Nonprofit investigative News Organization in washington, d. C. And with quite an allstar panel with us today. They almost need to introduction. However, we will introduce them anyway. Starting to my right is somebody who donald trump probably knows quite well and that is Walter Schaub who up until july, midjuly fischer was the director of thee office of government ethics and is now with the Campaign Legal center, another nonprofit in washington, d. C. [applause] next up is matthew miller. Matt is currently a partner at a Strategic Advisory firm for brand, policy, and crisis issues. Led the department of justice communication scheme under president barack obama and was the spokesperson for eric holder. [applause] going down the line, mr. Richard painter who is chief ethics lawyer for george w. Bush in 20052007, and most recently has been, you are the cochairperson, am i correct . The vice chair. Of citizens for responsibility, responsible and ethics in washington and is also a law professor in minnesota. [applause] and to my extreme left, i guess when could say that kerry on the extreme left for the first time [laughing] , is judge ken starr who has a resume that we go on and on, the highlights of course. Solicitor general of the United States, a federal judge, the chancellor president of Baylor University and perhaps bestknown all of us who are met in the 1990s as independent counsel investigating at the time president bill clinton. Thank you. [applause] the topic of course is donald trump. Here we are today in 2017 and i would like you all to first weigh in on this one question. Over the course of one year, is donald Trump Presidency the most ethically challenged presidency in yourr estimation . And if not, whose was . Well, its a tough question to answer because i dont know much about that tenure Millard Fillmore. [laughing] butmo at least going back to the ethics in Government Acts we that i dont think anything that would even come close to rivaling the kind of ethical concerns that we are seeing now. A somebody who was born in Millard Fillmore hospital in buffalo, new york, i i did my research. Excellent. Im going to start with the same disclaimer as walt, that might disappoint my former professors of the american presidency. I dont remember everyone dating back into the 19th century but if you look at modern history, we never before had a president who is under a investigation for obstruction of justice for axis access started seven days after starting office. Weve never had a president whos been under investigation for actions that happened durin his campaign this soon into his first year in office. And, of course, we can talk about the president to no end, which also to look at his cabinet. One of the things actual challenge, reporters have covered washingtons also those who care what happened in washington have is donald trump gets so much attention can we miss a lot of the other Institutional Corruption does happen acrosser washington. Look at the last month, the revelations about the treasury secretary flight on government planes when his predecessors didnt did the hhs secretary flying on private planes were none of his better sensors did it when you look at theoo way this administrations that it people, appointed people who have never served in government before which is fine in theory, there are quality, extend people ignore the advice of people like walt about how to set up appointees free from publix of interest. I think you will see, weve obviously a seen a huge ethical challenge to start the administration and i think there are problems lie inn wait that well only be finding out about in the next few months. Well, i told my 12yearold son the other day that when i was 12 years old my eyes were glued to the Television Watching the watergate hearings. And ion still remember senator you did want to mess with him. Back in those days they had oversight in congress, and president nixon went down. Ive got to say, i think president nixon actually been given a raw deal. Look, okay, maybe he was a crook but at least he was our crook. [laughing] if you look at the watergate job, thirdrate burglary, a bunch of buffoons didnt even know what to do with the tape or whatever. Just break into the Democratic Party headquarters. This time its a hightech job done by bunch of exkgb agents. Just just meeting of the trump tower with the top brass of his campaign and a bunch of russians. [applause] i think with president nixon, that will go down to the number two spot. [laughing] ethics issues. [laughing] [applause] i cant think of a parallel, your question does remind me thatmi president reagans First National advisory was gone almost immediately because of questions, not the kind of questions that of an race with respect to general flynn. There have been untidy administrations in the past, usually it takes a while to see these kinds of issues develop as opposed to the coming in issues. Also to have a campaign manager, although this is fromig the campaign, with now this bucket full of legal issues, and the ties to, shall i say, questionable people in foreign places with strange sounding names. I i think its completely uniqu. Quantitatively, i would on a set to go back and answers about this and look at the untidy administration of ulysses s grant. That administration got into trouble fairly quickly because of just the bridges of corruption. Corruption had been an enormous problem in the civil war, enormous and is one of the reasons honest abe at a mean that says we need a statute, was called false claims act that really lucas after these very badrer characters. Some of those very bad characters found the way into government. So i dont know about quantitatively but this is just, its terrible for the country. Its terrible for the country when our president s get into trouble at whatever time. If its selfinflicted and you just say well, they shouldnt have done this or done that, but i think ill go ahead and jump ahead and say i think we all hope that bob mueller gets to the bottom of things. Ll chat about what i see about the confluence. Not just the Mueller Investigation but what is hill. Ing on capitol im so glad that richard mentioned senator sam ervin because the