and to conclude this week, as always, thank you so very much for being here with us. have a good weekend and good night from nbc news headquarters here in new york. good evening, i'm brian williams. weep just ne we just need a few seconds of your time before we get you to the rachel maddow program. breaking news tonight. attorney general jeff sessions has fired former fbi director andrew mccabe just hours before mccabe was set to retire and begin collecting a federal employee's pension. mccabe served 21 years at the fbi, spending more than a decade investigating russian organized crime of all things. tonight he was dismissed for, quote, unauthorized disclosure to the news media and for a lack

of candor. in a statement mccabe responded in part and it's a long and emotional statement, "i am being singled out and treated this way because of the role i played, the actions i took and the events i witnessed in the aftermath of the firing of james comey. this was an unprecedented effort by the administration driven by the president himself, to remove me from my position and possibly strip me of a pension that i worked 21 years to earn. to have my career end in this way is incredibly disappointing and unfair, but it will not erase the important work i was privileged to be a part of, the results of which will in the end be revealed for the country to s see." another dramatic moment on a friday night. repeating our top story, former fbi deputy director andrew mccabe has been fired tonight. now to the rachel maddow show.

the national security adviser to the president of the united states did not get fired today. and that counts as both news and a surprise because the white house sparked 1,000 headlines last night in a raft of competing scoops all day today about the president's intentions to fire the national security advisor h.r. mcmaster and honestly, i have very little -- say i have very little appetite. i have no appetite at all for kremlinology style coverage and speculation about who is in favor and who is out of favor and who has been able to move their desk closer to the oval office and who might some day be fired and who is angling. the government is not supposed to be conducted like the gong show, right? it has been a weird 24 hours in the news because of this word that went out from the white house last night. h.r. mcmaster was to be fired.

why did the white house put that word out last night? i don't know. and neither do you. but you should know that right before the white house put out that word last night, this is the last public thing that national security advisor h.r. mcmaster did yesterday afternoon. >> russia is also providing -- complicit in assad's atrocities. the russian government has bombed civilian areas and provided political cover for assad's crimes. from february 24th to february 28th, russia conducted 20 bombing missions every day in the eastern ghouta and damascus areas. russia has thwarted efforts to hold the regime accountable for using chemical weapons.

this morning, the united states, france, germany and the united kingdom condemned the nerve agent attack on sergei and yulia skippal that took place in the united kingdom on march 4th. the statement made clear that we believe that russia was responsible for this attack. if iran and russia do not stop enabling and adhere to u.n. security counsel resolutions, all nations must respond more forcibly than issuing strong statements. it is time to impose serious political and economic consequences on moscow. >> that was h.r. mcmaster making the strongest comments he has made against russia during his full time as national security adviser. that's the last thing he did publicly yesterday before we got

spate of headlines last night that he was about to be fired. h.r. mcmaster made those remarks yesterday afternoon. veteran national security reporter covered that speech and rushed back to the daily beast to write his report on mcmaster's comments. you see the headline quote, h.r. mcmaster gives the kremlin a double bird salute, by which he means two metaphor middle fingers. so that was h.r. mcmaster's afternoon yesterday. and then last night there was an explosion of reporting that yeah, he'll be fired. one possibility here is those two events are totally unrelated. total coincidence. another possibility is mcmaster knew he was getting fired, that we were in the ramp up to him being fired and we knew he was on his way out and felt like this would be a good time to take shots at russia since they

are getting rid of him anyway. maybe that's a possibility. another possibility of course is that mcmaster made these strong anti-russia remarks yesterday and that somehow precipitated the president's desire to fire him or start telling lots and lots of reporters that in fact, he decided to fire him and it's weird we have to consider that kind of a possibility. but part of the reason we have to consider that possibility is that in the last few days, we just went through something very similar with the secretary of state rex tillerson. secretary of state rex tillerson was fired by the president on tuesday morning. on monday night reporters traveling with rex tillerson on an overseas trip said they had no sign from him he might be imminently be leave be his post. but on monday night speaking to reporters, he did make some remarkably strong comments against russia like h.r. mcmaster, they were the strongest remarks he's made against russia since he has been serving as secretary of state. question, have you been tracking

