this as an infamous figure related to the russia probe reportedly has agreed to be questioned by the justice department. that would be the former british spy behind the trump/russia dossier christopher steele. cnn s sarah marie is joining us now. why would steele agree to talk to u.s. officials? you know, the dossier publicly certainly has gotten plenty of criticism already. there s an indication that the inspector general s report looking into the origins of the russia investigation could also be critical of the way the justice department relied on christopher steele s work in the dossier for some of sort of the early inklings of the russia probe. we also have attorney general william barr looking into how this investigation initially got started, so this is an opportunity for christopher stee steele, essentially to defend his work, and i think that s the reason that after so long he s willing to talk to officials because he wants to make sure his side of the story is told and that
let this investigation reach its conclusion without interference. nancy pelosi sat down with our chris cuomo last night in a cnn town hall. i was asleep for it but i saw the highlights this morning. in case you miss it had, here s something that stood out to us talking about when democrats talk about impeachment. listen. impeachment is to me divisive. again, if the facts are there, if the facts are there, then this would have to be bipartisan to go forward, but if it is viewed as partisan, it will divide the country and i just i just don t think that that s what we should do. do you agree especially leading in to the midterms that your fellow democrats need to move as far as away from talking about impeachment at least as a platform to run on? i sort of do this differently. you think the president needs to be held accountable. he needs to be held beingable
outed it does not seem a bother republicans very much particularly in this moment. i think that is particularly striking. josh can speak to this more, when you re talking about an ig investigation this is not a light touch. this is not sort of a secondary investigation they re not going to take seriously. that is another serious matter and another serious investigation that has been demanded by the president and sanctioned by the justice department. this is a president who still does not trust law enforcement in this country, the justice department in this country even though he has hand picked the people who now lead these different agencies. he s still demanding these sort of politicized investigation instead of letting the republican investigation reach its conclusion. remember, this is the president who has declared seasons day one there is no collusion that he ll be found innocent and yet he seems to be consistently taking steps to injessica himself in this investigation. it app
how significant is this? well, look, i think to the president s detractors or critics or even those within the president s own party who want to see this investigation reach its conclusion, it definitely takes the situation in an interesting direction. and we ve seen this, right, in the public comments this week, alex, from james comey about him not being able to guarantee any details about that trip to russia. but on the flip side of that, i spoke with a source very close to this white house who pretty much put it in context as, according to president trump s supporters, he s teflon done. these scandals have not been able to slow him down yet. melanie, the president last night appears to somewhat undercut his victory in the north korean crisis and he serchbt out this tweet. james comey illegally leaked chas phied documents to the press in order to generate a special council? therefore, the special council
promoting rule of law, i think it is important as you have stated that this investigation reach its natural and full conclusion without any interference. in your view, if the president asked for your advice about whether or not to remove or fire the special counsel, would that be an appropriate conversation for him to have with you? i have not thought that through. but it s if it deals with the special counsel, i think the communication would need to be directed to the person who supervises the special counsel and that would be the deputy attorney general. if the special counsel were removed, would you protest or consider resigning in order to clarify the importance of that position in that investigation being followed to its end? you know, i won t attempt to deal with a hypothetical. i think it would be best just to leave my answer as i gave it. let me move to another