important source for the fbi. the fbi has lots of informants who give them very valuable information. and when they do so, they are assured of confidentiality. their identity is going to be protected. and so this informant is i believe is at risk right now and of course i would guess this will have a chilling effect on other informants who already work with the fbi and certainly make it more difficult for the fbi to recruit other informants. in the new book facts you talk about the vital role of confidential informants. you say it s essential for people working in the intelligence community to stay true to the key tenets, serve truth to power even if the power doesn t listen to the truth. how can they do that if the power doesn t listen to the truth? well, they have to keep the metaphor i ve often used,
can continue to serve truth to power even if the power doesn t listen to the truth. this is a naked phreud cal play working for the president on some levels. you come from a culture where people don t trust. we don t know what you re doing. we don t know. he s playing on that. and it resonates. not easy to come back. you re right, chris, it is. that does characterize the image, the optics of the intelligence work that is necessarily secretive because of the importance of protecting sources, methods and people. that s one reason why congressional oversight is so important. it is not like the department of agriculture, the department of interior. everything they do is essentially transparent. not so in the intelligence community. so that places a greater burden
knows that they re going to be pressured to snitch on trump. so trump s lawyer goes to their lawyers and says, let s see if we can work out a little something something. my client happens to have there extraordinary power to pardon anybody. you know what i m saying? the legal term for that is obstruction of justice. the fact that the president does have there pardon power doesn t mean that if he uses it to thwart an investigation against himself that it s not obstruction of justice. so again, it s the same as when he fired comey. he has the constitutional power, the legal authority to fire comey. but it s still evidence of his corrupt intent. this brings to us this tricky issue that is we re moving forward which is the case for obstruction seems to me very strong just on the face. if this weren t the president, if we re talking about someone else, all the actions he s taken. but the question of what does
have there pardon power doesn t mean that if he uses it to thwart an investigation against himself that it s not obstruction of justice. so again, it s the same as when he fired comey. he has the constitutional power, the legal authority to fire comey. but it s still evidence of his corrupt intent. this brings to us this tricky issue that is we re moving forward which is the case for obstruction seems to me very strong just on the face. if this weren t the president, if we re talking about someone else, all the actions he s taken. but the question of what does that amount to in the absence of him having some sort of underlying thing that he did or what mueller could even do with it. you could do it by itself. all of the watergate figures were convicted for obstruction of justice. there wasn t any. not the president. you re saying the people around him.
forbids local authorities from asking about immigration status. this was back in december so it would seem that the president is putting it to jerry brown. i m going to take away your ice agents or you undo that law. dana: right. if the president is spit ballinblowing ideas told by chif counsel actually sir you are not allowed to do that it doesn t necessarily matter from a communications standpoint he is trying to make his case. can constantly go back and said i would have taken them out of there. they deserves it i had to keep them. in becomes rhetorical device. it does send a strong message and other states would probably take a second look and wants to back away from the hot stove. juan: so we have two california people on this panel. one of them is greg gutfeld. greg: that s correct. thank you for noticing that every option on the table. why captains we use nukes? what s the problem with using nukes? and why can t we build a wall?