Administration. Put this into context for us if this upset the president. The president was, at the very least, annoyed by what happened with the election in 2016. But now he is accused of getting access to the Trump Campaign before the election and after, and that Robert Muellers team then met with that informant and used it as part of their investigation. The president attempting to imply that maybe even perhaps president obama was behind this attempt skpl just put out a flurry of tweets talking about this topic. He said, now that the witch hunt is giving up on russia and is looking at the rest of the world hes talking about a New York Times report this morning that detailed a meeting with the president s son donald trump jr. And a group of businessmen from the middle east that we now know the mueller team is looking into. The tweet goes on to say, they should easily be able to take it into the midterm elections where they can put some hurt on the republican party. Dont worry about dems, fight and abuse, missing employees. Whatever happened to the server at the center of so much corrupti corruption. He goes on to say and why hasnt the podesta brother been arrested after he was forced to close down his large and successful firm. Its because he is very heavily connected. Is it because he is a very well connected democrat working in the swamp of washington, d. C. , he asks with a question mark. That first tweet you read off this morning where he said he hereby declares hes going to ask for a formal investigation into the dojs conduct into all this. We really have no idea what he means by demanding that someone looks into this. Does he mean a special prosecutor . Does he mean that somewheres for all of this, whenever he act. I also want to point out how democrats are reacting to such news. Senator mark warner. I have this to say about that New York Times report this morning. If the times story is true, we now have everyone trying to lean into this campaign. I dont understand what the president doesnt get about the law which ask if you have a foreign nation interfering in an american election, thats illegal. I would also like to find out clearly the Trump Campaign fm. So you see here the two sides of the story. Democrats like mark warner saying that the reason this investigation kicked off was because there was some concern that are perhaps the trump campai campaign. He believes the Trump Campaign wanted to break into his campaign for political reasons, which at this point, there isnt a whole. I guess the broader question is how does it affect Robert Mueller and his investigation . Cof course, all of this happening one year after the start of the Mueller Investigation. Momentarily, meantime for now, i want to bring in legal Senior Analyst and special assistant to Robert Mueller at the department of justice. Michael, let me get real clarity on how you might be able to react to it . When the president says i hereby demand and will do so officially tomorrow whether the department of justice looked into infiltrated or suggested the Trump Campaign for political purposes, just in that frame, can trump do so . In theory, yes. He is chief executive of the executive branch, and he can ask the fbi and department of justice to look into matters that he thinks is worthy of inquiry. To do that, essentially contrary to about 40 years worth of processes between the white house and Law Enforcement agencies where, to prevent an appearance of political meddling, federal Law Enforcement, administrations have afforded doing that sort of stuff. They want try to appear impartial, that the agencies act according to what they determine to be facts worsthy of inquiry. He has the power, i believe, but he shouldnt, i think, create an appearance that he is investigating or seeking others to investigate that which he thinks are political rivals of his, as in the case of the clintons and podesta in later emails, or to undermine the investigation that mueller is undertaking. Its not desirable by any analysis of white house, fbi, doj Communications Policies that i said have lasted for years ndk years, of course, multiple administrations. But i think he can ask those who work for him to carry out, you know, a request to inquire. Isnt there a difference, however, about an investigation that may be precipitated, or an informant looking into a campaign for political purposes versus whether another country might in any way be meddling . Well, you know, its hard to sort of separate sort of a purely domestic investigation or counterintelligence investigation, being in foreign interference or they could have in this case the fisa warrant to get carter page or recent stories about the fbi informant talking to george papadopoulos. These things sort of bleed into one another, so the hallmark of noninterference has been that the white house, irrespective of whether its counterintelligence investigation lead the Law Enforcement agencies to use their own internal policies to determine whether or not criminal laws have been violated. I also want to bring into the conversation, michael, two others about the political influences here. Cnn analyst david singer and senior political analyst and analyst for the hill david parms. It seems as though the president s tweets are influenced by a couple different reports, reports by a positive informant or someone who made contact with someone working for the Trump Campaign. At the same time this New York Times reporter talking about emissaries in three other countries, qatar, central america, who may have met with donald trump jr. And these items may have inspired the president to say, wait a minute. There