Show: 11TH HOUR WITH BRIAN WILLIAMS Date: January 25, 2018 Guest: Michael Schmidt, Jeremy Bash, Kimberly Atkins; Frank Figliuzzi; Chuck Rosenberg
BRIAN WILLIAMS, MSNBC HOST: Tonight the New York Times out with a big story that Donald Trump ordered the firing of Robert Mueller until his White House lawyer said, if he goes, I go, too. Tonight what it means that it apparently came so close to happening. How will fellow Republicans react, and is the President really looking forward to sitting down with Mueller under oath? This also makes for another huge story here while the President is over there. Hours from now he starts his day in Davos against the backdrop of big news from back home. "The 11th Hour" on a Thursday night begins now.
And good evening once again from our NBC News headquarters here in New York. Day 371 of the Trump administration and we have breaking news tonight first reported by the New York Times, later confirmed here by our own Kristen Welker, and it involves the President and Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
The Times broke the story that Donald Trump ordered Robert Mueller fired and then backed off. This was about a month after he had been appointed Special Counsel. The story is by New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman, Michael Schmidt. Michael is standing by to talk with us.
And in the story they write there is this, "President Trump ordered the firing last June of Robert Mueller according to four people told of the matter, but ultimately backed down after the White House counsel threatened to resign rather than carry out the directive. The West Wing confrontation marks the first time Mr. Trump is known to have tried to fire the Special Counsel. Mr. Mueller learned about the episode in recent months as his investigators interviewed current and former senior White House officials and his inquiry into whether the President obstructed justice. After receiving the President`s order to fire Mr. Mueller, the White House counsel, Donald McGahn refused to ask the Justice Department to dismiss the Special Counsel, saying he would quit instead."
"Mister McGahn disagreed with the President`s case. He also told senior White House officials that firing Mr. Mueller would have a catastrophic effect on Mr. Trump`s presidency and would incite more questions about whether the White House was trying to obstruct the Russia investigation. Mister McGahn also told White House officials that Mr. Trump would not follow through on the dismissal on his own. The President then backed off."
We want to remind you now of what the President said when he was asked about Mueller back in August.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mister President, have you thought about, considered leading the dismissal of the Special Counsel? Is there anything Bob Mueller could do that would send you in that direction?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I haven`t given any thought. I mean I`ve been reading about it from you people. You say, oh, I`m going to dismiss him. No, I`m not dismissing anybody.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: And tonight`s reporting comes one day after the President expressed his willingness bordering on eagerness to speak with the Special Counsel. Here was the President just last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you going to talk to Mueller?
TRUMP: I`m looking forward to it actually. I would do it under oath, absolutely.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think Robert Mueller will be fair to you in this larger investigation?
TRUMP: We`re going to find out.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you concern of it?
TRUMP: Here`s what we`ll say, and everybody says, no collusion. There`s no collusion. Now there`s saying, oh, well, did he fight back? Did he fight back? You fight back, john. You fight back. Oh, it`s obstruction. So here`s the thing. I hope so.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: Joining us by phone tonight, one half of the by-line that broke the story, Michael Schmidt, New York Times, Washington correspondent and MSNBC contributor who was with us here in the studio earlier this week. Michael, walk me through your reporting starting at this initial point, Trump`s initial fury apparently comes after he learns that the investigation has followed a prong of obstruction of justice. You also make a point to say the first known attempt, my wording and not yours, that the President tried to fire Mueller, I`ll start there. Were there others that you`re aware of?
MICHAEL SCHMIDT, NEW YORK TIMES WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: We`re not aware of any others but -- well, we are aware that it was June, a month after Comey had been fired and the President realized that Mueller was looking at him, looking at his conduct when he was in office, had he obstructed justice, and he had come up with different reasons for why Mueller should be dismissed.
One of that being that there had been a dispute when Mueller was a member of his golf club in Northern Virginia about membership fees and that Mueller had left. And he said that was a conflict of interest and that he should not be able to be the Special Counsel because of that.
WILLIAMS: These three reasons the President came up with these three conflicts he cited, were those tasked out? Do you have evidence that the President said to an attorney or a staff member, find us some cover, find us some reasoning for why Mueller shouldn`t be in this role?
SCHMIDT: Look, the President was looking for any type of reason to get rid of him. And the two other reasons, one of them being that Mueller had worked for a law firm that had represented Jared Kushner, and because of that, he couldn`t represent -- he couldn`t be the Special Counsel. And the other reason being that Mueller had interviewed with the FBI director the day before he was appointed Special Counsel. The President thought that was a conflict of interest, and that should disqualify him completely from doing his job.
WILLIAMS: And Mueller himself learned about this, learned in effect how close he came subsequently in interviews with senior and past senior officials in this White House.
