tonight on "the axe flies." former acting attorney general sally yates, the first political casualty of the trump administration, famously fired just ten days after president trump took office. forced out for refusing to defend trump's travel ban, which she was convinced was unlawful. >> i looked at this, i made a determination that i believed that it was unlawful. >> yates suddenly thrust into the national spotlight after 27 years working behind the scenes in the justice department. before being fired, yates warranted the white house that then national security adviser michael flynn had lied to vice

president mike pence about his russian contacts and could potentially be blackmailed by moscow. >> that created a compromise situation, a situation where the national security adviser essentially could be blackmailed by the russians. >> tonight, yates takes on president trump's stepped up attacks on his own intelligence agencies and department of justice. >> this has really taken the assault on the rule of law to a new level. this has moved at a lightning pace for an investigation complex as this. >> what comes next in her trailblazing career. >> your name comes up all the time for people who would love to see you run for public office. >> welcome to "the axe flies." >> sally yates, so good to be with you. you've spent so much of your life in rooms just like this, in courtrooms. you come from a long line of lawyers. we'll talk about that a little later.

but what does the rule of law mean to you? how do you define that? this principle that you so embrace. >> yeah. you know, you're right, i do come from a long line of lawyers. and the concept of the rule of law is something i grew up around. and i think sort of boiled down to its essence. it's the concept that our laws apply equally to everyone and that no one is above the law and that everyone is entitled to equal protection. that the laws aren't used as a sword to go after anybody's enemies or as a shield to protect one's self or one's friends. >> that brings us to this momentous moment. we actually chat here in a week that had a lot of developments. what do you make of the president's demand of the justice department that they investigate -- essentially investigate the investigation of -- that involves his campaign and perhaps him? >> this has really taken the assault on the rule of law to a new level. really from the beginning of

this presidency, president trump has not observed the time honored norm that's been in place, at least since watergate, that there should be a real division between the department of justice and the white house. certainly doj is part of the executive branch. we all recognize that. but for the public to have confidence that the law is not being used in a political way, presidents in both parties have recognized that those decisions really need to be left to the people at the department of justice. and there have been, you know, incidents in the past from calling, for example, attorney general session and trying to get him to drop the criminal case on sheriff arpaio to repeatedly calling for the investigation or prosecution of his former political rival, but this took it a step further because he didn't just opine, he actually directed, and, you know, that does take things to a different and more dangerous level, i think, in trying to

inject himself. here it's even a step beyond a dangerous point because it's not just directing a criminal investigation or to stop one of anyone, it directly relates to his campaign. that's truly unprecedented. >> now, what he implies, and this is the latest chapter in this back and forth, is that there was a -- there was a politicizing during 2016 in the decision to send a -- an informant, a confidential source to meet with some people who had been advising his campaign. amounted to sending spies into his campaign. you were there at that time. and i know there is a limit to what you can say but how do you react to that, the implication that spies were sent in at the direction of the obama administration? >> yeah, well, you're right, it's under investigation now and i think i have to leave it to this department of justice and fbi to make decisions about what

information they're going to publicly release. i can't comment on the specific allegation. >> not on the specifics but what about the general sense that this was a politically inspired investigation. >> again, i'm not going to speak to this specific one, but i will say this. look, i was with doj for 27 years and i can tell you that the men and women of the department of justice take the responsibility very seriously. investigations are done based on the facts and the law and not based on politics. i'm confident that that will be the result of this investigation as well. >> a lot of that seems to rest on your successor, rod rosenstein, who is now the deputy attorney general. and because general sessions has had to recuse himself, rosenstein is making all the decisions relative to this investigation. what would it mean if the president were to fire rosenstein? >> you're right.