are too many people who have been looking into our campaign, the activity of such, and so now i want to get to the bottom of who is responsible. It might even be the Obama Administration. Is that what you see here . Pretty close. He woke up angry this morning, or at least angry enough to tweet on three different counts. The story that my colleagues in the times had suggested that saudi arabia and the United Arab Emirates also at a power completely separate from what the russians were doing to offer whether or not the campaign took it up. Second was the president tweeted about the fbis failure to physically get the server from the Democratic National committee. A legitimate concern why they didnt take possession of the server itself, but they certainly had all the data from the server because it had been downloaded previously by a private firm, cofounded by a former fbi cyber investigator, and that data was turned over to the fbi. It would have been better, i think, had they given them the server themselves. Now the third thing thats come along is his argument that the Obama Administration had infiltrated the campaign. We dont see any evidence of that. In fact, i think the bigger question would have been had the fbi had the evidence that at lea least . That was some criticism that tt. Why is it that publicly it wasnt known. I think the evidence shows the Obama Administration kind of underreacted. Amy . Yeah, i completely agree with that. This is an investigation that has gone on for a year now. I think he woke up clearly reading the story yesterday. He knows this is another drip, drip, drip skpl he is trying to change the subject. Go back to Hillary Clinton and go back to his old enemies, so to speak, and i think thats exactly what hes trying to do heermd remembered. The Mueller Investigation has drop that goes against him and what he skands for. And michael, this additional New York Times reporting, Washington Post reporting, all of them have variations of what were discussing here, but with todays reporting of United Arab Emirates and perhaps this meeting with don trump jr. Came because these countries had expressed an eagerness and im just reading now from the New York Times the eagerness to help his father win the election, that perhaps the scope now would look wider based on that kind of reporting, that it wouldnt be potentially russia but potentially other countries that would want to curry favor with this administration if it is donald trump who becomes president. So mueller has a broad mandate, and that is to continue the investigation that comey started which includes interference with the 2016 election and any coordination by Trump Organization officials with it. If this feels to mueller as part of that investigation, then he wont make inquiry of these. If it requires action by some sort of no, skm in the case. Ensured that if there is ongoing criminal conductor past criminal dhaukt a, it could be similarly outdesigned him. The trump tweets, however, that hes going to order the doj to look into it, as i said, fredricka, i think in theory he has the constitutional right to do it. There is no question about whether that somehow interferes with or grazes due process and equal protection provisions. There is a code section, the United States code, 28 code section 2815 which says the conflict of litigation in the suns confluence of justice. Its troublesome in the fact that it says there should be some injunction but he might have the authority to launch an investigation like that to distraction. Amy and david, im going to ask you to stick around. Well take a short break for now. Well continue our conversation, at least for now, which appears to be a litany responses. Well be right back. s red lobse your own shrimp trios. Pick 3 of 9 new and classic creations for just 15. 99. Try new creations like savory crabtopped shrimp, and parmesan truffle shrimp scampi. But hurry, shrimp trios ends may 27th. And parmesan truffle looking for a hotel that fits. Whoooo. Your budget . Tripadvisor now searches over. 200 sites to find you the. Hotel you want at the lowest price. Grazi, gino find a price that fits. Tripadvisor. I just want you close, where you can stay forever. You can be sure that it will only get better you and me together through the days and nights. I dont worry cause everythings gonna be all right. No one, no one, no one can get in the way of what im feeling. No one, no one, no one can get in the way of what i feel for you. You, you get in the way of what i feel for you. I think, keep going, and make a difference. At some point, we are going to be able to beat als. Because life is amazing. So i am hoping for a cure. I want this, to uh, to be a reality. Um, yeah. If youd have told me three years ago. That wed be downloading in seconds, what used to take. Minutes. That guests would compliment our wifi. That we could video conference. And do it like that. snaps if youd have told me that i could afford. A gigspeed. A gigspeed network. Its like 20 times faster than what most people have. Id of said. Id of said youre dreaming. Dreaming definitely dreaming. Then again, dreaming is how i got this far. Now more businesses in more places can afford to dream gig. Comcast, building americas largest gigspeed network. Back with our breaking news. President trump making a Strong Demand on twitter moments ago, writing, i hereby demand and will do so officially tomorrow that the department of justice look into whether or not the fbi, doj infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for political purposes, and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration. I want to bring in