really important point to underscore, particularly, laura, since we also know from your reporting and "the new york times" that there were these private conversations that the president had with republican lawmakers where they were willing to do his bidding. so, with devin nunez, matt gaetz, i believe jim jordan was part of this group and they were willing to go public and attack the mueller investigation. in fact, they decided that would be a worthwhile strategy. so if you have the independent, you know, branch of the congress willing to do this, it is comforting on some level to know there were guardrails in the white house not willing to do the president's bidding. >> people in congress who, according to the former acting director of the fbi, actually new the president was under investigation. now, people have pushed back on mccabe there and questioned exactly what he told them. but if, in fact, he did inform them, that means that this entire time while they've been waging their campaign against mueller, they've known what the