i'll go back to what the fbi nominee said today, that is not okay, you must contact the fbi. >> it's also interesting to hear sebastien gorka and others say look, we should be paying attention to ukraine and alleged outreach to the dnc, which the dnc denies. it's been looked into by a lot of fact checking organizations. i certainly believe, you know, if there's wrongdoing, anybody should be investigated. but the fact is, there's not, as far as we know, an ongoing investigation into ukraine involvement in the election. there is one into russia. >> right. and that is sort of the knee jerk reaction, which is to deflect everything to hillary clinton. it starts at the top. the president does this. and then it flows down, and everybody else says the democrats did this. the democrats met with ukraine and plotted, and that has not been proven at all. what we do have -- >> there was a contractor who worked for the dnc who met with people from the ukrainian embassy. there are hints of things. but there's no -- >> but people around the dnc didn't know about it, and it kind of unravels as you go

pushing information, is that something, is there some legal obligation for informing somebody, the fbi, about? >> i mean certainly there are laws that require you if you have essentially -- it's a crime that suggests that you not only know of a crime but take a positive act to either hide it or do something to advance it, it's one of the prosecutor's favorite tools when they can't really prove any other case but they know that somebody has participated in a crime. but otherwise, i don't -- there is no direct obligation under these facts as we know them that he should have done it. but i will tell you, and i've heard today on cnn many people say that they have been involved in campaigns where this type of information or similar information has come about and that they did report this to the fbi or to the appropriate authorities. so i mean i certainly think it is a best practice that this information, you know, if it is -- again, we have three people that have seen this e-mail. i have not seen this e-mail. i don't think it's generally available. certainly bob mueller will be very interes

that's what concerns the fbi. and so i'm not sure that this is going to be something that the fbi is going to spend much time on. and he seems to be, i mean, the way -- he seems to be pointing the finger at someone. it looks like infighting in the white house. the fbi is not going to spend a lot of time trying to referee a fight between the chief of staff and the president's new communications director. this is something that the president needs to referee, that they need to work out for themselves. this is not something that the fbi should be brought into. >> i think this is an aversion of power and fear. by putting this out there. as margaret hoover said, this would never happen in the bush white house. no one would have stood for this. >> i can't imagine anyone at the obama white house anyone who have stood for this kind of public belittling, berating and knife fight amongst their senior staff. you're not doing the american people's business if you are publicly fighting your colleagues. >> if the president has

if this was reported to the fbi and the fbi can factor this into the ongoing investigation, perhaps it woup stopped the meddling in its tracks. >> this is not the only contact that russians had with operative in the united states. it reached into inner members of the trump circle and operate i have in floor. a former intelligence agent who is now the head of -- the largest russian development bank met with kushner. with different stories as to what they discussed when they met. so there are many contacts that we already knew about publicly. where the russians tried to make entrees into political circles here in the united states. >> another meeting that wasn't known about at the time wasn't reported and differing explanations why a meeting with that russian bank. >> by the way i'm hearing from sources as well. that at the g 20 in addition to the meeting that president trump had with mr. putin the formal by lat ralt. there was a leaders dinner after wards. and during that leaders dinner, mr. trump and putin conversed for the better part of an hour. there hasn't been reporting oen that.

tom called the fbi right away. then he called the bush campaign chairman and said you have a traitor in your midst and recused himself from the debate. i had to play this. that's what an honorable person does. donald trump jr. is not an honorable person. >> how come donna brazile -- the cnn debate about questions that were going to be published. at the time she accepted it. >> what she did was -- >> she accepted the information and passed it on to hillary clinton. >> what she did was incredibly sleazy. you are refusing to characterize anything about donald trump jr. >> i'm saying that donald trump jr. did nothing with that information. >> robbie, would you if a russian somebody russian said they were from the russian government and were sending a russian government attorney, is that business as usual? >> no, not at all. there's a lot of people who come up to campaigns with information. for example, when i was running hillary's campaign we had a lot of donald trump's former employees talk about how they didn't get p

