that's what robert mueller has been able to do. i think we have a lot more to do. >> good of you to take the time to talk with us. appreciate it. >> thank you. >> if you're a democratic sta r staffer right now, what are you doing and what are your priorities? >> they already have a wish list of questions they want to ask and devin nunes wouldn't let them ask. republicans were asked leading questions and when democrats try to follow up, they would cut them off. they can go back against michael cohen's testimony and see who was putting out this false story about the russian deal ending in january versus june. >> only six prosecutions for lying to congress. i think that number would surprise a lot of people. is that about to change? >> i think it is. i think mueller's plea agreement with cohen yesterday really shows that he's very serious about holding people accountable for lying docongress. all those people who thought i can shade the truth here, i doesn't really matter. they are caught in a trap because they are on the record sayin

on his way to meet with robert mueller's team. robert mueller again pushed back the sentencing of former campaign official rick gates because he is still cooperating on, quote, several ongoing investigations. and we saw two days of jerome corsey, a friend of roger stone's predicting in online video he will be indicted by the special prosecutor for perjury. the attorney general followed justice department rules and reaccused himself from overseeing robert mueller's investigation of the president. president trump has been very public about this reasoning for well over a year. donald trump is so relentlessly ignorant about history or ethics or norms or what integrity looks like that he actually has no idea that he was not supposed to ever say publicly i want to fire my attorney general because he's not protecting me from an investigation. but now that he's done that, there is not yet any evidence that the person he installed to control the mueller investigation is actually controlling the mueller investigation. republican senator lip

and so robert mueller now has that. lawyers always love to see people who've gone down a path they're going down so they can find possible road markers and precedents. i assume this document will be very useful to robert mueller. >> i would think so. it sounds from the way that road map was written that it is something that would be sort of in the spirit of how mueller might do his report. in other words, it was done in the voice of the grand jury. so it invoked the authority, the legal and moral authority of the grand jury, and it was very factual, here are the facts and not sort of putting a lot of spin or argument or analysis on it. i think at the end of the day that's the kind of report that mueller would be likely to write anyway given sort of what we know about him as a prosecutor and as a person, and that will carry the most weight because we need people to look at facts and evidence. that is what is sorely missing in this sort of debate that goes on where rudy giuliani puts his spin on things on tv. and mueller

look, this is all speculative when it comes to robert mueller. they have been very closed off and nothing has leaked out of this investigation, but we keep hearing time and time again that this investigation appears to be closer to a conclusion than anywhere else throughout the process, so if the president is anticipating that we may be getting a report soon, that may explain his behavior. >> we'll have much more on the breaking news. we'll take a quick break and we'll be right back. (music throughout) mopping robotthe from irobot. its precision jet spray and vibrating cleaning head loosen and scrub stains. all while navigating kitchens, bathrooms and those hard to reach places. you and braava jet ordering it from outback. easily enjoy all your favorites when you order outback delivery or curbside takeaway right now. outback steakhouse. aussie rules. pai'm open to that.medicare? outback steakhouse. lower premiums? extra benefits? it's open enrollment. time to open the laptop... ...and compare medicare health plans. why? because plans change, so c

they include robert mueller and deputy attorney general rod rosenstein. when asked about that, rosenstein was seen behind bars in the picture, the president responded to the reporters in the interview saying he should have never appointed a special counsel. meantime, the president talked about a potential pardon for paul manafort. the former campaign chairman and he was found out to have lied to the fbi. the president saying it is not off the table for a presidential pardon fors manafort. he is ratcheting -- for paul manafort. he is ratcheting up the probe to mccarthyism. the president threatened to declassify documents he claims would be devastating to depositi democrats. these are documents he talked about this past september. he says in the interview, white house lawyer emmitt flood, would not conclude that they would be released. back to you, dave and christine. >> pamela, thank you. >>> president trump has denied two claims special counsel robert mueller is looking into. cnn has learned the president told mueller in writing that roger stone never tol

