is that something jim comey would offer? guest: no but i cannot sit in the room and i am not even sure what the context was of that. he asked to is that conversation ?ain under investigation we do not know the full context of it. behink that will definitely the conversation. i am sure so many members will be able to question him in the beginning. it is always interesting to me in on oversight government reform because i can gauge what is happening. i can hear what happens -- other questions when it gets -- until gets around to you. you may see the changes in questioning based on earlier and the opening statement. james comey will give an opening statement to the committee and that will change quite aquestiof the questioning at the time. he may answer those questions immediately in his opening statement so he does not have to respond to questions. host: next up. caller: good morning. on behalf of comey, when i look at him, he seems nice. he will tell the truth. so mean to people watching. i would be listening and i know every

the first was jim comey. no one thought he v could have been knocked often the high ground and he was knocked off the high ground. the second -- and my apologies to dan, the second is the obama administration and the politization of the doj. we knew this to be true but to hear it stated by the director that then attorney general loretta lynch said this is a matter, not an investigation, chfgs a clinton -- which was a clinton campaign talking point. >> back to the issue of tapes, john, if there were tapes wouldn't we already know about it? it's not possible that he could have it and be hiding it and it never showed up. we'd already know, wouldn't we? >> the easy answer is go to the secret service. they sweep the white house on a often many times a day to make sure there's no certificate up tissuous taping going on. the telephone is the one that obama has. it has the capability of recording. all you have to do is hit a switch and the voicemail becomes a recording system. >> yes, go ahead, april. >> on the secre

special counsel bob mueller, who is allowing jim comey to testify today, could potentially in any case of obstruction be, you know, bob mueller's key witness, he is already allowed him to speak about this. so i don't think, i think analysis is correct. this is a political situation where the people will hear both sides of a political case but the legal case is just not there. stuart: james comey, by the way just walked into the hearing room.

>> his motive is jim comey basically wants to do what is best for jim comey. he has lost the faith of the president. he's lost the faith of the individuals working at the fbi, and, you know, his reputation has clearly taken a hit on this because not just today but in his previous testimony in front of the house and the senate he had to go back and correct because he made misstatements then too. just because he's under oath today doesn't mean jim comey is tellinetrut >> thank you. hope you come ba. we'll back with bill chrisow and michael crawly joins us. >> i disagree with corey. i think he comes across as an incredibly honorable man and republicans seem to be setting a pretty high bar for damning information about president trump. i mean so maybe he wasn't under fbi investigation before he fired comey. we don't know that he's not now. but we heard a story about a man that i think a lot of americans will find extremely troubling, and they'll be asking themselves whether this is appropriate behavior for a president of the united states. i mean greta, there's a

we learn today that jim comey fired by president trump is going to testify in two sessions, one is going to be public, one is going to be behind closed doors because of some of the classified nature of the intelligence they are going to talk about but he is going to be the first to hear directly from jim comey since he was fired by the white house and since all of these questions have come up. in the wake of all of this about exactly what these conversations were between director comey and president trump before comey was fired. now, as we know, comey is said to have kept very detailed notes about those meetings and of course senators are going fob wanting to ask those questions. in a way, this is a very big victory for the senate intelligence committee because all four of these groups have been trying to get jim comey to come talk to them to. senator grassley was not very happy about the fact that comey spurned their invitation and decided to go with intelligence. what we're told comey went to robert mueller the independent to go ahead and give this testimony. jim and shawn, next thursd

president trump will not block jim comey from testifying. new details tonight on the former fbi director's testimony itself. plus, the president slamming his own justice department over the watered down travel ban. do trump's tweets jeopardize the case before the supreme court? >>> and jeanne moos on president trump's most frequently made request. >> believe me. believe me. believe me. believe me. then there are moments it becomes clear, ♪ together always was, and always will be, a better way. ♪ [vo] what made secretariat the grwho ever lived?e of course he was strong... ...intelligent. ...explosive. but the true secret to his perfection... was a heart, twice the size of an average horse. and sometimes i struggle to sleep at night,blind. and stay awake during the day. this is called non-24. learn more by calling 844-824-2424. or visit your24info.com. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ sfx: engine revving ♪ (silence) ♪ abdominal pain... ...and diarrhea. but it's my anniversary. aw. sorry. we've got other plans. your recurring, unpredictable abdominal pa

