nation. a small price to pay he says. not very long time ago no high ranked authority or would even pronounce navali s name. i think it s guy thing. in the face of the kremlin s might this insurgency is trying to build momentum noefrment big test with a few modern tools and some old fashioned ones. it says only navali, only hard work. moscow. and clair, thank you. it may be surprising that after james comey s explosive testimony this week not a single administration official went on the sunday shows to defend donald trump. so why the silence from the white house? our panel discusses next. you re live in the cnn newsroom. what do you have there?
we heard from some republicans including paul ryan who say that president in his approach to jam comey, they re not outright denying james comey s account. but they re saying that president in his approach in saying that he hoped this plin thing would go away just didn t know any better he didn t understand the protocols when it comes to the president s relationship with the fbi director. what do you make of that? if andy mccarthy is right, i have never known for him to be wrong on a matter like this comey did not get involved in the president didn t get involved in obstruction of justice because there wasn t any corruption involved. that s a statutory matter. do you think the president should have known better and not staying alone with the fbi director? i practiced law for 22 years. i haven t been practicing for the last few years. dinlt know what t bui i didn t know what the criteria were for being able or not being able to use something like this
i don t know why absent intelligence that has to be froekted, why this would ever be considered to be an appropriate closed door session. i think sunshine on these things is much more preferable to our democracy than closed door sessions as i said except when needed for military or national security purposes. and staying with you, michael, do you agree with the ambassador that comey crossed the line or inappropriate and pass ago long that memo to a friend specifically to bring about this special counsel? well, let s we have to split that into two parts. one is because we heard used by the president and his surrogates the term leak. that director comey leaked this to the media. it is not technically speaking a leak. it is not a classified document. it is not an official document of the fbi in my stictions, not a 302 interview form that was done in the course of a formal investigation. it is his personal recollection,
and so to say now after the fact that the distribution of those memos somehow implicates or even violates the executive pref ledge that the president is entitled to assert doesn t seem to me aveiling. i don t think they violate executive privilege. i think it s a very bad idea to do what mr. comey did. and some people are arguing the fact that president tweeted about it further complicateses the matter. i want to move on to the tweets. tweets confuse everything. they certainly do. especially in this administration. and they also may constitute a waiver, if you will, if the director s proposition is probably ideally it s not good for either party to discuss private conversations in public, then the shoe fits on each foot and the president shouldn t be doing it as well and then complaining about others who try to do the same. so no one has clean hands here. sure. ambassador, i really want to get your perspective on this.
in limiting the use for the purpose that s we ve be purposes that we ve been talking about. i it this president and comey and the white house counsel could have sat down and talked about this a little bit before everybody got on his horse and started riding off in every direction. and helped the president understand what the criteria were. i think what he said from what i ve heard now about corruption being required under the statute, doesn t sound to me as if there was anything done that was wrong. but by comey i mean, about it president. but let s see. let s examine it. michael, very quickly. we re running out of time. your response to that? yeah. there are a couple things here. first, the communications between the white house and the director of the fbi are clearly