at a rally in michigan that evening, mr. trump accused comey of rigging the system to protect mrs. clinton. " you can't review 650,000 email and eight days. you just can't do it." hillary clinton is guilty." changing thoughts about mr. comey? guest: he reacted the of his own prism of reelection chances. he thought it was great when comey came down hard on clinton when in the end he exonerated her saying there was no new evidence on the laptop in new york. that he was saying the fbi was reading the system. -- rigging the system. there is no clear pattern of thought here except what helps personally. i think there is reason to believe moving mr. comey out-of-the-way give some reason to believe he can either stall or potentially shut down the rush of investigation. -- russian investigation. if you were truly innocent he should be banging on the table demanding a special counsel to immediately clear his name, and he should be revealing his tax returns which would tell us a lot about he has borrowed money from russian banks in russian oligarchs. host: madison, illinois. democrat. good m

we are to hear from mr. comey. i urge mr. comey to come and tell the whole, whole story. second, attorney general sessions and deputy attorney rosenstein should make themselves available to congress. i am renewing my request is the majority request to : all senators it briefing where they can answer the questions swirling about from tuesday night's firing. mr. attorney general sessions and deputy attorney general rosenstein should appear a separately and partially in ay classified setting if necessary. but, they must come. mr. rosenstein has played a central role in these events. he could help clear questions about where the decision to fire mr. comey originated. so, later today, separate and apart for my request to come before the senate, i'll be sending mr. rosenstein a letter with a list of questions for him to answer publicly. america needs to hear them. many democrats it voted for mr. rosenstein few weeks ago because he had a reputation for integrity. assured us to be an independent force inside the department of justice. ninety-four senators voted for him. but the e

changing thoughts about mr. comey. event he reacted to every through the prism of his own reelection chances. he thought it was great when hard oname down o clinton when in the end he exonerated her with no new evidence on the laptop in new york. he was saying that the fbi was reading the system. -- rigging the system. there no clear pattern of thought here except what helps mr. trump personally. if you apply that same logic to the action he just took, there is reason to believe that moving mr. comey out of the way gives him reason to believe that he can either stall or potentially even shut down the russia investigation. innocent, hewere should be banging on the table, demanding a special counsel to immediately clear his name and he should be revealing his tax returns, which would tell us a lot about whether he borrowed money from russian banks and russian oligarchs. host: angela is in madison, illinois, democrat. good morning. caller: good morning. yes, i have a problem with the informed trump that he was not under i

and on the topic of mr. comey, if the president has tapes of his conversation with mr. comey, we ought to be able to review those tapes as well to see if the president pressured the f.b.i. director to shut down an active investigation. the "times" reported that mr. comey kept contemporaneous memos of his conversations with the president, and mr. comey has a reputation for accuracy in those memos. those memos should also be provided to the congressional intelligence and judiciary committees, and mr. comey should testify before those committees in public. indeed, providing the congress the tapes and memos may be the only way -- excuse me. indeed, providing the congress the tapes and the memos may be the only way for this administration to credibly make a case to a justifiably skeptical american public about its version of the story reported by "the new york times." the president says what comey said was wrong. prove it. it's easy to prove. as long as there are tapes or transcripts of what happened. if the president's right, he'll have no problem releasing memos, tapes, tr

mr. comey: yes. sen. graham: and it is due to happen unless congress changes it? mr. comey: i've been told that. sen. graham: do you agree with me that isil losing caliphate, these people go out throughout the world and become terrorist agents and the threat of terrorism to the homeland is going to get greater over time, not smaller? mr. comey: yes. it will diminish in that their power to put out their media to the troubled people in the country will decrease, but the hardened killers flowing out of the caliphate will be a big problem. sen. graham: so from a funding point of view, terrorism is not going to get better, it's probably going to get worse. mr. comey: i think that's fair to say. sen. graham: did you ever talk to sally yates about her concerns with general flynn being compromised? mr. comey: i did. i don't know whether i can talk in this forum. but the answer is yes. had concernsshe about general flynn and she expressed those concerns to you? mr. comey: correct. sen. graham: ok. we'll talk