i know jim comey. i learned from him when he was deputy attorney general. these are real professionals. and i think we run the risk if we besmirch and try to kill the credibility of these people, we really do begin to confuse matters and not only hurt their credibility but undermine the credibility of the institutions themselves. i think that's the problem. >> do you think jim comey is part of the deep state? >> no, of course not. jim comey was a decorated man of integrity who was not only recognized as such by former president bush but also president obama, was serving credibly. you know, you can argue that he made mistakes, no doubt, in the context of the clinton matter as well as in terms of leaking. maybe problematic and certainly that's worth looking at. but to claim he's part of a deep state trying to undermine the president is a real problem. >> those are bannon's words, the deep state construction. that was what steve bannon was talking about at cpac and said, look, this is what we are fighting against. and it is part of this broader pattern, not ju

comey to back off the flynn investigation, he said no. >> right. >> next week, jim comey is going to go under oath and give his version of the story. if he said, yes, trump did, that'll put the president in an awkward spot. it'll raise the question, will he will willing to say under oath, perhaps before a grand jury, he didn't direct jim comey to back off? >> i asked kristen about the speculation that the president may try to invoke privilege, to limit some of this testimony. do the circumstances fall within the purview of privilege at all? >> you know, it would be unprecedented for a white house to try to block a former official who wants to testify from going before congress and telling their story. it's never been done in history. i think it'd likely be quickly rejected by the courts. there are a number of reasons why it would fail. one, the president is partially waive executive privilege by talking about it. two, it's not generally recognized to cover discussions -- or examples of wrongdoing. what jim comey will testify about is potential wrongdoing by the president. i think it'

but to go to the merits, jim comey's testimony never changed. in fact, jim comey had a recording. it wasn't a literal recording. it was a memorandum that he wrote right after he finished those conversations about the president telling him to let flynn go, about the president telling him to pledge his loyalty, and then firing jim comey because of the russia thing. so, the tapes were really a red herring that the president threw across jim comey very likely to intimidate. and i think that statement will be potential evidence. >> when you say potential evidence, of obstruction of justice, is that what you're saying? >> potential evidence of obstruction of justice, and perhaps if there were other conversations between donald trump and members of the white house staff about tapes, about his statement that there might be tapes, indicating that the purpose of that tweet was, in fact, to intimidate jim comey. there is all kinds of evidence that the special prosecutor is going to be eliciting and reviewing to determine whether or not there was collusion between the trump campaign and the r

the memo was leaked february 15 at which time jim comey said he was going -- jim comey probably perjured himself today or at least made a grave mistake. it would be the first time in his testimony history worries made an error. very clear his undisclosed memo and in the memo it says there's handwringing at the fbi what to do if attorney general jeff sessions does not recuse himself. the only way to get them to do it is through public pressure. it was an amazing memo leaked to "the new york times" what we know is that jim comey is the leaker of the memorandums. >> eboni: he said the reason he knew it in advance, to your point, not that he was psychic but he was made aware of it. >> corey: the president of the united states was not aware of the attorney general was going to recuse himself. >> eboni: the president wasn't aware. >> corey: you are telling me the attorney general called jim comey, not the president, and said i'm going to recuse myself. >> eboni: i am telling you exactly what comey said. we are aware of facts i cannot discuss in the open setting to make that continued investiga

he worked under jim comey. he called him a true leader and he always had agents' backs. this hearing starts tomorrow morning at 10:00 a.m. one building over from where we are right now. i will be inside that hearing looking for both jim comey's testimony and reaction from lawmakers afterwards. >> i know it starts at 10:00 a.m. how long is it expected to last? >> reporter: you know, about an hour and a half to two hours. however, i will say that last time we were here for the testimony of jim comey in the house, he was speaking in front of the house committee. it went way long er than anticipated. so all of the senators will get to ask questions and that may go a little longer. we'll be watching. >> lauren mayk, i'll be joining you tomorrow in washington as well. thank you. >>> back here at home, all lanes on the delaware memorial bridge are reopened after this smokey fire right here. construction material on fire underneath the bridge. they spent the afternoon making sure the entire bridge was structurally safe. traffic was backed up for hours and drivers had to use a di

>> i am a jim comey fan. i admire his abilities but yesterday, the most important testimony was about loretta lynch and her interference and attempt to manipulate the way he handled that investigation, there was the nucleus of the entire controversy. her decision to meet on the tarmac and to minisub -- manipulate his messaging led to him trying to solve a problem that wasn't his problem. when he made the decision to take on her role and make announcements about the prosecution decision he stepped into something he has never been been able to get out. maria: he is judge, jury and executioner. >> he was eminently qualified to make prosecutorial decisions but that wasn't the job he had that day and wasn't his responsibility but he tried to and he never got out of that and he lost credibility with the democrats, theepublicans and that is an ongoing vacation. >> the president receives a directive that he thinks is inappropriate rather taking steps he knows he should take that are prescribed, he take matters into h

