Seeing transcripts of President Trumps conversation with world leaders. This comes as we learn that rob relishes taking the Russian Investigation to a grand jury. On friday the attorney general announcement is to try and stop leaks he said that endangered american security. Joining me now for the first sunday show interview is Rod Rosenstein the Deputy Attorney general and the one who appointed the special counsel after sessions vacations of the mr. Rosenstein, welcome to Fox News Sunday. Thank you. Attorney general Jeff Sessions is that there has been a surge in criminal referrals from intelligence agencies about leaks of classified information since the president took office. He says they have been as many in just these six months as they were in the previous three years. My question is, do you see a concerted effort by people inside this government to hurt or take down or try to take down President Trump . We evaluate every referral. And every particularly. So weve had a surge in this and we are responding appropriately. We have more resources and reevaluating procedures and making sure to investigate every week in an appropriate way. You must have some thoughts about why there has been a surge in the referrals as many in the six months in the Trump Presidency as in the last three years of the obama presidency. We have seen a surge and will respond appropriately and try to prevent this. The attorney general says that your department is pursuing three times as many criminal investigations as you inherited from the Obama Administration. Give us a sense of scale. Are we talking 13 . We cannot talk about this in terms of proportion but that has made an increase for resources. We reprioritize cases. We are providing supervision at a high level. We created a new unit in the fbi to focus on the leaks. Were going to devote whatever resources necessary to get them under control. He says you cannot give us the exact number but can you give us a scale . That would give the number. But there have been a tripling in the number of referrals. A ticket if they were 13 there would not be a serious problem. 13 would not be as many as we have. That is true. I had a feeling this was going to be tough interview. I am preparing for it some of the people to engage in leaks. I do not know this is the deep state faceless bureaucrats tells their weak house officials, members of congress. If you find any of them have committed these leaks, have disclose classified information, will you prosecute . But we need to look at in every link is the fact and circumstance. What was the potential harm caused by the leak . What were the circumstances . Then who it is and so forth. If we identify someone no matter what their position is that they violated the law we will prosecute them. Including white house officials and members of congress . Including anyone. The attorney general says that you are going to also review the policy when it comes to reporters and whether or not you will try to subpoena information from them to disclose their sources. Here is how mr. Sessions felt. We respect the Important Role that the press plays and we will give them respect. But it is not unlimited, they cannot place lives at risk with impunity. The head of the Reporters Committee for the freedom of the press says what the attorney general is suggesting is a dangerous threat to the freedom of the American People to know and understand what their leaders are doing and why. Your response . I think is an overreaction. Whereafter the leakers not journalists. People that commit crimes. We are going to use our resources to identify who is responsible for the lease and who has violated the law and hold them accountable. There some aspects to that. You are after the leakers, not the report as you say. The president has reportedly suggested at one point. Prosecuting the reporters if they leak i mean if they published classified information. Are you ruling that out . We are on the same position as the attorney general. We look at the facts and circumstances of each case. We determine whether somebody has committed a crime and if it is appropriate to hold them accountable care. So you do not consider publishing that classified information a crime . Generally speaking those that publish not committing the crime but there might be a circumstance. Im not seen any of those to date i would not rule out an event that they were a case where a reporter was purposely violating the law. Then they might be a suspect as well. But that is not our goal here it is to prevent the leaks. That is what we are after. We have not revised the policy. There is another aspect to this which is if a reporter gets information from somebody, puts it out and at the beginning of the amount administration they were very aggressive in going after their sources. And if you subpoena information than they refuse to disclose it they could still end up in jail. At the end of the Obama Administration after a backlash they loosened up. It has to be approved specifically by the attorney general and it was a last resort signal after reporters sources. You are reviewing that . Yes. That policy has been in existence for a very long time. The attorney general revised in 2015. It is possible he got exactly like that maybe did not. We will take a fresh look at that. We have gotten feedback from our career prosecutors and agents. Like some of the procedural hurdles delaying investigations so i think it is important for us to take a fresh look at it and evaluate whether or not there are any improvements to be made. And that would make any effort to get sources that unit putting a reporter refuses to disclose that source in jail we learned this year that special counsel Robert Miller is taking his case to a grand jury. And he cant and will not talk about the details of the case. But as a general proposition, does the fact that a prosecutor takes a case to a grand jury come what does it say about the