hope hicks is stepping down one day after being grilled. acknowledging she's sometimes told white lies while serving the president. >>> reversal on guns. president trump meets with a bipartisan group, telling them not to be intimidated by the nra. >> fighting back. president trump shames his attorney general calling his handling of the investigation disgraceful. but this time, jeff sessions is biting back saying he'll act with integrity and honor and his department will be fair and impartial. >>> and examining trump's past. a paul manafort please not guilty and gets a trial date, robert mueller is digging deep entire the president's own past, including his business dealings in russia before launching his campaign. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com >> breaking news, white house communications director hope hicks is resigning. the announcement coming a day after she refuses to anxious some questions in the russia probe while conceding she at some times told white lies in her job. as the sp

>> fabricated it with hope hicks. >> hope hicks. >> so hope hicks little white lies don't look so little when you piece all of those pieces of information together. >> are they white lies are they white lies, i guess it depends on how you pronounce the word. >> white lies. >> bringing in ned on those little white lies, you made the distinction early and one that is significant. we only know that she told, as she put it, white lies for donald trump, because yesterday she was in the setting where she had to tell the truth, ned? >> that's exactly right and i think you have to consider the nature of those white lies and why did she have to tell those white lies or whatever color the lies were in the first place? was there this issue, ari of corrupt intent? was there corrupt intent when on board air force one she was the one relaying messages from don jr. on the ground back to the president and back and forth crafting this what we now know to be false narrative about a meeting that they said at the time was for adoptions. why did they feel the need to lie about it? was it some natural compuls

now we have hope hicks resigning. it does seem like there is more chaos in this news cycle every day than 90 period i can recall. because of the trump white house. there are events that intervene, the florida shooting, there are things, but day after day after day this white house is making news, often bad for themselves. often self-inflicted wounds. >> this does explain the tweets wrote against sessions today. >> let's pretend we knew that trump influence that hope would leave. what trump wants is a john mitchell. nixon's attorney general who later managed his campaign and covered up for nixon, and later went to jail and became the first one ever to go to prison. i think that trump wants a protector. someone to stop the russia investigation. now he is losing people. the indictments are mounting. the tide is turning against him and he is rapidly losing control. >> i want to go through all the communication directors we've lost. jason miller, mike dubke, sean spicer, anthony scaramucci, hope hicks filled in aft scaramu

how do investigators deal with someone like hope hicks? >> i think what matt said about circular firing squad is spot on. it's a target rich environment. we're looking at subjects from a vast range of experiences. you know, someone like her, they're going to treat her like anyone else. they're not going to cut any slack. we're talking about a major league investigation here with first-rate investigators who are shoulder to shoulder and engaged in ferret out the facts of the case. but the reality of the situation is she's going to have to face it like everyone else. i think that's part of the reason her lawyer came out so forcefully today. and that was to try to defend her because this is damming information and where does it lead from here? so they're going to be looking at all of these people directly, they're not going to cut any slack for any of them and it's going to be precise and by the book because they have to defend what they're doing in the face of these other baseless attacks against their credibility. >> matt, i want to go back

hope hicks answering questions in the russia probe. will she exert executive privilege like steve bannon and refuse to answer questions? plus, mounting pressure, congress back for its first full day, feeling the squeeze to get something, anything, done on gun reform, with the midterms just months away. can republicans afford to do nothing? >>> melting point. scientists shocked at the heat wave hitting the north pole with temperatures nearly 50 degrees above normal. so what does it reveal about climate change? a guest appearance by our own al roker to explain. >>> we do begin with the woman who may know some of president trump's most closely held secrets, hope hicks, the white house communications director, arrived this morning and is reportedly still behind closed doors testifying in the russia investigation. hicks defines the term inner circle. she was the president's right hand on the campaign trail. she's close with jared and ivanka. and in a white house that has seen key officials like steve bannon and michael flynn leave, hicks ha

