himself from things related to russia or the 2016 campaign. the directive marks the special counsel s first records request to the justice department, and it now means that mueller is demanding documents from the department overseeing his investigation. and i mean, you know, carry the three, right? put these things together. i think this means that the justice department by way of special counsel robert mueller has just subpoenaed itself. in the russia investigation. which would be awkward under the best of circumstances. but for me this is new. this is kind of what it s like now. new and awkward things every day at least for this go-around in the investigation of a president and his administration. joining us is paul rosensweig. he was a senior counsel on the ken starr investigation during the clinton investigation. he s currently a senior fellow at the r street institute which is a you this think tank in washington, d.c. mr. rosensweig, i appreciate your time tonight. thank you for
anybody outside the court from talking about those things. when it comes to matters of recusal, document requests, things like this being handled in the justice department, do we have any right to know? in general, the answer is no. in general, criminal investigations are exempt from foia requests. grand jury investigations in particular are subject to a very stringent rule of grand jury secrecy. rule 6-e of federal criminal procedure. the violation of which is actually a crime. that having been said, the confidentiality obligations are on mr. mueller and his team. there is nothing that says the recipient of a document request like the department of justice could not voluntarily disclose it if it wanted to. i don t imagine that the department wants to very much. no. but that gives me a whole good idea for how to spend my afternoon tomorrow trying to figure this out. paul rosenzweig, former senior