the ex spy's poisoning in the u.k.? answer from rex tillerson, i just got off a phone call with british foreign relations secretary boris johnson. we'll put out a statement to support what their findings have been. this is a really egregious act. it appears it clearly came from russia. this is a substance that's known to us. it does not exist widely. it's only in the hands of a very limited number of parties. i've become extremely concerned about russia. we invested a lot to solve problems and address differences and quite frankly, after a year we didn't get far. instead what we've seen is a pivot to be more aggressive. this is very concerning to me and others there is an unleashing of activity we don't fully understand what the objective behind that is and if this attack in the u.k. is the work of the russian government, this is a pretty serious action. so tillerson spoke those words. he made those remarks to reporters who were traveling with him on monday night. he then put out a written statement, the final written statement issued under his name

as secretary of state. before he was fired. quote, we have full confidence in the u.k.'s assessment russia was responsible for the nerve agent attack that took place in salisbury last week. there is never a justification for this type of attack. the attempted murder of a private citizen on the soil of a sovereign nation. we're outraged that russia, again, appears to have been engaged in such behavior from ukraine to syria and now the u.k., russia continues to be an irresponsible force of instability in the world. acting with open disregard for the sovereignty of other states and the life of their citizens. those who committed the crime and ordered it must face appropriately serious consequences. those who committed the crime and those who ordered it. that was the last written statement put out by secretary of state rex tillerson in the following morning he was fired.

now, as with h.r. mcmaster and his russia criticism in that afternoon speech right before the white house put out word last night he would be fired, like the situation with mcmaster, this could be coincidence. there could be no connection between these events at all. it could happen the president wants to fire these guys or mulling over firing these guys at the same time this russia crisis is happening with what appears to have been a russian state attack using a nerve agent on a private citizen on british soil. it could be this is coincidentally happening at the same time. these are public remarks these national security officials would be making regardless whether the president was in the process of firing them or not. but now we have seen this same dynamic play out twice in a week. we saw this play out in very quick succession with the mcmaster news last night and before that with the tillerson firing on monday night into

tuesday morning. and because it's now happened twice, it may be worth looking into what is going on here. it's not just palace intrigue. this is not just the president enjoying chaos around him. these are serious men in serious jobs. this is the american secretary of state. this is the top national security official in the u.s. government, both of them having their jobs either taken from them or threatened openly. both of them immediately after they made strong comments about russia and russia's leadership. the reason i think this is worth looking more closely at is because there is a piece of this that the white house is lying about. and i don't say that lightly. i think it's a big deal if the white house lies about something. whether or not you think it's a big deal and care about the white house lying as a general experience, my experience is when high-ranking people go out of their way to concoct a lie

about a checkable thing, whether or not you care about them lying, you should probably look more closely at the thing they're lying about because that's probably going to end up being the juicy part of the story, not just the fact that they lied but why they had to lie about that thing. and in this case, what the white house has lied about is how rex tillerson was fired. this is how we found out that rex tillerson was fired. it was this tweet from the president on tuesday morning. mike pompeo will become our new secretary of state. he will do a fantastic job exclamation point. thank you to rex tillerson for his service, exclamation point. that was how we learned the secretary of state was being fired. shortly thereafter the president stained to reporters on tuesday morning how this all came about. >> as far as rex tillerson is concerned, i appreciate his commitment and service and i wish him well. he's a good man.

