ted olson.e has argued 63 cases in private practice and for the government before the supreme court, including during his term as solicitor general from 2001 to 2004. one of his key cases, representing president bush in bush v. gore. he's also a partner at gibs gibson-dunn in washington. we are pleased to have you back. you were with us on the first turn and we are delighted to have you back for a second season. >> i'm delighted you would ask. >> we're going to start with understanding how broad or narrow this decision was. help people understand the decision before we go into all of the details. what did the court actually find? >> well, the court found that the "times" and the "post" could not be restrained in advance from publishing a prior restraint, as it's known, and they said that it is a very heavy burden that the government has to overcome. they have to show real irreparable harm to the country and that the government had failed to do that. so, that was the ruling of the court. in addit

susan: ted olson, the espionage the government was looking too. i going to ask what we should know about that law as we think about the questions in the case? ted: the espionage act is an old statute. it is very unclear as to what it prohibits and under what circumstances it would impose punishment on someone who leaked materials who communicated interest and information that might do damage to the national security. there was an argument in this case about how far it went. it did not authorize the government to stop publication of a document. it imposed criminal penalties or fines on someone who disclose national security information. the court specifically pointed out in this case that there was no statute that gave the government the power to ask the court to stop the publication of materials. this business about prior restraints is very important. if you stop someone from speaking, or stop someone from publishing, it will not happen. there are a lot of things i can -- of things that can be done. you can take risks by speaking something or speak

now you have people like ted olson who everybody respects. former solicitor general, mark penn. sharyl atkinson's time line is devastating. your reaction to this. >> here's the thing. you know, inspector generals are good in circumstances. mr. horowitz cannot interview any of the people that left the department of justice or the fbi. he has no subpoena authority so the people part of the plot are gone. he can't talk to them. all he can do is review documents and talk to whoever is left to do that. what we need is a federal grand jury with a prosecutor, doesn't have to be a special counsel -- and by the way, let's remember why we're here. we're here because rod rosenstein, a political coward, someone that was inadvertent made deputy attorney general appointed robert mueller illegally. here we are more than a year later with nothing having been determined except there was no russian collusion. all of these people been put through hell because rod rosenstein couldn't done what he should have done, which is conducted -- not only is he conflicted because he was a witness and he signe

. >> my name is ted olson. it was an honour, it is an honour to serve on the board for this project. i, obviously ask your approval of it, but i am here today to commend the director on the way he conducted and chose all of the participants for this, particularly his collegial work with the other partner departments which means that this is a uniform intelligence of all of your infrastructure departments. i also want to commend susan, and the entire team for leading our see wg through this process of understanding all of the technicalities that went into this decision. finally i say, about the importance, and as john said, the differences between airports and roads versus railroad, by the time high-speed rail comes to san francisco, and the importance of this is it is a regional plan that we have proposed, by the time it arrives in san francisco, we will have 1 million residents. i urge your approval. >> supervisor peskin: thank you. >> mr chairman, members of the commission, our interest is really in getting c

ted olson challenged the to conduct that investigation. the supreme court overwhelmingly rejected the challenge. and found the independent counsel statute was constitutional. a lot of people have her reservation -- have reservations about that. --y are can to give waited articulated by justice scalia. he pointed out in his dissenting opinion that independent counsels who are not accountable to the executive branch operate differently from ordinary prosecutors. a special counsel is very different. a special counsel is like an acting u.s. attorney. we now have a number of u.s. attorneys confirmed around the country. they have been approved by the senate. we also have a number of u.s. attorneys where there were vacancies. the attorney general point -- appointed someone. the person is accountable to the department of justice and the attorney general. is very muchel like that. the special counsel model is not new. the have been used over years and what is significantly different is they are accountable to the apartment -- d department through t

i love you, you are family to me, but when you look at this, and ted olson, and mark penn, and cheryl of what they failed to do for a year and a half, and to the state israel, and the effort too undermine the president is real, fisa abuse spies and the trump champion are real, you are the greatt historian. tell me where in history this will stack up to. >> i think it is rapidly becoming the biggest and the most sobering political scandal in american history. somebody pointed out earlier, paquin j. edgar hoover opposed spying on lyndon johnson's richard nixon, we thought it was terrible. back when we had a break in at watergate, without it was terrible. this is a multiyear effort that has two different fronts. people always remember, one front was protecting, for bill and hillary clinton. the other front, as trump becamr more and more serious, the other front was to stop trump at any cost. i believe that the reason you see people like sally yatesha go berserk, general clapper go berserk, they are all -- when you see someone of the obama team whore get that rattled when they are that an