comey's tenure that was true according to jim comey. and then the second is to turn this into a comey versus president trump fight to kind of brand jim comey into democrat, the mainstream media and other critics and make it a he said/he said. it's not really he said/he said. it's the storied fbi director whose career has spanned a lot of crime and credibility across the part son aisle saying that the way he dealt with president trump deviated in many ways from the way he dealt with other presidents because of the way the president had approached him. two meetings ever with president obama. nine meetings with president trump in the span of four months on. on and on, these sort of things. that's the white house's approach. that makes sense. i talked to norm eisen, the former obama aethics adviser. so the one thing that he kind of says is he's not saying it has gotten to this point yet but that for the president and his lawyer marc kasowitz, they need to be mindful of overstepping the political response. when you're doing things, filing a

did jim comey commit a crime? >> greg: that's so funny. >> juan: that's epilation by a white house on the defense. trying to point a finger at somebody. it's not a shift in narrative. >> greg: it wasn't just the white house. that was "the washington post" " >> kimberly: the media is covering it. >> greg: the bully media. >> juan: you know who the big bully is? president trump. >> greg: we spent eight years of being bullied into submissio submission. >> juan: i never heard a word from her gut felt negative about obama. >> greg: confirmation bias. either you see him -- i live in the middle. >> juan: i don't see him as evil. i see him as a bully, rude, offensive and incompetent. >> greg: i want to make one more point. >> juan: i want to make him one more point to greg. whose credibility would you trust? president trump or jim comey? oh, boy, look at the number of lies told by -- >> greg: great question. you are dealing with somebody who tweets versus somebody who leaks. the most transparent thing you can do is tweet.

. >> jim comey has left his house. he is on his way to capitol hill. we are talki ithat is the forme leaving there. >> anderson, we are in the hearing room where hundreds of people are waiting outside this room to get one of the hottest tickets in town in a room that only fits a couple hundred people. so a lot of people will be outside waiting for this riveting testimony in which we are going to hear james comey lay out three key things. one, president trump has asked for loyalty over nine interactions they had during mr. comey's time in office before he was fired. two, the investigation into michael flynn and the president asks that he drop that investigation into the president's former national security advisor and as well as james comey himself, the push from the president for james comey to clear the president's name by saying that he is not the president -- the president himself was not under investigation in a couple of key passages that were laid out in james comey's written testimony that was released yesterday really gets into this in some det

jim comey comes out and said that, in your mind, is this an impeachble act? >> i'm not going to speculate on something that we don't know what he's going to say yet. frankly, i think this is why this is going to be the most watched television in mod irnl history. better question to ask me thursday night. >> we will do that. i appreciate your time tonight. thank you. >> you're welcome. >> "out front" next, breaking news, they believe russian ha hackers. where breaking his silence is out front next. new details about the nsa contractor leaking testimony. z2bg8z z10mz y2bg8y y10my anyone ever have occasional constipation,diarrhea, gas or bloating? she does. she does. help defend against those digestive issues. take phillips' colon health probiotic caps daily with three types of good bacteria. 400 likes? wow! try phillips' colon health. thithis is the new new york.e? think again. we are building new airports all across the state. new roads and bridges. new mass transit. new business friendly environment. new lower taxes. and new university partnerships to grow th

once the president fired him, he set jim comey free. for a while -- when jim comey had the first conversation with the president when the president started asking about the russia investigation he could have done -- he could have said to the president, mr. president, these conversations are inappropriate for us to be having, on investigating members of your campaign, associates of yours and he didn't do that. one of the reasons he might not have done that at some point he realized the president is committing potentially obstruction of justice here, i'm going to continue to collect evidence. and while he was leading the investigation, it would have been, you know, irresponsible of him to go public about that information. that's not what investigators do in the middle of an investigation. but he's no longer the investigator. he is now a witness in this case. and so he has a very different obligation than when leading the investigation. >> i have to share a bit more of that conversation don jr. and eric had this morning on "good morning am

comey, when he has the rnc going out slashing and burning jim comey, attacking jim comey, mark is right. he doesn't understand the consequences. he doesn't understand, bob mueller is watching that, and it doesn't end well for him. all these attacks against comey today, if they happen, will be very bad for donald trump and his satellites, as he says, down the road. >> one thing we did see in the comey pre statements that we got, pre released. we see ignorance in how washington works. we see a sliminess. >> that's what jay caruso says, trump comes off as the slimy real estate guy trying to sell you swamp land in florida. >> for sure. you know who is vindicated so far? michael schmidt. >> it's almost as if michael knew somebody close to the story. >> michael? >> the statement does provide some larger context about things that we didn't know. i didn't know how obsessed trump was with getting this statement out that he wasn't under investigation. that seems to be the real preoccupation that he had. he's still pushing comey up until the beginning of april to put this statement out. the intere