hope hicks, the legendary hope hicks. she's very shy. she's a very shy person, but she's a great person. she's done an amazing job. >> reporter: before that, in trump tower, as an assistant to the billionaire businessman. a former model, she joined the family working on ivanka trump's fashion line. now, she helps run the white house. her handwriting right there on the president's note, reminding him to tell those grieving families from parkland, "i hear you." within minutes of news of her departure, the president releasing a statement saying, "she is as smart and thoughtful as they come, a truly great person. i will miss having her by my side. but when she approached me about pursuing other opportunities, i totally understood." chief of staff john kelly calling hicks, "strategic, poised and wise beyond her years. to say that she will be missed is an understatement." but her tenure in washington not without scandal. hicks was involved in crafting a misleading statement about that now infamous trump tower meeting between don jr. and the ru

yesterday we saw josh rafael who is very close with hope hicks. this is jared kushner's outgoing white house communications director. hope and josh really worked together. jared is in some trouble. i think what we're starting to see is the unraveling of that power structure within the west wing. i don't know if it speaks to what happens to jared's position, but certainly it is a big loss for the president. >> let me just throw out two thoughts and ask you to react to them, jeremy. one, we opened the show by saying -- it is a standoff, and the jared and ivanka wing has suffered a big blow with jared being stripped of the clearances necessary to do his job. with josh leaving, we -- that news broke during our hour yesterday. hope hicks, that breaking during our hour. thank you, news gods. anybody not having the benefit of knowing her, the white house communications director is someone who testifies under oath of telling lies is incapable of having the title white house communications director even in this weird white house. >> it was an astounding co

so hope hicks has a little bit of a breather here. i just spoke a few seconds ago with congressman tom rooney, one of the republicans leading this russia investigation for the intelligence committee. he said, yes, hope hicks is answering questions about her time in the campaign, but she is not, as of yet, answering questions about either her time in the transition, after election day, or in the administration itself, after inauguration day. the question now is just what will republicans do about that? when steve bannon attempted to assert the possibility of asserting executive privilege, the committee issued a subpoena on the spot to try to compel that testimony. they have not been willing to do that with hope hicks just yet. and what rooney said is, essentially, what's kboigoing t need to happen, the committee will have to sit down with the white house, with hope hicks' attorneys and agree to a certain list of questions that she might be willing to answer. that's eventually how they resolve the bannon issue, although the committee do

hicks' version? she's already had her time being questioned and presume when i she would have been questioned extensively whether she was aware of the trump tower meeting of whether she was involved in the air force one memo that was britain concealed the real meeting of that from the public. so she's locked in, and that's an important thing to note. then it will come down to who do we believe? and we've learned that mark corallo spoke to three people contemporaneously at the time of this phone call that he alleges that he was on with the president and hope hicks. he spoke with steve bannon. he contacted the legal team and he resigned shortly thereafter, believing he was probably in legal peril himself. so that seems really compelling. we've not heard hope hicks' side of the story yet. perhaps there's documentary evidence. if she has in fact concealed the truth about this phone call, she will be in a lot of trouble. >> we've seen this over and over again in the sexual harassment scandals that are jun

i think hope hicks fall within a no brainer. chris laid out why the committee wants to hear from her. i heard from one republican lawmaker last night, draw pa is likely, they're not sure what's going to happen when she sits did you know here. if they're going to start asking question and then she's beginning to be invoking executive privilege. withholding answers she believes would compromise the president and his able to conduct his affairs. one other note here is the way these committee hearings usually work, democrats go all in, all the members of house committee on the democratic side usually attend these hearings. republicans narrow that down with mike conway of texas, tray gowdy of south carolina and tom rooney of florida. a lot of that has to do with that famous trump tower meeting in 2016 but the air force-1 conversation about that meeting. >> we're going to talk about all of those thing in one second, mike. we're going to come back to you, if you see any action from hicks or anybody on the hill, keep us posted as we kee

