what, maybe we can do without these. >> jim acosta, thanks very much. now jim sciutto with breaking news on michael flynn and two trips to the middle east that are raising questions. so what are you learning about these trips, jim? >> reporter: this is based on a letter that was sent to michael flynn's lawyer. cnn obtained it today from the ranking democrats on both the house oversight committee and the house foreign affairs committee. asking general flynn about a visit in september 2015 to saudi arabia not reported on a form as required by law when he applied for security clearance as national security adviser. and a second trip to saudi arabia later in 2015 where he did not provide key details such as why he went there or who he traveled with. and then in addition to that when he was applying for a security clearance again to enter the trump administration he did not report any meetings with foreign officials for the previous seven years, again, as required on that security clearance form. i reached out to michael flynn's lawyer that this letter was addressed to. he confirmed that

lawyer as the russia investigations are gaining steam. hiring abby lowell as counsel. jim sciutto is "outfront." what more can you tell us? this is a big move to hire lowell. >> and someone with a washington pedigree. he's representing bob menendez and former senator john edwards in other cases. he has a reputation for being able to handle the big cases like this. that's one thing. two, there was also a conflict issue because jared kushner hired a lawyer from the same firm that bob mueller is from and they recommended better for you to seek counsel owl side of this firm in light of that conflict there. abbe lowell is a big-time lawyer and it shows the seriousness of this. >>> also on the russian investigation front, the russian ambassador to the united states is leaving. what's the impact? >> well, i think you could say this. the u.s. already has a lot of information on sergey kislyak. he's a senior russian diplomat that as a matter of course would have been listening to his conversations. in fact, it's those intercepted conversations that trails some of this investigation. for insta

all of you for being with me. i'm brooke baldwin in new york. don't move a muscle. jim sciutto is sitting in for jake tapper. "the lead" starts right now. >> thank you, brooke. it was a direct shot at the heart of our democracy. "the lead" starts right now. new details on russian cyber attacks. vladimir putin's involvement in them and donald trump's secret struggle between fighting back and what he saw as protecting the integrity of the u.s. election. >>> critical condition. another republican senator is out, putting the gop's health care push into a deeper hole. could the president's promise to repeal and replace obamacare be in trouble? >>> plus, out of line. just a week after an assassination attempt on republicans, the secret service is now looking at actor johnny depp for joking about killing the president. >>> welcome to "the lead." i'm jim sciutto in for jake tapper. a highly detailed account of how u.s. intelligence first learned the alarming extent of russian hacking and alerted the white house. along the way, debates and a lot of second-guessing. kremlin sourcie ining sa

. tonight, "the russian connection, inside the attack on democracy." jim sciutto is the host. i'll speak with him coming up next. hate it. or take notes... hate it. or even multitask. multi-hate yeah. you can do all the things you hate. great. what's going on? oh hey! ♪ that's it? yeah. ♪ everybody two seconds! ♪ "dear sebastian, after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance..." through the tuition assistance program, every day mcdonald's helps more people go to college. it's part of our commitment to being america's best first job. ♪ present. you're always itthinking about it.s always what if my cancer comes back? i've been working on this therapy for 5 years now and we've getting ready to go to the clinic. my son definitely keeps me fighting. i want to the there for him when he needs me. that's what motivates me. i want to see patients have gray hair. i see myself growing old with my pink hair. that to me, is enough to keep going. wwell, it's just abolike a real pencil,? so when you write on

so much for joining us in the newsroom. jim sciutto and "the lead" starts right now. >> "the lead" starts now. they are taking the supreme court to task. >>> health insurance could lose insurance under the senate health care bill. what does it mean for republicans trying to pass it this week? >>> president trump using the finger to point at former president obama that colluded or obstructed on russia. so how is obama responding? >>> good afternoon and welcome to "the lead." i'm jim sciutto in for jake tapper and we begin with the politics lead. any minute now the congressional budget office is expected to release the numbers, its analysis of the gop senate health care bill. we'll bring you that the moment it happens. but first the supreme court ruled today that it will allow parts of president trump's travel ban aimed at six muslim majority nations to take immediate effect. this as the justices also announced they will take up the full case this fall, setting up a major constitutional showdown over presidential authority. the president quickly declared the decision, quote, a clear