could when he was fbi director. there's not any doubt that the russians attacked not anybody else but the russians attacked our election process. and the problem with that statement, of course, is that it makes it very hard for the president to sit down with vladimir putin and go on the offensive on this issue to say we know that you did it, it cannot happen again, i'm dead serious about this. he's on global tv raising questions about whether it happened at all and that, of course, puts him in a terrible negotiating system, a very sophisticated adversary. >> one of the things the president said today is something he said before, that other countries could have done it as well. again, you said on tit on the h intelligence committee. have you seen evidence that any other country besides russia tried to meddle in the 2016 election? >> none. none. and, yes, there are other countries out there with sophisticated capabilities. the chinese are pretty good at this stuff. they've been stealing our industrial secrets for a lo

interfere with our elections from any nation state, or any nonstate actor, is the kind of thing the fbi would want to know. >> the president did more than just minimize what happened after his son decided to schedule the meeting instead of calling the fbi. he also sought to blame others for the russian lawyer even being in the country, including president obama's attorney general, loretta lynch. >> now, the lawyer that went to the meeting, i see she was in the halls of congress also. somebody said that her visa, or her passport to come into the country was approved by attorney general lynch. now, maybe that's wrong. i just heard that a little while ago. a little surprised to hear that. she was here because of lynch. >> maybe that's wrong, i just heard a little while ago. a spokesman said the former attorney general neither has personal knowledge of the lawyer's travel, pointing out that the state department issues visas, and the department of homeland security oversees entry into the united states at airports. >> somebody said that her vuz visa or passport to come into the country was a

they say when you do receive something like this, you call the fbi. the white house presented it as business as usual. but the white house thought theyer trying to move beyond this. they wanted to talk about the forward relationship with vladamir putin going forward. they thought they had turned somewhat of a corner. that was a controversial meeting last friday, as well. but now they're stuck again with what happened during the campaign. i think it's important to point out, the reason this is different, this happened during the campaign two days after he clinched the nomination. and the president, as a candidate at that point, was in new york city on that day, was in trump tower. we don't know if he was involved in the meeting or not. we have no evidence, but he was in new york that day. but again, this is something this white house will have to answer. this will come out in those congressional testimonies. >> jeff, just to be clear. during the campaign, donald trump, jr. was a top adviser. we've heard time and time again how donald trump's children a

the fbi, which is responsible for counterintelligence efforts in the u.s. would not comment for this story, and the russian embassy in washington didn't respond for comment either. >> so if this is known to u.s. intelligence, pamela, and they're seeing it, why aren't they stong it? >> that is the big question. first of all, you know, even after the meddling in the u.s. elections in 2016, both the obama and trump administrations have been slow to take measures to respond to the intelligence threat. according to current and former u.s. officials, partisan political disagreements over the russian activity about russian's meddling in the election has slowed efforts to counter this threat. also, we're told from -- by russian experts that russia wants to ramp up spying when it has someone new in office, an adversary government, someone who they view as unpredictable, they want to have as much intelligence as they can. we're told counterintelligence is seeking to keep an eye on the activity as much as it can. in some cases the fbi uses surveillance to track the su

she was cleared by the fbi, mr. comey even said, no reasonable -- so that's been thoroughly investigated. this trump stuff has not been thoroughly investigated. it will be now because of director mueller, but it has not been investigated. and the charge is much, much worse. if true, they subverted the democratic process of picking a president and tainted mr. trump's election. >> but let me push back on that. i think it's based on something that mary katherine wrote, i think, in the federalist, if i read this correctly, and i'm not a very good reader, so maybe i didn't. the clinton people made the argument, well, there was no legal wrongdoing, but that's not necessarily the same standard that the trump people are being held to. i think the trump people can argue that maybe there's no legal wrongdoing, but like, morally, you know, was it right for hillary clinton to have, you know, destroyed machinery or had people -- >> right, my point is, that story was covered and she paid a political price for it. 600 days in a ro

that's what i want to know. >> there is now an active fbi investigation into this. this is not -- there is a real investigation. >> i think the translation is, correct. that is what some people angry about it. and they're angry about it does seem like rules are not evenly applied. and i think a that can be a valid argument and complaint. it doesn't help coming from the president's twitter account all the time. and you have the problem on both sides, which is, yes, doing something that's not technically illegal does not mean that it's ethical and good for the potential leader or leader of the country. and you get that too much from both sides. it happens a lot. and we shouldn't be patting ourselves on the back for not technically illegal. hillary or trump. >> we'll take a quick break, more with the panel, continue the conversation. we'll dig into jared kushner's role in all of this. jared kushner is the one person in that meeting who got a security clearance and now works in the west wing. it's happening, it's happening! in the modern world, you can control just abou