>> mr. president, what did you tell rex tillerson? >> rex and i have been talking about this for a long time. we got along actually quite well but we disagreed on things. >> after the president announced on twitter that the secretary of state was being fired, you saw him explain to reporters there, rex and i have been talking about this for a long time. rex and i have been talking about this for a long time. that story directly from the president then morphed into a different but related account from anonymous white house officials that told reporters that rex tillerson's firing didn't come up suddenly on tuesday. it was no surprise. there was nothing that suddenly occasioned it tuesday morning. in fact, white house officials told reporters, rex tillerson had been notified on friday that he was fired or maybe he had been notified on saturday that he had been fired. in any case, the white house

chief of staff definitely called him days in advance and told him he was fired. turns out that's not true. as best as we can tell, rex tillerson hadn't been told on friday he was fired. he hadn't been told on saturday he was fired. he had certainly not been talking about it with the president for a long time. the under secretary of state for public diplomacy, number four position in the state department, steven goldstein soon put out a statement that explained tillerson's state of mind when he found out about the timing of all this. quote, the secretary had every intention of staying because of the critical progress made in national security. he will miss his colleagues at the department of state. the secretary did not speak to the president and is unaware of the reason for his firing but he's grateful for the opportunity to serve and believes public service is a noble calling. so when the president said he and rex had been talking about this for a long time, according to rex, they had not been talking about this for a long

time. the secretary did not speak to the president. when white house officials then put out word tillerson had been notified days earlier, he had been fired by chief of staff john kelly days before, i should tell you john kelly incidentally is still telling reporters that story tonight. john kelly reportedly bragging to reporters tonight that rex tillerson was on the toilet coping with the effects of a stomach bug when john kelly placed the call letting him know he would be fired. and that's nice in its own right, but that story, toilet or not, appears not to be true. because, you know, rex tillerson would know whether or not somebody had called him up and told him he was being fired and what he says is that he hadn't spoken to the president and he didn't know why he was being fired and in case there was any question about it, it was said in fact tillerson found out he

was fired from trump's tweet on tuesday morning. and that timing ends up being really important because that means the timeline here is not that rex tillerson was a dead man walking and been told he had been fired when he made the strong anti-russia comments and put out the statement on monday night. what this means about the timeline, tillerson made those strong anti-russia comments on monday night and got fired on tuesday morning. surprise. and for some reason the white house has tried to create an alternate timeline of his firing to make it look like he wasn't fired after the strong russia criticism. and that's why for all the palace intrigue, who's up, who's down, merry-go-round reporting that's been happening at the white house that the president enjoys stoking, white house

personnel reporting there has been in washington all week long and the president appears to enjoy stoking, what really stands out here is the white house has not really had to answer for at all is that in addition to firing rex tillerson on tuesday morning, later on the day tuesday they went on to fire another senior official from the state department. they fired the guy who put out the statement. the undersecretary of state that put out what we believe is the true statement explaining the realtime line when tillerson was fired, the timeline that says he was fired right after the russia remarks and put as freaking spotlight on this question whether his russia criticism

could conceivably have been the precipitating event for why he got fired. the statement goldstein put out that tillerson had not spoken to trump, despite the president saying they had, the statement that goldstein saying that tillerson hadn't been fired days before, that he only found out he was being fired on tuesday morning when the president tweeted about it, it was news to him, he had intended to stay, that statement from all reporting appears to be 100% true and they fired him for it. white house officials later explained to nbc news the reason steven goldstein was fired is because of that statement. contradicting what the white house was saying about the firing of rex tillerson. he was fired because of an untrue statement that the white house is trying to put out about this firing. offering an alternate timeline to what really happened. and this wasn't just some low level staffer who they fired. they didn't decide to shoot a lonely messenger here. there is only six permanent secretaries of state. he was one of them. they fired him for putting out a true statement about when they fired rex tillerson and how. a true statement that put a spotlight on something uncomfortable that the president isn't having to answer questions for because of the alternate timeline the white house invented which appears to be false. and you know, in a different white house, in a more normal administration, the fact alone that the white house had fired

the number four official at the state department, that itself would be huge news. for telling the truth about something the white house is lying about, that would typically be a big scandal. both that they would fire somebody for telling the truth but also because the firing appears to be an effort to cover up their lie. in a normal administration, this would be a very big deal. and even this administration frankly it is a big deal. steven goldstein firing should probably get more attention than it is getting. if we're going to obsess about people coming and going from the administration, that would be something. here is andrea mitchell. thank you for being here. >> good to be here. >> can you talk to me about the steven goldstein firing? as far as i understand, he was not a hugely well-known quantity inside the state department. he had not been there for a very, very long time. >> right. >> what do you know about the circumstances of his firing and the reaction to it?

