president, standing up to a vice-president. they both threatened to resign and it was when bob muller made clear that he would resign with james comey who was then the deputy attorney general over this surveillance program that president bush realized how serious it was. president bush realized he had another saturday night massacre on his hands and he wanted to avoid exactly that. he backed off in order to, you know, address their concerns. so, it was bob muller who ordered the fbi agents at the hospital when jim comey was rushing to get there, but to see ash croft, the attorney general before the president s emissaries got there, it was bob muller who ordered the fbi agents, don t let jim comey be thrown out of that room no matter what happens. they were allies and friends in this situation. it is a very interesting choice in that regard. these are not people with a disinterested relationship. so, when bob muller was named fbi director, 98-0 unanimous. at least the capitol hill at
congressional renewal and congress decided not to renew that law. it expired in 1999 and ever since we used justice department has used this special counsel provision. what it says is when the justice department either believes that it would be a conflict for the justice department or that it would be in the public interest to bring in someone from outside, that s what they can do, and that s the decision made today by rod rosenstein. he made the decision as the deputy attorney general because attorney general jeff sessions had taken themselves out of making any decisions about the russia investigation. and rosenstein says in his statement that he believes that this will allow the public that this move is in the public interest and will allow the public to have confidence in the outcome. so, that s sort of right out of what the rules for special counsel say. so, muller will be free to bring in his own staff if he wants. he can use existing people in the justice department. that s the
know with james comey? both were in the bureau, essentially overlapped successively in that job. actually now as i think of it, during the bush administration, bob muller was threatening to resign over a warrantless wiretapping. and i think that at the time they were in it together. that s right. they re close. they should be close. that s right. it was the ash croft bedside, renew the metta data, comey had one story, muller had one story, they conferred at the hospital. they know each other in a similar situation to this in a sense. peter baker of the the new york times wrote that story or broke that news. peter, tell me about the bob muller/james comey relationship. they are, in fact, obviously close. they did serve together in the bush administration as you guys were just saying. they have this formative experience in standing up to a
is asking will likely be answered by the folks who remain at the fbi remember, a lot of the management structure put in place by the man who was fired today. exactly. and, you know, the fbi is so complicated and they view themselves as almost a badge of honor that to some degree, they are opaque to us. and i remember james comey, he sort of rose to political prominence when he defied his bosses in the bush era, when he went to ash croft s bedside and argued against bush era counter terrorism policies. and he became a hero of the democrats during those days. he s ended up the problem for him now and i spoke to a former official who served in the highest levels of justice department under both presidents reagan and george w. bush. and i said what do you think is going on with jim comey? i think he got himself so isolated, there was no one left to seek advice from. he is an incredibly moral man to his admirers. but probably a rather
nobody knows, the acting attorney general and he has the authority to appoint an independent prosecutor. we ve seen that before. when attorney general ash croft recused himself. jim and do you see that happening likely because of the meetings with ambassador? i think it should. i think a straight shooter with the former u.s. attorney in the district of virginia and i think like any other good attorney general, there should be an investigation. it doesn t mean a prosecution, but you ve got to get to the facts and the fact that mr. sessions is going to amend in writing, that doesn t do it. he s got to go back in front of senate judiciary, if you appear before a committee, be put back under oath and then clarify, not written. that s not the way to do it. do you see that potentially happening because there are some within the senate judiciary who