you when it begins. that's it for "at this mourp" take a look at air force one there. "inside politics" with john king starts right now. this is cnn breaking news. >> thanks, kate. welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thanks for sharing your day with us. day 42 of the trump administration and high drama. democrats say attorney general jeff sessions did not tell the truth in his confirmation hearing and should resign. >> jeff sessions, the attorney general of the united states, lied under oath to his colleagues in the senate and to the american people about his communications with the russians. the fact that the attorney general, the top cop in our country, lied under oath to the american people is grounds for him to resign. >> because the department of

justice should be above reproach for the good of the country, attorney general sessions should resign. >> republicans reject talk of resignation but there is a gop split on whether the attorney general must now recuse himself from the investigation into russia election meddling. many influential republicans say, yes, sessions should declare now he will recuse himself. but speaker paul ryan moments ago pushed back. >> if he himself is a subject of an investigation, of course, he would. but if he's not, i don't see any purpose or reason to do this. we have seen no evidence from any of these ongoing investigations that anybody in the trump campaign or the trump team was involved in any of this. we have been presented with no evidence that an american was collude with the russians to meddle in the election. >> that partisan split there one of the many moving parts on this story. plus, president trump about to make a blue state road trip looking to sell his plan to boost military spending. we'll track that throughout the

day. with us, julie davis of the "new york times," aaron tumulty of "the washington post," glen thrush of "the new york times" and katon of real clear politics. at issue for the attorney general in a firestorm is this. >> and if there is any evidence that any one affiliated with the trump campaign communicated with the russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do? >> senator franken, i'm not aware of any of those activities. i have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign, and i did not have communications with the russians. >> you heard jeff sessions right there. i did not have communications with the russians. we heard overnight he had communications with the rush yarns. twice with the russian ambassador here in the united states. a lot of moving parts in this story, including word we're about to hear from the chairman of the house intelligence committee, congressman devin

nunez. manu raju is there waiting for that event. give us the latest from the hill. >> that's right, john. they are hearing increasing calls from republicans for jeff sessions to recuse himself. those calls mostly coming from rank and file republicans, some influential members but not members of the republican leadership like paul ryan. not going as far as calling for recusal. we have not heard from senator mitch mcconnell and other members of the leadership, including john barrasso of washington. he does not think that he needs to recuse himself unless sessions believes he should recuse himself. but there are some other pressures coming from other areas. rob portman who is a friend of jeff sessions thinks for the integrity of this investigation that sessions should step aside. also hearing from conservatives like the house freedom caucus member, raul, a congressman saying that it is time for sessions to recuse himself for the integrity of that investigation as well as jason chaffetz from the utah

republican chairs that house oversight committee. now the democrats are going a lot further. they are saying it's time for a special prosecutor if the attorney general sessions does not resign from this post. there needs to be an independent investigation. that is something we're not hearing any republicans other than darrell issa of california say that he is open to and -- but not even republicans who have been open to recusing for sessions recusing himself have gone as far as special prosecutor. i just talked to lindsey graham of south carolina who said it would be a no-brainer for jeff sessions to recuse himself but not going as far as the independent prosecutor to create any sort of special prosecutor. so that's where the dividing line is right now and the question is, what will the white house do? what will the attorney general sessions do because the pressure is coming from different areas on capitol hill for at least him to do something, at the very least step aside from some republicans and most democrats, john. >> manu raju on the hill. we'll back up there in a few

minutes. we expect to hear from the chairman of the house intelligence committee, devin nunez. they are investigating the russian meddling and allegations that trump campaign associates were in touch with russians during the campaign. jeff sessions this morning, let's quickly let him have a say in this. this morning he was asked about this. before we play the sound, at his confirmation hearing a couple of weeks ago, i had no communications with the russians. overnight he had two conversations with the russian ambassador. a man who, if you to talk to anybody in this town, it's much more known as a spy than a diplomat. two conversations with him last year. here's the attorney general this morning. >> well, i have not met with any russians at any time to discuss any political campaign and those remarks are unbelievable to me, and false and i don't have anything else to say about that. so thank you. >> what about the calls to recuse yourself from your agency's probe of -- >> i have to say whenever it's