a lawyer for hicks denies this report. cnn's randy kay takes a look at what else we know about the president's young aide. >> i'm 28-year-old and the press secretary for the donald trump president for campaign -- >> reporter: the president likes to call her hopy but to the rest of us she's hope hicks now white house communications director. it was a swift rise for hicks who went from modeling and acting early on to handling p.r. for ivanka trump fashion line after college. by 2014 hicks was managing communications for the trump organization and soon her job would change again. >> she's used to be in my real estate company. what do you know about politics? she said absolutely nothing. i said congratulations, you're into the world of politics. >> reporter: hicks told new york magazine, mr. trump looked at me and said i'm thinking about running for president and you're going to be my press secretary. during the campaign, hicks reportedly had a note from candidate trump above her desk that red simply, hopy, you're the greatest

and so clearly some scrutiny on hope hicks. certainly there must be some relief that she doesn't have to deal with this on a daily basis. the legal scrutiny will continue. >> we know if john kelly played a role in any of this leading up to her departure? >> we don't know about john kelly's role. he gave a glowing statement to the new york times praising her, praising her work. clearly there's tension now between john kelly and the trump family with jared kushner's security clearance issue. and hope hicks is part of the trump family. she's very much a loyal -- loyalist when it comes to the team. >> the special counsel, phil, as you know is looking into donald trump's business dealings with russia long before he announced he was running for president of the united states. what does that tell you? >> well, before i get too excited, let me give you a technical answer. why did don jr. pick up the phone? when you look at the meeting going back to last summer, you have questions about what was the pre-existing relationship with the ru

the president was on this call and hope hicks was on this call and it was, it's alleged that hope hicks said that she would, that these emails would never be seen, intimating she would somehow take steps to get rid of it. what we don't know is the follow-up. what happened after that call? did she in fact take any steps to make sure those emails would quote never see the light of day. >> joe -- >> joe is my brother. >> that said, hope hicks, joe, is relatively new to the political world. here's a clip of her reflecting on that reality, before the president took office last year. take a listen. >> so i think now being a novice is much more jarring to me than being a novice on a campaign. because there's so many people that are new to it. they're all sort of trying to just figure everything out as it comes to you. i knew very little about politics, obviously. i wasn't expecting to take part in this. certainly not to play the role that i had. >> has hope hicks become a liability? >> well, it depends. clearly if, if what corallo says she says sticks, yeah, then she's a liability. because the

let's go to manu raju up mono manu, we're told hicks has refused to answer some questions. what's going on? >> she first came to the house intelligence committee at 10:00 and there was a back-and-forth after she initially refused to answer questions about her time during the transition and her time at the white house under the direction of the white house, that generated significant pushback from members of both sides of the aisle, particularly after she answered questions about the transition period in a separate meeting with the senate intelligence committee. so late in the day wolf we are told she started to answer some questions about topics in the transition but she still is not answering questions but a time at the white house. tonight white house communication communications director hope hicks refused to answer question, frustrating democrats. >> i have less hope we will get to the answers. >> reporter: was there a subpoena issued for her? >> no. >> reporter: should there beb? >> yes, i why? >> anyone who doesn't answer questions, they ought to be subpoenaed. >> rep

. >> now hope hicks is a tremendously talented person. she started off with us right from day one. >> reporter: she's someone with access to the oval office. but today, lawmakers say hicks refused to answer questions about her time in the white house and some questions about the transition. they say hicks told the committee she was instructed not to by the white house. >> they're not answering certain questions. >> the white house has asked her not to answer questions on the transition and the time in the white house. >> reporter: democrats wanted to press hicks on that first misleading statement she helped the president write about the infamous trump tower meeting between donald trump jr. and a group of russians, which said the meeting was primarily discuss, quote, the adoption of russian children. adoption of russian children." days later, e-mails to don jr. revealed something far different. >> pierre, some democrats are now calling for hope hicks to be subpoenaed, to try to get answers to those questions she refused to answer today? >>

