bad picture. michael, you are a lawyer. yes, i am. playing one on television. the narrative here, which is interesting to me from a prosecution of a legal case or writing a report for consideration by congress for articles of impeachment is this in some sense the president being the president which is he speaks, he doesn t ask questions. it s a rat tat tat sort of free-wheeling state of mind monologue. but it doesn t necessarily say that there is an obstructive intent here. there s other evidence. paul s right. we flynn is cooperating. papadopoulos is cooperating. but as i just read these things, themselves, on quick read, it doesn t strike me that they re dangerous. that said, of course, if the president had just kept his mouth quiet about firing of comey, the firing of flynn, all of these things these would even be more benign than they
he could do to kind of get rid of the investigation which doesn t make that much sense to me. let s bring in james clapper. i understand you ve had a chance to briefly review these memos. just came out. i m wondering what is your take on what you have seen and heard from james comey so far. well, first, the memos are more detailed rendition of what has already come out. they very much comport with what has been said before. i said before that i was had every confidence that when jim comey recorded his conversations with the president that they would be very meticulous and very detailed and that appears to be the case here. i have to say i haven t read through all of them but i was beginning to read them as i was coming in here. so, it doesn t i don t think any big surprises here. just more detail except perhaps apparently the president wasn t
someone to have the gumption to get the tapes. why don t you see that as payback? i was a private citizen, that saw something i could do. and i did it and acknowledged it the moment i was asked about it publicly. i thought it was something that needed to be done. and a private citizen can talk about the conversations with the president. the average citizen doesn t think i m going to leak this to force the creation of a special counsel. it was an extraordinary gambit. i don t take any joy in it, i don t accept the congratulations. but the average private citizen didn t have a one-on-one conversation with the president of the united states where he asked him to drop a criminal investigation and tweet that he hoped there weren t tapes. i was in a position to do
seen at this date and time and clearly, the events of the last several weeks, you know, i m not hiding anything. these videos are going to eventually be released and so i thought it was appropriate to be transparent and show you exactly what we looked at, what we considered, what we did, before announcing any decision on this case. reporter: the decision to release this today related to the mayor s comments last week? no. it wasn t. this case, it brought again, i think back to your other part of the question, i do think the general public and the average citizen doesn t understand the use of force model. they don t understand the relevant case law. they don t. you re right. you re absolutely right. they don t. so i think we have to educate the public that how officers are trained, what they can do, what they can t do and when it s
really care about this stuff. doesn t want to discriminate against their neighbor. certainly, in my business, as a business person, it makes absolutely no sense for me to chase away good customers for any reason. this is a particularly odious one. because it is an attack on their freedom to live their lives. in that sense, it s completely unamerican. charles, your response and where does this go next? well, i mean, a couple of things. number one, i agree with lew entirely. this is an economy that still isn t robust. and this is isn t the conversation anybody who runs a business needs to have. people running businesses in this country have enough problems. in indiana right now, they re trying to find a way to fix this law without declaring lgbt people a quote unquote, protected class. ari, you re the lawyer. i only play one on my blog. but my understanding is, they can t protect local