we'll start with jim comey get a little bit angry today and what was he angry about? well, not necessarily over the fact that he was fired. comey's frustration and anger spilled out when he started to talk about the story that the president and the white put out about why he was fired and what was going on at the fbi immediately leading up to that and the president's words at one point there was disarray and upset. at the fbi. comey struck back calling both the president's statement and those white house staffers who repeated those talking points liars. >> those were lies plain and simple. and i am so sorry that the fbi workforce had to hear them and i'm so sorry that the american people were told them. >> reporter: now, the senate intelligence chairman richard burr dug in a little further. he wanted to know flatly a very clear question here, did the president ever directly ask you, jim comey, to close the russia investigation. comey's answer was no. >> did the president at any time ask you to stop the fbi investigation into russian involvement in the 2016 u.s. electi

trump did what was necessary to make lying jim comey speak the truth. lordy, ho dus just blocked one of the most powerful men in the world. imagine playing poker against trump. actually, he revealed his hand early. >> you're going to be very disappointed when you hear the answer. >> reporter: maybe disappointed isn't the right word. >> this is nutty. >> reporter: you've got to keep your eyes on the magician's hands al ought times. i never believe tld were tapes. now trump says there weren't any. i'm not so sure. >> donald trump is a national version of candy crush, wasting our time whether we like it or not. >> reporter: some trump critics said the president admitted the obvious. it's okay, he'll take care of it. referring to special counsel robert mueller, after the president tweeted, i did not make and do not have any such recordings. one critic used a previous trump tweet to reply, what a load of cafefe. jeanne moos, cnn. >>> you can watch "outfront" anytime. "ac 360" starts now. >>> good evening. thanks for joining us. a number of breaking stories t

jim comey is interjecting himself. it's a question worth asking, maybe i'm supposed to be meeting with guy, he keeps interjecting himself into my life. >> michael, is that an excuse? >> not if he has a good white house council because there are clear justice department guidelines about the manner in which the white house, the president in particular is to communicate with the fbi director. you don't have to be insider in government to know that that's the proper way to proceed. i think the other thing though, don, that's important about this memo and the relationship that comey is setting out is that he's saying that the president wanted some sort of patronage relationship, and you remember, and it's not in the memo itself, that the comey documentation says that he was very concerned when the president called him when he was about to board his helicopter, just to chitchat, made comey very uncomfortable. why would the president be calling me just to chitchat? then you have that famous first responders meeting in the whi

>> we're getting a preview of jim comey's story as written, turned in to congress. it's a story of repeated contacts that at least jim comey thought improper, and i should note the guidelines and manuals of the justice department, these internal documents would borne out that it was inappropriate. is it illegal? >> he expected him to say, no, there was some sort of effort to stop me from investigating? should we expect him to say that? >> what he is describing is the predicate for why this is important which does relate to rules and policies, so that's the distinction i'm trying to draw. when he says the president's requests about who was under investigation and how to get that information out, that he rejected it and referred him back to the deputy attorney general, he is referencing, in fact, that under the protocols, the fbi reports in -- and i don't want this to be under investigation or his associates to be under investigation. that would be the worst example of it. so i would say what comes through here in this unusual document is a series of contacts that jim

his side of the story related to jim comey. some of the conversations comey had with the president and where jeff sessions was a participant to get the rest of the story. comey's statement i don't want time alone with the president and that interaction and accusations flying around about con varversations he may or may have had. we want all of the facts out there. >> reporter: the chairman of the intel committee has not said if the hearing will go forward tomorrow. sessions is expected at the white house later this morning for a cabinet meeting. his first after days of deflection of whether the president has confidence in the attorney general. >> not a hard question to answer. laura, thank you. >>> president trump cannot seem to stay quiet about the russia investigation. the president slammed james comey again. retweeted about the chance of impeachment. why is he doing this? cnn's jason carroll is live in washington. no tweets yet this morning, jason. >> reporter: it is still early, john. the he said-he said battle under way. p