appropriate, i will recuse myself. there's no doubt about that. >> whenever it is appropriate. so he's talking generally, not specifically about this case. i don't know anybody that believes if there's something to this investigation, and let's be fair to the white house. we don't know if there's anything to this investigation. nobody believes if there is something in this investigation they'd have no choice but to recuse himself because he was a trump campaign surrogate. he was so close to the president. so that is this just a personal pride? why not just do it now and turn the volume down in this? or is it stubbornness, pride or principle? >> first of all, i think jeff sessions wants to make it clear that he didn't lie. that he is now trying to say that he thought the question was, did you talk to the russians about the campaign, about donald trump? and skewing the election to him? of course, that wasn't the question. the question was, did you have any contact with the russians? did anyone in the trump campaign have any contact with the russians? with republicans now coalescing around this idea of him recusing himself, he's going to have no choice but to step aside, whether or not this

investigation starts to focus on jeff sessions himself. but whether or not he does recuse himself, this is a huge issue for him and for this administration. separate and apart from this investigation. he's the top law enforcement official of this administration. he is, you know, the face of justice for the trump administration and for him to have something like this hanging over him at this early stage of the administration when they are trying to get things moving on the hill, trying to build consensus for the president's a agenda, it's a bad thing. >> we van hour here. there are so many important pieces of this. he's the nation's top lawyer. he knew when he was up to be confirmed, a senator from alabama, he knew the allegations of russian meddling would be one of the issues in that confirmation hearing. one would think a good lawyer is going to say, they're going to ask me about this. i better go through the record and prepare my case. this is a courtroom in a sense. prepare my case. is it believable that when he's asked about, did you have

communications with the russians that he says, no, not the correct answer. if you believe senator sessions and all of these conversations were perfectly appropriate. this is about senate business. say, no, senator franken, i did not have any election related conversations with the russians. i did have a couple of meetings in my capacity as a senator. they were about the iran deal, nuclear weapons. but they had nothing to do with the campaign. then we're not hearing this conversation today. jeff sessions either didn't tell the truth or do we not have a very good attorney as attorney general? >> the question was about whether anyone in the campaign had any contacts with the russians. and jeff sessions just sort of volunteered, well, i'm considered a surrogate, and i never had any contacts with the russian. he's gone from that position to when the story first broke saying he didn't recall having met with the russians. then to parsing it to, well, i didn't discuss the campaign with

the russians. john, if there -- >> some of his aides even saying he can't recall what he discussed. when the story broke last night, people speaking for senator sessions said he doesn't recall. can you imagine -- we don't have to imagine. do you remember last year when on several occasions hillary clinton said i can't recall certain conversations and the republicans went bonkers, to be polite? >> even in donald trump's washington, there are a few ironclad rules left. and one of them is that if you are parsing, you're losing. >> why don't we use the loretta lynch rule here. the way the republicans dealt with -- remember that tarmac conversation that loretta lynch had with bill clinton on the plane, how a lot of these same republicans who are saying let's pump the brakes here and not draw any conclusions. said that she was a completely discredited force in the justice department. look -- >> and they had a point. she made a mistake by letting

the president on her plane. >> to karen's point, either one of jeff sessions' two explanations for this, and we have two, maybe bordering on three based on what he said this morning, are not good news for them. did he forget talking to the russian ambassador twice. something he forgot? if he was not able to recall that, that speaks to a question of his capacity to remember events that occurred. and if he misled or tried to parse or get too cute on this answer, it again raises the question, why? why did he do that? we are dealing with a situation particularly at doj. you can have a hud secretary or a secretary of the interior futs around with this kind of thing. you cannot have an attorney general, and i do believe that regard fls what happens, whether he recuses himself, whether this blows over there is sufficient doubt that democrats and republicans who are not inclined to support president trump are going to have ammunition to question his credibility on almost everything. >> we've seen the speaker stood up and was a good republican

leader there saying, hey, let's get more facts. if he becomes a subject. other republicans, manu with wnt through some of them. some a chairman committee saying just recuse yourself and get out of the way to save the political embarrassment. in part to save them from getting asked about this when they're trying to do tax reform or obamacare or something else. but also if you are -- republicans to me this morning were like, wait a minute. we just went through this with general flynn. this is not the first time this happened. general flynn didn't have any nefarious conversations with the russian ambassador. or i forgot i discussed sanctions. republicans on capitol hill have stuck their necks out before forever this president and team and are now saying, whoa. >> that's exactly why you are seeing, which we haven't seen really in the past, this kind of coalescing of republicans around this idea of recusal. i know that ryan was kind of more tempered in his responses but i was even talking to senator ted cruz who said, lawmakers meet with ambassadors

