the side of folks who are favorable to the mueller investigation, that barr was saying just enough of the right things to get through the vote and that he may have some other intention here, and he is carefully parsing his language in some of these questions today. i think one would be wise to be cautious about this given the how close we are to some very critical inflection points in the mueller investigation and how nervous the president is about anything, you know, that gets closer to him than it already is. rick, barr described turning down an earlier request to join trump s legal defense team. here s what he said. i said at my point in life, i really didn t want to take on this burden and that i actually preferred the freedom to not have any representation of an individual but just say what i thought about anything without having to worry about that. and i said that i my wife and i were sort of looking forward to a bit of respite, and i didn t want to stick my head into that
this, or i believe barr i mean mueller has authority up to what his charter says. he s written a memo that s essentially told us what he thinks about what mueller is doing on the conspiracy on the obstruction investigation. he told us what he thinks about that. so that means he has already given an opinion that he thinks mueller has exceeded that. and so to sit there and say to a panel of senators that well, i m not going to do anything as long as he doesn t exceed his authority, he s already told you he feels that way. and it s unbelievable to me that he would share that information with the president and his legal team, or at least his legal team, we assume to the president before this. and i find that i find it unbelievable that there is even questions about whether or not he would recuse. but that s where we are. and so probably somebody got to him after a break and said hey, you need to straighten up because the president wants you to make sure that you reiterate that there
with president trump to move forward with sanctions against a russian oligarch. we re going to tell you why this is important, who these oligarchs are, and just how connected they are to the kremlin. t-mobile knows dancing is better when you include a partner. singing is better when you include a friend. and unlimited is better with a phone included. it s true. forty bucks with the other guys, doesn t include a phone. so, start the new year right. join t-mobile and get unlimited with a phone included for just forty dollars per line. that was, surprisingly, not terrible. even without scrubbing, lysol power toilet bowl cleaner attacks tough limescale and rust stains to clean 10 times better than clorox liquid bleach. lysol. what it takes to protect.®
some of them he is now obviously trying to roll back. but, no, he is not tough on russia. any chance that he has he praises dear leader putin, and, you know, has exhibited no interest whatsoever in staying anything that might cross putin, and we don t know why. and i think that s very troubling. trump s nominee for attorney general, william barr, vowed to protect mueller s investigation today saying he is committed to transparency, doesn t believe mueller would be involved in a witch hunt. could the president end up turning on barr the way he has on so many others? he could, don, but i have to tell you, i think there are a lot of people in d.c. tonight who are wondering about the divergence between some of barr s written testimony and some of the answers he gave today. and i think that there is a very great sense of caution that on
criminal investigation are just data points, and there is some connective tissue around all of this stuff, whether it s collusion or, you know, i tend to use the word the president is compromised because of either family dealings or monetary dealings, but there is a connective tissue here. and the criminal cases end up just being sort of evidence of this overarching theme that we re starting to see unfold and in particular because of this counterintelligence investigation. and that s why you re the security analyst. that was very smart what you just said that. so matthew, we also saw senate republicans break with the trump administration on russia sanctions. 11 senate republicans joined with democrats to advance a measure that would stop the treasury department from relaxing sanctions on three russian companies with ties to oligarch and putin ally oleg deripaska. what is the message here to trump? i think the message here is that, you know, trump may be