. >>> mueller's case for obstruction. why the special counsel is looking at the president's twitter feed. we'll look at what it means for this president and the white house from the reporters breaking the story as the 11th hour gets under way on a thursday evening. >>> good evening once again from new york. day 553 of this trump administration. there's breaking news yet again tonight and it's this. a source saying michael cohen asserts the president knew about the june 2016 trump tower meeting in advance. was told it about by his son before it happened. the source also goes onto say cohen is willing to make that assertion to robert mueller. you may recall that the june meeting between donald trump junior and several different russian nationals including an attorney with reportedly close ties to the kremlin in that meeting. russians were expected to provide damaging political information on hillary clinton. let's listen to what the president himself told three journalists from the new york times about whether he knew about

mueller no, there will not be an interview with the president, mueller could issue a subpoena to try to compel the president to sit down and testify. the president's outside attorneys are confident that mueller won't pull that rabbit out of his hat. >> harris: and what rudy guliani described on "outnumbered" more than once, michael cohen is a scoundrel, what he said is there's 183 unique recordings. of them, there's about 12 that are on point with certain issues and topics and legalities. he pointed out there's a journalist on the recordings. we'll watch to see how this unfolds. we knew some of this but not in detail. chris cuomo, in a lengthy conversation, we understand, with michael cohen as well. it was described as rudy guliani by being -- i want to find my notes on that -- possibly as long as two hours. >> yeah. >> harris: two hours, the recording. what he says is once all of this comes out, because it can't now, but once it comes out and the public can hear those 12 or so recordings that are on top of substance, the president will be vindicated. one question i'd ask rudy gulian

it became the mueller probe. keep going. therefore, the witch hunt is an illegal scam, put the capitalization on -- number one, it's not illegal. two federal judges have ruled is that bob mueller has the right to proceed against paul manafort. 191 criminal charges, 32 individuals chargesed, 3 companies. five people have pled guilty including national security advisor michael flynn and deputy campaign chairman rick gates. these are people cooperating. is robert mueller ever going to release his conflicts of interest by donald trump? let's just jump forward here. first of all, the department of justice, which, by the way, is the justice department for the trump administration have ruled there are no ethics conflicts for bob mueller to rule this. rudy giuliani couldn't tell you what the conflicts were but, again, there's nothing in here that speaks to a conflict of interest as we would define it. you have three tweets, a bunch of claims and you have seven, eight, nine things or willful effort by donald trump to cast whatever bo

bob mueller indicting russians for hack iing. the biggest developments in this probe since paul manafort's indictment. this is friday, july 13, and the special counsel probe that donald trump has spent his presidency degrading in which house republicans furiously blasted in that nearly ten-hour hearing yesterday in which currently hangs over trump's foreign tour and putin summit, well, tonight there has been the most detailed indictment of russian election meddling in american history. there are implications here for the u.s. relationship with russia, the security of the upcoming midterms and most importantly implications for potential further charges here in the united states. tonight on the beat we have special coverage of all of this including reaction from a top aide to hillary clinton and a former roger stone associate sam nunberg. but i bring you the facts tonight. tonight's indictment not aimed at a lawyer who did work for trump associates like some past indictments, not aimed at unknown political operatives like george pa

>> only impression i got that from mueller himself. >> mueller told you that? >> we talked about part of the negotiation is also timing. if we get an interview, we want to know a report will come out within a fairly short period of time, sitting around biting our nails and a lot of stuff speculation goes on. and they have said that at that point, they had thought that september early september would be a good guideline. i may have read into that that that's also a good time so you don't get accused of doing a comey and getting involved in the election. >> if he does not wrap it up by september, are you worried this will affect the midterms? >> yeah, i don't know which way. i mean, yeah, people against him get excited about it but if one of his biggest rallying cries, don't impeach. vote republican because they'll impeach. i think it sure as hell confuses the midterm and could be a -- go off on a ridiculous thing about impeachment. maybe you do. i don't think you want the american people voting on impeachment. you want them voting on taxes and russia and china e

