Investigation of russian interference into the u. S. Election and other matters. Its up to mueller to decide the other matters, to include the firing of the fbi director. Michael flynn, a meeting between the fbi director and the president in the white house. Just to be clear, the fbi investigation thats been going on, that was under Director Comey, that continues and that is what mueller is overseeing . He has oversight over the entire probe as it were. Youre not going to stop any activity in the fbi anymore, youve got a whole team there, and thats something youve heard from the acting fbi director, as they search for a new director, that theyre continuing their work. I have spoke to people inside the bureau, but this is a very independentminded mueller. One other thing ill note. I have been talking to people around washington in reaction to this, yes, comeys out, if you Huge Development today. Just two days ago, White House Press secretary spicer says frankly theres no need for a Special Prosecutor. So what is their thinking tonight . Jim acosta joins us now. So whats the late word from the white house . Reporter its hard to imagine a worse 72 hours in President Trumps life. And what youre seeing tonight, anderson, is a very different President Trump, a very restrained President Trump, hes not talking about socalled judges as he did after the travel ban. Hes not threatening the former fbi director james comey as he did last week when he talked about tapes on twitter. Consider this very restrained statement coming from the president of the United States tonight on the tapping of bob mueller as Special Prosecutor, it says as i have stated many times a thorough investigation will confirm what we already know, there was no collusion between my campaign and any foreign entity. I look forward to this matter concluding quickly. In the meantime, i will never stop fighting for the people and issues that matter most to the future of our country. An incredible turn of events when you consider the last week. Remember the white house put out a same that essentially laid some of the responsibility for the Firing Of Comey on Rod Rosenstein and you see Rod Rosenstein tapping bob mueller to be the Special Prosecutor. Something that no administration wants to see happen at fi stage, let alone 150 days into a presidency. Did rosenstein give a heads up to Attorney General Sessions . From what we understand, there was not much of a heads up before this announcement came down, from what i understand from talking to administration officials, Rod Rosenstein signed this order naming bob mueller as Special Prosecutor. White House Counsel don mcgahn was notified and very soon after that informed the president of the United States that there was a Special Prosecutor looking
how important is this . Its enormously important, but its also i think a rare moment of unanimity and relief. Because there is literally no more respected person in american Law Enforcement than bob mueller. When you look at his experience, 12 years as the fbi director. Head of the Criminal Division in the Justice Department. U. S. Attorney in boston. U. S. Attorney in san francisco. Appointed mostly by republicans, but occasionally by democrats, someone who has a reputation for integrity, for intelligence, for fairness. This is someone that both sides can trust. However it does mean that this is going to be a very serious and almost certainly lengthy investigation which cannot be good news to the white house. The president saying hes looking forward to this getting done quickly. Its not going to get done quickly. Best of luck with that. Dana you have new reporting on how this decision came about. What im told from a senior
republican source, Rod Rosenstein, and i think this is quite obvious based on the decision, and the bombshell we have tonight, the Special Prosecutor, was more and more agitated with the white houses actions and being put in the position that he had been put in, to the point where he was so angry, according to the source who was in contact with rosenstein, that he was ready to, quote, pack his bags, last week. With this decision, particularly on the heels of yesterday and the comey memo becoming public, and more importantly the content allegedly of the comey memo, this is basically the perspective of this republican source, throwing donald trump overboard. Now were talking about politically, and maybe even legally depending on how this goes. Wanting to separate himself, obviously, from this and say, look, you guys are on your own and youre going to have this guy who has an impeccable reputation and impeccable experience and so forth obviously in a bipartisan way to do this investigation. The one other thing that this source says and well see if this source comes to bear, that the next big move on capitol hill and the next big public event was supposed to be james comey going to capitol hill testifying publicly. Is that going to happen . It doesnt look like it. It is possible. But this source says probably what bob mueller will do is shut it down, meaning he will take stock of everything, including james comeys memos, including what james comey has to say, and perhaps prevent him or ask him, his good friend james comey, not to go testify. Hes a private citizen now so he can kind of do what he wants. Evan perez, who obviously is very steeped in these things, also notes if that happens, if james comey says huhuh, im not going to do it. Thats another bad news sign for the white house which means that bob mueller is going to incorporate the comey memo and
