there are people who've been watching attorney general barr, people out there in the country, in our audience, who i think regard him as a protector of the president in all things. if -- if william barr wanted to protect the president from any effect of this investigation, could he have shut it down? >> that would be very, very hard to do. by design, lawrence, the u.s. attorney's office, the u.s. attorney community, has an extraordinarily thin political layer. for instance, in the southern district of new york, the only political appointee is the u.s. attorney. jeffrey berman. everyone else in that office, everyone else, is a career prosecutor. a career support person. a career analyst and the like. the notion that an attorney general could shot down a valid investigation in the u.s. attorney's office seems to me to be pretty farfetched. by the way, one minor point that i'd like to make, as u.s. attorneys, again, joyce and i had this experience, we have an obligation to file reports with the department of justice, with