committee, made a criminal referral to mueller, the chairman and the ranking member said in a statement today. that was interesting, we hadn t heard that before. but look, it just shows that mueller, his investigation into this whole russian interference effort and the tentacles and the foreign lobbying and the manafort stuff, continues. it s ongoing. it s not ending anytime soon, steve. and eric tucker, you have that reporting, we mentioned it, bruce ohr at the justice department, we know donald trump has been publicly going after bruce ohr. your reporting is that ohr met in 2016 with christopher steele and concluded from that that russia had trump, quote, over a barrel. what does that mean exactly? so bruce ohr, before congress behind closed doors, he described that july 2016 breakfast he had with chris steele, and he said that chris steele had told him that a former russian senior intelligence official had used
patten, who has ties to paul manafort, pleaded guilty today to failing to register as a foreign agent. meanwhile, the associated press reports today that doj lawyer bruce ohr was told by british former spy christopher steele that russian intelligence believed it had, quote, donald trump over a barrel. here to talk about all of this, ken dilanian and eric tucker, who broke today s news on that meeting between bruce ohr and christopher steele. ken, let me start with you on this question of patten, straw donations, the trump inaugural committee, i think i said campaign in the tease but let me be clear, it s the inaugural committee we re talking about here. take us through what we need to know about this, because this was a name that i think was not on folks radar. not a household name. it s a former state department official, old time washington lobbyist, comes from an old
up, because this 60-day rule, there s a memo we quote, i ve heard it s an informal guideline, it s not written on paper. i remember covering politics in new jersey where there was one or two federal investigations of politicians. is there anything that will guide robert mueller here? steven, it s an informal rule we followed at the department of justice. and it makes sense. it s a common sense rule, that you didn t want to indict, charge, publicize anything right before an election that would tend to influence or otherwise cause favor to one side or the other. i mean, we at the department of justice, we wanted to be apolitical. we wanted to stay out of this kind of thing. because you can imagine, especially new jersey, florida is the same way, immediately before the election, you would have people come in, as the u.s. attorney is knocking on the door saying, oh, this candidate is doing this kind of skullduggery. you have to be careful about that kind of allegation and not go ahead in
reports today that doj lawyer bruce ohr was told by british former spy christopher steele that russian intelligence believed it had, quote, donald trump over a barrel. here to talk about all of this, ken dilanian and eric tucker, who broke today s news on that meeting between bruce ohr and christopher steele. ken, let me start with you on this question of patten, straw donations, the trump inaugural committee, i think i said campaign in the tease but let me be clear, it s the inaugural committee we re talking about here. take us through what we need to know about this, because this was a name that i think was not on folks radar. not a household name. it s a former state department official, old time washington lobbyist, comes from an old family here. he pled guilty today to failing to register as a foreign agent
with us, guy lewis, and paul putlpu butler, thanks to both of you for joining us. guy, maybe you can clear this up, because this 60-day rule, there s a memo we quote, i ve heard it s an informal guideline, it s not written on paper. i remember covering politics in new jersey where there was one or twotician politicians. is there anything that will guide robert mueller here? steven, it s an informal rule we followed at the department of justice. and it makes sense. it s a common sense rule, that you didn t want to indict, charge, publicize anything right before an election that would tend to influence or otherwise cause favor to one side or the