mueller or control robert mueller. robert mueller does not care about how he's depicted in the press and robert mueller is going to get to the truth about donald trump. >> one of them talks all the time. one of them talks never. one of them served in vietnam. one of them had bone spurs. one of them is on twitter. >> one of them still weighed what he weighed when he was 18. >> one is under investigation. the other is investigating that guy. this is a position the president has never really been in. >> ever. >> he's never been in a place, tim knows this, where if he lied he'd get in trouble. where he couldn't push something off or countersue or -- his entire toolbox of how he gets out of problems in his life. how he's gone through his business. it's unavailable to him. this twitter account is valuable to the country. it's like an early warning system. we can see him popping off. something is going on. >> i defended this today. i was asked why we cover his tweets. i said, listen, he fires cabinet secretaries whose agencie

>> robert mueller wants answers. p fightre's a leaders on capitol hill. i'm robert costa. welcome to "washington week." it.y lawyers are working on i'm working on it. i write the answers. >> the president say he has prepared answers for robert mueller as he escalates his attacks against the special counsel. >> no indication that the mueller investigation will not be allowed to finish. and it should be allowed to finish. >> and acting attorney general matthew whitaker faces tough questions. us, house democrats confront a leadership tussle. >> i have overwhelming support in my s caucus to beaker of the house. a sometimes you just need fferent voice. sometimes you just need a different kind of a vision. >> we discuss the president's looming decisions on the mueller probe. his team and the new congress. next. ♪[music] >> this is "washington week." funding is provided by... ♪[music] >> kevin!in >> k >> advice for life. life wel planned. learn more atay rndjames.com. >> funding is provided by... newman's own foundation. donating all profits from newman's own food products to

robert mueller isn't guessing. robert mueller has so much information. access to information about a whole host of things, and so that's what we really have to keep in mind, and it bears repeating, this is one thing that michael cohen talked about with robert mueller, and who knows what else is out there, because he does know so much. they do have these tapes, they do have e-mails, to back up what michael cohen has said in interviews with the mueller team. >> go ahead, jeff. >> we haven't talked about, because things happen so fast in this investigation. >> we also don't know about it. >> how about stormy daniels? how about the payments that michael cohen facilitated from donald trump to stormy daniels on the eve of the election. was that an illegal campaign contribution? was that whole activity a -- an illegal activity? that's how we first heard about michael cohen's intimate involvement in this, and that is still something that is very much worth looking at. >> something, jeffrey, that happened, you felt shifted always this into overdrive? it felt to m

is robert mueller getting closer to making a collusion case? and paul manafort denies a report that he met with wikileaks founder julian assange, even as the special counsel says the former campaign chairman broke his plea deal by repeatedly lying to the fbi and federal prosecutors. quickbooks. backing you. . >>> happening now, breaking news, evidence of collusion, cnn obtained draft documents of the russia probe that shed new light on the alleged connections involving trump ally roger stone, wikileaks and stolen campaign e-mails. tonight an associate is speaking out about what he knows. secret talks, manafort is denying he met multiple times with wikileaks july an assange. is robert mueller looking into that as he declares manafort's plea deal is dead. discredited mueller. the president goes on a rant accusing him of so doing tremendous damage. is mr. trump worried about something big about to happen? >>> anti-semitism in europe and germany, why is it making a comeback so many decades after hitler and the holocaust. we want to welcome our view

he appears to be clearly in robert mueller's crosshairs. you have some text messages that he released, roger stone, discussing wikileaks, the plans to release the hacked e-mails from the dnc and from john podesta. tell us about what these e-mails show. >> these were released by roger stone. he is clearly trying to support and bolster his claim that, you know, his back channel to any information about wikileaks was coming from this new york radio personality randy credico. so we have some e-mails starting back from august of 2016. and in one of those e-mails, this is a text message sent from randy credico to stone, just days after credico had interviewed julian assange, the head of wikileaks in which credico tells stone wikileaks has kryptonite on hillary and please don't out me as your source. another text message from september 18th in which credico says to stone, just remember, do not name me as your connection to assange. and then on october 1, which is six days before wikileaks does the dump of john podesta's e-mails where credico is sa