breakthrough in the watergate tapes came out of the United States senate. Were talking about ethics in the law and as we know what is patently inethical isnt necessarily illegal. Lets start with you, has donald trump done anything that would be consider illegal or thats going to have to come out in the wash over what could be for many months. The latter because i was very nervous, so to speak, as a citizen to know that the president of the United States was having interactions with the director of the fbi. That should not have occurred. Its not illegal, but its very unwise, its very imprudent. And what was said in those, the benefit of director comeys testimony as to what happened and i listened carefully to that. My own view is, im pretty familiar with obstruction of justice. It didnt amount to obstruction of justice from what i heard, from what i heard. Bob mueller is gathering that you know him personally. Is he the man for the job . Absolutely. And not potentially sent off by either donald trump or who would have to do it. Depending on the day, it would be a saturday night massacre because rob rosenstein, the attorney general, is a person of integrity. The president in this doomsday scenario would have to fire rosenstein because i dont think that rod would agree. The attorney generals recused himself so then it becomes the saturday night massacre. Its not just the fall of arch archiebald cox, but saying during the confirmation, they would protect the independence of the special prosecutor and now we call him the special counsel. When i read the rules of department of justice with the judgment respect to the appointment of the special counsel. I think if donald trump, heaven forbid, said hes got to go, Rod Rosenstein would say, i hereby resign. Whats the point . The Senate Intelligence committee and Judiciary Committee, there would be another special counsel, in any event because the regulations im sorry, one last point. The regulations have the force of law, they can be revoked, in contrast to the special prosecutor or independent counsel provisions which were law passed by congress and signed into law by the president of the United States. So they could be rescinded, but until they are by the attorney general, they have the force of law. And you were itching to make a point . I want today say that i agree with judge starr. I think that judge starr and mr. Miller here could tell us all how long investigations take before they uncover their reveal their final findings. And so, again, and in legality, we cant know for sure yet and we should keep an open mind as facts are developed. I think what we do know and the judge starr alluded to this, is that we had very significant departures from the ethic and civic norms of our country as a whole. One problem is the ethics laws in particular, but other laws are predicated on the idea that there were certain norms in place so the laws factor in that those are going to be followed. When theyre not followed, we discover how completely vulnerable our system is. And so it begins with a president who railed against his rival for being connected to a notforprofit organization. You know, i agree with those who say she would have had to resolve that conflict of interest, but again, were talking about a notforprofit organization. Similarly, we have a president retaining an interest in a forprofit organization thats not running around fighting aids in africa, its bringing in money directly to that president. Thats first departure from our ethical norms, set the tone from the top that has now gone trickling down through the administration. And i can tell you from my dealings with them that it was night and day dealing with this white house and dealing with past white houses, as just to illustrate what things used to look like, ill give you one brief anecdote. Richard boehner and i were working on a nominee for the bush administration, who was a very high profile nominee. Normally theyre not announced when were done with our work and they say go ahead and announce them and send them up to the senate. In this case, there were time sensitivities, a person had to be at so we got most of the work done and able to get the white house saying we dont think theres any showstoppers and we have to finish the cleanup work. In one of the calls the attorney afterwards, the attorney gently pushed back on one of the details and maybe an attorney is getting paid by clients to test the waters to see what the best deal for the client is and all of a sudden, ringing out across the phone is richard screaming out, your client doesnt have to have this job and that was at cost to richard because the president said he would be nominating this individual and i wouldnt have wanted to be in the room if richard said, oh, i got rid of your guy, hes not Going Forward. And then richard took a strong stand and caused the attorney to immediately say, okay, okay, what do we have to do . And thats when i realized what an ethics official should be and i tried to live up to the standard that richard set, but that was the culture because richard knew for sure that he had a president who cared about government ethics and he may agree and views of president bush and president obama. But i tell you both of those white houses were particularly supportive, and the experience now, consistent with a president saying i cant have conflict of interests and keep my money and holdings and go to all of my properties and im going to announce, you know, when im going there and bring the press there and im going to endorse private companies solely because they supported me. And im going to wear a hat that im hawking online while im speaking at a hurricane disaster session with the press. And i dont think you could paint a starker contrast. That raises the president whether the president is above the law. Can the president be above the law. You were at department of justice and how does this contrast with the way the doj was able to operate. And there are a number of laws that hes exempt from, and there are norms that president s have adhered to in the past that donald trump doesnt care about, if you look at all of them, the one thats always worried me the most is the thing that