told them, which ended up tanking his plea deal. cnn has learned in the days mueller was appointed and right after james comey was fired deputy attorney general rod rosenstein and top fbi officials viewed president trump as a leader who needed to be reigned in. acting fbi director took the extraordinary step at that point of opening an obstruction of justice investigation. let's begin with our breaking news. kaitlyn collins is live in washington with the latest. what more do we know about how we got to this point today? >> we know that things have gotten so bad between president trump and his chief of staff that they're not speaking right now. their relationship is seen as a stalemate right now, and the white house officials believe that essentially it is no longer tenable because the two of them are disagreeing so much. they believe right now things are so bad they are expecting john kelly, the chief of staff, to resign in the coming days. now, we have had this up-down