and steve bannon, the president s former and apparently exiled adviser suggested this, if you fire rosenstein and you put a new guy in there as the deputy attorney general to oversee mueller investigation, you don t have to fire mueller, you can restrict him, are you concerned about that? the same steve bannon that accused the president s son of act of treason, the same steve bannon that did something no one else in the world can do, elect an democrat in alabama, i don t know who the hell would take advice from steve bannon and if i were the president, i would say go get advice from anyone else in the world other than steve bannon. chris: just to make it clear, you rule out flatly the firing of mueller, you leave the door open to firing rosenstein? it depends. it depends look, the president is the head of the executive branch. he doesn t have to run this hiring and firing decisions by us, so if he s upset with rod rosenstein because rod rosenstein is not producing documents to co
rosenstein? well, let me take mueller first, i don t know what mueller was supposed to do other than what he did, when a prosecutor comes in contact with information or evidence of a crime, what are you supposed to do other than to refer it to the appropriate jurisdiction? now, if mueller had kept something unrelated for himself, then i d say fine, you can criticize him but he came in contact with potential criminality, potential criminality, he referred it to the u.s. attorney s office of jurisdiction and he did so with the permission of rod rosenstein, i don t know what else he could do. as for rod rosenstein, i don t see a basis for firing him in his handling of this probe, now he s the one who drafted that original jurisdiction for mueller, if you think it s broad, you have to direct your criticism toward rosenstein an not mueller. if you re ub set with rosenstein because he s slow-walking documents to congress, take that up with him. but how this is mueller s fault, just defies
mueller? well, i think it s a disgrace what s going on, we will see what happens but i think it s really a sad situation when you look at what happened and many people have said, you should fire him. chris: question, do you still think, we talked several weeks ago, do you still think it would be wrong, a serious mistake to fire mueller and given the growing calls to fire the deputy attorney general, do you feel the same way about firing rod rosenstein? well, let me take mueller first, i don t know what mueller was supposed to do other than what he did, when a prosecutor comes in contact with information or evidence of a crime, what are you supposed to do other than to refer it to the appropriate jurisdiction? now, if mueller had kept something unrelated for himself, then i d say fine, you can criticize him but he came in contact with potential criminality, potential criminality, he referred it to the u.s. attorney s office of jurisdiction and he did so with the permission of rod rose
else he could do. as for rod rosenstein, i don t see a basis for firing him in his handling of this probe, now he s the one who drafted that original jurisdiction for mueller, if you think it s broad, you have to direct your criticism toward rosenstein an not mueller. if you re ub set with rosenstein because he s slow-walking documents to congress, take that up with him. but how this is mueller s fault, just defies logic to me, chris. chris: yeah, here is the point and steve bannon, the president s former and apparently exiled adviser suggested this, if you fire rosenstein and you put a new guy in there as the deputy attorney general to oversee mueller investigation, you don t have to fire mueller, you can restrict him, are you concerned about that? the same steve bannon that accused the president s son of act of treason, the same steve bannon that did something no one else in the world can do, elect an democrat in alabama, i don t know who the hell would take advice from steve banno
there was no collusion? well, we can t talk to them. they re all under indictment and/or have pled guilty, which is why i say there is no evidence. i can t tell you what four people i haven t talked to are going to say, but, chris, i can t talk to them. they have a fifth amendment right not to talk to congress. steve bannon is not under indictment and he didn t talk to congress. there s lots of things to blame congress for, but us not knowing what people who won t talk to us are saying should not be one of them. i don t know what mueller has found. i ve been really clear, leave him alone. let him do his job. i can tell you within the universe of folks we ve interviewed, there is no evidence of collusion. that s the best i can do. i can t tell you what people i haven t talked to would say. chris: here s my only point about this, is that the president is using the house intelligence committee s findings in effect as grist, as a defense to say there was no