he asked jim comey. you may say if he were a lawyer, that's unsophisticated. >> i didn't pass judgment. i wonder why he didn't call a meeting. frankly, he could do it around the family dinner table, say, sons, daughter, son-in-law, did any -- >> by the way, you don't know that he hasn't. neither do i. but the fact is that he asked jim comey something that i think is -- is an appropriate question to ask. like, are any of these people around me involved? because if they are, i want to get to the bottom of it. >> i agree with you. >> i think the president in the end, today, is such an important day in the trump presidency. the naming of chris ray is a huge stay in the trump presidency because he did something that his critics never expected he would do. after the firing of jim comey. and that was to pick a class "a" gold standard former federal prosecutor and someone who everybody in the defense bar, the prosecuting world, investigating world, respects for his independence, his integrity and honesty. >> was

he told lester holt he was thinking about the russia thing when he fired jim comey. in the very letter he wrote to jim comey firing him, he said, thank you for telling me on three separate indications that i'm not the subject of investigation. >> if the white house were to assert it, how would it go down? >> this is interesting because this is a scenario that's a little different from the usual. usually, you mentioned, the obama example, it's the white house that wants to prevent documents or a member of its administration from testifying. here we have, i esume, a willing witne in jim comey who would like to com forward and tell his story. so if the trump white house were to assert the privilege, it's not clear whether they have the power to do so with a willing witness. this is an area of the law that's not very well developed. usually when these matters occur, some compromise is worked out. it will be interesting to see whether they can assert it with a willing witness like jim comey. >> you mentioned compromise with the congress. here's a new letter out tonight, j

michael, you know and worked with jim comey. as you listened to other people's portraits of him, other people's opinions of him, what is it that you are tempted to add to the conversation and what is it we should know about the jim comey you know? >> well, brian, i would say jim comey is a lot of things, and a lot of perspective rests on politics, rather than knowing the man. and i'll tell you that the man i know, first of all, he is incredibly bright. his intellect is really powerful. second, he's unbelievably experienced. people don't fully understand that jim did not grow up as a politician. he grew up as a prosecutor in virginia, and then new york, and he wrorose to these ranks becau honestly he was the best at it. third, i would say he really is a man of integrity. now, that integrity at times can push into self-righteousness, and i haven't agreed with everything that jim did during the clinton investigation and even during the bush administration but he does it out of a deep sense of honor and integrity and i really think

jim comey has now testified under oath under penalty of per injury. one of the big questions is will donald trump ever give his account not to reporters but under oath. and if you look at what jim comey said when he said -- with us to obstruction of justice, i'm sure that is a conclusion that the special counsel will look towards. i think he's giving you go pin his opinion as an attorney that he was investigate that and also his take as someone who has talked to bob mueller. >> here is the chair hand vice chair of the committee. >> it also enabled the american people to understand the massive amounts of stories is is that has been out there and to sort through those and to have an individual who can lay factual kofrn text context to it. this is nowhere near the end of our investigation. and i think it's safe to say that next week we hope to work with special counseli mueller t work out clear pathways for both investigations, his and ours, to continue. to work on deep con fliks of witnesses. but we are more confident that we can work through a bipartis

jim comey continue the investigation? i'll tell you why jim comey didn't continue. because he got fired. he got fired by the president of the united states. which is part of an obstruction of justice. if you don't like what the fbi agent -- fbi director is doing, first you tell him to stop. and he doesn't stop. and then you fire him. so talk about suspicion? i know it's fascinating that you talk about jim comey as if he's the one on trial here. we're talking about the president -- why is the president of the united states telling the fbi director to back off an investigation. >> i hear you. i hear all these arguments. but what we're left with is either the president just behaved really, really badly -- >> which is not a crime. >> no. so you're left with this argument that well, yeah, he didn't commit a crime. that doesn't mean that this wasn't a troubling day to hear how the president -- >> exactly. it could be troubling. it could be uncomfortable. i wasn't in the room. >> if you believe his testimony, do you find that --

