is being investigated under the rubric of obstruction. there is one other important element there, which is that one of the pieces of pressure that the that comey has testified that the president exerted on him was pressure to say publicly that the president himself was not under investigation. so, the investigation that the president wanted the fbi to say publicly didn t exist, presumably as related to the underlying matters that the house intelligence committee is now looking at. paul, i m going to put you on the spot because i know you better than i know ben and i m going to ask you to stitch these things together for me, because we broadened this conversation out. we don t get to do that often enough. but we also know donald trump wanted the heads of his other intelligence agencies to go out, the heads of the nsa and the dna. he wanted all of them to say he wasn t under investigation. is it possible that when we talk about the obstruction of justice inquiry, that we start at th
flynn could be compromised? do these we ve separated them out in some of our public conversations, but in your mind do you see them as more connected and do you see the investigations, both in congress and perhaps what we know we don t know about bob mueller s probe, do you see it going back further than what we talk about in the public arena? yes. so, there is an obvious set of connections between the underlying investigation and the set of issues around the president s interactions with his law enforcement hierarchy. so, the connections are the following. one is that the firing of general flynn takes place the lies associated with general flynn s interview with the fbi take place right at the beginning of the presidency. and the president s interactions with jim comey as well as sally yates s interactions with the white house are very deeply
advocate on this. is this a smart strategy going after james comey. we have had a number of people who worked with him over the years say what a standup guy is. we know the history between the trump administration and the intelligence community. what do you think? i m just playing devil s advocate here. do you think it s a smart tragedy for them to go lock, stock, and barrel against james comby. yeah, clayton. that s a fair question. for any other president i would say no, jim comey is a trained political animal who will eat you alive. listen, i m not a trumpateer. this guy is a queens builder. i m from queens. my dad was bailing inspector. he worked with these guys their entire lives. if anybody is going to get in the ring and go toe to toe with jim comey it s going to be donald trump. i think he is going to win on this one. sandra: well said. we have to ask you about this as well, dan. there is taxpayer funded, shakespeare in the park. a lot of new york city dwellers know about thi
appropriate forum. so he is coming out. and he is going to defend himself. he is going to defend the trump administration. is this the right tactic? you know what? it is absolutely the right tactic. think about what s happening with comey right now. haven t you noticed with jim comey this pattern where he sees the world in like these terms. he always sees himself as the good guy fighting this really bad guy. first it was george w. bush with the ashcroft memo. then it was sessions. then it was trump. jeff sessions is a good guy. and another angle of this that i just want to bring up is isn t it ironic, too, that senator blumenthal is one of the people attacking sessions credibility and suggesting perjury. wasn t blumenthal the guy who fudged the numbers on his service in combat? this is unbelievably disingenuous that the leaker in chief jim comey and senator blumenthal both have a history of trouble with the truth are
it has to be treated as though if we had a foreign agent in agencies in the white house. because i would say this regardless of who is in the white house. this is about national security. it s about being able to run the government. and they have to approach it accordingly. not only in the white house but in the agencies. and this means, perhaps, lie detector tests for holdovers who are there from obama. it also means firing those people who fail. and then it also means, of course, prosecuting individuals aggressively, making this new war room they have something they use in that framework to make sure the american people know this is dangerous for the country and they are taking it seriously. sandra: we had ned ryan on yesterday saying the best offense is the best defense. what should they do here to make progress. first of all, getting over. this we heard everything that we needed to hear from jim comey. president trump is not under investigation. president trump did not try to imp