congresswoman Sheila Jackson lee. She is a democrat from texas and a member of the house judiciary committee. Good to see you, congresswoman. What are your thoughts on the president s tweet . Well, fredricka, good to be with you this afternoon, and i must start with acknowledging the tragedy that is in my community, of course, and praying for those families and praying for action. I wish the president of the United States was equally focused on the tragedy that his constituents are facing, and i also wish that he would understand that, first of all, we do not have a monarchy. We have a constitution that is three equal branches of government. Unlike a king or queen, we are unable to dictate precisely to his or her servants what to do. The department of justice, in particular, is the peoples lawyer. The attorney general is the lawyer of the people of the United States. This is appalling that President Trump would be so uninformed and that his chief of staff, his counselors, the white house counsel, would allow him to spew into the thinking of americans that he has any right or authority to dictate to what the department of justice does. That would skew the independence of the department of justice to fairly go after individuals who have broken the law. It is a decision that is made by thoughtful staff lawyers in the department of justice in many different areas, from civil rights to antitrust to the criminal justice division. They are all separate divisions and they review information. Otherwise the president could use the department of justice as an attack instrument on any political figure he didnt like, being put so many times into incorrect assessments. Hes now thrown as president in conspiring or being involved in something so dastardly as what hes suggesting. This would be a terrible country if a sitting president could target anyone he wants in the administration. So if our targets will stand up to unfair targets and dischoose us. I hope the United States does not fall victim to his attacks and frustration. So whats your expectation of how attorney Jeff Sessions will respond because he is demanding that by tweet, so wouldnt that mean a response by the attorney sdwr general would have to follow . Heres where the attorney general should be the attorney general for the people of the United States. Heres where the attorney general should look at the model evidenced by those in the Nixon Administration who absolutely stepped down. Before he would do that, i hope he would make a very forceful decision that decisions about investigations and prosecutions are that of the attorney general and the department of justice alone. It is not to be forced upon that department by any elected official, including the president of the United States. As i said, we are mourning here in texas. We have children that are dead. We have a president who gave a limited commentary maybe 24 hours ago. Weve not heard him say one more thing about parents that are hurting and children that are dead and teachers that are dead and Law Enforcement officers that are healing and others that are healing, and im appalled. The answer would be i certainly would expect the congress to weigh in in ways of congress and ways of institution. I think the world would look at this and say the world has truly lost her way. I would like to sorry. I want to comment on helping these children that have been so desperately hurt in the last 48 hours. Before i ask you one final question about the Santa Fe High School tragedy, and on this issue, despite the separation of powers, is it your feeling that the president would have access to retrieving information about any reported informant that may have been in contact, interviewed, talked to any Campaign Aides which has helped precipitate this, you know, string of tweets from the president . If it involves the investigation that mr. Mueller is engaged in, i believe that the president would and should not have access to an ongoing investigation. If the president wants to violate the norms of his presidency and, of course, the independence of the attorney general, he certainly can secure representation of counsel and begin to fight this out in the courts. But he should be given the fact that he is president of the United States and he has no authority to inject in the department of justice the opportunity of a witch hunt and use the Justice Department as a tool to attack them. Any member of Congress Worth their salt of written the constitution, whether theyre a republican or democrat, the speaker of the house, and i know the leader of the house, should join in to raise a question of the president s appropriate behavior. And that behavior may constitute an abuse of power. So i would hope that we would look at this thoughtfully. I hope the president will reflect on his words and i hope his council, meaning his chief of staff and others, will ask the president to allow any investigation to proceed under Te Department of justice solely, not by his involvement, direction or attack on civilians who cannot stand up to the power of the president of the United States. That would be shameful and underlying the very democracy that we love and that those wearing the counsel for all of those who have a invite. Our hearts go out to the students in this school where the shooting took place. They are wanting to limit the amount of exits and entrances, hardening schools. What do you think about hardening schools or worrying about the students that have been been helped. We hugged each other but we also talked about action. We very more on these children, from 2000 to 2017 up until this time. Its also been compared to being m