as the piece of journalism yesterday that got us on this track, go back in the formative stations of what became the russia investigation, your knowledge of what this source, what this informant, what this person was up to. >> well, it was very early on in the investigation. this is the summer of 2016. the fbi is trying to figure out what they have, what's going on. very quickly, they can determine they're not going to solve this case by the election day. and she essentially take sort of a reserved approach to it. they do not take overt measures. they don't go out and execute search warrants. they don't issue subpoenas. they sort of work around the edges. it would make sense for them to talk to a confidential informant in that type of situation. that is what they do. that is sort of their bread and butter. it is now being demonized, but it sort of makes sense because the trump folks have thrown a lot of stuff at the wall on mueller. not a lot of it has stuck except on the fbi. that's where they've had their most success, whether it's on the text messages between the