, was jim comey also a witness? did he see or hear things in the white house or president trump that might in his mind form the basis of potential crimes, like tampering with evidence or witnesses and, yes, even obstruction of justice. if he did see those things, can he even talk about it. that this is the dynamic news that makes this news so intriguing. special counsel mueller has cleared him to testify and could include comey's dealings with trump. with or without a special counsel, jim comey would not be able to testify about what's happening inside the russia inquiry or methods or potential targets. the things he can testify about are things outside the investigative box, fbi policy or funding or non-classified dealings with the executive branch or, yes, the head of the executive branch. does jim comey see himself as a witness? only time will tell. he is certainly qualified to answer the questions about his dealings with the executive branch. joining me now is a reporter on this story somtime. nbc national secur

i love jim comey. he said mike flynn is a good man and he never talks to the ag, he never pushes back to the president, he doesn't go to anybody in authority and complain about the president's activities until he's fired. until he's fired, everything is so zpashl we're in a constitutional crisis. >> well, let me see if jeff rosen is there. he's probably the smartest guy i know about constitutional stuff. is that true? is there anything constitutionally that caught your snangs. >> yes. the central question of whether the president obstructed justice remains very much open. the legal standard is was there an intent to impede or obstruct investigation. kl was asked about this directly. he said i know the president fired me because he didn't like something about the russia investigation. comey said he didn't know whether that met the legal definition but he was concerned enough that he turned over his records to mueller. so mueller has his task set ahead of him. but it is not clear that the president was e

does jim comey have a problem following the rules? >> no, but i think that jim, he is is coreign bled talented individu with amazing moral compass and he is is not he af of anything. he felt compelled to get out in front of it. i think some people might have done it differently. that is jim's style. jim is a gregarious person. he is not afraid to tell people what his opinion is. our new fbi director if chris wray is confirmed will be much different. maria: how will he be different? >> chris is much more introvert ed. he will not put himself out there. it is not in his dna. dagen: in terms of james comey, dagen mcdowell by the way is he bitter and got fired the way he did and will we see any evidence of that today? >> no. i don't think so. jim is just not that way. you will not see any bitterness. quite frankly jim had a distinguished career. he had a distinguished time when he was at the fbi. i'm sure he feels proud about that. i think he feels proud the way he handled the situation. maria: do you think he was under pressure during th

interview, did you get into jim comey's coming testimony? >> no. >>nd let me ask you about the manfort pie of it. what do you see as significant about that? for our viewers, a lot of folks have tracked different people connected to trump at different times under review. what does it say to you based on your reporting and wider knowledge that this is now under mueller's purview? >> it's something. as you noted, the manfort investigation predates the campaign. it predates did collusion accusation. clearly, as they're building up their team and developing steam as part of this investigation, 24er looking at all these different sort of outstanding threads and trying to figure out what are the potential ties or connections that will unite all of them under a single person and a single leadership, so in a hot of ways, it's not that surprising. >> when you look forward to james comey's testimony this thursday, what would you want to hear from him on? >> i think we're going to hear about encounters he had with president trump in the weeks and months that p

did jim comey ever ask for this job? did he ever leverage the situation in order to stay at the fbi? did jim comey have any conversations with anybody in the obama administration about the law breaking from the hillary clinton clinton foundation? as well.o know about that stuff- don't roll your eyes at that. this is the same man. >> who's rolling their eyes? >> those two. >> he made mistakes, obviously. big mistakes. >> comey? >> comey. >> and you've worked with him. have you known him to flat out lie? because you'd be saying that he's lying and when jim koecome speaks, i take it with a grain of salt. >> you don't think he's telling the truth? do you think he's telling the truth when he said that the president told him to let it go? >> i'll believe jim comey when somebody else who i think is verifiable corroborates it. >> no. >> when he says it but do you need somebody next to president trump to verify what he says? >> mark, all i can tell su that the democrats i know who suffered through hillary clinton's loss and -- >>

