What the intention was there and whether thats an offense. Paul michael served as the 81st attorney general of the United States under george w. Bush. Judge, welcome. Good to be here. Paul lets focus first on whats the appropriate behavior for a Senior Justice Department official like the fbi director in interacting with the president of the United States because when you go into the oval office its intimidating thing, i guess. How was he supposed to behave when the president pulls him aside and says Something Like he said with by Michael Flynn . The same way he would behave any place else. Yes, the oval the idea of the oval office is intimidating, he may be in fact, intimidating for the first few times youre there, for the first 15 minutes. [laughter] if youve been the u. S. Attorney in two districts f youve been the Deputy Attorney general f youve been for a number of years, the director of the fbi and youre intimidated by being in the oval office, youre in the wrong job. Paul how should he have react today that . If he thought what he says he thought, mr. President , we cant have this conversation. And he said he thought he was being direct today shut down that portion of the probe, the flynn probe, he should have said, we cant have this conversation and talk to the attorney general . Sure. Talked to the attorney general. I dont think that it would have been reporting a crime but he should have talked to the attorney general immediately so that anybody else was aware of what had happened when everybody left the room. Paul what about the idea that james comey has talked about, he used the word, the fbi is traditionally been independent of the executive branch. Is that true . No, its not true. The fbi is in the executive branch and it is not independent. Theres a very funny story about ramsey clark when he first became ag showed up on a saturday and wearing a sport jacket and stopped in the hall by a watchman who said, can i see your id. Im the attorney general. Thats fine, show me your id. He said, no, im the attorney general. He said i dont think if youre j. Edgar hoover himself, show me your id. Thats some peoples idea of the being independent but its not. Paul accountability of the president of the United States and yet theres some tension there because you dont want political actors directing investigations or saying stop that investigation, so there is there is some tension, there is some art to this . There is. You dont want political actors doing that. At the same time, if there are, for example, reasons of state why investigations should be stopped, if somebody is investigating a relatively minor crime committed by some foreign diplomat, somebody in whom the president has a much larger interest, he would be perfectly proper in saying i want that investigation shut down, there are bigger things at stakes. Paul was the president s behavior improper . Sure. Paul shouldnt have act that had way. There are a lot of things that you dont do not because theyre against the law and thats one of them. Paul what about the question of obstruction of justice, do you see any of that in the facts that comey layed out in. No. Paul why not . The obstruction of justice statute in so far as its relevant requires that the president acted corruptly unless he acted by force which obviously he didnt. So he acted corruptly, that means doing something lawful by an unlawful means or doing something unlawful. He didnt do either one of those. It wasnt that he took a bribe in order to shut down the investigation, it wasnt that he offered a bribe in order to shut down the investigation, he acted apparently out of concern for for flynn perhaps even out of concern for himself. Thats not corruptly. Paul what about the chain of events, i would hope to let this go and then, later, some months later, was that the chain of events that he was trying to shut down the probe . You dont shut down the probe firing by somebody who is conducting the probe report. [laughter] paul i think thats been proven by the fact of all the uproar. Correct. Thats not the way you shut down a probe. Paul comey is kind of having it both ways, on the one hand he says, i felt directed to shut down the probe, on the other hand im not saying it was obstruction of justice, but if he really felt it was directed, okay, he was being told, look, you must do this, why didnt he have an obligation and tap out a Resignation Letter saying, i cannot work for somebody who is directing me not to investigate something . Thats certainly an at alternative, you remember the famous hospital scene and he did threaten to resign unless they changed the program. Paul wrote the letter in advance of that meeting. Right. In fact, he was joined with the man who is now supposedly investigating all of this, Robert Mueller. The two of them threatened to resign. Paul that is right. Comey clearly said, but if comey said i believe there was obstruction at the time then he would have talked to the attorney general and maybe resigned, threaten to resign, you would think he would. What do you make of him going back to the fbi as he testified telling half dozen or ten colleagues about this and then keeping it quiet, essentially sticking his notes into a drawer and then keeping it quiet from everybody until he was fired . Thats whats known as having an ace in the hole. Not only did he create a memo, he created a memo that was by design not classified so that he could have it leaked eventually, gave it to somebody else to leak so that he wouldnt have his fingerprints on it immediately and assured that according to his own statement that a special prosecutor, special counsel would be appointed. Thats an extraordinary devious thing to do. Paul bottom line based on the fact that is we know, theres not Impeachable Offense or indictable offense that we know . Impeachable offense is what Congress