. >> let me ask you if i can, phil, on hope hicks right now. i've heard from several people familiar with this matter that the president is at least frustrated with hope hicks and the role she played in this situation as we've now reported. she did play some part in the crafting of the national statements where john kelly described rob porter as a man of true integrity. 24 hours later, after the photograph came out, they had to say they were shocked by these allegations. talk about her unique situation right now inside that west wing. >> yeah, well, peter, i don't know definitively the state of their relationship. i think that's only the president -- something the president and hope could speak to. but hope hicks is a really unique singular figure in this white house. she's the communications director by title but she's a key adviser. a confidante. almost like a surrogate daughter to the president. she had been in a relationship with rob porter, the staff secretary, and then continued to be involved in sort of the crisis communications manageme

hicks could be contemplating obstructing justice. hope hicks' attorney notably denies she ever said this. you remember the cover story about that meeting was that it was mostly about russian adoptions. now we turn to the other big news developing tonight. senior administration officials are telling nbc news that it is likely that highly controversial secret memo about the russia inquiry which has pitted the white house against the fbi will indeed be released tomorrow. that memo is the work of house republicans and it alleges anti-trump bias at the fbi and the department of justice and that investigators improperly obtained warrants to surveil a

questioning hope hicks shortly after 10:00 a.m. on the hill. >> as you tee that up, mike, the house intelligence committee because of all of the partisan, infighting, nunes versus schiff, memo fight, they have so much -- well, so much credibility. so why is this important? i guess it is important because if she is taking an oath, swearing to congress, then anything she says there could be picked apart in the future. by robert mueller. but robert mueller is the main act. >> that's absolutely right, andrea. but one thing in this house intelligence investigation, given all of the political dissense we have seen within it, it is a big deal because it shows both sides are willing to bring somebody before them. any time someone testifies before congress, their truthfulness is an issue. but we are are yet to see at this point is just how far republicans are going to be willing to go in pressing hope hicks to answer some of the most important questions they have and there is some indication that's not the case. representative christopher s

hope hicks had been a top aide to mr. trump and before that his daughter for years. we get more now on this from white house correspondent and "face the nation" moderator margaret brennan. margaret, what happened? >> well, 29-year-old hope hicks is president trump's longest-serving political aide and his most trusted. the white house says she had been considering leaving her position for months, and now she wants to take on a job outside of government. >> so no comment at all? >> reporter: the announcement came a day after she testified before the house intelligence committee, which is investigating russian interference in the 2016 election. sources say she told the committee that her work for the president required her to tell white lies, but she never lied about russia. >> she started off with us right from day one. >> reporter: she's been at mr. trump's side for the past three years. >> now hope hicks is a tremendously talented person. >> reporter: but tried to stay out of the spotlight herself. this was one of the rare moments she spoke publicly. >> and thank you

i am told hope hicks really wanted to leave, she had been thinking about it. she really wanted to get the testimony for the house intelligence committee out of the way. before she made the decision to leave. she told the president today she had made the final decision to go. one is unclear in this is, we will try to dig to get more information, how much did her white lies, play into it? we don't know what the president's reaction was to the knew she had said that. we don't know if people thought maybe after that there was a little bit of a credibility problem. we will continue to shake the bushes to find out if that played into it at all or if she had simply decided after three years of running at this breakneck pace that it was time to go. >> bret: john roberts, catherine herridge. thank you. let's bring in the panel. matt schlapp, contributor with "the hill." tom bevan. real clear politics. amy, to you. hope hicks. hard to overstate her importance for this president. she has been there. part communications director or part body woman. >> she has literally be

tonight hope hicks as we have literally never heard her before. the "11th hour" gets underway. >> day 378 this was of the trump administration and it brings us closer to the widely expected release of. controversial and classified

