then you put on your belt and then you can t do those in any other order. but apparently that is how it s going to have to work with obtaining information about the mueller investigation as well. i mean, if you were the relevant committee in congress supposed to have that information, we apparently know that s how you re going to have to do it. undies, then pants, then belt every single time. and we know this because we saw this exact same pattern happen a week or so ago with the intelligence committee. i mean, by statute the intelligence committees are entitled to counter intelligence information and foreign intelligence information that s turned up by the justice department. including in the course of the special counsel investigation. they get that stuff. that s why intelligence committees exist. nevertheless, when mueller s redacted report was released to the public and there was no sign-in that report of what happened to any counter intelligence investigation that had reportedly b
been going a bit haywire in recent days. we may find out why that is, what exactly is happening at what appears to be the end of mike flynn s criminal case. as flynn s attorneys and prosecutors both go back to the judge at the end of this week. so that is going to be fascinating to see. this past week mike flynn just fired his old attorneys. we still don t know why. just today the president s lawyers argued to the d.c. circuit court of appeals the accounting firm should not have to respond to a subpoena to hand over the president s financial information. their argument is that congress is never, ever allowed to investigate a president ever for committing any crimes. the argument is exactly as blunt as it sounds. and it is an amazing argument, but that is what they are going with. trying to block the president s accounting firm from responding to a congressional subpoena to hand over his financial information. i mean, their argument is literally when presidents commit crimes, presidents
the republicans seemed to deliberately mispronounce robert mueller s house as mueller, and i wanted to say it s mueller. is that one of those it s going to be a partisan tick now the way republicans call it the democrat party instead of the democratic party. i don t know now. his name was said hundreds of times except by these members of congress who insisted on calling him mueller. one of the things i ve been thinking about this i ve been trying to think about it a in a big picture way. what happens if we do get more insight into the counter intelligence side of this, what happens if congress is actually able to get somewhere looking at the evidence, the intelligence findings, able to pursue this and answer some of the unanswered questions. do you feel like republicans and democrats are on such different planets when it comes to a factual understanding of what happened that it s impossible to have a subitantive conversation about the real implications for
surprise some of the real drama in congress and some of the real drama on that issue today happened two hours before that hearing was gaveled into session. when the chairman of the judiciary committee jerry nadler announced the justice department had relented. the justice department had finally decided they were going to allow the committee to see some of the underlying material that formed the basis for mueller s report. really, this was announced by nadler today and really, are you sure this isn t some snookering plot? is this i mean, we are going on three months since mueller first submitted his report. throughout that time the judiciary committee has been demanding to see not just the redacted report but underlying evidence from this report. for all this time the justice department has been saying no, no, you can t see it.
the country? like is this really a mars and venous situation. you know at the moment i think there are some really polar opposites in congress and certainly in that judiciary committee. you know, it was clear they were really coming from a very different place when they were thinking about the evidence. but i think the key to this is the american people. i think if the public understands what was in that report about obstruction of justice and also understanding the significance, that by trying to end mueller s investigation what trump was doing was actually threatening our national security by preventing us from understanding the russia threat. i think if the american people understand that, then the representatives in congress have to come around. well, your willingness to be there for all of those hours today especially in that partisan scrum and that buoys me in terms of my feeling about us and where we re going as a country. barbara mcquade, today great public servant for that