former fbi director jim comey has spoken. comey spent nearly three hours in an open session of the senate intel committee and participated in a closed-door session afterward. he cut right to the chase claiming he felt directed to clear flynn and saying the trump white house had defamed him. comey claimed that he was fired because of the russia investigation and warned that russia is still coming for us. america, that is. here's some of jim comey today. >> the administration then chose to defame me and more importantly the fbi by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. those were lies plain and simple. >> what was it about that meeting that led you to determine that you needed to start putting down a written record? >> the nature of the person. i mean, i was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting so i thought it really important to document. you've seen the picture of me walking across the blue room and what the pr

jim comey was obviously very aware of that. but in comey's mind, there are a number of things going on here. there is the investigation of russian hacking. there is the investigation of any potential, we've seen no evidence of this, but investigation is still going forward, relationship between the trump campaign or the trump transition and russians. then there is the discrete investigation of general flynn personally. did he lie? was he a foreign agent? did he break any federal laws during the transition or during the short period of time that he was the president's national security advisor? that's the investigation, and apparently according to this, that is the only investigation that director comey understood the president wanted shut down, not the other ones. trish: judge, thank you so much. >> you're welcome. trish: good to have you here with your perspective. we'll contin ourovere of, explosive testimony coming from james comey. we have his opening statent. we continue to go through it right now. i will see you right bac

>> no, but i understand jim comey's thinking. it's better to end the conversation than go toe to toe with the man in the oval office over his choice of word. >> harris: we're going toe to toe with a commercial but we're coming back. stay with us. over hereno!ver here! (dog barking) whoever threw it has to go get it. not me! somebody will get it... ♪ (dog barking) anyone can dream. making it a reality is the hard part. from the b-2 to the upcoming b-21, northrop grumman stealth bombers give america an advantage in a turbulent world. and we're looking for a few dreamers to join us. hi..and i know that we have phonaccident forgiveness.gent, so the incredibly minor accident that i had tonight- four weeks without the car. okay, yup. good night. with accident forgiveness your rates won't go up just because of an accident. switching to allstate is worth it. >> president trump got on the record today after the fired filibuster director testified on the hill. through his attorney. you saw it live. judge napolitano was here to break it d

jim comey says that. so do i think he is more credible on this given his background in, you know, in this department, given sort of his track record than donald trump who we know for a fact, that guy has, whether you like him or hate him or feel indifferent toward him, the guy has said a number of things both during the campaign and as president that are just not true. i think when you compare him to donald trump i think yes he came across as believable today and more believable than donald trump. he was under oath. >> right. now the -- the famous image you get. >> this is not just somebody popping off on cable television. this is a serious thing with penalties if you are found to be lying. >> when you read this prepared statement -- >> right. >> which i the thought it was interesting. i'm not going to waste anybody's time but i have some comments to make. he talked about the pressure he felt. from what you heard, did you change your view of thinking this was obstruction of justice? >> in not at all. febr

comey spoke to the senate intelligence committee to recognize that jim comey made clear they have raw intelligence of intercepts between russian officials that discussed serg kay kislyak having a third undisclosed meeting. now, the senate intelligence committee has been looking into this issue according to sources. it is worth noting the justice department says and has said repeatedly a third meeting in april of last year did not actually occur. but jeff sessions will testify publically, next week in the senate. different committee, but certain that these questions will come up. when it comes to the senate intelligence committee it is worth noting while this was a very, very big hearing yesterday, they are still very hard at work. they obviously got documents subpoenaed from fired national security advisor michael flynn. next week they will meet with bob mueller to discuss how to deconflict their investigations and also how to discuss those memos that jim comey talked about, had his testimony about and, guys, one more crucial element here and one more big name. jared kushner as soon a