all the time. y yes, he would have been more clear. there is an admission that this was an easy way for them to recuse themselves. also jeff sessions during his confirmation hearing said he'd recuse himself from anything deal with the clintons because he was a member of the campaign. when he describes himself as a surrogate, it's much more than that. jeff sessions was an early endorser of this president, a key adviser to him. i think he underestimates his own influence in the campaign by just calling himself a surrogate. >> he's a creature of the senate where they have a process. you get to read the transcript. and they correct the record. senator sessions has had weeks and didn't correct the record. senator pat leahy sent a written question. you heard at the top of the show senator franken's question. senator leahy says, several of the president-elect's nominees or senior advisers have russian ties. have you been in contact with

anyone connected to any part of the russian government about the 2016 election either before or after election day. one word answer, no. if you accept senator sessions at his word, the conversation was about senate business. that is a factual answer. but is it the right answer? is it -- is the answer a good lawyer gives when they know this -- there's a hunt under way. you say, no, but -- >> and the remarkable thing is there are many people in donald trump's cabinet who don't have experience with this process, who have not been around politics who have not been around questions of law and congressional hearings and being are under oath for things but jeff session does have experience with it. he knows how this work and he was an attorney general in a state. he's been a senator for a long time. he knows how this back and forth works. the fact he did not volunteer this information either in his -- in-person hearing or in a written capacity does seem to suggest a desire to, at least obfiscate, if not all-out cover

up. >> and there's the chess game here. the thing that the senate is most concerned about. and the problem here is, regardless of what the personal loyalties may be, jeff sessions put the senate and house in a terrible position here. they were counting on doj to be an edifice they could hide behind on a lot of these investigations. they don't want their committees doing the real digging on this. with sessions as a compromised investigator, the ball is now back in their court. and you have seen movement on both intelligence committees. and the other thing we heard today was marco rubio speaking on npr suggesting, he's the first republican i've heard who said this, the possibility that he might support a special prosecutor if any of this -- or special investigation if any of this stuf. >> the question is whether the ball should be moved into even yet a different kind of court. i was talking to the -- lee hamilton, chairman of the house foreign affairs committee. he was a co-chairman of the

iran/contra committee and the vice chairman of the 9/11 commission. and he made the argument that there's an opportunity here for the president to take some leadership and to appoint a bipartisan commission outside of this whole process. he argued that congress has completely lost its ability to conduct any kind of investigation whose results are going to be regarded as credible. the justice department appears to be compromised here. if you put in a special prosecutor, you know, prosecutors prosecute. it's a decision, did something illegal happen or here not? but to get to the question of what exactly the russians were up to, there is an opportunity for the president to decide this isn't about the credibility of his own election, but something that appears to have happened and to get out in front of it and call for a separate investigation outside of politics. >> that's a veteran adult in the washington conversation. but the president has been very clear on the public record at his news conference denouncing it as a ruse. he calls it fake news when we publish articles about this.

he's lost his national security adviser. i'm not going to put more than -- i wouldn't even put a penny on the fact the president is going to do something like that. we'll see how this plays out. we're waiting the house intelligence committee chairman devin nunez about to have a news conference. it will be about the investigation on capitol hill and the new controversy swirling around the new attorney general about meddling in last year's election. plus the deck of an aircraft carrier as the commander in chief hits the road to sell an agenda that includes a big spike in defense spending. ly at paner, 100% of our food is 100% clean. no artificial preservatives, sweeteners, flavors, or colors. panera. food as it should be. ...one of many pieces in my life. so when my asthma symptoms kept coming back on my long-term control medicine. i talked to my doctor and found a missing piece in my asthma treatment with breo. once-daily breo prevents asthma symptoms. breo is for adults with asthma not well controlled

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to congress to echo the speech's big points. military spending is this afternoon's big theme. this morning, the economy had the president's attention. look at this tweet here. since november 8th, the stock market has posted $3.2 trillion in gains. jobs. we expect the president to be celebrating the economy. he has every right to. we can debate the reasons for that. the stock market is booming. he has every reason to celebrate it. here's my question. this is a president, and this is a traditional approach what we're seeing today. you give a big speech. very well received. lay out your agenda and hit the road and try to highlight parts of it. i'm going to guess the president of the united states is not happy the conversation and news today is about his attorney general. his friend and this giant question of russia. >> absolutely. he wants to be focussing on the pivot he was trying to make in congress earlie this week. he wants to talk about big military spending which is a broadly supported thing.