mueller or have robert mueller fired? did i get that right? >> i do believe that. and also, if the president believes that the only way to clear his name is for the mueller investigation to clear his name, then he would not fire him. because otherwise there's no way donald trump gets his name cleared. >> do you actually believe that? or are you just trying to convey that to president trump, trying to convince him psychologically, some sort of vulcan mind melt here, that don't do this, president trump, because you want to clear your name. do you actually think that he has this red line? >> i do. because i think he would have actually, in fact, executed a firing of robert mueller. i think he does think in his mind that the majority of the american people would rise up against him and that the judiciary committee and now the democratic control of the house would be a check in balance on his ability to do that. >> congressman ted lieu, thank you so much. and presumably, congratulations on your re-election. i'm assuming if you

robert mueller has a terrific reputation. and so far he has held this so tightly that you can't say that he's out there leaking things and trying to make things look bad for the president. he is doing his job and he will not -- he's the kind of person that once he is given an assignment and he thinks he's got something to do, he's going to do it to the very end. he's a bulldog that way. but no one has ever questioned, except this president, his integrity. and the fact that he really is someone who is going to dot all the i's and cross all the t's, and he's not finished until he's done and we're not going to know a lot until he is ready to share that. the one thing you don't do to bob mueller, don't lie to im. that's been something drilled into him from the beginning, everyone knows that. >> republican leaders, mitch mcconnell, paul ryan, the list goes on, are they going to weigh in here? >> when you talk to them privately the last year and a half they say we'll see what happens because they don't want to deal with the daily l

we'll talk about the president's most recent attacks on special counsel, robert mueller. why is the president going public and suggesting that a pardon is possible? >> you know, wolf, you describe this interview as stunning. and it is quite stunning. the idea that he is going public with possibly pardoning paul manafort. if you flash back just to yesterday, the "washington post" asked him the same question. he wasn't willing to go on the record publicly to talk about this. and now we have him going on the record publicly. in some ways, it's not surprising. because we have heard the president in the past speak pretty, you know, favorably about paul manafort, even as he tried to separate himself from him. he called him a brave man. at some point he suggested he was being unfairly targeted. but he was being treated worse than al capone. i think the question now is why is he doing this? and essentially breaking from the advice of his team around him that wanted him not to talk about pardons publicly, because they feared that mueller might see this as interfering in an ongoing

bmu -- robert mueller. a sentiment echoed earlier today by mitt romney, the republican party's 2012 nominee for the white house, mitt romney said that the robert mueller investigation should remain unimpeded. >> senator elect romney. >> pleats bring in david chalion. republicans lose the majority of the house, the president declares victory and fires the attorney general what do you make of all of it? >> i thought he was going in to put his spin on the election. he did pad his senate majority. lost the house. he hung on to some governorships in key states, ohio and florida. there were things for him to tout and yet, he has this press conference where he relishes the fight with the press. he jumps right to threatening democrats, don't you dare investigate me or i'm going to use senate republicans to go right back at you. immediately after he fires sessions, because he didn't want today to be about the fact that the democrats won the house of representatives in a pretty sweeping result. >> what's your bottom

we don't know that's why robert mueller's investigation is so important. we will ultimately know all of the facts because he seems to have more of the facts and more people plead guilty and are found guilty at the end of the day, but what we do know is there are far more tentacles into russia than had previously been disclosed. and so one has a legitimate question as to whether, number one, he does have economic interests there that are affecting his judgment, whether oligarchs have invested in his business and lastly, does all of this affect the way in which he responds to russia which seems to be incredibly benign as a time in which putin is violating the international order left and right and putin only understands strength and so long as he continues to do what he's done for example, in ukraine in taking those ships, arresting the sailors, violating the international law on the high seas, he will continue to march forward in this regard and be a risk to the national interest and security of the united states. >> senator bob menendez, thank you so much