and the trump campaign. an investigation that leakers have fueled. jim sciutto is "outfront" tonight. jim, how did they find this leaker? >> reporter: erin, really remarkable details here. this was a federal contractor working for the nsa. the nsa has a facility in augusta, georgia, who got her hands on a classified nsa report, dated just earlier in may of this year, regarding russian interference in the election. sent that to a reporter. then that outlet, the intercept, presented the fbi with that document. probably to say is this authentic? they noticed that there was a crease on the image of the document, which indicated to them the document had been printed. so they looked to see how many people had printed this document, only half a dozen people, and only one person who e-mailed it. they were able to identify the leaker of that document through some good old fashioned and simple police work. >> it's just incredible. obviously then this woman, i know it's a woman, 25 years old, admitted to doing this, saying yes, she nailed it to the news outlet. obviously could go to jail and fo

collectively, you know what, we can do without these. >> jim sciutto with breaking news and two mideast trips raising questions. what do you know about these trips? >> this was based on a letter that was sent to michael flynn's lawyer asking general flynn about a visit in september 2015 to saudi arabia not reported on a form as required by law when he applied for security clearance as national security adviser, and a second trip to saudi arabia later in 2015 where he did not provide key details, such as why he went there or who he traveled with. and then in addition to that, when he was applying for his security clearance again to enter the trump administration, he did not report any meetings with foreign officials for the previous seven years, again, as required on that security clearance form. i reached out to michael flynn's lawyer that this letter was addressed to. he confirmed that they received the letter but he would not comment on the allegations contained in the letter. >> we should point out it is a crime not to report foreign travel on a security clearance form. that's one of

russia investigation. our chief national security correspondent jim sciutto is with us and phil mattingly is with us as well. jim, two senators, they're asking for an investigation of the attorney general. the current attorney general about his russia contacts during the presidential campaign. tell us about the letters cnn has obtained from these senators. >> wolf, i have the letters here. they come from senators patrick leahy and al franken. three letters in march, april and may all asking first director comey and then the final letter in may after comey was fired asking the fbi, the bureau itself, to investigate whether sessions had been completely forthcoming even after he had to correct his initial testimony. you'll remember in january during his confirmation hearing he said he had no meetings with the russians. a month and a half later when "the washington post" corrected there were two meetings he had to correct his sworn testimony, admit to those two meetings and recuse himself from the russia investigation. senators leahy and franken went to the fbi again after that admi

promises. let's get to cnn jim sciutto first with the latest on the russian investigation. what is the white house doing to make sure the russians don't hack and meddle with our democracy again? >> the simplest answer is we don't know exactly. the questions been asked if not answered in full. one thing i will say is i asked the same question up on capitol hill, republicans and democrats, what congress is doing, and this issue is such a partisan divide. but on that question republicans and democrats tell me almost unanimously not enough is being done. as you know, the senate passed a bill a short time ago imposing new sanctions on russia. that's on punitive actions against russia. and the real question is on protective actions. what is the country going to do to prevent the next attack? and on that point i hear a really bipartisan sense of urgency not enough is being done now. going forward, in this election no evidence that russia interfered in the election. but they have done probing attacks. >> james comey testified the president asked about the flynn investigation and quote the

joins us now. what have you learned? >> reporter: jim sciutto this time. >> how many times have i done that to you? >> reporter: that's right. i'm not taking it personally. this is a letter from the ranking democrat on the house oversight committee and the ranking democrat on the house foreign affairs committee, drawing attention to two foreign trips that michael flynn took in 2015. one in the summer, the other in october of 2015. they say the first he did not report at all on his security clearance form. and the second one he omitted key information as to why he went, who he traveled with, et cetera. this coming on the heels of previous nondisclosures by flynn of meetings. and they're looking at it now because russia involved again, the trip was to saudi arabia, but general flynn went to saudi arabia to help broker a deal between russia and saudi arabia for building a number of nuclear power plants there. i reached out to flynn's lawyer. he did say they received this letter, and i reached out to republicans on the committee to see why they didn't sign onto this letter. i'm told by dem