certainly among republicans. even a lot of democrats. although the levels are going to end up being a problem when they get down to writing these bills. he wants to highlight his agenda and doesn't want to have to have his kind of distraction and it is a real distraction at a time he's trying to go from some very controversial unilateral moves that he made in the first few weeks of his presidency to a more cooperative, dynamic congress. i'm sure we're going to hear him make a lot of the same points he made in that speech where he talks about unifying the country and we'll have a big military build-up so that we're where we should have always been the last eight years. this is going to hang over it and it will create a distraction. >> an important time for the president. a lot of people to convince, including members of his own party. where is the money going to come from? should we do it this way or that way? last night a white house official put out a statement,

something the president said shouldn't happen, people using sources, but so it goes, this is just another partisan attack by democrats. i want to push back on that. it's a familiar response from any white house when questioned like this. but did the democrats make jeff sessions say no when he was asked at his committee hearing if he had any contact with the russians? >> as mel brooks would say that's authentic frontier gibberish. they didn't put a name on it so i can attack the unnamed person. the bottom line here is there's a fact set. so we're talking about messaging and pivoting and states of the union and legislative agendas. there is a truth on the ground issue here having to deal with what these guys were talking to the russians about. sooner or later that information is going to come out. it might quite turn out to be completely inocuous but they have not been tremendously forthcoming. we keep finding out about meeths we didn't know about. so does mike pence, by the way. there is still a fact set. we can expect to see these out

of the blue revelations because the president has not, for instance, sat down and done what other people in previous situations have done which is give as full an accounting of what occurred as is possible. >> although the speech this afternoon is going to be a big test of this newfound discipline and focus of donald trump and his messaging because what we've seen more times than we can count in the past is that when there's a story line that is going that donald trump doesn't like, he'll say something outrageous that will then create a whole new story line. and i suspect that's going to be kind of the impulse that he's going to be fighting this afternoon. >> right. that's why a lot of republicans came out this morning and tried to address this quickly because they have something they haven't hard in awhile. they have momentum. i was talking to a lawmaker who had a completely different approach to this president. they were cheering for things he was talking about that they wouldn't have under a previous administration. but they did feel like they had momentum on their side. they felt they had a disciplined

president and it puts the president in a really difficult position because he's so close with sessions, because sessions has been so loyal to him and he does feel like he has a message to talk about that could gain more attention. and so we've gone two days without major controversy. >> and we'll see what the president says. whether he addresses this. for me this is an interesting test for the president. he gave a very well received speech. you can disagree with him on policy, but he gave a very disciplined, well constructed speech about his agenda. something he hadn't done before. is he up to this challenge? passed. now we know he loves these kind of events. out with a crowd, the military. "uss gerald r. ford" one of the new super carriers. he loves the rally and is very persuasive at these rallies. can he use the rally atmosphere out there in america to twist arms and change votes back here in washington? that's the challenge right now. >> we haven't seen him try to do that ever. we've seen him at campaign rallies and now speak to congress, and we know that he

has an ear for his audience. he's very good at reading what the room wants to hear and delivering on that. and that's a lot of what we saw on tuesday. but i think karen is right. once he is outside of the confines of washington, and he is with a big raucous crowd and a setting he feels is persuasive, he may well want to hit back against what he sees as the damaging narrative for him. and one of the reasons that republicans were feeling a little more confident after that speech was that they felt that the president was sort of hemmed in. being more disciplined and was going to stop with these tweets which mr. mcconnell has said are not his favorite thing and start to deliver some policy which they really want to see. but now that he feels, again, very likely sort of trapped by a narrative that he feels is damaging to him, i think there are a lot of worries. i've spoken to republicans this morning who worry that he is going to hit back and use this forum instead of to build consensus for an agenda to bash his aponents. >> that's in the 2:00 hour this

afternoon. the president ignored questions about this as he was leaving the white house. shouted questions. he wouldn't answer then. up next, back to our breaking news. what next for attorney general jeff sessions n other new developments in the investigation of kremlin election meddling. c® retinol, started visibly reducing my fine lines and wrinkles in one week. and the longer i use it, the better it works. retinol correxion® from roc. methods, not miracles.™ on a perfect car, then smash it into a tree. your insurance company raises your rates. maybe you should've done more research on them. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. and if you do have an accident, our claims centers are available to assist you 24/7. call for a free quote today. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance.

