nbc news reported today sally yates spoke extensively with you mueller's investigators last year. priebus was, too. mcgahn sat for two days with the special counsel team. next up is steve bannon. he's expected to be questioned by the end of this month. then, comes the president of the united states. bob bauer served as white house counsel to president barack obama. start putting yourself in the position of don mcgahn because he has a job you held. acting attorney of the united states says your national security adviser lied to the fbi a few days ago. is lying in the press or lying to the vice president, saying things that are untrue and questioned by the fbi and declines to tell you how he did, what are you thinking if you're don mcgahn? >> i don't know all the facts known to mcgahn at the time. it's very difficult for me to say what don mcgahn did or what i would do if i were in his place. however, it is strange that somehow according to nbc report, today, nobody inquired enough to know anything about those lies till flynn already left the white house. that seems strange, implaus

. >>> and sally yates and mike pompeo have been talking with mueller, less than 24 hours after we learned that james comey and jeff sessions had met with the special counsel. the president seems unfazed. >> did you talk to -- >> no, i didn't. i'm not at all concerned. >> could he be next? team trump negotiating the terms for the president to meet with robert mueller. >>> and off the table. chuck schumer pulls his offer to fund the border wall as the white house says the bipartisan agreement reached last week is dead on arrival. >>> i'm tired of getting empty promises. >> a tragedy in kentucky. two are dead and more than a dozen injured after a 15-year-old student is accused of opening fire inside a high school. >> how did you make it out? >> i mean, we just -- just ran. >>> we begin today with the russia investigation. and a ton of new headlines that seem to show bob mueller focusing on obstruction of justice charges. interviewing folks in trump's outer circle. his inner circle. his cabinet. and potentially, the president himself. and i've got a great panel here to break all of it down. f

mcgahn briefed trump, bannon and white house chief of staff reince priebus on his meeting with yates that same day, including news of flynn's fbi interview. people familiar with the matter said. it is important to remind everyone that it was january 27th, the very next day, that donald trump invited then fbi director jim comey to dinner. a rare gesture for any sitting president. but particularly curious in light of what we now know donald trump had learned the day before. here's comey on that invitation. >> with regard to the -- several of these conversations, in his interview with lester holt on nbc, the president said i had dinner with him. he wanted to have dinner because he wanted to stay on. is this an accurate statement? >> no, sir. >> did you in any way initiate that dinner? >> no. he called me at my desk at lunch time and asked me was i free for dinner that night, and called himself and said can you come over for dinner tonight? i said, yes, sir. he said will 6:00 work? he said 6:00 first. i was going to invite your whole family. i'll do that next time. is that a good time? i

and i think yates, they went back a few years in their past. and i think when yates becomes governor the same year that lincoln becomes president it's interesting that yates reaches out to lincoln to read some of his, you know, attempts at writing an inaugural speech, and lincoln is very honest with him and in fact, at one point would refuse to do it for fear it would jeopardize the relationship between the two men and but he also fired if he was being honest with yates it probably wasn't a very good document and he would take offense. so he resisted that. but i think as the war went on, yates believed that he could use his relationship with lincoln, being from illinois, being a person who was perceived to have had perhaps more than an acquaintance with lincoln. but i would agree that once lincoln leaves springfield among the 59 or at least the governors who make their way to washington, it's really nothing more than acquaintance that they really share. and even john andrew, i'm working on a biography right now and john andrew is among those wh

yates is, quote, such a see you next tuesday.uote, the transition report said trump wouldn't like the 56-year-old atlanta-born university of georgia career justice department lawyer slated to step up to acting attorney general. there was something about a particular kind of obama person. something about the way they walked and held themselves. superiority. and about a certain kind of woman who would immediately rub trump the wrong way. obama women being a good tipoff, hillary, women another. later this would be extended to quote doj women. back with us, general reuben and jennifer rubin and neera tanden. ladies, thank you for joining us. neera, you were an obama woman. when you read something like that, what do you think? >> you know, i think the book actually just confirms something we have already seen. just to follow trump's twitter feed or the things he says. he went after elizabeth warren, senator warren from massachusetts with a racist remark. calling her pocahontas which is, you know, essentially disgusting and then attack

