house to back off the russia probe, and details regarding the memos that he drafted following some of his conversations with donald trump. joining us now are david frum, senior editor for the atlantic. renato marriotty, former assistant attorney for the northern district of illinois and he has prosecuted in federal obstruction of justice cases. and john harwood, editor at large for cnbc. on this question of executive privilege, courts have recognized a president s constitutional right to keep his discussions a secret in most cases. does that go for the fbi director that he fired in his own words to stop him investigating donald trump and his campaign? well, certainly the president could could ask mr. comey not to testify as to certain subjects. and mr. comey could comply with that request if he wanted to. i suspect he might. if he didn t, however, it s hard to see how the administration
moscow has sought for a long time, which is place strains in the western alliance. this could be the fishiest looking set of coincidences ever, but i think robert mueller is going to sort that out. and renato gets the question. at what point does all of this fishiness become attempted obstruction? is it the fiing of the fbi director or something else? you have prosecuted these cases. have you seen so far what looks like obstruction of justice or just in the impeachment sense? well, those are two separate questions. but certainly what would have to be proven in a criminal sense would be a corrupt intent. in other words, did the president act corruptly in the actions that he took? and that would require a look at all the facts and circumstances of the case, which of course we don t know. but some of those facts might be, for example, asking the ag and the vice president to leave the room when he spoke to allegedly spoke to mr. comey, et cetera.
the three top republicans in the congress, house and senate, went to nixon and said, there is no more support for you, you will be convicted in the senate if you do not resign. and that was the end. but that was a year into it. we did not get the smoking gun right away. this takes time. you know, slow and steady wins the race. we have to put the puzzle together piece by piece. and it takes a little bit of time to develop all the evidence that s necessary. and i think mueller is showing every sign of getting it done. all right, jill and renato, thank you both. joy reid, host of a.m. joy joins me. what do you think is the significance of mueller sending folks to talk to steele? i think it s very important. i think you and ken made a really important point that this is a research document. it s a document from which the mueller team can work to find facts. it is not the fact. the important thing that is people sort of characterize the dossier as sort of the conclusions that this g
public would likely and perhaps rightly view the decision as obstruction of justice. and according to a new report, the white house and the justice department may have good reason to be concerned about jim comey s testimony. the former fbi director apparently was never told by jeff sessions or by rod rosenstein that they were concerned about his leadership before he was fired. and now comey s reportedly angry and ready to put almost anything and everything on the table in his testimony, including whether he felt pressure from the white house to back off the russia probe, and details regarding the memos that he drafted following some of his conversations with donald trump. joining us now are david frum, senior editor for the atlantic. renato marriotty, former assistant attorney for the northern district of illinois and he has prosecuted in federal obstruction of justice cases. and john harwood, editor at large for cnbc. on this question of executive privilege, courts have