kind of prevents america from becoming a banana republic, the Justice Department. No matter what else happens the Justice Department makes the decisions who to investigate, who not to investigate, who to prosecute, who not to prosecute and theres nothing in the constitution, in law in federal regulation that sets it up that way. President s theoretically could call attorneys and say lock her up, lock up my former political opponent ap thats legal. Guest the attorneys general have recognized, from the watergate era, that needs to be removed during politics and President Trump showed during the campaign, lock her up, whether hillary should be prosecuted, should not be prosecuted and through, you know, nine month in office. I dont think the prosecution of Hillary Clinton was taken seriously by him or attorney general sessions, but in a sense that matters when you ask him asking the fbi director for a loyalty pledge, asking him to back off an investigation into his former National Security advisor and have him firing him, the president firing a fbi director when he wont do it. It matters in a real sense and i suspect we are still going to find, were going to still face one, at least one big flash point before the end of the russia investigation where bob mueller is going to get too close to a member of Donald Trumps family, going to get too close to the president himself, and the president is going to force a saturday night massacre type situation where he tries to rescind the rules governing the appointment of the special prosecutor so he can fire him or fires his way down the Justice Department to do it or pardons everyone involved in the case and its going to how we respond to that and whether republicans in congress see that as a red line is going to answer that question whether the president is above the law or not. Id like you to weigh in on the map brought up. And the moment ago, an idea of political norms, that you have president s at least in modern history who more or less would adhere to certain standards. There was sort of a john mccain might say, regular order of the way that president s would act, both in the campaign and also when in office and that could be everything from how they release their Health Care Records to how they release their tax returns. We could mention a dozen and one of them. Do we need more laws . Does Congress Need to weigh in in a way that would effectively take those norms and take the ethical standards and codify them, put them into law . I think we need a sense of decency. I dont think that [applause] the rules, for example, youre not going to have a rule saying after you won an election, you dont keep trashing on the person you just beat in the election, whether or not she actually won the popular vote. I mean, you just you actually do your job as president , and anyone in the bush white house, that was mouthing off about al gore or john kerry the way these people, including the president , mouth off about Hillary Clinton we would have fired them on the spot. The election is over. That makes no sense. [applause] and then the thing that happened in huntsville two days ago, i looked at that huntsville, alabama in 2017 or nuremberg, germany, youve got people in a crowd screaming lock her up. You would think that the president of the United States would not sink to the level of that type of person in the crowd and he said, well, you talk to Jeff Sessions about that. Once again, he should be there to act president ial. And if hes got a Health Care Bill, i havent heard any proposals. If hes got a Health Care Bill instead of obamacare, this is what i want to do. Talk about what hes going to do about the country rather than trashing on the media. Thats another thing thats reminiscent of whats going on in germany in the 30s. I know that president nixon didnt like the press, and said stuff particularly behind closed doors, but constant ranting about the media and press weve never seen that from an american president before. And then theres a lack of respect for the United States constitution. The role of judges. We dont have white judges, black judges, mexican judges, we have judges. Hes not showing respect there and hes not showing respect for the anticorruption provisions in the constitution and that includes this he amolment clause, if we drafted it in illinoises when i grew up. They would have called it the pay o payola. And without the consent of congress, if he doesnt agree on that way he can go to congress and work out a deal with a Republican Congress and they might want to see his tax returns and see how many rubles are in there, but hes got to respect the constitution ors not going to keep this job. [applaus [applause]. [laughter] im glad i dont have to follow. Richard, you might have plenty of people, some might say tens of millions of people around the country who voted for donald trump and said, well, we knew exactly what we were getting with donald trump. All of america should have known what we were getting with donald trump. We voted for him because he could make America Great again and hes running a different kind of presidency and we knew that coming in and hes now president of the United States. What do you say to the argument, let him be the president of the United States, we elected it to do that way. And the fact that people arent getting paid, pretty clear didnt get the job there. And you know, i think people voted for him believing that he could make this transition, and be an effective president. They did not vote for him to come into office and continually rant about the person he defeated in the election. They did not vote for him to come into the office and ignore the constitution and did not vote to have a National Security advisor who lied about his contacts with the russians. The list goes on and on and people voted for donald trump to be the president of the United States with the constitution. They did not vote for him to be a king. Hes got to follow the constituti constitution. And the situation overall with our presidencies, which posed a greater concern if your estimation for the country and did one more so than the other pose an exsten shal crisis, i guess one could say. My mission was focused