SCHMIDT: I don`t think that`s the thing most people appreciated, that Mueller has been interviewing all these White House officials about the President`s conduct. He`s been looking at why the President did the things he did. Why did he fire Comey? Why did he ask Sessions to not recuse himself from the Russia investigation? And Mueller has developed all of these different threads from that, and he has learned more about what was going on inside the West Wing in that first six to eight months of the presidency and how the President was dealing with the Russia investigation.
WILLIAMS: I now get to ask you the unusual question of why your own work took so long to come out. And by that I mean another journalist said on Twitter tonight, this is proof these guys can keep a secret. Your friend, colleague and co-author Maggie Haberman said tonight, this proves they were really good at lying to us for a long time. Why did this particular story, do you think, take so long to get out?
SCHMIDT: I`m not sure. There is a lot of things that went on inside of this White House that we still don`t know about, but every day we go out and we try and figure out as much as we can, what are these people telling Mueller? What is Mueller looking at? Why is Mueller focusing on certain issues rather than others? And in the process of that, we kick up different things. And we`re just trying to follow the facts and understand as much as we can about this presidency.
WILLIAMS: Michael Schmidt, good work tonight. You know you`re always welcome on this broadcast, Michael Schmidt of the New York Times, co-author of tonight`s exclusive story.
Let`s bring in our lead off panel to talk about all of it on a Thursday night, in New York tonight, our MSNBC Political Analyst Eli Stokols, Kimberly Atkins, Chief Washington Reporter, I`ll get it right, for the Boston Herald, and Jeremy Bash, former Chief of Staff of CIA in the Pentagon, also former Counsel to House Intel.
So, Kimberly, as both lawyer and journalist and a unique dual role in this conversation, how big is this?
KIMBERLY ATKINS, BOSTON HERALD CHIEF WASHINGTON REPORTER: This is very big. I mean, this is an important piece in what we`ve been seeing over time which looks to be a concerted effort by this President to push back or stop efforts to investigate what is going on in the Russia investigation. We saw first the pressure on James Comey to get him to publicly say that there was no investigation, then the firing of Comey, then the pressure on other officials including members of Congress, to message the frustration about this investigation and ultimately an attempt to fire Robert Mueller, which he was told would be, at the very least, politically catastrophic and then an apparent shift back.
I think it`s also interesting that the story said that the President mulled the idea of firing a deputy FBI Director Rod Rosenstein. So I think all of this together is evidence -- it could be evidence that shows intent, an intent to stop this investigation, an intent to get in the way. And as this obstruction aspect of the investigation moves forward, this is going to be something that`s very important to Robert Mueller and his investigators.
WILLIAMS: Jeremy Bash, who admits to being a Harvard-educated lawyer himself, legally, how big is this?
JEREMY BASH, FORMER CIA CHIEF OF STAFF: Well criminal code does state that someone who endeavors tries influence impede or obstruct an awful (ph) investigation is guilty of an offense. So there is an intent element of the statute, Brian. But I sort of think that a prosecutor would not bring charges on that basis alone, but I agree with Kimberly, it does go to the state of mind of the target of investigation, the President of the United States, and it shows that he concocts pretense, he concocts phony arguments. In the context of Jim Comey it was, hey, I`m looking out for Hillary Clinton`s interests. No one believed that.
In this context it`s about golf fees. Nobody is going to believe that. So he is trying to impede this investigation. I think practically speaking, Brian, the most important aspect of this is that if Bob Mueller`s team did not know what Michael Schmidt and his company reported tonight, they`ll have to go back and reinterview all the witnesses, they have to go back and bring Don McGahn back in, bring in Reince Priebus back in, bring others back in to find out what they knew about this episode.
WILLIAMS: Eli Stokols, tomorrow morning and really just a few hours, Donald Trump is going to emerge in his hotel in Davos, Switzerland, and any reporters within shouting distance are going to ask him about the story. What if his first instinct is to fall back on past practice and say, never considered it, never thought about it, fake news?
BASH: Well, I mean, he`s been saying that, and I think this report makes it very clear that, you know, this is just another example of a president who is pretty indifferent to the truth. He looks at reporters with a straight face and says things that we now know were flat-out false. And, you know, obviously, as Kimberly said, he keeps doing these things. He`s obviously nervous, he`s twitchy.
But, you know, he fires Comey, that brings on the Special Counsel investigation. That`s what started the whole thing. Then he wants to fire the Special Counsel. Seven months later now, that comes out. That`s another brick in the wall of a case, perhaps, with obstruction of justice.
And so he keeps making things worse. I don`t know at this point whatever he says, the response in real time whether it comes in a tweet, whether it comes in a brush-off to the press corps that`s following him in Davos tomorrow here he gives a speech, and I don`t know that it really matters much in terms of the Mueller`s investigation. Mueller may already have known this. He may know -- there`s a lot more than this and that`s the ball game at the end of the day.