sciutto just was breaking this story. he's "out front" now. this is hugely significant, jim, because of the meetings we know about. he failed to disclose those originally. now this would be a third meeting he failed to disdisclose. >> reporter: that's right. the first two led to his recusal from the russia investigation. we learned that comey said during the reason during the public session that he couldn't speak about sessions more was that they're investigating the possibility he had a third undisclosed meeting with the russian ambassador. this is based on intercepted russia-to-russia communications. i should note that cnn was the first to report last week that congressional investigators were looking into this possibility. april 16th at the may flower hotel here in washington, d.c. when there was a larger meeting. the question was after that larger meeting where trumppresident trump gave his first poips of the speech of the campaign, first major foreign policy speech of the pam contain, did sessions have a private pull-aside with the russian ambassador. last week, the department of j

other threats, for instance, threats against the u.s. power grid. sources tell dana bash and jim sciutto that mike rogers expressed his from yustration t lawmakers to convince president trump that russia meddled in the election. >> so top officials have called this a major threat. why is the president reluctant to address it? >> reporter: people say that president trump is having difficulty separating the investigation into russia collusion and russia meddling into the election itself. so trump sees everything regarding russia as being organized as a challenge to him. basically a move to undermine his presidency. >> has the white house responded to this at all? >> reporter: shean spicer insisted that the white house is taking action, just quietly. in a statement to cnn, spicer says the united states continues to combat on a regular basis malicious cyber activity without bragging to the media. spicer pointed to the fact that the trump administration upheld the obama administration sanctions against russia. but sources say the white house is already trying to water down an additional package of

days before the election. the alleged leaker is facing charges. jim sciutto has more. the substance of the nsa document, let's talk about that. >> this is something that we knew some hints about before the election, that russia had had probing attacks or attacks traced back to russia of voting registration systems, electoral systems in arizona and illinois, in florida as well, a contractor there hacked tied to the voting system. the intel community never found evidence that russia had changed the votes of the election. this nsa report, which is just dated a couple of weeks ago in may, gives more details about these probing attacks of electoral systems. it does not make a conclusion. it does not say that they successfully changed volter tallies. but it does give more details about how many places they were looking to get into these systems. that information in itself is alarming enough. because it shows that beyond just stealing e-mails and releasing them, which of course had its own unmeasured affect on the election, that they were looking as to where else they could penetrate the s

. cnn's jim sciutto has more. he joins us now. so it's not often that an nsa report makes its way into public view. what does it tell us and what doesn't it tell us? >> let's start with what it doesn't tell us. it doesn't tell us that there is hard evidence that russia hacked voter tallies. actually voting counts during the 2016 presidential election. what it does, and this is a classified report, dated just a few weeks ago, may, 2017. it gives more details of russian probing attacks of voter registration systems, even some election officials. we knew about some of this before the election in states you may remember. we reported this in arizona, in illinois, in florida. but this gives more details about that. the nsa has been looking into this. they found more information, and they compiled a report to say, here's where we saw attempts at penetration, rather, of these voting systems, registration systems, et cetera. gives them more information, but it does not change their assessment that you'll remember from january, anderson, that said that while they did steal e-mails, et cetera, th

undisclosed. jim sciutto joins us now. what do we know on this? >> republican and democratic hill sources and intelligence officials briefed on the investigation tell myself and my colleagues that congressional investigators are examining whether attorney general jeff sessions had an additional private meeting with russia's ambassador during the presidential campaign. investigators on the hill are investigating additional information including schedules with sessions. they're investigating whether a meeting took place. where then candidate donald trump was delivering his first major foreign policy address, prior to the speech, then senator suggestions and russian ambassador sergei kislyak attended a session with organizers, diplomats and others as well. in addition, the fbi is seeking to determine the extent of interactions with the trump campaign team may have had with russia's investigator. this is part of its broader counter intelligence investigation neither hill or investigators have proven a meeting took place. >> has attorney general sessions said anything about this? >> we reached