and obviously grew. The and for the attorney of the United States shouted reno. And in 1993 it had a long point, were talking about ethos. The biggest complaint i remembered before i was appointed independent counsel, there was a sense of hubris, arrogance, charming, but nonetheless arrogance illustrated by the seven in the department and career Civil Servants who had served during democratic and republican administrations. And livingstone was brought in to head the White House Office of personnel records. Off with their heads. So the heads, they were career people, were sent packing and craig livingstone, and i have nothing against craig livingstone, but what were his qualifications to handle the Sensitive Information in the hands of the federal government . He had played pinochio at george bush 41 campaign rallies. Hes dressed up as a chicken at campaign rallies. So whats his very first job to reward him to the victory go the spoils. So, it was a certain jacksonion quality, i thought, and a lack of respect for what we have a heard about here, the traditional norms. There are certain functions, even within the white house that are best carried on by career people who know what theyre doing. So i think president s would be welladvised to be and i think this is one of our themes, be aware of those norms, be respectful of those norms and even if youve been brought in as a transformational president ap a very narrow election, losing the popular vote quite handily by, three million votes, that suggests to me the wisdom of lets build a coalition, lets reach across the aisle and so forth. And thats just not what weve seen. Thats not what he intends to do. I shouldnt say that. Look what hes done recently. But lets make a deal. And i was told, by the way, if you read his, and i havent, the art of the deal, you will understand him. Newt gingrichs understanding trump, read the art of the deal, hes here to make deals and thats the more reason he needs lot of lawyers around him. Do you see any parallels between bill clinton at the vanguard of being impeached and donald trump today being investigated or is that just not a comparison thats easily made . The impeachment went forward really on the grounds of perjury. So has the president been under oath. If this president gets under oath. Its very interesting, one of the fascinating things we now understand about strategic decision made by president clinton in 1998 when there were revelations of this relationship, dick morris, by his account, great, brilliant guy who had advised the president he is a very brilliant guy, he helped orchestrate the Reelection Campaign in 96. And so, the president is chatting with him. This is all according to morris. And what did you do and so forth. And so he posed morris posed two questions in the overnight poll, will the American People forgive an extramarital relationship . The answer was yes. Will the American People forgive perjury . The answer was no. Very interesting. And when the entire episode unfolded and it became clear there were serious questions, there was a huge bipartisan cry for the president to testify truthfully before the grand jury and then what happened happened, then i think if there had been a resolution discussed to, lets have censorship plus with some kind of punishment, i think that thoughtful people would have rallied around it. There was a formalistic sense impeachment or nothing. Andrew jackson was censured and he went on as before. The American People had a response to what happened, even perjury, most people thought was proven, was insufficient to the conduct in office. Coming back to donald trump, in his activity, does he commit some crime, thats a question, and obstruction of justice is looked at. If you look at the charge of robert mueller, its perjury, obstruction of justice. Intimtation of witnesses, all of this to say you can say what you want to on twitter, but if youre under oath, be very, very cautious. Well, matt, judge starr, of course, during the 90s was an independent counsel and with that came certain powers. People, of course, may remember the starr report that came out at the end of the work that you did which laid out the case that you had made. Does today, 20 years or so later, does the Mueller Investigation have the requisite tools to do a proper investigation . Is this a bombshell waiting to happen or because there will be no Mueller Report because theres a difference between what happened 20 years ago and today, that has the potential to fizzle even if donald trump does nothing to dispatch him or i think the only way that it fizzles if bob mueller completes the investigation and find the president didnt do anything wrong, in which case, you know, one of the things about appointing someone like bob mueller, so widely respected, if he comes to that conclusion, people like me would say, i trust bob mueller and conclusion. There are a number of ways to end. Ken starr was looking at whether the president could be indicted and there were prosecutors on the inspect herb Prosecutors Team at watergate that looked at the same question and said yes. I think, it be a difficult thing, indicting the president and constitutional questions and it would go to the supreme court. Short of that, bob mueller can write a report of his own at the end or when you look at the tools that he has, theres a watergate president when ja woreski finished his investigation and indicted a number of people, and i think its clear that there will be some indicted, paul manafort, likely, and flynn. He wrote a grand jury report and with the judge he is an approval turned it over to congress, to the Impeachment Committee and watergate committee. It was a basis like the star report. It sort of served that purpose and mueller i think that we understand the investigative tools he has, power of the grand jury and subpoena, but he has at the end of reaching conclusions and decides an indictment isnt the appropriate two things, he decides the president violated the law in his investigation, but an indictment isnt the way forward, he has a couple of different ways to put that in the hands after congress and tee up the question whether they are willing to take a look at those questions