WILLIAMS: I want to play something interesting for you. For our viewers who aren`t familiar with his name, Chris Ruddy runs an organization called Newsmax. He`s part of the Palm Beach crowd around the president. They`ve known each other for years. Chris ruddy is an insider in the trump world.
He had a media appearance back in June of the summer where he made this point and then was roundly attacked for it. Let`s listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRISTOPHER RUDDY, CEO NEWSMAX MEDIA: I think he`s considering perhaps terminating the Special Counsel. I think he`s weighing that option. I mean, Robert Mueller, there is some real conflicts. He comes from a law firm that represent members of the Trump family. He interviewed the day before, or a few days before he was appointed Special Counsel, with the President who was looking at him potentially to become the next FBI director.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: So you see the talking points there, Eli, and I was reminded of this moment. I heard an interview with Maggie Haberman of the Times tonight pointing out that while he was attacked in realtime for those remarks, it turns out he was right.
ELI STOKOLS, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Well right. And Chris Ruddy knew this because he was one of those people on the outside talking with the President in realtime and perhaps putting those ideas in his head. I talked to Chris Ruddy a lot. He`s consistent in his belief that he`s articulated to reporters and to the President that the President and his lawyers haven`t been defensive enough in fending off the Special Counsel and challenging him in the courts in considering terminating him.
So this is something -- this is a possible action the President considered that Chris Ruddy may have thought was a good idea, and soon going out and talking about it publicly. But also, Don McGahn, the White House Counsel last summer -- this took place in June, apparently -- Don McGahn last summer, there have been other reports that he threatened to quit over other reasons because before the President brought in outside counsel to represent him in the Russia probe, the White House was a mess, and there were a lot of things McGahn was concerned about in terms of who was meeting who.
Were Jared Kushner and Donald Trump meeting together? Were there protocols around that and practices? Would it appear that they were they scheming together? There just wasn`t a process in the west wing. This before John Kelly came in, and Don McGahn, there has been reports that he, at that time, was considering quitting over that as well sensing the possible legal culpability.
WILLIAMS: And remember, White House counsel does not mean you`re the President`s lawyer, you are the lawyer for the institution, the presidency itself. Kim, let`s talk about the building behind you and what the reaction is likely to be especially among members of the President`s party.
ATKINS: Yes. I think, look, there was an effort some time ago to float legislation that would protect Robert Mueller, that would limit the ability of the President to fire Robert Mueller and that sort of fell by the wayside for a while. I think we`re going to see that come up again. And I think it very well could be a bipartisan effort.
I think -- look, I talked to lawmakers in both parties who are concerned about the President firing Robert Mueller. They don`t think that it`s a good idea. They think that it would be bad. Not only Republicans think it would be bad for the presidency, but all think that it would be bad for the institution of the Justice Department of the Special Counsel`s office. So I think there is a desire to stop that from happening.
And I think we`re going to hear a lot more about that. Of course, they can`t pass a bill without the President`s signature. It`s unlikely to have enough support to be veto-proof. But in itself, just that effort will make it more politically unpalatable for the President to fire Robert Mueller if he is, indeed, still pondering that.
WILLIAMS: Jeremy, just to go over from a legal angle. Again, if the President chooses to deny this story, tomorrow morning local time in Switzerland, are there legal ramifications? We saw what he said in August, never gave it any thought.
BASH: Yes. And again, Bob Mueller may have documents, he may have e- mails, he may have other witnesses describing this episode. So I think there`s a way to encircle the President. And if the President does give testimony whether under oath or not, the President`s going to have to tell the truth about it.
But it`s also worth pointing out Brian, that this is now the third official for the President of the United States has asked to engage in unethical conduct and they have threatened to resign. Jeff Sessions actually trying to resign. The President returned his resignation letter saying rejected.
Chris Wray was asked to carry out purge (ph) to the FBI threatened to resign, the President backed down. And now we have his own White House Counsel refusing to engage in unlawful and unethical conduct, the President asked him to do, and the White House Counsel had to threaten to resign before the President backed down.
WILLIAMS: Well that`s a terrific point. And Eli, here we are again unbelievably. A domestic story has overshadowed a foreign trip. It`s like when Air Force One is wheels up, something else very bad comes down.
STOKOLS: Although it`s also like when Air Force One is not wheels up, something comes down. I mean, that is the story of this President. It`s overload in terms of the news cycle, and it is one of the things that has I think enabled the President sort of, you know, get past some of these things. There is always something else.
The distraction, the sort of, you know, fog that they create, the fog machine, I don`t know that those things distract Bob Mueller and his investigation and where this whole thing is going here. But you do have to wonder why this came out now, who the sources were, what their angle was, was it Steve Bannon just sort of lighting matches, was it somebody inside worried about the President, maybe possibly considering firing Mueller again and trying to stay that off by boxing him in publicly? We don`t know but those questions are also important to ask as you sort of consider this story and what was the reason that it came out tonight.