what are yours you would like to ask jim comey tomorrow? >> i would like to ask them about a very curious parent athletic cal that said the reason he didn't want to issue a statement is that they didn't want to create an obligation to change that later if the president were to become under investigation. the question is how long was jim comey thinking that the president might actually be the subject of the investigation? what concerns did he have about the president's behavior that led him to think aha, i have to start documenting every conversation i have with this guy which i've never had to do with a president before. you've got to get into this guy's head and what made his spidey sensing off that this is not business as usual? >> you have members of congress going into actual hearings. it seems more than a little bit of a test tomorrow. they're dealing with a first class lawyer and a smart guy with their witness. but they're also dealing with huge viewing audiencthat speaks english. how do you go about prepping a member of congress for

comey the president put out a letter in which he referred to private conversations with jim comey in which comey he said told him he wasn't under investigation. that was the original sin of, you know, it would be difficult now to go back and claim those were privileged conversations that should never have been referenced. he referenced them in a public way even before any of this happened. i do think whether he pursues a perjury case against comey it's clear his lawyer is laying out the predicate for potentially doing that. because you saw in the statement he put out yesterday he talked about comey leaking privileged information and the point being obviously even if it wasn't classified it was something he should not have been talking about publicly. pete: well, they talked about it which is why it is a crazy argument. it is and it isn't. >> most people in the west wing say they probably won't be able to use executive privilege as a way of blocking future testimony or information. julie, what is the story with sessions? the attorney general offered to resign it was reported by the po

. >> in this ap interview, did you get into jim comey's coming testimony? >> no. >> let me ask you about the manafort piece of it. for our viewers, a lot of people have tracked trump in different times under review. what does that say to you that this is now under mueller's purview? >> it's interesting. as you noted the manafort investigation predates the collusion investigation, it is truly operating on a separate track of a criminal financial fraud time investigation. so clearly, as they're building up their team, as they're developing their resources, as they're gathering steam as part of this investigation, they're looking at all these different sort of outstanding threads and trying to figure out what are the potential ties or connections that unite all of them under a single person and a single leadership. in a lot of ways, it is not that surprising. >> when you look toward james comey's expected testimony this thursday, for you, what is the biggest question you would have for him or want to hear from him on? >> i think we'll hear about his encounters

does jim comey have tapes? because at some point it's going to require that type of affirmation to get a republican congress to move on a republican -- >> but comey tapes don't come until the second hour of the movie. just slow down, okay? >> the people are about to fall asleep. >> he is always two steps ahead of this president. always two steps. >> is that legal? >> i don't know if it's legal, but if he had tapes, he would have said he had tapes. >> let me ask matt this, though. if you look at where president trump is right now, he's at high 70s, low 80s in approval ratings with republicans. it doesn't seem that anything he does is really dinging him. if, in fact, as jeffrey said the most damning thing out of this document is obstruction of justice and he's found guilty, do you really the supporters of president trump are going to care? >> i didn't get through the whole thing. i listened to networks on your network over and over again say this could be a political issue and i know you're a lawyer but a lot of

so are there tapes of the discussion between the president or jim comey? >> i cannot comment on that. but everybody is going to look at jim comey, but you should also look at the other statement, that is important in this case. the other thing that i would mention -- >> martha: why can you not comment on whether or not there are tapes? >> because i work in the white house. >> martha: but if there are no tapes, can't you just say that? >> the president has also said that he will not comment any further on that. >> martha: in terms of the agenda, you know, given every thing going on with the testimony today, what is the white house's plan in terms of the next few weeks, because obviously you would love to head into the fourth of july with other things to point to you and say, we are getting somewhere in health care, the senate, what are is your plan for the next few weeks? >> thank you for asking, martha. my grievance is not only coverage, i think that we are seeing a lot on the last couple days, but my agreements is incomplete coverage, thank you for giving

jim comey intimated that is the case. the attorney general recused himself from the russia investigation. it seems there will be limits on what he could say whether in open session or in closed session. to me, what i'm interested in is really where the boundaries are on the topics. >> i was struck that the intelligence committee set a precedent already by allowing dan coats and admiral rogers to answer questions because they did not feel it was appropriate. in the 1990s and the tobacco executives brought before the commerce committee saying we did not think it was appropriate to answer questions in open session. they put themselves in a difficult position to exert leverage. they established what angus king and others acknowledged a remarkable precedent. to allow jeff sessions to go venue shopping here and move from opening hearing on one side to the closed on the other is erosion of congressional oversight. >> i want to play a moment that some may have missed this weekend. from a member of the president's private leg teal

