is not the truth. is that just misspeaking or part of a campaign of deception? it s time to go deep. let s get after it. in an on the record interview with reuters, the president says that he could run the probe himself if he wanted. all this coming after his biggest tweet storm yet about mueller and word that his white house counsel cooperated with mueller s probe more than trump might have known. here to discuss that and much more, former attorney general michael mukasey. judge, good to have you as always. good to be with you. so if you were to hear that the president has decided, i m taking over this probe. i m taking it over. what would your reaction be? i would shake myself and wake up. just a dream? yeah. can he, or should he not? i i have no idea whether he can. i can t believe that he can. he d have to fire mueller in the
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making a false statement to an fbi agent.
Anderson Cooper takes viewers beyond the headlines with in-depth reporting and investigations.
he said that initially. they later reversed themselves and flynn was indicted for making a false statement to an fbi agent. but as point of fact, judge, he s told them things that were not true and things that he should have known and recollected in realtime. right. maybe he did. and maybe he did it because he thought there was some impropriety about having the conversation with kislyak. that s why sally yates, then at the a.g. s office, then went to don mcgahn and said you better figure out what s going on with this. i don t think there was any impropriety in that conversation at all. in fact i think flynn would have been committing malpractice if he had not had the conversation with kislyak. he is the guy who was going to be the national security then why did he lie about it? beats me. that s a good question, no? it s an excellent question, but i don t know the extent t
Earlier that would be my concern if i was advising the president. and, you know, you look at michael flynn. i think there are serious questions about whether he actually lied to the fbi. as we heard earlier in your show then why did he take the plea? strzok himself for the same reasons that people like pat nolan and many others take a plea is they don t want to confront the potential alternative because the truth may not come out, and they know it. wait, i don t understand. let s take one more bead on that. sure. and they cut their losses. i get that argument in certainly criminal situations where you know they re going to get you on something so you try and cut yourself a good deal. but the argument keeps being made on behalf of michael flynn, general flynn, that, you know what, he did nothing inappropriate. he should have had that conversation with kislyak. there s nothing wrong with it. well, then, why did he lie about it, and why wouldn t you go to trial and let t
It. wait, i don t understand. let s take one more bead on that. sure. and they cut their losses. i get that argument in certainly criminal situations where you know they re going to get you on something so you try and cut yourself a good deal. but the argument keeps being made on behalf of michael flynn, general flynn, that, you know what, he did nothing inappropriate. he should have had that conversation with kislyak. there s nothing wrong with it. well, then, why did he lie about it, and why wouldn t you go to trial and let that come out? well, i don t know that that was the decisive factor. i think remember in flynn s case, you had his son involved, and they were holding threats over his son over his head. that s a pretty common tactic. we ll drop all this stuff on all the people you care about if you just take the bullet. and, you know, that kind of tactic is not appropriate prosecution, but it is used. and from a prosecutor s standpoint, i ve worked with prosecutors. i v