jim comey said he didn't trust the president. that for the first time in his career that he wrote memos of his conversations with the president after they occurred because he thought the president might lie about them at some future time, that he took some steps to avoid being in one-on-one situations with the president after the valentines oval office meeting, that at that meeting he sensed that jeff sessions and jared kushner were reluctant to leave him alone with the president. he said that during that meeting in the oval office he felt pressure from the president to drop the investigation against michael flynn, although he was not explicitly told to drop that investigation. he clearly said that he believed he was fired because of the russian investigation and that this could conceivably change the way the investigation was being conducted and of course he accused the president of ge famg him by making statements about his competency after he fired that comey class fight as lies, pure and simple. >> you're a veteran of the jus

you saw jim comey come up there. he didn't talk about areas where he thought he would be trouncing on bob mueller's territory and he was honest. it's shameful. they have proven to the american people they are unfit to leave. shame on paul ryan who insists that innocence and do you polup some kind of excuse. if he hasn't figured out in six months how to be president, he should step down. >> and they're trying to say the premise of this, forget the obstructive justice, but the underlying offense just never happened. here's probably the strongest defender of donald trump questioning jim comey on thursday trying to clear donald trump. take a look. >> on february 14th, the "new york times" published a story the headline in which "trump campaign aides had repeated contacts with trump intelligence." you asked earlier if that was an inaccurate story. would it be fair to characterize that story as almost entirely wrong? >> yes. >> you have been writing about this and talking about this on this show since early last summer. is

maria: everybody wants to know what jim comey affair. dagen: he will start my review some of the things the president has said publicly. >> the big question is how effective is comey and is the embarrassing to the president. maria: a lot of the docket this morning. wilbur ross joining us this morning along with a member of the armed services with mike rounds with us. the house majority leader and california congressman kevin mccarthy walker timeline. a meeting with the president yesterday. ceo caesars entertainment mark thesaurus with us. plus the ceo of express scripts is that does come at what worse. stay with us. this guy was president trump and his infrastructure plan on the road. set to discuss his $1 trillion infrastructure plan to overhaul rose covered bridges, waterways. the plan would rely heavily on public-private partnerships while the white house has yet to detail specifics, the administration is funding improvements at $200 billion in tax breaks over nine years that would generate the administration's approach yesterday. >>

"he's a leaker" is an effort to impune jim comey. it's a very debatable point whether handing off your own conversations when you're a private citizen is a leak. it may simply be a revelation and there's a very big difference. >> uh-huh. >> and then he immediately said, this was an excuse by the democrats to explain the election. so this conflates the question of what the president was doing in relation to the investigation and the underlying question of whether russia was messing with the election and that's what he always used to say about the russia thing was, this is an invention of the democrats. >> exactly. >> he's the only one now that says that. all of the intelligence leaders, comey himself, even many republicans, now all say clearly the -- >> and he never asked comey about the investigations. >> not once. >> russia and out of the gate, your point, sir, when he gave that opening statement and said my priority is the safety of the american people and you said what? >> i said, you know, the mund mental issue, the reason we're

comey, that was an assertion of confidence in jim comey and the more the chairman of the investigating committee on the hill believes that, the more difficulty president trump can expect. secondly, even if, as james comey said, he did several times and this affirms what donald trump has said previously, expressed that president trump was not personally under investigation, james comey said on a couple of occasions he thinks -- he believes that he now is under an investigation, specifically of obstruction of justice. he said joe mansion said do you believe the president's conduct rose to level of obstruction of justice and he said that's for bob muller to sort out. the president has got some serious problems after this hearing. we don't know what's going to emerge in the closed session. of course bob muellor's investigation is proceeding on an entirely different track. >> thank you, john, from our bureau down in d.c. >>> perhaps lost in all the drama today, comments that the former fbi director made about russian hacking of the election, where he said -- there should be no fuzz on that.

again, you saw jim comey say calling the president a liar, words i think for jim comey to rebuild his own reputation. i believe, liz, you opened the broadcast with this. he is in trouble, and we said he should be very careful when he does this testimony under oath, he doesn't have a lot of friends on capitol hill. the democrats will use him but they don't have love loss for him if he were to get in trouble by statements he makes. liz: let's stay on that, hang on a second. you're saying he's in trouble for the leaks, and set it up for the viewer what exactly happened today. here is what happened. james comey ad-libbed at the beginning of the hearing, he effectively said this that he heard conflicting reasons for why he was fired. first he heard it was the hillary clinton probe, how he handled that. then over russia. he then heard the president say he's in disarray, lacks leadership, comey said the president was lying about that, that that was defamation. then comey admits later, jordan, yeah, he wrote down the mo what he was talking about with the president. leaked that memo in order t

jim comey, mr. justice with a capital "j," the guy who took on the previous bush administration in defense of proper justice department procedure. why did he never tell him, mr. president, what you're doing is inappropriate, and you've asked me on several occasions for my loyalty. you don't have my loyalty one on one here. i'm independent of you, and that's how it should be. now, he was put in a difficult position, but the way that this carries out is, in his notes, indicates a lot of subtlety in these exchanges back and forth. and overall, it wasn't just comey. why didn't the intelligence chiefs, if they were asked to make this investigation go away, why didn't they say, mr. president, no, don't ask me that question, not appropriate? >> okay, panel, please stick around. we're going to need you during these next hours as we ramp up to the comey testimony, because there are seven pages of this riveting testimony. and now that senators have had a chance to digest it, what questions do they have for ja

