that investigation proceeds? well, in a very practical way, no, but it can t help but delay the investigation. it s going to stretch it out some for a couple of reasons, one, is that the conclusions have to be reported to the head of the fbi who right now is andrew mccabe, who was, until a few hours ago, the deputy fbi director and now the acting director. but it s going to have somewhat of a ripple effect. for right now the fbi is stunned. there was a conference call tonight with all these special agents in charge. the executives have been meeting. i can guarantee you that at the last several hours, nothing has been happening on the russia investigation because everybody is just stunned by what has happened here. it s going to take a while for the engine to get back up to speed. i mean, the investigation will still go on. the agents that have their tasking will still do it. the extent to which court processes use to gather
letter that 100 or so fbi and former justice department, former fbi people signed around the time of the comey letter saying they thought it was wrong. as you point out, those are that is not a contemporary endorsement of rosenstein s decision to fire comey. that was criticism at the time. there s a little bit a little bit of a break there in terms of the logic of the letter, but rosenstein cites them for support of his position that the fbi director was way off on the wrong track. pete, just before you go, give us a little bit more of a sense of the shock level at the justice department and the fbi with this news as it came into today and how that shock is being processed as the evening wears on. well, you cited what the new york times account of how comey found out about that which is consistent of what we ve been told. recall that the fbi director
has been more important, we have to get to the bottom of it. they ll follow the intel wherever it leads the information. the facts wherever they leave. i have to tell you, i ve lost a lot of faith in this justice department to be able to carry out the law. i believe we need a special counsel or special prosecutor, i m going to be looking at who this president nominates to be the next fbi director. i m going to be as vigilant as i can be, it s more important if they try now to squash, somehow, which is the most significant independent investigation of ties between trump and trump officials and the russians. senator, as many of us have surveyed all of the investigations going on, the congressional investigations, your own investigation, many of us, myself included, have said, well, the fbi investigation is the most powerful of these investigations. it has the most powerful tools. it will also be the one about which we will know the least as
he went about making his decisions in this and we don t know anything like that kind of detail about the way the decision to fire michael flynn finally was made. yeah, i mean, obviously, it s ridiculous. we learned yesterday days and days, weeks went by where the white house knew that michael flynn was blackmailble by the russians and did nothing, which was a another reason why you would be worried and another part of the foder for the investigation. but let me just step back here and say at the end of the day, the department of justice is under a cloud after this. and i think that the reality here is that rod s opinion or this memo, which i agree, is poorly argued. it does not look like normal. justice department legal memoranda arguing a case. it s argue mentation written more like a campaign.
those things he thought were wrong that didn t follow justice department guidelines. and after that, though, he said i m not alone in my assessment here and then he refers to a letter that 100 or so fbi and former justice department, former fbi people signed around the time of the comey letter saying they thought it was wrong. as you point out, those are that is not a contemporary endorsement of rosenstein s decision to fire comey. that was criticism at the time. there s a little bit a little bit of a break there in terms of the logic of the letter, but rosenstein cites them for support of his position that the fbi director was way off on the wrong track. pete, just before you go, give us a little bit more of a sense of the shock level at the justice department and the fbi with this news as it came into today and how that shock is being processed as the evening