rod rosenstein, as the person overseeing the special counsel here, has a control over a lot of things. he has control over the scope of the investigation. bob mueller has to come to him before taking any significant steps, which includes a search warrant or returning any indictments. he has control over what information can be made public and whether information is presented to congress. a backdoor way to try to choke the life out of the special counsel investigation could be through trying to replace rod rosenstein and putting someone in there who would do what the president wanted him to do. >> the president forced something of a confrontation this week over how much information the justice department would give congress about this confidential source. the justice department's been fighting this for months. there apparently was a meeting at the white house with the chief of staff and leaders of congress and some from the justice department and fbi to share some of that information,

highly classified information. what was your reaction to that? >> you know, i think that rod rosenstein is trying to strike a balance here between diffusing the situation and protecting the interests of the department and the rule of law. and, you know, i don't know all of the facts of this. so i kind of feel like it's not a great idea for his predecessor to be second guessing those kinds of decisions. >> does it create issues for his successor if a precedent is set that what had been standard practice for all of these years is now cast aside and congress can then demand to see highly classified information relative to ongoing investigations and sources and methods. >> well, it's something you always have to think about. look, the policies and practices of the department are there for a reason. they guide doj in high-profile perilous times so you do have to

be concerned about the precedent that it sets next time someone makes a demand like that. at the same time, though, you know, you can't be so rigid that you don't make any allowances for special circumstances. and, again, i don't know what all of the facts are here so i'm not going to second guess that decision. >> do you think the president's trying to force rosenstein out to make a decision on a matter of principle that he can't carry through on an order of the white house? >> i don't know that he's trying to do that. it sure has every appearance of that. you know, it feels like he's marched him up to the guillotine several times now only then to walk him away. it's got to be really hard to do your job in those kinds of circumstances. >> you just had members of congress, supporters of the president's, introducing a resolution essentially accusing the justice department and the

fbi of malfeasance and calling for a second counsel. what impact does that have on the justice department, on the -- on rosenstein, on the people who are on the line in these investigations, bob mueller? >> yeah, well, just imagine if you're there and you're trying to do your job, and whether you're rod rosenstein and whether you're one of the line people at doj who is really subjected to what seems like sometimes, you know, the daily criticisms from the president of the united states, that is not an easy environment to do your work. these are tough jobs to begin with. that makes it a whole lot harder. you know, that being said, though, i've known a lot of these people for many years. >> mmm-hmm. >> i know how dedicated they are to trying to do the right thing. i believe that the people at the department of justice, as difficult as it is, are going to try to let that stuff roll off their back and continue to focus on what the law requires and what the facts show and to try

to just call it like they see it. >> so you talk about how this relentless hammering by the president and his -- and his supporters on -- has on the justice department employees, on the fbi employees. it also had an impact on the public. and one thing we've seen is this tremendous polarization in attitudes towards our justice system, and particularly the fbi, because of the -- the president has enormous power with his tweets, with his amplifiers in the media. what are the ramifications of that? >> you know, it's hard to quantify that, but doj and the fbi really rely on public confidence to be able to do their jobs. when fbi agents go knocking on somebody's door because they need to -- they need information, there is a crime they're investigating, the folks answering that door need to trust the agents that are on the other side. when prosecutors go into court and are trying a case, you need

for the jury to trust that the information that you're presenting is accurate. there needs to be a basic level of trust there. that's one of the things that really concerns me here, is that there is really no way to quantify that, but this has ramifications far beyond how people may feel on one side of the aisle or the other on the russia investigation. this goes really to our entire criminal justice system. >> so much of this polarization has infected both sides of the debate to the point where you have people who are opposed to the president sort of expecting that bob mueller's going to come back with a -- with indictments, with some sort of report implicating the president and will be disappointed and maybe unaccepting if doesn't. then on the other side, if he does come back with such a report, people saying this is sort of a backdoor coup.

>> you know, none of us should be hoping that the president conspired with the russians to impact the election. none of us should be hoping for an indictment. it seems to me what we should all hope for and expect and demand is that bob mueller have the time and the opportunity that he needs to get to the bottom of it. if there is more there, mueller ought to find it and we ought to find out about it. and if there's not, we need to know that, too, and we should be willing to accept that as well. >> i had a little contact with him when he was the fbi director, just when he would brief the president on some major event. he struck me sort of from central casting. mueller is known as a republican, he was certainly a republican appointee, but there are people on his team who have given contributions to democratic candidates. there was the two fbi agents who were found to be texting each other with anti-trump conversations.

