purchaser so a foreigner could actually spend a bunch of money and go to the trump inauguration. what you guys are talking about here is a federal investigation not into the money coming into the inauguration necessarily, but the spending. right. i think what we re looking at is beyond the role of potential foreign influence or foreign money coming into the inaugural. this investigation, to be clear, is in its very early stages as we understand it, is looking at money in and also money out. money in isn t just foreign. it s looking at who whether individuals or entities gave money in expectation of receiving some sort of special benefit from the administration. and the money out is looking at, you know, as you said, there s been great reporting out there about the murkiness of what happened to this more than $100 million that was spent on the ostensibly on the ostensibly. right, we don t know. that s the big trick. the tax returns say they spent it on this, they don t say t
and the money out is looking at, you know, as you said, there has been great reporting out there about the murkiness of what happened to this more than $100 million that was spent on the ostensibly. ostensibly. that s right. we don t know it. it s a big trick here. the tax returns say they spent it on this, and they don t say that much. but it s trying to get to the bill of that. there is a lot of qualifiers there. but on the issue of spending money, donating money to the inauguration with the expectation that you ll be treated favorably by the government in some policy context, or the terms of some kind of favor, i feel that s the open secret of inaugural donations anyway, that most people don t give to an inauguration out of the goodness of their heart. corporations and rich people presumably all do that us be a they want to curry in an abstract sense some sort of favor. is this investigation looking at acute allegations of real liquid pro owe that there were real favors trad
given how hard the white house worked to have them not share this information means that there is probably some real bombs, some real important facts in this dossier that they have that they will share with the senators. but then the senators getting classified material, and it s very unlikely that we re going to see an end to the murkiness over this overnight. we may see a difference in shift in posture of these senators. we may either see a relaxation where they say, well, jim mattis is right, there s no smoking gun or we may see the senators become firmer. one of the persons who has not been holding back any punches as garrett haake mentioned is senator lindsey graham. he was incensed that haspel was a no-show at the last briefing. watch this. i changed my mind because i m pissed. the way the administration handles the saudi arabia event is not acceptable. i think institutionally we have a right to be briefed by the cia. how can i make an informed decision as a united states
relief that it requests, it actually asks for a declaration from that federal judge that rod rosenstein is the proper acting attorney general. now if the judge were to grant that relief and issue an order saying rod rosenstein is the acting attorney general, i think you can expect an immediate appeal, but for the time being, and unless the judge enters that order, and unless a court up above on the chain stays that order or reverses it, rod rosenstein would be the lawful acting attorney general. and really, what we have is a mess. and i think the american people deserve to know unambiguously who their chief federal law enforcement officer is. and we re entering in a period where unfortunately that may not be the case. there is going to be some murkiness about it until all this gets straightened out. since whitaker was installed
actually asks for a declaration from that federal judge that rod rosenstein is the proper acting attorney general. now if the judge were to grant that relief and issue an order saying rod rosenstein is the acting attorney general, i think you can expect an immediate appeal, but for the time being, and unless the judge enters that order, and unless a court up above on the chain stays that order or reverses it, rod rosenstein would be the lawful acting attorney general. and really, what we have is a mess. and i think the american people deserve to know unambiguously who their chief federal law enforcement officer is. and we re entering in a period where unfortunately that may not be the case. there is going to be some murkiness about it until all this gets straightened out. since whitaker was installed in this position, we have learned a lot about his background, including the kind of things that would come up if he were being confirmed by the