i m christine romans. it is 32 minutes past the hour. memorial day weekend unfolds here. silence after lawmakers getting briefed by the justice intel officials about the confidential source in the russia investigation. it is not clear if the standoff with the house republicans and department of justice is diffused or about to explode. two briefings and hours of talks with no clarity from the house chairman devin nunes. he is threatening to hold deputy attorney general rod rosenstein in contempt for not turning over documents which the source said he did not get. the president and his conservative allies claim the fbi used a confidential source to spy on the trump campaign. u.s. officials tell cnn the source was not a plant. the briefings on thursday included an appearance by a trump staffer which was questionable. more now from justice reporter laura jarrett. reporter: two classified briefings and a surprise appearance by a white house lawyer and now more questions about what com
appropriate procedures. reporter: the republicans are not saying very much either. they have not suggested they need anything further at this point. in fact, the senate majority leader mitch mcconnell saying he did not hear anything that was particularly surprising. alex, christine. laura in washington. thank you. cnn learned that president trump s lawyers and robert mueller s team discussed the possibility of the january 27, 2018 interview before talks talked. raising the issue of the investigation may have concluded by now. the january 27th date would have been days after trump told reporters he was eager to sit down with mueller. despite negotiations, the president s lawyers have come to believe an interview is unlikely, but the two sides continue to trade proposals. cnn learned that robert mueller s team is looking into the finances of the long-time
questionable. more now from justice reporter laura jarrett. reporter: a surprise appearance from the white house lawyer and now many more questions about what comes next as the president s lawyer rudy giuliani essentially says the team needs to know more about this fbi confidential source before agreeing to let the president sit down with the special counsel office. the anticipation surrounding the briefings and what they entail was building all week with the guest list changing minute by minute. then emmet flood showed up. the latest addition to the white house team raising questions about the man participating in the presidency would be involved with the congressional oversight. the white house saying nothing to see here. he and chief of staff john kelly were only there for the start of the meeting and did not actually participate in the briefing. on the substance of what they heard, democrats say they have not heard anything to support the theory about the spy or mole
hill, the president actually lashed out, again on twitter, calling the inspector general an obama guy, even though he has served under multiple republican and democratic administrations also, saying he has no prosecutorial power and his reports have been late, referring to a report on former fbi director james comey. so no word from the president yet reacting to the justice department s move here, but, of course, the day is still young, john. will the inspector general be enough, that is a huge question. laura jarrett, thanks so much. joining me now, cnn national security analyst juliette kayyem and daniel goldman. i want to start with you here, the constitution does seem to give the president executive authority over the executive branch and the department of justice in there. there may not be a strict legal issue here. what is the normative issue here? what is the potential problem with the president ordering an investigation into an investigation of him? there are a couple of pr
classified documents. joining us right now is cnn justice reporter laura jarrett. so do we know why the doj with held these documents? yes, fred, i obtained documents that says that the justice department made it quite clear to chairman nunes that they were not going to able to turn over could endanger the lives of sources, could jeopardize an ongoing investigation. now nunes says he continues to need these documents as he continues his own extradition on the russia investigation. but it will be interesting to see what happens here, we have seen how these fights play out, where he demands documents, the justice department relents and turns them over. but it appears that the doj really digs its heels in. and cnn has reported that the justice department has demanded these documents before and