WILLIAMS: As we said, our thanks to our starting panel as we deal with what is still this breaking news story. Eli Stokols, Kimberly Atkins, Jeremy Bash, and before all of that, Michael Schmidt, thank you all.
Coming up as we approach our first break, we`re going to keep going on this story. This major development tonight from the New York Times originally, this story of just how close Robert Mueller might have come to being the former Special Counsel.
And when we come back, how Mueller is likely to view all of these. Also, how this fits in a well-documented relationship Donald Trump has on the subject of loyalty. With most of an hour left to go, we`re back with more after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WILLIAMS: This bombshell report from the New York Times, President Trump actually tried to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller comes as the President himself is likely to be called to answer questions. Just yesterday, again, prior to leaving for Europe, Trump expressed his willingness to cooperate with Mueller.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Are you going to talk to Mueller?
TRUMP: I`m looking forward to it, actually.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You want to?
TRUMP: Just so you understand, there`s no collusion whatsoever. There`s no obstruction whatsoever. And I`m looking forward to it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you have a date set?
TRUMP: I don`t know. No. I think -- I guess they`re talking about two or three weeks, but I would love to do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: Here to talk about it, Frank Figliuzzi back with us, former FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence, who in the past has worked for Robert Mueller, he`s these days on MSNBC news National Security Analyst. And Chuck Rosenberg worked under both Robert Mueller and James Comey when they were running FBI. He`s also a former U.S. Attorney himself and a current MSNBC contributor. Gentlemen, welcome to you both.
Frank, you went to law school. How does this possibly add to an obstruction argument?
FRANK FIGLIUZZI, FMR. FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR COUNTERINTELLIGENCE: Yes. So a key element of an obstruction of justice charge is intent. So tonight in the long string of conduct that we`ve had the President play out that all point to obstruction, it`s this one, this intent to fire someone because you`ve learned they`re looking at you for obstruction. It actually sounds like a bad law school exam question, you know. So you fire someone because they`re looking at you for obstruction, is that obstruction?
And tonight that gives us a glimpse into the President`s intent deeper into his head, and it helps shape the way we perceive all those other things that he`s done. The firing of Comey, pressure on Sessions to not recuse himself from the Russia inquiry, the drafting of the letter that says the Trump Tower meeting was all about child adoption. Tonight, in case you needed any further more shading of what his intentions were with those, we now have clear intent to fire the guy who is investigating him.
WILLIAMS: Now Chuck, every profile I`ve ever read of Robert Mueller indicates he has made of between 10 percent and 30 percent Kevlar. He is all but immune to personal slights. He may find this tidbit more curious than hurtful. But what does he do with the knowledge of how close he came to being a former Special Counsel? And how, if it all, does this fit in these negotiations, let`s not forget are going on between Mueller and White House as to what form of the President`s testimony will take?
CHUCK ROSENBERG, WORKED FOR ROBERT MUELLER AND JAMES COMEY AT THE FBI: Yes. I will take your second question first, Brian. In terms of negotiations, here`s the analogy I was thinking of. It`s like standing on a street corner and looking up and seeing a piano about to fall on your head and trying to negotiate with the piano about the laws of gravity. There is not really a negotiation here.
Mueller holds the cards. They can talk about a voluntary interview. They might talk about where that takes place. But in the end, if the President doesn`t agree to that, he`s going to get a subpoena to appear in a grand jury and there are no negotiations. You show up and you either assert the Fifth Amendment privilege not to incriminate yourself or you answer the questions truthfully or you lie and you add to the troubles against you.
Your first question, what does this do about the investigation and does it, you know, dissuade Mueller, does it, you know, spur him on? This may sound like a weird answer, Brian. It doesn`t do a thing. The men and women of the FBI, and Frank knows this, do their work. They`re not out to get individuals, they`re out to get facts. They are not crawled up under a desk in a fetal position because somebody said something that was mean about them.
And in this case, the President has taunted the FBI, he`s tried to humiliate people, he`s fired one person and tried to fire another, and they just keep coming. That`s what federal agents and federal prosecutors do. They just keep coming. It`s not going to have any effect at all.
WILLIAMS: Frank, it really is unbelievable to hear it in Chuck`s words. We have a President who has criticized the FBI, trolled the FBI, attacked an individual civil servant at the FBI.
FIGLIUZZI: There`s a much larger meaning to all of this, right? And it`s a White House and an administration that`s looking at their own self- interests and ignoring the longer game, which is preserving the key institutions in our society, the rule of law. So we`re all focused on this instant investigation. But I`m deeply concerned with the deeper meaning of all this, which is the eroding of trust and credibility and the institutions that separate us from the rest of the world.