has that been -- is that a fair depiction? >> there are always going to be folks who want to ascribe motives to you in those cases. i prosecuted democrats and republicans. i'm not the only one. prosecutors all over the country prosecute folks on both sides of the aisle, even though they most likely have a political preference themselves. you know, people just don't seem to understand that that's just not how doj works. that you put all of that aside and you call cases as you see them. even if you were to have an errant prosecutor, the machinery is such that it would be really hard for one person to be able to drive some type of politically-motivated prosecution when you have agents and other lawyers and u.s. attorney and main justice all involved in these things. >> it is. but will it at the end of the day make it harder if mueller comes back with some significant

findings that implicate the president or the people around him? >> well, you know, i remember when he was first named, and it was met with universal acclaim. you know, republicans and democrats were saying that he's just the right guy to be doing this. i'm not real sure what changed from that point until now, except maybe there are results of that investigation that some people don't like. >> you know, people have said the president and rudy giuliani and others that are years long enough, this has become the mantra. we just marked the first year anniversary of that. how long do these probes generally take when you're working on a complex investigation like this? >> they take a very long time. what many people probably wouldn't have any way of -- this has moved at a lightning pace for an investigation as complex of this. to have already produced the number of charges and guilty pleas that it has is really remarkable, you know? you're sending subpoenas for

documents. you have to wait until you get those back. you then get more documents. you subpoena witnesses. it's a very long process. they've obviously been really pushing hard to get this done quickly. >> why should people care? i mean, there is so much back and forth going on right now that it seems almost like the genesis of all of this has been lost in the political -- >> yeah. >> -- back and forth. why is this important? >> and that's one of the things that's concerned me is that, you know, as we talk about bob mueller and whether he's a democrat or a republican, we all seem to be losing that russia interfered in our election. there hasn't been a whole lot of talk about what we're doing to make sure that they don't do it again. >> coming up next on "the axe flies" -- >> i certainly recognized that there was a significant chance that the president would fire me if i did this, but when the knock on the door came --

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let me take you back to

those days when you were acting attorney general at the beginning -- >> you just gave me an extra day. i think it was only ten. >> oh, is that right? well, in any case, they were immortalized. in january 26th of went, you went to see the white house counsel don mcgahn. you went to warn him about something relative to mike flynn, the then national security adviser. talk about that. >> well, this was -- in leading up to the inauguration and then after that, there had been a number of public statements that were coming out of the white house, and most recently from the vice president that general flynn had not had any communications with the russian ambassador about sanctions. you know, we're a year out, but at the time it was a big thing about the sanctions and as well as whether or not there was an effort to essentially tell the russians, don't worry about those sanctions.

there were a number of statements coming both from reince priebus, from sean spicer, and then as i mentioned from the vice president, saying he had talked with general flynn and general flynn had assured him there had been no discussion about sanctions. well, we knew that not to be the case and we were concerned about that on a couple of levels. we were concerned that the vice president was misleading the american people and we presumed that he didn't know that, but we were also concerned that we weren't the only ones who knew that the information that mike flynn had provided the president and others to give that to the american people wasn't true. >> meaning ambassador kislyak and the russians knew what was said on that conversation? >> that they would know as well and that created a compromised situation where the russians could use that as leverage, either subtly or directly with the incoming national security adviser. >> i think it was a couple of days before you went over there that general flynn sat down with

the fbi for an interview. he's since pleaded guilty to lying to the fbi. i think in that interview. so you knew that as well. did you share that information with don mcgahn? >> i told him he had been interviewed but did not tell him about the substance of the interview. >> do you think the implication was that he did not -- that he wasn't truthful there? >> i think -- i'm trying to be careful about what i've testified to and what i haven't because i don't want to reveal things that are still -- >> on this one, he's pleaded guilty already. >> it seems pretty clear he wasn't truthful there. >> it was several weeks before general flynn was relieved of his position of the national security adviser. presumably, he kept on functioning in that role, was privy to top secret information and so on. what happened was "the washington post" disclosed you had had this meeting, i presume you didn't leak that story. >> no, i did not. >> "the washington post" had this story that you had this meeting and three hours later