front. >> good evening. i'm jim sciutto in tonight for erin burnett. shocking claims of a tabloid hit story. the subjects of the president december garaging and widely condemn tweets allege they were threatened by top people inside the white house. they say they were encouraged to apologize to the president for their coverage of him in return, they say, trump would get a nasty story about them to go away. the alleged story, a tabloid hit job. trump himself appears to acknowledge some of this, but insists that's not how it went down at all. he tweeted, watched low-rated morning joe for the first time in a long time. fake news. he called me to stop a national even quirer article. i said no. bad show. we should know trump is friends with the tabloid's publisher. the paper said today there was no involvement on its part. but this could cause trouble for a president already on the ropes with embarrassed members of his own party. is this a case of blackmail? did trump issue a threat to gain more favorable media coverage? has he created another problem for himself politically and should

all the key moments of the hearing in the next two hours. we have correspondent jim sciutto about what he gave after the public one. >> my colleagues are learning in the classified section this afternoon fired director comey told senators of a possible third undisclosed meeting between attorney general jeff sessions and the russian ambassador to the u.s. sergey kislyak, based on russian to russian conversations discussing that meeting. i should note cnn was the first to report this investigation last week congress was looking into a possible third meeting that relates to april 2016 at the mayflower hotel. this helps explain a somewhat cryptic answer director comey gave in the public session earlier today when asked about attorney general sessions. have a listen. >> our judgment, as i recall was he was very close to and inevitably going to recuse himself for a variety reasons. we were aware i can't discuss in an open setting that would make his continued engagement in a russian investigation problematic. >> what problematic apparently was he did not disclose yet again a meeting wit

secret document. jim sciutto has more on that. jim. >> don, first let's talk about this nsa document. it was classified, prepared by the nsa last month and what it focuses on is russian attempts to probe probing cyber attacks during the election. we knew some of this during the election. they had registration rolls, etc., in arizona, illinois. in florida, this provides more details, more intelligence about those efforts. does not change the intelligence community's assessment that russia did not change voter tallying, but gives more details to probe those voting system wheres and that by itself is alarming. whether or not it had an impact on the 2016 presidential election, i'm told consistently by officials that russia is certain to attack u.s. elections again. what they learned here, could that help them attack voting systemess in elections to come, 2018, 20/20? it's possible. it's adding to their broader intelligence picture. 25-year-old contractor working for the nsa. accessed this classified document, printed it out and shared it with a reporter. that reporter then shared it with ano

climate change. >>> that's going to do it for me. thanks so much for joining us in the newsroom. jim sciutto and "the lead" starts right now. >> "the lead" starts now. they are taking the supreme court to task. >>> health insurance could lose insurance under the senate health care bill. what does it mean for republicans trying to pass it this week? >>> president trump using the finger to point at former president obama that colluded or obstructed on russia. so how is obama responding? >>> good afternoon and welcome to "the lead." i'm jim

promises. let's get to cnn jim sciutto first with the latest on the russian investigation. what is the white house doing to make sure the russians don't hack and meddle with our democracy again? >> the simplest answer is we don't know exactly. the questions been asked if not answered in full. one

jim comey the next day in front of the same committee. jim sciutto is "out front." >> reporter: with his fired fbi director preparing to deliver his first public account of conversations with the president, plump had this simple push for james comey. >> i wish him luck. >> as well as a somewhat pointed observation about all the media attention his son-in-law jared curb her has attracted. >> jared's become much more famous than me. i'm a little upset about that. >> john kelly came to the defense of kushner allowed continued questions about his attempt to set up secret meetings with reach's ambassador. >> jared curb her is a great american. >> yeah. >> he has a security clearance at the highest level. >> right. >> they're in the course of normal interactions with the country. >> kelly did acknowledge this particular back channel could be unusual. >> can you tell me if it's almost normal to do to an embassy of a country that's been our foe for -- since world war ii -- i don't know if that was the case but if that is the case i must assure you it's normal but certainly it would be one wa