WILLIAMS: And Frank, if you`re Trump`s legal team, this may be a hard turn for you to make, but imagine you are either MR. Dowd or Mr. Cobb. What`s the worst thing about this story coming out?
ROSENBERG: Well, I think they`ve painted themselves into a corner, right, because they have a client, the president, who keeps coming out and saying he`s looking forward to the Special Counsel interview. He thinks that Mueller will treat him fairly. So while one strategy otherwise might have been for the President to come out tomorrow and go, yes, so what? I was thinking of firing him, because I think there were some silly conflicts of interest, right, the golf club, et cetera.
Well, now if he comes out and says that, he`s contradicting himself. So he`s in a corner. He`s probably going to defend his position, which is, no, I`m going forward with it. I deny that this happened.
WILLIAMS: Chuck, let`s talk about Mr. McGahn. By one way of looking at this, he`s putting his body between the President and this decision might have spared us something of a constitutional crisis. I think I`m right when I run through his brief biographical notes, he had the good sense of be born in New Jersey, went to Annapolis, went to Notre Dame, I think he went to Georgetown Law School. He`s been in and around law and Republican politics for a long time. He did steward the Gorsuch nomination.
But this also puts him in an interesting spot. Can White House Counsel also be a witness to something that is later kind of rolled up and folded into something urged the label of obstruction?
ROSENBERG: He can certainly be a witness, Brian. In fact, it sounds like he has already been a witness. And I imagine, and I think this point was made earlier, that some of the folks who have been witnesses like Mr. McGahn will probably be interviewed a second time and maybe even a third time.
So, yes, it seems like he stood up for the rule of law. I think John Adams said we are a nation of law, not of men. I`d like to think that there are people around the President who embody that notion. It seems like he did the right thing. Thank you for that.
WILLIAMS: Frank, I want you to react to raw speculation. Sorry, we do that from time to time.
This is our friend Bill Kristol who was here with us in the studio last night. He is a terrific follow on Twitter, and he has said this tonight. "Who leaked this? Probably McGahn, perhaps with Cobb. Why now? Well, its effect will presumably be a negative reaction to firing Mueller which may well mean Trump recently returned to the idea and this is a desperate effort by McGahn to stop him again. Plausible, Frank?
FIGLIUZZI: Wow. Yes, I guess in the current situation we`re in, trying to manage the President through public press releases and leakage that somehow gets back to him to influence his decision-making, who to thunk it? But, yes, we may be in that situation right now.
WILLIAMS: And Chuck, to quote a great New Jerseyian, after a summer of some confusion, change was made up town and two big men joined the band and Dowd and Cobb came in as Trump`s lawyers and brought a certain amount of order, depending on whose account you believe, because they saw their job as kind of managing the President. We`ve heard these public pronunciations that the investigation will be over by the end of last year and so on as ways of kind of visibly publicly managing the President`s expectations.
CHUCK ROSENBERG, WORKED FOR ROBERT MUELLER AND JAMES COMEY AT THE FBI: Yes, they might be dancing in the dark, Brian. It`s hard to say with a client like they have what they know, whether they even know the entire story. I`ve often seen in my cases as a prosecutor, and I`m sure Frank has seen the same thing as an FBI agent, that sometimes the lawyers are the last to know.
The client knows. Maybe the client`s family and friends know, but often the lawyers are the last to know. And so, you know, I can`t tell you what they actually know. I can tell you from my own experience there is going to be plenty of surprises along the way.
WILLIAMS: Frank, last night the President spoke briefly with reporters. We didn`t have time to get a camera there. We`ve been listening to only audio of his remarks prior to his departure. Let`s call it 15 minutes Q and A after which Ty Cobb had to come out and sweep up a little bit the President`s remarks and say, in effect, what he meant to say.
What`s he likely to be like in front of a Robert Mueller? How would you prepare your client Donald Trump for that?
FRANK FIGLIUZZI, FMR. FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR COUNTERINTELLIGENCE: Yes. Boy, I think we`ve just been talking about what this client is like. He`s uncontrollable and not manageable. So, preparing him will involve restraining him. Having him answer only the question that`s answered and nothing more.
And trying to do that over the course of perhaps hours will be extremely challenging with this client, the President. So I don`t envy their position. The fact that he said he`s looking forward to it, it`s really like saying you look forward to root canal. No one does, and I`m sure his Counsel is not looking forward to this at all.
WILLIAMS: And Chuck, you get to back clean you and you get our final word. Where does this show you that the scope of Mueller`s investigation is right now tonight?
ROSENBERG: Yes. I`ve never thought that it was right at the end, Brian. I`ve always believed that there is a lot more road ahead of us. In part we know that the Manafort and Gates trial isn`t even scheduled yet, and the judge was talking about September or October.