well, -- >> well, it's as you reported. he was fired for telling the truth for describing at least how till areson thought or perceived his firing, the fact that he did not know about it until he was called and told there was a tweet. he had arrived at the air force base at 4:00 a.m. the tweet was at 8:44 a.m. he had the night before on the trip, according to all the people whom i spoke to who were on that plane including abigail harris and josh letterman from the abc -- excuse me, josh from the a.p., all of these people and i just circled back to them yesterday, all reported that in his briefings to them when they were on the trip, refueling in cape verde and came home overnight, he was talking about north korea, what they were

about to do. he was talking about russia as you read and it was all forward leaning. he did say he had a problem with ethiopian food and he did say he was awakened by a call at 2:30 in the morning. there is a disconnect. either john kelly didn't say what he says he said or rex tillerson having been threatened before with firing thought he could tough it out and i'm sure he said to kelly, i want to talk to the president. he's going to have to fire me to my face. i'm not going to quit. i want to stay on the job. that's what he's been saying for months and months. obviously, it was rocky. the president never forgave the october 4th nbc report that back in july he had after a pentagon briefing called the president a moron in front of enough witnesses that tillerson to his

credit never denied that. just sort of said i'm not going to talk about things like that. he never lied about the fact he had, in fact, said that. obviously, there were disagreements about iran. that was profound. he was very angry. we were told infuriated that tillerson spoke as you just described about russia after sarah sanders had refused to agree about the british at the last public statement from the white house on friday. this was his briefing on monday when he very explicitly said i just got off the phone with boris johnson and it was the russians and very few people have this and we think it likely was the russian government and this is all the rest. so the russian issue did bother them and obviously iran, he was trying to renegotiate with europeans and fix the deal by toughing it up and trying to get the president from blowing it up when the next deadline takes place in may. there were a lot of policy disagreements. the profound part was they were a mismatch. the chemistry was wrong.

steve goldstein had been hired by rex tillerson, confirmed and came on board in december and was certainly perceived as tillerson's man. and while the chief of staff, a very controversial person and her deputy were permitted to resign gracefully later in the day and still at the state department, helping till areson close up shop by march 31st, goldstein was dismissed. >> and just to underscore what you just said about goldstein specifically, from your reporting and from everything we understand about these circumstances, the white house says, admits to nbc news that goldstein was fired for this statement. the statement does contradict what the white house said about

tillerson's firing but goldstein's statement was the version that was true as rex tillerson understood it. >> exactly. and when you said there is six under secretaries, he actually was the only confirmed under secretary other than one whose resigned, a veteran tom shannon. now there are none. >> wow. andrea mitchell, nbc news chief foreign affairs correspondent. i think to some this will feel like introit reporting with so many buffeting wins in washington but this is strange. thank you for helping us through it. >> let me just say, it certainly reflects the desire to humiliate and that comes from the top. >> thank you, my friend. great to have you here. >> just underscoring what andrea just said there. obviously in terms of why rex tillerson left and we're still waiting to find out if h.r. mcmaster will be pushed out, as well. the president there obviously describing the day that tillerson left having long-standing differences of opinion with tillerson on a number of matters, we know that

to be true, differences of opinion. they never have been previously known to have differences of opinions on russia and whatever the long-standing differences were on any number of matters, what andrea describes as the president's furry and anger on russia, those -- the russia comments happened right before he got fired. and i think this deserves more scrutiny than it's getting. we'll be right back. stay with us. m. 40 million americans are waking up to a gillette shave. and at our factory in boston, more than a thousand workers are starting their day building on over a hundred years of heritage, craftsmanship and innovation. today we're bringing you america's number one shave at lower prices every day. putting money back in the pockets of millions of americans. as one of those workers, i'm proud to bring you gillette quality for less, because nobody can beat the men and women of gillette. gillette - the best a man can get. gas, bloating, constipation and diarrhea

