you said the president asked rosenstein on more than one occasion to, quote, put russia in the memo. what does that mean? what did the president want put in there about russia or about the president or the investigation? i don t know that they ever developed that idea beyond the president pchsz request, because rod, of course, indicated he didn t need to refer to russia in his memo. and that he didn t. he didn t put rushy in the memo. that s something that concerned us greatly, but it s one of those facts that we were looking at at the time and asking ourselves, what did the president intend with that comment. it s been reported that an early draft of the memo, though, included the president thanking comey for telling him he was not a target of the russia probe. yeah, there was an early draft of a letter that the president was relying upon. that s the letter i have referred to in the book in which that was given to me by the deputy attorney general. i would rather not discuss the
what did the president want put in there about russia or about the president or the investigation? i don t know that they ever developed that idea beyond the president s request, because rod, of course, indicated he didn t need to refer to russia in his memo. and that he didn t. he didn t put russia in the memo. that s something that concerned us greatly, but it s one of those facts that we were looking at at the time and asking ourselves, what did the president intend with that comment. it s been reported that an early draft of the memo, though, included the president thanking comey for telling him he was not a target of the russia probe. yeah, there was an early draft of a letter that the president was relying upon. that s the letter i have referred to in the book in which that was given to me by the deputy attorney general. i would rather not discuss the actual details of that letter because it s it could impact the ongoing investigation. if the president wanted it, i mean
that sparked the initial inquiry of justice. when president trump fired fbi director james comey, shortly after drafting a letter thanking comey he was not the subject of the fbi russia investigation. after an interview with lester holt the president then tried tying comey s firing to the investigation. regarding of recommendation, i was going to fire comey, knowing there was no good time to do it. and in fact, when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made-up story. it s an excuse by the democrats having lost the election that they should have won. that was a tipping point for the fbi, and they started looking into questions of trump and the election. of course, we know as candidate for president, the fbi found those close to trump held
pushing back against it on twitter. sarah westwood, appreciate it as always. during the campaign and after donald trump became president there were a series of russian-related red flags. let s talk about a few of them that sparked the inquiry by the fbi. may 19th, 2017, president trump fired then fbi director james comey. and shortly after, he drafted a letter thanking comey telling him he was not the subject of the fbi investigation. a couple days after the firing there was the interview with lester holt. and president trump then tied comey s firing to the russia investigation. regardless of recommendation, i was going to fire comey. knowing there was no good time to do it. and in fact, when i decided to just do it, i said to myself, i said, you know, this russia thing with trump and russia is a made-up story. it s an excuse by the democrats
open up this investigation into the president, that is just an incredible moment just to have the president, someone who had just been elected by the entire country come under investigation for working with one of our adversaries. highly unusual as you say. michael, thank you so much for joining us. i want to bring in jane newton small and natasha bertrand and kimberly atkins. jane, let s start with you. how does this report change what we previously knew about the mueller probe? morgan, we knew from james comey himself that there was no investigation to his knowledge when by the time he stepped down as head of the fbi, by the time he was fired by trump, trump had said in the letter thanking comey for his service after he was fired had tried to write in to that letter a thank you for comey for telling him three separate times that he was not being investigated by the fbi