sacred. sacred? you know, don t hit them. and i just need to keep going for a second here. the times reports that the photo was sent to the fbi agent or given to the fbi agent on january 27th, 2017. the fbi, i would be very surprised if the fbi just somehow kept that information from the white house during that whole time until the next fall. that would be really surprising. and by the way, this is not just a question about background checks, yes, we want to make sure that people with security clearances aren t subject to blackmail. but there s a more fundamental point here which is we want to make sure that people who are working in the white house who are representing our government are not being their wives or have not beaten their wives in the past. as the a moral question. it s not only a security question. before we go to a break here, i just want to get an answer on this issue of from ned price and joyce vance, do you believe if the fbi was in possession of those photographs,
hope we will soon be reintroducing a consensus bipartisan bill that would strengthen some of the protections for any special counsel. would it if it were to pass, and i don t know if it would pass, even though you do have bipartisan support. but let s say it were to pass, would it guarantee that mueller could not be fired? no. but it would ensure that a special counsel, robert mueller or another, could only be fired for good cause. in department of justice regulations, it calls out what those are. sort of gross impropriety or a conflict of interest, dereliction of duty. it means the special counsel can t be fired for no reason but it does lay out reasons for which the special counsel could be fired and then puts in place a process by which a three-judge panel could review that firing. i think it is a responsible, balanced step to make sure that going forward special counsels aren t subject to being fired at the whims of the president or of leaders in the department of justice.
crimes. those aren t subject to the pardon power. other than that, the constitution contains no limits. but just because president trump can do it constitutionally doesn t mean it s a good idea. here i think it would be a disaster, actually, for our political system and the presidency for president trump to take the advice of some and issue blanket pardons because they don t like the way that mr. mueller s carrying out this special investigation. if people have gripes with the decisions mr. mueller is making, the answer is not to set everybody free or preemptively forgive everybody who s committed a crime like allegedly mr. manafort and his associates, con vivre to be guilty of really money laundering and tax evasion. the answer is to remove mr. heuler. if president trump really thinks mr. mueller has gone beyond his mandate or is acting unethically or is biased, the answer is to fire mueller, but not to issue pardons for anyone connected to any alleged conspiracy.
victory because the charges against mr. manafort show no connection at all between russia and the 2016 campaign. why do you think president trump using his power to pardon would be such a bad move? don, first i have to say, it sounds so much better when you read it than when i wrote it. it sounded great. but seriously for a second, i think the president has an almost unreviewable power to pardon. the constitution only contains two exceptions to pardon, for cases of impeachment and state crimes. those aren t subject to the pardon power. other than that, the constitution contains no limits. but just because president trump can do it constitutionally doesn t mean it s a good idea. here i think it would be a disaster, actually, for our political system and the presidency for president trump to take the advice of some and issue blanket pardons because they don t like the way that mr. mueller s carrying out this special investigation. if people have gripes with the decisions mr. mueller i
facebook being used to disseminate fake news. the washington post says obama warned facebook and the government needed to do more to address the threat. where is this going, nick? it s a great question. i think we re headed towards a bipartisan consensus that the tech giants are a bit too giant and too influential in politics. i think you see a lot of criticism that there isn t enough disclosure in terms of advertising on these platforms. but the bigger picture, chris, is that, look, more and more of our public discussion and our politics and our campaigns are moving on to these two or three social platforms that aren t subject to the first amendment, that aren t subject to open records laws, that are privately owned and controlled and set their own rules. that is a huge deal for this country for voters and for