in the gun issue and are probably inclined to be sympathetic to her. so nothing she s doing is illegal. and in the thousands of e-mails and documents you received, it seems that this woman is intimately seems this wait a moment is involved in crafting lengthlation. so have she spoken to you, what is her reaction, because it s true when you look at this one one level you could say she s absolutely fantastic at what she does, the issue is why on earth is it legal if. that s a great question and no one has been able to answer that, un george. she essentially has the power of a lawmaker without any of the public accountability. in some cases, more power than lawmakers because she s able to dictate the process and they re deferring to her. she s got all the institution power. ultimately as someone points out, often acting as fig leaves. as puppets and she s the
you would receive an important piece of information that raises legal or constitutional questions, you know, anything that we might come across as part of our oversight duties, and that the first thing you would do would be go to the media. the second thing you would do would go to the very people who are being investigated to say, hey, look what i ve got here. and not even share it with your colleagues on the committee or quite frankly with your own staff. that to me is so irregular and lo and behold a couple hours later donald trump gets to put the bear est of fig leaves on the outrageous tweet about barack obama wiretapping. by the way, incidental collection and wiretapping the trump tower have ash salutely nothing to do with each other, but guys like me are forced to spend time explaining that to people because of what happened yesterday. the president that was apparently conducting an interview with time magazine asked chairman nunes was providing his update yesterday. this is w
the question now becomes, what kind of deal can mitch mcconnell and harry reid figure out to fund the government as well as extend the nation s credit limit? earlier today, there was a proposal by susan collins of maine that would have funded the government through march 31st and put the debt limit till january 31st. democrats said, no thank you, we want it to be longer. now they have to figure out how to get a long-term extension for government funding and a longer-term extension of the debt limit. and what do republicans get in return for that. mitch mcconnell is going to want something. i suspect that s what the conversation is going to be at the white house between these senators and the president, what type of fig leaves can we offer mcconnell to provide him some cover to get a vote. now, the clock is ticking. the deadline is thursday. but the way the senate works with their parliamentary procedure, it s possible for one senator to delay legislation like this for a considerable am
they are set to convene. joining me now, policy reporter for the washington post. good morning, zachary. good morning. so we are seeing some promise to resolving this debt ceiling crisis. give us a sign washington is close to a deal. well, there are basically two tracks right now, one in the house and one in the senate and both have promise. although the white house seems to prefer the track on the senate, which would essentially kick this battle into early 2014, extending the government funding bill through march and raising the debt limit through january. that would be contingent on a few fig leaves, a delay in the medical device tax as well as changes to make sure low income people getting subsidies are reporting their income correctly. there is hope that can be the best effort. there are still a lot of barriers left. not enough time to raise the debt limit. i think that said, doesn t it
called upon house republicans to stay strong, sort of put your money where your mouth is, senator cruz from the house gop leadership. now the eyes are over to the senate gop and their negotiations with harry reid and the white house. what will come out of those? we ve heard rumblings of a possible deal manufactured by susan collins, a senator from maine along with joe manchin, the senator from west virginia. this deal could possibly be a six-month extension of the debt limit as well as a year-long government funding bill. within it there would be repeal of a medical device tax for two years in the health care bill as well as other sort of fig leaves that the republicans could bring back to their members and say, a-ha, this is what we got in exchange for funding the government and extending the debt limit. these are changes to the health care law or some drivers of our debt. we don t know what that deal looks like. there are senators coming out of the meeting there in the senate chamber