. >> and to pick up on that, chuck rosenberg, why is this important? why is what they have put in this criminal information which we have right here so important, the details that they have put in here. >> it is fascinating and important, but pete is right. keep in mind that prosecutors don't need to charge cohen with every single crime that he completed, because he plead g l guilty to eight in the southern district court and now a ninth, and why not every single crime? because all of the the conduct comes in at sentencing, and why are they doing this and laying out in detail in this criminal information the conductor mis n misconduct? it is because they want him under oath on this topic for subsequent reasons. maybe another trial or defendants like it when they have plead guilty to the operative facts that they are testifying about and that is what is going on here. >> and be very, very specific about this. they had other indictments again against him and he has plead guilty and a cooperating witness, and what is significant about this is that it is t

. >>> joining us now, i'm very happy to say is chuck rosenberg. he is a former senior official at the fbi and the justice department. thank you for being here. >> my pleasure. >> i have a whole bunch of questions. >> go ahead. >> mr. trump's lawyers said today they have submitted the president's written answers to the special counsel's questions. we know not from the special counsel but from open source reporting that mueller's special counsel's office had apparently asked the president for an in-person interview. we do not think that has happened. instead, these written answers have been submitted. does that tell us anything about the investigation or the president's standing? >> i think so. so we've talked previously about how you save the most important witnesses for the end of your investigation. and by any account, mr. trump has to be one of most important witnesses. so by any account, we're closer to the end. i'm not sure we're at the end, and here's why, because we still don't have a part of the story. the written answers have nothing to do

chuck rosenberg, i'm going to you on all things robert mueller. this was always going to be a precarious time. donald trump, whether feeling backed into a corner by democratic gains or emboldened by republican gains and as only trump could be both in one moment he seems to be. but the concern was always going to be the fate and future of the mueller probe. my understanding it's now likely in the hands of a staunch trump ally, a person more a political figure than respected legal mind and someone who has written openly about his concerns and displeasure with the duration and the direction of mueller's probe. >> that's right, nicolle. you've characterized it fairly. you don't get to be the acting attorney general and overseeing the mueller probe following the dismissal of jeff sessions unless they know -- trump knows, the white house knows what you think and how you're going to act. i hate to say that. i would hope that matt whitaker could rise to the occasion. i hope he understands the gravity of this investigation. and that his reputation and the

that's the import of paragraph 44. >> chuck rosenberg, if i didn't show you my autographed hank aaron baseball the last time you were in my office, then you're welcome to come back. i'm convinced you can get power by holding it in your hands. thank you so very much for coming on the broadcast with us, again tonight. and coming up -- >> my pleasure. >> -- the freshman class of lawmakers arrived on the hill today as the president calls on one candidate in a very big, very undecided race to go ahead and concede. the latest election update when we come right back. we have steve kornacki at the big board. i'm alex trebek here to tell you about the colonial penn program. if you're age 50 to 85 and looking to buy life insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three p's. what are the three p's? the three p's of life insurance on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. a price you can afford, a price that can't increase, and a price that fits your budget. i'm 65 and take medications. what's my price? you can get coverage for $9.95 a month. i just turned 80. what's my price? $9.95 a month f

frank figliuzzi, chuck rosenberg. gentlemen, thank you, as always, for coming on with us. >>> and coming up for us, with votes still being counted in several states, we will ask a prominent member of the house intelligence committee what the president can expect from the democratic party when we come back. america. land of blue jeans. and burgers. and while blue jeans got all skinny on us... i can't feel my legs. ...no way are we giving up on burgers. that's why i created the all-american ribeye burger, made with 100% ribeye beef, ribeye burgers are back, america. try my all-american made with 100% ribeye beef fresh spring mix, and provolone cheese on a potato bun. it's a burger as american as bald eagles. i get it, i'm bald. fast food's first and only ribeye burgers are back, america. try them today. >>> okay. get comfortable. this is important. just over 50 hours after the polls closed in arizona, we have a new leader in the senate race there. after the latest count, the democrat kyrsten sinema is leading republican