dan coats, mike rogers, mike pompeo, james comey, and sally t yates. and natasha and jill are back with us. jill, i want to go back to what we heard the president say, this was that n that impromptu meeting with reporters tonight before getting on air force one. did he think robert mueller's investigation would be fair, what was your reaction to how he answered that question? >> it's typical trump. he said we'll see. that's what he says about everything. but there was one other thing that he said in that dialogue. and that was, for the first time he said, no obstruction. he has said hundreds of times no collusion, no collusion, no collusion. but tonight was the first time i heard him say and there's no obstruction. the obstruction case is, of course, quite clear and pretty strong. so that's an interesting thing that he is now adding that. and also the timing of his telling flynn he wanted loyalty, the day after he learns that flynn has talked to the fbi is extremely suspicious and makes it look very bad. it's another step that looks like more obstructi

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yates has also cooperated with the special counsel. nbc news also reporting that cia director mike pompeo who the president asked to lean on james comey to fire michael flynn, he also has been interviewed. and we learned steve bannon who also had a spectacular fallout with president trump is expected to talk to the special counsel's investigators by the end of this month. so a lot to talk about on a wednesday night as we talk to our lead panel, michael crowley, senior editor at politico, and jack sharmen is back with us for the bank committee and now the special services committee. these days he's a defense attorney. he will continue to be haunted by the woman who will never be president. did the president tonight in his off-the-cuff remarks blow up any part of his legal strategy? >> brian, i think it might be pr strategy as much as legal strategy here. i think the question of testifying under oath is really a distinction without a difference. it is a felony to lie to the fbi. it doesn't matter where you do it. whether or not you are u

we had previously known that sally yates warned the white house that mike flynn had been lying about his contact with the russian government, that he was potentially compromised by the russians. this was dangerous because he had access to information. what we learned today from nbc news is that in addition to all of that information that sally yates conveyed to the white house on january 26th, the other thing she told them that day, which was news to them, was that mike flynn had been interviewed by the fbi. that interview had happened in the white house. in his office. it had been set up through official white house channels. but flynn at that point had not apparently told anyone that the fbi had come to visit him, to interview him about his foreign contacts. why didn't mike flynn tell anybody once the fbi showed up in his office and started questioning him? we obviously have no idea, but this does add to the mystery of how on earth the trump white house decided that they would react to that warning they got about mike flynn, right? upon being informed that the serving national secu

days later, sally yates was fired. the white house claiming it was over her refusal to enforce the travel ban. february 9th, the "washington post" made public what yates told the white house, that michael flynn did, in fact, discuss sanctions with russia's ambassador to the united states. on february 13th, that is three weeks after the white house found out that flynn lied, he was forced to resign. the president meets with former fbi director james comey and reportedly asks him to drop the investigation into michael flynn. may 9th, jim comey is fired and president of the united states says, "i fired the head of the fbi. i've faced great pressure because of russia. that's taken off." he said that russia was on his mind when he fired james comey. a week later, robert mueller is appointed to oversee the russia investigation. here we are. a lot to discuss this afternoon. we have two people who know the subject extremely well. chuck rosenberg has been following the investigation closely and knows several of the principals i

when the president took office the acting attorney general was sally yates. the first week they were in office sally yates as head of the justice department acting attorney general, and head of the national security division at the justice department, those two personally went up to the white house and warned the white house about trump's national security advisor mike flynn having serptitious conversations with russia that he was lying about. both officials at the white house are now gone. mary mccord, sally yates, of course is out as well. she did not leave of her own accord. the president fired her. jeff sessions was then confirmed as attorney general. there were intelligence intercepts, it turns out that he also had conversations with russia that he didn't hadn't disclosed. the president reportedly told his white house chief of staff to tell jeff sessions -- excuse me, told his white house council to tell jeff sessions he shouldn't recuse. when sessions recused anyway "the washington post" reports that the president then sent the white house chief of staf