and act. Of course, he could go on for many months. This all started, really around the issue whether there was any collusion with russians, be it donald trump himself personally, family members, his campaign. Do you think that it should go forward in Different Directions that would be related to potentially, but not necessarily at the core of the original purpose for Going Forward with this . If you look at his original mandate, its very broad. It talks with any links between the president and associates of his campaign and the russian government. That could include links from the campaign. It does include links from the president s financial dealings if he had any any with dignitaries or russians. And i think that bob mueller might interpret that, if i find this flipping over rocks and i have the authority to look at it and obstruction or justice questions that come up. I think he has a very broad mandate and in terms of timing, you know, typically the part of justice investigations like this take a long time. Bob mueller is not the type of person that lets grass grow under his feet. If you look at the way hes moving already, there are people who are surprised how aggressive he is to paul manafort, that fbi agents picked the lock and showed up and theyre moving toward indictment. Take a look at we kind of gets a daily barrage. Take a step back and look at the president s son had a meeting with a russian lawyer, the pretext how the russian government wanted to help election. And it was intercepted, the president s National Security advisor was overheard on intercepts talking with the russian ambassador. Dont know exactly about what, but enough that the department of justice thought it was inappropriate and warned the white house. The president himself in his public statements can best be described as being solicitous of the russian government. So if you ask why is bob mueller moving so quickly, looking at this not like a white collar investigation, but as a criminal enterprise and taking it like the Drug Trafficking enterprise. This is in some ways the most important investigation that the department of justice has conducted. It goes to the question whether the president of the United States himself has been compromised by a foreign power. Youre right hes moving as aggressively as he can and move as quickly as he can. [applaus [applause] so with what matt said as a backdrop. Why did you leave in july . [laughter] well, i put up as good a fight as i could. I think i had some wins and i can talk about those, but they started sort of adapting to the strategies and reached the point where i didnt think i could achieve more there. When you say adapting, anything specific that they did that really, really made you displeased . Well, this ah. [laughte [laughter] some is just the sheer lack of transparency, the most effective thing that they did was cut us off and for that i have to give you a little brief background. With president ial nominees to the senate for confirmation, oge has a lot of leverage. We were able to tell the nominees youre not going to get a Senate Hearing until we finish the work with you, lets get that done. Thats one of the wins that we had. We used that leverage effectively and i had to really night for it because the senate started threatening to have hearings, even without waiting for oge to finish and without that, i wrote fairly hot letters in efficacy terms, hot. Theres a certain decorum in washington and i was trying to stay within the norm, but hot was within those norms. To the Senate Committees i sent that off there and i thought, oh, boy, i hope this works. It did, they backed off and rescheduled the hearings and we moved as fast as i could. As a result you were seeing ethics Holding Better out at the agencies and the white house. Theres officials on site and the career people, as judge star said, theyre invested in the process and system working. More recently, the tone from the top, weve discovered, is tickling down and have got the fabulous flights with a kitchenette and all kind of things from several cabinet officials. So, we were affected there, but with the white house appointees, they the system is different. We dont get their Financial Disclosures first, theyre not due until theyre in the white house. The white house can give two 45day extensions and days before they submit to oge. So we didnt have a chance to resolve conflict of interest. And the white house ethics officials didnt want to preserve their responsibilities in terms of ethic, but didnt know how. These guys turned us down for training. And once we finally got the Financial Disclosure reports trickling in and look at the potential conflict of interest for white house officials, we asked the white house to what does this person do for a living all day at the white house . Mums the word. They wont tell us. He wouldnt give us information, is with an ultimately going to have to sign off on disclosure reports. I had no information on what the people were doing for a living and i didnt want my signature vouching for these individuals and saying they had no conflicts. The biggest thing sort of the last straw for me when i fought a bottle for 30 days to get my hands on bisque records. Any kind of ethics records, these were waivers. I told them release the security wafers that and they had Mick Mulvaney write a letter to me and copy ap the letter was sent to hundreds of people saying we dont think you have the authority to collect this. The thing is collecting documents and reviewing them is pretty much what oge was doing all day long. So i bought back really good nig night fight on that. And they said were not going to release them and then wednesday they released them. I later heard from somebody, a rumor that grassleys office may have called over there. I had quoted going from grassly where he had said that the Obama Administration released waivers ap i thought that fit perfectly here. I dont know if thats true or not or if grassley called over there, but in any event they released them and waives were unsigned, undated, most were retroactive and two issues from a person to himself. [laughter] and so the secret of the secret waivers there were no skret treasures. They