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frank figliuzzi, chuck rosenberg. gentlemen, thank you, as always, for coming on with us. >>> and coming up for us, with votes still being counted in several states, we will ask a prominent member of the house intelligence committee what the president can expect from the democratic party when we come back. ♪ ♪ if you have recurring constipation and belly pain, talk to your doctor and say yesss! to linzess. yesss! linzess treats adults with ibs with constipation or chronic constipation. linzess can help relieve your belly pain, and lets you have more frequent and complete bowel movements. see if you're eligible to get 90 days for as little as 30 dollars. do not give linzess to children less than 6 and it should not be given to children 6 to less than 18, it may harm them. do not take linzess if you have a bowel blockage. get immediate help if you develop unusual or severe stomach pain, especially with bloody or black stools. the most common side effect is diarrhea, sometimes severe. if it's severe, stop taking linz

and george conway is leading the charge. >> chuck rosenberg, they write, the president has attacked the justice department for indictments of republican congressmen on the stated ground that prosecutions would hurt republican chances in the midterm elections. and he's urged the justice department investigate his political opponents. that's a fundamentally wrong and very dangerous view of the criminal justice system and people from both parties and across the political spectrum should condemn it. i'm cheered by that but this has been going on since day one. since the president tweeted obama tapped my wires. the president has been itching to investigate. he's been tweeting about hillary clinton. tweeting about the real russian collusion being democratic collusion. where have these voices been and having served democratic and republican administrations, are you cheered by this? do you feel it's too little, too late and do you think the appointment of whitaker as acting attorney general, the head of the department you love and served in is that sort of this unappreciated scandal sitting in

and chuck rosenberg? former u.s. attorney and also former fbi senior official. chuck, we'll begin with you. home field advantage here in new york. safe to assume robert mueller has this memo, has had this memo, has had knowledge of this incident for a good long while? >> absolutely, brian. if he doesn't have the memo, he'll have it now. and, frankly, what he really needs are the recollections of the people who wrote the memo or were there for the conversation. right? the memo is corroborative. but what's really important are the people who spoke to the president, got his direction, understood what he intended to do and wrote that stuff down. that's the real evidence. and we know mcgahn, for instance, has been meeting with special counsel for many, many hours. that's what matters. >> frank, this is another instance of don mcgahn as one of the human guardrails around the president. does this article also kind of out mr. whitaker as a potential witness? you've got the president coming to the chief of staff at the justice department under sessions saying in effect,

that's the import of paragraph 44. >> chuck rosenberg, if i didn't show you my autographed hank aaron baseball the last time you were in my office, then you're welcome to come back. i'm convinced you can get power by holding it in your hands. thank you so very much for coming on the broadcast with us, again tonight. >>> and coming up -- >> my pleasure. >> -- the freshman class of lawmakers arrived on the hill today as the president calls on one candidate in a very big, very undecided race, to go ahead and concede. the latest election update when we come right back. we have steve kornacki at the today is the day you're going to get motivated... get stronger... get closer. start listening today to the world's largest selection of audiobooks on audible. and now, get more. for just $14.95 a month, you'll get a credit a month good for any audiobook, plus two audible originals exclusive titles you can't find anywhere else. if you don't like a book, you can exchange it any time, no questions asked. automatically roll your credits over to the next month if you don't use them. with the free au

chuck rosenberg, and matt miller, former justice department spokesman and msnbc justice and security analyst. let's start with the basics of this story. a lot of speculation about potential charges. what do we actually know? >> well, chris, what happened here is a prosecutor in the eastern district of virginia was working on a motion to seal criminal charges in a totally unrelated case, and he appears, just as you said, to have cut and pasted some language from an assange file because the case law was the same, but he didn't remove assange's name. an alert researcher last night was perusing these documents and came across the name of assange in reference to criminal charges into a sealed case against assange and put it out on twitter, and we all saw it, and the government is saying this is a mistake, but they're not disputing that there may well be criminal charges against julian assange. this doesn't prove that there are such charges because it could have been a draft that the prosecution was preparing, but it does show that there is an effort to look at criminal charges against jul