yates has also cooperated with the special counsel. nbc news also reporting that cia director mike pompeo who the president allegedly asked to lean on former fbi direct ker comey to drop his inquiry into michael flynn, he has also spoken to the mueller team and we're learning more. steve bannon who also had a spectacular fallout with president trump is expected to talk to the special counsel's investigators by the end of this month. so a lot to talk about on a wednesday night as we talk to our lead panel, michael crowley, senior correspondent for politico, mika eoyang, and jack sharman, now the financial services committee during the whitewater investigation. these days he's a criminal defense attorney. welcome to you all. michael, in addition to his continuing to be haunted by the woman who will never be president, did the president tonight in these off-the-cuff remarks blow up any part of his legal strategy? >> brian, i think it might be pr strategy as much as legal strategy here. i think the question of testifying under oath is real

it goes on january positiveth, donald trump fires sally yates. donald trump had known for weeks that michael flynn had misled people within the white house. march 30th, comey said trump called him. april 11th, comey said his last conversation with trump took place in his phone call. may 2nd, trump knocks comey on twitter. it makes me mildly nauseous that it makes me think we had some impact on the election. he wants to fire comey. may 9th, comey is fired. may 10th, trump meets with russian officials including lavrov and ambassador kislyak in the oval office. i just fired the head of the fbi according to a white house summary of the conversation. he was crazy, a real nut job, i faced great pressure because of russia. that's taken off. trump adds, i'm not under investigation. may 17, rosenstein appoints a special counsel robert mueller to oversee the russia probe and investigate any related matters such as obstruction of justice and perjury. barbara, a long time line, a lot has happened. this has been going on now for a year. donald trump just cele

sally yates is cooperating with the investigation. and former white house chief strategist, steve bannon, is in talks to be interviewed at the end of the month. according to a person familiar with the discussions. and a former campaign manager and former white house adviser both under indictment. not just investigation. not just questions. indictment for, among other thing, conspiracy against the united states. paul manafort and rick gates both pleaded not guilty. papadopoulos and flynn both eventually entered guilty pleas in the investigation as a result of their interviews. just last week, mueller's team interviewed the serving attorney general. the first known instance of a cabinet member cooperating with the investigation. nbc's kristen welker pressured the president about jeff sessio sessions' interview. >> mr. president, are you concerned about what the attorney general told the special counsel? >> not at all, kristen. >> did you talk to him about it? >> no, i didn't, but i'm not concerned. thank you, all, very much. >> joining

the firing or threats of firing, i mean, how many people, sally yates, james comey, christopher wray. >> rumors about rosenstein now. >> rumors about deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. it's this constant steady drum beat. now you have the republicans on the intelligence committee are falling right in line and providing cover for this very systemic effort to undermine all the agencies that pose at least in the president's mind any threat to him moving forward. so there are people who are terribly, terribly concerned about this. that this is already at the point of constitutional crisis. >> heilman, you asked a question this morning that lit social media and television on fire about whether some of these people are agents of the russians. it's a plausible theory when you -- i suppose it could all be a coincidence that we're not going to enforce our russia sanctions, that devin nunes was investigated by the ethics committee for mishandling fisa intel and now he wants to have a vote on fisa intel without letting the director of the fbi, who sort of stewards and shep d shepards fisa i

