independent country like ours that treasures or independence. we declared it. we may get to that point of course but there s a long way to go before we get there. you don t see russian involvement in picking trump? are you sure? they got a guy in parliament saying we did it. my point is that the mueller investigation is going to come presumably will come first and may come to you know some head before we get to the question. here s my question about jared kushner. okay. i don t like nepotism. we ve all learned through centuries of history, including the papacy, you don t hire your kid, your don t hire your son-in-law because you can t fire him. it didn t hurt trump to fireman that fort from the white house because he wasn t kin. he doesn t want to fire his daughter s husband. well that particular factor didn t come up explicitly in your reporting but one of the
has nothing to do with the senate letter. so, ron, let me give you a shot at that. let s just assume that you can find evidence that james comey handled a certain investigation, whether it s the clinton investigation or some other investigation did a really terrible job handling a certain investigation and pre-judged the evidence on a certain investigation. yeah. how would that affect him as a witness to what donald trump said to him about the investigation that he was conducting? i agree with mieke here. obviously it will color his testimony at trial or something like that. but as a legal matter, it doesn t affect it at all. it goes back to this argument you mentioned a minute ago. the trump lawyers argument that trump had the inherent authority to fire comey. of course he did. but he can t fire him, he can t exercise authority for an illegal reason. if someone walked in with a sack of cash to the oval office and said, fire comey and put my brother in, that would be bribery
trump had the inherent authority to fire comey. of course he did. but he can t fire him, he can t exercise authority for an illegal reason. if someone walked in with a sack of cash to the oval office and said, fire comey and put my brother in, that would be bribery. that would be illegal. he has the authority to fire and hire an fbi director, but he can t do it for an illegal reason. and the evidence here is pretty clear that the reason he fired james comey is not because he messed up an investigation but because he was pursuing an investigation, the russia investigation. and trump s firing him to stop that investigation, that is obstruction of justice. and however comey might have botched one way or the other the e-mail investigation, it doesn t change the fact that trump had no legal right was committing a crime if he fired comey to obstruct an ongoing investigation. and, david, that brings us to the obstruction of justice matter that the president s lawyers seem to be very
he is thinking about getting rid of mueller? i m sure he thinks about it every minute of every day. whether he will go ahead and do it he seems to have been talked out of it by his staff. he can t fire him. he has to get rod rosenstein to fire him unless there is good cause. so absent that the question is whether or not he tries to pressure him into doing it? there is so much we don t know about what is going on behind closed doors. there is one in the eastern district of virginia. there are cases against manafort. i think that is one thing you have to understand about this investigation. criminal investigation. we know that some trump associates and then there is this big swirl of counter intelligence investigation which is where they are looking at jared s finances and to anybody
thing about the mueller question one would think in another situation is look at what happened when you got rid of comey, and it just made things worse. he s not that creature. the other part of this, too, there is a bit of this where they are friends and mueller has a good reputation. that could be annoying to the president. i think that is fair for him to be annoyed by that. you just wouldn t hear about it publicly, but that s who he is. do you think it is possible he is thinking about getting rid of mueller? i m sure he thinks about it every minute of every day. whether he will go ahead and do it he seems to have been talked out of it by his staff. he can t fire him. he has to get rod rosenstein to fire him unless there is good cause. so absent that, the question is whether or not he tries to