version of this truth. let s hear what he has to say. two points i ll make. number one, insofar as we think there were massive leaks before and the president might have a legitimate gripe, i don t believe any of those are coming from the mueller investigation per se. i guess what i m saying, if you are turning your gripe about that into an attack on robert mueller and the special couns counsel s investigation, you re doing it for a different reason. the motivations are different. as someone who is a civil libertarian on these issues, i have con seshs about how we do spying on american citizens. one of the reasons i have concerns about that, it must be said, mr. clapper who admitted he told congress lies about surveilling the american public, that s a different con serb. i want to rewind what mary katherine said. it could reframe how we look at this discussion. we understand christopher wray, one of the reasons he pressured
lawyers are in active negotiations with representatives of the special couns counsel s office. there was some talk about written questions and answers. nobody thinks that mueller will sit still for that. if you have an answer, you ll want a follow up to the answers. so you couldn t do that. so they will sit down, you know, as you say, if they sit down in an interview, you don t have to put him under oath. any lie to the fbi is a crime as we saw because george papadopoulos and michael flynn pled guilty to lying to the fbi. there s talk about the length of the interview, there s talk about what subject matter, how broad the scope will be. you got to figure the president eventually will be sitting down with robert mueller and his investigators in person to answer questions. if he doesn t, remember, mueller could go to a judge and get a court order and subpoena him to
my guess is that s probably up for discussion, based on any given request. but the legal team all along has said that our strategy is to be transparent. we want to get as much information to the special couns counsel, that the special counsel has requested, as possible because we want this investigation to move swiftly and be finished as quickly as possible. thank you so much. let s break this down with our panel. legal analyst benjamin wittes. i lied, not a panel. it is all you. the president said he is willing to speak under oath. does that apply here? i mean, whenever you speak to the fbi, don t you have to tell the truth? yeah. so the under oath/not under oath distinction is not relevant here. what has been requested is an interview with the fbi. those are generally unsworn, and under 18 ucs, it is criminal to
christopher steele at some point in their inquiries. the news that these two congressional staffers who turned up at christopher steele s lawyer s office, nobody knew why they were there and nobody knew who sent them. they were two republican congressional staffers. the democrats on that committee said they had no idea what this was about. they had no idea that these staffers had made that trip or what they were doing on that trip. nor did any members of the senate intelligence committee, which is investigating these same matters, nor did robert mueller s office, the special counsel s office, robert mueller who is supposedly carefully deconflicting. so they re talking to witnesses and requesting documents and stuff doesn t mess with his criminal investigation. he didn t know these people were going to turn up at steele s office either. so politico reported friday that these two republican staffers
my sense is that the ranking democrat on the committee, adam schiff just wants to get past this. he believes he has a good working relationship with mike conway. he wants that to continue. and he doesn t want to be derailed in a big fight with nunez over control of the committee. he believes that between him and conway they can keep this investigation on the rail and not be derailed by nunez and by an internal fight. julian, last question for you. do you have any sense of whether we ever will see christopher steele testifying or handing over documents or in other ways working with any of these investigations either in congress or in the special couns counsel s office? i think it s unlikely as things stand now that he would come over to testify. i think it s more likely that he might be open to answering questions in london and schiff