turn up anything. but what is so significant here is that typically when the department of justice is going after members of congress, it is because of some sort of public corruption investigation. or other types of crimes. it s rare to see the department of justice simply go after a president s political enemies for the sole purpose of he didn t like the leaks that were coming out of what he thought was the house intelligence committee. so this the subpoena was extraordinarily broad. shocking that you would go after members of congress and then further you would go after the person connections, family members and even more startling is this dragnet swept up data from a child, a minor was involved in this in some capacity. we know it s just the metadat yachlt we don t know the contents of the communications. it is really shocking. it follows a pattern we ve seen. we have a full screen up to bring this would be into clearer view. because here is who doj had gone after.
experience. these are folks who worked for not just for the president in some cases but for republicans in the past. the process here is really dysfunctional. and i have to just briefly disagree with jonathan s characterization of the mueller investigation as slow. it was remarkably fast for a public corruption investigation. that may have been some of the problem with it was the pace it moved at, it really was in many ways ahead of the evidence. they were so far along that some of these warning signs happened much too late for investigators to pick up on. we are seeing sort of the opposite of that here whereas chris said the primary document is up out front. we actually know what the sin, what the high crime and misdemeanor is. and now we are hearing from witnesses who are career people. these are not folks with a political ax to grind. they are what prosecutors would call fact witnesses. but the process is dysfunctional because instead of investigation like we had in watergate or i
of branch officials so that anything having to do with the sessions firing would be preserved for willie. what could as a practical matter, what coma enthusiast whittaker do here about the mueller investigation. he called the mueller investigation a lynch mob and called for it to be defunded. he wrote articles for cnn.com, going on cnn as an analyst before donald trump saw him on tver and said let me get that guy at the department of justice. what could be his move against the mueller investigation? first, he could deny it, budget resources and personnel. and slow the investigation down significantly. second is he could fail to defend the decisions of the special counsel in court and if the special counsel has to litigate say a subpoena of the president that s going to go to litigation and go all the way up to the supreme court and the
only leading to more shootings and that it s time we start doing something when it comes to gun violence. all right. thank you very much. we re following this and will be bringing the bringing the lates information in and break in, if necessary. now to the major political questions at hand. since democrats have won control of the house, moving forward, what will be the priorities and how will you navigate not just the legislative priorities in trying to get something done but also deciding in a unified manner as to what questions need to be asked to this president? yes, i think first seek to collaborate where we can. i see opportunities on infrastructure the dream act. background checks and prescription drug reform. those are all issues where the president has called for action but republicans never brought those issues up. when it comes to investigation, no longer look the other way or give a free pass especially when it comes to russia and should we protect mueller?
attorney general plays a significant role in deferreding the decisions of the justice department. the third and most importantly he could refuse to issue publicly or make public any report that robert mueller generates. that s the most important point. if the democrats in the house begin to hold hearings down the road thinking about impeachment they will do so on factual basis, based on the mueller report. if whittaker squashes that report it will be much harder for congressional members to have a factual basis to proceed. is there a plan i know we ve all heard discussions of this. what can you tell us about what, what is likely, robert mueller and the team would do if, if the investigation was halted? do they have their fingers on the button and ready to send out all the information. does it go to state courts? do you have members of trump s family actually being tried in