>> mueller is clearly setting up the narrative. the next indictment is coming, i assume, roger and maybe others. it's been reported by cnbc. i was never asked about this that somebody was asked about a meeting roger had now his name -- the one who worked for manafort. right under him. >> rick gates. >> he had a meeting with him. who knows what they talked about with the e-mails. >> rick gates, of course, has pled guilty. >> and is cooperating. >> and is cooperating. you say today you think it's more likely that roger stone will be indicted? >> i think from the very beginning as i said after i left the grand jury, roger was, it would be nice to say he was a subject. he was clearly a target. my question -- >> that was clear to you in the way that you were being questioned? >> yes, i said that to you before. it was 100%. >> you said before it was like they were trying to set up a perjury trap, which hadz hs to with statements testifying. this does not look like perjury, sam. this looks like laying out the predicate for the fact that r

when mueller was chief of homicide. welcome to you both. i have to ask, what does today's document tell you about where we are in this thing and where mueller is and where he is going? >> well, i think this was mueller's way of rounding out the frame work for this whole russian collusion election conspiracy that we have been talking about. the first russian indictment was about the social media influence. everyone has been sort of expecting this part to come about the hacking. i think what it does is it tells us in such great detail, you know, and shows the meticulousness and the detail of mueller's work and what -- so now we have the frame work and what's left to come is were there u.s. citizens involved in helping this? i think this indictment screams out that there are and that more indictments are coming and i do believe -- it's dangerous but i really do believe, you know, if you read between the lines here what we are going to be looking at next is indictments of u.s. citizens. >> glenn, do you buy that general flow first the russians

they want to find out what the mueller investigation has. and so they are trying to figure out what can we find out when and it is just garbage really. i think the mueller investigation will continue. i don't know of any u.s. attorney office or anyone that would give information until in fact there is an indictment. and that is then see what they have. but until an indictment happens, you don't give up that information. >> we'll turn now to a new "washington post" article which sheds some light on the president's relationship with foreign leaders. given your position on the foreign affairs committee, we'll get to this. they find these relationships unorthodox diplomacy rattling all of this ahead of the nato trip, the putin summit. first of all, is the word summit the right word to use for the putin meeting? do we even know what is on the agenda or is it just a meet and greet? >> to me what trump does is try to have a made for television something or other and try to build it up and make it seem like it is something that it's not. when we fin

and so i think mueller has every right to ask trump about that. and the fact that trump will not sit down and talk about that i think speaks volumes about his concern and likely his guilt. >> glen, how nervous should roger stone be tonight? and let me ask you to further predict when you think the next is we will hear from mueller. what portion of this will it be? >> i suggest roger stone should be quite nervous. and, you know, when he ends up in a court of law roger stone will certainly have a fifth amendment right against self-incrimination. but, boy, when we read this document that was handed down today in the court of public opinion, roger stone sure looks like he has some explaining to do. and i do think that he is very likely going to be rolled into the next indictment mueller hands down. with respect to the timing the one thing i will say confidently without claiming to look into the mind of mueller and his team is that mueller will be keenly interested in not impacting the mid-term elections by timing the release of either a report to congr

and if mueller doesn't talk, some witnesses do. we were thinking back on this today, previously nbc news reported that witnesses were facing questions from mueller's investigators over what trump knew about hacked democratic e-mails before they went public and more seriously, whether he was involved in their, quote, strategic release. russia launched this cyber attack on the u.s. and that has gone largely unpunished by the trump administration. we know trump was dragged to sanctions for russia by congress. tonts tonight he skipping opportunity to to stand tall and tough on the world stage. and let's be clear about how big this is. tonight, we learned something no one knew in public yesterday, it does look like the russians were listening to trump's hacking request on july 27th, 2016. today we learned they are charged with committing that requested crime that day. and so the questions that remain are significant, but far more narrow. was that a coincidence? some kind of overreaction to overheated candidate rhetoric? or was it a key

