yeah, the first thing he said is i read the mueller report and the mueller report doesn t say anything about collusion. now, of course it is true that mueller didn t end up establishing a conspiracy between the russians and the trump campaign. at the same time the special counsel indicted several russians for election interference, and there s an incredible level of detail about the cyber intrusion that fbi investigators and justice department officials looked into. and so when he says there s absolutely no evidence that the u.s. sent over, i thought that this was a legitimate thing to raise to him. actually, there s a very detailed packet of information. it s a pdf. you can download it any time. but he wasn t very interested in it. so then something strange happened today. so lavrov meets the president and the white house puts out a readout, a debrief afterwards. the white house says that president trump warned against any russian attempts to interfere in the united states electio
in the pression who knows it has revealed it, this is a government official in my view, i m not defending the whistleblower, i don t know his motivation who went through official channels, who didn t leak it to the press who to an inspector general, to a committee of congress with the expectation he would remain anonymous. it would send a chilling message to future whistleblowers including those in democratic administrations if they thought they could be turned into a political pinata if somebody leaked the name to a reporter. brit: isn t it our obligation broadly speaking to print the news without fear or favor? there seems little doubt that this is a newsworthy event. should we concern ourselves with the internal government matters that don t pertain to us? aren t we supposed to publish the news? there is no question that publishing this name would be huge news and republicans argue that his motivation, his identity, was he working in cahoots with democrats is a part of the story
where they have to choose between the law and the constitution and what they took the job to do versus currying political favor. and for most of them, it sounds like, and this was true for fiona hill as well, that they did the best they could with what the job was and what the circumstances were. were seriously troubled by it, as we know from the whistle-blower, went through the proper channels to lodge and register those concerns. they didn t go outside of channels. they didn t leak, to your point. they didn t leak, they did what was obligated of them to do. and, you know, part of the problem here is public servants should not be punished for doing what they re supposed to do, which is serve the public interest. yeah. when you think about that, matt, take a listen to joe biden, who figures into this in more than one way, as we all know, talking about what he views as a thug
confronted because he suggests information was second and third hand. there were spies who gave him this information. you ve heard the comments of the president. inappropriate. that s not my word but the word of the few republican who is have spoken out especially including senior republicans like chuck grassley. that was the line that they drew. not necessarily on the substance of the president s call but the notion he s trying to call out the whistle-blower. it still kind of blows the mind to think about the fact this is the president of the united states who is putting somebody who followed the law, didn t leak, as he likes to talk about it, he didn t exactly what he is supposed to do when he sees something that he doesn t believe is illegal. because he s endangered because of the president of the united states. did you ever think you would see
fascinating part. i think that s what s going to trip republicans up. it s the small things that the american people are paying the most attention to. i completely agree in respect to your point there. the facts are not hard to get your arm shz around. the fajt of the russian ves because it was done behind closed doors and didn t leak so the leaks came from other people subject to investigation, there are things i as a public official does 16 hours at the end of the day couldn t keep track of. this is just the phone call and efforts by giuliani in public to browbeat this country into going after his political opponent. david, it also to me, there s continuity to michael s point. he actively solicited and welcomed foreign interference to sabotage his opponent last time around and he s now doing it this time around with the full authority of the u.s. government. that s it. and the itmpeachable offense is abuse of power. this is critical. you laid it out plainly, chris, it s important