likelihood of indictments . Chris, youre right. Im not going to comment on the case. Im not going to comment whether director mo has or has not had a grand jury. I read a lot about middle investigations the media. Some of the stories are false. Just not comment on investigations. It is important for a number of reasons. First of all we do not want to discard anyone that may be a subject in the investigation. Number two we do not want to interfere. The what does it say when prosecutor takes a case in general to a grand jury about the likelihood of indictments . In general it does not say anything about the likelihood of indictments. Because we conduct investigations and make a determination at some point whether charges are appropriate. What is the advantage in terms of the investigation to taking a case to a grand jury . Many of our investigations involve the use of a grand jury. It is an appropriate way to get the documents, sometimes you have witnesses to get the full testimony. It is just a tool that we use like any other. There are reports that miller has expanded his investigation to go into the president s finances. He was asked about that recently. [video] [inaudible] when you, i know i am on dangerous territory here but hear me out on this because im not asking about the investigation. When you appointed muller, you had to sign in order authorizing the appointment of a special counsel. He said that he was authorized to investigate any coordination with russia and i want to put these words on the screen, any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation. My question is, does that mean that there are no redlines that muller or any special counsel can investigate under the terms of your order anything he finds . The special counsel subject to rules and regulations of the department of justice. We do not engage in fishing expeditions. The order that you read is not detailed specifically who may be the subject of the investigation. Because we do not rebuild it publicly. But robert mother understands and i understand the specific scope of the investigation and so no, it is not a fishing expedition. I understand it is not a fishing expedition but is there any in the course of the investigation of the mothers that he is looking at if he finds evidence of a crime can he look at it . If he finds evidence of a crime it was within the scope of what we have agreed as the appropriate scope of the investigation and if it is something outside of that scope he needs to come to the acting attorney general to expand the investigation. But we do not talk about it publicly so the speculation you are seeing news media is not anything that i have said, anything Robert Mueller has said. People ask about is because you have this that began with a failed real estate deal in arkansas and ended up with monica lewinsky. To expand here need to get approval to expand this. Yes. Just as did ken starr. He received an extension initiated by the traffic. In a speech on thursday the president of the russia story a total fabrication and said here is what Justice Department people should be investigating. What the prosecutors should be looking at our Hillary Clintons 33,000 deleted emails. Dv that is an order from the president . Chris, the president has put very responsible people in charge in the department of justice. Sessions, rachel brandt, Christopher Wray and others that will be joining us soon. I can assure you that we will do the right thing and follow the rule of law. But the president can order the Justice Department to do things and he says what it appears a prosecutor should be doing is looking at Hillary Clinton, do you view that as an order . No chris, i view with the president is publicly something is it publicly. If he wants to give orders to us in the department he does it privately. And then if we have any feedback we provide it to him. And can you tell me whether or not he has given you an order . I will not. But as a he did not ask us to investigate particular people. That would not be right and it is not how we operate. And some other issues. Lets turn to the department crackdown on ilLegal Immigration. The attorney general sent a letter this week to four cities struggling with gun violence. Unless they cooperate with immigration officials. How do you respond to people that say the solution here which is to cut off federal funding to the cities have a real crime problem is worse than the problem . The challenge that the attorney general is addressing there is that cities that release criminal aliens, put everyone at risk. They put citizens at risk and we have seen most recently in this horrible case in oregon where we had an illegal alien who was subject to the caymans. It was ignored by local authorities and was released committed a violent crime. But Law Enforcement officers at risk. Someone is already ngl, if they put them back on the street in his own federal agency did not track them down. That is another risk. That is a kind of danger the attorney general is seeking to address. The final thing here, they are saying mandatory minimums, conservatives like rand paul and mike lee, who have been pushing for criminal Justice Reform say that the results of this is going to end up feeling the prisons with nonviolent lowlevel offenders instead of going after serious criminals. Violent criminals. Your response to that . Percival the priority is to prosecute highlevel drug dealers. Not to fill the prisons with lowlevel drug dealers or drug users. In the policy just returns the department to the traditional policy weve been following since the carter administration. That the presumption is case is to charge the most serious criminal offense but in the event that the prosecutors believe it is not justified, they can make an exception. They just need to document it. Thank you mr. Rosenstein. Thank you for your time. Ive got to say, it was a challenging interview but i really enjoyed it. It was really