attorney joyce vance. pete, let me start with you. what does the outgoing chairman of the judiciary committee want to see happen on the 3rd and 4th of december? he has talked about this for some time. i can count probably how many days are left for him. >> that's the issue here. there's basically only 20 hearing days until christmas for the house republicans and then of course in the new year, the democrats take over the house. they're really trying to race the clock here. the republicans on the house judiciary committee especially have been strongly trying to pursue an investigation of what went on during the clinton e-mail investigation because they believe that there was an effort within the fbi to try to undercut the trump campaign, and they are still concerned that the fbi didn't do the right thing in declining to recommend a prosecution for hillary clinton. >> joyce vance, peter king, the congressman from long island was on msnbc last hour. he sits on the intelligence committee. he sits on the homeland security committee as well

attorneys, joyce vance and chuck rosenberg, both msnbc contributors. "the new york times" reporter mike schmidt whose byline got a big new development in the mueller probe we'll be getting to soon. and aaron blake for "the washington post." not on the mueller probe, on the president's conduct vis-a-vis the justice department. let me start with you joyce and chuck. the chief justice of the supreme court issuing what was a rare criticism of the president of the united states on his unprecedented attacks on the federal judiciary and the president responding on twitter moments ago. joyce? >> is that for me first? >> yes. >> so this is an extraordinary moment to have the chief justice who has shown impeccable restraint in the face of criticism of the judiciary, who has refused to enter the fray. who finally feels the need to make sure that the american people understand what all of us as lawyers know, which is that the judiciary is independent. it's strong. federal judges don't think of themselves in terms of the president who appointed them. but they build

attorney general joyce vance, jeremy bash, former chief of staff and the cia and pentagon, jennifer rubin and the great mia whiley. every one of them, thank god, are msnbc analysts. joyce, my friend, alabaman, you look at the things this man, mr. whitaker, has said before taking this job. mostly on cnn. how problematic are those things in a normal universe and maybe in the universe we live in for this appointment? >> it's a conflict of interest, and he should be required to recuse from overseeing the russia investigation. in fact, i suspect that the ethics professionals that attorneys in the justice department go to for advice on ethical matters will advise him he must recuse. he has if not an actual conflict, certainly the appearance of a conflict, which is the standard that people in doj use. and, john, it's really important to note that the doj conflict standards require lawyers to recuse if they have a personal or political relationship with someone who is interested in the outcome of a case or someone who is involved in a case. and whitaker has got both. he has a personal relationshi

also joining us is joyce vance, former u.s. attorney for the northern district of alabama and also an msnbc legal contributor. dahlia, as i say the whole stolen e-mail question is something the media has never figured out, but these seem like they were just handed to the "the new york times" to get roger stone in more trouble. >> i think so. and also stone today he tried to scoop "the times" by putting them out minutes before himself. >> that was the donald trump, jr. strategy when his e-mails were under suspicion. >> but i think you're quite right, we haven't figured out what we mean when we talk about stolen e-mails in the media. >> at a min fm calling them stolen is big improvement over hacked when they're actually stolen. joyce vance, what are you reading in these e-mails? what do you think the special prosecutor is reading in these e-mails? >> they're awfully interesting. they certainly do damage stone as you point out. but they also make bannon coming out looking a bit better than he might have looked based on the rumors.

we're grateful. >>> joyce vance, can you jump in. obviously, the topic is not surprising but the president's response is equally unprizing. i don't think anyone thought he'd say, oh, yeah, i was in new york the day the trump tower meeting but on my way through i swung back and said hey to the russians promising dirt on hillary clinton. >> rudy giuliani said all along the president's responses to the written questions would be consistent with his public statements. and, of course, he has always denied collusion and knowledge. leave aside whether or not he's just thrown his first under the bus by saying only his fir first born was aware of the meeting. what trump has done is locked himself in after a fashion. sure, there's a qualifier on these questions, to the best of my recollection, which as we all know, leaves a little bit of room to hedge. if mueller has phone records showing there were communications between trump junior and then candidate trump, as they were arranging the meetings with russians or if there's other sorts of docum