not to mention news again but nbc news that mueller questioned firing acting attorney general sally yates, mike pompeo and mike rogers all with a connection to the firing of james comey. let's get to your exclusive reporting. kristin walker is at the white house. carol lee is the one who broke today's developments on flynn. and ellen broke the story on the andrew mccabe's oval office meeting with donald trump. she's with the "washington post." carol, the significance of michael flynn not telling white house about the interview, what is it? >> well, it's significant for a number of reasons. one, it gives us a window into what happened in this now very significant day one year ago. we also learned that michael flynn didn't have a lawyer with him in this interview. if you're representing michael flynn, that would be a frustrating fact. he was notified by the fbi that they wanted to come talk to him, it was put on his scheduled. he didn't notify the national security council legal team. normally someone would sit in a meeting like that. he didn't have his personal lawyer with him either. gene

one year ago today the president fired sally yates.re learning that he wanted to fire robert mueller. some could argue that it's the president who, by his own hand, has propelled this investigation. >> over and over again. and, you know, i can't help but thinking that in one sense, i'll say this about jeff sessions, the president, in a sense, is right about jeff sessions. jeff sessions should have never taken the attorney general's position because he knew that he was compromised on a pending fbi investigation into russian activities in the election. and he knew that he met with russians and he knew that he would have to recuse himself. from there everything spiralled out of control. in a spenense, if sessions has never taken the job we'd be in a whole different world. >> hold on a second. if sessions never took the job. but if president trump from the onset would have said i believe that there was russian interference in the election -- >> totally agree with all that. >> the president continued to muddy the water. jeff sessions could

and the president's interactions with jim comey as well as sally yates's interactions with the white house are very deeply conditioned by this event that just happened. >>> the second issue is the more serious the fbi's concerns at the time about general flynn were, the more you would imagine everybody there would have been disturbed by what seemed to be flynn's longevity within the house, as well as the president's then request to comey that he drop the matter, and the subsequent pressure on the fbi and comey that eventually led to his firing. and the president's statements subsequently, including to the russian foreign minister, that he'd relieved pressure on himself by doing so. so, there's a very deep set of connections between the underlying investigation, particularly as regards flynn, and the basket of material that is being investigated under the rubric of obstruction. there is one other important element there, which is that one of the pieces of pressure that the -- that comey has testified that the president exerted on him was pressure to say publicly that the president him

let's go back to what sally yates said about her conversations with the white house counsel. remember she was the who went over with her hair on fire saying i'm worried about michael flynn that he might be compromised by the russians. >> remember the questions that mr. mcgann asked me when i went over the second day is why does it matter to doj if one official lies to another white house official? we explained to him, he was a whole lot more than that. we went back over the same concerns that we raised the prior day and that the concern about the under lying conduct that he lied to the vice president and the american public had been misled. >> she described somebody who was not willing to at least initially grasp the severity of the problem under his roof. >> for goes back to what trump was saying about the underlying purpose of this. whether don mcgann is acting as a personal lawyer. there is a distinction there. you can't forget why did donald trump not want jeff sessions to recuse himself. it was to add a layer of political protection to the president. it goes to that same

mike pompeo, sally yates. later this month and obviously he's looking at mueller for an interview with the president. when you look at that graphic what does that tell you this has reached the highest reaches of government and is knocking on the door of the oval office. >> it has. the thing it says to me is, to go back to what michael was talking about the two buckets of the investigation where you have the obstruction piece and russian piece you can see the number of people being roped into being interviewed and the focus of this investigation, being questioned because of the president's own actions that have nothing to do necessarily with the russia's meddling in the election and whether there's collusion with the trump campaign. so the cia director, he was specifically interviewed because they wanted to know about his conversations and anything that he had to do with the firing of james comey. and so all you see each step of the way president the increasingly expanded this case of obstruction that he essent