. >> after the comey testify we basically add he said/he said between jim comey and the president. the third thing which i hope is of very real interest to all 335 people in this building, attorney general asserted an odd privilege to not have to speak to congress because the president might in the future invoke executive privilege. this is a novel thing. traditionally you can do that. not to speak to congress because you could i trim nal yourself. >> on my given day, there are a meetings where we are asking ache encys to tell us what they are doing. if they are right and i'm saying i'm not answering your questions because the president may some say use privilege we may as well shut down in the united states congress. >> there were written guidelines that would prevent him from discussing what he called private conversations with the president on any subject. also saying he was not sto stonewalling. just following policy. are you aware of the policy? >> no, i'm not. if the policies exist we have to learn a lot more about them. i would think that my republican colleagues in this bus

he denied ever having that conversation with jim comey. he made that assertion in a press conference. the high stakes of the hearing are underlined by the question of who do you believe? do you believe the president or do you believe the fired fbi director? the man fired in the middle of the probe of the white house connections with russia. that becomes important. we read from jim comey's description of the meeting with the president which are highly inappropriate to act this way. inappropriate is one thing. was it actually illegal? will jim comey say today what he thought those comments meant? did he think it was obstruction of justice? did he think it was potentially illegal tampering with the investigation or will he offer the facts and not offer opinion? the big question is a political one today. there is a legal one. the political one is to what extent will this testimony further erode confidence and trust in the president and his team? the president may feel vindicated by the fact he was told he wasn't investigated. it shows he is th

the firing of jim comey was -- you know, a lightning event for democrats. republicans, like, it's -- you can have the same situation with muler. >> that's been true in past crises. a lot of nixon's base stuck with him and clinton got more popular during his crisis. it's entirely popular that will happen, but when you have bob mueller looking into these very, very weighty issues and he comes back as a neutral widely well-regarded arbiter and says, yes, i have found evidence of this bad behavior, bad behavior, that changes the dynamic a little bit rather than have it be the democrats or news media suggesting that there's something there. >> does it change the dynamic? >> i'm trying to think what it would really take. listen, republicans have been into the wilderness for a long time. they are desperate for legislative victories like you would not believe. they will stick with him as long it is a takes, but i do think if this rises seriously to a national security issue, where they lied about things that could potentially have national security implications tha

jim comey mentioned that. what he would found out from this hearing is lorreta lynch the former attorney general used her influence to tell jim comey how to discuss an active ongoing criminal investigation into the clinton campaign and jim comey as the head of the fbi then didn't have the courage to stand up to lorreta lynch. look, sometimes we should get the facts out. but what we should get the facts out about is what the obama administration did to obstruct justice potentially. sandra: corey, let's talk about what this means politically. because now that we have heard from james comey, we watched the testimony this week. former speaker of the house newt gingrich says that this proves the knives are out for the president. and it's time for congressional republicans to back the president. is he right? >> oh, he is 100 percent right. look, the deep state is very, very real. the swamp croorts are very real. don't kid yourself. jim comey is a person who has made a very good career living in washington and what w

sources say behind the scenes jim comey has met with robert mule every, the special counsel. they have made clear that jim comby is going to stay away from those issues specifically, but when it comes to the meetings with president trump, those will be addressed. wolf. >> not just comey's testimony on thursday, there could also be some serious fireworks tomorrow, right? >> reporter: exactly right. same committee, same issues, different witnesses. tomorrow the senate intelligence committee will be having a hearing on fisa, the foreign surveillance act, keep in mind who is testifying, rod rosenstein whose memo was cited by several white house officials for the rationale for firing jim comey, his first testimony in a public forum. it's likely he'll do what he's done behind the scenes on capitol hill, pretty much defer any questions to bob mueller, but also testifying will be dan coates, the director of national intelligence, also the director of the nsa michael rogers. keep in mind, wolf, these are two individuals who were approached by president trump and asked to publicly deny

comey finally telling his side of the story, jim comey, whether you liked him or didn't like him, this is a guy of high integrity that was well respected by all his colleagues at the fbi, who even the president has already acknowledged that he fired him because of the fbi investigation. then he went in front of the russians and smeared jim comey's name and basically said he was firing him to try to take the pressure off from the russia investigation. i want jim comey to tell his side of the story of what happened and if you take these facts in total, i think the american public is going to start, maybe not reaching a full conclusion, because we haven't even gotten to the meat of this investigation, which is what happened before the election. >> right, right. >> and why so many contacts during the transition when the president said there were no contacts at all. >> understood. let's see what is said and please do me a favor. once we have heard the testimony, come back on the show so we can test what it means to you and the american people. >> chris, russian hackers reportedly behind a f

