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To form a partisan investigation and he is not required, i should add, to heed the advice of the intelligence agency heads here. it's totally unilateral, then that is going to set up a showdown. >> a lot to bite and chew here. jill, can the president do this give the ability to have access and declassify information. number two, what does happen if the cia and other heads of these intelligence agencies as being reported there by natasha say, no, not going to let you? >> here i'd like to talk in two different capacities. one is as the former general counsel of the united states army, and the ot...

Investigation and they wanted to potentially declassify or release intelligence information they'd work it out with the heads of the nsa and director of national intelligence. clearly there was a disagreement, clearly there was a fight, clearly the heads of the intelligence organizations said we're not going to give you the authority to release information about our human sources who risked their lives and our clandestine collection mechanisms because if we do that for a purely political effort, no one is going to talk to america. no one is going to give us their information. it is going to en...

The same time, susan, here is the ironic part, that congress has no access to the supporting intel underlying the mueller report? >> right. so it's not exactly clear which investigations are going to be prioritized. bill barr has not explained why he doesn't think that the inspector general's investigation is going to be sufficient. there's something else that's really significant about this latest investigation, both the executive order allowing barr to dee classify information and this new inquiry by the u.s. attorney in connecticut and that's that this is not a criminal investigation. i thi...

Information that he believes needs to be made public as part of his investigation of the investigation. let me read a part of what the president's order said, it says, quote, the attorney general may declassify, downgrade or direct the declassification or down grading of information or intelligence that relates to the attorney general's review. this is a review as you know, poppy, that is directing for the justice department to do to look at how this investigation started. by the way, this is something that rod rosenstein had looked at and had resisted. this is why -- one reason why the presid...

Other agencies. >> right. >> there is a process that exists for interagency to review. the information we are talking about here is the most sensitive form of information. reportedly the attorney general is interested in the cia's human assets in russia. that's the kind of information that if disclosed really could have life and death consequences for people. >> because the authority given to the attorney general -- or the direction given to the attorney general here from the president is not only -- should these 16 agencis report to you on this and dig into this and make this a priority, you ...