of law. it goes to the heart of our justice system. that there s not supposed to be the politicization of ongoing investigations or of launching investigations or prosecutions. it also seems to me, i m not a lawyer, so i d like to hear what you think, that there s no criminal claim here. that this is essentially just kind of like, i know you are, but what am i? kind of argument from the white house. that s what makes really her comments even more abhorrent. this was clearly part of a calculated political strategy, you know. we heard recently that there were memos that the trump lawyers had prepared and sent to mueller attacking comey s credibility. a couple of weeks ago the president tweeted that comey was unfair and that the system was rigged. and now we re hearing these attacks when there literally is no evidence whatsoever that comey committed a crime. you had referenced earlier, chris, that i thought you made the correct call, even though you re a nonlawyer, that releasing in
wants him gone, right, anthony? i have an enormous amount of respect for the attorney general, but i do know the president pretty well, and if there s this level of tension in the relationship that s public, you re probably right, but i don t want to speak for the president on that. scaramucci addeadded, quote, president wants his cabinet secretaries to have his back. having the president s back is not the job of the attorney general. the chief law enforcement officer of the land. looking out for the president s personal and political interests and launching investigations into his rivals such as hillary clinton, that s not the attorney general s job. we should note that sessions was willing to go along with the decision to fire fbi director james comey, a decision made during the russia investigation. even that has not been enough for president trump who seems to feel as though sessions loyalty is lacking.
this is not a fight we want to have. unfortunately, he picks a new onevery day. he lies about sothing different every day on twitter. these are unforced errors. this is like the balm sitting down in the tennis court like balmer. joining us is national security correspondent for the new york times, david sanger. and former cia deputy director david s. cohen, the national security contributor for msnbc and nbc news. good to have you both on board this morning. everyone is focused on health care and the debate is there. but i got to ask both of you, how do we move forward from the president making the agencies elgs about the former president that he has done so over the weekend without walking it back and launching investigations. these allegations at this point clearly are not true. i m not sure how they ever come to bear. how does this president have credibility around the world?
former government employees. so that s the status, a little bit of one thing on the house side, a little bit of something else on the senate side. joe johns at the white house. with us, cnn washington correspondent brianna keilar, paul lewis and matt, i want to start with you. i watch you on tv. you ve been seeing a risk for the trump white house is it doesn t have a lot of loyalty on capitol hill among republicans. when you see jason chaffetz, david nunez, none of them seem to be launching investigations into the substance of the reports. is president trump winning the first round, matt? i think the senate is very different. senators, for one thing, are elected every six years, so they re insulated from the republican base that still loves donald trump. they have more leeway, so i
professional. that hat is way too large. charlie makes a good point that, by doing what he did, james comey triggered and news cycle in which not only did we explore on the republican side whether or not hillary clinton is some sort of super criminal, but you also then explored the fbi. so now what we ve had is some great reporting that has exposed this pro-trump cell, if you want to call it that, in the new york office of the fbi. there are further stories coming out about the fact that agents were insisting upon using a book that has a financial connection to donald trump through steve bannon as the basis for launching investigations. that is terrifying for american citizens who now understand that a group of politically motivated agents armed with that much power can go after anyone they want based on partisanship alone even though what they re doing is actually financially connected through their resource material to one of the candidates for president. that in and of itself shatte