obviously i don't know what bob mueller knows. none of us knows what bob mueller knows. how it relates if is hard to tell. for the first point, obviously his liberty is at stake. most of the other folks involved in the mueller investigation have plead or -- so i think that the really concern here with paul manafort is that he is innocent and he is hoping that president trump will grant him a pardon. he is taking a big risk allowing this to go to trial. >> this is a campaign manager that had close ties to russian money. at a time when the russian government was authorizing attempts to meddle in the election, but there is a difference between that and does ma manafort have anything in regards to collusion. if they were going to make a deal with him, it would have happened by now. >>. >> i think that is a fair assumption. pob mueller has his strategy on people who would have information about russian experience and the role, the personal involvement of the president, but we have not seen this happen, again, in a situation if he believes he is innocent, and if he is convicte

and mueller may not be done with manafo manafort. this memo indicates that the special counsel is still investigating whether manafort was, quote, colluding with russian government officials, end quote, to interfere in the 2016 election. >> there is no evidence that mr. manafort or the colluded. >> reporter: rick gates has already pleaded guilty and will testify against manafort. among the others indicted, michael flynn, trump's former national security adviser and george papadopoulous, former campaign aid. both pleaded guilty to lying to prosecutors and both are cooperating with the investigation. an associate of manafort's described in court documents as a suspected russian intelligence operative also indicted, 13 russian nationals and three russian entities. charged with interfering in the 2016 election. and most recently, another group of 12 russian nationals, charged with hacking the democratic national committee and the clinton campaign. his team has interviewed at least two dozen members of the trump administration and other t

>> where we are in the mueller investigation is mueller. it's hard to make a decision on if the investigation is real or not without really knowing what's going on. >> absolutely. >> what we're hearing and the things we talk about, it's only the tip of the iceberg. mueller has the information. so that's where i say to that, look, what donald trump is doing is so typical. it's typical trump. the greatest hits, witch hunt, attacking the media, right, saying, hey, you know, fake news, enemy of the people. he goes after democrats. it's all the same. what's happening is the walls are closing in on him. if you look at where we were a month ago, on july 27, kennedy retired, right? it was this big upswing for republicans. they had their second opportunity to have a -- >> supreme court, right. >> next thing that happened is michael cohen tapes, michael cohen talking to mueller, helsinki happened which was a disaster. the walls are closing in. on april 9 fbi raided cohen's house and hotel and office. the president flipped out. >> not an attack on the

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mueller. >> are there specific tweets that point potentially to obstruction of justice or witness intimidation? >> as you know, obstruction of justice is when you intentionally try to interfere with an independent investigation or interfere with the witnesses or make it clear that you're going to do things that will make it difficult for that investigation to go forward. so certainly there have been incredible number of tweets by the president, statements by the president that i'm sure are of interest to mr. mueller. >> what do you make of rudy giuliani's defense that obstruction of justice is done quietly and secretly and not in public? >> that is not necessarily true. we know sometimes it is done in a very open way. other times it is done in a way that is pretty direct to the parties involved. this president operates in a different manner than any other president has operated. i don't think there is one path that goes towards obstruction of justice. that is a matter that mr. mueller has to l

they're using this to try to take attention from the mueller investigation and discredit the mueller investigation to throw a lot of mud there so when the mueller investigation comes out with whatever it does come out with, if it is not favorable to the president, they'll have a lot of people and will have poisoned the jury pool as rudy guiliani said, ultimately this could come to a judgment by the american people, should we impeach the president or not, et cetera, and they want to discredit what reports may come out when they don't know what it will be, when nobody knows what it will be yet. >> as for mr. strzok, is your position that basically what he said was stupid, but he didn't do anything wrong or what he said was fine? the thought experiment that republicans are asking americans to consider is if an official said these things about barack obama or pick your favorite president, it might upset a lot of people around the country. >> oh, i asked mr. strzok, i said you've been in the fbi 22 years, you know a lot of people. were there other fbi agents with a low opinion of donald t