former fbi director james comey. he also had a warning for robert mueller not to poke too far into his business. when asked by the times if that would constitute a red line for the president, he said yes. whether it's that remark individually or the tone of many of them, what the president has said has been drawn to negative reviews from ordinarily solid supporters. a group of senators spoke. one who did not want to be named said he was stunned. any thought of firing a special counsel is chilling he said. that's all you can say. another said "one gets the impression the president doesn't understa understand or willfully disregards. they are not his personal lawyers. that's right check put it more bluntly. >> he can't be a wing man for a president. he's got to be very independent. and work for the people of the country. >> over on the house side republicans also voicing concerns. here's what idaho gop congressman said. quote i don't pay any attention because i don't care. they're a distraction. the family is a distrac

and he believed that it was a felony that was worth getting the fbi involved in. so this is the communications director of the white house accusing reince priebus of committing a felony, and the communications director telling me on the record he's talked to the fbi about this. >> that he wants to get the fbi going after the chief of staff of the president. >> exactly. mou, it turned out today that the politico reporter came out and said, actually, they just got the financial disclosure information from public sources. it was as easy as that. it wasn't anything mysterious. anthony scaramucci has a job at the export/import bank before he was communications director. he had to file one of these anyway. so there was no mystery. so that is what -- that's what's going on here. >> subsequent to that, he basically -- he told you that when he was getting off the phone with you, i think he said that priebus would be asked for it very shortly, and said he was going to go tweet. and shortly after talking to you, he did tweet, in a tweet that seemed to indicate he believed pr

>> anderson, the fact that we have an investigation and the fbi has an investigation shows that there is evidence of collusion. now, evidence is not a conclusion of guilt. there is evidence that needs to be tested and developed and that means bringing witnesses in and reviewing them. that's hopefully what we can do and report back to the american people very soon. >> congressman, i appreciate your time. thank you. >> my pleasure. >>> reaction from former trump advisor jason miller and hillary clinton's campaign manager, robby mook. you'll recall donald trump jr. was dismissive of the entire russian hacking story when news of it broke. here's trump jr.'s reaction to democratic complaints at the time which would, just as a factual matter, turn out to be true. >> it's disgusting. it's so phony. i watched them bumpl through the interview. i was able to hear it on audio a little bit. i mean i can't think of bigger lies. but that exactly goes to show you what the dnc and what the clinton camp will do. they will lie and do anything to win. >> well, nearly a year later, here we are, robby moo

and talking about mueller, look he interviewed for fbi director. you know, i didn't give him that job now he has this and democrats working for him. rod rosenstein comes from maryland everybody knows there aren't a lot of republicans in maryland. andrew mccabe's wife gave money to the democrat policy. so it's not about mueller's qualifications or rod rosenstein's qualifications. it's about where he sees them on the spectrum and it's black and white, they're either with me or against me. >> and we should say maggie said he seemed upbeat, when we talk about obsessing and stuff, according to to maggie he seems in a good head space. >> that was the report that i got from several republicans who were in the health care meeting that he had with all republican senators. that he was jovial, that he tweaked senators like rand paul stop going after republicans on tv, maybe i should take you golfing to get you off tv for three days. but this particular issue he seizes on it and expands it. any professional would tell you stop talking about it he can't. >> the

so when you mentioned the fbi and the department of justice, you watch how the rats lift in the boat. >> i understand. but you know what the problem is you're putting -- the boat gets put into the iceberg. the iceberg does not hit the boat and my point of the analogy correction is -- >> that's really cute. you're doing a good job this morning. that's a really cute way to spin my metaphor but you get the point that i'm making. i told tapper i'll send him a box of clean knickleenex. >> i don't know why you said that, by the way. it's insulting when you say that. >> removed. what's that? >> it's insulting when you say something like that. >> all right. i'm teasing him. you guys are unbelievable. you're allowed to hit me. >> it's not nice. it's offensive. when you say to a journalist i'll bring you a clean knicks because you'll be upset if the president gets re-elected, you're suggesting that they are biased. it's not nice. >> i'm making a joke. what i love about you guys, you hit me three times hard, i say something teasing and you get upset. >> you think this is hard? i'm giving you pat