well, suppose robert mueller was not entirely convinced that paul manafort was pulling strings. suppose mueller was very careful in what he said to manafort in the way he posed questions to manafort, not to give away any sort of concrete documentary evidence or any other evidence he might have of trump's fo trump's foreknowledge of that meeting. so manafort could tell trump essentially they've got nothing on you, you can deny, you could say you didn't know anything about it and they've got nothing. in fact, they might have something. so i don't discount robert mueller's savvy regarding manafort and his true allegiances. >> jerome corsi is the other character from trump world who is pulling away with what was to be an agreement with the special prosecutor to plead guilty to a single perjury count. ari melber interviewed jerome corsi today. and the audience should know at the outset he's a pathological liar. he was the originator of john carry's attacks on service in vietnam where he was served honorably and was decorated in combat. jerome corsi, part of it was the originator of t

i think that is what robert mueller is looking at right now. if we see him being honest, if robert mueller finds them to be honest about this, we can see that he could potentially come out. not unscathed but with a plea deal. jon: john sale is a former watergate special prosecutor pretty says is not necessarily that impressed with what prosecutors seem to have here. >> what do these mean? cooperation, which is key to the jailhouse. the only way you do that is if you say what the prosecutor wants to hear. in this case, clearly, it is to implicate roger stone with advanced knowledge of the hacking and the leak. and jerome corsi is not giving up. so he will be indicted. i do not think the investigator has advanced the ball at all. jon: john sale is not that impressed but roger stone seems to be i don't know, a little nervous shall we say? reporter: we saw roger stone speak out about this yesterday. he was saying that jerome corsi was essentially being pressured. he never had this or he had never had this conversation with jerome corsi. i think a l

he's attacking robert mueller personally. saying that he's ruining the criminal justice system, though when sarah sanders was asked about that today, she couldn't list any reasons of how exactly he's ruining it. and he's also going after him saying, we should look at his past and the people who are on his team's past, but robert mueller was a marine veteran, someone who served his country, even though he didn't have to, even though he was shot and could have gone home, he stayed and became an offer's aide. the president is going all in him, because he knows this report is coming. his legal team is preparing a response to it, for whatever it's going to be, whatever we're going to see. and president trump wants to be able to discredit this report. that's why he's saying things like, why didn't he interview the hundreds of people on my campaign who didn't collude with russia? because clearly they're becoming concerned that that is -- >> that's a great question. >> i'm not kidding. he actually tweeted that. >> i know he tweeted t

is robert mueller's job in jeopardy right now? >> well, i -- i think the -- the real question is what robert mueller does as special prosecutor. with his recommendations for possible future indictments and future steps that have tab taken, is that going to be jeopardized by now having this individual now have oversight over that prosecution? i think it raises some very serious legal questions hearing. i think under the president and others feel about that investigation, but if they cart that game with how that sessioning proceeds, they will cause problems for themselves. if they want to raise additional issues with regards to the obstruction of justice, let them play this game because it's a dangerous game to be played. >> i guess the bottom line is you know the white house chief of staff, it's often been recordy. are you worried that the president is ready to fire more people now that the mid-term elections are over? >> well, you know -- you know, presidents certainly have the right to fire who they want. that's not the issue. bu

lying to robert mueller, trying this kind of stunt on robert mueller is a very, very bad idea and it could land a lot of people in jail and possibly some lawyers in some very hot water. >> richard, when you're home in minnesota people come up to you over the weekend at a cocktail party or a football game and they ask you just tell me something, do you think mueller has the goods, do you think mueller has the case? how do you answer? >> it's pretty clear he's got the case. most people i know in minnesota are well aware that robert mueller's got the case. just look at president trump's twitter feed today. i mean, he's tweeting out pictures of all of his political enemies behind bars saying when are the treason trials going to begin? he is attacking robert mueller again on twitter. just today president trump threatened to declassify information in order to retaliate against the democrats. so he is going to destroy our national security, make us vulnerable to our enemies by disclosing classified information simply in order to get retribution against his political enemies. this is a very