next thing you know, sally yates was fired and preet bharara, the u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york, it was publicly exposed he was investigating close allies of the trump campaign. next thing you know, donald trump fires preet bharara and then of course he fires james comey, the fbi director who was leading the criminal investigation into the trump campaign. it should come as know surprise that he had apparently given the order to fire the special prosecutor. >> are you concerned about how many people around president trump actually lied about this attempt, this attempt we've now confirmed back in june, but how many of his aides publicly lied about it or maybe they didn't know but they were insisting there was never any discussion of firing the special counsel? >> needless to say, this administration has been less than truthful in the manner in which it's communicated with the american people. we've seen instance after instance of selective amnesia from many people who are close to donald trump, who apparently couldn't remember instanc

the acting head of the national security division was marry mccord and salary yates is gone. the president fired her. jeff session was confirmed as attorney general. there were intelligence intercepts it turns out that revealed that jeff sessions had conversations with russia that he hadn't disclosed. the president nevertheless forced him to not recuse himself. the president told his white house chief of staff to tell jeff sessions -- told his white house cancel to tell jeff sessions he shouldn't recuse. when sessions recused anyway, "the washington post" reports the president then sent the chief of staff to go secure jeff sessions' resignation. within the justice department, at the fbi, the fbi's director was fired after he says the president told him to lay off the investigation. he conveyed the content to a number of fbi senior officials at the time so they could corroborate what comey said about how the president pressured him to lay off the russia investigation before he refused and he was fired. comey says he reported the president's behavior, the directors about the ru

i'm just listing, sally yates. cnn preet bharara. comey, session, mccabe, rosenstein.hese are, all of them have either been fired or threatened to have been fired, or someone is going to try to fire them. and all of them stand between trump and trying to resolve or make go away -- like if only he could just snap it away -- the trump/russia investigation. so this story is fascinating and somewhat disconcerting. but it's part of this larger thing that any -- he wants this done, and he wants it done either because he did something bad financial, or collusion, or -- or he is really bad at having the truth out. and they're bumbling towards an obstruction ever justice charge based on possibly them not doing anything bad. and that to me would be to me sort of ironic result of the investigation. >> um-hum. matt, if don mcgahn hadn't convinced the president to take a step back and not fire mueller, what do you think would have happened? could this have been the final straw for his republican allies? do you think they would have gone along with it and we would be in maybe some s

un pacÍfico día de pesca terminÓ en un dramÁtico accidente.ir estas imÁgenes, ante la presencia del yatede casi 400.000 $ alegando que el tripulante de la otra embarcaciÓn se distrajo hablando por su telÉfono celular. es increÍble como en cuestiÓn de segundos estas tres personas se salvan de lo que parecÍa ser una muerte segura. javier: en otro ataque a los medios de comunicaciÓn el presidente publicÓ la lista de los ganadores de sus polÉmicos premios.sin embargo, cuando hizo un anuncio oficial la pÁgina oficial estuvo fuera de servicio lo cual desatÓ la ira de varios a travÉs de internet. el primer lugar se lo llevÓ el diario the new york times. aquÍ lo tenemos en imÁgenes. el segundo lugar es para el ebc news y en tercer lugar estÁ cnn. recordemos que estos premios que acabamos de revisar le dan la no muy amistosa roten seas falsas para hechos que el presidente nada tienen que ver con la realidad. carolina: y no son nada mÁs que historias falsas . seguimos con las rÁpidas del dÍa de hoy y es que varios estados estÁn padeciendo una tormenta invernal que padece sin fin. diez personas han

sally yates is interesting because she has a window into a bunch of stuff. and so she kind of could be interesting or have information on both possible obstruction of justice and the issue of russia and potential collusion. >> there is push back daily. they say there is ridiculous. he made a comparison. here is what he had to say. >> there is certainly evidence of meddling that points in the direction of possible obstructi obstruction. it was one of the articles of impeachment of richard nixon. if he tried to obstruction this it's a very very serious charge. >> i want to get your reaction to what you just heard. >> reporter: well, with all due respect to the congressman, and he is a very fine member of congress. the fact is the first article dealt with the cover-up. it didn't charge president nixon with a crime. impeachment does not require criminal conduct on the part of the president. i think it's really really important to understand it. i dealt with all of the elements of cover-up and the effort to get secret information and prompt witnesses, destruction

