Page 72 - Devlin Barrett News Today

So the 2018 winter olympics have officially kicked off. vice president mike pence was there cheering on the u.s. olympic team this morning at the opening ceremonies. take a closer look. sitting basically right above him is none other than kim yo-jong, the sister of kim jong-un, the north korean leader. look at that. the olympic games may have dialed down the temperature, the tensions in the region for now, but the vice presidenttell ing lester holt that theyre not letting their guard down. >> we...

Senior adviser. joining me now devlin barrett, national security reporter for "the washington post," back with me sarah westwood and aaron blake. devlin, i will start with you. the fact a lot of aides or staffers are on temporary security clearances is important, but jared kushner, when it comes to the inner, inner circle of the presidents team, that seems to be sort of mission critical at that point, no? >> absolutely. its definitely the oddest part of people working for months and months witho...

Acres trump appointee, lets remind everyone, is being called into question. >> right. youve now got a situation where the justice department and rod rosenstein, in particular, are on record, opposing something that trump, in his own words, says he 100% wants to do. not a ton of trump appointees survive, by my account, open opposition to the president. obviously people are concerned about rosensteins position in the justice department and what any change in his situation could mean for the ongoin...

Interview on a false -- brian: who wrote this story? >> devlin barrett. brian: why does that matter? >> peter strzok involved intimately involved in this case texting paramour there lisa page and mentioned devlin barrett. brian: leaking to "the washington post." now is he writing the story. >> while he was at the "wall street journal." he was their source to leak it to. fascinating. steve: thank you very much for joining us two days in a row. >> two days in a row no sleep. i love you guys. brian...

But everyone is still also being fairly polite and in how they describe these discussions, a key point being when these two officials, the fbi director and the deputy attorney general go to the white house, the house committee at that point hadnt even voted. but everyone basically knew what the vote was going to be. the writing is on the wall here as to how this is going to play out. but its going to be painful and its going to further alienate the white house from the fbi and the white house fr...

Heed it, number one. number two, as devlin was laying out, rod rosenstein was on a suicide mission yesterday. this is a guy who, the ice who he said is thin beneath his feet. in the interest of trying to protect this classified material, he knows how politically vulnerable he is. he knows donald trump probably wants to fire him. yet he still goes to the white house chief of staff and says hey, look, you got to stop the release of this memo. knowing it will increase his own vulnerability. in the ...

Despicable and i couldnt be more disappointed. >> were in the midst of a rolling, i think rolling constitutional crisis. and its the reality that unlike richard nixon in 1974 when he gave his state of the union, a year into the watergate investigations, this investigation has more breadth. no one claimed richard nixon was a traitor. no one claimed richard was aiding a foreign government. or he was guilty of gross domestic abuses, this is a two-pronged investigation, youve got all of the obstruct...

Nunes memo could justify the dismissal of rosenstein in some way. thats a really alarming prospect for a lot of folks who think the mueller investigation needs to be protected and insulated from you know, the political efforts to attack it. so i do think that rosen stein is in a precarious position. hes never been in a super safe position to begin with. now is one of those times where i think everyone is watching and waiting to see, is something going to happen now? is this going to be a final s...

Around that. >> the "washington post" reports citing people briefed on the meeting that top justice department officials, deputy attorney general rod rosenstein and fbi director chris wray appealed to trumps chief of staff, john kelly, to stop the release of a classified memo by house republicans on the intel committee. the "post" reports on monday shortly before a vote to make the document public, rosenstein warned kelly that the memo could jeopardize classified information and implored the pre...

House than theres been in some time because of this russia investigation issue. and you know, theyre asking and i think my sense from the folks im talking to is they know this is a high mountain and they probably wont get there. theres a lot of concern that the white house and the president are determined to have this released in some form. and you know, for the intelligence community they think its a dangerous precedent to set and i think the implications are bad not just for the moment and wha...