were do whatever they wanted and when they get its pretty clear they worked on this one and this one and ginned them up. I thought good lord, if these guys are coming one step short of forging records, theres not a whot lot that the investigative could do this job. And the successor find him using the technical determine loosy goosy when describing ethics in general. Do you feel that oge is diminished in the past couple of months since youve left . Well, its relative. That term is one that he used himself although he now denies it, but just about everybody whos work with him heard him call himself that. Yeah, i have some concerns whats going on there, but i balance that against the fact that i dont know that anybody else could have come in and achieved anything. Id been doing this for a decade and a half and applied every trick and tactic and leverage that i could to get people to follow the ethics rules. Oge has a lot of authority, but no power and authority, for instance, is when the judge issues an order, but power is when the u. S. Marshals so up on your doorstep because they couldnt comply with that order. We didnt have the power to back is up and i dont know that it would have been any worse off or better off if i or anybody else was there. Again, we had plenty of authority, it was in the White House Office. The administration i, and the Obama Administration i had lots of support and they proved to me that ethics has no party. I could equally tell a democratic or Republican White House to be supportive of the program. But its medicated on oge being able to call. An individual didnt want to do something, they tried to work it out. If they couldnt theyd call the white house and invariably the next morning, a nervous vos and what can i do to you. And they got whipped into shape. And this white house the message is oge go jump in the lake and then we have the message of the public. That was working for a while, but adopted by cutting us off information. And though there was nothing to go public with, we couldnt send investigators in. One thing i can do is open up for questioning. Weve got about 15 minutes left and white people lineup quickly id like to get from each panelist, theres chatter on twitter and emails who knew about the palm and watching on the live stream right now and so many articulated in a different way, what can i do as a citizen of the United States to deal with any of the topics that weve discussed today, people expressing a lot of concerns, they feel like theyre marginalized in some way or dont feel that the government is representing them. So, with judge starr and quickly move down the line. I think if youre a member of congress in some platform, i believe in the rule of law. No one is above the law. These basic foundational principles so will you please do your job in terms of supervisory hearings or encourage your colleagues to do their job. Is as a u. S. Citizen want no one above the law. I can agree or disagree on a personal policy, but agree fundamentally, as they used to say, you go through square corners. You dont jaywalk, this is the law until its changed. We want a rule of law congress. Host very quickly. Its important where we look at facts, and living in a world theres alternative facts. The president of the United States said his predecessor was spying on him and decided to accuse the british as well. The list goes on and on we should not tolerate in our daily lives anyone that cannot tell the truth and we should not politicize the truth. Not political. Lets let bob mueller get to the truth here and republicans and democrats insist on finding out the facts and that includes where the president gets his money from from the trump organization, lets get the facts and the tax returns and well figure out what to do. No more ignoring the truth or lying and i dont want to hear one more people lying about contact with the rushes russians. If youd done that in the bush administration, youd be in jail right now. And there are two bills to protect bob mueller from interference and make it impossible for the president to fire him. Call your senator, your member of the house and they will congress to support that legislation. I think its the single most important thing to ensure that this investigation going to its national conclusion. Consistent with what they said, i truly think the biggest threat were facing is anything to bob mueller being fired. This is what stands between us and other countries on the laws. If they do pull a saturday night massacre, im going to be in the streets and i hope every last person is. [applaus [applause] so well start with my gentleman to the left and just a note. Please ask a question and do not make a speech and be concise. Go ahead. In order for the rule of law to have credibility we have to have robust due process and one of the questions i have about what were seeing is on the one side there seems to be a dream team of lawyers with mueller, and on the other hand, we have lawyers who are practicing outside of their expertise and having public conversations about private matters that are privileged. So Going Forward, after this, what are your concerns to the executive, given that its not clear that its going to be a real fair fight, put it that way. I want to answer that because i think that in our country, we dont have equal justice and that the folks with the most money can hire the best attorneys and get the best justice. So, if these guys are hiring clowns who are sitting in a cafe talking about their case and being overheard, thats inexcusable because they are paying 1500 an hour. Talk about a fair fight. The resources of the billionaire theyre going after, far exceed any that bob mueller has. I think we have a fair price because youve got very wealthy people who can hire good attorneys. And theres mechanisms for setting up Legal Defense funds. Im not opposed to Legal Defense funds as long as theyre compliant with the law. Oeg needs to come out with new guidance on Legal Defense funds. And theres a story telling why we dont have that right now and they need to do that. I want to say one thing, that a number of these matters, President Trump is represented by the United States department of