. >> i don't know if jim comey gave the okay. i too find the timing a little bit interesting. i feel like this is a bit of a spoiler. i see all the broad outlines of what james comey will say but in another way, i'm so much more excited to see what he will say. the administration had just this morning announced the fbi director. they were getting a lot of praise for the person they picked, a guy named chris wray, well liked. even democrats were not truly coming after him. and then this bombshell testimony comes out. written testimony comes out and it gets all the attention right back on jim comey. i don't know that there was a calculated effort, right? the republicans are in charge of congress. this was a senate intelligence committee document. >> but this isn't something you just willy nilly decide hey, i'll put this out there. it is the most anticipated testimony since hillary's benghazi. why would they do this? >> i think we were reporting in, i think it might have been ken who reported that he would like for the testimony to

jim comey claims the story was wrong. he referenced a "washington post" story about being duped by an email he wasn't duped by. and this is just a pattern of problems with anonymously-based stories. and the media need to stop relying so much on anonymous sources and get people on the record. >> we have never been given an explanation by the f.b.i. we went back to the f.b.i. today and said please clarify for us and tell us where we were wrong and they did not provide us that information. howie: i have had instances in my career where people said that story was wrong, but you don't get the difference. juan: this is "mediabuzz," so let's get to it. the "new york times" said they believe it's road in the characterization of the contacts with the people in the trump campaign. were they russian intelligence officers. and the black and white characterization of who is a russian intelligence officer. if you are in the banking business and having contact, you are not considered by the f.b.i. an intelligence officer. howie: gillian

director jim comey is the leaker. president trump said he has no problem telling his side under oath. one of president trump's attorneys joins me live. reaction from donald trump, jr., and he's not holding back. >> the head of the f.b.i. is saying well if i was a stronger individual? give me a break. you are the head of the f.b.i.! >> domey, wikileaks, voter suppression, fake news. judge jeanine: hillary clinton in tonight's street justice. you won't want to miss a minute of this one. justice starts now. u.s. attorney general jeff sessions to appear on capitol hill this tuesday. attorney general jeff sessions agrees to go before the senate intelligence committee just one week after the blockbuster testimony of former f.b.i. director james comey. full analysis on that coming up. but first to my opening statement. with 9 country on the verge of a constitutional crisis and a level of hysteria not witnessed since watergate, the greatest political hoax since eve convinced adam to eat that apple is being spun by jim comey i

jim comey gave yesterday under oath. >> yeah, he essentially, nicolle, accused jim comey of perjury. he didn't use that word. >> but that's what it is. >> but that's what it is. and if he feel feels, if the president feels he was vindicated by what jim comey said yesterday,s s i don't kno what reality he's living in. i asked myself many times since he took office what reality he's live in. that's not necessarily new. nevertheless, anyone watching jim comey saw a straight-shooting, upstanding patriot who believes deeply in the independence of the fbi, in the rule of law and the constitution and he laid out a pretty straightforward case. the president tried to get his loyalty by which he meant his subservients then he asked him to hold off the investigation into the former national security adviser, mike flynn, and then he asked him to say publicly that the president was not under investigation. and when comey rightly, in my view, refused to say -- do these things, he fired him. so that's -- that's pretty clear. >> that's where we are. >> he was trying to -- the president wases trying

