and, chuck, a lot of people were thinking zero chance the affidavit would ever be released in any form. what do you think made the judge think otherwise? well, i was one of those people who thought there was very little chance, jose, that it would be released in full and almost and redactions, as ken described, may be so extensive you re not going to be able to glean anything from it. here s what i think is going on. this is just my impression. obviously, i haven t read the affidavit. i think the judge s instincts were laudable and wrong. i think he was trying to find some middle ground. there is great public interest in the affidavit. and trying to make some of the affidavit to all of us. i think that s laudable. this is just drawing on my own experience as a federal prosecutor, jose, when the government says there are legitimate ongoing law
be it s appropriate and part of their constitutional duties to do this. respectful to law enforcement interests to mueller and the like, but it should and needs to be done. my push back is impeachment, removal, political processes. they re not legal processes. they re political, and if you don t have the american people pushing on politicians in a form of a consensus, i think you won be close to that until you get past the mueller probe and what he says and how people feel about it. i think that cuts the other way. general hayden and i are reluctant impeachment investigators. we don t think it s right. we don t want to criminalize
redactions, but we re still waiting to hear when adam schiff meets with the fbi, brianna. thank you so much for that report. where do we go from here now? joining me to discuss, former analyst and federal prosecutor michael jacks michael zelden. the fbi starts, saying, these are the passages about which we have concerns. then they try to reach compromise. it may be the fbi is being overly cautious and could pull back a little from its caution, but that s the nature of it. and then hopefully they reach agreement, they determine this is a memo that now doesn t interfere with the national security interests or law enforcement interests, and then it can go to the president and the president can determine whether it s now suitable for release. the republican memo, which is already out and was not
national security and law enforcement interests. although the president is inclined to declassify the february 5th memorandum, because the memorandum contains numerous properly classified and especially sensitive passages, he is unable to do so at this time. something adam schiff pointed out tonight, quote, the white house ignored their concerns and approved the publication of the republican memo with no redactions even though the action was described by the agencies as extraordinarily reckless and omitting material facts. after promising to treat the democratic response precisely the same way, the white house now seeks to have the democratic memo sent back to committee and revised by the same majority that produced the flawed nunes memo to begin with. that news coming hours after nbc
significant concerns for the national security and law enforcement interests. that sounds compelling. unless you stop and consider that the fbi had issued a statement saying it had grave concerns about the release of the nunes memo, yet that didn t stop the white house. here is what is really going on. the nunes memo didn t live up to the hype. it was ultimately an embarrassment to all those who promoted it when we couldn t see it. and in all probability that will be made even more clear if the democratic response sees the light of day. before the release of the nunes memo, the president was in a great position politically speaking. republican members of the house intel committee gave interviews in friendly outlets painting a dire picture of what the memo revealed while saying they couldn t speak to its specific contents. that left no opportunity for anybody to challenge their assessment. and of course the lack of ability to cross-examine did not