memphis. we are memphis. secondly, what we ll be doing is we ll have investigations and oversight, which has been missing from congress, one of our primary responsibilities during the two years when the republicans were acolytes to trump. in every way possible trying to discredit robert mueller s investigation. one of the greatest individuals our country has ever known. we will have hearings on emoluments clauses, we ll have hearings on pardon powers, we ll have hearings on possibly obstruction of justice and other issues. whatever the mueller report gives us is great. what it doesn t give us we ll seek. if we don t get it from seeking it and/or having mueller testify before our committee, we will try to find it through our own investigations because that s what we were elected to do. our charge is not limited to russian interference and collusion, conspiracy with trump. it s to look out for the violation of laws and how the
his sentencing in federal court has been delayed four times already. we will find out tomorrow whether they re going to delay his sentencing yet again or whether prosecutors in the special counsel s office are ready to tell us how cooperative rick gates has been what they ve got from him and therefore what they think he ought to get in terms of a sentence. that deadline is tomorrow. yesterday of course it was the president s campaign chairman sentenced to several years in federal prison. within minutes of the sentence being handed down, the same man was also hit with a multi-count felony indictment out of new york state which among other things has profound questions or profound dsh has a profound impact on the overall question of whether or not president trump might be able to use his pardon powers to get him witnesses and defendants basically out of the line of fire when it comes to the russia investigation writ large. that s interesting, though, today, in the wake of that developm
profound questions or a profound impact on the overall question of whether or not president trump might be able to use his pardon powers to get him, witnesses and defendants basically out of the line of fire when it comes to the russia investigation writ large. it s interesting, though, today in the wake of that development with manafort getting charged in new york state, today a whole bunch of new york stuff sort of exploded. first thing today, this morning there was a landmark ruling in a new york state appeals court, which said that a sitting president is not immune from lawsuits filed against him in state court. this is a landmark ruling because this is considered to be unsettled law. back in the clinton administration, the supreme court established that a president can be sued in federal court. that was the paula jones case. but that supreme court ruling in 1997 left the question about state court cases open. well, today this new york state appeals court said we think a president
who was sentenced to several years in federal prison within minutes of that sentence being handed down, the same man was also hit with a multi count felony indictment out of new york state which among other things has profound questions or profound impact on the overall question whether president trump might be able to use pardon powers to get him witnesses and defendants basically out of the line of fire when it comes to the russia investigation at large. that s interesting today in the wake of that development with manafort getting charged in new york state, today a bunch of new york stuff exploded. there was a landmark ruling in new york state appeals court that said a sitting president is not immune from lawsuits filed against him in state court. this is a landmark ruling because this is considered to be unsettled law. back in the clinton administration, this supreme court established that a president can be sued in federal court, that was the paula jones
party don t want to see him stumble over. much like the firing of james comey who the president has incredibly broad pardon powers. could he do this? yes. but do you get into the situation where is it possibly obstruction of justice? is he covering up something else? it would raise all of these questions. a lot of them constitutional questions about how the president can use those broad powers that he s got. and this is not something republicans in particular want to be talking about. particularly in the context of this other fight that we re having on capitol hill about the president s use of emergency powers, another big constitutional question. so every time the president takes these big broad steps to assume more executive power, it makes a lot of people up here nervous, and i can t fathom yet what the mechanism would be for folks to push back on a possible pardon on paul manafort. except i think it would probably blow the dome off this building. that would be as good of a presiden