questioning the credibility of robert mueller's ongoing investigation. in a series of tweets yesterday, trump claimed there was no collusion and called mueller's probe a witch-hunt and an illegal school. he went on to right, is robert mueller ever going to release his conflict of interest with respect to president trump, including the fact that we had a very nasty and contentious business relationship. i turned him down to head the fbi one day before appointment as special counsel, and comey is his close friend. also, why is mueller only appointing angry dems, some of whom have worked for crooked hillary, others including himself have worked for obama. and why isn't mueller looking at all of the criminal activity and

bob mueller is operating on bob mueller's time line and until he releases that report, until there's a conclusion reached in that report, all of this is -- is politics. meaning outside of that investigation. and bob mueller to his credit has done a completely apolitical type of investigation despite the onslaught of hyper political tensions outside of it coming at him from both sides. so until that conclusion is reached and until that report is made public, you know, no one knows what's on the tapes. but i will say, why was michael cohen recording those tapes? i think you know, the president has tried to go after him for that. >> i think a lot of people want to know that reason. >> julia, let me play for you what rudy giuliani said right after this allegation was made. let's listen. >> ip expected something like this from cohen. he's been lying for years. i don't see if he had any credibility. if you had a trial and there won't be a trial, which lie do you want to pick? the first lie, the second lie, some new lie? there's nobody that knows him that hasn't warned me that if he's backe

mueller says the objective was

he says on the day after mueller is appointed. he says for made -- wondering whether he should join mueller's investigation, i personally have a sense of unfinished business. now i need to fix it and finish it. who gives a blank one more a.d. -- that means isn't director which is what he was, an investigation leading to impeachment. the day after mueller is appointed web's wondering should he join the team and can it lead to impeachment. he's one of the first people to mention the word impeachment. and the investigation started with him. and he still won't give us honest answers. because we have rod rosenstein in the attorney general's seat. will we ever get justice? >> i'm afraid we won't. the on justice we'll get is from the american people who hearing peter strzok's words are discounting this investigation to nil. they are discounting the democrats objections and their continued claim that there is collusion when in fact there is no evidence of collusion. you know, judge, one thing i think that we always discount a little bit i

but he's now working for bob mueller, on team america telling bob mueller and investigators everything they want to know about the trump campaign. any concern about the amount of time rick gates lasted after manafort was off the scene? he was in and out of this white house long after donald trump was inaugurated. he was in and around some key people in places who were also of interest to robert mueller. is there anything about those intersections between gates and folks in the white house and the folks that you write about today that creates more anxiety for people now that he's a cooperating witness in the mueller probe? >> yeah, absolutely. and you raise a valid point. manafort was pushed out. despite the fact that what he was pushed out over, which was his work in ukraine for pro russian oligarchs and officials there, was something that rick gates was his right hand man on that work for more than a decade before the presidential campaign started. so you would think that if there was concern about what manafort was doing in the interest of investigators and that same concern was exte

he's planting doubts in the minds of the american public about the integrity of bob mueller and bob mueller's team. lou: and this has been going on for some time, this appeal to the court of public opinion. because the special counsel is leaking left and right, behaving like nothing so much as a prosecutor, he is more, if you will, you know, he's on a jihad of some sort and it's an' of --e profession if it can be safely called that, has simply permitted it without comment. there is no independent objective voice now whatsoever to be heard. it is appalling what has happened and what has been permitted by the republican leadership in both the house and the senate. this is a disaster for the country and the president, frankly, has been, to me, so wronged that it is almost impossible to make it all right. >> well, at the end of the day i think it is congress that may make the call here. if you think, as i do, that there would be constitutional problems with indicting a sitting president, then the only remedy would be impeachment. as you know, that's something that would be decided by the congress

