president trump slamming his hand picked fbi director christopher wray for accepting the facts that were laid out in the inspector general report on the russia investigation which, of course, concluded that it was launched in an unbiased manner and it was valid. the president tweeted, quote, i don t know what report current director fbi director christopher wray was given, it wasn t the one given to me. with that kind of attitude he will never be able to fix the fbi. what did wray say to get the president to slam him in he reiterated the facts. it s important that the inspector general found that in this particular instance, the investigation was opened with appropriate predication and authorization. out front now, the former fbi deputy director andrew mccabe and as you and i were talking
you re an honorable guy, someone i can work with. i am concerned about one thing. that is your view about the separation of powers. that remains the question three decades later with the stakes far higher. that s your reality check. did you call him soaringin i dull? he said it as a compliment. we could use some of that. it s fascinating, all of the history. thank you very much, john. a high stakes hearing for president trump s attorney general pick. what it means for the russia probe. we have it covered right now. good morning, everyone. welcome to your new day, it is january 15. 90 minutes from now president trump s choice for attorney general will make his case before the senate judiciary committee and the american people. william barr will face questions about how he views the special counsel s russia investigation which, of course, he would
rosenstein said early on that if at some point in this investigation it was appropriate to recuse himself, that he would do so. let s remember as mentioned in the reporting of the last 12 or so hours that he wrote the letter on which the white house relied, at least said they did, to fire james comey back in may of 2017. is it time to recuse himself from the investigation? i don t think so. i think that basically he was used as a tool when he wrote the letter and trump was trying to set him up or sessions wanted to set him up for documentation to concerns about cocoa and expressed by both about comey and expressed by both sides after the election. i don t think he has to recuse himself. he was overseeing the russia investigation. the letter had nothing to do with russia, nothing to do with the interference of the election. robert mueller is operating a special docounsel now and is
as far as personnel changes to his department of justice. look, it s no secret that president trump has been angry at the doj publicly. previously some of his grievances include the department of justice not shielding certain republicans from investigations, not prosecuting some of his political enemies, and specifically what the deputy attorney general, the president according to sources, has voiced displeasure about the fact that rod rosenstein has given robert mueller free rein over the russia investigation which, as you know, the president describes as a witch hunt. the president, again, is not directly addressing this. he was asked about it on the tarmac as he was walking to an event in springfield, missouri, yesterday. though at that event he did send a message that could be perceived as a foreshadowing of the deputy attorney general s future. listen to this we have great people in the department of justice. we have great people, these are people i really believe you take a p
cohen also said something telling about robert mueller s russia investigation which, of course, trump has called a witch hunt. cohen said, i don t like the term witch hunt. maybe he is trying to send a message to trump or the public. the message seems clear that cohen is not necessarily going to stay on donald trump s team. there s a lot to work with there. this also on the stormy daniels case, he was asked about it. michael cohen has had a lot to say about the stormy daniels payment, his role in it up to this point. a very different that s why it was so surprising what he said this morning. quite telling what michael cohen would not say about the stormy daniels case in this interview. this is going back to the $130,000 payment that cohen made to the adult film star. this was part of the hush agreement to keep daniels quiet about her alleged affair with trump in 2006. he was asked if trump directed him to make the payment or promised cohen that he would