welcome back. we're stabbedi istanding by for conference on capitol hill with devin nunes. a close confidante of donald trump during the campaign who testified to be attorney general that he had no contacts with russian officials during the 20 season presidential election. we learned overnight jeff sessions had two conversations with the russian ambassador to the united states. he says they were about senates business and did not mislead the committee. the committee believes it was misled and many are calling that a lie.

others calling it perjury. jeff sessions himself can remember something said by this guy back in 1999. >> as a former federal prosecutor for 12 years, attorney general for two years, i know and believe very deeply in the rule of law, and the fact that honest testimony is required if we're to have justice in america. a president under oath being alleged have to have committed perjury. but there are serious allegations that that occurred. and in america, in supreme court and the american people believe no one is above the law. >> democrats will be rushing to use his own words against him. that is back in a time i remember quite well during the bill clinton investigation when then president clinton said some things under oath and in public that turned out not to be true. did the question there about testimony needs to be honest. how does the senator, he gave very short answers.

a statement last night. short comment this morning where he could have been more expansi expansive. could have said, i made a mistake. took the question out of context. of course i had these meetings. they were nothing. instead two short answers. what's the burden on him? what does he do to put this behind him? >> i expect him to say, i did not have meeting with that ambassador. he's tied up in his own shoe laces. he's given several conflicting accounts. the only thing that's left -- i thought it was very interesting he didn't rule out recusing himself. he came back. for those of white house read these things. he came back for the second part of the question. >> he heard the word recuse. >> so i think that is going to be -- you pointed it out perfectly right. i think recusal is the escape hatch on this thing. the question is, is he going to -- he went very dark during his confirmation hearings. he's not been out in the public much. is he going to give a fuller accounting at any point in time?

>> in this environment, if you give democrats recusal, which everyone believes is inevitable down the road if there's anything to this. which we don't know if there is anything. these are just allegations. and you are innocent until proven guilty in this environment. he could end this by getting out of the way now by saying, i recuse myself. that would be giving the democrats a victory and if they get one, i'd ask for more. >> democrats have been calling for recusal for a while. that's not enough. he has to resign. even chuck schumer said, people talk to ambassadors all the time. what's different is he misled congress. he went wouldn't go as far to say he perjured himself. claire mccaskill didn't want to get into the perjury aspect of this. democrats are going to clamor for more. they are calling for full resignation. you heard nancy pelosi, chuck schumer do that. what leverage do they have is the question?

republicans would be very happy if sessions came out with a statement then they could move on and say the democrats are kind of creating a political theater around this because they didn't like him in the first place. >> one bullet that the white house does not have in its arsenal because they already used it in the saga with general flynn is they cannot just say, he told us it wasn't discussed. we believe him. let's move on. vice president pence in particular is probably going to be pretty loathed to go out and defend the guy just on the basis of his word. >> that's air force one landing at langley air force base. marine one standing by to take the president to the "uss gerald ford." washington talking about these new questions about his attorney general. as this plays out, it's an interesting point. the democrats want to make this about jeff sessions. about the credibility of the white house saying ambassador flynn had to correct the record on the one point.

misled the vice president. now senator sessions misled the united states senate during his confirmation hearing. could they make this even bigger. nancy pelosi said this isn't just about the trump administration. it's about how republicans on capitol hill conduct themselves. >> the question is to them, what are they afraid of in the tax returns, in the investigation of the russian involvement to undermine our democracy, to repeat that in other countries, to combat here and do that again. what does it say about them that their chief law enforcement officer, the top cop in the country lied to his colleagues and to the american people, a person who himself knows about prosecution and knows about the law and knows about perjury and its penalties. so what is it about the republicans that they want to hide the truth from the american people? i call it stonewalling.

>> we are in the early days of march 2017. there are some legitimate, substantive questions. the democrats have about this. make no mistake about it. senator sessions and why he said what he said at that committee. what happened with general flynn. but even as they asked the legitimate questions it's clear they view this as an opportunity. there's an election next year. and they are trying to take any clouds over the president and bring them into the republicans. >> exactly. and this is coming after they felt like they lost a little bit of energy and momentum after that speech, right? they were caught off guard a little bit about how smoothly it went and the reception that the president received. and so they are certainly trying to gain some ground here. >> and they also have to be careful and i think they recognize this. not to overplay their hand too early. this administration wants to tamp down on any blood in the water. they already had general flynn who, you know, sacrificed because of this issue. they don't want jeff sessions to go the same way. if he recuses himself, that would be a way to staunch the

are bleeding. democrats have to be aware of the fact if they continue to call for people's resignations every time something happens, that it's going to start to carry less weight and there's a fact set here. they should rely on that because it's fairly effective. >> the pressure from the democratic base is extraordinary. on thursday, if you're asking for a resignation. what do you ask for on friday if things don't go your way. you are watching marine one, air force one. the president arriving in virginia. he's heading to norfolk. also waiting to hear from house intelligence committee chairman live on capitol hill about the big controversy s surrounding the attorney general. stay put. boost it's about moving forward not back. it's looking up not down. it's feeling up thinking up living up. it's being in motion... in body in spirit