joyce vance is a former u.s. attorney and john heilemann, co-host and executive producer of showtime's "the circus." he's here. all of them msnbc analysts and contributors. phil rucker, let me start with you. that appearance before the press pool today was stunning. and for everyone who thinks that donald trump shows his hand every single time, he certainly did so once again today. >> yeah, that's right, nicolle. first of all, he said he's not agitated but he wrote in all caps on twitter yesterday about the russia probe. and in sort of an outburst on twitter. so that's clearly a sign of agitation. we know from reporting that he has been spending all week with his lawyers preparing those answers. i thought it was interesting at the press conference or the press availability earlier today, he said three separate times, i wrote my own answers, my lawyers did not write them. i don't need lawyers to write my answers. but we know that's just not true. the lawyers have been helping him draft those answers. they're being

attorney joyce vance who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor and daniel goldman, former assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york and fellow at the brennan center for justice at nyu school of law. joyce, do you take the president at scout's honor that this is all his work. that he hasn't handed it in yet? >> i think it's unlike they the president answered the questions. i suspect particularly coming off the sugar high that he had from the pre-midterm election campaign ral hes that he was sitting down seriously thoughtfully answers these questions was something he didn't want to do. he has adopted these answers as his own. he is on the record saying these are his words and thoughts and he didn't need me help and if there's anything in those answers mueller this is has evidentiary value or use to feel him, they belong to the president who has formally adopted them. >> excellent point. daniel, if you're representing donald trump and you hear the words he spoke today at the white house about this being his work product, just hasn't been submitted, what goes on with

attorney joyce vance, who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor. welcome back to the broadcast to all our veteran guests. mike, i'll begin with you. it is notable that the timeline on your story, the spring suggestion by the president, puts us so deep into the trump administration. another way of saying so deep into the russia investigation. >> or so deep into the obstruction of justice investigation. the president, despite the fact that they were looking at his interactions with the justice department, with the fbi, how he may have tried to impede the russia investigation, was undeterred and wanted to talk to mcgahn about this and wanted to figure out how he could put pressure on hillary and comey and use the justice department to do that. it's a remarkable thing for any president to do, but especially one who is being looked at for obstruction of justice. especially one where all of his aides are going in to meet with bob mueller about why the president did what he did in 2017, why he tried to fire the attorney general in 2017, why he was trying

let's bring in joyce vance, a former u.s. attorney, barbara mcquaid and matt miller, a former chief spokesman at the justice department and an msnbc justice and security analyst. let me play for you all what trump said yesterday. >> i haven't submitted them yet. i just finished them. as you know, i've been a little bit busy, but it didn't take very long to do them. they were my answers. i don't need lawyers to do that. >> you know the law and you know about lawyering. on a sliding scale from likely laughable to very likely, how likely is it that trump would be writing his own answers? joyce, i'll let you take that easy one. >> well, i think we should take him at face value and assume he took a first stab at them, but i'd feel equally certain his lawyers will exhaustively work them over inserting qualifiers and making sure what they send to mueller is a very bland, vanilla product that can't get the president in any kind of trouble. >> barbara, let's look at what bob woodward describes in his book "fear." this is an encounter

joining us joyce vance. they're both msnbc legal contributors. jonathan alter, a columnist for the daily beast and an msnbc political analyst. thanks to all of you for being here. jonathan, let me just start with you. it's a big deal that john roberts said this considering that john roberts doesn't say a lot of things quite often particularly when it comes to being critical of the president. the idea john roberts criticized the president or suggested that the president's criticism of judges is misguided, seems important to me. >> extraordinarily important for one branch to stand up against another branch, this is what the founders envisioned. for the branches to check each other. and roberts was doing that standing up for the rule of law, standing up for an independent judiciary. the big question is whether there will be more of this to come and whether in some of his decisions, whether he will side with the moderates on the court instead of just going right down the line with conservatives on say questions of whether a president can be subpoenae

thank you so much, joyce vance, thank you peter baker and jonathan lemire. coming up, a resolution in florida's hotly contested senate rac race. what's the end game for democrats? the senator is still behind the vote of about 12,000 votes. could this bat go to the supreme court? not exactly friend lly territor for democrats. plus, president trump had several events focusing on the military claiming he's done a lot for them. but for a man who campaigned on mo more stupid wars, he sent thousands of troops to the southern border of our country to fight a faux or phony war. >>> and the democrats have won the house but do they have a leader. despite strong opposition, nancy pelosi insists she has votes to become the speaker of the house once again. >>> finally, let me finish trump watch. this is "hardball," where the action is. watch. this i"hs ardball," where the action is. not long ago, ronda started here. and then, more jobs began to appear. what started with one job spread all around. because each job in energy creates many more in this town. ♪ ♪ -[ slurp

