rather, it hinges on what is known as the logan act. let me explain what this is. according to york. the logan act is a 218-year-old law in this country. a law that prohibits private citizens from acting on behalf of the united states in disputes with foreign governments. in 218 years, nobody has ever been prosecuted under this law, and many legal experts call it archaic and simply irrelevant. some even go as far as to say it s unconstitutional. but this is what played, that law played the central role in the obama administration s investigation into flynn.. never mind the surveillance, unmasking and illegal leaks ofyn intelligence. it s reportedly why the fbi agents went to the white house to interview flynn back in january 24th about discussions that he had during the transition period with his counterpart, the russian ambassador, about actions the obama administration had placed on russia. and the u.n. resolution on israel. big deal, that would have been his job.
are there other individuals inside the white house who have had conversations with the russians that the white house knows about and they simply haven t been let go only because the public hasn t found out about it. we also have to ask if we re just scratching the surface of individuals in the white house who have been knowingly compromised through their connections to the russians. who knows? probably important to point out that from day one you were saying on this show and to trump s face privately, get rid of flynn, he will be a black eye on this presidency. you tried. senator chris murphy, thank you very much by the way, fyi, if you re following chris murphy on twitter, you can go to his twitter account or just do #46. see you later, guys. i don t know what baseball player is 46. huge fan. cute. still ahead, former secretary of state condoleezza rice joins the table. first, as the republicans work to repeal and replace obamacare, you jean robinson says there are
the white house didn t understand that i think should remain concerning. the timeline now has a little more meat on it. the bottom line is that the white house waited until there was public reporting on the fact that flynn was lying that he had these connections with the white house, and had that not come out in public, michael flynn might still be the national security adviser today. they may have ignored those warnings from the attorney general s office and it speaks to how ethically compromised this entire white house operation remains even today. senator murphy, it s willie geist. good to see you. the central question in the hearing yesterday was were there ties between the trump campaign, direct ties and russia. former dni jim clapper said i can t make that claim, i can t find a straight line of collusion between the trump campaign and russia. no one has said that on an official level yet. do you believe there s been collusion between the trump campaign and russia from what
we began our meeting, telling him that there had been press accounts of statements from the vice president and others that related conduct that mr. flynn had been involved in, that we knew not to be the truth. the underlying conduct that general flynn had engaged in was problematic in and of itself. we were concerned that the american people had been misled about the underlying conduct and what general flynn had done. and, additionally, that we weren t the only ones that knew all of this, that the russians also knew about what general flynn had done and the russians also knew that general flynn had misled the vice presidentnd others. not only did we believe that the russians knew this, but that they likely had proof of this information. and that created a compromised situation, a situation where the national security adviser, essentially, could be blackmailed by the russians.
part of the fbi investigation. right. and listening to secretary rice reminded me of this again. our democracy is fragile and it s incredibly important to this country. and we cannot let a foreign power influence it. so a lot of this is how do we move forward? what does the media do when they re given cyber attack material from a foreign country? what do campaigns do to each other when they do that? we need an independent commission, at least, willie, to get to the bottom of the rules of the road going forward. you re not prepared to say you ve seen collusion? i believe the investigation is going on right now. there are very, we will call, strange and telling facts that the chairman of the trump campaign had to step down because of ties to russia, that we have, in general flynn, someone that, despite all these warnings, including reported yesterday from president obama, that they decided to keep him on and hire him. despite these ties to russia. flynn called up the russians the