likely go through this list of questions prepared by robert mueller. what do we know about what he answered? help us understand. >> frustrating thing about this for me, david, we don't know very much at all. we're getting a soda straw view of this which is only what donald trump and his lawyers want to tell the world. what we don't know, is robert mueller threatening to haul the president before the grand jury? why is donald trump not answering any questions about obstruction of justice or anything that happened when he was president and will robert mueller tolerate that? it's hard for most people to imagine he will. we've seen no public evidence that links donald trump directly to the russia election interference. we've seen a lot of evidence of obstruction of justice. how can the president avoid those questions if that goes more to his legal culpability. >> the president is so proud of the fact he did this himself saying in the oval office, reiterating it yesterday it wasn't done by his lawyers. it was the president putting pen to paper. your reactio

mueller could ask about, and a couple of pieces to this, written questions may or may not satisfy robert mueller, and we will have to see. typically, when i have talked to legal experts they say, hey, somebody wants to be in person to ask the questions, and the special counsel did -- >> i think that we just got the piece. let me play this tape of the president. >> we are writing up rules and regulations to make a position. i they you were treated very unfairly, and both of you, unfa unfairly, because you have somebody interrupting you, and if they don't listen to rules and regulations, we will end up back in court, and we win. but more importantly, we'll just leave. and then you won't be very happy. because we do get good ratings. >> you talk about rules and regulations, what do you mean? >> decorum. you can't take three and four questions and just stand up and not sit down. you have to practice decorum. you were there. you understood. and you understand. we want total freedom of the press. that's very important to me. more important to methane anybody would believe but you have to act w

is robert mueller threatening to subpoena donald trump and haul him before a grand jury? i think this is part of the negotiation that's playing out between the trump team and the mueller team about what answers trump is going to give. i don't see how it's okay for trump to say he's not going to answer questions about obstruction of justice, a main part of robert mueller's investigation, but that's their position right now. because they believe that that probe stemmed from the firing of james comey and trump had an absolute right to do that. >> let me suggest a strategy. they'll say, you can have half of what you want, you can have written answers, which is nonsense, because lawyers write the answers and they'll be cleverly written. but i've got this new guy, matthew whitaker, who's any attorney general, and he's not going to push for any sort of subpoena, so live with it. how about that? we'll give you something, but don't ask for more, because i've got a guy that's going to defend me. >> if that happens, mueller has to report that to congress. >> he has to tell the congr

but for his lawyers to actually converse with robert mueller. now you see that written take-home exam is much more enticing to him. if you are mueller, if you are anybody with a pulse, you would like to have a in-person, mano a mano conversation. why? because you can detect credibility, you can ask followup questions, you can look at things that are otherwise sterile and actually bring them to life. and unless you have that, you were left at the mercy of lawyers. and why would mueller trade the leverage he has for taking a second fiddle and just getting the leftovers? he has to have a meaningful conversation. but he only has to have that conversation if he has no other way to corroborate or lock it in. remember, in a way, all of the american people had a conversation with donald trump when you watched the lester holt interview. you had an in-person discussion when you heard about the motivation for firing james comey. when you read his twitter characters. and so in many ways, the president has created his own ad hoc sort of interviews and maybe

so what does robert mueller get out of this and what doesn't he? >> well, you're right that it is of somewhat limited value for the reasons you identified. the other reason is that these answers are likely being drafted by lawyers. i mean, with president trump's input as to the substance of them, but they can be, you know, tweaked and edited and revised my lawyers. and so that limits the value to some extent. but nonetheless, as ken said, it does lock president trump into a story. there are certain facts that are going to be true or not true. and it will be very difficult for president trump to wiggle out of those things later. you know, when he talks to the media, it can be very free wheeling and one day he can say one thing and one day the other. this is a very sober process where these are the answers that he represents as truthful. and so, he can't later on down the road say that that that wasn't the case. so in that way, it does help narrow the scope of the facts for robert mueller. >> we also know about this president, that he does like to ki

