removed. well, i want to go back and correct one thing. he did not recommend that comey be fired. in fact, this letter said very clearly that the decision to fire the fbi director should be taken with great care and study and thoughtfulness and he refrained from recommending it. but didn t he recommend new leadership in the letter. well, what he said was we need an fbi director that has the attention and command and respect of everybody. it turns out, comey had that respect. i think what rod wrote in that letter is what he really believes and i ve known him for many years, as i ve known bob mueller, they are people with deep integrity and independence. a lot of people believe comey did not handle all of the public appearances that he made traditionally with regulations. rosenstein was very careful to say this should be done thoughtfully and maybe we need new leadership and, president, that s your decision. but carl bernstein said it
what i sense from him was an overarching desire to make sure robert mueller had complete discretion to take the investigation where he thought it needed to go. thank you. so another major piece of news there from senator claire mccaskill saying to reporters that rod rosenstein told these senators in these closed-door meetings that he learned that the then fbi director james comey would be removed prior to rosenstein s writing the letter to recommend the removal. all right. so carl bernstein, how does that jive with what we ve heard from the white house and then later we heard from president trump in the interview with lester holt on nbc saying i didn t listen to anyone s recommendation, i wanted to do this for quite a while. i think it s been evident for quite some time that jeff sessions wanted to use rose sen
but one of the things we ve seen where a white house has done that and the assumption was this southern democrat, he s not going to ask this question but he did. i don t know senator lieberman, a man who wanted to be vice president of the united states came very close to being vice president of the united states would have the bigger picture in mind and see the opportunity to be remembered for getting to the bottom of a scandal that isn t just a domestic scandal but with international implications. you get lieberman, a man with respect on both sides of the aisle, you combine that with mueller and you have the likely scenario for a deep, serious investigation of the russia hacking and possible collusion scandal. point taken. carl, back to your monkey wrench point. rod rosenstein, deputy attorney
mueller about. i ve got to go. thank you very much. senator lindsey graham with lots of questions. there s been a closed-door meeting with rod rosenstein, the person who appointed the former fbi director robert mueller to be the special counsel in this russia probe and so carl bernstein, tim natali, you guys are still with me. the headline out of that, carl, is that senator graham says it seems no longer will this probe be seen as counterintelligence but as a criminal investigation. that seems significant to me. your take? i think that s absolutely right that the gravity of the criminal investigation has taken precedence over a public more public investigation by the congress of the united states. but i think we ought to look at this in terms of what the president of the united states
be too cynical about this because i cannot imagine that lieberman, if he were in that job, would not take it seriously and go for the letter of the law and spirit of the law and particularly with robert mueller as the head of the investigation, as the special counsel. and what has really happened here is that rod rosenstein has thrown a monkey wrench into this coverup and into the ability of the trump white house to stonewall and put impediments into the investigation. let me get to that monkey wrench in a second. but carl, i want your two cents because lieberman was a democrat. that s great for bipartisan support. but listen, the president needs to shore up support in his own party. it doesn t hurt that he s close friend with the likes of senators mccain and graham? i learned a long time ago never to second guess carl bernstein s political instincts. smart man.