but rudy giuliani, this is the closest that criminal activity has potential potential criminal activity has come to this president in my observation. what you saw with michael cohen, campaign finance, what flynn and manafort and what they were doing and who they might be compromised abroad, that s both at play with rudy right next to the president. that s right. and parnas and fruman are like the holikman and ehrlichman of this administration. it s a very ugly thing to say. understand we had the official u.s. foreign policy that officials were trying to execute and then you had this shadow effort by rudy giuliani with the support of other actors like
that countered. we learned the criminal part of what flynn did, including lying to the fbi. that counter intelligence concern is what leads us, the american people, to understand why it was so important that he had to go. i feel like we have a similar situation with trump tower moscow. the mueller report describes all this factual detail about the contacts between the kremlin and the trump organization about trying to do that russia deal and the president was lying about it at the time. nothing in the mueller report about whether or not that reflects any compromise or effort to gain leverage over that presidential candidate and that campaign and ultimately our government. that s the missing piece. was that investigation not done? well, i think the mueller report makes clear that what they focused on were the criminal aspects of the counter
we learned the criminal part of what flynn did, including lying to the fbi. that counter intelligence concern is what leads us, the american people, to understand why it was so important that he had to go. i feel like we have a similar situation with trump tower moscow. the mueller report describes all this factual detail about the contacts between the kremlin and the trump organization about trying to do that russia deal and the president was lying about it at the time. nothing in the mueller report about whether or not that reflects any compromise or effort to gain leverage over that presidential candidate and that campaign and ultimately our government. that s the missing piece. was that investigation not done? well, i think the mueller report makes clear that what they focused on were the criminal aspects of the counter intelligence investigation that was being conducted. when the fbi investigates something, it comes to it with all of its authorities, which include counter intell
the case for obstruction. joining us is senator blumenthal of connecticut, member of the judiciary committee in the senate. thanks for being here. thank you for having me. what do you mean when you say this voicemail from john dowd actualizes the pardon that was dangled to flynn? you quoted a part of what he said, which was not only that national security interests might be implicated in what flynn would be offering to robert mueller by cooperating, but also there s a quote that he needed a heads-up to protect, quote, all of our interests, not just national security, and the president, and he said, remember what our feelings are about michael flynn. those feelings are still the same after the president on repeated occasions said what a nice guy flynn was, what a good man he was. and that sort of dangling the pardon in the voice that was
joining us is senator blumenthal of connecticut, member of the judiciary committee in the senate. thanks for being here. thank you for having me. what do you mean when you say this voicemail from john dowd actualizes the pardon that was dangled to flynn? you quoted a part of what he said, which was not only that national security interests might be implicated in what flynn would be offering to robert mueller by cooperating, but also there s a quote that he needed a heads-up to protect, quote, all of our interests, not just national security, and the president, and he said, remember what our feelings are about michael flynn. those feelings are still the same after the president on repeated occasions said had a a nice guy flynn was, what a good man he was. and that sort of dangling the pardon in the voice that was projected in that tape was deadly serious, even a bit