director james comey. mr. peters: during his campaign then candidate trump regularly talked about how he would be the law and order president. law and order means different things to different people. but all of us should be able to agree that we cannot have law and order without the rule of law. the rule of law is not new or even uniquely an

so many unanswered questions that only mr. comey can answer. we democrats hope and expect that he lost to come before the senate in some capacity and i sn for one salute him for inviting him to testify masks leaked before the intelligence committee. it's the right thing to do. a profound doubt that the reasons and timing of fbihe director firing by the presideno about the serious investigation into the trunk campaigns in russia by his agency we require answers. third, the recent revelations about the training for and comey meeting demand that deputy attorney general, attorney general sessions, deputy attorney general rosenstein answer questions because of so many, so many themes swirling about from last week's firing. maybe classified part. and each briefing should be done separately. mr. president, let me speak plainly. the prospect to campaign for the presidency of the united states colluded with the foreign power to in our nation's highest as te an investigation as there could be. it gets right to the heart, the pillar of our democracy. fair

we ought to hear from mr. comey. at this moment a profound doubt about the reasons and timing of f.b.i. director comey's firing by the president, about the status and progress of the very serious investigation into the trump campaign and russia by his agency, we require answers. and, third, the recent revelations about the rosenstein and comey meeting demand that the attorney general and the deputy attorney general -- attorney general sessions, deputy attorney general rosenstein, brief the senate and answer questions because of so many -- so many things swirling about last night's firing. that briefing could be classified if necessary. maybe part classified, part not. each briefing should be done separately. mr. president, let me speak plainly. the prospect that a campaign for the presidency of the united states colluded with a foreign power in order to win our nation's highest office is as grave a topic for an investigation as there could be. it gets right to heart of the pillar of our democracy. the fair and free e

trump and mr. comey. they also highlight some of the dialogue that went on between these two gentleman saying "i hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, letting guy, io." he is a good hope you can let this go. "i agree replied only, he is a good guy." there is more to the story and we will reach fortunes of it this morning -- four should -- fortunes -- portions of it this morning. (202) 748-8000 for democrats, (202) 748-8001 for republicans, .ndependents, (202) 748-8002 the story prompted a response from the white house. well the president has expressed his view that mr. flynn was a decent man who served our country he has never asked mr. comey or anyone else to end any investigation including the investigation involving general flynn. this is not a truthful or at portrayal ofurate the conversation between the president and mr. comey. the story gives a little bit of a background to the meeting. here is more from the times, saying "despite the conversation the investigation of mr. flynn has con

>> well the folks that i spoke to, mr. comey's associates said mr. comey had told them about this at the time and mr. comey was very concerned about it. this was not something they learned about after the fact. even another friend contacted me today to talk about other examples that mr. comey was really concerned about the way that this loyalty question sort of overshadowed his time working for mr. trump and he really felt that mr. trump was never really able to get past that. >> president trump criticized director comey during his interview with lester holt. let's take a look. >> he's a showboat. he's a grandstander. the fbi has been in turmoil. you know that, i know that. everybody knows that. you take a look at the fbi a year ago, it was in ver cull turmoil. less than a year ago. it hasn't recovered. >> yesterday, the deputy press secretary karen huckabee sanders told reporters the fbi was widely supportive of the president's move to dismiss comey. let's take a look at that. >> i can speak from my own personal experience. i we heard from countless

mr. comey was central to the events of the past few weeks. we still need to hear from him. i want to thank the bipartisan leadership of both the intelligence and judiciary committees for requesting both the records and public testimony of director comey. congress, specifically the judiciary and intelligence committees, should still be given access to any transcripts or related summaries of the president's meeting with the russian foreign minister and ambassador during which reports have alleged he may have divulged highly sensitive intelligence. and finally, there is still a great need as before for the next f.b.i. director to be someone who is nonpartisan, independent, fearless and of unimpeachable integrity, a career politician of either party or anyone who suggests a lack of impartiality should not be considered. the appointment of mr. mueller is a great first step toward getting the russia investigation back on solid ground, but these other things also need to happen. mr. comey testifying, the white house turning over to congress the relevant tapes and transcripts if th