attorney joyce vance who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor and daniel gold man, fellow at the brannan center for justice at ny school of law. joyce, i'd like to begin with you. do you take the president at scout's honor that this is all his work, that he just hasn't handed it in yet? >> i think it's unlikely that the president answered the questions. i suspect that particularly coming off the sugar high that he had from the prehid term election campaign rallies that he was doing, sitting down to seriouslydo thoughtfully and methodically answer these questions was something that he didn't want to do. he might have drafted answers, but the important thing, brian, is he has adopted these answers as his own. he is on the record saying these are his words and his thoughts and he didn't need any help. and if there's anything in those answers that mueller thinks has evidentiary value or is useful to him, they now belong to the president who is formally adopting them. >> excellent point. so danielle, if you're representing donald trump and you hear those words, he spoke today at the white hou

jill wine-banks, joyce vance, thanks for starting us out tonight. when we come back, the trump administration is now trying to avoid revealing what the cia knows about the killing of washington post journalist jamal khashoggi. >>> and steve kornacki is going to join us with the latest developments on that mississippi special election race. breathe freely fast, with vicks sinex. my congestion's gone. i can breathe again! ahhhh! i can breathe again! ughh! vicks sinex. breathe on. >>> the full senate is scheduled to receive a full briefing from saudi arabia and defense secretary james mattis. they will not hear from gina haspel or any other intelligence officials about the murder of washington post journalist jamal khashoggi. according to the guardian, officials said the decision for haspel not to appear came from the white house. one senate staffer told the guardian the decision to not have a single infell jensen official at the briefing is, quote, totally unprecedented and should be interpreted as nothing less than the trump administration trying to

attorney, msnbc contributor joyce vance, former fbi assistant director frank and an adjunct professor gwenda blair. a lot of people might be watching thinking what are some of the ways in which matthew whitaker could interfere with mueller's investigation? and do you expect him to or would he even try to? there's the explicit stuff. what is the stuff that i think experts might be watching for in terms of what whitacre could do? >> so the first thing we should do is look at his public statements. if the man's telling us what he might do, let's listen to him. he's already said on the record that he could suggest dwindling down the funding of mueller's operation to the point where it comes to a screeching halt. let's look for budget cuts. let's look at that. let's look at the constraining of the mission. let's look for whitaker to say if it doesn't have the word russia in it, you can't do it. changing the mandate of the special counsel. i have to tell you that whitaker is in a precarious position. he may have already made himself a fact witness. it's potential that mueller, just as muell

joining me now, joyce vance. glad to have you because i want you to break down what this doj legal opinion means. department of justice says they told the president prior to the appointment of whitaker is that his appointment is valid. is that your perspective? >> i don't think it is all that surprising that the white house would get doj to bless this in advance. whether or not it is constitutional is a question ultimately that will probably be does ied in the courts. there are constitutional scholars on both sides of that issue. the long term understanding at least inside of the department has always been that the vacancies reform act permits this sort of a temporary replacement, it is good for 210 days. if trump were to appoint a permanent attorney general nominee, then that clock would restart. so whitaker could be around for quite some time and because this is unprecedented in the tattorny general's position, there is a lot of vitality to this controversy on both sides of the argument. >> any chance this news

attorney, joyce vance, who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor. and the aforementioned robert costa, national political reporter for "the washington post" and moderator of washington week on pbs and what a week it's been already. robert, i would like to begin with you. what is the book on whitaker? what's the book on how the president sees him? and i know you talked to rudy in the last 24 hours. what did you learn? >> brian, i've known mr. whitaker for about a decade, going back to his time in iowa politics. moderated his first debate when he ran for u.s. senate. lost the republican primary then in 2014 to now senator joni ernst. he's a conservative, he's an ideologue, he's someone who's migra migrated towards the trump wing of the republican party. he's close friends with sam clovis, someone we know because he's been interviewed by robert mueller's grand jury. he's migrated to trump's wing of the party and is known for taking a tough line on the mueller probe and now he's running the department of justice. >> joyce, i have so many questions for y

