the doj adds in part, "the department of justice appointed special counsel to assume responsibility for this matter. we will allow him to do his job." joining us this morning from washington, cnn politics reporter tal koppen, good morning. in a nutshell, where are we in the russia probe? >> with all that. >> what i see is democrats who are fervently wanting more investigation into potential collusion in the election, and i see republicans fervently want to expose leaks. >> yeah, you asked where we are. the answer is nowhere close to the finish line. i don't know if we're in the middle or just the beginning. but the important thing for the white house and for lawmakers, this is nowhere near wrapping up any time soon. and you know, every little continuing piece of the puzzle we get continues to fuel the fire. and, you know, people have their teeth into this, democrats and also republicans. as much as the white house would like it to go away, it's not any time soon. >> where we are in the u.s.