jack goldsmith served as an assistant attorney general during the bh administration. he is also a professor at harvard law school and co-founder of lawfareblog.com. and frank montoya a retired f.b.i. agent who oversaw national security investigations. he joins us via skype. gentlemen, thanks for making the time. michael mukasey, i want to ask you first, the president certainly has constitutional authority to direct the work of the justice depaiment. the crsm here, though, is that this specific directive wasn't about the law, it s about politics. did the president cross a line here? >> i don't know that he crossed a line. i think he was appropriately responded to by rod rosenstein td that is it was going to be referrthe inspector general who in the ordinary course would take a look at a tter like thi and see whether it had been done appropriately or inappropriately, and tt would be the end of it. >> nawaz: rosenstein responded, as you purchased, to the deputy a.g. by sayg this would be a matter the inspector general takes up. but in response to t president's first acti

. >> jack goldsmith, let me ask you, this isn't the first time the president has come up ainst his own law enfocement agencies, but what you have you noticed about theio relathip between those two? >> you're right. the tweet over the weekend comes against the backdrop of almost a year of unprecedented bullysuing and pr and name calling by the president about the russia investigation and threatening and questioning th integrity of people he appointed to the f.b.i. director or the deputy attorney general. all of that is unpecedented in the post-water greater ray. we've never had anything like this level of -- or anything close to this level of presidential interference and threats with an ongoing investigation. i can't emphasize how tough it for them be conducting this investigation. usually the president in these hi-stakes events has the back of his justice department ofcials and here the presdent not only doesn't have their back, he's angachem and trying to undermine the degree inti of what theyre doing. >> nawaz: let me ask you about thpositiothe deputy attorney general is in, did he

say other branches of government, i'll distinguish them, in the judiciary, i was worried and jack goldsmith freak out in the judiciary. i see this, maybe i'm kidding myself, but a shoot coming up in congress, at least some parts of it regaining its role in our constitutional system. i see tremendous energy in young people. and i don't have good data on this, but i have a strong sense that other parts of civil society are feeling a compulsion to talk about respect and prejudice and truth telling, and i would include parents and teachers in that, that was not happening three years ago or two years ago. and so i see all those as signs of the growth that will come. to me the most important is i think there is a sleeping giant in this country with is our common commitment to values. talk about how hard culture is to change. we've been the same for a long time. read tobacekville we really are that way. and what unites is is that commitment to things i talked about. one of my favorite literature is martin luther king where he's writing to the sleeping giant. moderate sitting on the sidelines, and