picture mueller investigation? >> right, this trial is actually -- what it's handling is tax evasion and bank fraud charges against paul manafort. the way it fits in. manafort is facing two trials. one, this trial is more of a financial trail and one in september where he will face charges of being an unregistered agent for the ukrainian interests. neither of these cases have anything to do or any charges that are directly connected to russian election interference, which is something that manafort's team has seized on. what it fits in the larger perspective of, there's going to be some discussion of the campaign. prosecutors have said there was a bank loan that was extended to paul manafort in which the banker actual live was -- extended a fraudulent loan to paul manafort where he was promised a job on the campaign and later floated the idea of a possible job in the administration. so as this fits into the larger context, we'll see as the evidence comes out of trial. but what we do know is that this is a serious t

free theories about the mueller investigation. glen, lay out your theories about why we are where we are and there's been no discussion about the president and robert mueller. >> well, sure, lawrence. you know, first of all, i think we are past the point where any of us believe the president will sit down for a voluntary interview. that's not going to happen. so i spent literally decades in grand juries investigating and indicting cases and we have to make decisions as prosecutors about who we're going to subpoena, who we're not going to subpoena. now, the subpoena power is very broad and actually we can subpoena anyone who even if they don't have relevant evidence they could have information that could lead the grand jury investigation to relevant evidence. i think there are three possibilities here as to why robert mueller has thus far declined to subpoena the president. and i think they go from less likely to most likely. first, i think the least likely is the bob mueller's investigation has already accumulated enough informati

it becomes a non-starter i believe for the robert mueller team. at that rate, why not prosecute donald trump for a crime if you have probable cause that he has committed that crime? >> that's interesting. i'm trying to figure out then who reasoning behind the request and whether or not giuliani can make it. could it fall into the category of discovery for the president's defense? >> yeah. and they are trying to obviously, being the trump team courtesy of rudy giuliani, trying to fish and see what they can get in terms of what evidence does robert mueller have, but there's no legal obligation for him to do that. more importantly, it doesn't mean it's a precondition for trump to sit down. it's effectively giving ammunition in the p.r. battle being waged by donald trump and his surrogates including rudy giuliani to suggest that, hey, look, we're trying to negotiate with robert mueller, and he's being unreasonable in that he will not concede to what we're looking for. so it ends up being this circular argument between the two sides. in the end you'll

of what cards robert mueller really has. and as soon as this week, the president's lawyer says he could decide whether to sit for an interview with the mueller team, although we've heard that one before. right now the president's not happy with mueller. donald trump firing off a whole bunch of tweets, trashing the investigation, offering up new details, too about his previous claims of mueller conflicts of interest, claims the justice department has shot down. let's go to the white house with nbc's kristen welker, here to get us started. rudy guiliani had more to say about all of this, just a couple of hours ago, including what seemed to be a shifting of the goalpost, no? >> reporter: it was striking, hallie, to hear rudy guiliani, yes, seem to shift the goal posts on this key issue of collusion. as you pointed out, whether or not there was collusion, rudy guiliani seeming to suggest no big deal. why is that important? well, because, of course, the president's key talking point has been, hallie, no collusion. no collusion. n

this trial is a key test for special counsel robert mueller. judge t.s. ellis has banned any mention of president trump, russia, or collusion, but the case still looms over the wouns since the charges against manafort stem from the special counsel's investigation into possible collusion between the trump campaign and russia. the white house now trying to downplay the trial and manafort's role on the trump campaign, even though manafort was the campair chairman for three months. >> this trial obviously centers on matters that have nothing to do with the campaign. i think even mr. manafort, as i read it, had requested there be no mention of his brief tenure with the trump campaign several years ago. this has nothing to do with collusion, russian. >> manafort's case centered around his past lobbying work for which prosecutors say he received $60 million. the government alleges manafort hid millions and failed to pay taxes while still spending the money on real estate and luxury purchases. including homes in manhattan, virginia, and the hamptons. expensive su