he'll never fire the fbi director that is investigating you. but he believes that this is an unfair investigation. he believes that the -- that anyone who works in the justice department works for him, not for any ideal of justice or the constitution. and i don't think it's at all out of the question that he's going direct rodrigo duterte -- rod rosenstein to fire mueller at some point which at some time if his definition of a red line gets crossed. >> jeff, is it appropriate for the president to be talking about robert mueller in this way with an active investigation? again, he's unlike other presidents, but in the past, i seem to recall anybody saying there's an ongoing investigation, i'm not going to comment on that. i'm going to let the investigation go where it goes. >> he's not other presidents. i just think, you know, there are gasps all over washington, i'm sure. g gasps about this sand saying exactly that, it's inappropriate, et cetera. to be candid, i don't think he cares. i think if he feels the need to make them, he'll make them. >>

the fbi director was fired and we still haven't heard back from him. senator and now attorney general sessions still hasn't come back before the judiciary committee, which is pretty outrageous. he went to the intelligence committee with a very singular focus. but he needs to come before the judiciary committee. let's face it, it's not just russia. it's what's going on with immigration and the refugee order. it's what's happening with the voting rights and this commission that's been set up. we have a lot of questions to ask of the attorney general sessions. >> the chairman of your committee, senator grassley, would not say whether he would subpoena donald trump jr. if he would volunteer to testify. >> certainly he'll be and making sure that whatever we do doesn't interfere with their investigation but i am fairly certain that we should be able to have hearings and move forward in a substantive way with many topics. >> do you have a sense just of when you would get an answer of when they might testify? >> no. i know we're going to have a hearing. we're

he called the fbi, then he recused himself from the debate. that's what an honorable person does. >> how come donna brazile -- [ overlapping speakers ] >> she's been let go. >> but at the time she accepted it. she accepted the information. >> what she did was sleazy. you are refusing to characterize anything about donald trump, jr. -- >> i'm saying that donald trump, jr. did nothing with that information. >> robby, if somebody said they were from the russian government, is that business as usual? >> no, not at all. there's a lot of people that come up to campaigns with information. for example, when i was running hillary's campaign, we had a lot of donald trump's former employees talk about how they didn't get paid, contractors who he didn't send -- replay to their invoices, but they were american citizens. and they were legitimately engaging in a debate. if someone claiming to represent the russian government had reached out and said, first of all, we're supporting your candidate, and second of all, we dug up some oppo to give to you, i would

look, he interviewed for fbi director. you know? i didn't give him that job. now he's got this. he's got democrats working for him. rosenstein comes from maryland. everybody knows there's not a lot of republicans in maryland. mccabe's wife gave money to the democratic party. it's not about mueller's qualifications to be special counsel, or rosenstein's qualifications, it's where they see them on the political spectrum. it's very black and white. either they're with me or against me. >> maggie said the president seemed upbeat and amiable, which is an important point. when you talk about obsessing and stuff, according to maggie, he seems, you know, in a good place. >> to add to that, that was certainly the report that i got were in the health care meeting that he had with all republican senators, that he was jovial, trying to sort of tweak senators like rand paul saying, stop going after republicans on tv, maybe i should take you away golfing for three days to get you off tv. no question. i'm just talking about with this particular issue. he seizes on it and expands it and makes i

worked as an fbi special a jenlt. you know the president has the said, this russian attorney, did not work for the government. though donald trump jr. was told this. the president's attorney said, the person didn't work for the russian government. is, is it standard operating procedure. every intelligence person i talked to works in russia has said, it's an mo of russian intelligence, many intelligence agencies including the united states, to have a cutout or a, or, called it a soft approach. and whether or not this russian-american guy is involved in that or not. is it standard operating procedure in your experience? >> sure. yes. absolutely. especially in the initial stages of something like this. the hallmark of any covert operation, particularly one to sway the outcome of a u.s. election is something called plausible deniability a government wants to, eliminate any trace of their fingerprints, in that operation, in the event that, it is discovered. and, the possibility of discovery is going to be much hyp higher i