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take you straight to capitol hill. devin nunes, chairman of the house intelligence committee. >> from the director and other intelligence agencies, but i thought today was a good first step in making sure that we're transparent. not only between the legislative branch of government and the executive branch of government but also with the american people and with all of you. with that, we'll open it up to questions. >> after meeting with the fbi, are you still confident there's no evidence yet of contact between the russian officials and trump campaign -- >> we still have no evidence of that, other than the ones --

other than general flynn. >> and did that come up in today's discussion? >> i'm not going to get into what was talked about or not talk about in today's hearing. >> what's your reaction to jeff sessions, his meeting with he russian ambassadors. >> it's a slippery slope. all the countries in the world have embassies here. a lot of those countries are adversaries. but we all meet with those. many senators and congressman meet with those ambassadors on a regular basis. i've only read the press report that said that mr. sessions had a meeting, and so i think at this point it would be up to attorney general to, i guess, clarify with the senate if there's some disagreement. i don't know if there is because i don't know what the senators are saying. >> has jeff sessions name come up at all in the course of your

briefings? >> we're not going to talk about what's going on behind closed doors in a classified nature. >> should jeff sessions recuse himself from the investigation going on? >> i have no idea because we have no idea what he did or didn't do. so it's up to the attorney general to, like i just said, he needs to talk to the senators if there's some disagreement there. >> senator graham told some of us this morning he wanted director comey to tell him whether or not there was an ongoing investigation. is that something that you can ask of the fbi director or not something for him to tell you guys? >> if there was an investigation of a sitting senator, i think that would be pretty rare for them to tell us. >> do these change your mind about the contact between trump

surrogates and the russians? is your committee still equipped to handle this? >> this is the appropriate place for this to be done. we have the legislative branch has the house intelligence committee that has very broad jurisdiction over the intelligence agencies. it's bipartisan. we have a bipartisan agreement. and this was a long, ongoing investigation and concern that we've had into russia, russia activity, not only in the cyber realm but involving elections and other elections across the globe. >> now that you have set the scope of your investigation, what's the timeline and the next step? >> look, we have -- there's a lot of information that we need to get as it relates to the document that was produced by the obama administration. the ic, in the early part of january. all of those -- all of that intelligence that went into building that document, we're still awaiting some of that. and we're setting up -- we'll

also be looking at what the fbi can provide us. then also waiting to determine if we can figure out who may or may not be part of these leaks that have occurred. >> mr. nunes, can you -- you said you meet with ambassadors all the time. the real issue here is failure to disclose that when he was asked about this during the confirmation hearings. so how can the american people trust him to oversee this investigation into the campaign contacts with russian officials if he did not disclose it himself when asked by the senate? >> so i don't know what has been said or not said. i quickly read the press report. i know they are saying the senator may believe he asked them and he responded. i think at this point there's a disagreement between the attorney general and some united states senators, and the best thing to do here is, i think, for them to -- level heads to prevail and for them to discuss this to see if this can be

solved, if there can be any agreement but i'm in the house of representatives, not in the senate. >> [ inaudible ]. >> no, i'm not. i won't be talking to the attorney general. >> -- campaign officials talking with russian officials? >> yes, that's correct. other than in newspapers. >> is there evidence of associates being in contact -- >> not that i'm aware of at this time. but as i said, i read about this in the newspaper and see some of you talking about it. if you have those names, of those people, if you want to come forward as a whistleblower, bring those to us, we'd appreciate to have those names and brings the people in but we need credible evidence to do that. >> british and dutch intelligence officials had let americans know about meetings in european cities between potentially trump associates. are you familiar with any of

