the fisa prospect. hearings, as general mat whter n a fisa judge has a concern about an application which is a normal thing, by the way, they deal with that by phone or orally or the staff attorneys for the court deal with it with the justice department. so it would be quite unusual to have a hearing in the accepts that the president seems to have meant it. and in any event, the relevant question whenever the justice department in any process goes before a court and asks for a warrant is, is the court satisfied that probable cause was established on the papers or in a live setting, not whether the president of the united states later finds it inconvenient that the warrant was issued. so i think it s actually a
sasse always someone able to speak his mind and speak the truth, despite what it might mean for him politically. but the question i would think at this point as you run after them down the hall is, are you really willing to go down with this ship? can you read? the reality i think mika, is that until they see the donald trump ship sinking. it is! from an electoral perspective. i m simply trying to explain the actions, not defending them, but you know, why are we even talking about this fisa warrant at all? it is exactly the point you re making which is devin nunes has been trying to carry water for the president on this and is distracts the president s base and everybody else from the real issue at hand. this came out of the house intelligence committee investigating russian meddling in the election, and this fisa distraction prevents us from keeping the main thing the main thing which is that
at certain points they ve stood up and said jeff sessions is our man and other times suggested after, lindsey graham, after the midterms the president might be entitled to his own man. we ll see how the midterms unfold. obviously, democrats take back the senate, a whole other ball game. with respect to the obstruction of justice and his various commentaries seems clear in the case of the two congressmen he doesn t have a leg to stand on either as to the timing, severity of charges or appropriateness what the justice department did. on the fisa stuff, ben is there insight whether he has a claim or merits to what he is arguing? yes. there is no march it wherit wha. what is a really simple one. the fisa process works, it s a unique process in the federal court system, and we actually ran over the weekend a long piece by david crisp laying out
pretty simple question. there is no merit whatsoever to the president s complaint. and as andy mccarthy has said, mika, what happens is, you go before the fisa judge and he said or any judge and says, nearly 20 years as a prosecutors i ve had hundreds of warrants and never had a hearing. had judges tell me no, or tell me i need to beef this up with an allegation or with more solid evidence, but never a hearing and that s 20 years in the southern district of new york, and that s the way it works. and, you know, the problem is donald trump sees something on tv and he immediately in complete ignorance. the word this morning is, i m not using it as a slur, it s jut a reality. just complete ignorance. yep. of the way the process works. complete ignorance of our democratic republic. i actually think that so many of
feeling like this isn t a great moment, even just for a couple of days for country. and there you have president trump. he knows he will never receive a funeral like that, when his day comes. and i think that makes him angry in a way that you wouldn t expect. certainly a sitting president of the united states to feel about a great american like john mccain. ben witis mika, again, you have a tweet he completely misstates the facts about fisa. again, putting a field goal into a baseball game. i mean, that s how bizarre that tweet was. and secondly, you have him quoting a new york times article that actually undercuts every single argument he has made about where this investigation began. i know. it s incredible. ben witis, thank you very much. still ahead on morning joe is jonathan swan was noting on twitter, a big blow to