And at some point you should presume that Mueller would like to know what they know. So I think there`s a lot more work to be done. Mueller is way ahead of us. He knows a heck of a lot more than we do, but I think there is a lot of road ahead of us.
WILLIAMS: Two terrific guests. Thank you, gentlemen, so much for adding so much to our conversation. Frank Figliuzzi and Chuck Rosenberg, appreciate it very much.
Coming up for us tonight, President Trump and the obsession with loyalty, when THE 11TH HOUR continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You know, loyalty is very important. Loyalty can be a wonderful thing.
Through our loyalty to our country, we will rediscover our loyalty to each other.
But I don`t think it would be a bad question to ask. I think loyalty to the country, loyalty to the United States is important. You know, I mean, it depends on how you define loyalty.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: The same month the New York Times reports Donald Trump was asking for ordering Robert Mueller to be fired, we heard from former FBI Director James Comey who was also fired by the Trump administration about one of the more disturbing experiences he had with Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES COMEY, FORMER FBI DIRECTOR: He asked specifically of loyalty in the context of asking me to stay.
SEN. MARK WARNER (D), VIRGINIA, SENATE INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Despite you explaining your independence, he kept coming back to I need loyalty. I expect loyalty. Had you ever had any of those of request before from anyone you`d worked for in the government?
COMEY: No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: Once again, in the breaking news from the New York Times tonight, Donald Trump`s focus on loyalty was on display here in this piece saying, "Mr. Trump has long demonstrated a preoccupation with those who have overseen the Russia investigation. In March, after Mr. McGahn failed to persuade Attorney General Jeff Sessions not to recuse himself from the inquiry, Mr. Trump complained that he needed someone loyal to oversee the Justice Department."
Here to talk about it with us tonight, Eugene Robinson, Pulitzer Prize winning Columnist for The Washington Post and an MSNBC Political Analyst, Jackie Calmes is with us White House Senator from Los Angeles Times and Matthew Miller is with us, MSNBC Justice and Security Analyst and former Chief Spokesman over the Department of Justice. Jackie, walk us through at least your view of the modern history of Donald Trump on the subject of loyalty.
JACKIE CALMES, THE LOS ANGELES TIMES WHITE HOUSE EDITOR: Well, he`s a man who literally grew up with expectations of loyalty to family. It`s almost like the Corleones. You know, he grows up in the family business, and he`s been in family business his entire career. And his children now work for him. He`s never had to answer to a Board of Directors, and so he`s used to just having sycophants and loyalists around him at all times.
And as President has come in, and he seems to expect the same not only of everyone in his cabinet, including the Attorney General who has a role to be very independent of the President, but he expects it of Members of Congress of his party, too, and treats them not as an independent branch of government but as an arm of his presidency. And so it`s just affected -- he doesn`t operate in any other way.
WILLIAMS: Eugene, as you may know, my theory of life is that all of life comes back to the godfather, and I swear that was not a setup when Jackie mentioned the Corleone family. Has this genius (ph) also your thing but you localize it to "Godfather II", please explain.
EUGENE ROBINSON, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, it`s "Godfather Part II" when it was Michael Corleone. He just asked to lay down the law. And it`s absolute loyalty to the family or else, right? And that`s kind of the mindset of Donald Trump.
I mean, look at what he has done. You had that clip from Jim Comey. He asked his FBI Director for a pledge of loyalty. When he didn`t get the pledge of loyalty, he fired the FBI Director and then he asked the Director`s replacement how he voted in the election.
Again, this is an obsession with Donald Trump. It`s a fundamental misunderstanding of how the government is supposed to work, but we kind of knew that. And, you know, I don`t know how this movie ends, but there was a lot of bloodshed in "The Godfather" and this is going to be a rough year.
WILLIAMS: I want to play for all of us Donald Trump on the subject of his own hand-selected Attorney General who happened to be the first sitting Senator to get on board the Trump campaign, Jeff Sessions. Then we`ll talk about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I am disappointed in the Attorney General. He should not have recused himself almost immediately after he took office. And if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me prior to taking office, and I would have quite simply picked somebody else.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: So Matt Miller, the question is, is that ignorance of how the levers of government and the presidency are to be pulled?
MATTHEW MILLER, FORMER JUSTICE DEPARTMENT CHIEF SPOKESMAN: I think you could ascribe it to ignorance the first couple of months in office, but by that point, you know, he`d been through a number of series events involving the Justice Department. You have to think someone sitting down and said, look, there is supposed to be a wall between the Justice Department and the White House and you have to respect that wall. It`s clear that it`s not just that he doesn`t understand that need for the Justice Department`s independence but that he`s hostile to it.
You mentioned of course Jeff Sessions and Jim Comey the famous in sense, but we see it affect his relationship with all kinds of senior leaders at the Justice Department. He, of course, asked to Andrew McCabe, the Interim Director of the FBI who he voted for, when Preet Bharara was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He met with him personally and then called him repeatedly.