>> he is a friend of mine and came down to support jim comey. he also was fired and was a prosecutor like comey in the southern district of new york. one thing interesting he knows the russia file because he was in charge of the investigation in 2010 when the fbi and the cia wrapped up those russian illegal operatives living here. he was the prosecutor who ran that case. >> and they were apparently here according to the dni report they were here to monitor the 2008 election. this is where you see the contrast. if you read the department of justice complaint back from the summer of 2010 when they were arrested it is ridiculous. they do things like anna chapman, it wasn't just them -- she bought a burner phone and she bought it and filled out an address and wrote 99 fake street. it wasn't the americans. it was pink panther. they were trying to cozy up to think tank people and reading the press and sending back reports of what they read in newspapers. that was only 2010. that was six years ago if you compare to the 2016 election. they have really f

jim comey was concerned that he didn't want to be alone with the president. he mentioned it leader on it is written prepared statement. what's clear is the president wasn't saying to him you've got to do this or else. or get into the russia probe or anything else. what i hear is the president just fired flynn we liked and respected but understood he lied to the vice president. trying to say we fired him. that's enough. is it going to go into a probe? sku and i have heard supporters of the president saying this is how he talks. he's a real estate developer from new york. he's not used to the washington ways of dealing with this. is that how you see it? >> the first time i read this earlier today it was it reads like the president tocsin it sounds like a guy who's not a washington guy. america did not select a washington guy. they hired a new york business guy. he came in and he's in the process of hiring people. doesn't surprise me he's sitting down with people and saying i need you to be loyal. that's part of being a part of this. we have for term over and ov

what i also see is what jim comey did at the time. he admits he didn't report it to higher-ups which would be inference he didn't believe the president was trying to obstruct justice, and in his prepared testimony that jim actually says that the president, you know, wanted to know if anybody in his campaign or his administration had done anything illegal and did want those pele fred out and potentially prosecuted. so i don't think this looks anything like obstruction of justice claim or even impeachable offense. charles: matthew, what do you make of the comment that comey said that he thought it was an effort for me to ask for my job and created some sort of patronage relationship. is that unsavory? illegal? or common place? >> i mean any presidential appointment ultimately is a patronage job, and you know oftentimes they go to people involved in party politics or t the president's party, and i don't think that's different over the last 200+ years of american history. i think that's an interesting editorial by jim comey to suggest the

of course, getting the specifics of what the president said to jim comey, whether jim comey said he wasn't under vest gas s investigation need to get answered. >> looking forward to thursday's testimony. what questions do you hope to have answered and what kind of an impact will it have on your committee's investigation, do you think? >> i think we need to know the specifics of everything that was said by the president to jim comey, not just what may have been attempts to slow down, to impede the investigation. again, we have the president himself saying that part of the reason that he fired jim comey was because of the pressure of the investigation. it was odd. we got those two or three different explanations for the firing. one of them included the fact that he was -- that he was bothered by the investigation. we need to know what other pressure may have been put on what else the president may have said and what jim comey said. the president alleges that jim comey said three times that he was not under investigation. we will want to know about that. obviously, get those memos. it would n

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you have watched jim comey over the years. he seems to me to stand up to that kind of stuff pretty easily and can overcome that if he has a narrative to tell. >> and also the more you press him, the more you shaare going give him an opportunity to dig in. at the end of the day, this is going to be a political situation, not a legal one. so guys like mike lee, republican, who say that, you know, whatever he says, i'm going to be all right, that's going to be very big in terms of what this actually means. all right. now we get to devin nunes, how big a deal is his saying he was stepping away, not stepping away, issuing subpoenas reportedly without conferring with the other ranking member of his committee, which is exactly what they brought him up on ethics charges for the last time. >> i think this adds to the circus atmosphere that is the house intel committee on this probe. it is totally different in tone and tenor than the senate intel committee. now remember we have the special counsel with mueller, which is an entirely sort