he called out mueller by name three times on twitter. he called the probe an illegal scam and demanded that mueller release his conflicts of interest. now, it's worth noting here that the president sent those tweets about the conflict of interest from the trump national golf course in new jersey. we'll set that aside for a minute. but let's get back to the president's attorney rudy giuliani who says the president has nothing to explain here. >> you put out something like that, you have every right to say, okay, you explain it, mueller. stand up and be a man. >> wait a minute, this doesn't make sense. how can the president make this claim and not support it? >> he doesn't have to. >> why is it up to robert mueller to have to support the president's tweet? >> because he has the conflict, not the president. >> what's the conflict? >> i can't tell you. i'm not sure i know exactly what the conflict is. i have a good idea. it's one that would have kept me out of the investigation. >> okay. let's go straight to cnn's jeff zeleny live from the w

you appointed mueller. you're supervising mueller. seems like you should be recused from this more so than jeff sessions. >> whatever you got, finish it the hell up. >> i don't know why you won't give us what we've asked for. >> certainly, i hope your colleagues are not under that impression. that is not accurate, sir, and -- >> it is accurate. we have caught you hiding -- >> mr. chair, if you have evidence of wrongdoing by any member of the trump campaign, present it to the dam grand injure jury. >> my job is to make sure we respond to your concerns. i have appointed mr. loesch. i appreciate your concerns. >> again, i think the house of representatives is going to say otherwise. >> your use of this technique -- >> mr. chairman, can we be permitted to answer the question? >> mr. jordan, i am the deputy attorney general of the united states, okay. i'm not the person doing the redacting. i am responsible for responding to your concerns as i have. i have a team with me, sir. it's just a fraction of the team that's doing this work. whatev

full mueller assault. president trump launches an vault on mueller. calling him out by name, even as he attack as the russia investigation in terms that suggest all out panic. but why won't the president say if he feels betrayed by michael cohen? >>> rudy juliani attacks michael cohen, who may be prepared to tell investigators if the president had advanceded knowledge with the 2016 meeting with russians in trump tower. why is he not talking about another undisclosed meeting? >> doing a shutdown. the president warning if congress doesn't fund his wall and take other immigration measures, he'll have no problems shutting down the federal government. is he setting up a fight with his own party? and no preconditions. president trump say he's willing to meet with iran's leaders without preconditions when ever they want. just a week after threatening iran as the is the president now raising this offer as a distraction. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." >>> this is cnn breaking news. >> breaking news, president trump won't say if he feels betr

mueller hasn't said a word. he's not putting out daily press releases. >> doesn't even know what his voice sounds like. >> and giuliani's become a full trump franchise. because he gave an interview that was incoherent. it just doesn't make -- the reason the mueller investigation is in the news every day is because of the white house and donald trump. it's not -- mueller's not causing any news. they're not releasing anything. so wait for the investigation. he says no, he can't do that because all these anonymous things. if you go back to the beginning, it's always -- this is the way it progresses. well, we didn't know about the russia meeting. well, what if we did? we didn't collude. but what if we did, so what? >> it's not a crime he says. >> it keeps getting -- it's like inches forward. and his own supporters say, well, that's not a crime. well, conspiracy is a crime. >> all right, seth, you understand crime. giuliani didn't stop there this morning. i want to share what he said about michael cohen and the tapes

is that bad faith from mueller? we know it had been sort of every couple of days there was a new intrigue in the saga of the back and forth on the preconditions and mueller's response. do you agree that mueller is engaging in bad faith or giving up? do you see anything sinister in this? >> i think the preconditions that we've heard of reported to the public are so extreme that no reasonable prosecutor would ever agree to them. that may be one reason they're not responding. but also rudy giuliani just makes stuff up. we need to hear also from the department of justice as to what these preconditions may or may not be. in terms of the interview, if the president, as reported on your show, is going to have no preconditions sitting down with the iranian president, he certainly should have no preconditions with robert mueller. >> certainly that obviously was the point we were making. i mean, look, the president's attacks against mueller and the investigation, you know, you heard the numbers, congressman, have become more

