national security and counterterrorism before that, so a total of nine years working closely with him after 9/11, i never had an exchange with him where he asked me what my political affiliation was, what my political leanings were, it was always just the facts approach, and as the old colloquialism is that the fbi at that time was an equal opportunity investigator. whether you re a republican, democrat, independent, no party affiliation, whatever, the idea was if there are credible allegations that you have violated a federal law that the fbi has jurisdiction for then the fbi would follow up and conduct a thorough investigation that is impartial without regard to politics or any outside influence. and i think that s what he tried to adhere to, and i think that s what he did in his special counsel role, it just wasn t a tour de force in terms of his testimony today. so no concerns about him getting
perception didn t marry up with what you were watching. it doesn t take away from what he said exactly. i agree with that. but it was jarring when you looked just even in the early to mid-2000s, some of the testimony he had and watching the performance today, that was the sort of juxtaposition that i was people i talked to today that know mueller, worked with mueller, people at the fbi, retired now, close to him were very surprised. yeah. no one expected this today and i think that is what is in the end is going to be partially the story line here. we were expecting a much more crisp kind of yeah. not that he would give much different information. no, but someone i think what pistole said there about the this is what i said earlier, when you are in that position you have to have a command of the facts and he did not. that is what i think was so interesting in all of this. yes, this is a 400-page report yeah. but you are the leader here. you are the one t
to end. yeah. secondly, i think the chairs of both committees, and jerry nadler in particular, really set the table well. mmm-hmm. and got answers that sort of got to the critical points in the early part of the hearing. yeah. but more importantly, this is not the end of the hearings. we re going to have hearings that are going to have witnesses star witnesses like don mcgahn. and that s the meat of this thing. okay. all right. this hearing was not meant to sort of close the book on this. quickly. democrats? it was jarring to see the president come out on the driveway and declare victory and triumph on a day when the testimony was no obstruction, false. complete exoneration, false. the president and the people around him welcomed election interference and lloyd about it. yeah. the president can be indicted when he gets out of office. yeah. putting aside criminality, at the end mueller said he did things that were unpatriotic and immoral and dangerous.
supposedly yes, you are doing this with your team, but you re the head guy of this office. i want to move on but go on. no, to the what happens next. the story abotoday is about the messenger. i think that the story is about the the long term i was going to say, if you put that aside. it s going to be about the message. what was successfully done and john picked up on it as well was by the intelligence committee hearing testimony. i thought mueller turned the story masterfully about law. really the volume ii question, is there a question of obstruction of justice, to the question of loyalty. he kept using this word loyal or disloyal. what did it mean to be a president of the united states and his family and what they did with the russians? that s not a legal question. that doesn t require you to have a law degree. that, to me, is something that is graspable. that s something that i can explain to my mother or someone on the street. do you think it s loyal of people to do
to politics or any outside influence. and i think that s what he tried to adhere to, and i think that s what he did in his special counsel role, it just wasn t a tour de force in terms of his testimony today. so no concerns about him getting an oscar nomination for best performance in a dramatic series or anything because that was not his role. he was never seen as as the spokesperson to be out there trying to carry the day, he was the person who could gather the facts, do the thorough investigation and then make sure that all the prosecutive avenues were examined and then as appropriate follow those that he believed were appropriate. so, again, coming back to the olc opinion about not prosecuting a sitting president, that would obviously frame so much of that part of the investigation as to what were the potential overt acts in furtherance of that conspiracy? was there obstruction?