out coincided with the first reports that the mueller probe was looking into whether the president had obstructed justice. they re connected. this all began when trump fired former fbi director james comey may 9th of last year when he fired comey. a move that led to the appointment of robert mueller may 17th. it wasn t long before the a.p., associated press reported in early june that mueller may expand his inquiry to investigate the roles of the attorney general and the deputy attorney general in the firing of fbi director james comey. in his testimony, comey himself bolstered the case for obstruction inquiry when he said he believed he was fired because of the russian investigation. it s my judgment that i was fired because of the russia
march 22nd, trump asked mike pompeo and dan coats to intervene with comey to get them to drop the flynn probe all together. that was first reported by the washington post. also that march last march, according to the new york times, donald trump erupted in anger when jeff sessions recused himself from the russian investigation. he needs his attorney general to protect him. then on may 9th, trump fires comey. the next day he tells lester holt the decision had to do with the russian investigation. jennifer? he has tried over and over again to decapitate this investigation. what he doesn t realize of course, could you fire all these people and the investigation would still go on. that s a misnomer in his own mind. he clearly has tried again and again to interfere, to obstruct and what you re seeing is a pattern. no one of these is perhaps sufficient for a prosecutor or even the american public. but when you see a persistent pattern time and time geb in the same vein. he tried to f
because it has something to do with mexico potentially. then he thinks mccabe is it out get him because his wife was a democrat and got help down in richmond. he s always assuming somebody is up to something for their own interests. what does he think mueller s doctors are? he may think mueller loves the fbi, believes in the fbi as an institution like the peace corps or the marines or the catholic church or something he believes in as sistering reality that needs to be protected. here s a president fired comey, the head of the fbi because he s doing his job and says damn it, i m stepping down here. is that what he sees in mueller? i think he sees that mueller and comey are very good friends and mueller is here to avenge what happened to comey. it s shakespearean. they worked together, know each other, but they re not best friends. they re not as close as the president
so this isn t a vendetta. no, i don t think anybody would think bob mueller would lead an investigation to help a friend who obviously got fired. to be fair, no one would want one of the country s best prosecutors, robert mueller and 16 of his ace prosecutor friends and the world s best law enforcement agency, the fbi, looking at everything that you have ever done. it s sanity on the part of trump, not paranoia. they are coming to get the truth and the truth is not going to set trump free. trump should be more worried about obstruction. he doesn t understand the law. he s clearly worried about money laundering and his financial trchs. that s a red line i think a line in the sand that mueller crosses that, all bets are off i think. that s exactly where i was going. he went through this experience in march with comey where he blew the world up. people were screaming that this was potentially obstruction. he learned nothing from that or he didn t believe it or doesn t think th
obstruction of justice unfolding before us in realtime with the actions and statements that he s making, you referred earlier to his saying he is fighting back, and that he has a right to fight back. he is entitled to make a defense. he has a right to present arguments and facts that exonerate him. he has no right to misuse the powers of his office to intimidate witnesses and fire prosecutors and hold documents or destroy them. and that is a very clear line that evidently he doesn t respect. it is interesting that a lot of these comments not happening in secret rooms somewhere. they are happening via twitter or in the public sphere. now, trump ordered mueller to be fired in june of last year, seven months ago, since then the president said on multiple occasions he s not interested in firing mueller. i m going to dismiss him? no, i m not going to dismiss