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we have breaking news, the about the lawsuit between the adult film actress who is suing the president -- this is the thing you get to say in 2018, but i still admit it feels weird to be talking about the president and the adult film actress. stormy daniels sued the president to get out of a non-disclosure agreement she entered into with trump before he won the 2016 election. she agreed she would not talk about their past sexual relationship in exchange for her -- him giving her $130,000. she says because the president himself never signed his half of the nda, she should be allowed to talk about their alleged relationship. she filed the case in the l.a. county court system. today the lawyers on the president's side of the case

tried to move the case into federal court, which is interesting in terms of trying to change the jurisdiction and the venue here. when we took a look at the court paper, we noticed the electron being signature on this fairly routine court document lists the attorney of record for defendant donald j. trump as charles harter. do you remember who charles harter is? he won a $140 million judgment from the news site gawker. that was after gawk are posted a sex tape of mr. harter's client,

the pro wrestler hulk hogan. they still went out of business as the suit was designed to force them to. charles harter is also the attorney who represented first lady melania trump when she filed a defamation lawsuit against a blogger, a guy that said on his blog it was widely known melania trump was not working as a model when she first came to the united states but instead as a high-end escort. the problem for the blogger is that is not widely known because there is no evidence it's true. mrs. trump sued him, sued the daily mail for making a similar claim, the blogger and british tabloid apologized and issued retractions but then melania trump and her attorney didn't let it go. the whole thing didn't get wrapped up until melania trump had been first lady of the united states for several months. she settled with the daily mail for $3 million in april 2017. so seeing the name charles harder as the president's attorney of record new attorney of record in the stormy daniels case could be a sign the case is not going to go away quietly. the effort to move it into

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i we worked with pg&eof to save energy because wenie. wanted to help the school. they would put these signs on the door to let the teacher know you didn't cut off the light. the teachers, they would call us the energy patrol. so they would be like, here they come, turn off your lights! those three young ladies were teaching the whole school about energy efficiency. we actually saved $50,000. and that's just one school, two semesters, three girls. together, we're building a better california. maxine water was first elected to congress in 1990. she's a democrat, has a high national profile. she's been in congress as for 27 years. she has a republican opponent for her seat this year. he ran against her in the last election cycle. he's a man named omar navarro.

he's a trump supporter, a former car salesman and lost in 2016 by more than 50 points. still giving it another try with backing from high profile trump supporters from all over the country. among them, trump advisor roger stone, pardoned former arizona sheriff joe arpaio and the info war guys who said that sandy hook massacre never happened. as for mr. navarro himself, according to the l.a. times he resigned as a local traffic commissioner after a pepper spray incident. he was accused of pepper spraying a child while he had actually been aiming to shoot pepper spray at ralliers at a prosanctuary cities event and pled guilty last fall to a misdemeanor that had to do with an electronic tracking device. he had attached it to his wife's car. after pleading guilty, he was sentenced to a day in jail and 18 months probation and ordered by the court to take an anger management course.

listened to what happened when the local paper tried to ask him about that. quote, he initially said there are a lot of omar navarros. implying that perhaps someone else with the same name was convicted of the same charge on the same day involving the same wife. then he said the incident that led to the criminal charge occurred years ago. it actually happened last year. finally, he acknowledged the conviction but blamed the orange county district attorney's office and media for fake news. and then finally he admitted that it was his own doing. in any case, i can tell you as of this week, omar navarro is apparently no longer on probation. the "daily breeze" says he was set to get off probation on monday, four days ago, which is great timing because he has a

big campaign fund and picking up the endorsement of mike flynn. seriously, general michael flynn, ex-trump national security adviser and a newly minted felon having pled guilty to lying to the fbi general flynn was set to make remarks at this fundraiser tonight and to announce his personal endorsement of mr. navarro. a candidate just off probation on monday is getting a coveted endorsement from the witness in the special counsel investigation while he is awaiting sentencing. whether that endorsement helps a republican in california's 43rd district or anywhere for that matter, who knows but it is a reminder that mike flynn is out on his own and apparently a draw on one specific fundraising circuit. that's more than you can say for trump campaign chairman paul manafort who is confined to his virginia home and wearing two ankle bracelets as he faces nine counts of bank fraud and bank fraud conspiracy he committed during the campaign he was running.