feels completely vindicated. we're covering this story from every angle. we begin with jim sciutto. jim, in every way this is stunning, to get this testimony a day in skrans, to have it so personally written. roipts no question. one way it's stunning, director comey, fired director comey extra tickets the president. testimony. was asked if in any way, shape, or form, those exact words he tried to interfere with the investigation of michael flynn. he said no twice and next question. in his testimony, his written testimony director comey fired director comey lays out in detail very much the opposite case, saying the president asked him to stop that investigation. on the crucial question of whether the president attempted to influence on yog fbi investigations, comey said the president told him "i hope you can see your way clear to letting this go. to getting flynn go. he is a good guy. i hope you can let this go." comey makes clear "i had understood the president to be requested that we drop any investigation of flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the ru

white house is responding to these charges and we'll get to their response in a moment. first, jim sciutto is joining me. some are suggesting that comey detailing in three times that he did tell president trump that the president was not personally under investigation that has vindicated the president. that same testimony needs to be said made some strong charges about the president's character and ability to tell the truth. >> that's right, the key between what he vindicated the president on and what he did not. >> yes, this is important. he made clear that the president personally was not under investigation when comey was fired in may. comey accused the president of lying about why he fired him among other lies and inappropriately directing h him -- that order was of an inve invest g investigative interest before he was fired. >> former fbi director james comey was barely two and a half minutes into his opening remarks when he first accused of the president lying of mr. trump's reasons for firing him. >> the administration then chose to defame me and more importantly the fbi by

. dana bash is here, jim sciutto and david gergen. all of them join me. good evening to you. jim, there's new video tonight on one of the london attackers being searched by police back in 2015. tell us what we're seeing and what happened at the time. >> so this is another example of where you have attacks like this play out where the attackers were known to authorities before the event as was this attacker. he's actually appeared in a number of videos including in a documentary on jihadis living in the city of london and here it -- he is at another event where police had to respond to it, a public event where he was espousing extremist views. this happens. we saw it with the attackers at the "charlie hebdo" shooters. some. -- some of the paris attackers had been known to authorities. the trouble is, they have so many people on their radar screen, it's difficult to impossible to have all the resources to follow all of them. the other point i would make is that you had another case here where the attackers had been reported to authorities by people within the muslim community. him

have cnn's jim sciutto, evan perez and senior legal analyst jeffrey toobin. jeffrey, let's go to the nuts and bolts of this. is there any crime in this? if everything that jim comey says is accurate, is that a crime? >> there may well be, obstruction of justice, absolutely, yes. >> you think there's an obstruction charge in here? >> the february 14th meeting where he says -- where the president says to everyone else in the room least. i want to talk alone to comey, which certainly suggests that he may know he owes doing something inappropriate and then he goes to the director of the fbi and says can you drop this investigation of my former top aide, that, combined with the fact that days later or a couple -- three months later when comey does not drop the investigation, he fires comey i think lays out a plausible case of obstruction of justice. >> what about the hurdle, i'm being told by people close to comey, intent is a big hurdle. >> the law says corruptly, and what that means is with bad purpose. you don't -- you are not as president of the united states allowed to dictate to the

indictments and will try the cases. >> thank you, gentlemen. very quickly, jim sciutto, if memory serves me, didn't the white house go after us because you and others at cnn broke the story that the president had been briefed on that dossier and kellyanne conway and the white house spokes people, they denied that had happened. they basically were challenging cnn. >> if i remember correctly in her interview with you after we broke the story of the intelligence chief briefing president-elect trump and president obama on the existence of the dossier, she said heads are going to roll when it's discovered this is not true when in fact two days later james clapper confirmed it in an on the record statement. we had reported since then in the weeks that followed in fact some elements of the dossier have been corroborated. i'm not saying the salacious materials. we've never mentioned the details of the se licontents of dossier, but the operative who wrote it, times, place, people on either end of the phone call, that has been corroborated. you heard again today the very key issue, the central issue