that's the import of paragraph 44. >> chuck rosenberg, if i didn't show you my autographed hank aaron baseball the last time you were in my office, then you're welcome to come back. i'm convinced you can get power by holding it in your hands. thank you so very much for coming on the broadcast with us, again tonight. >>> and coming up -- >> my pleasure. >> -- the freshman class of lawmakers arrived on the hill today as the president calls on one candidate in a very big, very undecided race, to go ahead and concede. the latest election update when we come right back. we have steve kornacki at the big board. kornacki at the big board. than comparable vanguard funds. and we're now offering zero expense ratio index funds. that's value you'll only find at fidelity. ♪ one thing leads another introducing zero account fees for brokerage accounts. and zero minimums to open an account. at fidelity, those zeros really add up. ♪ maybe i'll win, saved by zero ♪ >>> it may seem like ten minutes, but it's been one week since the midterm elections. today the newest members of congress, more demo

. ♪ ♪ >>> joining us now is chuck rosenberg, former u.s. attorney, former fbi official. thank you for being here. >> my pleasure, rachel. >> unsealed today, first time in 44 years, is the evidence against nixon that was obtained by the grand jury who was working under the watergate special prosecutor. they handed that evidence over to congress, and we're seeing it today for the first time. obviously this is a great day for history buffs, but is this also legally important? is this an important legal precedent we're seeing for the first time today? >> it's at least an important factual legal precedent. you used the word elegant, and it is elegant. it's also incredibly powerful in its simplicity. it's nothing more than fact and then the evidence that proves the fact. if bob mueller is looking for a way to present the information to congress, he really only has two options. the starr report which was fulsome but also argumentative, what the watergate special prosecutor did, which is what you described earlier. >> is this the sort of thing that senior justice department offi

attorney and senior fbi official, chuck rosenberg, and former federal prosecutor paul butler. jonathan and ann are still at the table. chuck, take me through -- this seems to me an effort to ward off something more aggressive from the mueller probe. there's been so much talk about mueller keeping his head down before the midtermmidterms. now that they're over, he may assert himself, request a subpoena. >> i'm not sure this is the last chapter, nicolle. i cant m't imagine a prosecutor good as bob mueller would think written answers to written questions, which by the we, will inevitably be written by mr. trump's lawyers, are sufficient. here's what i expect. these are probably, you know, preparatory questions. these are probably questions that set the scene, but i imagine that the mueller team is still going to want to sit down with the president. now, we don't always get to sit down with every witness we want to talk to, and if, in fact, the president really is a target of the investigation, they probably won't subpoena him, but, again, it's hard for me to think this is the las

we have kimberly atkins, alan smith, chuck rosenberg and raul reyes. did the president's threats about shutting down the border and using lethal force help push mexico to the table, do you think? >> that remains to be seen. one thing julia touched on are the potential legal challenges to the deal. to apply for asylum, it requires physical presence in the united states. if we're talking about people remaining in mexico that, is not physical presence in the united states. our current laws does allow for some exception but that's only if they're in a so-called safe third country, which requires a bilateral agreement. the only country we have that with is canada. and absent that, mexico does not qualify as a safe country. these migrants are very vulnerable to the cartels and smugglers. the longer this goes on, the more pressure mexico will face to put esomething else in place to shift the burden back to the united states. >> this seems to be a fairly clear victory for the president. does this allow him to bring some troops back from the border to say they