again the same day mr. trump fired mr. comey. the trump letter indicates the curious aside while i greatly appreciate you informing me on three separate occasions that i am not under investigation. did director comey really give those assurances to president trump when the criminal counterintelligence investigations are still active and on-going? now, madam president, at the same time we heard from the house press secretary sean spicer and we heard from the vice president of the united states that the reason for the firing of mr. comey was the recommendations of the department of justice. and that's what they said it was. only to find the next day president trump saying in fact when i decided to just do it i said to myself -- i said, you know, this russian thing with trump and russian is a made-up so, an excuse by the democrats for having lost an election that they should have won. and then he talked about mr. comey and said that he had decided to fire him. so it was not the memos. it was what mr. trump had decided. so there's a

investigations mr comey insisted would continue. the fbi, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. mr comey was fired by the president last week, but washington has been astounded by the existence of the note he apparently made after their earlier meeting. a meeting which vice president mike pence was reportedly asked to leave. in a week full of revelation after revelation, on a day when we thought things couldn't get any worse — they have. only 2a hours ago, president trump justified sharing sensitive intelligence information with russia's foreign minister, a decision which observers say could have compromised american allies and their sources. for some senior lawmakers, republicans included, this is all too reminiscent of an earlier and dark era. i think we have seen this before. i think it is reaching a point where it is of watergate size and scale, and a couple of other scandals that you and i have seen. days after sacking the

caller: i object to the firing of mr. comey. but i am humiliated and angry about the picture of my president in the oval office with two russian operatives of vladimir putin. we don't have to be humiliated as americans. mr. trump can do whatever he wants to do, and i believe our out on top in the end. but people out here are getting angry over this in your face kind of business with donald trump. he needs to stop this. host: so, joe, when it comes to the firing of director comey, why specifically do you oppose it? caller: the one reason why, that the man was involved in an investigation of our president as as much transparency the system will allow being both legislative executive and judicial. and he was doing nothing under the rug. he was doing nothing illegal that can be pointed out. so where's the malfeasance that results in his firing, being only the second f.b.i. director fired in the history of the agency. this is ridiculous, and the humiliation has got to stop. host: joe in north carolina giving his thoughts this morning

mr. comey is no longer a public official. he will confer with his own counsel before he decides how much to say and what form. in today's opinion section of the wall street journal, watergate lessons for mr. trump. with all the calls for an , why notnt prosecutor move the investigation to the house judiciary committee? it could get down to whether the president has done anything worthy of impeachment. it is the only properly constitutionally correct way to do this. i would like to see him cleared, but if he is going to be investigated for crimes, the house is the venue. that is getting ahead of where we are at this time. there are calls for the beginning of an impeachment inquiry. many members will try to move in that direction. he isis no indication being investigated for involvement in the russian influence at all. int investigation is early the justice department and the intelligence community. and there are dozens more witnesses yet to come. we have subpoenas of former national security adviser michael flynn, which might

we ought to hear from mr. comey. at this moment, a profound doubt about the reasons and timing of fbi director comey's firing by the president. about the status and the serious investigation into the trump campaign and russia by his agency. we require answers. recentrd, the revelations about the rosenstein and comey meeting demand that the attorney general and the deputy attorney general, attorney general sessions, rosenstein, brief the senate and answer questions because of so things. that briefing could be classified if necessary, may be part classified, part not. each briefing should be done separately. let me speak plainly. the prospect for the presidency colluded with a higher -- a foreign power. it is as grave a topic of investigation as it should be. it gets to the heart of our democracy. a fair and free election of our representatives. andfact that mr. rosenstein attorney general sessions were .nvolved they must come before us to ask questions and leader of khanna will-- a leader o'connell [inaudible] the fac

