they're going after this investigation because they don't want it to go forward. teir options are getting limited at this stage. someone may be talking. the investigators may have turned someone and so this is -- we're in a very, very compressed time frame right now. >> just quickly, julia, you wrote an op-ed regarding pardoning and it could be totally disastrous but the bigger concern is national security if he were to pardon somebody related to this russia investigation. >> right. so the collusion issue -- imagine if he pardoned people who were at least being investigated for collusion of russia, what will that say to russia? it's essentially come hither, for 2018 or 2020. and say that to china and to iran, and maybe even to our allies that they can try to influence our elections. either through direct contact with a campaign or even as we saw with russia through the cyber manipulation of information without any recourse.