in fact, a group called global witness issued a report picked up by reuters this fall about suspicions regarding the types of deals that trump's businesses have been involved in, at least in terms of who they have dealt with, rather than necessarily things they have done themselves. so you have a partner here that people are concerned about these transaction, even those this transaction happened before he came into the presidency, this is the first president in modern history who has kept all of his conflicting financial interests. to is raises a question, what else don't we know? >> so senator widen sent this three-page letter here to the secretary of t

. >> so there's a clinton legal defense fund around whitewater though they handled it by giving the moneyre's the nixon example then there's iran-contra. with oliver north who was one of the highest profile figures, there was a gigantic amount of money. richard secord, wasn't there a donation that we don't know? >> richard secord was involved in the illicit arm sales to iran and he did it through a swiss bank and in the same swiss bank used to transfer the money back and forth to iran suddenly appears half a million dollars supposedly no one knows where that money came from. >> the same bank from the illegal arms deal? >> the same bank. and someone knew where to find the account of secord and so this money appears and the question does occur what was the motive of the person who was suddenly putting this money into his account. >> into his legal defense fund. >> absolutely. >> i just feel like it's a little place where you can plant a flag when you read about it, like watch the defense funds. >> that's exactly right. >> and now we finally got one in this story. michael beschloss, nbc news

. >> we had a special prosecutor for whitewater. now we're looking at monica lewinsky.ean, at what point do you stop? >> that's the way these independent-counsel things work. you're appointed to do "a," and you wind up to "z." >> we, as counsel for monica lewinsky, have reached an agreement today. >> the last person to talk to is president clinton. >> the blue dress made it impossible for the president to deny that he had had some sexual contact. >> indeed, i did have a relationship with ms. lewinsky that was not appropriate. >> i was heartbroken. >> i knew he was in real trouble. >> if you have substantial and credible evidence that may constitute grounds for an impeachment, you shall refer that to the house. >> ken starr decided we're going to submit the referral on september 9. >> and it was then up to the political process -- what do we do with the truth? ♪ ♪ [ crowd cheering ] >> the summer of 1998 saw baseball fans transfixed on the race between chicago cubs outfielder sammy sosa and mark mcgwire of the st. louis cardinals, both on track to potentially break the h