and mr. comey repeated again and was not willing to give a pledge of loyalty. and mr. trump said i guess i have your honest loyalty, and and he said yes, my honest loyalty, but this is seen as an early sign that the relationship was not going to work out. >> let's make this clear, part of the contradiction, michael, is who invited who to dinner, right? >> correct, it's our understanding that mr. trump invited mr. comey to the white house. he did not want to come to the white house. even under president with obama. he didn't want to play basketball with mr. obama because he didn't want to appear too chummy. >> so he told lester holt that he already decided to fire hymn no matter what the recommendation was. and i want to play just a sample of what they say in the course of several days. >> my understanding is the president was presented with the recommendation from the attorney general. >> he did his own analysis, he came to these conclusions, gave his recommendations to the attorney general, to the president of the united states who took decisive action. this one is an

do want to get into that because the president's letter says i greatly appreciate you informing me, mr. comey, on three separate occasions that i am not under investigation. sources close to comey say that's not true and it would likely violate justice department and fbi procedures. are you sure that what the president wrote is true? >> i have heard that directly from him that information was relayed directly to him from director comey. >> what were those occasions and how did he provide that assurance. >> i won't get into the details of that conversation he had with the director. >> you're confident mr. comey provided those assurances even though sources close to him say it's not true? >> i think getting it directly from the source is a lot better than sources closest to, so, yes, sir.

none of this comes from mr. comey directly. he has yet to say anything publicly since he was fired a week ago tonight but he did tell friends and a few people at the fbi about what he wrote in that memo at the time and they're the ones describing it now. people at the fbi strongly believe comey was fired because he wouldn't shut down the entire russia investigation. >> pete, i know you've been talking to legal experts and sources. what are they saying about possible criminal action here? >> not surprisingly, they're saying it depends. first get the and not just rely on people who can tell what it said, to see what it said and perhaps talk to mr. comey. it all comes down to the person's intent, what did the president have in mind? did he actually intend to try to shut down the investigation or saying he hoped it would end, lester. >> pete williams tonight, starting it off. thanks. we want to bring in now our political director of moderator of "meet the press," chuck todd, what do you make of all of this? >> this is a gut check m

comey was there, but the white house said that mr. trump had not said this to mr. comey. he had never tried to influence mr. comey in that way. >> michael schmitt, i imagine you've got a lot more reporting to do, a lot more followups and fallout from this. big scoop of the hour. i would say scoop of the day but you never know these days. >> thanks for having me. >> you got it. let me bring in the panel, ann, cornell and matthew. the white house -- there's no part of the story -- the president's own credibility is not in a good place so you're going to have to take the word of james comey or the word of donald trump, period. there's no other eye witness in that meeting. >> two things about this story. one, as michael said, this memo is part of a paper trail that director comey was compiling, which means there are going to be other damaging leaks at the white house. the second thing i note is president trump asked everyone to leave the room, and we know from a lot of the reporting that trump's advisers and staff are always wanting to be in the oval office for him for all th

mr. rosenstein expressed concern that director comey damaged the integrity of the fbi. the attorney general has had to recuse himself for being too close to the president. if mr. rosenstein is true to his word, that he believes this investigation must be fair, free, thorough and politically independent. if he believes that the american people must be able to have faith in the impartiality of this investigation, he must appoint a special prosecutor and get his investigation out of the hands of the fbi and far away from the heavy hand of this administration. mr. rosenstein has the authority to appoint a special prosecutor right now. he needs no congressional authorization. this would simply be a step he could take as outlined in the department of justice guidelines and in a law passed after watergate to get an independently minded prosecutor who would be insulated from various pressures. a special prosecutor is not subject to day-to-day supervision by the attorney general or anyone at the justice department. that means a special prosecutor would have greater latitude in w

mr. rosenstein already expressed concern that director comey damaged the integrity of the f.b.i. the attorney general has already had to recuse himself from the investigation for being too close to the president. if mr. rosenstein is true to his word, that he believes this investigation must be, quote, fair, free, thorough and politically independent, if he believes as i do that the american people must be able to have faith in the impartiality of this investigation, he must appoint a special prosecutor and get his investigation out of the hands of the f.b.i. and far away from the heavy hand of this administration. mr. rosenstein has the authority to appoint a special prosecutor right now. he needs no congressional authorization. this would simply be a step that he could take as outlined in the department of justice guidelines and in a law passed after watergate to get an independently minded prosecutor who would be insulated from various pressures. a special prosecutor is not subject to day-to-day supervision by the attorney general or anyone else at the justice department. that

