Honored that recusal with regard to matters pending the Department Of Justice, but i just want to comment on what may have been on anybody elses mind or offer any opinion about that because its not for me to make those decisions. Well, it is exactly, i think, why Senator Schatz asked a whole series of questions about the scope of recusal, because i am a lawyer. Senator schatz may not be. He asked better questions than i did, but i also am having real difficulty understanding the scope of the recusal, its contours in definition, and i have an unresolved question about whether or not thats why the Attorney General failed to appear before us today, is to avoid having to answer direct questions about the scope of his recusal. I do appreciate and respect your appointment of a highly talented Special Counsel, and there have been questions from both sides that imply strong support for his independence and his conduct, and i appreciate the care with which you are answering my questions, but im
overtures by the russians to the campaign, to manafort, offering dirt on hillary clinton, and what was the result of overtures by manafort to the kremlin, offering information about the campaign. we know that dana boente has announced his resignation. do you know why he resigned? i don t know. it could be something completely removed, but you have to imagine there s a lot of concern within the justice department about what is happening to the department, that the independents of the department is being assailed. after watergate we created a distance between the white house and the justice department and that distance is vanishing. if donald trump orders deputy attorney general rosenstein to fire robert mueller, would you consider that to be an impeachable offense? it would be further evidence of obstruction of justice, and i have to think that rob
investigation into michael flynn. howie: when this happens, you are saying the president s tweets fuel it. erin: absolutely. i think it was probably in poor judgment in this situation for the president to get on twitter as quickly as he did. he might have considered waiting a day or two. howie: when he s talking about badly conflicted people, he s talking about mueller and rosenstein. erin: when he was referring to rosenstein in that tweet, which was clear, he s the one who asked for the memo from rosenstein to fire james comey. howie: erin mcpike, rich lowry and guy benson and michael tomasky. thank you.
and appropriate orders. so, is this case closed, story over on this? well, it is as far as mr. rosenstein s concerned, but it s certainly if the president were determined to fire mueller, he would find, presumably, someone to do it. so, you d have something like the saturday night massacre, where he would be directing rosenstein to fire mr. mueller, and if rod rosenstein refused, he would have to fire rod rosenstein, and then he would have to find his successor, someone in the department of justice who s been confirmed, and ask him or direct him or her to do it. so, it would be a blood bath. i mean, and if it went down the route a la watergate and how that played out, diane, what would the fallout be? what would happen to the investigation? well, if we look at history,