Preet said later he though he was trying to ingratiate himself and make Preet loyal to him. He personally interviewed the U.S. attorneys for the Southern District of New York, the Eastern District of New York and the District of Columbia, all districts that would have jurisdiction over either his activities in White House or in New York. Something that in the Obama White House, in the Bush White House, the President never did. Never did as attorney can`t.
So he has this need to try to, you know, demand loyalty at all levels of federal law enforcement in a way that we`ve not seen from other presidents in a way that`s really inappropriate.
WILLIAMS: Jackie, I spoke with a source familiar with this White House who used the word toxic to describe the atmosphere. That kind of who-can-you- trust atmosphere where multiple people know that multiple people have gone in to give their testimony, but no one knows what the other has said. There are predictions of a coming staff exodus. Does that match up with what you`re hearing from the same folks?
CALMES: Well, absolutely. And, you know, that`s really been true of this administration from the start. And, you know, we lose sight of the fact that this investigation has been going on since before Donald Trump was elected or inaugurated.
And so what that means is that Robert Mueller has talked to a lot of people, and even before he took over the investigation, he inherited a lot of material from people who had been talked to. And it`s just -- all of this, you know, you look at this news scoop today, that Mueller -- he had ordered Mueller to be fired and that he only backed off when Don McGahn threatened to resign. Mueller has talked to so many people already.
Reince Priebus, who was Chief of Staff of the White House at the time, and Sean Spicer who was the Press Secretary at the time. And Don McGahn, and there`s just many others that we don`t know. We just simply don`t know how many people Mueller and his team have talked to, and so that just, you know, every day it`s pins and needles, people at the White House. And they have to hire lawyers.
I saw this in the Clinton administration, but there you didn`t have that same sense that looking over your shoulders to see who might have been telling something that could directly be counter to what you might be telling and that you could each be hurting the other. It`s much more different here. It`s much more personal.
WILLIAMS: Eugene, should we spend a moment talking about Don McGahn who, as we said earlier in the broadcast, knowing what we know tonight, just may have averted something of an early constitutional crisis last summer?
ROBINSON: Well, he may well have. And, look, I think we would expect, frankly, someone, a lawyer who was able to rise to the level of White House Counsel to react in that manner, to see the President about to commit an act that`s deeply unwise and undemocratic counter to our system and throw themselves on the tracks in the path of this rampaging train and say, you know, I`m out of here if you do it. So I think that`s an admirable thing. That`s the kind of thing we would expect from someone in that position.
One thing I would add, just to point out that somebody leaked this story, people leaked this story to the New York Times.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
ROBINSON: People are confirming it to The Washington Post and to other news organizations. So clearly, this is an attempt by people in the White House to send some kind of message and perhaps a message to the President.
WILLIAMS: It may be another name for the Robert Mueller Preserve and Protection Act of 2018, we don`t know yet.
Our guests have agreed to stick around. We`re going to sneak a break in here. We`ll be back. We`ll talk about what was going on in June of last year.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WILLIAMS: On June 14, The Washington Post reported that Special Counsel Robert Mueller was investigating President Trump for possible obstruction of justice. In that same story, The Post reported Mueller was seeking to interview senior intelligence officials including the Director of National Intelligence, the DNI and the head of the NSA as part of that inquiry.
The very next day President Trump took to twitter writing, "You are witnessing the single greatest witch hunt in American political history led by some very bad and conflicted people. Make America great again."
Back with us, Eugene Robinson, Jackie Calmes and Matthew Miller. For further evidence of what was going on in June, because of the compression of time and space guys, this is like 10 years ago now. I want you to look at this graphic. June 7, Comey releases his memo detailing interactions with Trump. Whoops, how did that get out?
June 8th, Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee. June 15 report that Mueller is investigating Trump for, as we said, possible obstruction of justice. June 15 from tweets, what we just read to you. Jackie, just looking back at his Twitter account is kind of a play-by-play of where his head was and where we knew the investigation was.
CALMES: Right. You had had on June 14 that Washington Post story which was characterized -- The Washington Post story that said that Mueller was looking at Trump himself and obstruction of justice.
And remember, one of the things he was obsessed about earlier in the year with Jim Comey when Jim Comey was still FBI Director was the fact that he personally, Donald Trump, was not under investigation and Jim Comey has testified that he several times reassured the President but that was -- reassurance was only good for as long as Jim Comey was in the job.
And then you subsequently had these things that Donald Trump had done, not least firing Jim Comey, that invited looking into obstruction of justice. And so, at that point, The Post characterized this as a major turning point in the investigation and this was exactly Donald Trump`s worst nightmare.
So in June 15th and June 16th, the days after that Washington Post story, you had virtual tweet storms posted by Donald Trump reacting and repeatedly calling this a witch hunt. And he clearly was obsessed at the time with this.