doesn't look great for jim comey. the other explanation is that he knows he's reported his concerns to jeff sessions and to rod rosenstein. rod rosenstein is the person conduct being this investigation and he just are fired me and now he's concerned that the investigation won't go forward without a special counsel. >> and according to testimony, fired jim doem for ocomey for o only, he was too mean to hillary clinton, which jim comey says was never raised by rod rosenstein or attorney general sessions or the president. so the one reason for his firing was never raised by the three people ostensibly involved in the firing. it didn't make sense becau it don't appear to be wholly true. and to read again because i think the words are so powerful, this is jim comey's words about whether there was something wrong wheith the president bein so secretive in their meeting, and he says even after he began speaking about this, reince priebus leaned in through the door by the grandfather clock and the president waved at him to clo

they didn't say jim comey is lying. they said can we interpret this in a way that's much more kind to the president. but they did not question the facts that he asked for loyalty. he pulled him aside and said can you go easy or do something and this is in a legal context now, even as thigh tried to give a kinder view of this for the president, they didn't challenge the facts. they did not say at any point we don't think you're telling the truth. >> it's going to be a he said versus she said on several of these sensitive points, nia and, at one point comey said lordy, i hope there are tapes. >> the tapes have come up because donald trump said that comey should hope there weren't tapes. he put tapes in quotation marks in twitter. sarah huckabee sanders essentially said she didn't know if there were tapes, you should talk to the secret service. that's i think going to remain a mystery. we will see going forward what this white house's strategy is. we' we'll hear from the president's personal attorney. this is a new kind of

the world will be watching jim comey tomorrow. you have seen his prepared remarks that are going to kick off the session. what's the bottom line for you? >> before i get to the bottom line, i should say by way of disclosure, and i hope not invalidating everything else i say, that i'm a member of the law firm that the president and his campaign committee have retained to represent on these matters. >> which is why you actually withdrew your name from consideration. >> exactly right. >> so two things. the first is that in essentially validating president trump's claim that he, comey, said to him, the president, that he's not a subject of the investigation. you have both of them agreeing on something and that effectively means at least when comey was involved that there was not evidence that the president was involved in any potential collusion with russia or anybody in his campaign that assisted their interference in the campaign. on the other matters, of course, based on the prepared testimony, former director comey has made some s

that day his story even had a star other than jim comey. the star was his boss at the time, a bedridden john ashcroft. >> i got out of the car and ran up -- literally ran up the stairs with my security detail. >> what was your concern? you were in obviously a huge hurry. >> i was concerned that given how ill i knew the attorney general was that there might be an effort to ask him to overrule me when he was in no condition to do that. and it was only a matter of minutes that the door opened and in walked mr. gonzales carrying an envelope and mr. card. they came over and stood by the bed. greeted the attorney general very briefly. then mr. gonzales began to discuss why they were there, to seek his approval for a matter. and explain what the matter was. >> but he expressed his reluctance or he would not sign the statement that they -- give the authorization they had asked. is that right? >> yes. and as he laid back down, he said but that doesn't matter because i'm not the attorney general. there is the attorney general, and he pointed to me, a

as you correctly pointed out, mueller and jim comey have a personal relationship that goes back a long way. they were arm in arm when they confronted the then white house counsel for president bush, alberto gonzalez about whether a particularly broad surveillance program should be continued. in other words, mueller and comey became friends at the formative moment in his career, and the thing for which he's best known. that being the case, i think the ethics rules dictate that mueller step aside. >> it's interesting because mueller was hired to investigate russia initially and the possibility of collusion, but it shows where this investigation is going, it might be a challenge, it might be that when he was hired by rod rosenstein, he wasn't even considering that recent mueller would be investigating the department of justice. is that one of the problems? >> that's one of the problems and one of the reasons that special counsels are problematic and that congress did not renew the law, and appoint an independent counsel, is that a special counsel has a preselected defendant and then you f

