September 4, 2018

"Let's discuss this with Jeffrey Toobin and David Chalian. The president's tweet about how upset he is that his two long-time supporters, announced when he was running for president, Chris Collins and Duncan Hunter, are being investigated and indicted. What do you see here in terms of does this mean the president is meddling in the Justice Department investigation?" Alisyn Camerota said.

"You know, this tweet alone may be an impeachable offense. This is such a disgrace. This is so contrary to the traditions of the Department of Justice. You know, I used to be a U.S. attorney," Jeff Toobin.

"If I went to my supervisor and said, you know, we shouldn't indict or investigate a member of the president's party because he's a member of the president's party, I probably would have been suspended if not fired. The sentiment at the core of that tweet is so contrary to the mission of the Department of Justice and such an insult to the decent people who work there, the career prosecutors who work through Democratic and Republican administrations, it is -- you know, we wear ourselves out being outraged at things Donald Trump says. But this one really is different because it's such an affront to the values of the Justice Department," Toobin said.

"As you pointed out, the tweet itself is factually wrong. the investigation was not started under President Obama," John Berman said. "We have footage of Chris Collins on the phone the day those trades were made at the White House, at the Trump White House.

Toobin said the tweet was "dangerous beyond the factual wrongness of it. It's dangerous, david, because he's saying that investigations should should be political. So far we have Ben Sasse, frequent critic of the president saying this is bad. Paul Ryan, sort of sitting down, putting his spokesperson out and saying he doesn't like this."

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