it doesn t set out the relationship he and the deputy attorney general would have. i would have expected mueller would have informed rod rosenstein about this. would have briefed him about who he plans to indict, when he plans to do it. i don t know if he would brief him on what he s actually found. i think, especially given the real concerns that people have raised about rod rosenstein s independence, mueller will be aware of those and he might be careful about how much detail he does share with the deputy attorney general. matt, on the issue of the political opposition that the mueller investigation and that the congressional russia investigations have run into, one of the things discussed over the last few days is whether the mueller budget request, the funding, that needs to go through congress to keep the investigation going, whether that might be a point of leverage that the republicans in the white house could use against the mueller investigation and given the timing of when
becomes, you know, blocking an investigation that as borne fruit. it becomes a more questionable activity after he filed charges than it was before. one last question for you, matt. one of the stories that we were planning on leading with tonight before this news broke was the interesting and unexpected news out of the eastern district of virginia, was that the attorney, dana boente, who has played a number of stand in roles, being brought on as acting attorney general, acting deputy attorney general, he s now the acting assistant attorney general on security matters, he announced his resignation today. that may be a totally separate matter from this, it may be absolutely unrelated. there s been some speculation that dave briggs because of t that dana boente hbecause of th job he had in the trump administration there s been some reporting, speculation that
sometimes, as barb said earlier on your show, it s beau they want the element of surprise for the arrest, sometimes it s because the investigation is continuing, sometimes it s because they haven t had a chance to tell the lawyer for the person or people who are getting indicted and because they ve been having a dialogue, they think out of fairness they would like the opportunity to do that before it becomes a matter of public record. in terms of the question i also asked barbara mcquad, is it possible that these are charges that are going to remain sealed for a long time? that this is something being used as leverage against somebody in this investigation who is maybe a smaller fish who they re trying to pressure into talking about stuff they haven t previously been willing to talk these investigators about? is a sealed indictment used that way. sometimes it can be used that way.
eastern district of virginia and today surprisingly, mysteriously, he resigned. right. you can draw it wasn t a resignation that wasn t of his own volition. matthew miller, thank you for being with us on short notice matt. i appreciate it. i want to bring into the conversation now, another former u.s. attorney, paul fishman who was the u.s. attorney representing new jersey. thank you for joining us on short notice. thanks for having me back, rachel. let me underscore again this is news not confirmed by nbc, this is one news organization reporting that the first criminal charges have been filed in the mueller investigation. we don t know what the charges are, they re reportedly still sealed, this is unconfirmed news, this is cnn s reporting. i know you re familiar with what cnn is reporting. let me ask your top line response to it? obviously, rachel, when we talk about this investigation,
always happens on a friday. we re following some breaking news tonight. according to cnn the investigation being led by special council robert mueller has v issued its first criminal charges. the charges are under seal and we don t know what they are, who may be charged, we don t know if this is accurate. nbc hasn t confirmed it. we ll give you more details on that front. that s cnn reporting. i have to tell you, this has been a wild day of scoops broken by reporters across the kcountr. let me start the wall street journal. it s about a crucial time when we first became aware as americans that russia was doing something in the election. the first report that we as a country had about that was on