that information? >> yeah, i don't have anything that would lead me to believe that that's the case. >> and do you have any concerns about the other piece of that reporting which was that the obama administration was concerned that this intelligence might be destroyed or ignored? >> it seems pretty far fetched. i don't even know -- i think those were unnamed obama officials. if those obama officials -- former obama officials have those concerns, it would be easy to stand up in front of a press conference like i'm doing now and talk about those concerns with all of you. i would suggest that you guys go chase them down, sit outside of their house and ask them if they have concerns about whether or not the fbi and other agencies were going to conduct an investigation. >> the white house has asked the staffers to preserve any documents that you all might need to investigate this. but the preservation order wasn't issued until a couple days ago. what happens to the information that was already out there? >> look, i am -- i am not -- i am not at this point, i would have no reason to believe that

any information is going to ultimately be withheld from us. i will say there's a lot more information that the fbi and the intelligence agencies need to provide to our committee so that we can thoroughly go through all the information and process it and do an investigation. >> without get -- >> -- said the other day he wasn't really convinced. he hadn't gotten the assurances from the fbi that they would be cooperative. did you get that -- >> the director was very up front with us. i think we were very direct with him that he want to continue to get this information. and he, you know, i think has an agreement that he's going to try to provide what he can with us. is there more information needed? absolutely. but there are also -- it's not always easy to get this because you're talking about information that was gathered through fisa that some of it probably was picked up incidentally of americans, especially as it relates to general flynn which we went over on monday.

>> what are the reasons that the fbi can't be as forthcoming as you might like? >> it's just -- it's not a matter of them not being forthcoming but providing timely information when they can get it to us. >> why can't they? >> i would assume that because it's quite complicated as it relates to, if, for example, you were on the phone with the russian ambassador and somehow your phone call got recorded, would you want them turning over that phone call and that transcript to the committee? >> wasn't there a difference between a call between a private person? >> that's the point here. one was a private american citizen. look, i'm sure some of you are in contact with the russian embas embassy, so be careful what you ask for. we start getting transcripts of any of you or any other americans talking to the press, then we can -- do you want us to conduct an investigation on you or other americans because you

were talking to the russian embassy. we need to be careful. any other questions? yes, sir. >> [ inaudible ]. >> look, we're hopeful that we're going to get additional resources in the normal process of the house committee on administration. >> without getting into the classified information that you discussed today, did you learn anything new? >> i'm not going to get into what we learned new or didn't learn new. look, any other questions for me? i'm going to -- all right. thank you all very much. >> the chairman invited me to join. i thought it would be better for us to do this. i appreciate that and would be happy to respond to any questions you have. i do want to express some

concerns at the outset. i appreciate we had a long briefing and testimony from the director today, but in order for us to do our investigation in a thorough and credible way, we're going to need the fbi to fully cooperate, to be willing to tell us the length and breadth of any counterintelligence investigations they are conducting. at this point, the director was not willing to do that. there were repeated questions about the scope of any investigation they were doing. individuals that may be the subject of any counterterrorism investigation. and the director declined to answer those questions. it was unclear whether that decision was a decision he was making on his own or a decision that he is making in consultation with the department of justice. but both in the gang of eight setting and the quarterly counterintelligence briefing this week as well as in the full

committee thus far, the bureau has not been willing to give us an intelligence briefing. that can't persist. if we're going to do our job, the fbi is going to have to fully cooperate with us and that means they can't say we'll tell you about this but we won't tell you about that. so we are, obviously, going to persist. the director will be coming back. we hope to get a different answer from the director next time we meet because this counterintelligence investigation that we are undertaking is among the most serious we've ever done and we cannot represent to the american people that we're doing a thorough job if the department of justice or the fbi is unwilling to tell us what indeed they looked at. what leads they have followed. where they've found substance and where they have not. so i'm disappointed we didn't have that briefing today. and it's going to be vital that we get the full cooperation of the fbi, not just rhetorically

but in fact, that they share with us the length and breath of what they may be doing. >> what was the rationale that director comey gave for not giving that information today? >> i don't want to go into specifics but there were certain questions that we were asking that he would answer and others he would not. and when members asked questions, he referred to us earlier a decision to decline to answer the question. again, i hope that when we next meet with the director, we'll have a different point of view. i hope the department will. because we're going to need that information and we are better off getting that through the voluntary cooperation of the fbi than having to contemplate whether we need to subpoena the fbi. >> should there be a special prosecutor now that you aren't gettingis in information? >> i can say this, and up until now i wasn't sure there should

be a special prosecutor because that is a function of a couple of things. it's a function of whether the attorney general can be independent and an appearance of impropriety and whether there is something concrete and specific enough to be investigated. i am now convinced that both of those criteria are met and an independent prosecutor should be appointed. certainly the attorney general is in no position to oversee any investigation or prosecution involving any of the counterintelligence issues concerning russia. so i am now convinced that an independent prosecutor is necessary. >> we've been in a hearing all morning and i did not have a chance to go through the testimony that senator sessions gave.