and now peter alexander and joyce vance former u.s. attorney and national security analyst clint watts who is a former fbi special agent. and peter, what is on the president's mind, because he either knows something or something is about to the happen and this is as fierce as he has been against bob mueller. >> yes, the series of tweets and the tirade as you described it, it is that it is snowing and freezing hail out here, because it does feel like there is a storm brewing inside of the white house, and the basis is not clear. we don't know what the president is referring to or what he may have seen or read over the course of the last several hours that sparked the latest fury from the president. what we do know, and msnbc news has reported that according to one person familiar with the matter, the president's legal team was nearing completion as it is described to us of the the written answers, and the president's written answers to the questions provided by bob mue mueller in the russian investigation, and those answers are expected

jill wine-banks, joyce vance, thanks for starting us out tonight. when we come back, the trump administration is now trying to avoid revealing what the cia knows about the killing of washington post journalist jamal khashoggi. >>> and steve kornacki is going to join us with the latest developments on that mississippi special election race. jardiance asked- and now you know. jardiance is the first type 2 diabetes pill proven to both reduce the risk of cardiovascular death for adults who have type 2 diabetes and heart disease... ...and lower a1c, with diet and exercise. jardiance can cause serious side effects including dehydration. this may cause you to feel dizzy, faint, or lightheaded, or weak upon standing. ketoacidosis is a serious side effect that may be fatal. symptoms include nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, tiredness, and trouble breathing. stop taking jardiance and call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of ketoacidosis or an allergic reaction. symptoms of an allergic reaction include rash, swelling, and difficulty breathing or swall

joyce vance, cynthia alksne, michael crowley. our thanks for being part of our conversation tonight. >>> coming up, our country has now fired tear gas at migrants rushing our southern border. and now threats from the president to shut the border entirely, perhaps shut down the government entirely to get funding for his so far mythical wall. >>> and later, the devastating government report warning hundreds of billions of dollars more will be lost because of climate change. the president says he doesn't believe it. "the 11th hour" just getting started on this post-holiday monday night. you have medicare. the medicare enrollment deadline is only days away. choosing the right medicare plan is no laughing matter, pick the wrong one and you might end up with a doctor you're not so comfortable with. i'm not so comfortable. or even worse, be forced to pay thousands in medical expenses due to coverage limitations. that'll be how much? understanding all the options, let's face it, it can be downright confusing. and that's why i love health

attorney and one of our legal analysts joyce vance added this. "once manafort signed up to cooperate with prosecutors, the common interest he shared with trump and others that let them shield their communications from prosecutors behind the attorney-client privilege evaporated. any information that was shared after this point isn't protected by their joint defense agreement." she goes on to say, "if i were mueller, i would be issuing subpoenas today to rudy giuliani and kevin downing and anyone else involved in these communications so they would have to explain under oath exactly what was conveyed." so with us tonight, richard painter returns to the broadcast, veteran attorney and the former west wing ethics lawyer in the bush 43 white house. richard, first of all, is joyce right? and what about these lawyers? they're adults. they make car payments. they have mortgages. shouldn't they know that now that manafort is on team usa you can't be talking back and forth like this? >> absolutely, they should know that. and these lawyers better themselves

. >> joyce vance, good to see you, happy saturday. thanks for joining me. >> thanks for having me. >>> wee ivanka trump's use of e-mails similar to hillary clinton? and if so, why did he get away with it so long? that's next. >>> have you talked to ivanka about her e-mails? >> i have, actually. very innocent, short period of time, very early on, there was no deletion every e-mails. there was no bleach bit. there was no anything. just innocent e-mails, no classified e-mails. i believe all of her records are in the historical society, the historical records. much different than the other situation i have talked about for a long time. >>> president trump there defending again his daughter and senior adviser ivanka trump. an report earlier this week reported that she used a personal e-mails for -- >> so, then candidate, of course, made hillary clinton's e-mails a central component of his pan. are you surprised? >> well, first of all, happy thanksgiving. it's good to be a part of your show, but i feed she did something student. i don't thi

