special counsel when it comes to this investigation of the russian interference in our election and any involvement by the trump campaign. mueller is widely respected. he is smart. he s principled. most of us who know him and have worked with him for years believe he will always put the country first. that s critical for credibility. mr. rosenstein answered a lot of questions today but also deklaind declined to answer a lot as well because of his concern to interfere with the investigation by director mueller. we left with more information but not all of the information that we were seeking. based on what you heard today, sir, do you believe that the deputy attorney general knew before he wrote that memo that james comey was going to be fired? yes. what was it that he said that led you to he knew it the day before. was he pressured into writing that letter? no. we heard from senator graham
from the white house why comey was going to be fired and a few minutes ago we heard from a senator lindsey graham, who believes this has shifted to a criminal investigation. sunlen, thank you. it was a good decision to pick a special counsel. a lot of confidence in mr. mueller. the shock to the body is that this is now a criminal investigation and congress ability to conduct investigations of all things russia has been severely limited, probably in an appropriate fashion. you heard there one of the chief criticisms coming from one senator, lindsey graham, that he believes that this appointment of a special counsel will potentially hamper or potentially solve the numerous congressional investigations going on up here on capitol hill. but chairman of the senate
have all of the facts. we don t have the documents. we don t have sworn testimony. but he was very careful about not going into any details surrounding the removal because he wants to give robert mueller the opportunity to make his independent decision as to where the investigation is going to go. what about the congressional investigations? there were a lot of questions about him cooperating with the congressional investigations with the caveat that he s no longer in charge and wants to give robert mueller the opportunity to deconflict with those conducting the investigations. i think he generally, obviously, expressed a desire to cooperate with congressional investigations. senator lindsey graham has just told us, based on the briefing, that this investigation has crossed some important thresholds from a ci case to a criminal case and may limit congress ability to get evidence and bring in witnesses to testify. well, lindsey a former prosecutor, also, and i ll let his commen
statement. anybody who knows robert mueller, as a federal judge and director of the fbi. to characterize any undertaking by him is a witch hunt and is totally unfair. did he shed any light on the comey memo? the comey effectively talking about no. no conversation about that. was he asked about that? not directly. thank you. mccain is coming, guys. senator durbin there giving a lot of questions about what was revealed in this secure briefing and we heard from senator claire mccaskill a few minutes ago and she said one of the big things coming out of that meeting was that the deputy attorney general knew that james comey was going to be fired before he sent that memo that was sent up by the white house really outlining why they were going to fire him. of course, that, jake, was used as original justification coming
investigations of all things, russia has been severely limited. probably in an appropriate fashion so i think a lot of members want the special counsel to be appointed but don t understand that it s you re pretty well knocked out of the game. and that s probably the way it should be. it was a counterintelligence investigation before now. it seems to me now to be a criminal investigation and what does that mean for the congress? i find it hard to subpoena records of somebody like mr. flynn who may be subject to a criminal investigation because he has a right not to incriminate himself. as to mr. comey, the former director of the fbi coming before the committee, if i were mr. mueller, i would jealously guard the witness pool. so one of the big losers in this decision is the public. we had a really good hearing with yates and clapper where the public could hear what happened.