the comey conversation with the president into his investigation. If i could just add one point to that. Comey almost certainly, when receiving a request to testify in front of congress, will go to his friend bob mueller and say look, what do you want me to do . What can i do that will jeopardize your investigation the least . And mueller, starting from scratch is almost certainly going to say, hold on, dont do anything, let me get my hands around this problem and then maybe well see if its okay to testify. Gloria, what do you make of this development . Well, i think that it gives a lot of people some Breathing Room on capitol hill, the democrats have been calling for a Special Counsel, now they have a Special Counsel whom they respect and who is respected on both sides of the aisle. I was talking to a senior
seener democratic aide who said to me, its amazing to watch republicans on the Special Counsel go from we dont need one to hes amazing. So the republicans are applaud thing to a great degree because now they can go home to their constituents, they can say they are not ducking an investigation. They can say the Special Counsel is going to handle this and we need to get back to the peoples business. I think mueller is an impeccable choice. I think people on the hill believe that he is. I think they are going to want to conduct their own investigations and jeffrey knows a lot about this because he was involved in iran contra and theyre not going to be happy if Comey Doesnt Want to testify, to be honest, because theyre going to want to continue their investigation, the democrats, that is, and theyre going to want to continue to go out on their own so you may see a bit of conflict there. In your views, is this a good move . First of all its another selfinflicted wound, when the
president blamed Rod Rosenstein for the decision to fire comey and Rod Rosenstein responded the way dana said he did. He made himself unfireable and became the most powerful person in the Justice Department. I would say this is a mixed blessing. For the american public, its not such a good thing, we probably wont learn anything from this investigation, its going to be secret, we will never hear from a witness, in the end we will either hear no indictment or an indictment. To the extent that we want to know what really went on, an independent Investigation Commission of the kind of 9 11 or the challenger, would have been better for the american public. And i think President Trump could have avoided a Special Prosecutor if he had pressed for an independent commission earlier. Some democrats still want an independent commission. Is that possible . Absolutely. As gloria was saying earlier, the fact that you have a congressional investigation and a Law Enforcement investigation at the same time can generate controversy and conflict. The most dramatic example being the issue of immunity. Congressional committees want to get people to testify, so they want to give out immunity. Law enforcement, they dont want to give immunity, and the most dramatic example of this conflict came involved in the investigation i was involved in iran contra, where John Poin Decisioner and oliver north were given immunity. We in the Lawrence Walsh investigation prosecuted them any way. They were convicted but norths conviction was overturned by the Appeals Court because the immunity was said to trump the conviction. That sort of conflict is very much possible. David axelrod, can you envision any scenario in which much or his surrogates criticize
this . Having embraced rosenstein on the decision to fire the fbi director, i dont think hes going to hes boxed, hes boxed. One interesting thing about this, if the president truly believes what he said in his statement that his campaign and his associate also be cleared by such an investigation, then he should welcome this. Because if it had been the Justice Department that issued that statement, i think there would be broad skepticism about it. Bob mueller, if he were to conclude that there were no laws broken, that there was no such involvement, carries much greater credibility. But on this point of the commission, there are going to be many, Many Democrats who are going to continue to push for this independent commission. Because as he said, this process is going to be conducted in secret. And if this is a way of blocking the independent commission, that the country will never get the full picture of what happened. Theres another important reason too, its very likely no crimes occurred. If there was contact between the russians and the administration, it might be a terrible, terrible thing, but it wouldnt be a crime. So mueller wouldnt have jurisdiction to look into that. He cant generally look into things that might be politically or moralry bad. He is focused. He is ahab, looking at that white male. He gets the whale or he doesnt, but he looks at the entire sea scape. Whats going for the country as an independent commission could possibly be, as David Axelrod is saying, they want it to happen. Republicans right now are Running Congress and they are breathing the biggest sigh of relief, i think we can hear it
