prevent joe digenova and victoria from joining the president s special counsel legal team. what exactly are those conflicts? other attorneys involved in the mueller probe have been permitted by the special counsel and by their various clients to represent multiple witnesses. this is a common practice when none of the witnesses is a subject of the investigation. the answer, according to four former senior justice department officials i spoke to over the weekend who are all familiar with the investigation is that the two clients in question, mark corral owe and donald trump, likely have divergent interests. two of these former officials say mark caralo may be a witness against the president. another former official saying, quote, we know who mueller was empowered to investigate. we know why mark corallo left. that seems to be a conflict. corallo widely reported left his role as lead spokesman for the president s legal team over concerns that members of the
that worked in the ash croft justice department, i believe knew bob mueller well from his time as fbi director. he quickly went into the trump orbit, quickly jumped back out. but one of the things that surfaced he taken aback by something hope hicks said about misstatement she crafted aboard the air force one where they lied to the media outlets asking about don junior s meeting in trump tower to meet with russians. hope hicks, according to the new york times, said to mark caralo, it will never get out, no one will ever know. there were some concerns. report ed in fire and fury and the new york times and other outlets, i apologize to all of them, that that was a red line, if you will, for caralo who departed his role as one of the legal spokespeople for the trump legal team. can you speak to what kind of important hope hicks plays as a witness in both the obstruction of justice investigation and as the person who was briefed by the fbi about ongoing russian
so, very important witness, as bob pointed out on a whole bunch of things, and particularly i think on the obstruction of justice episode that mark caralo described. i will reveal my bias for mark caralo as well. he has a job during the bush years of representing carl rove during the pat fitzgerald special counsel. i know for a fact he wouldn t have been scared away by the riggers of a special council investigation. he would have been, i would surmise, turned away by something unethical. so, i think that s why the hope hicks anecdote is so interesting in the context of what mark caralo can stomach. he can stomach a fight adds tough as anything that any press person has ever endured legally or politically. but i would believe him to be the kind of person who would never tell a white lie. so, can you talk about whether hope hicks might be someone that bob mueller wants to talk to again if she didn t, as you just
efforts to contact trump family members, trump associates when she was in the white house, how she might also play into the russian coordination and contact and collusion investigation? in light of her close relationship with president trump and for such a long time, it seems like she is a very key person in all of this. the reporting about mark caralo was so interesting because what he said at the time was he thought in his opinion that he had observed obstruction of justice. because she said something like those e-mails, which told a different story than the one they were telling in the press release, would never see the light of day. that suggested that there could be some destruction of evidence that i think sent him running om r the team. and so i think that part certainly speaks to the obstruction of justice investigation and robert mueller and his team are going to want to know an awful lot about that. as we hear this other reporting today about questions that are being asked
those e-mails will never get out, they ll either as barbara said, be destroyed or hidden or not revealed. that s not how it works when a special counsel is investigating your actions and activities of associates. that s right, nicolle. i may be a bit biased here because i worked with mark caralo and i have tremendous regard for him, his judgment and integrity. he obviously saw something that bugged him and it bugged him enough that he felt he had to get out of that situation, which i think is the right call. so, assuming mark has it right, hope hicks is a very important witness. you know, we keep talking, all of us keep talking as if mueller only has three cooperateers, the three who pled guilty, papadopoulos, flynn and now gates. actually he probably has dozens of cooperateers because it includes all of those who didn t plead guilty and are telling him the truth. i suspect that hope hicks, even if she told white lies to the press or to the president is smart enough and well prepared