general flynn resigned. >> right. i think we all were surprised. yeah, i mean, because we made it really clear when we went to see them that we were giving them this information so that they could take action. >> and no action was taken until it became public? >> that's right. >> what did that suggest to you? >> you know, i was certainly surprised by that, kind of befuddled as to what's going on here, but at the same time, as i said, i wasn't there after january 30th, so i didn't really know if perhaps there was some interaction going on that i just didn't know about. >> in your role as acting attorney general, it came to your attention that there was this travel ban that the white house wanted to put into effect. you weren't consulted on it. how did you learn about that travel ban? >> i was actually in the car, late friday afternoon on the 27th, on my way to go back to atlanta for -- my husband was

being honored in an event that weekend and i was going back oh from that dinner. i got a call from my principal deputy, you're not going to believe this but i just read in "the new york times" the president has signed some sort of travel ban and we didn't know anything about it. i immediately got on my ipad and started -- >> how unusual is that in your experience? >> it's really unusual. really unusual. normally for something like this, not just would the department of justice be consulted and be part of it, but if you have a national security purpose for something, you would consult with the national security agencies. none of that happened. literally folks were midair when the president signed the travel ban and could not get back into the country. so we spent the weekend, again, trying to wrap our arms around who was in and who was out and what the white house was trying to accomplish. >> did you ask the white house what they were trying to accomplish?

>> folks were -- there was a lot of discussion going on back and forth and we were also reviewing the challenges that were coming in because we had to have folks in court the very next morning, that saturday morning defending. so we took the position we would defend on procedural grounds only until we could wrap our arms around the substance of this. monday we gathered everyone there in the conference room, all the trump appointees as well as the career people, to talk this through again. of what the challenges were and what our defenses would be. >> and was there heated debate between the trump appointees and the career people? >> i can't disclose the actual discussions there because that's deliberations within doj. i can say that there was not a consensus on this. >> and you made your decision -- >> we talked about it -- >> the decision was that you weren't going to defend this thing. >> right. right. we talked through the challenges and what the defenses were, and what it came down to here is

that it was clear to defend the travel ban, we were going to have to argue that it had absolutely nothing to do with religion. and that was in the face of the statements that the president had made both on the campaign trail and since the election about his intent to effectuate a muslim ban. it seemed like that's exactly what this was. that put us in a quandary here because that would put the department of justice in the position of having to advance a pretext that there was a reason other than religion for the travel ban, and i didn't think the department of justice should ever be advancing a pretext. >> this goes to that central question of what role of the department of justice is. what's the precedent for attorneys general or acting attorneys general resigning rather than defending a policy? we know in watergate they resigned because they wouldn't fire the special prosecutor, but what about for defending a

policy or not defending a policy? >> the good news is there haven't been a lot of resignations or directions in that regard. this doesn't come up very much because normally there is communication in advance of a situation like this. and i thought about resigning. i mean, that was, you know, once i had made the decision that i didn't see how the department of justice was defend this and advance something that i didn't believe to be the truth, the harder question was whether to resign or whether to direct. you know, i went back and forth on that -- you know, i thought back to my confirmation hearing where there were several senators, including then senator sessions, who were quite emphatic with me that there would be times where the president might ask me to do something that was unlawful, or i think even senator sessions pointed out would bring dishonor to the department of justice. they emphasized to me that it was my responsibility to say no. >> do you think the attorney general has a responsibility to

say no to the president if he asks for something that's improper? >> senator, i believe that the attorney general or the deputy attorney general has an obligation to follow the law and the constitution. >> that was quite a confrontation, actually. that was a very dramatic moment when senator sessions, now attorney general sessions, said would you stand up to the president? >> right. i think they were thinking about a different president, but it seems the principle is the same and they were right about that because, you know, had i resigned, that would have protected my personal integrity, but it would not have protected the integrity of the department of justice and i don't believe i would have been doing my job. >> so you directed the department not to defend. then someone came to you, a trump appointee, with a memo. what was your reaction? were you surprised when that happened? >> no. i wasn't entirely -- >> have you ever been fired from any job before? >> no. i mean, i couldn't say -- >> you seem like a high

