department. i can t remember seeing a statement like this from a deputy attorney general or an attorney general about leaks, the one that we ve just gotten from rod rosenstein where he says americans should exercise caution before accepting as true any stories attributed to anonymous officials. we can tell what he is talking about. it s the washington post stories, the new york times stories that are breaking every night. how do you interpret that press statement tonight from rod rosenstein? well, you know, that is really highly unusual that he himself would make those statements. usually those statements are made by someone at the justice department who deals with the press and their direct inquiries from individuals like yourself who are inquiring to see if in fact those sources are true. for him to make the statement means that it really does disturb the department of justice, and we need to see where this trail is going the lead us.
protection. so i won t get into where our sources are from at all. but i just found it kind of an extraordinary statement to put out tonight given that we re in touch with the justice department every day, and the special counsel s office, and no one should be surprised when these stories are published. and what you are willing to say is you do give the justice department an opportunity when you have stories like this about the president or about jared kushner to caution you against publishing them based on their view that they aren t credible. you do give them that opportunity. absolutely. on the obstruction story, we talk to public affairs people, senior officials. and we check to see if anyone has concerns. and listen to those concerns. and we re not hearing them. we re just not hearing them. sari horwitz, thank you very much for joining us tonight on
forcefully indicating what you have may not be true. in those instances, how does that affect what you publish? absolutely there are instances like that. i ve been covering the justice department for nearly five years. and i ve been a reporter for more than 30. and when you re working with officials, especially in the justice department or the fbi or various departments that we cover, you have a relationship with them. you come to them not on fishing expeditions. you come with them with a story you re about to run. and sometimes they will guide you and say i m not sure that s right. or they ll say we have no problem with that. and there have been many instances where they ll give us comments and push back. very odd also that he talks about the country of origin. not really sure what he is talking thereby. are any of the stours washingt washington post uses e special prosecutor s investigation from another country? well, you know of course i would never answer that we never revea
other countries, so they re contacting other officials or other bankers in foreign countries, and those people are then reporting that they faced inquiries from justice department investigators. i don t know. man, that s opaque. it s an interesting statement. because the basic subtext of it is hey, everybody, just relax. everything that you need to know will come out in time. but this doesn t make anyone relax. right. it usually has exactly the opposite effect. why are you doing this statement? yeah. and at this point, basically what we know in this country about the obstruction of justice charges and about the russia collusion charges, we know because of the press. for him to be saying that the press is the problem here, i need a little i need to hear a little more. well, we ll see what we hear. thank you very much. thanks. tonight new york attorney general eric schneiderman will join us. we ll get his reaction to what s been happening in washington. and the other lega
i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made-up story. as a defense lawyer, he is your nightmare client. he is contradicting every defense that he had. all of his tweets are terrible. he would serve himself so much better if he would just stop tweeting. what the president needs is a good night sleep, or several, maybe. this is a public service announcement for everyone working in the white house. it is time to lawyer up. well, now we know mike pence was listening to our public service announcement here one month ago, telling everyone in the white house to lawyer up. the first person in the white house to hire a private criminal defense lawyer was the president s son-in-law, jared kushner, who actually hired jamie gorelick last year during the transition. jamie gore lib was the deputy attorney general in bill clinton s justice department and