members and friends of defendants asked him to go easy on people. but this is the president of the united states talking to the fbi not to prosecute one of his friends. isn t that a little different than what mayor giuliani is talking about. certainly it is different and the behavior isn t different and i think the president is right in that it was structured as not an order as both sides describe it so the unusual feature you ve zeroed in on is that he was the president talking to the fbi director but i don t think the request is unusual, particularly in light of what we know of the michael flynn plea, frankly. bill, it s been hard to tell at times whether or not mayor giuliani is going off script or trying to get ahead of the news by making certain facts public. is this a pr game? i think he knows president trump has certain vulnerabili vulnerabiliti vulnerabilities. things he s said to the media