achiever. >> we'll see. but i wasn't entirely surprised. i certainly recognized that there was a significant chance that the president would fire me if i did this. on the other hand, i hoped that wasn't the case. i had spent 27 years at doj and even though i wasn't going to be there much longer, i was just there until senator sessions was confirmed, but i didn't particularly want to end my time at department of justice with being fired. so that's -- i was hopeful that wouldn't happen, but when the knock on the door came i -- and the knock came from my principal deputy's office that adjoined mine. it's 9:00 or so at night, and for that -- >> kind of a grim reaper quality to that. >> yeah, well, i had a sense at that moment. >> looking -- looking back, a lot has been said about whether

the obama administration should have been more aggressive about exposing the russians interference in the election. do you have second thoughts about that? i know it wasn't your decision, but do you have second thoughts about it? >> look, i think the administration, and i'm talking about the administration as a whole, was aggressive in trying to get to the bottom of russian interference in the election. i think you have to be really careful when you're talking about a step then of ascribing involvement of others to that effort before you really know what the facts are. >> when these investigations are -- were unfolding, both the clinton and the -- and the russia probe, thinking about the implications of them and trying to balance interests -- >> whether you're talking about a presidential election or whether you're talking about a local sheriff's race, the department of justice is always very sensitive to taking actions

that can impact elections. you're always very sensitive to taking an action that a political opponent might try to use in the course of an election. you want to make sure you're not being used in that way. so you can imagine if you're talking about issues that are on the national stage you are hyperfocused on those issues as well. you know, you don't want to have -- to be unfair and to have information used inappropriately and you also want to make sure that the public continues to have confidence in the department of justice ads well. >> that obviously raises the question about jim comey and the fbi -- >> yeah. >> -- acting 12 days before the 2016 election. that would seem to violate that principle. >> it does. there is an i.g. investigation of that as well. director comey's actions with respect to that letter as well as the july press conference. so i'm not going to talk about that either until that's over. >> he published a book to great

fanfare a few weeks ago and went on a nationwide tour. he was quite caustic in his assessment of the president, very aggressive, did very well with the book, by the way, so it was a good strategy. was it a -- was it a good strategy for the probe at a time when the president was trying to depict this as a vendetta against him? >> you know, everybody has to decide for him or herself -- >> would you have done it? >> that's not something i'm comfortable with. but -- >> why? >> it is just not consistent with how i would operate. i don't want to make -- i don't want to pass judgement on somebody else's decision of how they're going to operate. it's not -- it wouldn't have been my choice but he had to make his own decision. >> ahead on "the axe flies" -- >> i think that probably will be the most meaningful case i ever have. i'm getting a little teary now talking about it.

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responsible of what amounted to an act of domestic terrorism. but there was also someone who was at first thought to be a suspect and it spoke to the power of the criminal justice system, for good and for inadvertently doing things that can really damage people's live. >> you know, that's something that -- >> richard jewel was the guy who was originally suspected. >> look, prosecutors have a tremendous amount of power. even when it's not in a high-profile matter like that, you know, the mere fact of an investigation can change someone's life forever. that's why, to me, making sure is that you have people in those jobs who really take that responsibility seriously, who recognize, and i know this sounds really corny, that the job is not to get convictions but the responsibility is to seek justice and to do it in an aggressive way because your job is to hold people accountable when they violate the law. but to do it in a fair way and

that takes into account the impact that it has on their lives and the lives of their families as well. >> it's a hard thing in the modern media environment. >> it is. >> where there is this hunger for information and sometimes that information isn't good but it can travel very, very quickly. >> certainly even more so now with social media and jug wise, things don't stay quiet for long. >> it's interesting, this issue of criminal justice reform. there are people on the right and left who seem invested in it. the attorney general less so. >> yes. >> this issue. >> this is one of the few issues in which there really is a bipartisan consensus that we need to adjust how we're approaching criminal justice. you know, some people come at it from a purely fiscal standpoint, that we can't afford to continue to incarcerate people at the levels that we are right now. you know, 5% of the world's population, yet we have 25% of its prisoners. i think most people recognize that the lock them all up and