justice including on the emolument cases with foreign money coming to President Trump. Hes defended by the United States department of justice. They have very good lawyers there, they were know the able to the best lawyers of the country, including kellyanne conway, george conway, he wouldnt touch that job. And youve sued weve sued over the emolument clause the United States constitution and two other lawsuits. Theyre defended by the justice lawyers. There are excellent lawyers who will not take a job with donald trump. I wonder what. Second, donald trump does have some financial resources, we dont know what currency and how much. But i know enough to think hes probably ineligible to receive assistance from the legal aid clinic from the university of minnesota so, you know, i think that he has the resources to hire lawyers and who these are and a number of things i dont understand about them including the mustache. But anyway. If this is who he wants to hire, but hes lauderdale up. A lot of them are lauderdale up and this is the most welltodo white house weve had in decades and so, i dont really feel story for them in terms of their access to high quality legal services, but some lawyers dont want to work for those types of clients, those who tweet out it go, its different than what you said 24 hours. And thats why Kellyanne Conways husband george went on twitter said mr. President youre shooting yourself in the foot. So i think a lot of the problems that hes made hes brought upon himself. The next question, well try to get as many as we can. Im sam. And a bit of a speculative question to all of you, assuming that the investigation is finished and the result, you know, directly, theres direct evidence of the president , you know, being at fault and god knows how many offenses. Do you think the Republican Party in both the house and the senate will have the moral gumption to stand up to, lets say face what is along their base, saying this is the deep state, this is fake news, theyre trying to take down the person whos trying to make America Great again. How do you think theyre going to react and if its the worst case scenario, how do we react . I tell you, i think it depends on two things. One is how hot the smoking gun is. If its obstruction of justice, it depends on corrupt intent, look different in the eyes of the beholder, or if the president knew about interference in the election and encouraged it. Thats the first thing, and the second thing, its a straight political question. Whats Donald Trumps approving rating. If hes at 45 . I think youll see the Republican Party excuse it. If hes in the 20s, and starts to drag down, its a different situation. Ive got a five minute warning. Real quick. As a republican got to be some moral values here and you know, if we cant do something about this administration, theres enough evidence already, we dont need to wait for bob mueller. Needs to be investigations in both houses of congress and if we dont get going we are going to be going the way of the new jersey generals and the United States football league. Its going to be a disaster. Its going to so its our choice. Im just going to no one can match richard. I was going to make one point, the facts will drive this and just as in watergate, president nixons very strong support was they liked him or not, had nothing to do with likability. When the facts pointed in the direction of obstruction of justice. His perhaps collapsed. When he said im now convinced at least for a period of time that the president of the United States engaged in a period of obstruction, he resigneds, its over. I dont think it will be rallying around, but it will be the facts, just the facts. Honestly, so many people who are in the house of representatives, theyre honorable people and want to the right thing, as opposed to to what my constituents wanted. You will have the facts and my name is adam. What can be done to restore the broken ethics norms and what can be done governmentwise to prevent them from being broken again . Theyre all looking at me. [laughter]. Guest icht well, its all about tone from the top. I think we could fix it tomorrow if the president woke up, turned over a new lease, and im going to divest my assets and these things and i dont see that happening, but what im very concerned about and this combs to a question you asked earlier, well, should he be allowed to do what they would do because they thought they knew what they were getting. I think that partly the media to blame, so nobody thought he was win and didnt think about it if he had won. My big concern, is this the new norm . The longer it persists, the more it risks becoming a norman a lot is on the shoulder. Next president and what were at danger of, is lets say the democrats put up somebody fairly unsavory, and theyd say you didnt question him on it and theyd be right. And there would be a moral fiber, im going to selfimpose a level on my waiver that can be just norms. So this could i hope whoever comes next, democrat or republican, says im rei reinstituting this. And i think that the media should ask during the primaries, will you restore the norm of our executive branch. [applause] it will have to be the last question, make it a good one. The question. Okay, so if the investigation basically concludes, you know, the worst and undermines the legitimately of a Trump Presidency and ends up being shown the door, what does that say to the legitimacy of a pence presidency who rode in on that illegitimate wake or a ryans presidency or what does that do to the he office the presidency, how do they. For them, keep in mind your answers stand in between now and happy hour. Why dont we start in reverse order. Why dont we start in the middle. [laughter]. So i think the first thing depends on what mike pence did, if anything. He seems to be strategically absent from a lot of important pieces, which is, you know, not unwise on his part. But, look, i think when donald trump leaves, whether he leaves before the end of his term or whether its because hes not reelected or serves two full terms, the next president is going to have an enormous repair job to do in this country. Its not just these things that weve been talking about, its