job, today we learned about one other attorney who also declined the position. william barr, the president s nominee for attorney general. here with me now is one of the reporter who broke that story. michael isikoff, the chief correspondent for yahoo! news. wow, michael. that s something, the guy the president has named to be the attorney general of the united states was a guy he wanted to represent him as his personal attorney. this is not my need to have an attorney or yours. the president of the united states, particularly donald trump, has unique needs for legal representation. the idea that he wanted this guy to be his lawyer, the guy says no, and now he wants to nominate him to be the attorney general of the united states is highly unusual. it definitely it unusual. look, it was may of last year that the president fired comey, that created a huge controversy and obviously kicked off the
justice. and maybe that s while he is the sitting president of the united states, or maybe it s right afterward. what s your best guess? yeah, so, i think it could be either. i think that s an important point because donald trump is sitting in the oval office right now where i guess the residence i think that s where he usually is. even if he wants to play this get out of jail free card about sitting presidents, he s not going to be the president forever. there is not going to be a statute of limitations defense that is going to clearly work for him. so he knows he s facing the serious prospect of time behind bars. and really the card he has left to play is resign and avoid a criminal trial. that is going to become an increasing likely possibility as the facts come out and as the american public realizes, they ve got a guy in office who has lied to the american people,
i mean, obviously no contract was signed. right. and barr did not accept the job. barr did not accept the job. right. one might legally say no conflict. it strikes as unusual the guy you wanted to be your personal lawyer you would now like to be the attorney general the guy in charge of the investigation you were asking him to defend against. specifically when you are a president who thinks that these types of positions should be held by people who display a strong sense of loyalty to you. yeah. look, i am certain there will be questions about this at the confirmation hearing and barr will be ready for them. one key issue or question will be, how much did he discuss this with, if not the president himself because my understanding the conversation with trump was brief a brief exchange, but others at the white house, others on the president s legal team. but this is going to come in the
committed fell nionies, and has faithfully executed and upheld the constitution of the united states. neal as always, thanks for your insight. neal katyal. where impeachment proceedings would originate should congress decide to move forward with that. the democratic representative ajayi joins us now. thank you for joining us. good to be with you, ali. you voted for a bill that would launch impeachment proceedings or not table them last year. that was very preliminary. but has your position changed on whether or not members of congress should proceed with impeachment of the president of the united states? well, at the time that we had the bill, it was really to have a debate on the floor about whether the president had committed impeachable offenses. if you remember, this entire two years, we on the judiciary committee have been trying to get hearings to really do the work that we are supposed to do
he keeps making the same mistake over and over again, putting people into jobs he thinks are going to be his shill. i m not defending barr. barr has said things in television and in print about the mueller probe and how it s going too far. when this guy takes the oath of office with his hand up in the air and sits in the room with career prosecutors, i think six months from now, bill barr is going to have a nickname and trump is going to be pretty pissed with him. i would have kept whitaker. the guy is just to quadruple down on guilty. he just put jared as the attorney general. what s the difference? philippe, thank you for joining me tonight. thank you, ali. coming up, an accused russian agent pleads guilty and agrees to cooperate with federal prosecutors. the brings into look the depth and i ll break it down after this. (chime)