Says its impeachable act. I dont think this rises to an impeachable act but thats for congress to decide. It is not a crime. Paul all right, judge, thanks very much for being here. Much more to come as we break down the comey testimony. Should the former fbi director have voiced his concerns about President Trump earlier or even resigned, our panel weighs in next. Why didnt you stop and say, mr. President , this is wrong, i cannot discuss this with you . Its a very good question. Maybe if i were stronger, i would have the sunll come out tomorrow. For people with Heart Failure, tomorrow is not a given. But entresto is a medicine that helps make more tomorrows possible. Tomorrow, tomorrow. I love ya, tomorrow in the largest Heart Failure study ever, entresto helped more people stay alive and out of the hospital than a leading Heart Failure medicine. Women who are pregnant must not take entresto. It can cause harm or death to an unborn baby. Dont take entresto with an ace inhibitor or aliskiren. If youve had angioedema while taking an ace or arb medicine, dont take entresto. The most serious side effects are angioedema, low blood pressure. Kidney problems, or high potassium in your blood. Tomorrow, tomorrow i love ya, tomorrow ask your heart doctor about entresto. And help make tomorrow possible. Youre only a day away. Take on the mainstream. In nissans midnight edition, available now at americas best sales event. At the time did you say anything to the president about that, its in the an appropriate request, did you tell the white House Counsel thats not an appropriate request, somebody needs to tell the president that he cant do these things. I didnt, no. Why . As i said earlier, the circumstances were such that it was i was a bit stunned and didnt have the presence of mind and i dont know, i dont want to make you sound like im captain courageous, i dont know if i had the presence of mind i would have said, sir, thats wrong. Paul florida senator marco rubio questioning why former director james comey didnt immediately report his concerns about President Trumps behavior to the white House Counsels office, lets bring in columnist and Deputy EditorDan Henninger and kim strassel and joe rago. I didnt have the selfpossession to address the president and tell him that isnt appropriate, does that wash in your mind . I dont think it washes, it doesnt wash in my mind and more importantly it doesnt wash in the American People, everybody who watched that, i would include even democrats. There something about the comey narrative that didnt quite add up and that exchange with senator rubio was a perfect example. Virtually everybody listening to what his description of what went on in the oval office, certainly anybody who has been around washington, would have said something improper happened there. Youre the director of the fbi and he could have walked out of that office and gone to white House Counsel and said, the president has just done something improper, you have to explain that this sort of thing cant happen or even go to attorney general and to say i dont know, i was so startled, strange. Paul if he didnt wanting to to the white House Counsels, the attorney general of the United States is his immediate superior, Deputy Attorney general but then the attorney general and you should do that and he said he didnt want to do because bought, joe, thought the attorney general was going to recuse himself from the russia probe, did he know that at the time . Thats the big question. How did he know that . Paul he couldnt have known because he rescued himself two weeks later. Unless hes a fortune teller. The narrative is i was so stunned, i just couldnt i couldnt i didnt have the composure to do anything but he goes back and writes a memo to himself, he discusses it with a half dozen of his senior deputies and then reserves all of this information for himself, doesnt inform the public, doesnt tell any of his superiors, it just doesnt add up. Paul lets take a clip with an exchange with senator rich and comey. The president of the United States with me alone saying i hope this, i took it as this is what he wants me to do, i didnt obey that but thats the way i took it. You may have taken as direction but thats not what he said . Correct. He said, i hope. Those were his exact words, correct. You dont know anybody who has been charged for hoping, is that a fair statement . I dont as i sit here. Paul and i mean, do you think that looking at all of this there is the democrats are many are going to say this is obstruction but what about the ultimate impact here . Is that going to play politically, do you think . No. I dont. I mean, theyre going to try to make it but this is a pretty devastating blow that jim comey ultimately made to the democratic case that there was obstruction because you look at the exact words and he has them there in black and white and had had to testify that hope was not a direction, he could take it the other way and democrats can make a big fuss over that, but its pretty clear cut on a piece of paper. Paul all right. Dan. Yeah, i want to add one point here. Judge explained to us that impeachment is a political decision, right, by the house of representatives and the democrats have been trying to run this offense against donald trump as a political event. Jim comeys appearance was one of the melodramatic political events in washington in years and it just didnt live up to its billing. He did not make the case for them in the way they we wanted to that the president had done something in violation of the law. Paul all right, but theres still political damage, joe. I agree with dans overall summary. He called him a liar, trump, if you want to read the worst into it, trump was trying to suddenly imply, hey, do me a favor here, you know, and theres a couple of exchange, comey described him as a relationship