quite interesting. Thank you. Thank you, it is good to be with you. Up next, thom tillis has introduced a new measure. At them show me minivans with no reported accidents. Boom. Love it. [struggles] show me the carfax. Start your used car search at the allnew carfax. Com. Its looking up, not down. Ng fits being in motion. Boost® high protein its intelligent nutrition with 15 grams of protein and 26 vitamins and minerals. Boost® the number one high protein complete nutritional drink. A look outside the beltway at the queens city. Charlotte north carolina. As Robert Mullers investigation heats up there is a moved by senators from both parties to protect his special counsel from being fired. Our next guest, thom tillis cosponsored a bill this week to do that. Senator, why did you introduce the legislation and how would it work . Well, the reason we introduced legislation, this is something that i talked about last year and the year before under the Obama Administration. For the legislation does is codify the recent procedures in the department of justice for the only thing it as is a review after the fact, after special counsel has been removed subject to a threejudge panel. So we can make sure that it was done for proper cause. Your cosponsored democratic senator chris coons says the reason that this bill was introduced and is on the screen, is to expressly design to threaten the president s power to act in an abrupt and inappropriate way. He say you have been thinking about them for years. But there seems to be some belief in this and it is certainly backed up by what the senator said about this president and his reaction. Very negative reactions to special counsel Robert Mullers investigation. I think that is right. That is where we put the Effective Date back to the date of the Current Special counsel. But this is an opportunity often times when you have the other party and the other white house, people want these kind of things but they do not have the majority support to do it. This is an opportunity to put something on the books that applies to the Current Situation that will be in effect Going Forward for this is something important. It is an important part of what we need to do to reestablish the public trust and the department of justice. That is why i am taken the opportunity to do it now. This is another very people on my side of the aisle may have some concerns with it. They would be pounding the table for this if we were taught in the present Hillary Clinton and investigation on something that may or may not involve her. But is some of this directed at the president . There is no question that it is. Because clearly the date that we have made it retroactive . This is about my confidence in the attorney general and in the department of justice to move forward in an appropriate manner. We just want, we do not want to disrupt the authority or the department of justice from removing a counsel to make that so the American People are shirtless on for the right reasons. Lets talk about the lack of the president has quality investigation a hoax and hunt with russia. This is what he said. The russia story is a total fabrication. It is just an excuse for the greatest loss in history of american politics. Thats all it is. Senator, do you think that the russian story is a total fabrication and a hoax . I do not know. I think what we have is an investigation that if we allow it to lead us to a conclusion we get a definitive answer to the question. I do not believe that the investigation is a witchhunt for example. I think that this is just a way to put this behind us because there are so many other things that we want to get to. Healthcare, tax reform, infrastructure. Im trying to do everything cancer remove distractions so that i can continue to support the president s agenda. What you make of the big news this week that the special counsel is taking his investigation to a grand jury . I think it is just part of the process. I cannot read anything into it. Grand juries are convened all over the country for good reasons. I do have a concern. I am not an attorney, i am not a lawyer. Im not going to get into the procedures. If it gets us to an expedient conclusion, im for anything that says that. I happen to think that it will turn out just fine. I want to get this nonsense and get to our dentist. Will visit the agenda in a minute i want to ask you about something else. Apart from the rush investigation that surprising, republicans have recently been pushing back on this president. Im going to put up a list. You passed a bill limiting his ability to lift sanctions on russia that was bipartisan republican and democrat figures are built to protect the special counsel from being fired. And republicans are keeping the senate technically in session 2 black recess appointments. Senator, that is something that one party usually does to the president of the other party. Well, i think actually maybe the republicans should get some credit for showing independence and not necessarily different to a white house that happens to share their party. One of the mistakes congresses have made over the past 70 or so years is convey a lot of authority down the street they should never have allowed to leave the congress physical is the difference is made to all of these bureaucrats writing regulations with very low control on congress. There are a number of things i think that we should focus on that wrestled back power that is appropriately centered in the congress. Not down the street. This is not about the president is about our institution. Lester to healthcare. The president said that congress should stay in session and should move and try again to repeal and replace obamacare. Senate Republican Leaders decided to go on recess. They are talking about both moving on from healthcare. Where are you on this dark . Unsigned a letter to extend into recess. We got a b. I would have been here all my pretty much as i love