all the way up here in new york, because they feel that this is a big out for them. Because theyre going to take it out of The Public Eye . Out of The Public Eye, and they hope what it means now is when they go home and get beaten up about, you know, Whats Going On, they can say you know what . Its in the hands of a very well respected prosecutor, bob mueller and i dont know anything about it, i cant talk about it. The investigations arent over, so they are going to continue to investigate and hold hearings, so its not going to go completely underground. It wont go underground, but it wont be broadened. One thing about these congressional investigations, theyre not very well resourced. Youve got on the house side, seven parttime staff, working parttime on this issue, i think its the same on the senate side. The Special Counsel will be fully resourced to pursue this investigation and thats one reason why there was a lot of interest in seeing a Special Counsel appointed. Phil mudd, you know Robert Mueller. What do you make of this appointment . Boy, on a personal and professional level, this is profound for me, i had an office, Director Mueller was down the hall, i must have been involved in 1,000, 2,000 meet wgs him. I never saw anybody like him, ever. For any american who looks for integrity judgment, i saw him do personnel, political investigations that involved corruption, i watched him make decisions in thousands of cases, when you had to decide whether to arrest a kid who was a potential Suicide Bomber or let the investigation go. Anderson, i dont know what to say. I never saw anything like it. Judgment, character, integrity, humility. If you have a kid and youve
despaired that theres not a hero in america, Robert Mueller is it. Jeff, i heard you talk about leaks and this is something the president and republicans have been focusing on. Its not likely that there would be a tremendous amount of leaks coming out of this office. Despite our best efforts. We will try, and the fbi will still be involved and the fbi is many what leakier organization than anything affiliated with mueller himself. But certainly the odds overwhelmingly are that this investigation will be tight as a drum, and we will not know. You can see whos walking into a Grand Jury Room and whos walking out. You can know whos testifying. Defense lawyers whose clients are subpoenaed can talk about it, and they often do. But in terms of knowing Whats Going On in this investigation there will be an fbi
director, how do they Work Together, who oversees who and can the Special Counsel direct fbi agents to do things . The way it works, mueller will be in charge of the investigation. He will go to the fbi and say i need the following resources, i need 10 agents, and the fbi will almost certainly say well give you what you want. But the fbi director doesnt work for bob mueller. Mueller will be in charge of the investigate shub. Investigation. But he can draw on the resources of the fbi, and does he have his own staff . The fbi should work for bob mueller, lets be clear. Once j. Edgar hoover was exposed as the thug that he was, the fbi works for the Justice Department. Yes, he has an independent statue 10year term. Theyre not supposed to do investigations generally of potential criminal conduct. Except under the supervision of u. S. Attorneys or Justice Department attorneys and the Special Counsel is no different from any other prosecutor in the Justice Department, except hes not in the line of authority, hes been appointed specially, but he uses the same kinds of resources. So i think we can expect the same from him. Now remember that ten years ago, if they asked everybody about his predecessor, comey, we would have heard the same praise, he was boy scout, he was fantastic, he was the greatest at this. But he succumbed to power. And i think the difference is that the new director has learned a lesson. Hes not going to do what the old director did, although the temptations are there to do it. To be clear, he will also hire lawyers who will be the prosecutors and hes already hired two from his firm. All three of them have resigned from the firm. Heres a question that i have, which is that the congressional committees have a different job. They want to present this to the American People who are really concerned about whether there was collusion, the russia hack and all the things that we have been writing about and talking about for these past months. The Special Counsel wants to figure out whether any crimes were committed. He wants to prosecute, and again, to jeffrey, this is what happened with Lawrence Walsh and the congressional committees on iran contra. So you have people with kind of different goals, because i think what you see, particularly from the democrats in the congress is they want to shine the light on this, one way or another, and a prosecutor really just wants to prosecute and doesnt want to shine the light unless it will help him in his prosecution. The Special Counsel is focusing on the legality, not the moral or doing something political inappropriate or doesnt reach a legal threshold. The leak about the israeli spy is almost certainly not a crime. Now there is a crime, the people who leaked that information to the Washington Post committed a serious felony. And by the way, theyre the ones who told isi