but we know robert mueller kept his head down and is going forward with his investigation. every time something comes out we go oh, my, and robert mueller's six months ahead of that. so all i know is that i leave my faith in that be rot mueller is going to do the best job he can and will present the facts in a very thoughtful way that can be presented to the public so they have faith in him. that's the most important thing, as he presents it, he will present facts, not ifs, not maybes. and that's something we can trust. it won't be coming from the president or democrats or it won't be coming from republicans, it will simply be coming from the special investigator. >> paul manafort not cooperating any longer with the team. how much of a blow is it to mueller's team and does it delay this investigation? >> i think it is a blow and probably does delay the investigation to some extent. but that doesn't mean the debriefings with him were completely useless. it sounds like mueller reached the point where he thinks he has no credibility as a witness because he lied but there may b

dismissal as ais threat against special counsel robert mueller's ongoing russia investigation. evidence uncovered by the investigation or a confirmed presidential effort to obstruct it could get house democrats grounds for impeachment. although nancy pelosi says she would not support suchch a move unless it is a bipartisan effort. womanakistani christian has been freed from prison a week after the supreme court overturned her conviction and death sentence. she spent eight years on death row after neighbors accused her of making derogatory remarks about islam and the court decision to release the mother of five has sparked protests and death threats against her. we explain. years,eath row for eight she has finally left this prison. the christian woman n is believd to remain in protective custody over fear for her own safety. -- foreign ministry said rumor she e s flown out of t country had sparked anger among some residents. wrong. decision is the government should review it and bring her back in, and she should be given strict punishment. >> the decision last week by the suprem

robert mueller and his team? >> reporter: there are a lot of theorys, of course, one of them is he forgot. a memory issue. i think that's the least credible. i think there also is this looming concern that there is a pardon waiting for him in the white house when this is all over. i hope that's not true. pardons in this circumstance would certainly raise serious questions about whether this president or any president is above the law in the united states. >> do you believe a pardon by manafort by the president would be an ad mission of guilt by the president considering manafort's role in the campaign? >> yes, i would. >> that's a serious charge. the white house, by the way today said at least sarah sanders said she doesn't think there is any considerations of pardons right now. she was specific on. that how concerned are you, that a potential government shutdown would put the mueller investigation on hold at least for the days there would be no funding for that investigation? >> i don't know the internal working

tonight, what has michael cohen told robert mueller already? after spending more than 70 hours answering questions from mueller's team. abc's chief justice correspondent pierre thomas leading us off tonight. >> reporter: michael cohen, the president's former personal attorney and fixer, swarmed today outside federal court in lower manhattan after pleading guilty as part of his bombshell plea deal with special counsel robert mueller. >> mr. cohen has cooperated, mr. cohen will continue to cooperate. >> reporter: sources tell abc news cohen has already spent more than 70 hours talking to mueller's investigators about the 2016 campaign and president trump's business ties to russia. today, he pleaded guilty to

it's not rare when it comes to robert mueller. he already has had problems with witnesses who have been involved in plea agreements at one stage or the other. papadopoulos essentially became hostile to them, even as a cooperating witness come to the point that mueller try to increase his sentencing, which the court rejected. corsi refused to accept the deal, according to his own account, because he felt that he was being told to lie. this is fairly rare. usually these are witnesses who are desperate for deals, and really would not risk taking off a prosecutor. so clearly mueller is not getting what he wants. the question is, is he getting enough to get him where he wants to go? >> martha: so, mr. goodstein. i know that you don't believe this is wrapping up anytime soon, and nobody knows. but one indicator is that the president has responded to the questions. that was considered to be one of the last elements of all of this. but it does seem that the mueller investigation is frustrated with what they are getting, as jonathan turley

the information that robert mueller has. and so to frank's point, we don't know all that he has and we don't know if he answers all of frank's questions. we certainly know that he's got more than was stated in that document. that means that we suspect that there are going to be family members, potentially don junior would be the most likely, that should be worried about what kind of information mueller has about his relationship to conversations with russians. but also, if you put all the facts together, which we don't have time to do -- you did a great job of running through some of it -- we have all kinds of contact between the trump campaign and russians. remember that michael flynn -- he conceded that he lied about conversations with the russian ambassador during the transition about softening -- his not being upset about what they were going to say or do about sanctions because of a different deal. this was all happening in concert with donald trump in the campaign, trying to make money off of russia. and when you put a