talking to legal experts they say and chuck rosenberg said there's no such thing as a perjury trap. you tell the truth or you don't which seems to be the feeling of the former prosecutors that we speak to for our reporting. that is the headline out of this. it was initially something unexpected. the pool was called in sort of last minute. that group of reporter that is goes in and clearly the president wanted to talk. let ice address another thing that the president talked about. he was asked about the developments we have been covering this afternoon related to the revocation of the credential for a cnn reporter reinstated at least temporarily by a judge. a donald trump appointed judge. the president talked about the idea as that truck pops again down the driveway there needing to be decorum. that was a word used at least once and talked about rules and regulations put in place. i do think we would be remiss not to note what has happened at least from the president's perspective. that is president who just recently, for example, called a reporter's question racist, another question

you know, chuck rosenberg likes to talk about the gravitational force that pulls on people once they're inside of the justice department. and it's a strong force. there's a history of institutional practice. of recusals in cases where you have a conflict of interest. we saw that play out with jeff sessions. i think it's entirely likely that matt whitaker who was a u.s. attorney and served in the bush administration was actually carried over and served for several months as an obama u.s. attorney. he is steeped in the traditions of doj. he'll find it increasingly difficult to violate the guidance from ethics officials. he may well recuse because what's the worst that can happen? trump can fire him. and that may be much better ultimately than tarnishing his career for all time and his future. >> matt miller, you've also got, and it's hard to explain this outside of the wonky, you know, right wing and who really cares anyway, but inside the right wing legal circles, there's a hot war going on. prominent legal conservatives like george conway, kellyanne conway's husband, really banging the

. >> our friend chuck rosenberg was pointing out that with mix on and clinton, judges appointed by both men ruled against them when there were subpoena fights. so in that way those judges were not protectors of the president of the united states. my other question is slightly different. are we as a site more to blame for this than we're willing to let on given the way we talk about justices? >> does some of the blame lie with us? >> i that's a wise point you're making and we all share something about that. at the same time, it's the president's job to rise above that and to talk about what the courts have always been about, both from our founding design on and not to give into those impulses. that's why you have anything like the remarks by this president, any time he loses a case, that judge is bias because they're hispanic or things like that. this is deeply deeply corrosive. it takes a lot, i'm sure, to get the chief justice upset and have him make any sort of remarks, but donald trump managed to do that. that to me is an incredibly telling thing. >> a president should be better than

. >> and our good friend chuck rosenberg was here pointing out that in, with nixon and with clinton, judges that were were appointed by both men ruled against them in subpoena fights when there were investigations into those two presidents. so, in that way those judges were not protecters of the president of the united states. >>> my other question is slightly different. are we as a society more to blame for this than we're willing to let on, given the way that we talk about judges, given the way that we talk about supreme court nominees, and then justices? this is an obama justice. this is a trump justice. we talk a lot about it with kavanaugh. we've talked about it with gorsuch. we assumed they would rule a certain way because of being appointed or nominated by donald trump. does some of the blame here for this being such a fertile ground for donald trump lie with us? >> well, i think that's a wise point you're making, katy. we all share something about that. i agree with that. but at the same time, you know, it's the president's job to rise above that and to call for better angels

rosenberg raised during this hour knrft whether there was a quid pro quo, particularly intriguing to me. this reporting from devlin and his colleagues about two sources close to whitaker confirming that he would not be inclined to approve a subpoena which could be mueller's next move if he can't get answers to the questions he's had in front of trump's lawyers for many, many months now. why else would trump have picked this guy? >> he himself says he likes to go to central casting to find the guy who looks the part. one trump confidante said he likes whitaker's football style and he's jocular and the two of them have established a rapport. >> he is not a sharp legal mind. >> no. trump also values personal connections, which is how he views, like, foreign leaders. he can become pals with them. >> duterte. >> among others. the two of them became pals because whitaker was going over to the white house because trump couldn't stand the sight of jeff sessions and didn't want to talk to him. there's a little personal affinity there but there is more. and the subpoena thing is huge. giuliani

