during the 2016 election, barr called text messages between former agent peter strzok and former lawyer lisa page inappropriate. i was shocked when i saw them. please get to the bottom of it. we want you to clean this place up. barr pledged to investigate whether there was a surveillance abuse during the 2016 campaign. when a warrant was obtained and renewed multiple times using the anti-trump dossier for a trump campaign aide. shannon? shannon: catherine herridge, thank you very much. attorney general nominee barr also says that he would not give up the powers of the office and promised to recuse from anything in advance, just to secure the confirmation. this is not 27 years ago. today, the president is donald trump, who will do anything to protect himself. why won t you simply follow jeff sessions lead? i m not going to surrender the responsibilities the of the attorney general to get the title. shannon: republican senator from nebraska ben sasse, who is
oversight by rod rosenstein. and now trump has nominated a person who has expressed hostility to the investigation. that s attorney general nominee barr and the acting attorney general auditioned for the job by telling trump how he could get around that investigation by starving it to death of money. and so trump has effectively possibly derailed the investigation. and here s the other thing. we wouldn t know what exactly barr or whitaker has done or will do until after the investigation is over. under the law, the only thing that has to be revealed now is if the president tries to fire mueller. but if the attorney general has oversight, that could be that doesn t have to be reported. if they say don t bring this indictment, that doesn t have to be reported by mueller until afterwards. i ll be back in just a moment. president trump loving to take
people that he knows. absolutely, perfectly normal. at least that s the way this was until 6:00 last night. at 6:00 last night, rod rosenstein s people leaked to nbc well, he may not be leaving as soon as bill barr gets here. bill barr may want him to stay on until bob mueller is done. until bob mueller is done. that will take at least a year and maybe even 2020. this is what nbc reported. our colleagues at cnn picked it up. it hasn t been denied. but, knowing attorney general nominee barr, my view is, he wants his own people in there. and is he going to get his own people. ainsley: why do you think the mueller investigation is not going to wrap up for another year? we had an expert on yesterday jonathan turley this is an indication robert s team is wrapping up. judge: i have great respect for professor turley and is he closer to this than i am. we all have different sources.
barr expressed it by saying trump could not be exposed to obstruction of justice for firing james comey. there will now be 52 or 53 republicans, 52 in the senate, they are going to have the majority. and i think they will get barr confirmed as attorney general. it is good to be in the majority. fair enough. yeah. and this issue of the unitary executive, i think probably doesn t get enough attention. there is a lot of debate and discussion about sort of an independent department of justice, an independent prosecutors. the reality, especially under this theory of the unitary executive is that it is the president that oversees the executive branch of government and all of the agencies. that s the president s job. well, you might understand why it would appeal to someone. outnumbered, but not out
let me ask you this. we are heading into a new year and one of the fights we can clearly expect is the confirmation over attorney general nominee barr. you wrote a long memo with a breathtaking view that dove tailed with things that justice brett kavanaugh had written in that minnesota law review article. explain the larger view that the president seems to be appealing to him perhaps simply out of self-interest. well, that s right. presidents, as a rule, tend to have expansive views of the power. it is basically a more absolute view of executive power and limitations especially on the congressional the ability of the legislative branch to step on any of those powers.