they're ramping up attacks on robert mueller at a critical time in the investigation. one of the president's outside attorneys rudy guiliani is moving the goalpost for the probe, making the assertion colluding with the russians isn't even a crime, an odd line of attack as the president repeatedly said he is not guilty of collusion. >> mr. president, mr. president, do you think other -- >> reporter: as his aides were nearly screaming in the ears of reporters asking questions in the oval office, president trump declined to weigh in on the russian investigation. at a later news conference with the italian prime minister. >> do you feel betrayed by michael cohen, sir? >> reporter: a question from cnn about his personal attorney michael cohen and no response. instead, the president unloaded in his usual safe space where there are no questions, on twitter, tweeting there was no collusion, slamming the russian investigation with a personal attack as a robert mueller rigged witch hunt. just as the president was tweeting there was no collusion, rudy guiliani said collusion isn'

if he went to mueller first, he would never be able to get word of this out because mueller would lock him down. he wouldn't be able to talk about it, and he is worried about his credibility. clearly that's what this week has been about. rangappa, thank you very much. ross, i appreciate it. thank you for making the case on both sides. we'll get more facts, come back. we'll argue it more. all right. so court of law, one part of this. court of public opinion, maybe just as important because this whole probe may turn out to be just a political process. so what could the fallout be? we have a member of the house judiciary. does he see this week's developments as game-changers? next. man 1: this is my body of proof. woman 1: proof of less joint pain... woman 2: ...and clearer skin. woman 3: this is my body of proof. man 2: proof that i can fight psoriatic arthritis... woman 4: ...with humira. woman 5: humira targets and blocks a specific source of inflammation that contributes to both joint and skin symptoms. it's proven to help relieve pain, stop further irreversible joint damage, and clea

the "times" reports mueller wants to question trump about his tweets. >> trevor: mueller is officially looking into trump's tweets. something tells me mura muellers not a tweet guy. the special counsel is going to treat donald trump's treats like they're important? remember, the president told us many times that @donald trump is the real donald trump. >> it allows me to give a message without necessarily having to go through people where i'm giving them a message and they're putting it down differently from what i mean. i get it out much more honestly than dealing with dishonest reporters. it's a way of bypassing dismonths media, right? we go, wah, wah! ( laughter ) >> trevor: say what you want about donald trump, but that man really has a wah with words. ( laughter ) but you heard him, you heard hin twitter than anywhere else. when mueller finally gets trump into court, forget the bible, they should make him swear on his phone. ( laughter ) so robert mueller is looking at trump's twitter. not the worst deal. but if you've been on twit your know how easy it is to get distracted. muelle

the mueller report will show what the mueller report shows. hopefully, the american people have the independence of mind, despite the partisan fever dream we are in, to judge it on facts. >> let me ask you how democrats should play this. democrats aren't running on the mueller problem, on russia. a lot of them tweet about it and they talk about it. there is this pole from a few days ago that shows if democrats retake the house, 65% of democratic voters think they should proceed with afrrticles impeachment. >> democratic leadership are saying clearly, do not run on impeachment. do not make this a referendum on impeachment. that may be a disconnect with the base that's motivated by anti-trump animus. this needs to be a process rooted in the rule of law. i think people recognize the danger of running on impeachment. rudy giuliani said this morning that if the report came out before -- he said on his interview that bob mueller had indicated to him it could be out as early as september. i think could be significant. the results might be good for th

we'll see if mueller wants to take the meeting. if he wants to hear. >> i don't know why he wouldn't take the hearing. he would want to hear it. but then can he corroborate it? if he can't it's useless. >> you said earlier he may want this. >> you still want to hear it what he has to say. but as far as i can tell from the record, it is not corroborated by anything. in fact, it's disputed. >> all right. here's your problem. okay. and this will get us into the earlier scoop we had in the week. michael cohen has a credibility issue. stip layed for the point of argument you got it. so does your client. your client has a credibility issue. he has said things not true. and this week became an example of that. the idea that he didn't know anything about karen mcdougal until after the fact seems to be disproved by the fact. >> no. >> how? we'll go one by one. >> i told you the key part of the tape was the check or no check thing. >> which i never understood but make your case first. i understood your case i don't understand the significanc

