derogatory, negative information, but the person is not charged? this is a familiar issue for people who followed the hillary clinton investigation, where information about her was released into the public sphere, even though, of course, she was not indicted. and so, bill barr and the justice department is going to be left with the question of, okay, we ve investigated all of these people, we have indictments against so far, you know, indictments or guilty pleas against 34 people. here are all these other people, can the public learn their names? can they learn what we found about them? that s the issue that bill barr is confronting now. this is the kind of starting panel we could so easily fill the hour without even thinking about it. but they have lives and families and we have other topics, so, for now, they ll have to accept our thanks. fran, jessica, eric, for being apart of our broadcast tonight. and coming up, president trump s rambling rose garden address to declare an emer
i would just note, the president has been making the case that there s a national emergency for the past several weeks during the shutdown, and congress then acted. congress appropriated money and said, here, you have $1.375 billion to build 55 miles of fence. no more, no less. and so, when you look at the national emergencies act, the reason that exists is the idea that there might be an attack on the country or a natural disaster and that the congress would not have time to react to that, the president ought to be able to spend money to react to things like that, between appropriations seasons. in this case he made that case for an emergency. congress denied him the funds he sought, that $5.7 billion, so, he s going to take existing appropriations to try to get done what he wants to do. i think you re going to see, i know you re going to see, an aggressive effort to fight him in the courts. there s going to be a fight in congress. and we ll have to see where the legal lines are here,
announcement of his national emergency. i want to wish our new attorney general great luck and speed and enjoy your life. bill, good luck. a tremendous reputation. i know you ll do a great job. enjoy your life. meanwhile, there are reports that matt whitaker, who was the acting a.g., is still at the justice department, still on the federal payroll, serving as a senior counselor of some sort at doj. let s bring in our leadoff panel. frank figliuzzi. we want to welcome to the broadcast jessica roth, former federal prosecutor from the southern district of new york. these days, a professor at the cardozo cool school of law here new york. and with us tonight, eric tucker, justice reporter for the associated press. welcome to you all. frank, i d like to begin with you. we ll go manafort first, and
before leaving for florida for the weekend, trump explained his decision in a morning rose garden event that went off the rails rather quickly. we will have a national emergency and we will then be sued and they will sue us in the 9th circuit, even though it shouldn t be there, and we will possibly get a bad ruling and then we ll get another bad ruling and then we ll end up in the supreme court and hopefully we ll get a fair shake and we ll win in the supreme court just like the band they sued us in the 9th circuit and we lost in the appellate division and then we went to the supreme court and we won. moments later, in his answer to a question from our own peter alexander, he directly undercut his own argument and the urgency for a national emergency. i could do the wall over a longer period of time. i didn t need to do this, but i d rather do this much faster. and i don t have to do it for
moment and that there is an emergency. this is an emergency of this president s own creation for political purposes. it s the height of irresponsibly. reporter: the latest fight for the 2020 democrats, disagreeing with the declaration. gillibrand echoing her colleagues. the only national emergency is the humanitarian crisis that president trump has created at our border by separating families from children and treating people who need our help inhumanely. reporter: beto o rourke said he would take the wall down. would you take the wall down? yes. i would take the wall down. reporter: asked if she agreed gillibrand didn t rule it out. i could look at it and see which part he means and why and if it makes sense, i could support it. reporter: harris asked, said