not picking fights with nfl players on twitter. So, i disagree with probably just about everything mike pence believes in, but i have to say this, you know, mike pence would, you know approach just the common, basic questions how a president ought to behave differently than donald trump does. And next one, ill go after richard. Exactly. I think to answer that question as matthew just modeled, you have to go content neutral on the political believes of the individual. And so when we step away from the political views of mike pence and trump and our concern right now is about trumps behavior, there are those who will fault mike pence for having bb complicit in the sense he was his vicepresident , but i think what i could tell you is that ive met with both the attorneys in the White House Counsels Office and the attorneys in mike pences office when they came over to do the Financial Disclosure forms and so forth and i would describe the attorneys in the white house as Circus Clowns and the attorneys in mike pences as real oldfashioned government attorneys. They have political beliefs if we look at this content neutral, this is an individual who has served in government, been a part of government, who has a staff full of people consistent with the government culture in terms of their language that they speak and their behavior, so i think that if we set aside the politics and look only at the behavior of the two, i think that if we had a mike pence presidency, people could argue over the policies and the politics, and have very strong views as matt suggested, but i think we would be dealing with more of a traditional presidency where the question is, are you freaked out by a candidates views or do you agree with the candidates views, but youre not concerned about the container being damaged and the container being the institutions of our representative form of government. The Mueller Investigation is all just a question whether crimes have been committed, hes a special prosecutor and his job is to prosecute crimes. There are many issues that fall outside of the scope of his investigation that im very worried about and that americans ought to be worried about and that congress ought to be worried about. Everything from the Foreign Government payments in violation of the emolument clause, which is not a crime. This business going back and forth with the north korea, acting like two School Children in an argument and theyre both playing with nukes. This is an extremely dangerous situation, a president who has said at least on the campaign trail and is not backing off it that hes going to keep people from entering the United States based on free exercise of religion, violation of the first amendment. The problem goes on and on and much of this is far outside of the Mueller Investigation. We need to have a congress that will play an active oversight role and play it by the constitution. If they dont do their jobs, they need to be fired as members of congress and id like more republicans in there, but republicans doing their job and not just sitting on their can and this is not working. My view is that the american constitutional system is wonderfully resilient. Your question brought to mind the election james earl carter, jr. And in looking at what has happened the last four years or eight years, the American People tend to respond to voices that say that within we need a new day, but under our constitutional order, and the brilliant thing about jimmy carters campaign, governor what was then viewed as very small state in the south, was that i will never lie to you. So theres a hunger for truth and honesty in government and same truth gave us the Government Act of 1978 with various and sundry provisions that weve talked about. I would say have confidence in the flexibility of the constitutional order, but also the basic goodness of the American People. With that, everyone is welcomed to go to the center where you can have a happy hour the, please have a round of applause for the panel. Thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations] join us this weekend for book tv, live at the texas book festival in austin, coverage begins saturday at 11 a. M. Eastern and includes liza mundy and her book, cold girls, and thursday night lights story of football in texas. And burping, plagiarists, post facts and fake news. Farewell to ice a report from the arctic. Danielle allen and her book the life and times. And under cover in ruthless smuggling. Life and code. A history of technology. On sunday starts at 3 p. M. Eastern live with carol anded and her book white rage the unspoken truth of our racial divide. Bloodlines the true stories of a drug cartel, the fbi and battle for a horse racing dynasty. And authors of violated exposing rape at Baylor University amid College Football sex assault crisis. The texas book festival Live Saturday and sunday on cspan2s book tv. Well, politico is reporting this morning that senator Chuck GrassleyJudiciary Committee chair and chief author of the law that the has the system for misconduct on capitol hill is urging that harassment training be mandatory not voluntary for all Upper Chamber employees. While providing a respectful work place in congress, read more on that story today. Senate Intelligence Committee is meeting on capitol hill on the 2016 elections. Thats at 2 p. M. Eastern and you see both meetings live on cspan 3. Cspan. Org or the free radio app. Posted more content and people shared these posts, spreading them still further. Many of these ads and posts are inflammatory, some are downright offensive. We know that much of this content is particularly hurtful to members of the Facebook Community that engaged with this content believing it was authentic. People should believe content on facebook is authentic and should not have to worry that they are being exploited in a cynical effort to prey on painful faultlines in our society in order to inflame discourse in this country. In aggregate, the ads and posts were here to discuss again, that hearing live on cspan 3, also listen at cspan. Org or listen with the free cspan radio app. U. S. Senate is about to gavel in to continue on work on judicial nominations. At noon senators