coming to blows with the white house. let's go out front. >>> good evening. i'm jim sciutto in tonight for erin burnett. the president ignoring repeated questioning on whether he regrets vicious and personal sweets he po tweets from this morning. the president of south korea at the white house, it is in a word really, a shameless white house today defending the attacks. they may be his most defensive tweets since taking office. the president tweeting early this morning and i'm quoting here, i heard poorly rated morning joe speaks badly of me. don't watch anymore. then how much low iq, along with psycho joe came to mar-a-lago three nights in a row and insisted in joining me. she was bleeding badly from a facelift. i said no. remember, the white house has repeatedly said that the president's tweets are the equivalent of presidential statements. republicans are calling for the leader of the free world to simply knock it off and act presidential. and, yet, the president spokesperson had one talking point about the mess. and she's sticking to it. >> and i think that the president ha

probe. if it's true, it's yet another incidence in which contact went undisclosed. jim sciutto joins us now. so what are we learning on this? >> well, anderson, republican and intelligence officials brief said on the investigation tell myself and my colleagues that congressional investigators are economicing whether attorney general jeff sessions had an additional private meeting with russia's ambassador during the presidential campaign. investigators on the hill are requesting additional information, including schedules from sessions, a source of knowledge tells cnn. they're focused on whether sessions 'meeting took place on april 27, 2016, where then candidate donald trump was delivering his first major address. he attened a small vip meeting. this is part of it's broader counter intelligence investigation of russian interference in the election. now, i should add neither hill or fbi investigators have concluded whether a private meeting took place. and they acknowledge if possible any additional meeting was incidental, anderson. >> so has attorney general sessions said anything ab

. jim sciutto is sitting in for jake tapper. "the lead" starts right now. >> thank you, brooke. it was a direct shot at the heart of our democracy. "the lead" starts right now. new details on russian cyber attacks. vladimir putin's involvement in them and donald trump's secret struggle between fighting back and what he saw as protecting the integrity of the u.s. election. >>> critical condition. another republican senator is out, putting the gop's health care push into a deeper hole. could the president's promise to repeal and replace obamacare be in trouble? >>> plus, out of line. just a week after an assassination attempt on republicans, the secret service is now looking at actor johnny de

jim sciutto in for jake tapper. moments ago president trump facing hard questions after the man he fired as fbi director basically told congress he believes the president is a liar who cannot be trusted and the president again refused to answer the key question of whether tapes of their conversation exist. cnn's sara murray is live for us at the white house. sara, hard to parse out. what's the headline there? a lot of headlines on tapes and basically him calling comey a liar in return. >> that's right, jim. we really saw a defiant president trump in this rose garden event today, disputing what comey said under oath, saying that he lied and trump even saying he'd be willing to testify about his own

, the hill and the fbi are looking into this. >> jim sciutto, thanks very much. again, this came at the end of a day that began with another shoe drop in the russia probe. we learned that fired fbi director james comey will testify publicly before the senate intelligence committee. we learned when he'll testify, although we don't know the exact date. and most importantly, we learned what he is expected to say, later today, we learned who the house intelligence community wants to hear from. cnn's jessica schneider joins us with all the details on that. so the house intel committee issued a number of subpoenas today. who'd they call? >> reporter: anderson, seven new subpoenas went out today. and here's exactly how they break down. four of them related to the russia probe. those were issued to president trump's personal lawyer, michael cohen, also former national security adviser, michael flynn, as well as their business entities. those subpoenas are for documents that both men have been reluctant to turn over. now, the three additional subpoenas related to unmasking, that's, of course, th

