that s one of the reasons he was able to work as an acting secretary of defense for so long because he was already senate confirmed, and that process went on what we think would be in a normal fashion. there are questions and questionnaires and personal interviews and all kinds of things related to that and senator dick blumenthal of connecticut said that he wants to see an investigation now because he believes there is a possibility of a criminal activity here to withhold that from the committee, meaning not telling the truth, perjury, that kind of thing, or some sort of willful coverup. he raised the specter of that kind of misconduct, not knowing where that would go but saying that should be investigated because the committee, the armed services committee, deserves the right to have this information and to have been able to provide the consent that only senators give the president on these level nominees. so that ratchets up the whole specter of investigation yet again, and certainl
secretary pompeo is saying that he doesn t want war, i don t think that s instilling a lot of confidence amongst iran s leaderships, nor with the iranian people more importantly who are really genuinely very anxious about some sort of a conflict breaking out, especially when 1,000 additional u.s. troops are being dispatched to this region because the u.s. says they re for prudent defensive measures in light of the six oil tankers being hit in as many weeks, which as you said they blame an iran. but iran sees this as yet another act of aggression. they re going to join 1500 other troops who were sent last month with some 70,000 u.s. forces in the region surrounding iran s porous borders. that makes people very nervous here and they don t believe what the americans are saying. they think iran is trying to be framed here so they could justify some sort of a conflict via false flag operation or
something like that, and they don t even believe the u.s. when they say that they want to talk to them. today, a senior revolutionary guard member came out and said, look, the only reason the u.s. wants to negotiate with iran is to get rid of iran s missile program so in turn iran will be an even softer target for america to attack. so from every angle you look at this, they don t believe what s coming out of the white house s mouth and neither does that side believe anything that s coming out of iran s mouth. so a very tense situation still continues here with both sides trying to get the upper hand. there s no telling how this will end right now. within each country a sort of a hard right militaristic side has a bit of the upper hand in the united states. i think it s possible that donald trump doesn t want a war with iran, but john bolton certainly has always argued for a stronger position with iran. the same thing in iran, there
nuclear program, and that can be reflected by comments we ve seen today by the head of the revolutionary guard who answers to the supreme leader, not the president. he said iran s ballistic missile technology has changed the balance of power in the middle east. he says that iran s ballistic missiles have incredibly accurate precision and are capable of hitting carriers in the sea anywhere near them. he says that the americans are under such close surveillance of the revolutionary guards that they can read the serial numbers on u.s. missiles on board those carriers. and he s not going to be making these comments unless it s been okayed by his boss who is the supreme leader, not the president. so yes, there is a shift. the moderates here are weaker, but at a time like this everybody has to rally around the flag. it sort of galvanizes support for the top leadership in the
two memoranda are not binding in court. you can sort of argue this both ways. on the one hand if he went into it saying you have these olc memos then he s not going to engage in normal prosecutorial function and then the bar, we above you would decide whether the olc memos block prosecution. it starts getting complicated. it seems to me that mueller was very clear that he didn t just say legal counsel, he said it s their understanding of the u.s. constitution that he really was constitutionally kept from indi indicting. he made it sound more grandu rergrandure. i m so glad you made that point. for him to say it s unconstitutional isn t accurate. it sort of overstates it. back to my earlier point. no court has said whether or not it s constitutional and many