talking to legal experts they say and chuck rosenberg said there's no such thing as a perjury trap. you tell the truth or you don't which seems to be the feeling of the former prosecutors that we speak to for our reporting. that is the headline out of this. it was initially something unexpected. the pool was called in sort of last minute. that group of reporter that is goes in and clearly the president wanted to talk. let ice address another thing that the president talked about. he was asked about the developments we have been covering this afternoon related to the revocation of the credential for a cnn reporter reinstated at least temporarily by a judge. a donald trump appointed judge. the president talked about the idea as that truck pops again down the driveway there needing to be decorum. that was a word used at least once and talked about rules and regulations put in place. i do think we would be remiss not to note what has happened at least from the president's perspective. that isi

i think chuck rosenberg made the point earlier today on our air saying that, look, this is just one of other things that michael cohen admitted to, pleaded to. so i think when you start to look at all the various dots here, you start to look at -- you start to look at his pattern and a serioes of circumstances that raise a lot of questions. to your point before, why lie about this? trump today came out, you played a sound bite saying michael cohen, he's a liar, he's doing this in order to get time off of his sentence. and then later you have our colleague, kristen welker, explaining that apparently the president's written answers to donald trump, according to donald trump's legal team, matches up with what michael cohen said today. so on one hand, you're calling him a liar. on the other you're saying, yeah, now we agree with the things -- we always stated the things michael cohen is now saying. it doesn't quite make a lot of sense, chris. >> you know, the "titanic" can make fun of the iceberg but the iceberg won. thank you, joaquin castro, tom winter, natasha bertrand and glenn kirschn

chuck rosenberg, he was the head of the dea. he issued something to all personnel in the dea saying, i said that, whether it was joke or what, i don't remember, but just to be clear he said that is not something that we can countenance. that was chuck realizing that something that might have been some sort of off the cuff comment that wasn't intended as a recalibration of the rules of engagement for law enforcement officials would have that impact because it came out of the president's mouth. he was thinking long term and how to maintain the culture of his agency. and he did a service to the dea at that time. that's the kind of thing where we have seen over and over and over where up the leaders of to you are justice department and intelligence community as well have been watching for this incoming and making not only to protect themselves and protect the department is critical. >> that is a great example. david, in that spirit, can you identify profiles in courage or examples of individuals standing up for the rule of law that

attorney and now law enforcement analyst, chuck rosenberg. he was a former a ee eer aide t mueller and in charge of briefing robert mueller with a daily intelligence report is david preece, author of "how to get rid of a president," removing unfit chief executives. chuck, i'll ask you fisrst. will this first round of questions suffice? will he be going back with more questions in the future? >> as a predicate, understand, prosecutors almost never take answers in writing. it never happens. something civil lawyers might do in a deposition, but i was a federal prosecutor for a long time, and never once did i ever accept answers in writing. you want to talk to people face-to-face, just as you as a journalist would want to sit down with somebody across the table from you and judge their inflecti inflection, their body lack wng, demeanor, and have the ability to answer follow-up questions. it don't think it is sufficient. i don't think it's the end. bob mueller may have made a calculation it is enough on these few issues, but i imagine they'd want

we also have chuck rosenberg, an msnbc contributor, a former u.s. attorney, and kim way lee, a law professor at the university of baltimore. tom, i will start with you. you managed to sift through these documents you were there in the courtroom this morning. talk to me about the top lines here. it would seem to me that the biggest nugget of news is that michael cohen is clearly cooperating with the special counsel's office? >> that's exactly correct, craig. according to the court filings, we know that michael cohen has not only been talking with prosecutors in fonew york, we kw that before. that's how we got to a guilty plea back in august in his case brought by prosecutors in new york, now we know from today that he's cooperating with special counsel robert mueller's office. his plea agreement explicitly p says so, and they will be notifying the judge not only in the case that is brought today in new york with are respect to the senate select committee and also in the case of the campaign donations tied to payments made to women tie ed d to the pre