course, the pieces we do have make for a fascinating cnn special report. jim sciutto hosts "the russian connection: inside the attack on democracy." that's coming up next on cnn. thanks very much for watching "360." see you again tomorrow night. that special report starts right now. >>> the following is a cnn special report. >> the nation's bitter adversary. >> they're coming after america. >> dangerous and deceptive. >> a reasonably realistic e-mail. >> he meant to say illegitimate. he said it was legitimate. the rest is history. >> their weapons, insidious and unsuspecting. >> they're looking to weaponize information. >> threatening american votes and striking at the heart of democracy. >> do you think they see their interference in this election as a success? >> i do. >> a spy story in cyber space. >> we don't believe that domain is owned by act blue, so we investigate it. >> that would lead right to putin's doorstep. >> if mr. trump gets his way, it will be like christmas in the kremlin. >> when words of warning were not nearly enough. >> i saw president putin tell him to cu

democracy. jim sciutto taking you inside the russian hacking. i'm jake tapper. turning you over to wolf blitzer in "the situation room." thank you for watching. >>> happening now, breaking news. delaying the vote. senate republican leaders delay a vote on their health care bill because they don't have enough support from their own party to pass it. after a non-partisan congressional report found it would leave 22 million more people uninsured than under obamacare. white house invite: all republican senators are invited to the white house for a crucial meeting with the president about the health care bill. but one gop senator says the president still hasn't learned how to work with congress. can the president and his party move beyond this stunning setback? >>> chemical attack warning. the white house says syria may be preparing for another chemical weapons attack and warns the regime is may pay a heavy

going to try to work around it to see if you can answer it. >> i heard jim sciutto reporting that jeff sessions had an additional meeting with the ambassador. i know you cannot confirm that. broadly, even listening to the public testimony from james comey today. how concerned are you about jeff sessions and his role currently as the attorney general of the united states? >> well, i cannot comment at all whether there is a third meeting. >> we already know that there were several name and we know jeff sessions recuseed himseld . >> that was what comey was hinting at in public testimony. are you concerned that there were something? >> we know from the public record, the president cited jeff sessions' recommendations in his letter firing comey. >> no question jeff sessions was involved in that decision. >> should he have been? >> um -- my sense is if he recuse himself and not have anything to do with that decision depending on what the real rational for that decision was and the president later said it was a russia thing. the recusal had 2020 vision today. >> to characterize what he saw a

sea literally swallows it up. welcome to "the lead." i'm jim sciutto in for jake tapper. moments ago president trump facing hard questions after the man he fired as fbi director basically told congress he believes the president is a liar who cannot be trusted and the president again refused to answer the key question of whether tapes of their conversation exist. cnn's sara murray is live for us at the white house. sara, hard to parse out. what's the headline there? a lot of headlines on tapes and basically him calling comey a liar in return. >> that's right, jim. we really saw a defiant president trump in this rose garden event today, disputing what comey said under oath, saying that he lied and trump even saying he'd be willing to testify about his own version of events under oath. >> no collusion, no obstruction. he's a leaker. >> reporter: after initially restraining himself during james comey's testimony, today president trump is lashing out. >> frankly, james comey confirmed a lot of what i said and some of the things that he said just weren't true. >> reporter: trump going on o

jim chute sciutto takes u rush connection" tomorrow night 10:00 p.m. eastern and pacific right here on cnn. >>> live pictures once again coming in from the white house. live cameras are banned from the daily press briefing that hasn't started yet. about to begin. at the statement department and the pentagon, by the way, reporters have few briefings as well. where is all this heading? we're going to ask the president of the white house correspondent's association when we come back. ♪ sorry about the holdup, folks. we have some congestion on the runway and i'm being told it'll be another 15, maybe 20 minutes, and we will have you on your way. ♪ runway models on the runway? surprising. what's not surprising? how much money evan saved by switching to geico. i would not wear that lace. hmm, i don't know? fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more. >>> looking live pictures coming in from the white house briefing room once again. we may lose this picture by the way any moment. the white house press secretary sean spicer will hold another off-camera briefing. once finished,