>> you know, there is a lot of -- that's not really my area, but my wonderful colleagues devlin barrett and also matt zapatoski who cover the justice department have been covering that very well, and it focuses really the controversy is really over why are you going to have a press conference at 9:30 in the morning for a report you're not going to release until some time later. i'm remembering kind of fondly when a special counsel investigating the potential leak of a cia operative's name gave us a few hours to review his final report, this was patrick fitzgerald. >> that's right. >> before we all gathered in a main conference room at the justice department to ask questions. that was, you know, i think a public service in addition to being easy on reporters. >> giuliani is said to be preparing a counterreport to the findings. there was some back and forth about whether they're going to go ahead with that. presumably that would focus on these obstruction issues? >> presumably. i know that the white house team from other sources we've spoken to is preparing at least some public statements

devlin barrett who writes about national security and law enforcement. ellen nakashima, and a political investigations reporter. before we begin, i'd like to let the audience here and everyone watching online noik tweet your questions using #postlive and i'll try to get to some of them later on. so it's appropriate that we're gathered here in this kind of forum and conversation because those of us here onstage along with a much larger team of post journalists have been part of a running conversation in the news room for the last two years and even longer and together we've been trying to figure out really the contours and scope of the mueller probe, as well as the extent and the nature of the ties between russia and the trump campaign. every other day we would meet at about 11:00 inside what we jokingly refer to as our skiff, our secure facility. which was essentially a conference room with no windows that marty baron set aside for those of us covering this story. i wish i could share with you some of those conversations from that room. but i'll tell you