no one in that group of leaders, fbi, acting fbi director, deputy attorney then, escaped the president's wrath in that "new york times" interview. he singled virtually every one out. no one here expects him to resign. the president has not asked for that resignation but certainly awkward because they have not spoken yet, i'm told, anderson. simply the president talking about him and not to him. >> what did the white house have to say about the red line the president drew for mueller when it comes to looking to his family's finances. >> that was another fascinating part of the interview because it was clear that's on the president's mind as well. it's important to remember, he knows more about this investigation than anyone else. he's being briefed by lawyers, and he made clear that he -- his finances, his family's finances were off limits. the white house was asked about that and sarah huckabee sanders the deputy press secretary said, look, this investigation should stay focused on the russian meddling in the election. said look, this investigation should stay focused on -- it should sta

that's what you say let me call you back, hang up and call the fbi. if you don't know that much maybe you shouldn't be letting me reason the country. >> everybody on the panel we're out of time. time to hand thing over to don lemon on "cnn tonight." >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. >>> so everyone you have to admit the irony of it all. here we are talking about e-mails, not hers but his, donald trump, not senior but junior. e-mails showing people close to this president was ready and willing to work with the russians to her hillary clinton and to help donald trump. how can i say that, because here are the e-mails, they say as much. it's titled russian, clinton, private and confidential. not convinced? well the e-mail from a man with russian power close to putin a former judge in miss universe pageant offered to set up a meeting with someone who called a russian government attorney with information and documents. that would quote, inkrim hillary and her dealings with russia and would be very useful to your father, yend quote. didn't get any pla

has they be turned over to the fbi. if not why not? the information that was passed on alleged clinton donors. why wouldn't that have been turned over. the third question is who really backstopped this meeting? in other words in russia itself can we determine the identity of the person presumably in the kremlin that sent veselnitskaya to the meeting. who actually provided the cover and the backstopping and the information for this meeting. these will be the kind of questions that the mueller investigation has to come to terms with as they look into this meeting. >> a lot still not known. i want to thank everybody. former presidential candidate sanders joins us on the implosion of gop efforts to repeat and replace obamacare. ever wonder what steve bannon is like from behind closed doors. a closer look at the president chief strategist. with a stunning 4k displaydow and graphics thates. bring them to life. peter! you still with us? the dell inspiron 15 7000 gaming. dell, as real as it gets. choicehotels.com. badda book. that's it?. he me

she was presence by this record. >> it's interesting you worked as an fbi special agent. prks donald trump was told this. i been every intelligence person that i've talked to that works on russia has said it's an m. orchlts of probably many intelligence agencies including the united states to have a cutout and bob baer called it a soft approach and whether or not this russian american guy is involved in that or not, is it standard operating procedure in your experience? >> sure. yes, absolutely, especially in the official stages of something like this. so the hall mark of mi covert operati operation. it's called plausible deniability which means the government wants to get rid of any forng of discovery because but say in the context -- you can say it was a highly suggestive and dead uktive first dates in which be and the sfwrrjts dprrj did so i don't think we can come to conclusions and the patterns that you see are things that have come to light,s for, kushner's meeting with ambassador kislyak, which he also didn't mention to set up some back channels to avoid u.s. intel

it's going the fbi. you walk away. they clearly didn't. they were very receptive to working with the russians. and for the russians, that was a green light to keep going at this. and the question is we don't know what contacts occurred afterwards. but again, to go back to jared, the fact that later on in december he proposes setting up channel through russian communications to the russians because he doesn't trust the nsa, the national security agency. i find that particularly disturbing. >> so matt, just as your legal experience, if you had a client who says one thing on a saturday. doesn't give the full story of what the meeting was, and then sort of gradually the story changes, that transparency to you? >> it's really concerning as a lawyer because as you see jay trying to explain the facts as he currently knows them, i think he is a little worry head is on shifting sand. i respect jay a lot. i think he is doing a great job in this circumstance. but as anybody who has been in those similar circumstances can tell you, if you haven't got

that's when you say, um, let me call you back and you hang up and you call the fbi. if you don't know that much, then maybe we shouldn't be letting them run the country. >> i want to thank everybody on the panel. we're out of time. thanks for watching. time to hand things over to don lemon and "cnn tonight." >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. >>> so, everyone, you have to admit the irony of it all. here we are talking about e-mails, not hers, but his, donald trump, not senior, but junior, e-mails showing that people close to this president were ready and willing to work with the russians to hurt hillary clinton and help donald trump. how can i say that? because here are the e-mails. they say as much. it's titled "russia clinton private and confidential." not convinced? well, the e-mail from a man with connections to a powerful russian family close to