did he know that the president was concerned with jim comey's handling of the russian affair? we know he was aware of comey's concerns about appropriate conduct with the president and according those are questions he apparently doesn't want to answer in public. >> matt, let's put sessions to the side for just a moment and look for broadly at director comey's testimony on thursday. for people watching today what do you think was the most significant development that pushes this investigation forward? >> you know, i think early in his testimony director comey, former director comey, seemed to confirm that bob mueller who has been appointed as the special counsel is going to pursue an obstruction of justice investigation. it's fairly obvious he's going to go in that direction. that turns what has been so far a fairly significant political political problem for the president into a fairly significant legal one. director mueller now the special counsel has the authorized to subpoena white house aides to put them on the grand jury, to force them to answer questions under oath about

and i think he said the same thing to jim comey. obviously they had a couple that were routine as comey reported them. but never phone conversations, and certainly not a meeting like this. i have another question, don. who in the white house is watching this stuff? i mean, what is unimaginable to me, as someone who worked in the white house, i think david gergen can speak to this -- is, how does the chief of staff, for example, how does the white house counsel sign off on a private dinner between the president and the fbi director, understanding how, how much of that violates fundamental norms and rules. just, you know, it's mind boggling to me. >> david gergen? >> david axelrod is absolutely right, don, in over 40 years in washington, i have never, ever seen a president sit down alone with the director of the fbi. alone. much less for dinner alone. the alarm bells clearly went off with jim comey at this dinner. >> do you think it went off with -- >> i think david axelrod raises a second question, where was the general counsel for t

keep in mind, jim comey was privy to information that jeff sessions was not. remember, jim comey said when he approached jeff sessions after that february 14th meeting when the president asked him to hold off on the investigation of flynn that comey did not tell sessions of that part of the conversation, so sessions didn't know why necessarily jim comey was coming to him or the impetus for comey coming to him and saying don't leave me alone with the president. and so again, he really confirmed a lot of the things jim comey said with the exception that he did push back saying that day after conversation sessions says no, i said yes, we need to follow appropriate protocol but keep in mind sessions said that comey had met with presidents one on one at least six times prior, including meetings with obama. so it was interesting just to hear sessions go after, try to defend himself and actually get ahead of the story, calling these lies and innuendos and what not. seems like it was more so an attempt to clear his name than to just what he said with comey. >> we have

so i guess i have to give james comey having worked for him, my bias is with jim comey who i have great respect for. i have to give him that space to try and process that in the moment and now we know what happened in his version. >> martha: do you think it is interesting coming he says he wanted to trigger a special prosecutor? what do you make of that? >> first, i will differ from what your colleague says, on the face of it, it was a leak of information with jim comey, whether it was a leak of classified, i don't think so. was it impermissible of something that was that was privilege? i do not think so. as a private citizen he was in a position to leak it. but in its purest terms, it was a leak. why he did not leak it directly or do it directly? we do not know why he went to a senate leadership person and give it to them, we do not know. but by his understanding of the fence and his decision, he wanted to trigger a special prosecutor. frankly, people across this town have been calling for that for weeks before. myself included. >> martha: thank you very much. always good to have you h

harris: we got it. >> jim comey is about protecting jim comey. not doing what is best for the country or the president. brian: comey era is done, probably through, out of a job, will get a better-paying job. what is your advice to the white house now? where should they focus? >> i think after yesterday's testimony, what the president should do is exactly what his team started to do, any questions that relate to any potential discussions about russia which the president had nothing to do with, i was there every day, go to his attorney, they can deal with it. harris: marc kasowitz. >> marc kasowitz will deal with it any inquiries -- brian: 2:45 with the press conference, president with remainian leader, questions come from about russia will he punt. >> he should talk about infrastructure and wall. harris: what do you think he will do? >> i hope the president says -- brian: you doesn't know, corey. >> he already tweeted a couple times. >> i love when he tweets. harris: good to see you, corey. >> you're the guy famously said let donald trump be donal