today buzz feed sites documentation from inside the treasury department in reporting new details about yet more allegedly suspicious reported bank activity related to paul manafort. relates to paul manafort bank accounts in california. according to the reporting they say this california bank closed manafort's accounts after transactions were flagged due to suspicion about the source of the funds, suspicious wire transfers and use of non-cash monetary instruments and a transaction with no economic business or lawful purpose. according to this report today, manafort got his bank account shut down in the california bank after these transactions took place and the transactions took place between august 26th and september 6th of 2016. so put that on the timeline. paul manafort left the trump campaign august 19th.

these reported and suspicious transactions suspicious enough to shut down the bank accounts started within a week of manafort exiting the campaign. that timing tracks with some of the earlier questions about strange financial circumstances surrounding manafort created a shell company called summer breeze and used summer breeze to acquire $20 million in loans for -- from multiple banks around the country, from august through the election and up until the time around the time of the inauguration and mueller charges fraudulently. we've always had this question about why trump would pick paul manafort and why paul manafort would do it for free and also what paul manafort was doing that triggered this strange bank

activity that led to the bank accounts being shut down in california and led to multiple charges from the special counsel's office here on the east coast. open questions, he's not pled guilty but this week he did hire a new white collar lawyer became the third high powered attorney to join paul manafort's attorney this week. the judge in virginia is not inclined to let mr. manafort wander around because he's potentially facing life in prison. so he sits at home waiting for the first of his two trials to start in july and meanwhile, the general who pled guilty in this investigation is giving remarks at the fundraiser for the longest of long shot candidates. if you thought this investigation and characters in it couldn't get weirder, just hold your breath for a few seconds. surprises at every turn. much more ahead tonight. stay with us. record. this is frank's dog. and this is frank's record shop. frank knowns northern soul,

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nikolai glushkov was found dead at his home on monday night. london police first called the death unexplained but launched a murder investigation and not having this murder investigation handled by local police in southwest london. they are having it handed by -- handled by british police. the death follows the russian rare nerve agent poisoning by only eight days. these two incidents happened eight days and eight miles apart in britain. unlike the case, though, he was not reportedly poisoned. police say he died as a result of compression of the neck, which sounds to me like a way to use four words instead of one to say strangulation, but for whatever reason, the phrase is

compression of the neck. british authorities say there is no known link between his death and the attempted murders eight days earlier but you can see why they might be looking into it, right? that makes this new murder inquiry under the counterterrorism police fraught. the u.k. is already blaming russian president vladimir putin for the attempted assassination and expelling russian diplomats and all the rest. if there ends up being a second connected attack in britain that gets linked to russia, it's hard to know how the u.k. might further escalate its response. but that story is next. stay with us.

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the way vladimir putin became president of russia is he was elevated into position to be ready to take the job by boris yeltsin. he was president in the 1990s and in august 1999 he promoted this relatively unknown guy vladimir putin to be prime minister and he announced his belief that putin should succeed him as russia's president. in the 1990s, when he was president, the richest man in russia, the most powerful after -- of all the oligarchs in russia was this guy, boris berezovs

berezovsky, who was a fixer and financial backer for the family and helped finance political campaigns and as influential as you can imagine. it was believed he was an architect of the maneuver but in the snake pit of russian corruption and politics and russian politics and corruption, boris ended up falling out of favor with putin. he ended up fleeing russia for the relative safety of europe. he took billions and decamped to london. he became a fierce critic of putin. he hosted and supported other russian exiles and people who had been chased out of russia. he openly funded opposition movements against the kremlin and fought putin and loyalest for control of his own russian assets and holdings ultimately those were huge legal fights that he mostly lost. at one point he started talking about the necessity of the violent over throw of the putin government saying that he would fund that. in 2013, boris was found inside his home in england dead in his bathroom with the

door locked and a rope around his neck. police said at the time they believed he took his own life, but there was no official cause of death listed. in 2006 form aa former fsb offi granted asylum in the u.k., he was poisoned. someone slipped radio active polonium into his tea. he was an associate boris. the likely culprit in his assassination was the russian government the year after he died in 2007 another business associate was found dead in london. the year after he died in 2008, near business partner of his died in london, possibly of a heart attack, possibly poisoned. he was a georgian oligarch.