>> well, the folks that i spoke to, mr. comey's associates, said that mr. comey had told them about this at the time and that mr. comey was very concerned about it. so this is not something that they learned about after the fact. and even another friend has contacted me today to talk about, you know, other examples that mr. comey was really concerned about the way that this loyalty question sort of overshadowed his time working for mr. trump. and he really felt that mr. trump was never really able to get past that. >> president trump criticized director comey during his interview with lester holt. let's take a look. >> he's a showboat. he's a grandstander. the fbi has been in turmoil. you know that. i know that. everybody knows that. you take a look at the fbi a year ago, it was in virtual turmoil -- less than a year ago. it hasn't recovered. >> yesterday the deputy press secretary, sarah huckabee sanders, told reporters that the fbi was widely supportive of the president's move to dismiss comey. let's take a look at that. >> i can speak to my own personal

mr. comey is no longer a public official. he will confer with his own counsel before he decides how much to say and what form. in today's opinion section of the wall street journal, watergate lessons for mr. trump. with all the calls for an , why notnt prosecutor move the investigation to the house judiciary committee? it could get down to whether the president has done anything worthy of impeachment. it is the only properly constitutionally correct way to do this. i would like to see him cleared, but if he is going to be getting ahead ofcrimes, the where we are at this time. there are calls for the beginning of an impeachment inquiry. many members will try to move in that direction. he isis no indication being investigated for involvement in the russian influence at all. int investigation is early the justice department and the intelligence community. and there are dozens more witnesses yet to come. we have subpoenas of former national security adviser michael flynn, which might produce more indication of his involvement and

comey to lay off mr. flynn. all of that actually does exactly what russia was trying to achieve in undermining the credibility and institutions of our leaders, so that's what's really bad about this, and why it -- one way or another needs to end, and i hope it ends with the president starting to act like a president. >> yeah. doug, before i move into specifics, i want your general response to this breaking news. >> yeah. i disagree. i don't -- i see it totally differently. i mean, the jim comey firing is portrayed like the fbi or 12 men operating out of a garage, he's fired, and that ends the investigation. what's not been said and what's not discussed is his successor, andrew, a democrat, who investigated hillary clinton, found her innocent, and his wife, jill, received $700,000 when she ran for office in virginia from the clinton machine, $500,000 of it from terry mccallough. nobody talks about that. >> what does that have to do with the investigation? >> all day long they say he fired comey, obstructing justi

after that, the president then said to mr. comey, look, mr. flynn has done nothing wrong, and you need to really move beyond this investigation. this concerned mr. comey, who then went back and wrote a memo that detailed all of this. >> that's not the only memo, right? you report that comey created memos about every phone call, every meeting he had with the president. do we know how long, how broad this paper trail might be? >> i think that comey was very concerned about different things that the president was doing, and mr. comey made it a point to document all of these things because he wasn't sure what was going to happen. he wasn't sure how the fbi's investigation of russia was going to be impacted. he wasn't sure how the fbi's independence was going to be impacted. he wanted to have a paper trail. this is something he had done several times over his career when he was in very difficult, you know, politically sensitive situations. >> questions are being raised, of course, if comey was concerned, why didn't he go to the attorney general? wh

mr trump had heaped praise on mr comey. he had... his confidence, though, was eroding. all right, but given that, you are clearly a smart operator. you know how that place works. what we have is the guy running an investigation removed from it by the people with the most to lose from that investigation. you must know how bad that looks. it screams cover—up, doesn't it?m doesn't. what screams cover—up is the fact that it was clear that the clinton investigation was a sham from the beginning. fbi agents that i have spoken with in the past, and including today, have all said that it demoralised the fbi. they felt that their hands were handcuffed, and they didn't really have the opportunity to investigate this thoroughly, to bring it to a fair, unbiased conclusion. it became apparent to trump that the fbi and doj were becoming politicised, and he could no longer trust those individuals. what took him so long was that he did not have a deputy director until rose and —— rosenstein was confirmed, it was a 20 year veteran o