when ted olson turned down the ability or the opportunity to join rudy giuliani's team, afterward afterwards he told me that no other lawyer in washington came up to say, hey, i will take this job. they can't find lawyers who want to work for donald trump. >> well, they are kindred spirits in calling it a a witch hunt, but i want to turn to "the wall street journal" report, grace, that michael cohen received hundreds of thousands of dollars in the home equity line of credit, and investigators want to know what the money is for, and are they going be looking into that? what are the political implications of this? >> well, they will be going through all of michael cohen's money, and the implications are significant for the president. the way that he has handled the st stormy daniels' payment is speaking to the way that he is used to operating as a private citizen and presumably with the nondisclosure agreements like stormy daniels on the sign, and if he is publicly challenged or something, he would deny it, but now that he is president, and when he was a candidate of the president, it opened h

ted olson challenged the authority to conduct that investigation. the supreme court overwhelmingly rejected the challenge. and found the independent counsel statute was constitutional. a lot of people have reservations about that. including me. they are articulated in a second opinion by justice scalia. justice scalia pointed out in his dissenting opinion that independent counsels who are not accountable to the executive branch operate differently from ordinary prosecutors. a special counsel is very different. a special counsel is very much like an acting u.s. attorney. we now have a number of u.s. attorneys confirmed around the country. they have been approved by the senate. we also have a number of u.s. attorneys where there were vacancies. and so the attorney general appointed somebody to be u.s. attorney. that person exercises the power of u.s. attorney, the person is accountable to the department of justice and the attorney general, but has not been senate confirms. a special counsel is very much like that. the special counsel model is not new.

i think we win it, as does ted olson, who wrote an article about it, i think it was last week.owever, mainly do they have the authority to do it? we can't lose. i think we get all votes. the justice department defines the authority of the independent counsel. the justice department cannot issue criminal process to a sitting president. that's the law basically all over the world for a head of state. i can't see how we lose that. maybe in the ninth circuit, not enough air court. >> bill: you said he's more likely to sit with chairman kim then he is with bob mueller. you described that as korean perjury. just listening to, i don't believe this interview will ever happen, am i wrong you might >> rudy: no! it could happen. he wants to do it. so far since i've been in this, all i see are obstacles that they are putting in the way. starting with: andy:, what's tt all about? going off about something of the middle east, which turned out to be software that was turned down by the campaign. and now the spygate, i don't think they are going to want to tell us about it because it's so emba

susan: ted olson, what is he saying? ted: what he is saying is i am speaking on behalf of the united states. i am telling you, based upon the material that we have in the possession of the united states, that the publication of this material will damage the united states embarassed different -- and intangible ways. this is dangerous material. we have a responsibility to protect the united states and protect the citizens of the united states, and i am telling you, to the supreme court, don't let this happen because it will cause great harm. he is really putting it to them at that point. floyd: that is a very strong argument to make, even if it is not much supported. i don't want to say by the facts , but even if he cannot fight support of it. this is what the united states was saying from the moment the cases began. usingrd that they kept was irreparable. irreparable harm to the united states. their problem was, when they got in front of judges who asked them hard questions, the sort of, where is the thing? give me a docum

olson, the floor is yours. >> thank you mr president. my name is ted olsen and i'm a third generation san franciscan and sit on the division zero task force. -- sit on the division zero task force. i want to support the approval of this. we've made such progress with vision zero. i think what's really impressive about it is how the departments of the city have come together, acting on such and an important thing. especially how they've been using surveys, media, to conduct such a survey and gather community impressions. i took the survey and i'm sure many others did. there's much discussion in the community, i know it certainly has been on the market. it has been discussed about removing freeways and stuff like that. i commend division zero team and command your approval. >> supervisor peskin: thank you mr olson. seeing no other public comment, i will close public comment, i think you have one more commissioner thacommissioner tho solicit a vote from on the consent agenda. if you could please ask commissioner kim how she would like to vote on items 4-9