his communications director hope hicks is resigning. this is the day after she reportedly told congressional investigators that she's lied for president trump. though she claimed they were just white lies. his attorney general jeff sessions is firing back at him after being insulted by the president who suggested sessions isn't give him enough cover on the investigation. his son-in-law jared kushner has just lost his access to highly sensitive intelligence. and white house advisers privately sounded the alarm over his foreign contacts. and the campaign chief paul manafort was hit with more criminal charges. rick gates has just flipped in special counsel robert mueller's probe. we'll have more breaking news on his investigation coming up. >>> the president's staff secretary just quit following allegations that he committed spousal abuse and mother member oma rosa just recently to be on "big brother" and all of that is just in the past few weeks. most of it in the past few days. and don't forget, his bodyguard with him forever and directo

so is hope hicks, another one of president trump's closest aides. hicks arriving on capitol hill today to be questioned in the russia investigation. she has been at the president's side since long before his white house run. grilled today about what she heard and saw. and abc's chief justice correspondent pierre thomas up on the hill tonight. >> reporter: she's a true insider, one of president trump's closest advisers. white house communications director hope hicks, often seen by the president's side. and tonight, she's under increased scrutiny after getting called before the house intelligence committee to answer questions about allegations of possible russian collusion. >> thank you, donald trump. >> reporter: the 29-year-old hicks was one of the first people to sign onto the presidential campaign. >> now hope hicks is a tremendously talented person. >> reporter: she's someone with access to the oval office. but today, lawmakers say hicks refused to answer questions about her time in the white house and some questions about the transition. they sa

hope hicks, president trump's longest serving aide, stepping down just a day after she admitted to congress that she tells white lies for the president. >>> taking a stand on guns. one of the nation's largest sports retailers will no longer sell assault-style weapons. and it's not stopping there. while president trump calls for a comprehensive guns bill. and accuses senators of being afraid of the nra. >>> parkland students return to school for the first time since the massacre. under heavy police presence. haunted by memories, but standing strong together. >>> a warning for travelers if you think some of those vacation deals on popular discount websites like groupon are too good to be true, you may be right. >>> and inspiring america. >> if i can give back half of what this community has given me, i'm complete. >> he went from refugee to mayor, and made history along the way. >> announcer: this is nbc "nightly news" with lester holt. >> good evening, everyone. thank you for being with us. we start with late word of a bombshell change at the white house. communications director hope hicks o

did you learn anything from hope hicks? >> ye, no, in some ways, of course, the interview was very useful and we did learn new information, but some of the most important questions we had went unanswered, especially questions we had about her time in the white house. because hope hicks has been described as multiple witnesses as the person who is closest to the president outside of his immediate family members. so we wanted to know what she knew about james comey's firing, for example. what she knew about that june 26 meeting between donald trump jr., paul manafort, jared kushner, and the group of russian operatives. and she wouldn't answer those questions. >> so what was her rationale for not answering those questions? >> it varied. part of it was executive privilege. even though the white house has not formally invoked executive privilege to the committee. and part of it was, what i thought was quite an arrogant answer from her attorney, which was, we're just not going to answer that question. no reason. >> but isn't it t

hope hicks is so strong. kellyanne conway said, in the case of hope i have rarely met somebody so strong with such excellent, excellent instincts and loyalty and smarts. smarts. rob porter's former girlfriend just wasn't strong enough. that's why he physically abused her. his two former wives just weren't strong enough, that's why rob porter physically abused them. that's why he punched colby holderness and gave her that black eye, because she wasn't strong enough. that's the trump white house position on why no one has to worry about hope hicks because she's stronger than the women rob porter victimized. here's colby holderness's answer to kellyanne conway and the trump white house, the people who believed she just wasn't strong enough and that's why rob porter punched her, she wrote being strong with excellent instincts and loyalty and smarts does not inoculate a person against abuse. it doesn't prevent her from entering a into a relationship with an abuser. abuse often doesn't manifest itself early on, onl