comey -- heard mr. i'm not sure mr. comey would corroborate. as it appears to us death mr.r. trump's trump asks that on three separate occasions. three trump asks that on separate occasions. >> is it because he says i fired him and he makes the connection to the russian inquiry? >> that's an important part of it. if the basis for the firing was going to be mr. comey's performance, his supposedly misdirection and dealing with .linton emails and the like he wouldn't have made reference to his point or the letter. they had other things in mind when they fired mr. comey. >> let's hear from robert in texas. specialo we need a prosecution collusion before proof? of people protecting clinton and getting the fbi guy to protect her. why is there such a prosecution on that? don't have thee evidence yet is the investigation is ongoing. a lot of the evidence of russian influence in the investigation remains classified. it took our intelligence agencies nearly half a year to come to a conclusive decision that it indeed was russian state toolvement in that effort influence the election. as

mr comey had been leading an investigation into links alleged links between the trump election campaign and russia. the statement from the white house comes from the press secretary sean spicer, it says today, president donald trump informed directorjames comey that he has been terminated and removed from office. president trump acted on the recommendation of rod and the attorney generaljeff sessions. the fbi is one of the nation ‘s most cherished and respected institutions and today will mark a new beginning for our crime jewel of law enforcement. mr trump will search for a new permanent fbi director will begin immediately. that was issued in the last few minutes. we know it has been a difficult 12 months for mr koh me. he was embroiled in the controversy during the election campaign. —— comey. with the hillary clinton in a campaign. hillary clinton in a campaign. hillary clinton suggested the release of certain documents and the handling of the fbi of the hacking of those e—mails relating to the democratic party last year was a contributing factor to her defeat, in her eyes. c

comey." what we do not know at this point at least is what the president did say to the former fbi director. the white house is saying what he didn't save, but we don't yet know what he did say, and we may not know and told mar morning sometime after the press secretary, sean spicer, has a conversation with the president about that. in the meantime, the white house the still pushing back hard against the news that broke last night and that is that we could go tomorrow, the president shared some highly sensitive information, intelligence, about terrorist threats with russian officials. in the roosevelt room, with turkish president erdogan, president trump paused, eager to give his side of the story and what he told russia's foreign minister. >> we had a very, very successful meeting with the foreign minister of russia. our fight is against isis, as general mcmaster said. i thought he said, and i know he feels, that we had a great meeting. with the foreign minister. were going to have great suc

he spoke to mr. comey once over dinner and twice by phone.

we don't know how much notice mr. comey himself got. when we found out about this we called and the fbi director was not there. they did not say where he was. people in this fbi were completely blind-sided. only one other fbi director has ever been fired by a president, that was william sessions in 1993, not so much over his judgment in investigations, had to do with the way he was spending some of the bureau's money what was perceived to be personal projects. this was all justified according to the deputy attorney general because of the way the fbi director handle the e-mail investigation, the news conference, letter to congress, false choice the deputy attorney general says over going public or keeping quiet, all those things led to the firing. rob rosenstein, the brand new deputy attorney general has a bipartisan background, cites the facts over 100 department officials had been very critical at the time. he cites that in his letter tonight as reasons justifying the firing although very few of those people at the time said comey ough

comey and what was it about mr. trump that really concerned mr. comey, and in the process of that i learned that there was a series of memos that comey had written about every single interaction with trump because comey was so concerned about what trump may try and do to the fbi. >> well, the times detailed another suggestion by mr. trump to comey. speaking about leaks to the media, mr. trump reportedly floated the idea that mr. comey should consider putting reporters in prison for publishing classified information. adam schiff is the ranking democrat on the house intelligence committee. in that role he met with former fbi director james comey often. nancy cordes caught up with him at the capitol. >> have you seen this memo and have you heard anything about this. >> i did not see the notes or the me ho or have a conversation about the president ever suggesting that he drop the investigation. this is obviously a very serious charge, the heart of which would be interference or obstruction of the investigation, and when you add it to the allegations

