was for a corrupt intent for the purpose of undermining an investigation, well then that certainly could be an obstruction of justice. we re in uncharted legal territory here. there really hasn t been a testing all the way up to the supreme court which is why when you look at this question of giuliani asking whether or not a sitting president can be subpoenaed, that hasn t been taken up to the supreme court either. so we re in sort of a whole new world here in terms of the president s authority. jamil, you were talking about the fears that you have of the unmasking of this individual. help me understand what the ramifications of that would be in the case of this individual, yes, there s been reporting saying that these law enforcement agencies have been preparing for if that were to happen, how to protect this individual in particular. but more broadly speaking, what does it mean for the kind of investigations that our law enforcement agencies conduct on a daily basis? look. our in
that it is illegal for foreign nationals to contribute to campaigns. and the question the wording of that statute is, it is illegal to accept anything sort of of value. so in the august meeting, the question is whether or not there was sort of value presented there. and the wording is also direct versus indirect. if you re talking about sort of indirectly helping a social media campaign, does that violate the law. we re in really uncharted sort of murky territory here in terms of federal election commission violations. so it is big. jamil, the times reinforcing what caroline just said here. it is illegal for foreign governments or individuals to be involved in american elections and it is unclear what, if any, direct assistance saudi arabia around the emirates may have provided. but two people familiar with the meeting said the trump campaign officials did not appear bothered by the idea of cooperation with foreigners. focus in particular on that last clause of that accidents
name of that individual. caroline, just respond to what jamil said there. i was talking with geoff about the history between the relationship with the white house and law enforcement. we ve seen so much signaling over these last many months where the president has been making his view or opinion on matters related to the justice department known in speeches, on twitter as well. jamil said moments ago, it is within the president s right to shape what the department of justice is doing. i you have the law degree. how much influence can a president have over the department of justice? i think when you talk about an obstruction of justice charge, there are people that would say, allen dershowitz being one of them, that the president has executive authority under the article 2, his powers under article 2 to really see fit to really say what he wants to say in terms of how he thinks things should be going. therefore the firing of james comey cannot be obstruction of justice. now others say
campaign mueller team here. everything we get, it s several months behind. so we don t really know sort of the entirety of the breadth or scope of this investigation. but certainly by the reporting that we know right now, is that these were discrete contacts made to carter page, to two other sort of campaign officials at the time. and just providing information which, again, it s not out of the ordinary in criminal investigations of this nature. j jamil, a demand by the president to the department of justice that he look into this. christopher wray, the fbi director, talking about the dangers of unmasking this type of informant. well, couple issues. one, on the president s tweet, look. the president is entitled, just like any other federal official, to ask the fbi or justice department to look into what he sees as violations of the law. in fact as head of the executive