we do not know the reason behind his sudden, abrupt departure, but we do know that sally yates was fired. we do know that jim comey was fired. we do know that bob mueller was only not fired because white house counsel threw himself in front of that decision by president trump and said, if you do that, i'm out. so firings at the top of our department of justice are becoming an unpleasantly increasing thing and they tend to relate to matters where investigations touch on the white house -- salary yates and the flynn -- sally yates and the flynn objection, jim comey and the obstruction of justice/conclusion investigation, and of course bob mueller leading that investigation. so i think we're entitled to answers, and i call for a full and truthful explanation. the second thing that's going on is the more general attack on the f.b.i., the latest episode of which is this so-called nunes memo, which has been described by the democratic house members who have seen that memo and seen the underlying documents, out of which it was selectively cherry-picked, as profoundly misleading that ileading --

he knew it was going on here in conjunction with sally yates. this is the connection that i take to the white house on this. he left under very suspicious circumstances. >> sean: i forgot to mention that in the timeline. >> it is an important point a crucial point, but i think an even bigger point now is that ratcliffe wants to interview b comey. interview comey. interview carlin. interview sally yates. let's find out what is going on with them. i think we will start to see the story unraveled. >> sean: all right, amazing work, all of you. we really appreciate it. release the memo and find the texts. he was on fire last night he reacted to my opening monologue. we will check in with the chiefl counsel for the american center of law and justice, president trump's attorney, jayy sekulow, straight ahead. ahead. you won't see these folks at the post office. ahead. they have businesses to run. they have passions to pursue. how do they avoid trips to the post office? stamps.com mail letters, ship packages, all the services of the post office right on

attorney in the eastern district of virginia, briefly served as acting attorney general after sally yates was fired. boente replaces james baker who was reassigned late last year. the fbi also confirmed that wray's chief of staff a holdover from comey's tenure is also leaving. >>> in the shutdown blame game, americans are split between president trump and congressional republicans. correspond to the newest survey monkey poll, 39% said democrats in congress are to blame for the three day shutdown. 38% said drum is responsible but only 18% blame congressional republicans. but despite the shutdown politics, american eye support for daca remains high. two-thirds say they support the program that allows d.r.e.a.m.ers to remain in this country. up 4 points since december. 31% oppose the program, a 12 point increase from last month. and 92 respect abo% of democrat independents support doaca. also chuck schumer said he is taking funding for the wall off the table. >> i sat down with president trump on friday and offered him quite a bit. he made an offer for a wall. i said if with we do full d.r.e

mike wolff writes in firing, to trump, he was just up against sally yate, who, he steamed, such a blank, expletive deleted. hope hicks, someone so close to him, the gatekeeper in the oval office, trump, who otherwise according to michael wolff's book, seemed to treat hicks in a protective and even parental way, looked up and said why, you've already done enough for him. you're the best piece of tail he'll ever have, sending hicks running from the room. a horrible description of the way he treats women in the white house. >> i haven't read the book yet. and these things are unbelievable, but i don't think anyone there who reads his twitter feed would be surprised or some of the tapes that have come out in the past. what really matters to me is what are the legal ramifications of this. what happened at these meetings and this coordination with russia. because we know we have someone that isn't respecting civility in the white house. but what we need to know are what are the facts of the potential collusion with the foreign government which are against the laws of america. >> senator chlkl

this is a year ago today.ry sally yates visiting the white house. this is a year ago today. from that moment look at all these headlines. that donald trump has faced in this investigation. firing james comey, asking james comey to ease back on the investigation into flynn before he fires him, and then a month later, going and saying i don't like this special counsel. that is a lot of stuff to happen. does the white house not see that this is something that is not going away and every time that the president gets involved in any way, it only makes it bigger? >> look, we are in this very moment in a struggle for what will happen next in this investigation. and all those headlines point to the problems that the president is going to have whenfinished. what we have seen the last three, four, five months is a steady building case in the house and senate from republicans who are trying to build a case against taking the results of the investigation to heart. they are trying to build a case that the investigation was conflicted or wrong. we saw a list of excuses that the president