let me bring in joyce vance, former u.s. attorney and professor at alabama school of law. joyce, correct me if i'm wrong. while it's not uncommon for a cooperating witness to necessarily withhold some details, this filing by the special counsel's office where they basically say he lied and the plea deal is done is rare. i wonder what you think, what would possess paul manafort to risk spending potentially the rest of his life in prison? >> the deal that prosecutors offer to cooperating witnesses is they'll get some sentencing relief, but it's contingent upon full and truthful cooperation. that means that the witness doesn't get to hold anything back. they have to ask all of prosecutors' questions. they can't withhold information. it's a pretty onerous burden. in manafort's situation, it's almost impossible to figure out what was going through his head. he almost looks like someone who's just congenitally incapable of telling the truth. he has to have known from prior experience with other defendants that mueller catches people who lie to him. so whatever the -- >> yeah, ca

jeremy bash, former chief of staff at cia and the pentagon and joyce vance who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor. welcome back to our program. i begin you, mike. is it notable that the time line on your story this spring suggestion by the president puts us so deep into the trump administration, another way of saying, so deep into the russia investigation. >> or so deep into the obstruction of justice investigation. the president, despite the fact that they were looking at his interactions with the justice kept, with the fbi, how he gave tried to impede the russia investigation was undeterred and wanted to talk to mcghan about this and wanted to figure out how he could put pressure on hilly and comey and use the justice department to do that. it's a remarkable thing or any president to do but especially one who's been looked another for obstruction of justice, especially one where all his aides are going in to bheet bob mueller about why he did what he did in twechbts, why he tried to fire the attorney general, why he was trying to put a loyalist in front of the russia investigation. w

no better person to have than joyce vance. give us the legal ramifications of what the efforts are that are being made right now by this administration to change the way we handle asylum applications in that they would stay at someplace potentially on the mexico side as opposed to potentially being allowed into the u.s. as a decision is being made. >> so everything that's going on here is out of kilter with our understanding of how the asylum process should work. the united states has always been predicated on the belief that we should welcome people seeking refuge in this country. we obviously have reasonable restrictions on security practices in place. but what's happening now is an effort to shut down the border to make it impossible for people, at least people coming from central and latin america and mexico to come into the united states and seek asylum using lawful procedures. as you and elliott point out, there would be serious economic r repercussions. folks could be down in baja over the holiday weekend and find thems

but as former federal prosecutor joyce vance pointed out on this program at this hour last night, there can be no joint defense agreement with someone who has no defense. someone who no longer is mounting a defense cannot have a defense agreement. paul manafort was found guilty by a federal jury in virginia, and then paul manafort pleaded guilty in a separate federal case in washington, d.c. and so paul manafort has no defense. paul manafort has no defense, when his lawyer claims to have been participating in a joint defense agreement with the president. that was not a legitimate joint defense agreement. paul manafort's lawyer, kevin downy, may in serious jeopardy for information obtained through his attorney-client privilege with a third party who there could be no joint defense agreement with. one of the president's lawyers, rudy giuliani, has confirmed as if perfectly normal, that the president of the united states has been obtaining information from a convicted felon who is also a self-admitted felon who has pleaded guilty. no president in history has ever publicly welcomed such an

joyce vance, ken dilanian, and christine todd whitman, the former republican governor of my home state in new jersey, and michael schmidt. he co-wrote today's article on manafort. joyce, i have to go to you first, information sharing. where is the line between the unusual arrangement of paul manafort's attorneys speaking to trump's attorney and a legal arrangement. >> the idea of information sharing is a way that co-defendants in an investigation, a group of people who are under investigation, can continue to share investigation -- or can continue to share information without losing the protection of the attorney/client privilege, which would shield the conversation typically between an attorney and his client, but here sharing the information among the group. that's something prosecutors don't necessarily like but it's been approved repeatedly. >> would we consider trump and manafort to be co-defendants? >> i think i used co-defendant loosely. maybe it's better to say people who are under investigation. and so in that sense we were told by giuliani that trump had joins defense agreeme