begin with the president's continued i tack attacks on je sessions, his attorney general, and his own fbi director. today, the white house, the president was asked if he was going to fire the attorney general or if he was trying to make him resign. >> why are you letting him twist in the wind rather than making the call for him? >> i don't think i am doing that. but i am disappointed in the attorney general. he should not have recused himself almost immediately after he took office. and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me prior to taking office, and i would have quite simply picked somebody else. so i think that's a bad thing, not for the president, but for the presidency. i think it's unfair to the presidency. and that's the way i feel. >> when pressed by another reporter about whether he would fire sessions, the president said we'll have to wait and see and that "time will tell," which seems that the attorney general is twisting in the wind. but the bigger issue is whether the president understands or cares what the role of the attorney general is supposed to be. h

we thought it was folly to fire the fbi director. investigating him. well, he did that. i mean, paul will tell you, bill clinton, president clinton was not very happy with janet reno at various points. >> or louis freeh. >> or louis freeh. or top white house -- some of your colleagues at the time. but there was a sense that there was an independence of the justice department and of the fbi. this president doesn't believe there's any independence. and he'll steamroll -- there's no reason he wouldn't make a move on mueller or he won't fire the a.g. and on down the line. he wants to litigate every as peblth of this before he even has to litigate it. >> if he fires -- if he fires jeff sessions, let's play it out. >> or sessions resigns. >> or sessions resigns. and he wants -- first of all, very difficult to get another a.g. in there even if you -- >> rod rosenstein gets elevated. >> rod rosenstein gets elevated. he doesn't like rosenstein either. >> right. >> because he's from baltimore or whatever. so he doesn't like -- >> there's too many democrats in baltimore, unlike new

aides talked about for quite some time, which was that they say bob mueller interviewed for interim fbi director the say before he was appointed special counsel. they consider that to be a mitigating factor, to put it mildly. the president refused to say, despite us asking him repeatedly what he would consider a violation of his charge on the part of upon mubob mueller, he he believes mueller's charge was focused on russia and he's not -- >> the allegation against comey, this goes back to the meeting when u.s. intelligence officials at the time briefed then president-elect trump in trump tower, and as comey testified, comey pulled him aside after the meeting and told him about the existence of this dossier or a two-page summary of this dossier. the president is now saying he believes comey did that to get leverage over him to keep his job? >> essentially that comey wanted to keep his job and that was the point in showing it to him. again, the president feels sort of vindicated, as you have seen him say publicly, that comey had to acknowledge under oath that he had told the president thr

. >> used to work as an fbi special agent, what is your take on security clearance? would it be possible he wouldn't be granted a security clearance? he's high level? >> fe weif he were a normal int agency employee or someone who works in one of the agencies, his clearance would be on hold as they examined the update, made sure the contacts were vetted not to raise concern. when i was an fbi agent i had to report every single contact i had on an ongoing basis. i did that reporting, but had i not i would have been pulled out, polygraphed, zd wasked why didn't pull it. he probably will get it as kirsten said, but he would not be treated like every other employee who gets one of these clearances. >> there's a republican congressman from texas who said it would be in the president's best interest if he removed all of his kids from the white house. he said, i'm going out on a limb but i would say it would be in the president's best interest if he removed all of his kids from the white house, not only ivanka and donald jr., but jared kushner. what do you think of that? >>

i would say what happens if the fbi finds the 33,000 deleted e-mails? then your candidate is sunk. literally in the middle of the campaign. then you'll care about e-mails. these investigations are real. they're happening for a reason. there is a lot of smoke. there was a letter saying the russian government was trying to help trump sr. they're going to pursue this stuff because there are actual concerns about real something, whether it's financial crimes or even if they were just duped into colluding. we won't know until the end. people -- the media covers health care all the time. what dana was saying, all we do is cover health care and the fact republicans can't pass it. i do get a little tired of the fact what trump supporters want to do is pretend the russia investigations are a media creation. >> they're not. >> as someone who lives in middle america, these are my friends and neighbors and i talk a lot about politics and these with folks. they want better jobs, they want this health care situation, very important to them, especially republicans that i talk to, not just trump s

