got him to this point, and why he chose mr. hur. let s get into it. joining me now is nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian, so ken, was this all made more urgent by the discovery of even more documents this time in a garage next to the president s corvette, is this why we got a special counsel today? that certainly is the sense you get, if there isn t a direct relationship, it certainly had to contribute, because think about what we have here. we have a u.s. attorney in chicago, who has been conducting a review, for weeks, trying to gather the facts and understand whether there is any need for a criminal investigation. and in order to do that, you need to know where are all of the classified documents, how did they get there, and as we ve been reporting today, the fbi interviewed some of the biden aides involved in packing the boxes and moving the documents, so that u.s. attorney had been reporting to merrick garland. well then, all of a sudden, toda
point, which really kind of explains, at least for me, why hur has been engaged here and why the justice department is taking the aappropriates that they have, is to be as hands off and to be as transparent, and just presume as much as possible into this. and then take it off the table. it is easier to take stuff off the table than to have to go back and add, oh, now this looks like it is a criminal thing, it s easier to take that off the table by including it upfront and saying we want to come into this, in light of what president trump s story line has unfolded before the country, we want to aggressively go after this on the front end, looking at all of the possible scenarios, and then taking those scenarios out of play, as this investigation unfolds. i think to the extent that the administration stays forthright, and there are no more drip-drips of documents, they can get past
trump and many are calling it an attempted coup. we have to remember that every one if we weren t here today, if president trump had done three things. one, not hired michael flynn, two, hired james comey when he took off and three, don t tweet crazy things. jon: christy, can the president escape this in the next eight days over seas? sure. obviously there will be news that is about his foreign trip. that changes the conversation somewhat. at the same time, you re seeing again, these investigation moving forward, new drip drip drips again every hour. so you re going to have to see the press dividing their attention on what he s doing overseas. jon: we ll be watching. christy and evan, thank you both. thank you. ahead, chinese fighter jets
so many of them lined up. do you think anybody s got netting through? i don t know, stephanie, but couldn t have pick add better week. no shart 567 of information. all getting through but all pretty bruised. a few proverbial black eyes but all manage to survive. i d like to see those ethics reports and get all the information in so that they can be completely vetted, because the worst thing is, if it drip, drip drips, gets confirmed and then a report may, a bunch of hearings and get a lot of distractions. if we re going to do it, let s get it done. and without seeing ethic reports and new names, like betsy devos, steve mnuchin, why do you say think confidence these people will get through. because republicans own the senate. that s the best tip. i don t get. one thing i hate about washington are excuses. if they want to get it done, they can get it done. they can work 24/7.
the territory. it doesn t matter who the candidate is, whether they re male or female, there will be attacks that come. and that s simply what we have to be prepared to deal with. and i m prepared. also this morning, bachmann who s taking some heat for being a big gaffe prone, doubled down on assertions that the founding fathers worked tirelessly to end slave slavery. if you look at one of our founding fathers, john quincy adams, that s absolutely true. he was a very young boy when he was with his father serving essentially as his father s secretary. john quincy adams most certainly was the part of the revolutionary war era. he was a young boy but he was actively involved. look, this is not the first time she s gotten into a bit of a problem with history, particularly early american history. remember the lexington and concord issue in new hampshire. this only adds to these drip drips, not big deals but taken together they become a problem, something she has to watch out