mey myra wiley, and another former federal prosecutor, joyce vance. what does it mean? >> when there's smoke, there's not necessarily fire. here there are flames licking at donald trump's feet, he needs to start jumping. those flames are clear. this is the first time we have publicly a publicly a direct link between donald trump and motive for conspiracy for fraud against the united states, it looks like it is there, goes into june 2016, and clear knowledge, direct involvement of donald trump in trying to organize the business transaction. remember and backtrack, felix sodder, who michael cohen had an e-mail exchange with spring of 2016 saying we can get this meeting and we can engineer our guy getting elected. when you put all of that together, there's a lot of fire. >> a lot of fire. david corn, we talked a lot about the dossier, what in it overlapped with evidence. i'm interested in the evidence, not in the speculation. here is the mueller court documents that are brand new that says minimizing links was the goal. minimizing links for the moscow project and trump. th

attorney joyce vance and reporter tom winter. all right, tom. we have more of a timeline but what else did we get from yesterday's filing and president trump's response? because the thing i don't get is president trump is calling michael cohen a weak, liar and a loser but rudy giuliani, trump's attorney, is saying that trump's written answers match cohen's answers. so which is it? he is a liar and a loser or they're in lock zsstep? >> that's what i'm trying to understand for 24 hours. if you say somebody's a liar and same point you say, well, okay, but my answers match what he is now saying, does that mean all along the president actually said, well no, we continued the conversations? is this what he's told his attorneys and is this what he told the special counsel's office which is, yeah, hey, we had the conversations of june 2016? i think the other thing that did not come out in the court paper work yesterday is when michael cohen had these additional conversations besides the three that he had with donald trump. we know that there were additi

joyce vance is a former u.s. attorney and john, an executive producer of the circus. phil, let me start with you. that appearance before the press pool today was stunning and for everyone who thinks that donald trump shows his hand every time, he certainly did so once again today. >> first of all, he said he's not agitated, but wrote in all caps on twitter yesterday. about the, the probe. and sort of an outburst on twitter. that's clearly a sign of agitation. we know from reporting he's been spending all week with his lawyers preparing those answers. i thought it was interesting that the press availability earlier today, he said three separate times, i wrote my own answers, my lawyers did not write them. i don't lead lawyers to write my answers, but we know that's not true. the lawyers have been helping them draft those. they're being very careful so he does not perjure himself in the answers or create other legal problems for himself. it's one of the reasons why they haven't submitted those back to the special counsel yet because they're still under review and still

and joyce vance, to you first. we have been talking about the indictment that this is a indictment that they didn't nee need, but it is the first one that they have with the guilty plea setting out a connection to trump tower moscow, and during the campaign and mentioning specifically the president as individual number one and his family according to this criminal information. >> i think that is right. it is very significant for exactly that reason, andrea. some of the language that jumps out at me is michael cohen, and this is the government alleging the conduct that cohen lied about the matters to krcreate distance between moscow project and person number one who we now know is the president. what that means is that if michael cohen lied, then the president lied. i have listened to chuck rosenberg who is always the yoda in these matters and it is important to bring him in and get him locked down. so cohen has now raised the hand and said it is so under oath, and he has talked about the president's family here. we

let's bring in joyce vance what are your first thoughts about this >> i think this goes to the core of our expectations about what a president should not do. don't get to use the justice department as an apparatus of political opponents, their political enemies. i think we all should find this to be relatively shocking whether or not there's actually -- whether it was committed, i think no president who really has any appreciation of the constitution could ask these questions, let alone this kind of action being appropriate. >> joyce, we're having a little bit of a hard time hearing you hopefully you can typed a place with bit stronger connection donna, i will go to you. your first reaction to this article -- again, let's be clear, this article is not saying the president broke the law. it is not saying the president actually did order the doj it is saying he wanted to and had to be told by his white house counsel that it wouldn't be appropriate. >> and there you go to what most presidents know. most presidents already know that it's inappropriate for the white house to order even this

. >> let's go there, with joyce vance. the fidelity of the mueller probe, the firing ever sessions and whether this was legal and all this in light of democrats new authority. >> there's so much this morning that it's really hard to pick. but i do think that the most important points, and i'm mindful of joe's caution about not following all the bright shiny objects. for justice department purposes what we need to focus on is we now have an acting attorney general hand-picked by the president because of his ties to the white house. and that lack of independence is very dangerous thing, certainly in context of the mueller investigation, possibly likely in other regards as well, because it's the independence of the justice department that serves this country and the rule of law so well. so we need to focus on what happens at doj. we need to make sure that the mueller investigation is fully protected. that probably requires action on the hill. and these next few days will be very telling as we see whether deputy attorney gener