WILLIAMS: Matt, just looking down the list of names because I worked so hard on these graphics tonight, we`re going to use them, Don McGahn, Sean Spicer, Hope Hicks, Jeff Sessions, Reince Priebus, Jared Kushner,, Stephen Miller, they`ve all been in to talk to Mueller. Imagine the case file sitting across on the other side of the table when and if the President goes in to talk?
MILLER: Yes. It`s incredible because these are all people that were around for. You know, what we thought until today, the really critical period was from January 20th when Donald Trump took office and especially several days after that when Mike Flynn first had his interview with the FBI and May 9th the day he fired Jim Comey. Those were the key dates we thought were to look at for the obstruction of justice investigation. We now know that it extends a little further because he was taking acts that could be potentially obstruction of justice as late as June in trying to fire Robert Mueller.
All of those key aides that were around the President all are able to talk to his state of mind, which is the key thing to proving any obstruction of justice case. Why was the President taking the actions he did.
And so whenever one of them goes in to talk to Bob Mueller, Mueller has talked to other aides beforehand, they`re going to sit down and find out that he knows about meetings they were in, he knows what -- you know, if Steve Bannon comes in, he`s going to down and say we heard that you said in this meeting so and so. And if Steve Bannon, you know, wants to give a different recollection, you know, he risks a false statement charge.
It`s a very difficult situation. And it`s most difficult for the President because he is the last one to come in for his interview. Bob Mueller has the benefit of piecing together every other piece of the puzzle before that sit-down.
WILLIAMS: Eugene, in plain English, the mooch has surfaced. He is in Davos for the President`s trip. And in his defense, he gave a live interview on "CNN Tonight," it was 3:30 in the morning in Switzerland. He was asked to react to the New York Times story. We`ll play it and talk about it on the other side.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: It`s totally irrelevant because he actually didn`t fire Mueller. And I find it very ironic that this information is coming out while he`s here in Davos, while he`s had great fanfare. And so, you know, you and me I would love to get a look at somebody like Steve Bannon`s phone records to see who he`s talking to and how this information is out there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: So interesting trifecta defense there. It`s not a story because it didn`t happen. It`s not a story because it`s intended to quash the good news out of this trip. And, by the way, I`d look at Steve Bannon phone records.
ROBINSON: Yes. I`m going to blame Bannon. That was interesting. It was a Trifecta. Very quickly, I think we -- just journalism should be happy that the mooch is back, I guess.
You know, the thing about this investigation that we`re hearing is, again, sources who have been interviewed by Mueller, presumably some of the people you had in that graphic are saying that Mueller`s investigators have not just accounts of meetings and who said what and this and that but they have e-mails, they have documents that people go in there having no idea that Mueller has. And this is just an indication of what we I suspect and we`ve suspected all along, Mueller knows a whole lot more than we know he knows.
And I think that`s the essential imbalance in this investigation. That`s what has to worry not only Trump but all those who work with Trump and will continue to worry them, I think, for some time because I think this investigation has a long way to go.
WILLIAMS: Eugene Robinson, Jackie Calmes, Matt Miller, our thanks to our guests tonight for a fantastic conversation of our breaking news story. A break for us. We`re back with more right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WILLIAMS: The last thing before we go here tonight, he is the President of the United States. He`s got the job, use of a house for starters, which comes with a movie theater, bowling alley, putting green, Rose Garden and better-than-average cooking, he`s got the helicopter and the plane and the motorcade all three of which are part where he is where the traveling apparatus of the presidency is. And tonight, that happens to be Davos, Switzerland where tomorrow he as President of the United States will represent our country in front of finance ministers and CEOs and just plain fancy and wealthy people.
Like most of the men and women who have sought the job, he is a man of complicated psychology, while unique in his own way. We have never heard a president talk like him. We have never seen a president operate like him. That was on spectacular display last night in an impromptu interview captured only by audio in a doorway in the west wing. In one startling moment while continuing to litigate his own election victory over Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump verbalized his constant and gnawing need for praise.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, how do you find collusion? And Maggie asked this earlier during the briefing to Sarah, but how do you --
TRUMP: You`re going to define it for me, OK? But I can tell you, there`s no conclusion. I couldn`t have cared less about Russians having to do with my campaign. The fact is, you people won`t say this but I`ll say it. I was a much better candidate than her.
You always say she was a bad candidate. You never say I was a good candidate. I was a one of the greatest candidates. Nobody else would have beaten the Clinton machine as crooked as it was. But I was a great candidate. Someday you`re going to say that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: The President of the United States who will shortly begin his business day in Davos, Switzerland before heading back to the U.S. tomorrow evening.
That is our broadcast for a Thursday evening. Thank you so very much for being here with us. Good night from NBC news headquarters here at New York.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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