you about the investigation and where it is going, philip? it is straight forward. when you start the investigation, you start at the outside and talk to the lower level people to determine what they know about the higher level people. when you go into the more senior people in the white house, and for example, conversations with the individuals that mueller is going to be speaking to in the next week or two, and you will have a volume of information and like phone and e-mails and interview s wi interviews with the lower level officials. and the bottom line here is that the mueller team has proven that as they are going into the senior level conversation, and if those senior level people don t tell the truth, they will bring down a federal violation for lying to the the government. if i were in the white house, that is what i would be worried about and not only do i know about the president, but if i don t tell the truth, will mueller bring a charge of lying to the federal government
it s difficult to do that because there s lot of layers of review. i think you re absolutely right, the implication mcmaster would say whatever you can have it. that s an indication it s not such a big deal but unmasking, if it were not done properly could be a big issue. i have yet to see anything serious that indicates that there was some sort of problem either with rice or anybody else who had access and who had the ability to say i would like this piece of information, that name unmasked. i have yet to see it. it s much more likely that the administration wants to draw our attention to a potentially serious topic as opposed to looking at the real problem which is what was the relationship between the trump campaign and the russians before the election? philip mud, a cia and fbi former official whom we all know and love, every time unmasking comes up, he sends me a message
abuses. this is our understanding from our reporting. the e-mail in terms of bootstrapping the context, the e-mail indicated that the person he would meet with who was this russian lawyer was part of this government effort on behalf of the kremlin to influence the election, right? no, the e-mail as we understand it said that this information was part of it. so the information she was going to get. so it was coming two different ways? i don t know that it was more specific about who she was in particular. maggie, thank you very much for sharing your reporting with us this morning. we ll see you very soon. let s bring in our panel to discuss all of this. we have cnn political analyst, and errol louis and philip mud. david gregory, nice to see you back after a little break. what jumps out from this new
. in washington a lot of people has lost sight of the escalating crisis in syria and our involvement there. listen to edward swau well. it looks like we are at war in syria but a war that would be without the authorization of congress. it s time congress vote on what is the time line, the troop commitment and the terrain that s covered. excellent questions. here to discuss james and search owe, and philip mud. general marks i m going to start with you. do you agree we re getting closer and closer to an open conflict with syria? don, good evening. i think what we have seen in syria has evolve over the course of time. what has happened is that has
sarah huckabee sanders said the day before. let s hear what she said. i ve heard from countless members of the fbi that are grateful and thankful for the president s decision. and i think we may have to agree to disagree. i think there are people who are disappointed, but i ve certainly heard from a large number of individuals. and that s just myself, and i don t even know any people in the fbi matter of principle between emales, text messages absolutely. look, we re not going to get into a numbers game. i have heard from a large number of individuals that worked at the fbi that said they re very happy with the president s decision. joining us now, two people with experience working for fbi, philip mud and james galyano. james, you are no longer in the fbi, but you talk to rank and file fbi agents since comey was fired. what are they saying? i have got to tell you, listening to the white house