roger stone associate now in negotiations with special counsel robert mueller's team. all this after previously saying he didn't do anything wrong. what did corsi know about wikileaks plan to publish campaign e-mails hacked by the russians and will he now turn on stone? >>> contradicting trump. a new report that was just released by the government and their scientists contradicts the president's often repeated claim that climate change is a hoax. the report says global warming is transforming where and how we live and presents serious challenges to the health andfes. so why did the trump administration decide to release it late today during the holiday weekend? and why does the president continue to mock the idea of global warming? >>> not behind closed doors. former fbi director, james comey, says he'll fight a subpoena from the republican chairman of the house judiciary committee, hauling him in front of that committee. comey says he's willing to testify, but only if it's at a public hearing and not behind closed doors. why are some republicans trying to use the fina

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robert mueller is clearly zeroing in on the president. we have three big areas they are taking a look at and how they could be putting the president in a corner. give dry skin the elbow. new age perfect hydra nutrition moisturizer from l'oreal. an ultra-nourishing cream enriched with manuka honey extract. got it honey? l'oreal's age perfect relieves dry skin... and leaves it hydrated, toned and more elastic. it's about feeling comfortable in your skin! new age perfect hydra nutrition moisturizer from l'oreal paris. and for extra dry skin... discover age perfect all-over honey balm. because you're worth it! as one of the nation's largest investors in infrastructure, we don't just help power the american dream, we're part of it. this is our era. this is america's energy era. nextera energy. >>> it's all about connecting the dots. robert mueller's search seems to be focusing in on key areas right now. we want to bring in the senior national correspondent. alex, walk us through the issues that mueller appears to be looking at here and also th

he is ratcheting up the language against robert mueller now. comparing the mueller probe to mccarthy-ism. also in the interview, the president threatened to declassify documents he claims would be devastating to democrats. these are documents he talked about this past september. he says in the interview, white house lawyer emmitt flood, would not conclude that they would be a good idea, but the president is threatening to declassify the documents if the democrats go after him. back to you. dave and christine. >> pamela, thank you. >>> president trump has denied two claims special counsel robert mueller is looking into. cnn has learned the president told mueller in writing that roger stone never told him about the wikileaks plan to release democratic party e-mails stolen by russian hackers and he was never informed about the 2016 trump tower meeting with his son, campaign officials and a russian lawyer. we learned the president made it clear he was answering to the best of his recollection. the trump tower meeting and wikileaks are critical to m

we got the news that donald trump is working on his answers to questions to robert mueller. i have a 17 -year-old daughter applying to colleges right now and i imagine that same scenario. [laughter] really? no collusion. next question. so i want to talk about collusion on how we portrayed in the book because with the defense republican conservative champions of the trump presidency no evidence we ever colluded with the russians so with that there is no evidence that trump sat down with military hackers to explain how to hack into the dnc with what documents to release but we portray a series of events in the book that point there was a type of with the trump tower meeting in 2016 to send the message to the russian emissary to meet with her. that also goes to paul manafort and running the trump campaign the troika of the top they all get the e-mail not much came out of that meeting that the emissary is coming of cra secret scheme the kremlin had to help trump. so what did they say in response to that secret plan? in his own words, i love it. so forget about what came about of

said they expect to be indicted by robert mueller. after a break, former watergate assistant special prosecutor jill wine-banks and former prosecutor will join us with their views of what happens when and if the president does give robert mueller written answers to some of his questions. i am a family man. i am a techie dad. i believe the best technology should feel effortless. like magic. at comcast, it's my job to develop, apps and tools that simplify your experience. my name is mike, i'm in product development at comcast. we're working to make things simple, easy and awesome. >>> the jerome corsi drama or is it dromedy continued today. today was just one day after jerome corsi, an associate of roger stone, announced he expected to be indicted by special counsel robert mueller. today what he decided to do was cancel at the very last minute an interview with nbc news anna schecter. she explained exactly what happened today to chris hayes tonight. >> he actually came to rockefeller center. i sent a car for him. he was out on 49th stre