what was his intent in asking jim comey to drop the investigation and was the firing of jim comey related to comey's refusal to accede to his demands as well as the russia investigation, and part of the pattern here, wolf, is the russian connection. you've seen it in the additional report by cnn about a possible third meeting which would subject jeff sessions to charges of perjury, and you've seen it with kushner and with flynn. in order to the get to the bottom of the obstruction charge there has to be a determination. >> another way to determine who is lying, the president or comey, would be if there are tapes. the house intelligence committee set a deadline of june 23rd for the white house to and over any recordings of any conversations between comey and the president. do you believe the president did record those conversations or at least some of those conversations? >> i tend to doubt it because one would think that he would have made them available voluntarily, but here's what needs to be done about those tapes. they need to be subpoenaed. even if they don't exist, they need to be s

but i think jim comey testified truthfully, forthright. i think the vast majority of members on both sides of the aisle realize that this is a man with high integrity, great respect for rule of law and, you know, unlike the president's characteristics, is somebody who has served our country with distinction. >> reporter: one thing the president's lawyer just said is he may have unauthorized disclosed privilege communication, saying that he may have lied under oath as well by saying that there was a loyalty pledge there, disputing that. what is your reaction to that? >> well, i accept what jim comey said, that he was asked to commit his loyalty to this president. he was asked to let the flynn investigation go and he wanted to kind of have the russian investigation disappear, remove the cloud. i think it was absolutely appropriate that director comey refused those requests and obviously he paid the price by being fired. >> reporter: do you think he disclosed any privileged communications by disclosing these memos to the press? >> i've known

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

what does that mean we could hear from jim comey on thursday? >> i think what you're going to hear are basically the facts of his conversations with people in the white house. you're going to hear what he said to president trump. you're going to hear what trump said to him. and you're going to hear what other conversations he had with other members of the trump team. i think you're going to get that, but what you're not going to get is really kind of the status of the fbi investigation, the nuts and bolts of that investigation, who they're talking to, what the basis of their evidence is at this point. i think that's going to be off-limits. >> will someone say to jim comey, were you asked to back off of the investigation into mike flynn? >> i would absolutely think that is high on the list of questions. >> what do you think he's going to stay? based on what we know from trump? >> i think he's going to say whatever it was that trump told him. i think he's got it all written down in memos. it's all spelled out. i think he does what every other lawy

comey committed perjury, we would have to then accept that jim comey had interactions with president trump and then went and wrote memos that he falsified, that were untrue. that's difficult for many people to believe. >> perjury is a hard thing to prove on either side. so it's going to be difficult for the president and his team to prove that. >> not proving it, what he is alleging is that the fbi director way back when he had interactions falsified accounts of these interactions. >> and what we know about what director comey said at the testimony was he went into the first meet white going with pre notion, someone he didn't think would be trustworthy and would lie, said i didn't have a good read on him. director comey had a preconceived idea. >> do you understand why he had that notion, when you look at president trump prior to being president trump said a number of untrue things. >> i think when you are an investigator, when you are director of the fbi director, you should go in there with an objective manner looking for facts. he went in with preconceived idea about the president

jim comey and donald trump met on january 6th. now, it speaks to what jim comey thought of donald trump. he immediately gets in the car afterwards and begins rapping out notes of the meeting because, as he said today, he was concerned that donald trump might lie about the nature of their conversations i mean, that's pretty striking. we're talking about the sitting fbi director -- >> in the van on a classified laptop. >> right. this is not a guy -- jim comey has never been at this level before. he's advised george w. bush and met privately with barack obama. so his alarm went off, i think is telling. if you think jim comey is out to get donald trump, then you're going to dismiss that. but i do think that that is important. almost as soon as he met donald trump and took the measure of him -- >> his antenna went up. >> one other thing, nine conversations, three in person and six on the phone between donald trump and jim comey. almost all -- i believe all, initiated by donald trump. either inviting him to the white house or calling hi

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