hope hicks will leave in the coming weeks. this will allow them presumably to announce a successor and to kind of weave that person into the fabric here of the white house, whether they be here already and promote. if they do so, have to hire out elsewhere you get the idea where it is going. i can tell you people here at the white house have, i believe you just read the quote from john kelly, a great deal of respect for hope hicks. she is just 29 years old and communications director here at the white house, overseeing all of the operations on that front. this is now the fourth departure of a communications director here at the white house t was sean spicer who once held dual roles as white house press secretary and communications head. he handed off that responsibility to mike dubke who was here a couple months or so i believe. it was then anthony scaramucci had the job for 12 days or so when scaramucci left, it was hope hicks who was given the reins of the communications apparatus. now she is gone. so there will be a fifth c

i don't think hope hicks is the issue here. the issue is the president of the united states and what role he had in putting out a false story. >> carrie, how do you see this reporting by "the times"? >> well, a couple of things. first, marc carullo is a well-known, very experienced pr official. and he was the spokesperson for the justice department in the bush administration. so he understands how justice department investigations work and he understand s something about the law. so i think that he will be a credible witness. the second piece is the new report's emphasis on the special counsel's focus on this june 2016 meeting might shed some light on why in recent days we have been hearing from the president's legal team, some new legal theories that they've been floating about why maybe the president can't or shouldn't or it's not appropriate for him to be interviewed by the special counsel. and that might be because if the special counsel's focusing so much on the june 2016 meeting, that events surrounding that would not be

hicks. it did not go to the white house. if a letter went to the white house requesting privileged information relative to information that hope hicks gave advice to the president on, that would have been a letter that would have gone to don mcgahn, and that would have been something that would have been public, and that would have been something that would have become part of a dialogue between the white house and the committee. >> so you're saying the committee dropped the ball on that? >> no, i don't think they dropped the ball on it. they just know that it's executive privilege and they're not entitled to that information. >> so you are saying it's executive privilege. >> this is no different than what we saw eric holder do in the fast and furious. >> but doesn't the white house -- and correct me, doesn't the white house have to claim executive privilege on these things? >> no. these are privileged -- they have to request that -- there has to be a request made to the white house that thi

before we get to the memo, i want to get to hope hicks quickly. new developments from the former spokesperson for the president's legal team, mark corallo. he's going to tell bob mueller's team that kmous communications director hope hicks said that donald trump jr.'s emails about the controversial june 2016 trump tower meeting quote will never get out. how do you interpret that, carrie. >> i heard what hope hicks' lawyer said which was that she did not use that language. i think it will come down to a matter of, do we believe in due process, if she did make these statements that may have obstructed justice? the truth will come out. i do believe that that is the case. i think that inspector mueller is a thorough individual. i think that you know looking at hope hicks, she has every right to defend herself. i think that's what's being lost here. that there is a rush to judgment. so i mean that's, the truth will come out and i think that she, you know she, she is the communications director, but at the end of the day, the campaign was donald trump,

hope hicks started with the trump organization back in 2014. she became candidate trump's spokeswoman during the campaign and last year she took over as communications director when anthony scaramucci left after less than two weeks. her office is outside his. she's said to be very close. a big focus expected to be her role in the white house response to the trump tower meeting with a russian lawyer. in that meeting, donald trump jr. senior adviser/son-in-law jared kushner and paul manafort were all there. donald trump jr.'s own e-mails knew the lawyer was offering dirt on hillary clinton. a few weeks ago, a "new york times" -- "the new york times" reported that former spokesman for the trump legal team was ready to tell the special counsel that hope hicks told president trump that those e-mails will never get out. her lawyer denied that. our chief white house correspondent john roberts picks up the story. hi, john. >> shep, good afternoon to you. like paul manafort before her when he appeared before the house intelligence committee, hope hicks