>>> does robert mueller know about trump associate roger stone? new court documents just obtained by cnn. >>> and president trump says he has a high level of intelligence, and still his gut instincts are better than anyone's brain. >>> we can go forward, and we're not looking back. >> a republican win in last night's senate runoff with the balance of power in the house continuing to turn blue. >>> plus, how a party stunt gone wrong sparked an $8 million disaster. >>> good morning, everyone, welcome to "early start." i'm dave briggs. christine romans getting a late start. she'll be along shortly. it's wednesday, november 28th. it is 4:00 a.m. in the east. an extraordinary interview with the "washington post" coming up in a bit. we start with the russia investigation. a clearer picture this morning what robert mueller may know about trump confidante roger stone's effort to get documents from wikileaks. cnn obtained court documents apparently written by mueller's office. they cite emails between stone and his associate, right-wing author jerome corsi

"the lead with jake tapper" starts right now. >>> is robert mueller about to show his hand? "the lead" starts right now. significant new insight today into robert mueller's playbook, as we're learning new details about the potential case against trump's former campaign chairman. and alleged efforts by trump associates to try to get information from russian hackers. this while president trump is going on defense with an offensive, accusing mueller of nasty things and lashing out against his own justice department. >>> plus, vladimir putin testing president trump, just days before they meet again. will matters be different with an international crisis unfolding and actual lives at

to be a law to protect robert mueller. i mean, mitch mcconnell is in charge. jeff flake is wandering off into the darkness these last few days as a senator. i mean, this is not a fair fight. mitch mcconnell and a 98-pound weak ling named jeff flake is just not -- you know, that is not going to happen. and that means that the administration is going to have a free hand to do with mueller what they will. and we'll see what happens. >> jeff flake would probably argue he's wandering into the light, not the darkness, as he leaves the u.s. senate. but, you know, mitch mcconnell has been very resistant to do this. but if things change as we get closer to mueller issuing his report or people like lindsey graham and democrats, frankly -- much more importantly, get word that it is problematic, mcconnell could be forced to change his mine. jeff flake or not. and that's just the reality, the political reality for the republicans who i know we just had an election. but the republicans -- the landscape for republicans in the next electi

he will now be in charge of overseeing the robert mueller investigation. when the president fired attorney general jeff sessions, he did not allow sessions' deputy, rod rosenstein, to become the acting attorney general, which would be the normal course of events. he instead installed matt whitaker, who used to have a job as a full-time pundit, railing against the mueller investigation. he, as of today, has been put in charge of it. what happens now? joining us now is david loftman, he is the former chief of the justice department's counterintelligence and export control section, one of his roles was to oversee the russia investigation at the justice department before robert mueller was appointed. mr. loftman, it's an honor to have you with us tonight. thank you for making time. >> good to be with you tonight, rachel. >> am i right that it is not the normal course of events that somebody new would be installed in the acting attorney general's role rather than allowing the deputy attorney general to step up into that higher position? >> i can't say it's neve

. >> are you sure robert mueller did submit the written questions? i mean, we're just hearing it from donald trump and rudy giuliani. >> you can't be sure of anything. it does feel a little bit more like this is moving in that direction. and the other thing that's interesting about this is i think a lot of us who watch robert mueller thought that given the request to adjourn paul manafort's joint status report to the court last week for ten days, so that they could be of greater assistance to the judge, that ten-day period ends monday, a lot of us thought that means there is an indictment coming. as you look at what is going on now, it may be a situation where robert mueller wanted to get donald trump's answers on collusion submitted under oath before he released an indictment which would, on collusion, it's probably not going to be trump but maybe roger stone, for example. and in that indictment he's likely to set forth and lay out the factual narrative of how the collusion happened. he didn't want trump to see that and be able to tailor his answers