three-page memo about why comey had aroused mr. rosenstein's concerns, he met with rosenstein the deputy, the person the fbi directly normally reports to and asked for more resources for the russia investigation. comey apparently told several members of congress he had done this but the justice department is pushing back strongly and insist there never was such a meeting and that there never was such a request from either the current deputy attorney general or his predecessor who had been the acting deputy attorney general. >> thank you for that. >>> comey's dismissal has not stopped the russia investigation on capitol hill. in fact, it may be gaining new urgency. on wednesday the senate intelligence committee issued a subpoena to force trump's former national security adviser michael flynn to testify. nbc's mike viqueira is on capitol hill for us. what more can you tell us about that, mike? >> well, chris, first on the political question, the shifting rationales and timelines coming from the white house surrounding the firing of j

reporter: any concerns about the circumstances of mr. comey's firing? >> we didn't get into details about his involvement. you've got a copy of what he wrote. this is an individual that comes with unbelievable background. certainly he fills the role. but our purpose of meeting with them today was to make sure that we had a way forward that both the vice chair and i understood and felt comfortable with. >> let me just to do that that, again, i voted for this individual. he comes with a solid record. i was very disappointed. i still find the timing of mr. comey's dismissal with sally yates' testimony on tuesday, and jim comey was supposed to be in that hearing today, very troubling to me. it's one i expressed that to mr. rosenstein. reporter: what do you think he means take it under advisement? >> i think he listened. i felt this was an individual that listened carefully, and i think he's -- vonnie: you've been watching the chair and vice chair of the senate intelligence intel committee, talking about the meeting with the deputy a.g. there's going to be a

we ought to hear from mr. comey. at this moment a profound doubt about the reasons and timing of f.b.i. director comey's firing by the president, about the status and progress of the very serious investigation into the trump campaign and russia by his agency, we require answers. and, third, the recent revelations about the rosenstein and comey meeting demand that the attorney general and the deputy attorney general -- attorney general sessions, deputy attorney general rosenstein, brief the senate and answer questions because of so many -- so many things swirling about last night's firing. that briefing could be classified if necessary. maybe part classified, part not. each briefing should be done separately. mr. president, let me speak plainly. the prospect that a campaign for the presidency of the united states colluded with a foreign power in order to win our nation's highest office is as grave a topic for an investigation as there could be. it gets right to heart of the pillar of our democracy. the fair and free e

these interactions included a dinner in whic associates and mr. comey say mr. trump asked him to pledge his loyalty and a meeting in the oval office, and he hoped mr. comey would shut down an investigation into mike flynn. the day after the flynn conversation, reince priebus asked mr. comey to help push back on reports in the news media that trump's associates have been in contact with russian intelligence officials during the campaign. mr. comey described his encounters between the president and the white house including the phone call from mr. trump in detailed memory foas at the tim. not just pressure from the president to the fbi director on the flynn karks but pressure from the president to the fbi director about investigations into the president himself, and then the white house chief of staff, prescribreince priebus, g up one of those apparently inappropriate conversations between the president and the director of the fbi overseeing those investigations. ever since we learned on tuesday night of the existence of the apparent comey memo about the conversa

and, on the topic of mr. comey, if the president has tapes of his conversation with mr. comey, we ought to be able to review those tapes as well to see if the president pressured the fbi director to shut down an active investigation. "the times" reported that comey kept contemporaneous memos of his conversations with the president, and mr. comey has a reputation for accuracy in those memos. those memos should also be provided to the congressional intelligence and judiciary committees, and mr. comey should testify before those committees in public. indeed, providing the congress the tapes and memos may be the only way -- excuse me. indeed, providing the congress the tapes and memos may be the only way for this administration to credibly make a case to a justifiably skeptical american public about its version of the story reported by the "new york times." the president says what comey said was wrong. prove it. it's easy to prove. as long as there are tapes or transcripts of what happened. if the president is right, he'll have no problem releasing memos, tapes, transcripts