throw away the key mentality of the '80s and early '90s is not only not the most effective law enforcement, it's simply unjust. more people serving time for public safety reasons, but the general public has a different perspective on that. so i don't think you're going to see the department of justice leading the way now on criminal justice reform, but i do think it's taken root in the states and that regardless of doj's position that states, red states and blue states alike all over the country are really enacting meaningful criminal justice reform. everything from alternatives to incarceration to drug treatment to sentencing reform to importantly looking at re-entry and prison reform, that is absolutely essential as well. >> you, yourself, as a young lawyer worked on a case of a woman whose land was ex-appropriated. that was very much an issue of

it seemed like racial injustice. talk about the impact of that and the impact it had on you. >> you know, i think that will probably be the most meaningful case i will ever have. it was when i was a young associate at king king & spaulding. a woman came to the firm years before to get free legal advice. her family had been one of the earliest african-american land owners, they had 92 acres. 6 acres was taken through a subdivision being built now. my client's family didn't file their deed, written on a piece of cloth from back in the '30s that my client's mother carried folded up down inside of her dress as she worked the fields every day. she carried that deed around with her because the property meant that much to them. because they didn't trust the white court system then, and for

very good reason didn't trust the white court system, they didn't want to go give the court their deed so they held on to it. well, fast forward to the '80s then. now there is going to be a subdivision built and our client is saying, why are they doing this on our property? and so i filed a case using an old property theory, adverse possession, which is if you've been using the property openly and notoriously for seven years, it's yours, even if you haven't filed the deed. the way they used the property was by washing their clothes in the stream. another land owner knew that because they were making moonshine from the same stream. when we tried the case, i'd never seen a trial before. i had to go over a week before and watch how the jury was selected because i had no idea how this was done. when we tried that, it was

before the law that prevented lawyers from striking jurors because of their rise. >> it was on all-white jury. >> all-white jury. all-white courtroom. my clients were the only african-americans in the courtroom. everybody knew everybody on the other side. they used the lawyers, the property surveyors, developers. all-white jury. this lawyer who had no clue who knew what she was doing. yet that jury returned a verdict for our client. and i can tell you right now, it wasn't because of any great lawyering i did, it was absolutely in spite of me not because of me. but that actually is part of what instilled in me a really belief in our justice system, that those jurors were given an opportunity to do the right thing. and they embraced it. they wanted to do the right thing -- >> how did you react when the verdict was read? >> i'm getting a little teary talking about it. i probably got teary then, too.

it was incredibly moving also to see my clients' reaction to this. they never thought in a million years that this same court system that they had so mistrusted, that they wouldn't even file their deed, was then going to return a verdict for them -- >> up next on "the axe flies" -- >> i mean, my dad didn't get the help he needed because he was worried about the stigma of going and getting help. ♪ ooh, heaven is a place on earth ♪ uhp. i didn't believe it. again. ♪ ooh, baby, do you know what that's worth? ♪ i want to believe it. [ claps hands ] ♪ ooh i'm not hearing the confidence. okay, hold the name your price tool. power of options based on your budget! and! ♪ we'll make heaven a place on earth ♪ yeah! oh, my angels! ♪ ooh, heaven is a place on earth ♪ [ sobs quietly ]

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you and i share something that's an unhappy thing.

my dad committed suicide and i know your dad did as well. he had a very successful career in the law on the bench. i raise it because what i -- having not talked about it for 30 years, i realize the reason i didn't talk about it was the same reason my dad didn't get the help that he needed and it's important to recognize this isn't a character deficiency, this is an illness. >> yeah. >> and so i wanted to ask you about that and the impact that's had on you and how that has caused you to view the criminal justice system. because there are -- the sheriff of cooke county told me he's got the largest jail in the country. he feels like he's running the world's largest mental health clinic because so many people come in with issues. >> yeah. you know, i haven't talked much about it over these years. he died may 6th of 1986. i will tear up.