and then there was steven curtis and stephen moss who died unexpectedly. now, quote, buzz feed news is reporting that mi-6, britain's secret intelligence services has asked its u.s. counterparts for information about each one of these deaths, quote, in the context of assassinations. they're all friends or business associates of the former russian oligarch who turned on putin and became his enemy and now another friend of his turned up dead in london on monday night. his death is being treated as a

murder. he had been a director at the ata russian airline. russia charged glushkov m within laundering and fraud. he served five years and prison and when he got out, he fled to the u.k. and the u.k. gave him asylum. in 2011 berezovsky filed a lawsuit, the former oligarch versus the current oligarch. the judge threw out berezovsky's claim. he lost a lot of wealth.

nikolai glushkov came forward and said i don't think it was an accident, too many deaths of russian exiles have been happening. now glushkov himself has turned up dead. ms. berry, thank you for being with us on a friday night. i know it's very late where you are. >> thank you. >> as of monday night, the death of glushkov was being called suspicious, now authorities are calling it a murder investigation. do we know why they decided to do it today? >> britain has a problem with

enemies of the russian state turning up dead on its soil. it has accumulated gradually. many of the deaths looked like heart attacks or in some cases suicides, but the heat is up now because of the skripal case for the authorities to kind of clump these cases together and address them as a sort of category of crimes. so glushkov's death happens just at a point where they have to be much more decisive and articulate about what's happening. >> materially this being handled as a matter basically of national concern, the counterterrorism police being involved here, it's being declared a murder despite the few days they hadn't said that about glushkov. there's the reports that previous deaths of russian ex-pats in the u.k. are going to be sort of re-examined. do we think this will bring new investigative power to looking at the previous deaths? do we think there will be knew information for these deaths even though many of them are years old? >> i think all the new cases that come up are going to be addressed differently.

there's been -- long been a case made within scotland yard that they should be categorized and dealt with by a senior officer who is just focused on suspicious russian deaths. and i think now that case has become overwhelming. there's really only two cases that have been sort of very clearly pinned to russia. the first was litvinenko's death the second was now skripal's death. i think the fact that there are now more than a dozen cases on this list has made the british authorities look quite ineffectual in the way they're handling them. so amber red say this week they would reopen all of the cases i believe that were in the buzz

feed report that you mentioned. whether they're going to be able to find new evidence in those old cases, i think that's unlikely. there are very few cases as relatively clear as the skripal case. >> ellen berry, international correspondent for the "new york times." i appreciate your time tonight, especially with the time difference and how late it is in london. thank you for joining us. we'll be right back. stay with us. ♪ gas, bloating, constipation and diarrhea can start in the colon and may be signs of an imbalance of good bacteria. only phillips' colon health has this unique combination of probiotics. it helps replenish good bacteria. get four-in-one symptom defense.

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so we got this sort of unbelievable news tonight about trump national security advisor michael flynn turning up at a fund-raiser in california for a republican hopeful who himself just got off probation this week. general flynn pled guilty in december to lying to the fbi. he's a cooperating witness in the special counsel investigation. he's personally awaiting sentencing for his nefelony guiy plea. despite that he's apparently free to travel and we know that because he just turned up tonight at this southern california republican fund-raiser. we just got the footage. here it is.

>> as national security advisor to united states president donald trump, general flynn's military career, include a key role in shaping -- >> michael flynn tonight, >> if you get a standing ovation for pleading guilty, what do you get for pleading not guilty? >> if paul manafort, despite the ankle bracelets, imagine they would have declared him a saint, i don't know. >> we got this extraordinary news tonight about the president trying to move the stormy daniels case into federal court.