been hearing in the last three weeks that he has become even more vociferous about the need for this investigation to go away and to the point people in the white house talking about it being an unstable place and at the level of instability is caused by his rants and rages, particularly about this damn spot that won t go out. that he seems consumed by where this investigation is going. it involves his daughter. his son-in-law. his son. himself. and he feels, apparently, that he s being closed in on. and it s affecting the whole temper of the white house and the question of whether the white house itself is a place of stability. it was interesting, caitlyn. yesterday in that 15-minute off-camera discussion the president had answering questions to reporters, he described all the actions which others might describe as attempts at obstruction, he described it as fighting back.
at the level of instability is caused by his rants and rages, particularly about this damn spot that won t go out. that he seems consumed by where this investigation is going. it involves his daughter. his son-in-law. his son. himself. and he feels, apparently, that he s being closed in on. and it s affecting the whole temper of the white house and the question of whether the white house itself is a place of stability. it was interesting, caitlyn. yesterday in that 15-minute off-camera discussion the president had answering questions to reporters, he described all the actions which others might describe as attempts at obstruction, he described it as fighting back. exactly. that s how he saw it, not as tampering or obstruction of justice but fighting back. it s interesting to look at what the president has said privately about robert mueller according to maggie s reporting and
to be an investigation and he spelled out that the standard of them starting an investigation is extremely high. they just won t go out and say okay, let s see what incidental things we have here. i think a they have a body of evidence. now let s not confuse intelligence as we have the intelligence community as an evidentiary standard but they have to have something before the fbi will stop what they re doing, task out their national counterintelligence officers who are spy hunters, by the way, not just normal fbi officers and bring them into the process. this is something else. what is the significance of it being a counterintelligence investigation? the fact that it s a counterintelligence investigation means it s probably less likely there are criminal charges. it s about understanding what foreign intelligence activity has occurred so it was notable that director comey indicated as
representative eric swalwell, thanks for your time, appreciate. it my pleasure. joining me now, susan hennessey, former for the national security agency s council and terrorism analyst malcolm nance. malcolm, i want to start with you on a deceptively simple question. sure. what is an investigation. i ve been turning this over in my head but i don t know what the scope of that could mean. there s someone running a google search or we have 80 agents working around the clock? i think that was addressed toward the end of the session yesterday afternoon when i believe one of the republican congressmen asked director comey what are the standards for this to be an investigation and he spelled out that the standard of them starting an investigation is extremely high. they just won t go out and say okay, let s see what incidental things we have here. i think a they have a body of evidence.
a teleprompter he does not stick to the script. he will go and say something else. that s not so, he s out for the every little guy as oppose to himself. we have the washington post reporting from david coming out there is a lot of evidence going against donald trump that he s for anybody but himself. they are using this last eight days to hammer home these narrative and they are hoping, hoping that if they cannot find republicans to come home to him which is what they need to happen, that they re going to make the waters so muddy that people who like hillary clinton or on defense about hillary clinton just won t go out to vote for her. we got an interesting piece coming up with gabe sherman.