way to 2017, the democrats on republicans on capitol hill were holding up the nominations of top justice department officials, including the deputy attorney general. and what happened is that the pressure became so great. and they demanded answers about what was going on with the russian investigation. and it was to unlock rosenstein s nomination to get him confirmed. that the fbi director at the time, james speak comey, testified before congress and acknowledged that there was this investigation. he briefed lawmakers in private and he went out and said at a congressional hearing. that created huge reverberation in washington that combing was acknowledging it. he helped fire comey. right. that is a great point. what else can you tell us about the progress of the committee s work? because at some level there have been no public hearings
donning, whereby they engaged in a skiem with mr. weisselberg to avoid paying taxes on certain compensation. this investigation will continue and we will follow the facts and the law wherever they may lead. what does your reporting suggest in terms of where we are with this probe, beginning, middle or end? well, i think the sort of important thing to keep in mind that someone close to the president was making point was making to me yesterday is that in terms of this probe the former president created a culture, right. he created a culture where just about everyone who touched him or entered his bubble emerged in some way singed or tarnished or under criminal indictment. there was a spectrum there, but it almost never ended well. there were specific instances of the president directly asking people to do things he knew were inappropriate like fire comey. that s one example. but then there was this culture where even if the president did not specifically ask someone,
mulvaney. it reminded me in terms of tone and how it was constructed of the original version of the letter president trump did when he wanted to fire comey. which was basically as one aide put it at the time was a primal scream from the president. worked on with steven miller. miller is able to channel the president in a specific way. and it is true that the white house counsel s office came in at the very end. the president was pretty clear with people. he didn t want to be told he couldn t do certain things as he was conducting this letter. and i think that says a lot about the degree to which he believes that no one is fighting for him the way he thinks they should be. that has been a complaint of his this whole time. initially he was complaining that people were not defending the call itself with the president of ukraine. that they were saying it was inappropriate but not impeachable. he s gotten republicans to move away from that. i can t think of a republican who s saying there w
strategy for a prosecutor. the upshot is some really objectionable, impeachable behavior like what s memorialized in the mueller report, telling somebody to fire comey and then lie about it, might go down as not impeachable. might actually seem okay for future presidents. we ll see. the fact is we re so worried and vivid. but that was the balance and the short-term pragmatics won out. the president of the united states is calling chairman of intelligence committee i hate to say this a crooked baste. how do republicans stand by that? i think this has been part of the strategy all along. and rather than argue about the facts, it s better to say nasty things about adam schiff and try to make this impeachment process
you can see it most clearly how he came on the scene with birtherism. put he always states the claim. when it comes to the russia investigation is that the deep state has been out to get him. i mean he started that on day one, since he became president. and then he does the things i call dance and deny. where he says maybe i fired comey because of russia, maybe i didn t. so he puts these things throughout without taking responsibility. but then eventually he does. he always promises vindication is coming. it is on the way. this is step three i call create suspense. the nunes memo will reveal all. there s always something on the way. but it never comes. and while you re waiting for that to come, he goes into full