mr. comey: look, this is terrible. it makes me mildly nauseous to think we had an impact on the election, but honestly, it wouldn't change the decision. tim: we will get this done -- president trump insists middle east peace is possible and that a deal between israel and the palestinians can be agreed. how a chief webcam helped scientists developed a revolutionary bionic hand. tim: hello, and welcome to "bbc our viewers on public television and around the globe. just a day after hillary clinton accused the fbi director of costing her the presidency, james comey told a senate committee he had no regrets. mr. comey admitted feeling physically ill at the thought of reopening an investigation into mrs. clinton's e-mail might influence the election, but failure to do so, he said, would have been an act of concealment, and he added he would make the same decision again. our north america editor jon sopel reports. jon: history is likely to judge that this law enforcement officer played a decisive role in determining the outco

comey declined to make that pledge. by mr. comey's accounts, his answer to mr. trump's initial question apparently didn't satisfy the president. mr. trump pressed himtd on whether it would be honest loyalty. you will have that, mr. comey told his associates, he sponltded. incredible. >> this is donald trump talking about loyalty test as mtd even from the politically independent fbi director. maybe he doejt know. maybe there's something nefarious, maybe it's both. but when you step back, what it reads to me is this is something that the former fbi director probably told staffers about and said when i get fired, leak this. but the white house in the story says they dispute the narrative. if the white house had any credibility, that assertion might kill a story like that. in this case, it doesn't. when we hear the white house pushing back on things, the communications department saying that's completely not true. >> it doesn't mean anything anymore. >> you don't really believe it. >> phil, did i read correctly, 30 sources, if last big byline piece in the washington

comey and his aides perceived mr. trump's comments as an effort to influence the investigation, but they decided that they would try to keep the conversation secret, even from are the fbi agents working on the russia investigation so the details of the conversation would not affect the investigation. dana, this is so, so explosive. >> so explosive. so incredibly serious. "the times" report also says that james comey created similar memos after the other meetings that he had with the president so this could be just the tip of the iceberg. maybe the most explosive, but it's very clear that -- that james comey wanted to get out there that this happened, created this paper trail realtime, contemporaneously rather in order to protect himself from exactly what happened last week, him being fired, him being blamed and -- and, you know, wanting to know that he has sort of the information at his disposal if in fact this happened, and if you just take a step back, wolf, just in the past 24 hours, right or wrong, what this presi

and mr. comey's answer is, no, you are not but mr. trump obviously understands that his campaign and associates and members of that campaign are in deed under an investigation regarding their connections with and dealings with russians. >> you had mentioned as well, tyler, and this is certainly a point that people are focussing on as well, whether the president's answer as to whether around why he fired director comey, how it squares up with what the white house put out itself just two days ago on may 9th. the white house statement saying, quote, president trump acted on the clear recommendations of both deputy a.g. rod rosen stine and a.j. jeffrey sessions. the president telling lester holt just moments ago that he planned to fire comey regardless of the recommendations that he got from those two individuals in those letters. >> well, yeah. there is a little bit of maybe each are talking past one another here, but the president was declarative, as you point out, in seeing that he had made up his mind to fire director comey before the

investigations mr comey insisted would continue. the fbi, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. mr comey was fired by the president last week, but washington has been astounded by the existence of the note he apparently made after their earlier meeting. a meeting which vice—president mike pence was reportedly asked to leave. in a week full of revelation after revelation, on a day when we thought things couldn't get any worse — they have. only 2a hours ago, president trump justified sharing sensitive intelligence information with russia's foreign minister, a decision which observers say could have compromised american allies and their sources. for some senior law—makers, republicans included, this is all too reminiscent of an earlier dark era. i think we have seen this movie before. i think it's reaching a point where it is of watergate size and scale, and a couple of other scandals that you and i have seen. days after sackin