>> yates, comey, flynn. anything else they want to know? >> steve bannon offers sort of a wealth for mueller's team. >> he does. >> he was there during the campaign, during the transition and he went on to the white house. we're also expecting him to get questioned about whether the president tried to exert any pressure on jeff sessions when it came to the russia probe. tracing back, they could also ask about, look, we know you weren't there during this don junior meeting with the russians in trump tower in june of 2016, but what have you heard about it? what has the president said outit? what were the discussions like about it when you weren the white house? that's one of the key things about when these witnesses are going in to interview with mueller. it doesn't necessarily have to to be a decision they were a participant in. it could be the president's mind-set when he made these alarming calls and perhaps discussions bannon had with other senior staffers that went in around this. >> thank you very much. >>> now to a bigger conversation.

nbc news also has learned that yate's is cooperating with robert mueller's investigation into the trumppaign. cia director mike pompeo who was asked by president trump to lean on comey to drop his investigation into flynn has already been interviewed by the mueller team. remember he went -- tried to lean on the reports of coats and pompeo on that front. looking ahead, while the special counsel is seeking an agreement to talk to president trump, they plan on talking to former trump adviser steve bannon by the end of the month. we'll have more on the special counsel investigation and the push to investigate the investigators after the break. >>> welcome back. plenty to talk about there. let's get to tonight's panel. howard fineman and jennifer jacobs and michael steel, former rnc chair and the political analyst. jennifer, let me start with you. this white house effort, it's -- i'll say this, they no longer -- the white house press office no longer distances themselves from the president's attempts to discredit the fbi. that to me has been an interesting change over the last month. >> one

this is from the president talking about then deputy secretary sally yates. how are republicans going to defend against that? >> well, now with what bannon has done, which i think reorients the political map, will be very hard for the republican party, the conventional leadership in the republican party. we've seen a lot of things from the roy moore stuff where maybe we're wrong. maybe the capacity among leadership just to roll over. i think steve bannon's comments changed the game. when you've looked at that well, this isn't a conspiracy. he just took on the deputy attorney general who had warned him about michael flynn. barack obama had warned him about michael flynn. i wouldn't call that antipathy, that repugnant, gross behavior and commentary of the president of the united states versus someone celebrated and respected by both sides of the aisle in previous days. the map has now changed and i think the willingness of some percentage of that 30% that has been rock solid is going to take a new look. >> thanks to you. up next, more from this new bombshell of

got to know who don mcgahn was was through the revelation that it was don mcgahn who received sally yates. when she traveled over to the white house to warn the white house that mike flynn could be a target for russian blackmail. so don mcgahn's original involvement in the messiest aspects of what we know about the trump presidency come and being the recipient of the information about michael flynn's conduct or misconduct if you will. he's now pleaded guilty. it's probably safe to call it misconduct, vis-a-vis his communications with federal law enforcement. michael schmidt, can you talk to don mcgahn's general legal exposure as both the recipient of sally yates' original information, the sitting white house counsel at a time that mike pence went on tv and lied about mike flynn's contacts with russia? we understand that to be because he was not aware, but there are open questions now about whether the president was aware. and take us all the way through your reporting from today. just the body of don mcgahn's potential legal exposure or interest to bob mueller. >> yeah, i've never seen an

