And here with the release of this memo, we know what his motives are because he's been clear about it.

He's telegraphed publicly and he said to a number of aides privately that he wanted this memo released

because he sees it as a pretext to move on Roderow's and Stein potentially to fire him.

We don't know if he'll do it or not again, but that's clearly what he hopes to accomplish through doing this.

A number of my colleagues are very troubled. I think there will be a backlash against this breach protocol.

Today, the number three Senate Republican called on House Republicans to listen and heed the FBI's warning.

What we're seeing is obstruction of justice unfolding in real time right before us.

Hello and welcome to Trumpcast. I'm Jacob Weisberg. Joining me in the studio today

is Slate's legal correspondent, Dahlia Lithwick. Hi, Dahlia. Hi, Jacob.

We've both spent most of the day in a slate retreat. We can't call it an offside because it's an

onsite in our Brooklyn office, but we were waiting to get our hot little hands on this newness memo.

And it came out a little after lunchtime. And what was your first reaction to it?

I think it was my reaction was the same reaction as most people, which was really. This is what you had.

This is the smoking gun that's going to blow the lid off Washington.

It was a pretty even for a disappointing effort. It was a really disappointing, disappointing effort.

They could have done much better. So what were they trying to do? This is Devon Nunez and the Trump

supporting Republicans on this House Committee on Intelligence. And they've sort of created what

reads like a little Fox News commentary with a little intrigue in it. But what would you think

they're trying to accomplish with it? I think that we've known all along that the point was to

destabilize and discredit the Justice Department, the intelligence services to sort of chip, chip,

chip, chip at the institutions that bolster the Bob Mueller investigation. So they're very careful

and we've seen it all day to cabin. Oh, this has nothing to do with the legitimacy of the Bob Mueller

...