>> i'm right there with you. >> yeah. >> i'm right there with you. >> wow, it's been over 30 years. maybe this is why i -- you know, for a few reasons. one, i hated for him to be defined -- >> yeah. >> -- by how he died rather than how he lived. >> i felt the same way. >> and it also felt like such an invasion of his privacy. i've come over the years -- i have talked about it a couple of times, and the reason is that, look, if there is anything that i can do to help to erase the stigma -- >> yes. >> -- of mental illness -- >> yes. >> and to encourage people to get help. >> yes. >> my dad didn't get the help he needed because he worried about the stigma of going and getting help. you know, we tried to encourage him but i don't know that i encouraged him as much as i should have at the time. not so much because i was

worried about the stigma, but just because back then people didn't do that that much. >> i know. >> they should have but they didn't. help, he could very well be alive today and know my son and his grandchildren. >> listen, we've lived parallel lives in this regard. i only raise it to tell people out there, get the help you need. mental illness is an illness, it's not a stigma, it's not a mark on your character. some extraordinary people have grappled with it, some have overcome it, some have not, and often because of that. >> i see that as a really good thing now. to the extent that people can recognize that with help they can lead happy, healthy lives. and, you know, not getting that help is such a loss. up next. >> would you like to go back to the justice department some day and finish the work you started?

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spitfire. there was nothing warm and fuzzy about mama, as we called her. incredibly loving and devoted, no question about that. incredibly loving, as was my dad. that ran through them. just would do anything in the world for you. but she was really smart. and she did that. and she took the bar exam. much to the surprise of her husband, she passed. this was in rural georgia in the '30s, '40s, and nobody is hiring a lady lawyer as they were known then. so she was a secretary to my father, my grandfather, and my uncle. i've ovften thought, she was smarter than all of them and it must have driven her crazy to be typing for them.

>> we live in an interesting and exciting time in this regard because of the "me too" movement. i'm interested, your career has spanned several decades now. how were you received and what kinds of barriers did you face coming up as a young lawyer, as a young prosecutor? >> you know, there weren't that many women in the criminal division of the u.s. attorney's office when i started. there were a lot of women doing civil work but not that many in the criminal division. i remember when i first came to the office, one of the supervisors there didn't want me to go into the organized crime section. he thought it would be too rough and tumble for me, so he put me in white collar, which actually i ended up loving. but that's the kind of thing that wouldn't have happened today. in the firm i started, there was only one female litigation partner in the entire firm before i went to the u.s. attorney's office, obviously very different today. and then i juxtaposed that against the time i served as deputy attorney general under loretta lynch.

so you had two women in the top two spots at the department of justice. >> now you've returned to your old law firm, and you're going to do investigations. do you expect these kinds of investigations that have been the subject of the "me too" movement will be part of your portfolio? and what do you hope to accomplish with that? >> i'll be engaged in an independent investigations practice here. when there are those messy situations that come up, whether it's a company or a university or sports organization, where it's really important to have someone come in from the outside and to be able to give an authoritative, credible answer to what happened. certainly hr issues, "me too" issues, corporate culture issues, are really important to organizations right now. >> and you'r name comes up all the time for people who would love to see you run for public office. and i know when we were together recently at the university of

chicago, at the institute of politics there, you were asked this question and you basically said i'm not saying no, but i'm not saying yes. >> i'm saying more no than yes. you know, i'm flattered, first, that people would want me to run for office. and i obviously believe in public service. >> when you run for public office, let me tell you, it's always best right before you announce. >> then maybe i'll stay in just a good state. do i believe in public service, i wouldn't have stayed in doj for 27 years if i didn't really believe in that. but there's a difference between public service and running for elected office. and i really kind of feel most people who do that have always had a drive to do that. and to be honest with you, it just doesn't feel like me. >> do you see yourself going back into public service? >> i don't know what the future may -- >> you wouldn't preclude that? >> i wouldn't preclude that. >> would you like to go back to

the justice department some day and finish the work you started? >> look, who wouldn't want to do that? but right now i'm focused on what i'm doing now. >> sally yates, it's been great to be with you, thank you so much. >> great to be with you as well. >> for more of this conversation, go to cnn.com/axefiles. >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. you are live in the "cnn newsroom," i'm ryan nobles in tonight for ana cabrera. freedom and a return to u.s. soil for an american man locked up in venezuela without a trial for nearly two years. this is joshua holt. 26 years old, from riverton, utah. the woman in the middle is his venezuelan wife. on the right, u.s. senator bob corker of tennessee