hicks' lawyers deny the stories in a statement to cnn. he basically says the idea that hope hicks ever suggested that e-mails or other documents would be concealed or destroyed is completely false. >> okay, shimon. and there's more. we know the white house has this controversial nunes memo -- can you hear me? >> i'm not hearing you. >> we'll get back to shimon on that. >> let's bring in our legal panel. james gan low. michael zeldin, cnn legal analyst and special assistant to robert mueller. we might get shimon back. he has information about the memos as well. james, let's start this. the memo now at the white house being reviewed. the president going to make a disney minute on it. we're waiting on that. this extraordinary statement from the fbi where they say we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally -- i think we have the statement, that fundamentally impact the memo's accuracy. there's just no wiggle room in that. they're saying they think -- the fbi is saying they think there are inaccuracies in this m

and you have the hope hicks in the white house. apparently saying that well, those e-mails will never get out. if it doesn't meet a legal standard of obstruction of justice, it doesn't look good. >> no. it will perhaps bring hope back in for additional questioning depending on the answers that she gave robert mueller when she was in there two days a couple months ago. it will be something they'll have to see what the documents that were made also show. >> mark is unique in this. he was on the inside. he was serving in the trump campaign. he was present for the many of the conversations and he at the time made a judgment that this doesn't seem right. he's not necessarily a trial lawyer. he made a judgment that looks like this was an attempt to obstruction justice. a valuable witness to the special counsel. >> i think part of it was going on at that time they were beginning to realize in the white house they needed some other apparatus to deal with the constant daily dell yuj of russia questions. and brought in marc kasowitz. and to

hope hicks, has she

so what did hope hicks say today and not say? >> well, the committee seems to be much more concerned, particularly the democrats on the committee, with what hope hicks did not say. i mean she went before house intelligence. she refused to talk about any of her time in the white house. and for a while she was refusing to answer questions about the period during the presidential transition after donald trump won the election, before he was president. and then the committee basically came back to her and said, wait, wait. you've already answered some of these questions for the senate intelligence committee. why aren't you answering them for us? then she was a little bit more forthcoming about her time during the transition, but you can tell members were coming out of that and were again a little bit dissatisfied. there is a new report that just came out in "the new york times" that said that one of the things that hope hicks apparently did admit when she was talking to the committee was that in representing donald trump over the cou

make no mistake, hope hicks is a valuable and critical witness. to paraphrase the folks at farmers insurance -- her boss the president did some communicating of her own today and it was this. witch hunt, in all caps, that's how he put it on twitter, a go-to phrase as he contents the russia matter is a hoax. with us to talk about all of it tonight, we are so fortunate to be joined by two veterans, both former assistant u.s. attorneys for the southern district of new york. those needing a lawyer should wait outside our studio this evening. jennifer rogers, now executive director of the columbia law school center for the advancement of public integrity, and mimi rocca, distinguished fellow at criminal justice at the pace university school of law. jennifer, i'll begin with you. just the tweet, two words, "witch hunt." from the view of a fed, if you're on mueller's staff and you see that again this morning, what does it do? >> well, look, i think that this has been the refrain coming from the white house the entire time. this whole thing is a hoax, it'

hicks' attorney strongly denied that account calling it completely false. there was another person on the conference call, someone reportedly willing to recount the story you just heard to robert mueller. that would be mark corallo. a spokesman for the president's legal team or at least he was. he told colleagues he was alarmed by hicks' comment concluding she was either being naive or "was suggesting that the e-mails could be withheld from investigators." that, of course, would amount to obstruction of justice. you can't do that. it's pretty black and white. don junior went on to release the e-mails himself after learning the times is about to publish them and not long after that corallo resigned from the president's legal team. now he's reportedly agreed to an interview with mueller's investigators. he's not the only one they want to question about the events. according to the "times," mueller's team recently notified the president's lawyer the air force one statement is one of about a dozen subjects they want to discusses in an interview with the preside