and if mueller doesn't talk, some witnesses do. we were thinking back on this today, previously nbc news reported that witnesses were facing questions from mueller's investigators over what trump knew about hacked democratic e-mails before they went public and more seriously, whether he was involved in their, quote, strategic release. russia launched this cyber attack on the u.s. and that has gone largely unpunished by the trump administration. we know trump was dragged to sanctions on russia by congress. tonight he is blatantly refusing to stand tall and tough on the world stage. and let's be clear about how big this is. tonight, we learned something no one knew in public yesterday, it does look like the russians were listening to trump's hacking request on july 27th, 2016. today we learned they are charged with committing that requested crime that day. and so the questions that remain are significant, but far more narrow. was that a coincidence? some kind of overreaction to overheated candidate rhetoric? or was it a key step adva

short of mueller just issuing a subpoena. which appears under the law that he does have the right to do. applicable supreme court precedent seems to suggest pretty strongly that he has the right to subpoena cooperation from president trump. >> okay. bloomberg's reporting that mueller has expanded the team to include more career prosecutors. also fbi agents, what does that say to you? how do you interpret all that? >> well if he were actually hiring more people on his staff, that would suggest that perhaps this investigation was going to be taking a lot longer to wind up and maybe they've really found new developments. but as i understand it, he's just drawing on existing resources of staff within the department of justice. and u.s. attorneys' offices, which is actually par for the course. sort of standard procedure. i think the mueller team has been attacked on a number of different fronts legally. they have aggressive opposition to some of their investigations that they have to deal with. and so naturally, being overtaxed wi

mueller is a republican. no doubt he is pursuing this in a matter that is dictated by the law and facts as opposed to any political grievances. >> sure. mimi rocca, to pick up on that point, this is a situation where robert mueller, first of all, is a republican, was registered republican and can't use party affiliation in hiring his attorneys to make a decision about hiring them. >> absolutely. it would be impermissible, perhaps even illegal for him to have done that. and the mere point here, something that donald trump and people who see things only through a political lens can't seem to understand is that fbi agents and prosecutors for the most part -- i'm not sailing -- saying there are no exceptions, people who are punl servants who dedicate their lives to service like this don't do their work through a political lens. that doesn't mean they don't have political beliefs, but they are not out to get donald trump because of his politics. they are doing an investigation and following the facts and they will

it's a big test for mueller. but you do have to remember, there's a crap shoot with who the jury is. we have to suspend judgement and see how it goes. all of this is happening in the public eye. ifoverwhelming, that's going to show the mueller team has done a good job and they brought a powerful case. it's not 100% about what happens when the verdict comes back. >> i mean, i asked this of chris on the political front. from the legal side, this trial isn't about any russia collusion on its face. right? rudy giuliani very clearly wanted to make the case yesterday that he does not think paul manafort has anything on president trump. what does this mean though for president trump? >> i agree with you that on four corners of this case, the evidence that we expect to see, it doesn't really implicate russian collusion. i really think we need to keep in mind that when we investigate these large-scale races, racketeer and corruption organization cases, it's usual for prosecutors to return a series of indictments. i have t

>> director mueller did not ask me about any text message, congressman. >> just days after mueller's appointed in two text messages you reference impeachment. did bob mueller ask you why you were referencing impeachment? >> congressman, as i just stated,director mueller did not ask me about any text message. >> i find that very interesting, that bob mueller has to remove you as a consequence of bias. now you don't say it's bias. you say based on your perception of bob mueller's per sengs of you, it couldn't possibly be your bias. bob mueller doesn't ask you about a single one of them. then i look at other people bob mueller picked on his team, people like lisa paige. i'm curious to know if he asked her about any of her incendiary text messages. throughout the team you've got people working for bob mueller who have active connections to hillary clinton. greg anders donated to the clinton campaign, kyle freiny. james corals donated to the clinton campaign. andrew weissman, the number two for mueller, attended hillary clinton's election night party. aaron zelby represented justin cooper