i want to reserve judgment until i have a chance to study exactly what he said. certainly if he willfully misled the senate during his confirmation then, yes, he should step down. i want to look more into the facts before i reach a conclusion about whether that was a willful misrepresentation. >> an independent prosecutor is appointed, what does that do to your committee's investigation? >> well, the committee investigation goes on. regardless of whether an independent prosecutor -- those are, i think, very different functions. an independent prosecutor would have the responsibility of bringing someone to justice. that is not a core part of our responsibility. our responsibility is our national security and counterintelligence interest. now that may lead to referrals to the justice department or not but that doesn't obviate our needs to do our jobs. i'm certainly very pleased that the chair and i have reached

bipartisan agreement. we're going to look at the hacking, the dumping of documents. we're going to look at the use of the paid media, the russian propaganda campaign. the fbi response. we're going to look at the issue of collusion with u.s. persons, including anyone affiliated with the campaign. and we're going to look at the issue of leaks and so we have a now detailed scope of investigation that we've agreed to and that's a very positive step. >> why was it necessary to ask the administration to preserve the records? did you not trust them in any way? >> well, i think that -- and this is not uncommon in any investigation, you want to make sure that the administration and the department is on notice that these are the subject of congressional investigation and that any destruction of records will be violation of law. so i think it helps clarify if there's any ambiguity that there

should be a complete preservation of evidence. >> do you have any reason to believe they've destroyed evidence in the meantime? >> i don't want to get into any of the facts of our investigation. but the request to preserve documents is made prophylactically at the very beginning of an investigation so that we don't have any issue like that come up in the future. >> are you aware of any information, about contact between russian officials, people tied to the kremlin in any way and the trump campaign during the election season? >> i'm not going to go into any of the specifics. and that would go into the specifics of the investigation. i'm not going to comment on that. >> can you say how the fbi director [ inaudible ]. the chairman says there's no evidence, but is it that the fbi didn't say whether they do or don't have evidence? you don't have any evidence or -- >> all i can say is that the director made it clear on this

he would discuss and this he would not. and we can't do a complete job unless the director is willing to discuss anything that they are investigating. and i hope that will take place. we're going to need it to take place. otherwise, i don't know that we can represent to the american people we've done a thorough job. >> [ inaudible ]. >> oh, i would say at this point we know less than a fraction of what the fbi knows. >> and the goal of today's meeting was to learn more about the fbi's investigation into the trump campaign -- >> i'm not going to go into the contents of the testimony, but i can tell you the director spent about 3 to 3 1/2 hours with us and on the areas he was willing to discuss, we had a very in depth set of questions and answers, but there were very large areas that were walled off and those walls are going to have to come down if we're going to do our job. >> is there a standard for the

fbi director or any other intelligence director to withhold information when talking with the intelligence committee or is that normal for them? is he just following routine procedure here? >> you know, i would say that certainly there is a cultural, as well as a policy framework for when individual members of congress approach the department and when committees do. what the department has to look at is, is this within the scope of the committee's responsibilities and clearly it is. is this in the public interest and, clearly it is. in this case, it's the subject of a bipartisan agreement. this is not an investigation that is being undertaken by only one party or the other. it's hard to imagine something of greater public interest. and more than that i'll say and i think the chair and i are in agreement on this. these are issues that should have been brought to the gang of eight at a minimum. if we're to get quarterly counterintelligence briefings, then we need the confidence of

knowing they are briefing us on the most significant issues. and at this point, i think that's very much in question. i don't think at all we've gotten the quarterly briefings that we should have been getting. not now. not while the -- not in the summer. not in the fall and not even to this day. >> to be clear. you learned things today you had not previously been aware of as a member of the gang of eight? >> absolutely. >> i'm going to leave it at that and thank you. >> you just heard adam schiff the ranking democrat on the house intelligence committee saying the fbi so far not fully cooperating with the house intelligence committee investigating contacts between trump campaign officials, surrogates, associates and russian officials. russian operatives, if you will. that is an important headline. other headlines we're