jim comey's out of office now. he no longer has that job. the president has become the focus of a possible criminal investigation. he has a reason to change his story. >> ellis, the president has not given a straight answer on whether there are indeed tapes. we know he's tweeted about it. he was asked about it again from the rose garden and he says, you'll see, soon, and you may be disappointed. how do you interpret that? >> well, we have a little disagreement here, don't we. we have to decide who it is of these two gentlemen who's more credible, right? on one hand we have the fbi director who served three presidents from two parties with distinction. and we have the guy who told us that barack obama was born in kenya. you know? you decide. which one of those do you want to believe? >> page, we know that comey testified. he's talked about feeling very uncomfortable that these were inappropriate interactions that he had, the phone calls and face to face with the president. and then today the former u.s. attorney general preek ba preet >> when

most of washington, many of the democrats detested this man until donald trump fired him, which jim comey said in his good-bye letter, was the right of the president to do. secondly, jim comey, the last time he testified under oath, the fbi had to scurry and correct his testimony immediately because what he said was false. he was off by hundreds of thousands in terms of the e-mails between huma abedin and anthony weiner. and there were two classified in there apparently. and he was off by many, many, in terms of the classification. >> that's true what you just stated. but does the white house consider it a possibility that they would try to prevent the testimony by asserting executive privilege? is that an open possibility? >> the president will make that final decision. >> okay. >> the fact is, if he testifies, we'll all be watching. i think people should look at the rod rosenstein memo again to see what the problem was in the department with fbi director james comey. he points out that the integrity and the morale were down. and he points out that comey had tried to usurp the power of t

comey does i hope there are recordings for jim comey's sake if that is out there but doubt they are there, we tried to push the whit white house to get a fm answer on that. >> dickerson: the president said he would testify under oath. would you like to question the president and what would you ask him. >> the only question i really have for president, the same thing he already answered publicly and put out any cooperation with the russian of any type, obviously he is not under investigation or not under direct accusation how he pressed jim comey, why that conversation, conversation even came up on a one-on-one meeting but not a lot of great information and there hasn't been a direct accusation from the president actually being involved with the russians, it has been people around him, in his campaign. so for me there is not a lot of questions directly to him. >> dickerson: on the question of influencing the investigation, again, talking about the scale, on the other hand the president might have done something that was a little bit crossing a line but he is a new guy, to the job, al

jim comey making it plain that he is bitter about being fired. he has a motive for really inflicting pain on this white house, and he is not afraid to twist the knife. he is not holding things back. he is piling on the detail that could be damaging to this president. the white house on the other hand is saying -- comey is saying he is a leaker himself, and we are going to fight him. we saw that continued today with the president's willingness to go under oath. i continue the question is, are there tapes? i can tell you there is a lot of speculation that the fact that both in the statement yesterday by the president's lawyer, when he denied saying something that comey said the president said, asking for his loyalty, there is a suspicion that there are not tapes. does the president really want to get into a fight with the former fbi director if there are tapes? where is comey is saying "i hope , there are tapes." and if so, i give my permission to release them. charlie: why would the president dangle the idea that there are tapes out there if there

comey had to say here it if there is any jim comey had to say. what did you make of what jim comey had to say last week? what was your sense of how he comported himself and how he related what he says happened over the last few months? little on the biased side. i know jim comey. he is a man of integrity, character, and is a pretty intelligent guy. i heard people say he lied on the stand, if you think jim comey is going to put his hand in the air and swear to tell the truth, and live, everyone -- and lie, everyone is sadly mistaken. there has only been one person to swear under oath as to the veracity of what they were saying, so let's see how everyone else does. about one's talk facet of his testimony. he did note when he began to have misgivings about his relationship with the president, he refrained going to jeff sessions at that point though had not yet recruits himself. was that -- yet recused himself. was that a mistake? bill: no. everybody on the team agreed that the jeff sessions was going to recuse himself, then i think he had to do what

jim comey should not declare victory. i'm certain president trump should not declare victory. >> david gregory, couldn't you argue that the president got what he needed most out of yesterday? while i'm not differing your analysis and the import, but when burr said i want to talk about loretta lynch and her calling an investigation and the gop and chorus like shakespeare saying that could be obstruction. paul ryan saying, the president, he ordered people out of the room. he is new to this. didn't he get what he needed most of all? his party is behind him. facts be damned. >> i agree with that. i would add to it. i think the fact that comey and pressed by democrats and republicans about it. if you felt this way, why didn't you push back and immediately report up the legal chain of command of obstruction of justice. if you felt you were directed to do something wrong and felt the commander in chief and president of the united states was lying, why didn't you do more? we have the memos by comey that trump said it would be goo