Speaker 1: It's time now for our daily Bloomberg Law Brief, exploring
Speaker 1: legal issues in the news. And Today, Bloomberg Law host
Speaker 1: During Grasso discussed his confirmation hearing sort President Trump's picked
Speaker 1: a lee the FBI, Christopher Ray. She speaks with Benjamin Wagner,
Speaker 1: a partner at Gibson Dunn and former U S Attorney
Speaker 1: for the Eastern District of California. Benjamin did Ray pass
Speaker 1: the loyalty test to the rule of law that the
Speaker 1: senators seemed to be giving him, Well, I think so. Um. Obviously,
Speaker 1: he needed to convey that he understood this was a
Speaker 1: very unusual situation that he was in. The circumstances surrounding
Speaker 1: the departure of the prior director, the ongoing Special Council
Speaker 1: investigation UH puts Mr Ray in a very, uh, sort
Speaker 1: of unusual situation going in as FBI director, And I
Speaker 1: think he needed to convey that he understood that that
Speaker 1: he was going to be independent by the book. UH.
Speaker 1: And I think he did a good job of responding
Speaker 1: to questions from both sides of the aisle in reassuring
Speaker 1: senators that that he understood the situation and and he
Speaker 1: could be relied upon to be nonpartisan and independent. Ray
Speaker 1: was asked so many questions as hypotheticals that were really
Speaker 1: based on things that James Coby did or said, for example,
Speaker 1: his press conference on Hillary Clinton's email investigation and his
Speaker 1: testimony that Trump asked him to drop the investigation into
Speaker 1: former National Security advisor Michael Flynn. What was your reaction
Speaker 1: to the senators taking the facts and putting them into
Speaker 1: hypotheticals for him, Well, you know, it's not surprising. There's
Speaker 1: always a little bit of this kind of game that
Speaker 1: goes back and forth um at uh confirmation hearings for
Speaker 1: these kinds of positions. You saw it in the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court confirmation hearing recently, where that nominees understandably don't want
Speaker 1: to be sort of on the record talking about facts
Speaker 1: that are either outside their uh their personal knowledge or
Speaker 1: talk about things that may come before them. Uh, and
Speaker 1: they may have to, you know, be be held to
Speaker 1: opinions that were expressed earlier when they didn't know all
Speaker 1: the facts, and so they're very careful about that. And
Speaker 1: for that reason, Uh, you know, senators have been through
Speaker 1: this rigmarole before, and so I think they approach it
Speaker 1: in the sort of a hypothetical uh in order to
Speaker 1: get the person talking, so they can get a sense
Speaker 1: of the person without UH forcing a question that they
Speaker 1: know that the nominee will not answer, as Benjamin Wagner,
Speaker 1: a partner at Gibson and Dunn, speaking with Bloomberg La
Speaker 1: host Jun Grass. So you can listen to Bloomberg Law
Speaker 1: weekdays at one pm Wall Street Time here on Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Radio and among the top legal stories from Bloomberg Law,
Speaker 1: A federal judge in Hawaii has vastly expanded the list
Speaker 1: of relatives exempt from President Trump's travel ban. The ruling
Speaker 1: is the latest pushback in the fight set off by
Speaker 1: the band the President first attempted in January, will culminate
Speaker 1: with arguments in front of the U. S. Supreme Court
Speaker 1: in October. And that's this morning's Bloomberg Lawbrary. If you
Speaker 1: can find more illegal news at Bloomberg Law dot com
Speaker 1: and Bloomberg BNA dot com. Attorneys will find exceptional legal
Speaker 1: research and business development tools there as well. Visit Bloomberg
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