nbc justice correspondent pete williams joins me now. pete, based on what we just heard, it seems like attorney general bill barr is trying to have it both ways. he s defending christopher wray and the president. just a few hours ago, the president was going after christopher wray. reporter: well, i think what the attorney general is saying is that the problems he was concerned with happened in essence under old fbi management. that s what he s most critical of. he seems to say that chris wray is on the right track trying to fix those problems. it s not just the attorney general, but the inspector general was worried about how the fbi kept processing this warrant application to survey carter page, conduct a wiretapping on him. that s where the inspector general focuses most of his criticism, the fact that the fbi was ignoring in its submissions
you have to understand the ig s methodology. i think it s the appropriate methodology for an inspector general. he starts with limited information. he can only talk to people essential there as employees. s information, but his approach is if i get an explanation from the people that i m investigating not unreasonable on its face, i will accept it as long as there s not contradictory testimonial or documentary evidence. it s a deferential standard, in other words. all he said is people gave me an explanation, i didn t find anything to contradict it, so i don t have a basis for saying there was improper motive, but he hasn t decided the issue of improper motive. have you? no. you have outlined a newspaper better, and so does the inspector general, with problems on how the fbi handled the
shenanigans. but mitch mcconnell is the one setting the stage. he makes the rules. he makes the rules, but they have to be voted on. whether some of these rules are going to be adopted for purposes of how to conduct the senate trial, some of those rules have to be voted on and passed by 51 of the senators. so i m not counting out that there are still some patriots in the senate. all right. thank you all solve. definitely heidi, maya, jill and glenn, thank you. our own pete williams just sat down with attorney general bill barr on this historic day. why barr disagrees with the inspector general s reporter about the fbi s russia investigation. you re watching aing advisory - velshi & ruhle right here on
and a continuing threat. what wepg will happen is that the house managers will have a very solid basis of material including the 300 page document p prepared by the committees who were part of the investigation. the house u judiciary committee has had two years of hearings and respond to a certain act. those materials certainly will be part of it. and i believe that the majority leader needs to be fair. a fair ash tor and let the jurors, the r senator, all of them, hear all the facts and let them as jurors make the decision. this is not frivolous and we can t handle it frivolously or in a political manner. it is not a political process to the extent that we get in our corners and we say we re democrats and republicans or independents. it has to be what is best for this country. attorney general bill barr disputing the inspector general s report.
could sea it s on the other hand you could say it s a presidential campaign, we have to be careful. well, i think probably from a civil liberties standpoint, the greatest danger to our free system is that the incumbent government use the apparatus of the state, principally the law enforcement agencies and intelligence agency, both to spied on political opponent, but also to use them in a way that could affect the outcountry of the election. farce i m aware, this is the first time in history this has been done to a presidential campaign, a use of counter-intelligence techniques against a presidential campaign. so the inspector general says he found no evidence to indicate that the fbi s decision to start this investigation was based on a political bias. do you agree? what he actually i think