Dana we miss having colin allred on, congressman from texas 32. Well have him on again. But we had Breaking News with the Attorney General resigning from his position at shepard continuing coverage as the Attorney General, Jeff Sessions has resigned. A replacement is at the ready. The ramifications are many. Reporting begins now from capitol hill. Justice, the wise house and beyond. First to the man that broke the story, john roberts live on the north lawn. John . Only by virtual of our terrific producer at the Department Of Justice, jake gibson who said he had information. We got it confirmed. So the president this morning asked for the resignation of Jeff Sessions. This was before he went in to that sometimes crazy Press Conference that was scheduled for 11 30 a. M. He knew that there was going to be a Resignation Letter that was coming over from Jeff Sessions
at the Department Of Justice at any moment. We have confirmed with sources that Matt Whitaker and the president has tweeted a
we have to judge what their product is. the first thing we require them to do in this bill is put a code of ethics on themselves. that would include enforcement capability, a process. again, you can t have justice without process. there has to be a process, we will evaluate what they propose. and if it is not good enough, we will have, you know, time to give up and do our own for them. but the two areas, other than having rules themselves, will be focused a lot on the first is recusals, making sure that there is a real recusal process. and the people don t just walk away from a recusal question without disclosing why they decided not to recuse, and leaving a record of the justification and to be tested again, against the ethics process. and most important of all, i think is transparency. the justices need to be reporting gifts and monuments, and hospitality, and favors,
they re going to ask him. and then where are we? then i think it s a duty of any senator, republican or democrat, if they can t answer the ethics question, which you pointed out earlier or matt s question, they can t vote to confirm him. the ethics questions i think is so important. because i agree, he s hit a lot of the right notes. you expect every nominee to come before this committee and hit those notes. in an important way he has broken with the long-term precedent when it comes to the recusal question. it isn t just does he hold the views of this memo, it s the fact that he shared them with the president s counsel inside and outside the white house. he shared them with mike pence s counsel. why was he advocating this position before the department and sharing it with all the president s men do you think that s going to change anything? i think the tell, the very important tell of where he is taking the trump position versus the long-standing doj position
the justice department as the head of the office of legal counsel, as the attorney general previously. that strikes me as wrong. what he s doing is writing a memo about his use of the law that at least one prominent professor jack olsen says are pretty standard. i think graham will say look, this is a man with a lot of experience. by all accounts, democrats and republicans alike admit he s a serious person with a lot of stand up to donald trump. the question is what happened to the recusal question. eric: if the probe is a roadblock for mr. barr, and what avenues will this be a smoother ride for him and ultimately will william barr be confirmed? i think it s hard to bet against barr been confirmed when you have a larger republican majority in the senate. i don t have a lot of faith and
recuse himself from overseeing it. the fact that he assured lindsey graham helps but it doesn t answer the questions. there is plenty of damage that can be done. look at the mueller report after the investigation. the recusal question. matthew whittaker was told by ethics officials you ought to recuse and he ignored that. i think that is one of the questions that senators need to ask william barr, if you are advised that you have a potential conflict, will you follow that advice?