. >> andrew weisman, the number two at mueller's operation send an e-mail supporting sally yates' order and went to hillary clinton's election-night party. >> sean: and he leaked information about paul manafort before he started investigating him to the a.p. so many conflicts all coming together. next week will be a massive news week on to the state of the union and the memo being released. when we come back, more breaking news this friday. the president pushed his america-first agenda in front of the world and world leaders. we have highlights. what a difference a year makes. straight ahead. created 2.4 million jobs and unemployment claims are the lowest in almost half a century. i'm here to deliver a simple message, there's never been a better time to hire, invest and grow in the united states. we've just enacted the most significant tax cut and reform in american history. as president of the united states i will always put america first just like the leaders of other countries should put their country first also. but america first does not mean america alone. when the united states g

and using a vulgar expletive to describe sally yates, the active attorney general, who he would go on to fire. as for his inauguration day, the soon-to-be president, michael wolff writes was angry feeling slighted by the obamas. and celebrities who refused to perform for him. bearing the brunt, melania trump who, according to the book, seemed on the verge of tears. the first lady's office dismissing it all as fiction. wolff claims first daughter ivanka and husband jared kushner have entertained their own political future agreeing she'd be the one to run for president. the author also airing dirty laundry about the president's unusual habits and demands, reprimanding the housekeeping staff for picking up his shirt saying if my shirt's on the floor, it's because i want it on the floor. >> peter, a lot packed in there. you mentioned paul manafort. tonight, we're learning he's suing robert mueller and the justice department. why? >> reporter: that's right. manafort filing that lawsuit against mueller and jeff sessions' deputy at the justice department who greenlighted hiring mueller as sp

is one of the people who was in the loop, if you will, in the receipt of the information from sally yates about mike flynn, perhaps, being compromised, as well as in the loop as far as we understand on the president's machinations, if not his decisionmaking process, to fire flynn and comey. >> that's right. he's really important because there's a fundamental question about the whole mike flynn situation that we don't know the answer to, which is we do not know if donald trump asked mike flynn to go meet with sergey kislyak during the transition and negotiate behind the obama administration's back about sanctions or whether flynn did that on his own. and if donald trump dispatched his national security adviser to do that, then of course he knew that when flynn said that he didn't talk about sanctions, that was a lie. everything flows from that. mcgahn may be a fact witness to that and may be an important witness to the president's state of mind about why he fired comey and whether it was, in fact, to help make the russia investigation go away or whether it was about the stated reason of, y

the white house found out about the interview for two days, until then acting attorney general sally yates informed the legal team. but even after that revelation flynn wasn't fired for another three weeks for lying about his contacts with russian officials. >> the interview set off a chain of events in which key administration officials were fired and the president took steps that could potentially be seen as trying to obstruct justice. >> reporter: flynn pleaded guilty last month to lying to investigators during that meeting about his conversations with russia's ambassador and is now cooperating with special counsel robert mueller. the white house pressed on flynn keeping the president in the dark. >> the special counsel. >> [ inaudible ]. >> i haven't spoken to him about that specific issue. >> the last time he spoke with michael flynn. >> i'm not sure. >> reporter: nbc news has also learned mueller is casting a wide net, interviewing former fbi director james comey and attorney general jeff sessions. that list also includes mr. trump's intelligence chiefs, the director of national inte

director hope hicks in front of her and used a vulgar expletive to describe acting attorney general sally yates. >> i think furious, disgusted would probably certainly fit when you make such outrageous claims and completely false claims against the president, his administration, and his family. >> nbc has not confirmed much of what's in the book, and it appears to rely heavily on bannon, who was fired. >>> tomorrow flip a coin. or in the case of virginia's 94th house district race -- the race in newport news between democrat shelly simons and gop incumbent david yancy will be decide when'd one of their names is drawn from a bowl tomorrow. if yancy wins, republicans will hold a slim majority in the house. if simons wins the house will be evenly divided. it's likely that there will be another recount either way. >>> virginia governor-elect ralph northam thinks he'll be able to work with republicans regardless of who has control of the house. northam sad down for an exclusive interview with news 4's julie cary today. the governor-elect says he's adamant about expanding medicaid, gun control, and d