we thought it was folly to fire the fbi director. bill clinton, president clinton was not very happy with janet reno at very uarious points. but there was a sense there was an independence of the justice department and the fbi. there's no reason this president won't fire the a.g. or make a move on mueller. he wants to litigate every aspect of this. >> if he fires jeff sessions or sessions resigns, and he wants -- first of all, very difficult to get another a.g. in there, even if you -- >> rod rosenstein gets elevated. >> he doesn't like rosenstein either. >> right. >> because he's from baltimore or whatever. so he doesn't like -- >> there's too many democrats in baltimore, unlike new york city where president trump is from. >> so he doesn't want to elevate rosenstein. what does rosenstein do, does he stay or quit? does he ask rosenstein to fire mueller and mueller refuses? and if he wants to fire mueller, i guarantee you his legal team would quit. i can't imagine the president's he will team saying, you know, it's okay -- >> jason, d

has that been turned over to the fbi? i'm referring to the reported information that was passed on alleged clinton donors, why would be the that have been turned over. the third question is who really back stopped this meeting? in other words, in russia itself, can we determine the identity of the person presumably in the kremlin that sent veselnitskaya to this meeting. who provided the cover and back stopping and the information for this meeting. these will be the kind of questions that the mueller investigation has to come to terms with as they look into this meeting. > a lot still not known. a lot more ahead including bernie sanders joins us on the implosion of senate gop efforts to repeal and replace obamacare and the president's efforts to shift the blame. later, ever wonder what steve bannon is like behind closed doors? hear from the author from an up-close look of the president's chief strategist. ... spendy weekenders. the tranquility awaits. hanging with our mates weekenders and the it's been quite a day... ...so

and the intelligence agencies, who contributed intelligence to this assessment, the cia, the nsa, the fbi, they concurred in a high confidence assessment that russia is behind this. so i suppose the difficulty for us, for the american people, and for people in the intelligence communities to rectify president trump's statements yesterday in the press conference doubting that russia was solely behind this, and today having confidence when he delivered that message to president putin, that he did so with the strength and certainty that you would expect from an american president. we don't know, we weren't in that room, but on two different days, the president seemed to be delivering two different messages. >> again, just to belabor the point from yesterday, any evidence that any other countries other than russia attempted or succeeded in hacking during the 2016 election? >> reporter: i interviewed former director of national intelligence james clapper yesterday. the most senior most intelligence official in the country until january, who has served, to be clear, republican and democratic ad

nixon acted on his hatred, he used the fbi to try to humiliate members of the press. he had some of them wire happen -- wiretapped. donald trump is poisoning the atmosphere between the presidency and the press in a way that richard nixon did it behind the scenes, donald trump does it in front of everyone and gleefully. that's the difference. there's a shamelessness to the behavior. to suggest that he believes he's bigger than the job. most presidents recognize the job is bigger than them. that they're carrying a burden that is historic and important. one gets the sense with him that his id is so strong, he can do what he wants. >> we've got to take a quick break. we'll be right back. lobster and shrimp are teaming up in so many new dishes.fest, like coastal lobster and shrimp, with shrimp crusted with kettle chips. or new, over-the-top lobster and shrimp overboard. but it can't last, so hurry in. are upgrading their watere filter to zerowater. start with water that has a lot of dissolved solids... pour it through brita's two-stage filter... dissolved solids remain! wh

. >> reporter: with an fbi investigation between trump's campaign and russia, making significant break throughs on any issues is unlikely. officials say the best hope for the meeting is good optics, but even that is a gamble for a president prone for off the cuff remarks. trump smiled and laughed in this photo with the russian foreign minister and ambassador, discussing his firing of james comey, and revealing intelligence from israel. putin has sympathized with trump, recently describing the u.s. as locked in "political schizophrenia that prevents trump from improving relations with russia." >> translator: this is clearly sign of an increasingly intense domestic political struggle and there's nothing we can do here. we are ready for constructive dialogue. >> elise, we know from both sides that syria is on the table for discussion. what do you imagine will come up there? >> reporter: i think president putin is looking for support from president trump for his political process, dealing with president assad and the opposition, which essentially would mean that assad would stay. just minu