and hes not a babe in the woods. Hes a bear knuckle bureaucratic fighter who knows how to really put president s in their place frankly. Right, look, this is a guy professional whose caused crises in every administration which he served. He had the Bush Administration over wiretapping, under obama he had the Hillary Clinton email investigation and improper exoneration of her in the summer and now this. It leads me to believe that that youre exactly right that he knows what hes doing when trump had this tony soprano behavior, maybe this it would be nice if it went away. Comey was probably thrilled. This is exactly the kind of material that he can use as political insurance. Paul he went back and typed the memo and kept it as a form of political insurance, you never know know when youre going to need that. He leaked it in the hopes of prompting a special counsel. Paul we want to get into it in the next block. The white house goes on offense in an effort to move beyond the russia probe and keep the president s agenda on track but is there a strategy, a smart one . No collusion, no obstruction, hes a leaker, but we want to get back to running our great country phone with our allstate agent, and i know that we have accident forgiveness. So the incredibly minor accident that i had tonight four weeks without the car. Okay, yup. Good night. With accident forgiveness your rates wont go up just because of an accident. Switching to allstate is worth it. Mr. Comey has now finally confirmed publicly what he repeatedly told President Trump privately, that is that the president was not under investigation as part of any probe into russian interference. Mr. Comeys testimony also makes clear that the president never thought to impede the investigation into attempted russian interference in the 2016 election. Paul that was President Trumps personal attorney mark kasawitz thursday responding to james comeys testimony on capitol hill. The president himself tweeting friday, despite so many falls statements and lies, total and completely vindication and, wow, comey is a leaker. We are back with Dan Henninger and kim strassel and joe rago. Kim, i want to address the question of leaks first and we have comey talking about how he directed a leak of his memos. Lets look. The president tweeted on friday after i got fired that i better hope that theres not tapes, i woke up in the middle of the night on monday night because it didnt dawn on me originally that there might be corroboration for our conversation, there might be a tape and my judgment was, i need today get that out into the Public Square and so i asked a friend of mine to share the content of the memo with the reporter, didnt do it myself for a variety of reasons but i asked him to because i thought that might prompt the appointment of a special counsel. Thats pretty remarkable, that happens all of the time in washington, we should tell our viewers that but the fact that comey said he deliberately leaked it to trigger a special counsel probe. The deliberateness of it, this is now part of the discussion in washington, was this the first time that he did this. You know, if you think back and you step back the last six months of drama almost all of it has come from anonymouslysourced stories often mostly wrong but from different members of the Intelligence Community and its a very disturbing question about where all of these are coming from and opens up a new question of comey himself and whether or not hes ever done this before. Paul sounds to me that hes look if he wants mueller to be able to nail trump. Thats the implication i take out of this. He wanted that special counsel and he has teed mueller up to be able to conclude that there was obstruction of justice. Thats how i read it. Look, if you want to be cynical, you can make the argument. He never corrected the president of what the appropriate behavior should be and instead he went and took all the secret memos and kept building all this dossier and tossing it to mueller, maybe that was his goal along to bring down a president. Paul and dan, i dont think there are tapes. Remember when donald trump tweeted you better watch out if there are tapes and comey refer today that in his clip there, but the denied flat out that trump ever asked for loyalty so i doubt that there are tapes. It doesnt look like it and it seems the loyalty oath is subset minor issue here but theres a couple of things that have gotten sort of joined here that, i think, need to be separated. Comey established that trump was not the target of an investigation involving the russian penetration of the campaign. What was involved in this conversation was the probe of Michael Flynn, right . And the Michael Flynn probe is not the russian probe. Flynn may be involved in that but these are separate things. If he has establish that had the president was not a target, now we know that as a matter of fact unless at some point further on the new special counsel decides to pull the president into it. But i think that was the big thing that donald trump was looking for. Paul we also have something that came up regarding the clinton the Obama Administration, the Loretta Lynch was involved, lets listen. At one point the attorney general had directed me not to call it an investigation but instead to call it a matter which confused me and concerned me. Paul he said he felt queasy about that and described it as a matter anyway. Sounds like there was political pressure from the Obama Administration for comey to downplay the email probe. The contradiction here even as comey starts independent fbi, sovereign Law Enforcement agency paul under the constitution. Political accountability, if he truly thought the fbi was independent, then Loretta Lynch political interference in the clinton investigation should have prompted the exact same kind of blowup that he had