now understand that the staff is almost that there s a sensation of being blindfolded. they don t know what s coming next. they do a lot of reading these stories, learning some of these developments themselves from press accounts, and a lot of anxiety inside that staff. and put on top of that, the legal defense fund has been established for the president and his son, but i m not aware of any reporting that suggests that that legal defense fund will pay for attorneys for any of the midlevel or low-level staff. are you? no, and that s a good point. staffers lives can be ruined by paying these legal fees. michael flynn is an example of this. he s created his own legal defense fund because he s anticipating extraordinary legal fees. but you re right about the staff being blindfolded. part of that is because they put the blindfolds on themselves. a lot of staffers have purposely tried to stay away from the russia question. they don t want to engage on the russia question. they don t wa
the president certainly has the right to choose whomever he wants to be on his personal staff, but i certainly hope that his new communications director strikes a different tone than he has in his first week on the job. republican senator susan collins, a little bit leery of new white house communications director anthony scarmucci as new chief of staff general john kelly takes command tomorrow. after one of the most tumultuous weeks of the trump presidency so far. various press accounts of the white house provide a picture of turmoil and dysfunction. are they fair? joining us now, katrina pierson who served as a senior political strategist and national spokeswoman for the trump campaign. thanks for joining me, we have a lot to get to. let s start with the shake-up here at the white house which
not this woman worked for the russian government or not, that she was at least presented as a russian government lawyer and that this information came from the russian government, is that common in campaigns? not that i m aware of, but, you know, every day, someone would come to me when i was running the carson campaign, and they said they had information on, you know, ted cruz or donald trump or john kasich, and you know, they all got the same response. whatever. but let s go back to this alleged violation of campaign finance laws, which is kind of hilarious. at the same time, we know, by press accounts, that the ukrainian government was working with the dnc, developing a dossier on manafort. so, would that not also be, in the words of tim kaine, treason? and a violation of campaign finance laws. of course not. that s ridiculous. but it s not normal for a foreign government abnormal is not illegal. it s not normal for a foreign government to be involved in a
flynn had an unreported contact with the russians which is an offense. and if press accounts are right, there might have been discrepancies between facts and his fbi testimony. in your estimation, was general flynn at that time in serious legal jeopardy and in addition to that, do you sense that the president was trying to obstruction justice or just seek for a way for mike flynn to save face given he had already been fired? general flynn was in legal jeopardy. there was an open investigation of his statements in connection with the russian contacts and the contacts themselves. that was my assessment at the time. i don t think it s for me to say whether the conversation i had with the president was an effort to obstruction. i took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning. but that s a conclusion i m sure
had an unreported contact with the russians, which is an offense, and if press accounts are right, there might have been discrepancies between facts and his fbi testimony. in your estimation, was general flynn at that time in serious legal jeopardy, and in addition to that, do you sense that the president was trying to obstruct justice or just seek for a way for mike flynn to save face, given that he had already been fired? general flynn at that point in time was in legal jeopardy. there was an open fbi criminal investigation of his statements in connection with the russian contacts, and the contacts themselves, and so that was my assessment at the time. i don t think it s for me to say whether the conversation i had with the president was an effort to obstruct. i took it as a very disturbing thing, very concerning, but that s a conclusion i m sure the special counsel will work towards to try and understand