so mark corallo was mad at hope hicks for her statement. hope hicks was mad atco ralo for his statement. there's this conference call. donald trump is on the line. they are both sort of saying this is dumb. no you're really dumb. what we're experiencing here at this moment in the investigation is like we're all just covering the slow unfolding of the last scene of reservoir dogs, okay. and so they are accusing each other of botching this thing and corallo's version is that hope says those emails these underlying emails will never see the light of day. now there's some reason to doubt that. her lawyer, obviously denies it. but we have other reporting that says she was actually privately pushing to get those emails out ahead of time. so they are turning on each other. these guys are turning on each other. >> it seems like it from this reporting you have corallo saying this was hope hicks doing it. you have hope hicks saying she never said that. ultimately don jr. did release all of those e mailings. does that exxoexonerate them? >> the real q

hicks says she never said that and the idea that hope hicks ever suggested that e-mails or other documents would be concealed or destroyed is completely false. so, joining us now, break this down for us. the special counsel was already interested. explain the significance to this and how it adds to what we already knew. >> you have the account of an insider basically alleging that the president and one of his top advisers had a discussion about making e-mails go away, about a cover-up essentially. there's a lot of questions, a lot we don't know from this article. but here is the bottom line. we've known for a while, our reporting at nbc news has been that robert mueller is more interested in the trump tower meeting for what it says about obstruction of justice, potential obstruction, why the participants did not tell the truth about it initially, why donald trump dictated that misleading statement saying it was about russia adoptions when, in fact, it wasn't. this adds another wrinkle. you have an allegation that hope hicks, communications director, suggested that these e-mails, making cle

do you think hicks will be more cooperative than bannon was? >> probably not. i think, though, that it's not inappropriate for a witness to confer with white house counsel, to ask whether or not the president is interested in asserting privilege with respect to a question that was put forth to her. they can't do it preemptively. the president really needs to assert that privilege. and we'll see how it plays out. i think, though, in answer to the question you asked john as well, my thought might be that one of the key areas that they'll want to inquire of hicks is the june 9th meeting that jared kushner and manafort and don jr. attends with five russians. and then the follow-up memorandum or press release, i guess, that was drafted on air force one that she and jared and the president, now president, drafted, which was untruthful. i think that will be important to them to try to get to the bottom of that. i don't think as to those things really any privilege attaches. >> john, today the white house press secretary, sarah sanders, defended president trump's decis

director, and hope hicks was on the phone with donald trump, jr.'s lawyers and they were all crafting this statement, which is crazy. i mean, crazy on so many levels. they had a whole outside legal team, and the purpose of that was to insulate anybody in the white house, everything through this outside legal team so that people like bob mueller couldn't subpoena -- couldn't call them and ask them to testify because it would all be covered by lawyer/client privilege. in fact, though, as they are putting together the statement, mark kasowitz, the president's lawyer at the time, wasn't even consulted. didn't even know about this statement till after it had gone to "the new york times." of course the statement said that this meeting was about -- it was really about adoption and president trump himself signed off on this and oversaw the crafting of it and insisted that this statement we reported today say that it was about adoption. donald trump, jr. threw in primarily. and it was, you know, at best, an incredibly misleading statement, at best. >> and at

. >>> the fate of hope hicks. new information on where this latest west wing turmoil leaves the long time trump loyalist. >>> not so fast. the president blocks a democratic memo on russia. is it all politics? >>> plus. >> i tried to be a good person and everybody around me attacked me. >> omarosa's star turn on a reality tv show, spilling her version on life in the white house. reaction next. >>> but we begin with that explosive tweet by the president from the white house today. he appears to be defending the two white house aides who both this week were forced to resign following accusations of domestic violence by their ex-wives. both are denying the accusations. kelly o'donnell is at the white house. kelly, tell us what specifically the president is saying. >> reporter: in the wake of two staffers, one very senior and familiar to the president, rob porter, who worked in the oval office on a daily basis, and one less well-known, working in an environmental quality office within the white house complex, a speechw